ebrso
6mo ago
In 2010, the vibe (to me at least) was that self-driving cars had effectively been developed; by 2025, substantially all the cars on the roads of American cities would be fully autonomous (without requiring a human standing at-the-ready to take over in a crisis).
So what happened? Why, at least outside Silicon Valley, is my Uber cab still driven by a human? Do technical challenges remain in developing autonomous technologies? Is regulation / liability the major obstacle to adoption?
ebrso
8mo ago
Anyone have tips for combatting the green-eyed monster? I often find myself begrudging others’ successes and good fortune. My resentment applies to friends [1], but also extends to people whom I barely know in passing (or even public figures).
[1] Although am I really their friend if I react this way?
ebrso
8mo ago
In my experience (both second-hand and personal), getting pushed-out of a job you don't like is often a very positive thing - essentially a "blessing in disguise."
ebrso
9mo ago
One idea I've seen is having a multiplicity of status hierarchies . . . In practice, we could have that now, but we don't.
My instinct is that we absolutely have a multiplicity of status hierarchies operating today in a largely independent fashion. For example, there are plenty of American sub-groups in which status and money don't seem closely aligned. If you're a full professor of history at a large state university, then your status among colleagues will derive primarily from your research output and its reception. If you're a Hasidic Jew in Brooklyn, then your status in the synagogue will derive from your knowledge of Torah. If you're a Texas adolescent boy, then your status at school will derive from how many touchdowns you throw. These qualities are not closely related to earnings (if they're even related at all).
ebrso
10mo ago
ebrso
10mo ago
I lost my beloved younger brother a few years ago to drug addiction. He was 35. He struggled for years (and I mean really struggled) to stop using heroin, with some periods of success. When he was using drugs, he would lie and steal. But even during those times, he was always a very generous person when he could be. He was very sensitive (in some ways, I think this was actually a burden for him), and he made friends easily. He was funny and smart (which was perhaps another burden). He had very serious depression and anxiety his entire life. I'm sure my parents will never recover from the loss.
My point here is that many of the drug addicts you despise are actually struggling desperately. Most have had difficult lives. Some have loved ones that care deeply about them and want to see them get healthy. Others don't have anyone in the world who cares about them, either because they never had a family, or because their families died, or because they alienated them through their behaviors.
There are important conversations to be had about whether drug addiction is more of a choice or more of a disease. And there are conversations to be had about the balance between community interests and the interests of those with substance abuse disorders, and how community burdens should be fairly distributed. And there are conversations about which policies or actions actually help individuals with substance abuse disorders, versus which policies are counter-productive because they just enable or encourage these disorders.
But calling someone "dysfunctional scum" or "druggie" or "biowaste" isn't the way to start these conversations. That's the kind of language people use to dehumanize others. I think you should be ashamed of yourself.
ebrso
10mo ago
Kamala is not going to win. She's going to say things like "space is neat" and "who doesn't love a big yellow schoolbus" on the debate stage.
These pithy, assured pronouncements are tedious and call to mind the expression often wrong, but never in doubt. The betting market consensus now is that Harris has a nearly 40% chance of winning in November; it's moronic to declare that "Kamala is not going to win."
ebrso
11mo ago
but not really—the robots won’t play trivia and if they do, the questions will be a lot harder
Two robots can play chess with each other right now, but humans still do it because it's fun and challenging for us. I walk in the park even though jets can outpace me.
I think the implication - possibly tongue-in-cheek - was that robots will replace humans within 200 years.
Does anyone have thoughts about the potential link between childhood fluoride exposure and lower IQ? Alternatively, links to reasonable discussion?
In particular, I'm narrowly interested in what the science says about (1) whether fluoride exposure at levels to which Americans were occasionally exposed causes IQ decreases and (2) if so, what kinds of threshold effects might exist.
For what it's worth, I (along with many of my friends) took daily 1 mg fluoride tablets (supplements) as a kid on the recommendation of our pediatrician, and I have mild dental fluorosis to show for it (although I've never had a cavity in my life). The idea that this may also have cost me a few IQ points is distressing.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/08/health/fluoride-children-iq.html
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