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We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

erikmcclure.com

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Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#321

Post by coldtea »

concordDance wrote: post #282
coldtea wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because people don't just learn to be doctors, physistics, biologists, structural and civic engineers, chemists, and countless of other professions on their own (not in any significant nunber after the 18th century at least), they learn it in university, with a structured curriculum, theoritical tuition, supervision, labs, and so on.

The vast majority of people with degrees will not use that degree in their job. I certainly didn't and looking at my fellow physics or maths grads the same is true of almost all of them.

Not sure what part one wont use. The degree as in "the printed paper"?

Because I guarantee that the "vast majority of people with degrees" in the professions I described and many more, will use the knowledge acquired during their degree in their jobs.

I'm not sure what physics or maths grad doesn't use the math he was taught/practiced/and picked up during his tutoring for the degree.

The implication is that they learn those things before going to university? Or that they learn them in grad school? (as if studying for graduate school is not also university, and as if the prior knowledge acquired during their BSc and such wasn't necessary to understand what they encountered in grad school -- and to have a basic understanding of their field).

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#322

Post by oh_sigh »

bawolff wrote: post #197
rocketbop wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was for the mammoths.

And for the people who liked to eat mammoths More to the point, the word "tragedy" in context isn't saying that the end result is neccesarily a tragedy for the people involved. The "tragedy" is our (alleged) inability to have nice shared stable resources, not any specific outcome of any specific resource being exhausted.

Sure - my point was that maybe mammoths weren't viewed as nice shared stable resources, but rather like cruel giants that might destroy your settlement, crops, and family randomly for fun. Sort of like how how elephants are viewed by rural farmer folk in many parts of Africa.

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#323

Post by mistermann »

manx wrote: post #133

The solution to the collaboration problem is achieving collective intelligence, e.g. making a crowd smarter than the sum of their parts. I'm part of a small group who are working on algorithms for achieving that. We're applying system's thinking, game theory, bayesian statistics, computer science to find an algorithm that creates collective intelligence. Latest creations: https://social-protocols.org/global-brain/ ht…

Do you have a document that gets into the meat of things yet, I wasn't able to find anything other than short introductions....

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#324

Post by concordDance »

coldtea wrote: post #321
concordDance wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of people with degrees will not use that degree in their job. I certainly didn't and looking at my fellow physics or maths grads the same is true of almost all of them.

Not sure what part one wont use. The degree as in "the printed paper"? Because I guarantee that the "vast majority of people with degrees" in the professions I described and many more, will use the knowledge acquired during their degree in their jobs. I'm not sure what physics or maths grad doesn't use the math he was taught/practiced/and picked up during his tutoring for the degree. The implication is that they lear…

> Because I guarantee that the "vast majority of people with degrees" in the professions I described and many more, will use the knowledge acquired during their degree in their jobs.

I agree with this, but think the jobs that use degrees are a small minority. Maybe 20%?

> I'm not sure what physics or maths grad doesn't use the math he was taught/practiced/and picked up during his tutoring for the degree.

I'm a software engineer atm and while I have done some gnarly stuff with directed graphs, I don't think I've used any of my uni maths in my career. A friend of mine went to be an actuary, same thing, A-level maths was used but nothing beyond that. Catastrophe modeller? Same. Civil servant? Same. Hedge fund analyst? Same.

Very very few jobs actually require graduate level maths.

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#325

Post by croes »

zmgsabst wrote: post #304
phantompeace wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t see it that way - I think they have a valid point. I know people personally affected by deaths in their family due to the virus and I know people who caught and fought it like it was nothing, so I know exactly what the poster is getting at. When it hits your loved ones, you start to take it more seriously. Wearing a mask and socially distancing doesn’t matter if it means not losing another family member. Con…

Francis Collins has already admitted the policies were myopic and didn’t account for QALY — they were malpractice that focused on a particular disease while ignoring the holistic situation. Literally failed at basic medicine. Again, you’re portraying people as “dumb and emotional” without addressing the substance of their concerns or reasons. You’re also refusing to ponder if that’s how you reached your conclusions.…

>now admits those people were right the whole time

Those people for sure aren't the anti-vaxers and anti maskers.

It's about the consequences of the lockdown, school closings and operation postponings and it's pretty easy to point at that consequences if you can't compare them to the consequences without these measures.

In Sweden they had similar admissions that their initial measures were wrong and they didn't have lockdowns.

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#326

Post by mistermann »

moring wrote: post #308
littlestymaar wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or, in other words, let's assume that I want to solve homelessness. What do I have to do for that? Build housing would be a great start! Markets don't care about low-profit cheap small apartments, so there's no supply and the demand isn't being met, so it's the mission of the state to step up and compensate this market failure. Then you can also tax properties based on their occupied land area, which incentives the…

> Build housing would be a great start! Markets don't care about low-profit cheap small apartments, so there's no supply and the demand isn't being met, so it's the mission of the state to step up and compensate this market failure. Let's start here. What are the steps needed to get the state to do this? Is the money for it taken from other places, or by increasing the deficit, or by raising taxes? How do you convinc…

Have you any opinions on the scientific method?

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#327

Post by mistermann »

Draiken wrote: post #311
moring wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You would need to introduce an equilibrium encouraging money system and prevent the extraction of land rents. Those things are never going to happen, because they are too obvious of a solution. If these two action items are "never going to happen", as you say, then they are not (part of) a solution. Like the author of the article, you have just started mapping the problem. > If you wanted the same answer in short:…

This is such a lazy argument. You can't write out in this moment how to solve this therefore it's too complex to solve. It's all about incentives. Our society is incentivized to make a few people rich, not to solve these sorts of problems. If we wanted to solve them, we would. But that's not profitable, so it's not "worth" it. Humans never had the technological capabilities we have today, which could solve most, if n…

> This is such a lazy argument. You can't write out in this moment how to solve this therefore it's too complex to solve.

Au contraire: not only can he do that, he is (currently) unlikely to be able to do otherwise.

Culture is an extremely powerful force, one that is typically very difficult to detect (culture frowns upon self-criticism, forces the subject to be changed, moderators/experts to step in and enforce the Overton Window to restore order, etc).

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#328

Post by more_corn »

Fluorescence wrote: post #284
Aunche wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mammoths were an easy protein source for ancient people that were hunted into extinction. This is optimizing for short term profit.

I believe it was mainly climate change and loss of habitat during glacial retreat that caused Mammoth and other mega-fauna to die out. Human hunting was likely a minor contributor and nothing like the industrial slaughter of bison.

Not true. Megafauna died out across the world in hundreds of different habitats when humans arrived and hunted them to extinction.

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#329

Post by [deleted] »

maxbond wrote: post #192
stale2002 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We've recently seen a truly horrifying terrorist attack, and the response was as brutal as you would expect. Indeed. And the reason why such an attack happened is because the people who did the attack were the ruling government body of 2 million people for almost 2 decades, and were left to their own devices to build up a large scale attack, involving 1 thousand+ combatants. And in a few months, those combatants an…

Uhm, no, they are not the "ruling body," I think you should revisit the fundamental facts of the situation and reevaluate your perspective. To be frank your comment has a really disturbing undertone of bloodlust. I don't know a nice way to say that. You should really reexamine what your attitudes are here and how you came to them, this is not an appropriate way to discuss the deaths of thousands of people.

[deleted]

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#330

Post by ydnaclementine »

me_me_me wrote: post #263
fifticon wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think he was blaming it on the two-party system. He was just explaining how the two-party system is one of those obviously broken mechanisms that effectively blocks against replacing it with one of the better alternatives. The general category of issues he highlights, should be well known to people who have lived in and observed our real world and society for a while. It is possible to produce USB-C cables th…

> He was just explaining how the two-party system is one of those obviously broken mechanisms that effectively blocks against replacing it with one of the better alternatives I think this is self evident. How the hell US is heading to next Biden vs Trump. Again? How can anyone claim its that those are the best possible choices - or good choices? Trump is a fraud clearly claiming he is one and biden is barely capable…

Probably not a new take, but it would make an extremely interesting election night if Trump were to run as an independent. Could potentially see states turn yellow This election year in general is going to be insane to watch
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