Technology Without Industry(geohot.github.io)
geohot.github.io
Technology Without Industry
https://geohot.github.io/blog/jekyll/update/2021/01/18/technology-without-industry.html
67 comments
I go back and forth on this. I am NOT in the "decentralize everything" camp. But I fear power more than chaos. Chaos turns over. Power resists that. Power seeks its own structural stasis. But in chaos, there's a fertile and teeming intertidal zone in every churn of a chaotic system. (though it is uncomfortable for us as inhabitants, and that is fuckin real)
I've had the privilege to be involved in both tech, biochemistry, and a few years of community organizing, and there's something going on here that's interesting. There's maybe some redemption of decentralizing forces, even though they invite chaos. If there is a redemption, it's in a dynamism I don't see articulated too often.
It's like we need some force that decentralizes at the edges (that pushes itself out, and invites more entry across the boundary of in-and-out), but that once inside, it's agents repel themselves from power -- repel themselves from the center.
In my community organizing conversations, we speak of this concretely around the term "we". We want members who are new and drifting around the edges, considering entry -- we want them to feel welcome to step over the boundary into a space, and feel welcome to use the word "we" as early as they care to. But then as people stick around, they'll use "we" more, moving toward the center. But as they cross some fuzzy threshold, a good "leader" or steward in such a community should pump the breaks. They should resist using the word "we" too comfortably -- they should resist using the word "we" to wear the community like a mech suit in conversations. They need to work hard to prevent themselves from falling toward the middle of the group and making themselves central. And if all members navigate this dynamics well, then you end up with a leaderFUL organization, with many leaders. And that community is fractal, almost holographic -- any fragment of that community contains a low-resolution version of the whole :)
I believe this dynamic is important to all stable and complex systems of the certain sort that we humans are :)
EDIT: I'm quite interested in these intersections, so if someone is reading this, pls feel free to poke me on Twitter @patconnolly if any of this runs parallel to your own complexity science or network science interests!
I've had the privilege to be involved in both tech, biochemistry, and a few years of community organizing, and there's something going on here that's interesting. There's maybe some redemption of decentralizing forces, even though they invite chaos. If there is a redemption, it's in a dynamism I don't see articulated too often.
It's like we need some force that decentralizes at the edges (that pushes itself out, and invites more entry across the boundary of in-and-out), but that once inside, it's agents repel themselves from power -- repel themselves from the center.
In my community organizing conversations, we speak of this concretely around the term "we". We want members who are new and drifting around the edges, considering entry -- we want them to feel welcome to step over the boundary into a space, and feel welcome to use the word "we" as early as they care to. But then as people stick around, they'll use "we" more, moving toward the center. But as they cross some fuzzy threshold, a good "leader" or steward in such a community should pump the breaks. They should resist using the word "we" too comfortably -- they should resist using the word "we" to wear the community like a mech suit in conversations. They need to work hard to prevent themselves from falling toward the middle of the group and making themselves central. And if all members navigate this dynamics well, then you end up with a leaderFUL organization, with many leaders. And that community is fractal, almost holographic -- any fragment of that community contains a low-resolution version of the whole :)
I believe this dynamic is important to all stable and complex systems of the certain sort that we humans are :)
EDIT: I'm quite interested in these intersections, so if someone is reading this, pls feel free to poke me on Twitter @patconnolly if any of this runs parallel to your own complexity science or network science interests!
I like your power/chaos analogy and it seems healthy to me to invite both centralization and decentralization at the same time or a flux between the two. If power and chaos always kept one another in check they'd create a symbiosis that would benefit everyone
cheers, a vivid and lucid description of the dynamics.
i’ve been thinking along these lines in relation to business and economy, toward a conclusion that our economic policy should be principally geared toward encouraging medium-sized ($10-50MM) and focused businesses, which provides plenty of reward and economies of scale while avoiding the corrupting forces and negative externalities of behemoths and conglomerates. same with personal wealth - encourage people to get to ~$2MM (where you can easily live comfortably without working again) but progressively discourage (not prohibit) wealth accumulation above $10MM (e.g., make wealth be put to work harder and in more provably positively-externalized ways to accumulate further).
i’ve been thinking along these lines in relation to business and economy, toward a conclusion that our economic policy should be principally geared toward encouraging medium-sized ($10-50MM) and focused businesses, which provides plenty of reward and economies of scale while avoiding the corrupting forces and negative externalities of behemoths and conglomerates. same with personal wealth - encourage people to get to ~$2MM (where you can easily live comfortably without working again) but progressively discourage (not prohibit) wealth accumulation above $10MM (e.g., make wealth be put to work harder and in more provably positively-externalized ways to accumulate further).
Aw jeez, thanks for saying.
This sorta of thinking clicks with me. Esp the "discourage not prohibit" framing. I think I have similar hopes, except I maybe hinge my thinking less on direct taxation or regulatory schemes ("if you get above threshold X, we take Y%") and instead lean a little but more on tactics of growing the co-operative ecosystem, which i believe will dampen the bad stuff in similar ways. I feel that co-operative companies tend to grow by collaborating instead of expanding/acquiring -- by scaling whole sector horizontally, instead of individual companies vertically -- and more co-operative companies will results in similar outcomes to what you speak of, but which cannot be easily dismantled as the tides sweep left to right, and back again :)
But I feel aligned with what you're saying, and I would cheer such measures even though I work with other tactics!
This sorta of thinking clicks with me. Esp the "discourage not prohibit" framing. I think I have similar hopes, except I maybe hinge my thinking less on direct taxation or regulatory schemes ("if you get above threshold X, we take Y%") and instead lean a little but more on tactics of growing the co-operative ecosystem, which i believe will dampen the bad stuff in similar ways. I feel that co-operative companies tend to grow by collaborating instead of expanding/acquiring -- by scaling whole sector horizontally, instead of individual companies vertically -- and more co-operative companies will results in similar outcomes to what you speak of, but which cannot be easily dismantled as the tides sweep left to right, and back again :)
But I feel aligned with what you're saying, and I would cheer such measures even though I work with other tactics!
I've been wrestling with this quality in a technical sense for quite some time.
Take for instance IP. IP was designed to be decentralized. And "End to End Arguments in System Design" piled on and led to UDP, further disintermediating sysadmins and their kernels. And we all felt that energy when we discovered the Internet, that magic hope of building new systems that served ourselves with voluntary peer to peer interactions.
But all of this was a bit fallacious, in that there is nothing forcing parties to follow a protocol's guidelines, rather than taking things "as they are" and acting in their own self interest. "I"SPs have deployed DPI gear and transparent proxying, GeoIP providers have forced some implicit notion of location onto every IP address, piracy surveillance firms legally harass people running small routers, etc. Ultimately there was nothing built into the protocol that would prevent these things happening and so they did, despite that boundless world we felt when it was fresh.
Think of how difficult these attacks would have been if most packet fields had been protected with encryption and addresses were based on source routing (onion, of course). Obviously that would have necessitated different technique requirements, and perhaps failed in different ways, but you can see what I'm getting at. There are modern overlay networks that do these things, but since their users are a minority of all users, it is easy to block them outright.
FWIW I see the same thing with Bitcoin and its lack of the untraceability property. How long until the financial control industry ("money laundering") invents a parallel source of truth, and progressively gets it enforced at the exchanges?
Take for instance IP. IP was designed to be decentralized. And "End to End Arguments in System Design" piled on and led to UDP, further disintermediating sysadmins and their kernels. And we all felt that energy when we discovered the Internet, that magic hope of building new systems that served ourselves with voluntary peer to peer interactions.
But all of this was a bit fallacious, in that there is nothing forcing parties to follow a protocol's guidelines, rather than taking things "as they are" and acting in their own self interest. "I"SPs have deployed DPI gear and transparent proxying, GeoIP providers have forced some implicit notion of location onto every IP address, piracy surveillance firms legally harass people running small routers, etc. Ultimately there was nothing built into the protocol that would prevent these things happening and so they did, despite that boundless world we felt when it was fresh.
Think of how difficult these attacks would have been if most packet fields had been protected with encryption and addresses were based on source routing (onion, of course). Obviously that would have necessitated different technique requirements, and perhaps failed in different ways, but you can see what I'm getting at. There are modern overlay networks that do these things, but since their users are a minority of all users, it is easy to block them outright.
FWIW I see the same thing with Bitcoin and its lack of the untraceability property. How long until the financial control industry ("money laundering") invents a parallel source of truth, and progressively gets it enforced at the exchanges?
The real fallacy (delusion?) is that people increasingly equate speech with physical violence and the Internet structures with physical structures and states.
The piece you linked to is pure propaganda.
The piece you linked to is pure propaganda.
I have never seen a convincing argument of the claim that decentralization creates worse outcomes for fighting disinformation.
I think decentralization/federation [1] strongly improves systemic stability by enabling diversity and a hearty turnover of a variety of different curation approaches towards content. The way I see it, even if there’s no powerful central authority (supposedly exploiting economies of scale) controlling the spread of disinformation, the lack of a curatorial monoculture intrinsically limits the reach/damage of parasites (and also reduces the value of “hacking” that oversight process, since the payoff/reach is limited). The monoculture of a large platform with homogeneous policies creates the problem in the first place, and then needs to solve it.
On top of this, especially when the fundamental problem is enforced homogeneity against the wishes of the people, centralized governance is never going to be a satisfactory solution, even with a constitution — because that requires the underlying values to be shared, and the population on the internet is too diverse for that.
[1]: Protocols rather than platforms https://knightcolumbia.org/content/protocols-not-platforms-a...
I think decentralization/federation [1] strongly improves systemic stability by enabling diversity and a hearty turnover of a variety of different curation approaches towards content. The way I see it, even if there’s no powerful central authority (supposedly exploiting economies of scale) controlling the spread of disinformation, the lack of a curatorial monoculture intrinsically limits the reach/damage of parasites (and also reduces the value of “hacking” that oversight process, since the payoff/reach is limited). The monoculture of a large platform with homogeneous policies creates the problem in the first place, and then needs to solve it.
On top of this, especially when the fundamental problem is enforced homogeneity against the wishes of the people, centralized governance is never going to be a satisfactory solution, even with a constitution — because that requires the underlying values to be shared, and the population on the internet is too diverse for that.
[1]: Protocols rather than platforms https://knightcolumbia.org/content/protocols-not-platforms-a...
I don't think many people are arguing that decentralization solves governance problems, only to solve them in a decentralized manner, because they aren't our biggest problems, centralization of power is.
SOPA = Stop Online Piracy Act [0]
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act
I know that Comma isn’t as successful as Waymo and probably may not be. But that personal bias aside this was a beautifully written ode to what technology ideally should be and what society needs to evolve to and look like over the next few centuries. An ecological sensibility with a lower footprint combined with a desire to allow individuals to harness more of their autonomy and freedom.
>I know that Comma isn’t as successful as Waymo and probably may not be.
Are you sure about that? Comma is in use by thousands of real people all around the world, who have driven millions of miles with it and derived an incredible amount of value. Waymo is a walled garden tech demo available to a few engineers and a select number of alpha testers within a few square miles of Phoenix, with no timeline at all to mass adoption.
Are you sure about that? Comma is in use by thousands of real people all around the world, who have driven millions of miles with it and derived an incredible amount of value. Waymo is a walled garden tech demo available to a few engineers and a select number of alpha testers within a few square miles of Phoenix, with no timeline at all to mass adoption.
Not to be nitpicky but I thought it was open to anyone if you are travelling within the right area?
> Biology is non-toxic. Biology is efficient. Biology is beautiful. Biology is technology.
> Biology is not centralized. Biology is not alien.
Whoo boy. That sequence is so off the mark it's stunning.
Biology is non-toxic? non-alien? Let's start by looking out your window: toxic, alien biology is currently keeping us holed up unable to interact with one another for fear of death.
Biology is efficient? Let's talk about the lyrangeal nerve of a giraffe. Or the reproductive plumbing of a human male. Or perhaps, instead, let us consider the tail of a peacock. Efficiency is almost an anti-goal of biology since robustness reproduces.
Biology can be beautiful--it can also be very, very ugly. And I suspect ugly is the preponderance as biology simply doesn't care about beauty.
Biology is not centralized--laughably claimed in the same breath with biology is "efficient". Much of biology is not centralized--but then a lot of biology is. We have decentralized nervous and circulatory systems--but those systems are driven by a very centralized heart and brain. Our vision system is centralized while touch is highly decentralized.
Biology is technology. About the only correct point in the whole sequence.
> Biology is not centralized. Biology is not alien.
Whoo boy. That sequence is so off the mark it's stunning.
Biology is non-toxic? non-alien? Let's start by looking out your window: toxic, alien biology is currently keeping us holed up unable to interact with one another for fear of death.
Biology is efficient? Let's talk about the lyrangeal nerve of a giraffe. Or the reproductive plumbing of a human male. Or perhaps, instead, let us consider the tail of a peacock. Efficiency is almost an anti-goal of biology since robustness reproduces.
Biology can be beautiful--it can also be very, very ugly. And I suspect ugly is the preponderance as biology simply doesn't care about beauty.
Biology is not centralized--laughably claimed in the same breath with biology is "efficient". Much of biology is not centralized--but then a lot of biology is. We have decentralized nervous and circulatory systems--but those systems are driven by a very centralized heart and brain. Our vision system is centralized while touch is highly decentralized.
Biology is technology. About the only correct point in the whole sequence.
> Biology is non-toxic
Except for the toxic organisms (poison frogs, newts, fish, etc.). The best you can say on this line of thinking is that biology is biodegradable, except even that isn't true. Modern diatoms don't biodegrade - they mostly turn to sediment at the bottom of the oceans. Further, coal is mostly made of what used to be woody (lignin-containing) plants that couldn't be biodegraded when lignin first evolved[1]. The unique aspect of modern industry that makes it not sustainable is its scale and speed. The solution might involve industrially creating organisms with a similar scale and speed (like ones that can metabolize plastic).
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal#Formation
Except for the toxic organisms (poison frogs, newts, fish, etc.). The best you can say on this line of thinking is that biology is biodegradable, except even that isn't true. Modern diatoms don't biodegrade - they mostly turn to sediment at the bottom of the oceans. Further, coal is mostly made of what used to be woody (lignin-containing) plants that couldn't be biodegraded when lignin first evolved[1]. The unique aspect of modern industry that makes it not sustainable is its scale and speed. The solution might involve industrially creating organisms with a similar scale and speed (like ones that can metabolize plastic).
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal#Formation
Curiously and coincidentally, I bought several of Ted's writings recently. I think he has some salient points but without colleagues, he fell in love with his "solo-founder crazy ideas," effectively delusions that couldn't be realized by his methods. If he had others around to temper his thinking rather than retreating completely from civilization, he might've had a chance to make a positive and constructive impact rather than causing random, impotent harm.
Could you be more specific? Ted who?
Although only a paragraph is dedicated to the topic, I think this essay is more about the wonders of biology.
I've been thinking about this more lately, how cells are more or less the nanomachines we read about in sci-fi. Animals and plants are living machines, much more compatible with humans than the machines we have created - yet the investment in artificial machines dwarfs the natural ones... (I make this statement without evidence :)
I've been thinking about this more lately, how cells are more or less the nanomachines we read about in sci-fi. Animals and plants are living machines, much more compatible with humans than the machines we have created - yet the investment in artificial machines dwarfs the natural ones... (I make this statement without evidence :)
And investment in preserving nature, learning from it, and investment into human beings and nurturing their capabilities dwarfs all the investment in technology.
And I don't mean nurturing capabilities to make them drones spending all their energy working for corporates, but for themselves and being able to pursue their own causes. And believe me, we won't need new shoes and new apps and perfect games every week if we are not being drained of our energy 50hrs/wk. We can and will happily do with much less if what we have is not cheap trash hurting our bodies and souls, manufactured by suffering working class people (please look up suicide rates in chinese factories and in working class communities in america).
And I don't mean nurturing capabilities to make them drones spending all their energy working for corporates, but for themselves and being able to pursue their own causes. And believe me, we won't need new shoes and new apps and perfect games every week if we are not being drained of our energy 50hrs/wk. We can and will happily do with much less if what we have is not cheap trash hurting our bodies and souls, manufactured by suffering working class people (please look up suicide rates in chinese factories and in working class communities in america).
> spending all their energy working for corporates,
Without corporates, we'd be spending all our energy working on subsistence farms. No thanks.
Without corporates, we'd be spending all our energy working on subsistence farms. No thanks.
Is it too much to ask for balance though?
I see neither end as ideal for the average person, but we are definitely farther to the corporate side of things than I am personally comfortable with.
I see neither end as ideal for the average person, but we are definitely farther to the corporate side of things than I am personally comfortable with.
Why do you think that? We can still work and produce, but instead of having new shoes released by nike every month, they would be released every year. People who want to work 80hrs/wk can still do that, essential jobs like firefighters that currently pay very little can pay 250k a year, instead of getting 10 fruits in your supermarket, you will have to deal with 5 locally grown ones, but anyone who wants to pursue other things will be generously allowed to. Usual work days can be reduced to 3 days of work per week.
We just need to reduce fetishism with non human scale technology at the cost of nature and humans. But people are still free to pursue it, and societies can pick what aspects they want.
We just need to reduce fetishism with non human scale technology at the cost of nature and humans. But people are still free to pursue it, and societies can pick what aspects they want.
The way people organize to work on something is to form a company (or corporation). Getting rid of them means everyone pretty much has to be self-sufficient, i.e. subsistence farming.
> anyone who wants to pursue other things will be generously allowed to.
As they are now. Nobody is forced to work for any companies in America.
> anyone who wants to pursue other things will be generously allowed to.
As they are now. Nobody is forced to work for any companies in America.
Biology is inductive technology, built from the specific to the general through trial and error.
Human inventions are mostly deductive technology, built from the general to the specific through the understanding of principles, and trial and error.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both. Biology's biggest advantage is a head start. However biology while sometimes elegant can also be very dumb. For example DNA is spaghetti code.
Human inventions are mostly deductive technology, built from the general to the specific through the understanding of principles, and trial and error.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both. Biology's biggest advantage is a head start. However biology while sometimes elegant can also be very dumb. For example DNA is spaghetti code.
Your assertion that DNA is spaghetti code seems short sighted while the inner-workings of structures, such as human brains, which it can generate remain to be fully understood. There is more to learn. What you deem to be spaghetti may be the most efficient way to make one piece of code perform well under broad spectrum of conditions.
>Biology is non-toxic. Biology is efficient. Biology is beautiful. Biology is technology.
I have a huge problem, with especially the first two. Biology can be very toxic. Cobra snake venom is a product of biology. Cancer is a product of biology. Both can have horrific consequences for humans. Biology is not necessarily efficient. Take a look at pregnancy and birth and infancy. Before modern medicine and birth control, a woman could give birth to 10 children, only to have to bury the majority of them.
The danger with this kind of idealization of nature is that it encourages a kind of laissez faire. If we could only leave nature alone, we would all be fine. The ice age that almost wiped out humanity was natural. Hurricanes are natural and occurred even before man made warming. Nature is scary. We need each other and technology to figure out how to take advantage of the good parts of nature, while controlling its badness. Human intervention can be better than the natural course.
I have a huge problem, with especially the first two. Biology can be very toxic. Cobra snake venom is a product of biology. Cancer is a product of biology. Both can have horrific consequences for humans. Biology is not necessarily efficient. Take a look at pregnancy and birth and infancy. Before modern medicine and birth control, a woman could give birth to 10 children, only to have to bury the majority of them.
The danger with this kind of idealization of nature is that it encourages a kind of laissez faire. If we could only leave nature alone, we would all be fine. The ice age that almost wiped out humanity was natural. Hurricanes are natural and occurred even before man made warming. Nature is scary. We need each other and technology to figure out how to take advantage of the good parts of nature, while controlling its badness. Human intervention can be better than the natural course.
Before that it mentioned "Human DNA is 6 GB", but a lot of that is junk and meaningless. "Dead code", so to speak. Hardly what I call efficient.
There are plenty of weird things as well. Why can't humans synthesise vitamin C? My cat can; in fact, most animals can. But not humans and most other primates: we lost this ability. This is probably because at the time we didn't really need it as we got enough from dietary sources, but dropping it just because you don't need it right now is of course a bit silly and short-sighted, but nature doesn't have any foresight of course. This is the sort of thing why species go extinct.
Another well known "design flaw" is the blind spot in our eyes, which is there for no real reason in particular other than what we might call "legacy reasons" in programming terms.
There are plenty of weird things as well. Why can't humans synthesise vitamin C? My cat can; in fact, most animals can. But not humans and most other primates: we lost this ability. This is probably because at the time we didn't really need it as we got enough from dietary sources, but dropping it just because you don't need it right now is of course a bit silly and short-sighted, but nature doesn't have any foresight of course. This is the sort of thing why species go extinct.
Another well known "design flaw" is the blind spot in our eyes, which is there for no real reason in particular other than what we might call "legacy reasons" in programming terms.
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> a lot of that is junk and meaningless. "Dead code", so to speak
... so far as we currently know.
DNA is only mostly software; it's also a physical molecule. Many of the columns in a DRAM chip look like a waste of capacitance until you know what alpha particles are and what ECC does.
> the blind spot in our eyes, which is there for no real reason
It's there for a very good reason, the optic nerve connection. Only cephalopods have figured out a better solution, and it's not at all clear that it would work for humans.
Our eyes have to tolerate a lifetime of much-higher UV exposure than sea-creatures, for starters. Cephalopods' optic nerves grow in from the retina toward the brain, and there's a huge bundle of complicated connections to make where they "meet in the middle". Vertebrate optic nerves grow out from the brain and embed themselves in the retina, so there's no wiring problem to solve.
... so far as we currently know.
DNA is only mostly software; it's also a physical molecule. Many of the columns in a DRAM chip look like a waste of capacitance until you know what alpha particles are and what ECC does.
> the blind spot in our eyes, which is there for no real reason
It's there for a very good reason, the optic nerve connection. Only cephalopods have figured out a better solution, and it's not at all clear that it would work for humans.
Our eyes have to tolerate a lifetime of much-higher UV exposure than sea-creatures, for starters. Cephalopods' optic nerves grow in from the retina toward the brain, and there's a huge bundle of complicated connections to make where they "meet in the middle". Vertebrate optic nerves grow out from the brain and embed themselves in the retina, so there's no wiring problem to solve.
Would you call a library inefficient? Miles and miles of books that no one is reading right now? And all that concrete and rebar that no one can read :)
> If it centralizes power, it’s bad. If it decentralizes power, it’s good.
Power isn't a scalar single value. Twitter and Facebook have demonstratedly decentralized certain forms of power, easier for a person to go viral with their words now than through say a newspaper, while centralizing other forms of power, mostly upon themselves.
Power isn't a scalar single value. Twitter and Facebook have demonstratedly decentralized certain forms of power, easier for a person to go viral with their words now than through say a newspaper, while centralizing other forms of power, mostly upon themselves.
And certain powers, I'd argue, are pretty bad to decentralize. Decentralizing the power to inflict massive violence leads to a ton of death, especially during the change in power.
> Decentralizing the power to inflict massive violence leads to a ton of death
Does it? If history is any indicator (and I believe it is), the opposite seems to hold true: the centralization - i.e. monopolization - of violence enables violence without impunity, and as that monopolization approaches its logical conclusion, so does that monopolized violence increase in magnitude and breadth.
In contrast, decentralized violence keeps everyone accountable; any aggressor has to be prepared for the very real possibility that one's victim can and will retaliate with equal force. As Heinlein said: "an armed society is a polite one".
Does it? If history is any indicator (and I believe it is), the opposite seems to hold true: the centralization - i.e. monopolization - of violence enables violence without impunity, and as that monopolization approaches its logical conclusion, so does that monopolized violence increase in magnitude and breadth.
In contrast, decentralized violence keeps everyone accountable; any aggressor has to be prepared for the very real possibility that one's victim can and will retaliate with equal force. As Heinlein said: "an armed society is a polite one".
> easier for a person to go viral with their words now than through say a newspaper
A person that they allow to post, without secretly suppressing their reach, or banning their account outright. That's not decentralization, that's delegation.
A person that they allow to post, without secretly suppressing their reach, or banning their account outright. That's not decentralization, that's delegation.
This was a great read. It is very thought provoking and inspiring. Something you could read and contemplate every day for a year. Bravo!
Hmm, if you view biology as technology, isn't the ecosystem required for human life basically an industry in itself?
It seems that centralization is the natural outcome of decentralization. We live in the tension in between the two extremes.
It seems that centralization is the natural outcome of decentralization. We live in the tension in between the two extremes.
Really like your comment.
And yeah, even cephalization (e.g., evolution of "heads" in almost all species) is a neat artifact of this relentless concentration of power in even a single species. We rightfully cry out against human subjugation, but never cry out for the skin cell on the back of the fist we raise against that. But it's maybe similar processes taking place and emerging within different strata of matter
I'm genuinely not sure what to think of that...!
And yeah, even cephalization (e.g., evolution of "heads" in almost all species) is a neat artifact of this relentless concentration of power in even a single species. We rightfully cry out against human subjugation, but never cry out for the skin cell on the back of the fist we raise against that. But it's maybe similar processes taking place and emerging within different strata of matter
I'm genuinely not sure what to think of that...!
And if you extrapolate it's easy to see we're bound for the fate of the skin cell.
But hey, maybe that's the eternal struggle of being human. Maybe we die on this hill, and keep agency from drifting upward beyond our scale.
Also, that likely means an alien civilization that DIDN'T resist entropy will eventually come along and run circles around us, in some form...!
If there's an analogy in nature (and I'll admit I've thought often about this), it's probably the slime mold[1]. It's an aggregate of single-celled organisms that managed to preserve their individuality much more than most other multi-cellular organisms. But the contrast in capabilities between slime molds and traditional multi-cellular organisms (bees! insects! us!) is pretty vast.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slime_mold#/media/File:Fuligo_...
Also, that likely means an alien civilization that DIDN'T resist entropy will eventually come along and run circles around us, in some form...!
If there's an analogy in nature (and I'll admit I've thought often about this), it's probably the slime mold[1]. It's an aggregate of single-celled organisms that managed to preserve their individuality much more than most other multi-cellular organisms. But the contrast in capabilities between slime molds and traditional multi-cellular organisms (bees! insects! us!) is pretty vast.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slime_mold#/media/File:Fuligo_...
I am a big fan of geohot and comma.ai. I use Comma two on my toyota ~everyday. Although I am not on the boat of decentralize everything, I am very much on the boat of "Independent things and services that work well with each other". Those independent services can be islands e.g gmail for mail, but if they're operable that is awesome. It creates more M x N choice.
I am not okay with Tesla cars can only be charged at Tesla electric stations. We have wonderful things in world because of that M x N relationship.
I am not okay with Tesla cars can only be charged at Tesla electric stations. We have wonderful things in world because of that M x N relationship.
Total bio newb here, Can anyone suggest an easy to digest book on biology ? I am always overwhelmed by the nomenclature while trying to get into biology, and to me it always feels like a field with a lot of rote memorisation (for lack of a better term) for a newbie.
Thinking in terms of abstractions, are there some books which stay on a relatively high level of abstraction ? Or is biology a field where you absolutely need to know the specifics of every particular thing in order to understand something ?
Thinking in terms of abstractions, are there some books which stay on a relatively high level of abstraction ? Or is biology a field where you absolutely need to know the specifics of every particular thing in order to understand something ?
I can suggest "The Selfish Gene". It is about evolutionary biology, not molecular biology. I'm not really sure what you're looking for.
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I kinda don't get the point. What does he mean?
I'm afraid to sound rude, but can't find a way to conduct the point otherwise.
I'm afraid to sound rude, but can't find a way to conduct the point otherwise.
He uses "industry" misleadingly to refer to fragile interconnected dependency.
Once you get to "Build technology that is inextricable from its narrative" he finally states his thesis outright, but how that relates specifically to "comma" (which I guess is comma.ai, his project, which is left unexplained) and Waymo (which is some company with a fragile-dependency solution which I guess it competes with) would have made a more-interesting article. But less unabombery.
Once you get to "Build technology that is inextricable from its narrative" he finally states his thesis outright, but how that relates specifically to "comma" (which I guess is comma.ai, his project, which is left unexplained) and Waymo (which is some company with a fragile-dependency solution which I guess it competes with) would have made a more-interesting article. But less unabombery.
Our technologies now rely on a complex and non-optional supply chain (The Industry).
Partly this is due to an increase in complexity, but it's also driven by what "industry" wants.
Things are being designed so they can't be fixed or even used without proprietary parts, consumables or services. The proportion of technology that works that way is increasing.
Call it the "juicero effect". The wifi router, vacuum or watch that won't work without the manufacturer's cloud services. Tractors that you can't service yourself, that only keep working while you have a subscription. Printers that add magic dots and won't accept generic ink. Everything about phones, and increasingly, computers.
This guarantees recurring revenue for suppliers, but the real evil is control.
We're moving towards a world where you don't really "own" things, you're just licensed to use them. You may use them only insofar as the true owner (whoever control the supply of essential parts, consumables and services) allows.
The idea of "technology without industry" is that we can and should have technology that doesn't have these means of control (by industry) built-in.
Comma, for example is open-source. You don't have to buy their hardware, you can hack it yourself. You can fix it yourself. You can collect or share your own data. You can see how it works.
What most companies want to build is an opaque black box. Some will just rent you rides. Even for vehicles you nominally own, "industry" will no doubt lobby to make it illegal to "tamper" with them, for safety reasons. Every ride will add to their moat.
Self-driving car networks will be great... until your account gets cancelled for a terms of service violation. Or because Elon was pissed at your tweet. Or until the day you try to get a ride to a protest or a strike and the car tells you it can't take you there.
Partly this is due to an increase in complexity, but it's also driven by what "industry" wants.
Things are being designed so they can't be fixed or even used without proprietary parts, consumables or services. The proportion of technology that works that way is increasing.
Call it the "juicero effect". The wifi router, vacuum or watch that won't work without the manufacturer's cloud services. Tractors that you can't service yourself, that only keep working while you have a subscription. Printers that add magic dots and won't accept generic ink. Everything about phones, and increasingly, computers.
This guarantees recurring revenue for suppliers, but the real evil is control.
We're moving towards a world where you don't really "own" things, you're just licensed to use them. You may use them only insofar as the true owner (whoever control the supply of essential parts, consumables and services) allows.
The idea of "technology without industry" is that we can and should have technology that doesn't have these means of control (by industry) built-in.
Comma, for example is open-source. You don't have to buy their hardware, you can hack it yourself. You can fix it yourself. You can collect or share your own data. You can see how it works.
What most companies want to build is an opaque black box. Some will just rent you rides. Even for vehicles you nominally own, "industry" will no doubt lobby to make it illegal to "tamper" with them, for safety reasons. Every ride will add to their moat.
Self-driving car networks will be great... until your account gets cancelled for a terms of service violation. Or because Elon was pissed at your tweet. Or until the day you try to get a ride to a protest or a strike and the car tells you it can't take you there.
It seems like a bit of a ramble to me. I think his underlying point is that technology which creates external dependencies, especially highly centralized dependencies, is bad for a bunch of reasons.
Isn’t this the dude that first cracked iOS? I was wondering what happened to him.
He invented the word "Jailbreak" and got kicked out of Rochester Institute of Technology for rewriting his student ID card with SQL injection to get into any room and get free food/drink from vending machines.
He's a legend.
He's a legend.
Those things are just part of the common college experience. I got into rooms with an under-the-door coathanger contraption (always fun seeing the reaction of the person who got locked out realize wait, anyone can just do that?), and got free snacks due a firmware bug triggered by invalid card reads. Getting kicked out for those things is a good example of how technology has escalated the severity of punishment, because people who can manipulate it are considered witches.
You can also sometimes catch him on twitch coding live.
He codes in vim at like 120wpm and is super entertaining.
He codes in vim at like 120wpm and is super entertaining.
An ecologically harmonious lifestyle is economically cheaper, both for
the household (in reduced expenses) and the surrounding economy (via
reduced degradation of "ecosystem services"[1].)
This, along with advances in technology, should result in massive reduction of work required to maintain a given quality of life. E.g. a 24-hour work week, and the option to retire after working only a few years.
One's leisure time would, presumably, be directed towards things like spending more time with one's children, or participating in local politics via concensus building[2] (the most expensive yet most efficient form of government I suspect.)
FWIW, Bucky Fuller calculated that we would have this level of technology by sometime in the 1970's. We did (e.g. transistor, atomic power), but we have yet to engage our technology coherently to make it (a secular utopia) happen.
I don't know how to get from here to there. It's mostly a people problem and I'm not a people person.
I think you have to get some land, build some ecologically "green" houses and infrastructure, rent it to folks much below market rate on the understanding that they meet certain conditions (like you can't just move out and sublet it on Airbnb or something.)
The idea is that the folks renting these eco-flats and apartments at ~70% off market rate use the difference to live well.
To close the loop, at least some of them would be working to get more land, build more eco-neighborhoods[3], and rent them out to more people. And a certain amount of the collected rent would go to a fund to support wild land conservation and ecosystem restoration.
You could build something like Park Merced[4] in San Francisco but integrated with regenerative farms and a wildlife corridor.
[1] "Ecosystem services are the many and varied benefits to humans provided by the natural environment and from healthy ecosystems." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem_service
[2] "Consensus decision-making or consensus politics (often abbreviated to consensus) is group decision-making processes in which participants develop and decide on proposals with the aim, or requirement, of acceptance by all." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_decision-making
[3] Christopher Alexander of "Pattern Language" fame has a site called "Building Living Neighborhoods":
"Our goal is to help everyone make our neighborhoods places of belonging, places of health and well-being, and places where people will want to live and work. This has become possible through the use of Generative Codes, Christopher Alexander's latest work in the effort to make possible conception and construction of living, beautiful communities" https://www.livingneighborhoods.org/ht-0/bln-exp.htm
[4] "a planned neighborhood of high-rise apartment towers and low-rise garden apartments", "It contains 3,221 residences ... and over 9,000 residents..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkmerced,_San_Francisco
This, along with advances in technology, should result in massive reduction of work required to maintain a given quality of life. E.g. a 24-hour work week, and the option to retire after working only a few years.
One's leisure time would, presumably, be directed towards things like spending more time with one's children, or participating in local politics via concensus building[2] (the most expensive yet most efficient form of government I suspect.)
FWIW, Bucky Fuller calculated that we would have this level of technology by sometime in the 1970's. We did (e.g. transistor, atomic power), but we have yet to engage our technology coherently to make it (a secular utopia) happen.
I don't know how to get from here to there. It's mostly a people problem and I'm not a people person.
I think you have to get some land, build some ecologically "green" houses and infrastructure, rent it to folks much below market rate on the understanding that they meet certain conditions (like you can't just move out and sublet it on Airbnb or something.)
The idea is that the folks renting these eco-flats and apartments at ~70% off market rate use the difference to live well.
To close the loop, at least some of them would be working to get more land, build more eco-neighborhoods[3], and rent them out to more people. And a certain amount of the collected rent would go to a fund to support wild land conservation and ecosystem restoration.
You could build something like Park Merced[4] in San Francisco but integrated with regenerative farms and a wildlife corridor.
[1] "Ecosystem services are the many and varied benefits to humans provided by the natural environment and from healthy ecosystems." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem_service
[2] "Consensus decision-making or consensus politics (often abbreviated to consensus) is group decision-making processes in which participants develop and decide on proposals with the aim, or requirement, of acceptance by all." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_decision-making
[3] Christopher Alexander of "Pattern Language" fame has a site called "Building Living Neighborhoods":
"Our goal is to help everyone make our neighborhoods places of belonging, places of health and well-being, and places where people will want to live and work. This has become possible through the use of Generative Codes, Christopher Alexander's latest work in the effort to make possible conception and construction of living, beautiful communities" https://www.livingneighborhoods.org/ht-0/bln-exp.htm
[4] "a planned neighborhood of high-rise apartment towers and low-rise garden apartments", "It contains 3,221 residences ... and over 9,000 residents..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkmerced,_San_Francisco
While "we" had the capability of a high-tech, leisure society in the 1970s, "we" probably refers to a minority of people in developed countries at the time, so maybe 1-2% of people on the planet.
Indeed since the 1970s the great economic story has been the spread of this way of life to others rather than an acceleration of technology to greater heights. Although the latter has happened, most effort has been focused on spreading existing technology.
We're just now seriously thinking about returning to the moon after a fifty year absence. However during those fifty years about two billion people were lifted out of crushing poverty.
Indeed since the 1970s the great economic story has been the spread of this way of life to others rather than an acceleration of technology to greater heights. Although the latter has happened, most effort has been focused on spreading existing technology.
We're just now seriously thinking about returning to the moon after a fifty year absence. However during those fifty years about two billion people were lifted out of crushing poverty.
Well, FWIW, Bucky considered himself to be working on behalf of all humanity. As an engineer he saw that working at the larger scale gave him the greater efficiency. (I.e. instead of heating and cooling individual buildings he proposed putting domes over entire cities!) In his lifetime he traveled the globe (~80 times around!) and was one of the most famous Americans in the world, in part because he was working on everyone's behalf.
- - - -
Anyway, you're right that standards of living have been going up globally, often with environmental degradation, but not always. For example, the revival of the Loess Plateu:
> the Loess Plateau Watershed Rehabilitation Project was launched in 1994[7] to rehabilitate the land and improve the people's livelihoods. The project guided the people living on the plateau to change animal husbandry practices; encouraged natural regeneration of grasslands, tree and shrub cover on slope-lands previously used for farming; and land restoration through terracing and replanting. These efforts allowed the perennial vegetation cover to increase from 17 to 34 percent, and "[e]ven in the lifetime of the project, the ecological balance was restored in a vast area considered by many to be beyond help"; in addition, more than 2.5 million people were lifted out of poverty by doubled incomes.[6]
> Restoration has occurred over an area of about 35,000 square kilometers (about 5% of the plateau's total area).[8] Results have reduced the massive silt loads to the Yellow River by about one percent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loess_Plateau#Agriculture_and_...
- - - -
Anyway, you're right that standards of living have been going up globally, often with environmental degradation, but not always. For example, the revival of the Loess Plateu:
> the Loess Plateau Watershed Rehabilitation Project was launched in 1994[7] to rehabilitate the land and improve the people's livelihoods. The project guided the people living on the plateau to change animal husbandry practices; encouraged natural regeneration of grasslands, tree and shrub cover on slope-lands previously used for farming; and land restoration through terracing and replanting. These efforts allowed the perennial vegetation cover to increase from 17 to 34 percent, and "[e]ven in the lifetime of the project, the ecological balance was restored in a vast area considered by many to be beyond help"; in addition, more than 2.5 million people were lifted out of poverty by doubled incomes.[6]
> Restoration has occurred over an area of about 35,000 square kilometers (about 5% of the plateau's total area).[8] Results have reduced the massive silt loads to the Yellow River by about one percent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loess_Plateau#Agriculture_and_...
I keep seeing this AI girfriend thing cropping up more and more often.
Biology is non-toxic. Biology is efficient.
No, and no.
No, and no.
Speaking as a biochemist, I feel you're too quick to condemn based on what I would assume is an overly rigorous interpretations of these words.
I would assume, knowing what I know, and presuming what he knows -- He's not saying biology/nature has no toxins. He's saying biology by and large isn't toxic to ecological systems made of average biological components. And I feel he's more right than wrong.
The efficiency thing is only right in certain domains, but really interesting ones: e.g., (1) functional state of folded proteins being an exact match with the lowest energy conformational state that it's linear amino acid order allows, (2) ecology recycling everything and re-using it all without "waste", and stuff like that.
I would assume, knowing what I know, and presuming what he knows -- He's not saying biology/nature has no toxins. He's saying biology by and large isn't toxic to ecological systems made of average biological components. And I feel he's more right than wrong.
The efficiency thing is only right in certain domains, but really interesting ones: e.g., (1) functional state of folded proteins being an exact match with the lowest energy conformational state that it's linear amino acid order allows, (2) ecology recycling everything and re-using it all without "waste", and stuff like that.
(1) isn't really true though, is it?
Heh, thanks for asking instead of downvoting :)
I would say it is true: "toxic" is only a word in reference to effects on other biologies. So on the whole, no, biology is NOT toxic to biology. It is non-toxic. (Though yes, toxins exist in biological niches that are toxic to some biologies and neutral to others.)
I would say it is true: "toxic" is only a word in reference to effects on other biologies. So on the whole, no, biology is NOT toxic to biology. It is non-toxic. (Though yes, toxins exist in biological niches that are toxic to some biologies and neutral to others.)
No, I meant "(1) functional state of folded proteins being an exact match with the lowest energy conformational state that it's linear amino acid order allows"
This is untrue.
This is untrue.
I'd say yes: https://www.pnas.org/content/111/45/15873
But no, if one were being that particular brand of particular that points out that amorphous aggregates are technically lower energy, which is true but not really interesting and kinda beside the point: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Energy-landscape-of-prot...
And yes, I'm sure there are uncountable exceptions in biology, but this is the generally mechanism of how it works, no?
But no, if one were being that particular brand of particular that points out that amorphous aggregates are technically lower energy, which is true but not really interesting and kinda beside the point: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Energy-landscape-of-prot...
And yes, I'm sure there are uncountable exceptions in biology, but this is the generally mechanism of how it works, no?
tremguy(3)
You assume a common fallacy that I often bring up on HN — the magical decentralization fallacy — "the mistaken belief that decentralization on its own can address governance problems."
Decentralization can actually cement authoritarianism. More details here: https://aviv.medium.com/the-magical-decentralization-fallacy...