recursal/Fanatic-Fandom huggingface dataset:
Growth

where did everything we like and value came from? (everything, even things we take for granted).

life, growth, learning, evolution, progress, production, innovation

parenting, education, training, the shoulders of giants [and perhaps no sign of a limit of this growth into the future]

some technology examples:

* [carrier’s “machinists as bedrock of civilization”],
* my bit about how hubble telescope wasn’t designed from scratch or whatever, had antecedents in ancient rockets and old old telescopes, and other simpler satellites [and each of these had their own progressions].
* Then, of course, carrier’s bit about using a particle accelerator to see what was on those ancient erased documents,
* and my bit about how our VIEW keeps expanding [with microscopes and telescopes and forensics and archeology/paleontology and so on][and even the semi-permanence of writing systems].

"Entropy Vs Life". Entropy is merely a statistical phenomenon that requires vast quantities of particles to hold true (or, you would not speak of entropy if only one particle existed), yet gets elevated to the status of "law". Given the right quantities, is "the random accident" of life also a statistical inevitability?

See also:

* Something Rather Than Nothing
* Why Perfect our Internal Data and Processing?
My Analysis of Arrival (film)

SPOILERS, obviously.

Personally I quickly came to believe that the backstory was the main story. That the arrival of aliens was actually a metaphor for the new life that had arrived for her after those backstory events happened.

I still think I’m correct in my assessment. The learning throughout the movie was a metaphor for processing what happened, and the meaning of it, and how to look at it, and so on.

Also they played with the title a bit, in a way that I think is meaningful.  The ships have arrived, sort of.  But the arrival just brings more waiting (which is kind of the opposite of arrival, like they haven't really arrived yet).  This gets even more explicit in the first scene with the aliens.  The main character asks "now what?" as they wait there.  And the guy says "now...they arrive".  Because they haven't really arrived yet, and we're all still waiting.  Could be a metaphor for the difficulty of coming to terms with such a loss of a child.  It happened, but it doesn't seem real yet, and/or it hasn't been faced yet.

I have to talk about *Shutter Island*, so SPOILER WARNING for that movie too:

Do you remember that song? The one called "On the Nature of Daylight"? Among other places, it was also used in Shutter Island. You may remember that in Shutter Island [SPOILERS!], there is a house with a lake close behind it. Just like there is at the start of Arrival. You may also remember that, in Shutter Island, the mother who lives there kills her children. In Arrival, the narrator talks of how memory doesn't work the way she thought it did. And we learn that learning the alien language allows one to see what will happen in the future, and what we thought were memories are actually scenes of the future. So our memory of the music from Shutter Island might accomplish this same thing in the viewer, a prediction of what will happen! Cool, huh? Indeed, in Arrival, not only does the child die, but also the mother knew this would happen and chose to let it happen (perhaps people who experience a loss like this wonder about thought experiments like that sometimes?). I'd even go so far as to wonder: is this a (brilliantly communicated) commentary on the morality of having children or something? It's neat, anyways!
What is Science?

## what i think science is

figuring out how things work, basically.

but what about observing?  only if it's PART of that [like the finger only being "shooting" if it's holding a gun].  part of the plan [means-ends chain].  [note also:  not merely observing WHETHER something works in a practical sense, or trial and error.  have to figure out WHY there was an error, and WHY there was a success.] neither the telescope (technology) nor the "writing down" of what is observed with the telescope are "the science".  the science is figuring out how things work (and telescopes and writing down observations are merely TOOLS to ACCOMPLISH THAT GOAL.  building THEORETICAL UNDERSTANDING.  explanations [of the observations etc], cause and effect models...

even all the stuff about "falsifiability" as a rule are just tools to accomplish that goal.

and yes the same can be applied to itself:  figuring out what works to figure out what works.  this is known as "methodology".  the theoretical model of methods, and understanding how and why they work [or don't work, or can go wrong, etc.].[so...even "empiricism" is somewhat SUBORDINATE?  just quite unavoidably NECESSARY.  it's so broad]

## Further reading on the subject

Carrier:

* "any method of reliably generating hypotheses, and testing them against the evidence"
* it's "just philosophy with better data"
* based on the values of curiosity, empiricism, progress, and logic
* the main advancement of the "scientific revolution" was "the recognition that more reliable methods are more reliable"
	+ and (or?), paraphrasing: it was revolutionary this time because they were able to finally convince the ELITES of the empire that it was USEFUL and valuable to the power and wealth of the empire
* [link] "If you are only theoretical and unempirical, you get flights of fancy, mythology, no real progress in understanding reality (think, Homeric Greece, Ancient Isreal). If you are empirical but untheoretical, you can accomplish a lot of practical craft knowledge, but you can’t really get at anything deeper. Science requires the productive unification of both, building on a method of formulating hypotheses (models; causal and structural theories), then developing reliable ways to test them for explanatory accuracy."

## see also:

* theoretical knowledge
* reality
* truth
* epistemology
Why care about politics?

Because if it's running well, you want to keep it that way.  If it isn't, you want to fix it.

So, what can really be gained or lost?  How important is it really?  How risky is it to ignore?

Surely young people can at least care about the internet, how free and unrestricted it is?

There's also people besides yourself who can benefit (or suffer) from politics. Do you care about people besides yourself?

## Powerlessness and Apathy

one reason to not care very much: we have very little power to change much of it at all. why spend so much time and effort figuring something so complicated out, and doing so much work towards bringing it about...if none of that matters, and you simply have no significant power?
Intro to Metaphysics

* Metaphysics for beginners
	+ Examples:
		- Object permanence [and REALITY]
		- Space and time?
		- Cause and Effect
		- Flat earth
		- Heliocentrism etc.
			* if it would look the same whether the earth was spinning or if the sun was traveling around it once every day [or some mix of the two], how can you confirm which is true? [comparing view from mars can dispel the mere appearance of heliocentrism. gravity makes sense of heliocentric orbits, inertia makes sense of nay/night spinning. light speed limit rules out universe traveling around earth]
		- One of the times I was mistaken for a ghost
		- Fibers growing from my skin!?
		- Snow ball burning instead of melting!?
		- Ufos
			* the recent videos in the news are explained here (the first link is a general writeup, the rest are videos):
				+ UFOs Are Not That Remarkable
				+ Explained: New Navy UFO Videos
				+ Gimbal UFO: Why Does the Glare Rotate When the Horizon Does Not?
				+ Explained: The Gimbal UFO's Glow/Aura is Just Image Sharpening
				+ Explained: "Go Fast" UFO Video - Not Low and Not Fast - Like a Balloon!
				+ "Pyramid UFO" - NEW FOOTAGE. It's Just Bokeh, not a Pyramid
				+ Is the Nimitz UFO Video Just a Plane?
				+ Nimitz FLIR1 "Tic-Tac" UFO Video - No Sudden Moves!
		- Ancient aliens
		- “Conspiracy theories”
		- Anti-physicalism, metaphysical idealism
	+ The point of all this, the general motives and uses of metaphysics, interpretation, models
		- Metaphysics [“of the gaps”][“what’s over the horizon?”][“what is there when i’m not looking?”][“what exists that i can’t see?”/”god is invisible but so is the wind!”]
		- More relevant stuff?  Sociology?  Propaganda...spin, marketing…”narratives”
			* State religions etc.
		- Epistemology, bayes, models, map vs territory…
			* “Outsider test of faith”, since ANY theory can fit the evidence, you have to compare.  Use bayes.  Etc.
			* Correlation, causation, and coincidence
			* Theoretical modeling
		- What about the future?  Prophecy, hope, etc...
	+ Art
		- Minority Report!
		- Surrealism, david lynch?
		- The X-Files
		- Magic tricks
		- the common children's story cliche where the kids discover something magic, but the adults don't believe them, and the kids try to prove it, but there's some coincidence that makes the adults not see the proof. This also happens sometimes in the X-Files, with a particularly egregious example happening at the end of the 1998 X-Files movie, where Mulder sees a massive and obvious flying saucer, while Scully lies unconscious (and then she wakes up when it's gone).
		- tying metaphysical beliefs in with hope, so that any threat to the belief [skepticism, doubt, disproof] is perceived to be a threat to some kind of important hope ["i *want to* believe", from x-files, concluding the episode "Conduit"]. And then, in stories, toying with this dramatically, so that people are yanked back and forth between disbelief [even acceptance] and belief.
Anti-Truth Ideologies

It seems to me that a lot of ideologies that are wrong aren't simply wrong about their conclusions, they are wrong about how to even figure out what is true. And some seem to be fundamentally enemies of truth.

This is inevitable when people believe they have some goal that is more important than the truth, they will sacrifice the truth to achieve that other goal. For the correct view on this, see my discussion of what is most important, and why truth has to be first, or at least tied for first.

## Win-Lose fundamentalists

If you are trying to dominate and win at the expense of others no matter what, then what people believe is just another tool you will use to accomplish that. Hello propaganda and disinformation.

We see this with totalitarian regimes, like the old USSR, the Nazis, and with Trump.

## Faith

Religious faith is an interesting case because they think they *do* value the truth. There's this thing they value and believe, and they think it's true. The problem is that they are wrong, and they can't easily be corrected. Because the religion is designed to make them value the belief more than *reason itself*.

This is why some seem to be positively compelled to come up with completely unreasonable excuses to believe something that is clearly not reasonable.

A lot of their teachings are designed to ensure they can't be corrected, you get things like "doubting Thomas" (it's better to believe without evidence that it's true! wait, what?), and threats of hell if you stop believing.

## New Age

It's difficult to pin down the origins and motives at work here, but a lot of New Age religion is really anti-reason, and anti-truth. See some obvious examples on my page memes that are basically confessions.
Kintsugi (2015)

death cab for death cab

## Kintsugi: broken is better

wikipedia page for what the word "kintsugi" means

usually: filling the cracks of broken pottery with gold

"As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise."

## Ben breaks up:

* Gibbard became engaged to actress and musician Zooey Deschanel in 2008 and married in September 2009
* Previous Death Cab album [Codes and Keys] released May 31, 2011
* They announced their separation on November 1, 2011, with Deschanel filing for divorce on December 27
* Kintsugi released March 31st 2015 (note: that's one day before April fool's day)

Public reaction (I had seen this somewhere back then, I thought in XKCD, hence I knew to google this):

* Nov 1st 2011 Pitchfork article on breakup
	+ two seemingly independent "sources" on the same day as the article seem to indicate that the Pitchfork article released the same day about their break up originally said "The next Death Cab album is lookin’ good already.” [source 1][source 2]. Wayback machine/internet archive does not have a copy of the article from that day, but their copy from two days later does not contain the line.
* OCt 3rd 2012 "Now, we get to sit on pins and needles until the next Death Cab album and hope a distraught Ben Gibbard has penned a Transatlanticism-level masterpiece"

## Breaking the band

chris walla leaves, is replaced by TWO new members [each of which can fill the hole that chris walla leaves behind in various ways]

## Breaking his arm

he was wearing a cast on his arm around the time the album released and he was going around giving interviews

## April Fools:

* 2008, an album by the band Velveteen was "leaked" as the new Death Cab album as an april fools prank, but (looking now) it seems that the band had nothing to do with the prank.
* 2008 Just Jazzin. Death Cab did their own April fool's prank in 2008 as well. They pretended to have a new jazz band in a short video. [source][source][source]

## My experience?

* this was first time i had to stop listening to a death cab album half way through out of disinterest
* at some point i did wonder if it was some kind of april fool's prank

## Song analysis

mostly "good help" and "binary sea". the rest of the songs seem to be examples of how to do a death cab song wrong. like the broken version of death cab

### **Binary Sea**

in an interview, the writer said the last line of the song is"like a gun pointing at the head of the audience" [can i find a citation link to that?], which confirmed the impression i had on the first listen
Nice Put-Togethers

Some examples of lots of value that is put together into one thing. perhaps could be called "all in one"

### Home

* heat
* electricity
* water
* bedroom
* bathroom
* kitchen
* laundry
* storage
* etc.

### Cell phones

* phone
* camera
* music player
* movie player
* internet
* flashlight
* calculator
* [various apps]

### Misc

* malls
* cities
* swiss army knife, buzz lightyear
* internet
* various art forms
	+ music can combine many instruments etc.
	+ movies combine audio, visual, narrative, etc.
	+ video games too
* people with multiple talents (perhaps a "jack of all trades")

### Breakfast example:

Syrup is pretty nice. But have you ever tried drinking multiple spoonfuls of just pure syrup? It's kind of unpleasant. Turns out it's much better when combined with pancakes or waffles. maybe a bit of butter. perhaps a strawberry or some banana. and hashbrowns, eggs, and bacon or sausage.

The combination of all of these things is better than any of them on their own. That's not just about the quantity of each, either. You could fill an entire plate with any one of those items (a full plate of just waffles, or a full plate of just bananas, or a full plate of just bacon, or a full plate of just eggs...etc.) and none of them would be as good as the plate that has a bit of all of them. Mixing the eggs with the hash browns and adding cheese (and maybe a little mayo and mustard) can also be quite nice.
Truth

What is "truth"? Are some things more important than knowing the truth? Or telling the truth? See also: What is most important?

## What is meant by the word "truth"?

Truth is when we create a model of reality, a hypothesis, and it matches reality (rather than mismatching, being contrary to reality).

See also:

* *Sense And Goodness Without God*, section 2.2.6, Facts and Hypotheses
* here's the LessWrong guy's take on the subject, which is even longer than most of the things he writes! And uses morbid humor against his intellectual opponents!
* my page about what the word "reality" means.

## How to figure out what is true?

See:

* my page about Epistemology
* Figuring out what is true

## Do we need to use truth?

Can we use lies instead? What about half truths? Or something we think is close enough?

What about ideas like "it doesn’t matter if astrology is real; it matters if it’s useful"?

In the hierarchy of values, honesty is below compassion and reasonableness. It is sometimes either uncompassionate or unreasonable to be honest (or fully honest). But for many reasons I think that's rarely the case in important matters.

In our own heads, it is most reasonable and compassionate towards ourselves to know the truth, nearly in every case.

See also:

* Richard Carrier's The Real Basis of a Moral World:

> "any system of false beliefs is doomed also to have many side effects that are damaging or even ruinous of human satisfaction, bringing about unexamined or unexpected harms and failures. Because it is impossible to design any epistemology that only conveniently ever discovers harmless or helpful false beliefs. Which means, while you are deploying the epistemology you need to get people to believe what you suppose to be harmless or helpful false beliefs, you and they will also be accumulating with that same epistemology many other false beliefs, which won’t just conveniently be harmless or helpful. “Ideological pollution,” as it were. You need a cleaner source of ideas. Otherwise you just make things worse and worse. Whereas any epistemology that will protect you from harmful false beliefs, will inevitably expose even the helpful and harmless ones as false"
>
>

and What's the Harm?

See also:

* The overlap of decision-making and figuring out what is true
* many of the memes that are basically confessions
* Die, "Noble" Lie!

## The Future and Choice

Two related areas where the truth can trip-up our simple notions are the future and choice.

Can we choose what we want to be true? Sometimes. That's what every single choice is inherently about. [some may wish to read up on compatibilist free will here. the entire debate about free will might be partly due to this exact trip-up regarding truth and choice, and/or vice versa]

And that entire human thing is going to be connected here. The things we create. An obvious example would be the laws of our governments. [and, interestingly, even human language and philosophy is a human creation, including our philosophy of truth, see Epistemological Endgame][though some may wonder how much conscious choice was involved with the evolution of some human stuff].
Division of Information Labor, from Simple to Advanced

I didn't know what to call it, but here's a "spectrum" I imagined:

* simple grunts etc.
* [the space around/steps prior to articulate/analytic, literal language]
* articulate/analytic, literal language
* writing
* math
* computers
* internet, search engines
* semantic net
* artificial intelligence assisted semantic internet thing

Though it turns out that this "spectrum" can be split into more than one.

* number of "users" who receive the info (can also be "per unit time"/"per unit effort" here)
* ambiguity/unambiguity

### Information Processing

* quantity of information processed per unit time
* quantity of information processed per unit effort/energy
* skill required by the user
* types of calculations that can be done
* frequency and type of errors

## Trust

Division of intellectual labor is of little use if you can't trust the quality of work that it gives to you.  Was the data used in the calculation accurate?  Was the calculation correctly formulated to give the information you wanted?

A good solution is some kind of auditing and review process that you, personally, can trust (Trust Aggregation).  Information and Information processing *about* the information and information processing.

## See also

* Argument map, Argument Interchange Format
* Aggregation
What Do Things Mean?

Meaning is about the connection or relation between one thing and another.

While everything can be considered connected to everything else in some way, asking about the meaning of something is implicitly an inquiry about the connections that are most relevant, important, or noteworthy (the top few items of an aggregation).

What someone means by a communication is about the intended (hoped for) connection between signs (such as words) and other things.

Similar to means-ends chains, there are generally meaning chains between two different things, and the whole chain connects the two.

See also: how things happen, and name calling.
My Tastes in Art

I make art, I enjoy art.  What kinds?  Read on to find out.

## Art that I Enjoy

### Movies

* Absolute favourite movies: Mulholland Dr., Upstream Color, ALIEN, eXistenZ, The Truman Show, Inland Empire, The Assasination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Collateral, Little Fish, Ghost in the Shell (1995), Cube, Cube Zero, The Land Before Time, Star Wars original trilogy theatrical versions, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, THX 1138, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, The Element of Crime
* Near favorite movies: Blade Runner, and Blade Runner 2049, The Matrix, Twin Peaks (the movie version of the pilot episode, released in Europe), Fire Walk With Me, Pu-239, Minority Report, The Fountain, Stardust, Toy Story, War of the Worlds (2005), Hulk (2003), King Kong (2005), I'm Not There, Poltergeist (1982), The Thing, Under the Skin, Dune, Pitch Black, Riddick, I, Robot
* Plenty of other good movies: Inception, The Dark Knight, Quiz Show, Pan's Labyrinth, Mad Max: Fury Road, Alien 3, Shutter Island, Indiana Jones 1 and 3, Zardoz, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Beyond the Black Rainbow, Doom, Master and Commander, Speed Racer, Return to Oz, The Lord of the Rings trilogy

Definitely not:  The Force Awakens

### Music

Almost all the stuff [pre-2015] by:  Ben Gibbard, Young Galaxy, Muse

Here's some playlists I've made

Other specific things:

* some Klaus Schulze, such as Bayreuth Return from Timewind, and most of Farscape
* a bunch of Elton John, Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, Brian Eno,
* some fairly popular songs from the 50s to the early 2000s
* the Morrowind Soundtrack (or here or here), the Starcraft Soundtrack (or here or here)
* lots from Halo (or here) [although the available versions from the separately sold soundtrack are sort of remixes, and every time i listen to it, a short segment of music from the main menu, here at 2:20, seems to be missing], Perfect Dark N64, Command and Conquer N64, and other games too
* the original Deus Ex soundtrack is often quite lovely
* movie soundtracks that I actually listen to: The Truman Show, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
* when i was young, we had "Songs of the Sea" on tape. in the late 90s and early 2000s, it could often be heard playing in our house, or in our car. it's pretty nice. i had the tracks copied to digital files, but the sound quality wasn't great. finally, here it is

### Video Games

I haven't played much games in a long long time [i haven't had a tv or consoles for over a decade] but i liked plenty of classics from super nintendo, N64, and X-box. Some less-known games I liked include S.C.A.R.S. and BattleZone.

See also: Juicy Things in Games.

### Youtube

* Best Short Films
* Pretty good short films
* Video game videos that are like short films (some have commentary, so I mute them, I tried to find versions with no commentary but it is frustratingly difficult!)
* Misc Neat Stuff
* Cyberpunk visuals
* 70s ish music
* Discussions and Analyses

## Art I've Made

My DeviantArt

My Youtube Videos

## See also

* My Art Analyses
* my bandcamp list
My Experience in Academic Sociology

* What is sociology?
* what is science?

* intro course
	+ "theories"
* methods course
	+ knowledge
	+ ethics
	+ ethnography
* SOCI 307 Indiginous Peoples of Canada

## SOCI 371 Sociology of Families

"My first reaction was dismay when I was invited to contribute a chapter to this book on the future of the family—on what basis could I possibly make any sensible predictions?"

This is the textbook for the course on sociology of families. This quote seems to reveal a comfort with *history*, not sociology. And not explanatory history, but a kind of mere chronicling.

Predicting the future of technology is similarly difficult, but people do it and never bemoan "on what basis could I possibly make any sensible predictions". Predicting the weather is difficult, but we can predict it fairly accurately for a short term, and climate in the long term. Perhaps most sympathetically comparable might be trying to predict the future evolution of some species, but even there I think it would be pretty clear what basis you might use to make sensible predicitons (or multiple contingent ones).

I'm left wondering what the writer beleives the value of the book would be if this wasn't possible.

Another way of looking at it: instead of arguing here about whether it is possible or not, why didn't the writer already know? Or, why hasn't the scientific community already tried and theorized and tested documented what is possible and what is not? What are they doing?

But there are some ways I could be more fair, or interpret more charitably.
A Sometimes Unpleasant Person I Know

I won't name any names right now.

Once (around spring 2016), I criticized the Trump wall, and he shot back "but you're doing the same thing to racists" or something, I had to point out that, no I don't advocate blocking racists from immigrating where they want to.  So I'm not doing the same thing.  At all.

And that was difficult for me, because it was so sudden and bizarre that I didn't know how to respond right away.  When I did, it took a bit of back and forth, but he eventually conceded.

Another time, I talked about an article which claimed that some Hillary email proved something.  But (I discovered after looking into it) it couldn't have proved such a thing, since the email was 2014, but the other event they say it proved she knew about happened years prior.  So it can't prove she knew about it back then.  Just because she knows the thing now doesn't mean she knew it back then.

After I said people need to look at the sources like that, he said "same with criticism of Trump" or something.  I said that the sources for criticism of Trump are often about things *Trump himself said*.  He (as usual) tried the "you too" childish tactic by literally exasperatedly saying "then you could just say Hilary is the source for criticisms against her too" and made this scrunched up incredulous face shaking his head with a little laugh.  But that wouldn't make sense, if he understood what I meant.  In no way would claiming "Hilary is the source for criticisms against her too" fix the logical flaws in the article I debunked.  And thus the criticism against her arose only from a logical flaw made by *the critic*, not from Hilary.  Meanwhile, Trump himself says things that are false, immoral, bad policy, and so on.

And again this was so sudden, hostile, adrenaline-inducing, and bizarrely illogical that I didn't know how to reply.  So his nonsensical outburst remained unchallenged that day, unfortunately.
The Society Battle Royale

The Society Battle Royale is an event held by The Snake Eyes Society. Currently, the inaugural battle royale is being organized but if it goes well it will become a template for future iterations of the event.

## Concept

The members of the Snake Eyes Society select a group of adventurers from across different time periods and realities to compete in a battle royale. This is typically handled by Edwyn Ferengi, The Realitist as he is accustomed to the role of recruiting adventurers to a cause. Although typically manipulative and subtle in his method of doing so, the battle royale invitations are blatant, almost gaudy displays of Edwyn's magical capabilities, but do not compel the recipients to answer the call in any way. Nothing is at stake besides the competitors' honour, so the Society's stance is that any who are unwilling to participate are unwelcome to.

After a participant is selected, if they answer the summons they are transported to the Snake Eyes Sanctum alongside the adventurers they will be competing against. The Adjudicators will introduce themselves and each adventurer will be given the opportunity to influence or impress one of them in order to receive a boon. The boons can vary dramatically in function and are based on the Adjudicator granting it.

## Event History

Snake Island Battle Royale - The inaugural Snake Eyes Society Battle Royale, this ongoing contest will serve as both a test for the event and a template for future iterations of it. It's taking place on Snake Island, an artificial plane crafted by the Society to serve as a battlefield.
Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music

I recently watched The Sound of Music, then later Mary Poppins, after not seeing them for years (the latter much longer than the former).  During this I was of the mistaken belief that The Sound of Music was made earlier than Mary Poppins, perhaps a decade earlier.

So it seemed to me as though, perhaps, Mary Poppins was the psychedelic age's response to The Sound of Music.  It certainly is a psychedelic movie, of the classic British (and "British invasion") variety (another is Willy Wonka, and Alice in Wonderland, and the 60s TV show "The Prisoner" comes to mind).

I think comparisons come easily, but perhaps moreso when I believed that was the chronological order of their creation:

* in Poppins, the house with a sea captain on top seemed like a reference to the running of a home like a ship in The Sound of Music
* at the start, the fathers don't engage much with their children, who want their affection
* both have a series of unsuccessful nannies, and Julie Andrews comes in as the successful one
* In Sound of Music, two women are contrasted and in competition ("is there anything you can't do?" after the puppet play).  In Poppins, it's the father contrasted with Bert.
* similar personality/worldview of the fathers at the start (some Productivity VS Leisure type stuff).  The one in Poppins seemed like a parody of the one in Music.  Unsexy, ridiculous.

Sort of a side note to the comparison:  the cannon blasts at the top of the hour seem intended to comment on the strict timekeeping of Mr. Banks.  Whether unleashing disruptive chaos, or requiring strict order, neither are very harmonious to the people around them (they are both rather imposing, and others around them have to do the work of keeping order).
Epistemological Defeatism

I'm using the term "epistemological defeatism" as a label for the view that good epistemology (reasoning based on logic and evidence) is a losing strategy for changing minds.  (usually because of the flawed nature of people's minds, and usually in politics, religion, etc.).

This is unlike Agnosticism, which is the view that, even if our belief formation was perfectly logical, we simply lack the information/data/facts required to answer some question.

## But doesn't science say that epistemological defeatism is true?

I don't currently have an exhaustive knowledge of the science on this , but here's some links debunking or questioning some of those claims:

* Debunking: A Meta-Analysis of the Psychological Efficacy of Messages Countering Misinformation, summarized here by Rebbeca Watson, which I found via Siggy
* fact-checking-doesnt-backfire-new-study-suggests
* Searching for the Backfire Effect, a September 2020 literature review on the backfire effect.
* the-jugglers-paradox-kahans-latest-mistake

Also note: scientific studies often are measuring average human capability.  It is illogical to conclude that, therefore, we can't grow to do better.  As an analogy, imagine a study of average human strength.  If the study found it was low among the general population, would that mean that it was impossible to become stronger?  No, clearly we know from other studies how to become stronger using the right physical exercise methodology.  You could also do comparisons to other skill training, or even methods of curing phobias (since fear can be a cause of bias).  Defeatism is not warranted.

## Different versions of Epistemological Defeatism

In some specific cases, some of these might be true. For example, some people really do seem to have strong delusion. But, that probably has to be determined in a case-by-case basis, it hasn't been found to fit any easy general rules.

Strong VS weak (or "possibility" VS "practicality"):

* reason *can't* convince
* reason isn't effective *enough* as a strategy to convince

1st person, 2nd person, 3rd person, etc. ("who" can't be convinced):

* I'm too irrational to be convinced by reason
* you are too irrational to be convinced by reason
* they are too irrational to be convinced by reason
How to Build Social Capital and Community

I've talked about why we should do this, now we need to figure out how.

Need to recruit and grow network, but also maintain the bonds and sustain the community.

## Some speculation for now

Mutual benefit.

Giving and receiving, generosity and gratitude, are supposed to help bond people.  Which makes sense, that's why people group together, it's mutually beneficial. So offering value is a good place to start. Especially in a social way, or in a context with social opportunity.

Interest, awareness, and trust are (I suspect) important key factors to gaining new members. See also: matching and alignment, and Who we can build social capital with.

One case is when people already have an interest that you can meet, and they simply need to become aware that your community exists.  In that case, once they are made aware it is very likely they will try to join unless they get turned off somehow.  Once they arrive, they will need an experience that suits their preference (I suspect niches/subgroups within a group will facilitate this best), so that they will want to stay.

Another case would be where people don't currently see your group as interesting to join.  Note that they may still see your group as an "ally", or potential ally, which can still be useful (for example, promoting/mentioning each other increases the chances of interested people becoming aware of your group).

### **Just do what a community does?**

I kind of think that building social capital and community mostly just involves doing what a community does. And it will grow and develop.

## Possibly useful further reading etc.

* Social Capital: Prospects for a New Concept (which is available free online)
* How to attract audiences: a radical rethink

## See also

* 36 Questions to Fall in Love
* Mutual benefit
* What a Community Should Do
* List of Social Divisions
* matching and alignment.
What is Most Important?

Here's a thought experiment I offer to some people who seem to be stuck intellectually:  can anything be more important than the wisdom to correctly rank the importance/value of things?  How would you know?

You have to rely on this ability to even *try* correctly ranking something else as being of higher importance.

I think this ability must surely be one of most important things.  And it's a subset of epistemology.

But discovering what is most important is only a means to an end. What end is that? *Achieving* whatever is most important. Science hasn't yet discovered what is most important to humans (though it theoretically could). So we have to do our best given the facts available.

Here's my work-in-progress list of important things for humanists/progressives to pursue improving:

**Make People More Reasonable**:

* Without correct discerning and thinking, we’ll make more errors when trying to figure out what other things are most important, and how to achieve them.
* What kinds of things do people need to learn?
	+ How to think for themselves, and avoid errors of thought
	+ Important/useful things, and how we know those things
		- Especially about the next important items on my list:  Economic stuff (what policies should they vote for?  How to use their own money to make money, etc.), and Social Stuff (like ethics, boundaries, social skills).
	+ Why they should be progressive, rather than regressive or stagnant.  What that means, why they should care, etc.

I think what is "next" most important is something larger that actually includes the ability to reason about what is most important. So it sort of is the most important thing. And that is: maximizing your satisfaction about yourself and the world. Rationality is a means to those ends, and something to feel good about yourself for having and striving to attain more of.

Everything else that follows is also a means to that end:

* Learning to feel good about the good in our lives. Otherwise it (whether a little or a lot) is wasted.
* Civilization/community. Starting from basic, to ensuring Human rights, all the way to better attaining and securing the all needs and then desires of each person. And what follows is really a subset of this.
* Make lives more free from economic worries, bad jobs, etc.
	+ Money can usually be used to get most other things you need
* Social Needs, Can basically take care of the rest of your needs

## See also

* My Values
* Paved with good Intentions
Making The Right Generalizations

Generalizations can go wrong in all sorts of ways.  Let's try to get them right.

## The right way

If you say something unambiguous:

* members of the group referred to are easily distinguishable from non-members of the group
* your claim about the group is unambiguous, precise, and accurate

that would seem to be correct.

## How this can be screwed up

Those criteria for correctness can be screwed up:

* members of the group referred to are not so easily distinguishable from non-menbers of the group
* your claim about the group is ambiguous, imprecise and/or not accurate

## Distinguishing members from non-members

Often times, groups are referred to using vague labels (possibly due to laziness, indistinct thinking, and/or the poverty of our language).  This can leave people wondering.  It also leaves open the possibility for bias in hypothesis testing, such as the sharpshooter fallacy, where that ambiguity is "resolved" into precision only after the test has occurred.

## Precise claims

We need fairly precise claims so that we can test them, basically.

If the claim is too vague, a test might either not be possible, or different interpretations of the claim will exist (some might be true/accurate when tested, some might be false/inaccurate).

## See also

* What Are Things?
* "Name Calling" Consists of Unargued Conclusions on Facts and Values
Django Programming

In order to help me learn Django, and remember what I learned in the future, I'll be writing about it here. Aside from summaries of tutorials, I might write summaries for specific topics, and also link all these summaries to a more detailed version for whenever that is needed.

The official Django Documentation can also be helpful, though it's rather terse and thus a bit unclear to beginners. It does link to some more tutorials.

## Some good tutorials

Check these out:

* My page about installing Django
* The Mozilla Django Tutorials are the best I've seen so far.
* This one already has a great table of contents, and summaries for each section
* Here is my summary of the tutorial series from pythonprogramming.net

## Some Specific Topics

Exploring more than one source of info to build my own tutorials, basically:

* Django Forms
Issues to Care About

Just want to list a bunch of issues that are important. Probably can't solve these without a community/network that is big enough and strong enough to match the challenge. How ya gonna solve these without a massive community/network? Slowly? At all? And that's not even mentioning all the everyday mundane ways that networks/communities help us individually.

## Everything Bad

like:

* poverty
* war
* climate disaster
* fascism, extremism
* risk of nuclear war
* threats to democracy
* threats to trust aggregation, destruction of the ability to determine truth
	+ Agnotology
	+ propagandists
	+ lack of "investigative journalism", etc.
	+ lack of verification, unbiased "peer review"
* feeling helpless, powerless
* oligarchy, monopolies, money in govt
* exploitation, wealth hoarding
* ideological disagreement, bad ideas, charlatans etc.
* every damn election/voting issue

anti-humanist forces competing against us:

* giant world-spanning catholic church that owns hospitals and have huge influence
* (in USA mostly, and a bit elsewhere) Fox "news" (apparently in the USA it's more popular than real news stations), Trump supporters, "Evangelicals", Armageddon Lobby

## Things we should have already

like:

* full easy access to abortion
* LGBTQ etc rights, medical etc etc
* better support for parents, childcare
* proper education on all subjects:
	+ sex ed
	+ thinking skills
	+ the truth about reality, the world, our place in it, naturalism
	+ math even
	+ etc
* legal sex work
* legal drugs, medical help for addiction etc.
* more healthcare coverage probably, USA especially needs improvement on this
* humane death
* investment in merit-nurturing meritocracy, not:
	+ popularity contest, irrelevant charisma basis, mere marketing, other aesthetic basis
	+ luck
	+ nepotism etc
	+ might makes right
* for science:
	+ needs to be well funded
	+ fix biased publishing
* probably what I call "Big Social Science" tbh. Massive continuous *voluntary* data collection from tons and tons of people, very useful
* proper democracy. Not:
	+ wealth based
	+ family-based
	+ first past the post
	+ forced to choose only one option, vote splitting
Cavalier

*Class: Cavalier*

Riding into battle atop a powerful steed, wielding knightly armaments and wearing shining armor, Cavaliers are the quintessential image of a knight. Trained in the Green Guard, Cavaliers devote themselves fully to a cause, becoming heroes to those they protect and bringing honor and prestige to their name in doing so.

## Martial Tradition

Cavaliers are trained to fight on horseback using heavy armaments to take advantage of the strength and speed of their steeds.

**Equipment:**Knightly Training, Armor Training

**Spheres:** Beastmastery [Ride]

**Variable:** Gain one Beastmastery or Equipment talent of your choice.

**Special:** Cavaliers can be a member of one of six orders: The Order of The Pawn (Shield), The Knight (Flame), The Bishop (Star), The Rook (Monument), The King (Lion) or The Queen (Shroud)
Matching and Alignment Issues

I think this is a common type of social inefficiency.

Kinds of matches/mismatches:

* similarity matching (like having the same goal, interests, means of pursuing a goal, or personal preference)
* difference matching (like someone having something and another person wanting it)

Further dimensions for each of the above:

* degree of match/mismatch
* degree of certainty about any variable
* the circumstances/timeframe/place for which any of the above applies

## See also:

* mutual benefit
* coordination games in game theory
* the free preview of The Best Interface is No Interface I read on Amazon was a bit related, because it also deals with a situation where there are many variables, and the interface is used to essentuially specify each of the variables (for "matching" the desired functionality to the present situation).
* 'Alignment', not 'alliance' – the shifting paradigm of international security cooperation: toward a conceptual taxonomy of alignment THOMAS S. WILKINS (it seems there is a paper with same author and similar title, just without the final peice of the subtitle, available here)
* Maxwell's Demon: Why Information is Entropy
* means and ends chains
* There’s a Difference Between Cooperation and Collaboration  "most managers are cooperative, friendly, and willing to share information — but what they lack is the ability and flexibility to align their goals and resources with others in real time."
Quest for Bigger Figuring Things Out

give tons more individuals the skills and attitudes to figure things out [ideally using free public education system]

fixing issues in science publishing, funding, review, replication, etc.

"big social science"

better democracy [higher bandwidth? and less gated power?]

other data things [lifelogging? not necessarily the camera version though. stuff like covid risk calculator][trust aggregation? stuff like my other website ideas?]

beyond detailed data, what about:

* "putting things together"?
* connections between things?
* filling cracks in systems?
* coordinating?

maybe examples:

* some academic work goes into unifying theory, i suppose
* business models "put together" value chains and such. if anyone ever has a good idea, should it be a startup? does a business model fit everything that could be a good endeavour? and is that the best fit for everything? arguments that individual things in markets inevitably leave cracks they can't fill, coordination problems, externalities, forced bottle-necking, not everything can (best) be fit into a direct transaction? arguments for government-type roles, broad insurance/investment, even the types of arguments that get used around UBI.
* networking...
Aggregation

I'll get into why and how.

Some spectrums:

1. number of items aggregated
2. degree of information compression (compressing info into a single word is the ultimate compression; a phrase, sentence, title, or headline is high compression, a summary is a bit less compression)
3. which levels of information compression are available (does it just have a full text and a title, or does it also have a table of contents with sections and sub sections, with summaries for each section?)

## See also

* Social Inefficiencies
* Division of Information Labor, from Simple to Advanced
* Trust Aggregation
Who we can build social capital with

By "we" I'm referring to people with Humanist values and such.

And the general answer is that we should build social capital with people to the degree that they are aligned with our means and ends.

More specific ideas of who to connect with:

* CCVO, and their members
* clubs at university, groups on meetup dot com that are aligned with us
* community centers

* citizens who are talk about local politics
* people from various social divisions
Exploration of Capitalism in Oliver and Company

From the very start, we see a kitten waiting to be sold (competing with others to be chosen).  It ends up in homelessness, poverty.  Its labor and risk is exploited by a dog.  It meets a rich dog, who will not share her wealth.  It is kidnapped and held for ransom by a poor man who needs money. And obviously loans, or whatever.
The Value of People

People are valuable to:

* themselves
* other people

And they can be valuable either:

* in their contribution to accomplishing some other goal
* in immediate experience (in their mind or in the minds of others)

## Means to an end (extrinsic value)

People are basically supercomputers (better, even).  We can do (and learn to do) all sorts of things.

In a networking workshop, the speaker identified three ways a contact could be useful:

* connector
* influencer
* decision maker

People can also be:

* doers (whether collaborators, co-workers, employed by you, etc.)

People can contribute the following to a means-ends chain:

* skill
* resources
* knowledge

## Ends in themselves (intrinsic value)

Not everything of value is only valuable in its ability to get something else of value. At the end of all reasonable chains of means and ends are things that are simply valuable in themselves, like fun and aesthetics and satisfaction. These are always experiences/feelings that we want.

We value our own life experience, thus we have intrinsic value.

## See also

* Why we should build social capital
* Mutual benefit