Links (June 2020)
Solving coordination problems, Learning from outliers, Lifting the burden of knowledge, Minding dark patterns in design and more.
Ben Reinhardt in Why does DARPA work? asks: how can we enable more science fiction to become reality? Begin with studying the outliers like DARPA.
All books have an implicit cognitive model - “transmissionism”. We absorb knowledge by reading sentences. The problem? It doesn’t work. Andy Matuschak explores: “How might we design mediums which do the job of a non-fiction book—but which actually work reliably?”
Scott Alexander deletes the amazing SlateStarCodex because The New York Times threatens to reveal his real name. There is also a petition: Don’t De-Anonymize Scott Alexander.
How the US went from a culture that builds to a culture that seeks management. Tanner Greer’s take on Marc Andreessen’s It’s Time To Build. Here is Venkatesh Rao on finding the sweet-spot for builders in How, What, and Where to Build.
Speaking of Marc Andreessen, check out his interview in The Observer Effect.
On being comfortable with being uncomfortable and other lessons from How To Get Worse At StarCraft II.
8,000 Years Ago, 17 Women Reproduced for Every One Man reveals a rough dating scene after the advent of agriculture.
Split brain does not lead to split consciousness.
Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find Because of the Burden of Knowledge? by Matt Clancy.
Can viewing flamewars over platforms & upgrades as coordination problems help manage technology migrations? By Gwern (see also his experiments with GPT-3 and creative fiction).
More on coordination problems by Farnam Street in What It Takes to Change the World.
75 years of newspapers being given away at cost and making money from selling our attention by Benedict Evans.
The Psychology of Design is a list of “101 Cognitive Biases & Principles That Affect Your UX”. Reads well with the latest Norwegian Consumer Council’s report on how the adtech industry exploits our personal information.
Fiction:
Cat Pictures Please by Naomi Kritzer. What if we could pay AI with cat pictures?
Delve by SenescentSoul. Using math to survive in a fantasy world.
Reread It Was You Who Made My Blue Eyes Blue by Scott Alexander. This time accompanied by the blue-eyed islanders puzzle and Common Knowledge and Aumann's Agreement Theorem.
Till next time!
Piotr