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I swear the UFO is coming any minute

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Re: I swear the UFO is coming any minute

#3
Surprisingly many things seem to be spoiled by the "too many of the people being studied were actually other researchers trying to study the same thing" (or even more commonly, students being taught about the thing).

I suspect the ability to post/apply for jobs with AI "to study ___" has played a part in getting us into our present predicament. If only one researcher did it, the results would be negligible, but if a significant number try it, all those negligibles add up.

Re: I swear the UFO is coming any minute

#4
post #2

[flagged]

My first reflexive thought, and I suspect possibly yours too, was "Oh wow it's the same pattern I've seen here for years every time the new get-rich-quick career path drops!" Remember when people would look you dead in the eye and swear to God that you'd have your OS "running on the chain" and PoW would solve the energy hogging problems of crypto? It would be the new money, goodbye fiat, everything would change!

Well a lot of the same players are cashing in on AI, but I'm sure the UFO will show up any day now.

Re: I swear the UFO is coming any minute

#7
You can never know if/when an unraveling event will occur.

A problem may be real but you can't know what the resolution will be or when it will come, if ever. The problem (or feeling of doom or whatever) could disappear on its own without even being acknowledged. Also, you could have identified a valid symptom but not the root cause. You could die before the problem is acknowledged by others. The problem could just affect you and people like you and not be universal.

A related concept in economics is "The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."

If you think a UFO is coming to destroy you, you might be vaguely right in a metaphorical sense that a complex system (or some mysterious adversary) is coming to crush you and your tribe in the next few years due to mysterious reasons though it's not going to be a literal UFO, it may feel like a UFO because you can't fully explain the approaching force but you can feel it intensifying. Without sufficient info and intelligence, the mind will try to transform complex problems that it cannot fully grasp into simple concepts that it can understand and that you can react to and communicate with your tribe (that they can also understand).

A UFO may be a metaphor for a powerful, mysterious, hidden adversary whose capabilities you do not understand. In any case, the correct response is to prepare, hide and flee.

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