rcoveson

22 ms·

181.
by rcoveson 4y ago
> In the past, our understanding of the fundamental laws of physics was quite lacking. Today, although it is incomplete, our understanding of physics is considerably more advanced to preclude a lot of physically impossible things. To me
182.
by rcoveson 4y ago
Are you arguing that advances in science that would look like impossible magic to us today are confined to fiction forever? Why do you believe that (1) and (2) are true at every stage of technological advancement in our distant future, whic
183.
by rcoveson 4y ago
It’s not as cheesy as nitpicking flavor adjectives with the assertion that they’re not literally accurate.
184.
by rcoveson 4y ago
> If we define “expect” as 50%+ odds then no, if we define it as “I can see how this could happen” then yes. Nobody has ever defined or proposed defining "expect" as "I can see how this could happen" until just now. N
185.
by rcoveson 4y ago
If I bet $1 for a 1:10 chance to win $15, do I expect to win $15?
186.
by rcoveson 4y ago
What a ridiculous notion! Using cookies when you want to set a cookie! Absurd! What we are trying to do is set a cookie while also proclaiming to the world that we don’t use cookies. What’s the matter with that? I’m sorry, but “I want to so
187.
by rcoveson 4y ago
> Why not use a cookie? Because then they can't advertise that they don't use cookies. Oh, so they can be craven motherfuckers who abuse protocols for the sake of web analytics. With you so far. > The laws don't care ab
188.
by rcoveson 4y ago
Instead of putting a real, appropriate value in "last-modified", we're putting an arbitrary value, totally unrelated to actual response caching that the user's browser will unwittingly use next time it calls us and in
189.
by rcoveson 4y ago
This is simple. Why not use cookies? Because people don’t like cookies, or people delete cookies, or there are regulations surrounding cookies. So we’re doing what cookies are for with a different part of the protocol to circumvent all thos
190.
by rcoveson 4y ago
How about just consulting a lawyer each time you abuse a protocol to get user's software to behave in a way that is invisible to them and benefits you? There is already a correct way to tell a browser to tell the server something with
191.
by rcoveson 4y ago
I don't want to discount how valuable this may be to you. However, for the average sysadmin, or developer who spends time in shells on many different machines, I would gently suggest that this is not a good idea. It's not a signif
192.
by rcoveson 4y ago
> If you want to own your digital life you will have to commit to being a pariah in your social circle that is ridiculed constantly for using open source tools. I think your friends are just a little too obsessed with social media. The o
193.
by rcoveson 4y ago
You hope that AI gets the jobs of AI programmers soon? I urge you to reconsider the implications of that.
194.
by rcoveson 4y ago
Assuming you have even semi-common answers to questions like "what is an example of a great government", "what is an example of a great charity", or "what is an example of a great organization", you'll fin
195.
by rcoveson 4y ago
Copyleft[0] accounts for a significant but minority fraction of free software. The GPL is a Copyleft licesense, but the MIT and Apache licenses (which together might account for a majority of free software) are not. Copyleft refers to the r
196.
by rcoveson 4y ago
Take a step back even further and it becomes "thinking really hard about how to make humanity the best it can be". Another step back and it's just "thinking really hard". Which, admittedly, has caused a lot of harm!
197.
by rcoveson 4y ago
I've read the Bible. It is mostly not about "teachings of Love and Kindness". It's mostly about faith in and obedience to God. The fundamentals of Christianity are bad. The fundamentals of EA are good. You can't ass
198.
by rcoveson 4y ago
This is wrong as often as it's right. I predect that "I hate my job :)" on social media really does mean the speaker hates their job at least 40% of the time. It's sort of a "this is fine"[0] smiley; the smiley
199.
by rcoveson 4y ago
Why is yomomma- a prefix to grams? That doesn't imply yo' momma so fat, it implies yo' momma so .
200.
by rcoveson 4y ago
Should read "$0.000000000000000000000000800000Q"
201.
by rcoveson 4y ago
Football? Yes. Violence? No. Try getting that rule passed on any form of media.
202.
by rcoveson 4y ago
I think I'm confused about whether you're rejecting the proposition about the investor all on its own, or if it's the broader argument from the Aaronson post that you're rejecting. Your parenthetical makes me think we&#x
203.
by rcoveson 4y ago
It’s not the amount you donate relative to others, it’s the amount you donate relative to how much you are capable of donating. Not many people would work a high-stress, high-barrier-to-entry job and give away almost everything they earned,
204.
by rcoveson 4y ago
Are you describing "giving virtually all of [your earnings] away to effective charities" as "literally buying indulgences"? That's literally the most cynical thing I've ever heard. I can understand having a neg
205.
by rcoveson 4y ago
I unfortunately agree with you as well; it will probably take a world-scale horror story to ignite the anti-data-collection sentiment we need.
206.
by rcoveson 4y ago
I think the only way is to raise a generation of people who see data aggregation/brokerage and user-device-hijacking as immoral, much like how we raised people staring last century to view eugenics as immoral. The weird approach that S
207.
by rcoveson 4y ago
I feel like I could literally copy and paste my reply to your earlier comment and it would work as a response to this one, but I guess I'll just try explaining it in a different way. The way you're talking about this policy could
208.
by rcoveson 4y ago
I think one of the things you're saying is that "whatever legislation ends up passed was the best legislation that anybody was capable of passing in the current political environment", which is sort of a truism. Could these e
209.
by rcoveson 4y ago
I don’t think you’re even trying to understand what I’m saying. I don’t think it’s wrong to give genuinely struggling people, including students, money. I think it’s wrong to draw the particular box that this policy drew: people with outsta
210.
by rcoveson 4y ago
Right… that’s what I’m saying. Let’s stick to the assessment of this particular program, not the notion of wealth redistribution in general.

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