A way to practice this is to go on Twitter where a “preferred” interpretation X is often more salient. There is also often an immediately obvious alternative explanation not-X.
Let’s do this:
Could the famous mysteries of quantum mechanics be explained if physics runs on a blockchain? Consider: Schrodinger’s Cat could reflect a delay in reality “finalizing” until there’s a sufficient number of experimental “confirmations”
Interpretation X: If it could my model of physics (or blockchain) would be off. If so, I should look more deeply into it.
Interpretation not-X I: If it could not my model of the world model of EY is off. Not very likely—I should look for further explanations.
Interpretation not-X II: EY is trying to communicate something else, maybe hint at relevant though not exactly matching correspondences. This seems most likely. But this is a topic that I am not too deeply interested in and so would ignore. But if I see more evidence of people engaging in the direction of X I would pick that up again.
The two worst problems afflicting universities — rapidly increasing cost and rapidly decreasing freedom of expression — share a common cause: the growth in the number of administrators.
It turns out this is more like Logan’s examples: Whether the common cause is administrators or not seems to have little impact on my actions. I think the right action here is to suspend judgment and await more info (e.g. on ACX).
Amazing alternate way to think about patents! @elonmusk
(was reshared by paulg, though it seems to be from 2014)
Context: I have layman experience in patents, just having reviewed a handful of patent applications.
Interpretation I: Elon Musk is generally open-sourcing patents. Patents are not a good idea. Low probability, otherwise I would have heard about open-sourcing Space-X patents too. But generally matches with recommendations about patents I heard about startups. Innovation speed is key. If so I should also be less inclined to consider patents in general.
Interpretation II: Elon Musk is selectively open-sourcing Tesla patents. Assumption: This is beneficial to Tesla but not (yet?) for Space-X. Maybe because the industry is bigger. If so I should consider the context when deciding for patents.
Interpretation III: The open-sourcing of Tesla patents is not really about patents but some other type of communication strategy. Maybe there were not that many key patents to begin with. With Musk this seems like a reasonable guess too. If so I should reduce weight on facts communicated by industry leaders in general.
For most of it’s history Space X wasn’t filling patents. They only did really start with that in 2019 (https://insights.greyb.com/spacex-patents/). I expect that a key motivation of why they started with that is to be able to use them defensively against Blue Origin.
Note that it might be very legally difficult to open source much of Space-X technology, due to the US classifying rockets as advanced weapons technology (because they could be used as such).
A way to practice this is to go on Twitter where a “preferred” interpretation X is often more salient. There is also often an immediately obvious alternative explanation not-X.
Let’s do this:
Interpretation X: If it could my model of physics (or blockchain) would be off. If so, I should look more deeply into it.
Interpretation not-X I: If it could not my model of the world model of EY is off. Not very likely—I should look for further explanations.
Interpretation not-X II: EY is trying to communicate something else, maybe hint at relevant though not exactly matching correspondences. This seems most likely. But this is a topic that I am not too deeply interested in and so would ignore. But if I see more evidence of people engaging in the direction of X I would pick that up again.
It turns out this is more like Logan’s examples: Whether the common cause is administrators or not seems to have little impact on my actions. I think the right action here is to suspend judgment and await more info (e.g. on ACX).
(was reshared by paulg, though it seems to be from 2014)
Context: I have layman experience in patents, just having reviewed a handful of patent applications.
Interpretation I: Elon Musk is generally open-sourcing patents. Patents are not a good idea. Low probability, otherwise I would have heard about open-sourcing Space-X patents too. But generally matches with recommendations about patents I heard about startups. Innovation speed is key. If so I should also be less inclined to consider patents in general.
Interpretation II: Elon Musk is selectively open-sourcing Tesla patents. Assumption: This is beneficial to Tesla but not (yet?) for Space-X. Maybe because the industry is bigger. If so I should consider the context when deciding for patents.
Interpretation III: The open-sourcing of Tesla patents is not really about patents but some other type of communication strategy. Maybe there were not that many key patents to begin with. With Musk this seems like a reasonable guess too. If so I should reduce weight on facts communicated by industry leaders in general.
For most of it’s history Space X wasn’t filling patents. They only did really start with that in 2019 (https://insights.greyb.com/spacex-patents/). I expect that a key motivation of why they started with that is to be able to use them defensively against Blue Origin.
Note that it might be very legally difficult to open source much of Space-X technology, due to the US classifying rockets as advanced weapons technology (because they could be used as such).