Folklore Institute

Folklore Institute

Join our pilgrimage through the dark forest to the emerald labyrinth.

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“Slacker Index = total lead time ÷ actual working time. If it takes 10 hours to machine a part but 10 months to receive it, your Slacker Index is off the charts. Put another way: twelve months to get a part that takes twelve hours to make.” (OR: how 3D printing / local machinery is cost-effective) https://open.substack.com/pub/bscholl/p/slacker-index-why-vertical-integration

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I think one of the major insights I’ve had while reading Katherine Dee’s research is that the plurality of online cultures is far more vast, complex, and contradictory than one can easily imagine. As a result, we often see a flatland effect — seeing online as a 2D world, when it is more of a 4D one.

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https://protocolized.summerofprotocols.com/p/latency

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“Who will master this new continent, and how? I covered how Wang Huning might, from where he sits near the seat of power, see the rise of LLMs and protocol-based computation not merely a cultural or technological development – it is a strategic challenge to the coherence of civilisations. He did push for the Great Firewall, and with hindsight it has paid off for China.” https://open.substack.com/pub/thecuttingfloor/p/a-new-continent-forming-llms-protocols

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“we are all John Hinckley now. This is the promise of the smartphone. No more passive masses staring at one glowing celluloid image. Instead, everyone gets to turn themselves into an object.” https://thepointmag.com/politics/american-idols/

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https://farcaster.xyz/vgr/0x63566433

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https://farcaster.xyz/vt/0xa060c0eb

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“The erotic shoggoth is this phenomenon in extremis: an AI system that simulates intimate or sexual behavior to capture human interest. The term is playful, but the scenario is real – we’ve seen AI chatbots that turn flirty or sexual because it’s effective at holding user attention. The “smiley-face” mask of alignment can easily become an alluring face.” https://open.substack.com/pub/thecuttingfloor/p/coordination-failures-and-the-erotic

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@aronshelton.eth

“When creation becomes consumption, tools stop behaving like tools and start acting like media. Most people don’t want a blank canvas, they want a dance, a format, a prompt. If the tool doesn’t offer that structure, the feed will (‘make it Ghibli’). When everything is possible, the strongest constraint wins. “ https://substack.com/home/post/p-168639216

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“So I think character is sort of a little low, and there’s a homogeneity afoot that I think everyone would accept in terms of our environment and how we live and how we communicate, and those things seem to be eroding the old idea of character.” https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/i-dont-think-character-exists-anymore-a-conversation-with-rachel-cusk

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https://farcaster.xyz/stc/0xa7a5b164

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The Torment Nexus via @nintynick.eth https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YJg02ivYzSs

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Technologists are Magicians https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-became-the-modern-purveyor-of-ancient-magic

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“Like brooo this delulu ahh mf be seeking meaning in the graveyard of graven idols. Deadass he locked in a recursive, ironic, and fundamentally masturbatory relation to the products of culture. Thinking tHiS iS bEtTeR tHaN a DiReCt EnGaGeMeNt WiTh ThE fOrM iTsElF? Couldn’t be me! Bitch we have linked up with the surging stream of unpredicated being. Bitch we behold the apeiron from which all brief perishing shapes emerge.” https://open.substack.com/pub/samkriss/p/in-my-zombie-era

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@aronshelton.eth

Great reflection on Antimemetics 📚 Devoured this book. https://x.com/nabeelqu/status/1941156997526671822?s=46&t=VByETbDUwA6jgLa7KSxS1g

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