>In the face of so much uncertainty it's hard to make long-term plans.

agreed. we've sped up our lead time (for adopting/using new technologies) exponentially. it's hard to know what the future context is going to be at this rate.

i would argue that we could be a lot more efficient at it if we actively mitigated our denial and greed with some reason and humility.

lol. they don't.

for the benefit of reddit's soylent-green-fearing constituency i'll post a simple google definition:

"Industrial feedstocks are raw materials used to make industrial products"

so. think gaskets and road paving products. not animal feed.

that hasn't always been true. many medieval cathedrals took generations to build. the people laying the foundations would be dead and buried by the time the cathedral was finished and they knew it. so they were proactively working for the greater good of generations yet to be.

in the modern world (the last 100-200 years) we've been idolizing short term profits and short-sighted individuals to the point where a confluence of very serious issues have built up around us. we're valuing denial instead of action but that's just a modern strategy. it appears to be a fairly unreasonable and unsustainable approach imo.

i see something in this (and also ai music) that nobody sees -i always get the thousand mile stare when i mention it.

imo the "artistry" in these works isn't just the end result (the painting or musical composition.) It's in the programming. ai isn't an objective source. i could program my "Bach" or "Van Gogh" machine and it would behave differently than my colleague's machine because we each have our own strategy for getting from a to b.

so we could critique the programmer based on how well the result matches the original master if they are producing new "Van Gogh" material. this would be no different than judging wine by how closely the taste matches the grape.

or, if somebody is producing original material (not based on a historical precedence), then we could judge the programmer on how original or compelling the end work is.

none of this usurps traditional art. instead of working in oils or watercolors these artists work in code; its just a different medium.

>influencing people by representation is counter to the idea of representation

the people that my representative is influencing through representation are the other politicians whose votes will be needed to pass any given legislation.

that is how anything gets done in a representative democracy.

a politician is a salesperson; their job is to influence people via representation.

i expect a politician who shares my values to express those values in a positive light. i also expect a politician who doesn't share my values to state their own opinions in a positive light (because they, too, represent a constituency.) those are stories being told for the purpose of having me understand the issues and the available opinions/options on those issues.

the author of this essay is suggesting that "better stories" (one's that adhere to an objective truth while acknowledging divergent values) are the nexus of understanding and acceptance among divergent political factions.

obviously we have politicians lying big-time right now. according to the author's stated values those politicians could be telling better stories (as defined) instead of lying. and if they did so our political divisions would be less of an issue.

so, novels are bad. we can't be emotionally manipulated or learn anything through allegory.

poems -unless they're written to be absolutely historically and scientifically correct- are bad too.

whatever planet you come from must be bland as fuck.

he defines the difference (contextually) between a lie and a story:

>...stories give meaning to our world whereas lies ignore the world altogether. This is an important insight for contemporary politics, in which stories and narratives play a central role in shaping our political identity, but where they are also highly susceptible to a complete disregard for truth, reality, and history.

man i couldn't get past some of the bad examples in this essay:

​

>It costs significantly more than most people think to save a life by donating to the most effective charities — about $2,300. But that’s still only about half as much as the average American spends at restaurants each year.

this is a very poor comparison. restaurants provide food, employment, familial and social engagement which are all critically valuable for a social species. the idea that there's a moral dilemma between eating and saving a life (and that both can't be had) is ludicrous to me.

​

>Imagine your younger sibling is going off the rails – drinking too much and partying too hard. Their grades are suffering. Your sibling doesn’t listen to your parents but they look up to you; you know they will listen in the end. So you know that you, and only you, can intervene and make them get back on track. You can sit them down and have the difficult conversation that neither of you want to have. In other words, you have a great degree of control over your sibling.

i'm familiar with alcoholism/addiction and the idea that "the looked-up-to sibling" can simply sit down and have a talk with an alcoholic and thereby save their life is extremely naïve. not only do people not have that control but it ties in with a common cycle of dependence that makes the problem worse.

there might be more substance to this essay than i can see but, trying hard, i can't make sense out of it.

>Modern reactors are foolproof

this is exactly the stupid-box that we need to be out of imo.

i remember that oil rig in the gulf that had a "foolproof" valve that would disengage from the well in case there was a leak. there was a leak and it didn't disengage and it leaked for months and they couldn't figure out how to shut it off (to my knowledge its still leaking today.)

I've studied engineering. nothing is foolproof.

try this: "there's absolutely no risk" -full stop stupidity.

or this: "passive protections" -institutionalized complacency.

try throwing in "modern algorithms" which are "foolproof" and have many "passive protections" in place.

i don't buy any of it and you shouldn't either. this mentality is what stops me from advocating nuclear energy because its the exact same mentality that gave us problems with fossil fuels.

imho.

>It's just people being stupid and lazy that cause problems.

but that has been the major problem with fossil fuels. its been known since the industrial revolution that adding CO^(2) to the atmosphere would increase global warming. 100 years later and we're still arguing about it while suffocating. had we taken action early on we could have mitigated a lot of the problems.

i'm all for switching to nuclear with that issue nailed down in advance: Once we identify (publicly and transparently) how the industry should operate any deviation would be a criminal offense.

So that sticky safety valve at 3 mile island that the designer knew about but didn't replace? Prison time for that board of directors. That experimental overheating paradigm they were trying at Chernobyl? Life in prison for anybody signing off on those gymnastics.

in my mind it's not about switching to a new source; it's about operating outside of the stupid-box.

>uninformed people should not vote.

you're setting aside Big Number Theory.

i.e. in the guessing game at a rural fair where contestants make guesses at the weight of a large bull most of the contestants have no sophistication in gauging the weight of the animal. if only a few contestants enter guesses the amalgam of entries ranges far from the actual weight. but if there are a lot of entries the range gets a lot closer and many guesses are within a few pounds of the actual weight.

in politics there are no right answers but if large groups of people weigh in they will at least be submitting the amalgam of their societal flavor to the pot. since they are unlikely to vote for a person they don't like their votes aren't just going to be random.

you're also setting aside the chance to learn and the opportunity to push political debates onto substantive grounds. i place my vote. my guy or gal does their thing. either i got ripped off or they represented me well. next time i'll remember that outcome and vote accordingly. politicians will also be reacting to the votes: people in their district liked "this" or "that" so maybe they'll focus on those things to win those votes. but if i don't vote and politicians never hear me then we'll all be leaves in the wind; ruled by elitists and despots.

imo.

>How is “knowledge” “owned”? Is he talking about parents?

he's talking about private organizations doing research and then keeping the information to themselves because its their intellectual property (since they did the work.)

its a bit of a conundrum because private industry has a great deal of capital to expend on research but their motivation is profit: if they can't own their discoveries then they won't invest. but that means if they find a cure for a disease they can keep it to themselves which defeats the purpose of motivating their research.