Notes by Retraice

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Re23: You Need a World Model

Retraice^1

What's going on out there is hard to know and the deadlines are real.

Air date: Wednesday, 19th Oct. 2022, 10:35 PM Eastern/US.

Get serious

If (a) what's going on out there is hard to know, and (b) real deadlines are rapidly approaching, we can either wing it (the default option), or get serious.

To get serious is to get a world model.

What the hell is he talking about?

This is an understandable feeling, when dealing with generalists, who know almost nothing about almost everything. Compare specialists, who know almost everything about almost nothing, or more and more about less and less.

What is a world model?

The term `world model' is not common. In the AI literature, there is some use of it.^2

At this point, we don't have a definition. But it is what it sounds like.

Why do we need a world model?

Consider what we've already discussed on Retraice (and some things we haven't yet, namely H14-H17), and how complicated and complex it all is: o Re1: Intelligence Kinds o Re2: Telling Friends vs. Foes o Re3: Information Problems o Re4: Trust Problems o Re5: Survival Problems o Re6: AI Aspects o Re7: Goals o Re8: Machines and Life o Re9: AI Perception o Re10: Intelligence Guess-Check-Fight o Re11: Intelligence Travel o Re12: Aliens Thinking How-vs-What o Re13: Intelligence Constraints on Behavior o Re14: Omniscience Physical Animate Mental o Re15: Trust is a Mess o Re16: Trust is a Response o Re17: GOOT is Hypotheses, Current History o Re18: Hypothesis Testing by Numbers o Re19: Nature Is Not F-ing Around o Re20: The Deadline Problem o Re21: Time's Up o Re22: Computer Control o H1: Space o H2: Technology o H3: Death o H4: China o H5: U.S. Civil War o H6: Environment o H7: Better o H8: Intelligence o H9: Darkness o H10: Wealth o H11: Wildcards o H12: Computer Control o H13: Something Bigger o H14: Hong Kong o H15: Taiwan o H16: Philippines o H17: Ukraine o combinations (there are a lot) o sources (there are a lot)

Not winging it

Almost everybody is just winging it. There are very, very few people who've produced anything that resembles a world model. It's hard.

And in-my-head doesn't count. World models that only exist as neural networks inside skulls are not scrutable, not open to inspection, very hard to shine sunlight on and disinfect.

_

References

Ha, D., & Schmidhuber, J. (2018). World models. arxiv.org. [Submitted on 27 Mar 2018 (v1), last revised 9 May 2018 (this version, v4)] https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1803.10122 Retrieved 19th Oct. 2022.

Russell, S., & Norvig, P. (2020). Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach. Pearson, 4th ed. ISBN: 978-0134610993. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=978-0134610993 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+978-0134610993 https://lccn.loc.gov/2019047498

Footnotes

^1 https://www.retraice.com/retraice

^2 Russell & Norvig (2020) p. 848; Ha & Schmidhuber (2018), https://worldmodels.github.io/ and Hallucinogenic Deep Reinforcement Learning Using Python and Keras

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Re22: Computer Control

Retraice^1

One hypothesis to rule them all.

Air date: Wednesday, 19th Oct. 2022, 12:15 AM Eastern/US.

Revisions:

2022-1021 Fri 14:54 Added citations of Age of AI.

Eleven is a lot

A guess about computing and current history:

"In our time, current history is reducible to computing; everything that is going on is ultimately affected more by computing than any other new thing."

The eleven hypotheses (educated, testable guesses), in noun-phrase cheatsheet form, are: 1. Space; 2. Technology; 3. Death; 4. China; 5. Civil War; 6. Environment; 7. Betterment; 8. Intelligence; 9. Darkness; 10. Wealth; 11. Wildcards.

We'll have to keep calling them hypotheses, because `guesses' doesn't sound as serious.^2

Simplifying and integrating

1. computing is powerful (labor-saving)^3 ;

2. computing is pervasive (because of 1)^4 ;

3. anything that could be `current history' is strongly affected by the powerful, pervasive thing we call computing.

We now have an excuse to simplify and integrate the eleven hypotheses, which we want to do for human reasons (brain capacity), not purely rational ones.

It's like doing algebra (and mathematics generally): much of the work is rearranging and re-expressing.

auto

H12: Computer Control

An attempt to unify H1-H11:

Computers,

which are chain-reaction controllers,

and which make AI handling of information

possible,

and which are inherently vulnerable to hacking,

are causing some humans to know others

better than they know themselves,

and thereby to control them,

though computer-controlled machinery

could take control

if the motivation to control,

which humans have,

were to occur, naturally or by design,

in the chain-reactions.

The authors on this

* Butler (1863); * Dyson (1997), Dyson (2015), Dyson (2019), Dyson (2020); * Re7 (Retraice (2020/10/26)), Re8 (Retraice (2020/10/28)); * Bostrom (2014); * Russell (2019) * Yudkowsky (2013), Yudkowsky (2017). * Kissinger et al. (2021) e.g. p. 18 ff.

... just to name a few.

This is going somewhere

Re1-Re22 will not remain fragmented for long.

_

References

Barlow, H. B. (2004). Guessing and intelligence. (pp. 382-384). In Gregory (2004).

Bostrom, N. (2014). Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. Oxford. First published in 2014. Citations are from the pbk. edition, 2016. ISBN: 978-0198739838. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=978-0198739838 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+978-0198739838 https://lccn.loc.gov/2015956648

Brockman, J. (Ed.) (2015). What to Think About Machines That Think: Today's Leading Thinkers on the Age of Machine Intelligence. Harper Perennial. ISBN: 978-0062425652. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=978-0062425652 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+978-0062425652 https://lccn.loc.gov/2016303054

Brockman, J. (Ed.) (2019). Possible Minds: Twenty-Five Ways of Looking at AI. Penguin. ISBN: 978-0525557999. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=978-0525557999 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+978-0525557999 https://lccn.loc.gov/2018032888

Butler, S. (1863). Darwin among the machines. The Press (Canterbury, New Zealand). Reprinted in Butler et al. (1923).

Butler, S., Jones, H., & Bartholomew, A. (1923). The Shrewsbury Edition of the Works of Samuel Butler Vol. 1. J. Cape. No ISBN. https://books.google.com/books?id=B-LQAAAAMAAJ Retrieved 27th Oct. 2020.

Dyson, G. (2015). Analog, the revolution that dares not speak its name. (pp. 255-256). In Brockman (2015).

Dyson, G. (2019). The third law. (pp. 31-40). In Brockman (2019).

Dyson, G. (2020). Analogia: The Emergence of Technology Beyond Programmable Control. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN: 978-0374104863. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=9780374104863 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+9780374104863 https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchArg=9780374104863

Dyson, G. B. (1997). Darwin Among The Machines: The Evolution Of Global Intelligence. Basic Books. ISBN: 978-0465031627. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=978-0465031627 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+978-0465031627 https://lccn.loc.gov/2012943208

Gregory, R. L. (Ed.) (2004). The Oxford Companion to the Mind. Oxford University Press, 2nd ed. ISBN: 0198662246. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=0198662246 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+0198662246 https://lccn.loc.gov/2004275127

Kissinger, H. A., Schmidt, E., & Huttenlocher, D. (2021). The Age of AI. Little, Brown and Company. ISBN: 978-0316273800. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=9780316273800 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+9780316273800 https://lccn.loc.gov/2021943914

Retraice (2020/10/26). Re7: Artifactual Goals. retraice.com. https://www.retraice.com/segments/re7 Retrieved 27th Oct. 2020.

Retraice (2020/10/28). Re8: Strange Machines. retraice.com. https://www.retraice.com/segments/re8 Retrieved 29th Oct. 2020.

Russell, S. (2019). Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control. Viking / Penguin Random House LLC. ISBN: 978-0525558613.

Yudkowsky, E. (2013). Intelligence explosion microeconomics. Machine Intelligence Research Institute. Technical report 2013-1. https://intelligence.org/files/IEM.pdf Retrieved ca. 9th Dec. 2018.

Yudkowsky, E. (2017). There's no fire alarm for artificial general intelligence. Machine Intelligence Research Institute. 13th Oct. 2017. https://intelligence.org/2017/10/13/fire-alarm/ Retrieved 9th Dec. 2018.

Footnotes

^1 https://www.retraice.com/retraice

^2 Cf. Barlow (2004).

^3 Kissinger et al. (2021) p. 14 ff.

^4 Kissinger et al. (2021) p. 14 ff.

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Re21: Time's Up

Retraice^1

Real deadlines are happening all around us, all the time.

Air date: Sunday, 16th Oct. 2022, 11:50 PM Eastern/US.

You never know when will be the last time you pick up your daughter.

--Sam Harris (paraphrasing)

The darkness

It feels academic to think about deadlines in terms of GNR (genetics, nanotech, robotics), GCR (global catastrophic risks) and B&R (blue and red politics). But the deadline problem is not academic. Only eight billion humans, in all of history, haven't died; but all of those eight billion are on track to do so. What if we knew exactly how much time we had left, as in the movie In Time (2011)? Most of us would find an early end to be a nightmare; most of us are not so ready as we could be.^2

`Last-time' thought experiments

The deadline for picking up your daughter for the last time is (usually, barring tragedy) a life deadline, not a death deadline. The last time comes because she's growing up.

What about the last time you play guitar? Watch TV? Drive a car? Go to the grocery store? Wake up and read the news^3 ? Now what about the last two times of each of these things? The last five? The last fifty? At some point you reach the present, even with 20 years of life ahead of you. And again, other things than death can cause deadlines: life changes, life decisions, etc.

Now, Consider the differences between: o knowing late that it was `the last time' as you are suddenly faced with death (e.g., being diagnosed with Covid-19, and thus knowing that you'll be quarantine from your loved ones, even if you're breathing your last breaths), i.e. knowing in retrospect; o knowing early that it will be `the last time' (e.g. a death-row last meal, a crashing plane last-hug, a Nazi division event last-gaze at a loved one), knowing in prospect, or presently.

Knowing (or not knowing) about a deadline changes the way the world seems. But isn't there almost always hope--however irrational--that something unexpected will intervene, that `somehow, this isn't going to be it'? Not in the case of `the last time you pick up your daughter'.

Good or bad

An inversion of interpretation (from good to bad), based on a deadline:

"I'm looking out my office window, trees newly green, blowing in the breeze. If I have 10-40 years of life ahead of me, my vicious struggles with philosophy and income seem to me to be the beginning of a profoundly important life's work; if I have hours or days to live, the struggles seem to me to be a manifest failure at life, at living a good life, a tragedy that will weigh most heavily on my kids and wife."

Windows of opportunity

The above is a 180-degree turn of interpretation dependent on the deadline problem, the unknown end of one's window of opportunity.

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."^4 (As a matter of opinion or philosophy, the author does not agree.)

Life is filled throughout with windows of opportunity opening and closing, real deadlines.

_

References

Knowles, E. (Ed.) (1999). The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Oxford University Press, 5th ed. ISBN: 0198601735. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=0198601735 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+0198601735 https://lccn.loc.gov/99012096

Seneca (2005). On the Shortness of Life. Penguin Books. ISBN: 0143036327. Translated by C. D. N. Costa. Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger lived ca. 4 BC - 65 AD. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=0143036327 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+0143036327 https://lccn.loc.gov/2005047450

Footnotes

^1 https://www.retraice.com/retraice

^2 Seneca (2005).

^3 Hitchens https://youtu.be/LIVEsa2g4ag?t=415

^4 Shakespeare's Hamlet (1601), cited in Knowles (1999) p. 663.

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Re20: The Deadline Problem

Retraice^1

Real deadlines make allocating resources hard.

Air date: Sunday, 16th Oct. 2022, 11:25 PM Eastern/US.

Do or die

They do not preach that their God will rouse them a little before the nuts work loose.^2

How to allocate resources when the (real) deadline is unknown?

Let's call `real' deadlines the ones we don't decide for ourselves, the ones decided by nature.

The fog of the future

Important points about deadlines:

1. Deadlines are in the future. 2. The future is largely uncertain. 3. The deadlines, which are in the future, are largely uncertain. 4. If deadlines are uncertain, allocating resources is uncertain. 5. Allocating resources changes deadlines.

The deadline problem is that we don't have a good way of allocating resources when the real deadline is unknown. We do allocate, but how we do it is not adequate to NINFA (nature is not f-ing around) things. Evidence of this inadequacy is, say, every past collapsed civilization, every tragic death, and perhaps the Fermi paradox (see below).

Hypotheses and deadlines

More broadly we can say that, if `nature is not f-ing around', the hypotheses all likely have deadlines hiding in the fog of the future. * H-1. Space: Humans are now technologically capable of living in space. If our environment is Earth, or even the whole solar system^3 , then our new capacity to live in space expands our environment dramatically, to `the rest' of the world as we know it. Humans who are native to `the rest' will not think or behave the way that Earth humans do.^4 * H-2. Technology: Human technology risks are growing faster than their mitigation. Think: AI kills us all, nanotech kills us all, genetically modified superhumans kill us all, etc. * H-3. Death: Human lifespan is being prolonged by new technologies. Think: One group of effectively immortal humans against the rest.^5

This exercise in imagining the deadlines hidden in the future can be applied similarly to the other hypotheses: * H-4. China: The U.S. is no longer the only superpower; war is likely. * H-5. Civil War: The U.S. seems vulnerable to a civil war this decade. * H-6. Environment: Humans are changing their earthly environment faster than they can adapt to it. * H-7. Betterment: Some things make the future better than the past. * H-8. Intelligence: There are intelligence differences. * H-9. Darkness: There is a pervasive darkness in humans, even amongst the good guys. * H-10. Wealth: The current trend toward concentration of wealth is making human life worse. * H-11. Wildcards: New technologies, new discoveries about reality, and deception regularly cause historic changes. * H-12. Computers: Some humans now control others better, but machinery could take control.

Your groups and resources

What are your groups? Civilization, country, region, community, neighborhood, family? How do you allocate resources? Even if you could do the math of probability and decision theory, the deadline problem makes allocation hard. We usually just shoot from the hip.^6

Feedback loops

The problem is especially hard because of point 5 above, "Allocating resources changes deadlines". This is something like the way deliberation can make a person's actions highly unpredictable^7 and sometimes paralyzing.^8

Toy examples: stepping out of the path of an oncoming train; nudging the steering wheel of a car before it crashes.^9

The Fermi paradox

If the universe is so hospitable to life, where is everybody? It could be that we're seeing the results of many civilizations failing to meet nature's deadlines.^10

_

References

Andreou, C., & White, M. D. (Eds.) (2010). The Thief of Time: Philosophical Essays on Procrastination. Oxford University Press. ISBN: 978-0195376685. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=9780195376685 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+9780195376685 https://lccn.loc.gov/2009021750

Bostrom, N., & Cirkovic, M. M. (Eds.) (2008). Global Catastrophic Risks. Oxford University Press. ISBN: 978-0199606504. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=978-0199606504 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+978-0199606504 https://lccn.loc.gov/2008006539

Evans, J., & Frankish, K. (Eds.) (2009). In Two Minds: Dual Processes and Beyond. Oxford University Press. ISBN: 978-0199230167. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=9780199230167 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+9780199230167 https://lccn.loc.gov/2008043743

Horwich, P. (1987). Asymmetries in Time: Problems in the Philosophy of Science. MIT Press. ISBN: 0262081644. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=0262081644 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+0262081644 https://lccn.loc.gov/86028632

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN: 978-0374533557. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=978-0374533557 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+978-0374533557 https://lccn.loc.gov/2012533187

Kipling, R. (1907). The Sons of Martha. The Standard. April 29, 1907. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Sons_of_Martha Retrieved 17th Oct. 2022.

Liu, C. (2017). Death's End. Tor Books. ISBN: 978-0765386632. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=9780765386632 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+9780765386632 https://lccn.loc.gov/2016295859

Niven, L., Pournelle, J., & Barnes, S. (1987). The Legacy of Heorot. Simon & Schuster. ISBN: 978-1982124373. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=9781982124373 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+9781982124373 https://lccn.loc.gov/87004503

Ord, T. (2020). The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity. Hachette. ISBN: 978-0316484916. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=978-0316484916 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+978-0316484916 https://lccn.loc.gov/2019956459

Webb, S. (2015). If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens ... Where Is Everybody? Seventy-Five Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life. Springer, 2nd ed. ISBN: 978-3319132358. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=9783319132358 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+9783319132358 https://lccn.loc.gov/2015930256

Zubrin, R. (2019). The Case for Space: How the Revolution in Spaceflight Opens Up a Future of Limitless Possibility. Prometheus Books. ISBN: 978-1633885349. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=978-1633885349 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+978-1633885349 https://lccn.loc.gov/2018061068

Footnotes

^1 https://www.retraice.com/retraice

^2 Kipling (1907). See also Niven et al. (1987).

^3 Zubrin (2019) p. 299.

^4 See Liu (2017) pp. 114-115 on the rapid emergence of totalitarianism and cannibalism.

^5 The plot of the movie In Time (2011).

^6 Kahneman (2011); Evans & Frankish (2009).

^7 Horwich (1987) p. 182 ff.

^8 Andreou & White (2010).

^9 See the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety: https://www.iihs.org/

^10 Webb (2015); Bostrom & Cirkovic (2008); Ord (2020).

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Ma22: Delusion Hunting 2 - The Rest

Margin by Retraice^1

There are many danger zones for delusions to hide in.

Air date: Saturday, 15th Oct. 2022, 9:35 PM Eastern/US.

Danger zones

Delusions could be anywhere, but there are only a few key places where they could be threatening the dream.

The money

This (Retraice) is a business. But there are so many distractions from that fact, distractions from the bottom line. "It's" not "just about the money"; but the business side is. We're all in `it' (business, not life) for the money.

`The money' is a delusional black soil.

Solve the money problem.

Our costs are low. We're not delusional about spending. We've put about $7,000 into the business entity, of which $2,000 is left. But we could fund it in perpetuity. This and the fact that this business exists at all is only because of our good fortune, without which you would never read this sentence. This is a selection effect which means it probably applies to all such content you might consume.

The substance of the content

"What's GOOT?" Seriously?

People want more info? Are you sure?^2

Personality might be as important as, or more important than, content.

auto

Who gets listeners?

Based on status: o good catalog o storied career o from institution

Based on content: * hot topics, e.g. news * sticky topics, e.g. conspiracy, celebrity, gossip

We're going to have to join at least one of these groups, or a similar one.

Subscriptions vs. ads

At this point, I would welcome the problem of having advertisers breathing down my neck over content, because that would mean I have an audience! Maybe forget about subscriptions until we're big enough to have that problem.

Solopreneurship

Hiring requires capital. People are expensive, and hard to keep happy.

Which is worse? Having to hire and deal with a person (one who's within your reach), or having to build and maintain the code? We currently don't have the hire option, but that's temporary. The real question is: if we did have the option, what would we choose?

But we should focus on attracting highly capable talent in the future. And we're going to need to compete with Google, McKinsey, etc., as everyone does.

The production checklist

This has a lot of regular contact with data and reality. It's probably not hiding delusions.

Margin itself

Is it self-indulgent? Navel-gazing? Useful at all?

Volitional necessity

This business, these decisions--they usually don't feel like decisions. They feel like volitional necessity, "the sense a person has when they can or cannot do something for reasons that are neither logical nor causal, and in a way that does not tend to entail feeling helpless."^3

Also: go before you're ready.

_

References

Frankfurt, H. G. (1988). The Importance of What We Care About. Cambridge. ISBN: 978-0521336116. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=978-0521336116 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+978-0521336116 https://lccn.loc.gov/87026941

Meek, J. (2018). The club and the mob. London Review of Books. 6 Dec. 2018. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v40/n23/james-meek/the-club-and-the-mob Retrieved 30th Sep. 2022.

Retraice (2020/11/10). Re13: The Care Factor. retraice.com. https://www.retraice.com/segments/re13 Retrieved 10th Nov. 2020.

Footnotes

^1 https://www.retraice.com/margin

^2 See, e.g., Meek (2018), especially the last paragraph: "Humility in respect of people who just aren't listening is less satisfying than humility towards hostile sceptics; the struggle to find out what's really going on in the world isn't as wearying as the realisation that on the rare occasions you do find out, not everyone is waiting eagerly to hear about it. That doesn't mean the struggle isn't worth it, just that if a certain humility is required in the more conscientious newsrooms, it's in recognising that the `we' of a single readership, the `we' of believers in public interest journalism, and the `we' of the public as a whole, are three very different `we's. It is a stretch even to get them to touch."

^3 Retraice (2020/11/10); see also Frankfurt (1988).

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Ma21: Delusion Hunting 1 - Content Delivery

Margin by Retraice^1

We looked for delusions here and didn't find any.

Air date: Friday, 14th Oct. 2022, 10:35 PM Eastern/US.

Minor revisions: 2022-10-15 Sat 11:09

`typically a symptom of mental disorder'

This is the tail-end of a definition of `delusion'.

Data is anti-delusional

Those who write and talk about using data as the basis of decision making in business are managing the threats of delusion.^2 Although they can get carried away.^3

Getting to two hours

We're currently focused on shortening non-brainy production task time to less than two hours.

Time and the toothbrush test

Premise: gathering, processing and presenting intelligence (Retraice content) takes time;

Premise: the business demands we pass `the toothbrush test';

Conclusion: our 80/20 labor can either be: quality/production, production/quality, or switch back and forth as the effects of our work changes the environment.^4

Ultimately, we have to do whatever it takes to produce good content twice a day.^5

The upshot

The upshot would be that: Retraice content was good when we were 80% quality-focused (2018-2020, the first few segments). Then production became 80% and content suffered (some was thin/bad, but mostly we just didn't publish). And now, since we have the capacity to produce daily, content needs to be 80% and good again. That's what `get to 2-hour production' is all about, and why it is our goal now, but wasn't in 2020.

We might call 2021-2022 (the period of not publishing) either a reflection of the 80% production phase or the long consequence of the failure to heat-map the production steps (which would've revealed earlier that production speed cannot, at present, justify building the website, though there are other arguments for it).

But it's yet not obvious that '21-'22 was a long-term bad thing, though it was bad for short-term business. Transactions simply weren't done. But Jeff learned a lot of useful computing, automated almost anything that can be automated, and spent a lot of time fermenting (turning sugar into alcohol) the Retraice content, mission and plan. These things have to be good in the long-run, right? ...Right?

Where's the delusion?

It's not that I couldn't be wrong. It's just that I don't see any delusions here.

Perhaps comparing Retraice to similar businesses, if there are any, reveals what we're getting wrong, how we're deluded.

Most successful podcasts come from institutions or storied careers. We have neither. Even so, those who have succeeded without those two bases still seem very different from Retraice. This could be a very good or very bad thing.

But ultimately it's about care and constitution.^6 It seems nonsensical to talk about having done things `like other people do them'. Then again, these could be "a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with [me] like flies on a summer day."^7

_

References

Doerr, J. (2017). Measure What Matters: OKRs: The Simple Idea that Drives 10x Growth. Penguin Random House. ISBN: 978-0241348482. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=978-0241348482 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+978-0241348482 https://lccn.loc.gov/2018002727

Frankfurt, H. G. (1988). The Importance of What We Care About. Cambridge. ISBN: 978-0521336116. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=978-0521336116 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+978-0521336116 https://lccn.loc.gov/87026941

Hamming, R. W. (2020). The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn. Stripe Press. ISBN: 978-1732265172. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=9781732265172 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+9781732265172

Harari, Y. N. (2017). Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. Harper. ISBN: 978-0062464316. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=9780062464316 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+9780062464316 https://lccn.loc.gov/2017380745

Koch, C. G. (2007). The Science of Success. Wiley. ISBN: 978-0470139882. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=9780470139882 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+9780470139882 https://lccn.loc.gov/2007295977

Norris, D. (2014). The 7 Day Startup: You Don't Learn Until You Launch. Dan Norris. ISBN: 978-1502472397. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=978-1502472397 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+978-1502472397

Retraice (2020/11/10). Re13: The Care Factor. retraice.com. https://www.retraice.com/segments/re13 Retrieved 10th Nov. 2020.

Ries, E. (2011). The Lean Startup. Currency / Crown / Penguin Random House. ISBN: 978-0307887894. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=978-0307887894 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+978-0307887894 https://lccn.loc.gov/2011012100

Russell, B. (1928). Sceptical Essays. Routledge, 2nd ed. This Routledge edition 2004. ISBN: 978-0415325080. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=9780415325080 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+9780415325080 https://lccn.loc.gov/2004000057

Schmidt, J. (2000). Disciplined Minds: A Critical Look at Salaried Professionals and the Soul-battering System That Shapes Their Lives. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN: 0742516857. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=0742516857 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+0742516857 https://lccn.loc.gov/99053464

Yong, E. (2022). An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us. Random House, Kindle ed. ISBN: 978-0593133248. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=9780593133248 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+9780593133248 https://lccn.loc.gov/2021046048

Footnotes

^1 https://www.retraice.com/margin

^2 Doerr (2017); Ries (2011); Norris (2014); Koch (2007).

^3 Harari (2017), chpt. 11.

^4 Hamming (2020), "If you optimize the components, you will probably ruin system performance." p. 362. I.e. don't over-optimize components. Side note: Isn't it true that we, as individual organisms, by means of memes and culture and thoughts and beliefs, can only adapt to our perceptual environments, not our actual environments, which are much richer and fuller than what we can detect and be affected by? Just a thought. Cf. Yong (2022).

^5 The `toothbrush test' is the idea that a good product idea is one that would be used by a customer twice a day. Larry Page once mentioned it in a speech.

^6 Schmidt (2000); Frankfurt (1988); Retraice (2020/11/10).

^7 Russell (1928) p. 16.

(The below text version of the notes is for search purposes and convenience. See the PDF version for proper formatting such as bold, italics, etc., and graphics where applicable. Copyright: 2022 Retraice, Inc.)

Ma20: Dreams and Delusions

Margin by Retraice^1

Life is at the mercy of imagination.

Air date: Thursday, 13th Oct. 2022, 10:00 PM Eastern/US.

Shoulders

Note to self:

"YOUR GOOD FUTURE JUST ISN'T GOING TO HAPPEN IF YOU DON'T DO ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING YOU CAN."

You should go where your shoulders want you to go.

Lesser concerns

It's valid to give time and energy to the less significant, more day-to-day needs in life. In our case, currently it's the big gap between being able to produce a good segment (which we can do) and being able to produce quickly and at scale (which we can't yet). But....

Dream size

The bigger the dreams the bigger the delusions.

The delusion lifecycle

After a delusion, it seems obvious, and non-threatening.

A delusion is like: You don't think there is a fog.^2

Some delusions, though, never die--the delusions we never escape.

The threat to dreams

Dreams can be mortally threatened by delusions.

I am probably massively deluded

This is because my dreams are similarly massive.

I fantasize about great success, but time is running out. I'm in the attention economy, which is hypercompetitive. This is going to be very, very hard. Maybe I should just do ads, to have a chance, to not tie one hand behind my back.

We need to go fast.

We need to go wide.

Being tough vs. being deluded

The best content comes from people being very tough in the production process.^3

Delusions can come from commitment and devotion to tough rules. I was a musician once. Nothing ever satisfied me, which was delusional.

The better approach is the Van Halen brothers' approach: put the love before the tough. It's the same with children: we first love them, then try to steer them.

Is that what delusion is? Putting the tough first, before the love? You don't want to bound a thing that you love. You want it to be unbounded. But then you see that, without constraints, something becomes nothing.^4 A thing that has everything, that is unconstrained, is noise, is nothing.

It could also be that delusion comes before putting the tough first, that delusion is the cause, not the effect.

Shedding delusions

I'm going to have to untie my hands. That might mean giving up the subscription model, and the website control. And we need to distribute more widely.

But it's more than that. It's a mentality. That's what needs to change.

Note to self: Shed delusions.

_

References

Standish, R. (2006). Theory of Nothing. BookSurge Australia. ISBN: 1921019638. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=1921019638 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+1921019638

Yong, E. (2022). An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us. Random House, Kindle ed. ISBN: 978-0593133248. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=9780593133248 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+9780593133248 https://lccn.loc.gov/2021046048

Footnotes

^1 https://www.retraice.com/margin

^2 See Yong (2022) on how different the sensory environments of animals and humans can be.

^3 Ira Glass on Storytelling 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx2cI-2FJRs

^4 Standish (2006).

(The below text version of the notes is for search purposes and convenience. See the PDF version for proper formatting such as bold, italics, etc., and graphics where applicable. Copyright: 2022 Retraice, Inc.)

Ma19: The Toolchain

Margin by Retraice^1

A wandering look at the details behind the website project.

Air date: Thu, 13th Oct. 2022, 1:20 AM Eastern/US.

Preliminaries

I'm tired because I'm shifting my sleep schedule for the business (again).

local-STEPS and server-STEPS

You write code in one place and then run it, ultimately, in another. These places are computers.

But this is not a tutorial.

Heat-mapping the duration of steps

I recently started timing each step in the production process. The initial findings confirm common sense: the long-duration tasks are brain-heavy tasks, as it should be.

Distribution is the kingdom

It might turn out to be that building the website is not important to the daily publishing pace. Even so, it will be important to scaling the distribution, repair and improvement of content. Content is king, but distribution is the kingdom.^2

The psychology of previous investments

I get this phrase from James Howard Kunstler.^3 It's synonymous with the `sunk-cost' fallacy. As applied here, it is a warning that we should not, no matter how tempting it is to do so, continue work on the website unless it remains, in the present, a rational allocation of new resources. I.e. we shouldn't finish a project just because we've started it.

_

References

Thompson, D. (2017). Hit Makers: The Science Of Popularity In An Age Of Distraction. Penguin Press, Kindle ed. ISBN: 978-1101980347. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=9781101980347 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+9781101980347 https://lccn.loc.gov/2016043453

Footnotes

^1 https://www.retraice.com/margin

^2 Thompson (2017) p. 8.

^3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology_of_previous_investment

(The below text version of the notes is for search purposes and convenience. See the PDF version for proper formatting such as bold, italics, etc., and graphics where applicable. Copyright: 2022 Retraice, Inc.)

Re19: Nature Is Not F-ing Around

Retraice^1

What we think now is going to matter a lot to our future.

Air date: Monday, 10th Oct. 2022, 2:30 AM Eastern/US.

Simplifying the hypotheses

A pile of numbers is a vector. But treating the hypotheses as vectors is hard.

H12: Computer control

If there's one hypothesis that wraps up all the other ones, maybe it's this:

Computers,

which are chain-reaction controllers,

and which make AI handling of information possible,

and which are inherently vulnerable to hacking,

are causing some humans to know others better than they know themselves,

and thereby to control them,

though computer-controlled machinery could take control

if the motivation to control,

which humans have,

were to occur, naturally or by design,

in the chain reactions.

Nature

Here we mean the `nature' of the cosmologist or physicist, but which greatly overlaps with the `God(s)' of religion.

We are in something that is very, very serious.

GNR, GCR, B&R

Where do we see that nature is not f-ing around?

GNR: genetics, nanotech a robotics.^2

GCR: global catastrophic risks.^3

B&R: blue & red, the colors of two-party politics.

What's GOOT matters most to the future

Some of the past and present things going on matter way more to the future, to our future selves, than all the rest.

And it is almost never obvious what the truly significant things are while they're happening. In retrospect things become clear.

Getting it wrong

The importance of what's going on out there becomes most obvious when we get things wrong.

It's going to matter a lot to our future selves, and the future selves of others, what we did or didn't know about what was going on in our time.

_

References

Bostrom, N., & Cirkovic, M. M. (Eds.) (2008). Global Catastrophic Risks. Oxford University Press. ISBN: 978-0199606504. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=978-0199606504 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+978-0199606504 https://lccn.loc.gov/2008006539

Kurzweil, R. (2005). The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. Penguin. ISBN: 978-0143037880. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=978-0143037880 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+978-0143037880 https://lccn.loc.gov/2004061231

Footnotes

^1 https://www.retraice.com/retraice

^2 Kurzweil (2005) chpt. 5.

^3 Bostrom & Cirkovic (2008).

(The below text version of the notes is for search purposes and convenience. See the PDF version for proper formatting such as bold, italics, etc., and graphics where applicable. Copyright: 2022 Retraice, Inc.)

Ma18: The Website

Margin by Retraice^1

Projects can be like climbing sand dunes.

Air date: Monday, 10th Oct. 2022, 1:00 AM Eastern/US.

Why I do this

`Peak-endian-ism' is a mashing together of peak-end (a cognitive bias) and `big/little-endian', a computing term.

Entrepreneurs have higher rates of mental problems.^2

Two purposes of this segment

First, just to do it, to get publishing up and running again. The website (mostly) has been the holdup.

Second, to explain the website. Because it seems like building our own website is a failure to `keep the main thing the main thing'.^3

Side note: If you like the first version of your business, if you're not embarrassed by it, you launched too late.^4

Why the website?

Premise 1: Retraice should publish daily.

Premise 2: Retraice is going to be a one-man shop for a while.

Conclusion: Retraice needs to control its own website.

This is because automation is key, and website control is necessary for automating: 1. content distribution; 2. content repair; 3. content improvement.

In addition to these points, controlling the website is good for business continuity and survival in the worst-case scenarios of the future.

The sand dunes

I've had to learn an f-ton of stuff to do this website. Every time I get to the top of a sand dune, I see there's another one yet to climb.

But it takes motivation to go fast. My motivation comes from publishing. So we've had a chicken-egg problem for a while: to publish is to get motivation, but to build the website takes time away from publishing, so building the website has been slow. Surely we're at the last sand dune now....

_

References

Kerrest, F. (2022). Zero to IPO. McGraw Hill. ISBN: 978-1264277667. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=9781264277667 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+9781264277667 https://lccn.loc.gov/2021050578

Norris, D. (2014). The 7 Day Startup: You Don't Learn Until You Launch. Dan Norris. ISBN: 978-1502472397. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=978-1502472397 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+978-1502472397

Footnotes

^1 https://www.retraice.com/margin

^2 Kerrest (2022) p. 169.

^3 Kerrest (2022) p. 7.

^4 Norris (2014) Dan Norris quoting Reid Hoffman, p. 154.