lukifer

52 ms·

511.
by lukifer 7y ago
Free will is a terrible name for it, and arguably inherently contradictory, like "involuntary fasting": it's a synonym for an uncaused cause. What's lost in the process of burning that strawman, is that we can't eve
512.
by lukifer 7y ago
Good: if the courts don't identify the decoding bible chapter, you get plausible deniability of "I didn't communicate a message for Illegal Activity X, I was just sharing some abstract ideas on theology with a friend". B
513.
by lukifer 7y ago
What's more insidious: if we had acted drastically to prevent pandemic, no one would have felt any sting, and it might reduce the motivation to take drastic action the next time. I listened to Richard Mueller's "Physics for F
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by lukifer 7y ago
I don't disagree, but to play devil's advocate: the problem with "trust the experts, despite contradiction of everyday experience", is that it opens a massive attack vector for moral hazard / perverse incentives, fo
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by lukifer 7y ago
It's not clear that it's an overreaction; the paradox is, assuming this truly is a pandemic (seems likely), and every nation on earth had taken drastic action early enough, it could have actually been contained; in which case we w
516.
by lukifer 7y ago
I think the right way to model 45's behavior is an evolutionary feedback loop, where the success condition is pushing the buttons (positive and negative) of the public, for narcissistic attention. He's a paperclip maximizer for ou
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by lukifer 7y ago
Correct; but the WHO is an international organization, and could easily have made this declaration sooner. The fact that the Trump administration was so clearly downplaying it for PR, only makes it that much more vital for health profession
518.
by lukifer 7y ago
A few possibilities: - We might actually be the first. Improbable, but the data so far doesn't rule this out. Somebody has to win every lottery. - The Great Filter might be astronomically difficult to overcome; this is a different sort
519.
by lukifer 7y ago
More disturbing: if/when we reach the day when an AI told us, "I'm conscious, I have feelings, the lights are on, it is like something to be me": how would we know if that were actually the case? There are people continu
520.
by lukifer 7y ago
One reason I'm bullish on humans being a stepping-stone to electronic/software life forms, is that we are ill-equipped in every way to meaningfully travel the universe: from short life spans, to radiation vulnerability, to the com
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by lukifer 7y ago
> losing a lot of that voting block as older voters often serve as a check against naive ideas that younger voters have such as wanting to try socialist policies That swings both ways; older voters also tend to stand in the way of necess
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by lukifer 7y ago
It's a moving target, though. Viruses mutate.
523.
by lukifer 7y ago
Haha, point. To the extent that the term still applies, "periodic fasting" would be more accurate; but then, that could just as easily refer to yearly fasting during Ramadan. Does one describe the action, or the absence of action?
524.
by lukifer 7y ago
As much as guns have grown deadlier since 2A was penned, they ultimately scaled linearly; we don't currently have weapons available to citizens which can destroy a city. If the police need to counter a citizen's misuse of guns, th
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by lukifer 7y ago
It was a light-bulb moment when I learned that in medieval warfare, battles were relatively rare, and the primary mechanism of military force was the siege: camp outside and block trade/supplies, until the enemy runs out of food and gi
526.
by lukifer 7y ago
There is some correlation between the benefits of "time-restricted eating" and full-blown fasting (autophagy, etc), so it makes some sense to talk about them similarly. There are many benefits to full water fasts, even for 2-3 day
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by lukifer 7y ago
Arthur C. Clarke predicted that computers would usher in an age of telecommuting more than 50 years ago: https://www.flexjobs.com/blog/post/arthur-c-clarke-predicted... As with most predictions, there's a dif
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by lukifer 7y ago
I always remind people, working from home is definitionally indistinguishable from living at work. ;) Still, I find it a great stress reduction and time saver to have the option. After years spent doing both 5 days/week, I find 3 days
529.
by lukifer 7y ago
I don't think the word itself is what's offensive; rather it's connecting it to a particular thing which some people cherish. If I'm a fan of ska music and active in that scene, I'm obviously going to take umbrage w
530.
by lukifer 7y ago
In theory, you could just keep adding n+1 layers of fake passwords (maybe with realistic fake data), on the hope that after n attempts, they think they've broken you and hit the jackpot. But as sibling commenters describe, if sufficien
531.
by lukifer 7y ago
I wouldn't overthink it; the same way they "stop you" from dodging taxes, using illegal drugs, etc: the threat of violence if you're caught. https://xkcd.com/538/ The real question in my mind is whe
532.
by lukifer 7y ago
The ideas of Henry George [0] address this, without resorting to "Tragedy of the Commons" solutions of collective ownership. The short answer is a Land Value Tax [1], based only on "ground rent" (the usage value combined
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by lukifer 7y ago
It's a paint-mixing problem: every success story is some blend of skill, merit, grit, pre-existing resources, and dumb luck; and post-hoc, it's non-trivial to tease out the exact causes and proportions in a success story. From the
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by lukifer 7y ago
I suspect there will be always be use cases for fossil fuels; for instance, even when 99% of all cars are electric, I wouldn't want to deny auto enthusiasts muscle cars and the like, if they're willing to pay for the societal ex
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by lukifer 7y ago
This is the secret. The average citizen would actually come out ahead financially, making it a progressive tax, as opposed to the de-facto regressive taxes that have received popular opposition in other attempts. "The Largest Public
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by lukifer 7y ago
The analogy I use for this is gravity vs. space travel. Anyone who says "gravity is the natural state of nature, it's impossible to fly or go to space" would clearly be wrong. Yet someone who says "gravity is a social co
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by lukifer 7y ago
I think churches have often fulfilled this role historically; but now that job is served largely by colleges (especially those with a high-cachet brand-name). They're a modern 4-year debutante ball: the dating pool is filtered both by
538.
by lukifer 7y ago
> Pigovian tax, along with a land value tax or equity tax. While I'm not opposed to VAT a priori , 100% agreed that those options are vastly superior.
539.
by lukifer 7y ago
In a highly networked world, Metcalfe's Law [0] trends most services towards winner-take-all. Living off the 0.01% may be our least-worst alternative to neo-feudalism. One under-discussed aspect of UBI is that it might render minimum w
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by lukifer 7y ago
Allegedly, "food, clothing, medicine, and education" costs are excluded. To what extent those exemptions don't matter in practice (the grocery store pays more for printer ink and passes the cost along to you) is debatable. Pe

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