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ordinarylight.bsky.social
I'm a software engineer at https://bel.company and a PhD student in the Dassonville Perception and Action lab (https://ion.uoregon.edu/research/faculty-page/267) at the University of Oregon.
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The claim of capitalism is that competition disciplines business and leads to greater efficiency. Businesses, though, frequently claim that when governments offer competing services (i.e. broadband) this constitutes unfair competition. A tacit admission that government can be more efficient?

@ministryband.bsky.social is my coping mechanism.

Words alone cannot capture the depth of emotion in this testimony. A voice from the past, once fighting against extremism and fascism, now speaks with heartbreak as history threatens to repeat itself. Watch, listen, and reflect.

Gregg is a former Marine and Forest Service ranger. He's saved the lives of hikers dangling off a cliff or going through cardiac arrest, and he's bravely fought forest fires to save small rural towns. 100% of his salary is paid by WA state. Elon fired him. Share his story.

I repeat…

"I say to you, and you will understand that it is a privilege to fight! We are warriors! Salesmen of north-eastern Pennsylvania, I ask you once more: Rise and be worthy of this historical hour!"

The Trump regime is threatening @aoc.bsky.social we call on everyone to do what they can to protect her and plan accordingly in the event that Trump's ghouls try to arrest or remove her. As one of the few effective opposition voices still in government it's essential to show solidarity. #3E

Goodnight friends. We end today with this quote for ourselves and for our new secretary of HHS.

“For whatever reason, people of color have a higher incidence of maternal mortality."

No words. www.reuters.com/world/asia-p...

If we survive this, building back from the pit this administration is digging will be the work of generations.

“What if he declares martial law?” As thousands of people are already being disappeared from their homes and communities or sent off to Guantanamo Bay.

Tell your senators to do their jobs: Vote no on all nominees Refuse a quorum Call for quorum checks Object to unanimous consent requests Be LOUD about why they are doing this and demand a stop to the coup. Thank you @indivisible.org indivisible.org/resource/how...

Why Elon hates USAID

Hostile Takeover: “Department of Government Efficiency” Hijacks The Federal Government www.avindman.com/p/hostile-ta...

That Nirvana reunion at the #fireaid concert was not on my 2025 bingo card and it was pretty amazing. MAKE AMERICA GRUNGE AGAIN. #nirvana

I absolutely disagree with the idea that LLMs like ChatGPT and DeepSeek are on the verge of AGI: without the right architecture, it doesn't matter how much compute you throw at the problem it is not going to magically develop sentience. /1

I enjoy rigorous debate as much as anyone, but if rationality is actually just our attempt to explain why we acted in a particular way, it seems clear to me that rational argument is an unlikely means of changing the internal model of the self.

Rationality is a post-hoc explanation for the things we do derived from the model we form about ourselves. Asking a person why they have done a thing is as valuable as this model is accurate and the model need not be accurate, only useful.

In the same way that consciousness allows us to anticipate and make sense of the external world, by correlating these insights with observations of the actions of the self in response to the external world we formulate a model of who we are and why we do the things we do.

We overestimate the degree to which we make decisions rationally. The reward and action systems of the brain learn the statistical gradients of a task outside of conscious control, and consciousness of this learning arises through the observation of our own actions in the performance of the task.

I think it likely that consciousness emerges from the brain's attempt to anticipate and respond to the external world in a timely manner. We don't see the world, we dream it. Then, absent neurological disorder, we fit that dream to sensory information.