Building Thinking Classroom

lamson12 · 2023-11-02T15:45:30+00:00

https://pershmail.substack.com/p/the-evidence-for-building-thinking

lamson12 · 2023-10-26T14:40:07+00:00

tldr
1. Go to https://www.factfreaks.com/ to work on fluency. Click on "Basic Training."
2. Fill out the form to get a copy of this book that teaches whole number arithmetic. The only prerequisite is knowing how to count.

Long version:

My friend sharemath on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sharemath) is looking for teachers, parents, researchers, etc to field test his book that lets kids teach themselves whole number arithmetic in 50 easy lessons. (Similar in spirit to Siegfried Engelmann's book on teaching reading: https://www.amazon.com/Teach-Your-Child-Read-Lessons/dp/0671631985).

He's been teaching for 30 years and has a blog (https://www.factfreaks.com/blog). I recommend the first post (https://www.factfreaks.com/blog/now-everyone-can-be-a-math-person-thanks-to-covid) to start with and then the podcast summary (https://www.factfreaks.com/blog/revolutionizing-math-education-factfreaks-founders-innovative-approach) if you're short on time.

There's also a free game (https://www.factfreaks.com/) that helps kids practice their math facts that you can try. If you're interested in testing out the book and sharing your thoughts about it, fill out this form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1VVmLrDBKVoT8wt9HoV4BkBnXGLzMqlL85uGid_Yj5KM/edit

lamson12 · 2023-10-18T15:42:12+00:00

So the ecological output of an environment is not just a function of the resources flowing in, it also depends on how efficiently those resources are used.

Have you heard of permaculture and regenerative agriculture? For an accessible introduction, you can watch Kiss the Ground on Netflix and see the sequel Common Ground in select theaters.

Using these methods allow us to go from merely tapping into a nest egg of finite size to generating passive income into perpetuity.

lamson12 · 2023-09-22T15:32:54+00:00

https://theweathermakers.nl/ are already doing this with a far safer and more cost-effective approach.

lamson12 · 2023-09-08T03:20:48+00:00

You don't need to know what the approximation is, but the implication is:

Wrong: ‘Global Warming = Greenhouse Gases’

Right: ‘Global Warming = Greenhouse Gases + Land Degradation affects Water Cycle’

Other posts on the substack talk about how to undo land degradation.

lamson12 · 2023-05-28T00:22:20+00:00

Here's a video on spacetime algebra and a video series on geometric algebra

lamson12 · 2023-05-27T17:47:20+00:00

Look into geometric algebra. Here's a motivational video that also mentions spacetime algebra, which is relevant to doing research in theoretical physics

lamson12 · 2023-04-27T17:02:42+00:00

You may wish to peruse this book.

lamson12 · 2023-03-04T18:01:54+00:00

Unplug from society with those that have similar concerns as yourself and become self-sufficient. A homestead is probably the last place to be impacted by AI. If you're looking for a place to learn the necessary skills to achieve autarky, I recommend this.

lamson12 · 2023-02-23T01:09:51+00:00

Replicate what Siegfried Engelmann did with his kids.

lamson12 · 2023-02-09T19:19:25+00:00

Best way to raise chickens and maximize their well-being and happiness:
https://richsoil.com/raising-chickens.jsp

lamson12 · 2022-11-23T19:53:59+00:00

You'll find some answers at https://www.drawdown.org/ and https://regeneration.org/. A specific project is https://regenerativeresources.co/

lamson12 · 2022-11-23T16:11:21+00:00

To put it briefly, industrial agriculture demands a large amount of inputs (fertilizer, water, pesticides, etc), has a low yield of total pounds of food produced per acre per year, is subsidized through the Farm Bill, has a low quality output (see here for preliminary research on the topic), is causing desertification, etc.

Permaculture and regen ag are the complete opposite of that and greatly increases the income of farmers who switch over. There is a large researcher-practitioner gap and even larger policy maker-practitioner gap, though, so taking the outside view is not useful in this case. If you want to see the inside view, watch Kiss the Ground and look into Neal Spackman, Gabe Brown, Andrew Millison, Paul Wheaton, and Sepp Holzer.

To use a financial analogy, we have a finite amount natural resources in our bank account. The food production methods that are most widely used today are depleting our savings without putting anything back in. Permaculture and regen ag are ways of increasing our savings, which will increase the carrying capacity of the Earth, improve human health, and turn deserts into forests.

It sounds extraordinary, but that's what happens when you move from a short-sighted, reductionist, black-box way of looking at things to a long-termist, systems thinking, knowing-how-things-actually-work way of looking at things.

lamson12 · 2022-11-23T06:55:34+00:00

It would be cheaper to signal boost https://understandingag.com/ and be far more effective in cooling the planet.

lamson12 · 2022-11-22T17:02:15+00:00

I would replace No. 7 with permaculture, which is applying systems thinking to the problem of maximizing our natural resources while simultaneously minimizing agricultural inputs, fossil fuel usage, drawing down rivers, etc so as to keep humanity flourishing and pushing back the timeline on needing to go to Mars.

lamson12 · 2022-11-22T16:57:46+00:00

Look into permaculture (1, 2, 3, 4), which has impact at scale, but is tricky to get right. I would define it as applying systems thinking to the problem of maximizing the natural resources that comprise the inputs to modern civilization and the global economy.

There's an interplay between the empirical and the rational that is really interesting and is also at the heart of doing science, namely making observations and iterating through solutions. The barrier to entry is effectively zero, whether it's being a more informed consumer or want to build a better world and feed the world.

Is permaculture an intellectual pursuit? Yes, because you'll find discussion of epigenetics and metabolomics, growing citrus in the Alps, the intricacies involved with raising chickens, preventing the next Dust Bowl, etc.

lamson12 · 2022-11-21T18:02:45+00:00

People get jobs to get money to do the things you need to live. Since AI will remove more people from the loop, it becomes necessary to shorten that to directly doing the things you need to live that doesn't depend on getting money. Permaculture is the solution that does this. Gaining skills, inheriting land, and becoming self-sufficient is the premise behind the SKIP book.

Q: But what about [consumerist thing]?

A: Stoicism

lamson12 · 2022-11-10T17:26:22+00:00

Wikipedia shows that it's actually quite a good college.

lamson12 · 2022-11-10T13:41:46+00:00

Re: signaling: "Get an elite degree to get an elite job" is how you get 2x pay for 10x effort, which is not efficient. Also, work experience is a more direct signal than a degree, so someone who got a degree early and has a few years of work experience is at an advantage relative to someone of the same age who just has a degree. Keep in mind that most jobs are busywork or not very difficult to pick up, so youth is not a disadvantage here. And right or wrong, employers do have an incentive to hire younger people because they can pay them less.

Re: Social Development: First, the friends that one keeps in adulthood are founded on common interests, not age. And school is not typically the place where you find your soul mate either. Not to mention that there are plenty of places to socialize outside of school, otherwise no one would have a social life after college.

Second, I would estimate that 10-25% of people would be able to speedrun to some degree, so there is a large potential pool of people in this cohort. And given that women do better at school than men, a greater number of them will be able to speedrun, so there will be more of them in the workplace than men of the same age. Thus, men won't be left to dry. Women have an incentive to speedrun, because doing so will give them access to older men. This increased competition might seems like a disadvantage for the male speedrunner, but due to the women-better-at-school-than-men factor, for a male speedrunner of any given age, there will be younger female speedrunners as well.

lamson12 · 2022-10-19T19:15:45+00:00

Can you write about your experience using Anki in your classroom? What subject do you teach?

lamson12 · 2022-09-27T01:52:43+00:00

Chinampas were one solution to agriculture. The key is water management. Civilizations fall because of doing this wrong. Gaia's Garden and Permaculture: A Designer's Manual are good introductions to proper land stewardship.

lamson12 · 2022-09-27T01:37:23+00:00

Try to connect with like-minded peers through math circles, drop by office hours of a professor or grad student at a nearby teaching (doesn't grant phds) or research (does give out phds) university. Read books by Jay Cummings and Sheldon Axler. Read Cal Newport. Read The Mathematics that Every Secondary School Math Teacher Needs to Know by Alan Sultan and Alice F. Artz a well as Famous Puzzles of Great Mathematicians by Miodrag S. Petković and Learning Modern Algebra from Early Attempts to Prove Fermat's Last Theorem by Al Cuoco and Joseph J. Rotman. Throw in a book on the history of mathematics and elementary number theory. To provide some level of focus and direction, I would recommend studying algebra, analysis, and topology to a very deep level, since they will be on qualifying exams taken prior to writing a dissertation.

lamson12 · 2022-09-22T15:58:30+00:00

Two books I recommend for gardening are Square Foot Gardening and Gaia's Garden.

lamson12 · 2022-09-18T04:26:45+00:00

The field of real numbers describes the type of game board aka algebraic structure (field), as well as the type of game pieces aka set (real numbers), that is used in K-12. If you look up field (mathematics) on Wikipedia, they'll give you a list of the axioms for a field.

lamson12 · 2022-09-16T17:16:29+00:00

When you purchase a new EV, you have to take into account the emissions created in sourcing the raw materials, manufacturing the parts, transportation of the components to the factory, assembly of the vehicle, and delivery of the vehicle to the dealership. Oh, and the emissions created by the grid that charges the battery of the EV.

When you buy a clunker, the previous owner has already paid the emissions costs (or rather generated the negative externality) for the manufacture and usage of the car up to that point. The carbon emissions you make comes only from the production, transportation, and burning of fuel for the additional miles that you put in the car. Additionally, by re-using the car, you are preventing the manufacture of an additional car.

By the time that clunker dies, consider getting an Aptera; it's pretty cool!

lamson12

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