In fact our cousins in the Maruesas developed a form of counting that combined binary with a traditional decimal system. Just like English has a few special words like a dozen for 12 and a score for 20, the Mangarevan language has special words for large groups. But their special counting words are all decimal numbers multiplied by powers of two, which are 1, 2, 4, 8 … . Specifically, takau equals 10; paua equals 20; tataua, 40; and varu, 80. Those big numbers are useful for keeping track of collections of valuable items, such as coconuts, that come in large numbers. Bender and Beller realized that the Mangarevan counting system makes it possible to use binary arithmetic for calculations of large numbers, they report today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in a paper that even nonexperts will enjoy reading. https://www.science.org/content/article/polynesians-may-have-invented-binary-math

@Russell Leggett Totally agree here, I'd love to see more discourse and imagination around this topic. I've been collecting various essays/resources on anti-colonial/post-colonial computing, if there's interest I can definitely organize and share them more formally! (and I'd love to gather more from folks here) For example, for me one of the most radical visions of computing is Jon Corbett's work on Indigitalization

While I am not a computer engineer, I was fortunate enough to secure a job at the Strong AI Lab during the pandemic, after engaging in a conversation about the impending impacts of AI technology and automation on my people with my former boss Professor Michael Witbrock who created a job specifically for me. My role was primarily on the policy aspect of AI and engaging with the community, especially indigenous Maori. I no longer work there, but I have maintained a connection to the lab and former colleagues. We've talked about various possible opportunities for collaboration, though nothing has actually eventuated yet. https://www.ai.ac.nz/ More recently I came across a Linkedin post of someone who was concerned with the impact that AI tools like ChatGPT will have on the learning ability and educational performance of students that use it. I had an intuition that indigenous peoples are all too familiar with the effects of the introduction of new technologies for communication and sharing of knowledge. The prioritization of literacy, all but destroyed our oral cultures and disrupted cultural practices that had enabled the accumulation of knowledge and wisdom over thousands of years. This was the explicit aim of the colonial government of this country which they enacted through the Tohunga Suppression Acts. The law allowed the government to prosecute practitioners of traditional healing arts and divination. The legislation was explicitly discriminatory, because there was no such legislation that targeted European practitioners of medicine or astrology, which was very popular at the time. The purpose was very clear https://tinyurl.com/yc6u4cc8 I was curious whether anyone else had similar thoughts and I was really excited to come across Lynne Kelly's and Tyson Yunkaporta's work on reviving embodies systems of knowledge memorization and recall, that my ancestors also practiced prior to colonization and the suppression of our tohunga or wise men. https://tinyurl.com/mpmkykz9 I speculated whether artificial intelligence could be used to aid in the acquisition of these skills or enhance our capabilities beyond what even our ancestors capable of. I randomly discovered that I was presaged in my speculations by a techno-utopian psychologist and computing researcher Warren Brodey, who was a contemporary of Minsky and Paper. He built the Environmental Ecology Lab just down the road from MIT in Boston. The distinction between augmentation and enrichment, especially resonates with me and I think would really appeal to Bret Victor too, if my interpretation of his work is accurate. "The distinction between the two paradigms is subtle, but crucial. Augmentation is like using GPS to navigate unknown terrain: it helps us get more done, faster. Yet the technology drives the productivity boost, not us. Such gains are fleeting; without technological crutches such as our GPS-enabled mobile phones, we are as helpless as before. Enhancement, on the other hand, leverages technology to develop new skills. Imagine honing an innate sense of direction through advanced memory techniques or learning to read natural signs and celestial patterns. In essence, augmentation deskills us in the name of efficiency, while enhancement upskills us, fostering a richer interaction with the world. This fundamental difference shapes our integration of technology, determining whether we become passive operators or creative artisans." https://mondediplo.com/2024/08/07ai-cold-war I am personally of a mind, that artificial intelligence is a powerful enabling technology for indigenous peoples. We are inundated by a dominant, alien culture and forced to negotiate the world on their terms. Engaging with abstract concepts like property, the law, markets, and institutions, that are completely foreign to us and yet they materially impact us. I believe that AI could enable our people to engage with this world on a more equal footing and that we bring a lot of value that could enrich the development of a technology like artificial intelligence. I'm particularly intrigued about how languages and culture fundamentally affect how we think. "Follow me to Pormpuraaw, a small Aboriginal community on the western edge of Cape York, in northern Australia. I came here because of the way the locals, the Kuuk Thaayorre, talk about space. Instead of words like "right," "left," "forward," and "back," which, as commonly used in English, define space relative to an observer, the Kuuk." https://tinyurl.com/yr7snbpj "The Yupno, a team of researchers has found, relate time to the river that dominates their life. The past is water that has already flowed by, while the future is represented by its source, which for them, lies uphill." https://phys.org/news/2012-06-terrain-papua-guinea-tribe.html

Anyone want to join me here? I just found this app https://tryquiet.org/

I actually think logic and constraints etc are still undervalued in software/tech. Too much hype and under delivery. But I think in the right places it’s still magic

Currently I'm working on building a general purpose projectional editor for general purpose software development and AI applications, which I am building from open source components, especially the Graphte graphics editor with its Graphene graph language and the Pax UI framework. I was already exploring the possibility of building a projectional editor inspired by Bred Victor's thoughtpieces Learnable Programming, Media for Thinking the Unthinkable, and Humane Representations of Thought which I read years ago and found incredibly resonant and inspiring. I realized the developers of Graphite had already built one though its currently focused on graphics, I think it can easily be adapted for general purpose software development.