mudlus | 1 year ago
mudlus's comments
mudlus | 1 year ago
mudlus | 1 year ago
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/3/20/harvard-geoengi...
mudlus | 2 years ago | on: The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better
mudlus | 2 years ago
mudlus | 2 years ago
mudlus | 3 years ago | on: Is the United States Exceptional?
mudlus | 3 years ago | on: Vangelis has died
mudlus | 4 years ago | on: Crypto is an unproductive bubble
Claim 2: Google 'Bitcoin Spacechains'
Claim 3: On a long enough time scale all discoveries are minor, this is what it means to always be optimistically solving problems at the beginning of infinity.
mudlus | 4 years ago
As explanations change, value changes, so anything can be a currency at the level of the individual--in this way, at least for conscious minds, a public monopoly on money is, while possible, morally wrong. It's a form of Marxism.
There's already been a solution the problem of state monopoly on symbolic abstractions for value (money), that started with Bitcoin and has been growing a new global economy since 2009.
mudlus | 4 years ago
The better question, then, if you really want to learn about culture, is why red is a good color in Japanese culture.
I'll just tell you: Red is related to sun symbolizm in Shinto, it scares away evil spirits of 'the dark'. And the Japanese emporer (before McArthur said otherwise) was a sun god (descended from Amaterasu). Some Japanese still intrinsictly believe this. This is represented in the Japanese 'asahi' emperial flag with the red circle and red lines, and in the current national flag with the red circle (white is a symbol of purity in Shinto, as well, btw). Torii gates are also red, etc etc.
mudlus | 4 years ago
mudlus | 4 years ago
mudlus | 4 years ago
mudlus | 4 years ago
mudlus | 4 years ago
mudlus | 4 years ago
mudlus | 4 years ago
mudlus | 4 years ago
mudlus | 4 years ago
"Popper has argued (I think successfully) that a scientific idea can never be proven true, because no matter how many observations seem to agree with it, it may still be wrong. On the other hand, a single contrary experiment can prove a theory forever false."
But then how do we decide which theory is worth taking the time to criticize?--I think this is where David Deutsch comes in. Redefining scientific progress in therms of "hard-to-vary explanations". No need to eat a pound of grass to test if it cures the common cold, because it's an easy-to-vary and doesn't _explain why_ it works (eg why not a pound of rosemary or a pint of beer)? Seems like a pretty obvious thing, perhaps, but then why is homeopathy such a huge industry? See also, A New Way to Explain Explanation: https://www.ted.com/talks/david_deutsch_a_new_way_to_explain...
The AIM of science: https://www.bretthall.org/uploads/3/1/2/9/31298571/karl_r._p...
The Open Society and it's Enemies: https://antilogicalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/open-s...
Economist article: https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2016/01/31/fr...
Also, David Deutsch: https://archive.org/details/TheFabricOfReality/page/n45/mode...
The Beginning of Infinity: https://ia800107.us.archive.org/29/items/RichardDawkinsTheSe...