nico λ

No physical process can grow indefinitely.

There are always friction terms in the dynamics equation that eventually become dominant (energy consumption, heat dissipation, quantum effects, thermal fluctuations, communication bandwidth, mass/energy density....).

Even processes that *appear* exponential on a long time scale are actually a succession of... See more

nowhere.” It is the conviction that in order to describe the world accurately and empirically, we must put aside res cogitans—the subjective, immediate way in which we experience the world in our minds—and limit ourselves to res extensa, the objective, mathematical language of physical facts. Without these distinctions, it’s difficult to imagine

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Snapshot of a “theoretical” life

– Loves learning for its own sake; regards wisdom as a permanent quest.

– Accepts leisure (scholē) not chiefly for recreation but for reflection.

– Feels reverence for what is permanent and overarching—nature, being, the divine—rather than for shifting public opinion.

– Skeptical of power when it threatens the

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For Lasch, these developments represented a betrayal of democracy: citizenship had been replaced by individualism; virtue had been supplanted by an ethic of material success; belief in equality and in civic obligations had given way to claims of individual liberty and an emphasis upon autonomy. Curiously, while the spirit of aristocratic generosity... See more

It begins to feel as though you’re failing at life, in some indistinct way, if you’re not treating your time off as an investment in your future. Sometimes this pressure takes the form of the explicit argument that you ought to think of your leisure hours as an opportunity to become a better worker (“Relax! You’ll Be More Productive,” reads the... See more

This is arguably the most foundational principle of productivity. Make fast decisions with limited certainty.

Science may be the pursuit of truth, but scientific language is adept at dressing up insidious ideologies as fundamental truths.

We have a problem here, folks. The word “intelligence” is a semantic catastrophe. Whenever doomers use this word, I have no idea what they’re talking about. I often don’t know if they’re talking about a real thing at all. And when they say things like, “AIs are approaching human-level intelligence,” I start to bang my head against the table. What... See more

Yes, this was for a special purpose—to fight racism—but the Griggs decision made clear that the government was now authorized to act against racism even if there was no evidence of any racist intent. This was an opening to arbitrary power. And once arbitrary power is conferred, it matters little what it was conferred for.