Pay it forward, bet on the loonie. -- rec --
On Wed, Sep 18, 2019 at 2:23 PM Nick Thompson <[email protected]> wrote: > Roger, > > > > That was exactly my point. That’s what makes it “altruistic” in some > sense to be a looney- croney, i.e.,, to be somebody who invests in a single > looney. Unless all looney-cronies take out a common insurance policy, most > are going to lose. Yet, it is the loonies that explore new spaces, and > thus, with their individual sacrifices, benefit the whole. So you don’t > need to be dubious, any more. > > > > Nick > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology > > Clark University > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > *From:* Friam [mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Roger > Critchlow > *Sent:* Wednesday, September 18, 2019 2:03 PM > *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group < > [email protected]> > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Unmediated perception - sheldrake > > > > Read a blog post at https://stratechery.com/2019/day-two-to-one-day/ yesterday > which was examining Amazon's balance of harvesting (twiddling the search > engine to maximize Amazon's profits) versus investing (putting up $800 > million to achieve single day deliveries) against the stated Bezos > principles of how Amazon should work. That's the same exploit/explore > tradeoff that reinforcement learning tries to automate, it's the decision > between optimizing the bottom line or attempting to grow the area of the > plane that the bottom line rests upon, it's searching where the light is > good versus exploring the shadows, wandering around with your favorite > hammer looking for nail-like problems versus browsing a yard sale and > finding a new tool. > > > > Nick's assertion that investing in fringes never pays off on average seems > highly suspect. Much of what we take for granted in our world was so far > on the fringe that it didn't even exist in 1819. So, no, for an individual > making investment decisions being a looney-croney rarely pays off, but for > the economy as a whole the loonies have run the table time and time again. > > > > -- rec -- > > > > On Wed, Sep 18, 2019 at 11:21 AM Marcus Daniels <[email protected]> > wrote: > > I wouldn’t invest it in research, I’d invest it in development and then > hire a team that understood research. There is $5k spent per person (all > persons) by venture capital in San Francisco alone. That’s not like the ~ > $500k per person at a DOE government lab, but the total amount in the > region is about like the combined DOE and NSF budgets, of which only a > fraction goes to research anyway. > > > > *From: *Friam <[email protected]> on behalf of Nick Thompson < > [email protected]> > *Reply-To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group < > [email protected]> > *Date: *Wednesday, September 18, 2019 at 9:07 AM > *To: *'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' < > [email protected]> > *Subject: *Re: [FRIAM] Unmediated perception - sheldrake > > > > Steve, > > > > If you had money to invest on research, and were hoping to make 5 percent > on your money, would you give it to an nsf vetted project, or to a random > project? The former, surely. Yet, if everybody invests that way, all the > money ends up being piled up in the middle and nothing novel is ever > tried. We need the loonies, and we need some crazy people who have faith > in loonies. They are the equivalent to “sports” in a breeding program. > Without loonies and their cronies, there is no variation for selection to > work on. Unfortunately, most people who bet on loonies loose. Yes, a few > win big, but most lose. So, on average, it doesn’t pay to be a > loonie-croney. That’s the paradox. This leads me to the conclusion that > madness is a form of altruism. > > > > Nick > > > > > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology > > Clark University > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > *From:* Friam [mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Steven A > Smith > *Sent:* Wednesday, September 18, 2019 11:35 AM > *To:* [email protected] > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Unmediated perception - sheldrake > > > > Dave - > > > > It seems like the ideas that seem to capture my imagination - Sheldrake, > quantum consciousness among them - tend to be labeled as "pseudo." This is > annoying, first because my hermeneutical hackles bristle whenever anyone > tries to assert their interpretation as privileged over someone else's; > and because there seem to be so many cross-connections that afford all > within the net to gain plausibility simply from being in the net. > > > > Thanks for making this point and sharing this predilection. I find a > duality in this experience myself which can be a challenge to manage. I > deeply share your suspicion/resentment of "privileged interpretation". I > also am deeply suspicious of persuasive modes of communication (NLP as an > extreme example, bad but conventional rhetoric second to that). I have > been a direct "victim" of this in my life from time to time, but more > chronically I have *observed* others being persuaded to believe things for > which there is either shaky evidence or which is highly contradicted by the > evidence available. My judgement of this can sound or feel like my own > positioning with "privileged interpretation" which is what makes > manipulative rhetoric so insidious. I agree that all that is labeled > "pseudo" is not false or flimsy, or is only *contingently* so. > > On the other hand, one of the common tools I've seen in this type of > manipulative rhetoric is to *claim* that dismissal by the mainstream is > nearly "proof" of truthiness. For example, Climate Denial, AntiVax, > ChemTrails, UFOlogy, etc. seem to hold up as their prime (or at least > significant) evidence the simple fact that the "mainstream" or the > "establishment" dismisses them. The apparent bias of many to believe > anything wrapped up in the trappings of a "conspiracy". > > On the other other hand, new or changing or revolutionary paradigms in > knowledge are *naturally* strongly or fundamentally counter to the > common/standard "truth". Copernicus and Galileo and their move from > geocentric to heliocentric astronomical models. > > You use the phrase "capture my imagination" which I find *also* holds a > dualism for me. On the one hand, I believe that intuition is a critical > element in my own understanding and knowledge of the world. On the other, > I find that my "imagination" is vulnerable to "whimsy" and a carefully > constructed "whimsy" can be as compelling in it's own way as the biases of > "conspiracy". The carrot to go with the stick. > > Being trained formally in Science and Mathematics, I have a deep respect > for the methods and sensibilities of those domains. Working in "Big > Science" among a broad cross-cutting set of disciplines (27 years at LANL) > also gave me a deep suspicion of "received wisdom". While the largest > portion of the work I observed stood on it's own merits, the largest > portion of the *funding* for the work seemed to follow the biases of > "privileged interpretation" and "received wisdom". I also felt that > *publication* of scientific work went through a similar but not as extreme > biased filter. Peer review and reproduction of results are central to > scientific progress, so this can be problematic. On the other, other, other > hand, irresponsible publication of "hooey" without proper peer review seems > somewhat pervasive and corrupts the process in it's own insidious way. > > <ramble off> > > - Steve > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove >
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
