@daily @podcast
Robin Hanson on Lex
- Hanson talks about how we’re reverting to a forager mindset. The notion of a global government, general peace and
community. That without social pressures we revert to what we really want.
- He uses the example of a woman being told to not have a child out of wedlock. Granted in the past, that woman could see good examples of why that was a bad idea (socially) whereas now there are examples for the later so people are maybe more inclined to do what they want.
- It’s interesting how this overlaps with Clarke’s notion of genetics and what type of people did well in the enlightenment and that, the sort of protestant work ethic mindset. Maybe this got us here but now the opposite or reverted mindset is taking the reigns.
- He talks about what is needed to develop a hypothesis for UFO’s. How he can reasonably establish a prior, through something like pan spermia from the Stellar nursery stage of the Earth’s development but what he doesn’t know is the likelihood. Does he mean the likelihood of that observation in general, or in a world where the prior is the case?
- I’ve kind of realised that this notion of model building is probably what I was talking about when trying to understand concepts, I referred to it as an understanding of the form underlying things, which is essentially what a model is.
- Hanson’s says that most people hit their ‘peak’ productivity in their late 30’s or 40’s. You should probably assume this for yourself and just spent a lot of time gaining skills.
- It popped into my head as I look at Statistics and how little I know.