Doctor Memory
@blank.org
Just another bozo on this bus: please deflate your shoes before entering. The artist formerly known as dr_memory@twit (and same on livejournal, remember them?) and currently also known as @memory@blank.org on mastodon.
Banner photo by @lifewinning.com
Banner photo by @lifewinning.com
Pinned
Doctor Memory
@blank.org
· Nov 14
Death to the newsletter-industrial complex.
Stop paying people to feed your own opinions back to you with more adjectives.
Stop paying people to feed your own opinions back to you with more adjectives.
This couldn’t line up better with my priors and prejudices if I’d carved it out of marble myself. Automation is good because it frees up people to do _more interesting work_ of which there is usually plenty that no one has even considered because everyone is too busy.
February 12, 2026 at 12:58 AM
This couldn’t line up better with my priors and prejudices if I’d carved it out of marble myself. Automation is good because it frees up people to do _more interesting work_ of which there is usually plenty that no one has even considered because everyone is too busy.
Reposted by Doctor Memory
A great example is the McDonalds kiosks, the example all the libertarians use for "this is what you get for wanting a $15 an hour minimum wage!" scold -- but all that happened was jobs were re-allocated.
edition.cnn.com/2024/09/20/b...
edition.cnn.com/2024/09/20/b...
McDonald’s touchscreen kiosks were feared as job killers. Instead, something surprising happened | CNN Business
Self-service kiosks at McDonald’s and other fast-food chains have loomed as job killers since they were first rolled out 25 years ago. But nobody predicted what actually happened.
edition.cnn.com
February 11, 2026 at 8:20 PM
A great example is the McDonalds kiosks, the example all the libertarians use for "this is what you get for wanting a $15 an hour minimum wage!" scold -- but all that happened was jobs were re-allocated.
edition.cnn.com/2024/09/20/b...
edition.cnn.com/2024/09/20/b...
Yeah, I don’t think he does most social media. Probably for the best for his mental health.
February 12, 2026 at 12:46 AM
Yeah, I don’t think he does most social media. Probably for the best for his mental health.
PETER WATTS THOUGHT REMAINS WINNING.
(Seriously how has nobody dragged Watts onto bsky yet?)
(Seriously how has nobody dragged Watts onto bsky yet?)
competitive advantage for the LLM era: went insane reading Blindsight a decade ago; confronted the fact that much of what we value as intelligence can be decomposed into component submodules; accepted that sentience/consciousness was not a precondition of effectiveness wrt many cognitive tasks, etc
February 12, 2026 at 12:43 AM
PETER WATTS THOUGHT REMAINS WINNING.
(Seriously how has nobody dragged Watts onto bsky yet?)
(Seriously how has nobody dragged Watts onto bsky yet?)
February 11, 2026 at 7:43 PM
Reposted by Doctor Memory
oh my fucking god dude
February 11, 2026 at 6:15 PM
oh my fucking god dude
Reposted by Doctor Memory
This was one of the bosses' explicit goals in getting Trump elected - crush the strong Biden era labor market in order to discipline workers and make them submit to abuse and exploitation. That, not burrito taxi prices, was the actual economic stakes of the 2024 election
US HIRING AT RECESSION LEVELS: HIRING RATE AT 3.3%, MATCHING THE 2020 CRISIS AND NEAR A 13-YEAR LOW.
February 11, 2026 at 5:01 AM
This was one of the bosses' explicit goals in getting Trump elected - crush the strong Biden era labor market in order to discipline workers and make them submit to abuse and exploitation. That, not burrito taxi prices, was the actual economic stakes of the 2024 election
(And that’s not even getting into the risk of RFK2 squeezing them on approvals of their _big_ money makers if he decides they’re being insufficiently deferential about mRNA development.)
February 11, 2026 at 3:53 AM
(And that’s not even getting into the risk of RFK2 squeezing them on approvals of their _big_ money makers if he decides they’re being insufficiently deferential about mRNA development.)
This. The idea that any pharma company is going to continue the same spend on vaccine development with the richest country in the world blocking them from selling is risible. Canada has slightly more people than California, and there’s no way medial tourism makes up that loss.
February 11, 2026 at 3:53 AM
This. The idea that any pharma company is going to continue the same spend on vaccine development with the richest country in the world blocking them from selling is risible. Canada has slightly more people than California, and there’s no way medial tourism makes up that loss.
Reposted by Doctor Memory
they said it couldn't be done, folks, big strong men with tears in their eyes, they came up to me and said "no president could completely wreck an entire united states economy twice", they said "no one's ever put more people out of work than you"
US HIRING AT RECESSION LEVELS: HIRING RATE AT 3.3%, MATCHING THE 2020 CRISIS AND NEAR A 13-YEAR LOW.
February 11, 2026 at 3:12 AM
they said it couldn't be done, folks, big strong men with tears in their eyes, they came up to me and said "no president could completely wreck an entire united states economy twice", they said "no one's ever put more people out of work than you"
The MIRI crew now has like 20 years of accumulated internal social norms where the more grandiose, shocking and unfalsifiable your argument, the more it demonstrates that you are clever and are properly appreciating the scale of the problem. Let’s see how that’s working out for them!
February 11, 2026 at 3:40 AM
The MIRI crew now has like 20 years of accumulated internal social norms where the more grandiose, shocking and unfalsifiable your argument, the more it demonstrates that you are clever and are properly appreciating the scale of the problem. Let’s see how that’s working out for them!
So on the one hand, I’m pretty sure you’re correct.
On the other hand it’s a great example of how Yud lost the ability to talk to normies years ago if he ever had it: making offputtingly weird claims is part and parcel of his shtick to the point where he does it to make a simple point.
On the other hand it’s a great example of how Yud lost the ability to talk to normies years ago if he ever had it: making offputtingly weird claims is part and parcel of his shtick to the point where he does it to make a simple point.
February 11, 2026 at 3:40 AM
So on the one hand, I’m pretty sure you’re correct.
On the other hand it’s a great example of how Yud lost the ability to talk to normies years ago if he ever had it: making offputtingly weird claims is part and parcel of his shtick to the point where he does it to make a simple point.
On the other hand it’s a great example of how Yud lost the ability to talk to normies years ago if he ever had it: making offputtingly weird claims is part and parcel of his shtick to the point where he does it to make a simple point.
(This is why I wax incendiary about the EU's attempts to forcibly break iOS' security model by mandating that Apple let random companies replace core parts of the OS. Absolutely fuck you for trying to take away the one safe harbor I can direct her to.)
February 10, 2026 at 6:37 PM
(This is why I wax incendiary about the EU's attempts to forcibly break iOS' security model by mandating that Apple let random companies replace core parts of the OS. Absolutely fuck you for trying to take away the one safe harbor I can direct her to.)
This post brought to you by a panicked text from my mom, for whom browsing who knows which random website (on a mac, using safari) caused this bullshit to pop up on her screen. Thank god I've trained her to immediately stop, not touch anything, and text me from her iphone when this happens.
February 10, 2026 at 6:37 PM
This post brought to you by a panicked text from my mom, for whom browsing who knows which random website (on a mac, using safari) caused this bullshit to pop up on her screen. Thank god I've trained her to immediately stop, not touch anything, and text me from her iphone when this happens.
The gap between how my tech enthusiast friends experience the web (and worse, their opinions on how it _should_ work) and the way my normie friends and relatives do might as well be separate universes.
February 10, 2026 at 6:37 PM
The gap between how my tech enthusiast friends experience the web (and worse, their opinions on how it _should_ work) and the way my normie friends and relatives do might as well be separate universes.
Ah, the joys of running a lawnmower over a lawn that's covered in rotted apples...
February 10, 2026 at 4:40 PM
Ah, the joys of running a lawnmower over a lawn that's covered in rotted apples...
Reposted by Doctor Memory
This is the 38th time that the U.S. military has unlawfully killed civilians on the orders of Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump. At least 130 people — never charged with crimes, their identities unknown to their executioners — are now dead.
We are murdering people and it is basically just background noise at this point. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/u...
U.S. Boat Strike Kills 2 in Pacific, With One Survivor
www.nytimes.com
February 10, 2026 at 11:29 AM
This is the 38th time that the U.S. military has unlawfully killed civilians on the orders of Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump. At least 130 people — never charged with crimes, their identities unknown to their executioners — are now dead.
More to the point we need a majority vote in the House of Representatives to impeach before even sending it to the senate.
Hakeem Jeffries is a useless POS but I assure everyone he know how to count to 218, which apparently many people cannot.
Hakeem Jeffries is a useless POS but I assure everyone he know how to count to 218, which apparently many people cannot.
February 10, 2026 at 7:24 AM
More to the point we need a majority vote in the House of Representatives to impeach before even sending it to the senate.
Hakeem Jeffries is a useless POS but I assure everyone he know how to count to 218, which apparently many people cannot.
Hakeem Jeffries is a useless POS but I assure everyone he know how to count to 218, which apparently many people cannot.
Age verification?
Acoustic coupler.
Acoustic coupler.
Age Verification?
I used a VAX for email.
I used a VAX for email.
Age verification?
I played Pong.
I played Pong.
February 10, 2026 at 7:19 AM
Age verification?
Acoustic coupler.
Acoustic coupler.
Reposted by Doctor Memory
Spotify's got some brass to be sassing literally anyone else about fucking artists out of money
I dunno, man, if you sue someone for an amount that would make you the third largest country by annual GDP (www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-by-c...), you might start to give people the impression you're a bit of a racket and not really serious about the court system
February 10, 2026 at 6:31 AM
Spotify's got some brass to be sassing literally anyone else about fucking artists out of money
It took me several seconds to realize that this was not a photoshopped picture of Swole Michael Cera.
February 10, 2026 at 7:09 AM
It took me several seconds to realize that this was not a photoshopped picture of Swole Michael Cera.
Also well before you start doing that last thing as an explicit goal, cholera and typhus do a lot of the heavy lifting for you.
February 10, 2026 at 6:57 AM
Also well before you start doing that last thing as an explicit goal, cholera and typhus do a lot of the heavy lifting for you.
😬
I'm not as allergic to "we need immigrants because they're economically necessary" as an argument as some on bluesky are (yes, people have worth more than their labor but also it's okay to point out that this is economically idiotic as well) but... uh... this is _not_ it.
I'm not as allergic to "we need immigrants because they're economically necessary" as an argument as some on bluesky are (yes, people have worth more than their labor but also it's okay to point out that this is economically idiotic as well) but... uh... this is _not_ it.
February 10, 2026 at 6:53 AM
😬
I'm not as allergic to "we need immigrants because they're economically necessary" as an argument as some on bluesky are (yes, people have worth more than their labor but also it's okay to point out that this is economically idiotic as well) but... uh... this is _not_ it.
I'm not as allergic to "we need immigrants because they're economically necessary" as an argument as some on bluesky are (yes, people have worth more than their labor but also it's okay to point out that this is economically idiotic as well) but... uh... this is _not_ it.
LOOK YOU CAN JUST @ ME. I'VE TOTALLY COME TO TERMS WITH THIS AND DO NOT NEED ANY MORE THERAPY ABOUT IT.
February 10, 2026 at 3:35 AM
LOOK YOU CAN JUST @ ME. I'VE TOTALLY COME TO TERMS WITH THIS AND DO NOT NEED ANY MORE THERAPY ABOUT IT.