lukifer

74 ms·

721.
by lukifer 7y ago
See also: Anatomy of an Epidemic [0], about when pharmaceuticals to treat mental health issues become problems in their own right; and, the chapters on medical intervention in Elephant in the Brain [1], which argue persuasively that much of
722.
by lukifer 7y ago
There's a reason that Recycle comes last in "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle": it's the least desirable option. If you Reduce, you get an easy win by not needing the resource in the first place; Reuse achieves orders of magnitude
723.
by lukifer 7y ago
/r/politics has become a race-to-the-bottom of polarization, but it's nowhere near as bad as T_D; a civil defense of Trump on the former will be tolerated (even if downvoted/flamed), whereas any anti-Trump sentiment on t
724.
by lukifer 7y ago
"It’s very easy to remove spam, bots, racial slurs, low-effort trolls, and abuse... But once you remove all those things, you’re left with people honestly and civilly arguing for their opinions. And that’s the scariest thing of all.&qu
725.
by lukifer 7y ago
I'm pretty sold on Clojure's value, I've read up on its structure/syntax, but generally struggle with learning the standard lib and trying to read/write actual code. Any resources you can recommend for gradually ram
726.
by lukifer 7y ago
There is perhaps an appeal to megacorps as voluntary nation-state membership; it is not trivial to leave one's tech ecosystem, but it's much easier than leaving one's nation, and there are advantages to all the components of
727.
by lukifer 7y ago
Relevant: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-culture-war-thread...
728.
by lukifer 7y ago
I recently read a book [0] that made a compelling case that mental health conditions can often be perpetuated, if not created, by the drugs that purport to treat those conditions (the formal term being "iatrogenic" [1]). If true,
729.
by lukifer 7y ago
Cool, thanks for sharing! (Seems like a missed opportunity that Apple didn't add their own built-in haptics to the TouchBar.)
730.
by lukifer 7y ago
There's a lot to love in the 2013-2015 line, but the 2008-2012 series will always have my heart. I've never had a laptop so easy to work on, and being able to put two drives in a portable is icing on the cake.
731.
by lukifer 7y ago
Right there with you. It'd be a neat addition if it didn't require sacrificing F-keys, and/or was an optional upgrade. First thing I checked is if the new 15-inch has a non-Touch-Bar option (the answer is no). I just ordered
732.
by lukifer 7y ago
I've read that modern "dwarf wheat" has an enzyme that interacts with the same neurotransmitters as opiates, prompting withdrawal symptoms if one doesn't have it again in a few days. I've got strong source amnesia a
733.
by lukifer 7y ago
Closest I could find to a recursive Betteridge's Law: ;) http://calmerthanyouare.org/2015/03/19/betteridges-law.html
734.
by lukifer 7y ago
Sapir-Whorf may run even deeper; Simler's book [0] argues persuasively that social signaling is the primary motivator not only of language, but of cognition itself. So perhaps Sapir-Whorf puts the cart before the horse: we actually th
735.
by lukifer 7y ago
See also: complexity thresholds in Big History: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_History
736.
by lukifer 7y ago
As true now as it was 12 years ago: ORMs are the Vietnam of computer science. http://blogs.tedneward.com/post/the-vietnam-of-computer-scie... (tl;dr: there is an impedance mismatch / leaky abstraction between rela
737.
by lukifer 7y ago
The trust model for elections is fundamentally a human one: the hundreds of thousands of American volunteers (mostly senior citizens) operating via transparency, norms, and good faith. All the tech in the world, even the most solid FOSS cry
738.
by lukifer 7y ago
There is an unresolvable tension between the quantitative and the qualitative, and it's hard to imagine a more extreme example than erasing ineffable human dignity in order to turn a human into a commodity. Let's flip this around
739.
by lukifer 8y ago
Love my ‘11 Volt, averages 62mpg, including several road trips. Super smooth to drive and nearly zero maintenance; I’ll never go back to a combustion drive train or gears if I can help it.
740.
by lukifer 8y ago
> If the people are upset about my rule, they can always be reminded to elect a new government (which will, of course, be powerless to do anything about me) This is paralleled/satirized in the British comedy "Yes, Minister&quot
741.
by lukifer 8y ago
No dispute: sometimes the system works. Shaming is a normal component of human social dynamics. The risk is when shame is disproportionate, and never-ending; and this risk is intertwined with the moral hazards of social status incentives fo
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by lukifer 8y ago
Very good points. The challenge with libel/slander (in the US) is that bears a high burden of proof; I'm allowed to say "OJ Simpson is a murderer", so long as I believe it to be true, and/or I'm not doing so wi
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by lukifer 8y ago
There are two types of social force: physical violence, and attack on reputation (shaming). However imperfectly, we instantiated The State as a monopoly on violence, subjecting violent force to The Rule of Law; while the success of that ent
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by lukifer 8y ago
Who says we're not "schizophrenic" now? Our common parlance attributes agency to blind chaotic forces in the universe; our visual systems are quasi-hallucinogenic in their mechanisms (making all sorts of "optical illusio
745.
by lukifer 8y ago
Still a classic: https://blog.pinboard.in/2016/10/benjamin_button_reviews_the...
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by lukifer 8y ago
Diana Fleischman makes a very compelling case for what she calls "bivalveganism" (veganism plus mussels and clams): https://sentientist.org/2013/05/20/the-ethical-case-for-eati...
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by lukifer 8y ago
Trump isn’t really a business person, he just plays one on TV :P
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by lukifer 8y ago
> could evolution qualify as a Gödel machine as well? I would say so. See also: Gaia Hypothesis [0], and the Big History project [1]. Arguably, biological evolution is but one layer in a self-improving information-energy complexity stack
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by lukifer 8y ago
> Let's start with curbing speech that encourages harming others. No doubt, explicit threats or advocacy/conspiracy to violence exist, and should not be tolerated. However, there are countless complicated grey areas subject to
750.
by lukifer 8y ago
Chomsky’s position is that the burden of proof is on state violence to justify itself, and I think he would agree it’s clearly justified in that case. However, that’s a very narrowly scoped restriction (and it’s also not clear that such dis

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