Simon Paynton

I use AI for formal work assignments. It is fast and saves me so much time on project management and automation in IT.  Outside of that I use it give me a critical opinion of my own wording. It is very good at “arguing” with me and checking my reasoning. But it is always too robotic to use on it’s own. It does not write like a human would.

Funny thing though, Reg. Your first post was really readable, pulling the reader into your perspective and quite compelling.

The AI post was boring and skimmable without engaging the reader at all. I’ve rarely seen such a clear example of the gap between human and non human communication.

Thanks, Reg!!

Have a great week!!

I dropped the above last paragraph into an LLM. It returned this:

Here is a revised version that preserves your intent and tone, but sharpens the ontology and removes the last smuggled metaphors of time having “flow”:

The idea of temporal change is an evolved intuition. Human cognitive architecture developed to model the world as three spatial…[Read more]

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

A moment isn’t precious because it will be gone. It’s precious because it is what it is. In the Block Universe, time and eternity are not “things” that can be harmed.

“If there is no fundamental particle… no beginning and no end… there is no reality as we intuit.”

Yes, correct. That is exa…[Read more]

The fox guarding the henhouse and the Great Writ. Yeah, a Republic if you can keep it…..

The paramilitary murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti is exactly what arbitrary force without effective oversight looks like in practice.

Yes, it is all in the data but but the truth is likely more nuanced. States with higher percentages of evangelical Protestants, theists, and biblical literalists tend to have higher overall frequencies of Google searches for the term “porn.”

Similar work connecting religiosity and web searches found a link between state-level religiosity and sea…[Read more]

Adam Kinsinger served as a savvy and (relatively) good-hearted Republican Congressman. He and Liz Cheney had the gumption to be the only GOP to serve on the Jan 6 select committee. Kinzinger was one of ten House GOP to vote for Trump’s second impeachment.

Also taken from Wikipedia: ‘On February 4, 2022, the Republican National Committee called…[Read more]

WHOA! This is something to remember! I hope Trump stays up all night on social media for this gem…

The rationale switched from Theological irrationality to Pseudoscientific irrationality.

Yes, that is a good point and a good distinction. I agree that Classical liberalism did not generate antisemitism. It was probably a 1,000 years too late for that. Classical liberalism attacked the fusion of church and state and religious privilege or legal…[Read more]

Yikes, here I am, late to the party!

Thanks, Reg!!

Have a great week!!

Modify Youtube Short’s URL to provide a thumbnail from the link

Abridged explanation: Change “shorts” in the URL to “v“.

I don’t know if it works every time, but it has worked in all of my tests. Also, since my instructions came from AI and not Youtube, I imagine this method could be deprecated by Youtube at any time. Please let me know if/when…[Read more]

right-click “Copy video URL” from a short:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/bj7TATbpZsI?feature=share

right-click “Copy embed code”:
<iframe width=”151″ height=”268″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/bj7TATbpZsI” title=”LOVE TO BE LOVED 6.02.26 ❤️‍🔥The Warning x Carín León” frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; e…[Read more]