Congrats on almost completing your first Babble challenge! Though as the gamemaster, I am obliged to point out that combinatorial variations (like #41-46, or #2-5) don’t count, so you still have a few to go to reach 50.
More constructively, I am confused as to the model behind rules. There are two main confusions:
Rejecting variants requires pruning, and this is purely a babble challenge, so why don’t variants count? I think coaxing variants out is pretty integral to getting my brain in a babble mode.
Why do some things that clearly won’t work (bird in a space suit) count while others (watching Tiger King) don’t?
Combinatorial variations don’t count because they’re too easy. They’re an algorithm for writing a program to complete any babble challenge for you, but without actually generating much creativity. Put another way, I can come up with one babble, and then move into a different mode, and start generating combinatorial substitutions. (Perhaps it’s not different, but just strictly easier.) This feels less like “striking at the enemy” to me.
Rejecting variants requires pruning, and this is purely a babble challenge, so why don’t variants count? I think coaxing variants out is pretty integral to getting my brain in a babble mode.
So, if you need do some combinatorial variations to “keep the wheels spinning”: consider batching many combinatorial variations into one entry, or just going to 60 or 70 in total to compensate for the variations. You don’t need to literally prevent yourself from writing them down.
Why do some things that clearly won’t work (bird in a space suit) count while others (watching Tiger King) don’t?
Boring answer: I have an intuition about what helps me push the boundaries of my creativity, and also some explicit models about how this works. I try to make the rules of the challenge to track that intuition, even though I haven’t been able to make it fully legible yet.
When I write “bird in a space suit” my brain is at least trying to gesture in the direction of the problem. You could also imagine works of fiction where this is a way of getting to the moon. (And I think that accomplished fiction authors likely have high levels of creativity, in a way where gradient descenting a bit towards what they’re doing seems good.) When I write “watch Tiger King”, however, it doesn’t feel like I’m even trying to do the challenge.
Rail gun
Write a letter to NASA
Write a letter to China
Write a letter to Russia
Write a letter to SpaceX
Ask [Redacted 1] to ask Elon Musk
Ask [Redacted 2] to ask Elon Musk
Ask [Redacted 2] to get me invited to a party where Elon Musk will be so I can ask them
Travel back in time and kidnap Wener Von Braun to recruit him to my space program instead
Send item back in time and hide it in Apollo 11 landing module
Start my own rocketry company
Does EU have a space program? Write to them.
Get really good at Kerbal Space Program until I can start my own rocketry company
Give money to KSP devs and see if they can make a real rocketry company
Cannon (won’t work because escape velocity)
Cannot on ISS.
Invent teleportation myself
Fund invention of teleportation
Develop psychic powers, steal secret of teleportation from someone who already knows.
Ask for ideas on twitter
Ask for ideas on FB
Ask for ideas on LW
Ask for ideas on my blog
Ask [Redacted 3] in particular, he seems good at interacting with the physical world.
Recruit top rocketry dude at Space X to my own program
Have child, raise to be rocket scientist, polgar style.
Kick it really hard
Bring enough moon rocks down to Earth to make it count as “The Moon”, walk to it and place item
blow up moon, let dust settle on Earth, making it “the Moon”, place anywhere
Drone but better
Hang around by NASA campus and make small talk till I find someone who can help.
Find the guy who wrote the moon jujitsu class poem, maybe he has ideas.
Portal gun
Convince DARPA/IARPA to fund teleportation to the moon
Endow a prize to whoever gets item to the moon, see what turns up.
Convince someone else to endow said prize.
Get 3D printer on moon, send information to spin up my item.
Invent nanobots, send to moon on a spaceship, have them assemble item.
Invent flying nanobots, let them get to the moon themselves, assemble item.
Flying nanobots carry item to moon.
Get EM to build space elevator, launch from top
Get NASA to build space elevator...
Get China to build space elevator...
Get EU to build space elevator...
Get Russia to build space elevator...
Start moon tourism company, include item as payload
Start prison colony on moon, send item up as payload
Plant idea to place item on moon in EM’s head, Inception style.
Convince China US is about to do it, see if they beat us to it
Will that cannon from Moon is a Harsh Mistress work in reverse? Seems like it could, especially if it was a guided missile instead of a rock.
:::
Congrats on almost completing your first Babble challenge! Though as the gamemaster, I am obliged to point out that combinatorial variations (like #41-46, or #2-5) don’t count, so you still have a few to go to reach 50.
I reject your reality and substitute my own.
More constructively, I am confused as to the model behind rules. There are two main confusions:
Rejecting variants requires pruning, and this is purely a babble challenge, so why don’t variants count? I think coaxing variants out is pretty integral to getting my brain in a babble mode.
Why do some things that clearly won’t work (bird in a space suit) count while others (watching Tiger King) don’t?
Combinatorial variations don’t count because they’re too easy. They’re an algorithm for writing a program to complete any babble challenge for you, but without actually generating much creativity. Put another way, I can come up with one babble, and then move into a different mode, and start generating combinatorial substitutions. (Perhaps it’s not different, but just strictly easier.) This feels less like “striking at the enemy” to me.
So, if you need do some combinatorial variations to “keep the wheels spinning”: consider batching many combinatorial variations into one entry, or just going to 60 or 70 in total to compensate for the variations. You don’t need to literally prevent yourself from writing them down.
Boring answer: I have an intuition about what helps me push the boundaries of my creativity, and also some explicit models about how this works. I try to make the rules of the challenge to track that intuition, even though I haven’t been able to make it fully legible yet.
When I write “bird in a space suit” my brain is at least trying to gesture in the direction of the problem. You could also imagine works of fiction where this is a way of getting to the moon. (And I think that accomplished fiction authors likely have high levels of creativity, in a way where gradient descenting a bit towards what they’re doing seems good.) When I write “watch Tiger King”, however, it doesn’t feel like I’m even trying to do the challenge.