omalleyt

10 ms·

61.
by omalleyt 9y ago
Well, it's not like I wholly disagree with what you're saying, but I think the paragraph above is a straw man of what I'm saying. First, here is the element of Postmodern discourse I'm talking about: https://e
62.
by omalleyt 9y ago
It's a symptom of postmodernism that nowhere in this text is it even suggested that Tacitus is maybe just, you know, relating the facts about Germancius as accurately as he can. Instead we're sitting here quibbling over what liter
63.
by omalleyt 9y ago
Three reasons you're not going to see a change like this in the algo: 1) Recommendations are somewhat economic substitutes, not economic complements. Which is to say, most people look at the Amazon page for a given book, then look thro
64.
by omalleyt 9y ago
There have been multiple civilization-wide collapses in those intervening 7,000 years, so he wasn't necessarily wrong for his time period And until it recently became taboo to do so, many giants of the enlightenment looked back and bla
65.
by omalleyt 9y ago
In a for-profit company, there's a group of people at the top who are paid handsomely for cutting costs (i.e. stock-based compensation). This doesn't exist in NGO's, and so for large organizations with lots of cash flow, bloa
66.
by omalleyt 9y ago
Philosophers latched onto the idea of QM in consciousness bc they thought the randomness aspect left room for free will. Of course it doesn't, any more than hooking up an axe over your head that will only drop if a certain atom decays
67.
by omalleyt 9y ago
A beautiful example and well-illustrated by the fact that humans could play catch before the development of trigonometry
68.
by omalleyt 10y ago
Ok, but how would you define "human invention" if not as "something that didn't previously have a material manifestation"?
69.
by omalleyt 10y ago
The idea of non-zero-sum games is that a regulator interested in public welfare would still let the two people you described play that "game," and then would be able to tax and redistribute in such a way that both "players&qu
70.
by omalleyt 10y ago
The concept of "circle" is a human invention, in that a perfect circle has never been observed in the universe. The value of pi follows immediately as a derivative human invention.
71.
by omalleyt 10y ago
Well, like Crassus said in the first century BC, "You're not rich unless you can afford your own army."
72.
by omalleyt 10y ago
Hunter-gatherers generally didn't store meat. Therefore, when the best hunter in the group brought home a large animal, he shared it with all. Likewise, there were few physical possessions or need for such, and so these were shared too
73.
by omalleyt 10y ago
I would make the distinction between intellectual tasks involving synthesis vs. analysis. Analysis (observation, experimentation, hypothesis testing) can be chunked down and distributed to team members. Synthesis (hypothesis creation) by de
74.
by omalleyt 10y ago
These thoughts scare me. Utilitarianism is far from perfect. For instance, would we as a society designate 5% of women as lacking right to their own body and allow any man to have them when he wishes? If the pleasure the men gained is great
75.
by omalleyt 10y ago
Well, male nipples are spandrels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spandrel_(biology) That is, they're useful for the female and not particularly harmful for the male, so they live on. It's also an instance of DR
76.
by omalleyt 10y ago
Foster's rule is actually the reverse of that. Which can be seen intuitively because non-human predators pick off the weakest and smallest of the pack.
77.
by omalleyt 10y ago
The form of vitamin B6 in supplements is pyroxidine hydrochloride, which at high levels (mostly >100mg/day) can cause peripheral neuropathy. So can zinc. A lot of times it's overlooked that the form of the vitamin is different
78.
by omalleyt 10y ago
Well, no each shareholder would get 3 stocks for every one they have now. But each stock would represent 1/3 of the stake in the company it used to. Sorry for a purely negative comment, just wanted to clarify. If you think about it, if
79.
by omalleyt 11y ago
It's not that in perfect competition profit is impossible, it's that in perfect competition the rate of return of capital invested would equal the risk free rate + what are you compensated for the risk you are taking on. You would
80.
by omalleyt 11y ago
I'd disagree that giving up on that workout was a good idea. I'm heavily involved in the powerlifting community, and there's a well-known phenomenon where people try and talk themselves into taking an extra rest day or two be
81.
by omalleyt 11y ago
He's not saying the rich don't hide their wealth: he's arguing that corporations do not report artificially lower profits and then proceed to deny returns to their wealthy owners.
82.
by omalleyt 11y ago
Yup! And the article incorrectly states that humans have more cortical neurons than any other animal. Pilot whales (a misnomer, they're dolphins) have more cortical neurons than humans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki&#x2
83.
by omalleyt 11y ago
For anyone interested in the dynamics of the Air Force that explain the abysmal performance of the F-35, and why the F-16 can beat it in a dogfight despite being commissioned 40 years ago, look up John Boyd or read "Boyd: The Fighter P
84.
by omalleyt 11y ago
The predictions of pilot wave theory are the same as any other interpretation of quantum mechanics, and the theory isn't new it's been around 80 years
85.
by omalleyt 11y ago
If you accept that all effects have causes, you accept determinism. Also, determinism will be resurrected. Look at Pilot Wave theory. It explains quantum weirdness with a deterministic worldview, but everyone would prefer to hype voodoo the
86.
by omalleyt 11y ago
Many Worlds? That just abstracts the probability one step further, ie why am I in THIS world and not the other one (or if you prefer, why did my universe experience the string of events A-C-C-A-B and not A-C-C-A-A)? The deterministic soluti
87.
by omalleyt 11y ago
The share price likely wouldn't reflect insider knowledge. To see this, take an extreme example. The CEO owns less than 1% of most publicly traded companies. Even if he was allowed to sell his whole position without public disclosure,
88.
by omalleyt 11y ago
Pilot wave theory: the "weird effects" that QM displays are really just the result of space time being a thing that vibrates in a wave-like pattern influenced by mass. And the reason this is cool is because when you put everyday o
89.
by omalleyt 11y ago
That's how people used to view "imaginary" numbers...and the field of complex analysis laid dormant for 200 years. When a valid geometric interpretation was found that backed up the algebraic existence of these numbers, the f
90.
by omalleyt 11y ago
The scarce resources implied here is the money that the government spends on medical treatment for the elderly, poor and disabled. Bill Gates obviously could always buy his own medical treatment.

More ›