I’m no neuroscientist (just a regular scientist who happens to know a little about neurology). But those quotes are entirely speculation. Dealing first with the premise of the comic:

(1) The comic has the chip loading arbitrary memories into a person’s brain. In order to do that, we would have to have a total map of the person’s brain and then craft a memory that fits into it. The processing power and the number of interconnections to have a total map are entirely in the realm of science fiction for the foreseeable future. Neuralink is advertising 1024 electrodes. To pull this off you would need trillions of electrodes.

(2) Furthermore, you’d need to have a computer craft the precise stimulus response mapped to an individuals unique neural network – that would mean that a computer will have had to completely decode their entire brain and memories first, or at a minimum be able to simulate their entire brain. And then run a bunch of forward models trying to fit the new data into the existing data in a seamless way. Yes, theoretically possible given infinite computing power, but not actually practical.

(3) The first two require major leaps in technology beyond neuralink itself. Probably you’re looking at borg style nano-machines in order to pull off this level of neural integration and the processing power to map, understand, and model an entire brain (NVIDIA isn’t going to cut it, even projecting Moore’s law decades down the road).

(4) In conclusion, Elon will never be able to pull this off the comic before he dies.

Now, if you assume Elon is extrapolating into the far future.

(5) saving and replaying memories might be easier, because you don’t have to map and entire brain (just a section), and you don’t have to model the brain to create the memory – just restimulate the same neurons. This is probable, with or without Neuralink, as a technological advancement in probably decades.

(6) Likewise, copying an existing brain into a new or simulated brain is easier than injecting a memory into an existing brain. You’d still need to have another “blank brain” as a host (whatever form that entails), and you’d need enough data from your real brain to make the copy (well, that brings us back to items 2&3). This is probable, with or without Neuralink, as a technological advancement in probably centuries.

Neither 5 nor 6 help with the premise of the comic. But I suppose if we have the tech to do (6) in a few centuries, we could probably have the computing power to model new memories on an individual basis too.

Elon will be dead by then.

The problem with the comic’s premise is that Neuralink doesn’t do memories at all. It’s more like a replacement for a keyboard and mouse.

But sure, I guess: never pass up a cheap shot on Elon ;)

warshter

Look at those smiling eyes!

Probably the money paid for whomever Alex Jones lost lawsuits against – so like Sandy Hook victims.

The perspective on this one keeps throwing me off. That cat feels like a tiger in this photo.

Shakes magic 8-ball

No, but the blanket style is. ;)

I got it decades ago from my grandfather, who could very well have bought it from a random truck stop or something.

Weird. I don’t remember eating that…

Everything else went up due to tariffs

Canadian observer. Two things, and I think they’re related effects.

Harris is a minority and a woman. The Democrats were convinced they were the party that minorities would automatically vote for. But what they failed to realize was that those same minorities are misogynistic as hell. Like, have you ever been to a Baptist wedding? If you ask them what the role of a woman is…

The US is also the only first world country where the birthrate is above replacement. But if you look at who are having children, you’ll find that it skews conservative. And they’re passing those values along.

Does it matter if they don’t honour the patents of the rest of the world?

Unpopular opinion (largely discredited in anthropology circles): cold weather encourages resourceful behaviour and improves human cooperation. In climates where you can survive winter outdoors, homelessness is not as detrimental to continued existence. Three walls and no roof is fine in a slum in Florida, but harder to pull off in Minneapolis.

This societal coordination which is required to survive winter leads to more orderly and more socialist civilizations. Because hairless apes have no business being in that climate. So it is human ingenuity that is selected for – and that includes development of systems of cooperation.

If I extrapolate, our space faring descendants will face much bigger hurdles, but ideally will develop even better systems to deal with it.

Bonus picture. Me doing arctic exploration.

Counterpoint: Sometimes you can kickstart a community that you want to see just by consistently posting content. !science_memes@mander.xyz is my favourite example – it was essentially one person who created that entire community (and it’s since been diversifying somewhat – at least there’s traction in the comments).

But to reinforce your point: I did !spacemusic@lemmy.ca and tried to do the same thing, but it sort of petered out. But it’s way way more niche.

Rome wasn’t built in a day. Just engage with the content you like and build some places for content you’d like to see.

Excerpt from Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood:

“This is the latest,” said Crake.

What they were looking at was a large bulblike object that seemed to be covered with stippled whitish-yellow skin. Out of it came twenty thick fleshy tubes, and at the end of each tube another bulb was growing.

“What the hell is it?” said Jimmy.

“Those are chickens,” said Crake. "Chicken parts. Just the breasts, on this one. They’ve got ones that specialize in drumsticks too, twelve to a growth unit.

“But there aren’t any heads…”

“That’s the head in the middle,” said the woman. “There’s a mouth opening at the top, they dump nutrients in there. No eyes or beak or anything, they don’t need those.”

So much uncanny valley creepy vibes when it does that. Like you’re anthropomorphizing and suddenly it snaps you out of it haha.

I hate this defeatist mindset. You see this and go “why would I even try?”

Damnit, if you don’t want to participate in capitalism, don’t. Join a communal cult like the Twelve Tribes or something and experience slavery for yourself.

Git is a sort of proto-blockchain – well, it’s a ledger anyway. It is fairly useful. (Fucking opaque compared to subversion or other centralized systems that didn’t have the ledger, but I digress…)

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