A database of “constraint numbers” that are crossover points between one way of doing technology and another

Top of mind

Dinner 23 Jun 2021

# “This would be amazing BUT” list
### Related
- [[A database of “constraint numbers” that are crossover points between one way of doing technology and another]]


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“This would be amazing BUT” list

# A database of “constraint numbers” that are crossover points between one way of doing technology and another
A key way 
### Some possible places to dig
- [[3D Printing Constraints]]

### Related
- [[Constraints limit the impact and dispersion speed of a heuretic]]
- [[Every paradigm has constraints]]
- [[Constraints podcast]]
- [[“This would be amazing BUT” list]]
- [[Bottlenecks Workshop June 2021]]
- [[Bottlenecks]]
- [[What is the relationship between a causal graph, affordances, and constraints?]]
- [[Affordances and constraints instead of pros and cons]]
- [[Technology relaxes constraints]]


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Week of 28 Jun 2021

# Dinner 23 Jun 2021
- Scaling Laws
	- More believable if anchored to a causal physics model
- [Racoon + cotton candy video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfbb4yRBH64)
- [[We need more deabstracted shop talk across disciplines]]
- Material science + manufacturing at the core of human capability (stuff and then making stuff out of the stuff)
- Fields go from pre-field -> field -> incremental growth 
	- Looks like an S curve to me
	- [[Different research fields are different and those differences change over time]]
- Nuclear Power
	- [[Molten salt reactors]]
	- [[Thorium Reactors]]
	- [[Breeder Reactors]]
	- Regulations are all about proliferation risk
	- Chinese nuclear building
- 2D vs 3D structures in the body
	- All the cell bodies are on the surface of the brain which is why it’s all foldy
	- Many “3D” structures in the body look like tightly folded 2D structures
	- Is there a biological reason to do most things as folded 2D instead of 3D?
- [[“This would be amazing BUT” list]] (Ben TODO)
	- Titanium would be super cheap in a low oxygen environment
	- What could we do with super cheap platinum from space mining?
	- What is expensive just because of energy
	- “cost” is not an intrinsic property of a thing
	- PAST EXAMPLES
		- Electric cars
- Developing intuition around the affordances of nanoscale systems?
	- Could you create a game thing in the flavor of Kerbal Space program?
- AI learning
	- Try to minimize self-awareness
- Proposition: Ethics is context dependent
	- Eating meat now may be ok even if in the future it is not ok 
	- A corollary would be that you can’t just back-propagate ethics
- Human cognition
	- Trauma as threats to survival
	- Kids learning object permanence better with velcro mittens
- Libgen is on IPFS
- Putting [[Sci-Hub]]/papers on a blockchain?
- Can you just send money to [[Alexandra Elbakyan]]
	- Yes there is a bitcoin address: 12PCbUDS4ho7vgSccmixKTHmq9qL2mdSns
	- Fucking hell sci hub’s twitter account is suspended 

With:
- [[Kanjun Qiu]]
- [[Josh Albrecht]]
- [[Evan Miyazono]]
- [[Bharath Ramsundar]]
- [[Ian Brooke]]
- [[Cat-Thu Nyugen]]

### Related
- [[Curate people based on who gives you energy]]



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About these notes

# Top of mind
(Updated 19 Jul 2021) 

The intention of this page is to serve the function of  [a /now page](http://nownownow.com/about)  - shamelessly stealing the idea of a notes-based now page from the indomitable Andy Matuschak.

Most of my time is spent executing on the plan to build a[new institution](https://benjaminreinhardt.com/parpa-2-pager.pdf) I outlined [in the piece I wrote on building a private ARPA-riff.](https://benjaminreinhardt.com/parpa). This entails:
- Finding [potential program managers](https://benjaminreinhardt.com/parpa#its_possible_to_find_people_who_are_both_willing_and_capable_to_be_program_managers) and working with them on the fist steps of [[§Program Design]].
- Simultaneously working on designing a few programs myself. Specifically [general purpose telerobotics](https://benjaminreinhardt.com/parpa#general_purpose_telerobotics) and first steps towards an [artificial ribosome.](https://benjaminreinhardt.com/parpa#positional_chemistry)
- Working out the nitty-gritties of the [legal structure](https://benjaminreinhardt.com/parpa#legal_structure_is_critical_to_institutional_capacity) and getting the entities incorporated. 
- Finding the money to fund these things. 
- Reputationally bootstrapping the whole thing: the actual work becomes easier the more seriously people take you, but in order for people to take you seriously you need to do good work. 

If you want to see PARPA succeed, here are [[Ways to Help PARPA]].

More abstractly,  a thesis I’ve been playing around with as PARPA’s ‘theme’: [[Materials and manufacturing underpin civilization]] and the corollaries  [[What processes can be drastically changed with new manufacturing tools and capabilities?]], [[New materials can radically change technological constraints and enable previously unthought of applications]]

The nature of trying to create the organization still raises a number of research-y questions: [[Top of Mind Questions]]

And of course, I can’t help occasionally dicking around with
- Creating a [[“This would be amazing BUT” list]]
- Expanding on the idea of [[Instead of the pipeline model, innovation is jumping between different places in activity space on the surface of the knowledge frontier]]
- Thinking about [[Observational technological phenomena]] and the [[§Tech Tree Model of Heuretics]].
- Recording an occasional [Idea Machines Podcast](ideamachinespodcast.com)as a way to talk to fascinating people and share it with the world.

On the physical front, I feel like I’ve mostly got my incremental climbing/physical ability increasing [[Training Plan]] nailed down. The trick is recovery and not overeating.



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Ben's working notes

“This would be amazing BUT” list

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