I made a blog post about point #30 a few months ago and got a direct message from Andrew Snyder-Beattie (head of biosecurity at OpenPhil) who freaked out and asked me to delete it, which I did.
EDIT: to anyone wondering, I previously suggested redacting it but I now think it's not necessary, given that the information is already pretty widely known. It would be different if there were more details about actual implementation.
A friend of mine grew up in South Africa for the first few years of her life where shoes were unconventional, and she didn't wear them either. The result was that her feet became naturally callused and now she doesn't need shoes to go outside.
I don't think human feet are genetically weak (which would be unlike every other animal), I just think we stifle the natural hormesis by wearing shoes (if at least from an early age) in wealthy countries nowadays.
So.... "Thanks that shoes exist… because our feet are weak… because of shoes"?
Collectively, we make life more difficult than is required, and maybe we got some benefits and achievements that would otherwise not manifested had we not done the things we did. And maybe we will find that the benefits came at too high a cost. Modernity is going through some stuff. A thanks today can become a regret tomorrow. And the reverse is also true.
Humans are weird, life is weird, and we have no idea where it’s all going. So, yeah, thank the fruits and the happy coincidences. Taste them all. Living and reality are an amazing journey.
re: #7, it's not all grungy issues! There's a lot of beauty to be had by mixing the purity of just intonation's low-prime ratios, and the angularities of equal temperament's symmetrical properties!
RE 22: The death penalty is mostly used nowadays as a deterrent for bringing cases to trial. State issues notice of seeking death penalty. Now defense counsel has a reason to plea the case out for life in prison with no possibility of parole instead of just taking the case to trial where life in prison is the worst outcome anyway. If the death penalty isn't a criminal deterrent that means life prison sentences aren't a deterrent either and so on and so on for lesser sentences. More punishment inherently has to be a larger deterrent because it is used as a prosecutorial bargaining chip.
Great post. I recall from my childhood (early 2000s) that Brussel sprouts were seen as this not-tasty vegetable. Was this a remnant of a time where they actually were disgusting? As a child a large part of my self-image was based on the fact that I liked Brussel sprouts.
It’s cool experiments are being done to help caesarian babies (#18) but it’s also alarming that US has higher rates of caesarian births—due to higher hospital profitability and predictable delivery times. Doctors don’t like delivering babies at 3 am. Much better to schedule C-section at 3:30pm and then enjoy the evening out
13. That all large institutions everywhere anecdotally seem to be filled with the most grotesque waste and inefficiency, which is bad, sure, but given that our quality of life is as it is, it suggests that if we could find an even-moderately-efficient way to organize human activity, we might flourish even harder than we do now.
If we communicated via "3-D spatiotemporal fragrance patterns", why couldn't we write them down? In this scenario (or whatever other communication means you could imagine) I feel like we'd come up with some system to record space and different smells over time the same way we did for sounds
#21 is my favorite. Hopefully this actually gets implemented at scale.
I made a blog post about point #30 a few months ago and got a direct message from Andrew Snyder-Beattie (head of biosecurity at OpenPhil) who freaked out and asked me to delete it, which I did.
EDIT: to anyone wondering, I previously suggested redacting it but I now think it's not necessary, given that the information is already pretty widely known. It would be different if there were more details about actual implementation.
I will add all of these facts to my utility function to increase my utility in every moment. Thanks!
What, shoes haha? That shoes exist?
A friend of mine grew up in South Africa for the first few years of her life where shoes were unconventional, and she didn't wear them either. The result was that her feet became naturally callused and now she doesn't need shoes to go outside.
I don't think human feet are genetically weak (which would be unlike every other animal), I just think we stifle the natural hormesis by wearing shoes (if at least from an early age) in wealthy countries nowadays.
So.... "Thanks that shoes exist… because our feet are weak… because of shoes"?
This was absolutely incredible, thanks so much for the read
Collectively, we make life more difficult than is required, and maybe we got some benefits and achievements that would otherwise not manifested had we not done the things we did. And maybe we will find that the benefits came at too high a cost. Modernity is going through some stuff. A thanks today can become a regret tomorrow. And the reverse is also true.
Humans are weird, life is weird, and we have no idea where it’s all going. So, yeah, thank the fruits and the happy coincidences. Taste them all. Living and reality are an amazing journey.
Melpomene and Thalia all the way down.
re: #7, it's not all grungy issues! There's a lot of beauty to be had by mixing the purity of just intonation's low-prime ratios, and the angularities of equal temperament's symmetrical properties!
See this thread (https://twitter.com/itsjaneflowers/status/1591117570828296192) for an overview, which is based on this book (https://www.amazon.com/Harmonic-Experience-Harmony-Natural-Expression/dp/0892815604)
I understand you need a break, but I am not sure about 12...
Loved the post btw
RE 22: The death penalty is mostly used nowadays as a deterrent for bringing cases to trial. State issues notice of seeking death penalty. Now defense counsel has a reason to plea the case out for life in prison with no possibility of parole instead of just taking the case to trial where life in prison is the worst outcome anyway. If the death penalty isn't a criminal deterrent that means life prison sentences aren't a deterrent either and so on and so on for lesser sentences. More punishment inherently has to be a larger deterrent because it is used as a prosecutorial bargaining chip.
Peter Watts, Rifter series. Not exact, but close enough.
Loved this! ✨
Great post. I recall from my childhood (early 2000s) that Brussel sprouts were seen as this not-tasty vegetable. Was this a remnant of a time where they actually were disgusting? As a child a large part of my self-image was based on the fact that I liked Brussel sprouts.
It’s cool experiments are being done to help caesarian babies (#18) but it’s also alarming that US has higher rates of caesarian births—due to higher hospital profitability and predictable delivery times. Doctors don’t like delivering babies at 3 am. Much better to schedule C-section at 3:30pm and then enjoy the evening out
I’ve been expressing this sentiment for decades…
13. That all large institutions everywhere anecdotally seem to be filled with the most grotesque waste and inefficiency, which is bad, sure, but given that our quality of life is as it is, it suggests that if we could find an even-moderately-efficient way to organize human activity, we might flourish even harder than we do now.
If we communicated via "3-D spatiotemporal fragrance patterns", why couldn't we write them down? In this scenario (or whatever other communication means you could imagine) I feel like we'd come up with some system to record space and different smells over time the same way we did for sounds