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Chang’s concept of parity is (dare I say it) on par with the word embeddings underpinning LLMs. For example, in a vector space with axes “sex” and “royalty”, the “distance” between “king” and “queen” and “man” and “woman” is the same so you can do vector math like king - man + woman = queen.

PS: it’s funny that your dog is named Demi because I got young Demi Moore vibes from your photo in the Gross piece.

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i hate to admit it but i think i first learned this lesson from harry potter, when dumbledore reassures harry that gryffindor was the right house for him simply bc he chose it

also ruth chang's ted talk on making hard decisions has brought me much solace and is also one of my frequently recommended pieces of advice for friends who are stuck in a this-or-that situation. so cool you got to talk to her

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You may be interested in the work of L.A. Paul, who compares irreversible such as becoming a parent to becoming a vampire.

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https://www.edge.org/conversation/la_paul-la-paul-the-transformative-experience

tl;dr; Some choices are so personally transformative that they are indescribable. They must be made to be experienced.

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ooooo thank you!! gonna dig in! <3

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