tripu @tripu@social.cleverlibre.org

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.

https://assangedefense.org/press-release/ad-chairs-noam-chomsky-daniel-ellsberg-and-alice-walker-react/

#Assange

#Assange!

https://speak-up-for-assange.org/

[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

#philosophy

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?

Happy #MensHealthWeek!

https://www.menshealthforum.org.uk/mhw

http://menshealthmonth.org/week

#manMOT

Related: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/06/what-are-the-markers-of-spam-emails.html

OK, I'm done for the ~~day~~ decade

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2022/5/colombian-juggles-and-solves-three-puzzle-cubes-shattering-record-703848

Attribution for previous panel:

https://loadingartist.com/comic/over-his-head/

@loadingartist

#Microsoft, #Skype: this is very stupid.

What comes before the `@` in my email address is… a single character. You're banning a letter of the alphabet for me.

You're preventing me from using a very robust, completely new password — so now I have to make some contortions (and most importantly, _remember_ those contortions) to adapt my usual password strategy to this silly requirement.

#UX #UI #web

When I was a #teenager my dream #job was to direct and host a night #radio show in @radio3_rne where I would play great music and speak in an enigmatic voice about unusual ideas.

Now that I'm 41, my #dreamjob is to read important #books, write regular opinion pieces, attend cultural events, and perhaps and host a #podcast about it all.

I still love #tech, though.

@rastinza, a suggested talk:

https://www.ted.com/talks/sam_harris_science_can_answer_moral_questions

/cc @ImperfectIdea

> _“You cannot however use science alone to take it.”_

Challenge accepted!

> _“You must first of all decide whether wealth transfer or social intervention are things that should be done, that is, if you think it is a moral and acceptable thing.”_

**Economics**: a (social) science. It studies the allocation of scarce resources (in this case, money), and in doing so provides answers to the eternal conflict between _efficiency_ (economic growth) and _equity_ (redistribution) — which is at the root of my hypothetical scenario. Necessary here.

**Moral philosophy**: a (soft) science. The study of ethics. Definitely helpful for this example too, to help disentangle questions of “is vs ought” that Economics alone can't resolve.

**Political science** (it's in the name): concerned with systems of governance and power (redistribution is implemented within those systems).

**History**: a (soft) science studying the past, and change. Because redistribution measures have been proposed or implemented before. (How did they work, what happened?)

**Medicine** (focused on physical health) and **psychology** (because individuals react to the status quo, and to proposed policies). We're trying to optimise human well-being here, after all. **Sociology** too, because _societies_ as a whole react to the status quo and to proposed policies also.

Underpinning it all: **mathematics** (especially **statistics**). **Chaos theory** to better understand market dynamics under the proposed changes.

Throw into the mix also **computer science** (to run simulations of public policies and changes in incentives). Heck, even the systematic study of **literature** [would provide useful inputs here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cassandra_(literature)).

These are all “sciences” (admittedly, under a lax definition of “science”) — in any case, definitely closer to the realm of science than to any of the other epistemic systems we've mentioned (tradition, intuition, religion, etc).

There you are. What else do you need to work on this problem and come to a solution, other than #science?

/cc @rastinza @ImperfectIdea

Last week I donated 10% of my gross income of 2021 to [_Ayuda Efectiva_](https://ayudaefectiva.org/) as part of my commitment to the [“Giving What We Can” Pledge](https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/pledge/).

❤️

#EffectiveAltruism #AltruismoEficaz #GWWC #philanthropy #AyudaEfectiva

🇪🇸 #Spain #university #education #gender #feminism

Sources: _Ministerio de Universidades_ ([1](https://public.tableau.com/views/Academica20_EEU/InfografiaEEU?%3AshowVizHome=no&%3Aembed=true#7); [2](https://www.universidades.gob.es/stfls/universidades/Estadisticas/ficheros/DyC_2021_22.pdf))

**_Everything_ is quantifiable, and should be quantified.**

Everything is a #measure or can be measured.

#Science can study anything, and #mathematics is the language of science.

The fact that some aspects of life seem hard to estimate doesn't mean we are better off not even trying and coming up with our best approximation.

More #information rarely hurts, and even rough approximations (accompanied by their respective confidence intervals) are useful information.

One can measure, weigh and analyse… and still be sensitive, funny, romantic, impressionable, intuitive, creative — if one so chooses after all the (numeric) information is available.