there's a concept that i've been thinking about which are the natural ways in which new iterations of information are created. let's start with a standard one, which is simply the scientific method. it goes something like 1. observe a connection between a cause and an effect 2. simulate the cause 3. measure how reliably it causes the effect This is a very easy process to internalize and can be applied to almost anything. What other iterations of information can there be? Well, there's a few around scale. If we talk about scale of frequency, for example, we might take a particular piece of knowledge (rabbits eat grass) and ask ourselves about the potential effects if the frequency was at an extreme low or an extreme high. The effects of this are obvious - rabbits might eat grass, but if there were rabbits eating grass very frequently, then something would likely happen, like the grass running out and the rabbits dying. We can combine this with another type of scaling - reactivity. One might think that that, if rabbits were eating grass very frequently, then all the grass would run out. However, depending on the circumstances, this might not happen. It's fairly likely that there are types of grass that rabbits cannot eat, maybe due to a lack of ability to digess this grass, or maybe the grass is poisonous, or maybe the grass is in difficult to access places. Whatever the reason, there's a decent chance that there's only a type of grass that would die out and that types of grass that rabbits couldn't eat it would thrive. One might think that that's as far as you need to to think about it, but of course, there's a natural reaction on the part of the rabbits as well. These cycles are well understood under the concepts of positive and negative feedback loops, which results as a natural awareness of the compressability of repeating sequences but i digress. what am I curious about creating here? Fundamentally, I think it's fasincating to observe the types of inferences that people can make reliably that can be meaningfully useful. there's a scene in the show silicon valley, where a vc is given a mcdonalds cheeseburger and notices sesame seeds on the burger. the vc then gets sucked into an internal investigation about the source of sesame seeds on the burger, which seems pointless until he points out that he's discovered that a prime source of sesame seeds is in a particular country, where the sesame seeds won't be able to grow in a certain year. this vc uses this information to purchase some other sesame seed business in another country and predicts that they'll be able to make tons of money that year. now, this is obviously artificially constructed for a TV show, but these kinds of inferances aren't unreasonable or insane. we can break down the details of his train of thought. He notices a minor detail of a mcdonalds burger, which he knows is a massive business and, naturally, concludes that the demand for sesame seeds must be massive. he investigates the pipeline for sesame seeds and noticies that the supply chain is not very diverse and naturally guesses that it would be fragile. Then he simply looks to see what's disrupted that supply chain in the past and checks to see if there's potential for something similar in the future. The first part that kicks off the train of thought is the inference of scale that i mentioned before. The next few steps of suspicion are fairly natural, albeit economically minded. the show presents itself as a genius move, but really it's just a chain of 4 questions, questions that anyone can learn to ask in a generalized format. the above example is interesting since it naturally goes into a perspective that is contextually focused. the first question indicates awareness about the effects that come with scale, but the follow up questions are clearly economics questions. I would never ask about the pipeline for sesame seeds since I have no interest in buying shares in some sesame seed company for the money, but i would be curious about whether community leaders have considered the effects of scale affect co-ops that have rapid growth. it's valuable to note that this kind of information building primarily consists of asking questions and seeking out answers. The ideal place to do this is in the real world, since there can always be factors that you're unaware of, but let's consider this tool in a different way - for writing fiction. You might start simple in a piece of fiction with something like "i want my story to be set in a world with laser swords", which sounds almost naively simple, but then you start asking the above questions and all of a sudden, you start getting world building that feels very focused on realism. for example, if laser swords exist, then does everyone have them? are there arguments about laser sword control? what situations are they useful for when there are guns? what are other uses for laser swords besides fighting? what does that say about the technology that exists in this? what are the different ways that people might react to seeing a laser sword or fighting against one? Empathy is a valuable resource here, cause you want to imagine how people would react different from you. Some people would think they're cool and powerful. Some other people might think they're dangerous. Others still might try to eliminate them because they can't use them. Dune deals with laser guns in a really fun way. It admits that they exist, but they point out that there's a danger to using them (if they interact with a shield, they cause explosions). This creates an interesting system where they can be used sometimes, but not other times. This also creates an interesting system where people have to be trained in hand to hand combat, which can penetrate shields. The could have just hand waved it and said "they're dangerous", but they didn't and the world building is richer for that. in a completely different direction, liar game also does this, despite the fact that it's set in a completely modern, realistic setting. many of the games are manipulated by people who simply ask themselves, "what is everyone else probably thinking with this game and how can I exploit that".