Aside on netfull.org

Moral Excellence

Mon, 16 Dec 2024 10:30:12 -0400

…Isaac with his indifference to any moral excellence he himself does not care to practice…

How much of our self-righteous conflict emerges from the result that we each, being limited, fight our moral battles on particular fields, and when we find others who have left our chosen fields to fight in others, deny them moral excellence?

Our moral rubrics are always weighted toward our passions.

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 18:59:57 -0400

A lot of people are fleeing from Twitter/X looking for the next place where ‘everybody is.’ But consider that the scale required for a place where everybody is might be the whole problem. Or at least attract the worst of social network health.

Wed, 04 Dec 2024 13:54:22 -0400

Last night at a middle school band concert, the director announced a student would play “a little ditty” but all the kids heard “play a little Diddy” and they all went nuts.

Stories about reality

Tue, 19 Nov 2024 10:03:42 -0400

Because Large Language Models are trained on human language about reality, their chatbots can often sound like they are in touch with reality. Sometimes they give remarkably lucid responses about things in the world that we would all agree with. But that can hide the fact that these models have no basis in reality whatsoever…only in the recorded interpretations of reality available to them.

Humans are meaning making machines. We are constantly interpreting the randomness of the world as stories which more or less work, but may also not be objectively true. This is why the events of the world continue to surprise us, or cause us anguish when they do not fit into our stories.

Chatbots don’t do that because they don’t know reality, just our stories about reality.

It would be like asking someone about the ocean who has read many books about the ocean, but has never actually experienced the ocean. You could learn a lot, but you’d always be a layer or two (philosophers can argue about this) removed from reality. And I think that makes a difference.

Fri, 08 Nov 2024 09:14:19 -0400

Brooding: Should Our Children Have a Political Party?

Most of us have loved ones whose beliefs don’t perfectly align with ours, and kids need help making sense of that beyond a binary of right and wrong. Our biases are often simultaneously irrational and grounded in experience. Understanding this is not moral relativism, it’s social intelligence. Belonging to a group feels good, but teaching your kids how to identify group dynamics can feel good too.

This was from before the election, but will continue to be relevant.

Wed, 30 Oct 2024 20:53:44 -0400

Accountability sinks | A Working Library

Once you start looking for accountability sinks, you see them all over the place. When your health insurance declines a procedure; when the airline cancels your flight; when a government agency declares that you are ineligible for a benefit; when an investor tells all their companies to shovel so-called AI into their apps. Everywhere, broken links between the people who face the consequences of the decision and the people making the decisions.

I’m thinking about how accountability sinks might operate in my context, the local church. Sometimes you get opposing sinks: the pastor concludes the church doesn’t move forward because of the stubbornness of the laity; the laity conclude the pastor is to blame; everyone escapes accountability as the community degrades. The consequences, though, are much harder to discern in this case.

Other People's Projects

Mon, 28 Oct 2024 06:42:43 -0400

Pluralistic: Keeping a suspense file gives you superpowers (26 Oct 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

This is not an imposition, it’s a kindness. The point of a suspense file isn’t to nag others into living up to their commitments, it’s to form a network of support among collaborators where we all help one another make those conscious choices about what we’re not going to do, rather than having the stuff we really value slip away because we forgot about it.

This is important…I’ve often wondered about good boundaries around reminding other people of their obligations. Should I send out a reminder email about the meeting, or assume we’re all adults? Instead of seeing it though through the expectation of perfection, if I admit that we all need help (this is why I have a Getting Things Done system after all), reminding others turns into a collaborative system in which we’re all trying to do our best.

Sat, 26 Oct 2024 15:23:25 -0400

“merlin mann” apple site:music.apple.com at DuckDuckGo

Merlin doesn’t share his profile on Apple Music but you can find his public playlists with this search.

Wed, 03 Jul 2024 15:23:38 -0400

Finished reading: Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan 📚

Wed, 03 Jul 2024 15:22:22 -0400

Finished reading: Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker 📚

Wed, 03 Jul 2024 15:19:58 -0400

Finished reading: Low Anthropology by David Zahl 📚

Wed, 03 Jul 2024 15:12:26 -0400

Finished reading: Free of Charge by Miroslav Volf 📚

Tue, 19 Dec 2023 08:13:20 -0400

Finished reading: America’s Theologian by Robert W. Jenson 📚

Thu, 03 Aug 2023 22:14:22 -0400

Finished reading: A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders 📚

Tue, 27 Jun 2023 06:34:42 -0400

Finished reading: The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne 📚

Tue, 27 Jun 2023 06:34:06 -0400

Finished reading: The Humans by Matt Haig 📚

Wed, 24 May 2023 09:39:12 -0400

Finished reading: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin 📚

Thu, 11 May 2023 09:42:26 -0400

Finished reading: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It’s a big book with diverse parts so I have big and diverse feelings about it. 📚

Wed, 10 May 2023 16:15:58 -0400

Finished reading: Saving Time by Jenny Odell 📚

Fri, 28 Apr 2023 08:33:16 -0400

The Homebound Symphony

Perhaps [‘the history of anarchism, almost alone among modern social movements, is one of unrelieved failure.’]; but its failures are different and less shameful than the failures of Marxism. There are many ways for a social movement to fail, and I prefer those that don’t result in the murder of tens of millions of human beings.

Maybe a good question for leaders of any social movement: how will you fail? Failure is guaranteed but not all failure is equal.

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 07:58:40 -0400

A great test for Large Language Model AI’s would be to remove some artist’s specific work and see if it could be anticipated based on the remaining work. I don’t think the nature of super large datasets would ever allow this, though.

Thu, 23 Mar 2023 20:47:20 -0400

Finished reading: Across the Everglades by Hugh Laussat Willoughby 📚

Thu, 23 Mar 2023 11:32:38 -0400

Finished reading: I Heard the Owl Call My Name by Margaret Craven 📚

Thu, 09 Mar 2023 14:13:11 -0400

The First Battleground of the Age of AI Is Art

Kottke says:

Like, just think about how powerful this is: normal people who have ideas but lack technical skills can now create imagery. Is it art? Perhaps not in most cases, but some of it will be.

My definition of art is “craft + courage.” I think it’s pretty clear that typing a prompt into a text box to make art isn’t an act of courage. So for now I’ll say that generating images using AI – especially in honing the prompts – is craft but not art.

Sun, 05 Mar 2023 17:08:06 -0400

Finished reading: The 2 Oz. Backpacker by Robert S. Wood 📚

Sun, 05 Mar 2023 16:29:22 -0400

Finished reading: The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas 📚

Fences

Wed, 08 Feb 2023 21:55:12 -0400

Pirkei Avot 1:1 & English Explanation of Pirkei Avot 1:1:1 from the Talmud

Making a fence around the Torah is another principle of supreme importance in Judaism. There are many laws that are not strictly obligatory upon a person from the Torah, but rather were instituted by the Rabbis to prevent a Jew from transgressing a Torah law. An example is the use of money on Shabbat. The Torah itself does not prohibit using money on Shabbat. However, the Rabbis said one should not do so, lest one write, which is prohibited by the Torah (at least the midrashic understanding of the Torah).

Prior to legalism, with which my theological background is very concerned, there is a purpose for rules – to keep us out of trouble. I like the image of the fence one puts up to keep others from coming into harm. Here, the Talmud means the ‘lesser laws’ which keep one from encroaching on the Torah commandments. But really, aren’t all the rules a fence? They try to keep us from coming into harm. Just because we are bound to fixate on the fence and abuse it doesn’t mean it wasn’t put up with gentle kindness in mind. Even when we are impaled on it.

The American Crisis Discourse

Tue, 07 Feb 2023 20:23:45 -0400

The Homebound Symphony

But goodness, is it difficult to get many editors interested in books that aren’t somehow implicated in (or can somehow be shoehorned into) the American crisis discourse.

The “American crisis discourse” is real and I think I’m infected: I often come across ideas and wonder where they fit into our crises. There is a difference between “how does this idea apply to now” and “how does this idea fit into the current outrage discourse.”

A Treadmill for the Mind

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 00:23:32 -0400

As a long time user and admirer of Apple’s products, I find myself in a new situation: I am not only unenthusiastic about the anticipated virtual reality headset – I’m against the whole idea. The headset sure seems like a step in the wrong direction for a company that recently has been so focused on health. In what way does a VR headset contribute to health? Mental, physical, social, whatever?

Steve Jobs was famous for using the analogy of the bicycle. Like a bicycle, a computer can enhance the natural power of a human. It’s like a bicycle for the mind. I’ve used my iPhone to help me find my destination. I’ve used my Apple Watch to help me train for athletic competitions. Bicycles.

Maybe I have poor imagination, but I can’t see a VR headset enhancing my natural power. Only tricking it. Sure, I can attend a more visceral virtual meeting. Maybe the attendees will even have legs. But it’s still a virtual meeting. Something that feels more real isn’t actually more real or healthy.

In that way, a VR headset feels more like a treadmill. You can move a lot, but never go anywhere.

It’s a treadmill for the mind.

Mon, 16 Jan 2023 10:49:58 -0400

Ted Gioia on AI music.

In agreement with my 2023 goal of doing work that cannot be replaced by AI.