suoduandao3

I like the formulation of 'the amount of information we don't know about a system that we could in theory learn'. I'm surprised there's no mention of the Copenhagen interpretation's interaction with this definition, under a lot of QM theories 'unavailable information' is different from available information.

There are amistics - the voluntary non-use of technology once it's available - which all cultures engage in to greater or lesser degrees. All technology has a price and sometimes it's not worth it - see leaded gasoline for an extreme example.

But in the general sense, I think it's tautologically correct to say better models always lead to better predictions, which always give an edge in competitions on an individual or societal level. So long term I do believe learning trumps ignorance, not in all cases but on average.

I'm sure benefitting energy companies is the real reason... but if everyone had a battery backup and they all started charging at the same time, I suppose it could make it harder to reboot the system after an outage.

The one book I recall that 'bit and stung' as I think Kafka meant to say was 1984. How would you categorize that work? Torture porn?

I do believe that commodified attention is the most logical currency of a postascarce society, so best case... quite a lot.

Note my 'best case' scenario for the near future is pretty upsetting.

I appreciate the sentiment, but territorial boundaries are enforced by violence among almost every species on the planet and we're not that much better than any of them. Law is something we use to put hard limits on violence and sometimes it's inadequate to ensure the obviously right outcome. I do hope that leads to a modulation of where the limits are placed rather than a loss of trust in the whole endeavor.

It's relevant because you challenged me to put my money where my mouth is, as I'm challenging you. And I have.

You say you haven't because of onerous regulations and it's true, I associate France with a heavier regulatory burden than most Anglophone countries. If it's the coal lobby that killed Nuclear's profitability in the US, I have two questions:

1) why are you attacking renewables rather than the coal industry? If you think Nuclear could compete on an economic basis with renewables, surely you could make common cause with my side of this debate to properly price fossil energy's negative externalities and let the market sort out the winners once that's achieved.

2) Why not build a nuclear reactor in Mexico and export the power to the US? Or in any of the other low-regulation countries with a neighbor looking to import power? If it's regulations that make nuclear unprofitable, surely nuclear investors could regulation-shop.

If regulation is the problem, why is nuclear most successful in France?

And I've had solar companies in my portfolio for the last decade. They're a great investment.

Then why are you here? If nuclear doesn't need subsidies, why aren't you just investing in the next great nuclear project and proving me wrong that way?

That discrepancy is not surprising, given iteration times and cost of failure. Nuclear has great potential in space exploration, but it's never going to be economical when there are other options. It's no wonder pronuclear activists clog up any discussion of renewable energy, hoping to get some of that public subsidy money for themselves - they know the reactors can't pay for themselves by selling electricity alone.

If Fission is so great, go build it. I'm not stopping you. But use your own money or get off the podium.

Batteries might work for storage, they have their own version of moore's law and will continue to get better and cheaper for a while.

Now if only there were a way to bundle that energy storage with a means of transportation...

direct liquid democracy still has vote delegation, it's just possible to reassign your vote in real time. Representatives vote on issues based on how many people assign them their vote, but people can reassign their vote any time.

I actually favor something with a more Bayesian twist that I haven't heard a catchy name for, where I could delegate my vote to different people depending on the subject up for debate. Essentially fantasy sports but for cabinet ministers. That would also be good because someone I trust on most issues might delegate both our votes to someone they defer to in a particular field without me needing to study whose expertise I trust in that field. If someone's heard of a name for that system I'd be interested to hear it. Hard to research innovation in a field when you don't know the buzzwords.

I think - with 5G warfare being what it is - that we need to go more granular. Democracy is a given when information is a weapon [1]. What kind of democracy serves our interests best?

I like the theory behind liquid direct myself, but it would need extensive field testing before it's the de facto governance model for, say, Mars.

[1]I realize that's a strange statement - I elaborate on my reasoning here https://eucyclos.wixsite.com/eucyclos/post/an-optimistic-loo...

I've found anything that puts the spine in tension (hanging by hands or hips) helps with spinal pain. 'leaf pose' from acro yoga's especially great for my partner and I (YMMV)

same overall probability of adverse events in both groups, but the nature of adverse events reported differed between the two.

They're certainly fallible - but they can err on the side of civilian life rather than the drone's. That's a big improvement even if the errors are more common.

If Q* can really combine mathematical logic with simple NLP, why not? Text Search has already automated a lot of what lawyers spent time doing, why wouldn't accountants be next?

I've thought about this a lot.

Short version, any sufficiently complex profession will have problems and associated solutions analogous to problems and solutions outside its domain. Therefore, the more deeply one understands a complex profession of that nature, the more likely one is to successfully apply lessons from that professional domain to problems outside it. Programming of course has peculiarities in that regard which color the kind of solutions one comes up with, eg a preoccupation with process and systems, linguistics, etc.

For the long version you can check out my book on the subject, shameless plug: https://www.amazon.com/Mindful-Programming-Christopher-Henni...

I love the comment on that video: "Imagine you wake up and you're just doomguy"

I don't think it's the number of bots as much as who they belonged to that's being reported on. Russian activity on facebook prior to the 2016 presidential election was similarly modest.

then they're desktop class.

but it's not necessarily needed in dense urban centers. Plenty of laptop class people could secure housing in rural areas for a fraction of the cost of what they're paying now.

I mean, do you know the DNA came from your mom's side of the family?

I dunno, high-functioning depression worked for the Japanese pretty well. Fear of death makes for a much less effective warrior in most circumstances.

That seems like a problem with society (maybe an academia) more than 15 year olds no?

Besides, a lot of people interested in a wild theory greatly ups the chances someone gets funding to test the hypothesis, no?

My own thought is - every artist in history has taken inspiration from previous artists. The British voice actor in the above example surely studied greats in his field like Sir Patrick. We don't typically mind that. Where I think the line is between standing on the shoulders of giants and devaluing someone else's art is how well digested, for lack of a better term, the inspiration has been. Is the later artist breaking the components out, examining each, and assembling them with the insights they gained? Or are they seeking to resemble the end result as much as possible? I think that separates the cheap hack from the person who 'steals like an artist'

That makes height an easy topic to talk about, but it's still challenging to think through the implications. If you can increase your child's height by 20% and thereby increase their likely income by 25% - is it morally right not to? Does it matter whether others can afford that intervention? Is it morally right not to fund public access to such interventions? Does the answer change if relative height is all that matters?

I think we're past that. Setting aside politically hot topics like IQ, Height is genetically determined and makes a huge difference in life outcomes. Now it's all about what we do with that information.

I think we already know that, it's just there's usually a tradeoff for these things. Subgroups with higher average IQs also have higher rates of psychiatric disorders etc... If society's healthy there'll be lots of opportunities for subgroups to niche down. If it's not, everyone will be chasing the same rabbit and the inherent unfairness is going to compound that problem.