My absolutely new favorite heuristic for decision making comes from Mr. Bezos:
Is the decision costly to reverse (costly as in time / money)?
No → Make a decision fast.
Yes → Take your time, consider alternatives, talk to people, think some more.
I read "Hour of Our Delight: Cosmic Evolution, Order, and Complexity" by Hubert Reeves as a teenager which I can also recommend. That's how I learned about the low entropy sunlight converted to higher entropy IR radiation on earth, allowing complex life to exist without breaking the 2nd law of thermodynamics. So I was happy to see it talked about.
Now, life seen as an entropy-increasing system was a really interesting take on the topic! Until now my understanding was that it's the universe expansion that actually sorta decreased the local "entropy density" and allowed to radiate low entropy IR in the ever colder empty space in the first place.
> The author argues in that life is very likely because it is the most efficient way to increase entropy in the universe.
In the universe? You could argue life is the most efficient way to increase entropy within a local system ( like ants on a forest floor dissembling an insect carcass ), but I find it hard to believe life is the most efficient way to increase entropy in the entire universe. The assumed expansion of the universe itself increases entropy in a manner no life could ever hope to achieve.
I'll thank this recommendation by recommending The Gramatical Man: Information, Entropy, Language and Life by Jeremy Campbell. More or less same topics.
A life form is definitely something I'd consider to be highly organized, i.e. low entropy, but that order is maintained via a greater relative increase of entropy by destroying and consuming other "instances" of low entropy (plants, animals, etc) for nutrition, which are they themselves sustained by disproportionate increases of entropy (consuming of other organisms, the sun doing its thing, etc).
So, as a life form tends to fight for its own survival -- survival being "just" a process of increasing entropy every else but the life form itself -- it is indeed an extremely efficient way of increasing entropy in the universe, in that is requires only a single point of decrease in order to cause a theoretically infinite instances of increase.
I suddenly feel an awful lot like a cow on my way to the slaughter indeed, and have the urge to go play Dark Souls.
Computers made of water, wind and wood... may be bubbling, sighing or quietly growing without our suspicion that such activities are tantamount to a turmoil of computation whose best description is itself. -- A. K. Dewdney, Computer Recreations [0]
I don’t think that’s what they’re saying. They’re saying both a bathtub’s whirlpool and an organism’s energy consumption are examples of methods to increase entropy and both of them may emerge specifically because of the universe’s general tendency toward higher entropy.
For anyone interested in this topic, I can wholeheartedly recommend the book: "The WEIRDest People in the World" by Joseph Henrich.
The book provieds a beautifully constructed framework to understand culture and its effect on psychological development, as well as economic development.
1. In the book, the author argues that innovation rates of countries correlate positively with the psychological dimension of "individualism". (FIGURE 13.5)
2. The the dissolution of strong kinship ties correlates significantly with high economic growth. An argument the author repeats in his paper from 2022 [1]
My personal opinion is: gaining wealth is not a zero-sum-game, but a — the more participants the bigger the pie gets — kind of game.
I truly believe, if cultures and institutions change, everyone in the world can be wealthy. With "wealthy" I refer to the living-standard North-American or Europeans enjoy.
> My personal opinion is: gaining wealth is not a zero-sum-game, but a — the more participants the bigger the pie gets — kind of game. I truly believe, if cultures and institutions change, everyone in the world can be wealthy. With "wealthy" I refer to the living-standard North-American or Europeans enjoy.
I'm less convinced. A lot of the improvement to living standards in the west for the past 50 years or so have been a result of shifting labor to countries with lower standards of living. That being said living standards in post-war US is not a bad target and I don't see a physics problem with attaining that.
This is why I love HN, you gave me a surprising, but after evaluating your links trustworthy explanation.
Thank you!
If anyone else is wondering Exodus Cry is an organization which originated out of a weekly prayer group founded 2007 [0], they apparently lobbied Mastercard to only accept providers which verify the identity of all performers & review content before any upload [1]. Which is almost impossible for the tubes / onlyfans => no more payment
I am asking this question out of true intellectual curiosity: Could someone please link me a study which shows strong evidence for micro-plastics being harmful to health, that goes beyond finding "potential" harm? – Thank you!
Seriously, I am looking. So far every study I have found — linking micro-plastics to physical harm done to multicellular organisms — had the phrase "potential" (or a derivative) in it.
I dislike plastic as much as the next guy, but I slowly get the feeling: the harmful effects of plastic have the same level of scientific proof as harm caused by radiation of mobile phones — inconclusive to likely _none_.
The question is VERY fair, and I don't want to undermine it. I just want to be the first to say that given the huge potential impact, "potential" is bad enough.
When dealing with probabilities there are two measures that need to be considered independently: probability and effect. Traditional statistics multiplies them into "expected utility" and works just with the aggregated value. But that's tricky, because effect is not a continuous function. Imagine a pebble falling on your head plotted based on its weight - there'll be sharp discontinuities at "hurts", "commotion" and "death".
At society's level there are also similar discontinuities. Something that may cause tens of million of cases of cancer over time should be in a separate category from a medicine that may suddenly kill a few hundred people, even though the latter has a bigger emotional impact.
As to why there has been only papers stating potential harm, I believe that is due to the long term study cycle. When can a researcher positively conclude confirmed harm?
In humans, that could take a lifetime, maybe two.
Other animals must also be studied, but doing that can be much more difficult and resource intensive. Here thinking about marine life primarily.
Point being, everything thus far learned points to harm in the long term. Long term studies have only begun in the last 10-20years I believe, and could be that we will be waiting for further still
You may try searching for the components present in certain microplastics that are harmful, e.g. (BPA) bisphenol A [0].
Microplastics that have been generated from plastics containing BPA that are then lodged into the food chain from a very low level will have serious consequences, as BPA is an endocrine disrupter, and shown to negatively affect many physiologial systems including human sperm [1].
Disrupting any part of a complex system is dangerous to the stability of the system. How can ocean life distinguish between food and small pieces of plastic?
I've seen so many photos of dead fish filled with plastic that it must be a concern to the food supply chain.
In practice several plastics compounds are chemically too 'similar' to estrogen (the 'female' hormone).
The plastics with these estrogen like compounds typical either mechanically breakdown (microplastics) or leach due to chemical breakdown (e.g. caused by contact with high temperature liquids or acidic solutions).
Once absorbed it may confuse your body as a 'pseudo estrogen' hormone. This acts as an endocrine disruptor, potentially more so for Males of animal species because of their hormonal profile.
The label has a slit in it so you can avoid this. Wrap the string around the cup handle (or spoon if you don't have a handle) and slot it into the slit to fasten. It will never fall into the water again.
Most of the time, it is not plastics themselves, but the hundreds of chemical additives that each plastic has, like plastifiers, ph and surface tension modifiers.
The most important is hormone-like compounds like Bisphenol A (BPA) because hormones are chemical compounds that are used as signals and its effect cascade multiplied by billions in the body, so super small amounts can affect you enormously.
They are being replaced, but new compounds also have hormone like response.
Because biology works by "shape is function" lots of chemical compounds can affect your body because they resemble the one we need for our body's normal function, and the body receptors are confused.
This has extensively been proven that happens, what we don't know is what dose could be ok. For example, you can use(without problems) fleece outside clothing if there is not a big part of your skin in contact with the fleece, like what happened with kid's pajamas, that was very problematic.
Probing that on humans is something similar to covid vaccine testing. It is extremely expensive and bureaucratic process and only gives us statistical results. Knowing exactly what happened is extremely difficult or impossible in practice because there are hundreds of chemical compounds, and they interfere with each other creating factorial combinations. But we know it breaks havoc in your body for sure.
You also should avoid heat because it makes chemical diffusion exponentially higher. When you eat your soda can, the PET layer,is at ambient temperature. When you eat coffee or tea, it is hot.
This is a wonderful tool, I am very much looking forward to seeing further development & countries
Thank you very much!
One observation I had while playing with the numbers was: The most accurately shaped curves were achieved by adjusting the "seasonal forcing" to values between 0.5 and 0.6 [1]
I extended the time range to one year and lo and behold there was the gigantic hump in all curves.
I hope that testing kits will be amply available within the next few months so that we can emulate the success of Vò [2]
[1] I believe best-fitting curves are a miss-representation as many cases are not recorded, this is why I optimized for a shape that counted the "Infectious"consistently above the "confirmed cases" by the factor of 2-4. I am curious to learn how well my assumptions hold up.
My 9 years old son has refused to go to his public Tokyo school for two years now.
I am from a German speaking country and the idea of a child not to attend school is absolutely unimaginable. His mother (Japanese) has always insisted that this is not uncommon in Japan. His head-teachers also insured me that this is not uncommon. As I am not living in Japan I had to accept these circumstances.
I was somewhat calmed by the knowledge that the school provided counseling and other dedicated programs for the development of my son. I thought the counselors cared quite well for him, when I was allowed to witness sessions.
When I took my son to my home country for two months he transformed. He was quiet and reclusive in the first weeks, but turned into a much more playful, outspoken and socially interested young boy towards the end.
Since then I discovered that his mother has been hiding a worsening mental illness from me. This affected my son greatly, he felt the need to care for her. He even has hundreds of YouTube videos in his history explaining children of what to do when your parent is mentally unwell — discovering this really broke my heart.
Per my request, my son was taken into the custody of the Japanese child protective services 3 months ago and I am currently in Japan fighting for sole custody of him.
My tale is a single data point, but I have come to believe the many stories of mental problems of Japanese children and young adults are not solely attributable to the pressures of society.
I rather believe that mental health problems being a taboo in Japan may be the root of many problems.
Per my understanding it is incredibly shameful to admit to mental health problems and doing so brings serious ramifications.
So, if my hypothesis is correct, parents in Japan are more likely to go untreated and their children suffer the effects, perpetuating the cycle.
In our case, the school—very subtly—tried to inform me about their worries concerning his mothers mental health problems without ever speaking about it directly. They only spoke freely when a court appointed expert demanded them to.
My son has an entire network of child psychologist, youth counselors and also me waiting for him in my home country, who will all encourage him to treat mental health like physical health; Everyone gets sick sometimes. For the body you take antibiotics, for the mind you take time of to become aware of what is happening. You seek professional help in both situations and being depressed, is a shameful as getting the flu, not at all.
> So, if my hypothesis is correct, parents in Japan are more likely to go untreated
You are right that people don’t often admit mental illness in public or to people they don’t trust.
That’s not that different from western countries in my experience, there is a stigma associated to even depression. Perhaps agoraphobia would be the line where people just nod and ask for details, otherwise they tend to draw a line and flag you as “crazy” or lazy if they have no prior experience or exposure to mental illness.
The worst part would be from a career perspective, where your employer getting that info would be at best neutral, at worst cost you opportunities you would have no chance to prove you missed because of discrimination.
Now, Japanese people get treated. It’s not difficult to get a prescription, and you don’t need to shout on the roofs your getting treatment. I had a number of co-workers that were diagnosed with depression and were under treatment for a few years already. Close friends knew it, otherwise it was no one’s business.
Like for everything, the first step is to recognize you need help, and that’s a step a lot of adults fear to take.
Only few mental health issues can be solved just like that by prescription. Many if not most are lifetime issues with considerable consequences on everyone around.
Luckily work environnement is usually not that chalenging, and very predictible. It helps to avoid situations that could be triggering, and medication can also mitigate the handicaping parts, even if it doesn’t solve the root issues.
As a non-American I am less than qualified to provide an answer, but one possible hypothesis is Race and ethnicity.
The midwest has according to Wikipedia with 79% the highest Non-Hispanic White ratio of any region.[1] As Blacks have the highest rate of poverty 27%, followed by Hispanics 25% compared to 10% for non-Hispanic Whites. [2]
Income equality might be explained by having less poor people.
A follow up hypothesis would be that racial homogeneity might lead to less ghettoisation resulting in less competition for the lowest paying jobs. One might feel less compelled to pay only the lowest possible wage if one can relate to the other person, by race, neighbourhood, etc.
Now, as to why Blacks and Hispanics have higher poverty rates; one explanation may be that the American social system relies very heavily on both parents present (and working) for a child to grow up in an advantageous situation. This is something I have observed to a much lesser extend in more socialist societies in Europa. And famously in all but 11 states, most black children do not live with both parents. In every state, 7 in 10 white children do. [3]
In the case of Black poverty in the US there are probably better places to look first than the issue of single parent households.
The main reason for the high poverty rates among the black population is pretty well understood. Firstly, the legacy of slavery and legally mandated segregation that amounts to 300 years of outright state sanctioned oppression. Secondly, historical and ongoing discrimination in employment and educational opportunities, discrimination over housing, discrimination over the availability of credit with good terms, and institutional discrimination in the criminal justice system and beyond.
After that you might then say something about how single parent households are typically less stable than two parent households, and the rate of single parent households is higher than the norm among black households. By this point though you might need to re-think the direction of causation.
The kind of analysis you put forward can easily start looking like its saying that poverty among black people is a moral failing of black people, rather than a moral failing of society. The latter is where most, but of course not all (black people are individuals with moral agency as well of course!), of the blame lies.
Example: The crack cocaine epidemic hit black communities quite hard, and although there are individual moral failing that lead to addiction and further societal breakdown (single parent households, highschool dropout rates etc...), the vulnerability of black populations due to historic systematic oppression played a large role in making those individual moral failings much more likely.
> In the case of Black poverty in the US there are probably better places to look first than the issue of single parent households.
With all due respect, you have a lot to say on an empirical claim (does race matter much more than parental status with respect to poverty?) without any data to back it up.
One could argue that broken families today is part of the legacy of slavery from 150 years ago, or disagree with the sources already cited, but I don't see you making those arguments. Or citing factual sources otherwise.
> The kind of analysis you put forward can easily start looking like its saying that poverty among black people is a moral failing of black people, rather than a moral failing of society.
Yes, prejudice is a danger. Do we ignore the analysis because of the risk of bigotry? Or is there a way to phrase the issue that lets us presume good faith, have an honest discussion, and perhaps correct subtle bigotry if it becomes clear?
The end of slavery may be 150 years ago, but the end of official state mandated segregation is much more recent, like the end of the 50s, less than 60 years ago.
Casting doubt here is pointless and detracts from the discussion. If the bar for discussion on hacker news is the same as for a peer reviewed paper no one will ever be able to say anything of use here.
In my opinion pedantry isn't helpful for stimulating conversation. You admitted ignorance of the causes of US poverty and of US history ('As a non-American I am less than qualified to provide an answer'), suggested a very simple single parent household theory with evidence of a correlation with poverty. I merely placed your theory and evidence within a historical and ongoing context of oppression (slavery and state sponsored oppression didn't end 150 year ago).
Pretty sure that Jim Crow and Slavery aren't speculation, but are common historical facts that don't require citation, much like saying World War 2 or the Annexation of Crimea happened doesn't require citation.
The point wasn't that single parent households aren't a cause of poverty (it certainly doesn't help), but that it is far too simplistic, that it is probably more symptomatic than causal, and with a US political lens can be seen as a case of dog whistle politics (not accusing you personally of engaging in such politics, which I should have made more clear).
And... That's why statistics alone don't paint a very accurate picture.
The culture of the midwest varies a lot from state to state.
In many ststes like Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona white and Mexican cultures are pretty consistently intermixed. Most of the hispanics are second or third generation Chicanos who grew up in American schools and primarily speak English. Basically, Caucasian and Hispanic family makeup is pretty much indistinguishable.
Outside of the major metros (ie Detroit, Chicago), citys don't have inner-city ghettos like you'd find on the East/West coast.'
In Colorado, the suburbs that are almost all white, upper middle class consist mostly of Californians who left Cali for cheaper property and a higher standard of living. They are, by no means, representative of the local culture.
I'm not sure how you came to the conclusion that more homogeneity causes less inequality. Maybe in terms of cultural homogeneity.
The opposite is true in areas where strictly racial homogeneity is the norm. In cities like Detroit and Memphis neighborhoods could be clearly and easily separated on racial boundaries. Racism is rampant on both sides.
As for Black people in the midwest. I didn't live close enough to the city so I can't really say one way or another. The black families that live in the suburbs are clearly the minority in terms of numbers and apparently in terms of culture. The black families I've known from the suburbs usually have good, stable families, and their children do as well or better in schools than the norm.
Of course, I'm speaking in terms of the western mid-west. The demographic of, say, Iowa will be dramatically different. Likewise, St. Louis it will be dramatically different in a completely different way.
Trying to assess the US statistically as one whole is like trying to measure all of Europe as one country. There is a lot of cultural variation between the different states and people generally migrate away from areas that lack a culture that they identify with.
I can anecdotally confirm and at the same time fail to confirm these findings.
Since recently I am awoken about 1—2 times per night. Yet, the noise is only disturbing enough to awake me in between my sleep cycles. I have not noticed any mood changes.
However after my son was born I definitely noticed a considerable drop in mood due to being awoken randomly at night. (It was also roughly 1—2 times a night)
I wonder if the stage of the sleep cycle—one is experiencing—would influence the mood changes.
