mirabilis

To clarify, I meant that the draw of AI-written content would be exactly that interactivity - why read a story someone else has generated and posted in a static way when I could go and tailor one to my exact tastes instead. “No one wants to read AI generated texts” being appended with “that they haven’t gone and cooked up themselves”

Ah, the point I was trying to make was more akin to “why would I read your AI-generated story that you’ve posted as a static text/ebook trying to make a profit when I could do [essentially the scenario you described].”

I think you lose that draw of interactivity when you’re essentially reading someone else’s RP, though.

I’m really not liking the prospective combination of a bunch of independently managed collections of driver’s license scans with no especial guarantee of security across the disparate spread of vendors struggling to remain compliant with layered sets of state and country based laws + the increasing ease of identity theft or of at least “grandma, please send me bail money, I’ll even call you over Facetime and prove it’s really me” types of deepfake scams that can be performed with the assistance of AI.

The Alzheimer’s association has a good datasheet out for 2026: https://www.alz.org/getmedia/ef8f48f9-ad36-48ea-87f9-b740346...

“Older age is the greatest risk factor for Alzheimers and other dementias, and women live longer than men on average; this survival difference contributes to higher prevalence of Alzheimer's and other dementias in women than in men.

However, it is not clear that the risk of developing Alzheimer's or other dementias differs between men and women of the same age. Most studies of incidence in the United States have found no meaningful difference between men and women in the proportion who develop Alzheimer's or other dementias at any given age. Similarly, some European studies have reported a higher incidence among women at older ages while others have reported higher incidence among men.”

I’ll happily apologize for being in the weeds on incidence vs. prevalence.

The datasheet does have some really interesting info on genetic risk factors such as APOE-e4 and the “strength” of modifiable risk factors such as diet, exercise, and social activity — “In the United States, a study involving more than 375,000 participants estimated that nearly 37% of dementia cases were associated with eight modifiable risk factors”, qtd from the same document linked above

Probably not, but I thought we were discussing all related preventative activities for the full span of the comfortable life.

Yes, I didn’t address that portion of your original post, as I was silently agreeing with you that men perform vital social and economic activity such as pick-up truck, football, and bitcoin, whereas women do nothing all day save for frivolous non-labor activities such as raising children.

US life expectancy in 2024 for women was 81.4 years; for men, 76.5 [1]; “non-early” symptoms of Alzheimer's typically begin after 65 [2]. I don’t think that the life expectancy average offset of ~5 years is the main factor here.

1. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db548.htm 2. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/alzheimers-di...

only tangentially related, but it brought the O’Hare Shit-In to mind: https://thenonviolenceproject.wisc.edu/2024/03/11/news-flush...

very much agree that many of our supposed safeguards are demeaning and can sometimes make things worse; I’ve heard more than enough horror stories from individuals that received wellness checks, ended up on medical suicide watch, etc, where the experience did great damage emotionally and, well, fiscally— I think there’s a greater question here of how society deals with suicide that surrounds what an AI should even be doing about it. that being said, the bot still should probably not be going “killing yourself will be beautiful and wonderful and peaceful and all your family members will totally understand and accept why you did it” and I feel, albeit as a non-expert, as though surely that behavior can be ironed out in some way

“Ratted out” implies blame from the user himself towards the AI for the outcome, which just wasn’t the impression I had.

Part of why I linked this was a genuine curiosity as to what prevention would look like— hobbling memory? a second observing agent checking for “hey does it sound like we’re goading someone into suicide here” and steering the conversation away? something else? in what way is this, as a product, able to introduce friction to the user in order to prevent suicide, akin to putting mercaptan in gas?

Very different impression than what I got, I read that as him marking the ChatGPT conversations as an extension of/footnotes to the suicide note itself, or that the conversations made sense to him in the headspace he was in; he thought that reading it would make the act make sense to everyone else, too

Some manufactures of knives could still be recalled for safety reasons, and MS Office/Google Drive certainly have content prohibitions in their TOS once you’re dealing with their online storage. I agree with your metaphor in that I doubt much use would come from banning AI entirely, but I feel there must be some viable middle ground of useful regulation here.

The same capabilities might be present in many available models, but I do think that the public/social aspect in usage is quite different— people can’t come into my Google account and save nudified versions of my family photos directly to my Google drive, but X generated a lot of attention because the users are directly replying or quoting other users and @ing them with the modified photos.

Most of the instances I’m seeing discussed on X are not “fictional depiction of nonexistent child” but instead “minor’s posted photo directly replied to with ‘grok, put her in a bikini covered in ‘donut glaze’’”, which, in my opinion, crosses moral bounds far beyond the scope of your theoretical lab-grown work of fiction

Still, in the context of the story: body transplant? Womb transplant? some kind of far-off mass-CRISPR chromosomal rewriting? Alien raygun that turns you into Farrah Fawcett? If any of the biological rules could someday be edited at will, then this insistence upon definitional, immutable, and perhaps spiritual femaleness comes across as more of a matter of your own preference.

So in the context of this story, if a woman Changes into a man’s body for a day and then goes back, your interest is killed due to her exposure to penis-having? And if a man Changes into a woman with a impregnatable uterus, still no dice? It seems more reasonable to me for you to claim that “even the ghost of a penis is icky to me and kills my interest” than “this person will never be female.”

An AI-related bromide poisoning incident earlier this year: “Inspired by his history of studying nutrition in college, he decided to conduct a personal experiment to eliminate chloride from his diet. For 3 months, he had replaced sodium chloride with sodium bromide obtained from the internet after consultation with ChatGPT, in which he had read that chloride can be swapped with bromide, though likely for other purposes, such as cleaning… However, when we asked ChatGPT 3.5 what chloride can be replaced with, we also produced a response that included bromide. Though the reply stated that context matters, it did not provide a specific health warning, nor did it inquire about why we wanted to know, as we presume a medical professional would do.”

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/aimcc.2024.1260

If I might be more optimistic, I think people may actually care about a statement being rooted in reality, but people may not be likely to slow down and engage in suspicion of something they would not expect to be false. (Though the size of that window may be its own problem!) If I see someone claiming they have the cure for cancer, then I consider it a bit fantastical and want to investigate further. If a supposed quote from an older actress talks about her time doing Shakespeare, then it doesn’t really proc any doubt in me; I’m offering a baseline of trust to the publisher that forwarded that information along to me that this information is factual and not someone’s strange fanfiction about her life. I can appreciate that the author doubted it because a quick scroll of the blog shows that he’s got an interest in stagecraft and so it bumped up against his expertise, but I don’t think that I would have seen the quote myself and done the same… maybe I am one of those sub-median ignoramuses you mention. I agree that people uncritically eating up sensational news is a problem, but this is like, pretty straightforward in-memoriam news that I’d hope to not have to doubt.

Your comment still offers no solutions as to how these rules will actually be enforced. For example, do you consider the ordinance in Odessa, TX, to be sufficient? Is offering a minimum bounty of ten-thousand dollars to report on alleged men in the wrong restrooms going to incentivize a reduction in vigilance, or does it encourage yet more of it?

The driving force behind these “unfortunate misunderstandings” is not a worthy justification for increased scrutiny and violence done towards women, either. Can you help me understand what damage is done even if a fully masculine manly man strolls into a woman’s restroom without paying attention, relieves himself in a toilet, (hopefully) washes his hands, and then leaves? And is this violation of the sanctity of a female space more or less violent than a woman being harassed or beaten for using it?

[1] https://www.odessa-tx.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_1022...

How do you propose preventing situations such as these?

“The couple said they were in the women's lobby bathroom when a male security guard came in and started banging on the stall doors. Baker said she was in one of the stalls while Victor waited for her near the sinks… Baker was born a woman and identifies as a woman.” [1]

“Gerika Mudra, 18, went to dinner in April with a friend in Owatonna, about an hour south of Minneapolis. When she went to the restroom, a server followed her inside and banged on the stall door while saying: “This is a women’s restroom. The man needs to get out of here,”… Mudra said she felt she had to prove to the server that she is a woman, so she unzipped her hoodie to show she has breasts.” [2]

“Dani Davis was in the women’s restroom at the Walmart where she worked when she heard a man’s voice shouting from outside the stall. The man yelled a slur for transgender people and said he was going to beat them up, Davis said. She was the only person in the bathroom at the Lake City, Florida, store… Davis waited for the man to leave before exiting the bathroom and finishing her shift. Her immediate supervisor was supportive when she reported the incident, she said. So she was shocked and confused when she was fired around a week later for not reporting the incident to the right managers and creating a “security risk.””[3]

“She said that she had entered the restroom with her ex-girlfriend, who handed her a tampon, when two male deputies stormed in, shining flashlights into the stall and demanding she exit. Morton, still using the toilet, was stunned... When she finally exited the stall, she said she lifted her shirt to prove she was not a man, expecting the ordeal to end. Instead, she said one deputy continued to question her appearance, insisting she “looked like a man.””[4]

It would be unfair of me to presume that you believe that all women should wear skirts, keep their hair long, and perhaps shave down any overly square facial bones so as to not invoke any hint of possible masculinity. But if there is a rule in place, then the rule requires methods of being enforced. Expecting women to expose themselves to a security guard or some other investigatory party in order to prove that they should be allowed to pee there is a guaranteed violation of their dignity, whereas the occasional transgender woman using the next stall over is not.

[1]https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/boston/news/women-boston-liberty...

[2] https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/minnesota-teen-says...

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/03/27/walmart-fir...

[4] https://www.advocate.com/news/lesbian-mistaken-transgender-a...

I’m not certain it’s the case for McCarthy’s works, but I think inept attempts at manly men could certainly veer into accidental parody. An “overly masculine” character might just bring Johnny Bravo to mind. To offer an example, I tried watching “Untamed” recently and the highly concentrated gruff machismo coming off of that main character mostly had me wondering if he would ever do or say anything that wasn’t so cliche as to be scripted by predictive text. (Maybe it gets better, but the first few episodes did not hold me.)

Haven’t read “The Road” yet, but I was able to take the time to read “Blood Meridian” this year— I don’t think I would describe the violence depicted as “relished.” It came across as vivid in an arduous, can’t-look-away-from-the-wreckage-so-bear-witness way, and I was really intrigued by how the Kid’s POV dissolves during the worst of it. And about “why someone might write about the worst among us”—the glory-seeking and hypocrisy of the Glanton gang also felt timely, to be frank. So, to me, it felt more like a clinical exposure of ugly rot rather than a luridly violent power fantasy like Inglorious Basterds.

Though I do kinda feel the “masculine” note in that quote haha, if only because the women that appeared in the story were steadfastly hospitable (or victims.) Disregarding any incident where the Judge was involved, it actually felt quaint, especially in contrast to everything else going on.

I’ll be interested as I check out the rest of his catalogue as to if the stomach-churning detail involved still feels necessary, or if my tolerance starts to change.