Ask HN: What have you changed your mind about recently?
For me, I now believe that hypnosis is a real phenomenon: http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?article_id=218392595
I used to think that I needed to set and enforce hard rules, as if this will teach my kids order. I don't want them to take the easy way out or try to negotiate everything. I thought my approach was a good balance to my wife's, as she doesn't assert much authority.
According to a study mentioned in Outliers, my style of parenting is prevalent among the poorer social class, and it leads to a mindset of resignation. Wealthier parents listen more to their children, negotiate with them, and help them take their place in the adult world rather than just be quiet and follow the rules.
This idea has connected a lot of dots for me, and I think I can be a better father than I have been.
However, it hasn't changed my overall viewpoint that it is largely up to the person to continually position themselves such that they are receptive to luck. Another way to look at it is by stating the corollary... that the only certain path to failure is to not try.
I think the trick is to not open the floor to negotiation. If kids have reasonable objection or points you hadn't considered, they will raise the point and you can modify the rule. If they know that they are "negotiating" just to get their own way and that it won't work, they won't waste the time--and everyone will be happier.
That's my experience, anyway.
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?bi=0&bx=of...
I used to have very unclear picture of the late empire. Without thinking about it too much, I bought into the pervasive idea (probably due mostly to Gibbon) that the late empire had lost its Roman mojo: that it had become barbarized (what does that mean?) and worn out (why then?). Now I have a higher opinion of the late empire. They lost largely because they faced harder problems. The empire was depopulated, partly no doubt due to epidemics, and the barbarians on the frontiers were a greater threat than they had been in the time of Augustus.
I'm only half way through the book, but it's already the best thing I've read on the period. It would be worth reading for their revisionist view of Adrianople alone.
With the late-late empire, I believe that doom came from the fall of the Libyan breadbasket to the Vandals, though that doesn't explain why Egypt (East but still Roman) couldn't provide food to Roman Italy, since it was yet to fall for another 200 years...
Let's see what this book tells me... thanks for the link.
The biggest question I have re: the Roman fall is how did the East stay stable while the West collapsed, though I'm also interested in the process by which a single Patriarchy in Rome managed to gain temporal authority while the Patriarchates in Constantinople, Alexandria, and Jerusalem remained bound to separate political organizations.
Heather argues that the Roman empire was still internally healthy, but that increasing pressure from the Persians and the European tribes eventually overwhelmed the empire. Archaeological evidence indicates that the population densities of the barbarian regions may have increased by a factor of two or three since the early days of the empire. The population was larger and more sophisticated, and thus harder to handle.
But just this year Adrian Goldsworthy has written a book countering the new revisionist view that Heather and Williams present ( http://www.amazon.com/How-Rome-Fell-Death-Superpower/dp/0300... ). Goldsworthy argues that the barbarian threat really wasn't that much greater, and that the empire collapsed from within, due to civil war and political strife.
I haven't read Goldsworthy's book yet, but it's on my list.
Now, I'm considering widespread ownership more in terms of a last bulwark against one or another form of totalitarian rule. Perhaps it is a limiting factor against pushing the population too far. You might call this a knee-jerk reaction; nonetheless, it's on my mind.
I still consider most unfortunate the additional, lethal violence that the ready availability of firearms (legal and illegal) seems to cause. The question for me is, is it a -- I hate to use this term -- necessary cost.
I feel a little uncomfortable writing about this, nor do I claim to be especially informed on the topic, but since you asked.
People inclined to do violence to others will do so regardless of the weapons available. Swimming pools are more dangerous to children than firearms in the house. My take has always been that the weakening of one amendment will allow avenues of attack on the others.
Knives are substitutes for guns, but it's harder to kill 10 people with a knife than with an automatic. Which may explain why generally (always with exceptions) high gun ownership correlates with high homicides.
As we were reminded of today in tragic fashion, suicide bombers seem to get a pretty high body count without using a gun.
That point of view seems rather US-centric. (Apologies if I've misinterpreted what you meant.) My point was in relation to different countries, higher gun ownership correlates with higher death by gun. I was not comparing different geographic areas within the US. It's obviously a complicated question with many influencing factors, but ignoring the availability of guns does seem to fly in the face of the evidence.
Given that the US has high homicide rates, compared to other countries, then if high availability of guns in the US is not a contributing factor, then what would you saw were the relevant factors?
"suicide bombers seem to get a pretty high body count without using a gun" ?
Absolutely. Suicide bombers can probably achieve a higher murder rate than people with guns, much as people with guns can achieve a higher murder rate than people with knives, and people with knives can achieve a higher murder rate than people with clubs.
High availability of suicide bombers in a society is likely to lead to a higher homicide rate than in a society where suicide bombers are not so prevalent. High availability of guns in a society is likely to lead to a higher homicide rate than in a society where guns are not so prevalent.
So, given the discussion is about the availability of guns, I'm not sure of your point here.
Killing one person with a knife is not harder than with a gun. A criminal willing to kill is going to do it with one, or the other, or both.
Just look at the UK. Violence is bad and there is a total ban on handguns and a near total ban on just about everything else (many restrictions and you need a purpose to own the gun - self defense and for "fun" are not reasons - eg. farming, deer huting, formal target shooting )
This year, Washington D.C. had an 17% drop in murder rate (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07...), immediately following the overturn of their gun ban via the Heller decision. Which is not to say the decision is responsible for the drop, but even if the impact was negative, it was swamped by other minor factors such as the rain.
I'm more and more convinced that gun restrictions have everything to do with perceived, rather than actual safety.
Even if you walk around in public with your assault rifle, nobody becomes suspicious. Active members of the army have to show up for a mandatory shooting program every year and shooting matches are very common too, so “Rambo look-alikes” on the streets aren’t an unusual appearance in Switzerland.
Nevertheless, 40% of all homicides are commited by cut and thrust weapons and “only” 10% by guns. The latter accounts for about 70% in the US.
If you are an ambitious young man in a country that has had military coups in the recent past, you might join the army, hoping to rise in ranks and be in the right place at the right time. That could also apply in a country with disarmed civilians. It is no part of the American dream. If you want political power in the USA you go to law school (or into banking?)
The 2nd Amendment protects against tyranny because it shapes the Zeitgeist. It makes the idea of staying in office after losing an election seem silly: you would only get shot. Since the very idea is silly the scenario is never played out.
This poses a puzzle to the would be Hari Seldons amongst us. Does the 2nd Amendment inherently undermine itself? Do we end up, after two hundred years of political freedom, thinking that the idea of protection against tyranny being provided by an armed citizenry is just plain silly, because we never see it in action? Where does that lead? Do we repeal the 2nd Amendment, leaving our grandchildren to discover, one hundred years later, that the Zeitgeist has changed and that old Amendment really mattered?
Hopefully I didn't just devolve this into a religion argument...
[1] "Agnostic atheist" == I can't say for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I will live my life on the assumption he is not there.
I used to think that Dawkins & co's books were just preaching to the choir. Yeah, I found them fun to read and nod along, but I didn't believe they'd change anyone's mind. I assume that this isn't an issue of logic, and when you're not dealing with logic for the most part, no logical argument would be sufficient.
Reading posts like these do make me believe that it's possible to change minds, if people are willing.
(I'm not saying those books aren't useful; they give a sense of legitimacy to those who don't side with religion and this is important.)
In particular, the extent to which a person can predict the consequences of his/her actions is probably highly dependent on intelligence.
Religion can be viewed as taking some of this unfairness away.
For example, only 7 percent of the members in the U.S. National Academy of Sciences believe in a personal god [1]. I forget the numbers for the general public of the US (I don't have the book with me), but it was the vast majority who believed in a personal god.
Of course: grains of salt, correlation vs. causation, etc.
I don't think being an atheist requires a certain level of intelligence, but I do think that people of a certain level of education have been taught to think critically about everything they read/learn/work with, which probably bleeds over into their personal life.
[1] Victor J. Stenger. Has Science Found God? p.78
That is not to say that there is no correlation. In general educated people are more likely to be exposed to thoughtful commentary on atheism, and are therefore more likely to consider the idea. But the correlation seems to be with exposure, and not propensity to be convinced by it.
Religion could reduce this and as a result be potentially beneficial to society.
A modicum of research reveals that 'The authors reported a correlation of 0.60 between atheism rates and level of intelligence, which is “highly statistically significant.”'
As to whether this experience is caused by contact with god, or the sacred, or whatever, I'd put myself in your same "agnostic atheist" camp. Only I'd say that I'll approach some future experiences on the assumption that God is there. (Not that I'm going to go out and become super religious or anything, but being able to suspend disbelief once and a while is the key to making things fun, whether it's watching Star Wars or reading about Mysticism or whatever.)
That's the real take away I think, that in the same way most people don't like math because they were "mathematically abused" as kids, most people don't like religion because they were religiously abused as kids. When actually learning about religion is kinda fun and intellectually interesting.
On another note...
I'm an atheist, but I wasn't religiously abused as a kid. I just am interested in science. The fantasies of others is considerably less entertaining than understanding the nature of the universe.
That's an interesting use of the word probability.
Can you justify that position using arguments qualitatively different than those used to justify the opposite position? (That the full-blown mystic experience is qualitatively different than anything that science has ever explained before or any experience generated from within the body, and thus there is no reason to believe that it's necessarily scientifically explainable or endogenous.)
As I said I'm actually more or less with you, I just see the logic of what the other side is saying.
Many folks, religious or not, believe that many powerful experiences (like love or religion) aren't scientifically explainable. However, I think it's because such explanations aren't emotionally satisfying. Such explanations are usually either proximate (i.e. mechanistic) or ultimate (evolutionary.) and people just don't like that.
To use love as an example:
Proximate explanation: When two individuals have different MHC profiles, they are more likely to smell good and be attracted to each other. This attraction can sometimes lead to sex. After orgasm, the hormone vasopressin is released which causes a warm fuzzing feeling in both partners. After repeated instances of sex, there is a learned association of this nice feeling and being with the other person leading them to hang out with each other a lot.
Ultimate explanation: individuals which pair bond, resulting in biparental care, produce offspring which are more likely to survive to the next generation than those which do not.
But no one likes to think about that when they're snuggling up to their mate.
"Religiosity" isn't so cut and dry as love. The proximate explanation of spirituality is fairly well established by science i.e. religious experiences can be induced artificially with drugs (psychobilin) or electrical stimulation of the brain. The ultimate explanation I think is less convincing than for love. Most evolutionary psychologists consider religion a byproduct of adaptive psychological traits, such as superstitiousness (associating negative events with some cause- it's more costly to fail to learn what causes negative events than to associate unrelated events) and agency (a similar explanation- it's adaptive to assume that most things are caused be agents, i.e. a rustle in the leaves is a hungry predator, not the wind. If we assume it's the wind and it isn't, we're in trouble, but not if it's the other way around.)
My problem isn't with religious education (I didn't get one).
My problem is belief in any ideology. Political or religious.
That is, people having certain opinions about how the world is built from internal emotional experiences. Especially when they know that lots of other people have internal emotional experiences which says they are wrong.
Agnostic != Evolution
Christianity != not(Evolution)
Most Christians (globally) care little about how man came into being and do not think either ideas have any impact on their faith.
It is the hardcore creationists who like to make out all Christians agree with them, and the hardcore underdog atheists who like to make out that all Christians are against them.
I don't know any Christians, and I know many, who believe that evolution and the bible are mutually exclusive ideas. They simply are not. And I wish both Atheists and Creationists would stop claiming that both ideas contradict each other.
I still see the value in precise language, but I now see it far more as one more tool in my toolbox rather than "THE WAY THINGS MUST BE!" And I've also come to see that my near-totalitarian enforcement of precision was prohibiting me from using other tools.
By analogy: suppose you want to know more about butterflies. Certainly catching them and pinning them to a spreading board is one way to study them: you can measure them exactly, you can count their spots and identify their coloration precisely. But you don't capture all that it is to observe a butterfly that way--you don't comprehend its flight, its movement, its way of being in motion.
Now, clearly I understand that, in a sense, I've only become 'more precise' in my language, willing to 'evoke ambiguity' when precisely necessary. But I can only protest that this fails to understand what I've gained from a willingness to recognize the value of ambiguity.
Nicely said.
Less philosophically and more pragmatically: during a time of reflection I was thinking about how my demand for precision was limiting my social interaction. I hadn't been as big a douche as some people I knew, but I could see more of myself in those people than I liked to admit, and realized I needed to change. But I can never change if I'm right, of course!
So I began to talk with people I knew were smart but didn't have the same penchant for demanding precision. On their testimony, I came to believe that there must be something good in ambiguity, though I couldn't comprehend what. I began to practice 'not objecting' when someone would use language or ideas ambiguously. This was immensely frustrating, but I vowed to let it be and try and find the value. Enough times of getting a glimmer of insight led me to finally admit that there was something worthwhile in ambiguity, and so I changed my mind.
It's important to note that advantages are not necessary. It wasn't designed. It could just be that it's so widespread that it's impossible to change.
Though I haven't read much poetry (nothing that doesn't appear in Harper's or New Yorker): I'll have to go back and re-read some things to see in what ways my interpretation has changed, if at all.
Now I think, "Wait, how can an event work in a stateless... Oh, that's just sneaky Microsoft."
Not by choice, rather by circumstance, I have been writing Web Forms apps in ASP.NET for the last year. Took me that long to realize that something about the whole idea just doesn't make sense.
When you get right down to it, we only have a few short years in the sun. 80 years is less than nothing when compared to the age of the earth - let alone the solar system or universe - so it would appear rational to maximize your experiences, knowledge, and relationships because they would seem to lead to an increase in happiness.
One real-world consequence of this thinking is that I've found myself much more likely to consider switching jobs than my risk-averse persona would predict, especially if I see a new offer as a challenging opportunity to improve myself.
It used to stand for WithOut Normal Knowledge, meaning people who had a lot of ideas but not much practical experience. I think lately the definition has broadened to mean just intricately technical.
I am saddened that he did not follow through and it seems unlikely that he will in the future.
Wouldn't the question work better the other way around -- Whether the community was a good match for you or not?
You would judge the answer based on how much the community helped you reach your goals. Whereas with the other question you're always looking outward for somebody else to validate you (which seems prone to getting bad feedback!)
With me getting a great deal out, but the community not getting much back, are we therefore a good match?
Perhaps that's not really the question, but I've come to realise that stuff I think is cool, enlightening or simply interesting, generally get very little response.
Unless people just don't see them.
I think many people came to that conclusion many years ago ... I am a bit slow on the uptake.
Bill Gates .. you listening? ;)
I'm reading Carrying The Fire, a book by the Gemini and Apollo astronaut Michael Collins. I was totally caught off-guard about how fast-paced, creative and generally entrepreneurial the early space program was. A common description of their working life was that people on a space mission put in insanely long hours because they were captivated by the long term vision and routinely made fun of other areas of the government where people were just punching the clock.
Even working with otherwise disagreeable folk was tolerated. Collins on learning that he'd have to work with John Young on Gemini 10:
"...besides, I would have flown by myself or with a kangaroo - I just wanted to fly. All that stuff about crew psychology compatibility is crap. Almost anyone can put up with almost anyone else for a clearly defined period of time in pursuit of a mutual object important to each."
Also, I thought test pilots were crazy people with a death wish, probably because of The Right Stuff. Turns out they practice a form of user-centered design and consider themselves as advocates for the end user (pilots in the field). It doesn't surprise me that the current field of HCI was born from the study of airplane cockpits. A joke in the book was about the true story of emergency instructions printed on the inside of a canopy - all the steps after the first one were completely unusable in the context of a real emergency because step #1 was to blast off the canopy.
The ability to innovate, build, create, explore. An MD's life is more oriented toward dispensing the benefits of knowledge than actively seeking, crafting more.
Unfortunately, whether or not a career in academia jives with your idea of what it is innovate/build/create would be another decision you'll have to make!
You can argue where every news organization fits on the political spectrum (other than they all fit at one of the sides and the middle is an illusion), but I don't think there is any network or newspaper that just prints the facts of the case. Every network has their favorites and calls the other sides "little people" names (e.g. pinko, teabagger). All the networks throw out opinions and call them facts. Heck, making up crap doesn't even seem to phase anyone (e.g. false papers, trucks with explosives on the gas tanks).
Has any network gone through the current draft of the health car bill and told us what's on it? Has any network tried to get all the payouts the gov did as part of the bailout?
For example: http://consortiumnews.com/2009/102409b.html
This won't be on the news, yet I bet every American would have a strong opinion (for or against) this practice....but it is not newsworthy. A boy who may (or may not) be floating away in a balloon, however, gets 24x7 coverage.
Whats that saying about something becoming a parody of itself? Thats how I see America today....they have such passionate beliefs about what they are as a people, but their actions are the exact opposite. It's sad...of course, a lot of this has been happening for decades, but what can be pulled off now in the light of day with no public reaction (torture, war crimes, unprecedented financial fraud, etc) is just mind boggling.
Too often, people talk past each other.
Too often, people nitpick like http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=782752
Too often, edw519 gets upvotes for 'pithy' statements like http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=864709
Too often, reposts galore, and even worse, from techcrunch: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=743735
Too much non-contributing irrelevant self-promotion: http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=kkleiner http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=kkleiner
Too often, votes are based on... zealotry? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=902804 Why would jrockway get downvoted for answering a question as to why OSX didn't merit the Apple Tax for his purposes?
HN is useful for the domain knowledge and experience of some notable fellows, but a lot of the active user base dampens a lot of the remaining signal.
I look at people's time on the site when they say the community has changed because I want to know if they're contributing or consuming.
This is a community, and it can be reasoned with by anybody, as long as they take the time to try and do it.
I think for the most part, the responses on the threads you linked showed that. Sometimes people will reflexively downvote people because of a perceived slight. I have a feeling that some of the early voting trains get undone as the day goes on.
That being said, I'm sure I've personally contributed a significant amount of noise to conversations here, but if I wanted pure signal I'd probably spend a lot more time on places like LtU. The value of this place is the conversations, far more than the links (in my opinion).
I used to flag them consistently but I just gave up, so kkleiner wins that round and gets to spam as much as he wants.
Flagging to keep out the spam is a way of doing community service, if the feeling is that it is for nothing or possibly even ignored (PG hinted that people that flag a lot have their flaggings discarded) makes me much less inclined to do that work.
He isn't saying people shouldn't wear a seatbelt. He's saying it should be their choice. If someone chooses not to wear their seatbelt, they obviously care more about their own convenience and comfort than their safety and well-being. Why should he (or anyone else) worry about their lives more than they do themselves?
Not to sound harsh, but I think that your logic epitomizes the stereotype of the extreme liberal who thinks it's everyone else's responsibility to support and take care of you. You've alienated anyone who doesn't have a strictly socialist view of the world.
Of course, if you're not alienating someone, then you're probably not thinking things through enough to form a strong opinion. So, good on you for having an opinion either way ;-)
When I realized that allowing this freedom could possibly encroach on my freedoms, it became a different issue. And I changed my mind.
Luckily, I live in a no-fault state though. But still, that's a very good point.
I'm glad I'm not a libertarian or I'd be experiencing cognitive dissonance.
The case for wearing a seat belt is my exception to this rule. I was talking to a "libertarian" friend and he mentioned his life is his responsibility and he should wear the seat belt or not if he didn't want to. I told him that if he got in an accident and paralyzed because of not wearing seat belt then it wouldn't be fair to the rest of us tax payers to support him because of his decision. (This was in a modern country with universal health care).
He thought for a second and said, "oh, yes, you're right".
I'm about 2/3 of the way through.
My first encounter with his works was The Language Instinct, which was required reading for a course I took on psycholinguistics. If that were more recent, I would have mentioned it in my initial post, because that book completely changed my understanding of human language.
Once you have a good grasp of the fundamentals, I suggest reading Nature Reviews Neuroscience. They often have excellent review articles that summarize the state of research in a particular area. http://www.nature.com/nrn/index.html
If I were to suggest one area to focus your attention on, it would be memory. Memory is a central ability of the mammalian brain, and pretty much every area of the brain is involved in memory somehow. Here are some papers that I've found enlightening:
Gaffan. Against memory systems. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: … (2002)
Martin and Morris. New life in an old idea: The synaptic plasticity and memory hypothesis revisited. Hippocampus (2002)
Frankland and Bontempi. The organization of recent and remote memories. NATURE REVIEWS NEUROSCIENCE (2005) vol. 6 (2) pp. 119-130
Ross and Eichenbaum. Dynamics of hippocampal and cortical activation during consolidation of a nonspatial memory. Journal of Neuroscience (2006) vol. 26 (18) pp. 4852
Dudai. The Neurobiology of Consolidations, Or, How Stable is the Engram?. Annual Review of Psychology (2004) vol. 55 (1) pp. 51-86
Fischer et al. Recovery of learning and memory is associated with chromatin remodelling. Nature (2007) vol. 447 (7141) pp. 178 (but don't worry too much about the parts that are heavy on the biochemistry).
Rasch et al. Odor cues during slow-wave sleep prompt declarative memory consolidation. Science (2007) vol. 315 (5817) pp. 1426
One thing you may notice is that all of these papers are published in the last decade. That's about the shelf-life of research in this field. Let me know if you can't find these articles online; I have PDF copies of all of them.
Hope that gives you some direction :)
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