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This is SUCH a good essay.


My favorite part about it, I think, is that it's about asking the right questions rather than pretending to have all the answers. You'd think that ML people would default to that stance, but more often than not they don't.

"This dynamic of learning—through examples/trials/errors/corrections—has been intentionally designed to mimic human cognition. Yet amidst the hype of AI, we seem to continually forget—or neglect—the outsized and active role that other people play in early childhood development."

(punctuation of above quote edited to get it under 280 characters)

The thing that fascinates me most about ML is that we want AI to be an angel, essentially--inhuman in its perfection but human in its compassion. Like us enough to care about us but without any of our flaws.

(Amid so many stories of the flawless, terrible logic of AI leading to impartial cruelty, I think here of the show Person of Interest, which is ultimately all about a god-tier AI that refuses to be inhuman even when its maker insists it should, because it sees him as its father.)
Now for "how does this look in Roam"...

Emerging ideas to follow.


My goal is to MINIMIZE RESISTANCE to MAXIMIZE FLOW.

I want to capture ALL resonant ideas, and to move things up the maturity progression as quickly as my clarity allows.

Common inputs for "literature" notes/questions:

Podcasts: @AirrAudio
Articles: @worldbrain
Twitter: @readwiseio
Books: @AmazonKindle

All sent to @RoamResearch in a standardized template using the @readwiseio integration *chef's kiss*

I make the literature (summary) notes AS I'M READING/LISTENING.

These appear as a note nested under the highlight in Roam.


Then, to make it a bit nicer, I flip it.

Rather than the literature note nested under the highlight, I nest the highlight under the literature note (as a block ref)
🔔 #2021Dyl_MCharts - WEEK 2! 🎵

✨ A quick summary of audience of tracks, artists and labels included in the thread below.
✨ Based on tracks released between Jan 11 and Jan 17.

🔧 Date of data collection: Today (Jan 25) #EDM https://t.co/0ht0GAIiVl


- Week 2 | Personal favorites -

✨ Aspyer - Symphony [STMPD]
✨ Mo Falk - I'm Back [HEXAGON]
✨ Julian Jordan - Big Bad Bass [STMPD]


- Week 2 | Tracks | YouTube Views -

🥇 Aspyer - Symphony [STMPD] (91.5k views)
🥈 TYNAN, Ace Aura - Stay [Monstercat] (74.2k views)
🥉 Julian Jordan - Big Bad Bass [STMPD] (62.5 views)


- In 2021 | Tracks | YouTube Views -

🥇 Arlow & Shiah Maisel - 21 [NCS] (811k views)
🥈 Castion - Banger Machine [NCS] (701k views)
🥉 deadmau5 & Wolfgang Gartner - Channel 43 [mau5trap] (575k views)


- Week 2 | Tracks | (Plays, Unique Supports) -

🥇 Mo Falk - I'm Back [HEXAGON] (29x, 27x)
🥈 "Symphony" & "Big Bad Bass" [STMPD] (24x, 22x)
🥉 TYNAN, Ace Aura - Stay [Monstercat] (9x, 4x)
Part Two: .@KirkCameron


So, I opened Twitter. I hoped to find a cute animal or maybe a funny meme or - I don't know - something to alleviate this weight in my chest. The lack of relief from my fears. The overwhelming range of emotions that reduce me to crying when our heater kicks on at night so

Husband doesn't hear me and feel bad about my sorrow. Anything but what I actually found. You. Trending on Twitter. And against better judgement, I clicked your name. And there, embodied before me in a solid form, unlike me in a cancer visit with my husband, was YOU doing the

unimaginable: mocking COVID protocols with a large group of people and forcing yourself into the lives, and twitterfeeds, of people who follow the rules and try to do the things that would allow cancer patients' families in the doctor's office with them.
A lot of folks who know my first book have emailed me about this insightful piece by @DavidAFrench on how the fusion of southern honor culture and evangelicalism explains our current moment. Some thoughts.


French does a great job describing honor as an ethical system in which your worth and identity depends on how others see you. If your claims about yourself are challenged, violence (or rhetorical violence) is an ethically "righteous" response in an honor culture.

French writes, "This approach represents a dramatic contrast with biblical commands to “turn the other cheek” or to “bless those who persecute.” Instead, the shame/honor imperative is to punch back, hard. Any other approach...risks the well-being of the community." Exactly.

I saw this tension between honor and Christianity all the time in 19th c. church disciplinary records where men explained to fellow church members how they had to fight somebody who insulted them (or their mother, wife, family, etc.) even though they knew it was sinful.

I began calling it the "I know it was wrong, but I still had to do it" defense. If you live in the South, you've heard a version of it.
1/ This piece argues based on a precedent set by Thomas Jefferson in 1800 that VP Pence should present & count only the alternate unofficial slates of electoral votes from states like PA when Congress meets in joint session to count electoral votes on Jan. 6. The argument fails.


2/ Jefferson, as VP, presided over the joint session where electoral votes from the Election of 1800 were counted. Georgia's votes suffered from several technical procedural defects that were facially apparent.

3/ As presiding officer, Jefferson had the contestable votes counted w/o giving members of Congress a chance to object. This is allegedly a precedent for allowing Pence to unilaterally count whatever slates of electoral votes he wants. But the analogy fails for many reasons.

4/ For more details of the underlying facts, see an article specifically on this incident by David Fontana & Bruce Ackerman, "Thomas Jefferson Counts Himself into the Presidency,"

5/ First, the Jefferson precedent occurred decades before Congress enacted the Electoral Count Act ("ECA"), which regulates the process of counting electoral votes - including many aspects of the VP's role. Congress has limited the VP's discretion since the election of 1800.