Yeah I introduced Baba is You more as a counterbalance to empiricism-leaning fields. I think ‘practice forms of thinking that don’t come natural to you’ is generally valuable so you don’t get in ruts. 

I’m curious how it went in terms of ‘do you think you learned anything useful?’

I do think the thing you describe here is great. I think I hadn't actually tried really leveraging the current zeitgeist to actively get better at it, and it does seem like a skill you could improve at and that seems cool.

But I'd bet it's not what was happening for most people. I think the value-transfer is somewhat automatic, but most people won't actually be attuned to it enough. (might be neat to operationalize some kind of bet about this, if you disagree).

I do think it's plausible, if people put more deliberate effort it, to create a zeitgeist where the value transfer is more real for more people.

A thing that gave me creeping horror about the Ghiblification is that the I don't think the masses actually particularly understand Ghibli. And the result is an uneven simulacrum-mask that gives the impression of "rendered with love and care" without actually being so. 

The Ghibli aesthetic is historically pretty valuable to me, and in particular important as a counterbalanacing force against "the things I expect to happen by default with AI." 

Some things I like about Ghibli:

• The "cinematic lens" emphasizes a kind of "see everything with wonder and reverence" but not in a way that papers over ugly or bad things. Ugliness and even horror are somehow straightforwardly depicted, but in a way that somehow makes both seem very normal and down to earth, and also supernaturally majestic. (See On green, and The Expanding Moral Cinematic Universe).
• The main characters are generally "low-ish neuroticism." (This youtube analysis I like argues that the women in particular are 'non-neurotic', and the men tend to be "low compared to modern city-dwelling standards.")

There's a bit of awkwardness where Miyazaki is particularly anti-transhumanist, where I disagree with him. But I feel like I could argue with him about it on his terms – I have an easy time imagining how to depict spirits of technology and capitalism and bureaucracy as supernatural forces that have the kind of alien grandeur, not on humanity's side or the "natural world's side", but still ultimately part of the world.

For years, I have sometimes walked down the street and metaphorically put on "Miyazaki goggles", where I choose to lean into a feeling of tranquility, and I choose to see everything through that "normal but reverent" stance. I imagine the people that live in each house doing their day to day things to survive and make money and live life. And seeing the slightly broken down things (a deteriorating fence, a crumbling sidewalk) as part of a natural ebb and flow of the local ecosystem. And seeing occasional more "naturally epic" things as particularly majestic and important. 

So, the wave of "ghiblify everything" was something I appreciated, and renewed a felt-desire to live more often in a ghibli-ish world. But, also, when I imagine how this naturally plays out, I don't think it really gets us anything like a persistent reality transfer the way you describe. Mostly we get a cheap simulacra that may create some emotion / meaning at first, but will quickly fade into "oh, here's another cheap filter."

...

That all said, I do feel some intrigue at your concept here. I'm still generally wrapping my mind around what futures are plausible, and then desirable. I feel like I will have more to say about this after thinking more.

Seems at odds with longhairism.

Curated. I think this is a pretty important point. I appreciate Neel's willigness to use himself as an example. 

I do think this leaves us with the important followup questions of "okay, but, how actually DO we evaluate strategic takes?". A lot of people who are in a position to have demonstrated some kind of strategic awareness are people who are also some kind of "player" on the gameboard with an agenda, which means you can't necessarily take their statements at face value as an epistemic claim. 

I think I agree with a lot of stuff here but don't find this post itself particularly compelling for the point.

I also don't think "be virtuous" is really sufficient to know "what to actually do." It matters a lot which virtues. Like I think environmentalism's problems wasn't "insufficiently virtue-ethics oriented", it's problem was that it didn't have some particular virtues that were important.

Or: when the current policy stops making sense, we can figure out a new policy. 

In particular, when the current policy stops making sense, AI moderation tools may also be more powerful and can enable a wider range of policies. 

I mean, the sanctions are ‘if we think your content looks LLM generated, we’ll reject it and/or give a warning and/or eventually delete or ban.’ We do this for several users a day. 

That may get harder someday but it’s certainly not unenforceable now. 

I agree it'll get harder to validate, but I think having something like this policy is, like, a prerequisite (or at least helpful grounding) for the mindset change.