kangnkodos

Let me put it this way. I'm having a disagreement with my wife. Her voice starts to get louder. A logical course of action would be to point out that she is not currently calm, and that she should calm down or resume the conversation at another time.

That's logical.

And yet, that's not the best course of action.

Sometimes, you have to go beyond logic, and take into account how others will react to your statements.

Did Google Earth get permission for all those buildings?

I understand what you're trying to get at. I listened to the DNC. They kept repeating that this moment is more critical than any other in history. I don't buy that. After Japan annihilated our fleet in Pearl Harbor, and Nazis were rolling over one country after another in Europe... that must have been a very scary moment, and critical. Today... important, but not as much.

But I digress. My honest answer to what you're asking is:

The difference is that at this point in time, the staff of Scientific American is in a media bubble more than at any time in the past. They have lost touch with the common man. The man on the street who does not have a college degree. They don't realize how negatively that man is going to react to this endorsement.

That's honestly why I think they did it now, and not over the last 175 years.

Haha. I can't imagine them jumping on the fear bandwagon.

I really didn't explain it yet. Did I? Let me try this. The battle is asymmetric. One side, Trump, is using fear. The other side, Scientific American, is using logic.

Fear actually gets voters off their couches and into the voting booth.

Logic gets people to nod their heads, but doesn't translate into actual votes.

Thanks for correcting my typo. Yes.

I've read first hand accounts about what happened in Venezuela. About twenty years ago, Chavez turned a democracy into a dictatorship. How could this possibly happen?

Well, one ingredient was that the people who were against Chavez repeated over and over that the dictator was not logical.

In Venezuela, this type of argument did not persuade Chavez voters. It did the opposite. Chavez won and the country is now a dictatorship.

I see the same thing happening here. Trump supporters with a high school diploma are personally insulted when a bunch of PhD's get together and declare that their candidate is not scientific.

I hear you. I agree that what they wrote is limited to just the candidate and not the voters. I even agree that Trump is unscientific, illogical, fear mongering and dangerous. Wait. I went beyond what you said. Sorry.

But what is the corollary to Trump "rejects evidence and science"? It's that anyone who votes for Trump does the same thing.

You're right that they did not spell this out. But many people who hear the endorsement will immediately jump to that conclusion.

You make a good point. But take an objective look at all the other responses on this page. How many of them contain the hidden assumption that Republican voters are stupid? I see a few. You might not be able to see it right away. You have to read them a certain way. Some have been downvoted and are light gray. But they are there.

And conversation here on HN is very restrained. When this news hits other social media, there will be more claims that Trump is stupid, Republicans are stupid, and any independent who is considering voting for a Republican is stupid.

So, yes, this article has unleashed a new wave of hatred in the world.

I have nothing against professional scientific writers writing a letter to the New York Times, or even writing an editorial there. In fact they should. I agree with you that it's good when they correct a specific claim with scientific evidence.

This is something else.

This is the whole Scientific American organization putting their stamp of approval on the idea that Republican voters are stupid.

I'm very disappointed that Scientific American endorsed a political candidate.

The reason is that this act adds to the polarization of this country. It does nothing but add more hate to the world. It brings politics into an area of life which has previously been apolitical.

Worst of all it normalizes the idea that one political party is smart and rational, and another is stupid and illogical. Every time this idea is repeated, and this article will lead to the idea being repeated more, another swing voter who could go either way clings tighter to the Republican party.

Sure, it feels good to claim superiority in this manner, but it has the opposite effect from what was intended.

Sometimes, the interviewer will purposely give you a question beyond your reach. There are a few reasons.

- To zero in on what you already know.

- To see how you react in a situation where you don't have all the information.

What is your attitude when you are in this situation? Do you shut down? Walk out? Or are you able to form open ended questions to get the missing information?

In any type of job, you're always in situations where you don't have all the answers, and need to work with others with a positive attitude. I don't know how you are going to turn this around, but maybe looking at the situation from another point of view is the first step.

Just the fact that you are asking the questions tells me there is hope.

Why is Massachusetts #5 on the list? Just coronavirus in general? How would moving help? Is racism worse in Boston than other cities?

If anyone has a guess, let me know.

Maybe since people are working remote, and their kids are going to school on zoom, they are thinking of moving to a state with a lower cost of living? I could see that.

When I first started compiling code, there were often pages and pages of compiler errors. I felt that I had to read all the errors every time, and then somehow the most important information would magically emerge from taking in the big picture.

I learned to focus in on just the first compiler error, and ignore all the rest.

Read the first error. Resolve the first error. Recompile. Repeat.

This is just one example of breaking big problems into smaller problems.

I agree that no one really knows. My reasons are a little different. Look at what happens when there is a run on a bank. If the bank is insured, then some other bigger entity says they will pay all the IOU's. Either they actually pay the IOU's off, or the panic stops, or some combination.

But what happens when there is a run on the central bank of a country? If another bigger country (example Germany) bails out a smaller country (example Greece), then the panic stops. If no other country steps in, the currency becomes worthless (example Zimbabwe).

But what happens when there is a run on the largest central bank in the world (United States)? A bank so big that no other country can possibly bail them out, even if they wanted to? What happens when there is a run on the reserve currency of the world?

No one knows. It never happened before.

Also, what set of conditions will cause this run on the reserve currency? People have a lot of educated guesses, but because it has never happened in the past, there is no scientific data available on what does and what doesn't cause it.

No one knows.

I only regret that I have but one upvote to give to this answer.

Use

old.reddit.com

Sounds like something Uncle Iroh would say, but I can't find the quote.

Wow, @Tiktaalik.

Your claim has crossed the line to a personal attack which should not be tolerated.

Please stick to discussing the issues instead of making personal attacks in the future.

I've read the 10 page memo several times. I strongly disagree with his central ideas. However, I see them as political thoughts. Political thoughts I strongly disagree with. And the way I look at it, he was fired because of two things.

1) He had right wing political ideas which most people at Google strongly disagree with.

2) He wrote them down in a shared work forum.

I've read second hand accounts of many unusual ideas which have been shared on internal Google forums. I agree with lots. I also disagree with lots, both left and right.

But it was only the guy on the right who got fired. I'm not aware of anyone ever getting fired from Google for expressing far left political ideas. Let me know if I'm wrong on this.

It's 2020. Today's lesson is that if I have an idea out of the accepted mainstream of my company, and they are on the right, then keep my mouth shut, or I'll be fired. If the idea is on the left, I can go ahead and share my thoughts.

It's possible that half the articles in today's New York Times are already being written by GPT-3. 600 words that rattle on and add no information beyond what is stated in the article's title.

GPT-3 has finally reached the level of idiotic human! That's actually quite a large step forward from any previous language model.

My mouth says, "This sucks". Then my brain says, "This sucks". Therefore my brain thinks I have a correct hypothesis.

The article didn't have many details about the "For You Page feed algorithm". Any guesses as to how it analyzes a video, and which properties it looks at?

It could be Lore, but not Data.

The problem is that beside the comment, I am only left with one feedback lever, up or down.

Just image if I were given two feedback levers instead:

- This comment adds to the discussion/This comment does not add significantly to the discussion

- Agree/Disagree

What if they are just annoying enough to want them off your app, but not quite bad enough for their ISP to turn off their account? My guess is that most cases would fall into this category, and only a rare few would be so bad that an ISP would actually take action.

On your app, you want them off if they are a jerk. The ISP doesn't care about that level misbehavior.

Is it that hard to create an additional Google account?

"Units can have different historical values. A foot is defined as exactly 0.3048 meters. Before 1959, though, it was 0.3048006 meters. This is means that all historical documents have a different measurement of foot. And there was a period of time where we used both definitions in different places!"

In the US, different definitions of a foot are still used in different states today. The plan is to standardize on 0.3048 meters at the end of 2022.

https://www.sco.wisc.edu/2019/10/18/us-survey-foot-to-be-dep...

Turn Turn Turn by the Byrds

Here's an example. Brendan Eich became CEO of Mozilla. Someone tweeted that he donated money to the side fighting against gay marriage. The internet mob did their thing. Brendan Eich was forced to resign.

I disagree with his political choice. But I defend his right to make a political choice, and not be fired because of it.

You shouldn't get fired from any job for your political choices.

The user's first name was "Christian". He claimed to be Jewish. Most people ignored this bit of cognitive dissonance, and joined the mob. People only hear what they want to hear.

No. I think there are two separate camps within the Democrats, with very little overlap. Progressives on the far left, and centrists. Think Sanders vs. Biden, for example. And /r/politics is completely dedicated to propping up the progressives.

To be fair, I don't think it's filled with fake news. It's filled completely with progressive-biased, one sided interpretation of actual news events.