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Semirhageon Kialo – a platform for rational debate

Look out, it’ll just be a guy in a shiny box who makes tutting sounds whenever someone uses the word “fuck” and they bill by the picosecond.

Semirhageon Kialo – a platform for rational debate

This looks interesting, but in my cynical heart I’m afraid the issue isn’t the toolset, it’s the people.

Semirhageon The failed quest to bring smells to the internet

Here’s the English version: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retronasal_smell

Semirhageon Mark Zuckerberg and his empire of oily rags

Pretty much, and by manipulating society broadly you empower that society to add to the pressure exerted by the propaganda itself.

Semirhageon Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

Let’s go back a bit. The US intervened in Afghanistan against the Soviets decades ago, training what would become Al Qaeda, which would later attack the US. In response the US invaded Afghanistan and Iraq (again) destabilizing the region and leading to the birth of ISIS, the “Arab Spring” and the Syrian civil war.

It’s just waves of blowback from bad decisions without any concept that the groundwork for more blowback is being laid.

Semirhageon Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

You do know that France is a nuclear power, right?

Semirhageon Google’s Voice Assistant Could Talk Its Way Into Call Centers

There’s going to be miles of text on forums written about how to quickly ask a question or play a tone to test for humanity. It’s going to be a whole new dystopic layer to customer service!

Fuuuuck.

Semirhageon Mark Zuckerberg and his empire of oily rags

Propaganda also acts by wearing you down, shaping your perceptions over time, and influencing so many people around you that you lose sight of where “real” is on the first place. Sometimes propaganda only seeks to demoralize you or disengage you.

Don’t underestimate it.

Semirhageon Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

Ironic that this is getting so much traction on HN, where humor is actively crushed with downvotes and flags most of the time. I’m not even disagreeing with the rationale of keeping the site for intellectual inquiry rather than endlessly nested references and jokes. A lot of what people think of as humorous is inherently off topic or frankly not very funny or relevant. Sadly though, I’ve seen some genuinely funny and original comments die hard because of an institutional stance against humor.

It probably doesn’t help that there are some inveterate literalists about...

Semirhageon The Rise of Edible Insect Farming

It really depends on the Westerners. If you mean Americans, then you’ll be right in regards to a large number of them. If you mean South and Central Americans, and many Europeans then you’re probably off base. “Westerner” is no more a useful label than “Easterner” in this.

Semirhageon The Rise of Edible Insect Farming

Too much of any food makes you fat, it’s right there in the label “too much” after all. The issue is to what degree you can use protein and fiber to suppress appetite, not whether it’s possible to overeat protein (it definitely is).

Semirhageon California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online

I had this issue with a water delivery service when I lived on the East Coast US. In the end I sent an email saying that I was moving back to Italy, stopping any further charges from them on my CC, blocking them by email, and they could do whatever the hell they wanted with my account.

That worked.

Semirhageon California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online

Then in Europe, the US and Canada at least, they’ll be in violation of various laws and open to be sued.

Semirhageon The Rise of Edible Insect Farming

Honestly if our animal-based foods looked more like the animal there would probably be more vegetarians :)

I have a one word rebuttal: ribs. More broadly whole hog bbq, roast pig, whole fish, whole roast birds, etc. Stereotypes aside, a lot of the world’s favorite foods are clearly body parts, or the whole body, and people enjoy gnawing on the bones. Don’t underestimate the degree to which deliciousness overcomes squeamishness.

Bugs tend not to be delicious, although they are nutritious, that’s less of a draw. People struggle to eat fruits and veggies which evolved to look appealing, because a steak tastes better to them. If you want people to eat bugs they need to compete on deliciousness with other available foodstuffs. If a bug burger doesn’t taste as good as a hamburger, or Impossible burger, or veggie burger... it will mot be adopted. The bugs I’ve eaten range from OK, through bland (with good seasonings doing the work) through unappealing. That’s not going to get beyond novelty, or niche adoption. People will eat a grilled portobello mushroom or bean burger before they eat fried crickets, because the burgers taste better.

Semirhageon Kenya announces death penalty for poachers

I agree, unless this empowers anti-poachers to use lethal force more freely in the field, then I’m all for it. I realize that sadly, the poacher on the ground is the low man on the economic totem of poaching, but they’re also the sharp end of that stick. We don’t really have time to change and improve the relevant societies before there’s nothing left to protect. We should have been doing that more actively for decades, but now that it’s come to this, we need snipers.

Semirhageon The Rise of Edible Insect Farming

Musty, and the bigger ones taste like what they eat. Grasshoppers have a strong chlorophyll flavor, and not in a good way.

Personally if I need protein, I’d rather eat beans and lentils if I’m avoiding meat and fish. Bugs are never going to be cheaper or more efficient than lentils!

Semirhageon Space is full of dirty, toxic grease, scientists reveal

Any matter starts to resemble a nuclear detonation as you impact it approaching c. As your relative velocity becomes Relativistic in relation to the matter you’re impacting, the energy liberated increases in a non-linear scale. Grease, individual hydrogen atoms, anything. You’d really need some kind of exotic material, a few kilometers of ablative shielding, or “energy shielding” to make near-c velocities work. You’d be slowed down, but you’d also be blown to bits... tricky thing relativistic velocities.

Semirhageon Japan's 'Naked Hermit' Pried from Island Utopia After 29 Years

People always talk about Orwell and 1984, but it was Huxley who really nailed it imo. I think he appreciated the degree to which a stable dystopia required the consent and participation- even enthusiasm- of the general populace.

Semirhageon Space is full of dirty, toxic grease, scientists reveal

IIRC, it’s a matter-antimatter drive, and the dilithium crystals in some way help to catalyze the production of antimatter. As you say, fictional.

Semirhageon Most Americans Think Facebook and Twitter Censor Their Political Views

People have a right to be illiberal, liberal, and everything in between. People have a right to hew to the thinking of Mill and Popper, or ignore it. That’s also an aspect of freedom of thought, and consequent expression. You’re also free not to like it, and I’m free not to care.

Semirhageon How my role as CTO has changed as we've grown from 1 to 100 engineers

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17420230

Aren’t you kind of the one lowering it?

Semirhageon The Strange Brain of the World’s Greatest Solo Climber (2016)

I’m no climber, but I have to imagine that the weight of knowing a mistake won’t in any way be mitigated by safety devices might actually make the activity harder. It seems like it would require another degree of concentration to shut out the fear of grievous injury or death, to keep the fear under wraps.

Semirhageon We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

Surely the solution then isn’t more housing for them, but more mental health services for them? Treating drug addiction as a health issue rather than a criminal one might not hurt either. From my time in America I was amazed to see how little option there is for people who are mentally ill, and not rich. The “solution” embraced seems to be the streets, or jails.

Of course that leads to massive social decay.

Semirhageon Most Americans Think Facebook and Twitter Censor Their Political Views

The shooting of the journalist at the rally or the shooting at the newspaper? It’s so hard to keep track of American shootings!

Semirhageon Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America

When? Right now their “mainstream” $35k car is actually $55k+, with a backlog.

Semirhageon Most Americans Think Facebook and Twitter Censor Their Political Views

Sometimes there’s a bit more nuance, but it does tend to come down to this. Often flagging mechanics are pointed to as censorship, or anything which falls short of engaging with someone in debate is censorship. In most cases there’s a lack of understanding that just as they have a right to say something, other people have a right to respond with a flag, or not respond at all. Freedom of expression doesn’t imply an obligation to debate everyone on every point. I’m not censoring an anti-vaxxer by flagging and moving on, I don’t owe them a debate. The government isn’t allowed to interfere in the right of anti-vaxxers to spew, and also in my right to call them morons, or a social media site’s right shut the whole conversation down.

Too often “free speech” is a messy and conflated concept used to basically argue against anyone being told to shut up. Various arguments about the size or dominance of a social media platform are often used to try and get them covered like the government under the 1st amendment. Then if all that fails, the argument switches to free speech as a vague principle rather than a legal right.

To be fair, it isn’t just conservatives who seem to feel this way either. Americans in general just seem, on average, not to understand this issue as well as they think they do.

Semirhageon How to Clean Your Laptop

Or don’t, and keep your immune system on its toes. Over-cleanliness is known to be problematic, and it’s why we have kids who can be taken out with a peanut. If dirt in a a particular regime is positively linked to illness (i.e. cross contamination of raw meats during food prep) then take measures. On the other hand the mere fact that something is dirty or bacteria-laden is not a reason to run for antiseptic wipes.

The whole world is teeming with bacteria, most of it is harmless.

Semirhageon A closer look at Google Duplex

Most of us hang up on robots too though. Robocalls are a nightmare. The best argument against Duplex IMO is that it’s going to enable a new generation of hellish scams and robocalls, if it ever leaves Google. Presumably Google knows this and will keep the tech locked down. Still, it’s only going to be a matter of time before it’s open one way or another, and then we’ll have to have the “should I be told up from that it’s a robot?” conversation again.

Semirhageon Wendelstein 7-X achieves world record

I’m not in the US, but I do remember. The thing is I remember other disasters relating to energy, including yearly deaths from pollution. It’s not as though gas, oil, and coal production or use are somehow safe, free from catastrophic failure, and subsequent deaths.

Semirhageon Model predicts we're the only advanced civilization in the observable universe

Why would a species want to colonize a galaxy? You’re talking about insane travel and communication times after all, and spreading very thin. Sticking to a single system or handful of systems while controlling reproduction rates is a solution that achieves the same ends without spreading your species so far that it amounts to a million different civilizations. At some point over such distances you’re not colonizing anything, just throwing generations into the night with no hope of a return. That same energy could be used to engineer a structure or structured for those same beings to live within a reasonable distance of each other.

The whole Fermi Paradox reasoning is flawed, because the assumptions are flawed.