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arthurofbabylon
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Design & Rock Climbing
arthurvansiclen.com
- arthurofbabylon parentKey adjustment to your first proposal: the additional property tax should also be waived when having long-term renters/occupants.
- My question "what systemic solutions are available on a scale like Apple's to maintain high-quality and strong consistency?" was sincere.
I'm neither complacent (as you seemed to imply) nor magically hand-waiving a "just do it" notion (as you seem to exemplify). I'm seriously interested in what it takes to effectively manage complexity as this scale.
- The surface area of the Apple suite is now enormous. We now have an incredible array of devices, physical environments, and purposes. It's really quite staggering: just look at the spans between a) checking the UV index on Apple Watch and writing code in Xcode on Mac, b) tracking an outdoor run and navigating with Car Play and watching a movie on Apple TV, and c) messaging and maneuvering spreadsheets and designing/building. Huge expanse across each spectrum.
Apple's effort to maintain some semblance of consistency across this incredible array is laudable. (Which is not the same as letting the grievances highlighted in this article slide; I agree with the author 100%.) We all want consistency (probably to a degree greater than Apple is capable of delivering) simply so that we can use the metaphors we're familiar with.
I imagine Apple has dozens of design teams, each of which cannot talk to more than a sliver of the others, with probably not a single person aware of exactly how many design teams exist at once. There was probably a period in Apple's history – and probably not that long ago – when a single employee could assess the iconography across the entire suite. Those days are over.
My question: beyond preventing the obvious and severe transgressions (Liquid Glass), what systemic solutions are available on a scale like Apple's to maintain high-quality and strong consistency?
(I appreciate that Apple does generally one design refresh per year, in contrast to the continuous zero-utility tinkering observable in Google's products, for example.)
- The comment is sincere. You appear to disagree with the book’s argument prior to having heard it — a great candidate for a mind-opening read. If the book (once published) proves its premise, you’ll disproportionately benefit from the read. (I personally like it when a book stretches my existing conceptions.)
- The comments section here is a phenomenal expository of biases, for the very reason you cite.
- 1. Consider preordering the book if you're already reacting to part of its premise; it should be a juicy read.
2. Regarding the power of billionaires vs the power of the median voter, consider that each lever in a system deserves attention before pulling on it or reconfiguring it. How can one determine "the biggest threat to democracy" without digging into the details?
- It sounds like this book would be a good candidate for your reading list.
- > Profitability isn't unambitious; it's controlling your own destiny.
Even better, profitability is all about a harmonious developer-customer relationship. This was alluded to later in the essay, but I believe it is worth emphasizing. The entire point of business is to serve customers. That relationship is everything, and profitability indicates the presence of net-positive impact.
- I’m curious if any of these centrally planned capital city relocations have succeeded. Brasilia, for example, is widely considered a terrible city. Are there successful examples?
- 4 points
- Author here. I am aware of the excessive simplicity, but the 60/30/10 thing is deliberately unsophisticated to make it easier to apply and easier to reason about. My goal in writing this is less about hustle culture and more to consider the asymmetry of our own initiatives: everything matters in different ways, with varying degrees of cascading effects, with varying levels of immediate accessibility. I find this paradigm an effective means of considering what I have going on.
- 1 point
- I often hangout in the old world and I’ve noticed (coming from the new world) a substantial informal economy. Everyone produces something (wine, honey, bread, kombucha, grappa, balsamic) and trades. There is no effort at efficiency.
I quite like it; it is non-fussy, unsophisticated, generous, broad-brushstrokes. There is no arbitrage and no unfavorable information asymmetry. In terms of “picking the low hanging fruit,” this informal market is the equivalent of never stepping on a ladder.
- I love the discussion — thank you.
Your comment makes me more bullish on death. Death isn’t arbitrary as you claim: it is a direct expression of an entity in its environment, it epitomizes contextualization. (I argue that honoring context is the opposite of arbitrariness.)
Further, death encapsulates multiple layers of abstraction. When an entity dies, it dies on every level (eg both instincts and socially learned heuristics). The death reaches deep down inside the hierarchy of its own form to eliminate possibilities. That is some seriously strong directionality; it’s not like “taking your second left” or some other mono-dimensional vector. Layers and layers of genes and learning are discarded. It is truly an incredibly powerful feedback-loop closure.
- Let’s upgrade our intellectual rigor here. Do you sincerely believe that “PV + battery are sufficient for virtually anywhere in the world” even when it comes to viral disease, dictatorships and warfare, chemical pollution, deforestation, social epidemics (eg, drugs, social media), housing crises, food deserts, famine, etc?
You might be only considering the energy transition, but it is not as if the original author was strictly speaking of that topic, or as if that is all that matters for humanity on earth.
“I don’t see any other significant levers,” you say? Read from history: how about the great liberalizing effect of the Christian marriage and family policy that broke down filial kin networks and paved the way for markets, universities, and democracies by way of fostering impersonal trust? How about the smallpox vaccine? How about the incredible rise in population and economic activity upon the introduction of potatoes to Europe? How about the invention of ammonium-based fertilizers? This one will rankle some feathers: how about the incredible geopolitical twist and – yes – reduction in atmospheric carbon introduced by the development of fracking (enabling the transition away from coal)? How about the civil rights movement in the United States? The invention of nuclear weapons? Metallurgy? Chemistry? The shipping container? Large language models? Look around and you will see fulcrums everywhere.
Literally look around you, wherever you sit right now, and just consider the vast number of twists and turns that led to the current circumstance. Then imagine someone 500 years ago in Beijing saying something as foolish as, “we just need more movable-type printing, yeah, that will protect us from the Northern invaders, that will completely solve deforestation, that will protect us from famine… Hey you farmer over there, stop farming! We have movable-type printing! We’re good, we just need more of it!”
The simplistic model is very appealing; it is easy to wrap your mind around it, it is easy to communicate via viral essay, it is easy to develop optimism upon it. But it is not a working model. It is just too simple and incomplete. The various fulcrums I pulled out of my imagination above all worked because the world was complex. The people who invented and developed those fulcrums were effective because they embraced a complex model. They made the intellectually rigorous choice to reject naive simplicity when others tried to thrust it upon them.
- I don't think you understand my argument. The point is not whether or not solar electricity generation is good or bad (it is obviously very favorable). The point I am making is that it is unhelpful to collapse complexity into a simplistic model.
Your discussion on owning battery + PV is illustrative. You are not in a vacuum and certainly are in relationship with the broader world: you paid for the system, you maintain it, you stopped buying something, you inspired your neighbors, you lowered the costs for your neighbors to implement a similar system, you reduced your and your countrymen's geopolitical dependencies, you may have saved some money you can spend elsewhere, you probably developed a working understanding of electricity in homes, your neighbors probably developed a better working understanding of electricity in homes, you are now less liable to extortion/persuasion from fossil fuel companies, you're now more likely to own an EV and reduce urban pollution. The entire point is that you exist in relationship; that is what makes it powerful. Had you simply implemented the PV system + battery without these second order effects (and only gained access to more/cheaper energy) you would have considerably less positive impact. The complex model is the correct working model that describes far more of the dynamics than the simplistic model.
My original point: belief in a single fulcrum when describing societal evolution is flatly misleading.
The metaphor of driving a car is not in opposition to solar; you misunderstood it. The point is, again, that the simple model is insufficient for effectively operating in the world.
- Let's use our imagination to overcome some naivety. Imagine for a moment that you just instantly 10x'ed the presence of PVs and tell me what will change. Do you truly believe that you will never encounter a bottleneck? Go on 10x'ing the presence of PVs until you find emerging constraints.
I'm sure that 10x the solar electricity output would substantially incentivize battery development and changes in industrial production, eventually producing major cultural implications. Long before utopia, however, we will encounter other bottlenecks: electrolysis, carbon policy, resource distribution (and other problems/opportunities worthy of attention).
No one here is claiming that PV cells play an insignificant role, or that emergent peripheral challenges will not be met with skill. The claim I am making is that the simple model (more PVs!) is insufficient to address the complex problems human society faces, and that it is naive to believe otherwise. You would never just put your foot on the pedal to drive to your destination; you'll also grasp the steering wheel, reckon with obstacles and roadway laws, etc; but if you have never driven a car before, you might sincerely believe that all it takes is stepping on that pedal.
- When I think of the term "agency" I think of a feedback loop whereby an actor is aware of their effect and adjusts behavior to achieve desired effects. To be a useful agent, one must operate in a closed feedback loop; an open loop does not yield results.
Consider the distinction between probabilistic and deterministic reasoning. When you are dealing with a probabilistic method (eg, LLMs, most of the human experience) closing the feedback loop is absolutely critical. You don't really get anything if you don't close the feedback loop, particularly as you apply a probabilistic process to a new domain.
For example, imagine that you learn how to recognize something hot by hanging around a fire and getting burned, and you later encounter a kettle on a modern stove-top and have to learn a similar recognition. This time there is no open flame, so you have to adapt your model. This isn't a completely new lesson, the prior experience with the open flame is invoked by the new experience and this time you may react even faster to that sensation of discomfort. All of this is probabilistic; you aren't certain that either a fire or a kettle will burn you, but you use hints and context to take a guess as to what will happen; the element that ties together all of this is the fact of getting burned. Getting burned is the feedback loop closing. Next time you have a better model.
Skillful developers who use LLMs know this: they use tests, or they have a spec sheet they're trying to fulfill. In short, they inject a brief deterministic loop to act as a conclusive agent. For the software developer's case it might be all tests passing, for some abstract project it might be the spec sheet being completely resolved. If the developer doesn't check in and close the loop, then they'll be running the LLM forever. An LLM believes it can keep making the code better and better, because it lacks the agency to understand "good enough." (If the LLM could die, you'd bet it would learn what "good enough" means.)
Where does dying come in? Nature evolved numerous mechanisms to proliferate patterns, and while everyone pays attention to the productive ones (eg, birth) few pay attention to the destructive (eg, death). But the destructive ones are just as important as the productive ones, for they determine the direction of evolution. In terms of velocity you can think of productive mechanisms as speed and destructive mechanisms as direction. (Or in terms of force you can think of productive mechanisms as supplying the energy and destructive mechanisms supplying the direction.) Many instances are birthed, and those that survive go on and participate in the next round. Dying is the closed feedback loop, shutting off possibilities and defining the bounds of the project.
- "Proven insufficient" when scoped to the sweeping social changes proposed by the author. PV cells are obviously effective and increasingly so over time, but further efficiency gains will not on their own topple dictatorships or cure diseases.
To summon the vast proposed changes, PV cells' improvements need to be coincided with many other changes: grid development, battery tech, industrial re-tooling, climate policies/institutions, mining/extraction, agricultural methods, production methods... and that's without even discussing culture, which will have to evolve substantially.
It's a nice notion (and totally inline with the existing technocratic sentiment (eg, "more compute!")) that a single lever can just be pulled harder and problems will be magically solved. However, the world is much more complex than that; the complexity cannot be hand-waived away.
- I appreciate the themes but find this overly conceptual. We can look at hard figures(†) and see errors in the prophecy. While yes this is a transformative period, I don't believe the author truly identifies the fulcrum; PV cells alone are proven insufficient, so society will need to turn upon many more points than just that one. The essay could be called The Pivots (plural) but then that would be less simple/sensational/optimistic and fall under the category of economics and social sciences.
I appreciate the thrust, however: the unsustainable status quo, corruption, the climate crisis' incredible severity, fragility. "efficiency is the reciprocal of resilience" is a particularly appreciated line.
(†) – Vaclav Smil's work comes to mind.
- Agency. If one studied the humanities they’d know how incredible a proposal “agentic” AI is. In the natural world, agency is a consequence of death: by dying, the feedback loop closes in a powerful way. The notion of casual agency (I’m thinking of Jensen Huang’s generative > agentic > robotic insistence) is bonkers. Some things are not easily speedrunned.
(I did listen to a sizable portion of this podcast while making risotto (stir stir stir), and the thought occurred to me: “am I becoming more stupid by listening to these pundits?” More generally, I feel like our internet content (and meta content (and meta meta content)) is getting absolutely too voluminous without the appropriate quality controls. Maybe we need more internet death.)
- I agree, of course. Choose an architecture for the pragmatic reality, not some fantastical non-reality.
However, I appreciate the craft. Some of these unnecessary optimizations (rather, “introduced complexities”) are vestigial accoutrements that come alongside generally good software design. Not all, but some. So I tolerate a fair amount of fanciness in myself and others when it coincides with solid intent and healthy output.
That said, we should absolutely not tolerate the presence of appurtenances of complexity at the architectural layer – that is a place reserved for pure 100% pragmatism.
- > "That's the rule, right?"
Seriously? The compulsion towards obsequiousness is incredible. Some members of our public will twist themselves into knots just to obey, even when they are not asked. (I genuinely wonder if the current bout of obsessive political obedience is a fetish.)
- I'm reminded of the tiny-home movement from the 00's, and how it evolved in our cultural zeitgeist. Early on, practitioners tried to cram as much as possible into the smallest amount of space; you'd see kitchen/dining/living/TV/office combo rooms. Over time it grew obvious that minimalism is less about the amount of space consumed and more about the human interface. For instance, a space that is easy to clean with limited visual noise would score higher on minimalism than those early little multi-use rooms even if 5-10x the size. Now, a minimalist home is all about how the person inhabits it, even if the structure itself is rather large and feature-rich.
The author seems to partially grasp this notion with a clear intent (focus, spontaneity). However, the emphasis on stuff seems notably anti-minimalist. I suspect the objects in the author's life could have an even smaller role than they do. Some 3/4 of that post was dedicated to the objects; what about walking, or attention, or connecting with locals... aren't these the real challenges/opportunities?
Take for example a mentor of mine who would travel to a new continent and craft a new material life: buying a van (old and used) in the tourism off-season, finding a cheap stove, gathering some padding and bedding, etc etc, continuously replacing and evolving his kit, never attached to any object, willing to forget about the whole thing, spending maximum time in nature and connecting with friends. You almost forgot about this guy's material life because his non-material life was so rich: gregarious, generous, present in nature, skilled in his pursuits. The kit was just a tool so that he could be in the places he wanted to be in, and not the other way around. If he were to blog about his lifestyle, he would probably highlight less the object he found and more the fact that he found it because he had his eyes wide open.
That's a lot of words to say that I believe this author could focus on the spirit of minimalism and drop some of its decorations. Minimalism is not black clothing and small backpacks, but rather a clarity of mind and simplicity in approach. I don't mean to be a total drag – I support and encourage this author.
- Forget about copying and pasting – the act of reading it is on the spectrum of collaboration. But thanks for the citation.
- The phrase you are looking for is “commodifying the periphery.” As adjacent bottlenecks open up, the bottleneck you control becomes more valuable.
- The Americans (†) who grew up with constant surveillance (social media, cameras everywhere) aim for ordinariness. The entire generation is less likely to express a non-consensus opinion than prior generations. For good reason: with everything being recorded and broadcast, personal errors are both accentuated and persist longer with no corresponding rise in upside. Bold opinions and creative ideas are simply too risky under such an equation.
I find this sad and worrisome. I like chaos and healthy disorderliness. I enjoy skilled conversationalists with fresh ideas. And I worry about a "chilled" populace too afraid to express morality when it becomes socially inconvenient.
(† Footnote: It isn't just Americans but youth coming of age in every culture. The "social cooling" effect is more pronounced among Americans as they exhibit greater variance in expression in the first place and thus have more to move toward the baseline.)
- If we step back and examine LLMs more broadly (beyond our personal use cases, beyond "economic impact", beyond the underlying computer science) what we are largely looking at is an emerging means of collaboration. I am not an expert computer scientist, and yet I can "collaborate" (I almost feel bad using this term) with expert computer scientists when my LLM helps me design my particular algorithm. I am not an expert on Indonesian surf breaks, yet I tap into an existing knowledge base when I query my LLM while planning the trip. I am very naive about a lot of things and thankfully there are numerous ways to integrate with experts and improve my capacity to engage in whatever I am naive about, LLMs offering the latest ground-breaking method.
This is the most appropriate lens through which to assess AI and its impact on open source, intellectual property, and other proprietary assets. Alongside this new form of collaboration comes a restructuring of power. It's not clear to me how our various societies will design this restructuring (so far we are collectively doing nearly nothing) but the restructuring of these power structures is not a technical process; it is cultural and political. Engineers will only offer so much help here.
For the most part, it is up to us to collectively orchestrate the new power structure, and I am still seeing very little literature on the topic. If anyone has a reading list, please share!