I think you are severely underestimating how relatable and common your thoughts on this topic are (also to many journalists). In short, you underestimate people's capacity to get this (probably because they are out-of-distribution for your way of structured reasoning in general, to borrow LW 2.0 lingo).
If I would make a guess, I think that (self-aware) people outside of LW and similar circles may be even more likely to relate to several of these points than people inside of LW. For example, "a sentence about snow is words, is made of words, but it is about snow" and "if I were to dwell on how it impacted me emotionally that the world was ending, I would be thinking about something which genuinely doesn't matter to me very much...
...they're not what I'm about." is exactly the kind of stance that seems to define large chunks of generation Z right now. In truth, if I did not know who said this, my first guess would be some GenZ celebrity, in a viral video clip on social media.
Thinking about this much harder, I would rewrite the post to clearly phrase it as damage prevention you can do fast and cheap from your home.
I notice I forgot to mention a first aid kit. First thing to correct.
Secondly, when thinking hard on what of your feedback might actually be useful, I realized that statistically speaking you may do more good by buying slip mats for wet floors, and potentially investing in premium ladders. Since fall accidents dominate injury statistics. Not something I thought about intuitively but makes sense.
https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics/fire-related-fatalities-and-injuries/
For general awareness, accidents are 3d leading cause of death in US, fire is top 3 common accidents in the home, and quick google confirms cast majority of fire deaths happen in the home. Which I knew from safety trainings too.
"Common sense" advice that is highly rational and easily overlooked by A LOT of people, including smart people
This is your regular reminder.
1. Buy fire alarms, a fire blanket, a strong light torch for blackouts, and a first aid kit (this is the bare minimum low-cost emergency kit that can save you a lot of hassle and potentially your life).
1.2 Do NOT have heavy power-draining appliances connected via extension cord. Fridges and washing machines should never sit in an extension cord unless you know what you are doing and that it can handle the strain.
A leading cause of accidental death in many countries, especially if we discard traffic accidents, relate to fires. If you live in a city, it's probably much more common than you think to die or suffer serious injuries in a fire there. Power blackouts and power surges cause a lot of accumulating risks and issues too, but are harder to pinpoint in statistics. Minor accidents that dominate at home are cuts and infections.
2. Get private insurance, especially a good home insurance
3. Invest some savings in low-cost index funds, regularly, if you invest in nothing else
4. Take care of your BASIC health PROACTIVELY: Basics is to eat enough, sleep now and then, and watch your mental health. I constantly fail this one. I only notice danger levels when I am already crashing out. Admittedly more important for certain people, but many of them would be found on LW.
5. Have someone you can call in a crisis. Really, make sure you get this down. We are 8 billion people and far too many of us has a fragile or non-existent social support network.
What does "pictures in order" mean? Also, damn.
If so, I would be genuinely curious to hear your ideas here. This might be an actually powerful concept if it holds up and you can formalize it properly. I assume you are an engineer, not a scientist? I think this idea deserves some deep thinking.
Great! Um, to be honest I am a little bit of a perfectionist, even for lower effort stuff, but as soon as I have a viable versioning of the files needed I will DM them to you :) Something to think of as a (hopefully) fun surprise later on!
1Thank you, just knowing you are strictly coming from a ML perspective already helps a lot. This was not obvious to me, who have approached these topics more from a physics lens.
//
So, addressing your implementation ideas, this approach is practically speaking pretty neat! I lack formal ML background to properly evaluate it, but it seems neat.
Now, I will try to succinctly decipher the theory behind your core idea, and you let me know how I do.
You propose compressing data into a form that preserves the core identity. It gives us something practical we can work with.
The elbow has variables that break symmetry to the left and variables that hold symmetry to the right. This is an important distinction between from* noise and signal that I think many miss.
*mended, edit
This is all context dependent? Context defines the curve, the parameter.
// How did I do?
Note: I should say at this point, understanding fundamental reality is my lifelong quest (constantly ignored in order to live out my little side quests) and I care about this topic. This quest, is what ontology means in the classical, and philosophical sense. When I speak about ontology in AI-context, I usually mean formal representations of reality, not induced ones. You seem to use AI context but mean induced ontologies.
The 'ontology as insensitivity' concept described by johnswentworth is interesting, and basically follows from statistical mechanics. But it is perhaps missing the inherent symmetry aspect, or something replacing it, as a fundamental factor. You can't remove all symmetry. Everything with identity exists within a symmetry. This is non-obvious and partly my own assertion, but looking at modern group theory, this is indeed how mathematics define objects and so I am supported within this framework.
If we take wentworth's idea and your elbow analogy, and try to define an object within a formal ontology, within my framework that all objects exist within symmetries, then we get:
The "Elbow" doesn't mark where reality ends and noise begins. It marks the resolution limit of your current context.
- To the left of the elbow: Information that matters (Differences).
- To the right of the elbow: Information that doesn't matter (Equivalences/Symmetries).
Your example was a hand-written digit "7". The Tail is the symmetries. You can slant the digit, thicken the line, or shift it left. These are the symmetries. As long as the variation stays in the "tail" of the curve, the identity "7" is preserved. (Note that the identity is relative and context dependent).
The Elbow: This is the breaking point. If you bend the top horizontal line too much, it becomes a "1". You have left the chosen symmetry group of "7" and entered the chosen symmetry group of "1".
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