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Complexity and purpose

Complexity as a phenomenon is real. The problem is that Complexity Theory (and its theorists) tend to have an ideological bend toward positivism, relativism, and existentialism and presume that the universe or its subsystems (including life and human organizations) do not have a moral purpose. Some acknowledge that there must be some built-in hidden purposeful order driving the complexity, but overall, they find satisfaction in the idea that self-organizing order can emerge from nothingness or… Read More »Complexity and purpose

Why data ownership must be decentralized – the path to decentralized human capitalism

I’m worried about mass corruption as well as central control. The former is a Huxleyan dystopia while the latter an Orwellian dystopia. See: The two dimensional Orwellian / Huxleyan vector space. Today, when the issue of centralized data is discussed, privacy is usually the focus of the concern. But the reason why centralized data is...

Read more... The full content of this chapter is available in the two-volume book:

Bit & Coin

Merging Digitality and Physicality

Volume I: Digital Humanity’s Truth Layer - The New Internet, its Authenticity Layer, and Applications
Introduction
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Volume II: Bitcoin, Blockchain, and Beyond - Essays of Science, Economics, Law, Ethics, and Controversies
Introduction
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The usefulness and deceptiveness of AI

What about AI that concerns you the most?  I can tell you mine.  The deception of AI. Although AI will not actually become conscious, people will subjectively believe it has gained consciousness, and the humanity will succumb to a fake superior intelligence, and enter into AI-induced degeneration. The objective truth and the subjective human understanding can be very different.  And the subjective human understanding about AI will have consequences built upon the misunderstanding itself.  AGI AI will never objectively achieve super… Read More »The usefulness and deceptiveness of AI

Public opinion and reality

I read some portions of the PUBLIC OPINION (1921) written by Walter Lippmann. The 266-page book is about politics and public opinions, but it is highly pertinent to almost anything that involves public opinions, including crypto market prices, which are the result of voting of public opinions based on imaginary things, not the reality. However, there are some differences between the market and politics. Although human behavior and psychology are the same, the market and… Read More »Public opinion and reality

The DDD (Detrimental Dollar Dominance) Syndrome

Contrary to what most people think, the dollar dominance in the long term is not good for the US as a nation and the American people as a whole. First of all, the dollar dominance does not benefit the US evenly. It mostly benefits the financial sector, at the expense of industries, especially manufacturing. Secondly, the dollar dominance relies on the US ‘consuming‘ (i.e. depleting) its national strength without sufficient reproduction. On top of that,… Read More »The DDD (Detrimental Dollar Dominance) Syndrome

Left-brain thinking is destroying civilization

Dr. Iain McGilchrist’s UnHerd interview is worth watching. Such a profound thinker, whether you agree with him or not. Dr. McGilchrist is a neuroscientist and philosopher. His book The Master and his Emissary (2009) sets out the idea that the Western society has become dominated by narrow left-brain thinking, which is destroying the civilization. The ‘left hemisphere delusion’ described by Dr. McGilchrist is such a profound insight that everyone should at least give some serious thought… Read More »Left-brain thinking is destroying civilization

ChatGPT is both incredibly unintelligent and superbly capable at the same time

ChatGPT is still incredibly unintelligent. But it is also superbly capable at the same time. Let me explain with a very simple example. I asked ChatGPT if it could translate from Chinese to English. It replied sure can. So I submitted a long text in Chinese. It pumped out amazingly accurate translation. But then it stopped in the middle, with no further explanation. Zem: “Why did you give up in the middle? Was it because… Read More »ChatGPT is both incredibly unintelligent and superbly capable at the same time

The sleeping beauty paradox is a fallacy

The sleeping beauty paradox is a problem that has puzzled mathematicians and many other scholars for decades. Here is a description of the problem: Participants volunteer to undergo the following experiment and are told all of the following details: On Sunday she will be put to sleep. Depending on a coin toss (see below) during the experiment, she will be either awakened, interviewed just once, or after the first interview put back to sleep with… Read More »The sleeping beauty paradox is a fallacy

China’s systemic problems compared to America’s

The New York Times: China’s Cities Are Buried in Debt, but They Keep Shoveling It On. The author points out the problems but describes them as if they were some kind of misunderstanding by Chinese leaders and policymakers that can be easily changed or avoided by coming to a better understanding. But at the root of all these problems is not a subjective lack of understanding of economics and policies but an objective core element… Read More »China’s systemic problems compared to America’s

The problem of higher education – a call for decentralized education

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the last 40 years, the US CPI-based overall inflation was 285%, while the cost of higher education increased by 1246% (12.46 times higher, about 4.4 times higher after inflation adjustment). From a financial point of view, higher education is clearly a broken system. But there’s more to this, pointing to even worse problems. First, it is a wealth redistribution problem, as Steven Herzberg pointed out: “It’s… Read More »The problem of higher education – a call for decentralized education