squibbles

> I think it is possible to build a better system from scratch, and there are likely space aliens that have such better systems.

I respectfully disagree. Alien systems can be thwarted by inverting some bits. [0] I would not have believed this had I not seen it for myself. [1] After all, seeing is believing. True, the alien code seems very insecure. Perhaps aliens write their code based on the historical documents. [2]

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/2oi7cz/i_am_dean_de...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgqswujkxPE

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLZQz26-kms

I don't know how near a collapse is, since catastrophes in systems tend to come as a surprise, not a gradual event. I do agree, however, that there is substantial evidence to suggest a collapse in the human population is inevitable.

One answer to "Why is this question..." is because we have defined it so. And why did we define it so? One could make an argument that notions of sets, counting, length, and so on are anthropomorphisms -- we project our bodies onto the universe around us so we can reason about the environment using our specialized brains. (Human brains are specialized to operate in the context of our bodies.) In fact, the Whorf hypothesis [0][1][2] addressed this subject in the context of linguistics.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity

[1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/linguistics/#SoCalSapWhoH...

[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B008043076... , https://doi.org/10.1016/B0-08-043076-7/03042-4

I find the argument against anthropic arguments to be weak.

* The terms life and intelligence lack formal definitions.

* The predicate why lacks a formal definition.

* The argument does not address the maximum number of possible configurations of the universe, which dilutes any quantitative arguments. Most importantly, the cardinality of the maximum number of possible configurations is not addressed. For example, the possibility of an aleph number [0] was not addressed.

* The argument does not address qualitatively different structures of the universe, such as universes with discontinuous lengths or types of affine spaces [1] where measurement as we understand it does not exist.

The list of concerns above is not exhaustive, and I don't think addressing them individually will necessarily salvage the argument. While stronger arguments for or against the anthropic principle are possible, I think they deserve much more rigor.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleph_number

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affine_space

Science magazine [0] and Ars Technica [1] published readable overviews. The paper on the experiment regarding Wigner's friend paradox ("A strong no-go theorem on the Wigner’s friend paradox") was published in Nature Physics. [2] [3]

[0] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/quantum-paradox-poin...

[1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/08/quantum-reality-is-e...

[2] https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-020-0990-x

[3] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-020-0990-x

If you are interested in consciousness, then yes, Consciousness Explained is a worthwhile read. If your interest lies with sea squirts, then not so much.

While I do not necessarily agree with Dennett's position in whole, I believe his arguments make a valuable contribution to the subject of consciousness -- even moreso in the context of Wigner's thought experiment and the recent empirical results.

"The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task, it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn't need its brain anymore, so it eats it! (It's rather like getting tenure.)" [0]

[0] Consciousness Explained, Daniel Dennett. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Consciousness_Explained...

The wolves eat the deer. The deer population collapses to the point that the food supply for the wolves cannot support the wolves. The wolves starve and the wolf population collapses. Without pressure from the wolves, the deer make a comeback and flourish.

The population cycles occur in both large and small ecosystems. The process is slow and steady. Often it seems like the embers of life have gone out. However, something always comes back from the ashes.

Humans are just another animal in the food chain.

It is about money. High-level government employees used to retire and work for contractors that sold directly to the organizations the government retirees came from. That is called a revolving door and occurred with both military and civilian employees. The practice of the revolving door is recognized widely as unethical.

To avoid concerns about ethics, many high-level government employees retire and join either investment groups or boards of directors. This puts them once removed from the money chain, but still allows them to line their pockets by leveraging the power they accrued while working for the government.

Please do not interpret this as political commentary, but I find it immensely amusing that the article illustrates that even fake news (an article generated by GPT-3) can itself be fake (the original text was edited significantly).

> The Guardian could have just run one of the essays in their entirety. However, we chose instead to pick the best parts of each, in order to capture the different styles and registers of the AI. Editing GPT-3’s op-ed was no different to editing a human op-ed.

Anarchism does not prevent tribes, warlords, organizations, or armies - it is the absence of such constructs.

If anyone is truly interested in applied anarchism, look to Somalia [0] and try to make a difference there. It's not all bad [1] [2], but I think there are many vastly superior alternatives.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Somalia_(1991%E2%80...

[1] https://www.independent.org/pdf/working_papers/64_somalia.pd...

[2] https://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=1861

The let me tell you more tactic is intentional. Longer sales copy tends to sell more. That is, the length of the sales copy is positively correlated with the conversion rate.

Benevolent anarchism does not scale. The more pluralistic a population, the more differences of opinion and disagreement on principles. The rule of law is one way to cast multiple subjective experiences into a single objective framework.

VMS - Dying, dead, or reborn? For those who lament the loss of VMS, know that Windows NT carried on. [0] (By the way, did you know that WNT is a Caesar cipher for VMS?)

Long ago I had my personal trials and tribulations with Unix. Fortunately, OS/9 [1] was there to help with that journey of discovery.

[0] https://www.itprotoday.com/compute-engines/windows-nt-and-vm...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS-9

An encounter with law enforcement is not necessarily a straightforward exchange of facts. If someone is under suspicion, then law enforcement personnel will ask questions or give commands to see how a suspect reacts.

Why is the public discussion on maintaining the status quo, rather than on pushing the boundaries of astronomy. For example, NASA has proposed to build the Lunar Crater Radio Telescope (LCRT) on the moon. [0] [1]

Does someone have a financial, political, or military interest in preventing satellite constellations?

[0] https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2020_Phase_...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Crater_Radio_Telescope

From what the author wrote, it seems likely she was flagged as a person of interest. Perhaps her name was similar or identical to an alias used by someone else, or perhaps she looked very similar to someone on a watchlist. Automated systems can exasperate the problem of persecuting the innocent. For anyone who thinks they are able to make an automated system for law enforcement that does not provide false positives, I strongly recommend you think twice.

For anyone interested, the author has a gofundme page. [0]

[0] https://www.gofundme.com/f/A-Love-Letter-To-Durham-North-Car...

It is not that I do not trust Psychology Today, but that psychology is a messy subject. The articles in Psychology Today can perhaps give some insight into what is being studied in the field, but omits a vast number of details and nuances that are necessary to interpret study results.

Reliability and validity are notoriously hard to pin down in psychology, and there is no stable model of mind or personality that all people share. In practically every study of psychology, one must critically consider not only the reliability and validity of each and every operational definition, but also be highly skeptical of every measurement and also of the statistical techniques applied to those measurements. We know so much about the physical science compared to so little about psychology because people are "messy" and unique.

Every person has intimate experience with their own mind, and therefore many people consider psychology to be accessible. Unfortunately, this is not true. People do a very poor job of understanding the true nature of themselves, especially with regards to how their minds operate. The hazard with pop psychology is that it encourages people to make judgements on others -- judgements that are not necessarily warranted -- and sometimes leads people to take actions that are not in their or others' best interests.

As an example in the Psychology Today article, the author wrote, "In their recently published paper, Signaling Virtuous Victimhood as Indicators of Dark Triad Personalities, the authors suggest that Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy might be beneficial for obtaining resources." While Ok et al. collected interesting data, performed some interesting analyses, and generally contributed to the scholarly dialog on dark triad personality traits, I would not characterize the paper as "being a nasty person is good for getting resources." Such a statement completely ignores how dark triad personality traits can also contribute to poor outcomes in life.

Even worse, the original paper did not address anything at all about risk analysis for donating to people requesting resources. Yet, the Psychology Today article concludes with "Today, those with dark triad traits might find that the best way to extract rewards is by making a public spectacle of their victimhood and virtue." Is that advice for dark triad people? Is that a warning for altruistic people? Is is a statement about the Internet? Is it a recommendation against donating to people who claim to urgently need help? My point is that the Psychology Today article took a messy subject, left it messy, and suggests the reader walks away more knowledgable.

With the hard sciences it is much easier to home in on the differences between academic papers and what the popular press writes about them. For the soft sciences, it is much more important be critical of the topic of discussion.

Translating the thought experiment to an actual physical experiment is something worth appreciating.

A possible lack of absoluteness of observed events has implications for what observations may or may not be reconcilable using existing scientific methods.

This is an interesting topic, but Psychology Today is a poor quality source for serious discussion.

I don't know of an easy or economical way to prevent or discourage abuse of communications.

For social communications, the main problem is: How do I find people I like or trust? That is a tough problem given constraints.

For network communications (IP), practically any two machines can communicate with each other, which opens up a number of serious security risks.

For those who are musically inclined -- When learning to play a musical instrument (including voice), the distinction between long work and hard work is the difference between spending time and making progress. Long work is mindless practice; hard work is identifying weaknesses and using targeted practice to improve.

For those in marketing -- Long work is spending more on an advertising campaign; hard work is determining what increases the conversion rate.

For those in computer science or mathematics -- Long work is implementing a brute force approach to calculating a specific result; hard work is generalizing the problem and generating a class of results.

For students -- Long work is studying to pass a specific exam; hard work is internalizing the fundamental principles of a subject so you can derive answers regardless of the particular exam questions.

With a partial tongue-in-cheek, I will defer to Max Planck, who said:

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. . . . An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning: another instance of the fact that the future lies with the youth." [0]

One can see Planck's Principle throughout human civilization, in practically every human endeavor. This is how we evolve as a species. Not just biologically, but culturally.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle

I think capitalism is one possible approach to prioritizing problems.

- Clean drinking water is an immediate problem.

- Adequate sanitation is an immediate problem.

- Adequate childhood nutrition is an immediate problem.

- Physical security in crime-laden areas is an immediate problem.

- Physical security in conflict zones in an immediate problem.

- Access to quality medical services is an immediate problem.

- Mosquito-borne illness is an immediate problem.

Seeing "facts" and "scientists" in the same sentence makes me uncomfortable. Science is wonderful for exploration, but not so much for adjudication. For example, contrast papers published in peer-reviewed journals with the press releases and news stories that cite those papers.

Marketing people love to talk about marketing.

Identify a problem. Offer a solution that people are willing to pay for. The whys, whos, etc. are all wrapped up inside.

The potential upside can be derived from how many people have the problem and how much they are willing to spend to solve it.

Free speech is a noble ideal, but it seems like the current implementation of the Internet has turned that ideal on its head.

Yes, everyone should be able to say whatever they want to say, but no one should be forced to hear it. The way we implement discussion forums, chats, issue trackers, wikis, etc. is perhaps giving too many privileges to the mob.

I am partial to the idea of someone getting to decide, in advance, who they can see or hear. Letting the mob in, and then muting or banning after the fact can be exploited too easily.

Salesforce is laying off employees in San Francisco.

"The cloud computing company, San Francisco’s largest private employer, is laying off four workers in general administration, 42 in sales and customer service and 119 in technology and product divisions, according to a state filing. The cuts span the company’s three downtown towers: Salesforce Tower, 350 Mission St. and 50 Fremont St." [0]

An ironic situation, given a quote from Benioff (CEO) regarding the recent profits: "This is a victory for stakeholder capitalism because I think, you know, that we did a great job for our shareholders this quarter, but we also did a great job for our stakeholders, as well." [1]

Although the layoffs may be delayed due to the pandemic, the market is and will continue to be flooded with people looking for work -- it really is an awful time to be let go.

[0] https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Salesforce-to-l...

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/25/salesforces-marc-benioff-cla...

Suppose someone two thousand years ago saw the plans for the Turing machine in the video. How might that have shaped history? Whether it was practical or not is not really the question, but rather how might it shape future technologies? Makes me think of da Vinci's notebook.