Category: essays

Evaluator Bias in AI Rationality Assessment

~ cafebedouin

Response to: arXiv:2511.00926 The AI Self-Awareness Index study claims to measure emergent self-awareness through strategic differentiation in game-theoretic tasks. Advanced models consistently rated opponents in a clear hierarchy: Self > Other AIs > Humans. The researchers interpreted this as evidence of self-awareness and systematic self-preferencing. This interpretation misses the more significant finding: evaluator bias in … Continue reading Evaluator Bias in AI Rationality Assessment

The Separation Trap: When “Separate but Equal” Hides Unfairness

~ cafebedouin

The Basic Problem When two people or groups have different needs, there are two ways to handle it: Merge the resources and divide them based on who needs what Keep resources separate and let each side handle their own needs The second option sounds fair. It sounds like independence and respect for differences. But it … Continue reading The Separation Trap: When “Separate but Equal” Hides Unfairness

When the Tower Can’t Be Rebuilt: What Institutional Economics Misses About the Next Decade

~ cafebedouin

Rebecca Patterson's recent New York Times essay uses a Jenga tower as a metaphor for the American economy in 2025. Blocks are being removed—small businesses cutting jobs, federal layoffs, consumption concentrating among the wealthy—while AI companies pile massive investments on top. Eventually, she warns, Jenga towers fall down. She's right about the instability. But the … Continue reading When the Tower Can’t Be Rebuilt: What Institutional Economics Misses About the Next Decade

The Competence Trap: Why Being Good at Many Things Makes Self-Assessment Nearly Impossible

~ cafebedouin

We all know the type who announces their skills on social media. "Crisis management is one of my deepest competencies," they tweet, while actively demonstrating the opposite. The irony is obvious to everyone but them. But recognizing others' inflated self-assessments is easy. The harder question is: how do we avoid the same trap ourselves? The … Continue reading The Competence Trap: Why Being Good at Many Things Makes Self-Assessment Nearly Impossible

When Mathematics Demands Its Stories: A Taxonomy of Narrative Constraint

~ cafebedouin

The Discovery In December 2025, I began translating mathematical paradoxes into fiction—not as metaphor, but as precise projection of formal structures into narrative space while preserving their logical topology. The Halting Problem became "The Judge Who Couldn't Stop." The Busy Beaver function became "The Record." Arrow's Impossibility Theorem became a constitutional crisis in an imaginary … Continue reading When Mathematics Demands Its Stories: A Taxonomy of Narrative Constraint

Why Ergo?

~ cafebedouin ~ 2 Comments

Ergo is different from other blockchains. It is focused on providing a decentralized, open, permissionless, and secure platform for contractual money that is usable by ordinary people to pursue their common good over the long term. It is designed to be resilient in the face of different economic environments and competing interests, allows individuals to … Continue reading Why Ergo?

Fascists in Need of a Punch

~ cafebedouin

"Fascism: a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition—Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, s.v. “fascism,” accessed January 24, 2021, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascism. When I … Continue reading Fascists in Need of a Punch

The Extraordinary Intruding on the Ordinary

~ cafebedouin ~ 3 Comments

The only thing differentiating the extraordinary from the ordinary is frequency, quantity and volume. If you were a Sherpa climbing Mt. Everest every day, helping tourists get their one minute at the pinnacle. What would the value of summiting Everest be to you? I remember reading Bernard Moitessier's "The Long Way", where he describes being … Continue reading The Extraordinary Intruding on the Ordinary