Cato the Eider

• Cato the Eider 24 Sep 2021 0:25 UTC

  1 point

  on: In­tro to Debt Crises

  Without a shred of support I’ll throw out there that perhaps we’re dealing with a scale-free network [1]. There would be no “typical size” for economic disruptions; and it would invalidate all the ²⁰⁄₂₀ hindsight “why did it happen” stories (it makes reading the news a lot more relaxing, I find). I don’t know how to evaluate this hypothesis, though.

  [1] https://​​en.wikipedia.org/​​wiki/​​Scale-free_network

• Cato the Eider 4 May 2021 15:08 UTC

  4 points

  on: Death by Red Tape

  I think you’re far too charitable toward the FDA, TSA et al. I submit that they simultaneously reduce slack, increase fragility … and reduce efficiency. They are best modeled as parasites, sapping resources from the host (the general public) for their own benefit.

  [edit] Something I’ve been toying with is thinking of societal collapse as a scale-free distribution [1], from micro-collapse (a divorce, perhaps?) to Roman Empire events. In this model, a civilization-wide collapse doesn’t have a “cause” per se, it’s just a property of the system.

  [1] https://​​en.wikipedia.org/​​wiki/​​Self-organized_criticality

• Cato the Eider 21 Dec 2020 19:32 UTC

  1 point

  on: Gaug­ing the con­scious ex­pe­rience of LessWrong

  I’ve been curious about the phenomenon of memory, or perhaps more precisely, recall. For example, I can recall standing at the top of a granitic, sub-alpine cliff at the head of a waterfall. I can also “recall” standing near Wesley at the top of the Cliffs of Insanity. Obviously I know that one happened to me and one didn’t, but to me the two mental processes seem to be of the same catagory, and I’m suspicious that this is true of everyone but that few recognize it. I do recognize a very few “memories” that feel somewhat different—one is standing on a tropical beach with small waves lapping, palm trees swaying in the gentle breeze, general aroma of tropical island. One thing that seems to be key to this set is the inclusion of scent, and I speculate that it’s more tightly bound to a sense of “I-ness”. Even this set, however, seems less like memories of instants in time, and more like reconstructions of repeated experiences.

  (as an aside, my experience is that thoughts arise in a pre-lingual state as pure conceps, but are almost instantly translated into words—so quickly that if you’re not paying attention it can feel like thinking in words)

• Cato the Eider 21 Dec 2020 19:28 UTC

  2 points

  on: Gaug­ing the con­scious ex­pe­rience of LessWrong

  I’ve been curious about the phenomenon of memory, or perhaps more precisely, recall. For example, I can recall standing at the top of a granitic, sub-alpine cliff at the head of a waterfall. I can also “recall” standing near Wesley at the top of the Cliffs of Insanity. Obviously I know that one happened to me and one didn’t, but to me the two mental processes seem to be of the same catagory, and I’m suspicious that this is true of everyone but that few recognize it. I do recognize a very few “memories” that feel somewhat different—one is standing on a tropical beach with small waves lapping, palm trees swaying in the gentle breeze, general aroma of tropical island. One thing that seems to be key to this set is the inclusion of scent, and I speculate that it’s more tightly bound to a sense of “I-ness”. Even this set, however, seems less like memories of instants in time, and more like reconstructions of repeated experiences.

• Cato the Eider 5 Oct 2020 15:55 UTC

  15 points

  on: Ra­tion­al­ity and Cli­mate Change

  I’ll bite—as a “not feeling alarmed” sort of person. First, though, I’ll clarify that I’m reading”climate change” as shorthand for “climate change that is net-negative for human welfare” (herein CCNNHW), since obviously the climate is in a state of constant change.

  Confidence levels expressed as rough probabilities:

  0.70 : we are observing CCNNHW

  0.80 : current human behavior increases probability of CCNNHW

  0.10 : future magnitude of CCNNHW will be massive

  0.98 : future human behavior will change, given CCNNHW

  0.90 : some current and proposed mitigations are themselves NNHW

  0.60 : some proposed mitigations have negative effects rivaling that of CC

  0.50 : it’s possible to design a net-positive mitigation [1]

  0.10 : it’s possible to implement a net-positive mitigation [2]

  Taken together, I assign higher risk to collective, politically directed efforts to mitigate CC than to CC itself.

  ---

  [1] non-linear feedback effects depress this value

  [2] political processes depress this value

• Cato the Eider 29 Sep 2020 23:08 UTC

  3 points

  on: The whirlpool of reality

  Thank you for sharing this. I’ve long used the image (or metaphor) of the swirl of cream in a cup of coffee for this purpose, but have never expressed the idea as well.

• Cato the Eider 12 May 2020 13:35 UTC

  1 point

  on: What would flour­ish­ing look like in Con­way’s Game of Life?

  Perhaps “the boundary between order and chaos”, see rule 110.

• Cato the Eider 23 Apr 2020 13:29 UTC

  3 points

  on: Covid 19 as a Fermi Para­dox Zoo Hy­poth­e­sis Sub­set (Lab­o­ra­tory Hy­poth­e­sis) Nudge Point

  I just have to call attention to “‘burning plasma’ global peace nude point” as one terrific phrase.

• Cato the Eider 3 Aug 2018 14:13 UTC

  5 points

  on: Chap­ter 113: Fi­nal Exam

  [Having finished Yudkowsky’s work, am deleting my post. It grew from a different narrative intent and wasn’t comfortable here.]