I cannot know objectively whether I am in a simulation or not. I can, however, reason about my experience, the experiences of others (as I perceive them), and the systems that facilitate perception. All of that information is logically coherent, so I can "know" it. My knowledge may not be objectively proven, but it is the most subjectively relevant conclusion.

Experience is subjective. That's why we need science in the first place.

    emotional != biased
    emotionless != unbiased

Until we have a real way to meaningfully process natural language (I have a serious idea for that, but that's another conversation), we won't be able to automate content filtration. The next best thing is ironically similar to what we came here to complain about: attestations in a web of trust. If everything we bother to read is tied to a user identity (which can be anonymous), we can filter out content from any user identity that is generally agreed to be unwelcome. The traditional work of moderation can be replaced by collaborative categorization of both content and publishers. Any identity whose published content is too burdensome to categorize can simply be filtered out completely. The core difference is that there are no "special" users: anyone can make, edit, and publish a filter list. Authority itself is replaced by every participant's choice of filter. Moderated spaces are replaced by the most popular intersection of lists. Identity is verified by the attestation of other identities, based on their experience participating with you.

I think the main struggle is moderation. Moderation requires a hierarchy, which is much more compatible with a centralized model. I'm thinking that curation would be a good alternative. Rather than authoritatively silencing unwanted content, just categorize it well enough for users to filter what they want.

What we really need is to meaningfully participate outside of the hierarchical monopolistic systems that demand our participation. That doesn't just mean that we create and hang out in distributed networks: it also means that we make and do interesting shit there, too.

The biggest hurdle I see is that we only really use uncensored spaces to do the shit that would otherwise be censored. We don't use distributed networks to plan a party with grandma, or bitch about the next series of layoffs. We don't use distributed networks to share scientific discovery or art.

I think part of the solution is to make software that is better at facilitating those kind of interactions, and the other part of the solution is actually fucking using it. How many of us are only waiting for the first part?

> Most of the thread seems to be a call for attestation to die, which feels impractical and unachievable.

I disagree, and I expect GrapheneOS devs do, too. Hardware attestation is a new thing, that isn't even really here yet. It absolutely can and should meet its demise.

Yes. Is there something confusing about what I said about that? They own the copyright for your data, and leverage that copyright to isolate your social interactions into their ad platform moat.

> No, predicated on not letting other people see the source code. That would be true even if copyrights didn't exist.

Yes and no. Copyright also disallows us from de-compiling something and publishing any changes. As an aside, if I ever get this subjective computing idea to work (or LLMs pan out), that distinction will be gone, too...

The main argument, though, is that the data, not the platform itself, is what is monopolized. It doesn't matter what software you use to play a video file (Netflix), buy a book (Amazon), or chat with your friends (Facebook), so long as those interactions can be monopolized. Copyright facilitates just that by enforcing the ownership of the data.

> Again, "corporations" is an extremely broad term.

Yes, so? A mom & pop business is not an individual. A fortune 500 company is not an individual. Is one worse than the other? Certainly. Is one a different category of thing? No. That's the point. The individual is not liberated in a marketplace where they must join (or fail to compete with) a corporation.

> I disagree, for reasons I've already given

You disagree that Amazon leverages their ownership of market listing copyrights to facilitate their private ownership of the Amazon marketplace? What else are they?

I don't disagree with your other complaints, but they all seem to be predicated on Amazon already existing as a profitable business with a strong enough political position to abuse. Is that not the case?

> but I don't see that we're going to resolve that here.

Isn't my perspective worth your consideration at all? This whole time, you have centered your focus on nitpicking what a libertarian believes, or what you believe to be the important problem. Do I get a turn? If not, why bother commenting?

The libertarian conception is that groups of people can form hierarchical corporations that compete directly with individuals in the marketplace. The social anarchist conception is usually that people participate in anarchist cooperatives instead. It depends on the anarchist what that means in practice.

> Most right-wing libertarians and right-wing anarchists (allow me this even if you disagree with the phrase) are against copyright because it's nonsensical in their conception of what property is and how property rights work.

Yes, but what they are sorely missing in that argument - in my opinion - is that the problem with copyright is monopoly power; which is also what you get from an unregulated market of corporations. The somewhat regulated market that exists today is obviously dominated by corporations whose anticompetitive participation is predicated on their copyright moats.

> Many [left-leaning libertarians and social anarchists] indeed defend copyright.

Yes, and I'm at least as frustrated about that as with any other political group.

It's incredibly rare to hear copyright's role in our society even described, let alone criticized; even though that role is incredibly significant.

> Of course those companies hold copyrights and patents, and defend them, because that's the legal environment they're operating in.

Yes, that's the thing I'm arguing against. Would you mind considering it for a moment?

> No, if you are participating in a free market, and a corporation is the most efficient way to provide what you want to buy, then you will end up buying it from the corporation.

That's how corporations immediately outcompete individuals. The argument that a corporation should not be treated as an individual is irrelevant, because that is its role in a marketplace. That's who individuals directly compete with!

> Second, corporations like Google, Meta, Amazon, Apple, etc., as they are now, are creatures of government favoritism, not a free market.

They are creatures in a market. Whether that market is free does not define them, only their opportunity. I agree that they get the opportunity of government favoritism, and that that is a significant part of the issue. My point is that it is not the root cause of the problem. In a "free market" that incorporates copyright and patents, any corporation who owns IP can leverage it as a moat, enforced by state violence. The fact that any individual can do the same does not change the power imbalance between an individual and a corporation: it increases it.

Each of the corporations you mentioned leverages a copyright moat as their core valuation. Even Amazon's anticompetitive behavior is predicated on their vertical integration of Amazon the delivery/fulfillment service with Amazon the marketplace. The fact that a marketplace can be owned at all is predicated on copyright.

They support "radical individualism" (anarchy) and "free market absolutism" (hierarchy). This is a blatant contradiction no matter how you talk your way out of it.

If you are participating in a free market, then you are subject to corporations. The conclusion of libertarian ideals is that one must both allow corporations to rule over them, and never allow anyone to rule over the corporations.

This is where most people, including the author, present liberalism as the solution. Free market + democratic regulation is a great way to manage an economy; but is it really a good way to manage the rest of society?

The article brings up copyright without exploring the idea at all. I think this is the greatest mistake of all. Copyright is what forces every facet of society to participate in a capitalist market.

Without copyright, what would change? First of all, we wouldn't have tech billionaires. Wouldn't that be nice? Next, we wouldn't be structuring all human interactions with corporate ad platforms. There seems to be a lot of unexplored opportunity there. Even more exciting, moderators would suddenly have all the power that they need to manage the responsibility they are given. No more begging to reddit admins! No more fighting automated censorship! Doesn't that sound good?

It boggles my mind how people from nearly every political perspective have accepted copyright as the one perfect inarguable virtue. Even the cyberlibertarians op argues with are only willing to concede copyright with the promise of a magical free market replacement! Now's as good a time as ever to think about it.

Maybe if we didn't let one corporation control so much of the distribution chain, we would avoid both the decision to overproduce and the stagnation of overproduced goods.

Of course, the real problem is that we have accepted the notion that food must profit someone, even when we have too much of it.

I sincerely doubt that Meta's share price would crash as a result of Zuckerberg getting an expensive judgement.

This has been my main struggle using LLMs to soundboard my new idea. They can write an eloquent interpretation of the entire concept, but as soon as we get to implementation, it stumbles right into creating the very system I intend to replace.

So I would say it's the other way around: LLMs are an excellent map, but a terrible compass. Good enough if you want to explore familiar territory, but practically unusable on an adventure.

Traditionally, we use definition as the core primitive for programming. The programming language grammar defines the meaning of every possible expression, precisely and exhaustively. This is useful, because intention and interpretation are perfectly matched, making the system predictable. This is the perspective of objectivity.

The problem with objectivity is that it is categorically limited. A programming language compiler can only interpret using the predetermined rules of its grammar. The only abstract concepts that can be expressed are the ones that are implemented as programming language features. Ambiguity is unspeakable.

The other problem is that it is tautologically stagnant. The interpretation that you are going to use has already been completely defined. The programming language grammar is its own fundamental axiom: a tautology that dictates how every interpretation will be grounded. You can't choose a different axiom. Every programming language is its own silo of expression, forever incompatible with the rest. Sure, we have workarounds, like FFIs or APIs, but none of them can solve the root issue.

A subjective perspective would allow us to write and interpret ambiguous expression, which could be leveraged to (weakly) solve natural language processing. It would also allow us to change where our interpretations are grounded. That would (weakly) solve incompatibility. Instead of refactoring the expression, you would compose a new interpreter.

Because code is data, we can objectify our interpreters. We can apply logical deduction to choose the most relevant one, like a type system chooses the right polymorphic function. We can also compose interpreters like combinators, and decompose them by expressing their intentions. This way, we could have an elegant recursive self-referential system that generates relevant interpreters.

Any adequately described algorithm or data structure could be implemented to be perfectly compatible with any adequately interpreted system, all wrapped in whatever aesthetics the user chooses. On the fly. That's the dream, anyway.

The problem is that it's impossible. Even if you could directly copy experience from one mind to the other, that experience would be ungrounded. Experience is just as subjective as any expression: that's why we need science.

> through the culture war (nobody can define "man" or "woman" any more, sometimes the word "man" is used to refer to a "woman," etc).

That's a pretty mean rejection of empathy you've got going on there. People are doing their best to describe their genuine experiences, yet the only interpretations you have bothered to subject their expression to are completely irrelevant to them. Maybe this is a good opportunity to explore a different perspective.

> LLMs just accelerate this process of severing any connection whatsoever between signified and signifier.

That's my entire point. There was never any connection to begin with. The sign can only point to the signified. The signified does not actually interact with any semantics. True objectivity can only apply to the signified: never the sign. Even mathematics leverage an arbitrary canonical grammar to model the reality of abstractions. The semantics are grounded in objectively true axioms, but the aesthetics are grounded in an arbitrary choice of symbols and grammar.

The words aren't our problem. The problem is relevance. If we want to communicate effectively, we must find common ground, so that our intentions can be relevant to each others' interpretations. In other words, we must leverage empathy. My goal is to partially automate empathy with computation.

To maintain relevance, we must find common ground. There is no true objectivity, because every sign must be built up from an arbitrary ground. At the very least, there will be a conflict of aesthetics.

The problem with LLMs is that they avoid the ground entirely, making them entirely ignorant to meaning. The only intention an LLM has is to preserve the familiarity of expression.

So yes, this kind of AI will not accomplish any epistemology; unless of course, it is truly able to facilitate a functional system of logic, and to ground that system near the user. I'm not going to hold my breath.

I think the great mistake of "good ole fashioned AI" was to build it from a perspective of objectivity. This constrains every grammar to the "context-free" category, and situates every expression to a singular fixed ground. Nothing can be ambiguous: therefore nothing can express (or interpret) uncertainty or metaphor.

What we really need is to recreate software from a subjective perspective. That's what I've been working on for the last few years... So far, it's harder than I expected; but it feels so close.

You replied to a subset of the topic, and that's the point I was making. I felt the conversation needed relevant details from outside that subset, so I provided them.

I was terse in my comment, because that's how I like comments: short and to the point. That makes them much easier to skim through.

The government doesn't enforce its rules by going through my cupboards. It doesn't put a lock on them. Instead, it tells me what the rules and consequences are, placing both authority and responsibility for the cupboards themselves into my hands.

This is the primary change we are taking about: allowing the government to introduce its own code (lock) into my private digital interactions. Why are you so intent on focusing the conversation on the mechanics of that lock? Is it really so unreasonable for me to ask you to think about the rest of the topic?