leftyted

20 ms·

121.
by leftyted 7y ago
Let's say that our measure of intelligence is "good at herding sheep". Are you certain that all we will find is "some consistent comparison between averages"?
122.
by leftyted 7y ago
Nah. Do your best to be objective. The work you accomplish while attempting objectivity will be better than the work you would have accomplished while attempting to account for your lack of objectivity. No one is counting on your work bei
123.
by leftyted 7y ago
It's extremely misleading to talk about Hannah Arendt's suspicion of capitalism as if it's a defining feature of her thought. What she despised was progress for progress' sake, a feeling she traced to the (supposed) anc
124.
by leftyted 7y ago
No one knows the "effect" of having a child because no one knows what that child is going to do in their life. It's satanic to think that you can summarize a human being in terms of tons of carbon emitted in their lifetime
125.
by leftyted 7y ago
People who opt out of having children -- the most meaningful decision in most people's lives -- because they are worried about carbon emissions should rethink the methods they use to make decisions.
126.
by leftyted 7y ago
Is this region comparatively unspoilt because of the Chernobyl disaster? If so, that's a strange kind of irony.
127.
by leftyted 7y ago
symbol/boolean/string/number are immutable and work how you'd expect with const because they are immutable. Unsure if that makes them "value types". I think the article is a bit silly. Calling it "const&
128.
by leftyted 7y ago
It's "remotely comparable" because it has been argued that the Soviet economy only worked as well as it did due to slave labor, i.e. that the gulag existed primarily for "slave/forced labour for economic gain".
129.
by leftyted 7y ago
Not everything is about economics. It is often argued that the gulag in the USSR was never a net gain economically. You could conclude one of two things from that: 1. The Soviets were dumb or 2. The Soviets had other reasons for maintainin
130.
by leftyted 7y ago
That's what I'm asking. By mentioning "people who have complained," you're putting those people on the spot. The offender now probably knows who complained. I bring this up because I read a NYT article [0] yesterda
131.
by leftyted 7y ago
> "several people have come up to us to say that you keep asking them to dance after they told you to stop asking them" I wonder if there's a better way to do this. It seems to me that you should avoid bringing up -- even
132.
by leftyted 7y ago
> But while not everyone might agree, I tend to think the difference may be more related to subtle neuro-anatomical differences (such as number of neurons) rather than the presence of specialized "brain modules". "Speciali
133.
by leftyted 7y ago
I'm happy to pay more taxes so people poorer than me can have healthcare. But stuff like this strikes me as monumentally silly: > They include a schedule of taxation on income and wealth that reaches ninety per cent and the elimina
134.
by leftyted 7y ago
I see the statement as making the case for an idealist philosophical perspective. I.e. the subject that we're really exploring is the human mind, not the universe. Of course you don't have to agree with that. To me it seems cle
135.
by leftyted 7y ago
Good for Pythagoras. But according to George Harrison "the farther one travels the less one knows". (Apparently he was quoting Laozi)
136.
by leftyted 7y ago
I didn't make a request. My post consists of two observations and an aside. Thanks for your wonderful feedback though.
137.
by leftyted 7y ago
Another oddity of JS's Date is that "Date()" returns a string whereas "new Date()" returns an object. This makes it hard to do "class MyDate extends Date" when targeting ES5 from TS. In fact, if anyone kn
138.
by leftyted 7y ago
"Maybe it is a human who is typing gibberish for X reason" is not a good objection to the idea of a turing test. A turing test is the only test that matters because if we can't tell whether it's a human or not then it m
139.
by leftyted 7y ago
The only way you, or the UN, can justify these perspectives is if you grant 0 probability that Assange was involved in the theft of state secrets or if you think he was involved, but it was okay because "the US is evil". Fine.
140.
by leftyted 7y ago
If you read this post and think it's a bizarre exaggeration, consider that the UN declared that Assange's decision to confine himself in the Ecuadorian embassy was "arbitrary detention". Similiarly, Ecuador's decis
141.
by leftyted 7y ago
> It is not a criticism of merit, it is a criticism of the structuring of society on the basis of merit - i.e. meritocracy. Fair enough, but you said that meritocracies are criticized from a perspective of "(1) how merit can be meas
142.
by leftyted 7y ago
> It's amazing how much this misses the point of the conversation on meritocracy - that critics of meritocracy do not have a problem with merit itself, but rather (1) how merit can be measured in more abstract ways, (2) the degree t
143.
by leftyted 7y ago
His writing is fine. It ain't Speak, Memory but it's pleasantly spare and there's no awkwardness. I don't see Paul Graham or SSC expounding novel ideas. I enjoy SSC more too, mainly because it's funnier and I&#x27
144.
by leftyted 7y ago
This is historicism. For example, the idea that, because compilers have eliminated most hand-optimization, that process will inexorably continue, moving further up the chain of abstraction until "trivial programming" has been eli
145.
by leftyted 7y ago
> What's wrong with selling people on "Use the best available data and expertice to make logical policy decisions" ? There hasn't been much of that in this area, to date. Because it amounts to "you have no choice
146.
by leftyted 7y ago
My understanding is that "we're all going to die" is not a widely accepted view among climate scientists. I am skeptical of "catastrophic climate change leading to the end of life as we know it or the extinction of huma
147.
by leftyted 7y ago
That joke boils down to "just do what we say even if we're wrong". That message isn't going to fly with a lot of people, especially in the US, where many are deeply suspicious of the government. Reminds me of Steve Ban
148.
by leftyted 7y ago
Older fathers are associated with all kinds of negative childbirth outcomes. Just not as much as older mothers.
149.
by leftyted 7y ago
> Yes, there are facts. In your example, if I say "person X said Y" and have a video of them saying it, I am stating a fact. I am not dealing in beliefs and I don't give a fuck whether or not the person still supports the
150.
by leftyted 7y ago
I agree with you. But it is encouraging that there are adults in the room: > Kate Klonick, a law professor at St. John’s University in New York, urged caution. > “This is a massive norm-setting period,” she said, with any alterations

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