Ericisms

Eric often uses terms or turns-of-phrase that some people may not immediately understand. This page is a reference source for those only. This should not be confused with more general topic areas that may at first cause confusion such as the DISC, EGOs, Load-Bearing Fictions, etc.

A/B testing

Adaptive landscape

Sewall Wright's theory of adaptive landscapes of fitness

Adaptive valley

Sewall Wright's theory of adaptive landscapes of fitness

Adjective, occupation, name

https://twitter.com/ericrweinstein/status/955117591378329606?lang=en

Anthropic capitalism

Anti-expert

Anti-interesting

Artificial Outelligence

Artificial Outelligence, n: An unintelligent computer system that evolves by hijacking the minds it dupes & outwits.

Example:

The Bass designs false fish used by the mussels to better parasitize the bass.

It’s one thing to think & talk about the risks of unintelligent agents using *our* brains to outsmart ourselves. Another to see such examples in nature:

References

https://twitter.com/ericrweinstein/status/867050623174295552?s=21

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wu8s0tp9yzY

https://twitter.com/ericrweinstein/status/1116065653847285760?s=21

https://www.youtube.com/embed/0j9dxbB4Z1o

Church and Pike commissions

Deaths of accountability

De-Potemkin

Depotemkin, verb: To create the missing reality that a façade was originally constructed to suggest was present.

Twitter

Dining a la carte philosophically/politically/ideologically

Don't screw yourself out of magic

The Educational Complex

A system of selective political, economic, and memetic pressures resulting in a cult of the teaching profession which prioritizes the careerist desires of the educators over the learning needs of the students.

Environment of evolutionary adaptation

Efficient Frontier

Environmental insult

Escher's Hands Drawing Hands

Forced citation

Gating function

Genius vs Excellence

Irrationality

Irrationality is a feature not a bug. It gives us the ability to Camp and decamp

It's a beautiful thing

This originates from New York City.

Meaning: You can extract money from people with no say in the matter.

Related: "It's perfectly legal" – something ethically dubious may be going on.

Kayfabe

Long term vs short term optimization

Long/short positions (nuanced positions)

Maladaptive strategies

Meaning

"The meaning of my life is the progressing struggle to impart meaning to meaning." [1]

Minus epsilon

This originates from the epsilon-delta definition of a limit in mathematics.

No more heroes

Operation Cointel pro

Overton window

Potemkin village

Rent-seeking elites

Resource capture

Riding on a technical substrate

Samizdat

The clandestine copying and distribution of literature banned by the state, especially formerly in the communist countries of eastern Europe.

Selective pressures

Semi-reliable communal sense-making

Steady hands

This originates from Washington D.C.

"He has steady hands." You can count on him to do the wrong thing during an emergency to keep everyone on the inside okay Everyone on the inside is super dependent to burn all of their credibility in public

Steel-manning

The steel man argument (or steelmanning) is the exact opposite of the straw man argument. The idea is to find the best form of the opponent's argument to test opposing opinions.

Steelmanning

Teaching disabilities

Not Learning Disabilities Differential diagnosis

Terms of Service

References:

The Observerse

There is no secret ingredient

This is a line from Eric's favorite movie, Kung Fu Panda.

Thinkquisition

TIM - Technology Intelligence Media

Umwelt

(in ethology) The world as it is experienced by a particular organism.