recursal/Fanatic-Fandom huggingface dataset:
Full Humanism

I've outlined Basic Humanism, what about Full Humanism?

In the past, I've mentioned the following basic outline to some people before:

* improving individuals
* improving their lives
* improving the group
* improving the world

Here I'll explain some of my thinking on the matter in greater detail.

## The Goal: Good Lives

The whole point of full humanism is accomplishing the goals of basic humanism. What matters to us. Having a good life.

So from there, you might ask: what is a good life? What is most important?
And then: how do you really accomplish that?

In abstract terms, I tend to think of the ideal life in terms of combining comfort, enjoyment, and purpose (and for domains of life, I usually think about roles, relationships, and hobbies. simple leisure is also worth considering). Mere comfort can become boring, enjoyment but no purpose can start to feel empty (and no longer enjoyable), and purpose without comfort and enjoyment is one way of burning out (which decreases productivity). Another framework I find somewhat compelling is the model of "psychological flow", where new challenges are balanced with a degree of current ability (with the challenges being neither too small nor too large for the current degree of ability)(note also this is about an internal and an external state coming together). I think this is kind of like the right combination of comfort and purpose to produce enjoyment.

### The Group [Outside the Individual]

One of the most valuable things for any individual is other people.

What a Community Should Do
Is Physicalism True?

If you think physicalism is bad or evil, you should probably read "Is Physicalism Bad?" before reading this page.

To answer "Is physicalism true?" we need to first know what it means for something to be true (for that, see this page), then we need to know what physicalism is, then lastly we can finally set out to answer the question "Is physicalism true?".

## What is Physicalism?

Physicalism basically means that everything in this universe, everything we can experience, is physical.

So what does it mean for a thing to be physical?

You could say it means that everything about that thing can be described by mathematical equations. Equations of physics.

You can also contrast with "the supernatural", which wouldn't be physical, it would involve entities and powers that lacked physical form or mechanism.

If you want to get more technical you could try something like Richard Carrier's most precise description so far on the distinction between the natural (physical) and the supernatural:

"It comes down to information processing:
(1)  if anything behaves non-randomly, why?
(2)  is it because of an assembly of individual parts each of which is the simplest possible act of processing (none logically simpler being possible)?
(3)  or are there steps of processing being skipped–they have no mechanism, they just magically happen with no reductive cause?
A yes to 2 is naturalism. A yes to 3 is supernaturalism.
That’s the ontological distinction. Most obvious when comparing macro systems (the ontological difference between Harry Potter and Forbidden Planet is undeniable)."
Notice here also "reductionism", which basically finds the more "fine-grained"/precise and complete descriptions of things to be simpler and all the same kinds of things. Supernatural/non-physical things would lack this, in the way Carrier says above.

## Is physicalism True?

To figure this out, remember it's important to understand what "true" means and how to figure out what is true.

In a basic sense, the concepts of reductionism and mechanism, physics equations and such have been so successful in explaining things (and we have no confirmed cases of any other kinds of explanations) that it's natural to think "hey maybe EVERYTHING can be explained this way". If that's all we ever find, and you want to place a bet on what you'll find next, well it seems like the best bet, by FAR.

Alternatives:

### **Idealism**

Some proponents:

* Bernardo Kastrup
* Rupert Sheldrake
* Deepak Chopra

## See also:

* Richard Carrier's Defending Naturalism as a Worldview: A Rebuttal to Michael Rea's World Without Design (2003)
* Sense and Goodness Without God
* Reality
What a Community Should Do

*See also, List of Social Activities*.

This is the general "community outline" I have made so far.

### Improving our state, maintaining our state:

* Building, pursuing, and/or sharing (*see also, Matching and Alignment, means-ends chains, problem solving, and The Value of People*):
	+ knowledge
	+ skills
	+ trust
	+ virtues
	+ purpose
	+ leisure
	+ opportunities
	+ goals
	+ resources
	+ services
	+ technology
	+ vision
	+ the future: predict opportunities, changes, and dangers, be proactive [see also: The Shape of Things to Come]

### Growth:

* Recruitment:
	+ marketing
	+ networking, relationship building (see also, How to Build Social Capital and Community)
	+ outreach
* Subdivision (everyone wants to have their own perfect fit, not one size fits all.  Subdivision may also distribute decision making and power more evenly)

Personally I would be hard core with the win-win spirit, and do these directly and intentionally, rather than waiting for them to occur "naturally" (which is a process that I think suffers from various social inefficiencies).  And, of course, technology can improve the process in various dimensions too.

## Some more things to read:

Here's a link dump:

* The Five Keys to a Successful Google Team (Psychological safety, Dependability, Structure & clarity, work that is Meaningful, and work that is Impactful)
* need to prevent and deal with abusive people, see: "No more rockstars: how to stop abuse in tech communities" and "Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men"

* something like a dividing cell structure probably
* one explicit (and intense) organization method is Holacracy, and of course there's Democracy (or even Advanced Democracy)
* I might have some thoughts to share on the subjects of this essay "The Craft is Not The Community" (aside from the fact that it's unnecessarily long, because that's how LessWrong people write), and this correction commenting on it.  I've already had some of my own thinking on similar/related topics
* this post by The Unit of Caring
* this advice from Richard Carrier

## See also

* Mutual benefit
* List of Social Activities
* Ladder of Social Feedback Mechanisms
* How to Build Social Capital and Community
Jordan Peterson

Richard Carrier says:

From all I've seen so far, I think that guy might be a nutcase and a crank. I doubt anything productive could happen in a conversation between us. All he does is obfuscate, ignore evidence, argue in circles, and avoid ever acknowledging any criticism as actually stated. Just like the worst of Christian apologists.
Not everything every critic says of him is correct, but there is enough among them that is, to take heed of, and explore more yourself. For example: https://www.psychologytoday.com/.../jordan-peterson-s... ; http://www.alexanderblum.net/.../critique-jordan-b-peterson/ ; https://www.chronicle.com/.../What-s-So-Dangerous.../242256 ; http://digg.com/2018/jordan-peterson-book-review ; just for a start.
Also this article:  The Intellectual We Deserve.

## Why are people drawn to him?

Well, obviously he is an anti-"sjw"-warrior, so those people appreciate that he is on their side, fighting their fight.

But there's also stuff like what this person claims here:

The Jordan Peterson phenomenon is mainly caused by our failure to take the pain of men, especially young men, seriously.
Men, especially white men, today are dealing with an impossible series of challenges. There are few satisfying roles for them in society anymore. They are ridiculed. They feel persecuted. They feel unloved. [...]
His message might be phrased, “Life is bounded by suffering and malevolence and the only antidote is meaning, which is found through responsibility.”
So basically they look to him for guidance to deliver them from the suffering in their lives.  I recommend getting guidance from better sources.  For example, Richard Carrier recently posted his own general guide about how we should conduct ourselves.  I also recommend my thinking skills page (because all correct general advice like Carrier's will require you to think in order to act in your specific unique life, so you better get good at thinking), my values page, and, well, a lot of my pages.
Social Inefficiencies

Things that are inefficient, that are social.

Matching and Alignment Issues:

* disagreeing on goals, and/or the means of pursuing them
* people being unfamiliar (or incompatable) with each other's social norms and expectations
* unnecessary creation of enemies
* trusting people you shouldn't trust
* failing to trust people that you should trust

Efficient use of resources:

* unnecessary duplication of labor
* unnecessary limiting (bottlenecking) of labor
* valueing things more or less than they should be valued
* economic downturns, crashes, etc. probably involve a lot of inefficiency
* failing to share goods and resources (including intentional artificial scarcity)
* people waste time and energy trying things that aren't going to work (or that could at least be done much better), I guess they need to be educated about how to do things, and about problem solving in general

Information processing:

* sometimes developing better knowledge could potentially happen, but discussion is slowed or stopped by unpleasant human emotions, and there doesn't seem to be an easier way (so we need to develop easier ways)
* human thinking errors
* information disconnection.  Some info is known by people inside a group but not outside.  Can lead to people "re-inventing the wheel", unnecessary duplication of labor
* for a lot of things, people are just not as fast or as well connected as computers
Theoretical Knowledge

* Theoretical knowledge
	+ Evidence VS explanation FOR the evidence [/facts, events, etc.]
	+ VS skill, technology, tradition, etc.
	+ The examples like “how does a toilet work”?
	+ Equivalence of figuring out what to do and figuring out what is true
	+ Meta-knowledge, meta-learning
	+ investigating/verifying/going down [below “surface”] to the details [further/beyond?]
		- Falsification?
* Why it’s valuable
	+ prediction/imagination/simulation
* Ideology
	+ Interpretation, “Echo chamber”/augmented-reality effect? [minority report]
* Action, methods, and methodology
	+ methodology is the combination of theory and methods. if theory is about how things work and why, then methodology is about how certain methods work and why (and why other methods, or variations, would not). [see also: The equivalence of decision-making and figuring out what is true]
* My intro to metaphysics
	+ physicalism?
	+ Reality

see also: Truth.
David Lynch logic puzzles in Twin Peaks Season 3

Some fun moments that stood pout to me, seems kinda like he specifically crafted these to be like philosophical challenges/puzzles.

* "We laid everything out, Hawk, and we can't find anything that's missing." "If it's not here, then... how do you know it's missing?" "But if it is here... then it isn't missing?" [makes it seem like it's not logically possible to figure out what is missing from the collection by looking at the collection][memory and evidence][The contrapositive of "If A, then B," is "If not B, then not A." ]
* "Does a coma have something to do with electricity?" "No," "well in this case it did". [makes it seem like "anything goes", like you can only talk about particulars, like general/universal statements are impossible or indeterminate, they can be whatever][causality vs. Coincidence vs. Subsets of causality] [is this a generalized "Gettier problem"?]
* "the past dictates the future", "good thing we made so many sandwiches". [most people agree that the past dictates the future. so did making the sandwiches in the past cause so many people to gather there in the future?]
Basic Humanism

Humanism is about what is good for humans. What is valuable to us.

That is about as basic as Humanism can get.

We value our own experience of life.  Thus humans have intrinsic value.  We’re not merely valuable for what we can accomplish for others (though certainly we are priceless on that measure alone), we have value regardless of external evaluation.

Everything else in Humanism is less basic, and has to be built on top of that foundation.  For that project, here’s some material to check by a Humanist philosopher:

* Is philosophy stupid?
* Science is better than religion
* Epistemological Endgame
* Proving History
* Discovering moral facts with science
* The Real Basis of a Moral World
Building Beyond the Foundations Towards a Personal Utopia

Beyond the bare minumum, a niche within the "big tent".  Can we jump straight to simply building the perfect utopiua?  Not yet.  There's some building that needs to be set up, filling in between the minimal foundations that everyone can agree on, and the perfect precise niche for one person.

Here, I'll talk about that "middle ground" between the two.

See also:  Short Term Humanism Opportunities

## Beyond Democracy

Voting (even wonderful advanced democracy, like I outline here) isn't best for every situation.  Sometimes it's nice to have a personal choice without worrying about people outvoting you.

Think of a movie theater, and choosing a movie.  Runs into trouble when there is only one screen.  Not everyone can be satisfied at once.  So here in the city, we have theaters with many theaters inside of them, and everyone gets to pick between the different options available, so that many more can be satisfied simultaneously, despite their conflicting preferences!  This is somewhat analogous to Meta Utopia.

But, the very existence of this theater kind of depends on the context it's in.  We didn't elect a fanatic government that forbids theaters or censors many movies.

Anyways, questions arise about what things we should decide by vote, and what we should get to *choose*.  You wouldn't want to get these questions wrong.  You don't want to end up with people who can choose to be above the law, or to have the law censor the harmless movies that you like.

## Boundaries and Borders

The borders between countries aren't the only kind of boundaries imagineable.  Personal boundaries are becoming a big deal, as they should be.  Group membership or non-membership is another type of boundary (or, perhaps it's really the same type, not a different type?).

Boundaries can be used to create and separate different contexts.  So it's a very basic concept that will be used a lot here.
The Shape of Things to Come

These are information-related things that I think will have a big impact, starting within the next half century:

* that one OCEAN personality guessing thing, other upcoming guessing abilities
* the micro cameras etc. everywhere (non-hidden example)
* Amazon Go
* facial recognition, and other abilities to identify people (now there's a big example: "Clearview" [Link], [Link])
* semantic web type stuff
* Argument Interchange Format
* AI, such as Watson, AlphaGo, and AlphaGo Zero
* Augmented Reality
* Human activity organized through internet and AI
* Trust Aggregation

## See also

* Division of Information Labor, from Simple to Advanced
* Advanced Democacy
* My Perfect Utopia
Productivity VS Leisure

I think it might be good for me to explore some ideologies through the lens of "productivity vs leisure".  For example, traditionalism vs liberalism, capitalism vs socialism, and stuff like that.

And I think this also ties into worries of "oh no civilization is gonna collapse because people are becoming too degenerate (not the way people need to be in order to maintain...order and civilization and all that, it's as bad as reverting to mythical Hobbesian animalistic savagery like in Zootopia)". And "decadent".

Even probably quite similar to the "Freedom VS Security" quandary.

## Bunch of links and stuff:

* The Ethical Slut: "Sex is nice and pleasure is good for you"
* "Homosexual "Marriage" and Civilization" by Orson Scott Card
* Contrapoints on "Degeneracy"
* Scary confused ignorant ranting "anarcho capitalist" turned fascist: "fascism is the necessary response to communism" (youtube video no longer available, account terminated but he's on twitter: "My videos have been uploaded to the blockchain and are now back online across multiple platforms. I also have a new YouTube channel https://bit.ly/2qToa3a . Try to censor my videos now you Jews." [link])
* some *more* "libertarians" panicking about societal productivity:
	+ [direct link, and wayback link] this guy. he sees millions of people concerned about work-life balance, and goes full "sound the alarm, we need to investigate what could possibly be happening here omg" about it. if the propagandistic construction of the first 3 theories [and the inclusion of IMPENDING DOOM IF THEORY NUMBER THREE IS TRUE] isn't enough of a clue as to what he's really up to here, here's the timestamps for when each of his "theories" was posted to twitter:
		1. 9:58
		2. 10:02
		3. 10:04 [now he's tired. he'll take a bit of a break and post more theories later]
		4. 10:11
		5. 10:13 [ok that's enough, break time again]
		6. 10:20
		7. 10:35
		8. 10:40
		9. 10:45
		10. 10:50 [we made it! an hour after starting!]
	+ [wayback link] something something, genetics, IQ, something, they're suppressing the truth, OUR COUNTRY WILL COLLAPSE if we keep PRETENDING ABILITY ISN'T REAL
The Logic and Illogic of: I, Robot (2004)

There's so much to say.  Need to finally write it down...

## The Logic

First maybe I could say that I used to love this movie. I suppose I was 14 when it came out, and we saw it in theaters. And it was such a great experience. It really felt so meaningful and affecting. It was one of those movies that left so much feeling even after walking out after it was over. It was like a revelatory experience, an epiphany. And a dream.

I think this can partly be attributed to it's good construction. There is a logic to the movie, and it crafts its argument well. It all builds up to the final comparison between good robot and bad robot.

Another element, which to me now seems a bit typical or perfect for a preachy film, is the perspective of a detective. It makes the audience want to know what you, the author, have to preach to them.

The great music helps too, of course.

## The Illogic

Alas, when you look at what the movie is saying, it doesn't make sense. It can't, because it's message is against making sense. And that doesn't make sense.

But it is typical, in a way. This type of nonsense is not new. There's a whole page on TV Tropes dedicated to The Straw Vulcan, and Romanticism VS Enlightenment (where I wrote an entry for I, Robot years ago). These old confusions are what we see within I, Robot.

To sort this out, maybe I'll have to create my page about what logic actually is. Because the movie must be confused about this very thing. And/or inept at it.

Look at the situation:

* the robots are programmed to follow the three laws
* Vicki decides the logical outcome of the 3 laws is...to take over the world so that humans can't hurt themselves

So, what's the problem here? Well, we have three sensible ways this could be solved:

1. the three laws are flawed
2. Vicki is not following the three laws
3. Vicki's plan is actually good (unlikely)

So what does the movie pick as the answer? None of them! That's right. Wait, what? Ya, the obvious answer (the three laws are flawed) is ignored because...the wise scientist guy in the movie claims the three laws are perfect. No that doesn't make sense. But it had to be done to get the conclusion the writers wanted.

So what *does* the movie pick as the solution?

Well, it's at least a little ambiguous. Probably because making things clear would make the logic too clear, and that can't happen because 1) that would wreck the illogic of the movie and/or 2) the writer just sucks at making things clear enough to think logically about them.

But the movie hints pretty damn hard that logic *itself* is somehow the problem!

This is like making a movie about someone who needs to buy groceries, uses math to find out that they don't have enough money so they would have to steal groceries, and then declaring the answer to this problem is that math itself must simply be wrong and bad. It's that weird. Or dream up any other puzzle in any other movie, and declare the answer to be "logic is just wrong and bad". So random.

But, because it's robots, and all the stereotypes and tropes fit, and it's less familiar than math and groceries, people don't see how weird it is, I guess?
What the word "reality" means

“Reality” is what exists, and how things are.

This is distinguished from our models of what exists. (the “map and the territory” metaphor works here).

First I’ll try to define the meaning of the term “reality” hopefully better than my previous [above] attempt, then I’ll try to deal with how that fits with what people mean when they refer to this or that as “real”:

A model, a hypothesis, etc. has predictions. We can imagine whatever models we want. We can compare models to experience. Sometimes they match, sometimes not.

If our models and experience always matched 1 to 1 (no matter what we made our models to be), there would never be surprises. Since there are surprises, we posit something as the cause of this. Something capable of supplying experience besides our models and expectations. We call that “reality”. Reality is defined as the thing that has that capability.

Yes, this concept that “there’s a thing called reality that can do such and such” is a human concept. But that concept does not (can not) itself (nor in combination with other models) produce all the experienced differences between a successful prediction and a failed prediction. Or else we’d always have a 1 to 1 match between models and experience.

Now, in everyday language, instead of talking about *all* of reality, we are usually talking about *part* of it. So a “real duck” is the part of reality that causes the experiences which will be surprising or familiar depending on our model. A “real decoy duck” causes experiences which will be surprising or familiar depending on our model. If your model is “real decoy duck” when there’s a biological duck, you’ll be surprised. If your model is “real duck” when there’s a “completely” unknown alien object there, you might be surprised. And so on.

I’m pretty sure this is what people mean. I hope I’ve tied enough of the loose ends.
Big Movie/Story Analysis Project

I like working on "theory" for art.  So I'll do a bunch here about movies and stories I like.

There's probably "types" I can find.

## List of movies and stories to look at

Should probably mention:  world introductions/tours in Oliver and Company, and An American Tail (I don't have those listed on my page with favorite movies).

* Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music

* Bubble Buddy (Spongebob Episode), Magic Conch (Spongebob Episode)

* 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, Quiz Show, 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
* 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, Ready Player One, 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
* Inception, The Dark Knight, Pan's Labyrinth, Mad Max: Fury Road, Shutter Island, Indiana Jones 1 and 3, Zardoz, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Doom, Master and Commander, Speed Racer, Return to Oz, The Lord of the Rings trilogy

* Men In Black, I Robot, Wichita, Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, Honey I Shrunk The Kids, Home Alone,

## What are the components of these stories, and how do they work together?

### The core "seed" idea

Would be nice to be able to boil many down to the core "seed" of an idea, so that I know better what a good seed for a story can look like, and how to grow it from there.

Even a one-sentence summary of many stories could be cut into multiple pieces, even before adding all the extra stuff that fleshes it out.

Why is it worth watching/reading? What's the hook? What keeps you wanting to keep watching/reading?
The Vastness of Our Ignorance

the narrowness of personal experience

-we forget even our own past

-false impressions/perceptions/intuitions

-difficulty of making complex conclusions from our experience, requires skill [see Figuring Out What Is True]

-misinformation, lies, errors

missing all of history, and more things happen every day

everything there is to know, and you aren't an expert on

limits even to expert knowledge

-broad strokes vs details

the future is unknown
List of Social Divisions

Divisions are usually based on differences, but there are also plenty of social bubbles that are similar yet just happen to be disconnected from each other.  Divisions can result in different access to facts and different needs, among other things.

## Differences

* ideology, culture, religion
* place, neighbourhood
* place of work, department, team, etc.
* introvert, extrovert, OCEAN personality type
* age, generation
* "gender", "race", "masculinity/femininity"
* preferred method of telecommunication (and some people strongly prefer the opposite of telecommunication, being in the same room together)
* preferred social media site (if any)

## See also

* How to Build Social Capital and Community
* Separation (for when division is a good choice)
Open Mindedness

Here's a note I wrote on facebook April 28, 2013:

So I think most people think there is something called being “open minded” (OM from here on) that is good. Here is what I think is good about it:
We know that shutting out information, and/or jumping to conclusions quickly, can lead to bad conclusions being made.

So I think the key problems that OM is supposed to solve are:

1. excluding/lacking information
2. concluding without thinking

I think the purpose of OM is to assist in making good conclusions.  Together, wealth of info and thoughtful time for reasoning and counter reasoning, are vital for that purpose. (Though it helps to have rules of thumb when time is limited)

Unfortunately, some people use “OM” to imply that:

1. you should suspend suspicion (of cognitive bias, trickery etc)
2. conclusions themselves are the enemy of OM

No matter how much you say you welcome more info, or persuasive reasoning to help with your conclusion, to them you are “closed minded” the moment you suspect falsehood.  I think these people perform some hijack/confusion of the perceived goodness of OM while opposing it's very purpose.

For the most part, I don't care about your phrasing in conversation. I won't fault you. I only hope to improve your private thoughts, so you don't become entangled between conflicting definitions (or whatever) of OM.

Any other ideas on the subject?

[my comment, May 21 2013]:  oh ya there's also the problem with OM being used to mean something like "you are obligated to give me your time and listen to me". or even guilt tripping (instead of 'obligation') as in "if you don't give me your time and listen you are closed minded" etc.

## See also

* Don't believe or disbelieve anything we discuss in spirit science, simply have your own experience
* Thinking Skills
* "Name Calling" Consists of Unargued Conclusions on Facts and Values
BrianPansky Wiki

## Welcome to my Wiki

I'm Brian, and this is my wiki. I had a suspicion that I'd be able to have more "finished" writing if I can do it in this format rather than a blog post format.

UPDATE 2023-01-12: I'll also be writing over on my "Google Wiki" sometimes, see that page for reasons [mostly ease of writing, again]. See, for example, the copious amounts of writing I've been doing about my video game design hobby. Currently this "old" wiki has 166 pages, which is still pretty good [average about one page every 12 days].

[old intro below]:

This seems to be working, I'm getting a lot of writing done, and it is visible for people to see rather than sitting hidden in a blog post draft. Here's the numbers as of Jan 5th 2019 (I started this wiki on June 25th 2017):

* 107 pages
* 559 days since wiki was started
* thus (on average) one page made every 5.2 days

I never achieved any average close to one post per week when I was using blog formats.

And plenty of work done on this wiki was in the form of editing pages that were already made. So the work was even more spread out than that last number might suggest. It's also possible that I made more pages near the start, for several reasons: 1) there were fewer pages to edit, thus fewer topics covered, thus new topics would need new pages, rather than just edits on existing pages 2) enthusiasm and drive. I thought of crunching the numbers about half a year ago, but now I forget how many pages I had at that time. I suspect the average would have been better, like 365/90 = 4, one page every 4 days. Something like that.

Here is a page that links to most of my other blogs and internet turf.

## Latest activity

Photos and videos are a great way to add visuals to your wiki. Find videos about your topic by exploring Fandom's Video Library.

File:Placeholder
Something Rather Than Nothing

Evolution did not begin with perfection.

All it needed was something "good enough". Basically, something that is better than nothing. (and then on to: something that is better than the previous thing)

We are smart and advanced. And yet even worms and single-celled organisms are able to live and avoid extinction.
Some Neat Fan-Made Creations

So there's some neat stuff I've found, and it's got me thinking about the future of fan-made entertainment.

There's also plenty of game mods I've seen, here's a playlist of some I've seen.

## Skywind

Plenty of video games have had mods made by fans (modified versions of the game).  Even just browsing the "mod database" website, you'll find countless examples.

But then there's some modding projects that are just epic.

One of my childhood favorite games, Morrowind, has had a large modding community, with some very ambitious projects.  In particular, things like "Tamriel Rebuilt".

Now there's a dedicated effort to remake Morrowind entirely, using the newer game engine and graphics and all that, while adding spoken dialogue (rather than text to read, which the original Morrowind had).

It's called "Skywind" (Morrowind made with the game engine used for Skyrim), and it looks gorgeous.

Even featured at a fairly official conference.

This is partly the power of crowdsourcing.  Will crowdsourced creations begin to compete side-by-side with traditional game studios?

Video links:

* 2019 trailer
* a quest

## Blade Runner:  The White Dragon Cut

In the realm of video entertainment, the technology available for home-made special effects just keeps getting better and better.

The White Dragon Cut is a fan edited version of Blade Runner that includes new scenes and CGI based on the movie's original concept art by Syd Mead!  It was scheduled to come out November 2019 (the month the movie is set in) but has been pushed back to November 2020. Here's a clip.

## Fun with Deepfakes

Another net new technology is "deepfaking", used to swap the faces of actors.

The potential is that maybe we can easily use the likeness of famous celebrities in our own videos.

This got me thinking about what I'd love to see:  more Star Trek The Next Generation.  Why not?  People love that series.  I kinda think it's inevitable over the next few decades.

So I searched on google for this, and it turns out something similar has been tried.  Fans have made their own "Star Trek The Original Series" episodes, and someone else has used deepfake technology to make the actors look more like the stars of the real show  (I'll admit I'm not brave enough to try listening to their dialogue).  Still not perfect, but this is still new technology, and others have .  Give it a decade or so.

Oh, and of course there will be endless permutations that are less faithful to the originals.  There will be crossovers and fanfic, and just plain dadaist nonsense.  A few rare purely original creations here and there too.

Paying people to create the version that you want, possibly with yourself inserted as a character.  Turning games into movies and movies into games, making visual versions of people's favorite books.  And some people will go meta I guess.  And then who knows what.  We'll live in virtual/augmented reality versions of them, a bit like Ready Player One.

## Firestorm X and whatever

Efforts to mod Command and Conquer Renegade (or a mod or extension of it?) to feature the units and such found in the game Tiberian Sun.

[Video Link]
What Are Things?

(Keep in mind the distinction between "the map and the territory", the following will hopefully be useful in creating accurate "maps".)
There’s different ways to say what something “is”. For example a hammer. You can talk about:

* its form
* *what* it does (“black boxed“), its outcomes/consequences, whether an intended purpose or not
* *how* it does what it does, the means of causing its consequences, and any internal operation it has (inside the "black box")
* what it is made of
* how it is made (what caused it to be as it is)
* its whole life history (which may include sitting around all day in a tool box)
* other properties (hard and strong, heavy)
* other categories it belongs to

For hammers, like for many things, an intensional definition can be developed. In the case of hammers I think it would mostly have to do with its function, what we use it to do.

See also:

* ostensive definitions
* extensional definitions
* operational definitions

Though usually, a ton of these ways of looking at the thing are semantically linked (they "come together") into a larger concept.  Even degree or probability might go into the concept.  An ice cream sandwich might be “a sandwich” in some sense, but when someone says they are bringing you “a sandwich” you’d be rather confused if it turned out to be an ice cream sandwich.  And yet clearly the two have enough similarity in form and purpose that it makes sense to use the name “ice cream sandwich” rather than “ice cream mystery object”, as if it were a wholly unfamiliar shape.

See also:

* Prototype Theory
* Deep Learning, Deep Learning Demystified, Deep Learning Lecture 1: Introduction
* Concepts

## See also

* All Godless Universes Are Mathematical
* What the word "reality" means
* the philosophy of "identity" (in general, not just the identity of people)
Figuring out what to do

Problem solving, goal-first approach, working backwards

* clarifying the problem and goal, separating them from the solution
* detailing how things work
* generating possible solutions
* [then basically move on to decision-making and even evolutionary approach]

evolutionary, available options first, working forwards approach

decision-making, cost-benefit analysis

a word on the words used in this topic:

* many are interchangeable in this abstract level, and the skills will still apply to all of them:
	+ goal = problem = desire = ends = criteria ...
	+ solution = plan = means = design ...
* i like to say phrases like "figuring out" because it's accuracy is obvious for a lot more situations than other phrases like "problem solving"
The Main Options in Human Conflict

The main options (means to an end) to consider in every human conflict:

1. Changing minds (possibly even your own mind)
2. Compromise (see matching and alignment, and mutual benefit)
3. Sanctions
4. Separation
5. Use of Force
6. Surrender

Obviously, where reasonable, the first options should be used instead of the latter options.  And I'd include a wide range of things (perhaps even verbal abuse/harassment?) in the category of "use of force" even if it is intended to change minds.  Some people even physically strike someone over the head and shout "think", and that could be an attempt to change minds too, but certainly involves physical force.

## Changing minds

*See the main article, Changing Minds.*

It would be nice if we could spread values that made people tend towards correction. Such as:

* strong curiosity and good epistemology
* creating a "Just Culture" ("just" as in justice, fairness) for handling error
* valuing learning more than being right all along (this will even make you have less fear of admitting error):
	+ recognizing that learning happens all our lives, so we might be able to improve past what we currently think.  If so, wouldn't you want to?  The advantages to your own future are clear.
	+ Here's some tips from Julia Galef:  How to want to change your mind.

(and I think these could be used for conflict prevention, too)

## Reducing Conflict

Conflict de-escalation usually involves finding a way for there to be mutual benefit, a win-win state.  This is also a way to prevent some conflicts from ever beginning.

Of course, in some cases, any reduction in conflict is *already in itself* beneficial to all sides of the conflict.  Sometimes a key problem is that one or more of the sides does not realize or accept that de-escalation is actually better, safer, and satisfactory enough.

## See also

* Conflict Escalation, and De-Escalation
* "Just Culture" ("just" as in justice, fairness)
* Tit for tat
* Ladder of Social Feedback Mechanisms
What I hope My Website Could Accomplish

I outline my idea for a website here.

But those ideas didn't come to me randomly.  They are intended to work in a certain way to solve many of the problems I see online (and offline too).

Obviously I think it would help with stuff like Social Inefficiencies and Maximizing Information Processing Division of Labor.  But it might help if I can clearly outline how it's supposed to work here.

## Trolls

Trolls can hopefully be eliminated entirely using trust aggregation.  I outlined this solution here.  Basically, trust aggregation plus easy tools to create and share whitelists and blocklists, equals:  pretty soon the act of trolling people (who don't wish to be trolled) will become too much work.

## Productivity in Disagreements

Time and energy could be saved by:

* allowing crowd-source collaboration on the creation of reason chains
* easily aggregating trusted work to reduce duplication of labor
* removing the need to package info in a presentation format
* verifying logical syllogisms to drive the conversation towards underlying premises, and facts
* (verifying logic can include user-defined words, thus preventing mere semantic issues)
* having tools to calculate Bayesian reasoning
Problem Solving

There are two main things that will be important to figuring out any problem:

* get clear on what your actual goal is
* know (or learn) how things work

## Ends (goals)

Figuring out your ends. What is the real problem?  Or what do you really want?

The sections below answer:

* *Why* you should figure out what your goals really should be, instead of assuming you know
* *How* to figure this out

### Why you should start with figuring out goals

[see also: the pros and cons of using proxy-goals]

### How to figure out goals

* look closer at assumed goal, split into parts
	+ make sure your "goal" isn't actually just an assumed solution/plan. Split means from ends.
	+ is there more than one goal? List all the criteria that you want a good solution to have
* go deeper:
	+ is this goal itself a means to achieve some other end? [the answer will practically ALWAYS be "yes"]
	+ if you're trying to solve a problem, how does the problem actually work?

[see also: splitting and contextualizing]

## Means (solutions)

Figuring out a means of achieving the goals. How can you get what you want?

* copying a solution that worked for other people
* inventing a new solution

How things work

Satisfying multiple criteria [even if they seem to conflict]

[starting from the goal and working backwards VS starting with what is currently possible and working forwards]
February 2018

Turned 28 years old.
Got some kind of sickness starting on the 5th, doctor guessed it was exzema, made it difficult to do much for quite a few days.  I had to cancel my work hours, and got little else done.  As of the 22nd, I am finally almost back to normal, with minor symptoms remaining.  Full story below:

The sickness had approximately three stages:

1. major swelling (approximately February 5th to the 8th)
2. debilitating muscle pain (approximately February 9th to the 21st)
3. red areas on skin, itchiness, occasional moderate swelling (approximately February 21st to the present)

## Major Swelling

When I woke up on February 5th, my fingers were very swollen. The night before, I noticed very slight almost imperceptible swelling in one or two of my eczema affected fingers.

I immediately went to my doctor. That visit was not especially useful, mostly left me disappointed and perplexed by how useless it was. I contacted my employer to cancel my working schedule.

Over the next few days, other random areas (such as my ears, eyelids, and lips) would swell in turn, and then recover.

At some point on the 7th, I seemed mostly recovered. I went and got groceries. But my feet were getting a bit sore, I figured it was their turn to swell.

It was a good thing I got groceries then, because stage 2 was about to begin.

## Debilitating Muscle Pain

Next, it became sharply painful, and thus practically impossible, to move certain affected muscles. I think it started with my hands again. Very painful to move them in certain ways.

My left hand could grasp, but not lift. And my right hand could lift, but not grasp. To remove items from the fridge, I had to use them together, one grasping the item, one lifting the item. At night, even moving my pillow into place was a painful struggle.

My feet also got sore. I soon realized it was a good idea to stay in my desk chair, which had wheels. I just pushed myself around in that, and it was less painful than walking.

Soon, it was even more necessary to use the chair, as one leg and then the other suffered from the same muscle problem. I created a cardboard cutout to place underneath the slipper on the affected leg, in order to allow it to slide and reduce friction as I moved about. Even getting in and out of bed was a painful struggle. I used a belt wrapped around one foot to help me lift my leg when I needed to.

Finally, on the 12th, I was recovered enough to do things like washing dishes.

Some sore back muscles made me wonder if it would become impossible to breathe, but nothing major happened there.

A jaw muscle became too sore to open my mouth much, so I had to eat soft food and very chopped up meat for a few days.

## Stage 3

Red areas on skin, itchiness, occasional moderate swelling (usually swelling when I wake up, decreases during the day)

## So what is it? Doctor?

Who knows. Symptoms do seem to be like eczema...except the weird muscle pain bit is apparently not supposed to happen?

I got a blood test (during stage 1 I think, so I couldn't make a fist when the nurse asked), no results. I tried anti-allergy medication (during stage 3), didn't seem to make any difference.
When I was a Christian

Note that I took this all very seriously, up to and including the last seconds of being a believer.  I wasn't some kind of slacker cafeteria Christian.

My family's religion was some kind of biblical literalism thing. Armstrong, Worldwide Church of God, a few others.  No evolution, no sex before marriage (because sex *was* marriage, see), no gayness. Also, no christmass or easter or halloween. We did biblical holy days, such as the feast of tabernacles, passover, days of unleavened bread, pentecost, and atonement. And no work on Saturdays (which starts when the sun sets on Friday, to the next sunset).

We switched churches a few times when there was a mismatch between our views.  Eventually we had no church at all, just our own studying of the bible.
Thinking Skills

Please help to save the world (and improve your own life) by improving your thinking skills.

For a broader and deeper look at the subject of rationality, I'm creating a new page called A Guide to Rationality, from Basic to Advanced.

## Why?

### Your brain is really bad unless you improve it

Look at the scientific studies of average human thinking abilities and errors.  You don't want to be like that.

### Everything

Basically every problem in the world is so much worse because of what people believe and how mediocre they are at thinking things through.  Get better at figuring out what is true.  Get better at problem solving.  Becasue we've all got problems that need solving.  And you can get better at doing that.  So why wouldn't you want to?

## What?

### **Get better at figuring out what is true**

This talk by Richard Carrier sums it up, here's the transcript and resources.

### **Get better at choosing what to do**

To figure out what to do, there are two main strategies or methods:  "goal first", and "opportunity first".  These are just different ways of looking at the same thing, and should logically both produce the same result.  But sometimes using one is more efficient in a situation than using the other, and sometimes using a mix of the two is better than using only one.  Could be similar to the split between "outcome focussed" and "process focussed" strategies.

In all cases, having deep and extensive real world knowledge and experience can be indespensible.

"Goal first" method (called "problem solving" when the goal is to solve a problem):

1. forget about solutions until you know what the goal/problem is. At least define what (precisely) is unsatisfactory, and why you don't like it, even if you can't tell what is *causing* the problem.
2. imagine all possible forms a solution could take.  All forms, or as many as you (and other people you haven't contaminated with groupthink) can imagine.  That means, know all the variables that could be changed, and imagine changing each of them in different combinations.
3. evaluate the options, and choose the best one

"Opportunity first" method:

1. start by looking at what actions are immediately possible (opportunities)
2. evaluate them, and choose the best one

With this method, you'll have to be careful not to be shortsighted, sacrificing long term goals for short term gains.

See also:  this outline of pursuing goals.
Barriers in my Job Search

Though I don't have access to a comparison (that is, detailed knowledge of how other people got their first engineering job) here's some factors that are probably most relevant.

I haven't seen job search advice based upon real people who dealt with a situation similar to mine.

## Lack of Relevant Work Experience

I've never had an engineering job or internship.

This shows up on my resume.  It's a bit of a self-reinforcing state.

## Lack of Network

I don't know a lot of people in engineering of any sort.

I'm pretty sure research has shown that most people who get hired were referred by someone in the company who knew them.
My Values

The basic values themselves are:

For morality, "an interactive hierarchy of reasonableness, compassion, and honesty", or prosociality, trustworthiness, and reasonableness.

For intellectual matters:  logical reasoning, curiousity, empiricism, and progress towards more accurate and precise knowledge.

And, of course, my own satisfaction with myself and my life.

## Things that fit these values

* truth
* effective communication
* Bayesian Reasoning, good thinking skills
* mutual benefit

* proper handling of personal boundaries
* proper handling of conflict, and prevention of conflict
* obviously, realistic opportunities to meet my needs and desires (the good context to pursue my interests)
* Humanism
* Metaphysical Naturalism