evnc

It seems like there's opportunity then in helping make regulations more legible/understandable, highlighting local differences, assisting with permitting and compliance, etc.? Seems like an area where LLMs could help out

You've probably already seen https://riffle.systems/essays/prelude/ - one of my favorite recent research projects in this space, it is very much in line with what you're describing. Sad that it didn't seem to go anywhere after a couple introductory posts.

Not affiliated, just wanted to pop in and say this team seems to really have caught lightning in a bottle. Their userbase is growing rapidly, they've onboarded notable public figures and Twitter power users, and it seems poised to really take over the mantle from Twitter. And the underlying protocol is really fascinating.

The team is active on the app and they are all good people who work hard and think deeply about this stuff, I'd highly recommend applying! (I'd apply myself but I'm a Python/data guy, which doesn't line up w/ advertised roles right now)

In a sense, this is exactly what RLHF is, right?

The relational model (and generally working at the level of sets/collections, instead of the level of individual values/objects) actually makes it easier to have this kind of incremental computation in a consistent way, I think.

There's a bunch of work being done on making relational systems work this way. Some interesting reading:

- https://www.scattered-thoughts.net/writing/an-opinionated-ma...

- https://materialize.com/ which is built on https://timelydataflow.github.io/differential-dataflow/, which has a lot of research behind it

- Which also can be a compilation target for Datalog: https://github.com/vmware/differential-datalog

- Some prototype work on building UI systems in exactly the way you describe using a relational approach: https://riffle.systems/essays/prelude/ (and HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30530120)

(There's a lot more too -- I have a hobby interest in this space, so I have a small collection of links)

They posted on HN about why, some years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16227130

tl;dr it was hard to monetize, experimental research not really well fitting the startup model, but at the core of it I think it lacked a compelling, concrete problem to solve. Eve was an amazing tool with a lot of potential, and an unclear story of how a person might actually want to use this tool in their life.

I love that game! It is a little light on the resource management / building aspects mentioned, focused primarily on battle (iirc you can't build anything, just capture villages which generate the one resource, gold). Though there are lots of mods that bring it closer.

Many hours on that as a kid since it came free with the distro of Linux I had access to at the time. Good memories. I got into pixel art from trying to contribute something to the project (most of it was rejected, haha).

I'm casually exploring using logic programming to define rules for games, as an embedded scripting language in a game engine, which would handle input and rendering etc. and be written in a more "conventional" language.

We'll see if performance is an issue, but the space I'm most interested in is turn based strategy / board games, where it doesn't seem to be a big deal if things are as fast as possible.

It feels like a pretty natural fit, e.g.:

  can_move_to(unit_id, tile) :- 
    Unit(unit_id), Tile(tile),
    reachable_to(unit_id, tile, move_cost),
    unit_move_points_remaining(unit_id, mv),
    move_cost <= mv.
  

You can define a lot of rules from basic unit movement to "what happens when you activate Super Special Rule-Bending Ability" this way, and it's pretty easy to change the definitions if you want to experiment with different game rules / logic. In practice, you want various syntactic sugar.

Haven't got a chance to take this very far yet, just casual experimentation, but it seems like there's potential.

A turn based 4X / survival / rpg hybrid.

Set in the Neolithic- Bronze Age, roughly (but historical accuracy is not a top priority). Like Civ, you have units which can explore the map, fight, build. But the scale is smaller: there are seasons, weather, turns last <1 month instead of hundreds of years. There’s less of an emphasis on technological progress and more on training up the skills of your Units. Units have Skill Trees corresponding to their type / class / profession, and can equip different weapons and armor (produced in your cities) for further boosts, like an rpg. Learning to hunt, gather, farm etc. Competition with other civilizations exists but more so you’re trying to survive the environment— animals, weather, nomadic raiders. Resource management is more explicit— instead of tiles producing Food every Turn at a given rate they produce some lump sum Wheat only when Harvested by a unit, say, which you must then store for the winter. Etc.

I’m working on making such a game, but it’s not my full time job and I have other projects catching my interest too, so the going is slow.

I sympathize with this, but how can you even effectively operate a school to provide the day care part if half the staff are absent? (Either directly because they are sick with covid, or caring for a family member who is, or they lack childcare for their own kids, or simply because they're not being paid enough to deal with the bullshit and risk ...)

It just seems like, regardless of our values, the sheer weight of the case rates and staff shortages is going to force closures in the near term if it hasn't already.

If you put a bunch of vulnerable kids in an auditorium together with minimal supervision because you've got an effective teacher:student ratio of 1:50 or worse, is that really better?

(Maybe it is. I'll admit to not having come from a dysfunctional or unsafe home as the author of the linked piece describes, so I may lack some perspective here.)

I don't mean to defend those who stormed the capitol, who to be clear I don't agree with, but the important thing to note here is sense of powerlessness. These people felt powerless, regardless of whether or not they were in any kind of objective sense, and that feeling motivated their actions.

This is relevant to the current discussion inasmuch as FB (and social media generally) may have contributed to, stoked and fomented said feelings of powerlessness for the sake of engagement / eyeballs / ad clicks.

I think that "SF can sweeten the deal for them", while true in theory, does a lot of work in glossing over exactly how it could sweeten the deal for them. By offering higher pay? Or perhaps by somehow providing more affordable housing?

Which (as I understand it) is kind of the topic of this whole sub-discussion: it is not easy to find a solution which will sweeten the deal for them (aka: make it economically feasible and attractive for low/middle income people to live and work in a city with a housing shortage and high housing costs). Rent control is one such proposed solution. It has its benefits and drawbacks, of course, as evidenced by all the debate about it here.

This makes sense in an economics-textbook kind of way; but systematically excluding low- and middle-income people from a given city would not turn out well in reality, I think.

All cities need janitors, teachers, baristas, grocery clerks, garbage collectors, etc. in order to function, and those people have to live somewhere at least within a reasonable commuting distance to the city. You can't have all the garbage collectors move out to Bakersfield and have San Francisco _just_ be a citadel of software engineers, unless the software engineers haul their own garbage, or the garbage collectors in SF also get paid $100k+ per year.

Is it insane that everyone should keep wearing clothes everywhere literally forever?

If I found being nude to be significantly more comfortable/freeing than being clothed, I would still be expected to wear clothing in public spaces for both politeness and sanitary (e.g. sitting on subway seats) reasons.

Why is this different from other instances of governments instituting laws or regulations for the sake of public safety, of which there are already many?

Are seatbelt laws a mass experiment in social control?

Are laws mandating wearing underwear in public "about asserting control over population and making them obey"?

This is really nice to use and well-designed!

One feature request: spouses / joint incomes. Obviously my financial picture looks very different if I include my partner's income and assets than if I just include my own, but my partner is a different age than me, so if I just add it up and act like I'm one person who makes our combined household income, it's not going to be quite accurate.

My biggest issue with Amazon has been unverified and untrustworthy 3rd party listings, sometimes not meeting minimum safety standards, which Amazon has taken a "lol not our problem" approach to -- e.g. baby food [0] and car seats [1]. (There was an HN thread about it [2].)

What steps if any will Chums take to combat this?

[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/20/amazon-is-shipping-expired-b...

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/20/tech/amazon-fake-kids-product...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17009675

This is essentially ecofascism and is not compatible with a modern free society.

I actually like humanity, and I want it to persist. Many of my best friends are humans.

(I'm not trying to throw around "fascist" as a cheap insult: this is an actual ideology, and "humans are basically a plague" is a core tenent.)

I kinda wish it would. Anecdotally, as a dual income household grandparental assistance was indispensable in raising our baby, and I've sorely missed it since the pandemic hit and no one's visiting any more. I recognize how lucky we were to have that available, since not everyone does.

I think it can also have great benefits for the grandparents, who find a new sense of fulfillment and purpose and something to fill their time later in life. It reminds me of the studies on combining preschools and nursing homes showing positive outcomes for both populations. Also, intuitively, multi-generational households were the norm throughout human history before industrialization and economic centralization encouraged "leave your family behind and go Seek Your Fortune".

If we lower the birth rate below replacement (roughly 2 children per couple), humanity will die out. This is not a desirable outcome.

If the answer is, "well, the birth rate will never lower that far, because some people are going to keep having children" -- who will those people be? (Do you presume to be able to choose who gets to have children and who does not?)

Aren't those some people then doing a great service, keeping humanity alive? Shouldn't we value their efforts, and give them support?

Also, drastically lowering birth rates has negative effects on demographics and economies (e.g. a population pyramid heavily weighted toward the elderly, without enough young people to do the work of taking care of them, or the productive work of maintaining and improving society generally).

Hi Stefano,

I sent you an email, hope you'll see it, even though I'm sure you're busy. Have a great weekend!