big_curses

Doesn't look deleted, or do you mean a different one? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31862258

I agree, but I'd also like to defend Jackson on this one. He was brought in after Del Toro dropped out and the movies had been in production for years already. He had no prep time and seemed to exist on little sleep for years. You can see some of this in the behind the scenes recordings/interviews they did. I have a feeling they were only as good as they were because of him. Regardless, they were disappointing.

If I really need to remember something I use spaced repetition, Anki being one of the more well known tools for that. Spaced repetition is particularly useful if you need to retain information indefinitely; you can do so as long as you stick with the process. The downsides to it are the upfront cost of ingesting whatever information you're looking to memorize into what is usually a flash card like system.

As far as I understand, we do have the physical capability of housing that many people, but a significant number of the homeless are drug addicted, have mental illness, or both, and attempts to provide housing in mass like that leads to many of the houses becoming filthy and/or damaged. And who would want to give up a house for that? Homelessness can't just be solved with a housing band-aid, but needs to be addressed at the source with support for the drug addicted and mentally ill.

Unfortunately, if this is serious, it just makes me lose respect for him. The Enlightenment was the greatest period of human history ever with regards to philosophical and intellectual progress since ancient Greece.

I think the focus on sentience is misplaced. Rather, the value should be rationality, meaning here the ability use one's mind to survive and to live by reason alone. This is valuable to any other rational living creature because rationality allows one to eschew violence and live cooperatively, so it is in the best interest of every rational creature to, at least on a basic level, value and respect the life of any other rational creature. The reason we don't apply and respect rights to animals and plants is because they are incapable of doing the same to us, or even being aware of the concept of 'rights'. You should interact with other forms of life on the highest level it is capable of interacting with you.

But at the same time, I think it's doing a really good job of what it's trying to do. Google search is not trying to be a repository for all the world's information. It's just trying to get people to what they're most likely looking for or show the most related things. Given the significance of the moon landing and the fact that no one has set foot on mars I find it unsurprising that it brings up info on the moon landing. It's seems better to assume what the user is likely looking for especially when (at least my) Google searches often take the form of "moon land neil year". I can just type things like that out, stream of consciousness, and the majority of the time I get what I'm looking for immediately.

Exactly, so this would be a legitimate reason for us to support biodiversity.

Yes, but if biodiversity loss and changes in the land caused by some action we've taken leads to civilizational collapse, then obviously that's not good for our lives and we should stop doing it. If biodiversity has effects that are good for us, then we should build things with that in mind (I only say "if" here because I have not read much in depth on the effects of lessening biodiversity, although it's pretty obvious how it could be destructive). I support infrastructure that promotes biodiversity, but disagree that we should do it for the animals, we should do it for us.

> The good news is that what is good for humans is to maintain biodiversity and what's good for biodiversity is good for animals.

Exactly, which is why I'm generally in support of building things in a way that maintains biodiversity. But we should be doing it for us as the principle driving this action, even if the outcome seems the same.

> But you are wrong that animals don't have, or cannot conceive of, having rights and that we don't "owe" them anything. The truth is that we owe all living things the right to exist in the same way your rights are granted by the constitution.

Which animal can grasp a philosophically grounded conception of rights? If they can't do that, they do not know of rights. Certain species of primates may react to what they perceive as fair and unfair, but this is founded in emotion and social habits, not reason, which is required for a conception of rights. You will never see an animal respecting your rights, they simply happen to act in a way that doesn't directly infringe on them, but only sometimes. Also, I should clarify, just because animals don't have rights doesn't mean it is good for us, as individuals, to do anything we want to them at any time. Unnecessary cruelty is not good for an individual psychologically, in addition to the fact that it does not add to your life in any way.

This is going to come across as a nitpick on the title, the idea is taken farther in the article and I think it's an important distinction.

No, we should not build for wildlife. We should only build for people and what is good for people's lives. The only question then is, "what is good for people?". If not harming the biodiversity in a region and having more green spaces are good for people (which they likely are), then we should do it, but it is not the case that, as the article says, "whenever we build something...it's our responsibility to accommodate wildlife that would be displaced otherwise". Our only responsibility is to our own lives and the rights of others, animals do not have rights and cannot even conceive of them. If people want to help animals because it makes them happy, that's great, but we don't owe any moral responsibility to them.

Why abolish patents rather than just fix their implementation? Patents are very important. Without them, incentive to bring things to market falls as all your hard work of designing and creating something can just immediately be taken and reused by others. This encourages everyone to sit around and wait for others to make something first, and then punishes the one who does. Why not instead rework patents so that they have to be used continuously to be upheld or increase the stringency of that aspect of them?

I'll give a perspective, although my specific knowledge of math is not very deep at all, I've thought a lot about concepts and abstractions.

I think the difference here is that math is much more abstract than physics. The concepts backing math are built off of very low level abstractions about the world. For math, over a long period of time more and more relationships and rules were deduced from what had already been induced from reality. And if you CAN deduce, you should likely, as it provides a proof for some idea or concept that induction never could (but only if your previous inductions and deductions were accurate).

Physics on the other hand, cannot deduce as readily. It is primarily based in the realm of gathering more and more data from the world and observing physical relationships firsthand. This cannot be done in abstract math because abstract math does not exist in reality. There is nothing to observe, it is mostly abstractions based on lower level observations in reality. For example, you can measure the effects of gravity firsthand, but you cannot measure infinity, a mathematical abstraction. Infinity does not exist in reality. It is simply a useful abstraction for things that are too large or small for us to meaningfully measure.

The only two options are not either that the FDA screens and approves drugs or it being down to individuals (or even these individuals' doctors). We could have private screening and trials companies that the drug producers themselves would pay. We already see this in other industries where there are both public and private inspections done. I've heard in those cases the private inspectors are actually stricter as well, as they actually have more incentive to be correct.

Do they attack education through funding or through rhetoric? I imagine funding is where they would have more power.

I already believed that education should be outside of the purview of the government, but this even more reason to keep them separate. A government whose sole purpose is to protect individual rights (properly defined) would have no ability to gut the education of it's populace.

I would say in the event of experimenting on non-voluntary humans, specifically prisoners, the issue is mostly about the fallibility of the law and setting a dangerous precedent. It's the same reason why the death penalty either needs to be highly restricted or not used altogether. It's too dangerous a power to give to the government lightly due to it's ability to be easily misused or used preemptively.

Yes, given that the evidence in support of it being cleaner is not only slim, but has been shown to suffer from extreme methodological errors, the resulting situation is that of cultural or religious genital mutilation.

And I should add that even if it were shown to be 'cleaner' (as far as the reduction of the chance to contract STD's), I would not find that compelling enough to cut off the most nerve dense part of the penis before the person is able to consent.

It of course matters how far they went in interacting with him, but if all it takes for someone to try to bomb a building is another person online going, "do it, I'll sell you a bomb", they should probably not be free and are clearly a danger. If this is mainly due to mental illness, that can and should be considered during the trial as far as punishment/rehabilitation goes, but has no bearing on the fact that they were willing to bomb a building.

Regarding weather and showering, I think the person is thinking more about the times of year when it is 100 degrees F outside and 60% humidity for 1/3 of the year.

If you literally mean in a checking account, I'm curious what your reasoning is for keeping seven figures in liquid assets. Aren't you just losing money to inflation?

I would argue that the original original sin is the fact that the government would bail out the banks writing these mortgages. The fact that the banks knew this encourages them to do take reckless actions in the name of profit. Why wouldn't they? There's no downside for them.

It's another case of the government attempting to help the economy, but only hurting it.

For what reason are we considering these platforms "conduits of free speech"? They are simply private services, private property. In the same way you can legally remove people from your home that you don't want in there, they can bar you from their service. They also didn't always exist. At what point in their existence would you argue that being banned from being able to use them was depriving you of some right? Can they have a monopoly over all of the "conduits of free speech" if all the old methods of communication still exist? If those alternatives exist, could they really be called a monopoly? (Although for things like Twitter, they're definitely not a monopoly, but if we're talking about govt backed ISPs, which can be a monopoly, then that is indeed a different story, but I would argue that ISPs should be divorced from any government regulation/subsidies).

If the first amendment and your concept of freedom of speech don't line up, then one or the other need to change I would think. If a right is not recognized by others/the government, then it effectively doesn't exist. That's not to say it's not right or that you couldn't rationally defend it though.

>If in a pandemic I can only legally communicate via digital tools

I see the conflict you're bringing up, it's in effect illegal to communicate in person a lot of the time due to the pandemic, so digital tools are very useful for you to be able to communicate, but if you are somehow banned from those you have few options, if any. I think the thing that is incorrect here is actually the government making it illegal to communicate via non-digital tools, even if a lot of times it is in an individual's best interest to stay inside. And once again, no one owes you a platform. You are, in your words, silenced, but I don't think that that is an issue that requires government action.

> This is a distinction without a difference.

I disagree, there is an extreme difference there. Freedom of speech is specifically in regards to the government giving you the negative right of being able to say whatever you want without government prosecution (aside from some edge cases like direct threats and the like, which are closer to actual violence). What they do not do is guarantee you a platform. You are free to say whatever you like, but you are not owed the right to be listened to. Removing someone from a platform is not silencing them. A private company does not owe you anything, let alone service.

I wouldn't say no signal at all. If I have data that they are the best doctor from my options and are obese, yeah totally, I'll go for them. But if I just see a lineup of doctors and all else is equal, I'm definitely picking the obese one last.

It's possible that they're obese due to some condition relatively out of their control, or that they're working on it, (and my answer applies specifically to the US) but when 40% of the US is obese, it more than likely reflects on them as a person and their values.

"Similarly, companies won't generally elect to weaken their bargaining position with employees"

Agreed, but I think the force to combat this should be unions purely through collective bargaining rather than either side using regulation backed by the monopoly on force that is the government.

"One of the main purposes of government is to represent the will and interests of the general person"

I hold a stripped back view of the government. That it's proper function should only be to protect the rights of individuals via it's monopoly on force. Of course, 'what are an individual's rights?' is a whole other conversation. The government does provide many legitimate services, but they are things that I think can, and should, be done privately. The fact that the government has the monopoly on force is one of the reasons why it's purview should be so restrained.

It does make it unfair, but I don't see that as an issue in itself.

For the image in your first link, I don't see the issue as Standard Oil being powerful in itself, but rather the government having the power to create regulation and subsidies for businesses that would cause it to be a target of a trust in the first place. I believe the only way to get corporate money out of politics is to take the government out of economics completely. (of course they could still prosecute businesses for illegal action, but they could not solidify a business' power through subsidies or regulation)

Hilarious that Yelp is criticizing Google in any way given their history of manipulating reviews and ratings, something that I find much more egregious than promoting internal products and services.

Aside from that, can someone explain to me the reason this should require any sort of legal action taken against Google? I understand people not liking this behavior, but that's a reason to stop using Google, not to form this antitrust response. Additionally, it always seems to me that actions like Google's are fine until a company becomes to big, at which point it is suddenly decided that it is unfair. Why do we even care about fairness now? Nothing about the resources one has at one's disposal ever seems fair in business. It all seems very arbitrary.

I'm not the person you asked, but I could see there being harm in lying to children about how reality works. When children are first growing up, they have no clue about the nature of reality, of what is and is not possible, but their brains are constantly gobbling up data on what the world is like. From this, one forms concepts of how things relate to each other. Ideally as they do this, there are no contradictions between their concepts, or they're worked out over time, but in lying to a child and feeding them this false information, you are introducing contradictions into their concepts and distorting their view of reality. And one's view of reality directly relates to their ability to interact with it in a self-beneficial way.

Now I can't say that this will actually have much of an effect, like I said, we can naturally work out these contradictions over time, but I think this is why one should not lie to children in general.

Like you say, not all untruths are created equal. It could be quite easy for them to fix their concepts once they realize it is a lie, but perhaps it could have some lingering effects. I can't say. I'm not a psychologist and each individual, and their mind, is different.

Do you just sleep in a dark room until you wake up? I too want to ditch my normal alarm clock and I've been looking into light alarm clocks. These slowly grow brighter over time to try to wake you like natural light would, rather than using sound. I have not gotten one yet because unfortunately many of them seem overpriced or require using a mobile app with them, but I think the idea still stands.