@Randy Gage apologies for failing to Fetch this weekend. I will resume Fetching this week.

I haven't read yet, but one bit of preliminary feedback: SO is a common abbreviation of "significant other" on the internet. Even though you established the terminology in the first paragraph, my mind still jumped to "significant other" in the second paragraph. Particularly since you mentioned relationships towards the end of the first paragraph.

Finally got a chance to read. I'll put this on the blog as well. I think your description of group one could be more sympathetic. I think the current framing is missing a portion of that group, and will cause them to dig their heels in even further. As aspiring members of group three, I think we need to try to understand the members of the other groups in order to lift them up. Group two seems pretty easy to understand. But group one is a bit more varied. "It seems too complicated or scary" excludes the portion that **hate** AI. You could lump them in with 'scary', but I don't think that's productive. This portion sees AI as catastrophic. They see the negative impact of data centers, whether real or imagined. Job loss. Deception. Enshittification. Slop. And, of course, Skynet. They don't see personalized medicine, rapid creation of treatment, capabilities for the disabled, democratization of software and knowledge, solutions for energy and pollution. I'm hoping that as we start to see those harder problems get solved, that these people will start to change their tune. Group one will be the hardest to convince, the easiest to ostracize, and likely most beneficial to convert. Perhaps I'm missing the point, but that stood out to me. Here are a couple concepts that I thought about while reading that I think you'd find interesting: - NPC - non-playable character = the title for a character in a video game that is not the player. They typically have a predetermined path and predetermined dialogue. Typically used to described people who just go through the motions in life. - gradient descent - this is an algorithmic concept that is used heavily in AI, but also applies to evolution as well. Imagine you're on a square plane with hills and valleys. Your goal is to find the deepest valley, but you cannot see the whole plane at once. If you find a valley, it is unclear whether it is the deepest one or not. Staying in that valley is comfortable and requires no energy. You need to be jolted out of that small valley to continue your search and find the valley that is truly the deepest. Your "...moment a person develops enough self-awareness..." reminded me of that.

I meant it as more of a shout out than a call out 😅. I'm glad it was well received. This sounds really cool! It sounds like it solves some of the Skool weirdness. Jake Van Clief is doing some interesting things with the leaderboard in his group, Clief notes. That might give you some ideas.

Cool, thanks for sharing. I'll check it out.

Can you expand on 'Distribution beats perfection every time'? I've had difficulty with perfectionism, but I haven't heard that angle before. Also, which martial arts? I'm a combat sports fan.