Comments for Contemplative Computing

Comment on Settling in to Crestone by Duff

Duff — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:13:41 +0000

Congrats on working at Dharma Ocean. Hope it is a good place for you. My lady worked up at Tara Mandala for the summer in Pagosa Springs, CO. Sometimes being at a retreat center can be surprisingly stressful–I hope your stay/work there is peaceful and productive.

Comment on Fate and Vancouver, BC by muntl

muntl — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 19:20:51 +0000

Man, you need a camera!

~Chris

Comment on Fate and Vancouver, BC by Ariel

Ariel — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:36:00 +0000

Love the posts… sounds like a fine trip. keep it up, at least for as long as you still have your laptop!

Comment on Fate and Vancouver, BC by michael

michael — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 07:48:00 +0000

Matthew,

Very cool what you’re doing. You make Vancouver sound great. Glad to hear your well again and looking forward to reading more as this journey progresses.

Michael

Comment on What Poker Math Can Teach Us about Preparing for Future Crises by Duff

Duff — Fri, 08 May 2009 05:47:14 +0000

Great article, Matthew. I am impressed by your clear writing–you have a subscriber!

I recently heard of Chris Martenson, and your article has persuaded me to watch his Crash Course. I have been pondering a lot lately about what is likely to happen in the next 4-35 years (from collapse to singularity and everything in between) and how to make any sort of sensible life plans given the uncertain future.

Hope your travels are fruitful!

Comment on Puffington Station by Peter Cedergren

Peter Cedergren — Fri, 08 May 2009 00:54:20 +0000

Ah, Matthew! I enjoyed reading your piece on Puffington Station. It caused me to dream of taking a trip such as yours … it sounds wonderful. Say hello to SF for me, my home town! Best Travels my good friend!
With Love, Peter

Comment on What Poker Math Can Teach Us about Preparing for Future Crises by Matthew

Matthew — Thu, 07 May 2009 21:13:25 +0000

Thanks for the reply!

It’s amazing that within minutes of posting an article on my brand new blog I can get a comment from somebody I do not believe I have ever heard of before. How did you come across it?

From personal study I believe that there are a lot of uncomfortable and varyingly plausible scenerios on the spectrum between “business as usual” and “total social collapse”. Their individual likelihood is an open question and my personal opinion doesn’t really matter – I only wish that people look at all the information and do make a decision rather than wallowing in ignorance or ambivalence. The city dilemma is a juicy and exciting one. Chris Martenson saw what you see and decided to move to spacious and farmable Western Mass. Other people are passionate about staying right in the middle of it all. The greatest thing is that there is not a right or wrong way of taking action. Whatever we each decide after looking at the information has the potential to be a helpful contribution to the whole situation.

Your last comment is well put. I certainly agree with you about collective action. Whole communities are organizing around this sort of thing. The Transition Movement is one growing example. And I hope it is clear that I am only using poker as an example of using odds to make prudent decision. In fact, I do not even play anymore; that manipulation feels gross.

Comment on What Poker Math Can Teach Us about Preparing for Future Crises by Satya

Satya — Thu, 07 May 2009 20:32:49 +0000

True. But when it comes to catastrophic consequences, preparation would still only be rational in circumstances where you have a non-zero possibility of, basically, doing anything about it at an acceptable cost. For example, lets assume there’s a 5% chance of a total social meltdown of the scale that I suspect you’re envisioning (which I suspect is somewhat high, at least for people living in first world countries, but I’ll put that aside for a second). The ugly truth of the matter is, without the continued functioning of the systems of distribution that provide for basic things like food and drinking water, the number of people in an urban area like Boston vastly overwhlems the amount of necessities that can be realistically produced by any of us, even if we were to devote ourselves to the study of how to produce such things on our own. In such a circumstance, even if I personally am able to be self-sufficient, in the face of such shortage, the chances are that social unrest will become the immediate problem and overhwlem whatever survival skills I’ve been able to develop.

Realistically, the only chance I would have is to be able to stop that scenario from occuring to begin with – which is of course a tall task, since my own production of carbon is an infintesimally small drop in an ocean of industrial production, my ability to directly impact policy choices as a citizen and consumer is likewise tiny compared to other forces, etc. When you put all of that together, especially with the free rider problem, the chances of me being able to make an impact are so low that my rational self-interest is probably the same as whatever my rational self-interest would be if we weren’t facing an environmental catastrophe… and thus we have a problem.

In order to get out of this, we need to have some sense of collective action, which requires us to take a perspective that is significantly removed from the poker player, whose goal, after all, is to be able to manipulate and take advantage of the rest of the table.