I enjoy scurrying about in the wainscoting of HN, perhaps because of, not despite, its ferrocrete and stainless steel suboptimality?

  三十辐共一毂，当其无，有车之用。
  埏埴以为器，  当其无，有器之用。
  凿户牖以为室，当其无，有室之用。

30 stories and their hot takes exist on HN's front page, yet the stories with no traction function to carry leisurely conversation.

  故有之以为利，无之以为用。

I concur that HN is a liminal superspace whose character is slippery and so fit for rummagings in the murk, dang is a Taoist best sovereign whose existence is only dimly felt*, etc etc but all I really want to for now is to uh serialize something bothering me since mistermann replied.. quite localized to procrustean-physicism...

maybe physicists are hedgehogs who imagine themselves foxes, but then it occurred to me that it might be true that most non-French non-logician mathematicians tend to stay away from wider sociopolitical commentary (unless prodded)

I can think of reasons, but some implications are clear?

1. Kolmogorov thought of himself as more of a mathematician than a physicist.

2. Arnol'd was heavily frenchified, but had to rationalize that. (In particular, his students didn't inherit his attitudes?)

3. Galois was pretty normal.

4. Grothendieck was special but found a way to resolve the inner and outer (cultural) game.

5. Kaczynski.. too much of a logician? (Dare I suggest he was special XD?)

Back to scheduled programming, over and out.

*Preceding Jefferson, Spinoza, etc https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%81%93%E5%BE%B7%E7%BB%8F%C2%...

Re: Kaczynski, I think he stopped being an analyst in 1969, and switched to being a non-mathematician prepper?

(and usually analysis is pretty far from logic in various people's maps of mathematics, but here's an exception, in which the "plains of analysis" [sic] are right next to the "ocean of logic": https://utenti.quipo.it/base5/scuola/mate_metafor_mathematis... )

For some reason non-French non-logician non-social-commentariens remind me of https://existentialcomics.com/comic/541

Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TilQ8BIHisw

(unfortunately going in the other direction, as with Yuri and Tonya Zhivago, I believe Vladimir Vysotsky might've done better —at least healthwise if not artistically— to have spent much more time in Paris with Marina)

*second best, for by Chapter58/spinozoan formalization PG** was the creator..and thus worthier of being 太上

"You are what you symbolicate"

**https://youtu.be/EEwPXdbKG8U

Oops, let's not get distracted..

EDIT: according to later commentators this is a popular misreading, but in this case the masses were correct? https://www.aisixiang.com/data/117662.html

Upon reflection, thanks for "♥ reflections"; I see the commentary there doesn't use the Star Wars Sith analogy I prefer, but instead talks (after Allison?) about a 修昔底德 trap.

Is there any english-language equivalent to this site? Did it grown organically out of the tradition of posting essays and counter-essays on village walls?

You don't mean substack?

Both ssc & robin hanson are on it

Could be! For some reason I was thinking of substack as more "subscribe to my newsletter" writing than "here's my bibliography" writing, but I could easily have prematurely stereotyped...

> I can think of reasons, but some implications are clear?

I have a feeling I have missed something important here.

> dang is a Taoist

The Rationalists got one thing right at least: "We are only aspiring Rationalists". (I would add: "Or so it may seem.")

See also: Science, Humanism/Skepticism, Atheism, etc.

> maybe physicists are hedgehogs who imagine themselves foxes

Maybe....but one thing that can be observed is that they often imagine themselves to be omniscient.

> Kaczynski.. too much of a logician? (Dare I suggest he was special XD?)

You may!

Haha touche.

Btw.. I didn't want to look like I was the kind of person to put valproate [experimental protocols] in the same bin as psychedelics (which are tainted with profit and other motives)..

I just thought it would be a minor step forward if we could observe and manipulate our own learning processeses (as something close to sensations?)..

as opposed to being limited to observing what children or experts do.

Have psychedelics changed since my day? They used to be dirt cheap, which pretty much kept all the profit-chasers away. I guess th' freaks did have their own motives, tho