copy edits and next steps

I think I got the plural "equilibria" right the first time, and ispell
"fixed" it

diff --git a/content/2020/book-review-the-origins-of-unfairness.md b/content/2020/book-review-the-origins-of-unfairness.md
index 06ddc0d..a9cb47b 100644 (file)
--- a/content/2020/book-review-the-origins-of-unfairness.md
+++ b/content/2020/book-review-the-origins-of-unfairness.md
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ Consider a population of agents that meet in pairs and play a complementary coor
 
 Of course, "women and men dancing" is just an illustrative example as far as the _theory_ is concerned: the "types" here are just opaque tags that separate otherwise-identical abstract agents into groups. In particular, types are _not_ strategies. In terms of the dancing game, the _strategies_ "lead" and "follow" can't be types: rather, the arbitrary "men" and "women" tags (which might as well be [suggestively-named Lisp tokens](https://www.readthesequences.com/Truly-Part-Of-You)) are a symmetry-breaking hack that lets us turn _many_ complementary coordination games (for _every pair_, who should lead?) into a _single_ correlative coordination game (for the whole population, are we using the "men lead" or the "women lead" convention?).
 
-Nor does there need to be a central "dance caller" who specifies which convention the population should follow. If strategies that are more successful are more frequently _imitated_ via social learning, conventions can arise from a process of cultural evolution: in a world where most men happen to lead, women learn to follow in order to have a successful dance, and the population gets swept in to the "men lead" convention. A convention's [basin of attraction](http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Basin_of_attraction) is the set of initial population conditions that lead to the evolution of that convention. When there are many possible equilibrium with roughly-equal-sized basins of attraction, the outcome is highly "conventional": things could have easily been otherwise given different initial conditions. (And can even be said to _contain more information_: "more possible outcomes" and "equally-probable outcomes" are what maximize [entropy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory)).) Situations with fewer, unequally-sized basins of attraction are more "functional": the outcome is mostly determined by the game itself.
+Nor does there need to be a central "dance caller" who specifies which convention the population should follow. If strategies that are more successful are more frequently _imitated_ via social learning, conventions can arise from a process of cultural evolution: in a world where most men happen to lead, women learn to follow in order to have a successful dance, and the population gets swept in to the "men lead" convention. A convention's [basin of attraction](http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Basin_of_attraction) is the set of initial population conditions that lead to the evolution of that convention. When there are many possible equilibria with roughly-equal-sized basins of attraction, the outcome is highly "conventional": things could have easily been otherwise given different initial conditions. (And can even be said to _contain more information_: "more possible outcomes" and "equally-probable outcomes" are what maximize [entropy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory)).) Situations with fewer, unequally-sized basins of attraction are more "functional": the outcome is mostly determined by the game itself.
 
 And that's where gender roles come from! In a Society facing complementary coordination problems in production, gender is _the symmetry-breaker around which conventions form_. And if skills need to be trained long before they get put into production, that shapes early socialization—in a Society where women do "women's work" to complement "men's work", they're raised to start practicing it as girls.
 
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ But having Something to Protect is the same thing as having something in danger.
 
 "Ultimately," she writes, "I will present a picture in which social justice is an endless battle. The forces of cultural evolution can pull populations towards inequity, and combating those forces requires constant vigilance." The book concludes, "The battle for social justice is against a hydra that grows a new head each time any one is cut off."
 
-When I imagine an intelligent arch-reactionary reading _Origins of Unfairness_ (perhaps [twiddling his mustache](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DastardlyWhiplash) during an hour of study between a 2:30 [dog-kicking appointment](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KickTheDog) and 4 o'clock [advocacy of a Trump _coup d'état_](https://blog.jim.com/politics/the-likely-shape-of-a-trump-autocoup/)), I see him nodding along thoughtfully at the lucid prose explaining the underlying game theory insights (in between cringing at the occasional Judith Butler and stereotype-threat cites). That man, in the service of callously protecting his personal power, might construe _Origins_ as "supporting" _his_ ideology.
+When I imagine an intelligent arch-reactionary reading _Origins of Unfairness_ (perhaps [twiddling his mustache](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DastardlyWhiplash) during an hour of study between a 2:30 [dog-kicking appointment](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KickTheDog) and 4 o'clock [advocacy of a Trump _coup d'état_](https://blog.jim.com/politics/the-likely-shape-of-a-trump-autocoup/)), I see him nodding along thoughtfully at the lucid prose explaining the underlying game theory insights (in between cringing at the occasional Judith Butler and stereotype-threat cites). That man, in the service of callously protecting his personal power and privilege, might construe _Origins_ as "supporting" _his_ ideology.
 
 "Bwah-ha-ha!" he laughs maniacally. "I already knew that feminism was doomed simply due to the nature and meaning of male and female—but I had no idea it was _further_ doomed as a result of the _cultural evolutionary game theory of complementary coordination problems!_ And this, from one of the corrupt leftist establishment's own scholaresses! Priceless!"
 

diff --git a/notes/post_ideas.txt b/notes/post_ideas.txt
index 0a7d7d1..3f41b12 100644 (file)
--- a/notes/post_ideas.txt
+++ b/notes/post_ideas.txt
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
-Book Review: Cailin O'Connor's 
-
-"I Tell Myself to Let the Story End"; Or, A Hill of Validity in Defense of Meaning
+_ "I Tell Myself to Let the Story End"; Or, A Hill of Validity ... (UUT)
+_ Contra Scott Alexander on Mental Illness; Or, Oh God, Please Don't (aAL/LW)
+_ Algorithmic Intent: A Hansonian Generalized Anti-Zombie Principle (LW)
 
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agalmatophilia "An important fantasy for some individuals is being transformed into the preferred object (such as a statue) and experiencing an associated state of immobility or paralysis."