Eupolemos

> The electorate chose this. Freely and willingly.

I disagree with you.

In political systems that aren't effectively two party systems, parties that listen to what the population wants and needs emerge and get their share of the votes. These parties then get together and form a majority representing these needs in many ways. This makes listening to the population a winning strategy.

The US system is how much can you accommodate corporations held up against how little can you listen to the population and still get away with it. In a two party system, that is a lot.

I could write an example-scenario with two frozen pizza companies vs. 8 frozen pizza companies and which choices you'll end up with for dinner, but I think you get point.

It's called fair competition and America seems to have forgotten its benefits for the general population, both in politics and in business.

Pointing out people as idiots is not a solution. Pushing for systems that work, is.

Well, not after you lose. I think this time is it.

However, it is "merely" a symptom of the US political system not being sensitive to the citizens' wants and needs. Or no longer being a democracy by modern standards, if you want to be dramatic.

For those bothered by silence but also - at times - annoyed by music: https://coffitivity.com/

Some kind of optimized noise is a weird concept, but I've found that it really works, from time to time. Especially if I'm doing something that requires a great deal of concentration rather than just "production".

Just to be thorough; did you try this: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6259634?hl=en

It is an extra step to make google aware of you.

It's minor now.

But if it turns out that we'll need an active (as in "needs manpower") care-taking of this waste for several thousands of years, we get into the compounded interests area.

Also, there's the immediate (last 50 years) issues such as barrels of waste being treated in silly manners; e.g. thrown into the ocean near the coast and shot to pieces by air-planes if they surface...

Politicians and corporations will do anything to save money, if they think they'll get away with it. That makes nuclear waste much more dangerous than it should be.

It's not a problem, we'll have clean fusion in 20 years :D /s

On the M8 it is done really simple: if it is upside-down, it can't wake from tapping. Super simple and fluent in daily life (once you know it).

Yes, that was indeed implied for the line "For interstellar travel to make sense..." to make sense :P

I don't mean to be annoying, but I don't think I understand why you ask?

Well, the hull problem is there at 1% or 15% of c or whatever is reached. You don't get to wave how you get to the 1% of c speed away either, so let's not set double standards; interstellar transport for humans _is_ all scifi-land.

IMO, we simply can't get there with chemical rockets as we know them. Continuous acceleration in space is just any kind of engine that keeps running and provides thrust. We're not talking cars here.

The estimation of the energy needed is easy to make sense of - what does it take to have a rocket (or more likely, some other engine) hover over the ground for 4 years using some kind of thrust?

When we have that capability, we can pretty much do non-suicidal interstellar transport. But it requires new technology and for me, that constitutes sci-fi. Doesn't mean a conversation can't be remotely serious though, IMHO.

But the point I actually wanted to make was, that whenever people talk of cruise-speed in interstellar transport, it seems to me like they haven't grasped the scope of interstellar travel with an intent of conquering it. Rather, they are implying it just can't be done - without arguing for it.

The term 'cruise-speed' itself becomes an annoying passive-aggressive attack on the notion of interstellar transport. That was my original reason for posting.

I must admit, I don't understand this often repeated notion of "cruising speed" in interstellar space.

To me, it feels like some people think of crossing the void between stars as crossing the the Atlantic in a bottle, trying to blow my mind with how long the crossing will take, even if that bottle is given an absolutely amazing initial throw.

For interstellar travel to make sense, there _must_ be a 'cruising acceleration', not speed. The notion isn't that strange - after all, cruising speed in a ship on earth requires a constant engine power, which in space would mean constant acceleration.

IIRC, a comfortable cruising acceleration of 1G would make it a 4 year trip (6 as experienced by Earth). We just need a whole lot of efficient fuel and an interstellar propeller :P

Turkey has a very harsh rural/cosmopolitan split, just like the US has.

On top of that, the last election (the turn the President into Sultan) had massive fraud and any critical media has been jailed.

Trying to classify Dune, I think it's more of a Hyper-Postappocalyptic setting with today's eyes.

I tend to think of Fantasy as linked to philosophy (moral choices etc), while Sci-fi is linked to sociology (what would society be like if...). But those classes don't really help with Dune, so I choose the HPA definition.

I think that is a pretty standard and often needed tactic when starting a forum or community. A community is pretty binary; it's either dead or it isn't, so a it needs to be jumpstarted.

And how often? Is this a one time sell of information or monthly exchange? I was really curious about this piece of context as well.

Blender is also a neat program to just create and edit videos.

I wanted to be able to put together a video, so I made an introduction for my D&D friends for our next adventure.

First time I used video or sound editing, but it worked out fine, because I found a really good instruction video series. That usually makes all the difference.

https://www.youtube.com/user/MikeycalDOTcom/playlists

I don't see that as a problem - why do you?

One does not detract from or rule out the other.

He is a symbol.

Every time he's mentioned, someone feel the overwhelming need to pop up and share their "unpopular but realistic opinion".

I think that is embarrassing.

> I don't think it's politically possible to create a strong welfare state in a country populated by identifiable groups with differing socioeconomic contributions to the common good.

Maybe I misunderstand you, but strong welfare states exist, and they have always had groups with different socioeconomic contributions.

Denmark has always been a nation with strong cultural differences to the point where people simply cannot understand each other's dialects, there were poor areas, rich areas and so on and so forth.

What am I missing here?

Dane here.

Our health insurance - an important part of our welfare system - started out as a guild benefit for workers, then it were a part of unions and finally something on a national level (I skipped a few steps).

The absolutely must have part is "solidarity". What does that even mean? It means you feel part of something tight where you owe the others, in that "something", your help and compassion, even financially.

Ethnic homogeneity isn't needed, but solidarity is. It is a feeling nurtured and grown over many years and it is easily broken if abused. It requires eternal vigilance, to keep that feeling of "we owe each other" alive despite all the distrust.

It is a constant battle against unpleasant emotions and real abuse, and you need to pick the fight in a way that ensures that you can win it. Denmark is almost too big to keep that alive.

But is this because FF is faulty or because the site is faulty?

I don't think I've experienced it, except when I watch HBO (Netflix and C-More works fine, so it's on HBO to get their stuff together in that instance).

Well, the EU is seriously trying win the fight that'll bring both Google and Apple to the negotiations table.

Margrethe Vestager is a tough customer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/04/technology/google-eu-antit...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/francescoppola/2016/09/18/apples...

FF was the better alternative to IE (windows-people we're actually just learning that there even _was_ an alternative) before Chrome was even created.

You seem to have messed up the timeline, or disregard the importance of being the first alternative to IE spread by word of mouth in the public.

But in reality there's more to it, right?

Yes, jobs are available, but they also get filled quickly. There's no shortage. The unemployed can out-bid each other in a "how-low-can-you-go" competition, but that just leads to working poor.

That's probably because their system is flawed.

In Denmark, we never have to wait for long. Whenever those in power want to pass something big or important in parliament, they seek a broad support - otherwise, it'll just get repealed whenever they lose power.

Everything certainly isn't perfect here (yes, it can be darn annoying when center parties hold too much power - but then again, it is a stabilizing factor), but healthy mechanics can get you a long way with democracy.

I feel a lot of people in this thread point out cases where democracy doesn't work. That's easy. But maybe it would be better to look for cases where it does work and learn from it.

There is no analysis in OP's post, he just states opinions.

I value quality in comments, which is one of the reasons I come to Hacker News. It is not a waste of my time. Reading comments on Facebook or any newspaper usually is.

Wikipedia isn't a waste either, mired in a Yahoo Answers low quality answers. That is why I donate.

Creating quality interaction isn't easy on the internet - I admire every success.

Shitposting in the comment-section of a newspaper or indeed Hacker News isn't "free speech", it is just disruptive and destructive.

When governments and corporations engage in bullshit (in the Harry Frankfurt sense) programs to disrupt public discourse, the answer isn't to yell and scream in the comment sections - that only helps them, in fact. The answer is to insist on solid arguments against their gish-gallops and red herrings.

Indeed, but their method is clearly stated and very easy to understand, so the reader can take the conclusion with an appropriate grain of salt.

Which news-sources do you use?

Which news-sources are you going to learn about?

Which news-sources are you for some reason very unlikely to encounter?

Now apply a real-time AI filter-bubble, able to also include government policies in its decision-making, onto those questions.

I believe the most important thing in life is thinking. I believe a key element of thinking is looking at "easy stuff", the stuff we just live with every day and don't think about, and for some reason be forced to think about it and make it simple.

Take the Snowden-leak. We lived a nice life being the good guys and that kind of surveillance was publicly thought of as conspiracy theories. Suddenly we were forced to look at what was going on. How much of it are we okay with? On the grounds of what principles and tradeoffs? This is all very unpleasant, but we're all better off for facing those questions and work towards new principles. We take a chaotic gruel of cons and pros, and try to hammer them into a few simple principles our societies may function by. For instance, the separation of power into 3 has served us well.

I fear that we end up in a world where raising such unpleasant questions becomes almost impossible - and we'll never even notice. Not because of AI (I believe AI to be inevitable and fascinating) but because of the way AI is used.

Living a life assisted by an AI, made and paid for by someone else, seems like the epitome of naivete to me.

Before replying, you could at least have made an effort to understand what I meant with the distinction between simple and easy.

If you do not care what I say, why even reply?

I think you misunderstand me by a large margin.

I'm not saying we shouldn't use AIs. We should, however, think about how we use them.

To build on your example, what are the dangers of having a personal secretary on the payroll of anyone but you?

What I am expecting from this is a super devious filter bubble - because that's how you make money. Google's old slogan "Don't be evil" is long gone. "For a greater good" might be more on point.

I fear you will be unable to recognize when that burger was your choice and when it was a reaction. You probably won't notice. And that is harmless.

I also fear you will be unable to notice in which areas of life and information the distinction between choice and reaction is harmless and which it isn't.

Of course, I'm not talking about "You" you, but just people. Me as well. I feel we are widening the field of unconscious decisions and I see that as inherently bad - in my fellow humans as well.

You could say that Plato wanted us to make easy things simple (link for distinction: https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy).

I believe this to be a move in the opposite direction. We should have a care.

Ah, thank you.