Acosta was giving Yang a hard time yesterday on CNN. I sort of agree with Acosta w.r.t. RCV because an outcome could be even less reflection on the substance of candidates. "She wears unusual clothes to the Senate. I vote for that!" At least one of the parties has something resembling a platform.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2022/08/14/andrew-yang-new-political-party-acostanr-sot-vpx.cnn -----Original Message----- From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of glen Sent: Monday, August 15, 2022 11:02 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [FRIAM] dystopian vision(s) OK. I'm in that camp, too. But the issue I'm struggling with is whether to *support* any given project. A good example is instant-runoff/RCV here in washington. We don't know what the outcome would be if it were universally (across WA) adopted. It's ironic that the righties tend to argue against it because *I* expect it would turn WA more purple, away from the solid blue it is because of the urban centers. (And just to be clear, it *is* a large infrastructure project just like "last mile", high speed rail, etc. because it involves changes in behavior and machinery up and down the whole scale.) The RCV advocates are, I think, delusional in their presumption that they know what would happen, near-, mid-, or long-term. So, given that I can't effectively predict the outcome, that I only have hunches, do I support it or oppose it? The same problem comes from any large project like that. What does it mean for a "voter" to be *informed*? On a similar note, a pub-goer last week recommended this: Homo Deus https://bookshop.org/books/homo-deus-a-brief-history-of-tomorrow/9780062464347 But this review of Sapiens kinda freaks me out: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/07/the-dangerous-populist-science-of-yuval-noah-harari At what point do we stop dampening our tendency to believe whatever pseudo-profound bullshit that crosses our path? I'm getting close. They say old people are like babies. I'm dangerously close, as I age, to believing the sci-fi nonsense I consumed as a child. On 8/15/22 10:45, Marcus Daniels wrote: > The public projects I mentioned concern a small subspace of the terms that > would go into a civilization-level objective function. The project > themselves are a tool of politics and subject to politics, so the > constituency of the terms in the function is constantly in flux. Change the > habits of people, and their values may change around them. There is no > "natural" notion of success and failure. There's no requirement for > designed ecologies. The artifacts that come out of large public projects > often have unanticipated results. For example, a library or subway > station/train that also serves as shelter for the homeless. Certainly a > technologist such as myself sees the artifacts as a force-amplifier. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of glen > Sent: Monday, August 15, 2022 10:25 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] dystopian vision(s) > > In trying to parse Wolpert's latest contribution > <https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.03886>, I hiccuped at this sentence: "In summary, > depending on how exactly one wants to define the word “simulate”, the > concerns of Bostrom, et al., properly formalized, strongly suggest that > augmenting our brains can never allow us to fully grasp / cognize / perceive > our physical reality." > > I don't normally think seriously about what I actually believe. > Dispositionally, I "believe" most normal things like gravity, brightly > colored insects might be poisonous, etc. And conceptually, I don't really > believe much of anything. But the complexity layering Wolpert lays out in > this article finally triggered me to ask what I do believe. I don't think I > actually believe any form of Church-Turing. All reductive systems are false. > Aka, all reduction is abstraction. Reality is *special*. > > Beyond mere "complicatedness" skepticism about, say, building an urban > environment capable of expressing an ecology, there's something deeply > inadequate about "built environments". Of course, stigmergy raises an > interesting point. That no built environment is either completely controlled > or built tightly to specifications, which is why I enjoy older neighborhoods > that are a bit run-down, where e.g. children play on grass perforated > concrete as if it is the natural world. Evolution happens everywhere. > Everything is likely a mix of built and grown. But I can't tell if this > argues *for* or *against* Church-Turing. What does it mean for a (large, > complicated, perhaps complex) conceptual structure to be the implicit > objective function for a collective? Aren't all these large projects doomed > to "fail" in some not insignificant way? > > On 8/15/22 09:40, Marcus Daniels wrote: >> The largest public infrastructure project I remember in New Mexico was the >> Railrunner train track installation, and even that involved decades of >> public debt. >> >> Population-dense regions are interesting to me because big projects are >> possible because there is a tax base. Bay bridge, BART, high voltage power >> distribution under the bay, bike paths around the bay, 10 gigabit >> networking, etc. Someday there may need to be desalinization rigs in the >> bay. All of this is conceivable with millions of people to pay for it. >> Being spread-out means more crude oil for asphalt. >> >> *From:* Friam <[email protected]> *On Behalf Of *Gary Schiltz >> *Sent:* Monday, August 15, 2022 9:25 AM >> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]> >> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] dystopian vision(s) >> >> I wonder what proportion of people worldwide, like me, see "urban" places as >> mainly, at best, necessary evils. Maybe it's mainly an American phenomenon, >> maybe a bourgeoisie idea for only those who can afford land. >> >> On Mon, Aug 15, 2022 at 8:23 AM glen <[email protected] >> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >> >> At the top of my LIFO stack of dystopian things has been "The Line": >> >> https://www.neom.com/en-us/regions/theline >> <https://www.neom.com/en-us/regions/theline> >> >> Pushed by a ruthless monarchy, funded by fossil fuels, bulldozing >> indigenous lands, ... yikes. >> >> But I now have a new one on the stack: >> >> https://www.mojo.vision/mojo-lens/ <https://www.mojo.vision/mojo-lens/> >> >> Unlike bin Salman, these guys seem well-intentioned. But sheesh. I >> can't even imagine wearing that. > -- ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . 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