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We have no idea what happens next

collaborativefund.com

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Re: We have no idea what happens next

#21

Post by filipm »

wensley wrote: post #17
pyromine wrote: post #4

Tangentially, when COVID-19 forced my company to go work from home it thrust in to my face all the things that about that company that made me hate my job and gave me anxiety attacks. I ultimately quit that job with nothing lined up and found a much more fulfilling job, with better pay. I don't think I would have quit that last job if it wasn't for the disruption, and I would have still been miserable.

Congrats on taking that decision. I bet it felt empowering. I'm very tempted to do the same, tomorrow morning possibly. I only stuck out my job for so long because it was fully remote before the pandemic and that was hard to find. Now actually feels like a good time to switch with so many companies forced into remote working and stating they will stick with it. What kind of things did you hate about your job? Did you…

Sounds like you should do it ;)

Re: We have no idea what happens next

#22

Post by interestica »

sxp wrote: post #13
ChuckMcM wrote: post #3

Reads a bit like a 'Connections' episode :-) But I agree with the fundamental premise, the harder you perturb a system, the less predictable the output of the perturbation will be. This year has shown a lot of people (myself included) that they can live in a very different way in the world. Some of that may become the new normal.

I completely agree. For those who haven't experienced Connections-style history, four episodes are on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XetplHcM7aQ My favorite is this one about proto-computers that came about due to the Black Death: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6yL0_sDnX0

Internet archive has them all (3 seasons) and downloadable.

https://archive.org/details/ConnectionsByJamesBurke

This was shot on film. Which means that a 4k release is technically feasible. ...

Re: We have no idea what happens next

#25

Post by andrekandre »

ergwwrt wrote: post #12

Why do we celebrate Liebig and his dark lord successor Haber-Bosch? We do get more nitrogen but at the cost of assimilation failure back in the environment. Non-assimilated nitrogen and its volatile compounds create just the conditions for a pandemic virus to develop..

> Non-assimilated nitrogen and its volatile compounds create just the conditions for a pandemic virus to develop..

(genuinely curious) how so?

Re: We have no idea what happens next

#27

Post by carapace »

andrekandre wrote: post #25
ergwwrt wrote: post #12

Why do we celebrate Liebig and his dark lord successor Haber-Bosch? We do get more nitrogen but at the cost of assimilation failure back in the environment. Non-assimilated nitrogen and its volatile compounds create just the conditions for a pandemic virus to develop..

> Non-assimilated nitrogen and its volatile compounds create just the conditions for a pandemic virus to develop.. (genuinely curious) how so?

Population.

Haber-Bosch converts oil into people.

The "conditions for a pandemic" are just modern global society.

(The jury is out, if over-population causes an environmental crash that kills billions, will it all have been worth it? We are victims of our own success, and have a needle to thread.)

Re: We have no idea what happens next

#28

Post by skybrian »

atomi wrote: post #19
ChuckMcM wrote: post #3

Reads a bit like a 'Connections' episode :-) But I agree with the fundamental premise, the harder you perturb a system, the less predictable the output of the perturbation will be. This year has shown a lot of people (myself included) that they can live in a very different way in the world. Some of that may become the new normal.

It does and I feel the example is just as contrived. The writer seems to imply that Fritz Haber would not have developed the Haber process without Liebig and effectively without the Mt Tambora eruption. Nice theory, but I don't know if we can be sure of all that.

It probably would get invented eventually, but the timing would be different, throwing off whatever predictions you might try to make.

This sort of thing is a good argument against the idea of anything like Asimov's psychohistory really working in a general sort of way. There are too many random contingencies, and they don't average out.

We have no idea when the next pandemic might be, or who will win the next presidential election, or what new things will be invented. Some preparations can be made, but they have to pretty multi-purpose.

Re: We have no idea what happens next

#30

Post by Schwolop »

1123581321 wrote: post #29
exogeny wrote: post #24

In case it is not commonly known, Collaborative Fund is widely held to be the VC firm in question that was roasted in the now-viral note from Ryan Caldbeck of CircleUp.

Where can this note be read? I’m having trouble googling it.

I'm thinking it's this: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17tEc9ETL4tjfTmNbpwJJ5OSx...
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