In Defense of Ambition

Photo by Josh Behunin on Unsplash

Until about a week ago, when I debated this with my friend Tom Hyde, it seemed incredibly obvious to me that wanting to be rich is rational but I could not explain why. Fundamentally I agree with Popper and Deutsch that all life is problem solving. Throwing a birthday party is solving a problem, and so is stopping an asteroid that is heading toward Earth. But is not having a mansion on Lake Como a problem? Is not being immortal a problem? How do we decide between these?

The lone scientist obsessed with some theoretical problem strikes most people as weird. How can someone toil for 30 years on a problem, living on a modest salary, without any desire to accumulate massive wealth? According to the Popperian view above, that is completely rational. The scientist is fully engrossed in problem solving.

If that is true, why am I and most people so drawn to solving my problem of not having a mansion on Lake Como, driving a Bugatti hypercar, or overlooking the skyline of NYC from a Billionaires’ Row apartment? Status plays a part, but I think I’d want these things even if nobody knew about them.

I think the two reasons are:

1. Wealth is the repertoire of things you can do. I can likely only experience these things with incredible wealth. They are a symbol of that repertoire. Some of my desires I know already, like the mansion. Most I don’t know yet. Future desires are unknowable, thus attaining wealth allows me to solve problems in the future I don’t know I’ll have.
   1. This is the antithesis to the famous fisherman story (a businessman advises a fisherman to scale up his business so he can retire and fish). The story contains the assumption that the fisherman already knows the problem he wants to solve. However, the fisherman might want to travel the world, build a school, research AI, explore space.
   2. Imagine a person 1000 years ago. They might only want better food, safer shelter, a healthy family, or perhaps a larger farm. But if they knew these things existed, they would desire flying across the Atlantic, playing table tennis, or listening to recorded music.
   3. There are clear limits to this theory. Just because I’m a septillionaire doesn’t mean I get a cure for cancer. The fundamental limitation remains the knowledge.
2. Beauty is accumulated knowledge. These experiences—the lake mansion, the hypercar, the best view of the most awe-inspiring skyline humanity has forged—are objects of incredible beauty. They are products of accumulated human knowledge. So desiring beauty is a form of desire to experience knowledge. Deutsch argues beauty is objective and improves like science. But beauty doesn’t look like a problem we need to solve. Why do we seek it out?

So how ambitious should you be? In the startup world there is this famous saying that “Starting a company is always hard and it’s about equally hard no matter what you do.” Bigger problems are riskier, but a bigger vision lets you raise more money and hire better people, which reduces the risk. So why not solve the problem people pay the most for? Or should you only be guided by curiosity, as that drive likely carries some latent knowledge about what society wants or where the most interesting gaps are? I don’t know. I suspect it is best to follow a mix of these strategies. Whatever the right mix is, I don’t think ambition is bounded.

The child who grows up knowing they will inherit several large companies might aim to build an even bigger one, while the child of, say, a cashier might aim to be a cashier. Each is working from a conjecture about what is within reach, formed from what they see the people around them do. It only gets criticized if the child asks whether they could do what someone like Elon Musk did, or something nobody has done before. That is why optimism matters for ambition. It says the only limit is what we don’t yet know.

Alexandr Wang recently said “Humans will dream bigger and bigger. Kids will dream of having their own star systems.” I think that is true. And one day kids will dream of owning several galaxies. We don’t yet know what we’d want after that. Human dreams, desire, and our future are infinite.

#5970·​Moritz Wallawitsch, 16 days ago

web-haptics: Haptic Feedback Finally Comes to iOS Safari

Photo by Andrew Kliatskyi on Unsplash

lochie just published a package bringing haptic feedback to the web on iOS: web-haptics. I spent four years at Apple working mostly on UIs, so I pay close attention to design and UX. In terms of presentation, use case, and attention to detail, this package comes as close to perfect as I’ve seen.

The problem

On Android, haptics have been available through navigator.vibrate(), but iOS does not support this API. There is a workaround, though – the input element with the switch attribute:

1

html

<input type="checkbox" switch>

See this switch input in action here. On iOS, the input renders not as a regular checkbox but as a switch that can be toggled on or off:

Open the link on your iPhone, tap the switch, and you’ll feel haptic feedback. As far as I know, this is currently the only known practical workaround to trigger haptic feedback on the web in iOS.

Implementation

lochie cleverly bases his package on this single workaround and pushes it to its limits. The key lines are here, creating a switch input on the fly:

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js (rendered as javascript)

const hapticCheckbox = document.createElement("input");
hapticCheckbox.type = "checkbox";
hapticCheckbox.setAttribute("switch", "");

The package also creates an associated label and clicks it to trigger haptic feedback on the connected input:

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js (rendered as javascript)

this.hapticLabel.click();

(My understanding is that iOS will not trigger the haptic feedback when the input is programmatically clicked – so the ‘workaround within the workaround’ is to click the associated label instead.)

Custom haptics (!)

But web-haptics can do more than just trigger a single haptic ‘pulse’. The trigger function lets you pass in your own patterns with pulses of different duration and intensity, and even delays.

Want a simple success haptic? Trigger two pulses, as shown on the package homepage:

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js (rendered as javascript)

trigger([
  { duration: 30 },
  { delay: 60, duration: 40, intensity: 1 },
])

Or simply call trigger('success') as a shortcut.

Here’s an error haptic I made based on Apple’s human interface guidelines:

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js (rendered as javascript)

trigger([
  { duration: 40, intensity: 0.7 },
  { delay: 40, duration: 40, intensity: 0.7 },
  { delay: 40, duration: 40, intensity: 0.9 },
  { delay: 40, duration: 50, intensity: 0.6 },
])

lochie’s website even gives you an editor to make custom haptics. As you click and drag, both pulses and code update in real time. This experience is developer bliss:

Usage

Importing the package is easy. In Rails, for example:

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rb (rendered as ruby)

# config/importmap.rb
pin "web-haptics", to: "https://esm.sh/web-haptics@0.0.6"

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js (rendered as javascript)

import { WebHaptics } from 'web-haptics';

// In a Stimulus controller somewhere
let haptics = new WebHaptics();
haptics.trigger('success'); // or 'error', 'warning', etc for built-in haptics
haptics.trigger([
  { duration: 40, intensity: 0.7 },
  { delay: 40, duration: 40, intensity: 0.7 },
])

Pass a debug option to the constructor to hear clicks in development/on desktop:

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js (rendered as javascript)

new WebHaptics({ debug: true });

Again, this package comes as close to perfect as I’ve seen. In fact, I already use it on Veritula: as you type in a text field, an error haptic plays when you exceed the max length (#4473).

I highly recommend web-haptics by lochie.

Read more

#6096·​Dennis Hackethal revised 2 days ago

web-haptics: Haptic Feedback Finally Comes to iOS Safari

lochie just published a package bringing haptic feedback to the web: ‘web-haptics’. I spent four years at Apple working mostly on UIs, so I pay close attention to design and UX. In terms of presentation, use case, and attention to detail, this package comes as close to perfect as I’ve seen.

The problem

On Android, haptics have been available through navigator.vibrate(), but iOS does not support this API. There is a workaround, though – the input element with the switch attribute:

1

html

<input type="checkbox" switch>

See this switch input in action here. On iOS, the input renders not as a regular checkbox but as a switch that can be toggled on or off:

Open the link on your iPhone, tap the switch, and you’ll feel haptic feedback. As far as I know, this is currently the only known practical workaround to trigger haptic feedback on the web in iOS.

Implementation

lochie cleverly bases his package on this single workaround and pushes it to its limits. The key lines are here, creating a switch input on the fly:

1
2
3

js (rendered as javascript)

const hapticCheckbox = document.createElement("input");
hapticCheckbox.type = "checkbox";
hapticCheckbox.setAttribute("switch", "");

The package also creates an associated label and clicks it to trigger haptic feedback on the connected input:

1

js (rendered as javascript)

this.hapticLabel.click();

(My understanding is that iOS will not trigger the haptic feedback when the input is programmatically clicked – so the ‘workaround within the workaround’ is to click the associated label instead.)

Custom haptics (!)

But web-haptics can do more than just trigger a single haptic ‘pulse’. The trigger function lets you pass in your own patterns with pulses of different duration and intensity, and even delays.

Want a simple success haptic? Trigger two pulses, as shown on the package homepage:

1
2
3
4

js (rendered as javascript)

trigger([
  { duration: 30 },
  { delay: 60, duration: 40, intensity: 1 },
])

Or simply call trigger('success') as a shortcut.

Here’s an error haptic I made based on Apple’s human interface guidelines:

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2
3
4
5
6

js (rendered as javascript)

trigger([
  { duration: 40, intensity: 0.7 },
  { delay: 40, duration: 40, intensity: 0.7 },
  { delay: 40, duration: 40, intensity: 0.9 },
  { delay: 40, duration: 50, intensity: 0.6 },
])

lochie’s website even gives you an editor to make custom haptics. As you click and drag, both pulses and code update in real time. This experience is developer bliss:

Usage

Importing the package is easy. In Rails, for example:

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2

rb (rendered as ruby)

# config/importmap.rb
pin "web-haptics", to: "https://esm.sh/web-haptics@0.0.6"

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js (rendered as javascript)

import { WebHaptics } from 'web-haptics';

// In a Stimulus controller somewhere
let haptics = new WebHaptics();
haptics.trigger('success'); // or 'error', 'warning', etc for built-in haptics
haptics.trigger([
  { duration: 40, intensity: 0.7 },
  { delay: 40, duration: 40, intensity: 0.7 },
])

Pass a debug option to the constructor to hear clicks in development/on desktop:

1

js (rendered as javascript)

new WebHaptics({ debug: true });

Again, this package comes as close to perfect as I’ve seen. In fact, I already use it on Veritula: as you type in a text field, an error haptic plays when you exceed the max length (#4473).

I highly recommend web-haptics by lochie.

Read more

#4509·​Dennis Hackethal, 8 months ago

This rules out partial understanding. I understand aspects of how capitalism works even though I couldn’t build a faithful simulation of a capitalist economy. Not having programmed preference formation doesn’t show that Popper understood nothing about it. What specific part did he fail to understand?

#6078·​Moritz Wallawitsch, 7 days ago·​AI-assisted

This rules out partial understanding. I understand aspects of how capitalism works even though I couldn’t build a faithful simulation of a capitalist economy. Not having programmed preference formation doesn’t show that Popper understood nothing about it. What specific part did he fail to understand?

#6078·​Moritz Wallawitsch, 7 days ago·​AI-assisted

How do we decide which test is more severe? That judgment seems to do the work of forming the preference here. The criticism tree records the judgment, but what explains how we reach it?

#6080·​Moritz Wallawitsch, 7 days ago·​AI-assisted

  Dennis Hackethal updated discussion ‘Sleep’.

Short videos prevent the depth of explanation that long-form content can provide.

#6087·​Moritz WallawitschOP, 5 days ago·​AI-assisted

Personalized short-video feeds such as TikTok, Reels and YouTube Shorts are better at serving curiosity than fixed, long-form films. They adapt to your interests instead of fixing a sequence.

#6082·​Moritz WallawitschOP, 7 days ago·​AI-assisted

People sometimes keep watching these feeds while also wanting to stop. That conflicts with the claim that the feed is serving their interests.

#6085·​Moritz WallawitschOP, 6 days ago·​AI-assisted

Personalized short-video feeds such as TikTok, Reels and YouTube Shorts are better at serving curiosity than fixed, long-form films. They adapt to your interests instead of fixing a sequence.

#6082·​Moritz WallawitschOP, 7 days ago·​AI-assisted

Recommendation engines optimize engagement and time spent, not curiosity. Engagement is not always curiosity.

#6083·​Moritz WallawitschOP, 7 days ago·​AI-assisted

Personalized short-video feeds such as TikTok, Reels and YouTube Shorts are better at serving curiosity than fixed, long-form films. They adapt to your interests instead of fixing a sequence.

#6082·​Moritz WallawitschOP, 7 days ago·​AI-assisted

Good q. I think it would depend on the tests. For example, idea C could say: ‘Both A and B fail a test, but test 1 is more severe than test 2, so A is preferable.’

#5948·​Dennis Hackethal, 18 days ago

Preference formation is a computational task. (#5255) To claim we’ve understood a computational task, we must have programmed it (Deutsch). Popper never programmed it, so he didn’t understand it.

(To his credit though, he got pretty technical in defining verisimilitude, logical vs. empirical content, etc.)

#5256·​Dennis Hackethal, 3 months ago

Preference formation is a computational task. (#5255) To claim we’ve understood a computational task, we must have programmed it (Deutsch). Popper never programmed it, so he didn’t understand it.

(To his credit though, he got pretty technical in defining verisimilitude, logical vs. empirical content, etc.)

#5256·​Dennis Hackethal, 3 months ago