From 0250580740bc44c7f65c10b27793e26cc4824265 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Miloslav Ciz Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2023 23:48:23 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] Update --- axiom_of_choice.md | 6 +++--- capitalism.md | 6 +++--- good_enough.md | 6 +++--- pi.md | 2 +- 4 files changed, 10 insertions(+), 10 deletions(-) diff --git a/axiom_of_choice.md b/axiom_of_choice.md index 8db430f..4d5b734 100644 --- a/axiom_of_choice.md +++ b/axiom_of_choice.md @@ -2,10 +2,10 @@ In [mathematics](math.md) (specifically [set theory](set_theory.md)) axiom of choice is a possible [axiom](axiom.md) which basically states we can arbitrarily choose elements of sets and which is famous for being controversial and problematic because it causes trouble both when we accept or reject it. Note that this topic can go to a great depth and lead to philosophical debates, there is a huge rabbit hole and mathematicians can talk about this for hours; here we'll only state the very basic and quite simplified things, mostly for those who aren't professional mathematicians but need some overview of mathematics (e.g. programmers). -Firstly let's answer **what really IS the axiom of choice?** It is an [axiom](axiom.md), i.e. something that we can't prove but can either accept or reject as a basic fact so that we can use it to prove things. Informally it says that given any collection of sets (even an infinite collection of infinitely large sets), we can make an arbitrary selection of one element from each set. More mathematically it says: if we have a collection of sets, there always exists a [function](function.md) *f* such that for any set *S* from the collection *f(S)* is an element of *S*. +Indeed, **what really IS the axiom of choice?** It is an [axiom](axiom.md), i.e. something that we can't prove but can either accept or reject as a basic fact so that we can use it to prove things. Informally it says that given any collection of sets (even an infinite collection of infinitely large sets), we can make an arbitrary selection of one element from each set. More mathematically it says: if we have a collection of sets, there always exists a [function](function.md) *f* such that for any set *S* from the collection *f(S)* is an element of *S*. -This doesn't sound weird, does it? Well, in many normal situations it isn't. For example if we have finitely many sets, we can simply write out each element of the set, we don't need to define any selection function, so we don't need axiom of choice to make our choice of elements here. But also if we have infinitely many sets that are well ordered (we can compare elements), for example infinitely many sets of [natural numbers](natural_number.md), we can simply define a function that takes e.g. the smallest number from each set -- here we don't need axiom of choice either. The issues start if we have e.g. infinitely many sets of [real numbers](real_number.md) (which can't be well ordered) -- here we can't say how a function should select one element from each set, so we have to either accept axiom of choice (we say it simply can be done "somehow", e.g. by writing each element out on an infinitely large paper) or reject it (we say it can't be done). Here it is again the case that what's normally completely non-problematic starts to get very weird once you involve [infinity](infinity.md). +This doesn't sound weird, does it? Well, in many normal situations it isn't. For example if we have finitely many sets, we can simply write out each element of the set, we don't need to define any selection function, so we don't need axiom of choice to make our choice of elements here. But also if we have infinitely many sets that are well ordered (we can compare elements), for example infinitely many sets of [natural numbers](natural_number.md), we can simply define a function that takes e.g. the smallest number from each set -- here we don't need axiom of choice either. The issues start if we have e.g. infinitely many sets of [real numbers](real_number.md) (which can't be well ordered without the axiom of choice, consider that e.g. open intervals don't have lowest number) -- here we can't say how a function should select one element from each set, so we have to either accept axiom of choice (we say it simply can be done "somehow", e.g. by writing each element out on an infinitely large paper) or reject it (we say it can't be done). Here it is again the case that what's normally completely non-problematic starts to get very weird once you involve [infinity](infinity.md). -**Why is it problematic?** Once you learn about axiom of choice, your first question will probably be why is it problematic if it just seems like an obvious fact? Well, it turns out it leads to strange things. If we accept axiom of choice, then some weird things happen, most famously e.g. the [Banach-Tarski paradox](banach_tarski.md) which uses the axiom of choice to prove that you can disassemble a sphere into finitely many pieces, then move and rotate them so that they create TWO new spheres, each one identical to the original (i.e. you duplicate the original sphere). But if we reject the axiom of choice, other weird things happen, for example we can't prove that every vector space has a basis -- it seems quite elementary that every vector space should have a basis, but this can't be proven without the axiom of choice and in fact accepting this implies the axiom of choice is true. Besides this great many number of proofs simply don't work without axiom of choice. So essentially either way things get weird, whether we accept axiom of choice or not. +**Why is it problematic?** Once you learn about axiom of choice, your first question will probably be why should it pose any problems if it just seems like an obvious fact. Well, it turns out it leads to strange things. If we accept axiom of choice, then some weird things happen, most famously e.g. the [Banach-Tarski paradox](banach_tarski.md) which uses the axiom of choice to prove that you can disassemble a sphere into finitely many pieces, then move and rotate them so that they create TWO new spheres, each one identical to the original (i.e. you duplicate the original sphere). But if we reject the axiom of choice, other weird things happen, for example we can't prove that every vector space has a basis -- it seems quite elementary that every vector space should have a basis, but this can't be proven without the axiom of choice and in fact accepting this implies the axiom of choice is true. Besides this great many number of proofs simply don't work without axiom of choice. So essentially either way things get weird, whether we accept axiom of choice or not. **So what do mathematicians do?** How do they deal with this and why don't they kill themselves? Well, in reality most of them are pretty chill and don't really care, they try avoid it if they can (their proof is kind of stronger if it relies on fewer axioms) but they accept it if they really need it for a specific proof. Many elementary things in mathematics actually rely on axiom of choice, so there's no fuzz when someone uses it, it's very normal. Turns out axiom of choice is more of something they argue over a beer, they usually disagree about whether it is INTUITIVELY true or false, but that doesn't really affect their work. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/capitalism.md b/capitalism.md index 3a99df8..b14ecf8 100644 --- a/capitalism.md +++ b/capitalism.md @@ -12,13 +12,13 @@ Capitali$m is the worst socioeconomic system we've yet seen in [history](history **The underlying issue of capitalism is [competition](competition.md)** -- competition is the root of all evil in any social system, however capitalism is the absolute glorification of competition, amplification of this evil to maximum. It is implemented by setting and supporting a very stupid idea that **everyone's primary and only goal is to be self-benefit**, i.e. maximization of capital. This is combined with the fact that the environment of [free market](free_market.md) is a system with **[evolutionary system](evolution.md)** which through natural selection extremely effectively and quickly optimizes the organisms (corporations) for achieving this given goal, i.e. generating maximum profit, on the detriment of all other values such as wellbeing of people, sustainability or morality. In other words capitalism has never promised a good society, it literally only states that everyone should try to benefit oneself as much as possible, i.e. defines the [fitness function](fitness_function.md) purely as the ability to seize as many resources as possible, and then selects and rewards those who best implement this function, i.e. those we would call sociopaths or "dicks", and to those is given the power in society. Yes, this is how nature works, but it must NOT be how a technologically advanced civilization with unlimited power of destruction should work. In other words we simply get what we set to achieve: find entities that are best at making profit at any cost. The inevitable decline of society can not possibly be prevented by laws, any effort of trying to stop evolution by inventing artificial rules on the go is a battle against nature itself and is extremely naive, the immense power of the evolutionary system that's constantly at work to find ways to bypass or cancel laws in the way of profit and abuse of others will prevails just as life will always find its way to survive and thrive even in the worst conditions on Earth. Trying to stop corporations with laws is like trying to stop a train by throwing sticks in its path. The problem is not that "people are dicks", it is that we choose to put in place a system that rewards the dicks, a system that fuels the worst in people and smothers the best in them. -Even though nowadays quite a lot of time has passed since times of [Marx](marx.md) and capitalism has evolved to a stage with countless disastrous issues Marx couldn't even foresee, it is useful to mention one of the basic and earliest issues identified by Marx, which is that economically capitalism is based on **stealing the [surplus](surplus.md) value**, i.e. abuse of workers and consumers by owners of the means of production (factories, machines etc.) -- a capitalist basically takes money for doing nothing, just for letting workers use tools he proclaims to own (a capitalist will proclaim to "own" land that he never even visited, machines he didn't make, nowadays he even claims to own [information and ideas](intellectual_property.md)). This allows a capitalist oppressor to make exponentially more money for nothing and enables existence of monstrously rich and powerful individuals -- consider for example that nowadays there are people who own thousands of buildings along with private planes and private islands. It is not possible for any single human to work an equivalent of effort that's needed to produce what such an individual owns, even if he worked 24 hours a day for his whole life, he wouldn't get even close to matching the kind of effort that's needed to produce thousands of buildings he owns -- any such great wealth is always stolen from countless workers whose salary is less that what's adequate for their works and also from consumers who pay more than it really costs to manufacture the goods they buy. Millions of people are giving their money (resources) for free to someone who just proclaims to "own" tools and even natural resources that have been here for billions of years. +Even though nowadays quite a lot of time has passed since times of [Marx](marx.md) and capitalism has evolved to a stage with countless disastrous issues Marx couldn't even foresee, it is useful to mention one of the basic and earliest issues identified by Marx, which is that economically capitalism is based on **stealing the [surplus](surplus.md) value**, i.e. abuse of workers and consumers by owners of the means of production (factories, tools, machines etc.) -- a capitalist basically takes money for doing nothing, just for letting workers use tools he proclaims to own (a capitalist will proclaim to "own" land that he never even visited, machines he didn't make as they were developed over centuries, nowadays he even claims to own [information and ideas](intellectual_property.md)) -- as [Kropotkin](kropotkin.md) put it: the working man cannot purchase with his wage the wealth he has produced. This allows a capitalist oppressor to make exponentially more money for nothing and enables existence of monstrously rich and powerful individuals -- consider for example that nowadays there are people who own hundreds of buildings and cars plus a handful of private planes and a few private islands. It is not possible for any single human to work an equivalent of effort that's needed to produce what such an individual owns, even if he worked 24 hours a day for his whole life, he wouldn't get even close to matching the kind of effort that's needed to build the hundreds of buildings he owns -- any such great wealth is always stolen from countless workers whose salary is less than what's adequate for their work and also from consumers who pay more than it really costs to manufacture the goods they buy. Millions of people are giving their money (resources) for free to someone who just proclaims to "own" tools and even natural resources that have been there for billions of years. The difference in wealth and privileges this wealth provides divides society into antagonist classes that are constantly at war -- traditionally these classes are said to be the **[bourgeoisie](bourgeoisie.md)** (business owners, the upper class) and the **[proletariat](proletariat.md)** (workers, the lower class), though under modern capitalism the division of society is not so simple anymore -- there are more classes (for example small businesses work for larger businesses) but they are still all at war. -But nowadays **capitalism is NOT JUST an economic system** anymore. Technically perhaps, however in reality it takes over society to such a degree that it starts to redefine very basic social and moral values to the point of taking the role of a [religion](religion.md), or better said a brainwashing cult in which people are since childhood taught (e.g. by constant daily exposure to private media) to worship economy, brands, engage in cults of personalities (see myths about godlike entrepreneurs) and [productivity](productivity.md) (i.e. not usefulness, morality, efficiency or similar values, just the pure ability to produce something for its own sake). Close minded people will try to counter argue in shallow ways such as "but religion has to have some supernatural entity called God" etc. Again, technically speaking this may be correct, but if we don't limit our views by arbitrary definitions of words, we see that the effects of capitalism on society are [de facto](de_facto.md) of the same or even greater scale than those of religion, and they are certainly more negative. Capitalism itself works towards suppressing traditional religions (showing it is really competing with them and therefore aspiring for the same role) and their values and trying to replace them with worship of money, success and self interest, it permeates society to the deepest levels by making every single area of society a subject of business and acting on the minds of all people in the society every single day which is an enormously strong pressure that strongly shapes mentality of people, again mostly negatively towards a war mentality (constant competition with others), egoism, materialism, fascism, pure pursuit of profit etc. +Nowadays **capitalism is NOT JUST an economic system** anymore. Technically perhaps, however in reality it takes over society to such a degree that it starts to redefine very basic social and moral values to the point of taking the role of a [religion](religion.md), or better said a brainwashing cult in which people are since childhood taught (e.g. by constant daily exposure to private media) to worship economy, brands, engage in cults of personalities (see myths about godlike entrepreneurs) and [productivity](productivity.md) (i.e. not usefulness, morality, efficiency or similar values, just the pure ability to produce something for its own sake). Close minded people will try to counter argue in shallow ways such as "but religion has to have some supernatural entity called God" etc. Again, technically speaking this may be correct, but if we don't limit our views by arbitrary definitions of words, we see that the effects of capitalism on society are [de facto](de_facto.md) of the same or even greater scale than those of religion, and they are certainly more negative. Capitalism itself works towards suppressing traditional religions (showing it is really competing with them and therefore aspiring for the same role) and their values and trying to replace them with worship of money, success and self interest, it permeates society to the deepest levels by making every single area of society a subject of business and acting on the minds of all people in the society every single day which is an enormously strong pressure that strongly shapes mentality of people, again mostly negatively towards a war mentality (constant competition with others), egoism, materialism, fascism, pure pursuit of profit etc. From a certain point of view capitalism is not really a traditional socioeconomic system, it is **the failure to establish one** -- capitalism is the failure to prevent the establishment of capitalism, and it is also the punishment for this failure. It is the continuation of the jungle to the age when technology for mass production, mass surveillance etc. has sufficiently advanced -- capitalism will arise with technological progress unless we prevent it, just as cancer will grow unless we treat it in very early stages. This is what people mean when they say that capitalism [simply works](just_werks.md) or that it's *natural* -- it's the least effort option, one that simply lets people behave like animals, except that these animals are now equipped with weapons of mass destruction, tools for implementing slavery, world wide surveillance etc. It is natural in the same way in which wars, murders, bullying and deadly diseases are. It is the most primitive system imaginable, it is uncontrolled, leads to suffering and self-destruction. -Under capitalism you are not a human being, you are a resource, at best a machine that's useful for some time but becomes obsolete and undesired once it outlives its usefulness and potential to be exploited. Under capitalism you are a slave that's forced to live the 3C life: **conform, consume, compete**. Or, as [Encyclopedia dramatica](dramatica.md) puts it: work, buy, consume, die. +Under capitalism you are not a human being, you are a resource, at best a machine that's useful for some time but becomes obsolete and undesired once it outlives its usefulness and potential to be exploited. Under capitalism you are a slave that's forced to live the life of 3 Cs: **conform, consume, compete**. Or, as [Encyclopedia dramatica](dramatica.md) puts it: work, buy, consume, die. ## Attributes Of Capitalism diff --git a/good_enough.md b/good_enough.md index 182abde..ae4cedc 100644 --- a/good_enough.md +++ b/good_enough.md @@ -1,7 +1,7 @@ # Good Enough -A good enough solution to a problem is a solution that solves the problem satisfyingly (not necessarily precisely or completely) while achieving minimal cost (effort, implementation time etc.). This is in contrast to looking for a better solutions for a higher cost. For example a tent is a good enough accommodation solution while a luxury house is a better solution (more comfortable, safe, ...) for a higher cost. +A good enough solution to a problem is a solution that solves the problem satisfyingly (not necessarily precisely or completely) while achieving minimal cost (effort, implementation time etc.). This is in contrast to looking for a better solutions for a higher cost, which we might call an [overkill](overkill.md). For example a word-for-word translation of a text is a primitive way of translation, but it may be good enough to understand the meaning of the text; in many climates a tent is a good enough accommodation solution while a luxury house is a solution of better quality (more comfortable, safe, ...) for a higher cost. -To give an example from the world of programming, [bubble sort](bubble_sort.md) is in many cases better than quick sort for its simplicity, even though it's much slower. +To give an example from the world of programming, [bubble sort](bubble_sort.md) is in many cases better than quick sort for its simplicity, even though it's much slower than more advanced sorts. -In technology we are often times looking for good enough solution to achieve [minimalism](minimalism.md) and save valuable resources (computational resources, programmer time etc.). It rarely makes sense to look for solutions that are more expensive than they necessarily need to be, however in the context of [capitalist software](capitalist_software.md) we see this happen many times as price is artificially and intentionally driven up for economic reasons (e.g. increasing the cost of maintenance of a software eliminates any competition that can't afford such cost). This is only natural in [capitalism](capitalism.md), we see the tendency for wasting resources everywhere. This needs to be stopped. \ No newline at end of file +In technology we are often times looking for good enough solution to achieve [minimalism](minimalism.md) and save valuable resources (computational resources, programmer time etc.). It rarely makes sense to look for solutions that are more expensive than they necessarily need to be, however in the context of [capitalist software](capitalist_software.md) we see this happen many times as a part of killer feature battle and also driving prices artificially up for economic reasons (e.g. increasing the cost of maintenance of a software eliminates any competition that can't afford such cost). An example of this is the trend in smartphones to have 4 and more physical cameras. This is only natural in [capitalism](capitalism.md), we see the tendency for wasting resources everywhere. This of course needs to be stopped. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/pi.md b/pi.md index 3c7d175..c477b35 100644 --- a/pi.md +++ b/pi.md @@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ Pi to 100 binary fractional digits is: 11.001001000011111101101010100010001000010110100011000010001101 001100010011000110011000101000101110000... -Some people memorize the digits of pi for [fun](fun.md) and competition, the world record as of 2022 is 70030 memorized digits. +Some people memorize the digits of pi for [fun](fun.md) and competition, the world record as of 2022 is 70030 memorized digits. Some people make [mnemonics](mnemonic.md) for remembering the digits of pi (this is known as *PiPhilology*), for example *"Now I fuck a pussy screaming in orgasm"* is a sentence that helps remember the first 8 digits (number of letters in each word encodes the digit). **PI IS NOT INFINITE**. [Soyence](soyence.md) popularizators and nubs often say shit like "OH LOOK pi is so special because it infiniiiiiite". Pi is completely finite with an exact value that's not even greater than 4, what's infinite is just its expansion in [decimal](decimal.md) (or similar) numeral system, however this is nothing special, even numbers such as 1/3 have infinite decimal expansion -- yes, pi is more interesting because its decimal digits are non-repeating and appear [chaotic](chaos.md), but that's nothing special either, there are infinitely many numbers with the same properties and mysteries in this sense (most famously the number [e](e.md) but besides it an infinity of other no-name numbers). The fact we get an infinitely many digits in expansion of pi is given by the fact that we're simply using a system of writing numbers that is made to handle integers and simple fractions -- once we try to write an unusual number with our system, our [algorithm](algorithm.md) simply ends up stuck in an [infinite loop](infinite_loop.md). We can create systems of writing numbers in which pi has a finite expansion (e.g. base pi), in fact we can already write pi with a single symbol: *pi*. So yes, pi digits are interesting, but they are NOT what makes pi special among other numbers.