|
RealityApologist posted:If I know the program you are running and I know the input, then I know in a stepwise fashion exactly what states your system will be going through. The code is the procedure that describes your development on that input through the statespace. Except you're missing the point because "code is law" is meant to say that code is a subset of law and carries similar ideological properties. You're mixing definitions with different ends purely so you can say you disagree, without actually disagreeing with anything being said. That's dumb.
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 17:51
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 7, 2024 21:04 |
|
|
Cream_Filling posted:If it's self organizing "like every other system" then why bother even saying so, if every single system can be described as such? Why do you insist on wasting time on things that don't matter? Like every other system that is self-organized. You are putting very little effort into actually reading what I'm saying, and you are just looking for places to snap back with your first knee-jerk, braindead response. I'm not encouraging your idiotic posting any more.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 17:52
|
|
|
RealityApologist posted:I agree with this. I also agree that the design of the road is a kind of top down control. In general, the design of infrastructure will have a lot of influence over how individuals organize within the system. I've never denied this. If you are reading me as having denied it, you are reading me wrong. Your misunderstanding does not make me an idiot. Seriously this thread would be much better if y'all stopped insulting me and just dealt with the topic. Calling me stupid for every objection you raise is boring as gently caress. The flow of traffic is the result of users following top-down rules of the road; there's no self-organization at any useful level. People don't drive on the right side of the road or stop at intersections because of distributed self-organization, they do it because the top-down laws say to. And if Twitter were doing the top-down organizing, busy roads would be ten times worse than today, because traffic engineering is actually complicated poo poo that can't be done by just any old layman off the street, and grabbing a thousand laymen off the street won't appreciably improve matters. Cream_Filling posted:His argument is that law is not code. Except that the statement is that code is law. His argument appears to be that code is a regulatory apparatus like law, except that it is superior by nature because people can't or won't break it, and that we should replace our inconsistent and breakable laws with discretionless and inviolable code. He's noticeably unclear on how this should be accomplished - he's either advocating that we repeal any laws people might break or arguing for robotic enforcers connected to the central behavior tracking database and equipped to deal out merciless AI-administered justice to thought criminals.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 17:53
|
|
|
RealityApologist posted:Like every other system that is self-organized. You are putting very little effort into actually reading what I'm saying, and you are just looking for places to snap back with your first knee-jerk, braindead response. I'm not encouraging your idiotic posting any more. You wrote: quote:I never said there would be no top-down control, I only said this control would be self-organized like any other system. A biological cell has bottom-up organization and top-down control, and balancing the two is what keeps the system in a homeostatic state despite changing internal and external conditions. Now you're saying you meant to say "this control will be self-organized like every other system that is self-organized"? How is this meaningful?
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 18:00
|
|
|
Main Paineframe posted:The flow of traffic is the result of users following top-down rules of the road; there's no self-organization at any useful level. People don't drive on the right side of the road or stop at intersections because of distributed self-organization, they do it because the top-down laws say to. And if Twitter were doing the top-down organizing, busy roads would be ten times worse than today, because traffic engineering is actually complicated poo poo that can't be done by just any old layman off the street, and grabbing a thousand laymen off the street won't appreciably improve matters. No, see, twitter. TWITTERR. If engineers listened to twitter they would have a far better idea of public opinion than statistics, direct data collection, public notice and comment, and input from policy makers. You know, the existing systems for data collection that already exist. But apparently phoning your city councilman isn't a "standard method[] by which the communities of drivers can weigh in on those design decisions" but twitter would be. Seriously, people already have telephones, a postal service, and town halls. How the hell would twitter make user input on road design more reliable considering that it's far less effort to make fake twitters and twitter bots? Twitter is a means for communication, and a particularly limited and rather frivolous one at that, not some sort of burgeoning hivemind. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Dec 3, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 18:12
|
|
|
Eripsa, it seems that the only thing that's changed since the last time is that you're a more educated kind of stupid. Your ideas haven't changed one iota. If you'd learned anything from those classes you took, you'd have an entirely different worldview, but you've just decorated the old ideas with bits of terminology like a magpie sticking bits of decorating it's nest with bits of foil. I'm not saying you'd agree with me, but rather that an honest and humble engagement with new ideas transforms you, and that hasn't happened.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 18:44
|
|
|
Main Paineframe posted:The flow of traffic is the result of users following top-down rules of the road; there's no self-organization at any useful level. People don't drive on the right side of the road or stop at intersections because of distributed self-organization, they do it because the top-down laws say to. And if Twitter were doing the top-down organizing, busy roads would be ten times worse than today, because traffic engineering is actually complicated poo poo that can't be done by just any old layman off the street, and grabbing a thousand laymen off the street won't appreciably improve matters. If traffic were entirely the result of the top-down rules of the road, then there wouldn't be a field of traffic engineering because you could just pass a law abolishing congestion at some problem intersection and any layman can tell what intersections those are. It's a field of study precisely because the rules of the road only influence how the immense system of interconnected feedback loops actually plays out. If self organization prohibits any outside constraints on the system behavior, then the term has no meaning.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 19:04
|
|
|
^^ That's exactly right. RealityApologist posted:Would anyone be interested in participating in a live, broadcasted youtube hangout on this topic? I'd be happy to field questions live. It'll probably help with a lot of the miscommunication, and it might be interesting. Any takers? Quoting for the new page. This most recent exchange concerning the flow of traffic makes it clear that you guys don't actually understand what "self-organization" is. That's fine, its a hard subject, but there's confusion that's obstructing the conversation. A self-organized system is made of semi-autonomous functionally differentiated components that contribute to the overall dynamics of the system. Those functional parts both constrain the system and are constrained by it; in other words there are both bottom-up and top-down effects. Organization always happens within some environmental constraints, but the existence of those constraints doesn't prevent a system from being self-organized. A colony of algae in a tidal pool depends for its very survival on the tidal forces that bring fresh nutrients into the pool and circulate out the waste, but the fact that it depends on these structures doesn't make the organism any less self-organized. Traffic is a paradigm case of self-organization, in both India (where infrastructure is underdeveloped) but also in the US, where roads are significantly more structured and ordered. This infrastructure provides the framework on which agents self-organize. More structure in the US system means more constraints on what the agents can and cannot do, but in both cases the agents are following relatively simple rules according to their own judgment. As I cited, the speed of traffic has little to do with the laws governing the speed; that means agents aren't driving according to their appreciation of the law, they are driving in response to the immediate environment they are interacting with. That's a self-organized system. One tell-tale sign of self-organization is the emergence of system-level properties that are not discernible by simply knowing the rules governing individual behavior. And indeed, the phenomenon of traffic jams is an emergent phenomena of traffic systems, and they occur in infrastructure that is both sparse and highly constructed. So on this reading, Facebook the social network is a self-organized network of human beings, even though those people have very little say in the infrastructure on which they are organizing. It is true that the infrastructure of facebook puts strong constraints on what organizations can develop within it, but nevertheless the relations that do develop develop through the immediate engagement of the users, and not through some infrastructural decision. The contrast to self-organization would be "other organization", where individuals aren't following simple rules in an autonomous fashion, but are given direct orders and forced into compliance. Contrast the behavior of Facebook users with, for instance, the marching of Napoleon's soldiers into battle. In the latter case, high level commands are issued that determine the behavior of each individual soldier directly; they are told to march in formation and maintain their ranks despite changing environmental conditions. This is not a self-organized system, because the structured being maintained are not provided with the bottom-up feedback and differentiation that allows the system to settle into its own dynamics. Instead, an army in formation depends for its every step on the directions from on top. If modern warfare is different, and modern soldiers are given more latitude to judge and react spontaneously to their environment, its because the military knows that self-organized, semi-autonomous units are more effective at accomplishing tasks than rigid top-down structures of command and control. RealityApologist fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Dec 3, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 19:06
|
|
|
RealityApologist posted:Traffic is a paradigm case of self-organization, in both India https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Djo_sJwgIQ0
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 19:09
|
|
|
Huttan posted:Building codes since the 50s and 60s have required parking arrangements. It is called "floor area ratio" and is why some communities have flat buildings while others have high rise buildings. FAR is also why you see lots of "box on a pad" architecture for retail and fast food. Next time you're at a fast food store (that is one of those "box on a pad" locations), and you see a "maximum occupancy" sign, that occupancy limit is defined by the size of the parking lot.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 19:12
|
|
|
RealityApologist posted:If I know the program you are running and I know the input, then I know in a stepwise fashion exactly what states your system will be going through.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 19:14
|
|
|
RealityApologist posted:If modern warfare is different, and modern soldiers are given more latitude to judge and react spontaneously to their environment, its because the military knows that self-organized, semi-autonomous units are more effective at accomplishing tasks than rigid top-down structures of command and control. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_logistics
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 19:14
|
|
|
Ratoslov posted:Eripsa, it seems that the only thing that's changed since the last time is that you're a more educated kind of stupid. Your ideas haven't changed one iota. If you'd learned anything from those classes you took, you'd have an entirely different worldview, but you've just decorated the old ideas with bits of terminology like a magpie sticking bits of decorating it's nest with bits of foil. I'm not saying you'd agree with me, but rather that an honest and humble engagement with new ideas transforms you, and that hasn't happened. I've refined my views and examples an incredible amount in the last few years, and I've learned a lot more about organizational dynamics in natural systems that have suggested all sorts of improvements and revisions of my views. I also have done a lot more research and feel more confident speaking to the science and mathematics of complex systems. I don't think its fair at all to say that my views haven't changed. I've also explicitly backtracked on some issues, especially concerning privacy, that represent serious reconsiderations from the positions I've defended here before. Its also true, as the OP shows, more and more people are starting to think along the same lines, and are raising new problems and issues that I haven't yet considered. Treating and responding to these developments has allowed my views to grow and mature as well. Its true that I've only become more confident in the view because of this research. I don't take that to be a reductio of the view, and I'm not sure why you think I should.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 19:16
|
|
|
Cefte posted:No, you don't. It's statements like this that make me really really wary of everything else you say. Keywords that your theory of everything has elided: "non-deterministic algorithm", "multi-threading", "rand()". Perhaps I only know with some probability what states you are going through, but in either case the program is a description of the computational procedures themselves, and not the conventional norms governing them. Code is descriptive, law is prescriptive; non-deterministic computing doesn't change that.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 19:19
|
|
|
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnlULOjUhSQ edit: So?
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 19:19
|
|
|
Cicero posted:Sure, but those building codes aren't some standalone invention. They're part of America's wider car culture, they support our car-owning and usage habits. If huge numbers of people no longer had any use for those parking spots, the regulations could be changed. Correct. The codes support the culture, not the vice versa.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 19:22
|
|
|
RealityApologist posted:I've refined my views and examples an incredible amount in the last few years, and I've learned a lot more about organizational dynamics in natural systems that have suggested all sorts of improvements and revisions of my views. RealityApologist posted:I unironically cited India as an example of a self-organizing traffic system a second time after getting run out of the previous thread by a massive pile of dead Indians
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 19:23
|
|
|
Eripsa, are you using a military platoon as an example of a semi-autonomous, self-organizing unit because you know as much about that as you do about Indian traffic?
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 19:25
|
|
|
1337JiveTurkey posted:If traffic were entirely the result of the top-down rules of the road, then there wouldn't be a field of traffic engineering because you could just pass a law abolishing congestion at some problem intersection and any layman can tell what intersections those are. It's a field of study precisely because the rules of the road only influence how the immense system of interconnected feedback loops actually plays out. If self organization prohibits any outside constraints on the system behavior, then the term has no meaning. Except calling a system self-organizing means absolutely jack poo poo. As I said before, it's so broad and vague as to be essentially meaningless in any practical terms. Basically all the stuff Eripsa thinks he can revolutionize is already a self-organizing system. Except why will internet cloud web 3.0 something something make it better?
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 19:26
|
|
|
If it helps, in the original attention economy thread we learned Triumph of the Will was self organized. The definition of self organized basically boiled down to "people doing a thing".
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 19:29
|
|
|
RealityApologist posted:Perhaps I only know with some probability what states you are going through, but in either case the program is a description of the computational procedures themselves, and not the conventional norms governing them. Code is descriptive, law is prescriptive; non-deterministic computing doesn't change that. Your words were "an exact description of the state of a system". How on earth are you this sloppy with writing despite claiming to be in computer science and philosophy, two fields where precision of language is incredibly important?
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 19:32
|
|
|
Cream_Filling posted:Your words were "an exact description of the state of a system". As someone studying in the field of philosophy, I assure you that many jokers avoid formal logic and philosophy of language in order to maintain their sense of superiority.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 19:36
|
|
|
When marching in formation or performing maneuvers, soldiers autonomously compensate for changes in terrain and obstacles in order to maintain ordered files, acting as independent agents to accomplish the overall group goals of maintaining ordered formation in an often highly disordered environment where the ground may be littered with dead bodies and direct communication can be impossible due to black powder smoke and the noise of gunfire. Even unit-level decisions like deciding to charge or fall back are often not centrally directed but instead arrived at spontaneously. Clearly Napoleonic-era units were self-organizing systems. Which means jack poo poo because any human enterprise is necessarily made up of autonomous agents short of literal mind control. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Dec 3, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 19:36
|
|
|
Eripsa, I would genuinely like to explore your views on modern military strategy and tactics in the context of describing small units as semi-autonomous agents. Are you perhaps referring to the well known documentary about the US special forces entitled "Rambo III"?
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 19:42
|
|
|
Cefte posted:No, you don't. It's statements like this that make me really really wary of everything else you say. Keywords that your theory of everything has elided: "non-deterministic algorithm", "multi-threading", "rand()". Or, to debunk him even further, how about stateless code? Which, by the way, is completely deterministic as long as you keep it 'pure'. Basically, Eripsa peppers his paranoid delusions with a sprinkling of enough technical language gleaned from wikipedia articles that people that do not actually know the subjects he is tangentially touching might get the impression he knows what he is talking about. He doesn't. iFederico fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Dec 3, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 19:48
|
|
|
1337JiveTurkey posted:If traffic were entirely the result of the top-down rules of the road, then there wouldn't be a field of traffic engineering because you could just pass a law abolishing congestion at some problem intersection and any layman can tell what intersections those are. It's a field of study precisely because the rules of the road only influence how the immense system of interconnected feedback loops actually plays out. If self organization prohibits any outside constraints on the system behavior, then the term has no meaning. If traffic engineering only influenced how traffic operates, then traffic lights wouldn't exist because they're only really useful as strictly-followed rules, not vague suggestions. And congestion is usually caused by failures of the top-down rules, such as a self-organized political lobby messing with the traffic engineers' plans or drivers self-organizing themselves into a nineteen-car pileup blocking enough lanes to completely ruin the road's capacity calculations.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 19:55
|
|
|
Eripsa, on a scale of 1 to 100, how self-autonomous was any given member of the British military during the Falklands War?
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 20:25
|
|
|
Tubba Blubba posted:Correct. The codes support the culture, not the vice versa.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 20:35
|
|
|
I never claimed the India system was better than the american system. I'm not sure why you think I did. The india system is dangerous; it would be better to have more elaborate infrastructure that keeps the flow of traffic more orderly. I never even suggested otherwise. Adar posted:Eripsa, are you using a military platoon as an example of a semi-autonomous, self-organizing unit because you know as much about that as you do about Indian traffic? I said that the modern military uses more self-organized tactics and give soldiers a greater degree of autonomy than a Napoleonic army. You are strawmanning my position.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 20:36
|
|
|
Cicero posted:No, I think it works both ways. Obviously having lots of parking around encourages people to own and use cars, but at the same time people owning and using cars means people will be in favor of (or at least unopposed to) such codes. If most of your constituents use cars constantly and wants lots of parking, as a politician you're probably going to support that. That seems fair.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 20:38
|
|
|
Cream_Filling posted:Your words were "an exact description of the state of a system". The difference between a deterministic computer and a probablistic computer makes absolutely no difference to the argument I made. This is a red herring. For a crowd that keeps accusing me of poor writing and argumentation, the number of fallacies, rhetoric, and ad hominems being used against me is absurd.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 20:39
|
|
|
RealityApologist posted:I said that the modern military uses more self-organized tactics and give soldiers a greater degree of autonomy than a Napoleonic army. You are strawmanning my position. Eripsa, what do you think was the degree of autonomy an individual company commander had in the War of 1812 as opposed to the Falkland Islands? On a related note, why do you think Napoleon lost the War of 1812?
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 20:45
|
|
|
Yo GIP I know one of you people is lurking this and lolling so I'm just gonna say feel free to pretend Eripsa is a Canberra, invade and shoot that poo poo down tia I know it's a long flight back to GIP but you can always do that midair refueling trick I've heard so much about
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 20:50
|
|
|
Adar posted:Eripsa, what do you think was the degree of autonomy an individual company commander had in the War of 1812 as opposed to the Falkland Islands? Why would I have any position on these questions? What is your point?
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 20:51
|
|
|
RealityApologist posted:The difference between a deterministic computer and a probablistic computer makes absolutely no difference to the argument I made. This is a red herring. For a crowd that keeps accusing me of poor writing and argumentation, the number of fallacies, rhetoric, and ad hominems being used against me is absurd. Which argument was that, then? You really don't seem to have much in the way of definite positions for anything. Here, let's change things up: make a single argument. Just one. Don't go on about the world-shaking implications of it. Just take a position on a single relatively narrowly defined issue of interest that's not utterly uncontroversial or meaningless.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 21:02
|
|
|
Cream_Filling posted:Which argument was that, then? You really don't seem to have much in the way of definite positions for anything. Guys this would be so much easier to explain in a Google Hangout. It would be like, dynamically self-organizing and adaptive.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 21:32
|
|
|
RealityApologist posted:Why would I have any position on these questions? What is your point? RealityApologist posted:If modern warfare is different, and modern soldiers are given more latitude to judge and react spontaneously to their environment, its because the military knows that self-organized, semi-autonomous units are more effective at accomplishing tasks than rigid top-down structures of command and control. In addition to computer science, you also decided to bring up your knowledge of military logistics and organization. Your understanding of both seems to be about the same which is not a point in your favour, especially when your definition of self-organized is so loose it's really redundant to call anything that involves a large number of people doing a thing self-organized.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 21:52
|
|
|
DrProsek posted:In addition to computer science, you also decided to bring up your knowledge of military logistics and organization. Your understanding of both seems to be about the same which is not a point in your favour, especially when your definition of self-organized is so loose it's really redundant to call anything that involves a large number of people doing a thing self-organized. My comment about the military was at the very general level comparing Napoleonic formations with modern warfare. If I'm wrong about the point I'm happy to be corrected. I'm not claiming to know anything more detailed about military strategy than this obviously true and very general claim. The claim was made only to illustrate the argument about self-organization, which comprised the bulk of that post. I was responding directly to a misunderstanding of the concept of self-organization, and I was attempting to clarify a proper understanding by way of the example. Apparently, Adar and others are arguing that I'm required to be an expert in military strategy to use the example to make the point, and that because I'm not an expert in military strategy, nothing about the post is worth considering. I'm not sure how I'm made to look foolish in light of this argument, but that's the circus of noise and confusion that I apparently cause in D&D. Again, I'll just remind everyone that I'm arguing with about a dozen different people, each with distinct interpretations (some willfully uncharitable), and trying to keep a coherent thread of discussion together in the process. In normal circumstances I'd be afforded some charity and assistance in articulating my thoughts. If an when I make errors, these might be addressed and corrected and clarified for the sake of the discussion, so we might better the topics under discussion. If I'm wildly wrong and the military today is imposes even greater constraints on soldiers while receiving even less feedback, then I'll happily be corrected. But of course I'm obviously right about this extremely minor point. It doesn't matter. At every juncture my basic intelligence and credibility is called into question. I'm perfectly happy to have the views criticized, and I'm also quite comfortable maintaining composure while being insulted. But I'm won't confuse the latter for the former. I've yet to see any serious engagement with the views themselves, despite the insults you goons have produced nothing more substantive than caricature in actually confronting the subject of the thread. There are some serious criticisms being raised: about the computational complexity of the task, about the viability of decentralized decision procedures, about how a digital society would treat its least fortunate members. These are all valid worries, and worth discussing at length and in great detail. I'm trying to spell out the framework so we can give the criticisms adequate treatment. I never claimed I had a complete solution to these problems; I've only claimed to present a framework under which solutions can be addressed. I came here to engage in that discussion and to lay out the theory as conversation requires. That means responding to criticism and worries, which I've tried to do for many of the examples raised. It also means not making wildly implausible claims about what such a system would be capable of, or how well we would expect it to function. I don't believe I've done either of those things in this thread. But again, it doesn't matter. I'm not given the conversational deference required to make even simple claims. These threads have turned into knee-jerk snake pit that strikes at every linguistic mistake or potential ambiguity with utter contempt to make sure that no genuine discussion can take place.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 22:36
|
|
|
RealityApologist posted:My comment about the military was at the very general level comparing Napoleonic formations with modern warfare. If I'm wrong about the point I'm happy to be corrected. I'm not claiming to know anything more detailed about military strategy than this obviously true and very general claim. The claim was made only to illustrate the argument about self-organization, which comprised the bulk of that post. It's not confusion. You're admitting here you are using examples you don't understand at all. And it is a safe assumption to say that if you are using things you don't understand as examples for your points, your points are probably as poorly thought out as your choice in examples.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 22:40
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 7, 2024 21:04 |
|
|
evilweasel posted:It's not confusion. You're admitting here you are using examples you don't understand at all. And it is a safe assumption to say that if you are using things you don't understand as examples for your points, your points are probably as poorly thought out as your choice in examples. I understand it well enough to know the example was both reasonable and correctly illustrated the point being made. You all know it too. In a conversation, some ground must be accepted by all parties in order to make any sort of progress, but I'm not allowed to make even obvious points by way of example in order to illustrate my claims. If my argument was attempting to make a deep point about military tactics then maybe I should be called on it. But the example was only making the very simple point that this:  is different from this:  and that's a distinction I'm perfectly qualified to observe as a layman.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2013 22:52
|
|