Maybe something like "for a large class of Markov decision processes q-function is exponentially difficult to compute even when the reward function is not" = "pragmatics has one up on causal theory building" or "we're not getting rid of the induction problem"

The story of #SimCity is the story of the world we live in—of the entanglement of computing, entertainment, design, & governance. And where it succeeded—and failed—teaches us how to navigate maps that become territories... @chaimg.bsky.social on #HumansOnTheLoop: michaelgarfield.substack.com/p/h-23

Thinking a/b an AI-enriched world that actually benefits humans & how it'll help us explore, not just get tube-fed by algorithms. Here's my talk from @divintelligence.bsky.social on how complex systems science & game design inspired me to imagine this future: michaelgarfield.substack.com/p/foraging

Beautiful, and very well-timed. Reactionary preservation of the status quo is not enough. Conviction must be met with action. Are we afraid to dream of better futures? There is such a thing as good ambition. youtu.be/sJjODY-PyJY?...

I’m not quite sure what to think about this conceptual, aesthetic and philosophical exploration of crab-ness, but it reminds me of how Le Corbusier was inspired to pioneer the development of brutalist architecture after looking at a crab shell.

<developing an inexplicable dread of drawn butter and Old Bay>

this rules

Have we considered the problem isn't impending loss of jobs but existing loss of availability for meaningful work because of jobs

The long-awaited (first draft written *last AUGUST*) debut at @aeon.co is here! Probably my most comprehensive and audacious statement on human-technology evolution published anywhere to date. Detours through sci-fi, memeology, military and natural history, and more.

John Lilly's Reality Protocols, 1977, reproduced in Diana Reed Slattery’s Xenolinguistics, 2015, Chapter 5: Reality Reviewed (which alone is worth the price of the book)

William Irwin Thompson, Passages About Earth (1973) p151

Jamming with Cadell Last on self-actualization and transformation in our age of magical technologies — how to live in a future of hyper-social neuroplasticity, a an argument for culture to the social systems that only perceive measurable value. #HumansOnTheLoop michaelgarfield.substack.com/p/h-18

If you’re attached to “being more than a machine”, consider that the difference between you and a next-token prediction algorithm might be 4B years of improv practice. Then again, it’s very hard to pivot from a story that you think you are. Part Two: michaelgarfield.substack.com/p/hotl-10

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Crack-Up” in Esquire (1936) Part one of a new series on containing paradox: michaelgarfield.substack.com/p/hotl-09

2025 be like

The Architecture of The Next Creative Economy with Michael Dean open.substack.com/pub/michaelg...

Determinism, Causality + Emergence in the Mesoscale At Babel Blog is a summary of subthreads on implications for causality, determinism + emergence of spacetime, potentially following from the intersection of Wheeler’s it from bit, Jim’s common now and my work. jessicaflack.wordpress.com/blog/

Fish rot from the head, but a snake eats from the tail up to keep the prey breathing and avoid getting bitten. This is a political analogy.

"Science hides a not-knowing in a knowing." New ep of #HumansOnTheLoop on #ScaleTheory and the tension between colonialism and mysticism in #science and #philosophy, the #magic of #computers, the #embodiment of information, and the wickedness of #complexsystems: michaelgarfield.substack.com/h-15

🙏🏼 Big thanks to everyone for their praise of my new single! It's always a gambit to release intellectual psych-folk about trippy futurism and complexity but it's also a pretty vacant niche and it's what I love to do. Hope you like it too! michaelgarfield.substack.com/p/the-big-ma...

"In the shift from a consumptive economy to a contemplative one...jobs will disappear as a source of our identity. The job as a configuration is an industrial concept. The Dark Age and Medieval monk did not have a job; he had a vocation, a calling." – William Irwin Thompson

Just finished Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch Trilogy. Incredible! Who else has read this? I want to riff with someone eloquent about the world building on my show.

Visualize every book on earth as a single zoomable bookshelf, colored by archival status, with direct download links: phiresky.github.io/isbn-visuali...

📯Okay, I'm coining it: The Metacrisis needs Metasolutions, approaches that ask if we're solving the right problem in the first place. You've got more answers than you want; what you need is better questions.

Wow @ezraklein.bsky.social ✊🏼🔥 Spot on. youtu.be/VwjxVRfUV_4?...

Excellent discussion between @michaelgarfield.bsky.social and @footnotes2plato.substack.com - get it in your ears! youtu.be/eSFEYn_VZdE?...

I just published Beyond Brains: Why We Lack A Mature Science of Diverse Intelligence medium.com/intuitionmac...

Members Hangout TODAY 3/15 @ 3 pm MT! Find the others and let's make culture. michaelgarfield.substack.com/p/hangout-31...

What distinguishes the organismal & machinic? How can we support vital cultural activity without reducing the measure of our humanity to our economic productivity? On the latest #HumansOnTheLoop @footnotes2plato.substack.com ask some very fundamental questions: michaelgarfield.substack.com/p/h-12

Shel Silverstein wrote a poem about ChatGPT in 1981

Some things never change, or can be treated as if this is the case within any reasonable expectation of a lifespan. People love to focus on the change but natural historians see constancy in natural process and it's arguably far more helpful to define what solid ground we have to stand on.

A short synthesis of where we are and where we could go. #trump2.0 #broligarchy #digitalage #globalorder #digitalgovernance #humanflourishing #strartwithwhy open.substack.com/pub/drrevolu...

"Money is like fertiliser. When spread around, things grow; when it's hoarded, it stinks." - John Densmore

FULL KEYNOTE -- me + Guy K at SXSW on why privacy is a fundamental guarantor of a gorgeous, good life (not an absence, not a vacuum, not abstract). And how AI threatens privacy. And why Signal is so special and why you should use & love & support it ❤️ www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyH7...

Come on, paleontologists! It's RIGHT THERE

It is entirely possible to quantify the value of unpaid domestic labor as a percentage of GDP. Countries around the globe have been doing it for decades, most recently India. In the US its value ranges between 10% to 60% of GDP. www.ndtvprofit.com/economy-fina...

I just read Crichton's posthumously published Micro while laid out with a fever. The timing was perfect for meditating on the horrors of the very small. It's a book that says the loud part quiet and the quiet part loud. But maybe it's an artifact of scaling... michaelgarfield.substack.com/p/micro

If you’re going to interview one person every two years on your show, make sure one of them is @michaelgarfield.bsky.social www.buzzsprout.com/546856/episo...

How labile are you, really?

If you care about radical innovation, abstain from premature ontological closure! Superb conversation on epistemic classism, misplaced and politically-motivated skepticism, and the biggest barrier to a truly omnivorous investigation of reality beyond our models. open.spotify.com/episode/6KSu...

Can't stop thinking about making (both good and bad) externalities more obvious

digging in @hrheingold.bsky.social with @michaelgarfield.bsky.social michaelgarfield.substack.com/p/h-08

Request for perspectives: How does informed consent plays into interspecies collaboration? Talking to animals with AI seems amazing and very close but how can we responsibly involve them in human society when we can't even make informed decisions ourselves in a dark forest of dark patterns?

Funny to think that we might not have elephants today if it were not for plastics “taking the teeth” out of the ivory trade for billiard balls. Technology is always more than we intend. My friend Sara Phinn Huntley on the history of plastics: dreamseedvr.substack.com/p/the-double...

I'm starting to field myself out as a tax-deductible consultant for wise tech startups. Yellow teaming, ideation, community dev, comms, and creative are all areas of special interest in the event I can helpfully apply my research, and there is plenty of space for public strategic partnership.

"When the ordinary and reputable accounts are not persuasive, it is necessary to try those that are more out of the way and not scorn them but literally to chant over ourselves the charms of the ancients and use every means to bring the truth to test." – Plutarch (920 BC, trans. Cherniss & Helmbold)

As far as I'm concerned, no one is more qualified to speak about our historical moment, precedents, and predictions from an unbiased position than Peter Turchin. peterturchin.com/the-double-h...

Humor is a balm. Apply as needed, there's no overdosing.

#HumansOnTheLoop Ep 07 - Jessica Clark of Dot Connector Studio on Making New Realities with New Media michaelgarfield.substack.com/p/h-07