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I’m curious btw, how did you hear about Veritula?

I believe I came across it while exploring your blog. My ‘Popperian Wikipedia’ idea was particularly sharp in my mind in that moment, so I was very excited to see how you had set things up here. I think a tremendous amount of it is transferable.

My vision is for an online encyclopedia that contains complete articles describing the totality of a perspective, with articles for alternate explanations readily available. I see many problems with this idea but I think it is worth exploring.

Me, too. I think Veritula’s design allows for this pretty naturally since the topic of a discussion can be general enough for various competing ideas to be posted in the discussion.

Veritula emphasises making one point at a time for ease of criticism and discussion, which is useful in a forum but makes absorbing the totality of an idea a little more tedious compared to a quick glance at an encyclopedia article. (It is possible I have misunderstood some aspect of Veritula here.)

Me, too. I think Veritula’s design allows for this pretty naturally since the topic of a discussion can be general enough for various competing ideas to be posted in the discussion.

One thing that Wikipedia articles are very good for is providing well-structured information on a given subject. Discussion threads are not so well structured (the order of information is not based on how high-level or foundational it is, like an encyclopedia entry would be, but rather on the nested chronology of whatever discussion happened to take place.)

Would it be possible / worth it to produce a competitor to Wikipedia based on Popperian epistemology?

Yes, sure.

The idea of having a Wikipedia equivalent that presents high quality competing articles detailing different alternative explanations for things (with some sort of versioning and methods of criticism) excites me greatly.

Me, too. I think Veritula’s design allows for this pretty naturally since the topic of a discussion can be general enough for various competing ideas to be posted in the discussion.

We ‘just’ need to get more users. As I wrote in #628, posting a breaking news story could work. If users submit ideas on events as they unfold and then criticize those ideas, visitors see what’s happening at a glance. It could be easier for them to know which ideas they can adopt than on conventional news channels or even Wikipedia, IMO.

There are also ‘timeless’ debates that have been going on for decades where Veritula can offer clarity. Like on the abortion debate. People shouldn’t have to keep debating that over and over when it’s a matter where objective truth can be found and then acted on.

I have thought of producing something like this myself, which was part of what drew me to Veritula.

I’m curious btw, how did you hear about Veritula?

Wait, I've probably misunderstood but in #2228 it seemed like you thought pruning was needed for scarcity, which is needed for competition between ideas and their evolution.

And you equated pruning with the meta algorithm.

And now you say the meta algorithm/pruning is not needed for the evolution of ideas?

And now you say the meta algoritm/pruning is not needed for the evolution of ideas?

Right. Pruning helps it along but isn’t strictly required. You may be misunderstanding natural selection. It is merely “the non-random differential reproduction of genes.” (From The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.) More generally, it’s the non-random differential reproduction of replicators, including ideas.

In other words, selection in and of itself doesn’t even imply that any individual replicator dies (though in practice, they usually do). It just means there’s a difference in the rate of reproduction between different replicators. That difference arises without any pruning.

And you equated pruning with the meta algorithm.

I did not equate them. I said in #2263 that the meta algorithm does the pruning: “When I say ‘pruning’, I’m referring to a specific mechanism of a meta algorithm in the mind.”

I went ahead and implemented this feature since it was a good suggestion.

You can edit your discussion here.

I started a discussion earlier, and what I wrote in the “about” section of the discussion was not written well. I would like to revise it. Is this possible? If not, is there an intention to make this possible eventually?

Would it be possible / worth it to produce a competitor to Wikipedia based on Popperian epistemology? Larry Sanger (a founder of Wikipedia) has said that he now thinks Wikipedia should have competing articles on the same topic to allow for the fact that people disagree.

The idea of having a Wikipedia equivalent that presents high quality competing articles detailing different alternative explanations for things (with some sort of versioning and methods of criticism) excites me greatly.

I have thought of producing something like this myself, which was part of what drew me to Veritula.

Please see #2298 for a link to an article outlining various other reasons for getting sunlight. Vitamin D is not the only reason to get sunlight (or some artificial equivalent).

Thank you for sharing. Skimming his content, I’m not finding any criticisms of the biological explanations I currently hold that reject polyunsaturated fats. I will dig deeper later on.

I haven’t yet found good criticisms of Ray Peat’s ideas regarding unsaturated fats, so those are the ideas I am currently living by.

Welcome to Veritula, Benjamin. Yes, the number may need to go up in the future.

Are you thinking of sun exposure to get enough vitamin D?

To be sure, I’m not a doctor, but because I have very fair skin, every dermatologist I’ve ever talked to has advised me to avoid the sun and instead take vitamin D supplements.

I want to live in places that are mostly sunny, most of the time. This is for health reasons.

You may want to check out Instagram account jacbfoods. He used to be opposed to seed oils, but when he got his master’s degree in dietetics, he changed his mind.

I could have multiple homes around the world that I move between throughout the year. This way I can make the most of geographical and seasonal advantages of different places.

Ideally I would live at some altitude, for health reasons.

I want to live somewhere with a more libertarian culture than average. I want to live somewhere where property rights are respected more than average, and people are left alone by the government more than average.

I live in places that are mostly sunny, most of the time. This is for health reasons.

I want access to good quality food, particularly good quality meat, dairy, and fruit. Ideally the place I live has a growing culture of eating well (for example, in Austin, many restaurants are now making it a point not to use any seed oils in their cooking.)

I want to live close to thriving cities (say, no more than 60 minutes away on an average day).

I could have multiple homes around the world, which I can move between throughout the year. This way I can make the most of geographical and seasonal advantages of different places.

I want superior water quality for drinking, bathing, etc.

This means I need to live somewhere sufficiently advanced to be able to provide and service high quality reverse-osmosis water filters. Otherwise I would need to be somewhere that I can directly access spring water, which I think is much more difficult.