Minimizing KL Divergence as a Form of Conservatism

At the Boundary between The Old Distribution and The New Distribution

Conservatism is a style of thinking: Cicrumstances changes, there might be new objectives pops up. THe old way of doing things might no longer be compatable to reaching the desired objective, so what are the guiding principles as we make changes? A more drastic style is to just abandom the old and build around the new. However, while it might sounds good, there are drawbacks. What if the seemingly good new has potential downside that we can yet understand? A more reasonable aproach is to acknowledge the wisdom in a system that already works, and seek to propose changes in... [Read More]
Tags: rl

Good Intentions Go Awry

Most Important Things are Balancing Acts

Too much skepticism can be paralysing While messianic belief in the omnipotent lead to zoobies who can’t think for oneself, too much skepticism seems to be paralysing as well. Case in point is this face mask thing. Study after study, resources devoted to masks while it is an act with only upsides. Also when that dexomethosm study comes out, people want wait the full data. A trial for the animals I first read it in the Josheph Needman’s book on Titration between East and West. He posted the question as of why with such an advanced engineering capacity, scientific methods... [Read More]
Tags: thoughts