problem solving

AMA with Jeffrey Ladish. Wednesday 2/4 at 2:00 PM CT

Executive director of Palisade Research; studying AI loss of control risks.

Responsibility & Pests. I have very little sense of what I'm meant to do on UpTrust so I'm just going to do something imperfect and refine from here...

My dog presently has fleas. Historically when this has happened I give him a bath, apply a topical, and don't have to think about it again. This time, that wasn't enough. The dog has fleas, my house has fleas. (I sort of have fleas! Ick)

Of course, this coincides with a period of time when I'm more 'in' with community and committed to hosting than any time since the pandemic. People come to my home with linens, massage tables, floor mats, and everyone is rolling around on the floor and giving each other back rubs. (An event I call 'touchcraft.')

This is likely not a coincidence, but causal. It is probably all the new linens and belongings and people that lead to this level of new exposure, and therefore, new safety protocols/cleaning protocols. The dog will go on the monthly preventatives. Everything will be laundered/vacuumed/treated.

Meanwhile a neighbor in my building whom I'm friendly with thinks this is somehow a landlord responsibility, that I should get building management to pay for cleaning and fumigation. This seems incorrect to me... that this is one component of managing a house that seems like a maintenence/cleanliness/personal risk assessment issue. I chose the guests, I chose the dog, I deal with the fallout. 

As I research the issue I can see that this comes up frequently. Pests are seen as a recurrent problem in low income housing, the fault of deadbeat 'slumlord' type landlords who won't deal with habitability issues. But, concurrently, when I talk to friends who own properties they seem more inclined to point the finger at lifestyle problems of tenants.

Repeatedly there is a question, when an issue arises, of who must do the labor and take on the costs of fixing the issue.

Anyway, I'm doing lots and lots of laundry today. Hot water, staging the cleaned things in sealed plastic bags. Choosing which room will be the 'clean room.' Heinous. And shameful, somehow? Like having pests isn't just a sign that I'm a human contending with problems all humans do, but that I'm an especially unhygenic one, or something? This is a fleeting voice, and combatable, but it's here.

If anyone has tips, I'm open. 

Uptrusting as Oral Culture. Interesting to explore UpTrust w/ the frame that it's more of an "oral culture" than a "written culture", where it has more of a riff and jazz kind of energy than other internet community sites that I frequent. I think it's looking through the comment sections, with the branching and forking, and I imagine more of "sparking a multi-party conversation" and "ah yes" than traditional writing. LessWrong (another experiment in a new internet forum style) is strongly essay culture, Twitters got a bit of oral culture vibes, but perhaps less collaborative (uncertain).

I wonder how far this lens can go for community or product development.

When I was writing this post, I realized I'd rather have dictated it!

When it comes "the global warming debate," there are often third ways that are ignored. Often the framing is global warming and climate deniers or something like that.

but it seems like there are obviously multiple perspectives here, and these two black and white boxes keep us from really seeing potential solutions.

Bjorn Lomborg for example believes in man-made climate change, but also doesn’t like the alarmism. Although he cherry picks data like he accuses others of, he also I think rightfully points out lots of flaws in the arguments that help us identify solutions. Much of the hurricane damage increase over time is because we’re building bigger and more expensive houses in hurricane alleys; for this problem, we can stop building there; everybody stopping flying altogether until 2100 delays increases the increase by a few weeks, so stopping flying isn’t the solution. Often the solutions are smaller, more local, less sexy: want less polar bears to die? Increase regulation on poaching. (Polar bear populations are up over the past decade because of this, apparently). I would love to identify and popularize these solutions, so they are spoken in the same breath as global warming rather than it being all gloom and doom and end of the world.

There are real tricky questions about what we’re trying to preserve and for whom, as well. If all we care about are humans and climate migration, then building infrastructure in places like Haiti and even evolving to coal power would be more helpful.

What are your sci-fi TV show recommendations? Some i loved that jump to mind:

• The Expanse
• Most of the Marvel stuff like Loki, What If?
• Rick and Morty
• Legends of Tomorrow Etc