3 ms·

One can't prove a negative. The Boring company has a plan and a goal. Saying it can't be done is not useful or productive. There has not been much change in tun

One can't prove a negative. The Boring company has a plan and a goal. Saying it can't be done is not useful or productive. There has not been much change in tunneling tech in the last 20 years and Musk seems to think it is possible to get some great improvements. He has done it in two other very different fields with SpaceX and Tesla. Creating a new technology is not about the logic of debates but doing things and failing over and over again, in a productive way, to get to success. Musk can access great people and large amounts of capital, thinks things out from first principles, doesn't believe in "safety first", and thinks tunnels could be of great value. Traffic (on car and trains) is killing our cities and nothing is being done about it. No new transportation infrastructure built in the Bay Area since 1980 except a few small BART extensions. We could put anything in these tunnels. Not sure why people are so worried that he is going to get some people together and try.

andrewflnr 9y ago
I'll grant TFA lacks imagination, but... One can't prove a negative. This meme needs to die. On HN, of all places, we should all know that the difference in difficulty between proving P and !P has nothing to do with one of them having a negation in its syntax.
- njarboe 9y ago
  I guess a better statement is that in complex systems one cannot predict what is possible. One can only try and see what is possible by doing. Most people here might be computer people so need to see the world in very precise, math like, constructs to produce code that works, but most of reality is not like that.
bobthechef 9y ago
Theorem. There are no even prime numbers greater than 2. Proof. Assume n > 2, 2 divides n and n is prime. Therefore, 2 is a prime factor of n. But since every prime number only has one prime factor, itself, then n = 2. But n = 2 contradicts n > 2. Therefore, no prime numbers greater than 2 exist. QED. - or - Claim. There is no beer in the fridge. Argument. I opened the fridge, there was no beer in the fridge. - or - p is a proposition. ~p is its negation. Take q = ~p. Proving p is the same as proving ~q. Seems to me you can most certainly prove "negatives".
- thephyber 9y ago
  > One can't prove a negative. Fine. One can't necessarily prove a negative. Only if you can prove the negation of the assertion can you "prove the negative". Now apply that logic to: <Musk> I can reduce the cost of boring by an order of magnitude. Can you prove that he can't? The gp was (over)simply stating that just because no other digging project has done what Musk claims to be able to do doesn't necessarily mean that Musk can't do it.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

andrewflnr 9y ago

I'll grant TFA lacks imagination, but... One can't prove a negative. This meme needs to die. On HN, of all places, we should all know that the difference in difficulty between proving P and !P has nothing to do with one of them having a negation in its syntax.

njarboe 9y ago
I guess a better statement is that in complex systems one cannot predict what is possible. One can only try and see what is possible by doing. Most people here might be computer people so need to see the world in very precise, math like, constructs to produce code that works, but most of reality is not like that.

bobthechef 9y ago

Theorem. There are no even prime numbers greater than 2. Proof. Assume n > 2, 2 divides n and n is prime. Therefore, 2 is a prime factor of n. But since every prime number only has one prime factor, itself, then n = 2. But n = 2 contradicts n > 2. Therefore, no prime numbers greater than 2 exist. QED. - or - Claim. There is no beer in the fridge. Argument. I opened the fridge, there was no beer in the fridge. - or - p is a proposition. ~p is its negation. Take q = ~p. Proving p is the same as proving ~q. Seems to me you can most certainly prove "negatives".

thephyber 9y ago
> One can't prove a negative. Fine. One can't necessarily prove a negative. Only if you can prove the negation of the assertion can you "prove the negative". Now apply that logic to: <Musk> I can reduce the cost of boring by an order of magnitude. Can you prove that he can't? The gp was (over)simply stating that just because no other digging project has done what Musk claims to be able to do doesn't necessarily mean that Musk can't do it.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]