jnicholasp

8 ms·

31.
by jnicholasp 9y ago
It's a millennia old question, and still the best answer for how to produce collective agreements, on questions we do not collectively unanimously agree on, is simply to count the votes and do what most people want to do. Yes, the ma
32.
by jnicholasp 9y ago
> > Basic, more modern human principles shouldn't be left to democratic vote What process should be used to decide which are these modern human principles that are too important to be left to majority rule, and who gets to parti
33.
by jnicholasp 9y ago
You're implying that Musk's "follow through" is a result of his money and connections, when the reverse is true. Yes, of course, now that he has money, connections, and a powerful reputation, that makes it easier for him
34.
by jnicholasp 9y ago
> You have to take OP's word on that. Is there a good reason not to?
35.
by jnicholasp 9y ago
My first argument was that, in a hypothetical future world which had solved aging, it would be likely they would have also solved cancer, dementia, etc. My second argument was that our current moment in time is not likely to be near the end
36.
by jnicholasp 9y ago
False dichotomy. Either/Or does not exhaust the set of plausible options.
37.
by jnicholasp 9y ago
> it's 2017, and despite all our impressive progress, we still [haven't solved x] People tend to think that [current year] is super late and advanced in the history of the world, and seem to infer from that impression that thin
38.
by jnicholasp 9y ago
Because a state of medical science which has solved aging will certainly not have solved cancer, Alzheimers, or heart disease.
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by jnicholasp 9y ago
Excellent, thanks so much.
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by jnicholasp 9y ago
Do you still have any of your curriculum or class notes? My nephews are in elementary school, and I'm looking for programs that their school/after school organizations could easily adopt.
41.
by jnicholasp 9y ago
Do you mind sharing what college this was at? My email is on my profile if you prefer. My nephews are in elementary school, and we're right next to the local university. I'd love to see if we could get a program like that going he
42.
by jnicholasp 9y ago
> More likely, instead of 10 janitors, you'll have one janitor and a dozen robot cleaning machines. For how long, though? Is there any reason to think that will be anything besides a transitional stage before the robots entirely pha
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by jnicholasp 9y ago
I suppose it depends on what you think of as "near future", but I - and I have no special insight, for the record, just speaking as an outside observer - would put around 75% probability of a robot that can wholly replace a janito
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by jnicholasp 9y ago
> Or they'll do better jobs. [...] The 69% didn't become an unemployed underclass. No, they moved into factory, mining, retail, and other jobs that were commensurate with their abilities. The automation shift is not the same, b
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by jnicholasp 9y ago
Because the Pacific coast of Russia is thousands of land miles, and even more thousands of sea miles, from the places Russia wants to be able to influence. Having naval bases there doesn't really help them project naval force in Europe
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by jnicholasp 9y ago
> i > thæm I suspect the so-called Allied powers are trying to instigate a war, but we will not be provoked. > i read gp as using quizzical as a verb That reading of gp's intent , while plausible, still involves an in-apt us
47.
by jnicholasp 9y ago
You may be partly right. But self-driving cars will enable a sort of ad-hoc, on demand carpooling style 'mass' transit: something like ten-passenger vans that deliver commuters from similar downtown areas to similar home neighborh
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by jnicholasp 9y ago
It might be that different approaches to reading are more useful at different points in your life. When you're young, inexperienced, ignorant, inevitably mentally provincial, you might well gain most by reading widely and quickly in or
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by jnicholasp 9y ago
Thanks for linking that. I'd read it before, but it was useful to read it again ;-)
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by jnicholasp 9y ago
> This is quizzical I think you might mean "This is questionable". Quizzical is an adjective applied to people's expressions or behavior, implying that they are puzzled, confused, or questioning. It is not an appropriate w
51.
by jnicholasp 9y ago
There will be lots of positive uses for AI, both on Mars and on Earth, but Musk's main stated motivation for both Open AI and Neuralink is that he's deeply worried about AI being an existential risk to humanity, and he's tryi
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by jnicholasp 9y ago
By the time a significant tunnel boring project gets planned, approved and built, cars will be self driving and the Uber model of rides on demand will be extremely prevalent. Traffic will be massively reduced and existing roads will be much
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by jnicholasp 9y ago
Alongside the comments about Aboriginal legends, a copy of my comment from elsewhere in the thread: The Klamath Native American tribe has legends of the eruption of Mt. Mazama that formed Oregon's Crater Lake - which happened in ~5677
54.
by jnicholasp 9y ago
The Klamath Native American tribe has legends of the eruption of Mt. Mazama that formed Oregon's Crater Lake - which happened in ~5677 BC [1]. If oral legends that reflect real events can last seven and a half thousand years, is there
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by jnicholasp 9y ago
I can't help you with the job situation problem, but on the subject of anxiety attacks, you might find this post by a psychiatrist helpful: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/05/the-case-of-the-suffoca...
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by jnicholasp 10y ago
Thank you, too. I'm not convinced that propping up the price of labor directly follows from your point 1), which I do of course agree with. It seems better to me that the government do what it can to encourage the creation of jobs that
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by jnicholasp 10y ago
> those jobs can't support a family Should they be able to? Absent some kind of deliberate regulatory or collective-bargaining action to prop up the price of labor in a given category, I assume the prevailing wages tend to reflect a
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by jnicholasp 10y ago
Why is it hard to unionize retail? My (naive) guess would be that retail is a less-skilled job, so attempts by labor-groups to make themselves a controlled source of labor supply are easily circumvented by the readiness with which those job
59.
by jnicholasp 10y ago
I'm not making an argument here, since I don't know the answer to my question, but is it possible that a higher proportion of coal and manufacturing jobs were traditionally living wage, support-a-family type jobs, as compared to r
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by jnicholasp 10y ago
> segueway Just so you know, "segue" is pronounced "seg-way" by itself. No need to throw an additional "way" on the end.

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