Thanks for the update! Let me attempt to convey why I think this post would have been better with fewer distinct points:
In retrospect, maybe I should’ve gone into explaining the basics of entropy and enthalpy in my reply, eg:
If you replied with this, I would have said something like “then what’s wrong with the designs for diamond mechanosynthesis tooltips, which don’t resemble enzymes and have been computationally simulated as you mentioned in point 9?” then we would have gone back and forth a few times until either (a) you make some complicated argument I don’t understand enough to believe nor refute, or (b) we agree on what definition of “enzyme” or “selectively bind to individual molecules” is required for nanotech, which probably includes the carbon dimer placer (image below). Even in case (b) we could continue arguing about how practical that thing plus other steps in the process are, and not achieve much.
The problem as I see it is that a post that makes a large number of points quickly, where each point has subtleties requiring an expert to adjudicate, on a site with few experts, is inherently going to generate a lot of misunderstanding. I have a symmetrical problem to you; from my perspective someone was using somewhat complicated arguments to prove things that defy my physical intuition, and to defend against a Gish gallop I need to respond to every point, but doing this in a reasonable amount of time requires me to think and write with less than maximum clarity and accuracy.
The solution I would humbly recommend is to make fewer points, selected carefully to be bulletproof, understandable to non-experts, and important to the overall thesis. Looking back on this, point 14 could have been its own longform, and potentially led to a lot of interesting discussion like this post did. Likewise point 6 paragraph 2.
make fewer points, selected carefully to be bulletproof, understandable to non-experts, and important to the overall thesis
That conflicts with eg:
If you replied with this, I would have said something like “then what’s wrong with the designs for diamond mechanosynthesis tooltips, which don’t resemble enzymes
Thanks for the update! Let me attempt to convey why I think this post would have been better with fewer distinct points:
If you replied with this, I would have said something like “then what’s wrong with the designs for diamond mechanosynthesis tooltips, which don’t resemble enzymes and have been computationally simulated as you mentioned in point 9?” then we would have gone back and forth a few times until either (a) you make some complicated argument I don’t understand enough to believe nor refute, or (b) we agree on what definition of “enzyme” or “selectively bind to individual molecules” is required for nanotech, which probably includes the carbon dimer placer (image below). Even in case (b) we could continue arguing about how practical that thing plus other steps in the process are, and not achieve much.
The problem as I see it is that a post that makes a large number of points quickly, where each point has subtleties requiring an expert to adjudicate, on a site with few experts, is inherently going to generate a lot of misunderstanding. I have a symmetrical problem to you; from my perspective someone was using somewhat complicated arguments to prove things that defy my physical intuition, and to defend against a Gish gallop I need to respond to every point, but doing this in a reasonable amount of time requires me to think and write with less than maximum clarity and accuracy.
The solution I would humbly recommend is to make fewer points, selected carefully to be bulletproof, understandable to non-experts, and important to the overall thesis. Looking back on this, point 14 could have been its own longform, and potentially led to a lot of interesting discussion like this post did. Likewise point 6 paragraph 2.
That conflicts with eg:
Anyway, I already answered that in 9. diamond.