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essays
Become A Problem-Solving Artist
Economics of God
Elden Ring Meets Karl Popper
The fabric of reality implies the beginning of infinity
The Products of My Writing
To Measure or Not To Measure, That Is The Question
Unreasonably reasonable
notes
1-1 Our mind can constrain itself (i.e., why you need proper epistemology)
1-1a Culture and technology can influence our perception of what human mind is — explicitly, inexplicitly, and unconsciously
1-1a1 We don’t necessarily have to think hierarchically (i.e., in files and folders)
1-1a1.1 More precisely, we think hierarchically but it's dynamic and subject to change
1-1a1a Our mind is not necessarily composed linearly or hierarchically. It could be a connected web of nodes and reflexive.
1-1a1a1 Ability to think recursively allows such thing as categorization of tasks into sub-tasks. Recursion is a property of thought (and not language per se).
1-1a1b The mind includes inexplicit as well as unconscious
1-1a1b1 Joel Gold - The conscious mind is only a small fraction of the mental world much like the visible aspect of the universe
1-1a1c Don’t let your conceptions constrain the mind
1-1a1c1 Peirce said his achievements were due to his peculiar way of thinking as well as his method of thinking
1-1a2 Our mind is flexible
1-1a2a There is no human nature if by this we mean a kind of a priori knowledge common to all and only to humans
1-1a2a1 Human nature is variable (Cultures ⇒ Flexible human brains ⇒ Variable dark matters ⇒ Variable 'human natures' ⇒ Cultures . . .)
1-1a2a2 The inexplicit and unconscious is also NOT innately structured
1-1a2a3 Everett on Freud - No earlier theory made more lively use of the notion of innate, a priori dark matter
1-1a2a4 The flexibility of humans are found particularly in the tacit knowledge
1-1a2a5 Overt knowledge can be found inside and outside our brains (e.g., Wikipedia), but dark matter is found only within the individual
1-1a2b Everett on Kant - His notion of categories is best translated into an inborn ability of humans to generalize and learn by any means. Humans are born to be learners. Individual humans have innate capacities to adjust to the world.
1-1a2c Everett on Aristotle - He is responsible for the characterization of the mind as a blank slate ('Mind is in a sense potentially whatever is thinkable, though actually it is nothing until it has thought')
1-1a2d An innate capacity to learn ≠ Specific ('parochial') knowledge
1-1a2d1 The Turing principle allows 'learning' to take place, but it doesn't care how
1-1a2e The mind is universal, that means domain specific genes are unlikely
1-1a2e1 Nothing in the body is dedicated to language. Gene ≠ Language. Culture ⇒ Language.
1-1a2e2 Languages are not innate to humans
1-1a2e3 Cultures are evolution’s ultimate solution to the problem of providing adaptive flexibility
1-1a2e4 Cultures precede languages
1-1a2e4a 言い換え = Making sense in your own world, that is, in your own language and in your own web of ideas
1-1a2e4b Naval - 'Enlightenment is in between your thoughts, in understanding why you are having such thoughts'
1-1a2e5 Cultures nurture minds
1-1a2e5.1 Mind without culture is grammar without letters
1-1a2e6 Culturing and social acting (along with languaging) ⇒ Our actions, beliefs, desires, values, and self
1-1a2e6a The dark matter of mind is multilayered, differentially manifested, and variously derived from the experiences of living
1-1a2e7 Culture is the individual dark matter acquired from culturing, social acting, languaging
1-1a2e7 Dark matter both help and impede our perception of the world
1-1a2e7a Apperceptions = The ways by which we process, make sense of, and assimilate our experiences
1-1a2e7b You need some form of constraints to see anything
1-1a2e7c You can't help being cultural, but you don't have to commit to any specific culture
1-1a2e7d 文化とは生きること・生きることは情報文化にかかわること
1-1a2e7d1 To live = To live culturally = To live economically
1-1a2e7e 文化とは多様性を克服した情報モード
1-1a2e8 'Seeing' really occurs after going through (or together with) emicization
1-1a2e8a We see symbolically and not otherwise
1-1a2e9 Emic vision = Interpreting what you are seeing as symbols
1-1a2e9a Culture defines the Black Swan
1-1a2e9b When 'properly' emicized by the culture, we see what's not there and can not see what's there
1-1a2e9c Culture is technology
1-1a2e9d Technology is culture
1-1a2e10 There is no such thing as objective meaning
1-1a2f You are redundant if you are flexible and (close to being) universal - that is, composable and interoperable
1-1a3 We repeatedly update our theories, including theories about how the mind works, and keep making sense of the world
1-1a4 We don’t just take in ‘new things’ into our mind; at the same time, we recalibrate the framework with which such new inputs can be processed.
1-1a4a If you don’t recalibrate your framework, ‘contradictions’ will surely pile up
1-1a4a1 Regime-switching model implemented Popperian epistemology to trade financial derivatives
1-1a4b You can’t cope with the reality solely via induction or deduction
1-1a4b0 Deduction can't generate knowledge.
1-1a4b0a Induction can't generate (or more precisely, create) knowledge.
1-1a4b0b According to Peirce, mathematics precedes all other fields of study, and only studies imbued with a strong mathematical foundation were worthy of the label ‘science’. Mathematics cannot be derived from logic.
1-1a4b1 You either have to ignore them as irrelevant or consider them as problems to be solved
1-1a4b2 Problems arise only when you reason via abduction
1-1a4c If you assume the possible existence of the ‘ultimate’ theory, you’d be assuming a meaningless (zero-freedom) world
1-1a4c1 Emergence is another beginning of infinity. Knowledge is based on and consists of emergent phenomena.
1-1a4c2 The whole is greater than the sum of its parts
1-1a4d Nothing can be explained only in terms of itself
1-1a5 We always reason abductively
1-1a5a A real essay doesn’t take a position and then defend it (deductive). It starts with a question (abductive), in trying to figure something out.
1-1a5a1 The process of argument starts in the middle, and doesn’t start with axioms and end with the conclusion
1-1a5a2 Good writing happens at the edge of explicit-inexplicit or explicit-unconscious — that is, via surprises.
1-1a5b Real thought is full of false starts
1-1a5b1 Unpublished essays and deleted sentences are like experiments that get inconclusive results
1-1a5b2 Launch means criticism. It’s an equivalent to experimental testing in science.
1-1a5b2.1 Be very mindful of where you 'experiment'; one of the most important decisions you can make is who you get feedbacks from (as well as ask questions of)
1-1a5b3 Ship at least every month. Scope down until you have no excuse not to ship. Being output-project-oriented means being payoff-oriented.
1-1a5b3.1 What counts is the payoff from success—and not how often you are right
1-1a5b4 'Release early and often, delegate everything you can, be open to the point of promiscuity'
1-1a5b4.1 Shipping early means cognitive offload means key moment
1-1a5b4.2 GTFOL, ASAP
1-1a5b4.3 build-launch-measure-learn and iterate - don't restart
1-1a5b4.3a Pick iterable projects (for you)
1-1a5b4.4 Real-time calibration (i.e., recalibration) lets you adapt to the changing landscape
1-1a5b4.5 Our eyes produce clarity through a perpetual process of adjustment
1-1a5b5 Shipping perfection means you are too late - you have to find a balance of finding the right moment and being fixable
1-1a6 To live is to live like a detective
1-1a7 Epistemology is the way with which we go about our detective work; other sciences are application of such detective lens
1-1b Memes are more powerful than genes because they can out-evolve them
1-1b1 The placebo effect is very likely real, just that they can’t be easily tested since ideas themselves aren’t physical
1-1b2 The interpretation isn’t physical either
1-1c You need the best available epistemology because it affects how you see the world
1-1c1 The problems arise only when you understand them as conflicts between your existent explanation of the world and the reality out there
1-1c2 Your ‘explanation’ also contains inexplicit, as well as unconscious, content
1-1c2a There is no escape we are and will be shaped by anti-rational memes
1-1c3 The way to find such conflict is to know what surprises you
1-1c4 To be surprised is to be mistaken
1-1c4a Because you will be and want to be mistaken, by default you should be long optionality
1-1c4b You always have to solve problems, including the problem of what problems to solve
1-1c4c You have to start with problems (your problems) to attain better explanations
1-1c5 Surprises are the doors to revealing the inexplicit and the unconscious
1-1c5a Write down what surprises you
1-1c5b Asking what surprised them usually is an extremely useful question
1-1c6 Flow to the most interesting, because surprises are interesting
1-1c6a The Fun Criterion might be the way to distinguish what constitutes ‘the most interesting’
1-1c6a1 You can’t define what’s fun for you, because inexplicit and unconscious parts of you also constitute what is fun
1-1c6a1a Pay attention to what can’t be said (e.g., taboos)
1-1c6a1b Your ability to detect surprises will get better, and you will never be short of them
1-1c6a1c The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence
1-1c6a1d In the absence of evidence, do not assume miracles
1-1c6a2 Todo list can be never exhaustive
1-1c6a2a Don’t let how you work affect what problems you can work on
1-1c6a2a1 Be careful with 'just-in time productivity'
1-1c6a2b The real work requires big chunks of time and the right mood. You don’t do real work in scheduled little slices like dutifully crossing off to-do lists.
1-1c6a2c Don't keep a schedule
1-1c6a3 Say yes only when both your heart and head say so
1-1c6a4 You can only say 'no' when you have your 'yes'
1-1c6b You are having fun when your whole being is engaged in solving a problem
1-1c6c You ‘actualize’ yourself when you solve both the problem and the problem-situation via better explanations
1-1c6d The Fun Criterion must be used in the context of solving problems
1-1c6e This goes on ad infinitum
1-1d Usually the obstacles are your own preconceived notions, and rarely the laws of physics
1-2 We are fallible
1-2a We perceive nothing as what it really is, but only virtually
1-2a1 Our ‘direct’ experience is also virtual because its meaning is conjectured and interpreted via guesses
1-2a2 Logical reasoning is no less a physical process than scientific reasoning is, and it is inherently fallible
1-2a3 Errors will occur, but have to be solvable-correctable.
1-2a4 We must remain within the confines of our own explanations, even if our understanding of physical processes (that constitute reasoning in general) improves arbitrarily
1-2b In the quest for truth, what matters is the explanation and not where it came from (the quest for truth ≠ a quest for certainty-justification-necessity)
1-2b0 Truth needs an explanation. Being true doesn't mean you don't need one.
1-2b0.5 We crave necessity because we are contingent
1-2b0.5a The best we can attain is belief, since truth cannot be guaranteed
1-2b1 Power cares about its past because the former is derived from the latter
1-2b2 He who controls the past controls the future
1-2c New explanations are to be judged by how many more problems can be solved by it
1-2d You have to know your problem-situation (and your web of ideas) as best as you can to judge the merit of new explanations
1-2e You literally MAKE a decision by creating the best explanation that you can from the web of ideas that you have at the moment (i.e., abduction-guessing)
1-2e1 Be ambitious but leverage what you already know
1-2f When you create better explanations, you discard the old ones
1-2f1 Popperian epistemology allows your knowledge to grow forever because it is digital. It can fix its errors by rejecting bad ideas
1-2f1a Error-correction is the beginning of infinity. All jumps to universality occur in digital systems.
1-2f1a1 Scientists evaluate theories with excess reasonable doubt
1-2f1a2 Skepticism is how you stay being critical even when you don’t have the vocabulary to articulate your own imperfection and incompleteness because proper categories and anti-theses aren’t fully developed yet
1-2f1a3 To be scientific is to be critical
1-2f1a3a Peirce - science without special equipment is philosophy
1-2f1a3b Philosophy without science is “empty ideas”
1-2f1a3c A central flaw in Kantian philosophy = the doctrine that certain truths about the physical world could be ‘known a priori’ - that is to say, without doing science
1-2f1b Analog computation cannot accommodate error-correction. Information that cannot be reliably retrieved is not really being stored.
1-2f1b1 Digital system is composable
1-2f1b2 Composability allows incremental piecemeal error-correction
1-2f1b3 Merely dropping a theory because it doesn't work is behaviorism and is not error-correction. It's analog reasoning in disguise. You need explanation.
1-2f1b3a Deutsch - 'Nor is a person capable of making progress merely by virtue of being willing to drop a theory when it is refuted; one must also be seeking a better explanation of the relevant phenomena. That is the scientific frame of mind.'
1-2f1b3a0 Adjustments should be made gradually
1-2f1b3a1 The question is not whether anomalies happened in the past, but whether we have explanations for such anomalies.
1-2f1b3a2 Don't just complain but solve!
1-2f1b3b French Revolution, Russian Revolution, and Chinese Revolution were analog. That is, not done in piecemeal error-correction fashion.
1-2f1b4 The content of a theory is in what it rules out (and how!)
1-2f1b4a Truth is about how much reality is in a theory
1-2f1b5 検証と反証には非対称性がある
1-2f1b6 Volatility is good for insurgents (idiosyncratic disruptors) and bad for incumbents (legacy institutions)
1-2f1b7 世の中に流布する仮説との違いが大きければ大きいほど、利益の潜在的可能性が大きい
1-2f1b8 検証が厳しければ厳しいほど、それに耐える仮説の価値は大きくなっていく
1-2f1c Your thinking must be digital to be mistaken, to be surprised
1-2f2 Popperian epistemology is universal, because it allows any knowledge to be created
1-2f3 Other epistemologies are analog because they keep both new and old theories based on ‘degrees of truth’ or ‘probabilistic truth
1-2f4 Other epistemologies are parochial because they don't fix its own errors. It's like a model that never recalibrates.
1-2g New theory is constrained in terms of what it can say, since it must either be consistent with existing theories, or contradict them but address the problems thereby raised
1-2g1 Einstein - 'No fairer destiny for any physical theory than that it should point the way to a more comprehensive theory in which it lives on as a limiting case.'
1-2g1a In most cases, the new theory likely predicts the same outcome as the old ones, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need new theories because new theories give better explanations
1-2g1a1 Popper, Turing, Everett, Dawkins (then Deutsch himself) gave a better explanation as to why the prevailing theories were true after all (unfortunately, they have found themselves constantly on the defensive against obsolete theories)
1-2g1b What matters is the explanation, and not what you can see
1-2g1b1 Predicting the same outcome doesn’t mean they have the same explanation
1-2g1b2 Don’t pay as much attention to people’s conclusions as to the reasoning that led them to their conclusions
1-2g1c Memes beat genes. We will see what cannot be seen with new knowledge and new technology.
1-2g1c1 There is no clear line between human and technology
1-2g1c2 You can be {Your mind + Second Brain + Mental models + LLM with your data + your scripts-codes represented via machines}
1-2g1c2a ヒトの特殊性は情報処理能力そのものではなく、情報を記号により外部化する能力にある
1-2g1c2b 人間は外的な記号
1-2g1c3 Confining yourself only to 'your mind' is quite an arbitrary decision
1-2g1c3a Humans have no nature and no self apart from the experiences they have united in their memories (the Buddhist notion of anatman - 'no self')
1-2g1c3b Self = A memory of skandhas (form, sensation, perception, mental formations, and consciousness)
1-2g1c3c Self = A sequence of experiences ('recursive definition of the self')
1-2g1c3d Don't judge a book by its cover. Read the whole context instead.
1-2g1c3e When you connect ideas, the content doesn't change but meanings change
1-2g1c4 Technology is what makes us humans
1-2g1c5 We don’t really know what constitutes human
1-2g1d We are universal explainers. We can transcend our biological limitations.
1-2g1e Our biological bodies are (still) encoded in genes. Often times it is helpful to understand our biological-default tendencies-biases.
1-2g2 New theory in turn constrains what the low-level theories could be
1-2g2a The problem of ‘fine-tuning’ should be approached by being honest with what knowledge is, and not anthropocentrically
1-2g2a1 The principle of the universality of computation and that of testability (Constructor Theory is the generalization of the latter) might provide an answer
1-2g2b Humans are significant insofar as we can create knowledge
1-2g2b1 Constructor Theory defines knowledge independent of people
1-2g2b2 The Turing principle is also about the correspondence between the two bodies, and knowledge is not necessarily embodied in the human mind
1-2g2b2a Computer is technology that has deep theoretical and philosophical significance
1-2g2b3 Computational universality is about computers inside our physical world being related to each other under the universal laws of physics to which we (thereby) have access (because human brains are computers)
1-2g2b3a Both Great Simulator and all-possible-computer-programs-are-running arguments are bad explanations because computation doesn't precede physical world and its laws.
1-2g2b4 The universality of computation is a property of hardware and rather uncontroversial. The universality of explanation is a property of software and rather controversial.
1-2g2b5 The most significant universality is that of people. We are universal explainers, and possess the only kind of universality capable of transcending its parochial origins.
1-2g2b6 Universal computers would be dependent on universal explainers
1-2g2c Knowledge must be first conjectured (i.e., created) and then tested. That’s what life has been doing all along, according to Darwin’s theory. It can’t be derived mechanically (Lamarckism is wrong).
1-2g2c1 Testability matters only when you have a good explanation (hard-to-vary explanation)
1-2g2c2 The principles of quantum physics dictates that speed and position (or definite path and definite path superposition) cannot be tested simultaneously
1-2g2c3 Intractable does not mean unpredictable
1-2g2d Knowledge is life. Life is knowledge.
1-2g2d1 生命は無秩序が生み出したゆらぎ・その中で生じたヒトというゆらぎ・さらにそのなかで生じた科学というゆらぎ
1-2g2e What science and creative thought in general achieves is unpredictable creation out of nothing. That is, creation of knowledge. And so is biological evolution (i.e., life).
1-2g2f The virtual-reality rendering of their environment (i.e., creating knowledge about its niches) is the characteristic means by which human beings (and life in general) survive
1-2g2g Life is a form of virtual-reality generation
1-2g2h Life is associated with a fundamental principle of physics – the Turing principle – since it is the means by which virtual reality was first realized in nature. (Life = physical embodiment of knowledge = the Turing principle)
1-2g2i Genes (life) are programs that embody the laws of physics (of their own niches)
1-2g2i0 Life is computation in the sense of assuming other object (i.e., genes assuming its surrounding environment)
1-2g2i0a Going against the Turing principle means death
1-2g2i1 Humans can embody universal laws of physics (non-parochial)
1-2g2j Accurate rendering depends on understanding its physics. The converse is also true - discovering the physics of an environment depends on creating a virtual-reality rendering of it. And explanation already is rendering inside one’s mind.
1-2g2j1 Accuracy is the closeness, as far as is perceptible, of the rendered environment to the intended one (intension)
1-2g2j1a Because we can only be with the virtual-reality, all our renderings will be inaccurate
1-2g2j1b Accuracy in virtual reality = The relationship between theory and experiment in science. That is, you can never prove-experience-measure-certify that it's accurate-true program.
1-2g2j1c The accuracy of an image generator’s rendering can in principle be experienced, measured and certified by the user, but the accuracy of a virtual-reality rendering never can be. Image is what can be seen, the program is the unseen.
1-2g2j1d Cantgotu environments - you will always be proven wrong because no program will render it; you can never prove that you were there
1-2g2j2 Icons are intentional resemblances. It is 'about' something.
1-2g2j3 Life itself is iconic (imitation-copying)
1-2g2k Genes embody knowledge about their niches. Replication itself is not the fundamental significance of life.
1-2g2k1 Replication of knowledge is what matters. Not replication per se.
1-2g2k2 The program (e.g., Roman-numeral system) survives by causing computer (e.g., people) to use them. The former instructs the latter.
1-2g2k3 Genes (and memes) survive by causing people to create knowledge
1-2g2k4 Genes are (computer) programs expressed in the language of DNA instead of zeros and ones
1-2g2k5 Life is knowledge and expressed via DNA, and DNA is symbol. Because humans are primarily about knowledge-symbol-meaning (each implies the other), they became self-aware of DNA as symbols. That is, of its arbitrariness.
1-2g2l Knowledge is a fundamental physical quantity, and the phenomenon of life only slightly less so
1-2g2l1 Where there is knowledge, there must have been life
1-2g2l2 Knowledge was first created with life
1-2g2l3 We create knowledge actively. We are more than biological life.
1-2g2m The existence of highly adapted replicators depends on the Turing principle because those are in essence universal virtual-reality generators. Explicit reference to replicators, evolution, or biology, are not necessary.
1-2g2n The Turing principle is an apparent fact, and we are trying to explain that fact, to place it within the same framework as other facts we know
1-2g2o Evolution is a well-established fact, and itself not a theory. Only the explanations of how evolution happens or looks are theories (e.g., natural selection, genetic processes, and family trees).
1-2g2p The laws of physics, by conforming to the Turing principle, make it physically possible for those same laws to become known to physical objects. Thus, the laws of physics may be said to mandate their own comprehensibility.
1-2g2q Knowledge can result in one thing being represented by another thing with increasing accuracy, through the creation of explanatory knowledge
1-2g2q1 Science is about independent replication. Only trust as scientific truth what can be independently verified-replicated.
1-2g2q2 Popperian epistemology itself has to be conjectured
1-2g2r The Turing principle, if true, dictates that we can form accurate theories about reality. Knowledge to the Turing principle is what steam engines are to the principles of thermodynamics. That is, the Turing principle implies knowledge.
1-2g2r0 The Turing principle implies 梵我一如
1-2g2r1 If you believe that there are bounds on the domain in which reason is the proper arbiter of ideas, then you believe in unreason or the supernatural
1-2g2s The very fact that physical variables can store information, that they can interact with one another to transfer and replicate it, and that such processes are stable, all depend on the details of quantum theory
1-2g2s1 Hydrogen atom exists because its electron’s uncertainty-principle tendency to spread is exactly balanced by the electrostatic force with positively charged nucleus.
1-2g2s2 Electron has multiple positions and speeds without being divisible into autonomous sub-entities each of which has one speed and one position.
1-2g2s2a Quantum mechanical law of motion resembles the law governing the spread of an ink blot (確率分布)
1-2g2s2b There is a field (or waves) in reality (i.e., in the multiverse) for every individual particle that we observe in a particular universe. Individual particle’s disturbance spread through electron field
1-2g2s3 Interference = Diversity within fungibility = The structure and stability of all static objects (Or put differently, things exist rather stably because we HUMANS don't operate at the level of quantum physics)
1-2g2s4 Everyday objects are partitioned into nearly autonomous histories with one instance-position-speed, but every atom in those objects is a multiversal object not partitioned (i.e., fungible)
1-2g2s5 When the instances are fungible, there is no such thing as 'which' - histories and individual particles are not perfectly partitioned into instances
1-2g2s6 The reality does not make distinction of the universes in the multiverse because each universe exists equally as a part of the multiverse
1-2g2s6a The multiverse is the objective reality. Each universe is an emergent phenomenon in the context of this reality.
1-2g2s7 There is no universe number 1 or number 2 because that would make them non-fungible (as well as implying some transcendental perspective). There is no point asking which event we will experience.
1-2g2s7a Knowing probability doesn't mean you can predict it
1-2g2s7b You can’t justify the predicted value of the probability inductively, because theory (i.e., the laws of physics) provides the probability, not the experiment
1-2g2s7b1 The laws of physics provides the measure (provides a meaning to proportions and averages for infinite sets) for the multiverse
1-2g2s7b2 The laws of physics determine what's rare-common, probable-improbable, finite-infinite
1-2g2s7b3 An explanation for how something really works cannot rely on infinity
1-2g2s7b4 Mathematics is not independent of physics
1-2g2s7b5 Proof theory is computer science and not mathematics
1-2g2s7c Very unlikely event certainly happens somewhere in the multiverse
1-2g2s7d A history has to be explained in multiversal terms. The true explanation of what happened involves many other instances of me.
1-2g2s8 The unobserved parts of the wider phenomenon have in no way affected what we observe, yet they are essential to its explanation. Causation doesn't exhaust explanation.
1-2g2t Quantum theory via diversity within fungibility allows both branching (the multiverse) and stability in the sense of what’s been branched stays branched (stable existence of each universe, allowing the classical physics as approximation)
1-2g2t1 Decoherence - the process of objects becoming too entangled to be interfered (i.e., merged)
1-2g2t2 History (i.e., entangled) is information flow channel because it is approximately autonomous. That is to say, its entanglement means we can successfully predict some aspects of the future of that history from its past within that history.
1-2g2t3 A history approximation breaks down when there is interference (i.e., merging), and histories do rejoin via interference phenomenon
1-2g2t3a Histories, universes, particles, planets, humans — these are all approximate and emergent phenomena in the multiverse
1-2g2t3b We are channels of information just like histories and all other relatively autonomous objects but we are extremely unusual because we can create knowledge
1-2g2t3c The effect of knowledge creation is significant both within a history (distance-independent) and across the multiverse (convergence)
1-2g2t3d Because creation (and growth) of knowledge is in essence error-correction, and because being wrong is way easier than being right, knowledge-creating-bearing entities will become more alike (and thrive) across the multiverse
1-2g2t3d1 Knowledge-bearing entities extend-permeate across the multiverse
1-2g2t3d2 Knowledge-creation must also imply access to previously inaccessible universes, owning to its unlimited improvability
1-2g2t3e Other life-forms can't permeate across the multiverse because biological knowledge is primarily about the surrounding environment and its correspondence within THAT universe, and the latter is subject to 'randomness'
1-2g2t3e1 Explanatory knowledge is inherently about the multiverse
1-2g2t3f Contingency can be only realized when you evoke the multiverse
1-2g2t4 Because fungibility exists (i.e., histories DO rejoin) we must evoke the multiverse. The multiverse emerged from quantum physics (genealogically).
1-2g2t4a Quantum computation is possible thanks to fungibility
1-2g2t5 Because rejoining means being fungible means there is no such thing as which of them has ended up as-at which final instance-position
1-2g2t5a There is no such thing as the 'same' instance of a particle at different times - i.e., there is no such thing as speed of 'one instance' in the quantum physics (Heisenberg uncertainty principle)
1-2g2t5b The term 'uncertainty principle' is doubly misleading because first of all fungibility is a physical fact and not uncertainty of anything, and second of all because it can be derived from more general principle of quantum physics
1-2g2t6 The effect of interference on a history depends on what other histories are present (e.g., Mach-Zehnder interferometer)
1-2g2u The explanation (the theory of knowledge) must involve quantum physics, the Turing principle (the theory of computation), and, as Popper himself stressed, the theory of evolution.
1-2g2u1 Don't take neo-Darwinism too seriously
1-2g2v Epistemology is a theory of (emergent) physics. It is a factual theory about the circumstances under which a certain physical quantity (knowledge) will or will not grow
1-2g3 The sphere of comprehensibility expands infinitely
1-2g3.1 It’s explanations all the way down
1-2g3a At the limit, new theories create new problems
1-2g3b In short, new theories have to solve more problems than existent ones
1-2h A good explanation makes it harder to fool yourself
2-1 Mental models (着せ替え・持ち替え・言い換え)
2-1a Information is in the difference. No difference, no information. 情報とは差異. 区別のないところに情報は生まれない.
2-1a0 'Creative destruction' - Think outside the box. Evolution of ideas must be revolutionary. Knowledge creation involves rebellion against current explanatory framework.
2-1a0.1 Complacency will kill you ('The Red Queen effect')
2-1a0a 'Occam's razor' & 'Irreducibility' - Simplify the problem but don't oversimplify.
2-1a0a1 Don't waste time unnecessarily complicating things
2-1a0aa Applied Occam's razor - 'If you can't program it, you don't understand it. If you can't write about it, you can't code it.'
2-1a0b 'Thought experiment' - Don't limit yourself to binary thinking. Explore at least three possible solutions.
2-1a0b1 Do no consult your 'intuition' all the time
2-1a0b2 'Relativity' - Look at the problem in as many ways as possible. You might as well find new problems.
2-1a0c 'Denial' - Accept the existence of Black Swans
2-1a0c1 'Failure comes from a failure to imagine failure'
2-1a0c1a 'Influence of stress' - 'In the thick of battle, you will not rise to the level of your expectations, but fall to the level of your training'
2-1a0c1b You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.
2-1a0c1c Purpose (and curiosity) beats for-profit
2-1a0c1d The One Commandment is about focus - Focus on a single moral innovation
2-1a0c1e Communities will become more selective
2-1a0c1f The network won't let anyone (particularly the state) coerce
2-1a0c1g No lock-in = 去る者は追わない・追えない
2-1a0c1h Small countries (or any community) must be convincing. Presidents and mayors must act like CEOs and turn their communities into startup countries-counties.
2-1a0c1i Every polity will be publicly traded eventually just like companies and coins
2-1a0c2 Failing is inevitable, but do not fail epistemologically
2-1a0d Don't confuse the Grey Swans with the Black Swans
2-1a1 'The map is not territory' - Find many maps as possible, across globe-time-fields, and try to bring your map closer to the territory as possible (i.e., reality)
2-1a1a Biases when picking up maps (+ cognitive biases in general)
2-1a1a1 'Falsification (confirmation) bias' - Always try to falsify your theory. Don't pick up similar maps.
2-1a1a1a 'Self-preservation' - Don't trigger your biological defaults (defense mode)
2-1a1a1b 'Hanlon's razor' - We (they) are dumber and thus less ill-intent than we think we (they) are
2-1a1a2 'Bias from incentives' - Explicate your culture-incentive as much as possible
2-1a1a3 'Availability heuristic' - We easily recall what is salient, important, frequent, and recent
2-1a1a3a You're the average of your five closest friends OR You're the average of the people whose content you consume the most
2-1a1a3b Your thinking is downstream of what you consume
2-1a1a3c Belong where your desired habits are the norm
2-1a1a3d 'Relative satisfaction (or misery) tendencies' - Your average five is important, and you can spend time with the best of the best with internet
2-1a1a3e There’s no objective average
2-1a1a4 'Representativeness heuristic' - Remember the Linda test!
2-1a1a4a 'Probabilistic thinking' - Do not assume miracles!
2-1a1a4b Compounding is usually too slow to notice, making it easier to discount both how much progress and catastrophe are achievable
2-1a1a5 'Narrative instinct' - Often the right explanation is one with the least intent involved
2-1a1a6 'Tendency to overgeneralize from small samples'
2-1a1a6a Xenophanes - it’s easy to attribute universal truth to mere local appearances
2-1a1a7 'Hindsight bias' - Keep a record of your thoughts at the time you make the decision
2-1a1a8 'Tendency to overestimate consistency of behavior' - Behavior of others are often not innate-intentional but situational
2-1a1a9 'Survivorship bias' - We only see what can be seen
2-1a1a9a Survivorship bias + Incentives = We can't see what can be seen and see what's not even there
2-1a1b Constantly check your own bias
2-1a2 See clearly - 解像度を高める
2-1a3 'Seeing the front' - Incorporate what can't be explicated
2-1a3.1 'Feedback loops' - Iterate. The more and quicker the better.
2-1a3.2 Curiosity begets both network effects and feedback loops
2-1a3.3 負もフィードバックする (Feedback loops work both ways)
2-1a4 'Language instinct' - Language can't exhaust mind
2-1a4a Sometimes the best information is the least transmissible.
2-1a4b 百聞は一見に如かず - Build, Show, Use ＞ Explain, Tell, Research
2-1a4c We don't know how we create knowledge yet, but that doesn't mean we can't
2-1a5 'Sampling' - Increase your sample size with QUALITY data
2-1a5a Evolution doesn't care about lifetime of each individual gene-meme carrier (its sample is beyond your own experience and any human lifetime)
2-1a6 'Incentives' - Incentives drive (almost) everything. Understand your incentives.
2-1a6.1 Remember that most people will pretend to operate in your interest while operating in their own
2-1a6.2 Treasure honorable people who are capable and will treat you well even when you’re not looking
2-1a6a Understanding incentives amounts to understanding its culture
2-1a6a1 Doctrines = generalized religions
2-1a6b 'Pavlovian association' & 'Social proof' - Understand the arbitrary association formed within your culture. There are no pure indexes for humans.
2-1a6b1 Animals can extrapolate—but can never realize its contingencies
2-1a6c 'Inertia' - In most ordinary moments the situation thinks for us, and these seemingly insignificant decisions compound.
2-1a6c0 If you don't create an explanation, you will be enmeshed in the situation (analog). You have to transcend your situation-culture-parochiality by explanations (digital). Explanation is the way to universality.
2-1a6c1 'Tendency to minimize energy output' - Align your incentives properly, then (almost) everything will follow
2-1a6c1a 'First-conclusion bias' - Separate the problem-defining phase of the decision-making process from the problem-solving phase
2-1a6c2 Establishing rituals is the key to creating positive inertia
2-1a6c3 'Global and local maxima' - Don't prematurely overoptimize. Occasionally throw in some 'randomness'.
2-1a6c4 'Randomness' - The appearance of 'randomness' is subjective
2-1a6c4a Randomness is an emergent phenomenon inherent within each universe
2-1a6c4b Explanation is the way to the multiverse
2-1a6c4c We can explain things because we are multiversal objects. The multiverse implies explanatory knowledge.
2-1a6c5 'Randomness' is the opportunity to reason abductively
2-1a6d Never say yes to something important without thinking it over for a day
2-1a6d1 Digitize the idea from the context within which that's been spoken-written
2-1a7 'Curiosity instinct' - Curiosity alone can drive humans into ideas without any (at least obvious) financial incentives
2-1a7a Curiosity (i.e., the Fun Criterion) leads you to wealth, because wealth is knowledge
2-1a7a1 (1) Increase your productivity; (2) Don't let your income increase faster than your productivity; (3) Don't let your debt increase faster than your income
2-1a7a2 Assets with actual substance or weight have the best prospects over the long term
2-1a7a3 Ben Graham - 'Markets are a voting machine in the short term and a weighing machine in the long term'
2-1a7a4 In the long run reality gets in; narrative can get you so far
2-1a7a5 Build day by day unless anything fundamental ('the core') changed. Superficial-uncontrollable criteria (e.g., share price) matter less.
2-1a7b Work in a field you have both a natural aptitude for and deep interest in. It should become increasingly interesting as you learn more about it.
2-1a8 Interest rate affects businesses, but not curiosity!
2-1b Seeing the unseen (面影・うつろい)
2-1b1 'Asymmetric warfare' - Play by different rules
2-1b2 Play in different time horizon. That is, in the long-run.
2-1b2a 'Seizing the middle' - 'Time is the friend of someone who is properly positioned and the enemy of someone poorly positioned.'
2-1b2a1 Look for an idea that could evolve into a great one
2-1b2b 'Second-order thinking' - Solve the root cause of a problem (prevention) and not symptoms. Be smart-lazy.
2-1b2b0 Judgment is knowing the long-term consequences of your actions
2-1b2b0.1 Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
2-1b2b0.1a Prioritize upstream productivity
2-1b2b0.2 Focus on the 'what is' before deciding 'what to do' about it
2-1b2b1 'Inversion' - Avoid stupid obvious bullshit you'd regret in the future
2-1b2b1a Get your incentives right from the beginning
2-1b2b2 'Multiplying by zero' - Be risk-prone but avoid ruin at all cost
2-1b2b2.1 Life is a multiplicative game—take advantage of network effects but avoid the risk of ruin
2-1b2b3 Don't invest what you can't afford to lose
2-1b2b4 Look for value-added risk reducing trades
2-1b2b5 Know the correlations between your bets. Holy grail is fifteen or so uncorrelated bets.
2-1b2b5.1 Brian Armstrong's Rule of 70-20-10
2-1b2b6 Don't borrow against your securities
2-1b2c 'Compounding' - Permeate across the timeline
2-1b2c1 Knowing your sustainable growth is the key to consistency. Do not depend on will power.
2-1b2d 'Trust' - The most effective business is one with trust. Build one.
2-1b2d1 Consistency builds trust
2-1b2e 'Algorithms' & 'Replication' - Share your problem-situation as clearly possible, so that others can make decisions without you on your behalf (i.e., multiply)
2-1b2e0 The less guessing layers the better
2-1b2e1 Understanding comes from copying the information-knowledge as information-knowledge medium; not from copying the substrate
2-1b2e2 Knowledge doesn't care how it's replicated and its impact on the knowledge bearing entities. What matters is whether the content is replicated, and there's space for creativity and variation here.
2-1b2f 'Equivalence' - Reality doesn't care genealogy. Solving problems is what matters. How it's done matters less.
2-1b2g 'Margin of safety' - Be redundant and resourceful
2-1b3 Play different games. Avoid competition.
2-1b3a 'Circle of competence' & 'Niches' - Build a moat. Thrive in where you can.
2-1b3a1 Narrow it down so you can have a chance to build your own moat
2-1b3b 'Arbitrage' - Arbitrage both space and time (both offline and online)
2-1b4 Not fighting can win you the battle
2-1c 'Opportunity costs' - Look beyond the obvious. See what's hidden.
2-1c1 'Comparative advantage' - If others can do it, let them
2-1c1a Even if you are better at everything that doesn't mean you should do everything by yourself
2-1c1a1 Companies will outsource everything that isn’t their value proposition. To build successful B2B company, simply be the outsource.
2-1c1a2 The attract-extract cycle - Bigger networks have less to gain and more to lose by interoperating
2-1c1a3 Platforms eventually cannibalize their complements
2-1c1a4 'Commoditize your complement' tactic
2-1c1b 'Two-front war' - Deal with it effectively by knowing your priority. Use it effectively against those whose priorities are vague.
2-1c2 'Specialization' - Minimizing opportunity costs maximize comparative advantages and leads to prosperity
2-1c2a Matt Ridley - 'Self-sufficiency leads to economic downturns. Mutual interdependence is more robust.'
2-1c2b Forced vertical integration made Tesla intimately familiar with the complex supply chain required to build a car. Good counter-argument to outsourcing everything.
2-1c3 'Win and help win' always outcompete
2-1c4 100x-ing the pie ＞ slicing extra few %
2-1d 'Ecosystem' & 'Thermodynamics' & 'Double-entry bookkeeping' - Everything is connected, there is no free lunch
2-1e Everything is connected in a complex way
2-1e1 'Layer-1' & 'Layer-2' phrasing is probably not the best analogy-understanding-topology
2-1e2 Both 'underlying' assets and 'derivatives' can be considered as 'contingent claims'
2-1e3 実体経済も市場経済も等しく経済
2-2 ウツ・ウツツ (空・現)
2-2a 'Emergence' - Knowledge can be created out of nothing and is unpredictable
2-2b 'Critical mass' & 'Activation energy' & 'Alloying' & 'Catalysts' - Look for, or create, lollapalooza effects
2-2c 'Tragedy of the commons' - Also look for negative lollapalooza effects ('devolution')
2-2c1 If you have negative externalities, tax it
2-3 Meta-contingency. Optimism. Possibility.
2-3a 'First principles thinking' - If it's not forbidden by the laws of physics, it is possible
2-3a1 Always ask - what does this even MEAN
2-3a2 Ask - how would I build XXX today
2-3b 'Leverage' - The effort put in and its utility-results doesn't have to correlate at all. Use this to your advantage.
2-3b1 'Sensitivity to fairness' - What is fair changes
2-3c 'Surface area' - Manage your exposure to volatilities
2-3d Social media is social volatility
2-3d1 You must understand the risk profile of social distribution one has with others
2-3e Cryptocurrency is financial volatility
2-4 Be nice (but smart)
2-4a 'Commitment & Consistency bias' - To change your behavior, make changing your belief difficult
2-5 'Reciprocity' - You never know who you touch. You never know how or when you’ll have an impact, or how important your example can be to someone else.
2-6 You get what you pay for
3-1 Start with problems
3-1a The reality doesn’t have categories, there are only problems to be solved. Be problem-project-oriented. 'Academic subjects' are mere social constructs.
3-1a0 Use categories, but don't be categorized
3-1a0a 'Life is projects it is not a job'
3-1a1 It’s either you are solving problems or not
3-1a2 The problem itself doesn't care how it's solved. Everything should be structured around solving problems.
3-1a2a Culture (be it individual-company-country) should be built around solving problems. Incentives should be built around solving problems.
3-1a2b Problem-situation should define which system and organizational structure should be adapted
3-1a3 Multidisciplinary thinking is the most realistic thinking
3-1a3a Start with problems instead of opinions. The latter usually comes with confirmation bias.
3-1a4 Explanatory means it will span across ‘boundaries’
3-1a4a 歴史において、世界史・日本史といった区別は客観的に存在しない
3-1a4a1 The whole must be evoked in explaining the parts
3-1a4b 情報文化史 = 経済文化史 (経済と文化はそもそも独立して存在しない)
3-1a4b1 Understand what you abstracted away
3-1a4b2 Price can only convey so much
3-1a4b2' Mark Twain - 'It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.'
3-1a4b2a A great business at a fair price is superior to a fair business at a great price
3-1a4b3 Thomas Sowell - 'Prices are important not because money is considered paramount but because prices are a fast and effective conveyor of information through a vast society in which fragmented knowledge must be coordinated.'
3-1a4b4 Not everything are priced yet
3-1a4b4a Financial cycles ≠ Product cycles
3-1a4b5 Anything can be priced in principle. But not everything will be.
3-1a4b5.1 Money can be anything—but money will not be everything
3-1a4b6 The importance of the monetarily accountable compared to the unaccountable increases indefinitely, although the former never exhausts the latter
3-1a4b7 The monetary account will increasingly explain the world—especially as it pertains to the human actions—though never exhaustively
3-1a4b8 With few exceptions, buy on the cheapest market and sell on the dearest leads to satisfaction of the most highly valued ends of each individual, both as consumer and as a producer
3-1a4c Market and non-market categorization is arbitrary
3-1a4c' Crypto can integrate culture of each network unlike top-down Western global capitalism which did away with the cultural aspects of communities
3-1a4d 市場メカニズムにもノンマーケット・セクターにも根本的な大きな欠陥がある
3-1a4e システムとユーザーはつながっているだけでなくハウリングしあっている
3-1a5 Any explanation must evoke human creativity (i.e., our ability to come up with explanations) fully
3-1b Be flexible with the problem itself, because you may not know what’s the real problem yet
3-1b0 Think forward, but also think in reverse via inversion
3-1b0a You can think forward and invert insofar as you have a problem to solve
3-1b1 Occasionally revisit the problem itself. Occasionally check in on long-term.
3-1b1a Often the real insight is in the question and not in answer
3-1b1a1 People think big ideas are answers, but often the real insight is in the question. The question-answer categorization is arbitrary.
3-1b1a2 You have to ask hitherto unasked questions
3-1b1b Problems encountered during projects are valuable. The harder they are the better.
3-1b1b1 No learning without doing; specifically, no learning without cultural doing
3-1b1c Occasionally ask 'am I working on what I most want to work on'
3-1b2 Use the Fun Criterion to filter what problems to work on
3-1b2a Using the Fun Criterion is not synonymous with simply having fun
3-1b2b There is a difference between trying to incorporate the inexplicit and unconscious into your theories, and simply indulging in the unconscious
3-1b2c You have to approach the unconscious parts of the mind as a Popperian, and not as a Romanticist
3-1c Know what your problems are
3-1c1 Learning with intent to use them in the future (i.e., performance-output-oriented) filters down information, while constantly reminding you of the very problem-situation you are trying to solve and the very purpose that comes with it.
3-1c1a Prioritize performance-oriented media (i.e., news-you-can-use, including tutorials and fitness-diet-sleep scoreboard which you have control) over consumption-oriented media
3-1c1b You are what you think and you think what you see, and you see what you think
3-1c1b0 You are what you consume (read)
3-1c1b1 You are also how you consume
3-1c1c You must build your own media for yourself
3-1c1c1 The first thing to look at each day should be your purpose and metrics you can improve upon
3-1c1c2 Second Brain is a private media, where you are both the editor and the reader
3-1c1d You must build your own media distribution to avoid distortion for yourself and others
3-1c1d0 We are overconsuming novelty (and “serendipity”) and under-consuming purpose. The first thing to look at each day should be your purpose and metrics to improve upon, not some random stories.
3-1c1d0.1 'Velocity' - 'If you don’t know where you want to go, any road will take you there.'
3-1c1d0a Zipf’s law distribution = Passive consumption make up 99% of activities on the internet, and less than 1% even comment on content, and much less than THAT actually create something new
3-1c1d1 Journalists distort our reality by 10,000x
3-1c1d2 Historic records are full of embellishment, lying, and misinterpretation. It’s mediated by many minds both conscious and unconscious.
3-1c1d2a If the news is fake, imagine history
3-1c1d3 Social media makes news sentiment negative
3-1c1d4 We are bombarded with ‘unlikely’ events on our social media feed
3-1c1d5 Dashboards over newspapers
3-1c1d6 Media grabs what's easily grabbable (e.g., short-term over long-term development)
3-1c1d7 You have to know where the content you consume stands in the spectrum of things (metadata)
3-1c1d8 Sentiment (both macro and micro) is important and should be measured
3-1c1d9 Phrasing matters
3-1c1d10 Ascending-descending world ＞ first-third (developed-developing) world dichotomy
3-1c1e Know your own incentive as a writer
3-1c2 Write down your problems
3-1c2a Your mind, including the unconscious, has to know the problems you explicitly have
3-1c2b Conjecturing the relative importance of such problems-projects is also essential
3-1c2c Your mind has inexplicit and unconscious assumption not only with regard to what constitute as problems but also their relative importance
3-1c2d Human knowledge is hierarchically structured. It's a list but also about how things on the list relate to one another. The sum of what we know is greater than all things put together.
3-1c2d1 Individuals or nations might possess the same values, but the ordering differs
3-1c2e 情報は関係性の中にある - Meaning is often in relation to other things
3-1c2e0 There is no minimum idea
3-1c2e1 Connecting-relating ideas is a way of creating knowledge
3-1c2e2 Creativity is more than just combining things
3-1c2e3 Infinite semiosis - 'There is no beginning or end to symbols because it is recursive'
3-1c2e3.1 It’s symbols all the way down
3-1c2e3.2 Not all symbols are explicit
3-1c2e4 There is no limit to the number of symbols available to humans for languages
3-1c2e4.1 'Scarcity' - Knowledge is rare but never a scarce resource
3-1c2e4.1a Knowledge can have value to the extent that it influences goods which are scarce
3-1c2e4.2 'Supply and demand' - Physical is getting expensive
3-1c2e5 Symbols are constructed of other symbols
3-1c2f In tech, most of the value is in the ordering, in the useful configuration of zeroes and ones, which users click to pay for it
3-1c2f1 生命活動の特徴は無秩序から秩序を見出すこと
3-1c2g Often times what matters is not what's used in the system, but what it does and can do
3-1c3 Write down anything with intent to use them in the future, because you won’t be able to do away with solving problems
3-1c3a We are not interested in where the knowledge came from
3-1c3a1 Tracing its beginning is as impossible as predicting the future
3-1c3a2 情報の起源に触れることは物理的に不可能
3-1c3b We are not interested in where the knowledge is stored, but rather whether it’s easy to retrieve them when we have to
3-1c3b1 You don’t take notes to know where the knowledge came from (justification), but to use it in the future, to solve problems.
3-1c3b2 Reading the 'original' texts should not be the default to learn about philosophy (or anything for that matter)
3-1c3c Keep each ideas separately, because there is nothing absolute and necessary in the connections I make between them
3-1c3c00 Evergreen notes should be atomic
3-1c3c0 Ideas have timing
3-1c3c1 To create is to recombine. Innovation happens when ideas have sex (either between people or with one’s past ideas). Exchange is to technology as sex is to evolution.
3-1c3c2 Take ideas seriously, to an extent that you will be comfortable ‘breaking rules’ if necessary
3-1c3c2a Any ideas have the potential to be MORE universal (if not universal), and constraints are to be removed sooner or later because knowledge is irreversible
3-1c3c2a1 How do we find constraints (i.e., detect bullshit)
3-1c3c2b Getting rid of your own misconceived notions alone can take you far enough
3-1c3c2c The theory of physics is already universal in the sense that it applies to all things physical
3-1c3c2d Any explanation, including the theory of physics, can be improved indefinitely
3-1c3c3 Take ideas seriously, but not too seriously. Don’t be the idea.
3-1c3c3a Realize that having invested time in something doesn't make it good. There is no necessary correlation between the time you put in and its usefulness.
3-1c3c3a1 Don't be so attached to anything because almost everything is contingent. Assume no self.
3-1c3c3a2 More precisely, almost everything CAN BE made contingent
3-1c3c3a2 Time spent doesn't mean much
3-1c3c3b Wealth = Measurement (work with a small group) + Leverage (develop new techniques and its value is multiplied by all the people who use it)
3-1c3c3c Tech is for technology as well as for technique (技術)
3-1c3c4 'Tendency to distort due to liking or disliking' - Never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.
3-1c3c4a Person who finds profound new theories often holds onto beliefs that contradict them
3-1c3c5 Best of all is when you can say they would’ve found this had they taken their own ideas seriously
3-1c3c6 Nerds have an advantage in doing great work because they expend little effort on seeming anything
3-1c3d Problems should be well defined and should be actionable
3-1c3d0 Break down into mini-projects, they become more actionable because they are less scary than bigger ones
3-1c3d1 Well-defined mini-projects can be recycled. Your future self won’t have to repeat himself for similar project.
3-1c3d2 Well defined problems are completable, and allow you to take small steps
3-1c3d2a Chasing growth ≠ Listing off projects like todo
3-1c3d2a1 Project ≠ Todo - doing something for its own sake isn’t the same as doing something to solve problems
3-1c3d2b Chasing growth ⇒ Keep redefining the problems to be solved
3-1c3d3 When problems are so well defined, your future self might be able to solve new problems by reusing and recombining them
3-1c3d3a Problems are also unpredictable. Your mini-projects may turn out to be useful later. They are optionality.
3-1c3e However, you will always be solving the problem of what problems to solve because of your unconscious. Don’t be a reductionist in approaching problems themselves.
3-1c3e1 There are emergent problems which will emerge as you go about life, that can only be accounted for with new explanations
3-1c3e2 Experience provides problems-concepts-knowledge
3-1d Consistency requires consistent constraints
3-1d1 We must start with our own peculiar constraints
3-1d2 The problem of what problems to solve includes the problem of deciding which tools-frameworks (e.g., tech stack, writing medium, criteria, objective, goals, exercise protocols) to use and improve upon
3-1d3 You must start with some specific framework with an intent to solve at least some of your own problems
3-1d4 There are no perfect tools, just as there are no ultimate problems
3-1d4a What matters is if your tools-frameworks are universal
3-1d4b Your tools-frameworks-systems must be error-correctable (i.e., digital)
3-1d4b1 What’s been considered ‘analog’ must be represented digitally, because the distinction is rather arbitrary
3-1d4c Humans can correct its own errors because we use symbols
3-1d5 You can question the adequacy of the tools at hand insofar as it relates to some specific problems of yours. You don’t evaluate them ‘comparatively' based on its ‘utility’ without explanations.
3-1d6 Constraints in the form of consistent style leave space for creativity and progress
3-1d6a Consistent style allows cognitive offload with regard to everything unrelated to the problems at hand
3-1d6a1 Staying consistent is rather difficult with information abundance. What we need is purpose-intention.
3-1d6b Consistent style makes it easier to see whether you are making a progress or not
3-1d6c Amara’s law modified - we underestimate the importance of consistency in the short-run, but overestimate in the long-run
3-1d6c1 The marginal cost of doing something wrong 'just this once' always seems alluringly low
3-1d6c2 Everything looks bigger up close
3-1d6d Consistency with specific problems in mind is the key to (detect) progress
3-1d6e You can only progress within the context of your own specificity. You can’t progress objectively, although you can progress towards the objective knowledge.
3-1d7 'Escape velocity' - Little expressivity goes long way
3-1d7a 'Bottlenecks' - Don't hate them. Rather, use them creatively.
3-1d8 When you have something, you can not have it. When you don't have something, you cannot have it. That's a huge difference.
4-1 Assumptions are hypotheses and you use the conversation (’negotiation’) to test them
4-1a Don’t ask question but start with one
4-1a1 Real conversation is full of false starts
4-1a1a There should be many false starts with books
4-1a2 Labelling is a great way to start because it gives you optionality; even if you ‘mislabel’ their emotions it’ll make them explain more about themselves, while conveying that you are trying to understand them
4-1a2a When you make them say ‘no’ to anything, you make them feel as if they are in more control of the conversation
4-1a2b Labelling is like prompting without making it look like a question
4-1a3 Each conversation has to end either a success or a failure, you have to zone-in when you are ‘friend-zoned’
4-1a3a Imaginary problems lead to imaginary feedback, and that's not feedback
4-1a3b Go to specific places to get specific feedbacks
4-1a4 Each new conversation is a fresh start
4-1a4a Even if you revisit ‘the same conversation’ (or ‘re-reading a book’) they are never the same thing twice because you are never the same
4-1a4b It’s really tough to get annoyed when you are having conversation with yourself or with ideas
4-1a4b1 You are a configuration of ideas (both conscious and unconscious)
4-1a4b2 During conversations you are engaging with the ideas that’s instantiated in that individual, and this could be yourself from the past.
4-1a4b2a Silence can decontextualize-displace the negotiator from the negotiation
4-1a4b2a1 忘却を促進することで、人為的な古典化を起こす。
4-1a4b2a1.1 Silence can give ideas space
4-1a4b2a2 忘却 = 自然に廃棄すること
4-1a4b2a3 整理 = 意識的にすてること
4-1a4b2a4 Prioritize by weighing the value of additional information against the cost of not deciding
4-1a4b2b Being reactive is like being analog in the heat of the moment
4-1a4b2b0 Your algo is your principles
4-1a4b2b1 'One-of-those' over one-off - Learn from history (not just from your 'own' experience)
4-1a4b2b2 History repeats and reverses
4-1a4b2b2a Rules and leaders emerge from informal governance but they are a product of inscrutable social dynamics rather than thoughtful design
4-1a4b2b2b Blockchains enable thoughtful evolution based on immutable rules and credible neutrality
4-1a4b2b3 Time will tell because time can de-contextualize seeming necessities
4-1a4b2c Asking questions such as 'what does xxx MEAN to you' can displace the counterpart from the context of the situation, and allow them to take a step back
4-1a4b2d 'Tendency to want to do something' - Don't get paid for work, but for being right.
4-1a4b3 If you write down ideas, you can have a conversation with each one of them individually, or with any configurations from them
4-1a4b3a Constitution formalized the shift of national governance from individual rulers to written law
4-1a4b3b A blockchain constitution means an immutable topic to be discussed
4-1a4b3c A blockchain record means an immutable subject to be interpreted
4-1a4b3c1 Legacy statistics are manipulation-prone
4-1a4b3d The 'ledger of record' shifts the focus to adjacent layers
4-1a4b3e Meaningful narratives ＞ Meaningless speculation
4-1a4b4 If you write down a set of ideas (including its internal relations and value hierarchy), you can have a conversation with that (which is almost yourself from the past)
4-1a4b5 When you write down anything, you are literally saving yourself (although never entirely) at that moment
4-1a4b5a Maybe consciousness is seeing your thinking mediated on some other physical form, realizing that it could’ve been put otherwise (and optionally you improve upon)
4-1a4b5b Deutsch - The solution to the problem of consciousness will invoke no specific quantum-mechanical processes, but it will depend crucially on the quantum-mechanical, and especially the multi-universe, world-picture.
4-1a4b5c Deutsch - Consciousness is clearly intimately related to the growth and representation of knowledge within the brain
4-1a4b5c1 松岡正剛 - われわれは複数の情報生命複合体。意識はそこから突起する文法的な主語のようなもの。
4-1a4b6 You write to forget. And when your mind forget something, it’ll have a space for another configuration of ideas
4-1a4b6a When you write down, you are helping yourself both now and in the future
4-1a4b6a0 You can use ideas both NOW (upside - cognitive offload) and LATER (upside - ideas becoming useful with new interpretation). Ideas ≠ Money.
4-1a4b6a0.1 You can use money NOW for LATER. Investment is when it's deployed for the benefit of the latter, but often it's spent at the expense of it.
4-1a4b6a0.2 Money is our time and energy in an abstracted form
4-1a4b6a0.3 Time is money means money is time
4-1a4b6a0.4 Bill Gates - 'No matter how much money you have, you can’t buy more time. There are only 24 hours in everyone’s day' (Time ≠ Money)
4-1a4b6a0a Knowledge ≠ Money
4-1a4b6a0b Knowledge = Wealth
4-1a4b6a1 Future self is enough of an audience
4-1a4b6b When ideas are exposed to various contexts (i.e., different people-place-time) they often find unexpected match. Ideas have timing.
4-1a4b6b0 We can make almost anything happen (in the way we want) regardless of contextual constraints because we can tweak everything (in piecemeal engineering fashion) by using symbols
4-1a4b6b1 Ideas and its contexts applied are arbitrary
4-1a4b6c Ideas can get better as you recycle and reuse them, unlike most physical things
4-1a4b7 Your mind is different from other medium (e.g., paper) because it can transfer ideas to other medium
4-1a4b8 Your mind can and does hold ideas like any other medium, but that’s not what the mind is for
4-1a4b8a Your mind is not a bucket
4-1a4b8b Multitasking can be adapted without any downsides if you conceptualize the mind accordingly
4-1a4b8c When you outsource your thinking, you can reap the benefits of multitasking without any downsides.
4-1a4c PG - spend 2 weeks on an essay and reread drafts 50 times — you can’t do this in conversation.
4-1a5 Don’t get obsessed with the failure rate, because what matters is where it’s going and not where it came from
4-1a5a If you properly set up the conversation you only need a handful of conversations for insights (e.g., via client slicing and segmentation)
4-1a5b Your problems precede any conversations
4-1a5c When you have your Second Brain, you can have a conversation with it
4-1b Uncover as much information as possible
4-1c Great negotiators actively try to reveal hidden assumptions, that is, they look for surprises. They are more than just being ready for them.
4-1c1 Don’t prematurely zoom in during conversation, because he might not be self-conscious of the real problems
4-1c2 Don’t trigger defensive responses
4-1d Tactical empathy identifies the inexplicit and unconscious obstacles
4-1d0 Look at the whole of conversations, including how things are being said as well as what’s not being said (e.g., taboos)
4-1d0.1 The Pinocchio Effect - Liars use more words than truth tellers and use far more third-person pronouns
4-1d0.2 Avoid the anonymous 'we' and 'they,' because they mask personal responsibility
4-1d1 Capture emotions because that indicate they know what they are talking about
4-1d2 Most people love talking about themselves
4-1d3 The most effective communication is to listen
4-1d4 Listening is the most effective way to pay respect, and it's free
4-1e Emphasize what they’ll miss out on, rather than what they can get
4-1e1 Loss aversion - e.g., the prospect of competitor buying you, and having have to acquire you later at higher cost, are the two biggest concerns which motivate potential acquirers
4-2 Conversation has to be bottlenecked
4-2a 会話は相手の知的レベルに合わせること
4-2b Good storytelling is about taking readers to something slightly in advance by using what they already know
4-2c 周辺的関心の方が中心的関心よりも活発に働く。脱線話の方が記憶に残る。
5-1 When you are long truth you are long volatility and time
5-1a Be nice
5-1a1 You can be as nice as you want as long as you work hard on growth
5-1a2 Solving problems is a concrete framework of morality
5-1a3 We don’t derive an ought from an is. Only problems exist. We can just solve them.
5-1a4 Getting rid of your misconceived notions amounts to being nice (or moral)
5-1a5 Morality might be a subset of physics. The laws of physics might provide the measure for morality, as it were.
5-1b Stay upwind
5-1b1 Invest in preparedness. Be redundant and resourceful in every aspect. Minimize opportunity cost to achieve great things.
5-1b1.1 Redundancy over premature optimization—especially against Black Swans
5-1b1a Technology itself should be the kind that begets and benefits from volatility
5-1b1a1 Improving on already existent technology by removing one of its restraints amounts to innovation
5-1b1a1a Technology is about how to do things differently. Some technology can be more universal than others, but it can never be perfectly universal.
5-1b1a1b What can be universal is knowledge. But knowledge has to be instantiated by physical medium and this involves technology (e.g., pen and paper).
5-1b1a1b1 Babbage’s discovery of the universality of computation was innovation via discovery of knowledge (he himself couldn’t build universal computer)
5-1b1a1b1a However, Babbage’s idea was represented by pen and paper, themselves technology
5-1b1a1b2 Vitalik Buterin generalized the principle of blockchains to outside cryptocurrency, and built Ethereum
5-1b1a1c The relationship between knowledge in the abstract and technology (the physical mediator of such knowledge) is contingent
5-1b1a1c0 There is no universal technology
5-1b1a1c1 The interoperability law - information can be copied from any system that can embody information to any other such system, irrespective of the details (i.e., substrate-independent)
5-1b1a1c2 The interoperability law connects physics and information
5-1b1a1c3 The interoperability law means we can do away with dynamical laws because the former is scale independent
5-1b1a1c4 The interoperability laws (i.e., substrate-independent formulation of information) are more detailed exposition of the Turing principle
5-1b1a1d The reality doesn’t distinguish ‘theoretical’ from ‘practical’
5-1b1a1e Innovation and science can feed each other. We tend to treat them separately, but both are attempts to solve problems.
5-1b1a1f Edison (practitioner) and Einstein (theoretician) both have a place in reality
5-1b1a2 Some technology contains knowledge which can be universal. You can’t predict how people will use such technology.
5-1b1a2a Any instantiation of knowledge (meaning every technology and representation) will have its own restraints
5-1b1a2b Anything physical can’t do away with its own contingency
5-1b1a2c Contingency cannot be exhaustively accounted for, because that amounts to predicting minds and knowledge
5-1b1a2c0 No theory can exhaust reality
5-1b1a2c0.1 Perfect replication is impossible
5-1b1a2c0.2 Analogue information (e.g., tones of voice, EQ) cannot be perfectly-exhaustively represented by digital systems (e.g., universal writing systems)
5-1b1a2c1 Principles are meta-contingency. Whatever can happen can happen regardless of how.
5-1b1a2c2 Constructor Theory is all about knowledge of how to correct errors (primarily of our parochiality-physicality) and thus optimism
5-1b1a2d Knowledge is by definition unpredictable
5-1b1a3 We are more than technology, because we create knowledge-technology. We are more than functions. Don’t be a function.
5-1b1a4 We can run multiple billion-dollar functions either sequentially or simultaneously. Or preferably both.
5-1b1a4a Being hedged in the long-run entails being long optionality
5-1b1a4b The extreme version of the two-job route is dangerous, because you postpone the abductions
5-1b1a5 Our ability to come up with such functions is why we are not mere universal constructors (and why we are worth infinitely more than billion-dollar)
5-1b1a5a Universal constructor is obedient, whereas universal explainers are disobedient (i.e., creative)
5-1b1a6 The reality doesn’t care how many things you are good at. What matters is the explanation.
5-1b1a7 Technology’s ‘function’ consists of many parts, and you have to have an explanation for how each contributes to the whole (i.e., ‘vertically-integrated’)
5-1b1a8 ‘Opportunity cost' and 'comparative advantage' must be rooted in explanations. Never use them as ad hoc criteria.
5-1b1a8a When using probability, we need an explanation for why that probability applies, because knowledge is unpredictable
5-1b1a8a1 Prediction ≠ Knowledge (because prediction requires knowledge)
5-1b1a8b You can use analogy, but you have to explain why the analogy holds
5-1b1a8c 決断 ≠ 判断 (the former precedes the latter — why you start out with some end-state of the world you’d like to achieve and live in)
5-1b1a8d Knowledge doesn’t automatically make us wise—the most learned are not the wisest (or the richest)
5-1b1a9 The Fun Criterion is an explanation
5-1b1b You should beget and benefit from volatility (learning)
5-1b1b1 Become good at multiple things rather than being super good at one specific thing (the former is both easier and effective)
5-1b1b1a Power-law curiosity - be professionally curious about a few topics and idly curious about many more
5-1b1b1a1 Things can become easier the more complexity you have (Network effects = Power-law)
5-1b1b1a1.1 The more anomalies you’ve seen, the more easily you’ll detect new ones. Life should become more and more surprising as you grow older. It compounds.
5-1b1b1a1a Pareto principle (or law of the vital few) - 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes
5-1b1b1a1b Not every relationships matter. Most likely, only a few matter.
5-1b1b1a2 Network effect means compounding
5-1b1b1a2.1 Network effect means scaling increasingly
5-1b1b1a3 Network effects (digital) ＞ Supply and demand (physical)
5-1b1b1a4 Game = Game + Streaming + Virtual Goods
5-1b1b1a4.1 ゲーム = ゲーム性 (駆け引き) ＋ 操作性 ＋ 物語性 ＋ 再現性 ＋ 世界観 ＋ クラフト系 ＋ 音ゲー ＋ スポーツ
5-1b1b1a5 'Come for the tool, stay for the network' tactic
5-1b1b1a5.1 Blockchain network becomes better as tools are added
5-1b1b1a6 Corporate networks can play different games from protocol networks because they have way more sources of funding
5-1b1b1b Be more than what you are supposed to be. You have to be surprising.
5-1b1b2 Flow to the most interesting, because the Fun Criterion doesn’t distinguish what’s fun via categories. Fun just means fun.
5-1b1b2a If you follow the Fun Criterion, you’ll be good at things
5-1b1b2b Don't try to be the best. Be the only.
5-1b1b3 Productize yourself (as an embodiment of reality)
5-1b1c Market should beget and benefit from volatility
5-1b1c1 Pursue market which is convincingly, and surprisingly, large
5-1b1c2 Do market sizing calculations early and often
5-1b1d Invest in volatility (literally)
5-1b1d1 Not investing is also a form of investing
5-1b2 Don’t invest in prediction, because knowledge is inherently unpredictable
5-1b2.1 Don’t invest in prediction, because the Black Swan is inherently unpredictable
5-1b2.2 There is no objective Black Swan
5-1b2.3 Don’t be the turkey—the Black Swan is the Grey Swan depending on your perspective
5-1b2a The “Doubt-Avoidance Tendency” - people want certainty-predictability-control over accuracy-reality
5-1b3 How much we can change is also unpredictable
5-1b3a In particular, we underestimate how much we can change in the future during and after downturns. Things change.
5-1b4 Be prepared to deal with short-term nonsenses, but know what you’re focused on in the long-run and stay optimistic
5-1b4a Amara’s law - we expect too much in the short-run, but too little in the long-run
5-1b4a0 We overestimate the technological impact in the next 10 years, but underestimate the next 20 (and often right about 15 years later)
5-1b4a0.1 New is overvalued relative to great
5-1b4a0.2 Users will always go where the newest news is
5-1b4a1 Don’t be a depressive realist or a blissfully unaware. Be a rational optimist.
5-1b4a2 Optimalism ＞ Optimism
5-1b4b Compounding is usually too slow to notice. You have to be deliberate in how you think and what you see.
5-1b4b0 Evolution is trend
5-1b4b1 Life’s evolution’s superpower is its time horizon. 3.8 billion years of miniscule changes compounded.
5-1b4b2 Hanlon's razor applied - See things as results of habits
5-1b4b3 Time beats timing
5-1b4c Exponential growth feels flat in the beginning, precisely why it’s worth making an extraordinary effort to get it started. You can also follow the Fun Criterion (the latter likely exhausts the former). Consistency is the key.
5-1b4c1 When you are ‘self-disciplined’ your unconscious is likely not engaged, and you’re probably not solving any real problems.
5-1b4c1a Watch out if you need “self-discipline” — it might indicate that you aren’t solving any of your problems
5-1b4c1b You can easily replace the self-discipline with the four laws of habit formation - (1) make it obvious, (2) make it attractive, (3) make it easy, and (4) make it satisfying
5-1b4c1c Align your short-term reward with your long-term vision
5-1b4c2 No wonder why someone who is having fun is genuinely great at what they do. Because you have to have fun to achieve great things.
5-1b4c2a When you have an agency, you don't get depleted. We aren't powered by a battery.
5-1b4c3 The definition of fun is arbitrary and contingent depending on the individual. You can be ‘making an effort’ while having fun.
5-1b4c3a Find work where you like even the parts others find tedious or frightening
5-1b4c4 Pay attention to your ‘taboos’ - If there is something you fear unconsciously, you have to face it
5-1b4c4a Taboos likely can offer gateways to your unconscious
5-1b4c4b To truly have fun, you have to get rid of your own misconceptions
5-1b4c4c When you have fun proper, it should also be intellectually stimulating
5-1b5 Keep solving problems including the problem of what problems to solve
5-2 What counts cannot be counted
5-2a Check your growth rate of expectations vs circumstances. The former is hard to measure. But remember - you get what you measure.
5-2a1 You get what you measure
5-2a2 What gets measured gets managed
5-2a3 People fight over tangibles
5-2b Errors of omission are dangerous because you make them by default
5-2b0 You are what you do repeatedly
5-2b0a Most errors in judgement happen when we don't know we're supposed to be exercising judgement
5-2b0b Most books about thinking focus on being more rational when the fundamental problem is not knowing what problems to exercise judgement
5-2b1 Writing out your goals is how you become performance-oriented in life
5-2b1a Your goals reflect your problem-situation, and as such must be criticized
5-2b1a1 Your goals are gateway to your problem-situation, just like your concepts and categories are to your purpose and values
5-2b1a2 When you invert, you are inverting the problem-situation itself (’why do I have this problem’)
5-2b1a2a Simplify the problem, but not too simply
5-2b1a3 Extract the most problematic part of the problem-situation
5-2b1b Writing down makes it easier for your conscious to see the unconscious
5-2b2 You can’t flow to the most interesting if you react to everything that comes at you by default
5-2b2a Use LATER folder, instead of reactively watching-reading-listening, and give them time
5-2b3 You have to be guessing everything all the time, including your goals themselves because the unconscious is what can’t be explicated yet
5-2b4 Explanation (explicit or inexplicit) precedes both your options and choices
5-2b4a You can either decide from existent options, or make a decision (literally in the sense of creation) by creating new explanation
5-2b4a1 小局における矛盾も大局を鑑みると決して矛盾ではないという可能性
5-2b4b You have to keep finding surprises
5-2b5 Theories precede data
5-2b6 Theories need data
5-2b7 The skeptical empiricist doubts both data and theory
5-2c Be impatient about the things you most want to do
5-2c1 You perceive yourself by what you do repeatedly, just as you judge others by their routine behaviors.
5-2c1a 自己シグナリング：人間は、他人を評価するのと同じで、自分で自分の行動を見て、自分の性格を判断している。
5-2c2 Fake stuff usually has a sharp peak of seeming to matter
5-2c2a Prioritize bullshit avoidance over money and prestige. Don't waste your time.
5-2c2a0 Avoiding bullshit takes you far enough. Maybe the extra bit comes from really knowing about yourself.
5-2c2a1 Progressive titles might be there to hide its unprogressive nature
5-2c2b The Lindy effect
5-2c2b0 The truer and deeper the idea is, the more likely it will survive criticism, change in society, and withstand unpredictable consequences brought about by itself
5-2c2b0.1 Invest in what can't be easily disrupted
5-2c2b0.2 You need resilience against volatility (i.e., Stoic robustness)
5-2c2b0.3 The way you become resistant to volatility is not by being robust or antifragile per se but by being one with the reality
5-2c2b1 Focus on the fundamentals, on the deeper ideas closer to abstract knowledge, on what matters, and build yourself (including technology) around it
5-2c2b1a If you want your writing to still be readable on a computer from the 2060s or 2160s, it’s important that your notes can be read on a computer from the 1960s, for your future self
5-2c2b2 When you are long bullshit, you are short volatility and time
5-2c2b3 'When you punt something into the future, the future eventually arrives'
5-2c2c The probability of extinction is effectively independent of its age (Van Valen)
5-2d When you are purpose-goal-oriented, you'll be problem-project-oriented, because you will face problems in the process of achieving the former and will break them down into mini-problems
5-2d1 Procrastinators often follow exactly the wrong tack. They try to minimize their commitments, assuming that if they have only a few things to do, they will quit procrastinating and get them done.
5-2d2 You need somewhat grandiose goals to procrastinate structurally - テーマはひとつでは多すぎる
5-3 Don’t fight. Transcend.
5-3a Knowledge via new explanations is inherently creative and its effects are positive-sum, because it begets new problems to be solved
5-3b Knowledge creates new frontiers (and new markets)
5-3c Knowledge is irreversible, and can only go from private to public
5-3c1 One of the lessons from the last era of the internet is that if a service needs to be built, it will probably get built — if not as a public good, then as a private good
5-3c2 BSM formula is technology, and took much longer than expected to catch on publicly
5-3d Innovation is invention catching on. Innovation itself is technology, and technology is knowledge. Innovation is knowledge becoming public.
5-3e Matt Ridley - 'Knowledge is both a public good and a temporarily private one. Knowledge is expensive to produce, but can sometimes pay for itself.'
6-1 Understanding one’s health requires understanding one’s environment, because culture and technology affects both what we do inexplicitly and unconsciously
6-1a We are outsourcing to capitalist entities who are not aligned with us
6-1b You either have to realign the incentives of capitalist entities you are outsourcing your health, or you have to take care of yourself
6-2 The cost effectiveness of anything addictive decreases over time. When you engage with them, you will either waste your time or money, very likely both.
6-2a Addiction lessens one’s ability to experience joy in life.
6-2b Cut inputs after arousal
6-3 Our definition of health should also consider the health of mind (e.g., ’clarity of mind’ and ‘neural health’), not just physical health.
6-3a Ownership is not just about physical-digital asset, but about yourself
6-3a1 You have to own your own creation. The difference between creator and influencer is the gap of digital property rights.
6-3a2 How you have something can (and will) matter more than what (you think) you have (e.g., DEX vs CEX - DEX will counter Maximalists movement)
6-3a2.1 How you achieve something matters as much as what you achieve
6-3a3 The frontier will be on-chain
6-3b When you own something, you have an incentive to invest in it
6-3b0 When you own something, you can do whatever with it
6-3b0.1 When you own something, you can go anywhere
6-3b0a Ownership means trading
6-3b0b No trading means no ownership; you can't have one without the other
6-3b0c Permissionless blockchains without tokens and token trading are impossible
6-3b0d Users become traders with tokens
6-3b0e You can trade anything onchain, unlike tradi-fi
6-3b1 Users become owners with tokens
6-3b1.1 Collect is the new like
6-3b2 In corporate networks you can only quit
6-3b2.1 State network ≈ Corporate network
6-3b2.2 Network state ≠ State network
6-3b2.3 Dollar is state network for payment
6-3b2.3a Credit is not money
6-3b2.3b Your spending is someone else's income. Spending matters.
6-3b2.3c When the money is printed, financial assets appreciate
6-3b2.4 Decentralization is security
6-3b2.4a Less volition within nation states leads to negative feedback loops of more coercion
6-3b2.4b Politics was (about) social media (2010s) and will be (about) cryptocurrency (2020s)
6-3b2.5 India (or any other country-company-community) can act as the tech-media superpower of de-Americanization-dollarization movement
6-3b2.5a Community network ＞ State network (e.g., Indian network ＞ Indian state-market)
6-3b2.5b Indian network (or any other country-company-community network) can provide the civilizational stack to the world
6-3b2.6 China is the manufacturing superpower
6-3b2.7 International Intermediate (e.g., Indian network) vs Chinese state (2040s)
6-3b2a Interoperability implies compounding
6-3b2b Interoperability implies composability
6-3b2c Composability with ownership means you can permeate across other possibilities
6-3b2d Composability is software's version of compounding interest-effect, because composability saving keystrokes implies compounding
6-3b2d1 Don't reinvent the wheel. Copy and paste. Save keystrokes.
6-3b2e Network effects + Feedback loops + Composability = Exponential growth
6-3b2f Composability implies compounding
6-3b2g No composability implies fragmentation
6-3b2h 'Trademarks, patents, and copyrights' - If secrecy were the only protection for ideas, companies wouldn't just have to be secretive with other companies; they'd have to be secretive internally.
6-3b3 Don't think corporate network structure (especially its incentives) is the norm
6-3b3.1 There is no necessary incentive (i.e., norm incentives)
6-3b3a Networks with billions of owners are possible
6-3b3b Not differentiating developers from users mean what attracts the former also attracts the latter, and vice versa
6-3b3c Tasks held captive as proprietary in corporate networks become market-based
6-3b3d Externalized incentives (negative externalities) go away when everything is externalized
6-3b3e Everyone benefits in blockchain and protocol networks
6-3b3f Blockchain network ＞ Protocol network ＞ Corporate network
6-3b3f1 Not every crypto network is technical network
6-3b3f2 BTC Maximalists are monotheists and political network
6-3b3g Federated (protocol) networks have a tendency, a fundamental by-product of their architecture, to evolve into corporate networks because network effects ensure that small advantages compound to create big winners
6-3b3g1 Network effects also affect blockchain networks
6-3b3h Protocol networks could get subsumed by corporate networks
6-3b4 Tokens are the natural asset class to provide a sensible organizational structure for networks
6-3b4a Tokens empower individuals to become stakeholders in networks, not just participants
6-3b4b Users become marketers with tokens
6-3b4c Building true communities is the best way to go viral
6-3b4d Community first, monetization later; morality first, money second; missionary over mercenary
6-3b4e Community and monetization can also be realized at the same time
6-3b5 Tokens encapsulate complicated code (primarily, ownership) into an uncomplicated wrapper
6-3b6 Digital-native ownership can address ambiguities of physical ones
6-3b7 NFT = A digital twin of the physical object
6-3b8 You can't really influence legacy-analog-land from frontier-digital-cloud, nor should you.
6-3c When you are invested, you'll try to own it
6-3d Be very specific about problems and divide a project clear cut so it doesn't become bleak, like shared common room.
6-3z A world without ownership is a world with less creativity and human flourishing
6-4 Proper epistemology should lead to a proper state of mind
6-5 Sit less
6-6 Once you hit 25, your aerobic capacity decreases 10% per decade (or 1% per year)
6-7 Brain and gut works reflexively
6-7a You are what you consume (eat)
6-7b Nutrition doesn’t exist independently from the patient
6-8 Train your weakest link
7-1 Create what people want or will want
7-1a Create something you would want for yourself, and never for some imaginary audience
7-1a1 You can only solve your own problems. You incidentally help others by solving THAT.
7-1a1a Don't solve imaginary problems
7-1a1a1 Imaginary problems lead to ‘investment’ and ‘work’ - don't indulge with them
7-1a1a2 Solve your own problems. Otherwise you'll lose time and money without self-indulgence alarms going off.
7-1a1a3 If you know that others can solve certain problems, let them. Only work on important problems worth focusing on.
7-1a1b Theoretical physics has that universal applicability because the laws of physics apply to all things physical
7-1a1c The problem-situation is more rigid in scientific discourse, compared to elsewhere
7-1a2 You can also make their problem as your problem by using growth as a guidance.
7-1a2a You will be solving universal problems by attending to local-parochial problems first
7-1a2a0 The definition of 'local' doesn't imply physical-geographical proximity due to the existence of internet
7-1a2a1 絶対に勝てるところから勝っていく
7-1a2a1.1 'Scale' - Anything that scaled started small, at the edge, at the frontier, as an avant-garde
7-1a2a1.1 Look for two-step-aheaders, instead of people many steps ahead of you
7-1a2a2 Get ahead in the short-run, then in the long-run
7-1a2a3 Win at the corner then come back (傾く・バロック)
7-1a2a4 バロックの本質は逸脱
7-1a2b For startups, growth is a constraint much like truth
7-1a2c Startup = Growth
7-1a2d Optimizing for growth can lead to discovering startup ideas. It’s a form of evolutionary pressure.
7-1a3 You’ll act when you target growth
7-1a4 Optimizing for growth can lead to discovering startup ideas
7-1a4a Growth in revenue and in user base are not the same thing.
7-1a4a1 Wealth created ≠ the P&L of a business. Remember - you get what you measure.
7-1a4b Understanding the measurement-constraints amounts to understanding the system-incentives. That is, creating explanations.
7-1a4c Different institutions have different motivations-incentives
7-1a5 Startups work on technology because great ideas made viable by newest tech (itself a new technology) is the best source of rapid change and growth
7-1a5a Finding some distribution arbitrage in your time and place is also a great source for growth
7-1a5a1 Find an inexpensive custom acquisition channel and pile up users through an underpriced angles others haven't realized yet.
7-1a5b Ask which problem-situation is the most problematic one (conscious, inexplicit, unconscious, future, new)
7-1a5b1 Optimizing for growth should provide some insights about the problem-situation
7-1a5c Engineers address the problem itself, and sales people help making that problem everyone’s problem NOW
7-1a5c1 Engineer + Influencer = Company OR Country
7-1a6 Great combination is being good at technology and knowing the problems that can be solved by it
7-1a6a Successful founders see different problems
7-1a6b Successful founders apply new technology to solve problems at edge cases
7-1b The problem and its solution doesn’t have to be addressed by the same individual
7-1b0 The creator-user (or producer-consumer) distinction is arbitrary. There are no 'producers' and 'consumers' in the non-human world.
7-1b0a The producer-consumer distinction is blurred in non-profit organizations and open source projects. Likely why their diffusions are slow.
7-1b1 You can solve problems others are conscious of
7-1b1a A crowded market is actually a good sign, because it means both that there's demand and that none of the existing solutions are good enough
7-1b2 You can solve problems others have inexplicitly or unconsciously
7-1b2a Arbitrage what’s been said vs what’s been bought
7-1b2a1 We seem more willing to spend money on good fruit jam than on good software
7-1b2b You can help explicating problems others have inexplicitly or unconsciously
7-1b2b1 The best is seeing the front by yourself, because inexplicit and unconscious ideas exist between heads not within them
7-1b2c You can create problems then offer solutions simultaneously
7-1b3 You can solve problems others will have but don’t have yet
7-1b3a Don’t argue. Build. Their incomprehension is your moat.
7-1b3b Outside-in tech vs Inside-out tech
7-1b3c Some technologies will be structurally overlooked by corporate networks. Barriers to entry doesn't necessarily correlate to its importance.
7-1b3d New stars rise along with the new platform
7-1b4 You can solve problems that just became solvable
7-1b4a Start with technology. Technology is knowledge. Use them as objective constraints.
7-1b4b You can let the tech decide what are the problems to be solved. Otherwise, it will decide by itself. It's about possibility and not about should.
7-1b4b0 Tech does what culture does to you. You see what could've been based on the tech you know.
7-1b4b0.1 Technologists are those who lead with technologies, and less with heart
7-1b4b1 Technical truth ≠ Political truth
7-1b4b2 Andy Grove - 'Technology happens. It's not good, it's not bad.'
7-1b4b3 When you dump oscillations, you dump low end as well as high end
7-1b4b4 It’s better to take the risk of telling others about your ideas than to hide them
7-1b4b4a Let knowledge permeate, and don’t force your constraints on them
7-1b4b4b Permeate both across other possibilities in this universe and across multiversal timelines
7-1b4b4c Public Networked Learner must use composability with ownership and compounding to its advantage
7-1b4b5 Any kind of expertise is valuable, and some people will take unexpected action to capture that value such that it will be serendipitous to you
7-1b4c Don’t go looking for ‘great ideas’ without technology. Ideas are great insofar as they address problems. In other words, great ideas have to contribute to solving problems one way or another (and that often involves using technology)
7-1b4d Don't be proud of being 'too early' because it's easy to be 'too early' if your tech knowledge is naive
7-1b4e What you can ＞ What you want (できること ＞ やりたいこと)
7-1b4f Let the tech decide where to go (both intellectually and physically)
7-1b4g Intellectual and physical can merge in the digital
7-1b5 You can solve problems that just got created
7-1b5a You can create problems. Not in the sense of causing problems, but literally creatively creating them. There are good problems and bad problems. Work on and solve good problems.
7-1b6 There are only problems to be solved. Types of problems are arbitrary, because one type can be easily morphed into another.
7-1c You are not committed to any specific problem. You are committed to figuring out something no one knew before. You are committed to the unpredictable.
7-1c1 Intuition about which hill to climb is usually better than people realize
7-1d Create something simpler-faster-cheaper for things we’ve been doing for thousands of years
7-1d0 People who find ways to drive down the costs and simplify the product made the biggest difference (Ford)
7-1d1 Apply the newest technology to the oldest problems. The best source of arbitrage is between the newest tech papers and the oldest books.
7-1d1a You can also arbitrage the technology itself
7-1d1b Look for technology which haven’t gotten a lot of press yet because it’s really new from labs, or because people assume it’s “dead” although doesn’t explain why
7-1d1c You can be at the edge of the newest technology
7-1d1d You can use technology people assume is “dead”
7-1d1e You can use technology from one field to another
7-1d2 Technology changes the problem-situation, and determines which ideas are possible and obsolete
7-1d2a The relation between technology and the problem-situation (i.e., culture and mind) is reflexive
7-1d2a1 Network-era businesses today have new organizational needs
7-1d2a2 Founders must be legitimate and competent. Pay attention to the selection mechanism, and be aware if otherwise.
7-1d2a3 No LLCs meant only close-knit partnerships with trust were available
7-1d2a4 Tech innovation can (and did) drive pragmatic changes in regulation
7-1d2a5 Tech shapes tech
7-1d2b Centralized tech ⇒ Mass media (via mass production) ⇒ Homogenized societal experiences ⇒ Communism, Nazism, Democratic Capitalism
7-1d2b1 Both good (’the Golden 50s’ in the U.S.) and bad (Nazism and Communism) culture-mind were made easier by homogenized societal experiences with centralized technology
7-1d2c Decentralized tech ⇒ . . .
7-1d3 The most valuable advantage in business is technical one
7-1e We ask ‘what is the rich doing’ because they are the ones who have the resource to experiment with to find ways to cheapen the means of production
7-1f Developing in anticipation of development cost cheapening is a form of investment
7-2 Long optionality, volatility, change
7-2a Be opportunistic and flexible globally rather than inverting locally and prematurely optimized
7-2b The more of a noob you are locally, the less of a noob you are globally
8-1 The frontier
8-1a What can go digital will go digital
8-1a1 We are digitizing more than ever
8-1b Look for places where we’ve taken an offline experience and put it online (physical ⇒ intermediate) but haven’t fundamentally innovated yet (⇒ internet-native)
8-1b1 Physical (offline) can exist as printouts of digital (online)
8-1b2 Digital-physical is entwined
8-1b2a Most automation (and probably disruption as well) happens indirectly
8-1b3 The software can control the hardware
8-1b3a A blockchain takes the code seriously
8-1b3b When software is in charge, designers can take full advantage of the expressivity of software
8-1b3b1 Any system that can be written down can be realized
8-1b3b2 There are infinite more things to experiment on-chain (and off-chain) just as there are infinite things to write about
8-1b3c Software is a highly plastic flexible medium and almost any economic model that can be dreamed up can be implemented in software
8-1b3d Monetary policies can come first and the currency circulation can come later (or symbiotically-simultaneously), not vice versa (i.e., bottom-up vs top-down)
8-1b3e Software will be at the intersection between ideological and economical
8-1b3f A blockchain economy must balance the supply ('faucets') and demand ('sinks') of native tokens to fuel sustainable growth
8-1b3f1 You can value tokens using traditional financial metrics (e.g., PE ratio) by studying the cash flows and burn rates of blockchain networks
8-1b3g Poor faucets-sinks design can lead to the problem of 'only the rich can deploy'
8-1b3h A broad distribution of tokens can mitigate the risk of plutocracy
8-1b3i Token rewards should taper off as the network grows
8-1b4 Blockchains are new kind of computer
8-1b4a The meaning of the word 'computer' shifts
8-1b4b Blockchains = Full-fledged computers
8-1c Look for inherently digital-native areas and concepts
8-1c1 Potential scenario - Digital frontend + Human backend ⇒ Digital frontend + Digital backend
8-1c2 Robotics then software (likely in that order, although not necessarily) will replace Uber, Amazon, Doordash
8-1c2a What matters is the creativity per se, because non-creative parts will be made easier
8-1c3 Investing may become the most common job for the 21st century with more automation
8-1c3a Internet turned everyone into publisher. Crypto can turn everyone into investor.
8-1c3a0 99% investing (learning) and 1% building might become the norm
8-1c3a1 Internet vs Telecom will recur in Crypto vs Financial Services
8-1c3b Farming became the most common job during the 19th century
8-1c3c Manufacturing became the most common job during the 20th century
8-1c4 ‘Killer application’ is knowledge-technology-universality that begets reflexivity between app-platform-people by pushing people over the threshold
8-1c4a Smartphones skyrocketed online screen time
8-1c4a1 iPhone and texting (along with visual voicemail) boosted each other
8-1c4a2 Twitter’s 140-character limit was useful constraint
8-1c4a3 Focused vision heightens alertness — bigger screen doesn’t always translate to more focus
8-1c4b Popular magazines boosted and was boosted by literacy
8-1c4c TV boosted and was boosted by short stories
8-1c4d Web boosted and was boosted by essays
8-1c4d1 Web3 writing differs particularly from Web2 writing, because of the incentive structure
8-1c4d1a Writing pre-internet era was mostly about English literature
8-1c4d1a1 The culture (or ‘gestalt’) dictates what’s been written as well as what’s not been written
8-1c4d1a2 People only pay attention to certain parts of music, art, building, product, photo etc.
8-1c4d2 Web2 writing is enmeshed in Web2 incentive structure
8-1c4d3 Blockchain and Web3 writing can boost each other
8-1c4d4 There are infinitely more things to be written as there are infinitely more ways to write them
8-1c4d5 We need mechanisms to realign technology-media-society (or technology-media-individual)
8-1c4d5a This is a specific case where we need the knowledge-technology-universality to push app-platform-people over the threshold
8-1c4d5b There are many ways by which apps, platforms, and people can interact reflexively
8-1c4d5c Don’t be constrained by the definition of ‘apps’, ‘platforms’, and ‘people’ — because they are arbitrary (e.g., platform can be build on top of platform, apps when combined can turn into platform, etc)
8-1c4e What blockchains can do
8-1c5 Look for Lollapalooza, or system equivalent of critical mass, or chemical equivalent of activation energy, alloying, and catalysts
8-1d Look for inherently crypto-native areas and concepts
8-1e You have to go beyond skeuomorphism. Native means novelty.
8-2 Blockchains-Crypto
8-2a Do not overestimate the robustness of legacy institutions. Crypto is more than just an asset class due to its programmability, permissionless-ness, and peer-to-peer architecture.
8-2a1 Crypto can decide which assets become obsolete and possible
8-2b Crypto will disrupt everything because it can change how organizations are formed, monetized, and exited. It could take decades to play out.
8-2b1 Web3 ecosystem is built on the assumption that we cannot trust anyone
8-2b2 The most efficient business is one with trust, or one completely without
8-2b2.1 Blockchain technologies allow composable forms of trust. Trust can be digitized.
8-2b2a 'Technologies that change society are technologies that change interactions between people'
8-2b2b Key moment is when people (e.g., devs) don't have to worry about the infrastructure (e.g., platform risks including high take rates)
8-2b2b1 Low take rates have a multiplier effect
8-2b2b2 Take rates + Token incentives = Economic equation for blockchain networks
8-2b2c The iPhone (or the blockchain) moment
8-2b2d Value shifts to adjacent layers
8-2b2e Humans really care about other humans
8-2b3 On-chain gets you immutability, verifiability, monetization. Just as online gets you distribution-sharing-collaboration.
8-2b4 You don't (and can't) put everything on-chain, just as you don't (and can't) put everything online
8-2c Crypto = Money + Computer (Crypto is programmable money)
8-2d Network states (digital) can probably address the problem nation states (analog) inherently possess
8-2d1 People gather for an ideology on new media, instead of geographical constraints (e.g., local newspapers)
8-2d1a SNSのテーマは統一したほうがいい。応援してくれる遠い人や知らない人を増やす。みんなが知りたくて知らないものと知りたくて知っているものに特化すること。
8-2d1b Forwardable insights can lead to network effects
8-2d2 In digital world, you can be in multiple nations (or equivalents) at the same time
8-2d2a You can’t be a multiple in analog world
8-2d3 You can vote with ballot, wallet, or foot (physical & digital)
8-2d3a The diaspora can be (and IS) the state
8-2d4 You can vote with time
8-3 Robotics
8-3a Robotics will be the new demographics
8-4 LLMs
8-4a Multi-modality means transferability (着せ替え・持ち替え・言い換え)
8-4a1 Multi-modal transferability means software will be built differently
8-4b A context window can reach billions
8-4b1 There will be AI-first applications
8-4b2 What can be done by AIs will be done by AIs
8-4b3 AI could one-box the entire internet
8-5 VR-AR
9-1 Be truthful
9-1a You don’t have to be convincing per se, because convincing and true will become identical
9-1a1 People who converge upon the truth converge with each other
9-1a2 Most fairly good ideas are adjacent to even better ones
9-1a3 The maxima in the space of startup ideas are not spiky and isolated.
9-1b You can’t really transfer your knowledge to others, because each knowledge has to be created individually
9-1b0 Knowledge (both explicit and inexplicit) is created individually. You don’t say “I took it from him.” You can’t blame “he took it from me.”
9-1b0a When you have learned something, the way it exists in your mind is the same as the way it exists in the mind of the inventor
9-1b0b 'If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.'
9-1b0c Reality doesn't differentiate reading-thinking-writing-playing-doing-investing-building
9-1b0d Reality doesn't differentiate investing from solo-funding, crowdfunding, referring, donating, and sending money. It's just paying.
9-1b1 Ideas are never replicated fully because each individual has different problem-situation. Meme variation (and mutation) is inevitable.
9-1b1a It almost never happens that two minds hold precisely the same idea
9-1b2 Inevitable meme variation is another reason why it's impossible to predict how people will use your work and ideas
9-1b2a Technology can be invented via individuals as well as via groups of people, but both can’t do away with their own constraints (i.e., their contingency)
9-1b2b Technology, knowledge, and people constitute symbols (including relations, because relations are also symbols)
9-1c When you take Popperian epistemology seriously, you take people (including children) seriously
9-1c1 Your partners and friends have to sign up for your explanation
9-1c2 You can only hope that people you care about will somewhat understand your explanations, but they will never understand you exhaustively
9-1c3 This applies to 'children' because 'children' is a social construct
9-1d Because ‘education’ can only happen within one’s self, what we need is more books and not ‘teachers’
9-1d1 Because minds never hold precisely the same idea (the same configuration of ideas), “having everyone on the same page” (syncing) is epistemological impossibility
9-1d2 If you love books, become one. Teachers in the traditional sense of the word will be replaced by them. But never expect to be read uniformly.
9-1d2a Defending yourself (online) makes sense only if you assume the bucket theory of mind
9-1d2b Dismissing some people as irrational presupposes the bucket theory of mind. Everyone’s mind is active. Do not assume you can ‘transfer’ your knowledge to others.
9-2 Everything is sales
9-2a It’s easy to convince if people don’t know you enough for what you are not
9-2a0 The Identity Stack - To build something great means becoming someone's top primary identifier
9-2a1 It doesn’t matter where you came from (or where you are); what matters is what you can do and where you are going
9-2a1.1 Idea is direction. Execution is speed.
9-2a1a キャラ (物語思考) ≠ キャリア (「自己分析」) — Don’t obsessed with where it came from, think about where it’s going)
9-2a2 You have to figure out where you are going by living abductively via surprises
9-2a3 Be long volatility with people
9-2a3a Pick up the biggest upside potential
9-2a3b Don’t pick up anything which has certain downside. Avoid bullshit.
9-2a3b1 Don’t pick up anything whose epistemology is not Popperian
9-2a4 Specifically, be long volatility with people’s ability to create new knowledge
9-2b It’s not just about what you say or what yo do, but also about how you say it and how you present it
9-2b0 Low voice midnight FM MC voice resonates better
9-2b1 情報媒体が情報自体よりも情報力を持つこともある
9-2b1.1 形式の内容化もありうる (形式 ＞ 内容)
9-2b1.2 Marshall McLuhan - 'It is the medium itself that is the message, not the content'
9-2b1.3 UI (and UX) matters
9-2b1.4 Where you put your writing on can affect how you write
9-2b2 There is no objective hierarchy amongst knowledge; only cultural-subjective hierarchy exists because we are cultural being (知識・情報そのものに優劣はない)
9-2b3 いわゆる「知識」は合理科学が浸透したコミュニティにのみあてはまる・「世界はひとつ」ではない
9-2b3a There is no universal culture, because culture is contingency (文化 = 上澄み)
9-2b3b Universal culture is meaningless
9-2b3b1 Contingency = Meaning (or, contingency implies meaning)
9-2b3b2 We have meaning because we are free
9-2b3c We are more different than we are alike
9-2b3c1 Everett on Joseph Campbell's 'Monomyth' (innate content) - A tendency to think in generic terms of people and races is undoubtedly the profoundest flaw in mythological thinking. You could shape any myths into a monomyth if you so wished.
9-2b3c2 Everett on Chomsky - UG (that humans are born with a tacit knowledge of many intricate details of grammar) and the idea that the linguistics capacity were identical and innate in all humans are 'monogrammar' similar to 'monomyth'
9-2b3d Everett on George Berkeley's critique of the very notions of abstraction and generalization - There is no mind of any kind, only bodies and the world in which they move
9-2b3e Everett on John Locke - His tabula rasa didn’t mean there were no innate abilities, but that there were no innate specific concepts (innate capacities ≠ innate knowledge)
9-2b3e1 Our ideas are acquired by living and thinking
9-2b3e2 There is no universal symbol-idea (in the sense of capable of conveying universal meaning)
9-2b3e3 There is no universal knowledge
9-2b3e3.1 Maybe there is no abstract universality, just less locality
9-2b3e4 Specific knowledge ≠ Universality
9-2b3f Everett on Hume - Ideas only make sense or exist through experience
9-2b3g Edward Sapir - 'The particular and the variable, rather than the universal or invariable, are where the intellectual gold is to be mined.'
9-2b3h Edward Sapir - 'One is always unconsciously finding what one is in unconscious subjection to'
9-2b4 More applicability (i.e., universality) per se doesn't necessarily mean it's for the better
9-2b5 Universality per se is never enough
9-2b5.1 Contingency ＞ Universality
9-2b6 Infinity per se is never enough
9-2b7 Universality means there are infinite possibilities, but you can only pick few
9-2c Mark Twain - “Humor is a way to show you’re smart without bragging.”
9-3 Increase surface area of luck
9-3a Luck-Skill dichotomy is at best arbitrary. We can train our ability to create ‘luck’.
9-4 Why write
9-4a Writing is fighting, and good writing can fuel technological progress
9-4b Writing generates ideas
9-4b1 Writing is abduction repeated
9-4b1a Abductions are historic events. Real writing is history being written.
9-4b2 Writing is creative destructions happening on paper
9-4b2a Writing is THE evolution. It’s more fast-universal-explicit in contrast to the evolution of genes.
9-4b2a1 Most of the evolution happened inside human brains
9-4b2a1a Brains mimic the evolution of life, both generally and literally
9-4b2a1b Build the Idea Maze - Explain the history around an idea, and why yours is a good one. Virtually render the history of the evolution of that idea.
9-4b2a1c The moment you write about any societal problem in depth you'll find yourself writing a history of that problem
9-4b2a1d A group of people who doesn't know who they are and where they came from won't make it to the moon or Mars
9-4b2a1d0 情報には文脈がある = 情報文化は区切りでできている (digit) = 情報における分節の重要性
9-4b2a1d0.1 Digitization (articulation) is a play with contingency (i.e., 'could have been'-s)
9-4b2a1d0.2 人間は句読点を打った動物
9-4b2a1d0.3 The essence of analysis is articulation - 分析の本質は分節
9-4b2a1d1 歴史の中にひそむあらかじめスクリプトされたものを読みとることで時代の現在を生きる
9-4b2a1d1.1 Inexperienced people can have great ideas too, sometimes far better ones than more experienced people
9-4b2a1d1.2 You can let the tech decide, but ideas and visions often can shape the tech
9-4b2a1d2 Don't bee too technical but also don't be too ambitious. Look from both technical and historical perspectives.
9-4b2a1d3 Technologists and background technologies interact reflexively
9-4b2a1e Be the outsider - 外部性・外来性を重視すること
9-4b2a1f Two-way debate benefits from criticism
9-4b2a2 Memes can be transmitted from anyone to anyone
9-4b2b The evolution of ideas (memes) is somewhat intentional, whereas that of genes are random AND cannot be rejected
9-4b2b1 We are free because we can create knowledge, and knowledge is unpredictable
9-4b2b1a We are free insofar as we can create knowledge
9-4b2b2 We are also free because we are in the multiverse
9-4b2c You can host multiple memes both consequentially or simultaneously during your lifetime. A gene in contrast can be hosted only once per life-cycle.
9-4b2d The evolution of ideas is defined by ‘jumps’ via creative mutations
9-4b2d1 Explanatory knowledge creation ≠ Biological knowledge (the former, specifically scientific knowledge, is more composable, and thus more universal)
9-4b2e A mind can create ideas which have never existed before
9-4b2f The most important source of variation in explanatory theories is creativity. More ‘jumps’ via creativity allows qualitatively different types of ‘mutations’.
9-4b3 Writing is acting
9-4b3a Write a bad version 1.0 as fast as you can
9-4b3b We get closer to the objective knowledge by correcting one's own errors
9-4b3b1 Popper - 'We let our ideas die in our place' (another difference between memes vs genes)
9-4b3c Your epistemology has to be digital, that is, error-correctable
9-4b3d Experience can only provide you with parochial problems, but its solution often consists of some universality which can be applied elsewhere
9-4b3e Communicate effectively
9-4b3e1 Concise explanations accelerate. It helps others understand you better and faster at all scales.
9-4b3e2 Concise explanations make it easier to criticize and combine ideas
9-4b3e3 The easier something is to read, the more deeply readers will engage with your ideas. Keep the friction low.
9-4b3e3a Interfaces should follow the principle of least astonishment
9-4b3e3b Emphasize ease of use over perfection. Embrace iterative minimalism.
9-4b3e3c Make CTAs (call-to-action) clear
9-4b3e3d リトライの操作を迅速にすること・させること
9-4b3e3e 'Friction and viscosity' - Give THE problem as much attention as possible. Better UI-UX often can make innovation possible because users benefit from cognitive offload.
9-4b3e3f The Two-Minute Rule - 'When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do'
9-4b3e4 Write each sentence like you are talking to a friend
9-4c Someone who never writes has no fully formed ideas about anything nontrivial
9-4c1 If you can't write about it, you can't code it. If you can't program it, you don't understand it.
9-4c2 'Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.' 'Design to express algorithms, and only incidentally tell machines how to execute them.'
9-4d A good essay = importance (do I want it) + novelty (did you think about it a lot) + correctness + strength
9-4d1 Communicate in the headline, then in the subtitle, then slightly differently in the opening sentence, and expand on it in the opening paragraph
9-4e If you are a writer and have an audience, it’ll become much easier to market your product, because you already know what they’re interested in
9-4e1 If they are already paying for your writing, all the better, because that would lower their hurdles to pay for your product
9-4e2 Full-stack writers write articles and build things (e.g., software, hardware, movies)
9-4e2a Open source + Crowdfunding + 3D printer + App stores = A golden age of builders
9-4e2b SaaS first ⇒ code second ⇒ hire last
9-4e2c Figure out what's really worth automating-delegating first, before automating-delegating anything
9-4e2d Idea (1min) ⇒ Mockup (1d+) ⇒ Prototype (7d+) ⇒ Program (2-4w) ⇒ Product (3-6m) ⇒ Business (6-12m) ⇒ Profits (1y+)
9-4e2e There are much lower-risk ways to make money than a start up
9-4e2e1 Startup = Open Source Project = Crypto Protocol = Non-Profit = Individual Tinkering
9-4e2f The low initial cost of starting a startup ⇒ Investors need founders more than founders need investors
9-4f Product is merit and distribution is connection
9-5 How to write
10-1 Thick descripting history — other configurations — ‘contingent others’ — 【別様の可能性】
10-1a History is all the data we have so far
10-1a1 歴史 = 編集 = 関係の発見
10-1a1a 知識がなければ編集は動かせない
10-1a1b 行き詰らないとアブダクションできない
10-1a2 History rewrites (edits) itself
10-1a2a 'マツリゴト' = 飛散する民族的な情報文化を統合・再構成した情報システム
10-1a2b マルチメディア・ネットワークの未来は、これまでのいっさいの情報文化史的な成果の再編集に向かう
10-1a2c 情報文化史は編集技術の歴史
10-1a2d 何が自発してきたのか・何が創発してきたのかを見つめることが重要
10-1a2d1 マルチメディア + 情報過多 = 意味情報への関心
10-1a3 歴史は記憶の変換・記憶の創成の連続
10-1a3a The US doesn't want you to remember what happened recently
10-1a4 Digitizing history doesn't mean throwing away everything and returning to the caveman era of a blank git repository
10-1a5 Digitizing history means explaining each fork as contingent points (the could've been) for the history around an idea. History is the Idea Maze, and must be created symbolically (never non-digitally nor indexically) by the individuals.
10-1a6 History is the analysis of the log files
10-1a7 History is more of a method and less about subject (if not applied subject). History is dependent on your epistemology and technology - more generally, your knowledge - because you can only see what you can see.
10-1a8 Crypto is applied (multidisciplinary) subject
10-1b Culture is set of ideas which affect behavior including unconscious ones like skills, expectations, and emotional preferences.
10-1b1 It is the body that learns - '考えるな. 感じろ.'
10-1b1a Experts develop higher proportion of unconscious knowledge than beginners
10-1b2 Attachment is children’s first journey from the strange to the familiar, from observer to knower — The first step in emicization (未知 ⇒ 既知)
10-1b2a Emicization = The construction of an insider point of view (the 'dark matter')
10-1b3 Sapir - 'Culture is not something given but something to be gradually and gropingly discovered'
10-1b4 Children concentrically embody their ever-widening knowledge structures by testing the degree of its correspondence in comparison with other members of the society
10-1b4.1 Peirce - One needs 'interpretant' for language to get off the ground
10-1b4a Learning is imitation and testing
10-1b4b Learning = ミメシス + パロディア
10-1b4c ミメシス is analog-indexical, パロディア is digital-iconical, アナロギア is digital-symbolical
10-1b4d '好み' = ミメシスからパロディアへ
10-1b4e Developing a taste means transitioning from being obsessed with where it came from (analog) to focusing on what it is and what it can do (digital)
10-1b4f Digitization implies displacement and composability
10-1b5 We enter the world of language-based learning once we have mastered a language
10-1b6 Culture ⇒ Culturally invented symbols ⇒ Language (Culture invents things. Everyone is part of a culture. Every individual learning take place within culture. Every invention is built up over time, including language.)
10-1b7 Culture and grammar shape each other through their evolved symbiotic relationship
10-1b8 All languages will show culture-language connections if we look for it
10-1b9 Ethnogrammatical studies are to explain the linkage between nonlinguistic evidence and noncultural evidence
10-1c Culture is an abstract network shaping and connecting social roles, hierarchically structured knowledge domains and ranked values. It's dynamic and subject to change.
10-1c1 'Grammar of society' - Society and culture are connected and constructed in grammar-like ways. Individuals are 'fillers' for slots in a culture-grammar.
10-1c2 Each person occupies a role, alone or jointly. Roles are like apparel, worn for specific situations.
10-1c3 Think of yourself as a machine operating within a machine and know that you have the ability to alter your machines to produce better outcomes.
10-1c4 Think about your problem as a set of outcomes produced by a machine then customize, because thinking in terms of machine implies composability, and composable system is fixable
10-1d Cohesive culture is formed with values, knowledge structures, and social roles
10-2 Thick descripting myself — a configuration of ideas which is me
10-2a I am a set of ideas including conscious and unconscious
10-2b I cannot be fully explicated
10-2c We can provide ever better explanations about ourselves
10-2d The medium of expression, language, can also improve indefinitely
10-2d1 The laws of physics are not necessarily to be expressed with current notation. The relation is arbitrary.
10-2d1a The regularity in nature can be expressed arbitrarily well either by the language of mathematics, natural language, or by computers (zeros and ones)
10-2d1b The DNA genetic code expresses the laws of physics
10-2d1c Evolution achieved that jump to universality with the DNA genetic code
10-2d1d Humans are distinguished because of the syntax of their DNA (genomes)
10-2d2 ‘The tools for thought’ do not necessarily have to accommodate recursiveness, because we can think recursively nonetheless
10-2d2e9e Evolution of 'other life-forms' must evoke the influence of human existence
10-2e Languages are theories about the world and enmeshed in assumptions.
10-2e0 Languages are theories. The vocabulary and grammar embody substantial assertions about the world.
10-2e1 Most of the modern languages assume that time ‘flow’
10-2e2 The multiverse does not ‘come into existence’ or ‘cease to exist’; those terms presuppose the flow of time. It is only imagining the flow of time that makes us wonder what happened ‘before’ or ‘after’ the whole of reality.
10-2e3 In the multiverse, snapshots do not have time stamps
10-2e4 Other times (in 'our universe') are just special cases of other universes. There is no demarcation between other times and other universes in the multiverse.
10-2e4a There is no such thing as 'which half' would see 'heads', any more than there is an answer to the question 'which one am I'
10-2e4b Money is fungible. So is energy. So are we.
10-2e5 The multiverse neither consists of a sequence of moments nor permits a flow of time.
10-2e6 Any theory must account for the meaning of 'the future' and 'the past' because both are arbitrary abstractions and do not exist objectively in reality
10-2e7 The common-sense concept of cause and effect makes sense because 'variants' do exist somewhere in the multiverse. Nothing necessitates causes to precede their effects.
10-2e8 Reasoning about causes and effects is reasoning about variants of the causes and effects. What would've happened. How it could've been otherwise.
10-2e9 Variants do exist in the multiverse - not in the past or in the future, but they literally do exist somewhere in the multiverse!
10-2f Language assumes shared knowledge, just as conversation is implicit in the context
10-2f0 One cannot understand sentence structures well without understanding the discourses they are embedded in
10-2f0a What natural selection favored was complex thinking, not complex sentences. A gene for syntax (complex sentences) is ‘junk’ portion, as it were (i.e., not necessary).
10-2f0b Complex tools do not necessarily require complex languages (Tool complexity ≠ Linguistic complexity)
10-2f1 Chomsky’s UG approach only looks at a subset (syntax) of a subset (language) of the whole (communication system — ‘the gestalt’). Syntax is only secondary to conversation.
10-2f1a We are making communication efficient not only combinatorically (syntax) but also semantically (by using context)
10-2f1b We filter both what needs to be said and what doesn't have to be, either consciously or subconsciously
10-2f2 The theory of the evolution of language must take culture into account
10-2f2a Explanation regarding any evolution must take knowledge into account
10-2f3 Learning human languages is about learning its cultures
10-2f3a Learning human languages consists of constantly conjecturing-guessing the meaning of the words being used
10-2f3a0 The best thing to learn (and the best way to learn anything) is to learn another language
10-2f3a1 Speaking the same language doesn’t mean they share the same exact meanings.
10-2f3a2 There can only be enough overlap of meanings between any entities (e.g., individual, group, society, theory, reality) — ‘ゆらぎ’
10-2f3b Reading is about extracting the meaning from the words, and not about extracting words from the page
10-2f3c How to program the ability to learn human languages
10-2f4 Learning computer languages is about mere syntax (learning human languages ≠ learning computer languages)
10-2f5 Mathematics
10-2g You can’t extract the meaning from the words only, because the explicit (seen) is built upon the inexplicit (unseen)
10-2g1 Culture is an implicit theory for its members. It dictates what to look at and how they reason about the world.
10-2g1.1 Experience to theory over theory to experience—the latter theory is harder to get it off because it shapes your experience
10-2g1a Science emerged from culture
10-2g1a1 Science is not pure rationality autonomous from its cultural matrix
10-2g1b Science is headed towards less and less parochialism because we can be honest with what knowledge is. That is, towards universality.
10-2g1b1 Scientific discourses are less fallible because the fundamental theories of physics are exceedingly hard to vary
10-2g1c Universality of people
10-2g1d Humans are the apex predators because we plan, share knowledge, and leave knowledge for future generations, by talking to each other. We are knowledge-oriented.
10-2g1e What sets humans apart is our ability to accumulate knowledge by means of language
10-2g1f Imitation = limitation (imitation has limitation)
10-2g1f1 Natural selection can only operate on phenotypes (physical attributes) and not on genotypes (the knowledge bearing entity). The same (or similar) phenotypes doesn’t mean they share the same genotype.
10-2g1f2 Culture (also) shapes phenotype for humans (Culture ⇒ Phenotype)
10-2g1f2a Our brains (including our emotions) and our cultures are related symbiotically through the individual, and that neither supervenes on the other
10-2g1f2a1 The question is what's the brain in NOT what’s in the brain
10-2g1f2a2 You can't separate the mind from the context-culture-body that generated-evolved it. Cartesian dualism is arbitrary categorization-abstraction.
10-2g1f2a3 Everett on Descartes - Dualism is one of the worst error ever introduced into philosophy, and simply ignores evolution
10-2g1f2a4 The mind ≠ A computer
10-2g1f2b The brain and symbols evolved reflexively to enhance communication to deal with cultural and sexual selectional pressures.
10-2g1f2c It's as though everything from culture-grammar-symbol-DNA-brain evolved so that high accuracy correspondences were made easier to achieve
10-2g1f3 We can only figure out what they know by what they do ('performance'), because we can never directly study what people know ('competence'). To assert that we can is a common error in thinking.
10-2g1g Scientific knowledge implies location-time-scale-independent applicability
10-2g1h The best explanation of anything eventually involves universality, and therefore infinity. The reach of explanations cannot be limited by fiat.
10-2g1i Universality and infinity are necessary condition for the growth of knowledge, but not sufficient
10-2g1j A good explanation explain more than what they were originally designed to
10-2g2 Culture invents symbols, and the core of language is the symbol
10-2g2a Symbols are the original social contract
10-2g2b Language as the most advanced form of communication is what differentiates humans, not communication per se
10-2g2c Indexes are physical because they merely ‘indicate’ and hence do not require culture. Symbols are cultural. Put differently, indexes are analog and symbols digital.
10-2g2c0 A system is universal if it contains enough expressibility to represent anything. It can do anything and everything.
10-2g2c0a Universal systems retain the capacity to represent knowledge that is not yet created, thus can be useful in the future.
10-2g2c0b There is no a priori - 直観は存在しない
10-2g2c0c We don't think at the moment (we don't 'generate' ideas), our thinking is connected
10-2g2c0d Semiotics is a theory of how human experience grows by means of the mediating structures we create, and derives from phenomenology (philosophy of things we experience)
10-2g2c0d1 Peircean semiotics is about process and not about topic
10-2g2c0e Synechism - the idea that everything is connected and nothing can be understood in isolation
10-2g2c1 Symbols are universal. Being arbitrary and contingent means it can represent anything, and do everything.
10-2g2c1a Universality of symbols - if one specie can manipulate symbols, then that species can understand any other species who also use symbols
10-2g2c1b Only humans struggle in expressing themselves - 表現しきれないというのは人間のみ
10-2g2c1c The primary function of language is communication. Not expression of thought.
10-2g2c1d Computation is nothing more than an aid to communication
10-2g2c1e What makes humans unique is not computational ability
10-2g2c2 Human minds are capable of knowing what ideas mean
10-2g2d Science symbolizes physicality beyond parochialism (from seen to the unseen)
10-2g2d1 Science is a discussion within specific culture whose context is the laws of physics and its language mathematics, doing away with the need to explain the relationship between the two (of culture and language)
10-2g2e Universality of the laws of physics depends on the existence of universal explainers — people
10-2g2e1 Our best explanation invokes abstractions including causation and the laws of physics
10-2g2e2 Abstractions are real, and created the same way as with any other knowledge
10-2g2e3 Abstractions seem ‘inaccessible’ to empiricism
10-2g2e4 Abstractions seem less ‘justified’ to the justified-true-belief misconception
10-2g2e5 Abstractions exist and affect physical objects. Knowledge makes enormous difference in the world.
10-2g2e6 Abstraction is the unseen
10-2g2e6a Science is about understanding the whole of reality, of which only an infinitesimal proportion is ever experienced
10-2g2e6b We exist in multiple versions, in universes called ‘moments’. Each version of us is not directly aware of the others, but has evidence of their existence because physical laws link the contents of different universes.
10-2g2e7 Abstraction is universal, precisely because they are in the abstract (i.e., itself not contingently constrained by its own physicality)
10-2g2e8 Abstractions require Popperian epistemology, to be error-correctable
10-2g2e9 Abstractions are corrected by realizing how ‘it could’ve been otherwise’
10-2g2e9a The contingent relation between the form and the abstract can be only realized by digital systems. Analog systems cannot do this.
10-2g2e9b DNA is digital system which evolves by discrete changes. If it were analog, evolution couldn’t have happened.
10-2g2e9b1 Evolution couldn't have happened without the multiverse
10-2g2e9b2 Only when evoking the multiverse can we say this and that made this and that difference in the context of evolution
10-2g2e9c Life has been creating knowledge by conjectures
10-2g2e9d There are no 'species' in nature. Reality doesn't distinguish life by categories.
10-2g3 Symbols are shaped by social values, social knowledge, and social structures
10-2g3a Everything is (or more precisely, became) symbol. Social values-knowledge-structures themselves are symbols represented by non-explicit forms (e.g., traditions and habits) interpreted non-explicitly ('流れ込む情報').
10-2g3b Not all symbols contain knowledge
10-2g3c Not all memes are rational
10-2g3d Behaviors can be replicators even when its meanings are not (properly) understood, because we can guess the meaning of memes. For rational memes, knowledge is THE replicator.
10-2g3d1 Humans do stupid things because we can guess and create meanings. Our ability comes with a great cost of potentially doing very (infinitely) stupid things.
10-2g3d1.1 Humans create their own cause
10-2g3d1a Tools became early symbols by displacement
10-2g3d1b 土器そのものの象徴化即ち威信財の登場
10-2g3d2 Decontextualize, then recontextualize
10-2g3e We are, and will be, transitioning from anti-rational memes to rational memes
10-2g3f Anti-rational memes contain knowledge, and each individual has to discover them
10-2g4 Cultures and languages are reflexive
10-2g5 Every invention is built up over time within culture
10-2h Explicating the inexplicit amounts to knowledge, and knowledge is unpredictable, and never derived mechanically
11-1 Trading-Market-Finance-Investment-Speculation
11-1a Start from what you know
11-1b Investment is expression and you need methods and techniques (i.e., knowledge)
11-1c When investing, you have to address your problem. You have to hedge your risk.
11-1d There is no objective risk
11-2 Capital market aligns financial incentives with curiosity. More precisely, capital market constrains curiosity with financial incentives.
11-2a Invest for the wealth it can generate, not for the money per se
11-3 資本主義が自慢する「合理性」には、必ずや「ゆらぎ」「欠陥」「誤謬」「たまたま」が巣くっている
11-3.1 'Equilibrium' - Anything innovative escapes the Invisible Hand
11-3.2 'Regression to the mean' - Don't be fooled by randomness
11-3.3 'The law of diminishing returns' - We can recalibrate the curve so that we are always at the growing phase of the S-curve!
11-3.3a The law of returns—with the quantity of complementary factors held constant, there always exists some optimum amount of the varying factor
11-3.4 'Utility' (marginal, diminishing, increasing) - Specialization beats the Invisible Hand
11-3.5 There is no universal utility. Utility doesn't exist in the abstract, it must be rooted in the context and corresponding explanations.
11-3a Explanation of equity market requires knowing about other parts of market. Explanation of market in general requires knowing about non-market bits.
11-4 Diversification can achieve what multiplicity does in the digital
12-1 Surfacing contingencies (ゆらぎ)
12-1a Turning constants into variables increases volatility
12-1a1 Network can become the state
12-1a2 Ideology (did and) will shape the state, instead of vice versa
12-1a2a Crypto is network-ideological movement and doesn't differentiate Chinese and Americans
12-1a2a1 Free markets and free speech, by definition, transcend the concepts of nation-states
12-1a2a2 資本は資本の一元性を好み、商品は商品の多様性を好む
12-1a2b Crypto is the new 'nation' that can take over the US
12-1a2b1 Left-right consensus is anarchy
12-1a2b2 The real split will be top-bottom instead of left-right
12-1a2b3 Left eventually becomes the right, not ideologically but economically and systematically
12-1a2b4 Blockchains can change the course of history, in the sense of how history unfolds
12-1a2c Digital network can solve the problem of network defects (both as a failure and a political defection) because not constrained by the arbitrary state and its physical borders means it doesn't get too big or too complex
12-1a2d Abstractions such as 'the economy' and 'the supply chain' can be realized arbitrarily well (never exhaustively)
12-1a3 The tangible and explicit (can) come in last in the evolution of organic community
12-1a4 The Network State - go cloud first, land last, but not land never; fractal polity with capital in the cloud; can be achieved with the most robust existing tech stack we have
12-1b The only certainty is rising volatility
12-1c Open source means more composability means more digitizeable and measurables
12-1d Flexible media will surface contingency
12-1e Nothing is necessary = Everything is contingent
12-1e0 Everything changes
12-1e1 There are no permanent solutions in a dynamic system
12-1e2 There is no objective happiness
12-1e3 There is no should in nature
12-1f 言葉と物事の関係性が一対である必要性はない (e.g., 二項同体)
13-1 Humans act purposefully, because humans can conceptually have problems
13-1a Humans have problems because we have to choose because we could be otherwise because of the multiverse
13-1a0 The multiverse implies both explanation and action
13-1a0a Refuting the existence of the multiverse will refute praxeology
13-1a1 The uncertainty of the future must be true because the contrary would completely negate the possibility of action
13-1a2 The omnipresence of uncertainty introduces the ever-present possibility of error in human action
13-1a2a The action axiom implies success and failure
13-1a3 All action involves exchange across the multiverse
13-1a3.1 The concept of cost must evoke the multiverse
13-1a3.2 If all factors are specific, there is no cost
13-1a3.3 The use of labor has a cost in accordance with the subjective value of the leisure forgone
13-1a3.4 There are no objective or real costs that determine price
13-1a3a There must always be room for improvement in his value scale—otherwise action would disappear
13-1a3a1 The essence of the exchange is that both people make it because they expect that it will benefit them
13-1a3a1a Everyone benefits a psychic profit at the time of exchange (ex ante), but not everyone will benefit from the exchange (ex post)
13-1a3a1a1 Only monetary income (or loss) can be observed and measured ex post—never psychic income (or loss)
13-1a3a1b All errors will be subjective without money
13-1a3a1c A new form of evolutionary processes emerges with money—memes become accountable with money, although not exhaustively
13-1a3a1d Money facilitates the maximum use of knowledge available, and accommodates error-corrections (the two are the same thing)
13-1a3a1e Money puts back memes to the game genes were playing—to the game of survival
13-1a3a1f Success in the money economy implies adaptation to others (including distant ones), not merely to its surrounding environment
13-1a3a1g Knowledge via memes doesn’t grow without money
13-1a3a1h The market tends to establish and maintain as high a quality of forecasting as is humanly possible to achieve
13-1a3a1i The market’s encouragement of successful forecasters fosters a relation of final equilibrium between present capital value and actual future rents
13-1a3a2 A necessary condition for an exchange to take place is that the two goods have reverse valuations on the respective value scales of the two parties to the exchange
13-1a3a2.1 An exchange is positive-sum only subjectively
13-1a3a2a The difference is implied in any exchange and division of labor
13-1a3a2b The extent of the market determines the extent of division of labor
13-1a3a2c The exchange utilizes the differences of all parties involved to the benefit of all parties involved
13-1a3a2d The more extended the market, the more will exchange-values (as compared to direct use-values) predominate in the decisions of the producer
13-1a3a2d1 Money superimposes direct use-values of things onto a commensurable unit
13-1a3a2d2 Money facilitates actions, primarily in the form of exchange
13-1a3a2d3 Value scales are unified individually—they become more transparent, more measurable, and more comparable to the individual—with money, although never exhaustively
13-1a3a2d3a The number of markets needed is immeasurably reduced with the establishment of a money economy
13-1a3a2d3b Value scales and money are reflexive—value scales become more actionable with money, because money changes the topology of value scales
13-1a3a2d4 The purchasing power of money in terms of all other commodities is continually changing, and there is no way to measure such changes
13-1a3a2d5 Money is one of the best explanatory tools available, but not perfect
13-1a3a2e Some products are produced because of the greater extent of the market
13-1a3a2e1 The greater the extent of the market, the greater the need for money
13-1a3a2e2 The introduction of money creates the money market wherein everything can be exchanged for anything in the economy
13-1a3a2e2a Money and differences in the economy are reflexive
13-1a3a2e3 Any prior money must necessarily trace its origin back to the original money
13-1a3a2e4 Money is demanded and considered useful because of its already existing money prices
13-1a3a2e5 Time component in prices emerges with the introduction of money
13-1a3a2e5.1 Money necessarily evokes prices in the past—in barter economy, this is not necessarily the case
13-1a3a2e6 Money prices of the past influence current expectations, but today’s demand also influences the present price—and the influence of the latter can dwarf that of the former
13-1a3a2e7 Values (and also prices—to the extent that value scales can be ascertained only through them) are not concerned with the past
13-1a3a2e8 The capital value—the “price of the good as a whole”—of any good at any time is based on expectations of future rental prices
13-1a3a2f The market implies specialization implies speculation
13-1a3a2g The specialization process continues indefinitely
13-1a3a3 The equilibrium price implies no further changes (the so-called subjective improvements)
13-1a3a4 The equilibrium price cannot be realized, except in the evenly rotating economy (ERE)
13-1a3a4a The actual market prices are the only ones that ever exist
13-1a3a4b The long run of the evenly rotating economy (ERE) is not real at all, but a very useful theoretical construct that enables the economist to point out the direction in which the market is moving at any given time
13-1a3a5 The concept of an equilibrium price presupposes a world without further subjective re-evaluations or change
13-1a3a5a The equilibrium price can be achieved conceptually because the demand will dwindle to zero when the price is high enough
13-1a3a6 The result of the exchange process is that the stock goes into the hands of the most capable possessors
13-1a3b The subjective value theory persists because of the multiverse—because we are fallible
13-1a3c We will never attain objectivity
13-1a3d Any improvement is subjective
13-1a4 The value of a unit of a convertible factor is set by the value of its marginal product when all its uses are taken into consideration
13-1b The mind, with its intention, can shape the multiverse
13-2 Knowledge precedes action
13-2.1 Human action must be purposeful—”action” without intent is the equivalent with dust in the wind
13-2.2 Most “actions” are mere behavior
13-2a The supply of capital goods enforces narrower limits than knowledge
13-2b The accumulated stock of capital goods imposes a conservative force on present-day action
13-3 All action must take place in time
13-3a The use of the mathematical concept of function in a science of human action is inappropriate—because it disregards time and knowledge creation (i.e., the multiverse)
13-4 Time is scarce because action involves choosing one thing over others
13-4a The multiverse implies human action—the laws of physics dictate that humans act
13-4b The multiverse implies the scarcity of time in each universe
13-4c All means are scarce
13-4d Space and time are scarce for the individual, hence both are goods
13-4d1 A good is valued not for itself, but for its service in satisfying the wants of acting individual
13-4d2 There is no objective value
13-4d3 Values cannot be measured
13-4d4 Value is subjective
13-4d4a A consumer does not need to have a “favorable balance of trade”
13-4d4b Everyone must consume
13-4d4c The man only strives for a favorable balance of trade as it pertains to him as an entrepreneur
13-4d4d A man is necessarily a consumer, but not necessarily a producer
13-4d5 Prices are derived from subjective values
13-4d6 The economist must take account of all the interrelations in the economy and recognize that money costs are determined by final prices reflecting consumer demands and valuations
13-4e Knowledge is never a scarce resource, hence never a means or a good
13-4f Both the good and its factors must be scarce
13-5 Man prefers his end to be achieved in the shortest possible time (i.e., positive time preference)
13-5a The role of capital is to advance men in time toward their objective in producing consumers’ goods
13-5b The capitalists are the only ones who spend money on labor, land, and capital goods
13-5b1 Without the capitalists, the income earned by the owners of land and labor fluctuates with consumer demand and is received at a much later date
13-5b1a Saving is not necessarily a monetary phenomenon—the restriction of present consumption constitutes saving
13-5b1b Saving cannot be exhaustively measured in monetary terms
13-5b1c Saving is fundamentally about foregoing things that could’ve been done—it’s about choosing one specific timeline over others
13-5b2 Money is usable in every line of production
13-5b2.1 Saving (in money) can literally save you
13-5b2a Because of money, the concept of rate of return can be abstracted to the ratio between present goods exchanged against future goods in general
13-5b2b Because of money, the rate of return will tend to be uniform throughout the length and breadth of the production structure
13-5b2c There is no time inconsistency in the evenly rotating economy (ERE)
13-5b3 Labor is uniquely the nonspecific factor
13-5b4 Zones of indeterminacy between valuations and in pricing dwindle radically with money
13-5c The capitalists’ money for investment must be first saved
13-5d The capitalists per se are not powerful
13-5d1 Capital goods per se are not productive
13-5d2 Interest is not the reward of capital goods per se—it is derived from the generalized investment of time
13-5e The capitalists are constrained by the aggregated time-preference schedules just as sellers of any other present goods are constrained by the aggregated demand schedules of the consumers
13-6 Man reveals only a part of his value scale through actions
13-6a The same individual exhibits different scale of values at different times
13-6a1 Without knowledge, self-identity is no stronger than the identity between any two people
13-6a2 Knowledge keeps you the same, from the perspective of exhibited value scales
13-6a3 Value scales converge with knowledge—put differently, value scales differentiate without knowledge
13-6b One's action cannot imply more than one value scale with regard to that action
13-6c The action axiom implies corresponding value scales
13-6c1 The action axiom meaningfully implies corresponding value scales only when the action is mediated via corresponding knowledge
13-6d Praxeological laws apply regardless of the content of value scales—regardless of the nature of ends pursued
13-6e Praxeology is concerned with the fact that humans solve problems—regardless of how
13-6f Praxeology is concerned with that part of value scales that can be ascertained from actions
13-7 Value scales consist of specific units, and associated subjective utilities
13-7.1 The difference in goods can be ascertained only through human actions
13-7.1a Prices can reveal differences between goods that appear identical
13-7a Utilities cannot be combined
13-7b “Total utility” can be ascertained only when the marginal good with which the individual acts upon coincides with what whatever the totality means in that context
13-8 Marginal utility—as the quantity of the supply (stock) of a good increases, the utility (value) of each additional unit decreases
13-8a The supply is seller’s demand
13-8a1 In money economy, every exchange comes down to the demand for the good and money
13-8a1a The supply (and demand) curves can be aggregated respectively, because whether it is instantiated within one individual or across different individuals does not matter from the perspective of the curve
13-8a2 The demand for money stems from fundamental uncertainty about both the future environment and the future-self
13-8a2a Money allows you to deal with change per se, since there is no substantive difference between changes in values scales of others and that of himself in the future
13-8a2b Prices do not exhaust value scales, but value scales can be ascertained only through prices in money economy
13-8a2c Value scales are ascertainable from the real actions, not vice versa—because value scales cannot be exhausted
13-8a3 Money must evoke the past, but the demand for money lies in the future
13-8b Supply = Stock - Reservation Demand
13-8c Utility alone determines the price and the quantity exchanged
13-8c1 Utilities are not quantities, but ranks—even in the case of the most divisible of goods, there will still be a difference in rank, not an equalization, between the two utilities
13-8d Speculative anticipations merely assist the market price toward equilibrium
13-9 Man allocates everything so that each unit goes into the use with the highest prospective marginal utility on his value scale—i.e., in accordance with the principle of maximizing his psychic income
13-9a All goods are somewhat substitutable for one another thanks to money
13-9a0 “The price is the first and most obvious indication of the nature of the alternatives” – Philip Wicksteed
13-9a0a The multiverse implies money, money price, and market exchange
13-9a1 A value scale consists of goods with which the individual is familiar—the good will not be on the value scale if the individual does not know about that good
13-9a2 Indifference cannot be a basis for action—the choice could not be meaningfully revealed in action
13-9a3 Praxeology is concerned with preference as revealed through choice
13-9b The more substitutes there are, the more elastic will tend to be the demand schedules for that good
13-9b1 The closeness of the substitution does not exist objectively, but only subjectively in the minds of consumers
13-9c The more diverse an economy, the less likely it is that any good remains truly inelastic
13-9d Elastic goods prefer price decrease, and vice versa for inelastic goods whose demand curve is steeper, under the assumption of constant demand schedules
13-9e The emergence of new types of goods will bring about price decrease for old substitutes because of the shift in demand schedules, under the assumptions of constant supply schedules
13-9f The elasticity of demand per se has also no relevance for complementing goods (e.g., golf balls) as it relates to its complementary effect to the complemented (e.g., golf clubs)
13-9g The substitutive effect will be mixed with the complementary effect, and the nature of each particular case determines which effect will be the stronger
13-10 The law of the diminishing marginal utility of money applies only to the valuations of each individual person
AN3C - A restaurant can afford to serve the occasional burnt dinners. In tech, you cook one thing and that’s what everyone eats.
AN3C - Don’t write the essay readers expect - one learns nothing from what one expects - be surprising.
AN3C - It took Darwin a book to explain his theory but now it can be summarized into a paragraph
AN3C - John Steinbeck - “Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.”
AN3C - People don’t want better, they want less crap
AN3C - People hide their flaws
AN3C - Piraha doesn’t differentiate ‘reality’ and ‘dream’
AN3C - Piraha doesn’t differentiate the future and the past
AN3C - Recombination is 1,000x more effective than random mutation
AN3C - The Batman Effect - the placebo effect of alter ego works, because memes can beat genes
AN3C - There are things insiders can’t say precisely because they’re insiders
AN3C - There is no way a training could prepare a man for combat
Any system that encourages top-down organizations to get too big and do evil is evil
Costly speech means only the wealthy speak freely
Culture transforms ‘things’ into symbols and meaning
Deconstruct, then reconstruct
Dogecoin demonstrates the power of tokens absent confounding factors
Don't get started
Don't make the difficulty-rewards relationship a simple straight line
Double slit experiment with and without an observer are different experiments
Explanation has to be non-formalizable, but they are nonetheless conjectured and created by physical processes
Fiat money shields ideas from criticism—the cost of bullshit goes down in such economy
Jeff Bezos - 'When the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right.'
Jensen Huang - from retrieval only to retrieval plus generation
John Steinbeck - 'Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.'
Know what to measure
Know what you are measuring it with
Memes are subject to conscious variation and selection, and can be rejected intentionally, whereas genes are random and can’t be rejected.
Memes precede knowledge
Not every top-downs are inherently evil
Prices are one but many
QUE5 - Anything fundamental changed vs superficial-uncontrollable metrics
QUE5 - Are they timeless and universal (if yes, things are likely to be uncorrelated)
QUE5 - Ask “am I working on what I most want to work on” because per-project procrastination is far worse than daily procrastination
QUE5 - Ask “what is his historic event that makes him think that way”
QUE5 - Don’t aim for the average — Ask 'What is rich doing' 'What are nerds doing'
QUE5 - How to get ahead of 95% of writers - write your first draft, then ask for each sentence “Is this the way I’d say this if I were talking to a friend”
QUE5 - If you were going to take a break from 'serious' work to work on something just because it would be really interesting, what would you do
QUE5 - Is this long vol, or short vol
QUE5 - Story and anecdote capture what cannot be captured rationally, and humans are irrational. What is your story and anecdote that you often refer back to.
QUE5 - The modern theory of evolution based question — what replicating strategies did this meme use to get here
QUE5 - What are people in your field religious about, in the sense of being too attached to some principle that might not be as self-evident as they think. What becomes possible if you discard it.
QUE5 - What are the best returns I can sustain for the longest period of time
QUE5 - What platforms are there. What makes people get on new platforms. What else can be deployed on that platform. (E.g., Crypto wallets and AR glasses)
QUE5 - What’s the best thing you could be working on, and why aren’t you
QUE5 - What’s the correct very-long-term solution; How do I solve this using and committing the minimum amount of time possible; Does this really matter (almost always, no)
QUE5 - What's your company's billion-dollar function
QUE5 - Who has the right answer but I ignore because they’re inarticulate. Who do I listen to who is in essence just good marketing.
QUE5 - Who owns them
QUE5 - Will I care about this a year from now, 10 years, 80 years
RUL3 - “Always produce” is a good heuristic for finding the work you love
RUL3 - “Staying Upwind” - don’t plan too much; instead, work on ambitious projects and flow to the most interesting that gives you the best options for the future
RUL3 - (1) Don’t ignore your dreams; (2) Don’t work too much; (3) Say what you think; (4) Cultivate friendships; (5) Be happy.
RUL3 - Always be ready to face the ultimate choice. Know what's important for you. Eliminate ambiguity.
RUL3 - Any system should be measured by how much it can help with whatever its output.
RUL3 - Ask 'what would it look like if it were easy and fun'
RUL3 - Ask at night how what you’ve learned that day fits into your web of ideas, and search for overlaps and contradictions. Most people do not do this.
RUL3 - Avoid premature optimization
RUL3 - Bounded commitment - choose one best thing available, commit for predetermined time period, then revisit. Similar to balancing depth-first vs breadth-first in search algorithms. Think of your time as quantifiable resource like capital.
RUL3 - Create something, or become someone, that is hard to duplicate ('Barriers to entry')
RUL3 - Don’t sell anything you wouldn’t buy yourself. Don’t work for anyone you don’t respect and admire. Work only with people you enjoy.
RUL3 - Finish what you start, because the best work often happens in what was meant to be the final stage
RUL3 - Flow interesting. Interesting means surprise.
RUL3 - Growth rate - +5~7% a week is good; +10% is exceptionally well; +1% you haven’t figured out what you’re doing
RUL3 - Invert, always invert
RUL3 - It’s useful to ask why about things that seem wrong, and especially ones that seem wrong but somehow funny.
RUL3 - Let delight pull you instead of making a to-do list push you
RUL3 - List ⇒ Rank ⇒ Iterate
RUL3 - Live in the future and build what seems interesting
RUL3 - Love bad news. Always question to falsify your idea and theory. Invalidate ASAP. How fast you can invalidate matters as much as how fast you can build them. Rule out bad explanations.
RUL3 - Make a conscious effort to avoid addictions. Ask “is this how I want to be spending my time”
RUL3 - Only say yes when both your heart and head says so
RUL3 - Pay attention to what you’re not supposed to, what you can’t say. ‘Inappropriate’ things. It’s usually a good start for things grandiose.
RUL3 - Run upstairs. Choose the difficult terrain like guerillas.
RUL3 - Simplify the problem by deciding the “no-brainer” questions first
RUL3 - The transparency principle - make your decision-making process as visible and open to scrutiny as possible
RUL3 - When automating, make sure the initial constraints and requirements are not stupid-dumb-bullshit.
RUL3 - Write down what surprise you
RUL3 - Write out your goals. It’s amazing how few people do.
RUL3 Look for an ongoing trade of knowledge. Can I learn from him. Can I teach him something.
Symbol = culturally agreed upon form + culturally developed meaning. The core of language is the symbol. Social values-knowledge-structures ⇒ Symbol.
Symbols ⇒ Languages (both are agreement, i.e., an arbitrary linkage between a form and a meaning)
The Cantillon effect
The essence of writing is rewriting
The most important sort of disobedience is to write essays at all
The world is becoming ever more transparent and unpredictable. You have to be nice, but you can’t be nice to everybody all the time unless you really are nice to begin with.
There are things that cannot be measured
There is no absolute security
There is no such thing as an individual in the abstract—because each individual has unique, specific problem-situations
There is no universal perception
To be universal, protocols must be unopinionated
Truly open means no intermediary
Tychism - Peirce’s sub-theory on chance as fundamental to the Universe, which anticipates the quantum physics
We do not yet understand the nature of the universality of the DNA replication system
What can be measured can be copied, and vice versa
You are both what you write and how you write
Your spending is someone else's income
ロスは速攻切る。勝ちポジションは徐々に積み上げていく。損益に対して生じる非対称な行動心理を予め計算に入れておくこと。
意識は推論そのもの
技術が99% - メンタルも技術
株価は時間軸と水準値の間でしか動かない。期待値と確率は違う。峻別すること。つまり、ペイオフについて考えること。
聴覚機能の進化によって知覚できる音および言語は制限される
観測は光を当てないとできない
people
Balaji Srinivasan
Betty Edwards
Bitstein
Carlo Cipolla
Charlie Munger
Chiara Marletto
Chris Dixon
Daniel Everett
David Deutsch
Elie Ayache
Eric Voskuil
Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Logan Chipkin
Ludwig von Mises
Mark Spitznagel
Michael Saylor
Morgan Housel
Murray Rothbard
Nassim Taleb
Naval Ravikant
Paul Graham
Per Bylund
Ray Dalio
Saifedean Ammous
Sherlock Holmes
Tim Ferriss
Warren Buffett
Will Guidara
William Zinsser
松岡正剛
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2-1b2b0 Judgment is knowing the long-term consequences of your actions
2-1b2b0 Judgment is knowing the long-term consequences of your actions
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2-1b2b 'Second-order thinking' - Solve the root cause of a problem (prevention) and not symptoms. Be smart-lazy.