[2024-06-26 Wed 08:28]

* Retraice
** [source]
   # Generated by working results of
   # =cat re-publicfeed-to-Re117.txt  | grep -i '<title>'=
   # or similar.

   #+begin_src shell
     pending re-run.  See Margin above.
   #+end_src  
** [PLANNED]
*** Is it reasonable to monitor your own log files?
    # <2023-12-30 Sat 13:17>
*** WDWD?  
    # <2023-12-30 Sat> Signal notes from AJ meeting at Starbucks today, 10:50 to
    # 11:40 AM, and car ride before, 10 min or so.
**** Why the question? 
     Despair/fear from computing, AKA AI-doom
**** Vague notions 
    - Bill Maher: be the BM of this problem, adding humor to the necessary
      intellectual work of news gathering and analysis (What’s GOOT).
    - Roads, pick axes: build roads for tourists, pick axes for explorers (gold
      rushers)?  
    - Refugee crisis or malady or...?:
    - What you can do about it? / What's GOOT > WDWD
**** WDWD?
***** Notes
      Computers are tools for doing intellectual work. Robots are for most other
      work. Don’t assume that the solution to the AI-doom will be computing.

      - Decentralize; diffuse power.
      - Don't risk creating more competitors (capability gains in power seeking, autonomy, replication)
      - Spread out; Zubrin 
      - Use the Free tools instead of the paid tools?
      - Harden, prep, over-engineer.
      - Strategic point: no one who believes they'll gain from the enormous upside of AI will resist the current path, or all will bolster it.
      - humans are ladder kickers 

***** Reddit post
     https://www.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/13bkrzl/comment/jjbq866/
     #+begin_quote
       Glad you posted this. I think you represent a large and growing share of
       humanity, for the obvious reasons you state.

       tl;dr: There are different ways to think about your own, and our collective,
       situation.

       Things that help me:

       1. Think of how much better off you are than the vast majority of humanity,
          who either have no idea what's happening with AI, or know but have many
          fewer options than you do (think: 3rd world). But do NOT then start
          thinking about how to help those people. Put on your own mask first.
       2. Keep firmly in mind how silly you're going to feel, 20 yrs from now, if
          Yudkowsky and Bostrom are wrong, and you've pissed away time and energy
          on hedonism. (Also, 33 is not too late for anything. "A person who is [my
          age] can't do X" is usually more an expression of fear than belief. Look
          for the myriad counterexamples to shake yourself loose.)
       3. Keep firmly in mind that human success in a cold, dark, hostile universe,
          and then on a cut-throat planet of things ALMOST as smart as us, was
          very, very unlikely, which means we have some track record of succeeding
          against unfavorable odds. Then think of how long we've had nuclear
          weapons, and yet controlled them. Same point.
       4. Note that it wasn't intelligence alone, but thumbs and inclusive genetic
          fitness and cooperation and competition and maybe the advantages of
          carbon molecules over silicon molecules in an Earth-like environment that
          lead to our success. But do NOT then start looking for holes in my
          argument there; it was not an argument, it was a claim of knowledge, and
          knowledge is never really certain.
       5. Take heart that death by Yudkwoskian 'ignition of the atmosphere' because
          something something "you are made of atoms" will be a quick, relatively
          good death compared to, say, the deaths currently happening in Ukraine,
          or at the hands of clever psychos the world over who know exactly how to
          find victims, torture them, kill them, and get away with it, year after
          year, generation after generation, since primates began. But do NOT start
          reading about this subject. Own mask first.
       6. Follow the people on Twitter who substantively argue with Yudkwosky. And
          listen to more of Stuart Russell, who is smarter than Yudkwosky (says I)
          and yet totally open to the AI x-risk possibilities, but in a way that is
          constructive and solutions-oriented, instead of Yudkwosky's
          condescending-but-here-to-save-the-world-even-though-it's-now-hopeless-based
          approach. Russell has an audience with the productive, capable people of
          the world; Yudkwosky not so much.
       7. Play with computer programming (assuming you don't yet). It will show you
          how much power you, individually, have, if only you can get past the
          inhibitions blocking you from learning to use the latest human
          inventions. Think of every new AI tool as a new product at Home
          Depot. What does it do? Need that? Want that? Grab it! It's free
          (usually)! ... However, if it's labeled "Boston Dynamics" and it starts
          walking toward you, walk away.
       8. Keep careful track of how many times the sun rises, how often, and the
          causes of it. Try to extrapolate based on that, even though we all know
          it can't go on forever.
       9. Listen to Dave Chappelle, or your favorite comedian. Not their thoughts
          on AI... their thoughts on anything. Laughter is involuntary and
          completely defeats misery, if temporarily. This is why they tell so many
          jokes in war zones, like Ukraine.

       I'll stop, but the list goes on.    
     #+end_quote
    
***** Engineer Retraice to help refugees become immigrants

      Engineering Retraice to find AI doomers and deliver to them tool knowledge
      and better thoughts.

      - mapping past segments
      - feedback first (make decisions focused on evidence, no matter how little)
      - planning future segments around WDWD
      - re-launch pile of segments


      Refugees want to be immigrants.
      - be an immigration attorney
      - be a Home Depot guy
      - be a Bill Maher

      People want to get to the promised land, then build a house, then sit
      inside when it's raining and laugh with their friends.

      Hardware store: Stay away from tradies, who know more than you. You annoy
      them, their annoyance discourages you.

***** What does the future look like? Are humans at the command line?
      # <2023-12-30 Sat 23:12> Signal
      
***** It’s not machines, but bad guys and bad machines; it’s not bad machines, it’s bad artifacts (tech) and ideas (black-ball knowledge)
      <2023-12-31 Sun 08:40>

      _Tech-nology_ ... it’s tech, the art and artifacts, and knowledge, the
      ideas. <2023-12-31 Sun 16:10>

      # <2023-12-29 Fri> Signal:
        #+begin_quote
        09:03 Computer control land migrant:
        - all major OSes
        - editors
        - shells
        - C, Python, source (text) basis
        - streetwise security (no keylogger, screenwatecher, e.g.)

        17:18 Digital natives are actually digital native slaves to what was built
        to enslave them. The digit indigenous are the controllers before the
        conquest. 
        #+end_quote
      
      # Today, <2023-12-31 Sun> Signal: 
        #+begin_quote
        09:43 Bad on front, change machines to... Tech? Artifacts? Knowledge? Automata?

        10:57 Is totalitarian control inevitable? We either have to see disaster
        before we democratically agree (too late, if AI or biotech), or elite
        smarts will foresee, maneuver into totalitarianism to prevent. Is it a
        dilemma between totalitarian control and technological doom?

        13:01 Understanding the behavior of rsync makes me not want to add any new
        `creatures' to my operation.   Is it like a farm?  If run by one guy plus
        a family, you only want dogs, cows, sheep, pigs, but not useful frogs or
        made-friendly bacteria, because more complexity requires more
        consciousness?  Without the consciousness, the complexity leads to strange
        undesirable defaults, basins of valueless attraction?

        13:02 So, simplifying /what one has introduced/ is necessary if no new
        conscious entities are available to help; though the complexity of
        pre-existing environment to which one has adapted is arbitrary and doesn't
        require simplification.

        13:20 Protective Ideas: people don't change much; ideas do; tech is just
        ideas; as tech ideas change, new protective ideas need to be built so we
        get the upside and not the downside. 
        #+end_quote
***** What has happened in your time, so far?  WSYD? (What should YOU do, now?)
      <2023-12-31 Sun 16:56>

      The world has gone from rudimentary computers and internet, through
      desktop Windows, Apple and Google, to mobile iOS, Linux and ChatGPT.  This
      is break-neck change.

      By swimming against the current of computing, your have been trying to
      cope, to grasp some understanding of a tectonic change in how humans busy
      themselves. 

      Soon, your window will close.  Is the USB stick website correct?

      Think of the massive role of: advertising, drugs, entertainment, mass
      media.

      Your value; another way to think about it: _What computer problems can you
      now solve, for whom?_

      Immigration lawyer, tool guy, ... but one who hasn’t helped
      himself. Except I wouldn’t be saying, ‘get a job like I did’, or ‘like I
      could’, I’d be saying... what?

      The refugee-immigrant view is the dark, pessimist.  What about the optimist
      view?  The economic growth that tech has so far produced? The medicine?
      Cf. Goldstone on Sam 232, that cheaper stuff that matters less than
      middle-class necessities. The optimist view is Explorers and tourists.



      <2024-01-01 Mon 11:15>
      A new world has been created in my lifetime.
       
****** Ma72: Refugees and Immigrants (pessimism)
       pending

****** [[file:~/dotfiles/RETRAICE/PODCASTS--working/SEGMENTS/Ma70-SEGMENT/Ma70--LIVENOTES.org::*Dead reckoning][Ma70:]] Explorers and Tourists (optimisim)
       #+begin_quote
       The main question is about ‘those others’: Are they explorers, who want to
       do what I’ve done, or are they tourist, who want to see what I’ve seen?

       Other questions that arise:

       To get to where you are, what would have been useful to you, had it existed?
       To get to where you want to go, what would be useful to you now?
       Where are you?
       Where do you want to go?
       What did you have to do?
       What will you have to do?
       #+end_quote
****** [[file:~/dotfiles/RETRAICE/PODCASTS--working/SEGMENTS/Ma69-SEGMENT/Ma69--LIVENOTES.org::*Satisfying the two-sided market][Ma69:]]
       #+begin_quote
       ,* Satisfying the two-sided market
       # times: 
       # The main thing

       What I need to do (in order to do business, in order to live) is reconcile
       what’s valuable to me with what’s valuable to others.  I think this means
       making what I find valuable _find-able_ and _usable_ _to others_ — those
       others, in particular, who would find what I’m doing valuable if only those
       two conditions were met.
  
       [cite/a/b:@MaSeg36]: “First, do valuable things at all; second, once you're
       doing valuable things, accelerate.”

       I have to make what I’m doing _objectively better_, i.e. obviously good, true
       and valuable.

       [cite/a/b:@MaSeg67]: _Objectively better_ means it should be obvious, to me
       /and to others/, that my changes (project objectives) are good, true and
       useful (valuable). (Cf. [cite/a/b:@ReSeg28].)

       [cite/a/b:@MaSeg68]: _Faster_ means more change, per unit time, of things
       worth changing, i.e. completion of those obviously good, true and valuable
       objectives.
      
       #+end_quote

* Margin
** [source]
   # need to dig up saved RSS, cuz not on libsyn anymore (cost cutting)
   # directory: [[file:~/dotfiles/RETRAICE/RETRAICE-INC/archive/SHUTDOWNS-Margin-Merit-and-Means-AmyAtRetraice/]]

   #+begin_src shell
     ➜ 2023-12-29-Friday--10:51:15 MARGIN-FREE-shutdown pwd
     /Users/jeffre/dotfiles/RETRAICE/RETRAICE-INC/archive/SHUTDOWNS-Margin-Merit-and-Means-AmyAtRetraice/MARGIN-FREE-shutdown
     ➜ 2023-12-29-Friday--10:51:21 MARGIN-FREE-shutdown cat feeds.libsyn.com_302780_publicfeed.txt| grep "<title>"
                     <title>Margin by Retraice</title>
                             <title>Margin by Retraice</title>
                             <title>Ma22: Delusion Hunting 2 - The Rest</title>
                             <title>Ma21: Delusion Hunting 1 - Content Delivery</title>
                             <title>Ma20: Dreams and Delusions</title>
                             <title>Ma19: The Toolchain</title>
                             <title>Ma18: The Website</title>
                             <title>Ma16: November 2020 to February 2022 [spot]</title>
                             <title>Ma15: Two Threats [spot]</title>
                             <title>Ma14: Dilemmas of Automation</title>
                             <title>Ma13: Architecture Is a Hypothesis</title>
                             <title>Ma12: Quitting Your Day Job</title>
                             <title>Ma11: Month-End for October 2020 (Part 2)</title>
                             <title>Ma10: Month-End for October 2020 (Part 1)</title>
                             <title>Ma9: A Tale of Two Banks</title>
                             <title>Ma8: Revolution Before Evolution</title>
                             <title>Ma7: Reading and Writing</title>
                             <title>Ma6: The Back Foot</title>
                             <title>Ma5: Nobody Cares</title>
                             <title>Ma4: Assumptions (A Wrestling Match)</title>
                             <title>Ma3: It’s Not About Love</title>
                             <title>Ma2: Guessing Before Feedback</title>
                             <title>Ma1: Intro to Margin; QC'ing Retraice</title>
     ➜ 2023-12-29-Friday--10:51:23 MARGIN-FREE-shutdown       
   #+end_src

   #+begin_src shell
     ➜ 2023-12-29-Friday--10:52:05 MARGIN-PAID-shutdown pwd
     /Users/jeffre/dotfiles/RETRAICE/RETRAICE-INC/archive/SHUTDOWNS-Margin-Merit-and-Means-AmyAtRetraice/MARGIN-PAID-shutdown
     ➜ 2023-12-29-Friday--10:52:09 MARGIN-PAID-shutdown cat feeds.libsyn.com_302795.txt | grep "<title>"
                     <title>Margin Paid</title>
                             <title>Margin Paid</title>
                             <title>Ma17: Addendum---Thinking and Computing</title>
                             <title>Ma16: November 2020 to February 2022</title>
                             <title>Ma15: Two Threats</title>
     ➜ 2023-12-29-Friday--10:52:19 MARGIN-PAID-shutdown     
   #+end_src
** [PLANNED]
*** After Ma38
**** Everything free is an ad
  
     Ads are everywhere: email, apps, sites, radio, TV, games, print, roads,
     buildings, speech (hidden paid promotions)....

     _Advertising_ is when one business buys the attention of an audience from
     another business and uses it for marketing.
  
     _Marketing_ is about finding or creating prospective customers.

     _Propaganda_ is about deliberately spreading [not information, which necessarily
     connects to reality] [not thoughts, ideas, beliefs] ... what?
   
**** Focus on progress, i.e. making things work; go faster

     Things, from software to entities to self, should be made to work (by your
     definition of ‘working’).  Focus on this. Go faster.

     [After seeing the "Suggestion to create consciousness: simulate pain #1284" on
     aimacode/aima-python] ... He seems nutty, but long-time GH account, couple
     dozen followers.

     Which made me think of those GH accounts with green squares throughout the
     days and years.  

     ... Go faster.  Get back to green squares. It starts by building /for/ and
     /with/ others. 
  
*** After Ma37 
   Just do valuable work better. JDVWB.  The ‘just’ is (?) about focus: i.e. ‘the
   mere thing you have to do’ and ‘the single thing you should do’?

   First, do valuable things: It is very hard to know what to do.

   Then, accelerate: Bully yourself? And is faster the same as better?
  
*** [Ma37] Backlog series
*** [Ma27] Solopreneur series
**** Ma3_: Delusion is Nature's Strategy, Not Yours
       #+begin_src shell
       TitlePhraseRaw="Delusion is Nature's Strategy, Not Yours"
       LivestreamOnXdotRaw="We can’t adopt the delusions that would benefit us because we can’t adopt delusions."
       #+end_src

***** recall: Ma31 Upshot

      There should be some way of understanding delusions that explains why a single
      delusion can lead one person to succeed and another person to fail.
      Shouldn’t all delusions be associated with failure?

      Why are some delusions useful and good, while others are the opposite? 
  
***** Entrepreneurs and solopreneurs

      Some delusions are useful, and therefore good.  Most are probably not. 
  
****** Entrepreneurs
       - [X] aspiring rich or powerful or both                           / Ma28
       - [-] becoming singular experts in a single business              / Ma29
         - [X] First, you’re competing for everything                    / Ma30  
         - [-] must be delusional about the right things, not the wrong  
           - [X] delusions                                               / Ma31
           - [ ] vital and lethal delusions—Nature’s competition         / Ma_
         - [ ] Second, reality is hidden                                 / Ma_
         - [ ] Third, there are implications of hyperspecialization      / Ma_
       - [ ] ruthless prioritizers; Hamming half-life
       - [ ] ‘succeeding’ or ‘failing’; successful or failed
       - [ ] dependent on preparation and opportunity: luck

****** Solopreneurs
       - [ ] system architects
         - must simplify! "Note for later: Solopreneurs are particularly
           fragmented; their brains can only be as simple (focused, clear) as the
           business they create." Ma32
       - [ ] more or different ruthless prioritizers
       - [ ] software Jacks (of all trades)
         # did I forget to talk about this?
       - [ ] shame?
       - [ ] state or trait?  by choice or by nature?
  


***** Abstract

      A solopreneur is a kind of entrepreneur, which is a kind of motivated,
      hyperspecialized, competitor.  Entrepreneurs have a tricky problem to solve:
      to dispel lethal delusions while leaving vital delusions intact.  Lethal
      delusions will kill a business. But without vital delusions, the business will
      never live in the first place.
  
***** Nature is in charge

      The analogy to _natural selection_: /If we are well-deluded, we are ‘fit’ in the
      relevant environment, and will thrive./[cite:@HoffmanTheCaseAgainstReality2019]

      You don’t choose delusions; delusions choose /you/. Like genes
      (memes)?[cite:@DawkinsTheSelfishGene2016AutoGenerated]
  
      _Nature_ is trying to do something with us. (Who knows what.) Part of Nature’s
      strategy is delusions, and /it/ is in charge of which ones overtake us.
  
      We can _dispel_ delusions, once we have them.

      The question is: _Should we_, in any given case?
  
      _Stay deluded about the right things_, entrepreneur.

***** Vital and lethal delusions
  
      _Delusion_: "(b) psychology: a persistent false psychotic belief
      regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained
      despite indisputable evidence to the contrary" ([[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/delusion][Merriam-Webster]])

      _Vital delusion_: a false belief necessary for success. E.g.: ultra-confidence,
      hyper-optimism, ’reality-distortion fields’.

      _Lethal delusion_: a failure-causing false belief. E.g.: ‘the money will come’,
      ‘there’s plenty of time’, most thoughts that begin with ‘somehow’.
  
      _Anti-delusion_: a method that dispels delusions. E.g.: brutal honesty, ruthless
      prioritization, savage intolerance of nonsense and waste.  (But remember:
      these can destroy both lethal /and vital/ delusions.)

***** Blind spot: You can’t know a belief is a delusion

      Delusions are beliefs that you think are true, but aren’t. So, if you (really
      do) re-class a belief as a delusion, you stop believing it’s true.  Then it’s
      no longer a delusion.
  
***** Upshot

      Entrepreneurs must hope they have all the /vital/ delusions, and then
      root out all the /deadly/ ones.  In delusion hunting, the trick is knowing
      your targets.

**** Ma3_: Second, Reality is hidden

   
  

     # TITLE: To Get Real, You Become a Hyperspecialist

     - There's no general theory of business, except "figure out what the people
       (would) want, and give it to them." But:
       - which people?
       - "give it to them" is wrong; "capture it's value"?

**** Ma3_: Third, There are implications
     So What?
     - The implications:
       - educational path: 
       - job description: expert in hypothetical company
       - career path: a series of construction projects
       - metrics of success:
         - profit in dollars
         - profit margin percentage

*** [Ma36] Agility (‘Agile Manifesto’ and 12 Principles)

    These ideas are not just for software. 
  
    https://agilemanifesto.org/

**** Manifesto

     1. /Individuals and interactions over processes and tools/
        # better

     2. /Working software over comprehensive documentation/
        # valuable

     3. /Customer collaboration over contract negotiation/
        # better

     4. /Responding to change over following a plan/
        # valuable

     [W]hile there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the
     left more.

**** Principles

     1) /Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous
        delivery of valuable software./
        # valuable
      
     2) /Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes
        harness change for the customer's competitive advantage./
        # valuable
      
     3) /Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of
        months, with a preference to the shorter timescale./
        # better
      
     4) /Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the
        project./
        # better

     5) /Build projects around motivated individuals.  Give them the environment and
        support they need, and trust them to get the job done./
        # better

     6) /The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and
        within a development team is face-to-face conversation./
        # better

     7) /Working software is the primary measure of progress./
        # valuable

     8) /Agile processes promote sustainable development.  The sponsors, developers,
        and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely./
        # better

     9) /Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances
        agility./
        # better
      
     10) /Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential./
        # better

     11) /The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from
         self-organizing teams./
        # better

     12) /At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective,
         then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly./
        # better