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ronjobberon Phenomenal consciousness is alien to us: SETI and the Fermi paradox

This is a thing... but it is certainly not commonplace.

ronjobberon Phenomenal consciousness is alien to us: SETI and the Fermi paradox

The evidence for which, to me, sure suggests that there is a casual relationship between physical and mental events.

I think it's a bit funny to call this a causal relationship. People do it all the time and what is meant depends on the meaning of "cause", but it is a bit ambiguous here if the physical events are other events that cause the mental events.

My mental model of reductive physicalism is that the physical events are the mental events, i.e. the mental event occurs if and only if the physical event occurs.

ronjobberon ICJ orders Israel to stop military operation in Rafah

The reason ICJ and ICC should be careful about giving decisions they cannot enforce is because over time it can undermine their credibility. Eventually you end up with these international bodies writing the equivalence of "open letters", which is fine I guess... but if those actions have no effect on outcomes it really starts to undermine the Institutionalist side of IR theory.

Personally, I find that unfortunate. While I think the realists are mostly right, it is helpful to have international legal institutions that maintain some degree of legitimacy and power for the purpose of norm-setting.

ronjobberon ICJ orders Israel to stop military operation in Rafah

Regardless of agreement with the ICJ or not, the quasi-statehood of Palestine complicates how the ICJ can target Hamas, much less non-governmental actors like PIJ. To my knowledge, despite over two decades of issues related to state/non-state conflicts, the institutions that make and implement international law have yet to resolve how to handle these issues.

ronjobberon ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrants against Sinwar and Netanyahu for war crimes

This still is not quite grappling with the fundamental issue imo

Realpolitik, in the sense Morgenthau and Kissinger understood it, absolutely takes into account management of public opinion and risks related to violation of international standards. It just does not only take those into account in decisions related to national interests.

> But the claim that "Biden actually saved lots of Palestinians from dying" because of the "realpolitik" of the situation is silly. The claim that Kissinger actually saved lives by coordinating assassinations so that South America didn't need to be bombed into submission would be farcical, and so is this.

This is stated as a fact and dismissed on the basis of a tacit moral argument rather than reasoning. Why would the claim be silly? I see no reason for those statements to be cast aside as un-addressable or 'farcical'.

On the other hand...

> 10 carrier strike group gets fucked up by Yemeni drones, or Iranian swarms

If this were possible Houthi drones would have done it already (against a single carrier).

> because they [China] invested in growth instead of carrier groups

China has been investing heavily in their military for three decades [0]. And we will see about that growth part... it is not looking so rosy for Xi currently.

0 - https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/CHN/chi...

ronjobberon ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrants against Sinwar and Netanyahu for war crimes

I think this here is what Hilary Clinton was talking about recently... she got panned in the media for it, but I'm pretty sure she was right (and I'm by no means a fan).

ronjobberon ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrants against Sinwar and Netanyahu for war crimes

Not sure if this is what OP was saying, but evidence of orders to directly target civilians would be an open and shut case.

The starvation charge could at least in theory fail (e.g., along the lines of intent - although Gallant's words in the beginning of the war certainly do not help Israel's case).

ronjobberon ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrants against Sinwar and Netanyahu for war crimes

The 'political repercussions' case is pretty flimsy [0].

Bigger picture - this disagreement seems fundamentally rooted in conflicting political philosophies, as alluded to above. More facts are not going to change that.

An example... "'Realpolitik' is not a defense complicity in genocide." Says who? I mean I agree with you on the face of things, but who gets to decide what genocide means? And what does it mean for international law to be "binding on all signatory states"? Some view overconfidence in this notion as Wilson's great and lasting mistake.

Unfortunately, there is no compiler that can adjudicate these types of questions for us.

0 - https://www.natesilver.net/p/your-friends-are-not-a-represen...

ronjobberon ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrants against Sinwar and Netanyahu for war crimes

And Israel's GDP is ~500billion, of which ~25b is spent on defense. So, that 3.8b would be a dent, but not insurmountable.

Economic measures could be a different story, but pulling that lever on an an ally of 75+ years would damage the US's credibility. Not to mention to the domestic impact in the US. I don't think any decision makers weighing national interest would go there.

Plus, if the US successfully isolated Israel, it's highly likely the whole region would be at war in short time. Hard to imagine the West not getting involved again at that point, except now in a significantly worse position.

ronjobberon ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrants against Sinwar and Netanyahu for war crimes

What gives you that impression? Commentary I've seen suggests highly likely for Sinwar et al., but 50/50 on Netanyahu and Gallant.

ronjobberon ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrants against Sinwar and Netanyahu for war crimes

At that point the court would effectively lose it's legitimacy, as it would be unable to enforce/execute those warrants. Not saying that that is a) good or b) isn't where we are heading... it mirrors the trajectory of the UN and it's certainly in line with trends in economic fragmentation.

ronjobberon Google and Meta Pull Out of Web Summit over Cosgrave's Israel-Hamas Comments

Thanks for calling me out! I am aware of the other atrocities. And on further reflection, I'd even agree some of these constitute genocide.

But you raised precisely the point I wanted to address. The definition of genocide is complicated and there isn't really one broadly accepted definition. And it is often the case that those who want to expand the definition have an agenda. I think language is important, and we should not allow the meaning of words to change without a broad debate and conversation.

Here are some Wikipedia links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_studies?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_definitions?wprov=sfl...

ronjobberon Google and Meta Pull Out of Web Summit over Cosgrave's Israel-Hamas Comments

I am fully aware of the definition of genocide. There have been three in modern times: the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, and the Rwandan genocide.

Go look at a map of the airstrikes and tell me Israel is indiscriminately bombing with the explicit intent to kill civilians.

And yes, I am implying that ethnic cleansing is more okay than genocide. In case this needs to be stated: I do not think either are good things.

Live a peaceful coexistence? Is that really what you think this is about? Why won't Egypt give innocent civilians the opportunity to leave the area? Why won't Jordan?

I personally think Israel should do more to limit civilian casualties, and they need to get the West Bank settlers back the fuck out from the Green Line. But the rhetoric you're using tries to cast the whole thing as a Manichean fantasy. Who does that help?

ronjobberon Google and Meta Pull Out of Web Summit over Cosgrave's Israel-Hamas Comments

Please explain to me, explicitly, how they are committing genocide? You can make an argument for ethnic cleansing where the facts would warrant a discussion. But please, give me the evidence you see for genocide.

ronjobberon Intermediate sci knowledge associated with overconfidence and negative attitudes

Or they could be referring to the opposite - the unquestioning adherence to all things Science, as long as those things fall within the progressive orthodoxy that has a stranglehold on academia.

ronjobberon The new Bing runs on OpenAI’s GPT-4

Can you define sentience in this context?

ronjobberon FDIC Takes over Silicon Valley Bank

Sure, if depositors said "ok we'll let the bank ride this out." But that's not what happened.

ronjobberon ChatGPT: The Slickest Con Artist of All Time

I think the difference is that when we communicate those ideas, in scientific/academic literature at least, we reference the source of those original ideas, which permits verification and also plays an important social role.

ronjobberon MIT President Rafael Reif's Statement on Freedom of Expression

I'm an MIT student and received the letter as an email. This was the URL linked in the email for the 'online version'.

I had the URL updated to the Office of the President's page linked by a poster below as it is certainly clearer / more immediately credible. Thanks for raising the issue and thanks to that poster for the link.

ronjobberon Scientists rise up against statistical significance

This is the first post I've seen that states the definition of a CI correctly.

Another note: 'confidence interval' typically refers to the frequentist meaning, whereas 'credibility interval' is used in the Bayesian setting, when describing an interval of the posterior with 95% probability (which is arguably more interpretable). The usages of the two terms do not seem to generally be strict, however.

ronjobberon Evolution Is the New Deep Learning

We have the connectome of C. elegans, yes, but we are still pretty far from understanding how it 'works'. The functional connections are still an active area of research, and it is greatly complicated by connections not explicit in the connectome (neuromodulator effects), as well as the internal dynamics of neurons and non-linear network dynamics.

The connectome is necessary, but far from sufficient, to 'understand' a brain, even one made from only 302 neurons as in C. elegans.