mahranch

72 ms·

331.
by mahranch 12y ago
The issue with Fermi's Paradox is the fact that it's not a paradox at all. It relies on assumptions and presumptions that are now dated (we have explanations for). For starters, let's begin with the first point it makes; If t
332.
by mahranch 12y ago
Huh? There are countless examples of this happening. I can think of a dozen off the top of my head... Of course it's not easy, but it shouldn't be easy. Mods spend a lot of time building up their communities. It should take an eq
333.
by mahranch 12y ago
The problem I see with his retiring is one I've experienced on reddit as a moderator. When someone higher than you "retires" or goes otherwise inactive, yet still retains the power they hold, they inevitably come back. It&#x2
334.
by mahranch 12y ago
> Nature also created smallpox, if you'll recall. But we killed that just fine. You're a part of nature, and you'll die too. You're not comparing apples and apples. You're comparing apples and oranges. If you wan
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by mahranch 12y ago
> or are people just unwilling to put up with the winters? This is slightly related; It may not be tomorrow, next week, or next decade, but eventually, there will come a time when climate change makes living in the west and/or south
336.
by mahranch 12y ago
> How do you even know it's a fact, except by some appeal to history? Does nature create perfect humans? If your answer is anything but yes, then it's a fact that corruption is a part of nature, much like thunderstorms or a sun
337.
by mahranch 12y ago
> Your acceptance of this kind of corruption is the very thing that enables it to flourish. Humans are inherently corrupt. You're never going to have a morally perfect society. It just can't happen. It's like asking the su
338.
by mahranch 12y ago
> It's not open and blatant. They have publicly visible infrastructure and operate legitimate businesses. (on the surface) This doesn't mean their criminality is blatant. This is exactly it. It's like someone seeing an ad
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by mahranch 12y ago
> It's quite amazing just how integrated they are into Japanese society Only, they're not. I don't know why people keep repeating this. The Yakuza has been on the decline since the early 90s. The only place they're st
340.
by mahranch 12y ago
> Scathing criticism is regularly posted about the Chinese government Did you actually read the study? That's not what they studied. They studied whether postings were held for review more on social media sites over standard media
341.
by mahranch 12y ago
> blocking so many foreign sites has enabled a flourishing of domestic internet companies of the likes that nobody but the US has seen I'm not sure I follow. It's not like there's a huge demand to do business with local
342.
by mahranch 12y ago
I don't think it's fair to conflate a progressive political ideology with website layout. The two aren't remotely related. You can subscribe to a progressive ideology and abhor a dramatic redesign of a website. Just because s
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by mahranch 12y ago
> but he often came off as pretentious and very confrontational and rude This is about as accurate as it gets. He was intelligent, there's no doubt about that, but the problem was he believed himself to be more intelligent than he a
344.
by mahranch 12y ago
> Similarly one can be a Buddhist atheist as well. This makes me think of my time in Japan. On polls (or when asked), the majority of the Japanese will say or mark down "Buddhism". However, for all intents and purposes, they&#x
345.
by mahranch 12y ago
" because I happened to live with 2 muslim roommates " I just want to play devil's advocate for a moment; You say this nonchalantly, but that's the most important bit of your statement. If one of those two roommates were
346.
by mahranch 12y ago
" What I see is a curve that is slowing, not speeding, and no particular reason to believe that the curve ever gets over the "commercially-viable fusion" break-even point, ever. " I think even educated people have a few
347.
by mahranch 12y ago
I think this author is referring to using grids on a professional/business website. Half of what he says wouldn't apply to theverge because they're more of a magazine/article driven site. I'd argue grids are nearly
348.
by mahranch 12y ago
> " Not just one. " But you linked to random blogspot articles, and Steinhardt is the guy who the first source is referencing. His name is mentioned in the byline. He's the guy from Princeton I mentioned. All of this is ma
349.
by mahranch 12y ago
> Outside America nobody knows what NFL is beyond that it is some strange variant on the football theme I think this is extremely misinformed. Did you know that there is a world cup for gridiron football? It's the IFAF World Champ
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by mahranch 12y ago
From the abstract of the paper: "The expected amplitude of the dust polarization power spectrum remains uncertain by about a factor of three. The lower end of the prediction leaves room for a primordial contribution, but at the higher
351.
by mahranch 12y ago
" It's better than bigger social sharing sites like Reddit " I think this sentence is wholly flawed. Reddit is divided into subreddits, each subreddit has their own unique community and moderators. /r/askscience for
352.
by mahranch 13y ago
> These people live in shoe boxes So "downtown Tokyo" = all of Japan now? I lived in Japan for 14 months and I can tell you right now they don't all "live in shoe boxes". Hell, my rental flat in Japan was bigger
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by mahranch 13y ago
> CCP are evil tyrants destroying the freedom of chinese" <snip> destruction of poverty and rise of the middle class wealth and power. The two aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, most people believe both are happening.
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by mahranch 13y ago
> It's only relatively recently that they moved up the quality ladder. Depends on what you mean by "recent". In my mind, recent means within ~10 years. However, Japan started turning things around in the late 80s. We&#x2
355.
by mahranch 13y ago
He actually launched it on reddit first, but deleted his announcement post and then re-posted it a few days later. He said as much in one of his interviews, I think it's linked in a comment above.
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by mahranch 13y ago
The admins never banned gawker, a few mods banned gawker in some of their subreddits to protest the "doxxing" of reddit users.
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by mahranch 13y ago
> Also, the mods of Reddit are a huge problem. I hold the exact opposite opinion. And I believe reddit's growth over the last 6 years is affirmation of my opinion. Before reddit had subreddits and mods, it was a virtual clone of thi
358.
by mahranch 13y ago
That doesn't mean much though. Every Japanese kanji used in a name means something on its own. Since they're used in names, they all are technicially "interesting". When people tell other people their names in Japan, t
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by mahranch 13y ago
You do realize he's being sarcastic, right?
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by mahranch 13y ago
" In this new Digital Age, the Press needs to find a new model " It did. In this digital age, small time publishers and blogs can now have an audience thanks to advertisers. If they're popular and providing great content they

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