Retra

15 ms·

91.
by Retra 7y ago
Brains-in-vats have only ever been science fiction. Regardless, there's nothing about anything I've said that is known to violate any laws of physics, so your objection to 'magical' extrapolations is irrelevant. I say &q
92.
by Retra 7y ago
Being a brain in a vat doesn't imply much though. I mean, you can't assume someone has lobbed your head of and crudely crammed it into a jar of formaldehyde. For all anyone knows, you're in The Matrix instead. So unless we co
93.
by Retra 7y ago
Property is no less a social construct than law is. That decision draws a spectrum between individual property and public property that is modulated by use; if you allow public use of your property, it will be regulated by the public, propo
94.
by Retra 7y ago
Monospaced fonts are good for editing. Variable width characters are good for quick reading because they allow you to scan past spelling errors in prose. Monospaced fonts have distinctive 'textures' that make them amenable to dete
95.
by Retra 7y ago
You're still assuming it's not like sleep, and that you wouldn't be floating in a vat of chemicals/equipment that had an impact on your mental state. And you still shouldn't assume that death is preferable to solita
96.
by Retra 7y ago
Classical physics and quantum mechanics are already unified by shared mathematical frameworks. So not only is it possible, it's already been done, which is why people expect it to work for gravity as well.
97.
by Retra 7y ago
You can consider that a positive, but it is also an inevitability. Nobody is talking about immortality here. But you also wouldn't be saying the end of all life would be positive (which you could , for exactly the same reasons) and th
98.
by Retra 7y ago
You can assume being a brain in a vat would be torture, but I see no reason to assume it wouldn't be euphoria. Either way, life is better than death. Living in any state gives technology more to work with than turning to dust would.
99.
by Retra 7y ago
Psychological trauma is still better than death. Besides you could ask the same question in reverse: Isn't there a real possibility that being subjected to circumstances that allow us to perceive reality, psychological trauma could res
100.
by Retra 7y ago
How can 0.0001 be greater than 0? Death is very uninteresting and useless, and most importantly, offers almost no possibility of being reversed.
101.
by Retra 7y ago
Well, it sounds more interesting and useful than death, which is the default alternative.
102.
by Retra 7y ago
Math is abstract, which means it 'rules' many different things by its very nature. You can describe the geometry of space-time with vectors just as well as you can describe quantum state transitions. It's hard to make sense o
103.
by Retra 7y ago
A gallon of fuel contains a fixed amount of usable energy. Motion from point A to point B uses a minimal amount of energy. MPG equivalent is a perfectly reasonable way to measure the efficiency of electric vehicles, and optimal if you plan
104.
by Retra 7y ago
You can run an AC inside the building, you just need to exhaust the heat out, which can be done through a window. Do an image search for "portable air conditioner window vent" and you'll see some examples.
105.
by Retra 7y ago
I'd be worried about selection bias there. Plenty of TV doesn't show people at work, instead showing circles of friends or family. The fact that there exists some popular shows premised on work relationships is not itself evidence
106.
by Retra 7y ago
You can down-vote for whatever reason you like. You are trusted to justify it only to yourself.
107.
by Retra 7y ago
The right of way doesn't protect you from injury.
108.
by Retra 7y ago
Is there a good way to fix it? I mean, if you were building bridges, certainly another engineer could show you data about material properties and successful builds, and you could reasonably extrapolate to your new (unique) design fairly wel
109.
by Retra 7y ago
That would be true if you can find a frame of reference in which the photon's velocity is 0 (its rest frame -- a pre-requisite for associating that frame of reference with the photon in the first place). But special relativity does not
110.
by Retra 7y ago
My comment indicates that the world is complicated and that we don't need to paint people's behaviors are unreasonable just because they happen to be unlawful.
111.
by Retra 7y ago
The irony is in your own self-confidence, and the idea that strongly-held beliefs are beyond criticism, but that the author's are somehow not.
112.
by Retra 7y ago
Why are you willing to use a dictionary to look up a word, but not willing to use a car manual to look up a symbol? Do you throw out your car manuals and replace them with dictionaries or something?
113.
by Retra 7y ago
The US is the third most populous country in the world, and it's GDP is comparable to the entire EU, and almost twice China. And it only spends ~2% of that on defense. Do you understand the relative scales here? Military spending per
114.
by Retra 7y ago
Oh, Irony. Those people in graves? They were put there by material impacts. Serious material impacts. That Serious People do pay a lot of attention to. Because the consequences are real, unambiguous, and repeatedly demonstrable.
115.
by Retra 7y ago
>Do you also respect the freedom of a creator to choose a license and a distribution method of their liking for their works? It seems like you don't. It seems like you want to peddle a narrative. Otherwise you wouldn't be jumpi
116.
by Retra 7y ago
The religious dimension is not universal. The materialistic point of view is. That's why there a many contradictory (and self-contradictory) religions, and only one material world.
117.
by Retra 7y ago
That's why physicists talk about interaction rather than perception.
118.
by Retra 7y ago
'Simulation' has already been invented, and it pretty much exclusively refers to things that are not fundamental to how the universe works. So it would seem like the opposite of the closest word we have for describing how the univ
119.
by Retra 7y ago
The vast majority of human behavior is hypocrisy if you discard all context and justification for what people do.
120.
by Retra 7y ago
They gym doesn't have any policy. If you have a membership, you're free to use the facility or not. Real life doesn't have any policy either, if you have the capability, you're free to copy & distribute what you have

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