stallmanite

If I’m a “criminal” who sells weed, and my sister is raped and killed, I don’t think prosecution is the “root of all evil”. I’m not sure your point makes sense unless breaking one law makes you oppose all laws somehow.

I mean it’s illegal in many places to blaspheme against the local religion, let’s not pretend that all laws are just and all criminals are depraved immoral beings.

If having this information advantage is so important to national security why let the DEA be involved at all? Either the national security angle is bs or they care more about enforcing drug laws than protecting our country.

Any linguistic information experts here that can comment as to whether there is some informational advantage to having random nouns assigned “genders” like German, French, etc. do? As in, if we were considering a programming language would all the work involved with matching gendered nouns, adjectives, etc. get us any gains in expressiveness or any other benefit. I love the French language and wouldn’t want it changed, just have always wondered if there’s a “point” to eg a table being feminine.

Would you rather abandon the rule of law entirely rather than admit prohibition was a massive mistake and/or not done in good faith? (Not directed at you specifically because I assume your comment was fecetious, just posing the question to clarify thoughts on the matter.)

Great point. When the IRS phone call scam first came around it scared the crap out of me for a second but a quick search revealed the truth.

How are the wildly successful and impressive accomplishments of SpaceX comparable to the cave submarine or nonexistent level5 self-driving? One of these things is not like the others.

You are not I assure you.

This is my strategy as well. If I want something I initiate a search. Incoming sales attempts do not exist in my universe.

I rue the day they remove audio jacks from desktop motherboards. Presumably to improve water resistance.

Yeah read my comments a little more carefully. I have stated that I 100% agree that women need a separate league to compete in. I was advising the poster I replied to originally that he will get a lot better results stating the facts without the really gross “transwomen are men that are losers” angle. It’s really hard agreeing with y’all when you are assuming I’m disagreeing and arguing against a point I didn’t make.

If you really care about women’s leagues then it’s probably best not to frame the issue as “transwomen are male losers.” You will not win support with that approach.

The whole thing of just needing to say you identify as a woman is 1000% bullshit and in fact the pushback against such stupid things is causing a lot of problems for “real” transpeople.

When I speak of transwomen I’m referring to people who have had surgery/hormones. To me if you’re willing to get rid of your penis that’s dedication and unlikely to be a ploy to win medals in track and field.

I agree 100%. Unfortunately you severely undermine your argument by referring to transwomen as “men who can’t compete with other men and want to take home a few trophies.”

I am frankly irritated by identity politics but your approach of misgendering transgender athletes and asserting that anyone would go through all the pain and disruption of transitioning to another sex and getting permanent surgical modifications to their bodies because they are “Men who can’t compete with other men” comes across as disgusting and dehumanizing. As if transwomen are craven losers who have thought of this crazy scam to win in athletic competitions. You’re going to make people who agree with your main argument re: women needing their own leagues “back away slowly” because you’re spouting really disgusting misconceptions about trans people in the process.

You’re comfortable asserting that transgender women are “men who can’t compete with other men” and that there are individuals for whom the whole point of undergoing sexual reassignment surgery is to “take home trophies”? That’s quite a dedication to sports you’re proposing in which a person would be willing to have their genitals altered permanently to win an athletic contest. Do you honestly believe that’s the motivation?

Edit: referring to actual transwomen who’ve had surgery, etc. Just being able to declare that you “identify” as a woman and that’s that is the height of insanity.

As a native English speaker and US citizen / resident I think you are 100% correct in your observation.

Imagine a headline writer who wrote like this. I would click the dang story just out of respect and with the idea that an author like that is worth reading generally. If the headline is that informative how great would the content be?

Chiming in to join the chorus of praise for Permutation City and also call attention to Egan’s technical notes / FAQ for the same. Really mind-bending reading https://www.gregegan.net/PERMUTATION/FAQ/FAQ.html

Permutation City the tv series? Yes please!

I think you’re right but I’d love to see them try to argue that pro-scarcity point to its conclusion. Why would we need jobs if the point of jobs is to get money and the point of money is to get scarce goods. The replicator would make the whole system obsolete unless the pro-scarcity side straight up admits they just want inequality for its own sake.

I have had the same experience as you of thoughtlessly doing things that benefit others and had the same objection as you to his statement. For what it’s worth I think you are correct.

Very good point. People suspected of far less serious crimes based on far more tenuous “evidence” get their door kicked in, their kids rooms flashbanged, dogs shot, etc.

So if I manufacture boulders and some dumbass stores one at the top of a steep incline it’s my fault if that boulder rolls into town and crushes people? That doesn’t make sense to me.

I’d be really curious to hear about a case where prosecutorial misconduct was punished. Don’t they have something akin to the “qualified immunity” that the police enjoy?

Cabrini Green definitely comes to mind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabrini–Green_Homes

Infinite drive space you say? Eat your heart out Stacker.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stac_Electronics

I 100% agree with you. What can a voter do until the EFF fields a candidate? There are copyright and surveillance maximalists running both parties apparently. The DMCA, the Patriot Act, and the all the other BS seems to the type of stuff that everyone in power agrees on and no candidate that I’m aware of is trying to do anything about it.

I’m pretty sure the parent is pointing out that the chemical combustion in eg a caveman’s campfire required many millions of years of stars performing nuclear fusion to create any elements with higher atomic numbers than 2, oxygen included.

I was really surprised to hear about alcohol bans in eg South Africa for this reason. It’s a terrible idea and dangerous for no real gain that I can discern.

How would filtering out potential developers benefit a platform’s viability? My imagination isn’t sufficient to envision a market situation where this could ever make sense. Can anyone here describe a hypothetical scenario where as a company pushing a platform you want less developers interested in it?

This is a great analogy, finally “clicked” for me after trying to understand this concept for a while. Thank you.

I agree 100% but it clearly wasn’t computers or quantization that caused the shitward turn. I love Rick Beato as well but I think he’s conflating two different issues on this one.