i think the only thing wrong with the time line is it doesn't take into account a very probable major interuption in it.
all will not be lost.

but a big discontinuity will occur, which will leave none of our current expectations unchanged or unchallanged.
and that perminently.

no power grid, no currency standard, and no one maintaining paved roads, mining coal,
or pumping oil.

but small populations in small villages, communication eventually restored by other means,
can and will, still do science, engineering and technology.

and so, after a gap of i expect to be a decade or so, which will occur in the next less then a century,
less then 50 years, maybe even less then twenty years from now.

and i'm not talking about a war. even if wars happen because of it, they will be a secondary effect.
you know i'm talking about environment, and the mechanism by which this will happen is already well known.

The odds of such a 'discontinuity' are not particularly low. (After all, the level of IQ required to set off a large-scale, humanity-at-risk disaster gets a little smaller every year.) However, I think I'm much less optimistic than you about how bad things are likely to get if such an interruption happens. As just one example, a few years ago, some biotechnologists were experimenting on mice, and tweaked a particular disease to try something - and, completely unexpectedly, that tweak turned the disease into a new one that was 100% lethal. Not 99%, not 99.9%, 100%. Every single rodent in their experiment dropped dead. And that's just one potential danger - there are others, such as the clathrate gun hypothesis. Avoiding the social disruptions that come along with tumbrels may be the least of our worries.

But still - as long as there's people (biological or digital), there's still hope.

well that's what i mean. i don't think there's any avoiding the social disruptions were headed for.
when i mentioned not taking much more the a decade, and i think you picked up on this,
i 'forgot' to mention, 95, maybe 98 or more percent of human population, no longer being alive at the end of it.

disease, mutating rapidly into uncountable new forms being the primary killer, universal malnutrition helping it along.
but imagine the green new world, rich in ruins, though still dangerous many of them, for the tiny handful of sapients,
who win the totally random natural lottery, to survive.

many will shun and fear technologies, but another generation and another, eventually born, old science and engineering textbooks and artifacts,
recovered from the ruins by brave young explorers, defying their parents fears,
trading them to hidden enclaves of scholars, keeping scientific thought alive, despite all odds.

sounds like would make a pretty good role playing game.

i believe in and hope for mornings after, however dark and storm filled the night.

There's a certain difference in mindset in coming up with stories about the future that feel interesting and satisfying, and making estimates with which to base a plan upon. For example, if there's a possible future where 98% of humanity dies, then I can be fairly confident I'd be among that 98%, so it behooves me to try to think of anything I can do to nudge the future away from that catastrophe. (As just one example, signing up for cryonics and writing out a document giving permission to try to scan-and-emulate my frozen brain, to try to increase the odds that future ems will be able to do their thing to help bio-humanity.) The combined odds of that future happening, and that I'll be among the 2%, are low enough that most of my planning time would be better spent elsewhere.

But that's just my current chosen approach; it's not a common one, and we're probably going to need as wide a variety of approaches as possible to identify which ones will actually do some good.

the more different baskets, the better odds some eggs will hatch.

and until the day, we can and need as best we can, continue to develop and deploy,
technologies that reduce contributing to the problem.

and by that means, also improve the odds of reducing its impact.

I agree with all of that. :)


(And have to go online now to deal with some RL chores, so I'll be back in a few hours.)

I was wondering what had happened to you. I didn't know if you had just decided to move on from the community or what, but its good to know the worst didn't happen at least. I wish I could speak to all the computer science happening here and offer my own input, but it is well outside my field unless it involves something more directly chemistry related.

I'm afraid that I have a long-term tendency to "ghost" communities when I feel all socialized out; and some months I have fewer metaphorical spoons than others to spend on such things.

If you want to learn more about some of the ideas I'm drawing on, you could take a look at "The Age of Em" by Robin Hanson. The 'one weird trick' he used was to take existing economic understanding, and simply projected it forward and took what came out as a reasonably likely trend. (With all sorts of caveats and details, of course.) (And while I'm plugging books, the other one that's significantly influenced my current way of thinking is "Rationality: from AI to Zombies", by Eliezer Yudkowsky.)

I don't blame you, sounds like extreme introversion or just generally needing a break from all the shenanigans.

I might look in to the second one, it sounds interesting to me. However I am hesitant about the first one, the one about Ems. While on principle I should whole-heartedly accept, I find this principle does not play well with anxiety problems and an already bleak outlook. I'm doing my best to find reason to not hold such a bleak outlook, since it will aid in motivation and just being less bitter about things.

Actually I will go ahead and look in to the second one because my curiosity got the better of me. ;>_>

:)

If you want to save on shipping, it's available as a "pay-what-you-want" ebook at https://intelligence.org/rationality-ai-zombies/ . (And the whole thing is an edited version of a series of blog posts; you can find out more at https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Sequences .)

Aye, I've been reading from the less wrong site so far. I've been reading a few ones such as ones about AI, evolutionary psychology, its been an interesting read so far. I'm planning to read a little further over spring break. But I gotta knock out more Calculus and Instrumental Analysis. One's not like the other but still.

You're alive! Yay! I had this made for your birthday in 2017.

> You're alive! Yay!

I am, and yep. :)

> I had this made for your birthday in 2017.

I don't know what to say: I'm sorry I missed when it came out, and am surprised and grateful that you took the time and trouble to arrange for it.

Your work is fun, considered, and inspiring. I like your character and enjoy your worlds. Most of all, I'm glad that you are feeling better.

👍

Nice to see you again.

> Nice to see you again.

Thank you, and the same. :)

Good to hear from you in any case!

Glad to see you, and skál. :)

We love you and big snugs to yer face, eh!

Thank you kindly. :)

It's been a pleasant surprise for me, as well. :)

I've found the medication modafinil to be very useful when depression makes it hard to "get moving". It also can help you to concentrate if you have ADD-like problems.

It is a stimulant, but it doesn't effect the autonomous nervous system the way that amphetamine does.
(also, amphetamine is a schedule II controlled substance, whereas modafanil is schedule IV. it's much less addicting)

For myself, I find it is qualitatively superior to caffeine. And, again, easier to tolerate than amphetamine (Adderal) or methylphenidate (Ritalin).
Also, I've never noticed any definitive signs of withdrawal.

My doctor's tried a few different interventions, before arriving at my current setup. (As an aside, I'm in Canada, so I'm dealing with Canadian pharmaceutical regulations, instead of the American system.) It may change again in the future, but I'm willing to see how far I can get with what I'm doing now.

As for caffeine, I've never been particularly fond of coffee (likely because of some experiences I had growing up in rooms filled with cigarette smoke, industrial carpeting, and the smell of coffee); but I still enjoy the occasional cup of tea, Coke Zero, or Dr Pepper. Last week I installed a caffeine-tracking app (the one by Rogan Software), and have been trying to avoid having too high a caffeine level by bedtime, to see if I can further improve the quality of my sleep.

I'm afraid that I'm not comfortable getting into that level of detail on my medical setup on a public forum. For that, I'll just say that I've had conversations with my doctor about various alternatives, and we're both fully informed about what we've tried and why.

I'm quite interested in keeping /track/ of what I'm trying, and what does what; but given all the leaks of various companies' info on their customers' private data, I'm not willing to even use a wellness-tracking app. So I keep a pen and pocket-sized mini-composition book in my pocket, in which I keep track of the date and time of anything potentially medically relevant: my meds and supplements, sleep patterns, diet, exercise, mood, and any symptoms that rise to my awareness. It's not exactly a "bullet journal", but close (mostly because some days I only write down a half page of details, and some days more than two pages); and has been more than worth getting used to jotting down such things as soon as possible after they happen.

Bupropion was part of a cocktail of drugs I took for many months in order to quit smoking.. and it worked!
I don't ever even have cravings! its been years since I've used any form of nicotine!

I've tried it for depression. It was a LITTLE stimulating, nothing to write home about really for me. It worked about as well as many other antidepressants (for me).
It's a great drug if you want to avoid the serotonin re-uptake effect of many drugs like Prozac or Cymbalta.
One reason I don't take it anymore is that I NEED some serotonin amplification because I have mild Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and SSRI type stuff is the best treatment.