DONE
No content on this page itself — see linked references below.
141 linked references
assertional vs unforeclosing statements
- I'm reminded of Snoop Dogg or some other rapper being cross-examined about some crime related stuff and him simply saying "I do not recall" literally dozens of times when they try to get him to confirm even really basic stuff like where he lived
- this is sort of a non-central / different use of this, in a context where he's not representing his own actual "I can't tell", but where indeed part of what he's saying is "since you're not on my team, I reserve the right to not agree to anything I don't have to"
- [these questions are not in good faith, and so my responses will also not be in good faith]
- in general ofc if someone you're close to seems like they might be doing this, just like, gtfo
- what to call this
- I really like the word "withdraw" here, which is maybe a calque of a latin word that turned into "retract"
- "retractional" doesn't feel good though
- "reservational" is pretty good
- then (with Claude's help) I had the idea of actually making the term be itself a kind of double negative
- unforeclosing
- nondismissive
- nonabandoning
- unrenouncing
- unprecluding
- other Claude suggestions,
- Gnostic vs Agnostic statements (From Greek "gnosis" meaning knowledge)
- Epistemic vs Ignotic statements (From Greek "episteme" meaning knowledge, and Latin "ignotus" meaning unknown)
- Certive vs Incertive statements (From Latin "certus" meaning certain)
- Cognizant vs Incognizant statements (From Latin "cognoscere" meaning to know)
- Scient vs Nescient statements (From Latin "scire" meaning to know, and "nescire" meaning not to know)
- Noetic vs Anodic statements (From Greek "noesis" meaning intelligence or understanding)
- Sapient vs Insapient statements (From Latin "sapere" meaning to be wise or knowing)
- Credent vs Discredent statements (From Latin "credere" meaning to believe or trust)
- Fiducial vs Infiducial statements (From Latin "fiducia" meaning trust or confidence)
- Compert vs Incompert statements (From Latin "comperire" meaning to ascertain)
- Gnowful vs Ungnowful statements (A more Anglish construction using "know" with Old English suffixes)
- Kenspeak vs Unkenspeak (Using Old English "cennan" meaning to make known)
- considered agnorant intended to blend ignorant and agnostic, but the LLMs keep thinking it means "arrogant+ignorant" or similar
- M > suppose someone referred to someone making an "agnorant statement?" assuming the word is cromulent, what would it mean?
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 > If "agnorant" were a cromulent word, I'd parse it as a blend of "agnostic" and "ignorant."
- An agnorant statement would be one that's ignorant specifically about the limits of what can be known - perhaps claiming certainty where uncertainty is warranted, or dismissing genuine epistemic humility as mere ignorance. It could work in either direction:
- Being confidently wrong about unknowable things ("That's an agnorant claim - nobody can actually know what consciousness is made of")
- Treating legitimate uncertainty as if it were simple ignorance ("Don't be agnorant - just because we can't prove it doesn't mean both sides are equally valid")
- The word would be particularly useful for calling out statements that confuse "we don't know" with "it's unknowable" or vice versa - mixing up epistemic states in ways that lead to poor reasoning.
- It's got a nice phonetic punch to it too, with that hard 'g' making it sound appropriately critical.
- eigenprompt > lol ok so “agnorant” sounds like a portmanteau of arrogant + ignorant, right? so an “agnorant statement” would be one that’s both confidently wrong and smug about it — like when someone loudly asserts some nonsense with total self-assurance.
basically, it’d mean “ignorant but delivered with swagger.” think: epistemic Dunning-Kruger in action.
- seems like maybe these are conventionally called Positive vs. Negative Knowledge Claims but those terms are already SO overloaded
- oh and actually that doesn't capture the specific magic of the double-negative knowledge claim
- also I'm not sure how much this is a real thing vs something Claude confabulated
November 8th, 2025
reflecting on my inkdiehaven, and what I might publish to… › other ideas, for tomorrow and this week › some of the other "NNTD" ones are almost finished I think?
- meanings
September 24th, 2025
- #2tweet idea for a tool: put in a piece of writing and each word/token gets colorized by a base model by how high-perplexity it is, given the writing up to that point
- idea for a tool: put in a piece of writing and each word/token gets colorized by a base model by how high-perplexity it is, given the writing up to that point
- #2tweet idea for a tool: recursive system for LLMs to read a blog post while following links to N depth (this would actually be a very cool simple MCP!)
- idea for a tool: recursive system for LLMs to read a blog post while following links to N depth (this would actually be a very cool simple MCP!)
September 19th, 2025
- man was born a bespoke weirdo but everywhere is a type of guy
September 15th, 2025
- #2tweet things are becoming easier as I accept that:
A) I can't get anything interesting or difficult done while my desk/house is a mess
B) I quite enjoy tidying!
C) given A & B, if I ask "what do I feel like doing?" the answer is often tidying
D) I can work in a park in the meantime- things are becoming easier as I accept that:
A) I can't get anything interesting or difficult done while my desk/house is a mess
B) I quite enjoy tidying!
C) given A & B, if I ask "what do I feel like doing?" the answer is often tidying
D) I can work in a park in the meantime
- I was fucking myself up by inhibiting the cleaning, seeing it as a kind of cope rather than something that could possibly be the answer to "what do I feel like doing?" (for more than like a few minutes)
- and there's some truth to that, or can be, that I can get pulled into avoiding important but scary work by doing something more tangible
but like, until my house is spotless, what if I just didn't worry about that?
September 1st, 2025
- #2tweet what if we published, on a per-airline AND per-airport basis, the monthly number of lost and damaged bags? simple way to encourage quality, without adding regulations or requiring consumers to sue
- what if we published, on a per-airline AND per-airport basis, the monthly number of lost and damaged bags? simple way to encourage quality, without adding regulations or requiring consumers to sue
- QT donella info flows
August 10th, 2025
- #2tweet [missing block]
- so I went to ask Claude what "BBS" stood for in this excerpt from infinite backrooms... and... inadvertently activated backrooms mode.
- I realized this was probably gonna happen half a second before it did.
August 8th, 2025
- #2tweet “if I’m gonna come any closer to you, I’m going to have to have a thought that I’ve never had before”
— @filmerjarred- “if I’m gonna come any closer to you, I’m going to have to have a thought that I’ve never had before”
— @filmerjarred
July 30th, 2025
- #2tweet in this era, metta meditations would benefit from an additional step after "person you find difficult", where you send well-wishes to someone who you hate or who you feel hates you—who is against everything you stand for (who you may not know personally)
- in this era, metta meditations would benefit from an additional step after "person you find difficult", where you send well-wishes to someone who you hate or who you feel hates you—who is against everything you stand for (who you may not know personally)
- maybe with a caveat that that you may yet wish for their ideology to self-destruct. but towards the person, you
- (aside: I am confused about the extent to which memeplexes, egregores, etc, ought to have anything resembling moral patienthood. seems plausible that somewhat/somehow/sometimes? but this way of asking the question is probably itself confused)!
July 29th, 2025
- #2tweet just watched some teens throw a broom to get a toy plane out of a tree, and I'm like: wow, this is such a human experience. like how long ago did our ancestors first experience "get thing stuck in tree, throw other thing to knock first thing out"? some atavistic shit right there
- just watched some teens throw a broom to get a toy plane out of a tree, and I'm like: wow, this is such a human experience. like how long ago did our ancestors first experience "get thing stuck in tree, throw other thing to knock first thing out"? some atavistic shit right there
June 4th, 2025
- favorite flavor of commitment
- POLL
- handstand
- code to push
- vow
- contract
- this doesn't have to be a poll, also! could be interesting to just explain these different meanings
March 15th, 2025
- #2tweet if you have N people, you have N different senses of the meta-protocol (what is crucial to full meta-trust-building and collaboration) and all of these must be satisfied at once to do real non-naive trust-dancing
ie you get N equations with N unknowns—so it's totally solveable!- if you have N people, you have N different senses of the meta-protocol (what is crucial to full meta-trust-building and collaboration) and all of these must be satisfied at once to do real non-naive trust-dancing
ie you get N equations with N unknowns—so it's totally solveable!
- TWEETED:
my threads on twitter, as indexed by Riccardo Volpato mid2021
- 2. you can't not have goals, so have them well
- 17. no want is any more true than what the other parts of you want
- 18. you can't beat your shadow in a fight
October 9th, 2024
- #2tweet so sad there's no way to turn the airplane seat screen into a 2nd monitor for my phone or computer. would help the ergonomics of plane-typing so much
- so sad there's no way to turn the airplane seat screen into a 2nd monitor for my phone or computer. would help the ergonomics of plane-typing so much
- #2tweet TIL that at least some airlines will give you a glass of milk if you ask (even though the milk is not on the menu except as an addition to tea/coffee). and unless you're lactose intolerant this is one of the healthiest consumables found on an airplane!
- TIL that at least some airlines will give you a glass of milk if you ask (even though the milk is not on the menu except as an addition to tea/coffee). and unless you're lactose intolerant this is one of the healthiest consumables found on an airplane!
- two other fun simple tricks:
1. you can ask for more than one drink or snack. if they offer pretzels or cookies you can say "I'll take both" or even "two cookies"
2. also, you can go to the back of the plane and just ask them for more of whatever free thing - it's possible some airlines will refuse this (especially cheapo ones although those often don't have free food anyway) but the fact that some clearly don't means they can hardly fault you for asking
- as long as you're chill & polite about it I'm sure the flight attendants aren't bothered at all. they get lots of rude/mean people and they're probably just happy you aren't one of those
- although maybe there's a quantity of asks at which even if you're asking politely they'll be like "uhh wtf this guy lol".
- life is patient, life is kind
August 16th, 2024
- newborn life is just one blessed thing after another
- metagogy
- #2tweet yep, communication between people is never about having the same knowledge (as a THING), but about having compatible interfaces/translation layers between your knowing and my knowing
x.com/DefenderOfBasic/status/1815738707023990798- yep, communication between people is never about having the same knowledge (as a THING), but about having compatible interfaces/translation layers between your knowing and my knowing
x.com/DefenderOfBasic/status/1815738707023990798
August 14th, 2024
- #2tweet "get their consent" feels to me like a weird and clinical and way to say "find out if they want it"
- "get their consent" feels to me like a weird and clinical and way to say "find out if they want it"
August 1st, 2024
- half-truths are so annoying precisely because they're half-true
- wild that they sell groceries at the abstraction store now
- a situation in which honesty is enthusiastically encouraged, but not possible in practice
- #2tweet I believe in* God
*put my weight behind, bet on (as in "I believe in you" or "I believe this mission")
the largest-scale forces of creativity and love in the cosmos- I believe in* God
*put my weight behind, bet on (as in "I believe in you" or "I believe this mission")
the largest-scale forces of creativity and love in the cosmos - for an extended take on what I mean "believe in", see this article by [ANNA SALAMON]
lesswrong.com/posts/duvzdffTzL3dWJcxn/believing-in-1 - for an extended take on what I mean by "God", listen to this conversation between @RomeoStevens76 and @aneeshm
youtu.be/X6MYsKeTjKk
- #2tweet thinking about hosting a "work 100× softer" bootcamp. any takers?
*stage-whispered drill sargeant voice*:
you call that soft? you can work way softer than that!- thinking about hosting a "work 100× softer" bootcamp. any takers?
*stage-whispered drill sargeant voice*:
you call that soft? you can work way softer than that!
July 20th, 2024
- #2tweet I don't really see anything as a justification for anything. things can provide context, or cause things to make sense, but... that's it.
- I don't really see anything as a justification for anything. things can provide context, or cause things to make sense, but... that's it.
June 27th, 2024
- you're not working soft enough. you need to be working like 100× softer.
- #2tweet you can't do what you can't do. simple as.
you can learn to do it, or you can discover that despite thinking you couldn't do it, you can. but if, on a given timescale, you can't do it, then you can't do it, and no amount of you or anyone else telling you to do it, can change that- you can't do what you can't do. simple as.
you can learn to do it, or you can discover that despite thinking you couldn't do it, you can. but if, on a given timescale, you can't do it, then you can't do it, and no amount of you or anyone else telling you to do it, can change that
- #2tweet seeking book/vid recommendations for one of the perspectives I'm trying to integrate right now. could summarize it as:
- trust in life's curriculum
- stop going against the grain of life
- surrender without even knowing quite what you're surrendering to
- God is trustable
- faith- seeking book/vid recommendations for one of the perspectives I'm trying to integrate right now. could summarize it as:
- trust in life's curriculum
- stop going against the grain of life
- surrender without even knowing quite what you're surrendering to
- God is trustable
- faith
February 29th, 2024
- #2tweet if you've never had a crisis of faith that involved disagreeing with Eliezer you aren't a real rationalist
- if you've never had a crisis of faith that involved disagreeing with Eliezer you aren't a real rationalist
January 11th, 2024
- #2tweet "Canny" would be a pretty good name for a startup making AI voice customer support that feels and sounds totally realistic
- "Canny" would be a pretty good name for a startup making AI voice customer support that feels and sounds totally realistic
- I'm literally this guy sometimes but for social interactions.
January 9th, 2024
- #2tweet - (HUH. "getting" someone to do thing is about drumming up motivation where it doesn't already exist)
- but for yourself, you already have some motivation
- so it's as stupid as trying to pay yourself from your wallet to your bank account
- even if it works, it's not for the reason it works when it does for someone else- - (HUH. "getting" someone to do thing is about drumming up motivation where it doesn't already exist)
- but for yourself, you already have some motivation
- so it's as stupid as trying to pay yourself from your wallet to your bank account
- even if it works, it's not for the reason it works when it does for someone else
November 28th, 2023
- #2tweet having ads in replies fucks with relevance SO BAD. it's offensive
like the timeline is already a chaotic mess, inserting an ad in there isn't so bad. but in replies, argh.- having ads in replies fucks with relevance SO BAD. it's offensive
like the timeline is already a chaotic mess, inserting an ad in there isn't so bad. but in replies, argh. - maybe reply-based ads should have to be targeted, like the advertiser specifies a keyword that must appear in the original post/thread, so it can at least be slightly relevant
November 27th, 2023
- #2tweet Perspectival. Procedural. Propositional. Participatory. Long ago, the four ways of knowing lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when propositional knowing attacked.
- Perspectival. Procedural. Propositional. Participatory. Long ago, the four ways of knowing lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when propositional knowing attacked.
- "Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world."
November 22nd, 2023
- how much would it cost to make the moon have rings like saturn? uhhhh asking for a friend
November 15th, 2023
- #2tweet a huge chunk of my work could be described as de-rhetoricalizing the question "why can't we all just get along?" to take it seriously and give a thorough answer
- a huge chunk of my work could be described as de-rhetoricalizing the question "why can't we all just get along?" to take it seriously and give a thorough answer
- and no it's not because there isn't enough along to go around. there's plenty and we can make more. the issue is organizing it.
November 4th, 2023
- #2tweet if you're worried you don't have time to do it right, you DEFINITELY don't have time to do it wrong
- if you're worried you don't have time to do it right, you DEFINITELY don't have time to do it wrong
- (in particular, I'm finding with sewing that I waste much more time proceeding down a wrong path then having to spend time reversing course, vs to just step back the moment I realize I might be on a wrong course, and cut a new piece or whatever)
November 3rd, 2023
- may all beings get their shit together
October 9th, 2023
- fear isn't the mindkiller, shame is
October 7th, 2023
- #2tweet @algekalipso new qualia basis vector just dropped phys.org/news/2023-10-scientists-secrets-sixth-basic-flavor.amp
- @algekalipso new qualia basis vector just dropped phys.org/news/2023-10-scientists-secrets-sixth-basic-flavor.amp
September 20th, 2023
- #2tweet huh
a sibling is someone who shares all of your ancestors
a spouse is someone who shares all of your descendants*
*(modulo 2nd spouses, poly, kids out of wedlock, etc)- huh
a sibling is someone who shares all of your ancestors
a spouse is someone who shares all of your descendants*
*(modulo 2nd spouses, poly, kids out of wedlock, etc)
September 18th, 2023
- #2tweet I want to make a little thing where someone can pay me $X and I'll record a lil song for them. what's a good platform for payments for bespoke online products?
- I want to make a little thing where someone can pay me $X and I'll record a lil song for them. what's a good platform for payments for bespoke online products?
September 6th, 2023
- #2tweet "ooptionality" is my word for when I oopsidentally overpack my suitcase because I'm trying to plan for way too many possibilities and underappreciating the cost of having an overweight suitcase
- "ooptionality" is my word for when I oopsidentally overpack my suitcase because I'm trying to plan for way too many possibilities and underappreciating the cost of having an overweight suitcase
September 4th, 2023
- #2tweet action
- huh.
action
activation
actuation
actualization
all act + ion, but with different stuff in the middle
August 22nd, 2023
- #2tweet weird idea: a social network where all posts must start with "I seem to think" or "I feel" or "I noticed" or "I wonder" or something like that. cultivate a vibe of I-statements. not actually ideal but interesting to think about.
- weird idea: a social network where all posts must start with "I seem to think" or "I feel" or "I noticed" or "I wonder" or something like that. cultivate a vibe of I-statements. not actually ideal but interesting to think about.
- interesting how "I think" is sort of an assertion but "I seem to think" is an observation
- #2tweet phenomenologically, please describe what felt-senses you experience when you consider this:
28+32=50- phenomenologically, please describe what felt-senses you experience when you consider this:
28+32=50
- for me the first sensation is that the left side doesn't fit. it's bursting, it's overflowing, there's an extra 10 that wants to fall out or pop out or get split in two so it can send 5 to the other side.
very visceral experience of imbalanced quantity
- if I focus on the "=", it wants to become a ">".
if I focus on 50, it feels too small. maybe it want to become a 60, which I feel like could be done by stretching it or sticking 10 more on
- let's try another one. how does it feel to look at this:
7×7=50
- for me there's a kind of gaping hole, a missing 1 on the left... or a weird extra 1 on the right that wants to fall off
and also a kind of ticklish sense of wrongness factor-wise... the 7-ness of the left side is such a non-fit for the 5&10-ness of the right
May 2nd, 2023
- "attest" means "speak truthfully"
(twm testify for where to slot it in)
★ Redesigning Twitter
- With embedded tweets:
- A) the whole thing sometimes isn't shown. this is annoying if the key reason you want to embed it is in the second half
- B) it's sometimes hard to know how much will be previewed, which exacerbates A
- UPDATE: I think this has actually basically been fixed and QTs now preview in full
April 9th, 2023
- #2tweet whoa, fascinating! there's a podcast series where JK Rowling is interviewed by Megan Phelps-Roper (former westboro baptist church member who iirc got de-radicalized by sincere convos on twitter)
open.spotify.com/show/2K186zrvRgeE2w0wQjbaw7- whoa, fascinating! there's a podcast series where JK Rowling is interviewed by Megan Phelps-Roper (former westboro baptist church member who iirc got de-radicalized by sincere convos on twitter)
open.spotify.com/show/2K186zrvRgeE2w0wQjbaw7
January 21st, 2023
- #2tweet me, unplugging my headphones: I am gonna let the music out
@utotranslucence: yes. YES. The music is out.- me, unplugging my headphones: I am gonna let the music out
@utotranslucence: yes. YES. The music is out.
January 11th, 2023
- #2tweet what's something you'd like to be different in a year?
what does it look like now?
what do you want it to look like at the start of 2024?
meditate on the difference until you feel like doing something about it- what's something you'd like to be different in a year?
what does it look like now?
what do you want it to look like at the start of 2024?
meditate on the difference until you feel like doing something about it
December 21st, 2022
- #2tweet fjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfj
can we just take a moment and appreciate how this looks like a zipper?- fjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfj
can we just take a moment and appreciate how this looks like a zipper?
November 21st, 2022
- #2tweet parallel between ACX Samsara story and the quote "to a buddha, everyone is enlightened, to an unenlightened person, nobody is"
- parallel between ACX Samsara story and the quote "to a buddha, everyone is enlightened, to an unenlightened person, nobody is"
November 11th, 2022
- make this clip about panic attacks / anxiety, into its own vid
November 8th, 2022
- productivity is linked to legibility
twitter.com/CompliceGoals/status/1590127821892251648
November 4th, 2022
- #2tweet fascinating article about how the basic racial classifications used in American forms are completely incoherent, and were explicitly stated never to be used in science/medicine or program eligibility, two of the main things they're now used for 🤦♀️
discoursemagazine.com/ideas/2022/09/01/racial-classification-in-americ…- fascinating article about how the basic racial classifications used in American forms are completely incoherent, and were explicitly stated never to be used in science/medicine or program eligibility, two of the main things they're now used for 🤦♀️
discoursemagazine.com/ideas/2022/09/01/racial-classification-in-americ…
Write 100 summaries/proposals
- coordination problems
- One of the classic big conundrums is "the coordination problem", ie getting people to realize win-wins together when those exist (and, I would say, noticing and creating more situations where they exist). The two main kinds of approaches to that are (1) finding ways to get existing agents to be able to coordinate better (eg matchmaking or dealflow systems) and (2) creating a new kind of agent (collective or individual) that can coordinate well with other such agents, and scale laterally to show others how to coordinate in the same way. I have new social tech for the second strategy.
- therapeutic cultures
- The aim is to create scalable cultures where basically every interaction between people is therapeutic. This isn't about therapist-client roles and relations. By therapeutic, I refer to something like Bessel van der Kolk's "Healing from trauma amounts to learning that it is okay to know what you know, and feel what you feel." For interactions to be therapeutic, that means they support people knowing what they know, feeling what they feel, wanting what they want, etc. A lot of common assumptions of most cultures today negate that possibility. One example would be the assumption that if we see things differently, one of us must be wrong, which means that I can't know what I know while you know what you know. I've been part of several groups prototyping such a thing, and I have a rough plan for how to create an even better prototype, based on focusing on trust-building and perspective-taking.
- I'm working on creating therapeutic cultures so that people can get out of their own way and each others' way and be as intelligent as they actually are.
- v1
- The aim is to create scalable cultures where basically every interaction between people is therapeutic. This isn't about therapist-client roles and relations. By therapeutic, I refer to something like Bessel van der Kolk's "Healing from trauma amounts to learning that it is okay to know what you know, and feel what you feel." For interactions to be therapeutic, that means they support people knowing what they know, feeling what they feel, wanting what they want, etc. This seems like a low bar, and in a sense it is, but a lot of common assumptions of most cultures today negate that possibility. One example would be the assumption that if we see things differently, one of us must be wrong. I've been part of several groups prototyping such a thing, and I have a rough plan for how to create an even better prototype, based on focusing on trust-building and perspective-taking.
- human superintelligence
- Can we create friendly collective human superintelligence before AI superintelligence? One advantage is that insofar as "friendly" refers to "aligned with human values", well, we already know our own values! In fact, we're the authority on them (although we can be confused). And yet current coordination mechanisms such as corporations, capitalism, & government bureaucracies have system attractors that are so sociopathic that they get compared to the proverbial paperclip maximizer we're trying to avoid! However, there's a limit to how strategically unaligned they can be, because they are still made of humans with human values who are only coercible to a limited degree in service of unaligned goals. My project is to help humans become not-at-all-coercible, which simultaneously renders them capable of building deep trust with others and coordinating way MORE effectively.
- concretes: convene conversations on cultural evolution
- I want to convene a series of conversations and collaborations among people who are near the forefront of cultural evolution. Culture is evolving in several ways:
- from unconscious to aware of itself (eg memetics)
- from blind reproduction to serving us
- from win-lose dynamics to win-wins
Based on a decade of embodiedly investigating this, I've got some new hypotheses to test about how trust-building works in service of allowing people to perceive & act together. I'm going to explore those in small groups of people who are bringing their own sense of it. If my hypotheses are correct, we'll be able to make new headway on many kinds of coordination problems.
- David Chapman wrote a piece called "A fully meta-rational workplace" which outlines his view on a new kind of organization that could emerge. I'm aiming to assemble a team of people to prototype a fully meta-rational workplace that can function as a model for others. I have a detailed model for how to get there, and I need to test it and see where it works and doesn't. I'll start by hosting a series of conversations and collaborations among people with meta-rational capacities, both to see who might be a good fit for the org, and because those conversations will help clarify how to make it work. One of the challenges will be navigating the interplay between the meta-level purpose of the org (to model meta-rationality) and the object-level purposes which may include things like building software.
- (removed "similar models have been proposed by Laloux, Kegan, Senge, and others")
- incentives cause goodharting
- Attempts at coordination or behavior change that rely on constructing "incentives" are naturally prone to goodharting, because the rewards and punishments are always meted based on appearing to satisfy some criterion. Behavior driven by intrinsic motivation does not have this problem. So the question is, how can we coordinate our intrinsic motivations to find creative win-win solutions to what we collectively want? It's possible, but sometimes counterintuitive, and we have lots of fears and habits that get in the way. I'm embarking on an embodied research program to understand how individuals and organizations can learn to do that effectively.
- perspective & parallax
- Most conceptions of resolving disagreement are profoundly limited, because they frame disagreement in terms of opinion rather than perspective. Consider that your eyes, in a sense, constantly disagree. Your brain, however, doesn't waste any time asking which one is right. Instead, it asks a much more interesting question: what deeper truth can be seen only by combining these different perspectives? Thus you see a 3D world. Resolution of conflicts, internally or interpersonally, can also be like this, if we can learn to honor the truth and partialness of all perspectives—our own and others. This has implications for intimate relationships as well as strategic decisions in business and governance. I'm developing training programs to show people how to see the world this way and what's possible when they do.
- recognize & disarm
- There are lots of dynamics that get in the way of people being able to think together effectively or collaborate — status dynamics, blame, defensiveness, politicking — and we all kind of agree it would be nice if we could not do those costly things, but nobody wants to go first—not just intellectually but on an embodied level. I'm developing social tech for becoming capable of credibly & consistently not engaging in those dynamics, without becoming vulnerable to them. The same tech also facilitates being able to appropriately recognize who else is capable of this and thereby mutually disarming and entering into appropriately-high states of trust. I've been exploring this for a decade and have some new hypotheses that I want to test with small groups and teams in SF.
- pockets of stuckness
- Groups get pockets of stupidity around topics they've failed to achieve common ground on before, and end up routing around those topics in order to talk, which makes them worse at sensemaking. (This also happens implicitly, where individuals won't even bring up topics that were untalkaboutable in previous groups they were in, or will bring them up in ways that make them harder to talk about.) I've got some social technology for bridging viewpoints in these situations and building common ground for dialogue, that I intend to develop in small-group sessions. This amounts to training in how to take others' perspectives effectively without losing touch with your own, so you can see the depth perspective implied by the two eyeballs.
- containers & culture
- When we enter into an intentional social container (eg a therapy session, a karate lesson, etc) we agree on a set of expectations. When the container ends, then what? What is our shared basis? It's... culture, and it's a complex thing to redesign or change. Moreover, increasingly people don't agree on what the cultural expectations are in the first place. People feel unsafe if others don't follow certain norms—norms that those others don't understand and certainly never agreed to. The resulting communication breakdowns & blame are at the root of everything from political polarization to failed marriages. When we lack a shared basis for renegotiating expectations, can we learn to make one together? Can that process be a fun, satisfying, co-creative dance rather than a frustrating, wasteful power struggle? Yes, with different meta-norms, ie norms about how we relate to culture. I have a rough sense of what those are and I'm creating a petri dish for iterating on them and for learning how to embody them. The aim is to create a scalable culture of dialogue that enables humanity to fractally coordinate in relation to existential challenges.
- One person is upset if others don't want to vote on what to do, even in a context where one person was theoretically in charge of that.
August 18th, 2022
- < something about enjoying closing out my whole twitter window when pomo bell goes off >
May 19th, 2022
- money is confusing
it's so useful yet so useless
so meaningful yet so meaningless
May 16th, 2022
- part of what makes twitter twitter is there's no comments section
- talking with visa: "how to quit smoking - write a book on how to have a good life"
- the vow that can be spoken is not the true vow
May 10th, 2022
- #2tweet [missing block]
- there's now a video of me dancing to this track!
twitter.com/Malcolm_Ocean/status/1524290145050013696
April 28th, 2022
- also the "co-what-now" thing could probably be a
- tho maybe it would benefit from <something>
April 8th, 2022
- #2tweet just looked at my youtube stats, and the world has spent 25 hours watching me rant about why microwaves need knobs. that's... kinda wild.
- just looked at my youtube stats, and the world has spent 25 hours watching me rant about why microwaves need knobs. that's... kinda wild.
March 24th, 2022
- #2tweet if the thing feels wrong, slow the fuck down
if people tell you not to slow the fuck down, tell them to shut the fuck up
if they won't shut the fuck up, get the fuck out- if the thing feels wrong, slow the fuck down
if people tell you not to slow the fuck down, tell them to shut the fuck up
if they won't shut the fuck up, get the fuck out- (sorta. maybe more like "how to not layer" pith instructions)
- tweeted it:
- #2tweet -
- = pith instructions for something like "how not to layer"
they won't always be possible, for many reasons
but as a default there's something really powerful to respecting your own process and not rushing
twitter.com/Malcolm_Ocean/status/1508285206171566086
January 14th, 2022
- #2tweet hell hath no fury like me when customer support people transfer me in a chain that leads back to the first customer support person
- hell hath no fury like me when customer support people transfer me in a chain that leads back to the first customer support person
December 17th, 2021
- #2tweet "How's your abyss research going?"
"Great! I think this year we'll finally get to the bottom of it."- "How's your abyss research going?"
"Great! I think this year we'll finally get to the bottom of it."
- #2tweet You can tell automated voices from live people on support calls, because the former use vocal dynamics, rather than a kind of bored monotone-ish.
- You can tell automated voices from live people on support calls, because the former use vocal dynamics, rather than a kind of bored monotone-ish.
December 3rd, 2021
- #2tweet for the 2nd time in my life, a series of random events has made one of my bank account balances exactly $3000.00 ...five zeros is a 1/100,000 event that has now happened to me twice (my balance changes a few times a month but I don't check it that often)
improbable things happen- for the 2nd time in my life, a series of random events has made one of my bank account balances exactly $3000.00 ...five zeros is a 1/100,000 event that has now happened to me twice (my balance changes a few times a month but I don't check it that often)
improbable things happen
- Oh good, looks like maybe we've finally reached peak bonkers.
November 14th, 2021
- the point fingering the moon
Roam
- 1) emoji-reactions (oddly this actually feels biggest somehow)
- BOOM this is done
- Give tags a CSS selector based on their name, so that I can custom-style them (workflowy's is actually just title="Filter # tag", not intended for hax)
- this is done! the selector to use is
span.rm-page-ref[data-tag="capslog"]to get something like this: (this is an image)
September 30th, 2021
- sometimes tweet as if people have read all of your previous tweets
September 28th, 2021
list of projects in the meta-team as of today (from my pe… › active and/or completed › art collabs with Silvia Bastos
- Work With Me page
list of projects in the meta-team as of today (from my pe… › active and/or completed › Riccardo Volpato
- he made a summary of all my tweetstorms
list of projects in the meta-team as of today (from my pe… › active and/or completed › Riccardo Volpato
- he transcribed a thing
list of projects in the meta-team as of today (from my pe… › active and/or completed › art collabs with Silvia Bastos
- NNTD - why the name? post
- hackday with Andrew Schreiber on WebRTC
- metacog module makeathon
list of projects in the meta-team as of today (from my pe… › active and/or completed › art collabs with Silvia Bastos
- gathertown art
list of projects in the meta-team as of today (from my pe… › active and/or completed › art collabs with Silvia Bastos
- album art for Superorganism song ♫
September 27th, 2021
- this thing
- v0
- Certain situations have higher stakes than others, but for a moment let's consider this case—"[I trust] Ellen with my intimate secrets but not to return a $10 loan". It's pretty rare that someone wouldn't be *able* to return $10, on some reasonable timescale, so what's actually
- v1
- That’s a tough situation to be in, particularly if it doesn’t feel easy to talk about.
- In fact, it seems to me that the main thing that makes situations like this tough is that people don’t feel confident that they’ll be able to talk about it and reach some resolution. It’s fine to make a risky bet on someone and have that go poorly if you know it won’t ruin the relationship or result in you feeling like you got taken advantage of, or feeling blamed or disrespected.
- v2
- That’s a tough situation to be in, particularly if it doesn’t feel easy to talk about.
- In fact, it seems to me that the main thing that makes situations like this tough is that people don’t feel confident that they’ll be able to talk about it and reach some resolution. If you make a risky bet on/with someone and it goes poorly, there are two possible outcomes: ideally, the only cost is the material consequence of whatever happened; often, however, there's an additional cost of damage to the relationship, where one or both people feel taken advantage of, blamed or disrespected.
- v3
- In fact, it seems to me that the main thing that makes situations like this tough is that people don’t feel confident that they’ll be able to talk about it and reach some resolution.
- You've probably experienced having some interpersonal mistake or miscommunication, but then you talk about it and come to some clarity about what happened and why, and it makes total sense in retrospect, and you come out of the whole thing feeling closer to the person than you did before. And you've probably also experienced the reverse: even a small mistake, if you can't reconcile it, can lead to building frustration that sours or even ends a relationship altogether, or even results in harm to person or property, from vengefulness or even just a momentary release of pent-up anger.
- v3a
- You've probably had the experience of a mistake you or someone made, that you couldn't find a way to get on the same page about, leading to frustration or blame that sours or even ends a relationship altogether—perhaps even results in harm to person or property, from vengefulness or even just a momentary release of pent-up anger. Hopefully, you've also experienced the reverse: having some interpersonal mistake or miscommunication, but then you talk about it and come to some clarity about what happened and why, and it makes total sense in retrospect, and you come out of the whole thing feeling closer to the person than you did before.
- this other thing
- "I distrust Person if I expect that issues will arise between us that we will be unable to talk about in a way that is workable for me/us and leads to issues getting resolved to my/our satisfaction in good time"
- "I distrust Person if I expect that issues will arise between us that we will be unable to talk about in a way that is workable for me/us and find resolution to my/our satisfaction in good time"
September 26th, 2021
- < something about serendipity engine, as what social media should be >
"the hope is that the serendipity engine becomes the heart ♥ of the economy"
youtube.com/watch?v=_5Mxqy_JGhk - this video feels like such a beautiful articulation of so much - it's gonna be relevant to my Open Letter to Twitter re Conversational Design
- #2tweet brb imagining what the view of my 6th grade classroom must have been to my teacher, including what I looked like both when I was in "bright pupil" mode and in smart-aleck mode
- brb imagining what the view of my 6th grade classroom must have been to my teacher, including what I looked like both when I was in "bright pupil" mode and in smart-aleck mode
- My dharma is cybernetics textbooks
- #2tweet if books were gods, in the pantheonic sense, which gods have you made the most offerings to?
offerings might include:
- re-reading
- buying more copies
- seeking out despite inconveniences
- ensuring that digital copies exist
- tweeting screenshots or quotes
- writing a summary- if books were gods, in the pantheonic sense, which gods have you made the most offerings to?
offerings might include:
- re-reading
- buying more copies
- seeking out despite inconveniences
- ensuring that digital copies exist
- tweeting screenshots or quotes
- writing a summary
- oooooh and this should quote tweet a tweet that talks about how how copies of the bible existed in the first place is that monks duplicated them by hand
- #2tweet @visakanv you're gonna LOVE the Word In Progress song in the first few minutes of this show. exactly *how* much you're gonna love it might depend on how many of the references you can get—as a longtime Mraz fan I caught a LOT
youtube.com/watch?v=kpyGv4ujiAY- @visakanv you're gonna LOVE the Word In Progress song in the first few minutes of this show. exactly *how* much you're gonna love it might depend on how many of the references you can get—as a longtime Mraz fan I caught a LOT
youtube.com/watch?v=kpyGv4ujiAY
September 23rd, 2021
- Huge day for @CompliceGoals—team page now tells our story in more detail, the primary impetus being that @joyurge is now fully on the team! He's essentially my cofounder in the next phase of Complice, as we prototype non-coercive teamwork principles & practices.
complice.co/about-the-team
September 21st, 2021
- tweeted drafting barn-raising announcement for Qrono
September 4th, 2021
- #2tweet WGS
- This "World's Greatest Stretch" lives up to its name. I usually don't feel much difference from doing stretches but this one I noticed an immediate asymmetry after I'd done it on only one side.
Source: youtube.com/watch?v=BGrw5z1SjtA
video: /tmp/wgs.mp4
August 30th, 2021
- I'll give you a peace of my mind! #2tweet
- #2tweet yo @visakanv, if you haven't already seen it, check out this article by @Meaningness on how cargo culting can be a stepping stone towards growing intellectual sceniuses, if legitimate peripheral participation is well-organized
metarationality.com/upgrade-your-cargo-cult
August 26th, 2021
- #2tweet tfw you search your streaming app for a favorite artist intending to listen to their album from a few months ago and they have a new collaboration with ANOTHER favorite artist (lookin at you cory wong & dirty loops)
August 12th, 2021
- 28:21 in contrapoints envy vid - extract for QC laughter tweet - where he tweets about laughing like a kid
- getting a company off the ground is arguably more counterintuitive than it is hard
August 5th, 2021
- speculating that part of the reason actors manage to bulk up or otherwise dramatically change body shape for their roles, in addition to having personal trainers etc, is that they're doing so to get in character, whereas most people who are trying to get fit in their own lives have some identity conflict with it
August 1st, 2021
- #2tweet I now have custom roam favicons!
July 8th, 2021
- #2tweet vaguely curious what it would be like to do something like Goal Factoring or Aversion Factoring with my newfound emotional introspection tools and coherence empathy and so on
- #2tweet just you wait bf isn't this enough gf
June 27th, 2021
- tweeted
- This is a 2×2 poll about male-female relationships. Unfortunately this will exclude lots of people. Feel free to answer for a past version of yourself though! And poly folks, give whichever answer feels most representative.
Ok, the poll: you & your partner's armpits are...- both hairy
- both shaved
- man shaved, woman hairy
- woman shaved, man hairy
May 25th, 2021
- I came here to chop wood & carry water, and I'm all out of water.
- how is tooth pain evolutionarily adaptive?
Sequence on NNTD
- dream mashups - Everyone is basically living in a dream mashup of their current external situation & old emotional meanings
- hmm re-reading this a bit, as potential excellent candidate for first blogpost showtime, and I'm noticing sort of a few other points that feel like prereqs
- one is everything makes sense, to avoid invalidating of stuff as "just dream mashups"
- another is Instead of "X is Y", say "I can't tell the difference between X & Y", as a way to usefully engage with this bit, from either direction
- this is where it's key to have the validity of projection - it's not about you but it's not not about you
- right, see, the validation is really important
- and it's vital for untangling interpersonal stuff to have people taking a stance of validation towards each other, even when they don't know how to validate some specific content coming up, which this current write-up doesn't understand
- it was written by a me who didn't understand this!
- include stuff about childhood from Watched Visa's vid about this and had some thoughts
- Watched Visa's vid about this and had some thoughts
- main thing is that it's really useful how he references the foundationalness of childhood
- Yeah, super key piece about how your oldest—most foundational—memories are from when you were young & powerless & overwhelmed by everything.
- And even if your childhood is pretty good, there's still a lot of meanings that can get stuck there.
- Also yeah, frames you get from your parents, or your culture. Basic frames of reference that you then use to make sense of all of your experience.
- in the same way that your dreams are often a mashup of the specific things that have happened to you, and when you go to a new place you start having dreams about that, so too are your emotional flashbacks related to your experiences
- and as you have more experiences that build on those original meanings, they get layered even deeper
- choice / commitment doesn't make sense for mindset, where the choice should be obvious and if it's not, you're confused
- may relate to chapman's bit about committing to confused stances - I tweeted him some questions about this June 14th, 2021ish
- I have a piece of writing on this that's near-ready, but I'm just not sure what name to use for the good mindset
- which relates to the need for an introduction to the mindset & cultural platform shift
- stuff about arriving Home together
- meta-protocol concept
- the value & limitations of specific protocols
April 23rd, 2021
- this blog post of mine has done really beautiful stuff for multiple people: malcolmocean.com/2017/11/transcending-regret/
- at the time I wrote it, I hadn't gotten the insight as deep into my bones as I now have, and I now have recognized there's many more layers of deep to go
- but the insight is still legit and the articulation is good and your integration will be yours anyway no matter how well I had done it or not when I wrote that