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- Hacker News
- At first glance it can work only by completely disabling the meaning-seeker part of the wearer's personality. Ennui and existential/absurd feelings can't be resolved by indulgence.
Would it make Sisyphus happy without bypassing the implied will of gods that he shall be forever fully conscious in order to suffer? Someone pls give the earring to poor dude.
by rini17 - In the brain-chip case (or indeed already now, in the case of our rectangular appendages), some of the hisses and clicks come from mysterious sources beyond the earring.by andai
- I suppose the earring never whispered anything about putting glue on pizza?by keeda
- This came up the other day, can someone help explain this to me? I am not quite sharp enough to understand it. Context:
- The author explained (his view of) the story's meaning in a follow-up post, aptly titled "Mysterianism didn't work either, trying clarity again": https://web.archive.org/web/20121007235422/http://squid314.l...
- Seems like a fairly direct parable against AI, suggesting that even if it's right it's better to think for yourself.by fourthark
- Based on your comments I think you do understand it but are taking it too seriously / too literally.
Consider the title: Scott Alexander and others have written more clear, philosophically robust versions of a similar argument ("you shouldn't trade your agency for good outcomes").
But that's not the point here. This is the artsy version that's supposed to make you feel the argument.
by paytonjjones - I wonder if there is a self consistent way to desire having your mind digitally uploaded into a computer, while detesting the idea of listening to the commands of the earring (and conditioning it to have all of my unconcious thoughts and desires). I guess I just discovered a bit of cognitive dissonance I didn't know I had.by ccapitalK
- I'll still be able to take my advice from Math.random()by andai
- mind upload is closer to the version in the comments, with gem learning to emulate brain and then brain gets removed
the difference is in targetted influence from outside aimed at changing you for its own goals and final form
consider the "accelerated version" of this earpiece - where you just get whackked with dose of heroine (making you "perpetually happy") and then taking over your body
by NooneAtAll3 - I’ve also seen this called “The Whispering Earring”, and have seen it hosted here (this version slightly more readable)by wdaher
- This is a good companion to the yesterday's HN post of ten steps to happiness.
I've read that Malachi Martin described what he called "a perfect possession". I do not know where as I haven't found this piece myself. But the idea was that typical cases of demonic possession are imperfect, the victim is struggling, and the struggle is visible to the outsiders. A perfect possession does not manifest itself.
- I don't get it. First, how is it "better for you" to take the earring off, if "the wearer lives an abnormally successful life, usually ending out as a rich and much-beloved pillar of the community with a large and happy family?"
Second, apparently some people do choose to take the earring off at some point, because the story refers to "the testimony of all living wearers." So it does not, in fact, appear to usurp, subvert or replace the wearer's free will.
Not seeing the problem here.
by CamperBob2 - > Second, apparently some people do choose to take the earring off at some point, because the story refers to "the testimony of all living wearers."
You are hilariously misreading that :-)
"First, he confirmed from the records and the testimony of all living wearers"
Who says that they testified after taking the earring off? My reading (done with my non-atrophied brain, used to reading human prose not LLM-prose) was clear on the very first go: Those who testified did so while wearing the earring, then they died but their testimony was already recorded.
> Not seeing the problem here.
As you've made clear in many many of your posts on HN, you are all-in on LLMs and appear to use them much more than even the average HN user. Maybe start considering that you are losing comprehension with regard to human-written prose?
by lelanthran - Because, if you don't take it off, "you" will cease to exist and instead gradually become the rich and much beloved appendage of an earring.
The entire story is about the definition of self imho.
by Erem - The problem is not that it limits the wearer's free will. On the contrary, it allows the wearer to exercise it way too effectively on the premise that the wearer already knows exactly who he is and what he needs.
- An exclusive choice between maintaining free will and agency vs. achieving some definition of “success” makes for a good story. You’d think the choice would be blindingly obvious, and yet turns out it isn’t (or to some it is blindingly obvious in the opposite direction).by strogonoff
- > how is it "better for you" to take the earring off, if "the wearer lives an abnormally successful life, usually ending out as a rich and much-beloved pillar of the community with a large and happy family?"
I think it's pretty obvious since you read until the end you know in the second one there's quickly no "you" remaining ;)
It's like the terrifying answer to Star Trek teleporter paradox. On the surface it's the same guy. He walks like Bob and talks like Bob and is more successful thanks to the power of instant travel! But YOU are dead after the first teleportation.
by ShinyLeftPad - It stands to reason that the people who took the earring off were less happy and made worse decisions than the people who kept it on for the rest of their lives.
So then ask yourself: why did they take it off? Pondering the implications of that question is the entire point of this short story.
by wavemode - How can you know it’s not the earring giving those testimonies? The story doesn’t say whether they were wearing the earring while being interviewed, but given that wearing it for a long time wastes away your neocortex and turns you into a flesh puppet, I don’t think long-term users are even able to speak on their own anymore.
OTOH people who are still themselves, in the early stages of the takeover, will certainly tell you of their own volition that the earring always seems to be right. Wearing it is presumably highly addictive.
by Sharlin - How would you feel with a procedure in which your brain was scooped out like ice cream from a bowl, and replaced with circuits that would do a better job of your life for you?
> So it does not, in fact, appear to usurp, subvert or replace the wearer's free will.
Ok, the ice cream scooping happens slowly. At what point of atrophy, do you think it becomes easier to revert to what is left of it?
You still have free will, in the strictest sense. But you are increasingly dependent, so have lost optionality that no amount of will can replace.
Is your life story about what flows to you? Or about what challenges come to you, that you, yourself meet and overcome?
EDIT: But you are also right - given discipline - the right thing to do is always leverage every piece of good advice we can get. From bot or earring. By always (1) first coming up with our own best plan, so we have a basis to recognize and appreciate the insights in better ideas (2) get the best possible feedback on that plan, the good and the bad, and then (3) with what we learned from that, attempt a better plan, and repeat until getting somewhere better that either initial plan, for all the looping. Then still learn from any failure or success. And do not go down the slippery slope of delegating unimportant questions, like choices of ice cream flavors! This is how I get the most from my AI advisors. To work and train myself faster and harder!
by Nevermark - (2012)
Also here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20131230055512/http://squid314.l...
Does anyone know the provenance of this story? One comment says, responding to someone who recommends publishing it,
> The problem is that it's published so he can sell only second rights.
EDIT: The story is tagged (at the top) "fiction, raikoth". Raikoth is the 'constructed civilization' of Scott Alexander, author of Slate Star Codex, et al. And though the post is at gwern.net, I see the author is "Scott".
by mmooss - Yep, Scott (squid314) used livejournal before SlateStarCodex, before AstralCodexTen.by emmelaich
- What do you mean the provenance? It was published on livejournal in 2012, that’s the provenance.by lalaithion
- One of the more compelling (and scary) stories about how AI takes over the world. If you liked this, also check our Pluribus.by avaer
- And there are people who argue in favor of the joined, because it's depicted as an entirely blissful state with no conflict (aside from the few remaining unjoined in the show). Despite the major downsides the first season has already shown.by goatlover
- > The wearer lives an abnormally successful life
as soon as most people wear it "abnormally" becomes "normally".
logically the rare enlightened who refuse to wear it and instead keep their own [spoiler] become abnormal unsuccessful failures, not the other way around.
by ShinyLeftPad - "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
Jiddu Krishnamurti
by raffael_de - A philosopher or meditator should chime in here. Spending a modicum of time in meditation shows you that intentions just show up from nowhere, they're not "you". We might as well call the earring "your prefrontal cortex" (or whatever), and this would describe the current state of things.by eternauta3k