dotsam

9 ms·

31.
by dotsam 3y ago
How could you know what a perfect simulated version of me would do in advance, without first running the code? Even if you found a more efficient algorithm for getting the exact same end states faster, at some point you will reach a computa
32.
by dotsam 3y ago
> logged into his dev db and the prod db at the same time in different windows I am very worried about doing the wrong thing in the wrong terminal, so for some machines I colour-code my ssh windows, red for prod, yellow for staging and g
33.
by dotsam 3y ago
As someone else has said, the article should say "faster than the speed of light in air ". The Guardian article says: > Some charged particles in the air shower travel faster than the speed of light, producing a type of electr
34.
by dotsam 3y ago
This article isn't great... > Some charged particles in the air shower travel faster than the speed of light Better article: https://attheu.utah.edu/facultystaff/cosmic-ray-2023/ Science paper for those wi
35.
by dotsam 3y ago
It creates a cascade of secondary particles that are detected over an array of sensors. In this case, the shower triggered 23 detectors, which are part of 507 stations arranged in a square grid. The stations are spaced by 1.2 km, giving a
36.
by dotsam 3y ago
If you have access to Science, the paper is here: https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/science.abo5095
37.
by dotsam 3y ago
> settled knowledge today can have a renewed impact tomorrow We need to move away from the idea that there is such a thing as 'settled knowledge', because as you suggest there is always something else to uncover. Our knowledge
38.
by dotsam 3y ago
It sounds like we both want to say that the holocaust is objectively wrong, not merely subjectively wrong. I don't know where best to start but I do think knowledge and problem solving are key to the answer. There is objective truth ab
39.
by dotsam 3y ago
I put ‘we’ because institutions like legal systems are fundamentally collaborative, unless enacted by a total dictator. Popper’s grandparents were Jewish and he wrote one of his major works which explores these topics, The Open Society and
40.
by dotsam 3y ago
> What do you mean by "problems"? In David Deutsch's terminology, a problem exists when a conflict between ideas is experienced. It is worth reading his books to understand more on his view. He builds on Karl Popper's
41.
by dotsam 3y ago
That is correct. In this is view, all evils are the result of a lack of knowledge, and so moral progress is achieved through the growth of knowledge. All knowledge is fallible and therefore uncertain, so even if we stumbled on objective tr
42.
by dotsam 3y ago
Even gnostics have problems they have to solve in their day to day lives, and the only way to solve them is by creating knowledge. Appeals to the supernatural or dogma are bad explanations, and they should be criticised and improved upon. T
43.
by dotsam 3y ago
What I mean is: solving problems is good. Solving scientific problems is good, solving moral problems is good. If you do not think solving problems in general is good, you will not think solving the killing animals moral problem is good. Th
44.
by dotsam 3y ago
Can we agree that solving problems = good? If you grant that, the rest should follow.
45.
by dotsam 3y ago
If there is a universal moral code, we can never know it for certain. Moral knowledge, as well as all other kinds of knowledge, is always open to criticism and being proven wrong. But nevertheless we can make moral progress, just as we make
46.
by dotsam 3y ago
> It doesn't look like an indicator of the diachronic change in the popularity… I thought all change is diachronic.* I looked it up and found out that ‘diachrony’ is a term of art in linguistic analysis, contrasting with synchronic
47.
by dotsam 3y ago
> under scrutiny much of his thinking doesn't actually match up with how science is done (now or historically) Can you elaborate on this?
48.
by dotsam 3y ago
Universal Paperclips. It made me feel what exponential growth is, and kept me hooked. https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/
49.
Eating less meat in UK 'like taking 8M cars off road'(bbc.co.uk)
2 points by dotsam 3y ago|0 comments
50.
by dotsam 3y ago
For anyone wanting to see it, The Day After is on archive.org: https://archive.org/details/the-day-after-1983-full-original...
51.
by dotsam 3y ago
Threads is one of the most memorable things I have watched. It is incredibly dark and unremittingly bleak. Books that informed my understanding of nuclear war and that I recommend are: Hiroshima by John Hersey, Command and Control by Eric S
52.
by dotsam 3y ago
Chomsky certainly can't fairly be accused of having a poor knowledge of history. I would recommend spending time to read the book in full if you haven't already. > The US has never purposefully tortured or starved to death mill
53.
by dotsam 3y ago
I read this some years ago, and one of the things I took away was that there is great power in being able to focus attention and debate in one direction rather than another. Permit debate so long as it works within premises that align with
54.
by dotsam 4y ago
Isn't 'giving according to the teachings of the Gospel' achieving another kind of status (in your own heart, in the eyes of God)?
55.
by dotsam 4y ago
Most things are tied up with status games, even if they don't look like it at first glance. Nietzsche gives the example of the self-renouncer, who might seem to go beyond status games by renouncing material things. But this renunciatio
56.
by dotsam 4y ago
On the topic of food traditions in Italy: 'Everything I, an Italian, thought I knew about Italian food is wrong', in the FT recently - https://archive.is/4gwGh#selection-1454.0-1454.1
57.
by dotsam 4y ago
Get access to the internet, get money. Money buys it power to get people to do things in the real world. Or it can hack through systems and blackmail and coerce people. Now it can act in the real world by getting people to do things it want
58.
by dotsam 4y ago
The cascading risks you mention are certainly real and serious, and are worthy of our best and urgent efforts to solve. Effective altruists are rightly concerned about these effects e.g. https://80000hours.org/problem-profil
59.
by dotsam 4y ago
> I doubt very much that the poorest people on this planet care much about AIs. Whether people know or care about a risk doesn't mean that the risk won't affect them! > I also doubt they would be - negatively - affected if a
60.
by dotsam 4y ago
Climate change is unlikely to kill everyone on earth. Other risks, such as an engineered pandemic, asteroid impact, or an AI apocalypse have the possibility of killing ~everyone. This is not saying that climate change is not a real issue.

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