scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/3f2mfs.md

## Muse. Rational horror from Alicorn.

* Author: u/thesteamboat *
* URL: http://alicorn.elcenia.com/stories/muse.shtml
* Score: 59

* Created: 2015-07-29T20:14:41

### Post:

[Link to content](http://alicorn.elcenia.com/stories/muse.shtml)

### Comments:

> **u/AmyWarlock** [+10]  (6 hours later)
> 
> Holy shit, that last line... how do 5 words make that so much more horrifying

> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+18]  *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (21 minutes later)
> 
> That was the best rational horror I've seen here yet and now I want to unread it.

>> **u/None** [+2]  (a day later)
>> 
>> Yeah, I'm not sure if I can forget this story whenever I'm doing art. Especially after I've made this post.

> **u/gonight** [+13]  *i shouldn't be allowed to change my own flair* (2 hours later)
> 
> >This can't be too bad, I'll read this with lunch.
> 
> >...
> 
> >Jesus fucking christ.

> **u/blazinghand** [+12]  *Chaos Undivided* (45 minutes later)
> 
> Somehow, having read this, I feel that no Rational Horror will be the same. Maybe I can write something, though...

> **u/Gurkenglas** [+4]  (10 hours later)
> 
> I thought they'd already fucked up when their reaction to the first radio music was described. When they report back, they should first figure out whether the infection spreads physically or memetically.

>> **u/IWantUsToMerge** [+2]  (11 hours later)
>> 
>> I think at that point they no longer cared. They probably wanted their ugly old planet to be laid waste to by the infection.

> **u/Empiricist_or_not** [+3]  *Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm* (4 hours later)
> 
> . . . Alicorn you magnificent bastard.

> **u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer** [+7]  *Utopian Smut Peddler* (10 hours later)
> 
> Reddit has long been a hot spot for conversation on the internet. About 57 million people visit the site every day to chat about topics as varied as makeup, video games and pointers for power washing driveways.
> 
> In recent years, Reddit’s array of chats also have been a free teaching aid for companies like Google, OpenAI and Microsoft. Those companies are using Reddit’s conversations in the development of giant artificial intelligence systems that many in Silicon Valley think are on their way to becoming the tech industry’s next big thing.
> 
> Now Reddit wants to be paid for it. The company said on Tuesday that it planned to begin charging companies for access to its application programming interface, or A.P.I., the method through which outside entities can download and process the social network’s vast selection of person-to-person conversations.
> 
> “The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable,” Steve Huffman, founder and chief executive of Reddit, said in an interview. “But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.”
> 
> The move is one of the first significant examples of a social network’s charging for access to the conversations it hosts for the purpose of developing A.I. systems like ChatGPT, OpenAI’s popular program. Those new A.I. systems could one day lead to big businesses, but they aren’t likely to help companies like Reddit very much. In fact, they could be used to create competitors — automated duplicates to Reddit’s conversations.
> 
> Reddit is also acting as it prepares for a possible initial public offering on Wall Street this year. The company, which was founded in 2005, makes most of its money through advertising and e-commerce transactions on its platform. Reddit said it was still ironing out the details of what it would charge for A.P.I. access and would announce prices in the coming weeks.
> 
> Reddit’s conversation forums have become valuable commodities as large language models, or L.L.M.s, have become an essential part of creating new A.I. technology.
> 
> L.L.M.s are essentially sophisticated algorithms developed by companies like Google and OpenAI, which is a close partner of Microsoft. To the algorithms, the Reddit conversations are data, and they are among the vast pool of material being fed into the L.L.M.s. to develop them.

>> **u/None** [+4]  (10 hours later)
>> 
>> I felt this way about Luminosity. "We have quibbles with the current leadership so we're going to happily [Entire story denouement](#s "crown Empress and submit to the woman whose top rule is that we have to eat nothing but Soylent or spoiled Soylent for the next several years at least!") Yeah, no. Never happen.

>>> **u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer** [+8]  *Utopian Smut Peddler* (12 hours later)
>>> 
>>> Reddit has long been a hot spot for conversation on the internet. About 57 million people visit the site every day to chat about topics as varied as makeup, video games and pointers for power washing driveways.
>>> 
>>> In recent years, Reddit’s array of chats also have been a free teaching aid for companies like Google, OpenAI and Microsoft. Those companies are using Reddit’s conversations in the development of giant artificial intelligence systems that many in Silicon Valley think are on their way to becoming the tech industry’s next big thing.
>>> 
>>> Now Reddit wants to be paid for it. The company said on Tuesday that it planned to begin charging companies for access to its application programming interface, or A.P.I., the method through which outside entities can download and process the social network’s vast selection of person-to-person conversations.
>>> 
>>> “The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable,” Steve Huffman, founder and chief executive of Reddit, said in an interview. “But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.”
>>> 
>>> The move is one of the first significant examples of a social network’s charging for access to the conversations it hosts for the purpose of developing A.I. systems like ChatGPT, OpenAI’s popular program. Those new A.I. systems could one day lead to big businesses, but they aren’t likely to help companies like Reddit very much. In fact, they could be used to create competitors — automated duplicates to Reddit’s conversations.
>>> 
>>> Reddit is also acting as it prepares for a possible initial public offering on Wall Street this year. The company, which was founded in 2005, makes most of its money through advertising and e-commerce transactions on its platform. Reddit said it was still ironing out the details of what it would charge for A.P.I. access and would announce prices in the coming weeks.
>>> 
>>> Reddit’s conversation forums have become valuable commodities as large language models, or L.L.M.s, have become an essential part of creating new A.I. technology.
>>> 
>>> L.L.M.s are essentially sophisticated algorithms developed by companies like Google and OpenAI, which is a close partner of Microsoft. To the algorithms, the Reddit conversations are data, and they are among the vast pool of material being fed into the L.L.M.s. to develop them.

>>>> **u/LuminousAlicorn** [+14]  (2 days later)
>>>> 
>>>> I think some people expect literally everything I write to be rationalist fiction.  Most of it isn't.  Muse isn't.  I don't mind it being posted here because the audiences empirically overlap quite a bit, but I'm not doing that every time I write anything.  Thank you for appreciating the story for the not-rationalist-fiction that it is :)

>>>>> **u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer** [+5]  *Utopian Smut Peddler* (2 days later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Reddit has long been a hot spot for conversation on the internet. About 57 million people visit the site every day to chat about topics as varied as makeup, video games and pointers for power washing driveways.
>>>>> 
>>>>> In recent years, Reddit’s array of chats also have been a free teaching aid for companies like Google, OpenAI and Microsoft. Those companies are using Reddit’s conversations in the development of giant artificial intelligence systems that many in Silicon Valley think are on their way to becoming the tech industry’s next big thing.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Now Reddit wants to be paid for it. The company said on Tuesday that it planned to begin charging companies for access to its application programming interface, or A.P.I., the method through which outside entities can download and process the social network’s vast selection of person-to-person conversations.
>>>>> 
>>>>> “The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable,” Steve Huffman, founder and chief executive of Reddit, said in an interview. “But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.”
>>>>> 
>>>>> The move is one of the first significant examples of a social network’s charging for access to the conversations it hosts for the purpose of developing A.I. systems like ChatGPT, OpenAI’s popular program. Those new A.I. systems could one day lead to big businesses, but they aren’t likely to help companies like Reddit very much. In fact, they could be used to create competitors — automated duplicates to Reddit’s conversations.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Reddit is also acting as it prepares for a possible initial public offering on Wall Street this year. The company, which was founded in 2005, makes most of its money through advertising and e-commerce transactions on its platform. Reddit said it was still ironing out the details of what it would charge for A.P.I. access and would announce prices in the coming weeks.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Reddit’s conversation forums have become valuable commodities as large language models, or L.L.M.s, have become an essential part of creating new A.I. technology.
>>>>> 
>>>>> L.L.M.s are essentially sophisticated algorithms developed by companies like Google and OpenAI, which is a close partner of Microsoft. To the algorithms, the Reddit conversations are data, and they are among the vast pool of material being fed into the L.L.M.s. to develop them.

>>>> **u/IomKg** [+2]  (17 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> I don't think rational scifi has to be "hard" scifi, which is implied by your robots question.
>>>> 
>>>> The fact that they don't use robots doesnt -really- detract from the rationality.
>>>> It could be explained simply by them not having the tech, and yeah its possible for a world to exist where they have FTL but not robots. Not to mention that it is a diplomatic mission in practice so they might not be able to use it as it would offend their hosts.
>>>> 
>>>> And I think similar things could be said about most of your other points. meaning, I don't think they are the causes for this to not be rational.
>>>> 
>>>> Having said all of this i do agree that the story is not really rational, even though it is generally nice. 
>>>> The reason for me is simply that the characters themselves did not act rationally. which is more abstract, but I think going into the specifics is not the solution in this case, because any of the specifics (why wasnt this a military mission could have easily been "solved" by having one of the people mention how "this mission really should have been a military mission, if not for colony politics we should have gotten much better protection" or something similar)
>>>> 
>>>> But as a whole there are too many small points which when combined prevent this from being "rational" in my eyes..

>>>>> **u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer** [+2]  *Utopian Smut Peddler* (a day later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Reddit has long been a hot spot for conversation on the internet. About 57 million people visit the site every day to chat about topics as varied as makeup, video games and pointers for power washing driveways.
>>>>> 
>>>>> In recent years, Reddit’s array of chats also have been a free teaching aid for companies like Google, OpenAI and Microsoft. Those companies are using Reddit’s conversations in the development of giant artificial intelligence systems that many in Silicon Valley think are on their way to becoming the tech industry’s next big thing.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Now Reddit wants to be paid for it. The company said on Tuesday that it planned to begin charging companies for access to its application programming interface, or A.P.I., the method through which outside entities can download and process the social network’s vast selection of person-to-person conversations.
>>>>> 
>>>>> “The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable,” Steve Huffman, founder and chief executive of Reddit, said in an interview. “But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.”
>>>>> 
>>>>> The move is one of the first significant examples of a social network’s charging for access to the conversations it hosts for the purpose of developing A.I. systems like ChatGPT, OpenAI’s popular program. Those new A.I. systems could one day lead to big businesses, but they aren’t likely to help companies like Reddit very much. In fact, they could be used to create competitors — automated duplicates to Reddit’s conversations.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Reddit is also acting as it prepares for a possible initial public offering on Wall Street this year. The company, which was founded in 2005, makes most of its money through advertising and e-commerce transactions on its platform. Reddit said it was still ironing out the details of what it would charge for A.P.I. access and would announce prices in the coming weeks.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Reddit’s conversation forums have become valuable commodities as large language models, or L.L.M.s, have become an essential part of creating new A.I. technology.
>>>>> 
>>>>> L.L.M.s are essentially sophisticated algorithms developed by companies like Google and OpenAI, which is a close partner of Microsoft. To the algorithms, the Reddit conversations are data, and they are among the vast pool of material being fed into the L.L.M.s. to develop them.

>>>>>> **u/IomKg** [+2]  (a day later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> i may not have explained myself properly, what i meant was that all of these things could have been solved relatively easily without significantly effecting anything important in the story.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> nothing would have changed if the author added "if not for those stupid politicians" or "if only we had time to charge the robots to send them instead", other than the fact that we could be assured that the author thought about those things.
>>>>>> so yes, we would know the author was aware of those points and decided to make a story where they wouldnt be relevant.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> but nothing in the story would change significantly.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On the other hand my problem with the many small irrationalities is that without them the story would just not be the same, i.e. it would not be possible to get the same horror.

>>>>>>> **u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer** [+2]  *Utopian Smut Peddler* (a day later)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Reddit has long been a hot spot for conversation on the internet. About 57 million people visit the site every day to chat about topics as varied as makeup, video games and pointers for power washing driveways.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> In recent years, Reddit’s array of chats also have been a free teaching aid for companies like Google, OpenAI and Microsoft. Those companies are using Reddit’s conversations in the development of giant artificial intelligence systems that many in Silicon Valley think are on their way to becoming the tech industry’s next big thing.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Now Reddit wants to be paid for it. The company said on Tuesday that it planned to begin charging companies for access to its application programming interface, or A.P.I., the method through which outside entities can download and process the social network’s vast selection of person-to-person conversations.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> “The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable,” Steve Huffman, founder and chief executive of Reddit, said in an interview. “But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.”
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> The move is one of the first significant examples of a social network’s charging for access to the conversations it hosts for the purpose of developing A.I. systems like ChatGPT, OpenAI’s popular program. Those new A.I. systems could one day lead to big businesses, but they aren’t likely to help companies like Reddit very much. In fact, they could be used to create competitors — automated duplicates to Reddit’s conversations.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Reddit is also acting as it prepares for a possible initial public offering on Wall Street this year. The company, which was founded in 2005, makes most of its money through advertising and e-commerce transactions on its platform. Reddit said it was still ironing out the details of what it would charge for A.P.I. access and would announce prices in the coming weeks.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Reddit’s conversation forums have become valuable commodities as large language models, or L.L.M.s, have become an essential part of creating new A.I. technology.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> L.L.M.s are essentially sophisticated algorithms developed by companies like Google and OpenAI, which is a close partner of Microsoft. To the algorithms, the Reddit conversations are data, and they are among the vast pool of material being fed into the L.L.M.s. to develop them.

>>>>>>>> **u/IomKg** [+1]  (a day later)
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> No problem, i don't mind confrontations in the first place, and it mostly seemed to me like you were passionate regarding the topic..

>>>>>> **u/thesteamboat** [+1]  (2 days later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> > > It could be explained simply
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> > Then why wasn't it? We're not talking about the story you're telling yourself about this story, but what was actually written.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I'm not sure I agree with this point. Let me stretch to a mathematical analogy, namely the distinction between consistent and complete. Most of what you're arguing is that the world building isn't complete. You point to a bunch of things and say "I think that needs further justification." The world building hasn't answered everything.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On the other hand, the story is certainly consistent with everyone acting as normal, intelligent people (at least, prior to muse exposure). That is, for each of your objections you can come up with simple, plausible extensions to the text that would answer them. 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> > Muse doesn't fit together at all, even when a few words would have fixed the problem. 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> To me this seems bizarre. I care not a whit for completeness, only for consistency. Again, this is the difference between a character who is an idiot and a character holding the idiot ball -- holding the idiot ball means that the world (in particular, the offending character) is inconsistent. In contrast, a character who is dumb isn't bad writing, it's just a character who's stupid.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Full disclaimer: I think that, as descriptors, rational and rationalist are not particularly meaningful. I chose the title as I did to parallel last week's contest.

>>>>>>> **u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer** [+3]  *Utopian Smut Peddler* (2 days later)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Reddit has long been a hot spot for conversation on the internet. About 57 million people visit the site every day to chat about topics as varied as makeup, video games and pointers for power washing driveways.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> In recent years, Reddit’s array of chats also have been a free teaching aid for companies like Google, OpenAI and Microsoft. Those companies are using Reddit’s conversations in the development of giant artificial intelligence systems that many in Silicon Valley think are on their way to becoming the tech industry’s next big thing.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Now Reddit wants to be paid for it. The company said on Tuesday that it planned to begin charging companies for access to its application programming interface, or A.P.I., the method through which outside entities can download and process the social network’s vast selection of person-to-person conversations.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> “The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable,” Steve Huffman, founder and chief executive of Reddit, said in an interview. “But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.”
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> The move is one of the first significant examples of a social network’s charging for access to the conversations it hosts for the purpose of developing A.I. systems like ChatGPT, OpenAI’s popular program. Those new A.I. systems could one day lead to big businesses, but they aren’t likely to help companies like Reddit very much. In fact, they could be used to create competitors — automated duplicates to Reddit’s conversations.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Reddit is also acting as it prepares for a possible initial public offering on Wall Street this year. The company, which was founded in 2005, makes most of its money through advertising and e-commerce transactions on its platform. Reddit said it was still ironing out the details of what it would charge for A.P.I. access and would announce prices in the coming weeks.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Reddit’s conversation forums have become valuable commodities as large language models, or L.L.M.s, have become an essential part of creating new A.I. technology.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> L.L.M.s are essentially sophisticated algorithms developed by companies like Google and OpenAI, which is a close partner of Microsoft. To the algorithms, the Reddit conversations are data, and they are among the vast pool of material being fed into the L.L.M.s. to develop them.

>>>>>>>> **u/ContessaPlots** [+2]  (6 days later)
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> >commonly held definitions 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> This subreddit has fewer than 4,000 net members. 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Of those, even fewer fully agree with the definition put forth for *rational* and *rationalist fiction*, as can be seen every time this argument comes up. The people who agree with your views make up not even a *significant-sized minority* of rationalists around the world.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> I'm not sure where you got the idea that this relatively puny subreddit has the end-all be-all say on what rational fiction is, especially when so many other people, such as /u/thesteamboat, clearly have differing views on it.

>>>> **u/nerdguy1138** [+2]  *GNU Terry Pratchett* (4 days later)
>>>> 
>>>> Holy shit, somebody finally lampshades the lack robotic probes!!!
>>>> Thank you, fellow Redditor.

>>>>> **u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer** [+4]  *Utopian Smut Peddler* (4 days later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Reddit has long been a hot spot for conversation on the internet. About 57 million people visit the site every day to chat about topics as varied as makeup, video games and pointers for power washing driveways.
>>>>> 
>>>>> In recent years, Reddit’s array of chats also have been a free teaching aid for companies like Google, OpenAI and Microsoft. Those companies are using Reddit’s conversations in the development of giant artificial intelligence systems that many in Silicon Valley think are on their way to becoming the tech industry’s next big thing.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Now Reddit wants to be paid for it. The company said on Tuesday that it planned to begin charging companies for access to its application programming interface, or A.P.I., the method through which outside entities can download and process the social network’s vast selection of person-to-person conversations.
>>>>> 
>>>>> “The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable,” Steve Huffman, founder and chief executive of Reddit, said in an interview. “But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.”
>>>>> 
>>>>> The move is one of the first significant examples of a social network’s charging for access to the conversations it hosts for the purpose of developing A.I. systems like ChatGPT, OpenAI’s popular program. Those new A.I. systems could one day lead to big businesses, but they aren’t likely to help companies like Reddit very much. In fact, they could be used to create competitors — automated duplicates to Reddit’s conversations.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Reddit is also acting as it prepares for a possible initial public offering on Wall Street this year. The company, which was founded in 2005, makes most of its money through advertising and e-commerce transactions on its platform. Reddit said it was still ironing out the details of what it would charge for A.P.I. access and would announce prices in the coming weeks.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Reddit’s conversation forums have become valuable commodities as large language models, or L.L.M.s, have become an essential part of creating new A.I. technology.
>>>>> 
>>>>> L.L.M.s are essentially sophisticated algorithms developed by companies like Google and OpenAI, which is a close partner of Microsoft. To the algorithms, the Reddit conversations are data, and they are among the vast pool of material being fed into the L.L.M.s. to develop them.

>>> **u/iemfi** [+2]  (12 hours later)
>>> 
>>> I thought it was more [](#s "do it or get ripped to shreds, combined with her being really powerful after the victory and super powers being rare.").

>> **u/iemfi** [+4]  (12 hours later)
>> 
>> What exactly do you check for? Obviously there are going to be all sorts of strange viruses and bacteria floating around, surely you can't possibly check all of them in any sane amount of time. Also you have many humans already breathing the air with no ill effect.

>>> **u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer** [+4]  *Utopian Smut Peddler* (12 hours later)
>>> 
>>> Reddit has long been a hot spot for conversation on the internet. About 57 million people visit the site every day to chat about topics as varied as makeup, video games and pointers for power washing driveways.
>>> 
>>> In recent years, Reddit’s array of chats also have been a free teaching aid for companies like Google, OpenAI and Microsoft. Those companies are using Reddit’s conversations in the development of giant artificial intelligence systems that many in Silicon Valley think are on their way to becoming the tech industry’s next big thing.
>>> 
>>> Now Reddit wants to be paid for it. The company said on Tuesday that it planned to begin charging companies for access to its application programming interface, or A.P.I., the method through which outside entities can download and process the social network’s vast selection of person-to-person conversations.
>>> 
>>> “The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable,” Steve Huffman, founder and chief executive of Reddit, said in an interview. “But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.”
>>> 
>>> The move is one of the first significant examples of a social network’s charging for access to the conversations it hosts for the purpose of developing A.I. systems like ChatGPT, OpenAI’s popular program. Those new A.I. systems could one day lead to big businesses, but they aren’t likely to help companies like Reddit very much. In fact, they could be used to create competitors — automated duplicates to Reddit’s conversations.
>>> 
>>> Reddit is also acting as it prepares for a possible initial public offering on Wall Street this year. The company, which was founded in 2005, makes most of its money through advertising and e-commerce transactions on its platform. Reddit said it was still ironing out the details of what it would charge for A.P.I. access and would announce prices in the coming weeks.
>>> 
>>> Reddit’s conversation forums have become valuable commodities as large language models, or L.L.M.s, have become an essential part of creating new A.I. technology.
>>> 
>>> L.L.M.s are essentially sophisticated algorithms developed by companies like Google and OpenAI, which is a close partner of Microsoft. To the algorithms, the Reddit conversations are data, and they are among the vast pool of material being fed into the L.L.M.s. to develop them.

>>>> **u/iemfi** [+4]  (12 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> You wouldn't use a transporter? Oh boy, this discussion is going to end badly. 
>>>> 
>>>> The question is how exactly do you "account" for alien biology? Iterate through all the chemicals it produces one by one? Without future tech this is a bastard case. If you had to come up with quarantine protocols with current day tech it would probably just involve a lot of rats and monkeys.

>>>>> **u/philip1201** [+3]  (14 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> If you can't determine with reasonable **e:**certainty whether you are spreading an incredibly deadly plague by doing a thing, don't do that thing. It might take an annoying amount of effort to not get killed, but that doesn't mean you should just go and get killed.

>>>>>> **u/iemfi** [+3]  (14 hours later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I think worrying about a memetic virus is taking the precautionary principle way too far. The prior is so low that you won't be able to do much of anything else (driving a car, etc.).

>>>>>>> **u/philip1201** [+3]  (22 hours later)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> For someone who dismisses memetic viruses as a plausible explanation you're remarkably quick to assume it to be the actual explanation. Other than the symptoms being weird for a biochemical virus there's no evidence that I picked up for the virus being memetic.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Regardless, they failed biochemical safety procedures. If it had been a normal flu, they would have died just as surely as they did now.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Note: I'm assuming you mean "virus transmitted by information exchange between minds" when you say "memetic virus". If you merely mean a biological virus which affects the mind, I don't get your point at all.

>>>>>>>> **u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer** [+3]  *Utopian Smut Peddler* (a day later)
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Reddit has long been a hot spot for conversation on the internet. About 57 million people visit the site every day to chat about topics as varied as makeup, video games and pointers for power washing driveways.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> In recent years, Reddit’s array of chats also have been a free teaching aid for companies like Google, OpenAI and Microsoft. Those companies are using Reddit’s conversations in the development of giant artificial intelligence systems that many in Silicon Valley think are on their way to becoming the tech industry’s next big thing.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Now Reddit wants to be paid for it. The company said on Tuesday that it planned to begin charging companies for access to its application programming interface, or A.P.I., the method through which outside entities can download and process the social network’s vast selection of person-to-person conversations.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> “The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable,” Steve Huffman, founder and chief executive of Reddit, said in an interview. “But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.”
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> The move is one of the first significant examples of a social network’s charging for access to the conversations it hosts for the purpose of developing A.I. systems like ChatGPT, OpenAI’s popular program. Those new A.I. systems could one day lead to big businesses, but they aren’t likely to help companies like Reddit very much. In fact, they could be used to create competitors — automated duplicates to Reddit’s conversations.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Reddit is also acting as it prepares for a possible initial public offering on Wall Street this year. The company, which was founded in 2005, makes most of its money through advertising and e-commerce transactions on its platform. Reddit said it was still ironing out the details of what it would charge for A.P.I. access and would announce prices in the coming weeks.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Reddit’s conversation forums have become valuable commodities as large language models, or L.L.M.s, have become an essential part of creating new A.I. technology.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> L.L.M.s are essentially sophisticated algorithms developed by companies like Google and OpenAI, which is a close partner of Microsoft. To the algorithms, the Reddit conversations are data, and they are among the vast pool of material being fed into the L.L.M.s. to develop them.

>>>>>>>> **u/iemfi** [+2]  (a day later)
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> I meant a virus which somehow alters the mind in a way that isn't distinguishable from the victims just having a different culture and which the victims eventually aren't aware about. There's just no precedence for a sickness like that. 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> I assume they just did the normal "Have you been sick any time in the past 2 weeks" procedure for things like a normal flu. I mean some amount of trust is required right, the colony could easily have just shot them out of the sky and they could easily just have bombed the colony from orbit. It's a trade off between safety and getting the most diplomatic stuff done in their mission.

>>>>>>>>> **u/philip1201** [+2]  (a day later)
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> They asked that while shopping for baubles, chatting with curators and walking down the street? Have the Musicians eliminated disease? Never mind that basic quarantine procedures (already standard for internationally travelling pets) would have reduced casualties to one. 
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> Not that there's a reason to land, mind you. The ship's comparative advantage is creating warp conduits, not sightseeing, and after their mission travelling to Muse (or high orbit above Muse) is 'as simple as travelling to another continent'. So what if the mission is slower, the fate of planets is on the line.

>>>>>>> **u/Sagebrysh** [+2]  *Rank 7 Pragmatist* (a day later)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Who's to say it's memetic? It could very well have been a local environmental agent that interacted in weird ways with human biology.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Of course they never even seemed to bother looking into that in the period after they noticed they were infected and before they descended into lunacy.

>>>>>>>> **u/iemfi** [+1]  (a day later)
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Yeah, but either way it's worrying about something which affects the mind in a weird way right. Like saying we shouldn't drill into the Antarctic ice in case we unleash a zombie virus.

>>>>>> **u/nerdguy1138** [+2]  *GNU Terry Pratchett* (4 days later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Congratulations, you are now O5-1 of the Foundation.

>>>>>> **u/Transfuturist** [+1]  *Carthago delenda est.* (a day later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> > If you can't determine with reasonable whether you are spreading an incredibly deadly plague by doing a thing, don't do that thing.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Sounds way beyond NP-complete to me.

>>>>> **u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer** [-2]  *Utopian Smut Peddler* (13 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Reddit has long been a hot spot for conversation on the internet. About 57 million people visit the site every day to chat about topics as varied as makeup, video games and pointers for power washing driveways.
>>>>> 
>>>>> In recent years, Reddit’s array of chats also have been a free teaching aid for companies like Google, OpenAI and Microsoft. Those companies are using Reddit’s conversations in the development of giant artificial intelligence systems that many in Silicon Valley think are on their way to becoming the tech industry’s next big thing.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Now Reddit wants to be paid for it. The company said on Tuesday that it planned to begin charging companies for access to its application programming interface, or A.P.I., the method through which outside entities can download and process the social network’s vast selection of person-to-person conversations.
>>>>> 
>>>>> “The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable,” Steve Huffman, founder and chief executive of Reddit, said in an interview. “But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.”
>>>>> 
>>>>> The move is one of the first significant examples of a social network’s charging for access to the conversations it hosts for the purpose of developing A.I. systems like ChatGPT, OpenAI’s popular program. Those new A.I. systems could one day lead to big businesses, but they aren’t likely to help companies like Reddit very much. In fact, they could be used to create competitors — automated duplicates to Reddit’s conversations.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Reddit is also acting as it prepares for a possible initial public offering on Wall Street this year. The company, which was founded in 2005, makes most of its money through advertising and e-commerce transactions on its platform. Reddit said it was still ironing out the details of what it would charge for A.P.I. access and would announce prices in the coming weeks.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Reddit’s conversation forums have become valuable commodities as large language models, or L.L.M.s, have become an essential part of creating new A.I. technology.
>>>>> 
>>>>> L.L.M.s are essentially sophisticated algorithms developed by companies like Google and OpenAI, which is a close partner of Microsoft. To the algorithms, the Reddit conversations are data, and they are among the vast pool of material being fed into the L.L.M.s. to develop them.

>>>>>> **u/iemfi** [-1]  (14 hours later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> No need to explain it here, you should find a job in drug research quickly. You'll make billions easily if you put your method to use finding new drugs.

> **u/thedarkone47** [+2]  (7 hours later)
> 
> It's been a while since something this short left me this speechless.

> **u/Sagebrysh** [+1]  *Rank 7 Pragmatist* (7 hours later)
> 
> well this handily blows away anything I've written lately.

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