Curt Doolittle

Theme: Measurement

  • EVERYTHING CAN BE PRICED IN WATTS (OR CALORIES) —“The market always works, but

    EVERYTHING CAN BE PRICED IN WATTS (OR CALORIES)

    —“The market always works, but it’s not always priced in dollars. Eventually, perhaps everything can be priced in watts (for instance, Steve-seconds is convertible to watts, but each person has a different conversion rate), and imposed costs will be as easy to avoid as saying “sorry, you requesting that I learn new pronouns for your gender dysmorphia will likely cost me at least a few hours in my lifetime in discussion, corrections and explanations, and if it normalizes your disorder and expands it, even if you paid me for that time, the cost to my descendants in confusing them when it comes to producing the next generation for spreading intelligent life in the universe is certainly not worth the exchange you are offering. What exactly do you have to offer me in exchange for these enormous costs your gender dysmorphia is imposing?”— Steve Pender

    Source date (UTC): 2017-03-06 12:53:00 UTC

  • THE LAW OF CONSERVATION OF COSTS by Joel Davis Much like thermodynamics – where

    THE LAW OF CONSERVATION OF COSTS

    by Joel Davis

    Much like thermodynamics – where energy cannot be created or destroyed merely transformed – in economics, cost cannot be created or destroyed, merely transferred.

    The Government offsets limited liability with the cost it bares to establish the sovereignty with which it can limit liability.

    Without a Sovereign Insurer, businesses which impose damages on other parties would likely face retaliation unless they compensate for their damages. The Sovereign supresses this retaliation with superior force, yet it spares the party upon whom damages have been imposed the cost of retaliation by also insuring them against these damages, albeit within limits.

    Violence is just another form of labour, and a costly one at that. Just as labour has a price, so does violence.

    If you don’t like it, take up arms and revolt against the Government, if you can afford it.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-03-06 00:03:00 UTC

  • Computational Linguistics: What distinguishes subjective (held in the mind) from

    Computational Linguistics: What distinguishes subjective (held in the mind) from objective (testable)? https://www.quora.com/Computational-Linguistics-What-distinguishes-subjective-held-in-the-mind-from-objective-testable/answer/Curt-Doolittle?share=aee1b67c

    Source date (UTC): 2017-03-05 00:50:29 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/838189939330322432

  • VS OBJECTIVITY I’ll try to answer this question as correctly and completely as I

    https://www.quora.com/Computational-Linguistics-What-distinguishes-subjective-held-in-the-mind-from-objective-testable/answer/Curt-Doolittle?share=aee1b67cSUBJECTIVITY VS OBJECTIVITY

    I’ll try to answer this question as correctly and completely as I can.

    **Subjectivity** refers to any change in state that is reducible to a difference in state that we can experience directly with our senses and faculties if we possess necessary experience.

    Subjectively experienced:

    – yes, I like vanilla more than chocolate. (demonstrable, not testable)

    – yes, I can see/feel/hear that change. (testable)

    – yes, I can feel it is cold in here. (reportable not testable)

    – yes, I can agree that statement is true. (reportable)

    – yes, that seems reasonable if I were in that circumstance. (reportable)

    – no, that’s not believable. (reportable).

    **Objectivity** refers to any change in state that is reducible to a difference in state that can be directly perceived or instrumentally perceived, and whether those instruments are physical or logical.

    Objectively experienced:

    – that volume will hold more or less water than this volume, (despite our perceptions)

    – I took longer for this than for that (despite our perceptions)

    – this is moving at the same velocity as that (despite our perceptions)

    – the car caused the accident (despite our perceptions)

    – the world is less violent today (despite our perceptions)

    – that seems what a reasonable person would think (false, despite our perceptions).

    **Neither** Subjectively or Objectively Experienceable – or knowable:

    – Just about everything at very great or very small scales of time, space, velocity, size, and number.

    – Another person’s (or creature’s) experiences and intuitions.

    – ‘the Good’ (despite everyone’s intuition to the contrary).

    **SCIENCE AND THE WEST**

    The purpose of the scientific method is to demand that we perform due diligence against our natural limitations, whether they are biological, emotional, social, or intellectual. And it is the competition between the free association that our minds evolved to do so well, the clarity of our thoughts that we evolved through language and then reason, and the scientific method that we use to constrain our thoughts and observations, and measurements such that they are as free of ignorance, error, bias, wishful thinking, suggestion, and deceit as they possibly can be.

    The west never engaged in totalitarianism or conflation of other societies and we retained competition in all walks of life including the epistemological, such that only that which survives the best from competition might remain a truth, or a good.

    This competition is what made the west evolve faster than the rest in the bronze, iron, and steel ages.

    But we still wish we could escape that competition in all walks of life – despite it being the reason that we and the rest of the world, have been dragged out of ignorance, superstition, poverty, starvation, violence, and disease because of it.

    What we intuit is often not a good thing.

    Cheers

    Source date (UTC): 2017-03-04 19:50:00 UTC

  • Computational Linguistics: What Distinguishes Subjective (held In The Mind) From Objective (testable)?

    I’ll try to answer this question as correctly and completely as I can.

    Subjectivity refers to any change in state that is reducible to a difference in state that we can experience directly with our senses and faculties if we possess necessary experience.

    Subjectively experienced:
    – yes, I like vanilla more than chocolate. (demonstrable, not testable)
    – yes, I can see/feel/hear that change. (testable)
    – yes, I can feel it is cold in here. (reportable not testable)
    – yes, I can agree that statement is true. (reportable)
    – yes, that seems reasonable if I were in that circumstance. (reportable)
    – no, that’s not believable. (reportable).

    Objectivity refers to any change in state that is reducible to a difference in state that can be directly perceived or instrumentally perceived, and whether those instruments are physical or logical.

    Objectively experienced:
    – that volume will hold more or less water than this volume, (despite our perceptions)
    – I took longer for this than for that (despite our perceptions)
    – this is moving at the same velocity as that (despite our perceptions)
    – the car caused the accident (despite our perceptions)
    – the world is less violent today (despite our perceptions)
    – that seems what a reasonable person would think (false, despite our perceptions).

    Neither Subjectively or Objectively Experienceable – or knowable:

    – Just about everything at very great or very small scales of time, space, velocity, size, and number.
    – Another person’s (or creature’s) experiences and intuitions.
    – ‘the Good’ (despite everyone’s intuition to the contrary).

    SCIENCE AND THE WEST
    The purpose of the scientific method is to demand that we perform due diligence against our natural limitations, whether they are biological, emotional, social, or intellectual. And it is the competition between the free association that our minds evolved to do so well, the clarity of our thoughts that we evolved through language and then reason, and the scientific method that we use to constrain our thoughts and observations, and measurements such that they are as free of ignorance, error, bias, wishful thinking, suggestion, and deceit as they possibly can be.

    The west never engaged in totalitarianism or conflation of other societies and we retained competition in all walks of life including the epistemological, such that only that which survives the best from competition might remain a truth, or a good.

    This competition is what made the west evolve faster than the rest in the bronze, iron, and steel ages.

    But we still wish we could escape that competition in all walks of life – despite it being the reason that we and the rest of the world, have been dragged out of ignorance, superstition, poverty, starvation, violence, and disease because of it.

    What we intuit is often not a good thing.

    Cheers

    https://www.quora.com/Computational-Linguistics-What-distinguishes-subjective-held-in-the-mind-from-objective-testable

  • Computational Linguistics: What Distinguishes Subjective (held In The Mind) From Objective (testable)?

    I’ll try to answer this question as correctly and completely as I can.

    Subjectivity refers to any change in state that is reducible to a difference in state that we can experience directly with our senses and faculties if we possess necessary experience.

    Subjectively experienced:
    – yes, I like vanilla more than chocolate. (demonstrable, not testable)
    – yes, I can see/feel/hear that change. (testable)
    – yes, I can feel it is cold in here. (reportable not testable)
    – yes, I can agree that statement is true. (reportable)
    – yes, that seems reasonable if I were in that circumstance. (reportable)
    – no, that’s not believable. (reportable).

    Objectivity refers to any change in state that is reducible to a difference in state that can be directly perceived or instrumentally perceived, and whether those instruments are physical or logical.

    Objectively experienced:
    – that volume will hold more or less water than this volume, (despite our perceptions)
    – I took longer for this than for that (despite our perceptions)
    – this is moving at the same velocity as that (despite our perceptions)
    – the car caused the accident (despite our perceptions)
    – the world is less violent today (despite our perceptions)
    – that seems what a reasonable person would think (false, despite our perceptions).

    Neither Subjectively or Objectively Experienceable – or knowable:

    – Just about everything at very great or very small scales of time, space, velocity, size, and number.
    – Another person’s (or creature’s) experiences and intuitions.
    – ‘the Good’ (despite everyone’s intuition to the contrary).

    SCIENCE AND THE WEST
    The purpose of the scientific method is to demand that we perform due diligence against our natural limitations, whether they are biological, emotional, social, or intellectual. And it is the competition between the free association that our minds evolved to do so well, the clarity of our thoughts that we evolved through language and then reason, and the scientific method that we use to constrain our thoughts and observations, and measurements such that they are as free of ignorance, error, bias, wishful thinking, suggestion, and deceit as they possibly can be.

    The west never engaged in totalitarianism or conflation of other societies and we retained competition in all walks of life including the epistemological, such that only that which survives the best from competition might remain a truth, or a good.

    This competition is what made the west evolve faster than the rest in the bronze, iron, and steel ages.

    But we still wish we could escape that competition in all walks of life – despite it being the reason that we and the rest of the world, have been dragged out of ignorance, superstition, poverty, starvation, violence, and disease because of it.

    What we intuit is often not a good thing.

    Cheers

    https://www.quora.com/Computational-Linguistics-What-distinguishes-subjective-held-in-the-mind-from-objective-testable

  • The foundations of mathematics are so simple. Seriously. The fact that they even

    The foundations of mathematics are so simple. Seriously. The fact that they even phrase the question as such is hysterical. The reason mathematics is so powerful a tool is precisely because its foundations are so trivial. Like discourse on property in ethics and law it is a word game because no one establishes sufficient limits under which the general term obscures a change in state.

    Math very simple. Correspondence (what remains and what does not), Types, operations, grammar, syntax. Generally we use mathematics for the purpose of scale independence. in other words, we remove the property of scale from the set of correspondences. But we might also pass from physical dimensions to logical dimensions (there are only so many possible physical dimensions). So now we leave dimensional correspondence. In mathematics we remove time correspondence by default, and only add it in when we specifically want to make use of it. In sets we remove temporal and causal correspondence … at least in most cases. So we can add and remove many different correspondences, and work only with reciprocal (self referencing) correspondence (constant relations). But there is nothing magic here at all except for the fields (results) that can be produced by these different definitions as we use them to describe the consequences of using different values in different orders.

    But if you say “I want to study the parsimony, limits, and full accounting, of this set of types using this set of operations, with the common grammar and syntax” that is pretty much what someone means when they say ‘foundations’. Most of the time. Sometimes they have no clue.

    There is nothing much more difficult here in the ‘foundations’ so to speak. What’s hard in mathematics is holding operations, grammar and syntax constant, what happens as we use different correspondences (dimensions), types, and values in combination with others and yet others, to produce these various kinds of patterns that represent phenomenon that we want to describe. And what mathematicians find beautiful is that there is a bizaare set of regularities (that they call symmetries or some variation thereof), that emerge once you becomes skilled in these models, just like some games become predictable if you see a certain pattern.

    But really, math is interesting because by describing regular patterns that produce complex phenomenon, we are able to describe things very accurately that we cannot ‘see’ without math to help us find it.

    Its seems mystical. It isn’t. Its just the adult version of mommy saying ‘boo’ to the toddler and the joy he gets from the stimulation. There is nothing magical here. it’s creative, and interesting, but it’s just engineering with cheaper tools at lower risk: paper, pencil, and time.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-03-01 15:22:00 UTC

  • UNDERSTANDING ACCOUNTING AND FINANCE I’ve been told all my life by some asshole

    UNDERSTANDING ACCOUNTING AND FINANCE

    I’ve been told all my life by some asshole or other that I don’t understand accounting or finance. And I always found that humorous. I took the same classes as everyone else. I just learned something very different from them: most of it is used to lie under pseudoscientific pretense caused entirely by the necessity of limiting profitability in order to reduce taxation, complying with government regulation that obscures real costs of doing business, and complying with bank lending requirements that force you to claim regularity to your income that does not exist, forcing you to keep Operational P&L to run a business, Credit P&L to borrow money, Tax P&L to pay taxes, and Investor P&L to estimate upside.

    But given the archaic and pseudoscientific nature of accounting and finance and that super-pseudoscience we call mainstream macro economics, all of these things are falsehoods that address special cases.

    The value of a business is one of three things: the current liquidation value in the event of closure, the value of the business as a going concern to a competitor in the market, and the value to some sucker you can find who will pay you more than either of those numbers.

    What it is expressly NOT is whatever nonsense your bank, or the government says that it is. Every time I hear the value of a company is expressed in market cap I wanna put irons on someone and stick them in a cell.

    Suckers exist in america in large numbers principally because we just create so many of them, and we hold so few punishments for them, that the legal and financial industry largely seems to exist in order to allow and profit from, sucker- plays. Now sure, you might be lucky and get a Peter Theil or one of the other Paypal Mafia to invest in your company. These are entrepreneurs who happen to have turned to entrepreneurship at scale. They are not engaged in financialization which provides them with gains whether you win or lose. But that is exactly how most of the capitalist class functions.

    We need to get back to lender beware.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-03-01 14:40:00 UTC

  • You know, I can almost unwind this damn thing into a series of dependencies upon

    You know, I can almost unwind this damn thing into a series of dependencies upon information…. not quite, almost. been bothering me since maybe 83? 84?

    The five factor model is utilitarian not descriptive or causal. what’s the cause?

    Calm <–> Worry Spectrum (fear)

    Patience <–>Impulsivity (dominance)

    Autism(intro) <–> Solipsism(extro) Spectrum (“Degree of Self”)

    Intelligence <–> Unintelligence Spectrum (Resource)

    Dominance – Submission

    Excited – Rest

    Pain – Pleasure

    Damage Budget (physical asset)

    Energy Budget (fitness asset)

    Emotional budget (emotional asset)

    Intellectual budget (intellectual asset)

    Source date (UTC): 2017-02-28 10:38:00 UTC

  • Here is the thing…. when I write about math, economics, science, law, and phil

    Here is the thing…. when I write about math, economics, science, law, and philosophy it’s not so much that I know the subject as that I know what various systems of representation can possibly communicate within that subject, and I know what category errors humans make on a regular basis. So when I research something that’s bothering me (today I’m still on a math kick), I just look at the tools people are using and the problems they have with them and this tells me the most likely area of inquiry: those where humans generally err. In the case of mathematical physics you can easily separate the men from the boys by their platonism and their claims. In mathematics you have to listen very carefully but you can separate them by platonism. In economics by whether they talk in curves and aggregates or they say “I just don’t know” a whole lot – which is the right answer in all these fields. As far as I can tell all philosophy is just drivel.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-02-26 21:45:00 UTC