Month: May 2020

sometimes idiots like to accuse other people — ironically, competent people — of being idiots. in a way, it’s their defense mechanism.

in other cases, smart people — wonks — like to accuse other people — idiots and other wonks — of being idiots. likewise, it’s their defense mechanism.

both accusations look the same and result in the same conclusion, yet they stem from different root causes.

in the first case, idiots are not intelligent enough or — in some cases –knowledgable enough — to understand what’s going on in any given context or situation. they react for any number of reasons, but often out of pride. pride — in this case, the christianic sin of pride — prevents them from admitting their position and station in life. yet, it’s not always pride that does so. any number of emotions, such as fear and anger, can also trigger their reactions.

in the second case, wonks misunderstand the world around them, usually because of signal processing, pattern recognition, recollection failures or communication errors. they often become such experts in their own subject (or — frustratingly — more than one) that they fail to recognize that they are making the fundamental attribution error (see: sociology). instead of blaming the actual cause or even the root cause, they find it easier to blame the most conveniently located sentient being for all and every issue. in — more often than not — rare cases, the person on the receiving end of the attack could actually lack intelligence or knowledge.

in my life, there are a countless examples of both cases. both frustrate me unerringly. it seems that for each situation i need a different coping mechanism. sometimes the attack is light, sometimes it’s heavy. i am myself guilty of the attack on occasion. i have become more aware of others and myself as time goes on. this is the curse of experience. the true test of wisdom is having enough coping mechanisms and the situational knowledge of when to deploy. in other words, i am in the third domain and trying to find a way to move to the fourth.

i’ll continue working on it.

as a postscript, i’d like to summarize the domains in this post for posterity. the theme or motif of this post seems to be conscious awareness, so i will call this the domains of awareness. as always, the null domain does not count as a domain, but here it is the complete lack of conscious awareness: infants, developing infants, fetuses, embryos, etc. the first domain encompasses toddlers, children and pre-teens; or in other words, beginners, padawans, novices, whatever. the second domain is pre-teens and anyone who is an intermediate — knowledgeable without experience. the third domain is experienced people who lack wisdom. the fourth domain is wise people. and of course the fifth domain, as always, in somewhat undefined, somewhat unknowable, and perhaps unattainable. i will speculate that the fifth domain is transcendence or post-humanism.

there’s a war going on. it’s not being waged in the valleys nor on the plains, nor in the mountains nor on the sea. there are no swords, guns nor bombs. where is it? it’s in our heads. it’s in the collective consciousness. people just believe they are right. there are piles and piles of evidence yet the ones in power are all powerful. it’s not a power backed up by forces, but power backed up by threats and sustained by fear. wear your mask, or else! it’s almost like they’re invading russia, like napoleon or hitler, yet there is no army. and elon is right. the fascists do currently have the upper hand. they rule with fear.

nonetheless, the ideas will lose out to data. no one knows what the future will bring, but the writing is on the wall: the massive amount of data will eventually win. but we’ve been here and done this before. isn’t it obvious? if mother nature wanted us dead, we’d all be dead. seriously. look at a real plague. look at a real epidemic. no. this is ideological warfare.

oh. and when this is all over, some politicians and policy makers and media moguls and shills should go to jail for lies and massive incompetence.

selection bias is when an entity (here an individual human or a group of humans such as a family, civilization or market) makes a choice that is fundamentally self-serving. in terms of the vulcan axiom of spock, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or one. selection bias is generally a subconscious or intentionally ignored effect. after all, evolution has instilled individuals with a survival instinct. the major problem with the mechanism of survival is that it subverts complex structures.

the problems with selection bias can also be understood through the analogy of the pyramid. in the analogy of the pyramid, an analogy to the force of gravity is made. the basis, the lowest level, provides support for higher levels. the higher levels add weight to the lower levels. if the lower levels are structurally unsound, the structure collapses. if the upper levels are too heavy or not structurally sound, the structure likewise collapses.

there are other analogies, both for gravity and for other lesser understood forces. for instance, the arch could be used as another analogy for the force of gravity. the problem with analogies is that they are ready-made models that might not fit all the important variables. to understand an existing example, compare newton’s mechanics with einsteinian relativity. newton’s equations work well at the macro level but fall apart at the quantum level.

the five domains are an analysis tool similar to the analogy of the pyramid. yet, they unbind the system from the constraints of the physical reality of gravity. thus, the crushing power of pressure and heat, not to mention the unfathomable consequences of spacetime, are eliminated. the five domains (not counting the null domain) for selection bias are: individual survival instincts, small group survival decisions, the large group survival processes, the system survival homeostasis and — as in all five domain analogies — the fifth domain is currently unknown or unattainable.

in this framework, selection bias in one domain does not generally affect the abstractly mechanical rules in constituent domains. this is due to the rules of order of magnitude. what’s important in the lesser domain is the amount of material and its field effects, not its behavior. the small group domain functions rather well regardless of whether or not individuals in the individual domain practice detrimental selection bias. the localized effects are localized. however, the idea of selection bias can itself infect the small group domain as though it were a field effect or force of its own. if the small group domain begins to practice selection bias, it can cause itself to destabilize. there is little or no cause and effect relationship here as in the analogy of the pyramid. instead, an entire domain can become tainted.

incidentally, machines (here endowed with machine learning abilities), are nothing more than mechanical humans programmed to carry out human abilities efficiently (and likewise reproduce human biases, such as selection bias, efficiently).