Main.2022RussiaUkraineWarRawNotes . . . by quanticle: * ''Not sure why Shoigu and Khrenin are the ones signing this; I'd have thought that changes to a treaty would required signatures from heads of government, i.e. Putin and Lukashenko''
Main.2022Formula1Season . . . by quanticle: * 71 laps * Red Bull and Mercedes both starting on soft tires * Ferrari starting on medium tires * Lap 1 * George Russell gets away clean and Lewis Hamilton holds on to 2nd * Daniel Ricciardo runs into the back of Kevin Magnussen, who spins and skids backwards into Ricciardo * Both cars are out of the race * Safety car declared * ''I feel really bad for Kevin Magnussen, but this is just typical Haas luck'' * Lap 5 — Alex Albon comes in under the safety car and goes onto medium tires
Main.FirefoxSetup . . . by quanticle: #TabsToolbar { display: none !important; } #titlebar { display: none !important; } # If, after a restart, Firefox doesn't seem to be picking up the changes from @@userChrome.css@@, try going into @@about:profiles@@ and hitting the @@Restart@@ button there
Main.WarOnTheRocks . . . by quanticle: * [[The Kremlin In Command Part 1: The Chechen Wars and Georgia]] * [[Southwards and Eastward Pressure on Russian Forces]]
Main.TheKremlinInCommandPart1TheChechenWarsAndGeorgia . . . by quanticle: (:title The Kremlin In Command, Part 1: The Chechen Wars and Georgia :) (:mathjax:) [[https://warontherocks.com/2022/09/the-kremlin-in-command-part-i-the-chechen-wars-and-georgia/ | Podcast Link]] !! Panelists * Host: Ryan Evans * Guests * Lawrence Freedman
Main.Tea . . . by quanticle: (:title Tea Notes :) (:mathjax:) * [[https://www.uptontea.com/formosa-black-tea/taiwan-loose-leaf-black-tea/p/V00254/#V00254 | Superior Bold Leaf Formosa Keemun]] * 212ºF * 5 minutes * Pretty good tea, but I don't see how it's any different from the China Keemun * [[https://www.uptontea.com/yunnan/china-yunnan-loose-leaf-black-tea/p/V00397/#V00397 | Yunnan TGFOP]] * 212ºF * 5 minutes * This is just a solid go-to tea for all occasions
Main.WikiSandbox2 . . . by quanticle: (:title The Allure Of Battle :) (:htoc:) !! Introduction * Military history seems very easy * History is decided by the outcomes of war * The outcomes of wars are decided by the outcomes of battles * In recent years, there has been a reaction against this war-centric approach, with historians focusing on longer terms social, political and economic trends
Main.WikiSandbox3 . . . by quanticle: * Nicholas Latifi — Williams * Sebastian Vettel — Aston Martin * Lance Stroll — Aston Martin * Kevin Magnussen — Haas * Mick Schumacher — Haas * Big moment from Nyck DeVries — locks up the rear axle, manages to keep the car on the track, but ruins his lap * Esteban Ocon — Alpine * Valteri Bottas — Alfa Romeo
Reviews.NormalizationOfCensorshipEvidenceFromChina . . . by quanticle: (:title Normalization of Censorship: Evidence From China :) (:markdown:) Conventional wisdom holds that censorship on the Internet is a somewhat futile endeavor. As John Gilmore put it, "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." More concretely, we have the Streisand Effect, where Barbara Streisand attempted to remove photos of her house from the Internet, and, in the process of doing so, only drew more attention to them. Because of this, most political scientists hold that authoritarian regimes censor as little as possible, limiting their censorship to information directly threatening to the government and information encouraging collective action, which could turn into anti-government protests. Censoring more than that is thought to lead to backlash, as ordinary Internet users would encounter censorship in their everyday usage, and seeing the heavy hand of the state on a day-to-day basis, encourages rebellion. Yet anecdotal evidence from China indicates otherwise. Casual browsing of Chinese social media indicates that the Chinese government censors far more than the minimum necessary to suppress anti-government and collective action information. Is this perception actually true? And, if so, how does the Chinese government get away with censoring so much without engendering a backlash? These are the questions the author of "[Normalization of Censorship: Evidence From China](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3835217)" ([my outline](https://wiki.quanticle.net/Main/NormalizationOfCensorshipEvidenceFromChina)) set out to answer. First, he sought a quantitative answer to the question of whether China censors more than absolutely necessary. Conventional wisdom holds that the Internet behind the Great Firewall is relatively freewheeling, so long as one stays away from criticizing the government or encouraging collective protests. Turning to the [WeChatScope database](https://academic.oup.com/joc/article-abstract/70/6/842/5913142) of censored articles, the author demonstrates that this isn't the case. Using a supervised machine learning process, he classified the articles in the database into political and non-political categories. In order to avoid undercounting political stories, the author applied the categories sequentially, with the political categories going first. Furthermore, he explicitly excluded anything having to do with the government or politics from the classification rubrics for the non-political categories. Finally, because the WeChatScope database covers censored articles posted to newsfeeds of politically-focused accounts, the author felt that, if anything, the dataset would be biased in the opposite direction — towards showing that the central government was mostly censoring politics and protest. As he expected, the author found that the Chinese government was censoring far more just politics and protest. Of the 15872 censored articles that WeChatScope collected from March 2018 to May 2020, only about 40% were related to politics and collective action. The remaining 60% were "harmless" articles, having mostly to do with entertainment or business. Even when he extended the definition of "politics" to include business and the economy, he found that approximately 43% of articles were non-political, still a substantial minority. The idea that you can get away with saying whatever you want on the Chinese Internet, so long as you stay away from criticizing the government, appears to be a myth.
Site.StyleSheet . . . May 09, 2022, at 02:03 AM by quanticle: } #wikitext p { margin-bottom: 1em;
Main.TheUkraineWarTwoMonthsIn . . . May 09, 2022, at 01:58 AM by quanticle: (:title A Summary of the First Two Months of the Ukraine War :) (:markdown:) RUSI has published a decent analysis of the war thus far, along with speculation of how the war might unfold in the second phase. Despite the grandiose title, "[Operation Z: The Death Throes of an Imperial Delusion](https://static.rusi.org/special-report-202204-operation-z-web.pdf)", I found it useful summary of the war thus far. The authors, Jack Watling and Nick Reynolds, interviewed Ukrainian officers and conducted their own fieldwork to sum up how things went wrong for Russia in the opening stages of the war, how Russia has refocused towards more limited objectives, and what this means for the Russian economy and western diplomatic and political strategy as the war drags on. My summary and analysis follows. The opening phases of the war are familiar to most, but this report does bring to light some facts that were not well publicized during the chaos of late February. One is that, at least in the first 72 hours or so, Russian electronic warfare does appear to have been quite effective. Ukrainian radar operators reported heavy jamming, along with extensive use of decoys posing as Russian aircraft. Then as Russian troops advanced, this electronic warfare slackened. The authors surmise that Russian commanders were unwilling to risk rare and expensive electronic warfare assets too close to the front lines, and thus they had to cease jamming lest their jamming disrupt their own communications. Another interesting tidbit is the confirmation that the Ukrainians had advance warning of the Russian attack on Hostomel airfield. Ukrainian intelligence had picked up discussions between VDV commanders about an attack on the Antonov airfield, and were able to preposition forces to counterattack before the airborne infantry had arrived. There is reporting that this information was forwarded to the Ukrainians from Western sources, but the report does not speculate on the methods by which the Ukrainians determined that Hostomel airport was a likely target early in the conflict. Ukrainian soldiers also reinforce an underemphasized point in the coverage of the war: the importance of artillery. As a Ukrainian general notes: "anti-tank weapons slowed them [the Russians] down, but what killed them was our artillery." Although Javelins and Bayraktars are getting a lot of press, the most important weapon, from the Ukrainian perspective, is the simple towed or self-propelled howitzer. Massed artillery fires, coordinated by drones, or even civilians reporting Russian movements with their smartphones, was decisive in countering the Russian assault on Kyiv.
Main.BeijingIsUsedToLearningFromRussianFailures . . . May 02, 2022, at 02:57 PM by quanticle: (:title Beijing Is Used To Learning From Russian Failures :) (:markdown:) Source: [Foreign Policy](https://archive.ph/s7HwY) - Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been a disaster for Putin - China has faced many of the same limitations with its military that Russia is facing right now - However, China has done more to address these limitations, and thus we should not expect the Chinese military to perform as poorly in a Taiwan invasion scenario as the Russian military has performed in Ukraine - China's economy is also more resilient to sanctions - Russia badly overestimated its military capabilities - Poor air-to-ground coordination
Main.ButterySmoothEmacs . . . April 22, 2022, at 09:13 PM by quanticle: (:title Buttery Smooth Emacs :) (:htoc:) (:markdown:) [Original Source](https://www.facebook.com/notes/10107017870677858/) Emacs has flickered for 30 years. Now, it should be flicker-free. I’ve just [landed](https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-diffs/2016-10/msg00307.html) support for double-buffered rendering for the X11 port. Now you should be able to edit, resize, and introduce bugs in your awful codebase without seeing a partially-rendered buffer or being incited to murder by barely-perceptible white flashes while editing that disappear when you look at them. ## History You might say, “That’s great, but double-buffered rendering is the textbook solution to the problem of displaying incomplete rendering to users and driving them to kill their dogs in maniacal frustration.”. That’s true, but Emacs predates those textbooks. GNU Emacs is an old-school C program emulating a 1980s Symbolics Lisp Machine emulating an old-fashioned Motif-style Xt toolkit emulating a 1970s text terminal emulating a 1960s teletype. Compiling Emacs is a challenge. Adding modern rendering features to the redisplay engine is a miracle.
Main.TheWizardingWorldIsNotALibertarianParadise . . . March 04, 2022, at 01:47 PM by quanticle: This reply to Rymers is admittedly a bit silly. But I don't think it's any sillier than the original argument. Rymers claims that Harry Potter has a libertarian subtext. I think this claim is based on a very surface level understanding of Harry Potter, and a closer reading of the text yields an argument closer to the traditional left-liberal interpretation. The wizarding world is statist and disrespectful of individual rights, and taking our world closer to it is taking our world further away from the ideals of libertarianism.
Main.EndingTheThreatOfWarInUkraine . . . February 17, 2022, at 03:25 PM by quanticle: - _This part, at least, seems to be misinformation_ - _There were small protests in the Donbas, but eyewitness accounts suggest that a large number of the protesters were Russians who had come in over the border_
Main.BrookingsPanelDiscussionOnThe30thAnniversaryOfTheFallOfTheSovietUnion . . . December 22, 2021, at 05:17 PM by quanticle: (:title Brookings Discussion on the 30th Anniversary of the Fall of the Soviet Union :) (:markdown:) - [Link to source](https://pca.st/n9h1c4q9) - Moderated by Angela Stent (Nonresident Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy -- Center on the United States and Europe) - Panelists - James Goldgeier -- Visiting Fellow, Foreign Policy -- Center on the United States and Europe - Fiona Hill -- Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy -- Center on the United States and Europe - Donald Jensen -- Director, Russia and Strategic Stability -- United States Institute of Peace - Vladislav Zubok -- Professor, Department of International History -- London School of Economics and Political Science - Pavel K. Baev -- Nonresident Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy -- Center on the United States and Europe
Main.UndiplomaticEpisode103NuclearPrecarityKeynoteLectureOnNuclearWarRisksInEastAsia . . . November 22, 2021, at 02:24 AM by quanticle: (:title Undiplomatic Podcast Episode 103: Nuclear Precarity: Keynote Lecture on Nuclear War Risks in Eastern Asia :) (:htoc:) (:markdown:) ## Introduction - Keynote lecture delivered at Ritsumekan University in Kyoto Japan - Lecture on nuclear war risks in East Asia - "Nuclear precarity" - Not all nuclear crises are equally unstable
Main.Undiplomatic . . . November 22, 2021, at 02:24 AM by quanticle: (:title Undiplomatic Podcast :) * [[Undiplomatic Episode 103: Nuclear Precarity: Keynote Lecture on Nuclear War Risks in East Asia]]
Main.ChinasReactionToTheMetaverse . . . November 01, 2021, at 08:24 PM by quanticle: (:title China's Reaction to the Metaverse :) * Report published by China Institute of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR): https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/hlN7k-_4ZSftpyE2qNAGeA * Summarized by Bruno Macaes: https://brunomacaes.substack.com/p/the-metaverse-and-national-security !! Summary * Report envisions the metaverse as a driver of technological innovation * Many of the fields that the metaverse will drive investment in are adjacent to national security ** Simulation graphics
Main.TheChallengerLaunchDecisionOutline . . . August 09, 2021, at 03:22 AM by quanticle: (:title Challenger Launch Decision :) (:htoc:) * Author: Diane Vaughan * Publisher: University of Chicago Press * Publication Date: 2016 !! Preface:
Main.SpacemacsNotes . . . July 09, 2021, at 07:43 AM by quanticle: * Spacemacs can use [[EmacsSetup#emacs-projectile | Projectile]] to rapidly navigate projects
Main.NewsLinks . . . April 19, 2021, at 06:13 PM by quanticle: * [[https://www.brookings.edu/search/?post_type=post&orderby=date | Brookings Institute]]
Main.MattTaibbisInterviewWithNoamChomsky . . . April 18, 2021, at 01:31 AM by quanticle: This is why I’ve always admired Chomsky a great deal, even if I sometimes disagree with his politics (or his takes on sports for that matter!). Unafraid of criticism, few people of his stature in American life are willing to do what he does. He is clearly a man of principle, a character trait that might have gotten him in even more trouble had he come of political age in the Internet era. His [[https://chomsky.info/19801011/ | defense of the speech rights of Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson]] is still brought up by critics and sticks to his name like flypaper on Twitter. He doesn’t care.
Main.TheFutureCombatAirSystemAndTheEUsStrategicAcquisitionMalaise . . . April 09, 2021, at 06:06 PM by quanticle: (:title The Future Combat Air System and the EU's Strategic Acquisition Malaise :) Article link: https://cepa.org/the-future-combat-air-system-and-the-eus-strategic-autonomy-malaise/ * The Future Combat Air System was once hailed by President Macron as a "deep revolution" European defense cooperation * This system is now in trouble due to familiar disagreements between France and Germany over IP and workshare * FCAS woes illustrate the roadblocks on the EU's path towards strategic autonomy * EU needs a greater level of autonomy in defense as the US turns towards the Indo-Pacific * Work on the FCAS began in 2017 ** Brexit
Main.ReadingList . . . April 07, 2021, at 04:40 PM by quanticle: * Keen, Slemrod - ''Rebellion, Rascals and Revenue: Tax Follies and Wisdom Through The Ages'' * Rajan - ''The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind''
Main.2020Formula1Season . . . March 28, 2021, at 06:03 PM by quanticle: (:title 2020 Formula 1 Season:) (:htoc:) !! 2020-07-05 Austrian Grand Prix * Retirements ** Max Verstappen, Red Bull - hydraulics ** Daniel Ricciardo, Renault - overheat ** Lance Stroll, Racing Point - engine sensor ** Kevin Magnussen, Haas - brake failure
Main.DarknetDiariesEpisode50OperationGlowingSymphony . . . March 09, 2021, at 10:46 PM by quanticle: * Despite the breathlessness of the coverage, it's not like this was an especially complicated or sophisticated hack ** Doubt any 0-days were used ** Lots of social engineering & relying on targets' incompetence ** Far from looking like a bunch of super-elite hackers, US Cyber Command here looks like a mid-grade cybersecurity/pen-testing firm ** If you wrote up this hack without mentioning either the hackers or the targets, it would probably be rejected as a DefCon talk
Main.DarknetDiaries . . . March 09, 2021, at 08:18 PM by quanticle: * [[Darknet Diaries Episode 50: Operation Glowing Symphony | Episode 50: Operation Glowing Symphony]]
Main.HowToSolveTheNordStream2Dilemma . . . March 06, 2021, at 11:40 PM by quanticle: * ''Stop pretending that Russia is a liberal democracy that actually abides by commitments in the absence of inspection and enforcement mechanisms''
Main.NeonGenesisEvangelionOutline . . . December 23, 2020, at 07:36 AM by quanticle: (:title Neon Genesis Evangelion :) (:htoc:) !! Episode 1: Angel Attack [[#episode-1]] * ''OP is really good; I'd forgotten how good {+A Cruel Angel's Thesis+} was'' * 2015 * Flooded city (Tokyo?) * Row of tanks lined up (against what?) * Evacuation order * Boy standing at a phone booth — Shinji Ikari
Main.LigatureTest . . . November 20, 2020, at 07:06 PM by quanticle: * Not equals: @@!=@@ * Triangle: @@|>@@
Main.2020AppleSiliconEvent . . . November 10, 2020, at 02:12 PM by quanticle: (:title 2020 Apple Silicon Event:) * M1 chip ** Unified memory architecture - same memory for CPU and GPU ** Like PS4 ** Almost the same performance as a PS4 ** Big.Little design - 4 high performance cores, 4 high efficiency cores ** All components on one die *** CPU *** GPU
Main.Nagorno-KarabakhLetter . . . November 03, 2020, at 04:18 AM by quanticle: (:title Economist Letter to the Editor re: Nagorno-Karabakh:) Thank you for drawing attention to the situation around the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in "Heavy metal" (October 10th). However, Nagorno-Karabakh is not a disputed territory. It is an integral part of Azerbaijan, together with seven adjacent regions, occupied and ethnically cleansed by Armenia. Various UN Security Council resolutions demand the immediate, unconditional and complete withdrawal of Armenian occupying forces from the territories of Azerbaijan. The map in your article is falsified. The real map of Azerbaijan, showing Nagorno-Karabakh within its internationally recognized borders, can be found on the website of the UN's cartographic department. We categorically reject the allegations on the use of Syrian mercenaries. Azerbaijan's armed forces are ranked 64 according to Global Firepower in terms of military strength and are perfectly capable of providing every protection Azerbaijan needs. Armenia, however, is ranked 111. We have had no problem rallying our people. On July 15th, amid yet another Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan along the international border, an estimated 30,000 people gathered in Baku's Azadliq Square demanding mobilisation and war to bring an end to the occupation of Azerbaijan's territories. The international community should not expect to resolve this conflict by simply calling for a ceasefire, unless it addresses that occupation and upholds international law. -- Tahir Taghizade (Ambassador of Azerbaijan, London)
Main.MacOSTips . . . October 31, 2020, at 03:02 AM by quanticle: * @@F11@@ (might have to enable in Mission Control settings) !! Clear terminal scrollback * To clear terminal scrollback in MacOS: @@Edit -> Clear Scrollback@@ !! JDK Setup Notes * To install a JDK from homebrew: ** Enable the AdoptOpenJDK brew tap: @@brew tap AdoptOpenJDK/openjdk@@
Main.WhatCanARetiredSailorTeachUsAboutTurkey . . . October 22, 2020, at 12:41 PM by quanticle: ** ''However, Israel has not been hesitant about selling arms to Turkey for it to use in Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh, so perhaps Turkey can persuade Israel to change its official policy?'' !! Blue Homeland and the Forging of Turkey's Foreign Policy Consensus * It is tempting to overanalyze Yaycı's pronouncements * This, however, just leads to Kremlinology, where innocuous statements are assigned profound significance * Instead it is important to see how Yaycı's statements show the extent to which all the disparate factions in Turkey are united on certain issues * All factions want a stronger foreign policy * All factions are united in their suspicion of Greece * While there are some differences in their attitudes toward the United States, the unity of thought towards Turkey's near abroad generally and Greece in particular indicates that we should continue to expect an aggressive, expansionist foreign policy from Turkey
Main.Podcasts . . . October 21, 2020, at 02:04 PM by quanticle: * %newwin%[[https://play.pocketcasts.net | Pocket Casts Web Player]]%%
Main.EmacsSetup . . . October 20, 2020, at 06:15 PM by quanticle: * If you have multiple files with the same name (e.g. @@index.html@@) and want their buffer names to be disambiguated by prefix: ** @@(setq uniquify-buffer-name-style 'forward)@@ ** To refresh the CIDER REPL, @@M-x sesman-restart@@ *** Note: there is a command called @@cider-restart@@, but all it does is close the connection to nREPL and reopen it; it does not restart the underlying nREPL *** This means that if you, e.g. update your dependencies, @@cider-restart@@ will not pull down the dependencies !! Go to line
Main.RadicalConjectureRadicalTruth . . . October 19, 2020, at 12:48 AM by quanticle: Source: %newwin%[[https://www.wrestlinggnon.com/sr_draft_2.html]]%% !! ''My Thoughts'' ''Brief summary:'' * ''This essay covers the following topics:'' ** ''Why do people compartmentalize religious belief''
Main.WhyIDidntLikeStarWarsTheLastJedi . . . September 29, 2020, at 02:18 PM by quanticle: *** But here? The loss of that Dreadnought at the beginning is totally pointless - why couldn't they have launched the fighters ''before'' the Rebels counterattacked? It's not like they haven't lost ''two'' superweapons to small fighters before
RationalityReadingGroup.2019-02-11Notes . . . February 11, 2019, at 02:14 AM by quanticle: (:markdown:) ### [How Civilizations Fall: A Theory of Catabolic Collapse](https://www.ecoshock.org/transcripts/greer_on_collapse.pdf) #### Introduction - The collapse of complex human societies is a poorly understood phenomenon - Most proposed explanations fail to describe causative mechanisms - Rely on ad-hoc hypotheses based upon the specifics of the civilization
RationalityReadingGroup.2019-02-04Notes . . . February 04, 2019, at 01:21 PM by quanticle: - *Heck, not even neoreactionaries – most people would agree that criminals, for example, have given up their right to be free* - We have unlimited resources - *There's a bit of confusion going on here between charities and cause areas* - *A charity devoted to the arts might reach ten times fewer people than AMF, but that's because the arts charity is in a different cause area* - *If you're going to compare charities, and claim that the best charities reach tens or hundreds of times as many people as a randomly chosen charity, you need to make sure that you're comparing a randomly chosen charity to the best charity within that cause area* - Utilitarianism is a collection of philosophical positions which have 5 major characteristics in common - Utilitarianism is the doctrine that the morally right thing to do is that which maximizes <span class="underline">Utility</span> - Characteristics utilitarianism - Universalism - Moral principles are universal
RationalityReadingGroup.2019-01-28Notes . . . January 29, 2019, at 01:22 AM by quanticle: ### [The Tower](https://hotelconcierge.tumblr.com/post/162571849189/the-tower) #### Part I #### Part II #### Part III #### Part IV
Main.AnAlternativeToMythicMindset . . . May 12, 2018, at 02:30 AM by quanticle: Page renamed to Main.AnAlternativeToMythicMindset from Main.AnAlterinativeToMythicMindset
Main.KenshoVsDetermination . . . May 10, 2018, at 02:44 PM by quanticle: Today, I almost missed my flight. I woke up 110 minutes late. But, thanks to some heroics by my Uber driver, preparation on my part, and having the correct mindset, I was still able to make it on time. That mindset, however, was *not* a [mythic mindset](https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/HnWN6v4wHQwmYQCLX/mythic-mode), and, in fact, I think that having such a mindset would have been actively counterproductive in my situation. Here, I'll try to outline a more productive mindset for use in situations like this one. As far as I understand it, the mythic mindset is one that uses narratives to guide one's next actions. You look at where you are now, what kind of person you are, and ask yourself, "If this was a story, and I was the protagonist, what would I do next?" For example, when Valentine went to meet his *sensei* in New York, he left without knowing whether his teacher would actually be present. He relied on understanding his place in the narrative well enough to ensure that he would meet his teacher when he arrived. And sure enough, that's exactly what happened, with his teacher arriving from an overseas trip on the same day that Valentine flew in. While it seems like I did exactly the same thing, I think I held a different mindset. My mindset was not one of narrative. At no point did I ask myself about the plot of the "story" I was living out. It was one of problem solving. I tried to put myself in the same mindset of one of my personal heroes, James Lovell. But in doing so, I was not attempting to live out the same narrative that James Lovell lived out when he commanded Apollo 13. I was asking myself, what would a pilot like him do in my situation? How would he approach the problem? I took my one impossible problem (get to the boarding gate by at least 10 minutes before the flight departs) and broke it down into smaller problems, which, while they seemed equally impossible, at least could be approached individually. I thought to myself, "In order to get to the gate, I need to get to the airport. In order to get to the airport, I need to get out of my apartment. In order to get out of my apartment, I need to get dressed." And then, at every stage, I consciously worked to shave time and maximize my odds, while knowing viscerally that the odds were very much against my making it to the plane on time. Moreover, while I failed critically in the task of waking up on time, I had prepared in other ways, and that preparation became even more crucial in this crisis situation. I did the work of making sure I had finished packing the night before. I had printed out my boarding passes and written the departure gate down on them, ensuring that I didn't have to stop once I got into the airport to find out where the flight was leaving from. I had signed up for TSA Pre-Check allowing me to use the priority lines at the security checkpoints. While normally these were all matters of convenience, in this instance these preparations were absolutely crucial to being able to make my flight.
KenshoVs.Determination . . . May 10, 2018, at 01:45 PM by quanticle: (:markdown:) Today, I almost missed my flight. I woke up 110 minutes late. But, thanks to some heroics by my Uber driver, preparation on my part, and having the correct mindset, I was still able to make it on time. That mindset, however, was *not* Kensho, and, in fact, I think that having a Kensho mindset would have been actively counterproductive in my situation. Along the way, I'll try to outline a more productive mindset for use in situations like this one. As far as I understand it, Kensho is derived from the Buddhist concept of *enlightenment*. To me, enlightenment means to be at peace and to have acceptace of the world as it is, and to understand that some things are fundamentally out of one's control. For example, when Valentine went to meet his *sensei* in New York, he left without knowing whether his teacher would actually be present. He knowingly left it to the winds of fate to determine whether he got to meet his teacher or not. While it seems like I did exactly the same thing (god, waking up 110 minutes late, what were you thinking?!) I think I held a different mindset. My mindset was **not** one of acceptance. It was one of problem solving. I tried to put myself in the same mindset of one of my personal heroes, James Lovell. I took my one impossible problem (get to the boarding gate by at least 10 minutes before the flight departs) and broke it down into smaller problems, which, while they seemed equally impossible, at least offered the hints of solution. I thought to myself, "In order to get to the gate, I need to get to the airport. In order to get to the airport, I need to get out of my apartment. In order to get out of my apartment, I need to get dressed." And then, at every stage, I consciously worked to shave time and maximize my odds, while knowing viscerally that the odds were very much against my making it to the plane on time. Moreover, while I failed critically in the task of waking up on time, I had prepared in other ways, and that preparation became even more crucial in this crisis situation. I did the work of making sure I had finished packing the night before. I had printed out my boarding passes and written the departure gate down on them, ensuring that I didn't have to stop once I got into the airport to find out where the flight was leaving from. I had signed up for TSA Pre-Check allowing me to use the priority lines at the security checkpoints. While normally a convenience, Pre-Check was absolutely crucial in this instance. Another form of preparation was creating a checklist. Even though I was not able to complete all of the items on the checklist, the mere act of *having* a checklist ensure that I was able to be intentional about the steps that I was skipping, ensuring that nothing truly important (like grabbing my wallet and keys) got skipped. The checklist also allowed me to be confident in my preparation - I was able to tell, at a glance, that everything important had already been taken care of, and that the only thing I really needed to do was get dressed, grab my gear, and run out the door. This stands in utter contrast to the way that Valentine lacksadaiscally hopped on a plane, without doing any kind of advance preparation to see if his teacher would even be in town when he arrived.
RationalityReadingGroup.2018-04-23RRGNotes . . . April 23, 2018, at 12:42 AM by quanticle: (:markdown:) From the Facebook event: "This week we'll be doing things a bit differently. Florence will be giving a talk on recognizing escalated behavior in social spaces and have provided these articles to act as accompanying content to their talk" ### [On Punitive Restoration](https://quarterly.demos.co.uk/article/issue-2/on-punitive-restoration/) - Within the criminal justice system, there's a tension between reducing reoffense rates and instilling greater public confidence - Improvements to one may come at the expense of the other - Citizens wildly overestimate crime rates - Blame lenient sentences
RationalityReadingGroup.2018-04-16RRGNotes . . . April 18, 2018, at 09:09 PM by quanticle: (:markdown:) ### [Words As Hidden Inferences](https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/3nxs2WYDGzJbzcLMp/words-as-hidden-inferences) - Our brains automatically categorize things by similarity, regardless of the formal logical rules we set out - This is a *good* thing - The brain does not treat words as purely logical construsts - Given that, it is a mistake to rely on any system of thinking that relies on you being able to treat words as purely logical constructs - The mere act of creating a word causes your mind to create a category and thus trigger unconscious inferences
RationalityReadingGroup.2018-04-02RRGNotes . . . March 31, 2018, at 01:45 PM by quanticle: (:markdown:) ### [Making Beliefs Pay Rent (In Anticipated Experiences)](https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/a7n8GdKiAZRX86T5A/making-beliefs-pay-rent-in-anticipated-experiences) - Beliefs should have consequences - Beliefs should constrain future experiences - Empiricism is the process of asking what experiences our beliefs predict and what they prohibit - When arguing about beliefs, ask about what differences in anticipated experience those beliefs would result in - If you can't find the difference, you're probably arguing about which name you should put on the label for a particular experience, not the experience itself - *My thoughts* - *This is probably one of Eliezer's best essays*
RationalityReadingGroup.2018-03-12RRGNotes . . . March 11, 2018, at 10:00 PM by quanticle: - *Given the highly allegorical nature of this particular post, I've had to modify the structure much more so than usual in order to make it work as an outline* - *I'm also not at all convinced by Val and Qiaochu\_Yuan's insistence that they're managing to sandbox all this woo they're dealing with. One of the pitfalls mentioned in this very sequence of posts is how someone can loudly protest, "This isn't touching me, this isn't touching me!" while the ideas influence their actions, to the point of causing them to join or leave religions, move states, etc.*
RationalityReadingGroup.2018-03-05RRGNotes . . . March 05, 2018, at 06:33 AM by quanticle: (:markdown:) - Therefore, success in traditional schooling is a better indicator of workplace success than competency-based learning (:markdownend:)
RationalityReadingGroup.2018-02-26RRGNotes . . . February 26, 2018, at 02:58 AM by quanticle: (:markdown:) ### [Information Hazard](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Information_hazard) - Concept defined by Nick Bostrom - Defined as: "a risk that arises from the dissemination or the potential dissemination of (true) information that may cause harm or enable some agents to cause harm - Pointed out in contrast to the generally accepted principle of of information freedom - Possibility of information hazards needs to be considered when making information policies - Typology of Information Hazards - By information transfer mode - Data hazard
RationalityReadingGroup.2018-02-19RRGReadingNotes . . . February 19, 2018, at 03:25 PM by quanticle: (:markdown:) ### [In Favor of Niceness, Community and Civilization](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/23/in-favor-of-niceness-community-and-civilization/): - In order to win, do we have to embrace "politics is the mindkiller" and "arguments are soldiers"? - After all, if we're about winning, then we should be willing to do whatever it takes to win - If a fight is important, be ready to fight nasty - If politics is war, why not use bullets, both real and rhetorical? - So why not use violence? - Most of this is derivable from Hobbes - Example: Protestants vs. Catholics
Main.InTheFootstepsOfMrKurtzLivingOnTheBrinkInMobutusCongo . . . February 16, 2018, at 10:46 PM by quanticle: ## Chapter 3: Birth of the Leopard - Larry Devlin - CIA station chief in Congo - Coordinated US support for Mobutu - Seen as an example of just how far the US was willing to go to thwart Soviet influence in Africa - Devlin and Mobutu met initially in 1960 - Congo's embryonic African political establishment negotiating with the Belgians over the terms of independence - Congo's independence was particularly ill-planned
RationalityReadingGroup.2018-02-12RRGNotes . . . February 09, 2018, at 10:52 PM by quanticle: (:markdown:) ### [On The Seelie and Useelie Courts](https://lexicaldoll.wordpress.com/2017/08/09/on-the-seelie-and-unseelie-courts/) - There appear to be two kind of social reality - Type that fixates on dark manipulative aspects - unseelie - Brazenness - Manipulation - "Acceptance of the cesspool of human communication" - Type that fixates on light conversational, flow aspects - seelie - Niceness
RationalityReadingGroup.2018-01-22RRGNotes . . . January 23, 2018, at 08:59 AM by quanticle: - *What are the goals of the Kernel project, and how will we know when those goals are acheived?* - *I now have way more respect for artists like Raphael, Tiziano (Titian), Tintoretto, Lippi, etc. They're not as well known as Da Vinci, or Michaelangelo, but they were way more consistent, way more productive, and honestly, they were just as good (at art) as Da Vinci and Michaelangelo*
RationalityReadingGroup.2018-01-08RRGNotes . . . January 02, 2018, at 11:49 AM by quanticle: ** ''This strategy is often spectactularly effective, right up it fails spectacularly - the annals of history are littered with people who believed grand narratives about themselves, got other people to believe those grand narratives, and ended up ruining not just their own lives but the lives on thouands, millions, or even '''billions''' of other people''
RationalityReadingGroup.2017-01-08RRGNotes . . . December 28, 2017, at 12:28 PM by quanticle: !!! [[https://balioc.wordpress.com/2017/02/18/am-i-truly-mardukth/ | Am I Truly Mardukth?]] * Why is the state of human welfare so bad, even for those supposedly at the top of Maslow's Hierarchy? ** People have access to food and shelter, affection from loved ones, and the other sundry fruits of prosperit ** So why are they unhappy? ** ''First, these people aren't at the top of Maslow's hierarchy - the top of Maslow's hierarchy is self-actualization'' ** ''If you're so busy meeting your basic needs that you don't have the time or energy to pursue higher tiers, you're not at the top'' ** ''Finally, it's not at all clear that Maslow's Hierarchy is even a good model for human happiness'' * For some people it's true that their needs really aren't being met ** Financial situation isn't as stable as it appears ** Social situation is precarious and anxiety-producing
Site.SideBar . . . December 25, 2017, at 11:15 PM by quanticle: [deleted] * [[{*$FullName}?action=login | Log in]]
GoLangBook.Chapter01Tutorial . . . December 23, 2017, at 02:54 PM by quanticle: @@package main@@ defines a standalone program, rather than a module. Within @@package main@@, @@func main@@ defines the entry point into the program. @@import@@ tells the compiler which other packages your package relies on ->Must @@import@@ exactly the packages you need - both missing imports and unused imports will result in compiler errors
GoLangBook.GoLangBook . . . December 23, 2017, at 02:45 PM by quanticle: (:pagelist group=GoLangBook fmt=#fulltext-headers-toc order=-name :)
Main.ContainingShiiteMilitiasTheBattleForStabilityInIraq . . . December 16, 2017, at 04:31 AM by quanticle: *** The majority of fighters are actually in state-aligned militias **** ''Huh? Then how is it that the Iran-aligned militias are seen as more dominant? Is it that the Iran-aligned militias are more disciplined? Better resourced?'' * Identify and Empower Agents of Change ** Invest in bottom-up politics to limit the ability of corrupt elites and militant groups to use civil society as a patronage network ** The battle for Iraq remains rooted among Shiite communal networks, which collectively control economies worth hundreds of millions of dollars * Empower Civil Society ** Iraq has a civil society ** Civil society has been effective in mobilizing people to protest against the government ** Civil society actors that are disconnected from political parties or religious or family networks face interference, intimidation, and have weak fundraising abilities ** Civil society groups are capable of creating social and cultural norms that can restrain armed groups
RationalityReadingGroup.2017-12-18RRGNotes . . . December 15, 2017, at 03:05 PM by quanticle: [deleted] $ \mbox{scarcity} = \frac{1}{\mbox{slack}} = \sqrt{\left(\frac{1}{\mbox{spare time}}\right)^2 + \left(\frac{1}{\mbox{spare money}}\right)^2 + \left(\frac{1}{\mbox{spare energy}}\right)^2 + \cdots}$
RationalityReadingGroup.2017-12-11RRGNotes . . . December 10, 2017, at 03:09 AM by quanticle: !!! [[https://putanumonit.com/2016/04/02/021_bummer/ | The Bummer Economy]] !!! [[https://putanumonit.com/2017/02/27/familiar-finance/ | Familiar Finance]] !!! [[https://putanumonit.com/2017/05/09/time-well-spent/ | Time Well Spent]] !!! [[https://putanumonit.com/2017/05/27/strong-men-are-socialist-reports-a-study-that-previously-reported-the-opposite/ | Strong men are socialist, reports study that previously reported the opposite]]
Main.JonathanTalksAboutPhilosophyAndNietzsche . . . December 08, 2017, at 10:49 PM by quanticle: !! Why Philosophy * All life attempts to maintain homeostasis * The more complex the life, the more complex the homeostasis that has to be maintained * People are extraordinarily complex creatures and they have to maintain an extremely complex homeostasis * In order to maintain homeostasis, there needs to be a balance between two approaches: ** Exploit existing resources ** Find new resources * Philosophy is about deciding how and when to go to new places vs. continue to exploit existing resources !! Nietzsche
RationalityReadingGroup.2017-12-04RRGNotes . . . December 01, 2017, at 12:06 AM by quanticle: * Being a "fox" shouldn't preclude you from having overarching theoretical frameworks * You have to be ready to say that those frameworks were in error and update * Having a theory doesn't lock you into being insensitive to evidence * The ideology of empiricism is harmful when it blocks you from making hypotheses * Being cognizant of the outside view is useful, but you have to make sure that you're truly comparing comparable things ** If you have a new product, it may or may not be applicable to consider related products ** Your market and customers may or may not be exactly the same as the market you're using as a baseline * In truly novel situations, the outside view usually fails * Moreover, in many ambiguous situations, it's not actually clear which "outside view" is correct - a new product or situation is often comparable to multiple reference classes * In many cases, the outside view can't compete with a good model
RationalityReadingGroup.2017-11-27RRGNotes . . . November 26, 2017, at 06:01 PM by quanticle: * "Hard Mode" defends against Goodhart's Law * Hard mode is about working for ''your'' values, even when it would be easier to go along with what society expects * Hard mode is about making yourself better, even if that results in slower improvements in externally visible metrics * Hard mode is about being true to yourself * Easy mode is analyzing systems and finding the most efficient path to your goal * Easy mode strategies can fall victim to Goodhart's Law, where you lose sight of your end goal and instead become sidetracked by the proxy metric you're trying to maximize * Easy mode lets you get to your goals faster, but playing in easy mode doesn't make you a better person * Easy mode is "selling out" * ''Both easy mode and hard mode have their uses'' ** ''You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em''
RationalityReadingGroup.2017-11-20RRGNotes . . . November 20, 2017, at 05:12 PM by quanticle: * So why don't people change their political systems to allow for more experimentation? * Political systems are defined by the same inadequate Nash equilibria as everything else * First-past-the-post-voting is a result of the same kind of inadequate equilibrium as everything else ** ''Eliezer is missing two big things: complexity and legitimacy'' ** ''Condorcet voting may have better outcomes, but those outcomes will be harder to explain, and, as a result, will be less legitimate'' ** ''Heck, the Electoral College is bad enough in this regard, even though it serves an arguably important check on the power of large, urbanized states like New York and California'' * Another example of inadequate equilibria is Overton Windows ** Everyone is ready to talk about a particular change ** But because no one has started talking about it, everyone feels like it's taboo ** Then someone unusually brave starts talking about it and it opens up the field to it being a legitimate topic
RationalityReadingGroup.2017-11-13RRGNotes . . . November 11, 2017, at 03:23 PM by quanticle: !!! [[http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-brick-in-the-motte/ | All in All, Another Brick in the Motte]] !!! [[http://www.overcomingbias.com/2015/01/on-exposing-hypocrisy.html | On Exposing Hypocrisy]] !!! [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/k12/be_comfortable_with_hypocrisy/ | Be Comfortable With Hypocrisy]] !!! [[https://nothingismere.com/2015/09/16/ditch-the-word-hypocrite/ | Ditch The Word Hypocrite]]
RationalityReadingGroup.2017-11-06RRGNotes . . . November 03, 2017, at 08:37 PM by quanticle: !!! [[http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/27/on-types-of-typologies/ | On Types of Typologies]] * Meyers-Briggs Type indicator ** It's inconsistently applied and unscientific ** Yet, Scott consistently recognizes himself in the description of INTJ * We can reconcile "Meyers-Briggs is unscientific" with "Meyers-Briggs is a useful tool" * Meyers and Briggs had no scientific basis on which to declare that there were four factors of personality - just armchair observations and anecdotes * Factor analysis shows that there are actually 5 personality traits, only one of which corresponds to Meyers-Briggs * Meyers-Briggs doesn't need to give new information in order to be useful * Meyers-Briggs can be useful for drawing conclusions in the same way that nationality can be ** ''Isn't that just plain stereotyping''
Main.2017ItalyTrip . . . November 03, 2017, at 06:51 AM by quanticle: !! Milan * [[https://www.museoalfaromeo.com/en-us/Pages/MuseoStoricoAlfaRomeo.aspx | Alfa Romeo museum]] !! Maranello * [[https://musei.ferrari.com/en/maranello | Ferrari Museum]]
RationalityReadingGroup.2017-09-25RRGNotes . . . October 31, 2017, at 03:59 AM by quanticle: !!! [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/2c/a_sense_that_more_is_possible/ | A Sense That More Is Possible]] * Why should anyone be motivated to learn rationality? * Rationalists don't seem to be any more happy or successful than non-rationalists * There ought to be a discipline of cognition that that makes its students visibly more competent and formidable * But we don't see that in the real world * We haven't gotten together and systematized our skills * How do you systematically test rationality programs and verify that they're making people more rational? * Why aren't rationalists surrounded by a "visible aura of formidability"? ** Less systematic training ** More difficult to verify that you're being rational
RationalityReadingGroup.2017-10-02RRGNotes . . . October 31, 2017, at 03:58 AM by quanticle: !!! [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/42/tolerate_tolerance/ | Tolerate Tolerance]] * One of the likely characteristics of someone who is a rationalist is a lower than usual tolerance for flaws in reasoning * Even if we can't be nice to idiots, we should tolerate those who are being nice to idiots * Don't punish non-punishers * Only judge people for the mistakes they make, not the mistakes they tolerate others making !!! [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/5j/your_price_for_joining/ | Your Price For Joining]] * People in the atheist/libertarian/technophile cluster set their joining prices too high * The group doesn't have to be perfect for you to join and make a positive difference by taking part ** ''And this is why rationalists should get involved in politics''
RationalityReadingGroup.2017-10-09RRGNotes . . . October 31, 2017, at 03:57 AM by quanticle: !!! [[https://palegreendot.net/assets/2017-10-09/postmodernism_for_rationalists.pdf | Postmodernism for rationalists]]
RationalityReadingGroup.2017-10-16RRGNotes . . . October 31, 2017, at 03:56 AM by quanticle: !!! [[http://www.roberttrivers.com/Robert_Trivers/Publications_files/T%26Newton1982article-2.pdf | The Crash of Flight 90: Doomed by Self Deception?]] * Air Florida Flight 90 crashed into a bridge on takeoff from Washington National Airport, killing 78 * Pilots failed to turn on engine anti-icing systems, causing loss of thrust * Pilots positioned plane behind another jet in a mistaken attempt to de-ice that may have made the icing problem worse * Engine pressure ratio indicator showed normal thrust, contradicting readings from other systems * Co-pilot pointed out discrepancy, but pilot proceeded with takeoff anyway, leading to crash * The accident was the result of a pattern of self-deception on the part of the captain, and insufficient forcefulness by the first-officer in correcting that self-deception * This can be seen in pilot's lack of response to the co-pilot's prompts * Pilot doesn't respond to co-pilot until the plane is already falling * My reactions:
RationalityReadingGroup.2017-10-23RRGNotes . . . October 31, 2017, at 03:55 AM by quanticle: !!! [[https://www.lesserwrong.com/posts/xQ9tMMk3RArodLtDq/intellectual-progress-inside-and-outside-academia | Intellectual Progress Inside and Outside Academia]] * Initial Thread: ** Wei Dai *** Discussion is about what is preventing academia from recognizing certain steps in intellectual progress **** Bitcoin **** TDT/UDT *** Non-academics came up with both of these things; why didn't academia get there first? ** Eliezer Yudkowsky *** Academic system doesn't promote "real work" getting done **** ''And MIRI does?''
RationalityReadingGroup.2017-10-30RRGNotes . . . October 31, 2017, at 03:53 AM by quanticle: !!! [[https://meteuphoric.wordpress.com/2017/09/27/for-signaling-part-i/ | For Signalling (Part 1)]] * Signalling is about showing off * The whole point of signalling is to have costs * Wearing an embarrassing T-shirt is a refusal to signal ** ''False: Wearing an embarrassing T-shirt is a signal that you don't care about wearing embarrassing T-shirts'' * Signalling attempts to ensure honest communication: ** Signalling is meant to be costly for liars ** Driver's licenses - signal that you're qualified to drive ** Job market - potential employees have to signal that they're qualified for the position that they're interviewing for *** Job market signalling is costly for everyone, even people who are qualified
Category.GroupFooter . . . October 31, 2017, at 03:42 AM by quanticle: (:pagelist link={*$FullName} list=normal fmt=#bygroup-titlespaced:)
Main.ReviewOfKillAllNormies . . . October 24, 2017, at 08:03 AM by quanticle: Andrea Nagle's ''Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars from 4Chan and Tumblr to Trump and the Alt-Right'' looks at the rise of Trump and the alt-right from the perspective of online social media over the period from about 2010 to 2017. Her claim is that the rise of Trump can be explained as a backlash against in increasingly identitarian leftist online culture, typified by the sort of writing you see on Tumblr. She traverses the main haunts of both the online (alt-)right and the online left, catalogues their views and
Main.DirectionsToPostOffice . . . October 23, 2017, at 05:16 PM by quanticle: !! Directions to Post Office * Turn R on SE 26th St * Turn L on Richards Rd * Turn L on Lake Hills Connector * Cross SE 8th St. * Cross NE 4th St. * Turn R on NE 8th St. * Cross 120th Ave NE * Turn L on 124th Ave NE * Post office is on L
Main.Directions . . . October 23, 2017, at 05:13 PM by quanticle: * [[Directions to Henry's Taiwan]] * [[Directions to Post Office]]
Main.Bookmarks . . . October 23, 2017, at 02:59 PM by quanticle: * [[https://web.archive.org/web/20171023185645/https://weblogs.asp.net/alex_papadimoulis/408925 | On asking for the right level of advice]] * [[https://web.archive.org/web/20171023185844/http://www.jdpressman.com/2017/07/25/tumblrism-the-injustice-league.html | Tumblrism: The Injustice League]]
Main.GenderList . . . October 22, 2017, at 08:50 PM by quanticle: And an [[https://web.archive.org/web/20171023005017/https://vapebleach.tumblr.com/post/146468134070/i-have-compiled-a-list-of-every-gender-tumblr | an even bigger list]], unfortunately without definitions
Main.PMWikiTips . . . October 20, 2017, at 10:00 PM by quanticle: *** @@[= [[Main/Foo/Bar]]@@ is invalid =]
Main.RationalityReadingGroup . . . October 19, 2017, at 12:53 AM by quanticle: (:pagelist group=RationalityReadingGroup fmt=#fulltext-headers-toc order=-name :)
Main.ConfiguringIPAddressesManuallyOnLinux . . . October 15, 2017, at 05:42 PM by quanticle: To configure IP addresses manually: @@sudo ifconfig <interface> <IP address> netmask <subnet mask>@@ So, for example: @@sudo ifconfig eth1 172.16.64.2 netmask 255.255.192.0@@
Main.DirectionsToCarProsHyundai . . . September 27, 2017, at 05:21 PM by quanticle: !! Address 201 7th St\ Renton, WA 98057 !! Directions to Car Pros * Turn R on SE 26th St * Turn R on Richards Rd * Turn L on Coal Creek Pkwy SE * Cross Forest Dr * Cross SE May Valley Rd * Cross Hwy 900/NE Sunset Blvd
Main.Leviathan . . . September 22, 2017, at 05:28 PM by quanticle: the missile hit, the warhead flashed \ and I thought the beast was slain \ But with grinding gears and screaming servos \ Leviathan rose again
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