Today’s links Linkty Dumpty: Things I thought about when I was supposed to be on holidays. This day in history: 2003, 2008, 2013, 2018 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading Linkty Dumpty (permalink) I was supposed to be on vacation, and while I didn’t do any blogging for a month, that didn’t mean that I stopped looking at my distraction rectangle and making a list of things I wanted to write about. Consequentially, the link backlog is massive, so it’s time to declare bankruptcy with another linkdump: https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/ Let’s kick things off with a little graphic whimsy. You’ve doubtless seen the endless Trolley Problem memes, working from the same crude line drawings? Well, philosopher John Holbo got tired of that artwork, and he whomped up a fantastic alternative, which you can get as a poster, duvet, sticker, tee, etc: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/145078097 The trolley problem has been with us since 1967, but it’s enjoying a renaissance thanks to the insistence of “AI” weirdos that it is very relevant to our AI debate. A few years back, you could impress uninformed people by dropping the Trolley Problem into a discussion: https://memex.craphound.com/2016/10/25/mercedes-weird-trolley-problem-announcement-continues-dumb-debate-about-self-driving-cars/ Amazingly, the “AI” debate has only gotten more tedious since the middle of the past decade. But every now and again, someone gets a stochastic parrot to do something genuinely delightful, like the Jolly Roger Telephone Company, who sell chatbots that will pretend to be tantalyzingly confused marks in order to tie up telemarketers and waste their time:…Pluralistic: Linkty Dumpty (15 July 2023)