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Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

quantamagazine.org

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Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#161

Post by throwawaycities »

leobg wrote: post #79
wayoverthecloud wrote: post #25

When you get caught up on the hustle of modern society and lose yourself in modern technology, it's so easy to forget that you are a part of a larger whole and there is more life on Earth besides human. For some reason knowing that other animals exist just for the sake of existing and even sleep off when life gets harder gives a new perspective. I feel that we humans use too much knowledge and complicate problems eve…

Had a very similar thought this morning. With the amount of technology today, we should be the happiest, wealthiest generation alive. My grandmother, born in the 1920s, still experienced hunger as a child, fled from the Russians through the ruins of bombed out cities, and, up until not too long ago, had to make a fire in order to have warm water for the bathtub. But I’ve never heard the word “depression” from her eve…

I think there is a lot to unpack in your anecdote about the baker vis-a-vis happiness vs proliferation of depression in modern life.

If I had to summarize my own thoughts about it, it’s ownership, community/relationships, and hardships/challenges that can be overcome through hard work.

Modern technology counter intuitively gives us very little agency everything is owned by faceless/soulless corporations, technology “connects us” in unparalleled ways but also isolates us, and while life has and likely will always be hard for the majority there is a feeling of invisible prisons enabled through technology that no amount of hard work can overcome.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#162

Post by confidantlake »

leobg wrote: post #79
wayoverthecloud wrote: post #25

When you get caught up on the hustle of modern society and lose yourself in modern technology, it's so easy to forget that you are a part of a larger whole and there is more life on Earth besides human. For some reason knowing that other animals exist just for the sake of existing and even sleep off when life gets harder gives a new perspective. I feel that we humans use too much knowledge and complicate problems eve…

Had a very similar thought this morning. With the amount of technology today, we should be the happiest, wealthiest generation alive. My grandmother, born in the 1920s, still experienced hunger as a child, fled from the Russians through the ruins of bombed out cities, and, up until not too long ago, had to make a fire in order to have warm water for the bathtub. But I’ve never heard the word “depression” from her eve…

While I agree with what a lot of what you said, there is a lot of survivorship bias in a single anecedote. My Grandma also has a very similar story, born in 1920s, fled from the Russians, no depression. But there is family from the same time period that committed suicide. Then for every one suicide there were 10 people that lived out of the bottle. So even though no one talked about depression it was there.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#163

Post by gavmor »

lumb63 wrote: post #157
nunez wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think that our bodies are highly intelligent and humans intrude a lot in it's natural functioning by inventing too much techniques and methods. Like I want to stay awake, drink coffee. Drink coffee, get insomnia. Insomnia leads to unhappiness. Take insomnia meds, get withdrawals. Generating more problems along the way while forgetting what the solutions were even for in the first place. If we just listened to our…

+1 for minimalist footwear. I keep telling anyone who will listen, “isn’t it crazy that we don’t have foot shaped shoes?” And then we wonder why we have bunions, knee pain, and tight hips when we sit sedentary at a desk all day in our not-foot-shaped shoes. I highly recommend reading The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul. It was written in the ‘60s about how technology influences the direction of humanity and al…

In that vein, I highly recommend Katy Bowman's "Move Your DNA," and "Whole Body Barefoot." Bowman's biomechanical analysis of modern movement, furniture, and the built environment has changed the way I walk, sit, and carry things.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#164

Post by histriosum »

robertlagrant wrote: post #138
histriosum wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that money DOES buy time. When I have money, I can convert it to time to do things I enjoy. When I don't have money, I need to spend my time to get money in order to survive. I find the statement that "money can't buy time" something that only a fairly wealthy person would believe, and not at all accurate in practice.

> I find the statement that "money can't buy time" something that only a fairly wealthy person would believe, and not at all accurate in practice. Most people with money are old, because that's how you get money in general: provide value over a long period of time. But they would probably all trade that money for being 22 again, and having a lifetime ahead.

I would agree with the statement that money can't buy time that has already passed, because nothing can do that. Money can definitely buy time in the present moment, though.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#165

Post by COGlory »

bregma wrote: post #114
COGlory wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for it. People get lucky, then try to rationalize the past with a skill narrative. Then they soak up all the grants.

Ah, but serendipity favours the prepared mind.

I agree with this - but there's far more prepared minds than serendipity, and I think the mistake we make is assuming people can control that serendipity aspect to produce repeat performances.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#166

Post by [deleted] »

wayoverthecloud wrote: post #25

When you get caught up on the hustle of modern society and lose yourself in modern technology, it's so easy to forget that you are a part of a larger whole and there is more life on Earth besides human. For some reason knowing that other animals exist just for the sake of existing and even sleep off when life gets harder gives a new perspective. I feel that we humans use too much knowledge and complicate problems eve…

[deleted]

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#167

Post by John23832 »

COGlory wrote: post #16
kylehotchkiss wrote: post #2

> Karla Helena-Bueno discovered a common hibernation factor when she accidentally left an Arctic bacterium on ice for too long. I love how this story follows the magic pattern of so much of innovation and discovery - an accident. It's refreshingly human and not a mode of discovery that machine learning is going to completely take away from us.

I'm all for it. People get lucky, then try to rationalize the past with a skill narrative. Then they soak up all the grants.

> People get lucky, then try to rationalize the past with a skill narrative.

This is literally the opposite of the situation put forth in the article. Accidental discoveries are accidental discoveries.

> Then they soak up all the grants.

What use does a machine learning model have for a grant? This seems like something that is uniquely useful to humans.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#168

Post by leobg »

throwawaycities wrote: post #161
leobg wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had a very similar thought this morning. With the amount of technology today, we should be the happiest, wealthiest generation alive. My grandmother, born in the 1920s, still experienced hunger as a child, fled from the Russians through the ruins of bombed out cities, and, up until not too long ago, had to make a fire in order to have warm water for the bathtub. But I’ve never heard the word “depression” from her eve…

I think there is a lot to unpack in your anecdote about the baker vis-a-vis happiness vs proliferation of depression in modern life. If I had to summarize my own thoughts about it, it’s ownership, community/relationships, and hardships/challenges that can be overcome through hard work. Modern technology counter intuitively gives us very little agency everything is owned by faceless/soulless corporations, technology “…

I agree. Especially the ownership thing.

Tangent:

I remember my mother, in the 1980s, getting a parking ticket. So she had to go to the local police officer. We were a tiny town, a village almost. But there was a police station. And the officer was in charge of this case. He talked to my mother. She explained. And he ended up saying that in this case, he’d be willing to make an exception.

Fast forward to today. I drive to school in the morning. There’s a van at the side of the road. It’s not even police; some kind of contractor. Out on the road, there’s a fancy radar/speed trap thing. They probably paid €100,000 of taxpayer money for it, plus a servicing contract. Were probably promised that it’s gonna pay for itself within two years. And now the two dudes sit inside the van. The machine is doing the work. Tickets are being sent out automatically by a computer system. And there is literally nobody who owns the process.

It is an abstract machinery, turning citizens into objects.

My mother and the policeman, as a result of the encounter, had reached an understanding. They became partners in the higher principle. There was a true connection between the citizens and the state. The state had a face, and there was a local representative who was in charge.

Today, the state has no face. Even the judges in the legal system just act as tiny wheels in the machinery. It’s hard to find anyone whoever owns anything. Much less owns up to anything.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#169

Post by richrichie »

tomrod wrote: post #13
richrichie wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ML search is more about ‘averages’ based on samples. Innovations like these are more about ‘shocks’ that surface fitting cannot capture. Note universal approximation theorem applies only to smooth surfaces.

Not always. Quantile regression exists. And you can develop "no match" categories.

Quantile regression is also about averages.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#170

Post by micromacrofoot »

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #2

> Karla Helena-Bueno discovered a common hibernation factor when she accidentally left an Arctic bacterium on ice for too long. I love how this story follows the magic pattern of so much of innovation and discovery - an accident. It's refreshingly human and not a mode of discovery that machine learning is going to completely take away from us.

not necessarily, machine learning can make more accidents faster
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