trominos

11 ms·

31.
by trominos 17y ago
I don't understand how you could've possibly come to this conclusion. The net effect of one rich dude donating money to his government is not the same as the net effect of all rich dudes being taxed. So there's no logical contradiction.
32.
by trominos 17y ago
My (potentially unpopular) feeling about GEB is that it's a book that explores some very interesting areas but that doesn't say all that much of interest itself. Reading it I felt like different sections could be put into two categories: (g
33.
by trominos 17y ago
I'm sick of reading the same damn complaint over and over and over again. I could take it -- I expected it -- when it was just reddit, but somehow the theoretically more level-headed Hacker News community has decided that it too needs to
34.
by trominos 17y ago
"It's only a decision in the sense that each day I "decide" not to go to medical school" Well, it is a decision in that sense. That's a real sense in which a decision can be made. At each point in time we choose to do one thing from among
35.
by trominos 17y ago
This is at best tangential to what you're saying, but it's something I always wonder about whenever I see a discussion about practicing writing: is there an upper threshold to writing ability? See, I've been writing in fairly substantial am
36.
by trominos 17y ago
Damn! I knew I should've trusted my surreality radar. In my defense, posts like the parent's -- except earnest -- aren't uncommon on HN.
37.
by trominos 17y ago
Wow, this feels so surreal -- I thought the article was satirical at first, and now here it's changing people's lives. Anyway, I'll keep this short: 1) It's your life. 2) Taking risks is wonderful. So is breaking rules, particularly the inv
38.
by trominos 17y ago
I'm not sure. Americans in the middle class and above aren't strangers to spending substantial amounts of money on stuff that they don't need. Segways are useful enough that I could imagine them gaining a substantial market share if it wer
39.
by trominos 17y ago
God, you're right. I went into writing that post fully intending to make the point that "producing work" for e.g. the glazier is only useful AT ALL if the glazier isn't already working as much as he wants; moreover, even in such a special
40.
by trominos 17y ago
The problem isn't that the book isn't comprehensive or fails to comment on certain issues. It's that the book's logic isn't always sound because of its author's biases. Look at the first example, "The Broken Window." The author describes a
41.
by trominos 17y ago
> "In fact, if anyone earns over 10%, that means that someone else must be earning less than 10%. So, maybe it's a 10-sum game, but most people still use the term "zero-sum game" to describe the situation." You fixed the rate of increa
42.
by trominos 17y ago
Can you point to any postmodern philosophy papers that are useful? How about some that merely make non-obvious true points? Or some that are at least interesting? It probably seems like I'm bashing postmodern philosophy, but although I expe
43.
by trominos 17y ago
Reading primary documents may or may not be the best way to get an unbiased view, but regardless, it's not actually what you suggested in your first post. You said: > "To maintain the ability to think for yourself, the best material to
44.
by trominos 17y ago
Your point is fairly well-argued but, I think, essentially untrue. > "Every model of the world has certain assumptions, certain axioms, built into it." This is almost a tautology. Of course it's impossible to make a truly objective mo
45.
by trominos 17y ago
This comment is completely useless without some kind of citation or reference. (It's also annoyingly smug.)
46.
by trominos 17y ago
People: stop voting this guy down. I thought we tolerated dissenters here.
47.
by trominos 17y ago
Question 1 sort of feels like another essay question where the good answer [to "which viewpoint is best"] is "it depends," but the "correct" answer is "let's see how well I can support one of these viewpoints by selectively ignoring scena
48.
by trominos 17y ago
I really don't know anything about the economics of the Great Depression, but the opinion of two extremely outspoken economists does not (at all) serve as conclusive evidence of the failure of Roosevelt's policies. I'll go ahead and link yo
49.
by trominos 17y ago
So you're saying that there is some fundamental, a priori reason for humanity to aspire to a higher level on this scale than it currently occupies? What?
50.
by trominos 17y ago
"Distractions"? Distractions from what? You're idealizing life. There's no goal; we don't get points for making it to outer space or for reaching a singularity or for uncovering the secrets of the universe. You get a certain number of yea
51.
by trominos 17y ago
What do you guys think government policy should be on this stuff? I go back and forth. I generally think of myself as a civil libertarian, so my initial reaction is to say that "people can take care of themselves" and then to let things go,
52.
by trominos 18y ago
Read the article.
53.
by trominos 18y ago
I agree that Jon appears to be in the wrong here. But that would imply that he intentionally ripped off a bunch of artists, then decided to go to court over it (and almost definitely lose) and to start a witch hunt by pushing a blatantly fa
54.
by trominos 18y ago
It has everything to do with "new atheism". Theists, for the most part, have their moral outlook determined by their respective religions. Which is stupid, but at least it's standardized. Many atheists believe that their morality is determi
55.
by trominos 18y ago
All right, I think I sort of screwed up my first post, because it failed to convey my most fundamental feeling about "morality": I think that the word "morality" (also "ethics") is, to a truly ridiculous extent, not well-defined. That's why
56.
by trominos 18y ago
> If everything that one person chooses to believe is true for them, and that person chooses to believe that there is an objective truth that precludes this statement, then you have a problem. I can't parse this sentence at all -- mostl
57.
by trominos 18y ago
> Dear children, your silly worldview of objective rights and wrongs is outdated and wrong. Morality is purely subjective, a matter of taste. I provide no evidence or reasoning for my opinions but I do expect you to be challenged and wo
58.
by trominos 18y ago
To be fair, the ability to solve very difficult algorithmic problems is not particularly related to the ability to do many, many different kinds of programming.
59.
by trominos 18y ago
"Math" is just reasoning about any formally defined system. Programming is a fucking subset of math. So any competent programmer necessarily has some kind of mathematical inclination.
60.
by trominos 18y ago
What is the matter with you?

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