Random Musings of a Flâneur Wannabe

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AI gives power to the hungry/inquisitive, particularly those without the means and without having to ask permission, at the expense of the well fed/complacent who “won’t know what hit them”.

Put differently, AI can minimize the ability to rentseek.

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Such is the madness of men that they choose to be miserable when they have it in their power to be content

Diogenes of Sinope

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If you want more

Nothing wrong with wanting more.

In case of money it is actually easier, as there’s more than one way of going about it. You can spend less and keep more, you can work more and earn more (scalability rules apply), you can even work less and earn more, provided you operate in a scalable domain and happened to catch (or build!) the right wave.

But when it comes to wanting more freedom or more time for something, there’s only one way: spend less!

If you want more time, get the discipline to prioritize, to not waste time; if you want more freedom, get the discipline to focus and choosing what’s important.

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"Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you" - Jean-Paul Sartre

BULLSHIT. 

And as one fancily educated economist-type “left-leaning intellectual” said to a bunch of like-minded friends at a gathering in his $5mil house: "Poverty is a state of mind". Riiight...

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“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving”

Lao-Tzu

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Always be prepared [for a meeting]

If you're prepared, at a minimum you're at the level, at a maximum you're above the level. If you're unprepared, at a minimum you're at the level, at a maximum you're below the level. This doesn't mean you can't wing it, you just have to be prepared for winging it ;-)

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Levels of developmental awareness

Doesn’t know and doesn’t think

Thinks, but doesn’t know how [to do something]

Thinks that s/he knows

Knows

Knows and thinks that s/he can

Knows and learns how

Sometimes can

Can, most of the time, but realizes the boundlessness of possibilities

[Related to ‘Area of the Dot Equals to Zero’]

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The vice of an intellectual

Electing to not act on something due to realization of its deficiencies (especially in reasoning).

As opposite to choosing to 'do the right thing for the wrong reason' while accepting its imperfections.

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“Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places”

Camille Pissarro

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“Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you”

Joseph Heller

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“You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there”

Yogi Berra

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Truth as an interpretation of reality

There's no such thing as Truth, only Reality.

Just like a map approximates, but is not the same thing as the terrain it describes, ‘truth’ is merely an interpretation of the reality.

At times it is generally objective and agreeable to by the collective, other times it is highly subjective, with as many versions of it as there are the narratives it needs fitting. Even with mere journaling, truth is interpretive and subject to narrative fallacy.

Also, there’s a lot at stake, consciously or not, in getting one’s version of truth as prevailing or accepted.

Continuing the analogy with a map, imagine everyone having their own version! And these versions only generally agree and sometimes viciously disagree. Try using such maps in practice!

Given that maps generally rely on vision as the a single interpreting factor, no wonder it is difficult to agree on truth.

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Opinions

The main problem with stated opinions (including these writings) is that they arrive as first-person experiences projected/extrapolated to the topic at hand.

For better or for worse, everything from fiction to self-help literature to casual (and especially, heated) conversation bears the stamp of the person who authored it.

This, of course, is the basis for discourse, for 'having the debate' - as we know truth is born of arguments. However, it usually merely means arriving at a commonly accepted concept that tends to change over time.

Even discovery by scientific method itself is not exempt from being mired with personal agenda, not to mention its inherent revisionism.

And then there’s also junk science...

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The rational agent

Most of human behavior traits evolved from (and through) what was best for survival.

Granted, notions of pride, honor, duty, ‘values’ in general came as a result of social evolution, but even they are tainted with primal reasoning and behavior. Also, the environment has been changing much faster (and continues doing so with an ever increasing pace) than the what purpose of those traits was, so they remain ‘behind the curve’ so to speak.

Considerations of man being rational date back at least to Aristotle (or even before that, we just don’t have a record of it). And since Adam Smith and the rise of capitalism the notion of man’s rationality has been perpetuated as the basis of determining (and attempting to predict) how people behave and interact, at least on the level of economics.

The notion of people acting out as rational agents, however futile in economic context, would be an ideal advancement, if not the ultimate goal, of society as a whole.

The trick of course is to agree what system of values this rationalization should be based upon.

Religious and other ‘traditional values’ are out of question. Though they have useful elements, they are severely tainted with biases, prejudice and severe adversity to the non-conconforming, even while proposing supposed tolerance. The main reason, however, is that these values developed (organically, more or less, which means they served their evolutionary purpose so to speak) ultimately as means of suppression rather than advancement. Respect for authority, and even promoting supposed love and tolerance for the next person is suppression, aimed at reining in the masses and consoling the individual.

Philosophical systems, in general, tend to merely explain ‘how the world works’, but fail to prescribe the means for its advancement. They are simply not intended to. They also don’t provide means for favoring the interests, merely explaining the overall equilibrium as it exists. This doesn’t stop the individuals and more importantly individual groups from taking selective advantage based on their immediate needs (same with religion, btw).

MoQ looks like the most valuable (pardon the pun) system of reference for describing the world, as it is compact and seemingly promising to explain everything on any scale via basically the same means (almost in a fractal manner). It also favors society in general over the individual, however sad and unfair it feels.

The bottom line is rational behavior of both society in general and its members individually, based on a rationally adapted system of values would be the ultimate good.

Sounds like the ultimate manifestation of intelligence, doesn’t it? Fancy utopia, perhaps, but it doesn’t hurt framing the thought.

EDIT: I just realized that by suggesting to exploit the benefits of MoQ proposition, I conflated the Genuine with the Opportunistic. On the other hand, maybe someone who is Genuine according to MoQ is automatically “rational”?

EDIT 2: Wait, people are actually getting PhD's for this? ;-) http://goo.gl/8q6KsG

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“It is much easier to strive for perfection when you are never bored”

Daniel Kahneman

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“The thing about life is, it gets weird. People are always talking to ya about truth. Everybody always knows what the truth is, like it was toilet paper or somethin’, and they got a supply in the closet. But what you learn, as you get older, is there ain’t no truth. All there is is bullshit, pardon my vulgarity here. Layers of it. One layer of bullshit on top of another. And what you do in life when you get older is, you pick the layer of bullshit that you prefer and that’s your bullshit, so to speak.”

Bernie Laplante, The Hero

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“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function”

F. Scott Fitzgerald