LMD Async Tutoring

Tutoring
842

learn to control weather
learn meteorology
mitigate its effects
buy more air conditioners
draw carbon from the atmosphere
cool the planet somehow
dont worry about it and maybe it’ll be fine
find out its causes
stop all industry
make fossil fuels illegal
return to stone age technology
leave the planet
build moon bases with perfect climate control
just use the earth as a mine
build mars bases
make much bigger living spaces and connect cities together under controlled climates, like with big domes
figure out how to control the climate automatically on a global scale
make totalitarian regimes to control all co2 producing industries
force nuclear winter by detonating nukes
boil the oceans off?

5 mins

  • over a long enough period, climate change is enevitable, human made or not, we need to be able to solve problems like this, we cant just scale back industry, they’ll still happen.
  • increased co2 will make plants grow a lot bigger
  • global temperatures change over time, we can adapt
  • its a concern if we hamper our societies ability to solve problems
  • does it warrant communist style control over the economy
  • there is a risk of runaway icecap/permafrost melting
  • yes, we’d have to learn how to adapt.
  • some parts of the world that are currently densely populated, might become under water or bad places to live cos of heat
  • global warming might make vast areas of currently economically unsuitable land good for production
  • global warming could cause extinction of large amounts of wildlife

5 mins

843

5 mins each, and tried to alternate as they got harder.

upsides

  • cheap
  • convient
  • easy to shape
  • lots of variation in material properies
  • hygeinic
  • lightwight
  • recyclable
  • different textures
  • can be very strong
  • can be transparent
  • can be made from substances we have no other use for, like parts of oil that would otherwise be thrown away
  • help humans have better lives
  • great for making appliances with
  • don’t require a lot of labour to make sophisticated shapes
  • they can look great
  • they are strong and durable
  • they can be repaired easily
  • non-conductive

downsides

  • can give off microplastics
  • can be unsightly as trash
  • can be toxic if burned
  • they don’t naturally decompose
  • they can not have the right properties for all applications
  • can break where the equivalent metal part might not
  • over time they can degrade/shrink so that the plastic part doesn’t fit as well as it did new
  • non-conductive
  • they can look cheap
  • they can end up in the ocean and kill stuff
  • they can fill up landfills and not compose
  • plastic bags can kill animals
  • plastic trash can aesthetically ruin the environment
  • some can’t be reused very much
  • can be bad to injest in microplastic form
  • microplastics in blood
  • they require an industrial civilisation to make them
  • they require chemical knowledge to make them
1 Like
844

5 mins each

Upsides:

  • greater crop yeild
  • less bugs on fruit
  • fruit look more attractive
  • higher profits
  • don’t eat bugs by accident
  • they are high tech?
  • fruit protected at later stages after picking?
  • can grow bigger because less bugs to block sunlight and take energy away from plants defenses
  • safer food
  • trees will last longer and provide fruit for more years
  • bugs are gross
  • people don’t like bugs
  • people want shiny fruit and clean veggies
  • save human effort
  • man controlling his environment
  • symbol of civilisation
  • economical
  • promote human values

Downsides:

  • might be harmful to humans in the long run
  • might contaminate soil
  • soil needs some bugs and stuff
  • plants are pollinated by bugs, and pesticides can disrupt that way of reproducing
  • might poison the fruit
  • fruits require cleaning before eating
  • are produced by some companies which are maybe bad and are biased and overlook how safe their product is
  • can contaminate the environment
  • contaminate water running off farms
  • cost money
  • can harm bugs that they’re not intending to and that are largely useful like bees
  • they are a poison
  • they might contaminate the fruit/plant that you eat
  • they require dilligence in handling
  • might cause birth defects?
  • might cause cancer?
845

5 mins

error correction
fallibility
win/win solutions
critical rationalism
karl popper
ayn rand
eli goldratt
yes/no philosophy
breakpoints
binary answers
refuted/non-refuted
reason
knowledge is possible to humans
there is no infallible source of knowledge
there are no authorities
intuitions are legit ideas for rational discussion
ignoring intuitions is irrational
multi-factor decision making
ideas
the brain is a computer
knowledge is created by evolution
humans do evolution in their brains to create knowledge
intelligence is the ability to create explanatory knowledge
certainty is unattainable
whats important is error correction
intuitions are ideas and shouldn’t be disregarded
conflicts of ideas can be resolved

846

I skipped these, because I don’t really know the first thing about index funds, they’re just something I’ve heard of. But would it still be something I should try anyway?

847

Up to you.

848

I think I’ll skip.

849

FYI one of the major issues related to pesticides is monocropping: creating large fields with a single crop. This can help with farming efficiency in some ways (like how a factory that makes one thing can have efficiency advantages over a factory that makes dozens of things) but makes the crops more vulnerable to insects, fungi, etc. because all the plants in the field have the same vulnerabilities so a particular pest can eat/attack the whole field. Monocropping also has some other upsides and downsides, but anyway it’s one of the things driving high pesticide use.

1 Like
850

Overall I think you’re doing fine at brainstorming. How’d it go from your point of view? Do you have questions or concerns?

Feel free to brainstorm a list of brainstorming prompts, then use them, if you want more practice.

851

For debate/analysis:

Do you know of any topics we could use where you maybe disagree with me?

Or do you have any other suggestions? A topic you know a decent amount about would be easier.

852

Yeah okay interesting. I didn’t find myself having much trouble, but I would’ve thought that there was something obvious I could improve on. I guess more experience will be good.

No questions as yet but I’ll have a think.

853

Brainstorming isn’t meant to be hard, at least not at first. If you’re trying to solve a real problem, and nothing on your list is good enough, then you can do another round of brainstorming. If you repeat several rounds because the problem remains unsolved, then it gets harder to brainstorm more candidates.

Sometimes the only solution ends up being questioning and rejecting one of your premises. That can be hard in multiple ways. You may have to realize you should check your premises, put some inexplicit premises into words, consider a lot of different premises you have, and be willing to change your mind.

Anyway, initial brainstorming should hopefully be reasonably easy, although some people do have trouble with it. But doing all the brainstorming needed to successfully finish problem solving for a specific problem can be hard.

1 Like
854

In a straightforward sense, I don’t think so. I follow you a lot, and know much less than you. I also don’t think I have many, if any, explicit, stable ideas.

In a not straightforward sense, I think there is plenty I probably misunderstand of your ideas and so have ideas that contradict yours.

I feel a bit anxious about these facts, like I’ve been doing something wrong, like I should have some stable ideas of my own, like i’m being second-handed and too much of a follower.

Not really. I feel a bit stuck at the beginning here.

855

OK here are two ideas. You can pick one or try both.

  1. Look into the Moxie robot and write a summary of what happened. Just pretty basic info, nothing fancy.
  2. Find a website that’s selling something with a timer like “check out in the next 30 minutes to get 30% off” kinda thing, or “this big sale ends at midnight tonight”. Lots of websites have this sort of thing. But if you just refresh the page or wait until the next day there’s another usually identical sale. Brainstorm two lists: reasons it is and isn’t fraud.
856

I had never heard of the Moxie robot so all this I found out just now:

The Moxie robot was an AI learning aid/robot companion for kids aged 5-10 that launched in 2020. The company that created it, Embodied Inc., announced in December 2024 that it was going to shut down due to lack of funding, and stop supporting the Moxie robot. Since the Moxie requires cloud connectivity for its core features, the company ceasing operations renders all the Moxie robots unusable.

I couldn’t find any sites in about 10-15 mins searching, but I’ve seen things like this before.

brainstorm:

reasons it is fraud

  • it’s trying to deceive people about their opportunity to get a discounted price, so that they purchase it now, rather than later.
  • if it’s constantly on sale, and available all the time at that price, then it isn’t a discounted price at all. It’s the price. Saying that it’s discounted when it isn’t, when it never sells for a higher price, is fraud.
  • they are giving the customer false information to effect a purchase
  • they are lying about the nature of the transaction, which is different to lying about the nature of the item, but it’s still fraud

reasons it isn’t fraud

  • people expect this a little bit, and so might not take it too seriously
  • they really do have a new sale every day
  • maybe when the timer runs out, the price does actually go back up (but if you refresh, or clear cookies, it does reset the timer and give discount back)
  • they aren’t lying about the properties of the item
857

Good job. OK, next, brainstorm ways this might involve fraud. Don’t just include stuff based on facts you know. You can also make up potential facts that seem reasonably likely for this type of situation.

The next steps here are, in order:

  1. Write down what you think fraud is. Maybe several potential definitions or explanations.
  2. Brainstorm a list of elements of fraud. Like when I see X, that’s a sign it may be fraud, or is likely to be fraud, or combined with some other things it’s definitely fraud (“X+Y+Z = fraud”)
  3. Compare the fake time constraint website timers to (1) and (2).
  4. Look up what fraud is. Research it. See if that changes your mind about any of 1, 2 or 3. See if anything is surprising or even seems incorrect to you. See if there is one clear meaning or there are multiple contradictory concepts that are in use.

You can do these steps for Moxie too, or pick just one (Moxie or timers) to continue working with. (1, 2 and 4 are resuable for both. 3 would have to be done separately for each.)

858

brainstorm ways the moxie robot thing might involve fraud:

  • people expected a standalone product
  • people probably didn’t expect it to be a subscription-style service where their use of the product they bought depended on the maintenance of the business
  • they thought they were paying ~$800 for the robot and the service it provides, not $800 for a means to accessing a service which might go offline.
  • Afaik, they didn’t offer to compensate any customers.
  • The age range for the kids is 5-10, implying that you might use it for your 5 year old child until they’re 10, but the company didn’t even last four years. So people might have expected at least 5 years of use out of it (?)
  • The product page, only mentions the concept ‘cloud-based’ once, and only in reference to one aspect of the software it uses. It also only mentions that it requires wifi access in the specs, and doesn’t say why. The fact that it relies on a wifi-connection for all functionality I don’t think is very obvious. I think it’d be reasonable to get the impression that it was for the most part a standalone unit.
  1. what’s fraud?
  • deception for the purpose of gaining a value
    • this isn’t specifically fraud though, I think fraud is about financial gain/harm?
  • misrepresenting reality for the purpose of financial gain
    • this is better, but maybe just lying will do
  • lying for the purpose of financial gain
    • okay I also don’t think that it needs to be intentional
  • lying which causes financial gain
    • I also think it can be the result of negligence, or recklessness
  • negligence or lying which results in financial gain

Hmm. I think it needs to capture that it harms the person being defrauded

  1. brainstorm elements of fraud
  • deception
  • financial gain
  • personal gain (?)
  • financial loss for victim
  • recklessness with regard to truth
  • intentional (?)
  • lying
  • false advertising
  • not living up to your claims

I think deception +/OR recklessness + financial gain + financial loss for victim = fraud

  1. look up meanings

Google dictionary:

wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.

This includes the concept of intent (which I suspect isn’t necessary for fraud)

Websters 1913:

Deception deliberately practiced with a view to gaining an unlawful or unfair advantage; artifice by which the right or interest of another is injured; injurious stratagem; deceit; trick.

The first one has the concept of intent: “practised with a view to gaining…advantage”. Also unlawful advantage. I don’t think fraud is just a legal concept though.

The second one doesn’t have the concept of intent: artifice by which another’s rights are injured. I like that one.

Ayn Rand —Ayn Rand Lexicon :

Fraud involves a similarly indirect use of force: it consists of obtaining material values without their owner’s consent, under false pretenses or false promises.

This doesn’t have the concept of intent. In this one it is the fact of obtaining material values under false pretence (and therefore without their owner’s consent), that makes it fraud.

So I think fraud differs from theft in that instead of using physical force to violate consent and obtain material values, consent is violated by the false pretenses (they consented to a non-existent situation which you caused the appearance of existing) or false promises (obligations, or conditions that they expected you to meet)

Rand’s one refers to obtaining material values. This is better than just financial gain, because one could obtain stock or property, or any other physical goods by fraud too.

I think this is the best one.

I think I was wrong when I said:

  • deception for the purpose of gaining a value
    • this isn’t specifically fraud though, I think fraud is about financial gain/harm?

I think it’s the deception part that differentiates fraud from theft.

859

So for Moxie: does it constitute fraud?

fraud is: obtaining material values under false pretense or false promises

Did Embodied Inc. obtain material values? Yes, they got money from their customers who purchased Moxie robots.

Did Embodied Inc. obtain this money under false pretense? I think it’s fair to say that a lot of their customers were massively dissappointed. This disappointment I think comes from the fact that they expected to be able to use their Moxie’s for as long as they liked (ignoring maintenance or replacement). I don’t think this disappointment is from naive or unreasonable expectations. So did their customers have reasonable expectations about how long they’d get to use their Moxie for? I think they did.

Would customers feel differently if it was made to clear to them when purchasing that the usability of the Moxie depended on the company staying in business? That in the event that they went out of business, that the moxie wouldn’t be usable at all, not even some more limited set of functions. I think they probably would.

I would feel a lot differently about buying a something if knew I couldn’t actually use it at all once the company went out of business.

It seems to me to hinge on whether I think it’s the companies responsibility to communicate that fact, or the buyer’s responsibility to consider the nature of the product they’re considering buying. I’m leaning toward the company not taking enough responsiblity, and leaning toward it being fraudulent, but I am undecided so far.

860

I think this isn’t wrong but it’s kind of abstract and could be hard to apply.

I think it’s good to mention negligence and recklessness. Those are important things that can differentiate a scenario from an honest mistake or accident, even when you can’t prove ill intent (proving intent is often hard, while negligence or recklessness can be easier to prove).

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861

Your list isn’t especially long and doesn’t have many speculative points (e.g. where you guess one or more potential facts about Embodied’s actions), so you may want to try to brainstorm more.

After that, the next step is more research. Try to:

  • Determine if some things you brainstormed are actually true (mostly applies to speculative points, although you could discover something you thought was a basic fact actually wasn’t.)
  • Find out new relevant facts, particularly bad actions by Embodied, but also basic context that has no obvious, direct relevance. (Basic context examples: Did Embodied have other products? Investors? When was the company started? When did the Moxie robot go on sale? Did they ever make a profit? Roughly how many employees did they have? You don’t have to answer all of these but you can probably find answers to some of them, and others, fairly easily. Finding some answers may lead to more questions and research directions, including ones more directly related to fraud.)
  • Get inspiration to help you add to your brainstorming list. When you read they did X (or learn more basic context) or read that a customer complained about Y, you might realize they may have done Y or Z, so you can add it to your list and do more research to find out.