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Oil companies employ large numbers of serious engineers. If I make a 1-bit generalization that I don't want fracking or drilling or refining in my neighborhood,

Oil companies employ large numbers of serious engineers. If I make a 1-bit generalization that I don't want fracking or drilling or refining in my neighborhood, or anywhere in the world for that matter, I'm now guilty of "prejudice" because I'm maligning those serious engineers and their work?

benreesman 3y ago
If you call Barbara Liskov's work bad or stupid or irrelevant or anything like that, bring your fucking Turing award to the debate.
- listenallyall 3y ago
  I honestly have no idea what the point of your comment is, other than deflection, I guess. What does Barbara Liskov have to do with either of my comments?
  - benreesman 3y ago
    If you don’t care who that is, what they work on, the results of it, and don’t think this merits walking back the blanket slurs then I’ve got nothing for you.
    - listenallyall 3y ago
      what slurs?
      - benreesman 3y ago
        Let's start with what seems to me like a pretty nasty and pretty ill-informed blanket dismissal of everyone who works in the traditional energy business. There are some pretty serious downsides to the way we use fossil fuels as a society, but it's a hard problem that a lot of well-intentioned and wildly qualified people are working on around the clock. I don't know you, so you might be in some wild tail of the distribution who isn't enjoying reliable base load electricity via those people's efforts, but you're posting these comments on a computer, which means it's impossible that you're not at the end of a supply chain that only exists via their efforts. So let's start with fuck that. From there it's (heavily) implied, but we move on to effectively asserting that anyone who has touched a byzantine fault tolerant consensus mechanism is a priori also someone who should be slammed into a 1-bit, good/evil generalization. It takes 30 seconds of reading the rest of the the thread, or twice that searching, to know who Ms. Liskov is, and enough about her achievements to understand why she is a recipient of the most highly regarded award in computer science. Which makes it's a very dicey proposition to sweep that into the "bad" category of the 1-bit generalization. It takes 2 hours tops to read the Jepsen website enough to know that this technology is a lot more interesting than just "HODL for lambos". So I'm a "fuck that" there too. You've also managed to wrap some double-digit percentage of all the distributed systems people on HN into this good/evil bifurcation as though doing anything on BFT ever is like selling Oxycontin to teenagers like the Sackler family or something, whether or not any of them ever made a dime speculating on cyber money. So fuck that too. The word slur doesn't refer solely to racial epithets and stuff like that, a slur can be a backhanded dog whistle as well.
        listenallyall 3y ago
        Dude- I made two comments, the point of which, was that using the word "prejudice" against user "coldpie" was hyperbolic and unfair. How you got from those two comments, neither of which mentioned anything about crypto or blockchain, to all of this, is completely uncomprehensible to me, and I'm guessing most anyone else who reads this far.
        benreesman 3y ago
        The trivial prejudice of the other commenter’s initial reply, which they seem to have elected to not double down on is vastly less concerning than your comfort with both embracing a 1-bit generalization and in the same breath maligning the tireless efforts of the kind of engineers that with stupendously overwhelming likelihood make your entire lifestyle possible, and then doubling down on it twice. It takes a lot to get me to follow someone this far down a reply chain these days, but this is pretty fucking epic.
        benreesman 3y ago
        I think it’s the obligation of the more tenured members of the community to give the less tenured folks some outs when things go a bit sideways. So I’m going to propose two. The strictly utilitarian game-theory play with zero risk is to concede nothing, walk away, and sink the sunk cost. The ethical high road answer is to concede that you were out of line and watch all be forgotten thereby, which has a utilitarian premium as well: you’d make a friend. The stupid answer is to raise 2,6 off suit repeatedly with someone representing suited royalty who has clearly committed to shoving the flop on principle. You do you, but I see two good calls and one bad call.

benreesman 3y ago

If you call Barbara Liskov's work bad or stupid or irrelevant or anything like that, bring your fucking Turing award to the debate.

listenallyall 3y ago
I honestly have no idea what the point of your comment is, other than deflection, I guess. What does Barbara Liskov have to do with either of my comments?
- benreesman 3y ago
  If you don’t care who that is, what they work on, the results of it, and don’t think this merits walking back the blanket slurs then I’ve got nothing for you.
  - listenallyall 3y ago
    what slurs?
    - benreesman 3y ago
      Let's start with what seems to me like a pretty nasty and pretty ill-informed blanket dismissal of everyone who works in the traditional energy business. There are some pretty serious downsides to the way we use fossil fuels as a society, but it's a hard problem that a lot of well-intentioned and wildly qualified people are working on around the clock. I don't know you, so you might be in some wild tail of the distribution who isn't enjoying reliable base load electricity via those people's efforts, but you're posting these comments on a computer, which means it's impossible that you're not at the end of a supply chain that only exists via their efforts. So let's start with fuck that. From there it's (heavily) implied, but we move on to effectively asserting that anyone who has touched a byzantine fault tolerant consensus mechanism is a priori also someone who should be slammed into a 1-bit, good/evil generalization. It takes 30 seconds of reading the rest of the the thread, or twice that searching, to know who Ms. Liskov is, and enough about her achievements to understand why she is a recipient of the most highly regarded award in computer science. Which makes it's a very dicey proposition to sweep that into the "bad" category of the 1-bit generalization. It takes 2 hours tops to read the Jepsen website enough to know that this technology is a lot more interesting than just "HODL for lambos". So I'm a "fuck that" there too. You've also managed to wrap some double-digit percentage of all the distributed systems people on HN into this good/evil bifurcation as though doing anything on BFT ever is like selling Oxycontin to teenagers like the Sackler family or something, whether or not any of them ever made a dime speculating on cyber money. So fuck that too. The word slur doesn't refer solely to racial epithets and stuff like that, a slur can be a backhanded dog whistle as well.
      - listenallyall 3y ago
        Dude- I made two comments, the point of which, was that using the word "prejudice" against user "coldpie" was hyperbolic and unfair. How you got from those two comments, neither of which mentioned anything about crypto or blockchain, to all of this, is completely uncomprehensible to me, and I'm guessing most anyone else who reads this far.
        benreesman 3y ago
        The trivial prejudice of the other commenter’s initial reply, which they seem to have elected to not double down on is vastly less concerning than your comfort with both embracing a 1-bit generalization and in the same breath maligning the tireless efforts of the kind of engineers that with stupendously overwhelming likelihood make your entire lifestyle possible, and then doubling down on it twice. It takes a lot to get me to follow someone this far down a reply chain these days, but this is pretty fucking epic.
        benreesman 3y ago
        I think it’s the obligation of the more tenured members of the community to give the less tenured folks some outs when things go a bit sideways. So I’m going to propose two. The strictly utilitarian game-theory play with zero risk is to concede nothing, walk away, and sink the sunk cost. The ethical high road answer is to concede that you were out of line and watch all be forgotten thereby, which has a utilitarian premium as well: you’d make a friend. The stupid answer is to raise 2,6 off suit repeatedly with someone representing suited royalty who has clearly committed to shoving the flop on principle. You do you, but I see two good calls and one bad call.