Stuck in an Empty Tube
Embracing challenges. Hiding death, thinking on my time in Varanasi. Forensic accounting.
Embracing challenges: leaning into challenges
Hiding death, thinking on my time in Varanasi
Kanjun Qiu: Metascience, AI
Podcasting with Chris Stark (UK climate change committee), let me know any questions
Forensic accounting / possible fraud or not / Adani (short sell report); the G in ESG.
Links: AI Guide ⦿ things to do before you die - spend a night in an ancient grave ⦿ “getting”Minecraft ⦿ on benefits of remote work ⦿ day in a life of Philippe Stark.
I am sitting on a Tube train with its power cut. There is a person on the line further back, so the train line is down. JP and myself are the only passengers left. Everyone else left a while ago but we decline. JP wishes vehmently to stay.
Many people would find this annoying. We turn this on its head. We transform these moments into exhilaration. Or attempt to.
How special that we are the only ones left. How unique and unusual to be the only passengers. We can be ourselves and not disturb others.
“Wonderful, no humans” is a phrase JP has been known to deploy.
We quirkily move about being loud and joyful. No one to complain. No one to worry about. No stares. Only these moments.
We Wifi call home to listen to an exact form of an exact episode of an exact programme. This is the most exciting moment of the week perhaps of the year so far.
The train driver is kind and informative. We are allowed to stay.
An hour or so later (or 1 hour 24 minutes I am informed), the train powers up.
It’s somewhat trite to speak on mindfulness or living in the moment. It’s hard to turn adversity in your favour. These moments can and do happen. We can embrace them.
I record this moment in part as so many other moments of the last few weeks have instead been full of challenges. The world not working the way we want it, and an inability to change those (often social) aspects of the world that fit awkwardly with JP’s world view.
I checked in with Civic Futures this week. They aim:
“a one-year foundational programme to equip participants with the knowledge, skills, and support needed to become great public leaders. Fellows may already be working in politics or public life, or aspire to pursue a public role after the end of the programme. The programme is designed to be conducted alongside a full-time job.”
If it’s something you might be interested do get in touch with them. I view the idea as promising and the people behind it genuinely trying to do something positive. https://civicfuture.org/fellowship/
At least yearly, I come back to this photo and my sets of photos from when I travelled more.
I know nothing about him. I was 18. I was travelling for a few weeks in India. I had just made a long train journey to Varanasi (Benares) from Haridwar (via Delhi) on some notion of following the river Ganges.
Varanasi is considered (although people dispute dates) one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and has been important to the India region for over 2000 years, maybe more.
Some Hindus believe that dying here and being cremated along the Ganges river banks allows the cycle of rebirth to be broken. Many people come to Varanasi to die and stay in “salvation lodges”. BBC story here: https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20190617-indias-city-where-people-come-to-die
The city is known worldwide for its many ghats (wiki source), steps leading down the steep river bank to the water, where pilgrims perform rituals. Of particular note are the Dashashwamedh Ghat, the Panchganga Ghat, the Manikarnika Ghat, and the Harishchandra Ghat, the last two being where Hindus cremate their dead (wiki).
The picture below, I took from the river on the boat. (It’s Harishchandra Ghat.)
There could be much to say about Varanasi, but I dwell on this photo as the man who rowed me down the river Ganges with a particular thought to the cremation of the dead.
The dead were cremated continually. The river teemed with all kinds of human life (although the pollution is off-putting to many foreigners) so very busy, but with this rich life, you could not avoid that the river and the ghats were places for the rituals of the dead as well. To be by the river was to be reminded of death as well as life. The air itself struck you with the smells of cremation. Everyone knows people come here to die.
I mention this briefly in my recent play but I think it was a formative few days which let me absorb how every day living and every death were intertwined.
Death in this country for some time now (but not in its history) is much more hidden away. It’s not present in London the same way its present in Varanasi.
There are some photos from India (c. 1997) archived here on my blog (not ordered well) but still quite compelling snaps of the time.
I’m still thinking about this conversation with Kanjun Qiu, so I share it again with you. In part because what is happening with AI is going to be so important but it’s uncertain and in part because we had so many questions and only tentative answers.
Kanjun is co-founder and CEO of Generally Intelligent, an AI research company. She works on metascience ideas often with Michael Nielsen, a previous podcast guest. She’s a VC investor and co-hosts her own podcast for Generally Intelligent. She is part of building the Neighborhood, which is intergenerational campus in a square mile of central San Francisco. Generally Intelligent (as of podcast date ) are seeking great talent looking to work on AI.
We get a little nerdy on the podcast but we cover AI thinking, fears on rogue AI, and the breakthroughs of Chat AI. We discuss some of her latest ideas in meta science based on the work she has done with Michael Nielsen (previous podcast here) and what are the important questions we should be looking at.
We chat about the challenge of old institutions, the value of dance and creativity and why her friends use “to kanjun” as a verb.
We cover her ideas on models of trauma and why EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy) and cognitive therapies might work.
We discuss why dinosaurs didn’t develop more.
We chat around “what is meaning” and “what is the structure of knowledge”, what are the strengths and weakness of old institutions; culture vs knowledge vs history and other confusing questions.
Kanjun gives her advice on how to think about dance (dance like you are moving through molasses).
Dance is inside of you. It just needs to be unlocked.
We play underrated/overrated on: having agency, city planning, death of institutions, innovation agencies, high frequency trading; diversity
Kanjun thinks on how capitalism might want to be augmented and what excites Kanjun about AI and complex systems.
Kanjun asks me questions and I offer my critique on Effective Altruism. (Although Tyler Cowen more recently (link here Dec 2022) and philosopher Larry Temkin (podcast link here mid 2022) have deeper comments on this).
This is quirky long form conversation on a range of fascinating topics.
You must take all short seller reports with a good degree of skepticism. Short sellers have strong incentives to make fraud claims and they may turn out to be misguided. But, the details in them should make fascinating reading for anyone interested in fraud, forensic accounting and by extension “ESG-related” thinking. (This time mostly G).
On “getting” Minecraft
On things to do before you die - spend a night in an ancient barrow / grave…. and sing with (?)