Also Stallman is against using Rust in the Kernel

No, you idiot. AI is HAL 9000 from A Space Odyssey. I watched a science fiction movie and that means I’m smart. ChatGPT can’t be AI because AI isn’t real. Get your fancy computer science education out of here /s

Using noble weapons while claiming the weapons are wrong, is hypocrisy and dishonor.

Another one of Elon’s children hates him

Tell me more about these beans

More ways to be an addict means more hooks means more addicts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreasonable_Effectiveness_of_Mathematics_in_the_Natural_Sciences

He adds that the observation “the laws of nature are written in the language of mathematics,” properly made by Galileo three hundred years ago, “is now truer than ever before.”

If cognition is one of the laws of nature, it seems to be written in the language of mathematics.

Your argument is either that maths can’t think (in which case you can’t think because you’re maths) or that maths we understand can’t think, which is, like, a really dumb argument. Obviously one day we’re going to find the mathematical formula for consciousness, and we probably won’t know it when we see it, because consciousness doesn’t appear on a microscope.

Should we hold the same standard for humans? That a human has no rights until it becomes smart enough to argue for its rights? Without being prompted?

Bold words coming from a statistical model.

You have to make a new account in order to move instances. But I think you can export your subscriptions.

Anyone can put Lemmy on their website

All the Lemmy websites talk to each other

You went to the website lemm.ee, so you’re a lemm.ee user

It’s good for the network if people don’t all use the same website

That’s the backstory of Gloryhammer

Harry Potter’s magic system isn’t simple.

Rincewind isn’t useless at most things, he’s only useless at magic.

Esk is actually able to use magic to solve problems, because she’s a precocious child and also female.

Well, the needs of a fiction reader and the needs of a character in the world are different. Harry actually needed to learn magic. And there’s no logic to it, so all he could do was rote memorisation. He would have been happier with a magic system that makes sense.

Hermione is supposed to be a genius nerd, and yet she does far less in 7 books to actually study her magic system, than Vin has done by the start of the second book. Vin isn’t a nerd or a genius, she’s just a capable hero living in a world where magic makes sense, so she’s better at studying than Hermione. Hermione gets 8 hours to do it a day for 6 years and still can’t compete with Vin.

We do, at the very least, know why Gandalf’s magic works. The universe was sung into being, and Gandalf is a divine being who can participate in that song. We know where his magic comes from. We know it’s divine in origin.

We don’t know where Harry’s magic comes from. Were wizard blessed by a god? Is it a magic gene? Is it fueled by intelligence, or imagination? There are no answers.

Take horcruxes vs the one ring. One is clearly a second rate copy of the other. But the one ring has a clear limitation for Sauron: It holds most of his power, and if it’s destroyed, he can be defeated. What limitation do horcruxes have for Voldemort? He has to split his soul into parts. What does that mean practically? Nothing. It’s not a limitation, it’s just a reason the good guys don’t use it. From the council of Elrond, we know the rules of the one ring, and we know how to use them to solve a problem. Sanderson’s first law. Its limitation for Sauron is more interesting than its power for Sauron. Its limitation for the Fellowship is more interesting than its power for the Fellowship. Sanderson’s second law.

I think Star Wars’ magic system has rules. They’re philosophical rules.

If you’re paying attention to The Force Awakens, you notice that Rey is losing to Kylo, up until she gets angry at him. And then her stance changes, and she starts attacking way faster. Rey used the dark side. You only notice that happening if you understand the rules of the Force. And if you do, in the next movie, you’re rewarded. Luke is teaching Rey, and she goes straight to the dark. Rey is a natural dark side user, way moreso than Anakin and Luke. If you knew the magic system, you saw that coming. Now, what this subplot culminates in is Rey Palpatine, which is bad writing. But that’s not the magic system’s fault. The magic system did its job perfectly. It’s possible to understand how magic works in Star Wars, and that gives you insight into what will happen next. That’s basically a tweak on Sanderson’s first law. Episodes 8 and 9 also expand on the whole dyad thingy instead of adding something new, just like Sanderson says. And The Last Jedi introduces a limitation (You can’t force project this far, the effort would kill you), and then uses it later in the same movie with Luke. The underlying principles of Sanderson’s laws are there. The magic has rules and the rules inform the story.

Yeah, book 3 is the one where Rowling made an effort to delve into the workings of the magic system. The Patronus is the only spell we actually learn how to cast. (No, levio-sah doesn’t count). The time turner has limitations which allow Rowling to tell an interesting story with it.

Rowling made magic interesting for one book, and Harry became interested in magic.

Then she changed her mind.

No, I like soft magic systems when they’re good. Take Star Wars. It’s so soft. It’s so soft that when GL introduced midichlorians to try and make it hard, everyone hated it.

The Force is good because it represents a certain philosophy. It’s basically the Tao. Everything the Force can do is thematically appropriate and serves to teach us the philosophies of the Jedi, the Sith, and the other force users. The light side is harmony and believing in yourself. The dark side is domination and corruption. All the force powers support these themes and illustrate the force users embodying their philosophical beliefs in the world. Obi-Wan uses mind tricks because he believes in nonviolent misdirection. Palpatine uses lightning because he believes in ultimate power.

Rowling’s magic system means… Magic. It’s there to convince us that this fantasy world is magic. The Force can break Sanderson’s laws because it means something more than just magic. It’s philosophically consistent, and that’s more important than being internally consistent. Rowling’s magic only relates to Rowling’s magic, so it needs to be internally consistent to work. And it isn’t, so it doesn’t.

You know what? Rowling did actually follow Sanderson’s laws with one specific bit of magic. The time turner. The time turner has a very simple limitation: you cannot change the past. But, you can do things in the past that don’t change what you experienced the first time. We understand how the time turner works, and Rowling comes up with a clever way to make it work, which makes sense to us. That’s the second and first law! The time turner is well written!

And then she broke the third rule. She didn’t expand on it, she added something new in book 4 instead. So people asked “what about the time turner”, and in the next book she got mad and destroyed them all so she’d never be asked “what about the time turner” again.

Rowling wrote something really interesting that actually makes sense. And then decided she didn’t want it in her story anymore. Because Rowling doesn’t actually like writing interesting magic. And that’s why Harry and Ron aren’t very interested in magic. Rowling was never able to write a scene where a character actually geeks out about how magic works, because she doesn’t care how it works. She’s not interested.