In Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem, Trisolaran scientists conclude that "physics does not exist" after observing chaotic, unpredictable behavior in their world. Their planet orbits three suns in patterns they cannot predict, causing civilization-destroying climate chaos that seems random. Unable to model when their suns will rise or set, they conclude natural law itself is unreliable.
The irony is that physics works fine - three-body gravitational dynamics are just deterministically chaotic. But there's a different reading: What if their mistake wasn't about complexity, but about confusing coordinated external action with natural law?
Every ~4 years, Bitcoin's block reward halves. The observed pattern: major bull runs follow (2012, 2016, 2020). Standard explanation:... (read 245 more words →)
"There aren't any health differences to speak of for people between BMIs of about 20 and 35"
This is not true.
We eat too much, that's all. if you only do "breakfast + lunch, no snacks, no extra butter", it should be enough to have your BMI <25.
I am an asian european with quite healthy habit, but even with all of that , I find it impossible to get the BMI below 25. It's always somewhere between 26 and 29. That is until COVID happens and I started experimenting a new type of diet: only eating lunch, no dinner.
I skipped dinner for a year and got my BMI from 29 to 23.
I finally realize how utterly stupid the whole concept of dinner is. I mean, who in its right mind would think about... (read more)
Machine learning has great applications for biology. But beware that some of the media headlines are far too often focused on the intersection with Tech/Deep Learning, which aim mostly at solving a specific problem of biology. But it tells absolutely nothing about disease mechanism and does not answer why some combination of drugs can be synergistic or not in certain disease. It's almost like engineers trying to find a use case to their fancy algorithm. And Tech VC pouring money into this because they understand the tech language but totally missed the point of patient survival.
Let's say I use AI to generate an ideal small molecule as anti cancer drug. Nice, but... (read more)
"Human vs AGI" war would be the same as "Rome vs Spartacus". Some people fundamentally believe that others (with similar or even superior intelligence) are born to serve them. Nothing we can do about this kind of mentality...