The Core Problem Research teams stall on questions no one can answer internally. Policy discussions circle endlessly around undefined terms. AI systems exhaust their context window mid-analysis. Arguments persist because participants use the same words to mean different things. These aren't failures of effort or intelligence. They're structural—reasoning systems hitting dependencies they cannot resolve on … Continue reading Omega Variables: A Framework for Identifying and Resolving Reasoning Blockers
Category: open questions
Evil: Between Circumstance and Disposition
https://twitter.com/DiabolicalSpuds/status/1970837235907035151 Evil: Between Circumstance and Disposition The claim that "evil does not exist" offers seductive comfort in our contemporary moment. It suggests that all human harm can be explained away through trauma, ideology, or circumstance—that beneath every atrocity lies a victim of forces beyond their control. Yet this denial, however psychologically appealing, fails to account … Continue reading Evil: Between Circumstance and Disposition
Process & Results
"No effort in this worldis lost or wasted;a fragment of sacred dutysaves you from great fear." -The Bhagavad-Gita, Chapter 2, Verse 40 trans by Barbara Stoler Miller For many years, I have believed that process is more important than product. You do not always have control over outcomes. Even with our best efforts, it is … Continue reading Process & Results
Shadow Libraries: Library Genesis, ZLibrary & Sci-Hub
I've never seen the term "shadow libraries" mentioned in this blog post before. I had heard of Sci-Hub. But, I'm not a scientist, and I have never needed to access it. But, I does make me wonder. Open Question: How does one balance how copyright helps to foster an environment where people conduct research and … Continue reading Shadow Libraries: Library Genesis, ZLibrary & Sci-Hub
America’s Modern Character: Paranoid Loser
"[Columbia professor Adam Tooze, writer of the definitive forensic analysis of the 2008 financial crisis in Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World,] does not buy the line that America is roaring back at the head of a resurgent West, even if the autocracies have suffered a crushing reverse over recent months. … Continue reading America’s Modern Character: Paranoid Loser
Making Friends [on the Internet]
Summarized: "[1.] follow people you resonate with. [2.] engage with bigger accounts, support smaller accounts. [3.] ask questions, offer suggestions, share learnings. [4.] pay attention to who keeps popping up. [5.] use the algorithms to your advantage. [6.] attend virtual events. participate! [7.] attend offline events! Be adventerous.[8.] send that dm / email / offer to … Continue reading Making Friends [on the Internet]
The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant
"Once upon a time, the planet was tyrannized by a giant dragon. The dragon stood taller than the largest cathedral, and it was covered with thick black scales. Its red eyes glowed with hate, and from its terrible jaws flowed an incessant stream of evil-smelling yellowish-green slime. It demanded from humankind a blood-curdling tribute: to … Continue reading The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant
Questions About Technology Investment: CharaCorder
"The CharaChorder is a new kind of typing peripheral that promises to let people type at superhuman speeds. It’s so fast that the website Monkeytype, which lets users participate in typing challenges and maintains its own leaderboard, automatically flagged CharaChorder’s CEO as a cheater when he attempted to post his 500 WPM score on the … Continue reading Questions About Technology Investment: CharaCorder
The Purpose of Dialogue
Open Question: What is the purpose of dialogue? People generally only change their minds when in conversation with someone that loves them. How many conversations are we having with people we love?Maybe the point of conversation is to change our own minds. If we aren't coming from that place, are we in dialogue at all?Trying … Continue reading The Purpose of Dialogue
The Computers Are Out of Their Boxes
"What does that mean? Well, computers haven’t changed much in 40 or 50 years. They’re smaller and faster, but they’re still boxes with processors that run instructions from humans. AI changes that on at least three fronts: how computers are made, how they’re programmed, and how they’re used. Ultimately, it will change what they are … Continue reading The Computers Are Out of Their Boxes
Live Long & Prosper
"Behavioral scientists have spent a lot of time studying what makes us happy (and what doesn’t). We know happiness can predict health and longevity, and happiness scales can be used to measure social progress and the success of public policies. But happiness isn’t something that just happens to you. Everyone has the power to make … Continue reading Live Long & Prosper
L.M. Sacasas’s The Questions Concerning Technology
If you find the list below interesting, you could always subscribe to his newsletter, and as with all Substack newsletters, it can be turned into an RSS feed by adding /feed to the main url, like so: https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/feed. Don't know what RSS is? There's a post for that. h/t to Alan Jacobs for the reminder. … Continue reading L.M. Sacasas’s The Questions Concerning Technology
Deflationary Individualism
"My considerations of inflation have been limited to discussions on index components, labor/wage dynamics, and menu pricing. I liked the exercise of placing preferences surrounding good, services, and activities on the inflation/deflation spectrum.What are other examples of inflationary/deflationary preferences? And what happens if you place inflation/deflation towards the center of your personal aesthetics? And if … Continue reading Deflationary Individualism
The Maximum Human Life Span and Conjecture on Step Counts to Get There (15,000 Steps a Day)
"For the study, Timothy Pyrkov, a researcher at a Singapore-based company called Gero, and his colleagues looked at this “pace of aging” in three large cohorts in the U.S., the U.K. and Russia. To evaluate deviations from stable health, they assessed changes in blood cell counts and the daily number of steps taken and analyzed … Continue reading The Maximum Human Life Span and Conjecture on Step Counts to Get There (15,000 Steps a Day)
cafebedouin.org 