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I've found my writing has stagnated due to lack of feedback. Unfortunately my friends and family don't seem interested enough in my writing to engage with it.

I suspect it is still important to get to know people and build trust in the flesh, even if having a remote leader can be good.

> I'm more scared of the stagnation world I feel ultimately goes straight to apocalypse.

What apolcalypse is he worried about? Or is it the breakdown in politics, due to the stagnation, the problem? Why should the breakdown lead to an apocalypse, rather than a reformation?

> The claim is largely that voters started to care more about politicians implementing their favorite policies than being the recipient of trickle-down graft.

For me graft is a more acceptable in good times. When things are booming it doesn't matter too much if a little extra is skimmed to one side.

When things seem dire, you want someone that will actually fix the problems you are worried about. So graft goes out of fashion.

Could you be more precise in what you are responding to?

> When you look at how many bad decisions have been taken these past few years despite plenty of access to good information, this sentiment seems pretty out of touch…

I'd argue we have lots of good information about what is going on. I'm not sure we have lots of good information about what we should do. Should we move to renewables and storage, nuclear or carbon capture and storage or would it be better to geo-engineer?

There are lots of trade-offs for all these paths. Being able to simulate their interactions accurately and under different assumptions might help form a consensus about a not too bad way forward.

It can, but lots of interesting philosophy can need collaboration. Good philosophy of mind stuff should be informed by neuroscience.

One of my wishes is that it would support a hardware token like the yubikey for storing the private key, to make leaks less likely (although it might not be super performant).

>“ According to Maistre, any attempt to justify government on rational grounds will only lead to unresolvable arguments about the legitimacy and expediency of any existing government and that this in turn will lead to violence and chaos.[23][24] As a result, Maistre argued that the legitimacy of government must be based on compelling, but non-rational grounds which its subjects must not be allowed to question.” > >Perhaps whatever is useful is oftentimes more important than what is true.

There has been an ongoing debate in the UK about proportional representation and the first past the post system. It has not, as yet, lead to violence and chaos. So I think that the link Maistre identifies between questioning the status quo and chaos is not always true.

Admittedly there is time and place for debate. You don't argue about the cars direction, when the driver is trying to concentrate in a dangerous situation.

This is one benefit of democracies. People can form alternate leadership structures with different strengths and focuses, without them trying to wrest power at unpredictable times.

I'd rather not be rich or famous. If I happened to become either I'd try and leverage them in some way to help or form organisations that can navigate the hot mess of our societies next few decades.

For me trying to negotiate with people playing super hardball (ignoring social norms etc) makes me think they will not honour any agreements made. Because those rely on social norms too. Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal etc.

I've not found it super useful myself.

Maybe I was trying to use it for the wrong things?

It seems like a good way of creating better understanding for yourself, a less good way of building a community. That seems to be best done off-line.

> The world is a giant ship with 8+ billion each with their own oar in the water. A vessel like that turns very slowly and with a danger on the horizon as complex and difficult to understand as climate change, we should not expect everyone to wake up overnight and be all-in on fixing the problem. But almost every trend shows that people are waking up, changing their habits, and shifting their priorities in the right direction.

We still subsidies fossil fuel extraction! When we stop doing that I'll think the ship is really turning. Other than that I think the bubble of people who care about this in increasing, but not having a huge impact on the direction we are actually moving.