gjm11

38 ms·

391.
by gjm11 2y ago
It doesn't read to me as trying to dodge anything. They aren't saying "they're not kernel drivers, so everything is OK", they're saying "seeing the .sys on the filenames, you might think they're kerne
392.
by gjm11 2y ago
I'm not sure whether your statue is meant as an analogy for the universe as a whole, or life on earth, or what. But whatever specific thing you have in mind, it's obviously false that "only after centuries of forced re-educ
393.
by gjm11 2y ago
Perhaps we agree that your position implies that we never have any real evidence for one thing over another. We do not agree that in fact we never have any real evidence for one thing over another, and I don't believe you actually live
394.
by gjm11 2y ago
I have a PhD in pure mathematics from one of the world's great universities. If your best explanation for what's going on here is that I don't understand basic mathematics, then you need to think again. (My current best-guess
395.
by gjm11 2y ago
I'm not "assigning malice". I'm just observing that the hypothesis you're pushing here is of an omnipotent being going out of its way to make us draw wrong conclusions. You can call that malice or benevolence or cap
396.
by gjm11 2y ago
I'm not sure why you're focusing on that which was a minor aside amidst a bunch of more substantial things that you've ignored. OK, I guess I know why you're focusing on it. Anyway: Your account of things has "evo
397.
by gjm11 2y ago
We can, if the evidence has the right shape, say: Either there is no god, or some omnipotent or near-omnipotent being is deliberately screwing with us to try to make us draw wrong conclusions. The existence of that caveat is not peculiar to
398.
by gjm11 2y ago
Er, no. People who do know what they are talking about will notice that you are trying to pretend that a simple and relatively modest mathematical/physical thing (the world might behave in nondifferentiable, time-varying ways) is equiv
399.
by gjm11 2y ago
Again, you are not fooling anyone when you insinuate things and then act offended when someone actually responds to the insinuations. [EDITED to fix a typo] The past is not outside the domain of scientific knowledge. (Unless you refuse to c
400.
by gjm11 2y ago
I am not, in fact, of the opinion that everything different from me is worse. (I do think it's curious that you're simultaneously (1) complaining at how I'm jumping to unjustified conclusions about your opinions and (2) jumpi
401.
by gjm11 2y ago
Yeah, sure, you don't regard "evolutionism" as a flaw, dear me no, that's why you said it ought to be called scientology "to caricaturise the belief", because that's what people always do with things they
402.
by gjm11 2y ago
I didn't miss the paragraph, but it seemed (and still seems) fundamentally confused to me. [EDITED to add:] I do agree that when I said "X and Y are clearly not the same thing" I should have added something along the lines of
403.
by gjm11 2y ago
People sometimes complain about "motte-and-bailey" rhetoric, where what you argue for explicitly is much more unassuming than what you really believe. I have rarely seen so spectacular an example. Motte: "there might be non-d
404.
by gjm11 2y ago
What creationists and evolutionists (as such) disagree about is not some broad question about the philosophy of knowledge, though doubtless most creationists and most evolutionists disagree about those too. What they disagree about is the s
405.
by gjm11 2y ago
Nitpick: Your number of orders of magnitude is off by a (binary) order of magnitude. The speed of light is about 300,000,000 m/s. (In fact it's exactly 299,792,458 m/s, because that's how the metre is defined.) So 3,00
406.
by gjm11 2y ago
I think the term you're looking for is "scientism". In so far as "evolutionism" means anything, it means "believing in something like Darwinian evolution", which (1) is more specific than what I think you&
407.
by gjm11 2y ago
Does Chrome do anything equivalent to Firefox's "Enhanced Tracking Protection"? Chrome forces extensions to use "Manifest v3" rather than "v2", which cripples some ad-blockers; in particular, the full vers
408.
by gjm11 2y ago
> The advertisers get your data either way, so why not use Chrome? You might believe that the advertisers get less of your data if you use Firefox. Similarly: you might be less likely to have your house burgled if there are locks on
409.
by gjm11 2y ago
Yes, I believe it is usually better not to treat conversations as competitive games. (Not always . For instance, formal debates have some value, even if only for entertainment.) I'm not sure what "in an absolute sense" reall
410.
by gjm11 2y ago
More universal truth than admission. It's always possible that something, anything, I've said is wrong. If you spend most of your time in discussions with people who don't recognize that then either (1) you're choosing
411.
by gjm11 2y ago
Could you be more explicit, please, about this "mandatory, EU-wide, tax on all its citizens"? I've had a bit of a search and haven't found anything that seems like it fits your description. No doubt I'm just being d
412.
by gjm11 2y ago
> paper with a cat coauthor whose title I can't seem to recall You probably have in mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._D._C._Willard (coauthor of multiple papers, sole author of at least one).
413.
by gjm11 2y ago
> cheating ... move It's that discussion-as-competitive-game framing again! Again, I think that's a bad way to look at it. Anyway: (1) it is always possible that what I said was wrong, (2) I am not currently aware that it was,
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by gjm11 2y ago
I wasn't declaring victory. I think that whole way of thinking about discussions is toxic and stupid. When it turns out that one party hasn't been arguing in good faith and that there isn't much likelihood of anything useful
415.
by gjm11 2y ago
(I somehow hadn't noticed this when I replied to its successor. I kinda gave up on the discussion after reading the latter, but I'll take a look at this one anyway.) I understand what you mean by "framing" (though I woul
416.
by gjm11 2y ago
> Yes, but I will not share. I'd been wondering whether you were arguing in good faith at all. Thank you for confirming that you were not, and goodbye. [further sneering snipped]
417.
by gjm11 2y ago
(General note: I will respond to arguments and evidence and so forth; I will not respond to mere sneering, beyond noting that it's there.) I don't understand your complaint about "this framing". Exactly what parallel wit
418.
by gjm11 2y ago
Yes, obviously I agree that someone can be smart relative to one set of people (or criteria, or problems, or whatever) and stupid relative to another. And yes, I agree that we are all much stupider than a hypothetical superintelligence migh
419.
by gjm11 2y ago
Your first question is very strange. I say "I guess X is a thing that happens sometimes" (and went on to say: but I don't see much sign that it's happening in these particular cases, and if you claim it is then I'd
420.
by gjm11 2y ago
(I am finding your tone very disagreeable; I am pretty sure you have adopted it deliberately, and suspect you don't care if I find it diasgreeable, but I mention this just in case I'm wrong about any of that.) I do not think that

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