[FRIAM] 2000-year-old scrolls

[glen]

That's how I felt about Hanson's latest post:

Why Crypto
https://www.overcomingbias.com/p/why-crypto

I suppose the basic point is that crypto has generated parasitic people just like older financial instruments, but the parasites crypto generates are *younger* and more energetic than older, slower instruments. So the diversity of the new canals sloughed out by these younger parasites will be higher than that of the old parasites.

Hanson's smart enough to think about (if not empathize with) those on the other side of the asymmetry, the hosts/victims. But the post relishes the beauty of the consequence of their suffering, largely leaving out the (perhaps short half-life) suffering of the victims.

I kinda feel the same way when watching my friends "euthanize" bumble bees to study them ... or in videos like this: https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41586-022-04507-5/MediaObjects/41586_2022_4507_MOESM6_ESM.mp4 I can't help but wonder how it must feel to wear one of those implants while trying to compete with the dominant for food. Is the science really worth the (short half-life) discomfort of the mice? If so, then you too might succumb to Effective Altruism. >8^D

On 2/8/24 09:38, Jochen Fromm wrote:
> There is book by Cody Cassidy named "How to Survive History: How to Outrun a Tyrannosaurus, Escape Pompeii, Get Off the Titanic, and Survive the Rest of History's Deadliest Catastrophes".
> https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/668982/how-to-survive-history-by-cody-cassidy/
> 
> Sometimes escaping disasters is not what we want though. The Pompeii disaster for instance conserved an ancient Roman city as it was 2000 years ago. And now we can even hope to read their ancient texts. Julian Schilliger, Youssef Nader and Luke Farritor have won the Vesuvius prize of $700,000 because they managed to read an badly charred scroll.
> https://scrollprize.org/grandprize
> 
> They have used AI and machine learning to decipher the text of 2,000-year-old charred papyrus scripts. The deciphered scrolls contain musings on music, food and life's pleasures.
> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00346-8
> 
> Will people in 2000 years discover books from our time beneath the ruble, for instance Joyce Carol Oates or Craig Johnson, and desperately try to decipher them?
> 

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