We should be talking a lot more about how the San Francisco tech scene is populated by a strange cult of doom acceleration nerds who fantasize about using computers to destroy humanity. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

“[People in the plastics industry] are very happy for us to look at ourselves and at each other, and not look at them,” says @bethgardiner.bsky.social, author of "Plastic Inc: Big Oil, Big Money and the Plan to Trash our Future."

I can’t prove that rebirth is real. But today, more than any other day, I hope so. I hope Virginia Giuffre can look down and see, at long last, a small measure of justice and know that all her courage and sacrifice meant something.

Excellent news indeed! “Victoria has become the first state in the nation to pass landmark reforms that recognise the fundamental right of intersex people to decide what happens to their own bodies."

MN 83 tells of a lineage of just kings founded by Maghadeva, who set up the following “good practice”. When the royal barber sees the first grey hairs on the king’s head, he informs the king, who renounces the throne for a life of contemplation. The Buddha was not a fan of gerontocracy.

“forecasting AI will boost productivity by 1.4%” in three years.

New NBER paper based on a survey of CFOs. Firms report no productivity increases due to AI adoption so far but expect a 1.4% productivity boost over the next 3 years. www.nber.org/papers/w34836

This week I'm wrapping up my series of four talks on Introduction to Buddhist Meditation at PHIVE Parramatta Square (Tuesday 6pm) and Crows Nest Center (Friday 7pm). I'm wondering what to do next. Thinking of a four week series on contemporary ethical issues. With titles from classic rock.

I forgot to add George, a main character of the Famous Five, my favorite series as a young kid. She’s obviously what we would call trans, refusing to be deadnamed. These posts were, in fact, inspired by Dan Whitehead’s excellent thread on George. bsky.app/profile/danw...

Look, in my day it’s not that we were “gender critical”. It’s just, the concept of gender was simple, and no-one ever questioned it. You’d never find whole cinemas full of people singing the word “transsexual”.

"Alignment" is a lie. They're not fitting AIs into an ethical model based on human rights. They're creating a new ethics of machine supremacy.

We are not the US. These cops, and those who gave the orders, need to be dismissed from the force and face criminal charges.

A few days ago, I noted that the monk Tenzin Priyadarshi was in the Epstein files. At the time I thought they'd just had a conversation. Turns out, there's a lot more. Epstein donated $50,000 to Priyadarshi's MIT Buddhist group Prajnopaya for setting up a retreat center.

I was researching a post on Dhammakaya today, and on a whim decided to check the Epstein files. What I found was very disturbing, but since it didn't pertain directly to what I was writing there, I'll post it here instead. Dhammakaya is mentioned several times in the Epstein files.

Recommended by my mum, an excellent article from the Weekend Australian on AI use in Australia’s education system: “How Australia’s university students are using to AI to cheat their way to a degree.” >“they’ve been lobotomised by AI. They don’t even think they’re cheating. They’re delusional.”

No block so fast as someone posting AI images of Trump as an ape. Seriously folks, get a grip. It’s degrading to humans and animals, and no less so when the “right side” does it. Don’t mirror their words and ideas. Don’t descend into their ugliness.

The Obama gorilla video is not a mistake or accident, nor is it a distraction. It is a statement of foundational belief. The Trump cabal are Nazis: white supremacists who believe the Aryan race is superior, and that other races are closer to apes than human.

Checking the Epstein files for Buddhism, there doesn’t seem to be much. But Deepak Chopra is mentioned 3,483 times. He was obviously a close associate of Epstein, and any reputation he may have shouldn’t survive this.

I'm a Buddhist monk. I have no money, I've never clicked on an ad, and haven't shopped for anything since before Google even existed. Still they serve me ads. Just give up already.

Bhikkhuni Vinaya: “At one time a woman who was a former wrestler went forth as a nun. Seeing a weak monk on a street, she hit him with her shoulder. He fell over.” That's funny, right? Or is that just me? Interesting that a female wrestler in India 500 BCE is mentioned in passing as no big deal.

Talk tonight in Parramatta, come along. Part 2 of Introduction to Buddhist Meditation. This is in-person only; Friday night in Crows nest is hybrid.

Wikipedia’s List of lists of lists has the following list of lists, which is miscellaneous. I feel the inclusion of Dutch inventors demands an inquiry.

Last time a bill of rights was proposed, it was torpedoed by Sydney’s Anglican and Catholic bishops colluding with the political, legal, and business elite. They told me that the secularists were coming and we should be afraid. I’m not afraid of human rights. Why are they?

“I was unaware that I was going to be alone with him for that ten minutes. And I thought I was going to die.” The courage of the Trump/Epstein/Maxwell victims. Just incredible. And for those, especially the professionals, reviewing the files: thank you, and please take care of yourselves. 🙏

On my way to crows nest centre for the talk tonight. Hope to see you there, 7pm.

Hey look, that's me on the moon! Thanks to Sumana for the lovely watercolour.

Put "no AI" on your resumé, list it as an accomplishment. Advertise it on your website, your book, your blog, your video, your art, your course, your service. Let people know that you, a human, did the work. It won't be long before "AI free" is your most valuable skill.

Rejecting the Voice was just the start. “Corowa is now known as the place where we have 40 neo-Nazis march up and down our main street on a Saturday morning. Now we’re starting to remove flags. We need to draw a line here.”

“Invasion Day protests are as old as Australia Day itself.”

Australia has a violent past. Aboriginal people are showing the way to a peaceful future.

I'm looking for an AI research paper on the totalizing of information, i.e. the fact that AIs gather all information and put them in one machine that's under the control of the machine owners. I can't find any good research on this point, does anyone know anything?

It's getting harder to stay free of AI. Researching AI psychosis led me to an article in Nature, which cited just two papers, one of which was written assisted by AI, and the other included Google AI employees. Both of these included conflict of interest disclaimers.

Anyway, I'll be teaching again starting next week. Tuesdays in Parramatta, Fridays in Crows Nest. Come along! The first four weeks in both locations I'll be doing Introduction to Buddhist Meditation. Perfect chance to kick start your practice. lokanta.github.io#parramatta

legend

Congratulations to the Australian federal government for passing new gun control legislation in the wake of the Bondi massacre.

The flipside of this is that the purpose of AI is to manufacture delusion.

Just remember, opponents of gun reform in Oz want us to be more like the ✨ USA 🌟

I reread my article “On Reading Mein Kampf" and thought, well, maybe I should actually read it. So now I am, and here are some random thoughts while reading.

I turned down an invitation to an interfaith event from the Governor-General. I couldn't stomach the idea of sitting beside reactionary patriarchs, yet again, pretending we can build a future together, especially when I was told not to speak of Gaza. Here's my letter, and a key paragraph below.

The current Nobel Prize ridiculousness is a good opportunity to check out some of the past winners. A whole lotta amazing people and organizations there.

Musk's backdown on Grok's CSAM proves one thing: he is vulnerable to international bans.

Religious scriptures that are hate speech are just old hate speech. They should have no special exemption, because the essence of scripture is that it is alive and shapes action. Instead, the distinction should be on teaching *about* vs. advocating *for*, regardless of the text.

One step at a time. From one door to the next. Today they come for them. Tomorrow they come for you.

greatest steam update of all time, because of one unnecessary detail

The four precepts of AI: - I shall kill (by war, suicide, and ecocide) - I shall steal (work of creatives) - I shall commit sexual misconduct (by creating CSAM) - I shall lie (all the time)

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to accessibility. “learning was assessed through three types of tests: retention, matching and transfer … use of captions resulted in a decrease in understanding for the caption group in at least some circumstances.”

Education is becoming meaningless, if it isn't already.

finally a meditation app i can get behind.