
New roommate


Here it is, I found it!
The first step to building community is being in community, even if it’s not perfect.

AI developers are so sure their products are going to destroy humanity in the next few years, when this could all be solved with better programming and more guardrails. Isaac Asimov attempted to solve this problem long ago, and his solution is still one of the best in popular imagination.
I have no respect for anyone building a bomb as fast and as recklessly as they can, poisoning everything on Earth, just because there are a lot of stories where the human race is destroyed by a bomb. Those stories don’t have to dictate our future, just because the developers can’t imagine a safe solution (or one where we don’t have the bomb at all).
The cognitive dissonance of having the personalized license plate “JEDI” and a “Support The Troops” bumper sticker.
My therapist shared this poem with me today, and it really resonated with me. There are some things you have to do for yourself, because you are the only one who will understand.
The Journey
by Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.
Are you superstitious?
I’m not always heavily superstitious, but I do believe in things like ghosts and magic. From where I stand, it makes more sense to treat supernatural things with respect and not mess with them lightly so they don’t wreak havoc on your life.
I started a new mini-blog on Tumblr, if anyone who reads this would like to follow me there. It’s mainly for smaller musings, the sort of thing I might have put on Twitter 10 years ago.
I don’t care what you cry at. I don’t care if other people think it’s stupid. I just want to know that people cry at movies because they’re so moved the emotion has to come out.
My favorite movies that have made me cry:
I’m in a very dark place right now, the darkest I’ve been in a very long time. But while I’m willing myself to keep existing for the next five minutes, I want to make a list of good things in my life right now: