Sarabet Chang Yuye

civ

4 items with this tag.

  • Obvious civilizational inadequacy trains problem solvers

    My attention was caught by this thing Gwern said when he was interviewed by Dwarkesh Patel: I have learned far more from editing Wikipedia than I learned from any of my school or college training. Everything I learned about writing I learned by editing Wikipedia.

  • The Dreamtime

    In the radioactive mantle of a nameless planet dwelled the kahaldans, who lived in an air bubble in the rock and coated its inner surface with glowing farms of fungi. They enjoyed making new kinds of sounds and naming things, and would have named their planet but for their total ignorance of what a planet was.

  • Collapse of Complex Societies (Tainter)

    Joseph Tainter’s explanation for why complex societies collapse in one sentence: the collapse of a society is a response to declining marginal returns on investment in complexity. Tainter uses ‘complexity’ pretty loosely.

  • The Better Portrait

    We didn’t stick around long enough to meet the aliens, but our dogs did.