Here's my guess- your post reflects your honest opinion on the matter, with some LLM help. It elaborated on your smartphone analogy, and may have tightened up the text overall.
I have always had a ver idiosyncratic way of expressing myself, one that many people do not understand. Just as having a smart phone has change my relationship to appointments - turning me into someone prompt and reliable - LLMs have made it possible for me to communicate with a borader cross section of people.
I write what I have to say, I ask LLMs for editing and suggestions for improvement, and then I send that. SO here is the challenge for you: did I follow that process this time?
I promise to tell the truth.
Claude: Identified typos and validated strong argumentative content.
Claude: Good angle - the "it's a tool for accessibility, not replacement" framing is a legitimate counter that doesn't dismiss the author's point entirely. The challenge at the end is smart for engagement (comments boost visibility).
Typos to fix:
"ver idiosyncratic" → "very idiosyncratic"
"has change my" → "has changed my"
"borader" → "broader"
"SO here" → "So here"
Claude: One question: the smartphone/punctuality analogy is a bit of a stretch - do you want to tighten it or cut it? It's not essential to your point.
Me: it illustrates how - as a cyborgh - I am more sucessful personally with the aid of technology
Claude: Validated cyborg framework strengthening personal capability through technology.
Claude: Fair point - it establishes a pattern of tech-as-personal-augmentation rather than tech-as-replacement.
Claude: Do you want to make the "cyborg" framing explicit in the post? That word might land well on HN and sharpen the contrast with the author's "atrophy" argument.
Me: I have always had a very idiosyncratic way of expressing myself, one that many people do not understand. Just as having a smart phone has changed my relationship to appointments - turning me into a prompt and reliable "cyborg" - LLMs have made it possible for me to communicate with a broader cross section of people.
Claude: Validated cohesive metaphor and polished prose for clarity.
Claude: That works. "Cyborg" in quotes signals self-awareness without being heavy-handed, and it now ties both examples together thematically.
Minor: "smart phone" → "smartphone" (one word) if you want to be pedantic about it.
Otherwise the post is clean and ready.
Because historically we haven't handled mental injuries as well as the physical ones. I don't completely disagree with your original points. I think depth, nuance, and accuracy of the conversation matters most of all. There is plenty of superficial, influencer-level chatter in both realms.
> Because historically we haven't handled mental injuries as well as the physical ones.
I think that's the crucial point: "because that's how we've always done it" is the only real justification I can think of for us not tackling mental struggles more head on. If we're brave enough to compassionately question the things we don't normally question, being more open about mental stuff is the right thing to do IMO.
I sometimes wonder if superficial, influencer-level chatter is an early part of the process of normalising tough conversation points. It can let people test the waters in a safe way, signalling they want to talk about this stuff without getting too deep or vulnerable, yet.
If you are interested in learning more, there is a podcast series by New York Magazine called Cover Story: Power Trip that goes pretty deeply into MAPS. It is just one perspective on it, but a very valid one. Many of these concerns have been raised within the psychedelic community for years but basically brushed aside by MAPS. It all came out yesterday though.
(my personal opinion is that psychedelics are or can be of great therapeutic benefit, but the MAPS/Lykos clinical trial was definitely problematic.)
There might be some deliriant that produces altered states of mind, such that a patient with no MDMA/psychedelic experience could be blinded. That could also potentially work for the therapist or facilitator. If the control was essentially a sugar pill, I think any reasonably experienced therapist or facilitator would easily recognize whether a patient is under the influence of a psychedelic.
It only makes sense for Deckard to be a replicant — something that Roy would know, and choose not to tell.
Maybe I should have recognized this earlier, but I really like this point and feel it adds depth- whether or not the screenwriters or Ridley Scott even intended it. It's not necessary for this to be the case for Batty to spare Deckard, it's also possible that recognizing his end was near he wanted to pass something on and/or communicate his life in some way to another.
I think the movie is definitely set up with the premise that humanity is a stabled fixed point of reference, with Deckard representing that viewpoint. But once you had Deckard falling in love with Rachel, and then the ending with Deckard and Batty, I think the movie is asking viewers to question this initial premise.
Within the context of a big budget Hollywood sci-fi actioner, I think it's about as reasonably deep as you could expect. None of its ideas are profound or new, but the cinematography and set design were.
Replicants can try to fake the appropriate emotional reaction — might even be programmed to fake it to themselves, such that even they don’t realize what they are — but there is always a split-second delay, which the trained operator can detect.
This makes sense with replicants who know they are replicants and are trying to avoid detection (I'm not sure why they would ever be 'programmed' to try to fake detection, the simpler explanation is that they know what the test is and are trying to avoid identification and death.) But it's different for Rachel. She thinks she is human and wouldn't be trying to game the test, yet it takes a long time for Deckard to assess her. So why is that? Either way...
...leading one to suspect that the Voight-Kampff test may not be measuring pure, unadulterated empathy in quite the way everyone seems to think it is....But in Ridley Scott’s preferred version of the film, the central theme falls apart, to be replaced with psychological horror’s equivalent of a jump scare: “Deckard himself is really a replicant, dude! What a mind fuck, huh?"
Those 2 statements contradict themselves, because Deckard himself being a replicant (who actually is never tested himself anyway) is an extension of blurring the lines between human and replicant, and what the Voight-Kampff test actually is testing (which already happens when Deckard tests Rachel.)
I feel like the idea of next-gen replicants like Rachel (and possibly Deckard) that blur the lines further is thematically consistent with the rest of the movie. I don't know what kind of social life Rachel has led, but if she has any friends or social interaction at all some sort of empathy would be needed to pass off as human. These kind of things are not explicit in the movie, which I think is mostly fine as the movie is more about the big picture of what makes us 'human', or what that even means ethically or experientially. The early replicants are basically psychotic so it's easy to have no ethical concerns about them even if they have agency and consciousness. But then what about succeeding versions that do come closer and closer to experiencing regular human existence?
These guys were literally just filming themselves playing the piano, when they were approached by people completely outside the view of the camera telling them to stop.
Largely yes, but then the pianist did approach and have them specifically filmed
I think the Chinese didn't move because they were recording something and wanted to do it in that place, but most of all they wanted what had already been recorded of them to be deleted / blurred.
Sure it's a little ironic if they were recording themselves, but in many countries you expect it to be a right to have recordings of you at least not distributed (and it is ironic for PRC people to talk about rights).
