3 ms·

Remember, a large enough group of monkeys with keyboards will produce Shakespeare given enough time. Or a broken clock is right twice a day.

pizlonator 6y ago
Yup yup yup. Glad someone brought this up. It would take a lot to prove that they actually had good foresight since it’s so likely that they just happened to be the ones who guessed right out of a large population of equally well informed people who guessed lots of other things using similar reasonings.
- SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
  I think it's probably a strength of science that at any one time there's at least one person yelling about the dangerous of any possible event. It's also a strength that, as in the case of the LHC, the people who were shouting "this will cause a black hole" were drowned about by the ones who were being more realistic.
  - ianai 6y ago
    The philosophy of science precisely prefers knowledge which gives falsifiable, testable theories. A hypothesis indicating every possible outcome with little differentiation is worthless.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > The philosophy of science precisely prefers knowledge which gives falsifiable, testable theories. Knowledge doesn't give falsifiable, testable theories. Falsifiable, testable theories give knowledge. That's why the philosophy of science prefers them.
take_a_breath 6y ago
I never hear this sentiment on HN when it comes to writing code. Only the other, less-noble job classes.
- albntomat0 6y ago
  I definitely understood the parent comment differently than you did. My read of it is that they are criticizing those predicting low probability events, and then cherrypicking the predictions that turned out correct as misunderstood predictive geniuses. A similar event in tech is the analysis of a potential AI singularity event, which comes up plenty often. We'll only be able to tell who is right in retrospect, and plenty of folks call each other quacks over that.
- nitrogen 6y ago
  You've never heard of the term "code monkey"? Jonathan Coulton even wrote a song about it.

pizlonator 6y ago

Yup yup yup. Glad someone brought this up. It would take a lot to prove that they actually had good foresight since it’s so likely that they just happened to be the ones who guessed right out of a large population of equally well informed people who guessed lots of other things using similar reasonings.

SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
I think it's probably a strength of science that at any one time there's at least one person yelling about the dangerous of any possible event. It's also a strength that, as in the case of the LHC, the people who were shouting "this will cause a black hole" were drowned about by the ones who were being more realistic.
- ianai 6y ago
  The philosophy of science precisely prefers knowledge which gives falsifiable, testable theories. A hypothesis indicating every possible outcome with little differentiation is worthless.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > The philosophy of science precisely prefers knowledge which gives falsifiable, testable theories. Knowledge doesn't give falsifiable, testable theories. Falsifiable, testable theories give knowledge. That's why the philosophy of science prefers them.

take_a_breath 6y ago

I never hear this sentiment on HN when it comes to writing code. Only the other, less-noble job classes.

albntomat0 6y ago
I definitely understood the parent comment differently than you did. My read of it is that they are criticizing those predicting low probability events, and then cherrypicking the predictions that turned out correct as misunderstood predictive geniuses. A similar event in tech is the analysis of a potential AI singularity event, which comes up plenty often. We'll only be able to tell who is right in retrospect, and plenty of folks call each other quacks over that.
nitrogen 6y ago
You've never heard of the term "code monkey"? Jonathan Coulton even wrote a song about it.