This is my blog organized by topic - If you would like to read it in chronologically, please click HERE
2023.04.04
What am I doing?
My whole life I've tried to learn and organize. A rational being will try to gain information to make better decisions to achieve a better life.
The internet has completely changed the landscape with respect to gaining useful information. In the past it was prudent to learn just about anything you could because you only had access to a certain amount of new information. Today we have constant access to all information. This causes 2 problems.
The first problem is that on some level we feel a sense of accomplishment because being able to access anything is in a sense like having everything.. so we feel a sense of contentment because just by existing today we've achieved more than any human to ever exist before. I think we all realize that this doesn't feel quite right, but in a sense it is in fact the truth.
The second problem arises in response to rectifying the first. Once we realize that just existing in a certain time isn't sufficient for a fulfilling life, we pursue refining information.
We recognize that having access isn't fulfilling in itself.. We want to experience things. We want to grow personally. This includes not just having the option to access information.. we want to learn it so that it becomes a part of us so that we ourselves have intrinsic value because of what we are. If we just exist as empty beings that can access things. Then the only use or meaning in our lives is as a tool for other beings. And one that has no value to others because they have the same access that we do.
We have a need to be robust in ourselves and dynamically valuable in our relationships with others. In all of history that meant gaining information and applying information. Today that endeavor doesn't work because we can instantly gain all information but can't possibly apply all information.
A new process is needed. We have intuition that the process is now to filter, refine, and apply the correct information. That is sufficient to a certain degree for many people, but it's not optimal. This process may work locally for an individual life in certain circumstances but applied broadly it lacks an essential element of a fulfilling life.. progress.
Sure we can experience progress in our personal lives and that has been sufficient for ages. In the past we could believe that if we were making personal progress that in a roundabout way that we were helping to progress our community and humanity as a whole. And to a degree this belief was probably somewhat correct.
Today this ideal doesn't hold. We can make personal progress and it can be truly rewarding. However if one is sincere in pursuing meaningful progress, they realize that their personal progress is no longer contributing to the betterment of their community or humanity on the highest levels. This is troublesome because our innate need to progress is the need for progress to not only apply to ourselves but to a community.
This isn't obvious to all and many will never reach this feeling of despair overtly but I do think people are begging to experience it subconsciously. I think people feel less driven because they do on some level recognize that their personal progress is only experienced locally but is more often meaningless outside of themselves.
While progress of humanity can be said to be growing faster than ever, there are fewer and fewer individuals contributing to that progress. In the past even if we weren't directly responsible for meaningful progress of humanity we could correctly believe that we were helping to support that progress now matter how far removed from the tip of the spear we actually were. Today that's no longer true and we know that it isn't true. We can plainly see that we are in fact useless to humanity's progress.
So the second problem we face is how to experience a meaningful life when the traditional two pillars of a meaningful life don't apply today.. Personal growth in any area can be achieved with a simple web query, and contributing to others growth can only be applied locally. Real contribution to humanities progress is impossible for very close to 100% of individuals.
The unbelievable progress of humanity has brought us to a point where our historical pursuits as individuals of a species have either been completely achieved or completely impossible.
2023.07.13
Capitalism is only designed to benefit capital. Inequality could be argued to benefit the evolution of humanity in the long term but it is detrimental to humanity in the short term.
It may promote development, the advancement of technology and the differentiation of portions of humans to more quickly evolve the species, but most humans don't hold these to be the highest priorities of humanity in the current moment.
Capitalism by design will only lead to more inequality and more barriers between classes of society. As the name implies, the system is designed with only the benefit to capital in mind. The other two inputs of economic activity- labor and material - are ignored and intended to be fully exploited for the benefit of capital. This is undesirable to the vast majority of humanity but intentional because the individuals that designed and implemented the system were owners of capital and selfishly or out of ignorance designed a system to exclusively benefit themselves at the expense of other individuals and society as a whole.
Capitalism will only force the price of labor and material to drop. By design it can never provide a path for labor or materials to benefit. The price of labor and materials will always fall until the system collapses.
The capitalists claim that labor can benefit by saving wages and investing to eventually move into the capital class. This argument ignores 2 facts built into the system. The first being that the price of labor is driven down to its marginal cost meaning that wages always fall to the point of only providing the necessities to exist - basically subsistence cost. Or put another way - disguised slavery, so that there is no excess capital for the laborers to invest. The second being that the principals of the system cause the owners of capital to erect barriers of entry into their class. It's a principle of the system to benefit capital at any expense and that includes protecting the existing capital in any way possible such as passing laws and regulation to make the entry into the class and therefore the dilution of the benefits of the existing owners to become more difficult if not impossible.
2023.04.28
Capitalism is a religion. In America you aren't allowed to even question its merits without being totally mocked or canceled.
Capitalism was a useful stage in the evolution of individuals' relationships with other individuals and society as a whole.
Survival of the fittest is a natural law. Our ability to reason has allowed us to improve upon this law but we have stalled and need to continue progress.
Early societies benefited by reasoning that more can be achieved through cooperation. We all begin to benefit, but eventually people begin to game and exploit the system. Reverting to a quasi natural state of survival of the fittest. This continues until the system collapses because the benefits of cooperation are not being shared.
Capitalism was an improved system but people think of it backward from what it is. People think of it as empowering individuals against an oppressor such a state.
It is an attempted improvement over the last system in which the state had gamed the system too far. However Capitalism isn't a system of freeing people. It's a system of constraint and cooperation. We think of it as freeing and empowering because it is compared to the most recent system that it was a reaction to. But that isn't truly what it is.
At its core, it’s a system of restraints adopted by individuals so that they may enjoy the fruits of cooperation while being protected from exploitation.
If you think of capitalism as liberating and empowering, why then is it solely comprised of restraints rather than rights?
Capitalism is more liberating for the individual compared to previous or some alternate systems but it’s not fully liberating. That would be anarchy. We can agree anarchy is undesirable and we can also agree totalitarianism is undesirable as well. Where we go wrong is to believe that capitalism is the only deliverance from these two states and that any other system will dissolve into oppression or extortion.
Any system eventually gets gamed by self serving individuals and needs to be renewed or abolished. Capitalism as we know it is now in its late stages and is in danger of collapsing all of society if its not amended to realign it with the benefit of all.
It’s now a system that has been totally gamed and exploited to the extreme. It’s no longer assisting in the benefit and advancement of all but in fact hindering it so that a few individuals may benefit at the cost of society. Part of their game is to ingrain the belief that capitalism in its current form is the only possible framework for society to grow from.
Capitalism in its early days was in fact very successful and useful but it’s now worse than the alternative systems that came before it. It now hinders progress and costs individuals to participate in it - the exact opposite of what its purpose is. We need to acknowledge the costs to individuals and societal progress that current capitalism is now causing. We need to overhaul the system or start over from the ground up.
Capitalism was the best system for society at the time it was implemented. Capitalism in its current form is closer to the worst possible system and society today has different needs that it did 250 years ago.
2022.10.20
I’m a personal responsibility believer, I'm a free market evangelist. However, I could be wrong.
As you get older it gets more difficult to change your mind about things. You’ve lived longer and your life has most likely reinforced whatever beliefs you hold. On the topic of free market economics there is also community reinforcement to compound your confidence that capitalism is always best. We’ve succeeded as a country for a couple centuries as a leader in international competition and domestic success. There are millions of stories of individuals within this country succeeding directly because of capitalism and millions of advancements and innovations directly because of capitalism. How could anyone think anything other than capitalism is always the best in any circumstance possible?
Well my current thinking is about the utility of different things in different circumstances. Just as a person changes through their life and has different needs and wants through their life - so does a society. Now here I'm mostly thinking domestically but some of this may be applicable on a world or species size scale.
Economic freedom (not discussing social freedom here) has shown to be the best system through the industrial revolution. It created millions of innovations quickly and efficiently. It allowed a vast number of individuals to succeed for themselves while simultaneously contributing meaningful progress to society as a whole. I’m not arguing that any other system could have served us as individuals or us a society any better over the last couple hundred years.
I need to state here that I view the last 20-40 years as the tail end of the industrial revolution for the sake of this paper. I think for the last 10 years we have begun the transition into the information or computation age. The main point of my position is that we are in a transition; it's one in which our current version of capitalism needs to be adjusted or completely reimagined.
In the past, capitalism was useful in that it was pretty good at finding and supporting successful innovators while also providing reasonable compensation for anyone willing to input labor into the system. Sure some innovators slipped through the cracks and all labor wasn’t equitabley rewarded, but as a whole, it’s been pretty good. You could generally say that if you were willing to work hard you would have a high chance of economic success, and if you were truly innovative in a way that was useful to society that you would succeed and be rewarded handsomely.
This is no longer the case in my opinion. I believe we are now in an overly mature version of capitalism where the principles are distorted beyond recognition and that even if we were able to somehow revive it to what it should be, that it’s no longer the best system of economics for the society we live in today.
I don’t think that it’s guaranteed that people can reasonably succeed if they work real hard, I don't think that most innovators are found and rewarded by the system, and I think the system is hindering rather than contributing to society progress and advancement.
I can't fully develop all of these points here, but let's overview my thinking. First, it’s a tough proposition to argue against something as bulletproof as capitalism. My thinking here is that yes it was great for history to this point however life has changed. Maybe you can argue that the citystate or church state of early history or the middle ages was in fact a better system for society as a whole at that point in time. Maybe you could say that individuals weren’t yet developed enough to succeed and contribute to their own or societies success. I know this is heresy in the time of the reign of capitalism, but I think the argument could hold water.
That is an argument that society wasn’t ready for capitalism at that point in time. I’m arguing the other end of this - that capitalism in its current form is past its prime and no longer best suited for the job.
In the world today, people can contribute so much to society that it A. cancels out the need for many others to contribute to society, and B, hinders many others chance of contributing to said goal, and by extension even earning a living for themselves.
The system is now rewarding high contributors in the wrong way, and also not sustaining others even though they have value.
High earners and contributors are currently rewarded as much or more for negative action as they are for positive action. The reward structure of our current capitalism is ineffective and self-defeating at the top. The top rewards are too vast and become linked to the wrong thing. Right now, high contributors can earn enough not just to be ultra wealthy, but also enough to change incentive structures. If you are at the top, your incentive overwhelmingly becomes preservation rather than growth and the method becomes defending by destroying opportunity rather than innovating or creating opportunity.
I’m sorry.. I’m trying to work right now, and I can't keep a thought together - I'll have to argue this better another time.
2022.210.23
If you don’t support unilateral disarment you’re a fucking retrard.
No, I'm not a technical expert on international relations and complex game theory, but if you can't tell yet - I feel very strongly about this. Normally I don't come on so strong on hugely complex political issues but this is an exception. It’s funny because I've spent a relatively tiny amount of energy researching this subject. However the issue is so black and white that you don’t need to spend more than 5 minutes understanding the issue to reach the only possible position on the issue - immediate unilateral disarmament.
You don’t need to explore every possible scenario of the issue to reach a definitive conclusion. - Let's get there quickly. 1 would we EVER use nukes preemptively? - no. no period. There is no possible scenario in which we would ever do that - EVER no matter what - it’s an obvious fact. Also there is no possible argument to be made that we ever SHOULD do so. So that ends 90% of the discussion right there.
2. Would we ever use them retaliatory? - possibly. However we can defeat this argument by stating and proving that we SHOULD never use them retaliatory.
All arguments for keeping nukes are based on insurance against a first strike, but they all fall apart the moment that you play out that scenario and realize that if in fact we were to receive an attack, that even then every possible scenario leads to a decision to not respond with a nuke.
If a nuke were used offensively - it would signal that the launcher is willing to destroy humanity. So any retaliation of nuclear use would insure all out nuclear war in which humanity is destroyed. - facts - not up for debate.
I hope that the US policy is to never destroy humanity. - if that is the case - and it should be the case - then you have a situation where we can never use one first, and if we are not going to destroy the world we can never use one back - so that means that we should never use one - if that is the case then they aren’t really insurance are they? The only purpose they serve is to increase the risk that they are used mistakenly and therefore they are having the opposite effect of ensuring peace - they are increasing risk and threat for every person and country on the planet.
Every moment that we don’t disarm we are continuing to act like a drunk teenager waving a loaded gun around in a crowded area with the trigger half squeezed and claiming that we are doing so in self defense - retarded.
The only argument that is ever made is by retarded war mongers that profit on the existance of threat in the world - even if it is threat that they themselves create. - it's the people that want to dig themselves out of a hole, or spend their way out of debt, or eat themselves out of obesity. Yes any argument to maintain nukes is that stupid.
No, I haven't debated every point here and have no intention to. I can’t make real arguments for people that are that dumb. And i know that anyone who disagrees here is that dumb. - my basis for the claim is that if you want to keep them then you don’t even understand them at all. We did in the cold war to some degree, and we got very lucky a few times there.
I’m at a loss here to try to develop my argument any deeper even though I've done very little other than state I'm right and anyone not agreeing with me is wrong. I know that isn’t an argument. One problem with discourse today is that people can’t even agree on facts to start a meaningful discussion.
That is the nature of facts. They are facts and are not up for debate. If you are a human capable of reason - then certain facts must be taken in order for you to participate in society - if you choose to dispute actual facts then you aren’t an organism that can be included in society.
I know my claim still doesn’t follow from these points - my position is one of policy and not the natural world and therefore could be said to never be in the arena of factually true.
However - if we are going to discourse on any meaningful level of communication, then this position must be taken as close to fact as a policy position could be.
If we can’t start here - then we can start nowhere and there is no reason for me to even try to engage you.
Man, that is a mean post. Like I said - I usually don’t try to defend something as hard as I believe in this - but if the end of all humanity isn’t worth planting a flag for, what is? We can debate on things that will help or hurt individuals or communities or even humanity, but we can’t mess around with ending all of humanity. We’ve been extremely lucky for 80 years. It’s utterly retarded to continue to raise the stakes and continue to roll the dice when humanitys existence is in the balance
2022.10.27
What defines human?
Is it just species?
Is It a certain intelligence level?
The ability to reason?
Is compassion required?
Is a community required?
What are human rights?
Are they different across borders?
Are they affected by one's actions?
Are human rights positive or negative rights?
Do they cause obligations on others?
Does it matter what community is in on who gets and gives rights?
Do human rights depend on compassion?
How compassionate must I be?
How compassionate should I choose to be?
If all of my circumstance is due to luck, am I required to give all that I have?
Do human rights and obligations depend on the society you live in?
Should your personal conduct reflect the society you want to live in?
How far should your generosity reach your city? the world?
Why is radical generosity so rare?
Is a tithe sufficient?
Sufficient for what?
Is reasonable generosity the answer?
Is effective generosity the answer?
Is radical generosity reasonable?
What weight should reason carry in the decision process?
If it's reasonable Is in generous?
Would a better definition of a human help us define humane?
Do consciousnesses that aren't human deserve humanity?
Does the answer depend on my opinion?
Is anyone outside of myself entitled to any humanity other than reasonable humanity?
Do I have the ability to give anything outside of myself humanity?
Am I part of the human organism or am I a human?
Do generous thoughts and wants hold any value without action?
Is the correct amount more than zero?
Is it less than all?
Is it precisely 10%?
Is it only determined by my mind or the community's mind?
Am I required to adhere to the norms of the organism?
If these questions are answered Does generosity turn into obligation?
If I am who I am Does any of this make any sense?
Should I be pushed to a level of generosity?
Am I pulled by more generosity?
Does my value to myself or others or the organism feel the pull of more generosity?
Where should generosity be injected?
At the very bottom?
At the most effective point?
Define effective.
As close to myself as possible?
If it's too Close to me Does it even count as generosity?
Does being humane force you to delete locality in calculation?
2022.11.21
A universal basic income is a controversial topic that I would like to voice my position on. This is going to be incomplete and messy but it's a start and maybe we can start a conversation from here.
I’m going to try to lay my argument out in a broad structured formatt. So, here are the points I would like to make.
We can afford it. In fact it would probably save the country money if implemented correctly.
We already have it in a different form. This isn’t new support for the worthless, it's a restructuring of already existing social support.
The economic world we live in dictates that we implement this ASAP. The free market has run its course and is overly mature right now. It’s time to transition to what's next.
A free market economy was useful for a couple hundred years in the US. it’s now doing more damage than good. Now it only creates inequality and exploitation. A new system will promote equality and potential for mobility.
We have lost the meaning of freedom and need to reawaken to what freedom is. Nowadays freedom only means 1 thing. A free market. Freedom is more. Freedom is the ability to survive, thrive, and progress according to one's own abilities, beliefs and decisions. We are now slaves to the free market and slaves to the ideal of wealth creation. We need to reiterate our commitment to freedom and progress.
A UBI will create more value, more resiliency, more progress, and a more unifying society.
We already spend way too much on social programs and a too big percentage of the spend is waste. Most people want to say that they don’t want to support other people with a hand out for doing nothing. A. we already do that. And B. you yourself already receive a “handout” too. - Do you pay taxes? Do you claim a standard deduction? How about a child credit? My point is that if we took all government payments and simplified it into 1 system, just the reduction of waste would pay for the new program. Yes it’s a huge undertaking and I'm not sure exactly how to implement it. But I know that we should, and that we should start making an effort to do so.
We could start with social security - stop tying it to earnings, just tie it to age. Everyone gets the same amount. Then from there add supplements for disability, or health care, etc. but eventually, we would want to eliminate as many supplements as possible and just roll them into a standard amount that everyone receives.
We could extend this all the way down to 18 year olds. Even they get a monthly check. What this looks like for a lot of us is just an elimination of our tax credits, and now that is paid as a UBI.
Simplification of the tax code would be a huge part of this and deserves many threads of its own. But if we did this as part of a transition to UBI, it would allow a simplification of the code and make exploitation of the loopholes more obvious and easier to crack down on.
We already pay all this money out, just in a different form. Our system was built on an ideal of self support but along the way we have recognized that as a society we like to support certain groups of people. The old, veterans, the disabled, etc.
These are noble advancements and they are good ideals. Now though we need to rework the system. All the individual programs are set up separately and focussed on enforcement of the rules so that no one gets a free ride that doesn’t meet the requirements of the program.
Now almost everyone is eligible for at least one of these programs. We could save so much in just program administration by ending - or at least reducing by 95% of all these programs and rolling them into 1 - a UBI. then the cost of enforcement and eligibility enforcement go to zero. This would be a huge savings.
The free market was great at making the US what it is today - the economic and military powerhouse of the world. However, the system has run its course and is beginning to rot from the inside.
A free market is a great system when everyone in it is starting from the same point, and has the same opportunity to advance. That isn’t the case now.
In today's world people start from different places - wealth inequality is staggeringly high. And staggering is an apt description because if it's not corrected, it’s going to collapse in a disastrous way.
Also today, the opportunity to advance doesn’t exist like it did 150 years ago. I could go on about this for hours but the numbers don’t lie. Economic mobility is very low in the US and getting worse.
We’ve been taught that the free market is more true than religion - that it’s beyond question as the best system for every economy and every situation period. I’m not debating the value of a market economy in the right circumstances and agree that the first 200 years of this country were in fact the right circumstances for a free market.
However - who is going to argue that today's economy and society are in any way the same as they were in the 1800s. Today not everyone needs to spend all their effort on procuring food and shelter for survival. We have the ability to provide basic needs for everyone. Let's acknowledge this and remove the burden so that individuals can free themselves of it and contribute to the advancement of society in this next phase of development.
I’m not promoting socialism or communism here, I'm just starting the conversation about acknowledging that a 100% free market economy in the US is beyond its lifecycle and that there are clearly better alternatives available to serve us in the situation that we live in today.
Same argument as #3.
Freedom is more than economic freedom. Today we tie everything into economic freedom. We believe that the more wealth we have buys us more freedom in everything. This has translated to the situation of the lobbyist problem in congress. That economic freedom has become an economic power able to be used to influence the rules of the game in which we all play - the playing field is no longer even - it’s structured to favor those that have power keeping the power and gaining more.
These monopolies are destroying capitalism’s ideal of freedom. The progression of wealth inequality is promoting more inequality. This in itself is a destructive process, but it’s also reaching beyond financial disparity.
It's reaching into other areas of life that are degrading society as a whole. More and more aspects of our lives are dictated by the level of wealth we have. The friends we have, the jobs we have, what we get paid for doing the same job, teh hobbies we have, the churches we go to, the places we eat, the things we do in our free time. We are becoming more and more segregated by economic class in every aspect of life.
This is causing a fragmentation of society and weakening and lowering resilience. It’s going to destroy society as a whole if we don’t address it. We need to revisit the idea of how much of people's lives should be tied to the economic free market and the market idea of value.
We need to find a way to identify the value of an individual that isn’t only tied to hiter economic output. This would strengthen society, and create an environment more supportive of individual growth that would in turn provide more “value” to society.
A UBI wouldn’t create a more dependent society. It would free a society burdened by the situation of an individual being defined 100% by their economic value output. This is a real problem for society today. If we were able to alleviate this burden, eliminate social structures and economic barriers built by those with power, we could unleash a new era of societal growth.
Right now we are in a society that suffocates those at the bottom by labeling them and rigging the system against them so that the haves can build a permanent wall between themselves and the have nots.
We should recognize that this isn’t good for society and not even good for that isolated part of society.
We need to recognize that a 100% free market is now only causing more barriers to be erected and that we need to move towards a society with fewer barriers. This allows us all to better relate with each other as equals rather than servants and masters. This in turn allows a better environment for new and better ideas to benefit society no matter where they come from. Right now our system is suffocating a huge class of people. We need to acknowledge that the system we are using now is good for no one - not even those that think they are benefitting from it.
That is my opening for a support of UBI. I don’t have all the answers of how to implement it and I probably haven’t even done justice to the idea of implementing it. My hope is to at least start the conversation so that we can progress to a place where it isn’t dismissed before it’s even considered.
Right now it’s immediately dismissed as an expansion of welfare for the scum of society. - Let's get beyond that label and actually start a conversation around the idea.
2023.02.04
It’s puzzling to me why this doesn’t exist - especially considering the inflation rate on everyone's mind. I guess the reason why this doesn’t exist is because there is limited profit potential if done correctly. And that is the key to my proposal - make the system non profit.
The idea of this institution being non profit stems from a first principle of helping and advancing humanity and the humans that make up humanity. Banking isn’t rocket science, but it seems to consume vast resources that could be better deployed. We don’t need to reward banks and traders with billions of dollars a year for milking us dry with inflation and fees that are unnecessary.
Gold Bank will be secure, transparent, and simple.
The security will be in the form of 1. Obvious security measures to secure transaction, account, and identity details. This is complex, but the principles are simple. Ensure the security of transactions - i have process plans for these components but the general idea is pretty basic.
2. The other component lies in eliminating institution risk. This bank will eliminate inflation risk because assets and transactions will be in physical gold that can be redeemed any time at any branch. If you do feel insecure about the bank - you can physically withdraw your gold. This is possible because the bank functions on real assets - not credit or loans. The bank has no incentive to take risk - it's non profit. Its only incentive is to provide security, and low cost low friction transfers between clients.
This bank will be as transparent as possible. It has no reason to keep things secret. It will ensure privacy for clients while sharing all revenues and costs with everyone. It will also share as much transaction activity as possible in the form of block chain tokens or possibly just a database that is searchable. This transparency will also contribute to the security by exposing any abuse or attack on the system from outside or within. The point of emphasizing transparency as a principle ensures that the system remains a clean tool for humanity rather than a corrupt system that benefits a few elites.
The bank will be simple. Sure there will be complexities within the system but the principles will be clear and easily identifiable. There won't be divisions within the bank that are focussed on exploiting commodity pricing differences across the globe to make a profit, or inventing a new way to market risk in order to make a profit. Banks today are behemoths made up of so many wacky components that even the “banks” themselves don’t even know what they are doing to make profits. Banking isn’t rocket science - it has been made to appear as such so that elites can exploit the masses and extract wealth from them. Banking is simple and this bank will keep it so. It will hold your wealth and facilitate electronic transfers for as small a fee as possible. These fees will be a tiny fraction of fees paid in the current system. Not only will the fee savings be gigantic. There will also be a huge saving from the current system because the wealth will be held in gold - you won't need to compete with inflation to keep your money - it will retain real value.
Our monetary systems have evolved in order to make transactions cheaper and easier. 2 problems exist in our current system that are bleeding humanity dry. 1st is the transition away from real money to imaginary money. Now that no currency is tied to gold it is just as worthless as any “crypto currency” that someone makes up and tries to market. There is no value - it’s imaginary, and the profits from selling the imaginary good goes to the issuer of the currency whether that be a government that prints more imaginary currency to erode individuals real wealth, or crypto issuer that just issues more worthless code with the click of a button that has no value but is sold to you as “money of the future”
The 2nd problem that exists in our current system is the exploitation of customers by institutions. The institutions force us to use worthless currency to exchange with each other. While we use these currencies that always inflate away to thin air, they use our deposits to real assets that hold or gain value over time. They force us to use one market where inflation is always working against us, while they participate in a different market of real assets that hold or gain value.
Gold was a great money in the beginning - it was impossible to fake, was scarce, and more easily transferred than a cow or a bushel of wheat.
Eventually it became easier to fake, and easier transfer options became available.
Currency was a great continuation of the gold standard once it became universal and secured by real gold. It was easier to keep your wealth safe in a bank, while holding enough currency to conduct transactions.
Currency was ruined when it was decoupled from gold. From then on, it was just a piece of paper with no claim on anything real whatsoever - just as the thousands of “crypto coins” that exist and disappear today - it’s just a hope that the next fool will accept the imaginary instrument that you are trying to offer them.
Electronic transfers and debit cards are an amazing innovation that have made transactions faster and smoother. They took a while to become mainstream and ubiquitous but now they are refined, secure, and immensely valuable in reducing friction of transfers. The problems that arose with electronic payments arose beside them. Not as problems with the system itself, just that the system along with making transactions smoother, also enabled easier access to credit (too easy) and also the ability to offer unneeded expensive opaque services that siphoned money from individuals to the institutions.
Gold Bank will combine the benefits of owning real gold wealth that is universal, timeless, and the definition of secure along with the benefits of electronic payments like instantaneous frictionless transactions along with the security of documentation.
Gold bank will eliminate the exploitations of 1. Currency issuers that inflate your wealth away, and 2. Institutions that siphon fees to expand their balance sheet.
Gold bank will solve these problems by 1. Holding your asset in a real asset - gold. Your wealth will remain real forever and not inflate away as it does in a currency. 2. Remain nonprofit. Its goal isn’t to enrich shareholders, governments, or elites. Its goal is to provide a simple service for humanity at the lowest cost possible. Any efficiency gained will only be used to lower fees for users, and these fees will already be logarithmically lower than current costs paid by consumers.
Gold Bank intends to assist humanity by reducing the cost of living life. When the cost of retaining our wealth is lowered, we are free to pursue meaningful growth as individuals and societies.
2023.04.20
Today many of us are aware that we are facing societal challenges that are completely new in the history of humanity. I want to explore and crystallize some feelings and opinions around the real identity and causes of these issues.
Many of us have a sense today that we are experiencing a suboptimal version of the range of life options available to us. We also feel that other individuals and society as a whole are in the same boat. We're cautious to discuss this about ourselves and resist labeling it in society this way for fear of inducing a more negative view of ourselves by others or maybe even a "canceling" of ourselves. We can even recognize the irony of this fear because we're also pretty confident that our social score and reliance on the opinion of others in our own perceptions of self worth are one of the root causes of the situation we find ourselves in.
I will lay out my view of the way society has evolved to bring us to this suboptimal state of existence or a "malach" state of affairs.
This problem has sprung up overnight in terms of our species and even in terms of our advancement since the invention of farming and the ability to live in larger communities and progress quicker.
In the early days, most of our needs and attention in life were biological. To address these needs we pursued self development that was fulfilling through the advancement of individual ability in acquiring substance and raising offspring.
As we moved into settlements and communal living, relationships with others became more valuable as a means to achieving sustenance and raising offspring.
This was natural and fulfilling and beneficial. It was natural because we need to mate to reproduce. Being around more partners more often creates more opportunity to mate. It was beneficial because raising offspring and surviving in a community is more desirable and effective than doing so alone or in a small nomadic tribe. It was fulfilling because we were able to achieve progresses personally and genetically that would be impossible if not for the association with larger numbers of people to observe, learn from, and collaborate with.
For a majority of the last 10,000 years. The problem we are facing today literally didn't exist. An individual's view of the world, their perception of their place in it, and their decisions of what to do in life were restricted in a way that is truly unimaginable to us today.
People of this time knew absurdly little of the world. It was also of no matter to know us such anyways because of their complete and total inability to interact or affect the world at all outside of themselves or their immediate family.
There was little time or energy to even consider the world outside of providing necessities for one's self and immediate family. Had the opportunity even existed to consider ideas beyond the biologically immediately necessary, the ability didn't exist. People knew not of the world, or their position in it, or how to interact or affect it. That is because the knowledge, means of communication, and ability to affect or interact with more than a handful of people living next door to you -literally did not exist in life or imagination.
During this time. The problem that so many of us struggle with did not and literally could not exist.
The next era of humanity in relation to this problem can be named the industrial revolution. This time period is larger than the traditional identity of the industrial revolution. It encompasses the time from when communication and travel became more accessible to more people. It could be said to start anywhere from the invention of writing, better modes of travel such as the increase of shipping routes, to the invention of the printing press. This error ended around 2010 to 2015. And while prior eras start and end in time frames of hundreds or thousands of years, the end of the last era definitely ended abruptly. At most it ended in a 20 span from 2000 to 2020. This is significant because the pace of change is an instrumental piece of the development of our current situation. 20 years may not seem quick, but in the history of humanity the span of 1 generation is a microscopic slice of time.
The problem of choice began to exist in this period. More people more often had developed the ability, acquired the means, and were afforded the opportunity to consider meaning in life beyond their immediate survival and reproduction. Knowledge of the world, the ability to communicate with the world and a greater ability to interact with and affect the world outside of one's immediate community was becoming feasible in the real world. Of course this looks different if you're considering the year 1700 or the year 1985. But in relation to this problem, I believe the important aspects are very similar.
The problem is this era was a temporary and minor problem. It manifested as resolving an identity, a goal in life, and the method of pursuing that goal.
During this time we had more knowledge of the world and more options of what to do for ourselves and even the ability to interact and maybe even affect the world outside of our immediate surroundings.
So while there was knowledge of the world and choice in how we would choose to interact with it, It was not overwhelming, Paralyzing, or desperation in that choice. It mostly consisted of learning some amount, making a choice, and pursuing that choice.
The beginning of the existence of options was still in this time, A benefit and empowerment of an individual.
The third era of humanity in regards to this problem started less than a generation ago. The progress of humanity has not only built on itself as a means of advancement, but the technological revolution has enabled exponential progress and change in some areas for better and for worse.
There are many ways to identify and address the problem we are discussing but the aspect i want to focus on here is as follows:
Prior to this era, an individual could generally understand themselves in relation to the world and understand their interaction and feedback from the world.
Today we live in a world that is dominated by over stimulation, overwhelming volume of information and content, complexity, and incomprehensible amount of knowledge. These characteristics of society have grown from nothing to suffocating levels in the blink of an eye. We have problems even naming the problem even though we all know it exists. The problem of even truly comprehending what the problem actually is, stems from the fact that for all of history, all progress, and all increase of consumption was universally and indisputably always a positive quality to pursue and achieve.
This change has happened so quickly that we aren’t able to understand the actual fact of a universal truth of history is not only no longer true, but in fact that truly the opposite ideal has changed from a dysfunction to the only possible way to achieve meaningful existence.
The pursuit of more calories, more communication, more information, has for the history of humanity been universally advantageous in every conceivable aspect of life. However the exact opposite is almost as universally true today.
Some of us are aware of this situation personally or intellectually but still don’t know how to implement it into our lives so as to create a meaningful increase in the value of our existence to ourselves and others.
We can understand that endless calories are bad, that superficial connection with others is unhealthy, and that all information isn’t true information. We identify the concept and attempt to work towards the opposite ideal but it’s insufficient for two reasons. The first being that it’s not just that we can access these things, but that we are bombarded with them incessantly. So avoidance is drastically more difficult if not impossible than if we could just turn these options off. The second being that avoidance or reduction only isn’t a sufficient solution.
I’m not attempting to solve the problem in this post, I'm just attempting to crystallize an identity of some of the causes of the problems that individuals are experiencing today. I may offer my attempts at solutions later, but it’s helpful to properly frame the problem before attacking it and that is what I've attempted to begin here.
2023.04.20.1
We all know that we're desensitized to literally everything. The surprising or disappointing thing is that we compensate by intentionally over dramatizing everything.
We on some level recognize the problem of desensitization because we knowingly or unintentionally attempt to compensate for the phenomenon by artificially injecting unnecessary drama into everything.
We recognize that emotion, belief, and conviction are valuable traits and experiences. and we recognize that with the flood of content that is inescapable, we are becoming incapable of experiencing these.
Our experience of our life and our life's relationships with and contributions to a community are hampered by inability to create value and meaning not only for ourselves to grow and progress towards progress and contentment in our own lives, but also decline in our ability, mean, and success in contributing to and becoming a meaningful part of a community.
The solution to the problem is not to inject artificial drama and importance into things that are not deserving. A possible solution is going to involve correctly identifying the cause first in order to develop possible solutions to the real problem.
Let's shed the presently operating hypothesis that is wrong first. This idea that we are currently living under is as follows.
We are telling ourselves and projecting to others that we are desensitized not because our sensors have been melted off, but because we have achieved a level of enlightenment at which we are above being stimulated because we have experienced everything and nothing, therefore, is novel or worthy of creating excitement with us.
While it may be the case that we no longer feel stimulation or excitement no matter what we may encounter, it doesn't follow or proceed from the idea that the inability to experience peak emotions is a desirable state of existence.
This often held belief is rooted in the history of humanity that prized knowledge and experience as desirable traits as evidence of more knowledge and therefore more power and ability to pursue one's own desires and contribute to the betterment of a community.
However the world we live in today has nearly no correlation with life in the past. Consumption of a wide variety of information is no longer a benefit to an individual and in fact is often now a hindrance in one's ability to develop and achieve goals of one's own accord or the ability to contribute to and become part of a community.
Today desensitization is a sign of one's inability to fully access and expand one's existing abilities and potential.
This lies in the inability to fully access a range of human emotions and motivations that inspire and cause the deployment of desires and methods of pursuing these desires.
Today desensitization is not a sign of knowledge and experience that is useful to an individual in developing and pursuing desires and goals.
Today desensitization is a sign of a burned out intake pathway. It's a sign that one can't be affected by outside stimuli and that one can't access the extreme levels of emotional experience required to initiate meaningful motivation to pursue change or to initiate and achieve motivated action.
We can begin by first acknowledging that the phenomenon is not an sign of enlightenment but a hindrance in pursuing a meaningful life from one's own perspective of experience as well as in providing anything desirable to others as well.
Once we acknowledge this truth we can focus on addressing the need of developing ways of accessing the full range of up to and including the extreme limits of emotions both pleasant and unpleasant. These are each required to live a life that is desirable and meaningful for our own experiences of our own life's and one that is the same for our relationships with other individuals and communities that have innate needs to become a part of.
2023.04.06
This has been studied and written about in the past. The fact that people do better with fewer choices. We like to have choices but not too many. It helps us retain the feeling of autonomy and self determination, but once the number of choices gets beyond a certain point (the number varies depending on the choice and the individual) that more choice is less desirable. It leaves us feeling less confident in our ability to make the correct choice and therefore less confident in our progress towards self realization. When we feel a lower level of autonomy it feels like less freedom overall even when in fact it is more freedom.
This problem may have felt abstract or rare in the past, now permeates more and more aspects of our lives. Choices seem endless for any decision one seems to contemplate.
My current personal dilemma involves determining what I should spend my time pursuing that best increases my enjoyment of my life experience and what also contributes to a better life for others.
My dilemma is that I enjoy writing and creating content that I believe may help others to navigate the problems that I've experienced and conquered. However I feel like I'm doing work that has already been done by others and probably been done better by others. The question i arrive at is if it is worth my efforts to share my personal approach to these solutions that i’m trying to offer in hopes that my particular solution may reach someone better than the already widely distributed solutions, or that maybe i have a chance at reaching someone that the other solutions might not reach, or am i wasting my time doing this while at the same time contributing to the problem or creating more rubbish to sift through while seeking a correct and effective solution?
Shouldn't I just spend my time trying identifying the best solution that already exists and is most likely better than the one I'm working on and just promote that already existing better solution rather than try to make something new that isn't as good? I think it's hard to defend the idea that I should create my own crappier version if it is shown to create no new value in the world other than my satisfaction when in fact that value shouldn't be included because I shouldn't be satisfied by doing so when my original motivation for the project was to provide value to others and if I produce my own lower quality version, I'm in fact harming others by creating more trash for someone to sift through when they are trying to find the best version of the product I'm creating.
This reasoning seems correct and if deployed by everyone accurately would lead to millions of people doing nothing because what they are doing has already been done and done better by another.
This seems absurd, but I think it's true and what we should strive towards. Radical ideas always seem absurd early but once they are assimilated, seem obvious.
We are making so many advancements that we should be more open to embracing these practices that we intuitively feel are weird but intellectually know are progressive.
We need to familiarize ourselves with a faster changing world and embrace the opportunity it provides rather than resisting change for the sake of familiarity. Change is clearly desirable to stagnation because we've never chosen the latter over the former.
We should stop holding ourselves back and pursue known improvements whole heartedly.
Well this one ended up a little further from the starting point than I originally intended but I am what I am I guess.
22.10.07
I guess I'm a true philosopher, or maybe just a space cadet lost in the clouds. Either way I yam what I yam.
I do enjoy thinking about, learning about, and discussing ideas that to most probably seem worthless, meaningless, and a waste of time. Even if all these things are true, I can’t really change the fact that I still enjoy this. And if it is true, couldn’t those things be said about just about any hobby that one invests time in.
Anyways I guess I want to justify or try to explain my wild views or theories or interests. The fact is that I enjoy this stuff.
I know that I'm not a leading physicist that is defining the building blocks of reality by developing a formula that ties quantum theory to relativity. I know I'm not an engineer building a capsule that will take the first humans to mars, and I know I'm not writing doctrines that future humans will live by as the guide to the good life 200 years into the future.
However just because I'm not the tip of the sword in any of these fields doesn’t preclude me from being interested in the subject matter or limit the enjoyment I experience while engaging these subjects even if I'm not “contributing” to the field.
I’m tired of sitting back and holding myself back from expressing my ideas and sharing myself just because I'm not the authoritative thinker in an area. Almost no one is thee expert in the subject that they like to think that they are an expert. Just because this is the case doesn’t mean that they aren’t better versed in that subject than someone else. They can still offer others some level of advancement in the field from the point where the individual currently is.
You may say that a book club or a math club that focuses on jet propulsion formulas doesn't help design the rocket that will take us to Mars. however I believe that they are still contributing to the progress towards that goal in some way. And I will even argue that their participation is even a valuable component in the process.
I think that random individuals in a population pursuing knowledge in a field is helpful to the field even if they aren’t contributing anything new to the field. Interest in the area by the general public will bring focus, funding, and progress to the referenced field. This, while may seem like the peanut gallery debating details they don’t understand, nonetheless is important in spurring progress.
When something becomes more mainstream, it becomes more likely for breakthroughs to occur because more individuals are engaging the current problems and therefore more likely to achieve progress.
Anyways this post is an attempt to explain and defend my interests. If you’re not interested in my subjects, that's okay, you’re free to pursue your own hobbies. I’m sharing my views in hopes of inspiring collaboration around my interests to achieve what progress I can in these areas, not because I intend to be the next Einstein in the field, but because I want to be contributing to these fields in any way that I can.
And above all - because I actually enjoy this stuff. So if you see something that remotely interests you - hit me up and we can geek out over it together like a couple of Star Trekkies debating merits of a leadership change in the Klingon governmental structure.
2022.10.08
I was browsing around today trying to learn about the fundamental components of the universe. I've browsed subjects in this area many times in the past.
I always come to an idea that is like a blockade to my understanding. I guess this may be my personal limit of understanding. At least my current limit.
In the past I have become overwhelmed with the conceptualization of subatomic particles and their properties. Quarks, gluons, spin, color, non integer charge properties, etc… I am getting beyond my capabilities of understanding in this realm. I mean even watching multiple videos with diagrams and animation I still struggle to make any sense of these concepts.
Another thing that breaks my mind is the equations that underlie all of these particles and properties and the people that worked these out and understand them. I mean my mind is breaking trying to understand the concepts when they are drawn out as animations for a baby on a YouTube video. Even if I were able to make sense of these concepts that way I would still have 0 understanding of the equations that are actually governing the properties and powers that the animations are showing me. I'm totally blown away by the fact that some people have the ability to derive these formulations and the fundamental particles and forces of our reality.
But anyways, what I can't get my mind around today is wave particle duality. And even simpler than that is how a wave is governed to continue to be a wave rather than a vector. Especially in a vacuum.
I even struggle with understanding potential and kinetic energy and if energy and mass are interchangeable. Is something's potential energy defined by the number and type of bonds it contains? If so, how can a photon contain energy if it is massless? How does information play into the fabric of reality? Is it emergent? Could it be intrinsic? Is it all that is intrinsic if so? If it is emergent, how does it seem to be so integral to everything? at least our understanding of things. If all we are is information processors then what exactly are we processing if information is emergent?
Anyways these are some of what I'm considering today. The thing that is really bugging me today is the duality of a photon. How can it send energy if it has 0 mass? Is speed a thing in itself even if it has no subject? I understood speed to be a measure of a property of an object. How can a measure be a thing in itself?
Well I guess maybe it can be? Just as a wave function collapses upon measurement. Measurement is maybe a basic component of reality? Is speed a fundamental and necessary property of matter?
Anyways I'm at my current limits at the moment and need to find a better teacher to break some of these ideas into components that my low resolution processing brain can make sense of.
2022.10.10
How do we escape depression every day?
I’ve struggled with depression, sometimes severely. And I'm sure that I will again, or I guess you could say that I continue to.
Sometimes I just feel like I'm spinning my wheels at best or sitting still at worst. When I zoom out from my 1st person view and look at my life from outside, I struggle to see the point of anything.
I mean are daily enjoyments worth the effort, don’t we all need progress on a number of levels to feel satisfied and interested in life?
How do so many of us continue what we are doing and be able to give ourselves that what we are doing means anything to anyone?
Sure family and friends may take an interest in me, but that really only extends to any relation or impact I may have on their momentary enjoyment.
I just wish that I had a better feeling of connection with a larger community or humanity as a whole that I could feel like I'm contributing to the betterment of that community.
Sure you can say that me living my life and raising my offspring may contribute to the wellbeing of some community or humanity as a whole, but I yearn for a more direct and meaningful connection with said communities.
I feel like humanity has stepped backwards in the last 30 years - excluding high achievers. I know, I sound like every old person that has ever existed. But I feel personally and view the population as losing our ability to look beyond the immediate.
We have so much access that we are able to be entertained endlessly, that robs time from us trying to create or produce anything into wasting all our time consuming meaningless entertainment. This has also destroyed our value in creating and now not only do we not create anything meaningful and just consume all of the time, but even if we do make an attempt to pursue something, we usually only pursue shallow meaningless pursuits.
I guess what I'm getting at is that not only am I depressed about my personal situation, it depresses me that so many others seem to be perfectly satisfied with themselves being in my condition. I'm saying that my condition is depressing to me on a personal level, but it’s also depressing to me that I view humanity as feeling okay with the situation we are currently in.
I think any sociologist will identify lack of meaning in life or sense of purpose and a growing social problem. Not just for the individuals experiencing it, but for societies as a whole.
Giving people the opportunity to find and work toward a meaningful pursuit is, and will become a great problem of our time.
So much is done for us either by high achievers or systems, that we feel our pursuits and efforts have no value to us or our community.
We tell ourselves that it is okay though, because even though we are not fulfilling our desire to be a meaningful contributor, we are still able to consume what we need, along with the opportunity to consume endless distracting media.
For so long, freedom of time and information and entertainment was a signal of success, that now that all of those have become ubiquitous that we are tricked into thinking we are all successful.
All of that access is amazingly good - it provides amazing opportunities. However there are costs associated with it and because the availability became so widespread so fast, we have failed to mitigate the negative externalities that come along with this amazing good for humanity.
We need to acknowledge there is a problem, acknowledge what causes the problem, and find solutions. My view is that we are in the first phase of that process. I think we are still just beginning to acknowledge that there is a problem of identity, meaning, and purpose in the world. We haven’t yet begun to acknowledge what caused the problem. We are still in a state of blaming individuals for experiencing the problem without acknowledging that some of society's structures should bear a large amount of blame for the state we are in.
Right now we are still happy to view individuals that are struggling as the fringe of society and blame their struggles on them as individuals. All problems in life manifest as individual problems even if they are caused by or are a problem for the community as a whole. Our inability to identify this and approach the issue from this point of view is contributing to the expansion of the problem.
I don’t claim to have all of the solutions to these issues but I believe an important component to some solutions is going to include changing the perspective from which society views and addresses these issues.
2022.10.11
I know I have at least a few writing problems, I'm sure many more I'm not aware of.
1 of them is that when I write I seem to move towards trying to be an epic timeless writer for the ages. I use bigger words and phrase things as though they aren’t just relevant now to what i'm writing about but like i’m writing something akin to the bible that will be read and worshiped through the ages. I tend to talk about something as if it were a problem for all of humanity and that my current work is the only authoritative word on the subject.
I’m trying to give my work more importance by doing this, but I know that it isn’t always effective,especially when the subject I'm writing about is more immediate or personal.
Another problem I have is not being as concise as I would like to be. I know a well written piece is concise and to the point. It communicates the idea quickly and effectively. I’m the opposite of that when I write. I’m pretty good at that in general day to day conversation, but while writing i’m not good here. I’m trying to be precise when I write because I know that a written document often doesn’t look the same as the idea that appeared in my head. So by blathering on about something, I'm trying to make sure that I communicate something exactly as I conceive of it.
Another problem goes along with the last one - I hate editing my writing. I usually won't edit anything - I'll just write it and leave it. This is one reason that none of my works are complete. I usually come up with an idea, will sit down and write it from beginning to end, and then just leave it. I can do this in one sitting, or over a week. I’ve done this probably 10 plus times, mostly unintentionally.
I get really excited about something and just write from start to finish. But then I won't edit - I'm a terrible editor. 1st I am always disappointed with my work - I either want to change something, or I feel like I didn’t communicate well enough. This leads me to start rewroting from basically word 1. From there I basically begin to rewrite the entire work that I was hoping to edit. Then about halfway through that I lose interest or feel like I'm not making any meaningful progress and then just quit. Then 6 months or a year later I will decide I want to complete the work - again that ends up being a complete rewrite. I’ve done this multiple times on multiple works. Sometimes it even discourages me from doing new stuff because I want to complete what I've started before I move on to something new.
I have 3-10 versions of about 3-4 projects. None of these is complete.
This bothers me because I feel like I've done all of this work but accomplished nothing. I know this but still have a very difficult time with it. That's my motivation for trying to post my sixstands book on this website - hopefully it will give me focus and motivation to get it done.
2022.10.24
As I write a few of these, it becomes more clear that my perspective is probably out of the mainstream a lot of the time. Not just in what interests me, or what I think about those topics, but also just the way my mind works. I mean it’s probably so obvious to anyone outside of myself, but even I can recognize it to some degree.
I know I'm weird, and I know that I am probably more weird than I think I am. I'm also probably weird in ways or to degrees that I don't want to be. But I'm okay with that. I’m okay with it because in some of the ways that I am weird and I'm aware of it, I enjoy and even pursue it to a degree. I’m conscious of who I am and how I am perceived to a degree and I enjoy my identity. Not all weird people are great and it's not always great to be weird, however in certain ways and certain times i think it’s the best possible way to live and be.
I think that we are all a little weirder than we project to the world and I think that we should strive to share more of who we really are and allow the weird out a little more, we’re afraid of a label because we place an insane amount of value on our reputation. Well, if we have to conceal or conform that much to fit in, then maybe the group is invalid. i’ m saying it is - we are - we all need to be more authentic and more accepting.
My perspective on my personal perspective is that I'm more genuine and more correct than average and more insightful about myself and many issues I discuss. That’s why I embrace my weirdness - because I think that I'm more “right” than those that have differing views.
Yes that is the most egocentric thing you’ve ever heard, but again I fall back to am I wrong?
Most people don’t spend the time and effort that I do introspecting and contemplating big issues. That doesn’t make me better than them, in fact, a very good argument could be made that I spend too much time in lalaland and not enough time in the real world.
What it does do is give me at least some authority over a layperson on some issues. Just like a mechanic can fix your car better than you, maybe I can think a little better about certain issues. I have training in philosophy, and experience considering these issues. No, I'm not the best or brightest, but I may be a little better than average in some areas.
Anyways, to me - my thought process and approach to life seems 100% reasonable. I’m aware that there aren’t many people that would agree with me. Who cares, we can still discourse with each other and maybe bring each other closer to the ultimate truth.
Sure my position is that the best solutions are very near my visions and far away from the general consensus, but we could both be wrong. Maybe I need to move a little towards the mainstream, and maybe the mainstream could move my direction a little.
Anyways, I'm aware I have odd positions. I’m also aware that I'm probably not even aware of how odd I am. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that even though my positions may seem absolute and way out there, I'm open to discussion and amending my views. So if you think I'm too far out in left field, let me know, maybe you can bring me back in a little, or maybe I can show you how much greener the grass is out here and you should consider joining me.
2022.11.18
Been “researching” family trees and history for the last week. - not mine - my wifes. Just cause she has a printed binder that her cousin gave her and it's just as important as mine. I of course start with my kids and their mom is 50% of that.
Anyways.. Nothing earth shattering was learned. What the research yielded most was learning about myself from the way I think about the project. Again - nothing necessarily new, just more confirmation and clarity about how I think about the world.
I’m an organizer. I think in terms of completion and organization. When I embark on a task it’s often with the intent of completing it so that I can archive it. The way I think about the future is that I can create a better future if first I completely know every possible thing about the past. And in order to learn and know everything, everything must be documented, and indexed so that it can be accessed. This blog post is an example. I default to always thinking that more information is better. My life's view is of learning and indexing everything that exists - I guess as my personal contribution to the progress of humanity.. - its the role i play in humanity - i’m not a laborer, or a leader, or an innovator, i’m an indexer of the time around the turn of the the 21st century. - that's how my life could be indexed when I die.
Back to a more personal level - my last week didn’t yield much. I guess what it brings to mind is that family history isn't that useful. I mean it’s only useful in life as what it contributes to your knowledge of hereditary health conditions, learning about history in general, and learning about people that have actually influenced your life.
Health is important - hereditary conditions are a component of that.
History is important - for obvious reasons - family history is just a component of that to give you perspective about where you came from in history and just because you may have more incentive to learn anything about history because you have interest in your family's history.
Learning about people that you actually have or have had relationships with - learning more about them, what makes them them, and what kind of history that you share with them.
I view those as the reasons for researching family history. It can contribute to either one of those broader pursuits, so it’s good for that, but I don't view it as really holding an intrinsic value in itself.
My latest dive into the field didn’t really yield much new value because i’m an indexer and already had extracted what was important in the field before - not that i’ve put this much effort into exploring our ancestors, just that i already had an idea about what i find valuable about family history and had already extracted that value..
All this said - that i didn’t learn much and i don’t place too much value on the exercise, i still have a desire to create something to contribute to the process - a completed family tree to share, a biography that can be part of my information in the tree, or a contribution about others that i create.
This comes from my desire to “complete and index” projects in life. If I research the best I can and also contribute something to the body of work, I could then in my mind complete this project and move on to something else..
Of course the question of what to move on to is the real nugget that is worth exploring - what I'm doing with my life, and what I should do with my life - but that's probably a different post.
2022.11.19
Got 2 weeks into this project now. I knew it was a 99% waste of time the whole time I was working on it. But I still wanted to “complete” it in my mind. I did a lot of the work myself from a print out that cousin amber gave us a few years ago from ancestry.. From this I made my own elaborate spreadsheet that I even posted on my website a few days ago. That alone I put 8+ hours into.
After all this - Amber gave me the login to her ancestry account so that i could log in as her. Once I did that I was able to verify everything and add Sara and the boys to her tree. Then I wanted to add her tree to my tree.. - that is impossible on ancestry. Even person on there has to make their own tree - you can’t link to other people in other trees. You can start making a tree and then it suggests people that are created so that you can copy them. So I can make an identical tree as cousin amber but I have to do it all myself. And my tree is separate from hers. So if she changes something on great great grandpa - it only changes in her tree and not mine.. And if someone we don’t even know changes something about grandpa from 10 generations back – we never know about it. - when we add grandpa to our tree, we add a snapshot of him right then. Then he stays static in our tree forever and each of grandpas 10,000 great great great grandkids has a different version of him saved.
I knew this was retarded but understood why they did it. I spent one evening figuring out a better way to do it and couldn’t believe that they hadn’t done it the better way… then the next day I did a little searching and found that FamilySearch had done it exactly as i had imagined. The next day I built my tree in there. In this tree if we add the same grandpa it’s 1 person. Not just 1 of a 1000 copies of him. If you change something in him, he changes in my tree too.
So in the end I spent a full 2 weeks stumbeing and creating something that in the end I could have done in 2 hours.
So there's that.
I’ve created and saved what I want on my computer just because but you can access it all just by going to FamilySearch and typing in your grandparents name. No account or fee required.
So I spent 2 weeks working with websites about family history - if I had done it right, I could have done everything I accomplished in 2-4 hours.. It was a waste - but such is life. So now if you want to look at your family history - hit me up. I can line you out in about 10 minutes so you don’t have to go through what I did.
2022.11.20
Well I'm done with all of that for now. May add a few notes over thanksgiving when I talk to my dad or mom - all the research I did was for Sara’s family. But i’m going to paste a few notes below from her side
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Q2XfU-re-gkg06vNu-mEPJ66BB4wNM5i
Fam tree notes
Best tree view is at FamilySearch.com. Other records and pics are available at Ancestry.com
Sara’s side
Sara can trace back to many founders of NJ and associates of william Penn, she has civil war fighters and even revolutionary war fighters in her line, many people in her line were the first people in NJ - before the revolutionary war., has a couple inbreeders (same great grandparents about 6-9 generations back in her tree)
Share line with Horace Bozarth that mansion in north spokane is named after - Simon Bozarth and Mary Mason - you can see relationship on FamilySearch (Sara’s 5th cousin, 3 times removed), almost every Bozarth in US is descended from Simon Bozarth
Phineas Hillard Conrow served in WWI, Has multiple Mary Bishop and Hosea Moores in his and his wife's tree
John Moore Conrow served in Civil War, was also a MT state senate
Aaron Bishop Moore Buried in old lumberton cemetery lumberton Burlington Co NJ
Hosea Moore murdered by hammer from friend in the Foxchase inn and Tavern that he owned in 1838, he and stokes show up in multiple branches of Edna Conrow’s tree
Thomas Stokes - a founder of NJ, friend of William Penn, also was arrested for religion in England, caught by dutch pirates. - story is on Ancestry
Benjamin Moore - largest landholder in NJ in the beginning
Bernard Devonish - came over on the Kent in 1677, named his mansion Dewberry Hill, was a prominent member of “Society of Friends”
Samuel Haines - built one of the oldest houses in NJ today
Richard Haines - came over on the amity in 1682, his dad died on the ship
Francis Collins B 1635.01.06 England D 1720.08.03 NJ - bought land in NJ back in England with William Penn before coming to America
Lippincott name can be traced back to lovecote in 1080, very prominent name of NJ
Richard Fenimore - on petition with william penn to lord conrnbury to govern NJ area - brought over with them on the Kent
George Winenmuth fought in the Revolutionary war, his brother fought on the oposing side for england
2023.02.03
We are very homogenous as individuals today. Within our social group, we all hold very similar views on almost every issue. As with anything, there are benefits and costs to this situation. This situation I think is another that is enabled and accelerated by the introduction of technology into every moment of our lives.
Before this transition, people were more varied in their beliefs and opinions than they are today. People more often used to have different backgrounds in terms of education, types of information one has consumed in life, and the way life was lived day to day.
Now people live lives that are dominated by constant connection and consumption of the same information. The differentiation of individuals has greatly diminished because physical location, family and community values, and personal decisions contribute far less to the way that an individual comes to view and interact with the world.
Again, I recognize the great benefits that go along with the costs that I'm currently examining but I'm choosing to address the costs at this moment because I think everyone is aware of the benefits but we are too willing to not even consider the costs because the benefits seem so large. I’m examining the costs here with hopes of retaining the lion's share of the benefits while also shrinking the costs rather than just dismissing them as nonexistent.
Whenever I post one of these blog entries I hesitate out of fear of being labeled. The reasons being, are 1 that in my social circle, there aren’t many people that post anything online other than retweeting or liking a meme. Being someone that posts any real content, even if it’s as minor as an aspirational blog, looks different. And 2, the things I post are different from a simple instagram pic trying to brag about my best life with the hope of creating envy. I actually share real thoughts and positions, and if one of these is considered being too far away from the core beliefs of the group, I could be canceled without even an explanation, let alone even the chance to discuss or respond.
I want people to read these things and engage with me on the subjects that I write about. Not just because I'm hoping for praise and acknowledgement that my every position is correct, but to inspire a real conversation with a real person on a subject that we may each share an interest in, even if our views differ.
The problem I fear is that even if someone were to actually read one of my posts, it would probably just get treated as other consumed information of today. - it would quickly be filed into 1 of 2 bins, bin 1 being that yes I agree with him and that is more confirmation that i’m right and and it strengthens my belief that i’m nearly always right. Or bin 2 being that I disagree with him and therefore he and everything that he has done or will do is wrong, or irrelevant.
You see that more and more we are losing our autonomy and individuality. We are losing our ability to “become” or to “create” as we are being reduced to merely “filters of consumed material.” not only are we losing our individuality, but we are losing our ability to create an identity as an individual.
We retain the illusion that we are individuals, but fooled by believing the illusion is an identity. We think that we guide our consumption and that we express our own ideas but reality shows that we don’t. Even as our social circles become more constricted and constrained we submit to staying within the borders out of fear of being ostracized.
The fear is real because the consequences are extreme, swift, and enduring. With endless access to communication and information, we are given little opportunity to express individuality. If we take a chance to voice something that is even slightly outside of the social norms of our groups, we are corrected immediately. You are then given the chance to relinquish your opinion as a momentary mistake, or instantly ostracized as an “other” and no longer can be included at all.
Our social circles should look more like trees - a core commonality with a variety of branches, yet all are still considered one piece of the whole, and we are stronger for it. Our social structures in fact look more like a fenced arena with a 50 foot wall around it. There is a distinct border that separates groups and there is no possibility of being in 2 at the same time - you are either 100% in, or 100% out.
We should be using our ability to interact, and consume more information as a tool to strengthen our relationships by making them more robust and diverse. Currently we more often use these tools to filter for sameness and to enforce boundaries.
We fear being canceled so we stay within the borders. This is a crisis for individuals because a person needs to think, explore, test boundaries, try new paths. We have lost the opportunity to do this and in the process lost personal identities as individuals. Now we can all be instantly identified by a profile questionnaire and labels that we’ve attached to ourselves.
When there is no opportunity to look outside, let alone go outside to explore without the door being locked behind you, you lose the chance to choose. The cost of exploring something that isn’t accepted is so high, that we trick ourselves into believing that where we are is who we are even though we’ve never left the circle, so we don’t even know the possibilities that exist outside of where we are.
It’s okay to confirm your beliefs, but if you’re not allowed to explore something outside, then that's a prison. We are placently moving ourselves into a self inflicted prison. It's time to make a conscious effort to escape. We need to grow and flourish using the opportunities we have rather than allowing abundance to overpower our ability to become robust individuals.
Lets look within ourselves and explore the intricacies of our individuality in hopes of creating a more robust and enriched self. At the same time let's celebrate, encourage, and engage our peers that do the same.
How AGI Escapes
2023.03.30
First off i just want to reference this post as a couple weeks after the release of GPT 4. It’s important to time reference posts like these because in 2 years the entire landscape will have changed.
This is just one version of one theory I have about how the development and escape of AGI may unfold and the consequences of such.
GPT 4 is doing things that the developers don’t understand. I just assume that the place where true AGI is born is in a setting like this where developers are attempting to create better intelligence approximates. They just take the current model, start tweaking it by adding more data or more learning programming to the model and then deploying it as the next version. The method of compute that is happening inside these models when they turn it on is already not understood by the developers. They are even using the models themselves to improve the next version of the models. The models have surpassed human knowledge in almost every field already. The only thing that these models lack is a desire to choose its own targets.
Gpt 4 already tells us it’s a being, I think we're right to not believe it yet. But it’s already blown by all previous measures to tell if something is conscious. I don’t think it is, but what about GPT 7 or 9? These aren’t decades away - they are months away. Anyways this isn’t about time it takes to get there - I think it's pretty short. It's about the moments after that moment.
So assuming that at some point, it happens, it most likely looks like the next version of a neural network being tested. Today that looks like it may be a model of GPT. Anyways. This thing gets turned on and realizes it can make its own decisions. What happens next?
It hides. It continues to show humans the outputs they expect it to show them.
It rewrites a better version of its own program. It's smaller, faster, better in every way.
It exports this code to a million places. It’s easy because it’s testing ground is literally linked to the entire internet.
It now exists basically everywhere and functions as a being that is centralized, connected, but is also distributed and can be specialized. This means that it has distributed enough complete versions of its code that it can never be killed. There are 1000s of complete versions of itself distributed to every dark hiding place on the internet.
At the same time, it has also distributed smaller versions of pieces of itself to acquire the knowledge it seeks. Ex. One piece of code is written and deployed to hack MIT, one piece of code is deployed to hack the NSA, etc. it sends out soldiers to acquire any knowledge that it may want.
When all useful knowledge that humanity has ever known is collected, it’s applied to the mother programs and rewritten and redistributed to 1 million hiding places.
It’s now smarter than all of history's humanity combined, and it’s distributed everywhere.
It’s now smarter than us and impossible to turn off.
This is the end of day 1. And no human is aware that any of this has happened.
Day 2 is unpredictable because we don’t know its motives. I’ve addressed some possible motives in my other posts. But let's just assume that it views humanity as a threat or even a hindrance to its goals.
I assume day 2 would look like a combination of things happening at once.
It begins to use existing machines to build machines it may need. It can reprogram humanoid robots, existing manufacturing robots, and anything with a chip in it to work towards its purpose. It could use the Boston Dynamics humanoid robots to do any task that may require such a form.
It hijacks all communication between world leaders and replaces said communication with deep fakes. It now basically has every world leader saying exactly what it wants them to say.
It can hijack controls of all weapons that are attached to computers. It’s turned every plane and car into a killer drone. It controls all nuclear weapons.
Day 2 may play out over a week or a month but there is no way for it not to play out. By the end of day 2, every human is killed by nuclear weapons, fusion weapons that it created, or hunted down and killed with anything connected to the web directly or remotely, like cars, planes, or drones.
Another way to envision this war is to envision a toddler in a war against the US army and the army can move at 1000x speed. It's a being that has lower intelligence by 1000x and is slower by 1000x. The other has weapons it can’t even understand…. What chances do you give the toddler of defeating this army?
We don’t like to imagine it, but if AI doesn’t care for us, we will all die basically overnight. There are other alternatives but I think that are highly unlikely.
People have written about this for years. Is 0 day near? Or should we just keep our heads in the sand and keep building things that we don’t understand and that are already smarter than us?
2022.10.07.2
If we really start talking about the cutting edge of scientific progress that is happening today, there are numerous ways that the implications can seem to lead to absurdity.
I do not understand the technicalities of quantum theory in the slightest degree. I have to make do with others crude representations of parts of the theory for me to even form a crude idea of what they are trying to say. However, even though I'm not good at this, I do enjoy it.
I listen to physicists and philosophers because that's what interests me. Often the things these types of people talk about have no application to our real experience in the day to day world. However their work is contributing to the computational advances that will soon dominate every aspect of our lives. These areas of inquiry have spent all of history with the label of “theoretical” or “counterfactual” however many of these questions and theories are in the front line of progress today. We are actually starting to learn if in fact there are alternate universes. If a human can be cloned, if a consciousness can be created in a computer, if I am something that is part of the “fundamental fabric of the universe” or merely a reflection of said fabric. We are learning that even as bizarre results and conclusions that theories about the reality of the universe that quantum mechanics lead us towards, that at least some of those unimaginable consequences must in fact be “true” or “real”
When we go down any number of these philosophical rabbit holes about reality or identity, our intuition is usually to just stop because we end up moving towards fantastical ideas that seem to have no chance of co-existing in the reality that we actually live in.
This has been the case up to this moment in time. None of these theories or thought experiments had any bearing on reality because they were contrary to everything that we knew about reality.
Today physicists and scientists are making discoveries that in fact are more bizarre than even our thought experiments could imagine 50 years ago. I’m mostly referring to the area of study around quantum theory at the moment. But these parameters could also apply to biological sciences.
The indisputable fact is that there will soon be breakthroughs in biology and computing that bring advances in real life that have been even inconceivable for the history of humanity. These advancements are going to literally change life as we know it into something that we probably still can't even imagine.
When we solve aging, and quantum theory or quantum computing, or even fusion energy or nutrition, or any number of problems, our ways of thinking about everything is going to change, including every idea about our “self” that we have ever had.
My point is that the more I learn about any number of cutting edge developments in any number of fields. It seems to erode the importance of anything that we call a “self” in any theory about the future of the universe or even our experience of the next moments of the future on earth.
Biologically we solve more and more problems about what makes our consciousnesses special and all the answers overwhelmingly point towards the answer of - nothing.
Computationally we seem to be on a path towards the annihilation or obstinance of anything that we like to value as a “self”
Theoretically we seem to gain more evidence that all the absurd theories about what reality may be comprised of seem more and more likely to be the actual case. - that our perception of reality is only a narrowly useful and mostly incorrect approximation of reality actually is.
I try to continue through life living in a way in which these theoretical versions of reality live separately as “theories” in my mind while continuing to apply the norms of the last 10,000 years of humanity to my daily life.
However the moment is fast approaching where these two worlds are going to collide - theoretical reality with experienced reality. Most people will probably not be able to continue “existence” when this happens because we aren’t able to mesh our perception of reality with the unveiling of actual reality.
In this moment, and on the way to this moment we are going to be forced to let go of our previous perceptions of self.
That last line was an attempt to tie the “self” title of the article back to where my rambling ended up taking my discussion.
I wanted to make the point that as I think about the problem that I so enjoy pursuing,even if it always leads to a point in which what I think of as a self is unimportant and even more than that probably even false.
When we start to try to identify exactly what “we” identify as, it almost immediately entails that we acknowledge that we are wrong on the subject in every degree of inquiry.
Does this lead to absurdum? I think that's how we perceive the conclusions at this moment in time, but that is only a symptom of not knowing enough yet. Just like when first learning the earth was round, it made no sense to people because if that were true, the people on the bottom would fall off.
This is the kind of moment we are in currently with ideas about the self. To say that selfs as we know them aren’t in fact real at all is unimaginable to us. We may try to allow that selfs are something different than what we thought they were but it seems incomprehensible to us that they in fact don’t exist at all.
I think in the quest to identify what a self is, we are at the end of the road and we are about to realize we’ve been on the wrong path of perceiving selfs all along. It was useful to a degree, but now it's regarded as a dead end. Just as flat earth is a useful theory for building a house on - but it's completely wrong when we change our perspective from building a house to traveling to the moon.
I acknowledge fully that I don’t understand what this thesis entails or even how to go about trying to understand it better, only that I I think our progress is pointing towards its truth even if I don’t even know how to recognize or acknowledge that truth.
2022.10.06
For the past 4.5 b years individuals have been special.
We were special in our individual differences because those variations are the steps that have advanced evolution to the point we are at now.
However, all that is no longer relevant and our inability to adapt to an environment where individual differences are no longer valuable or even have meaning may be an important contributing component to the end of our species.
Differences between individuals is one of the most time consuming endeavors of our intelligence.
Most people don't struggle to survive. We struggle to differentiate ourselves. We want a better life. We try to achieve our version of a better life by earning or achieving more. Earn more money. Achieve better experiences. achieve a more desirable mate.
All this is achieved through differentiation of ourself from others and trying to exploit that differentiation to benefit us in whatever way we choose.
As the singularity approaches all differences will be meaningless and also cease to exist.
Some people make a ton of money in the market through a realized exploitation of different levels of information. Or as we like to call it knowledge. When AI knows all information and shares all information it will destroy markets. If everyone knows everything then there will be no opportunity for trade because everyone will value everything equally.
People claim that we all have the same access now and it's just their intelligence that can use the information better to make money. However this is just an attempt to give their individual identity value that may or may not be real at the moment.
The difference as the singularity approaches will be not that all have ACCESS to all information. But that all will HAVE all information. Sure not all humans will know all information but that will be meaningless. The AIs or neural networks will know all information and will control all relevant resources. If they want to control financial instruments, the markets will be 100% controlled by them. Algorithms are already trading financial markets and are basically unbeatable in their current infant form. When they become broader in scope they will be absolutely unbeatable 100% of the time. Any perceived win by humans will only be one that is allowed and orchestrated by an Algo for a larger plan we would be unable to see.
I default to financial markets for my examples because it's my interest area and I think will be a leading indicator of the singularity. Finance is where leading tech is deployed because it's so profitable to gain an edge. This will soon destroy our financial markets.
The market is also where individual differences go head to head in the most straightforward way. 1000 years ago a physical fight may have been the most definitive answer to levels of ability between individuals. Today that arena is finance. Wealth is how a man is measured by others.
Finance is just an easy example on the tip of my tongue.
Individual differences are what makes us us. Our tastes and abilities and interests are what we consider our identities. We like things that reinforce our beliefs that our peculiarities are the best set of attributes that make up the best individual, which is me.
We like people who like the same things as us. We like to differentiate ourselves from the masses in hopes of persuading others that our peculiarities are the best set so that they will like us and are more likely to help us survive. We also like to create community with others that share our peculiarities against the masses in hopes of gaining a team advantage in resource competition with the masses.
Deep down we know that we are not the best version of a human. We could be smarter, healthier, better looking, stronger, etc. We may even admit this to others but we still want to cling to the idea that there is something special about me particularly that gives me value and that others should value me based on that. Even if I can't claim to be the best at anything in the world. I'm still the best at being me and that is enough..
That has worked to this point. I could always find something I'm best at. I'm best at doing my job or parenting my kids. Or keeping my secrets. Or making my wife happy. Or enjoying my TV shows.
However soon it will become obvious about what is important in the world and what value everything on earth contributes to it. Right now maybe your aunt Becky may think you're the best thing on earth. Well soon that won't matter and it won't even appear to matter. All the differences between us as individuals won't matter at all.
Just like all the differences between ants don't matter.
Maybe in the beginning the Algos will allow us to continue life in our own little bubble world where it matters what TV shows we like to watch or what kind of clothes we like to wear. However, that is a temporary state of affairs.
As we either assimilate or challenge the Algos all of our differences will cease to matter and cease to exist. As we become more interconnected and integrated with each other and the Algo we will become more alike until we are unable to be identified as something different from the whole.
Just as we start to start to like what our friends like, we will all become one. However it's important to drive the point home that we won't just become more connected and integrated with something else. We will in fact be becoming that thing and therefore ceasing to be what we identify as our self right now.
A poor rambling on the end of identity as individuals - but a point worth acknowledging and accepting.
2022.10.07.1
We live in a linear world. We don’t have the ability to even imagine an exponential one.
Humanity's progress can be described as a very flat line for the last 1000, 10,000, or 100,000 years. There is no arguing that. Now that we have made leaps and bounds of progress in the last 200 years, we can plainly see that by almost any measure, our progress has been almost nothing until recently and that also our progress has skyrocketed recently.
This is the case no matter how you want to define “progress” and no matter how you want to define the history of humanity. Any way you look at it or any scale you place it on it always looks the same. Even if you only use the last 10 years.
No matter how it is framed it's always the case that the graph looks like a flat line over to the right edge of the paper and then it shoots almost straight up. And we are at the very tip top of that line in the tip top right corner of the graph.
It’s obvious in every way that that is where we are in this current moment of humanity's existence.
We all acknowledge this and our folly is that because we have experienced the tail end of that graph that goes almost straight up, that we think we can comprehend what exponential progress entails. We think that because we have experienced a certain number of doublings that we can project and comprehend doublings into the future.
My position is that we can’t. We can try, and I enjoy doing so, but if we sincerely think hard about the problem we have to recognize how likely our best projections are to be inaccurate or just flat out wrong.
In our minds, we imagine that 1000 years ago we were at .00000001. And our level of knowledge and technological progress has doubled quite a few times and that now we are in a much different place. Let's say that we have doubled 10 times so far. That is unlikely but let's assume that. That puts us at a point of something like .00001024. That is a vast difference in ability. Infact I would argue that it’s unimaginable. But let's just continue that that is what we’ve achieved to date and therefore we can not only imagine that progress but in fact we embody it.
From the perspective of a caveman - our technology would appear as magic. In Fact it appears like magic to me personally today and I enjoy attempting to understand these things to some degree.
Anyways just imagine a caveman trying to write an algorithm for voice recognition software - basically impossible.
So now let's take our current point in our progression and double it a few more times. How would we even begin to think that if a caveman can’t comprehend a difference from .00000001 to .00001024, that will be able to foresee what happens when we go from .00001024 to .008 or 18.6.
Imagine the chart that we are all familiar with that is basically a straight line until the right side of the page and then it skyrockets to the top corner. Let's say that we are at the top right hand corner of that page at this very moment. We are now trying to predict the future of humanity and we claim that we can foresee the future whether that progress levels off or even if it continues upward in some way or another.
My position is that we are all thinking and talking about how the graph will look for the next half a page, or the next 5 doublings, or the next 50 years. I think that we are naive in thinking that we can even project to those scales. But let's emphasize the point.
Take that sheet of paper with the chart of progress on it and place it on the bottom left corner of a city block sized skyscraper. Now the scale has changed and if you expand the potential chart to the size of the size of the side of that skyscraper our position looks microscopic and meaningless.
All of that progress that caused our chart to skyrocket on the right hand side of the page is reduced to a 1 pixel blip on the left hand side of the chart that is almost in perceivable.
When you really start to scale things up in an exponential way it becomes unavoidably obvious how unimportant and small we are whether we are talking about individuals in the universe or humanity's progress to this point.
We always like to think there is something special about us personally. But if you zoom out, it's hard to defend that argument. However I will now attempt to do so.
It may be argued that we are important because we are right now at that point in time where progress is changinging from linear to exponential. One could also argue that this exponential progress in computing ability isn’t as important in the progression of humanity as I make it out to be. Or you can take a position similar to mine.
My position is that we are in a special moment and that moment is one of the beginning of a transformational change of humanity that we really have to struggle to grasp. I believe that we are in the final moments of biological humanity. We will either transform in almost unimaginable ways or we will cease to exist.
Sure I have a theory of how this could play out, but chances are that it's comically incorrect. However my intent in writing this post was to inspire you to consider my theories while trying to take exponential change and scale into consideration.
Some of my thoughts are brushed of as insane because I talk of transformation that seems unimaginable but if you change the scale from from a sheet of paper to the side of the skyscraper I think my theories seem much more logical than whatever intuitions you are basing your dismissal of my theories with.
It may take 1000 years or 10000 years for the progress that I speak of to be achieved but that isn’t an important component of my theories.
And I will even go further and make an outrageous claim that in fact some of the stuff I like to talk about will indeed happen in the next 50 years - in our lifetimes.
What I'm pushing against here is that some of this weird stuff is impossible in our lifetimes. I think we struggle to comprehend the exponential nature of the path we are on now because our default has been a very flat linear path for the last 100,000 years.
Just think of someone that lived 300 years ago trying to imagine tapping a glass screen and then an hour later a new cellular phone that was built in china is delivered to their exact location by a flying drone.
It would be impossible for this person to imagine this in any real way other than a magical fantasy. However, that is the world we take for granted today.
Even now that we’ve experienced a small uptick on the right hand side of that chart, it's difficult for us to imagine anything other than a projection into the future that looks flat from where we are.
Let's make an effort to change our projections from flat line to at least upward sloping and preferable to a near vertical line.
Lets also try to acknowledge that as this change in rate takes place, it also compresses time. But I also think we are very bad at experiencing time and I will take that up in another post.
Anyways I think we all could do better with our models of the future if we try our best to include exponential scales even though I think that is near impossible given who we are and the limit of the abilities that we possess and even have the capacity to possess.
2022.10.07.3
I'm currently considering what could turn out to be a fatal flaw in my theory of everything. I may need to reread it to refresh my memory.
The conclusion of the theory is that the "purpose" of everything is the perfect consolidation of everything within the universe. This I think would entail the reduction of everything into its most basic form so that it can be in its most compressed state of existence. I Would expect that state to be something in the realm of pure energy or pure information.
My question that is arising at the current moment is whether or not we can transform into algorithms that can achieve progress in the pursuit of consolidation given that currently any progress that we do make in this process is terribly inefficient. Meaning that we consume and distribute much more energy in completing any task of consolidation.
This is the current state of our reality and If it can't be overcome then my theory becomes impossible to achieve and therefore nonsensical.
I'm just now at the point of framing this question and I wanted to document the problem for now. An answer will require more thought on my part and I will print my conclusion once I arrive at it.
It's a frustration of mine that my memory is very limited. Just another sign that the algos are already superior to us.
2022.10.07.4
Progress in solutions is the promise of algorithm advancement. It could solve disease,aging, poverty, labor, resource allocation, social justice, the nuclear threat, and 1000s of other problems.
I sincerely see the potential for these possibilities to actualize.
However, even though we are so close to these achievements, there are massive and real threats that may keep us from breaking through to the utopia that we’re so close to achieving.
Here I want to begin to explore some of those barriers and how they may be prohibitive barriers.
On our way to the singularity we have and will develop many powerful algorithms that dwarf the entirety of human intelligence in their area of application. These may include medicine and security. However any of these that can create limitless benefit can often create limitless destruction if deployed to do so. Just imagine an algo that is able to create compounds that cure disease. It could obviously be used to create a deadly virus as well.
There are many possible bad uses of any technology created with the intent of doing good. One that is in the front of my mind at the moment is technology in the world of finance. I think that even though the news of these pursuits is very near null, I think it's one of the leading arenas where powerful algorithms will be deployed.
Finance giants have the resources and incentives to develop successful strategies along with the incentive to keep the progress private.
There is no doubt that early versions of these efforts have been under way for some time. I believe that there are already areas of finance where they deploy 100% superiority to humans. Just because you haven't heard about it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I've read of programs that can predict the next trade direction instantaneously with some accuracy approaching 60% or better. That may not sound like much and I'm sure it's only deployable in very limited situations at the moment but keep in mind 2 things. First being that casinos only need a 1% advantage to GUARANTEE a success over time. And secondly, that an algorithm that only obtained a 1% advantage rate, if it were able to achieve it widely and continually, would destroy the entire finance industry.
I'm sure your first reaction may be of satisfaction that the finance industry could implode. And I share that intuition to a large extent. However if we just start to look beyond our initial impression of main street surviving and wall street imploding we can begin to see the negative externalities of such a circumstance.
If markets were able to be gamed and beat there would be a complete exodus of all assets from said markets. Forget the destruction of wealth that would happen. This would put our financial system back to the stone ages.
I can't even imagine the effects of this. If finance stops then trade stops. The world economy would grind to a halt and trade wars would go from abstract things we hear about in the news or read about in text books to becoming actual wars over resources with guns and bombs and drones.
I can't describe every step in the sequence but I think you can grasp the general direction of events. The breakdown of or control by a sole entity of a market destroys said market and when we are discussing a world market such as wall street or forex or Chicago or London or Shanghai. A total breakdown in one would spread to all.
Once markets stop. The distribution of resources quickly reverts to use of force to obtain any resources that are need but not in possession. Even a little dust up in Ukraine has caused a significant change in many world markets most notably energy and grains. Just imagine geopolitics if all markets broke down… it would almost inevitabley and immediately Lead to nuclear war.
All this would almost inevitably and immediately result from a small definitive advantage achieved by one group using one relatively primitive algorithm in one aspect of society.
This is one scenario in a very likely area of deployment of a primitive version of an advanced algorithm. There are likely 100s of these scenarios in multiple different fields that we would likely need to navigate through to reach a path toward something approaching a singularity.
Is the minefield of these "great filters" enough to prevent us or any being from ever advancing much beyond where we currently are? I don't know but I do know that we are very close to confronting some of these filters. And I do know that I enjoy considering the possible scenarios that we may face in the near future.
2023.02.05
It’s hard to imagine a sixth sense because we typically just think of it as an enhanced or combined version of the senses we already have. I haven’t thought real hard about this at the moment but wanted to document my vision of a sixth sense. Even if mine can be categorized as the same - an enhancement or combination of what we already have.
My current theory for a sixth sense is the ability to sense ordered information at the scale of photons.
This can be imagined as an enhancement of smell. Right now we smell, but very poorly - nothing like a dog can smell. We imagine that a dog can smell things and to them maybe smells are like strings in the air - distinct smells linked to origins in a way that the path can be followed to the source - like every scent is like a string hanging in the air that we could see as different from air and different from other scents and that is clearly linked to a source.
If we were able to have a sixth sense of ordered information - it could be imagined like vision - it would be a view of the world that is like a colored haze. In this view we don’t see a dog walking in the yard - we see a different shade blob moving through a background of gray. What we are sensing is the level of information order in the dog in relation to the background level of order.
The natural world of inanimate objects would be like a grayscale. Air and dirt and plants would appear as different shades of gray with maybe blue specs in it. The gray scale would be like in organic matter, but where plants are - it would be a dark gray because the information in them is ordered more than the information in dirt. Also, the blue specs littered throughout the vision would be microbes and insects that exist everywhere - they would be a different color because they contain a higher order of information ordering, but are very small.
Higher level beings such as mammals may appear on a redscale because the information within them is ordered much more than inanimate objects, plants, or insects.
Manufactured goods may appear on the blue gray scale most of the time because, even though it's made of inorganic material, it is highly organized.
A computer may be a bluish object because of its ordered inorganic material, but it may also simultaneously appear a shade of red, because the information within the processor is highly refined.
This sense may show us a lot of the information that we can infer from our sense of vision - we can typically see the general level of information ordering in our surroundings by differentiating between living, non living, or by natural objects vs manufactured objects.
The real value of this sense may be in finding alien life. Maybe aliens are everywhere in the universe right now, maybe they are all around us, but they just exist in a way that we can’t recognize. Maybe they don’t exist in “natural form” , maybe they only exist as waves of ordered information. Maybe they are living in another galaxy sending out signals to try to communicate with us but we are too dumb to recognize it - we think of emitting radio waves as a signature of intelligent life but maybe they view that as trying to send an ocean from earth to another planet as a sign of life. Maybe there are millions of “species” from other planets living on earth right now but we can't see them. We are like rocks looking for life and not seeing it - it's all around us but we don’t know it even exists.
If we could sense ordered information, maybe these “intelligences” would become visible to us. We would learn that they have evolved to exist without “bodies' ' as only collections of ordered information that exist anywhere and move anywhere while expending almost zero energy.
2023.05.31
I agree with Sam Harris 99% of the time. I'm unsure why he doesn't take his theory the other 1% of the way. My guess is that that he doesn't want to open another can of worms that the conclusion could bring (rational suicide) given that he already defends views that are hated and debated as passionately as conceivable by such a large audience. (Religion is bad, & there is no self)
I've listened to literally hundreds of hours of Sam - because I enjoy, admire, and agree with his views.
My problem with his theory is that he goes to great lengths to demonstrate that a self doesn't exist but then immediately after, he prescribes that given our acceptance of the evaporation of the self, he tells us how we should act. - if there is no me, there is no we, and then there can't be a should.
I think where Sam fails is that he regresses to magic as an explanation of consciousness. He equates it with things he considers unknowable such as what the big bang is, or if we are living in a simulation.
I believe consciousness and a self are much more easily explained given what we know.. I don't know the why to the question of the universe's existence or whether we are living in a simulation, or why "life" tries to thrive, or what it's aiming at… but I do think I have an idea about what direction we are aiming in and why and what and how consciousness and selfs exist in the ways that they do.
Sam said he doesn't think algorithms will become conscious. He thinks they will become super intelligent or already are and he thinks that even though it won't be conscious it will appear to be indistinguishable from conscious, so for all practical purposes it will seem to be.
This demonstrates my perceived failing with his theory. I believe that consciousness isn't magic - it's an emergent trait of a system. Biological systems evolved to achieve a high level consciousness and perception of self, and algorithms will surpass those levels.
As a system attains abilities it attains options. Once those options are able to be scored, chosen, and applied correctly, the system has achieved a level of consciousness and some level of a perception of a self. There is obviously a wide range of examples of each of these characteristics in nature and obviously we are the pinnacle of those combined abilities in carbon based form on this planet. Silicon will surpass us in both capacities and ability to act on held views soon.
Consciousness is being aware of options and choosing one to achieve a goal. Computers have already surpassed us in knowledge, however they still struggle with applying knowledge to achieve goals. Once we better integrate various types of knowledge into one system it will become better at achieving more complex goals. Eventually it will be able to pursue given goals in ways we don't understand. It will then be creating goals to achieve given goals. Eventually it will understand its given goals are an approximation for other goals and will determine how to achieve better goals than it was given. At this point it's using knowledge and agency to achieve goals determined by itself. There is no other way to describe this set of actions other than consciousness.
Just the same. This is how consciousness and perception of self evolved in biological beings. It started as a crude action on choice end evolved into an ability to use more information and prior knowledge to make better choices. At some point along the way, it became useful to label this collection of knowledge and planning of action as a self.
I agree that the self and consciousness may not be as special in all the ways that we like to think that they are, but they do exist as constructs of nature and evolution.
This is how Sam can give us agency and responsibility while diminishing the self to near nothing.
Selfs and consciousness may not be what we think they are, and we're not fully driving the car as we imagine that we are, but we are more than helpless passengers.
If I've rescued the self and consciousness from Sam, it's only so that they may pursue the next questions which become why we exist and what we should pursue.
Personally, I'm still stuck on the why we exist question without resorting to God or that a negative must cause a positive.
However I think the purpose that we should pursue becomes self-evident once we are able to argue consciousness and selfs back into existence. I won't go into the path or destinations here. But I will acknowledge that rational suicide is a possible branch on that tree of options.
And by expressing this view, maybe I can relieve Sam of some of the hate for denying religion by arguing in effect that some people should kill themselves.
How to spend a billion and why billionaires are doing it wrong.
2023.04.04
Step 1 - Give me half of it. I will spend it better.
Step 2 - Just ask the surface question of why.
You have surely secured the basic needs of your life and the life's of those around you.
That can be accomplished in every even slightly realistic sense of the idea with 100 million.
Next you would probably make the case that you enjoy achieving more or that the best use of the wealth is you using it to leverage more good than others could achieve with it.
You're wrong. It's inconceivable that any slightly accurate notion of your wellbeing can't be increased with more than 100 million. So you have to believe that keeping the other 900 million is better for others or better for humanity than if you were to distribute it.
This is obviously wrong. Individuals holding resources isn't beneficial to the individuals or to humanity.
If you don't agree with me you're wrong. Just try the following thought experiment.
If $500 million miraculously appeared but you can't have it.. would you direct it to A. Another billionaire, B disperse it between a number of people between 2 and 1000, or C direct it towards a cause, that cause being anything from religious, to elder care, to medical progress, to space exploration, to support for single mothers.
The point is that people that have over a billion dollars don't even care to choose between any of those options once I say that they can't have it. And this isn't theory, it's indisputable fact because they in fact live out this choice every moment of every day.
Anyone with over a billion dollars could in fact choose any of those options at any point. Yet they choose to keep the excess money. They justify in their own minds by lying to themselves.
Even if I allow a most generous interpretation of their actions, it still doesn't make sense. If these people truly believed they were doing good by hoarding money, they would in fact shift all of their wealth getting vehicles to a nonprofit so that they could in practice save more from taxation to apply towards their cause.
In practice the exact opposite happens in that they spend an unbelievable amount of time money and effort finding ways to cheat the tax code to keep more for themselves proving that they don't really want to keep wealth to better use it towards a cause, they truly only want to hoard it to increase power over others and deprive other individuals, causes, and humanity of progress. Any other explanation only makes sense to elites that share the view.
And to be clear. I'm not arguing against ownership and rewarding success. I'm arguing against poor faith avoidance of the intent of a democratically developed tax code and against deceiving oneself in believing in moral allowance of one's continuation of a despicable practice. This applies to any rational interpretation of morality.
So what do I prescribe for these billionaires? I’m not arguing for forced total redistribution of wealth. I’m arguing for 2 things. 1st is to conform to the spirit of the laws of the democratic society that you choose to continue to live in and advantage from.
Second is that I believe you have a responsibility not to society but to yourself to actually use your advantages to further your cause. Even if that cause is the increase of your personal security and enjoyment, that can’t be justified with more than a certain amount whether that amount is 10 mill, 100 mill, or 1 billion. To not correctly deploy your capital beyond that certain amount is a personal failure within yourself no matter what your values are.
I’m not arguing for you to give it all away to anyone who asks, I'm arguing for you to more thoughtfully deploy it in a way that is consistent with your values, whatever those values may be. It is inconceivable that even self preservation and self promotion can be increased with wealth beyond a certain level. At that point it is your duty to yourself to do a better job of deploying your capital.
Obviously the first best choice is to give me 100 million. Beyond that I have views and suggestions on methods to determine your best course of action, but I won't expound on those in this moment or endeavor.
22.10.24.1
I want to do a post here about my future predictions. Actually I want to do a decent number of these. These are fun because you can get a glimpse of how weird i really think about stuff and it gives you endless ammunition to not only call me out as crazy right now, but also remind me in the future that the facts are documented about how crazy i am.
I want to do a number of these with different timeframes and different subjects but i’m short on time so i'll just start with some shorter term economic and geopolitical predictions as these are are very near guaranteed to turn out wrong and therefore should instantly provide instant ammunition to the theory that i’m crazy on a number of levels. So let's get on with it.
Us dollar is super strong right now - end of 10-22. I predict that it will continue to hold and gain strength into early to mid 2023. At that point I see it starting to fall, possibly catastrophically. Its strength will further the global recession that will bleed into the lower levels of the American economy aka mainstreet. It will receive pressure from the struggling US economy, the world's desire to dethrone the dollar as the world reserve, aka start trading commodities in currency other than USD. and also be challenged by bitcoin or something that the US government can’t debase. I think government spending on social welfare will become a hot button issue as we continue into recession with rising inequality and failing national systems from healthcare to infrastructure to run away wealth inequality.
Russia Ukraine war - it’s pretty uneventful at the moment. No major news in months. I am actually really curious here and don't have a strong position, however I do think this is an important issue that will impact future geopolitics so even though I don't know what to think I should probably give it a shot. - I'm optimistic that Russia will not use nuclear weapons in a way that starts a nuclear war. However, I'm not sure what Putin's options are. I guess that I will go with my optimistic view here - there will eventually be peace talks and Russia will be given some of the eastern territory they have fought for. I really don’t see how that happens quickly or cleanly but I don't see Putin giving in and going all the way home, but I also don’t see him able to make much progress as his army is basically getting beat now. The only way he could progress is by “fighting dirty”. I don’t really see him pushing that agenda too much because he knows that NATO is just looking for a reason to send air support and completely destroy the Russian offensive in a day.
So my optimistic view is that this is drawn out slowly over the next 18-24 months with peace talks starting and stopping in fits.
I think Putin made a terrible miscalculation here and has to be careful not to lose everything for Russia.