radford-neal

8 ms·

31.
by radford-neal 3y ago
The "holding hostage" phrasing implies that somehow the House needs to use the debt ceiling as leverage to cut spending. But to cut spending, the House just needs to not approve spending - no agreement by the Senate or President
32.
by radford-neal 3y ago
I don't know the details of the bill, but doesn't it simultaneously increase the credit limit (avoiding default), while cutting future spending? I don't see any inconsistency.
33.
by radford-neal 3y ago
But isn't the current situation one in which the House is authorizing borrowing to avoid default while also rolling back future spending? So it's not "vote to spend money, but then make it impossible"?
34.
by radford-neal 3y ago
Under the US constitution, isn't money supposed to be spent only if both the House and Senate agree that it should be spent, and either the President also agrees or his veto is overridden? So if the House doesn't want to spend mo
35.
by radford-neal 3y ago
The article says that 74% think that "Race or ethnicity" "Shouldn’t Be Considered" in college admissions. This implies that at least 74% don't support "affirmative action", which must be based on consider
36.
by radford-neal 3y ago
"So what can possibly cause warming is only the effect of the difference in temperatures between the CO2 gas and the surface. Which should only be significant in higher altitudes. Which have much less CO2 because it is heavier." M
37.
by radford-neal 4y ago
Yes, in a technical usage of the word "primitive" sometimes encountered in discussions of evolution, it refers simply to something that comes early. For instance, one might ask whether a trait shared by two species is "primit
38.
by radford-neal 4y ago
Whether one culture is more "primitive" than another is indeed a disputable value judgement. But there is no dispute that the culture of the Yanomamö is vastly different from the culture of modern industrial societies. There
39.
by radford-neal 4y ago
I agree that we want accurate information about government abuses to be smuggled out. But that has nothing to do with this situation. This situation is about one newspaper getting a commercial advantage from publishing information a few ho
40.
by radford-neal 4y ago
Really? You're not concerned that government employees may be picking up some income on the side by leaking stories to whichever news outlet pays them the most? That's just a weird thing to be worried about?
41.
by radford-neal 4y ago
ChatGPT has no implications for high-school English classes, if they are taught properly - ie, with the goal of teaching English literature and composition. If they're taught with the goal of assigning grades to students, then sure, C
42.
by radford-neal 4y ago
The usual argument for why negative interest rates might be needed is to prevent deflation. But in a fiat currency system like we have, it is always extremely easy for governments to reduce the value of the currency (ie, stop deflation).
43.
by radford-neal 4y ago
Well, I agree that it's amazing - it almost always produces grammatical output, for instance. But it's not a reliable way of obtaining knowledge. One should not, in particular, try to learn about biology by asking ChatGPT questi
44.
by radford-neal 4y ago
"Fool" is the operative word here. ChatGPT is quite capable of producing very plausible sounding text about biology that is totally incorrect. See, for example, the example in my comment at https://www.lesswrong.com&#
45.
by radford-neal 4y ago
This is deeply immoral. You are deceiving someone about something that is probably important to them. You are lying. Lying is not nice.
46.
by radford-neal 4y ago
The problem is that "I'm not sure" has only a few synonyms, like "I don't know", but the correct answer to a complex question can phrased in many ways. For instance, "How do owls catch mice?" could b
47.
by radford-neal 4y ago
Central banks just print more money as needed to provide the amount needed to handle transactions. Or if they don't (or there is no central bank, if you're on a commodity gold standard), there is deflation, so the same amount of
48.
by radford-neal 4y ago
Investors look for a return after accounting for inflation. If inflation is 5% and interest rates are 10%, the return is the same as if inflation were 0% and interest rates were 5%. Although recent years have been a puzzling exception, it
49.
by radford-neal 4y ago
Printing more money to handle the increased need for it just due to population growth (or growth in the economy) would lead to 0% inflation, not 2%. By definition, 2% inflation is not "price stability".
50.
by radford-neal 4y ago
You're confusing money with actual wealth. If someone puts a big stash of dollar bills under their mattress, that does not interfere with real wealth being created. Whereas putting a big stash of hammers under your mattress would mea
51.
by radford-neal 4y ago
The usual justification is that wages are "sticky" - that people really don't like it when their employer decreases their wage, taking it as a comment on their worth, leading to a bad work environment, etc. So when a busines
52.
by radford-neal 4y ago
> It's fine if you think something shouldn't be UB, but you have to go lobbying the C standard for that. Compiler writers aren't to blame here. I'm glad I don't live in your country, where the C standard has been
53.
by radford-neal 4y ago
The article is missing any discussion of why this should be. You wouldn't expect epigenetic changes to simply be the direct result of, say, lack of food. Instead, it would seem like this must be a "deliberate" adaptive resp
54.
by radford-neal 4y ago
War is not good for the economy. This should be completely obvious based on common sense, but if you want more evidence, consider the widespread hunger in Europe after World Wars I and II, even in the countries on the winning side. Sure, i
55.
by radford-neal 4y ago
I very much doubt that there is any technical reason for the alerts always being loud. It's a deliberate decision. Like the whole idea of amber alerts, it is a matter of authorities taking decisions that make them feel good, without
56.
by radford-neal 4y ago
I certainly agree that talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds ought to be helped. But thinking parental income is the causal factor behind the observed correlation of student success with income may be mistaken. Two other hypothe
57.
by radford-neal 4y ago
Interesting. I do recall that quite a few years ago I happened to talk with one of the original programmers (I won't say their name here, though I remember it), who complained that Wolfram had basically stolen from them. That must ha
58.
by radford-neal 4y ago
No, this is not known with "very high certainty". The most recent IPCC report (AR6) gives the "very likely" (90% probability) range for "equilibrium climate sensitivity" - the eventual effect on temperature of
59.
by radford-neal 4y ago
This essay would benefit from some examples of common beliefs that he thinks are not "Alien Truths", and what he thinks the implications of that are. As it is, I don't really see what he's trying to get at...
60.
by radford-neal 4y ago
Beyond the inadvisability of making a breaking change for no reason, it's worth noting that deprecating fgrep is actually positively undesirable. Use of fgrep should be encouraged . The reason is that many times people want to match

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