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Tue Feb 4 06:00:01 EST 2020 ======================================== Slept from ten to six-thirty without waking. Colder. Mostly cloudy. Highs in the mid 30s. North winds 5 to 15 mph. Work ---------------------------------------- - Work on Postfix smarthost playbook Done. - Review invoices Done. - Move VM greetings from Gab to Bag Done. Twenty-minute walk at lunch. Gray. Cooler. Worked late. Home ---------------------------------------- https://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0003uY<Paste> > Pessimal is a word my housemate (Ludwell Sibley) and I concocted around 1963 at Stanford; it is the opposite of optimal. It was my response to economisting (see my Beautiful Evidence on economisting) theories that claim some sort of optimal outcomes (usually in a narrow, theoretical sense). That, in turn, led to the mocking phrase "Pareto pessimal" to make fun at optimality claims, probably as a response to reading Buchanan and Tullock. Similar play to encourage a bit of skepticism about statistical estimation theory: instead of "Least Squares Estimators," "Most Squares Estimators." > > It is also my story about how the Earth ends: that local optimizing (local maximization of local interests) eventually adds up, via a massive accumulation of externalities and unanticipated consequences, to global pessimizing. Global warming might work along those lines. Or when too many Dear Leaders go thermonuclear. Or perhaps some hints in the recent financial crash, as fiercely local optimizers aggregated to a big screw-up. > > More grandly: locally competitive evolution and locally competitive markets, which, while producing locally optimal outcomes (at least in our theory-dreams), lead to globally lousy results. Seeds of their own destruction and so on. This is also an answer to the Fermi Paradox "Where are they?", where they = extraterrestrial intelligence. Thus the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has been unsuccessful because ETI's have blown themselves up before they were able to spread, conquer, or communicate successfully with other intelligence beings. So it goes. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pessimum https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pessimum > the least favorable environmental condition under which an organism can survive Vacuumed, watered plants. Watched a couple episodes of Sex Education on Netflix. Servings: grains 5/6, fruit 3/4, vegetables 4/4, dairy 2/2, meat 2/3, nuts 0.5/0.5 Breakfast: peanut butter toast, banana, orange, celery, tomato, an egg Brunch: bagel with cream cheese, coffee Lunch: yogurt, apple, carrots Dinner: Thai 133/80

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