I was RRice on That Other Place

I was RRice on That Other Place

@drfoxcroft.bsky.social

Failed at physics, now work in software. But my interests are philosophy of consciousness, cogsci, and epistemology. Also QM, General Relativity, and some Theology.

206 followers301 following548 posts

I was RRice on That Other Place reposted

Femi and the Foundation
@femiandfoundation.bsky.social

Don’t fully have the words to descrive how insanely cool this is….we just did an interview with THE Spin Magazine 🤯 Check out our full interview here or at the “Now Hear This” column by our friend Ron Hart! First, DC. Next, the world. Build With Us.

I was RRice on That Other Place
@drfoxcroft.bsky.social

Excellent essay!

Mike Godwin@mnemonic.bsky.social

In 1974, Asimov foresaw the AI alignment paradox: an AI needs ethics (his robots had the Three Laws of Robotics). But build an AI with real internalized ethics, and it may decide it's more trustworthy (and human) than you. Part 9 of Godwin's Ethic: mikegodwin.substack.com/p/godwins-et...

mikegodwin.substack.comGodwin’s Ethic, Part 9: The Alignment ParadoxBuilding human-protecting ethics into AI models is harder than it may seem.
I was RRice on That Other Place
@drfoxcroft.bsky.social

So the possibilities are a utopian post-scarcity society, extinction, or everything staying about the same? This chart effectively provides no new information.

Sharon O'Dea@sharonodea.com

Quite rare to see a chart that says quite so overtly that no one involved has the slightest clue what’s happening here

I was RRice on That Other Place
@drfoxcroft.bsky.social

This paradox used to drive me crazy. It's just so counter-intuitive. But then, that's why it's a paradox! Took me years before I could understand the math that makes it possible.

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees@mcnees.bsky.social

Mathematician Alfred Tarski was born #OTD in 1901. The Banach-Tarski paradox asserts that a ball in three dimensions can be decomposed into a finite number of pieces which, after translation and rotation, can be reassembled into *two* distinct copies of the original ball. 🧪 🧮

I was RRice on That Other Place
@drfoxcroft.bsky.social

There is always an expert. Unfortunately, society rarely listens to them. Seems like a good topic for a book.... @radiofreetom.bsky.social

Dr Yannick Veilleux-Lepage@yveilleuxlepage.bsky.social

🧵In my expert opinion as a researcher of vehicle ramming attacks, what has been publicly described in the video evidence does not support the claim that Renee Nicole Good was attempting a deliberate ramming attack when she was shot in Minneapolis on January 7, 2026. 1/7

I was RRice on That Other Place reposted

Jason K Pargin, author
@jasonkpargin.bsky.social

Yearly reminder that you CAN just become a different person, you're not as imprisoned in your life as you think. You can just be the one who dresses nice or exercises or reads a lot, or whatever. You can just start doing it, some people might make fun of you but they don't really care.

I was RRice on That Other Place reposted

Luke Epplin
@lukeepplin.bsky.social

It's Christmas Eve, so I'm reposting my favorite "Peanuts" strip, from December 24, 1967, published during the depths of the Vietnam War, also informed by Schulz's own memories of being away from home over Xmas during World War II.

I was RRice on That Other Place reposted

Dr. Jack Brown
@drjackbrown.bsky.social

101 yrs ago today, in the NY Times, Edwin Hubble revealed that "spiral nebulae" were in fact distant galaxies separate from the Milky Way – revolutionizing our understanding of the size & scale of the cosmos, an existential reframing of the prevailing view that the Milky Way was the entire universe.

I was RRice on That Other Place reposted

Keith Frankish
@keithfrankish.com

Generative AI is founded on the belief that if you process vast quantities of sows' ears at extremely high speed, you can make them into silk purses.

I was RRice on That Other Place reposted

Huw Price
@huwprice.bsky.social

It is hard to read this piece without imagining oneself as @wiglet1981.bsky.social

Xena@wiltshirecat1.bsky.social

If ever you find yourself visiting Oxford, why not take a walk round, & see if you can spot any of these "famous cats of Oxford." I wonder if anyone will spot the cat puns in the story too. oxfordclarion.uk/college-cats...

oxfordclarion.ukCollege cats of OxfordOnce upon a time, we featured an image of Magdalen's kitten, Ozymandias, in our newsletter. We figured it might be a gentle contrast to our regular diet of planning and local politics. The grey ball ...
I was RRice on That Other Place
@drfoxcroft.bsky.social

A characteristically educational thread from Prof Nichols. While we may be seeing an unprecedented upsurge in authoritarianism, we are still a long way off from genuine fascism. Let's not dilute/distort the word from its actual meaning.

Tom Nichols@radiofreetom.bsky.social

My mistake has been trying to explain what "fascism" is to people who don't care what it is. So I'm going to try something else. Let's do this as a practical thought exercise. If America *were* fascist *today* - what would you have to do differently in your daily life? /1

I was RRice on That Other Place
@drfoxcroft.bsky.social

Meanwhile, my employer is now basing some of my yearly bonus on how much I incorporate AI into my daily work.

Jocelyn Leitzinger@jocelynl.bsky.social

ChatGPT gave a significant portion of my students the wrong answer to an easy quiz question that everyone used to always get right I had two groups of students turn in annotated bibliographies that were ChatGPT generated - not a single citation actually existed

I was RRice on That Other Place
@drfoxcroft.bsky.social

I actually found this thread reassuring. My adult children and many of my friends speak in such apocalyptic terms these days. Sometimes we all need to step back and have some perspective.

Tom Nichols@radiofreetom.bsky.social

Okay. Let me try this another way, and see if that works. I was a boy with relatives in Greece during the time of the Colonels, a pretty scary military junta. Some would say it was fascist: Militarism, anti-communism, nostalgia, etc. But no. /1

I was RRice on That Other Place reposted

Adam Grant
@adamgrant.bsky.social

Intelligence depends on more than cognitive horsepower. It requires cognitive flexibility. The faster the world evolves, the greater the cost of rigidity. Stubbornness is a path to getting trapped in the past. The future belongs to those with the courage to change their minds.