4 ms·

We've achieved a lot of things they couldn't possibly imagine. Here's hoping we achieve things in 100 yrs we can't even dream of today.

by vtange 10y ago

acqq 10y ago
http://europe.newsweek.com/command-control-donald-trump-nuclear-weapons-492743 http://europe.newsweek.com/command-control-donald-trump-nucl... "Why any one of these incidents hasn’t ended in a mass disaster is “pure luck,” Schlosser says in the film. “And the problem with luck is it eventually runs out.” Think about your laptop or car, he suggests. “Nuclear weapons are machines,” he says. “And every machine ever invented eventually goes wrong.”" http://thebulletin.org/press-release/doomsday-clock-hands-remain-unchanged-despite-iran-deal-and-paris-talks9122 http://thebulletin.org/press-release/doomsday-clock-hands-re... “Three minutes (to midnight) is too close. Far too close. We, the members of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,want to be clear about our decision not to move the hands of the Doomsday Clock in 2016: That decision is not good news, but an expression of dismay that world leaders continue to fail to focus their efforts and the world's attention on reducing the extreme danger posed by nuclear weapons and climate change. When we call these dangers existential, that is exactly what we mean: They threaten the very existence of civilization and therefore should be the first order of business for leaders who care about their constituents and their countries.” I have personally started to worry always more about the catastrophic software failures. At least here on HN there are people who react to my comments who typically haven't even heard about the concept of developing with the goal of the fault tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fault_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fault_tolerance advocating instead the beloved "fail early fail often" as the best default even when the topic is actually controlling the rockets(!) http://thebulletin.org/who-would-destroy-world10253 http://thebulletin.org/who-would-destroy-world10253 "An existential catastrophe could only happen once in our history. This raises the stakes immensely, and it means that reacting to existential risks won’t work. Humanity must anticipate such risks to avoid them."
- yhylord 10y ago
  Does "fail early fail often" necessarily lead to fault intolerance and non-robustness?
  - acqq 10y ago
    Had you read my link you'd know that "fault tolerant" means the system which continues to do its job even when some components of it already failed. The system designed to "fail early" simply fails by default. There's simply no attitude of "do as much of the work no matter how many components already failed" or "making my part failing as seldom as possible." Not the mention actually designing the active recovery process, the complete opposite of "fail early": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgTs8ywKQsI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgTs8ywKQsI Compare that approach with the handling of the water in the Fukushima electrical generators, situated on the edge of the ocean. But even with all the possible care, accidents do happen. Some possibility will remain unaccounted. So the only good approach is to have so little nuclear weapons that the accidents, when they happen, and they surely will happen, still don't destroy the humanity. The goal must be "fault tolerance" on the civilization level. Or there won't be any civilization left. The same stands for handling the global warming.

We've achieved a lot of things they couldn't possibly imagine. Here's hoping we achieve things in 100 yrs we can't even dream of today.

by vtange 10y ago

We've achieved a lot of things they couldn't possibly imagine. Here's hoping we achieve things in 100 yrs we can't even dream of today.

acqq 10y ago

http://europe.newsweek.com/command-control-donald-trump-nuclear-weapons-492743 http://europe.newsweek.com/command-control-donald-trump-nucl... "Why any one of these incidents hasn’t ended in a mass disaster is “pure luck,” Schlosser says in the film. “And the problem with luck is it eventually runs out.” Think about your laptop or car, he suggests. “Nuclear weapons are machines,” he says. “And every machine ever invented eventually goes wrong.”" http://thebulletin.org/press-release/doomsday-clock-hands-remain-unchanged-despite-iran-deal-and-paris-talks9122 http://thebulletin.org/press-release/doomsday-clock-hands-re... “Three minutes (to midnight) is too close. Far too close. We, the members of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,want to be clear about our decision not to move the hands of the Doomsday Clock in 2016: That decision is not good news, but an expression of dismay that world leaders continue to fail to focus their efforts and the world's attention on reducing the extreme danger posed by nuclear weapons and climate change. When we call these dangers existential, that is exactly what we mean: They threaten the very existence of civilization and therefore should be the first order of business for leaders who care about their constituents and their countries.” I have personally started to worry always more about the catastrophic software failures. At least here on HN there are people who react to my comments who typically haven't even heard about the concept of developing with the goal of the fault tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fault_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fault_tolerance advocating instead the beloved "fail early fail often" as the best default even when the topic is actually controlling the rockets(!) http://thebulletin.org/who-would-destroy-world10253 http://thebulletin.org/who-would-destroy-world10253 "An existential catastrophe could only happen once in our history. This raises the stakes immensely, and it means that reacting to existential risks won’t work. Humanity must anticipate such risks to avoid them."

yhylord 10y ago
Does "fail early fail often" necessarily lead to fault intolerance and non-robustness?
- acqq 10y ago
  Had you read my link you'd know that "fault tolerant" means the system which continues to do its job even when some components of it already failed. The system designed to "fail early" simply fails by default. There's simply no attitude of "do as much of the work no matter how many components already failed" or "making my part failing as seldom as possible." Not the mention actually designing the active recovery process, the complete opposite of "fail early": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgTs8ywKQsI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgTs8ywKQsI Compare that approach with the handling of the water in the Fukushima electrical generators, situated on the edge of the ocean. But even with all the possible care, accidents do happen. Some possibility will remain unaccounted. So the only good approach is to have so little nuclear weapons that the accidents, when they happen, and they surely will happen, still don't destroy the humanity. The goal must be "fault tolerance" on the civilization level. Or there won't be any civilization left. The same stands for handling the global warming.