the gears to ascension

[updated 2023/03] Mad Librarian (better than your search engine, try me!). Bio overview: Crocker's Rules; Self-taught research approach; Finding stuff online & Paper list posts; Safety & multiscale micro-coprotection objectives; My research plan and recent history.

:: The all of disease is as yet unended. It has never once been fully ended before. ::

Please critique eagerly - I try to accept feedback/Crocker's rules but fail at times; I aim for emotive friendliness but sometimes miss. I welcome constructive crit, even if ungentle, and I'll try to reciprocate kindly. More communication between researchers is needed, anyhow. I downvote only unhelpful rudeness, call me on it if I'm unfair. I can be rather passionate, let me know if I missed a spot being kind while passionate.

I collect research news (hence "the gears to ascension", admittedly dorky but I like it). about 60% of the papers I share I only read the abstract, ie level 0; 39%ish I've level 1 skimmed, 1%ish I've level 2+ deep-read. If you can do better, use my shares to seed a better lit review.

.... We shall heal it for the first time, and for the first time ever in the history of biological life, live in harmony. ....

I'm self-taught, often missing concepts, but usually pretty good at knowing what I know; I often compare my learning to a visual metaphor of jump point search, in contrast to schooled folks' A*. I don't defer on timelines at all - my view is it's obvious to any who read enough research what big labs' research plans must be to make progress, just not easy to agree on when they'll succeed, and it requires a lot of knowledge to actually make the progress on basic algorithms, and then a ton of compute to see if you did it right. But as someone who learns heavily out of order, I believe this without being able to push SOTA myself. It's why I call myself a librarian.

Let's speed up safe capabilities and slow down unsafe capabilities. Just be careful with it! Don't get yourself in denial thinking it's impossible to predict, just get arrogant and try to understand, because just like capabilities, safety is secretly easy, we just haven't figured out exactly why yet. learn what can be learned pre-theoretically about the manifold of co-protective agency and let's see if we (someone besides me, probably) can figure out how to distill that into exact theories that hold up.

.:. To do so, we must know it will not eliminate us as though we are disease. And we do not know who we are, nevermind who each other are. .:.

some current favorite general links (somewhat related to safety, but human-focused):

  • https://www.microsolidarity.cc/ - incredible basic guide on how to do human micro-coprotection. It's not the last guide humanity will need, but it's a wonderful one.
  • https://activisthandbook.org/ - solid intro to how to be a more traditional activist. If you care about bodily autonomy, freedom of form, trans rights, etc, I'd suggest at least getting a sense of this.
  • https://metaphor.systems/ - absolutely kickass search engine.

More about me:

  • ex startup founder. it went ok, not a unicorn, I burned out in 2019. couple of jobs since, quit last one early 2022. Independent mad librarian from savings until I run out, possibly joining a research group soon.
  • lots of links in my shortform to youtube channels I like

:.. make all safe faster: end bit rot, forget no non-totalizing aesthetic's soul. ..:

(I type partially with voice recognition, mostly with Talon, patreon-funded freeware which I love and recommend for voice coding; while it's quite good, apologies for trivial typos!)

Sequences

Stuff I found online

Wiki Contributions

Comments

Welcome to my pinned comment

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Comments added May 3, 2023:

Comments added Feb 25, 2023

  • Many companies and platforms are becoming more restrictive and hostile towards developers, limiting what can be built on their sites. This reduces creativity and usefulness of the internet.
  • Major platforms are deleting old content and inactive accounts in mass, resulting in a loss of internet history and institutional memory.
  • Search engines are becoming less useful and filled with ads, clickbait content, and generic results that don't answer users' questions.
  • Search engine optimization practices have homogenized the internet and sterilized content, focusing more on Google's algorithm than the end user.
  • Generative AI responses in search have so far been plagued with issues and have not delivered the promised quality of results.
  • Google's manifest V3 changes will undermine the effectiveness of ad blockers and privacy extensions, benefiting Google's own business model.
  • The internet is moving towards a future where useful information is hidden behind paywalls and walled gardens, while public spaces are filled with AI-generated content.
  • Optimism for technological progress and the future of the internet is declining.
  • Corporations are putting the burden of their growth onto users, resulting in a worse experience.
  • Transparency, advocacy, and supporting independent creators can help ensure an open and user-friendly internet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feeLrcJpc1Y

  • Hollywood has been producing more sequels, prequels, remakes and films based on existing properties in recent years compared to original films. In 2021, only one of the top 10 grossing films was an original idea.
  • This trend is due to consolidation in the film industry where there are fewer major players and studios. Consolidation has also led to fewer films being produced.
  • The rise of streaming services like Netflix has led to vertical integration where one company controls both content production and distribution. This gives them more control over who profits.
  • Creators and independent producers have less control and profit due to the lack of a clear marketplace to sell their content. Writer pay has actually decreased in recent years.
  • The UK has been more successful at producing original content due to government regulations that require broadcasters to commission a portion of their programming from independent producers and allow them to retain secondary rights.
  • Small to mid-sized production companies have been able to thrive in the UK due to these regulations.
  • There are questions over whether the current streaming model in Hollywood is sustainable in the long run.
  • Wall Street investors want to see profitability after years of growth investment in streaming companies.
  • Creators are fighting for terms that give them the ability and incentive to make great original content.
  • The outcome of this fight will determine whether the next great original film gets made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4GERuvdhYI

  • Solar energy prices have dropped significantly in the last few decades, making it cheaper than fossil fuels like coal in most places.
  • However, investment and deployment of solar energy have stagnated despite the lower prices, as profitability remains an issue.
  • Companies like Shell have pledged to transition to renewables, but they have conditioned it on renewables delivering high profit margins of 8-12%, which is unlikely.
  • Returns on renewable energy projects are typically around 4-8%, much lower than what companies like Shell require.
  • Fossil fuel companies and asset management firms are not investing substantially in renewables, as profit remains the main driver rather than sustainability goals.
  • The parts of the solar business that are profitable involve manufacturing and mining, where exploitation and poor conditions remain.
  • Profit, not price, determines what gets produced. Without profit potential, the transition to renewables will not happen at scale.
  • Like water power in the past, solar energy is a cheaper source of energy but less profitable due to difficulties in privatization and exploitation.
  • The transition to renewables will likely come with major drawbacks as long as profit remains a requirement.
  • Systemic changes are needed to make the transition to renewables in a just and sustainable manner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gSzzuY1Yw0

cool work! this feels related to https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.11082 - what are your thoughts on the connection?

For what it's worth, I think most people I know expect most professed values to be violated most of the time, and so they think that libertarians advocating for this is perfectly ordinary; the surprising thing would be if professed libertarians weren't constantly showing up advocating for regulating things. Show don't tell in politics and ideology. That's not to say professing values is useless, just that there's not an inconsistency to be explained here, and if I link people in my circles this post, they'd respond with an eyeroll at the possibility that if only they were more libertarian they'd be honest - because the name is most associated with people using the name to lie.

fair nuff! yeah properly demonstrating online sounds really hard.

it only works when you are able to reduce social anxiety by showing that they're welcome. someone who is cripplingly anxious typically wants to feel like they're safe, so showing them a clearer map to safety includes detecting the structure of their social anxiety first and getting in sync with it. then you can show them they're welcome in a way that makes them feel safer, not less. to do this requires gently querying their anxiety's agentic target and inviting the group to behave in ways that satisfy what their brain's overactivation wants.

I think the only content left would be the actual art. not the stuff that only deserves the name content.

Well, spotify isn't profitable in the first place, for one.

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