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Comment by MatIsk on A Golden Age of Building? Excerpts and lessons from Empire State, Pentagon, Skunk Works and SpaceX · 2023-09-19T11:22:28.885Z · LW · GW

It is a very interesting set of case studies and thank you for digging in the historical documents!

Several thoughts:

  • tradeoffs - speed vs safety (but just 5 deaths during Empire State Building construction, zero in Chrysler building; 60 people died in WTC construction, while Brooklyn Bridge construction cost the lives of 5% of workforce)
  • robustness - peer review in science takes a lot of time, but ensures that things actually work; it is also correlated with the difference between public and private control; nicely portrayed in "Don't look up"

     
Comment by MatIsk on Childhoods of exceptional people · 2023-02-13T13:56:17.463Z · LW · GW

This could still be a good text if it is strongly edited. Anecdotal evidence could be a nice start of a discussion. However, the supposed percentages are as I understand, just pure speculation on part of the author. 
Moreover, defining more precisely what is meant by 'exceptional' would be necessary if it were a more quantitative study. 
If I understand the bottom line - more individualised education, more freedom (also think of car-centric worlds in which children do not roam freely and are restricted in their freedom by lack of public transport, affordable youth hostels etc.), being more in touch with physical reality (nature vs social constructs vs virtual world).

Comment by MatIsk on The 2021 Less Wrong Darwin Game · 2021-09-25T08:35:45.969Z · LW · GW

We need a full specification of what is a legitimate entry. Is there no size limit?

Comment by MatIsk on The 2021 Less Wrong Darwin Game · 2021-09-25T07:39:29.909Z · LW · GW

The problem: your predator-prey system leads by default to extinction. 

Lotka-Volterra equations did not. Maybe something else should be changed in the model (like the carrying capacity? reproduction rate coefficient with prey abundance? the random mating simulation?), so that this problem is resolved in a similar way?

I know anecdotally, that models of evolving food webs typically are unstable. It would be great to hear more insights on this from the community :)