> _“I can’t find a #blockchain application whose value has anything to do with the blockchain part, that wouldn’t be made safer, more secure, more reliable, and just plain better by removing the blockchain part. […] Someone, please show me an application where blockchain is essential. That is, a problem that could not have been solved without blockchain that can now be solved with it.”_
— [Post](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/06/on-the-dangers-of-cryptocurrencies-and-the-uselessness-of-blockchain.html) by #BruceSchneier
I mostly agree with this critique of #crypto, but…
🧵
Advantages of sending **voice messages**:
✔️ Encourages sharing messages with those around you atm
✔️ (Unless you have earphones; then) gives you an opportunity to look for / disentangle / switch on / pair / wear / unmute earpieces
✔️ Provides plenty of ambiguity for misunderstandings due to bad audio quality / sloppy diction / background noise / insufficient volume
✔️ Gives you a wonderful reason to temporarily turn music down / mute video / get indoors / pause presentation
✔️ (Unless you can't interrupt what you're listening to; then) offers thrilling amounts of suspense and ignorance until you can listen to the message
✔️ Prevents cheeky recipient(s) from feeding message into automated workflows (eg bridges, bots, IFTTT, feeds, tagging systems)
✔️ Keeps you closer to the sender by forcing to listen to them for several minutes just to learn that their answer to your question is “around 11:30”
Advantages of sending **text**:
✔️ Much lighter (downloads faster, takes less storage)
✔️ Recipient(s) can read at their own speed
✔️ They can skim it
✔️ Searchable
✔️ Can copy it (eg to paste onto a translation service)
✔️ Can include URLs, hashtags, lists, verbatim quotes, etc
Settling an old debate: #texting vs. #voicemail!
🧵
tripu
boosted
@tripu I cannot imagine a future in which doing this wouldn't end up as "fake rigor". There are too many degrees of freedom in investigating such things and controlling for other variables is never complete.
That being said, while I'm very skeptical about many applications of QALY, there are clearly areas in which they could be used more for specific interventions.
Imagine QALYs being used in this way in food packaging, election manifestos, gym memberships, employment contracts, streaming services, etc. As in:
> “Nutritional information (per 100 g of product): 145 kcal, 16 g of sugar, 3 g of protein, […]. Estimated benefit (500 g/week for a year, healthy adults): **0.0017 QALY**.”
> “This series has 4 seasons (32 chapters) and a total running time of 48 h. Longitudinal analyses of surveys conducted about similar shows predict a value of **2.8 μQ** per season.”
> “The study conducted by our think-tank estimates the likely impact of the policies proposed by all parties contesting the current election (in **QALY per capita**) in the following way: […]”
> “Our research suggests that the last tax reform resulted in a net loss of ca. **369 MQ (10⁶ QALY)** for the country.”
Ultimately, _everything_ you do, don't do, consume, use, avoid or covet should work towards that goal of maximising your #wellbeing or the well-being of others, right? What better unit than “QALY” for that?
“Currency” carries too much psychological and ideological baggage, and it keeps the spotlight in one very specific dimension (ie, money).
“Time” is better, but it ignores the vital distinction between time spent and time well spent (remember: it's “live long and prosper” not just “live long”).
I know it sounds far-fetched right now, but a much more refined definition of #QALY could be used to estimate the expected value of all products, habits and public policies — and to measure their impact in hindsight.
Since our goal in #life is maximising _{well-being, quality of life, happiness, flourishing, utility}_ both for us and in the universe as a whole (nobody sits at either extreme of that spectrum; ie nobody's absolutely selfish or absolutely altruistic), I would like everybody to know about [QALY](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year)'s and use them more often than they use dollars, hours or calories.
We all have internalised (imperfect) convertibility between time and money already: we routinely give away the former for the latter (work), or vice versa (outsourcing, entertainment, services). Less clear is the relationship between those two dimensions and others such as physical health, physical safety, mental health, power, fulfilment, transcendence, etc… and yet we know there is one — because if pressed we know how many € or weeks we'd trade in exchange for more of those (or vice versa).
Perhaps a robust and granular version of [QALY](http://www.bandolier.org.uk/painres/download/whatis/QALY.pdf) is the most comprehensive and least biased unit with which to assess individual an collective decision-making.
Digital life #tip:
I open #Twitter regularly, just to check mentions and DMs (yes, I could enable web/mail notifs instead, but I don't like them; that's another story). Too often I get distracted by the “trends” sidebar (#clickbait, news, gossip, photos) and I end up clicking and skimming some shitty article.
In config, I set my location to “จ.เชียงราย, ประเทศไทย” (that's somewhere in Thailand) and unchecked personalisation (“trends for you”). And now the list of what's trending looks much better for me.
[I love Bryan Caplan](https://flickr.com/photos/tripu/48054382953/), but I think he's is naïve if he thinks #morality can be solved by “divide and conquer”. The “simple cases” he provides as examples of “microethics” are anything but.
> _“Start with simple cases where right and wrong are obvious. Is it wrong to punish an escaped murderer by torturing his infant child? Is it wrong to welsh on a $20 bet? Is it wrong to steal an alcoholic’s liquor? To refuse to give all your surplus income away to needy strangers? Then build from there.”_
If only these were “obvious”!
Dilemmas in #ethics don't necessarily become easier when the cardinality of the set of individuals involved shrinks!
https://www.econlib.org/archives/2012/04/introduction_to.html
Whatever happened to urban tribes?
I remember reading and hearing about the different tribes, music and trends in the 90's and 00's. But apparently nothing now.
Have we become more homogeneous as a society?
Is it not politically correct to spot patterns and sort into categories now?
Have we become so diverse and tolerant that we no longer even notice that people fall into different “tribes”?
Has politics superseded music and hobbies as the most conspicuous markers of tribe affiliation?
What does it say of us as a civilisation that the most reliable hint that something might be spam, phishing, fake, is still that it has lots of spe...
Hey, Eric :)
Not to reignite the discussion, but it seems @slatestarcodex [just posted about this](https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/which-party-has-gotten-more-extreme). I like him a lot and usually trust his analyses, so I've saved that post for later. I think it may shed some light.
And while at it, I also saw now a couple interesting responses at the time to that original tweet, each defending opposite views: [Paul Graham](https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1519885054960357377)'s and [Kevin Kruse](https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/status/1519743132132380672)'s. I'll come back to that when I have free time, too.
OK, I'm done for the ~~day~~ decade
That looks delicious! (I'd swap beef for textured soy or something like that, though 🥦)
