evanwise

8 ms·

31.
by evanwise 6y ago
I find that I can tolerate distractions like getting up to get a cup of coffee or stretch or do a few push-ups without much issue. I am able to maintain complex state and jump back into the flow. Maybe this is just a young brain thing and w
32.
by evanwise 8y ago
The war on drugs has been a resounding success at it's principle functions (none of which have anything to do with controlling drug use behavior). It helps maintain a permanent underclass which applies a downward pressure on wages via
33.
by evanwise 8y ago
It's interesting and rather revealing that your first reaction to a critique which draws an analogy to material wealth is to defensively frame it as nasty or distasteful.
34.
by evanwise 8y ago
Oh man, you are so close to realizing what's actually going on. Once you realize that creating a permanent underclass to apply a constant downward pressure on wages is a feature of market economies and not a bug you'll be all the
35.
by evanwise 8y ago
This is the right way to look at it. In fact, your brain is plastic enough that if you wear glasses that flip your vision upside down for several days it will eventually relearn the mapping of retinal cells to neurons so that you see things
36.
by evanwise 9y ago
While I am sympathetic to the idea of unionizing development and IT work, I have a hard time imagining a practical path. Vaguely libertarian ideologies seem to be the norm in these professions.
37.
by evanwise 9y ago
Demand for essential healthcare services is inelastic.
38.
by evanwise 9y ago
The back-up nuclear launch code for the Minuteman missile system used to be 00000000. You have far too much faith in humanity.
39.
by evanwise 9y ago
To me this kind of thinking from management is, frankly, negligent. If you're working on a simple e-commerce site I suppose it's excusable, because in the end, the customer is going to pay the cost of poor design in lost business
40.
by evanwise 9y ago
If you are interested at all in continental philosophy, I'd say Lyotard is a really good place to start for folks coming from an analytic philosophy or hard science background. He engages with some of the same ideas as the rest of the
41.
by evanwise 9y ago
For most people, yes, I'd agree. For me personally, not really. I grasp abstractions and formal stuff almost instantly, but it takes a lot of grappling with the text for me to come to terms with continental philosophy. Like, I had zero
42.
by evanwise 9y ago
There's no financial incentive to fix things? It's almost like we need some kind of revolution to upend the existing system and replace it with one that addresses people's needs directly rather than blindly maximizing financi
43.
by evanwise 9y ago
I'm committing the cardinal sin of commenting before I'm done with the article, but whenever this discussion comes up, I feel like asking: why not both? Could it be that Bitcoin is currently overvalued and in a "bubble",
44.
by evanwise 9y ago
Oh, don't get me wrong, AGI is still terrifying, even if it is limited to a few (or a few hundred) multiples of human intelligence by algorithmic or physical constraints. The discovery of AGI will precipitate the biggest social upheava
45.
by evanwise 9y ago
The raw computing power of the human wetware has not increased appreciably over historical timescales, but the total intelligence of humanity, includes, for example, the increase in effective intelligence gained by storing knowledge in exte
46.
by evanwise 9y ago
A lot of folks who are critical of the AI safety movement also miss the potential for "side channel attacks" where the AI learns to manipulate human actors and trick them into "unbottling the genie". Honestly, this seems
47.
by evanwise 9y ago
An analogous argument would hold in the case of "units of capability". Why do you think the problem of producing capable minds is any easier than the problem of producing intelligent minds? I'm not sure what the point of your
48.
by evanwise 9y ago
True, but I think that the results of such a "weak intelligence explosion" (where the linear/sublinear scaling case would be a "strong intelligence explosion"), while still remarkable, would fall far short of some o
49.
by evanwise 9y ago
I can't remember where, but I saw a fairly damning argument against the intelligence explosion hypothesis on the grounds that it only works if the algorithm used to design a mind with n units of intelligence (whatever these are) scales
50.
by evanwise 9y ago
First of all, I don't think the author claims to be a communist anywhere, just that his parents were, at one time, members of the communist party. Second of all, popular estimates of the death toll of communism are ludicrously exaggera
51.
by evanwise 9y ago
I usually lose all sympathy for people when they advocate genocide, but you do you.
52.
by evanwise 9y ago
Someone beat you too it, unfortunately: https://www.reallycolor.com/
53.
by evanwise 9y ago
Victor Lustig once conned Al Capone. Let that sink in.
54.
by evanwise 9y ago
It's interesting that you start off attempting to refute me but end up demonstrating my point. The cultural conditions in early agricultural societies, before the development of the city-state, were insufficient to support a strong rul
55.
by evanwise 9y ago
I sometimes feel like "free-market" types are actually incapable of understanding this point. The idea that markets and property exist as some sort of independent, empirical objects is baked so deeply into their ideology that it&#
56.
by evanwise 9y ago
Same. 5 to 6 hours and I feel fine, unless I'm ill or already sleep deprived. I can function on 3-4 hours per night for extended periods of time before I start to notice serious deterioration in mental faculties. I believe it's ge
57.
by evanwise 9y ago
I can relate to this. Unless I'm ill or badly sleep deprived, I literally cannot sleep in.
58.
by evanwise 9y ago
I sleep about 5-6 hours on average. Generally, I feel well rested with this amount, but I can function on 3-4 hours per night for a few weeks without serious ill effect. I just feel slightly groggy, although at the end, I will have a "
59.
by evanwise 9y ago
Honestly, as far as that aspect goes, I found the comic helped me understand it better than the article did. While I think I understand the general concept of emotional labor, the example of the gift wrapping left out seemed kind of petty
60.
by evanwise 9y ago
From my perspective, as a leftist and not a liberal, I'd describe the BBC and NPR as having, largely, a liberal / centrist viewpoint. I don't think I've ever heard the BBC advocating seizing the means of production or NP

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