Nah, Dave's right in suggesting not only that *any* attempt to corral all the variables will, practically, amount to cherry-picking a subset of variables. (That feels almost like a mathematical theorem to me.) So we, literally, cannot remediate our worst impulses, much less make it profitable to do so. We *can*, I think, bias how we screw things up, though ... just nudge the trajectory slightly this way or that way. But even so, the objection stands that we don't know enough about the processes to predict the horizons toward which to bias. The only solution would be a constellation of high frequency, high dimensional, monitoring *adversarial* processes that run alongside each and every implementation plan.
On 5/26/21 8:07 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote: > If the earth becomes unhabitable without changing how we live is that a > problem? > > Maybe this “harm” is just what it takes to motivate action. Like it took > COVID to bring mRNA vaccines to the forefront. > > A minority of people sitting around a campfire isn’t going to change the > global outcome, if the pattern above is how human cognition works on average. > > The procedure then is that 1) the majority really screw things up, and 2) > science comes to rescue to sort their mess out. It only makes sense to > arrange that #2 be very profitable. If anything, remediation of our worst > impulses isn’t profitable enough. > > > > *From:* Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Prof David West > *Sent:* Wednesday, May 26, 2021 7:36 AM > *To:* friam@redfish.com > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Drones to detect wildfires > > > > The problem is the term " progress." > > > > First, progress implies a goal state,as in progress towards what? > > > > The second is teasing out a thread, a sequence of a single factor in a > complex data set, and deciding that an increase in the measured value of that > factor is what defines progress. [The term progress itself biases against > looking for a decrease in some measured factor.] > > > > For example: We could look at human beings in the U.S. from 1776 to today as > a sequence of states. We could then look at the state and pick a variable > that changes — increases — in each successive state. If the variable we > pick is 'average lifespan' then we might be tempted to say that we have > progressed. But if we picked the variable 'average BMI index' then it becomes > problematic as to whether or not we can claim massive obesity is "progress." > > > > A third issue is obtaining any kind of consensus as to which variables we > should pick to measure progress. Kilotons of nuclear arsenals? Petabytes of > video on Pornhub? Tons of food waste from restaurants per day? Average wheat > yield in Kansas per year? Number of pure electric cars per capita? > > > > davew > > > > > > On Wed, May 26, 2021, at 1:00 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote: > > […] > I have open questions: > > 1. Admitting that progress hurt the environment in the past, is there > reason to believe that it's impossible to have future progress without > hurting the environment? > > 2. Provided it's possible without hurting the environment, is there > anything wrong with human progress? -- ↙↙↙ uǝlƃ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
