Arnold Zuboff makes a case for this in "One Self: The Logic of Experience" (Inquiry, 1990) [0]. He calls it universalism: there has only ever been one subject of experience.

One of his thought experiments: imagine a meteorite is about to wipe out all life around you right now, instantly. If this exact experience - being you, here, thinking this - is instantiated anywhere else in the universe, it will continue there without any gaps.

Hindu mystics were already exploring and articulating these non-dual concepts in great detail thousands of years ago, in the Upanishads. As Robert Jastrow would say:

"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

[0] https://gwern.net/doc/philosophy/mind/1990-zuboff.pdf

> solar photovoltaic generators were subject to review and possible restriction if the photovoltaics were more than 20% efficient. Energy conversion systems were likewise subject to review and possible restriction if they offered conversion efficiencies “in excess of 70-80%.”

So all this talk about developpping AGI/ASI for the benefit of humanity is moot. If these companies hit their goal, it will immediately be classified and appropriated by the US MIC. The rest of humanity will get the crumbs.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention_Secrecy_Act

[1]: https://fas.org/publication/invention_secrecy_2010/

Camus himself described Noces as belonging to a pre-absurdist "pagan" phase. It describes, in beautifully poetic french, the intense, sensual love of physical existence and the here-and-now that gives the absurd its stakes.

A quote from Nuptials at Tipasa:

In the spring, Tipasa is inhabited by gods and the gods speak in the sun and the scent of absinthe leaves, in the silver armor of the sea, in the raw blue sky, the flower-covered ruins, and the great bubbles of light among the heaps of stone. At certain hours of the day the countryside is black with sunlight. The eyes try in vain to perceive anything but drops of light and colors trembling on the lashes.

[...]

I love this life with abandon and wish to speak of it boldly: it makes me proud of my human condition. Yet people have often told me: there’s nothing to be proud of. Yes, there is: this sun, this sea, my heart leaping with youth, the salt taste of my body and this vast landscape in which tenderness and glory merge in blue and yellow. It is to conquer this that I need my strength and my resources. Everything here leaves me intact, I surrender nothing of myself, and don no mask: learning patiently and arduously how to live is enough for me, well worth all their arts of living.

Simple and works great but requires one alias per account

Einstein's field equations link geometry to matter and energy:

G_μν = 8πG/c⁴ · T_μν

Left side describes how spacetime curves (the metric tensor). Right side represents what's causing the curvature (the stress-energy tensor): mass, energy, momentum. The usual approach is: you specify T_μν (what matter is where) and solve for the resulting curvature. Metric engineering takes the backward approach. You pick the geometry you want first: e.g a bubble that carries its contents faster than light relative to the outside universe. Then you work out what T_μν would have to be to produce that geometry: what distribution of energy and stress the equations demand.

The classic example of spacetime metric engineering is the Alcubierre drive.

The limitation with this is that the required T_μν has negative energy density in some regions (the bubble walls) which violate some assumptions about how "reasonable" matter behaves. But Quantum Field theory allows such local regions of negative densities and we have created such regions in labs experimentally already (Casimir effect). We "just" don't know how to sustain the effect at bigger (atomic) distances.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48598638

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They are proposing solutions to a hypothetical problem they are actively trying to manifest into reality to get more capital and funding.

That's what hypocritical about it. Not the development of the technology nor the effort to lobby for more regulations and policies.

The general discourse around AI could be much more sensible and pragmatic and lead to a more balanced, healthy rollout of the technology in society. But of course this means forfeiting at least part of the massive injection of capital in those companies and the ecosystem in the short-term.