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When I was a really small kid, one of my favorite activities was to try and dam up the creek in my backyard. I would carefully move rocks into high walls, pile up leaves, or try patching the holes with sand. The goal was just to see how high I could get the lake, knowing that if I plugged every hole, eventually the water would always rise and defeat my efforts. Beaver behaviour.
One day, I had the realization that there was a simpler approach. I could just go get a big 5 foot long shovel, and instead of intricately locking together rocks and leaves and sticks, I could collapse the sides of the riverbank down and really build a proper big dam. I went to ask my dad for the shovel to try this out, and he told me, very heavily paraphrasing, 'Congratulations. You've [...]
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First published:
Source:
Linkpost URL:
https://hgreer.com/PlayingInTheCreek
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
By LessWrongWhen I was a really small kid, one of my favorite activities was to try and dam up the creek in my backyard. I would carefully move rocks into high walls, pile up leaves, or try patching the holes with sand. The goal was just to see how high I could get the lake, knowing that if I plugged every hole, eventually the water would always rise and defeat my efforts. Beaver behaviour.
One day, I had the realization that there was a simpler approach. I could just go get a big 5 foot long shovel, and instead of intricately locking together rocks and leaves and sticks, I could collapse the sides of the riverbank down and really build a proper big dam. I went to ask my dad for the shovel to try this out, and he told me, very heavily paraphrasing, 'Congratulations. You've [...]
---
First published:
Source:
Linkpost URL:
https://hgreer.com/PlayingInTheCreek
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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