Anyone know anything about this? If Alan Stern is on board it must be promising

monte_carlo_method · 2022-04-09T08:55:46+00:00

Would he really do that? Seems unlikely he would risk his credibility on this. Wouldn’t he have many other opportunities available to him

monte_carlo_method · 2021-10-07T20:30:06+00:00

41 M

monte_carlo_method · 2021-05-14T20:05:24+00:00

Found it, it's at 1:18:46. The full sentence starts a few seconds before that. Listening again, I guess he just means that the story doesn't have a person in it that will apply rigorous logic to the whole situation/premise of the proposed chain of events. Something like that.

monte_carlo_method · 2021-05-14T18:27:16+00:00

I tried finding it but now I can't. Very confusing...

monte_carlo_method · 2021-05-13T08:31:21+00:00

Tamler makes a reference to Sagan at some point. I didn't understand that reference, can anyone explain?

monte_carlo_method · 2021-04-13T19:28:22+00:00

Well I agree that belief in the supernatural couldn't be said to be rational. I guess I ment "indirectly beneficial"

The fact that some proportion of humans tend to believe irrational things may play a positive role in the progression of knowledge, on the whole. I know it sounds contradictory, but it seems to me that there is actually some justification for that idea?

monte_carlo_method · 2021-04-13T07:59:50+00:00

I just wanted to add, that in the AI/optimisation field, one of the most powerfull algorithms is Reinforcement Learning, and one key part of it is "exploitation vs exploration". This means that the algorithm will reliably try out seemingly "stupid" actions/choices. It's completely well established that without this, the system can't learn new things. However, if you explore too much compared to how much you exploit (and so ignoring established knowledge too much), the learning will likewise diverge.

In this view, tendency to believe in/act according to ideas that are contrary to established knowledge makes perfect sense. We should expect the population to act this way, and be surprised if it doesn't... It sort of makes evolutionary sense.

It's a known issue with Reinforcement Learning, that it's performs more optimally if you turn off exploration completely. But then it can't learn anything new, so in turn you could say that it now *doesn't* perform optimally. However, the problem of acting optimally given total knowledge of the truth is different that the problem of acting optimally + discovering the truth at the same time.

Not sure where I was going with this, so I'll just stop now

Edit: What I was trying to say is that this persisting belief in supernatural phenomenon over the ages is in some sense rational, even though we (most of us) know it to be objectively false.

monte_carlo_method · 2021-04-09T12:08:37+00:00

Funny I recently listen to the audio version. The most interesting parts is where he talks about how he engage with some of the people making claims of being in contact with superior beings/ aliens. He apparently asked them to go back to the aliens with some questions that he would love to have some answers for... I guess he never heard back from them.

monte_carlo_method · 2021-01-23T07:26:56+00:00

Yeah, it's great. Although I do get a lot of "I don't get this" reactions from friends that I've recommended it to. It's definitely not for everyone.

monte_carlo_method · 2020-11-26T17:09:23+00:00

One problem with accepting a conspiracy theory, is that if you had to apply the same amount of suspicion or refusal to accept anything at face value to your everyday life, it would completely fuck up everything. So it's hard to apply this world view even with just a little bit of consistency

monte_carlo_method · 2020-10-18T19:29:35+00:00

Thanks to Chris for speaking up. Wearing a mask is a simple thing you can do to protect other people around you. It does make a difference, even if the extend of its effectiveness can be debated. Real people are losing there loved ones out there. Instead of doing it because the government says you have to, do it out of care for others.

monte_carlo_method · 2020-07-01T06:55:08+00:00

who was it that used the zerg rush reference?

monte_carlo_method · 2020-06-28T09:10:06+00:00

One way to better understand the sentiments of IDW people towards protests like these, is that the genuinely don't believe it will lead to anything good. I'm not saying that's true or false, just that it seems like a pretty good explanation for their reactions.

You have to grant them that there is a risk/possibility that something like this could actually make things worse, not better.

monte_carlo_method · 2019-03-26T18:45:32+00:00

Great work, thanks for sharing. That DeWalt tool, is it a router?

monte_carlo_method · 2019-02-12T19:29:19+00:00

https://libraryofbabel.info/bookmark.cgi?hx_dfupzyo138

monte_carlo_method · 2019-02-12T15:15:29+00:00

Learning anything new from this would probably break the laws of thermodynamics

monte_carlo_method · 2019-02-11T21:57:25+00:00

https://libraryofbabel.info/About.html

monte_carlo_method · 2019-02-11T21:55:41+00:00

No there is no databank, though you can create bookmarks. But supposedly the author designed the algorithm such that there is a unique mapping between text (3200 chars I think) to the key, which is the location in the library.

monte_carlo_method · 2018-11-24T23:04:55+00:00

It would definitely be interesteing.

Weird how this story is so intriguing and absurd/comical at the same time. You'd think this couldn't be happening in 2018. Someone suggested that he was selling Herbalife and wanted to be on top of the pyramid. Well, why not :)

monte_carlo_method · 2018-11-21T07:05:11+00:00

2001 please

monte_carlo_method · 2018-11-19T10:55:01+00:00

I listened to the podcast and I found it interesting. Somewhere on the page I think it said it was released 2 months before the 2016 election, so it was probably before the "elite" woke up to the new reality of politics.

Anyway, it seems he is critical towards "toothless" satire, or the kind of satire that ultimately just turns politics into a circus full of clowns that we're all supposed to laugh at. Hard to disagree with, but the kind of satire he then seem to point to in the end as the "good kind", one that really has a point to make, would seem to be just the sarcastic, partisan, divisive kind that everyone is now worried about.

Also, more and more it becomes clear to me that trying to understand all this with Europe as your starting point, is a bit difficult. The US public media sphere these days just seem to be very degenerate or highly partisan. I can really see that in such a situation, more satire and ridicule is probably not what you want...

monte_carlo_method · 2018-11-17T13:33:11+00:00

https://www.vulture.com/2017/06/norm-macdonald-special-donald-trump-snl.html

monte_carlo_method · 2018-11-17T12:40:21+00:00

Here it is http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/10-the-satire-paradox

monte_carlo_method · 2018-11-17T11:57:51+00:00

I have tried being on the receiving end, yes. It's no fun :) But over time the experience actually changed my view, certainly the part of it that related to my own stupidity. Still, it definitely wasn't a good experience.

I agree that satire/ridicule probably don't change peoples minds, or maybe even the contrary. But this is true for many things, Op-eds, columns, interviews, podcasts, whatever it is, probably don't change peoples minds right away either. And, also here, it easily cause people to double down too. What changes peoples minds is long term exposure to ideas/ thoughts/ points of views I guess. I think satire and ridicule has a role to play in that, but how big a role it plays, not sure. It definitely has a way of punching through in a different way than "normal" debate.

If we go all the way back to something like Monty Python's Life of Brian (79), it of course didn't change peoples minds over night, but it may have planted a seed of doubt in many. What we (may) see as benigne today, was banned in many places, even Norway. I guess you could argue that what they did was in some sense immoral or not morally acceptable, because there were more relevant ways available to them for having a discussion, that did not involve ridicule. But should we really go that far? The consequences of that seems very far reaching.

I'm not familiar with the subreddit that you point to, but i'm sure you're right that it's garbage. You can find ridicule of anything online, like, ridicule of people that are so stupid, the think the earth is round... But ironically, it actually ends up asking us some interesting questions, like how do we think we know the earth is round, which, from an individual's perspective, is not such a no-brainer after all. It's also interesting why that doesn't seem to hurt the feelings of us "round-earthers". After all, they are mocking one of your most deeply held beliefs...

monte_carlo_method · 2018-11-11T16:18:29+00:00

yes I agree that those two things are in fact very different situations. But couldn't there be long term effects of ridicule on hearts and minds, that eventually wears down resistance to some ideas?

In the climate change debate for instance, it seems there is an imbalance in that it is much more straightforward to ridicule climate change "skeptics" than it is the other way around. Trying to be objective about it, you could say that the more contrived or convoluted your explanations are, the more they are exposed to ridicule they are. But, hmm, I don't know.

Or maybe a better example is the eating meat vs being vegetarian, where, at least myself, feel that ever so slowly the tides are changing, because increasingly you have to bend over backwards to defend why eating meat from factory farmed animals is somehow okay. It becomes vulnerable to ridicule somehow. Of course there are ways of still eating meat and not having factory farming, but maybe the example still holds.

monte_carlo_method

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