I was at a meeting a couple of months ago, and a colleague I know, whom I have often found thoughtful and interesting, related an exercise she did with one or more classes of her students.
She tells them: You have a time machine, and you can go to any time and place. Where will you go? And she says many of them want the 80s, maybe some a little earlier; she didn’t relate much about where. Me being me (having no big picture, so every joke comes as a delightful surprise), I was thinking “the 80s!? Kids have no imagination and no taste.” Then she gave what was the point of the exercise. Not one of the students wanted to go to any point in the future, anywhere. Quite striking, when one thinks about the zeitgeist in the 60s or even recently (90s or early 00s). A difficulty in all this, which makes it good to think about, is our doubtful performance identifying relevant context for any causal claim. We aren’t going to handle the great holy Om of All Things at All Detail (maybe one of us will, but not most of the others). So it must be okay to say that, causally, some things are beside the point and others are central to it. The hazard of anybody making economic forecasts is that transients can last long enough that the analyst think they are “the new normal”. We see it in economics with every business cycle, and those aren’t even as long as forest-fire cycles. Industrialization is a good bit longer and wider than that. Failing to realize that something is a long-lived transient is a case of casting the causal net too narrowly. We have all kinds of antennae to try to do this, somewhat independent, and all fallible. The kids’ cultural anxiety can be a good sensor that the transient that has Pinker’s attention is running out. It can also be oversimplified worry reflecting oversimplified news. Both can be true at once. Eric > On Jan 19, 2025, at 11:26 PM, Pieter Steenekamp <piet...@randcontrols.co.za> > wrote: > > > I asked Grok "please give me an overview of Steven Pinker's optimistic view > of the future" > > Steven Pinker is a cognitive psychologist and linguist who has become > well-known for his optimistic view on the future, particularly through his > books like "The Better Angels of Our Nature" and "Enlightenment Now." Here's > an overview of his perspective: > > Core Arguments: > Decline in Violence: > Pinker argues that, historically, violence has been on a significant downward > trend. He points to various metrics like homicide rates, deaths from wars, > and even the treatment of animals to show that humanity has become less > violent over time. > Human Progress: > He emphasizes improvements in health, life expectancy, education, human > rights, and economic prosperity. For instance, life expectancy has doubled > over the last century, extreme poverty has plummeted, and literacy rates have > soared. > The Enlightenment Values: > Pinker attributes much of this progress to the spread of Enlightenment values > such as reason, science, humanism, and progress itself. He believes these > values have driven societal improvements by promoting skepticism, > evidence-based reasoning, and a commitment to human welfare. > Countering Pessimism: > Pinker often critiques what he sees as an undue pessimism in modern society, > fueled by media bias towards negative news, which skews perceptions of the > world. He uses statistical data to argue that, contrary to popular belief, > many aspects of life are getting better. > Rational Optimism: > His optimism isn't blind; it's grounded in data and historical trends. Pinker > acknowledges setbacks and challenges but argues that the overall trajectory > points towards improvement. He advocates for a "rational optimism" where one > acknowledges problems but also the capacity to solve them. > > Key Points from His Works: > In "The Better Angels of Our Nature," he discusses how human nature includes > both violent and peaceful tendencies, with the latter increasingly dominant > due to social, cultural, and economic changes. > In "Enlightenment Now," Pinker elaborates on how Enlightenment thinking has > led to tangible improvements in various aspects of life, from health to > peace, and why these trends can continue if we uphold Enlightenment values. > > Critiques and Challenges: > Some critics argue Pinker overlooks or downplays ongoing global issues like > climate change, economic inequality, or the potential for technological > misuse, which could undo or complicate the progress he highlights. > Others challenge his methodology, pointing out that statistics can be > misleading or that his selection of data might be biased towards positive > trends. > > Conclusion: > Pinker's view is that by understanding our history through the lens of data, > we can appreciate the progress made and be motivated to continue this > trajectory. He encourages a proactive approach to problem-solving based on > science, reason, and humanistic values. Despite criticisms, his work has > sparked significant debate about how we perceive our past, present, and > future, promoting a more hopeful, albeit cautious, outlook on what lies ahead. > > On Mon, 20 Jan 2025 at 00:20, Jochen Fromm <j...@cas-group.net> wrote: > Richard Heinberg can formulate it probably better than I. He has defined in > his book "Peak Everything" ( https://newsociety.com/book/peak-everything/ ) > the following 5 axioms of sustainability: > > 1. (Tainter’s Axiom): Any society that continues to use critical resources > unsustainably will collapse > 2. (Bartlett’s Axiom): Population growth and/or growth in the rates of > consumption of resources cannot be sustained. > 3. To be sustainable, the use of renewable resources must proceed at a rate > that is less than or equal to the rate of natural replenishment. > 4. To be sustainable, the use of NON-renewable resources must proceed at a > rate that is declining, and the rate of decline must be greater than or equal > to the rate of depletion. > 5. Sustainability requires that substances introduced into the environment > from human activities be minimized and rendered harmless to biosphere > functions > > https://richardheinberg.com/178-five-axioms-of-sustainability > > -J. > > > -------- Original message -------- > From: steve smith <sasm...@swcp.com> > Date: 1/19/25 6:48 PM (GMT+01:00) > To: friam@redfish.com > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fredkin/Toffoli, Reversibility and Adiabatic Computing. > > Jochen wrote: > >> >> Natural ecosystems do not consume more than they give back. Every biological >> organism that dies is recycled and used to build new organisms. If we want >> to integrate our society in this only natural habitat which we have then >> fossil fuels must be replaced by renewable energy, carbon dioxide emissions >> and plastic waste production must be stopped, deforestation must end, >> agriculture must be sustainable, resources must be recycled. Paul Hawken >> mentions these steps in his book "Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in >> One Generation" >> https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/446598/regeneration-by-hawken-paul/9780141998916 > it just so happens that I'm listening to a Nate Hagens podcast on the topic > of bioregionalism which ties (very abstractly) these points you are making > here with my experiments with Hashlife. The connection (if not too > stretched) is that the adaptation of a bioregion to human presence is > stigmergic and in the sense of hashlife is vaguely correlated with the idea > of building/maintaining a highly relevant/adaptive suite of patterns in the > environment suitable for the evolution of one particular subsystem (human > individuals, groups). One of the participants in the panel is an > archaelogist who studies Neanderthal sites extensively who claimed there was > a site she studied extensively which was used as a large-mammal butchery for > roughly 200k years across various climactic shifts... did this represent > acute suitability or a stigmergic change in the locale which resulted from > the earliest uses of the locale? > > The idea that "natural ecosystems do not consume more than they give back" is > an example, however, of my maunderings on the "TANNSTAFFL" paradox. > Circular/toroidal economies do seem to be less wasteful (in some sense) but > Life exists situated in gradients and while it's signature trick is to export > entropy from it's immediate context, it *exports* it, not *avoids* it? It > seems as if this is all about defining "systems boundaries" which of course > may be a contradiction in terms (or a tautology?). > > I don't know if this is a gibberishy as EricS' recent rant about how bad > science writing is bringing civilization to an early end or not... but I do > think it rhymes? > >> >> But it is more than just a climate crisis, it is "Civilization's Crisis: A >> Set Of Linked Challenges" as the book from John Scales Avery says. We have >> the interconnected challenges of climate crisis, refugee crisis, energy >> scarcity, population growth, resource depletion, poverty and economic >> inequality, pollution and environmental degradation, and finally the problem >> of war and nuclear weapons. Solving all these interconnected crises in our >> capitalistic economic system seems to be impossible. John says we need to >> achieve a steady state economic system. >> https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/10501?srsltid=AfmBOopEymNyWKHnCaxz--HVIq0KJOayH5IYnOGfzHnri2zz6jeBMsEp >> >> -J. >> >> >> -------- Original message -------- >> From: Santafe <desm...@santafe.edu> >> Date: 1/19/25 12:04 PM (GMT+01:00) >> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> >> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fredkin/Toffoli, Reversibility and Adiabatic Computing. >> >> I think Jochen is right, that civilization will collapse. And the reason is >> that people keep writing articles like this one (a couple of clicks deep >> from Steve’s TechCrunch link) >> <com_samsung_android_email_attachmentprovider_1_3548_RAW_1737291099023.png> >> 🔮 Breaking the energy barrier with reversible >> computing >> exponentialview.co >> about entropy. >> >> Like Charles de Gaulle’s (apocryphal?) “How can you govern a country which >> has 246 varieties of cheese?”, how can a society continue that is committed >> to making entropy into voodoo? >> >> Here are some old war-horses, never put out to pasture where they belong: >> >> The law that this potential reduction in energy all depends on is the second >> law of thermodynamics, which states that entropy (unusable energy or >> disorder) increases over time. As a result, everything ultimately runs down >> and releases waste heat. >> >> >> (my complaint is the parenthesis: entropy is not energy, usable or >> otherwise). And later >> >> Landauer created a formula for the energy in joules released per binary bit >> deleted. If we express his original equation in natural units of energy and >> information, the equation is astoundingly simple: >> >> Energy (in natural units) = Information (in nats)1 >> >> Now, this doesn’t prove that energy and information are equivalent in the >> same way that Einstein proved that mass and energy were equivalent, but it >> is a tantalising possibility. >> >> >> It’s not a tantalizing possibility. It’s a meaningless nonsense-locution >> that you say to people if you don’t think they could understand a correct >> description and don’t really care anyway. >> >> The above are related to the writer (of the TechCrunch link?) saying that >> >> Effectively, energy is retained inside the chip instead of being released as >> heat. >> >> No. There could be energy on the chip, but that’s not what the relation is >> about. >> >> What is retained in the chip is specificity among choices. Whether or not >> there is any energy difference in one choice versus another has nothing to >> do with anything’s being “retained inside the chip”. >> >> The reason Landauer’s relation (in any of its variants) holds is that, to >> recycle chip-state, you have to have a way to rotate the state-entropy out >> into a thermal bath. More specifically, there has to be a way to rotate any >> state from the chip into some corresponding state in the bath such that the >> chip is returned to a default state to receive the next inputs. Because the >> signal state that you are rotating out could be any allowed one, the >> bath-state that you need to rotate it into needs likewise to be one from an >> ensemble. It is to make the _bath states_ populatable that you need to >> supply entropy-less energy (aka work), which the bath then moves into >> no-longer-controlled degrees of freedom (aka heat). >> >> >> I’m not actually up on a high horse, and write as if I were mostly to make >> myself absurd. I really don’t care one way or another. But there is a >> thing in here about being real to people that seems important to me as a >> theoretician, as it has to do with envisioning a different world. >> Increasingly I have some time with Sci-Com people, and they are remarkably >> un-bothered by the thing that, to me, seems like the core of all later >> choices: >> >> What if, when we talked to people, we either tried to give our best ability >> to be understood, or like Quakers, we just stayed quiet. The motive being >> that, if we aren’t giving them something we intend them to understand, then >> we must be doing something else. Hoping we make ourselves look smart? >> Fashionable? That feels icky (dishonorable) to me, in the attitude one >> person evidently has about others. They are there to fuel vanity; not as >> peers who deserve knowledge if your guild is the knowledge workers. >> >> Sure, we all mess up. But our society now is structured around relations >> where I think people really don’t care, and this casual clowning is taken to >> be the default, and all fine. It makes me uncomfortable. >> >> Eric >> >> >> >> >> >>> On Jan 18, 2025, at 19:03, steve smith <sasm...@swcp.com> wrote: >>> >>> Pieter - >>> >>> Good find. It lead me to Vaire and then to the Sandia/ABQ work of Michael >>> Frank who left to join/found Vaire this summer? It is possible that my >>> renewed interest in reversible computing might have been triggered >>> subliminally by some reference to both/either? >>> >>> https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/01/vaire-computing-raises-4-5m-for-reversible-computing-moonshot-which-could-drastically-reduce-energy-needs/ >>> >>> >>> https://vaire.co/ >>> >>> I thought I'd been triggered by the combination of the demands of AI and on >>> data centers (my daughter closed her gym of 10 years to take a job in a >>> data center development startup a year ago... ). >>> >>> My inability to attribute such things, parallels that of LLMs (or more >>> generally transformer models)? >>> >>> - Steve >>> .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / >>> ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. >>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom >>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam&c=E,1,CdxDQvGK-EwZVy4Dh62Vr88_4rI_EeQWk8wvgy62aA8L0A7FBsriIuHGBqMsVGQyV0IBNnoqtdsLYieD2wpFmUMkKpYo8DdJq6AWby4566tlvg,,&typo=1 >>> to (un)subscribe >>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com&c=E,1,dxFGOafzQM2h2pCg07W8FhQOr3T7S6BUm7gwtCPkDguTqF6XDUnZ5a0u4UYzFZljhUAEbDA2ZVBxmTD75y6e20lVL-FmtU0vI8XhxmecpHB-YXZT&typo=1 >>> FRIAM-COMIC >>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f&c=E,1,9J5kJ4jNpb5WTH8P4MqcAUphyz2P5njBVf96n2ZrV3snQ_mMwks3ITyxVH9M644mn8f-TDW6ogLbbOkSK6tcbqti4wt7x7g14BYzAyNXveyXWZfJkNT1uta375j8&typo=1 >>> archives: 5/2017 thru present >>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f&c=E,1,8-rTJlMb4CPIKKvzolJDIVhjM6u2RCZGNTcSIn92ODKcto1bVHyxx5NDYzCJtHBMP-wyInKPSZRvhlZhomwdlCJbVw4MOnpDztar40RC&typo=1 >>> 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ >> >> >> >> .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / >> ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom >> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam >> >> to (un)subscribe >> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >> >> FRIAM-COMIC >> http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >> >> archives: 5/2017 thru present >> https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ >> >> 1/2003 thru 6/2021 >> http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... > --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... > --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam&c=E,1,WFdaFgAm9Nu7jq3Vb7WlZlvlovY3QowWs1j7QoXKgl8Iq_8zHfZGRrqHtjnB-c9I-0pLjdXuR168RAH4vqM1_SoQSi8hV9_QtEjiEP1wv-UZ-w,,&typo=1 > to (un)subscribe > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com&c=E,1,VhCYbMFnFsaDZcxiNy8SzX_CgoTrqYmgvdU1oWvvx0NJLHnjpnRA760Y1RxoM6zmS5SzWoO71UhUAcc-lI09PPLfON0ucT4azIJ9eUnv0rTV7hvIAu4O&typo=1 > FRIAM-COMIC > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f&c=E,1,LEN2IdYFIb5vl-WSR58MSWfxUXIdraFQ_5JwoWxZCMswnTcCbPd4yzIZhImhoNEZ2Ftwhv8x_w0p44I0R5D-UP0jPHEctSh214fM1UJWz0Aoz9u1v7ybCox9YHBV&typo=1 > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f&c=E,1,wIEyRxcCrLMX_KNpy2q2jPlTAQAH68eAvIfs5QNRsB19uZb80afP-thiQyWTd6NxMdPjPoxPSxC76Hk6ENZOh-_iOi1Ev2sYxPrZU3hVplLVJUycfDY9rA,,&typo=1 > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. 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