rosser

35 ms·

391.
by rosser 8y ago
Apologies for the delay in responding. This week was my hack week, and I had Life stuff happening, too. > If you assume dualism... Which I don't. My position on this stuff is in the neighborhood of panpsychism or Objective Idealis
392.
by rosser 8y ago
Maybe because some subset of the audience on HN seems to have a habit of downvoting facts they don't like, or data points that counter their narratives. I can't count the number of times I've posted factual, verifiable info
393.
by rosser 8y ago
Yes, it does. In fact, I submit that it's the duty of anyone saying that the line separating "conscious" and "not-conscious" animals is here or there has to justify not just why that's where they drew the l
394.
by rosser 8y ago
You're still talking about the content of the experience. Remembering it is immaterial. The content is immaterial. That you had an experience of any kind — real, false, remembered, not — is what matters, not what it's an experie
395.
by rosser 8y ago
And this is why, no matter how many downvotes it gets (and believe me, I get them for it), I will continue to say Dennett's book should have been titled "Consciousness Explained Away ." He dances around the thing pretty muc
396.
by rosser 8y ago
You're trying to make "consciousness" mean far more than many of the rest of us in this discussion, and then arguing against the definition you're the only one using. We're not talking about the content of our exper
397.
by rosser 8y ago
You can be mistaken about the content of your experience, but I can not conceive you you can be mistaken about the fact you're having one . Dream, delusion, reality, drugs, schizophrenia, completely fabricated sensory manifold, whatev
398.
by rosser 8y ago
What about the research indicating improved cognitive capabilities in adults who became multilingual as children? Isn't it just as likely that children who grow up exposed to multiple cultures end up better able to maneuver through a c
399.
by rosser 8y ago
>> But it's ultimately a spectrum, and it's on me to gauge where on that spectrum any given source lands. In no way did I claim, or even imply some sort of equivalence between Wikileaks and the NYT. Please don't put w
400.
by rosser 8y ago
I don't expect journalism to be non-partisan. I expect it to be affirmatively transparent about its partisanship. You're right, though, that nothing actually meets that bar. It's a human institution; it's necessarily fla
401.
by rosser 8y ago
Of course not. They're among the worst offenders, they're far from alone in playing that game.
402.
by rosser 8y ago
Fox News isn't journalism. It's opinion wrapped around selective "reporting". EDIT: Yes, of course it's impossible to eliminate bias. To extrapolate from that to accepting overtly biased and selectively published
403.
by rosser 8y ago
The selectivity of Wikileaks' leaks put the lie to their claim of being a journalistic entity. Julian Assange has an agenda against certain people/parties, and has demonstrably leaked things that support that, and not leaked thi
404.
by rosser 8y ago
We use pgbouncer with pools of thousands of concurrent connections. It does what it says on the tin.
405.
by rosser 8y ago
Ecosystems are massively interdependent. There is necessarily an inflection point where an ecosystem is so depleted that it can't carry itself any more, let alone us. That's called "collapse" and it tends to be permane
406.
by rosser 8y ago
Nope. That's not what they're testing. They're testing whether or not the thing even works — which necessarily includes "doesn't kill people", sure. But that's not the specific thing being measured; it&#
407.
by rosser 8y ago
There's a very good reason we don't run experiments to test, e.g., the hypothesis that a certain chemical might cause birth defects: the consequences of the hypothesis being accurate are morally abhorrent. You don't do someth
408.
by rosser 8y ago
Are you legit saying, "I don't know if extinct-ing most of the species on the planet will wipe us out. It might. That seems like a worthwhile hypothesis to test empirically!"? When the dice are that loaded, you throw them at
409.
by rosser 8y ago
We are not separate from our environment. We wreck it at our own peril. Rapacious destruction may have been an expedient shortcut to our development, but unchecked, it will also end us .
410.
by rosser 8y ago
I did not accuse you of homophobia, though that is a legitimate read of my comment, as phrased. I took your position of normalizing "traditional" human sexual dynamics and pointed out (in a manner admittedly somewhat motivated by,
411.
by rosser 8y ago
> Whereas, if you are in a monogamous pair, there is a pretty good chance that you will not be coerced sexually. Multiple analyses of spousal/partner rape put the incidence on the order of 30-40% of all adult rape cases . When th
412.
by rosser 8y ago
You only get to decide what's the best system for you . But that's not even the point behind my criticizing your approach. People with non-mainstream lifestyles are already more often than not marginalized, sometimes to death .
413.
by rosser 8y ago
Yeah: >> The monogamous pair bonds _are_ the coercive bullshit. > It's like Churchill said about democracy: It's the worst system, except for all the others. That's totally about coercive organizational dynamics,
414.
by rosser 8y ago
I suppose those monogamous pair-bonds should be heterosexual only, too? Please lay off with the attempt to normalize any but your preferred flavor as deviant and wrong. You don't get to decide what happens in any bedroom but your own
415.
by rosser 8y ago
HN "has" a sense of humor, insofar as any group of people can be said to have one. What HN doesn't seem very much to like is cheap humor. Reddit is that-away, if those are the lulz you're looking for.
416.
by rosser 8y ago
It's not the fact of calling shenanigans; it's the vehemence with which it's being done. There's an inflection point beyond which "[he] doth protest too much, methinks" becomes at least as parsimonious an expla
417.
by rosser 8y ago
How many other misdemeanors result in people's kids being summarily taken away?
418.
by rosser 8y ago
Survivorship bias. Just because people can beat stacked decks doesn't make stacked decks okay.
419.
by rosser 8y ago
It is. I don't remember where I picked it up, but I've been using it for years.
420.
by rosser 8y ago
"I disagree with/don't understand/don't like $thing" does not imply "$thing is irrational."

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