gmsizemore

Retired behaviorist/selectionist.

Public Key

npub1w3a90glg3gcc66jx8tq9s4drk7h9frxzzyp3jn7t3sajnf25xc4s7lwln2

NIP-05 Address

gmsizemore@mastodon-social.mostr.pub

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nprofile1qqs8g7jh505g5vvddfrr4szc2k3m0tj53nppzqcefl9ccwef542rv2cpzemhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzv9hxg6jf9zv

Publishing to

relay.nostr.band

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npub1w3a90glg3gcc66jx8tq9s4drk7h9frxzzyp3jn7t3sajnf25xc4s7lwln2

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Last Notes

2025-05-13 13:27:18

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@nprofile…805n @nprofile…vdm6 @nprofile…uhgx No...they can't kill everybody; they need workers and consumers, as well as the educated petit bourgeoisie.

2025-05-10 22:59:20

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@nprofile…48vs How does that compare to people?

2025-01-13 05:30:55

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@nprofile…vdm6 The problems we face are _all_ problems of human behavior. To what technology do we turn to fix that?

2024-12-17 00:49:24

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@nprofile…fecl "We know the solution."
We don't, though. I say that because a solution isn't a solution unless you specify how behavior and culture can be changed such that the alleged solution is adopted. It's sort of like the way that producing vaccines and saying "all that has to happen now is their administration!" isn't a solution until the stuff is actually injected and that is a behavioral/cultural problem.

2024-12-13 07:03:33

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@nprofile…taps I'm old, so I have lived a life already...

2024-12-12 19:40:54

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@nprofile…taps "corporations with free _reign_."
LOL! I could go on about the multiple determination of verbal behavior...

2024-12-12 19:34:51

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@nprofile…taps I think what will happen is that the right-wingers will simply win; it looks like the US will be first. There will still be Russia-style elections, but the oligarchy won't be so thinly disguised anymore. The Bible will be in the schools and private schools will steal all the money from public schools - and the Bible will be there, too. Plus, corporations with free reign. Then climate stuff and other shit will concatenate and cascade and it will be like a dystopian sci-fi novel.

2024-12-12 19:30:25

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@nprofile…taps I used to think in terms of a Marxist sort of class war being inevitable. I always figured if it happened at any scale, the revolutionaries would lose. But I didn't really see the importance of Christo-fascism driven efforts "splitting the workers" as they have. And the Christians have turned workers against the part of the upper middle-class intelligentsia that continues to fuel the fucking Enlightenment, that seeks to better the worker's lot! [cont]

2024-12-12 06:20:50

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@nprofile…taps But...same problem. The rich own the government, and they don't want you to change the system. So how does this change occur? I'm not trying to be difficult...this is something I have thought about for about 40 years...

2024-12-12 06:20:50

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2024-12-11 23:15:36

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@nprofile…taps We live in an oligarchy. All the world's democracies are thinly disguised oligarchies. AFAICT, it has to be this way as wealth and power must become concentrated in the hands of a few.

2024-12-11 23:13:44

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@nprofile…taps That's few to none. Hell...a third of 'em actually have stock in health insurance companies - or so I read somewhere. Maybe you're right...but, I mean, it's been clear that the idea of universal health care has been popular for decades...but it's never even been close to being enacted.

2024-12-11 22:59:44

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@nprofile…taps I don't understand...

2024-12-11 18:10:55

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@nprofile…taps But that is precisely what the politicians owned by corporations won't do.

2024-12-11 01:00:56

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@nprofile…taps That still doesn't mean that CEOs of these companies should be gunned down!
LOL! Just fucking kidding!

2024-11-30 14:41:57

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@nprofile…fecl Biden has broad immunity - the very immunity that we fear in Trump. I find myself wishing he'd declare martial law and start arresting the Project 2025 crew - hell...and The Donald himself...as threats to national security. Seriously.

2024-11-28 10:57:47

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@nprofile…n90q Of course, there was Fred Skinner's Walden Two (1948). Here is a brief sequel he published a few years before his death.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2741768/?page=1

2024-11-23 10:16:35

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@nprofile…fecl And this is not "just one other thing" that the vile GOP puke fucks are doing; it's their raison d'être.

2024-11-13 11:07:39

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@npub1p4u…l2nd "...all the solutions we need to live well in harmony with Nature were worked out decades ago."
Not really. And the reason I say that is that no solution is a real solution if the plan doesn't contain a detailed recipe for controlling the behavior of the relevant groups and individuals. The problem we face is that the solutions must contain healthy doses of behavioral and cultural engineering. And most people don't realize that these subject matters can be approached scientifically.

2024-09-01 12:36:55

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@npub1grx…uxfe Hitler did "well" without FB and X.

2024-02-06 08:33:01

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@npub15th…6nvx https://ia903106.us.archive.org/25/items/B.F.SkinnerWaldenTwoIncludingWaldenTwoRbOk.xyz/%5BB._F._Skinner%5D_Walden_Two%2C_including_Walden_Two_R%28b-ok.xyz%29.pdf

2024-01-28 23:00:35

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@npub15th…6nvx All of what we think of as progressive moves away from slavery and serfdom are a bunch of evolved controlling techniques. Controlees pushed back on direct aversive control, and new, ever subtler techniques evolved. Take _democracy_, for example: you get to vote for pre-bought candidates to fill roles in a system where collaborating parties stage fake fights, but the outcome is that wealth is siphoned from the middle-class. See _Beyond Freedom and Dignity_ by Fred (BF) Skinner.

2023-12-22 19:39:28

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@npub1u3t…c6ug And it wouldn't matter anyway. You don't get to kill civilians indiscriminately.

2023-12-18 06:27:57

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@npub1lrv…tth9 When the Dims in Congress didn't immediately arrest Mnuchin (yes, they can) and jail him 'til he turned over Trump's tax docs, they lost. Democracy - or rather the old oligarchy or plutocracy - was lost at that moment. Mnuchin was officially ushering in the coup and the Dims sat on their thumbs. Even Barney Fife woulda nipped that shit in the bud. Now, it's Christo-fascism time and the Dims can no longer stop it.

2023-12-10 10:47:24

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@npub1xzm…eykm And let me guess...your definition of "intelligence" specifically excludes what people are calling AI. But here's the thing...there is nothing called "intelligence." Find out what the independent-variables are that are relevant to the behavior we _call_ "intelligent" - even in nonhumans. And, actually, after the era of GOFAI ended, they did...sort of. AI people have ignored the natural science of behavior and it has hurt their efforts for AGI. Think "conditioning," people. Sheesh!

2023-11-28 09:20:48

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@npub1grx…uxfe That is why I voted for the first time in 2020 - the threat of fascism during my lifetime was the kicker. It was selfish. In more ordinary times, I don't vote because participating in, and thus perpetuating, the system makes you complicit in the corruption*. That is the non-selfish, forward-looking option.
*Not exactly the right word, though, since what I am referring to as "corruption" are not glitches or aberrations or prostitutions. They're features.

2023-11-27 11:44:11

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@npub1ks7…eg5u There are a couple good steampunk historical fiction novels which portray Babbage's creation as having been built and used as a general purpose computer, ushering in the computer age in Victorian times.

2023-11-25 09:19:07

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@npub1khx…geyg We will begin to change to living in small, high-tech (small science, though; no particle accelerators or reactors here) agrarian communities pre-apocalyptically (potentially avoiding disaster) or we will do so haphazardly post-apocalyptically. We will almost certainly not do the former - achieving that would require cultural engineering. How many "cultural engineers" do you know? The ones that brought you these world-destroying cultures?

2023-11-22 22:13:34

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@npub18qs…0s8s This seems like a really, really, really bad idea.