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Given finitude of existence, I think I'd rather help an old lady cross the street & make someone smile than read forum posts. If I had a lot more time in a day, then forum posts might come after reading fiction, gardening, and baking dark chocolate brownies. But before, reading Chomsky, learning Mandarin, and trying to find an answer to a non-pragmatic theoretical question like "If aliens exist, what could that mean about humanity?" 

What a coincidence! I was just getting annoyed by Financial Times articles that always make up reasons after things happen. It made me realize that most news is exactly what Chomsky calls Manufacturing Consent.

I chatted with an AI about the idea that DNA/RNA arriving on Earth via asteroids is basically a biological Von Neumann machine. So the alien question is actually a strict Existential Risk (X-risk) issue, not a non-pragmatic one.

Also, my first language is Mandarin.

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