Thanks... but for us laymen, it seems to mimic that... getting quantum computing results but by placing the quantum distribution inside the chip design
Hey Packy - Excellent that you wrote about Stu Kauffman, who is indeed a very interesting thinker. But you shouldn't write about him in the past tense -- he's still alive!
the essay reads like "you should take weird ideas seriously" but what's actually happening is "i can safely write about these weird ideas because the people pursuing them have enough legitimacy that it doesn't cost credibility to reference them."
you're not taking weird ideas seriously — you're taking socially validated weird ideas seriously. which is just... regular idea validation with a weird aesthetic.
the person doing actual weird idea shit is the one who can't get the research position or whatever because they're pursuing the thing before anyone with capital thinks it's safe to touch. by the time you're writing about it, it's not weird anymore in the way that matters. it's already been de-risked by someone else's social capital.
this isn't a criticism exactly -- just the water we swim in. the economic structure makes it so the really weird ideas stay buried until someone with enough fortress builds can surface them without dying. then people like you (and me) can write about them and call it brave.
the person who actually needs to hear "take weird ideas seriously" will never read this essay because they're too busy being dismissed for taking weird ideas seriously before those ideas had co-signs.
This is a fairly commonplace thesis in the study of literature and visual-artistic influence. Which goes to show that the "weird" is often just a truism from something you've never thought about even once, applied to something you think about a lot. Maybe a "sustaining weird", to mangle Christensen? But I won't push that one.
Things have to be field-adjacent enough to be recognizable, which means that even really weird ideas aren't *that* weird at bottom. My screaming out the window for 10 minutes is not "art," unless I could persuade David Zwirner it is. I'd start my pitch by referencing Acconci, Burden, (sigh) Duchamp, and (double sigh) Warhol. Even then we'd have to see. Isolation makes it much more difficult to get field-adjacent enough; you probably don't even understand what adjacent is if you spend your life toiling away in a cave somewhere.
Remember, even Tesla had Rockefeller as a friend. For a while, anyway.
maybe christopher alexander claiming that life is not just a biological status but an attribute. anything stafford beer or douglas engelbart wrote (and non surface leverage coverage of it). vopson's claim that energy, matter and information are equivalent.
but the reality is that the best ones do not make economic sense to distribute and so i can share with a friend in person but im not going to do so publicly and i think that is the broader point im making
None of these ideas are that weird and all lean on socially validating people! Which I guess is your point.
It hasn't been my experience that people are closed to very weird ideas, as long as they're not weird x something bad/socially unacceptable (i.e. weird racist ideas or something). Taking LSD to uncover the secrets of the universe still seems pretty out there.
Thanks for the pointer to "American Alchemy".. will definitely check it out.. and Extropic... are these Qbits at room temp?
no, they're a separate thing, pbits. they explain a bit in the video but they're very clear it's not quantum.
Thanks... but for us laymen, it seems to mimic that... getting quantum computing results but by placing the quantum distribution inside the chip design
Hey Packy - Excellent that you wrote about Stu Kauffman, who is indeed a very interesting thinker. But you shouldn't write about him in the past tense -- he's still alive!
was writing about the work in the past tense, but see your point!
the essay reads like "you should take weird ideas seriously" but what's actually happening is "i can safely write about these weird ideas because the people pursuing them have enough legitimacy that it doesn't cost credibility to reference them."
you're not taking weird ideas seriously — you're taking socially validated weird ideas seriously. which is just... regular idea validation with a weird aesthetic.
the person doing actual weird idea shit is the one who can't get the research position or whatever because they're pursuing the thing before anyone with capital thinks it's safe to touch. by the time you're writing about it, it's not weird anymore in the way that matters. it's already been de-risked by someone else's social capital.
this isn't a criticism exactly -- just the water we swim in. the economic structure makes it so the really weird ideas stay buried until someone with enough fortress builds can surface them without dying. then people like you (and me) can write about them and call it brave.
the person who actually needs to hear "take weird ideas seriously" will never read this essay because they're too busy being dismissed for taking weird ideas seriously before those ideas had co-signs.
This is a fairly commonplace thesis in the study of literature and visual-artistic influence. Which goes to show that the "weird" is often just a truism from something you've never thought about even once, applied to something you think about a lot. Maybe a "sustaining weird", to mangle Christensen? But I won't push that one.
Things have to be field-adjacent enough to be recognizable, which means that even really weird ideas aren't *that* weird at bottom. My screaming out the window for 10 minutes is not "art," unless I could persuade David Zwirner it is. I'd start my pitch by referencing Acconci, Burden, (sigh) Duchamp, and (double sigh) Warhol. Even then we'd have to see. Isolation makes it much more difficult to get field-adjacent enough; you probably don't even understand what adjacent is if you spend your life toiling away in a cave somewhere.
Remember, even Tesla had Rockefeller as a friend. For a while, anyway.
an interesting take. need more weird. what're some examples you're thinking about?
maybe christopher alexander claiming that life is not just a biological status but an attribute. anything stafford beer or douglas engelbart wrote (and non surface leverage coverage of it). vopson's claim that energy, matter and information are equivalent.
https://coordinationprotocols.substack.com/p/life-a-not-fake-explanation
https://coordinationprotocols.substack.com/p/a-not-fake-theory-of-everything-v1
https://coordinationprotocols.substack.com/p/1755-to-2024-a-journey-of-zero-definition
https://coordinationprotocols.substack.com/p/american-business-logic
but the reality is that the best ones do not make economic sense to distribute and so i can share with a friend in person but im not going to do so publicly and i think that is the broader point im making
None of these ideas are that weird and all lean on socially validating people! Which I guess is your point.
It hasn't been my experience that people are closed to very weird ideas, as long as they're not weird x something bad/socially unacceptable (i.e. weird racist ideas or something). Taking LSD to uncover the secrets of the universe still seems pretty out there.