'Yes I’m an animal Yes I’m an animal Yes sometimes the things I do are irrational Yes sometimes the things I do are quite radical' Single-take surrealism by Ren

“For science to succeed, it must strive for the non­ideological pursuit of objective truth… Although no system is guaranteed to eliminate all biases, merit­-based systems are the best tool to mitigate it. Moreover, they promote social cohesion because they can be observed to maximize fairness.”

JAMS

In Defense of Merit in Science

Merit is a central pillar of liberal epistemology, humanism, and democracy. The scientific enterprise, built on merit, has proven effective in gene...

A summary of our spring activities, including S(c)iesta gettogethers in New York, Miami, Montreal, Abu Dhabi and Tokyo. Plus a survey for a S(c)iesta in Ohrid in the second week of August Резиме на нашите пролетни активности, вклучувајќи С(ц)иести во Њујорк, Сарасота, Монтреал, Абу Даби и Токио. Плус анкета за С(ц)иеста во Охрид во втората недела на август.

Libra-net (11): S(c)iestas everywhere

Plus Science for Kids crowdsourcing, new ResearchNet collaborations, some book donations, and an invitation to party in Ohrid in August

“[…] instead of Americans earning money via creating manufactured goods that people want, the American government prints money, gives the money to politically favored corporations, bureaucrats, and workers, who then export the dollars in return for cheap HDTV’s.”

Devin Helton

America follows the path of late Rome: Fortunes no longer arise from creating new wealth, but via exploiting privileged relations with the state.

“Many studies have documented a decreasing risk tolerance in scientific research. A core driver has been the dominance of citation-driven metrics to evaluate, fund, and promote scientific research — a process that parallels the ever-increasing bureaucratization of science itself (interestingly, as measured by the increase of academic administration staff, the onset of this trend coincides with the first safetyism conferences that were held in the 1970s). Citations have become the decisive factor in publications, grant-making, and tenure. Consequently, as crowded scientific fields attract the most citations, high-risk, exploratory science, in turn, gets less attention and funding. And, in addition to the risk aversion of scientists, ethics committees, peer reviewers, and commissions are now slowing down scientific progress. This scientific risk aversion, coupled with the increase in bureaucratization, helps explain why scientific productivity has been significantly declining over the past decades." Byrne Hobart and Tobias Huber on the dangers of safetyism in science

Against Safetyism

why safetyism — and not climate change or artificial intelligence — has become one of the

All revolutions eat their children, so it should come as no surprise that we are getting chewed up by revolutionary communication tools. These tools do a great job of keeping us engaged, but somehow they also manage to lower our productivity. We keep worrying that we will be taken over by superintelligent AI, but maybe all it takes is an average algorithm to stop us from communicating effectively.

The unbearable lightness of overcommunication

Why are people not responding? I have three hypotheses.

'To steal a term from Hinduism, we spend most of our days in Maya: “that which is not.” The illusion. Maya is your job and the email you don’t want to answer and your worry about politics and the thing you’re mad about on Twitter.' An evergreen by Erik Hoel

Baldwin in Brahman

A trip to the hospital is more real than your politics

The internet is so personalized, that even the weather forecast is bespoke. Two identical phones, same app, same time. How can we ever hope for consensus when the internet fragments and distorts our shared reality? https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ftm29YxWAAUWD6e?format=jpg&name=large

A guest post by Anastas Vangeli about generative AI through the lens of a social scientist.

At the dawn of the generative AI era: a modest social science perspective

A guest post by Anastas Vangeli, Assistant Professor at the School of Economics and Business at the University of Ljubljana. Join us for a S(c)iest...

AI doomerism the next ‘current thing’

Who believes AI Will Destroy Humanity?

Young, unhappy, left wing, and thin people.

‘Disinformation is both the name of the crime and the means of covering it up; a weapon that doubles as a disguise.' https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/guide-understanding-hoax-century-thirteen-ways-looking-disinformation

There are many advantages to running LLMs locally. Here’s how to do it with Alpaca

You Can Run Alpaca Locally, Even If You Can't Code

run stanford's language model on your mac with a relative few simple steps — you don't

Cat’s out of the bag, deal with it

Marginal REVOLUTION

The permanent pause? - Marginal REVOLUTION

Here is an Elon Musk-signed petition, with many other luminaries, calling for a pause in “Giant” AI experiments.  Here is one excerpt:...

That being said, Neo signed the petition under an alias https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FsY4tpuWYAUKkuh?format=png&name=900x900

'it is my distinct displeasure to declare the death of SMTP. The protocol is no longer usable. And as we can see, this devolution occurred organically.' Jameson Loop explains what happens when we settle for convenience over security

Cypherpunk Cogitations

The Death of Decentralized Email

A historical review of the multi-decade centralization and capture of the email protocol.