andrewclunn

Individuals being allowed to say / write what they want versus school boards prohibiting certain texts from being taught or distributed as part of their curriculum... maybe they just understand what "free speech" means?

Got my deck on Monday. Valve just made me an Arch Linux user / console gamer with a handheld that can play my PC games. Oh, and my friends list, game library, and save files transfer over too. Steam wins and I'm a happier gamer for it.

That's easy enough, don't read it, turn off your computer, follow the people saying things you want to hear from, etc... Oh you mean you don't want ANYONE to potentially hear those things, so that you might not accidentally come across a position you don't like? Yeah, that's called being fragile, and the sort of people you will empower if you push for that as policy are those who are more than happy to control the flow of information to their own ends / enrichment.

Anyone remember the Hanna Barbera cartoon where Yogi and the gang are trying to find the "perfect place" free of pollution? They eventually end up in space, thinking this must be it, only to see it becoming more cluttered and full of junk. They finally decide to go back home and clean it up, because they won't find the perfect place, they have to make it.

When we ask if a government should allow a company to use religion as a basis for discrimination, we've reached a level of abstraction that defies any intuitive moral reasoning. Now if one thinks morality exists in an absolute metaphysical sense, then this isn't an issue. The author however is an atheist, and so has no possible moral justification argument that would be convincing to their religious coworkers.

The belief that notions like equality and anti-discrimination would hold any weight in a society of secular thought has now become about as laughable as Communist economics after the fall of the USSR. Now "discrimination" is merely a line used by each tribe in turn to justify why they should be owed special treatment for their victimhood. The weight of each group and individual "getting theirs" will not be bore for long. So I guess the author should enjoy his "ice cream" while he can. After all, it's not like (he thinks) there's any one to judge him for it anyway.

A somewhat recent trend has been the previously unfathomable decision by many escaped North Koreans to return. I used to think that the term "late stage capitalism" was a coping mechanism by those who couldn't handle what a fallen Soviet Union meant for the future of communism as an ideology. Now I wonder if the West's individualism as religion, and the complete lack of social bonds and cohesion that it gives rise to, might lend some credibility to it.

It's been really easy since the divorce.

I gave up piracy in my 20s. Looks like it might be time to sail the high seas again.

Burning karma to speak truth to power is its only valid use. Policing my own "tone" to please fools will never happen.

Scientist, doctors, law enforcement, soldiers, teachers, everyone are "the superheroes." Oh scientists save the world do they? From whom, the other scientists who want to dictate policy, keep people locked in their home, or otherwise indirectly rule the world because "they know the truth?" the more any profession has a hero complex the more dangerous they are. People trust science less and less for valid reasons. We've seen the flaws in the institutions and methodologies. The religion is crumbling, and we need not heroes such as these.

The slippery slope is an informal fallacy. Which is to say, people want a short hand way of dismissing arguments, while also not needing to justify the dismissal, so they conflated actual bad arguments with other heuristics. Just don't tell our secrets to the idiots or conspiracy theorists my fellow big brained skeptic tips his fedora

Considering the period of concern over global cooling (from last century), claims of "we've known this, but have pretended not to for a hundred years" are just historical revisionism. When you lie about facts in favor of pushing a "more important truth" you don't convince people. You just give people more reason to doubt other things you're claiming.

Darn it, that is a more timely and better title isn't it? Of course then Bezos could claim he inspired it.

EDIT - formatting poetry for Hacker News is tough...

- Humility -

Humility is not letting someone win

or pretending not to care when you lose.

It is not feigned ignorance or polite dishonesty.

Humility is not a trick to gain approval,

nor is it an abdication of your pride.

---

Humility is a stand taken to the end

with passion; an opinion that you choose

and live by with conviction and integrity,

but if shown to be in error in part or full,

and that the truth not be on your side...

---

you change your mind.

---

And furthermore you admit it publicly

and you learn from it internally.

Never let passion to stand up for truth fade.

Don't let desire for becoming right be outweighed

by undeserved pride.

---

Sincere pride,

real humility,

true integrity;

they are one and the same.

---

The true integrity is tough and admits its errors

Value your sincerity enough to live your values

Only then is real pride obtained

or the admiration of anyone,

whose opinion is worth a damn,

gained.

This is assuming that people make art as a career. I just released my first music album this week (NOT going to post a link here). I did it for me (well other than the lullaby, which I wrote for my daughter). Art as passion project is still alive and well, and I'm totally fine with chasing the long tail, and going full word of mouth and obscure stumble upon style suggestions to find new things. Certainly works better than listening to marketing.

So no unavailable pitch black sky save for our local group? This is the best freaking cosmological news I've ever heard!

So long as multinational corporate media controls the messaging, you can expect the fear porn to effectively control the masses. Hitler's Mein Kampf should be taught in school (or perhaps The Myth of the Twentieth Century), as the means by which "the people" can be influenced and their perception of reality guided are still used today.

Cue substance free ideological posting in 3... 2...

I would be surprised by this head in the sand denial of the obvious patterns in how laws are selectively enforced, but people seeing nothing about the world other than the filter bubble that funnels to their screens means there will always be willfully ignorant apologists for tyranny.

I'm fairly skeptical of any of the social sciences per issues with the demarcation problem and reproduction of results. I'm even more so of studies with any ideological, political, or religious bend to them. That said, with the world as clearly unjust as it is at present, I do wonder who (beyond perhaps the most sheltered and naive of individuals) would still believe that the world itself is innately just? Most Western and Eastern religions teach that it is after we pass on that we are judged, not in this world. Class struggle based secular left philosophy is downright obsessed with the notion of injustice. Perhaps only secular, right, Darwinian philosophies could lead one down this road, and as a formerly right-wing atheist, I can tell you that it's not a very common world view in the least. So I'm guessing this is largely a selection bias for people who haven't thought too deeply about their views or values and are niave to how the world works.

Alternative hypothesis: end technocratic censorship and allow for a more federated local approach to dealing with contentious issues. Oh wait, that would mean a government working for the people it governs and not the political donor class. Silly me, I forgot we're only supposed to pretend like we care about the people.

Wait, there are still people defending liberal arts degrees as "rounding out a person" in the age of the internet? How quaint. Your children will know more about the humanities, history, natural science, and the arts, and they will do so from watching videos on the internet for fun at no cost... or they'll be absorbed into either the vacuous consumerism of pop entertainment or the indoctrinated pseudo-intellectualism of academia. Personally, if I had to choose, I'd take the former, because at least those idiots aren't insufferably arrogant about their stupidity. The dumbest people I know have PhDs.

I delivered papers from age 9 to 17. Moved to different places and got a new route with each move. Taught me punctuality and the value of a dollar. It is not a popular opinion, but that so many jobs that used to be handled by teenagers are now handled by immigrants isn't doing our kids any favors. They'll learn more from working that delaying adulthood even more with largely worthless degrees that saddle them with debt.

Artificial scarcity and government censorship are much more "wrong" than using a VPN to watch Britain's Got talent, America's Got Talent, Brazil's Got Talent... actually never mind... That's also an objective wrong, but for "brain rotting trash tv" reasons.

Dilbert used to mock people I mocked and was funny. Now it's mocking me and needs to be cancelled! /s

Why can't we get it? Is this not a violation of the GPL?

Signal has vastly improved in its user experience in the past few years, it's simple enough that my parents and girlfriend use it, and the enforced policies err on the side of security.

This reads like a Linux user who gets frustrated when people use Ubuntu. You like Matrix? Cool, use it, but I for one don't give a damn about your self destructive purity spiral.

This is true in some disciplines, but largely inapplicable in others. A great idea, but I'm not sure it would work outside of physics or chemistry. I mean imagine trying to apply that to medical research. But it's a novel idea, so thanks for sharing.

I'm pro-school choice and skeptical of lockdown's effectiveness concerning covid, but this article is... You know when somebody is "on your side" but arguing so poorly that you wish they weren't? With advocates like this, who needs opponents?

They needed to exclude all women outside of a five year age range (because then the male's age didn't matter), in order to find an impact based on the age of the sperm donor (male). Otherwise, it was the solely women's age that had an impact on fertility.