[FRIAM] dystopian vision(s)

[Marcus Daniels]

The public projects I mentioned concern a small subspace of the terms that would go into a civilization-level objective function.  The project themselves are a tool of politics and subject to politics, so the constituency of the terms in the function is constantly in flux.  Change the habits of people, and their values may change around them.    There is no "natural" notion of success and failure.   There's no requirement for designed ecologies.    The artifacts that come out of large public projects often have unanticipated results.   For example, a library or subway station/train that also serves as shelter for the homeless.   Certainly a technologist such as myself sees the artifacts as a force-amplifier.  

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of glen
Sent: Monday, August 15, 2022 10:25 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] dystopian vision(s)

In trying to parse Wolpert's latest contribution <https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.03886>, I hiccuped at this sentence: "In summary, depending on how exactly one wants to define the word “simulate”, the concerns of Bostrom, et al., properly formalized, strongly suggest that augmenting our brains can never allow us to fully grasp / cognize / perceive our physical reality."

I don't normally think seriously about what I actually believe. Dispositionally, I "believe" most normal things like gravity, brightly colored insects might be poisonous, etc. And conceptually, I don't really believe much of anything. But the complexity layering Wolpert lays out in this article finally triggered me to ask what I do believe. I don't think I actually believe any form of Church-Turing. All reductive systems are false. Aka, all reduction is abstraction. Reality is *special*.

Beyond mere "complicatedness" skepticism about, say, building an urban environment capable of expressing an ecology, there's something deeply inadequate about "built environments". Of course, stigmergy raises an interesting point. That no built environment is either completely controlled or built tightly to specifications, which is why I enjoy older neighborhoods that are a bit run-down, where e.g. children play on grass perforated concrete as if it is the natural world. Evolution happens everywhere. Everything is likely a mix of built and grown. But I can't tell if this argues *for* or *against* Church-Turing. What does it mean for a (large, complicated, perhaps complex) conceptual structure to be the implicit objective function for a collective? Aren't all these large projects doomed to "fail" in some not insignificant way?

On 8/15/22 09:40, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> The largest public infrastructure project I remember in New Mexico was the Railrunner train track installation, and even that involved decades of public debt.
> 
> Population-dense regions are interesting to me because big projects are possible because there is a tax base.  Bay bridge, BART, high voltage power distribution under the bay, bike paths around the bay, 10 gigabit networking, etc.   Someday there may need to be desalinization rigs in the bay.   All of this is conceivable with millions of people to pay for it.   Being spread-out means more crude oil for asphalt.
> 
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Gary Schiltz
> *Sent:* Monday, August 15, 2022 9:25 AM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] dystopian vision(s)
> 
> I wonder what proportion of people worldwide, like me, see "urban" places as mainly, at best, necessary evils. Maybe it's mainly an American phenomenon, maybe a bourgeoisie idea for only those who can afford land.
> 
> On Mon, Aug 15, 2022 at 8:23 AM glen <gepropella at gmail.com <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     At the top of my LIFO stack of dystopian things has been "The Line":
> 
>     https://www.neom.com/en-us/regions/theline <https://www.neom.com/en-us/regions/theline>
> 
>     Pushed by a ruthless monarchy, funded by fossil fuels, bulldozing indigenous lands, ... yikes.
> 
>     But I now have a new one on the stack:
> 
>     https://www.mojo.vision/mojo-lens/ <https://www.mojo.vision/mojo-lens/>
> 
>     Unlike bin Salman, these guys seem well-intentioned. But sheesh. I can't even imagine wearing that.

-- 
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