Merge branch 'main' of github.com:davidgasquez/handbook

Datathons.md

@@ -59,3 +59,4 @@
 - [Humyn](https://app.humyn.ai/)
 - [DrivenData](https://www.drivendata.org/competitions/)
 - [Xeek](https://xeek.ai/challenges)
+- [Cryptopond](https://cryptopond.xyz/)

Decentralized Protocols.md

@@ -27,3 +27,31 @@
 - When building a technology, consider: [does this centralize or decentralize power?](https://geohot.github.io/blog/jekyll/update/2021/01/18/technology-without-industry.html)
 - Many decentralized protocols are trying to build next generation common digital infrastructure.
   - Unfortunately,[nearly every crypto project realized that they could capture value (make a lot of money) with innovative tokenomics that looked a lot like Ponzis, or at least borderline securities fraud](https://andrewconner.com/common-digital-infrastructure/).
+
+## Types of Decentralization
+
+There are [three distinct types of decentralization](https://medium.com/@VitalikButerin/the-meaning-of-decentralization-a0c92b76a274):
+
+- **Architectural decentralization**: How many physical computers make up the system and how many can fail before the system stops working.
+- **Political decentralization**: How many individuals or organizations control those computers.
+- **Logical decentralization**: Whether the interface and data structures look like a single monolithic system or can be split into independent parts.
+
+A system can be:
+
+- Decentralized in some aspects but centralized in others (e.g., blockchains are politically and architecturally decentralized but logically centralized).
+- Architecturally decentralized but politically centralized (e.g., many companies running on AWS).
+- Politically decentralized but architecturally centralized (e.g., some formal democracies).
+
+## Why Decentralization Matters
+
+[Decentralization provides three key benefits](https://medium.com/@VitalikButerin/the-meaning-of-decentralization-a0c92b76a274):
+
+- **Fault tolerance**: Systems are less likely to fail accidentally because they rely on many separate components.
+- **Attack resistance**: Systems are more expensive to attack because they lack sensitive central points.
+- **Collusion resistance**: It's harder for participants to collude in ways that benefit them at the expense of others.
+
+However, decentralization is not a silver bullet:
+
+- Common mode failures can still affect decentralized systems (e.g., all nodes running the same client software with a bug).
+- Pure economic models sometimes show that decentralization doesn't matter for security.
+- There's a paradox between fostering good coordination (e.g., quick protocol upgrades) while preventing harmful coordination (e.g., 51% attacks).

Journaling.md

@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
 - [[Writing]] on a regular basis may allow for repeated exposure to your old memories, which will help you get rid of your negative emotional responses.
 - **Premeditatio Malorum**. By imagining the worst case scenario ahead of time, you could overcome the fear of negative experiences and make better plans to prevent them.
 - [Journaling is a tool you can use to better manage your mental health](https://nesslabs.com/dear-diary).
-- There are many methods. Start with a simple one like "What worked, what didn't, what's next".
+- There are many methods. Start with a simple one like "what you worked on, what you learned, what didn't work, and what you want to try next".
 - Weekly Review:
   - [Review what happened during the week](https://www.benkuhn.net/weekly/). How did the week go? Write down a list of topics to think about and take written notes on each topic as you think about them.
   - Review a set of recurrent prompts. Tweak them over time. For example:

Large Language Models.md

@@ -3,12 +3,19 @@
 - LLM can build internal [[Knowledge Graphs]] in their the network layers.
 - LLM models shine in the kinds of situations where “good enough is good enough”.
 - ML system where humans are designing how the information is organized (feature engineering, linking, graph building) will scale poorly ([the bitter lesson](http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html)).
+- English is becoming the hottest new programming language. [Use it](https://addyo.substack.com/p/the-70-problem-hard-truths-about).
+- [LLMs may not yet have human-level depth, but they already have vastly superhuman breadth](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42625851).
+- Learning to prompt is similar to learning to search in a search engine (people have to develop a sense of how and what to search for).
 
 ## Coding Tips
 
 - Use comments to guide the model to do what you want.
+- Describe the problem very clearly and effectively.
 - Divide the problem into smaller problems (functions, classes, ...) and solve them one by one.
-- English is becoming the hottest new programming language. [Use it](https://addyo.substack.com/p/the-70-problem-hard-truths-about).
+- Start with a template you like to bootstrap your project and setup all the necessary toolings and following a manageable project pattern.
+- Before coding, make the plan with the model.
+- Make the model ask you more questions to refine the ideas.
+- Take advantage of the fact that [redoing work is extremely cheap](https://crawshaw.io/blog/programming-with-llms).
 
 ## Agents
 

Plurality.md

@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+# Plurality
+
+- [Plurality is a political philosophy and framework](https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2024/08/21/plurality.html) that seeks to create mechanisms for large-scale cooperation while preserving diversity and autonomy.
+  - Plurality stands between [[Governance|Technocracy]] and [[Decentralized Autonomous Organizations|Libertarianism]], offering a third way that emphasizes connections between individuals and groups.
+  - Plurality recognizes that there is no single model that can explain the world perfectly, and we should use a combination of different models instead.
+- Key ideas of [Plurality](https://www.plurality.net/):
+  - [[Identity]] should be intersectional and social, using the entire set of a person's actions and interactions to determine trustworthiness.
+  - [[Governance]] mechanisms should count uncorrelated signals additively but correlated signals with diminishing returns.
+  - [[Organizations|Organizations]] should allow different degrees of membership, not just true-or-false.
+  - Local currencies and property rights can coexist with global mechanisms for cooperation.
+- Plurality technologies include:
+  - [Polis](https://pol.is/home) for large-scale conversations that identify consensus across different viewpoints.
+  - Community Notes that surface content rated highly by people who disagree on other topics.
+  - Message Checker and other user-facing tools that protect users while preserving autonomy.
+  - Quadratic funding and other mechanisms that subsidize collaboration between different groups.
+- Plurality is compatible with:
+  - Exponential technological growth, by designing property rights that force rising tides to lift all boats.
+  - Valuing excellence and expertise, through mechanisms like prediction markets with per-person subsidies.
+  - Local experimentation in social media, blockchain ecosystems, and local government.

Politics.md

@@ -39,6 +39,15 @@
 - Absolute laws affect problems that are context dependent. The goal is to minimize misery.
 - [Everyone has a strong pressure toward believing a political story where the agents of positive change are things and people that they can personally relate to. E.g: a lawyer might think that the best way to solve a problem is to sue someone, a programmer might think that the best way to solve a problem is to make open source software for it.](https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/vitalik-buterin-techno-optimism/)
 - Governments usually don't have a great view into the [[Open Data|data]]. They can't look at the city's economy, energy, climate, and infrastructure in one glance. If they could, [even if poor governing decisions were made, it would be easier to see the impact and optimize them](https://magis.substack.com/p/simcity-and-data-commons).
+- [Central planning](https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2018/11/25/central_planning.html) and interventionism should be evaluated by counting "knobs" (adjustable parameters) rather than measuring absolute magnitude of intervention.
+  - Simple systems with fewer knobs are desirable because they:
+    - Have fewer points of failure.
+    - Are less likely to overfit to specific contexts.
+    - Are more resistant to corruption and special interests.
+    - Can more easily achieve legitimacy through comprehensibility.
+  - There's a difference between redundant complexity (many parts serving similar goals) and optimizing complexity (one knob per problem).
+  - What seems "simple" is often just familiar - cultural context and shared historical experience shape our perception of complexity.
+  - [[Systems|System design]] should balance mathematical/technical approaches with historical/anthropological learning to avoid extreme conservatism or dangerous utopianism.
 
 ## [Voting Theory](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/D6trAzh6DApKPhbv4/a-voting-theory-primer-for-rationalists)