“[…] instead of Americans earning money via creating manufactured goods that people want, the American government prints money, gives the money to politically favored corporations, bureaucrats, and workers, who then export the dollars in return for cheap HDTV’s.”
“Many studies have documented a decreasing risk tolerance in scientific research. A core driver has been the dominance of citation-driven metrics to evaluate, fund, and promote scientific research — a process that parallels the ever-increasing bureaucratization of science itself (interestingly, as measured by the increase of academic administration staff, the onset of this trend coincides with the first safetyism conferences that were held in the 1970s). Citations have become the decisive factor in publications, grant-making, and tenure. Consequently, as crowded scientific fields attract the most citations, high-risk, exploratory science, in turn, gets less attention and funding. And, in addition to the risk aversion of scientists, ethics committees, peer reviewers, and commissions are now slowing down scientific progress. This scientific risk aversion, coupled with the increase in bureaucratization, helps explain why scientific productivity has been significantly declining over the past decades."
Byrne Hobart and Tobias Huber on the dangers of safetyism in science
I'm lovin' it
True
All revolutions eat their children, so it should come as no surprise that we are getting chewed up by revolutionary communication tools. These tools do a great job of keeping us engaged, but somehow they also manage to lower our productivity. We keep worrying that we will be taken over by superintelligent AI, but maybe all it takes is an average algorithm to stop us from communicating effectively.
'To steal a term from Hinduism, we spend most of our days in Maya: “that which is not.” The illusion. Maya is your job and the email you don’t want to answer and your worry about politics and the thing you’re mad about on Twitter.'
An evergreen by Erik Hoel
We think NIP-51 (lists) should take priority
It depends on which Nostr platform you use, and whether that platform supports the NIP-51.
NIP stands for Nostr Implementation Possibilities, and NIP-51 is for lists.
https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/master/51.md
So far Damus (the platform we use) has not announced support for NIP-51
The internet is so personalized, that even the weather forecast is bespoke. Two identical phones, same app, same time.
How can we ever hope for consensus when the internet fragments and distorts our shared reality?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ftm29YxWAAUWD6e?format=jpg&name=large
A guest post by Anastas Vangeli about generative AI through the lens of a social scientist.
https://qantarot.substack.com/p/at-the-dawn-of-the-generative-ai
AI doomerism the next ‘current thing’
https://sebjenseb.substack.com/p/who-believes-ai-will-destroy-humanity
‘Disinformation is both the name of the crime and the means of covering it up; a weapon that doubles as a disguise.'
There are many advantages to running LLMs locally. Here’s how to do it with Alpaca
Cat’s out of the bag, deal with it
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2023/03/the-permanent-pause.html
That being said, Neo signed the petition under an alias
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FsY4tpuWYAUKkuh?format=png&name=900x900
'it is my distinct displeasure to declare the death of SMTP. The protocol is no longer usable. And as we can see, this devolution occurred organically.'
Jameson Loop explains what happens when we settle for convenience over security
A wrap-up of 2022 and a roadmap for 2023. Plus a special video treat for our paid subscribers. Thank you for your ongoing support!