algebraically

Then we don't really have anything to discuss.

Sure thing chief, cost is very important when facing a global existential crisis. That's why global CO2 output is now on the rise because people asking for more nuclear power plants (the only reliable low carbon source at this point in time) are stooges for big coal, gas, and oil.

Nuclear solves all these problems and potentially buys enough time to figure out how to mitigate the worst effects of 2C+ degrees of warming which at this point is basically inevitable. France seems to be the only sane nation in the world right now while everyone else is doubling down on what brought us to this point. [1]

> France has 56 nuclear power reactors in operation, with two units closing in 2020 at Fessenheim (61 370 MW(e)) and one EPR reactor under construction at the Flamanville site. Nuclear power plants accounted for 70.6% of total French electricity generation in 2019, and about 90% of France’s electricity comes from low carbon sources (nuclear and renewable).

1: https://cnpp.iaea.org/countryprofiles/France/France.htm

I did not read the article because I'm an armchair expert on such matters.

The Flynn effect is now going in the opposite direction and I don't think it was a good indicator of intelligence anyway because intelligence is more than just IQ. [1]

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29033354

I don't think he's greedy either. He thinks connecting people over the internet is good and that just happens to be a very lucrative business.

How is advertising not about consumption?

Facebook enables consumer activity so it's a consumer company. It does not build industrial robots or enable industrial production of any form.

That wasn't the claim. The claim was about the effects of domestication on cognition and at least for dogs it is very obvious they are less intelligent than their non-domesticated counterparts. Same is true for rabbits. So, at the very least, in at least 2 cases it is clear that domestication has lead to a decline in cognitive abilities. It doesn't take much to infer the same is true for people, domestication has reduced selective pressures on cognitive abilities.

If you know of cases and studies where the opposite is true then I'd like to see the research.

That wasn't the argument. You seem to be saying that the increasing volume of digital information will require new cognitive adaptations and I'm saying that's not the case because I don't need to be as smart to appear smart on a digital medium, I can just rely on external cognitive aids like google.

I'm not a psychologist, I just play one on HN so I don't know but it's definitely weird that he keeps trying to use technology to replace reality.

I definitely have evidence that wolves are smarter than dogs. [1][2] You're welcome to nitpick but it's obvious that wolves are smarter than dogs.

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soe-mONHGMc

2: https://www.studyfinds.org/wolves-smarter-dogs-logic/

This is a good point but it does seem like people consistently select for less intelligence because less intelligent animals are more tame and easier to control.

I don't think I have it backwards. I don't remember anything or know much about the world in general terms. I just know and remember enough key phrases for google to give me the answers when I need them which requires very little cognitive effort on my part. [1]

1: https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-athletes-way/2...

I don't know. That's a good question but most modern humans are essentially clones so I don't think there is going to be much difference. [1][2]

1: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/genetic-bottleneck/

2: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory

And most of it has been offloaded to computers (big data, deep learning, etc). I don't think we're going to have "mentats" any time soon.

Ya, I also don't know if it's true or not. I was just making the point that an animal can domesticate itself by changing its environment and then adapting to the new environment in a way that ends up being essentially a self imposed domestication process.

Because we no longer need to run away from predators and process information at the same rate we'd need to in a more wild enviornment. The survival pressures of our ancestral environment are no longer relevant. We've essentially destroyed and driven to extinction every other predator on the planet and now the only selective pressure is adaptation to the human created environment which is much nicer and simpler than the wilderness we came from. Simpler and safer environments make simpler brains and that's my best guess at why our brains are shrinking but I'm just an armchair scientist so it's better to ask the experts. The only remaining selective pressure is basically human predators, a.k.a. sociopaths.

Good point.

It's possible for an animal to domesticate itself. This is one of the theories for how wolves were domesticated. It's not that humans did anything special to domesticate them but that wolves started hanging around humans and eating the scraps that were left over at campfires and other human habitation sites. Eventually the less fearful and tame wolves became human companions. Once people realized they could hang out with wolves they started actively breeding more tamer variants.

The same is true for humans. The process is obviously slightly more complicated because unlike wolves people have more influence on their environment but it's undeniable that humans are now domestic animals. No modern human can survive in the wilderness and this process is accelerating. We are now, for all intents and purposes, dependent on mechanical tools and technology for our continued existence. Feeding 8B people is impossible without industrial farming and agricultural techniques, e.g. Haber-Bosch. [1]

1: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/haber-bosch...

Makes sense.

Because we are being domesticated. Domesticated animals are all dumber than their wild counterparts. Every wild animal that ends up being domesticated ends up with a smaller brain. I should rephrase and maybe say that this doesn't necessarily mean the animals get dumber but they definitely change in the process of domestication and a smaller brain is one of those adaptations. [1]

> The reduced amount of white matter suggests that domestic rabbits have a compromised information processing possibly explaining why they are more slow reacting and phlegmatic than their wild counterparts.

1: https://phys.org/news/2018-06-differences-brain-morphology-w...

The mess we're in (Joe Armstrong): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKXe3HUG2l4

I don't think he's an evil villain. I really do think he's constantly running away from reality. It's why he created Facebook in the first place. It was meant to replace real world social interactions.

Facebook/Meta is a consumer company. All the worthwhile applications of remote presence are going to be in industrial spaces that combine robotics with VR. I see no way that Facebook/Meta will do anything worthwhile or useful in that space.

No problem. Good luck.

My point is that people still think there is a way to salvage things when there isn't and because they think there is a technological solution they are refusing to change their consumption habits. That's what I mean by adaptation. By the way, at 4C there is no longer any human civilization as we now know it. Even at 3C we're basically screwed.

I vote for 3. I've been thinking about doing something similar because it has become obvious to me that most software these days is a net negative and actively hinders progress (both personal and societal).

It just occurred to me that Zuckerberg is always running away from reality. It's kinda weird.

Long term viability of meaningful work in a technological civilization.

This is a good starting point: https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/mathematics/l....