ulyssessword
No bio...
User ID: 308
ulyssessword
3mo ago
Dang. Why doesn't someone (maybe the government itself??) just do that for every single public-but-paywalled document?
Ten cents per page is a reasonable fee for an archivist digging up and photocopying some documents, but it seems wildly out of touch with the costs of hosting a pdf.
ulyssessword
6mo ago
Are you sure that's not backwards? Marxism is socially acceptable, therefore society accepts it (such as by allowing its tenets to be expressed by employees). Racism is not socially acceptable, therefore society doesn't accept it (such as by not allowing its tenets to be expressed by employees).
If you think that employees holding a specific view cause that view to become more socially acceptable, then could you expand on how/why?
I'd gladly pay $0.003 to read a web page if they offered a convenient way to replace their advertising revenue. In fact, I am paying more than that because they created horrifically bloated sytems that pass through some of the most expensive data transfer in the Western world. My adblocker blocks about 10% of the requests and the cost of data is about 17x the benefit of the advertising, so running an adblocker is economically efficient even before you consider the cost of seeing them (at $20/GB, 2.5 MB/page, $3.00 CPM).
Aside from that, I can do what I want with the things they send me. I can channel surf or leave the room to avoid TV commercials, skip to the articles in magazines, or scrape the logos off of physical products. Do you think that those forms of ad-avoidance are immoral in the same way?
EDIT: fixed strikethrough
ulyssessword
1mo ago
Are we gonna get body-cam footage and be able to come to an independent judgment on the conduct of the government in the course of the raid?
I doubt it.
I wish that we held public servants (particularly ones authorized to use deadly force) to a "duty to proactively gather proof of innocence". That way, if an officer couldn't decisively clear his own name then he would be at risk of being fired, even if the evidence that exists is too weak for criminal charges.
Instead, they get cover for bad decisions, like in this case (paraphrased and dramatized):
- Officer: After checking the details, I proceeded with the raid.
- Judge: You checked the details and confirmed that they were correct right? Actually never mind, you get qualified immunity regardless. You checked, after all.
ulyssessword
1mo ago
One of the less stupid notions to come out of LessWrong was the idea of making one's beliefs "pay rent"
Link.
Note that it's pay rent in anticipated experiences. Not pay rent in popular political slogans. Not pay rent with gains in social status. Not pay rent with any utilitarian benefit. You seem to be using that term exactly the opposite way of Yudkowski, as HBDers have no problem linking those beliefs to anticipated outcomes.
ulyssessword
7mo ago
Another one: Tim McGraw- Don't take the girl TL;DR: Don't take the girl fishing with us. Don't kidnap my girlfriend. Don't let my wife die in childbirth.
Also, tvtropes is a fantastic resource. I followed the trail from that song to the artist then to Dual Meaning Chorus which contains dozens of examples.
ulyssessword
7mo ago
(Said without any pauses)
What's the hardest part about telling a joke timing.
ulyssessword
8mo ago
In a Socialized economy, you'd all go to the town council to convince them that the plant would be a net positive for the town. The council would hold a vote of the entire town. If the vote passed, the town would fund your plant...
...
Since everyone shares in the profits of the plant...
Does everyone share in the losses as well? How good is the town's judgment?
If it's bad, do the residents become destitute after they spend their efforts on a doomed venture? If not, who is bailing them out?
If it's great, can they leverage it beyond their own borders? Would they even care to put in the effort if the benefits go to other people?
Also, that seems incredibly unstable or else totalitarian.
Imagine that someone wants to start a new business, and applies to the town. The town declines, so they decide to go it alone (Maybe it's capital-light like a sole-proprietorship hairdresser run from home. Maybe they can get money from elsewhere.) Does the town take the profits as if they had invested? If they don't, they'll be pushed into irrelevance unless they are the best judges of value in the entire market. If they do, they're hardly better than common thieves.
ulyssessword
9mo ago
I mean, they strongly prevented severe illness and death, which is the only really important thing.
Really? Compare it to the vaccines for Measles, Polio, smallpox, or all the diseases that have fallen out of the public consciousness because they were (largely) eradicated due to vaccination campaigns. I was hoping for success at that scale, and the vaccines we have are not up to the task.
ulyssessword
9mo ago
I don't know if "most" is a good enough standard. Try that with any other profession:
-
"Most surgeons cut into people in an attempt to heal them (but some do it for the opposite reason)"
-
"Most engineers build bridges in an attempt to safely convey traffic (but some do it for the opposite reason)"
-
"Most accountants manage accounts in an attempt to help their clients' finances (but some do it for the opposite reason)"
-
"Most journalists write articles in an attempt to inform the public (but some do it for the opposite reason)"
A few bad apples literally do spoil the bunch, because professional fields live and die on their reputations. Laypeople simply don't have the expertise to judge the choices that a professional makes (at the object level, before the fact), so all that's left is the industry's reputation.
ulyssessword
11mo ago
I'm a Canadian, and I think that all asylum claims originating south of our border are bogus. Once you've escaped whichever hellhole you're running from...you've escaped it. It's done. The refugee system is meant to handle emergencies, and "being processed as a refugee in a safe country" is not an emergency that justifies asylum.
ulyssessword
1yr ago
People claim that it’s hard to be healthy, get enough protein, or not be deficient in key minerals on a vegan diet.
Your post has reinforced that stance for me. The only valid defense I can think of is "I didn't even consider that issue, but it was fine regardless".
What definition are you using, so that your dietary habits don't qualify as "hard"?
ulyssessword
9d ago
Perhaps the government and Amazon could strike up a deal that with enough workers, Amazon could lower the throughput per worker (to increase livability) in exchange for a tax subsidy to offset the cost of having to hire a non-optimum amount of workers.
Let's say that the government sets an annual wage of $31200.01 (just above the poverty line for a family of four). How much would they need to subsidize Amazon to make it worthwhile?
I'm guessing substantially more than $31200 per worker.
A worker that doesn't get any wages (or benefits, or payroll taxes, or etc.) from the company still requires a locker, parking lot space (or rather a bus seat), HR paperwork to keep them organized, training, supervision, and an assigned task in the workflow. Once they show up and start working, they have the opportunity to work unsafely, make mistakes, steal, fight, or otherwise do worse than nothing.
Since your proposal is scraping the bottom of the barrel of people who aren't employed, I suspect that a significant fraction can't be gainfully employed as they are.
ulyssessword
1mo ago
The fact the spaces needed is so close a match for those provided is a near miracle of demand prediction.
If this article is representative, then 6-8 spaces in one subdivision of Dublin is about a 20% shortfall. I'd struggle to call that "good", nevermind a "near miracle".
ulyssessword
2mo ago
You're pointing to one of the core differences at play here. Paraphrasing liberally:
Critic: JCVD movies are trash
Fan: but enjoyable trash!
vs.
Critic: True Detective is trash
Fan: This is just another example of the sexist misogynist backlash. In fact, it isn't even a genuine grassroots opinion and is part of a concerted effort by a politically-motivated brigade that can't accept reality.
It takes two to tango. Low-brow media (generally) doesn't push back against negative reviews, so any "controversies" die out immediately. Prestige media has both supporters and detractors, so they can feed off of each other in a growing cycle of escalation.
ulyssessword
5mo ago
Now I'm imagining a comic-book world where carjackers have an IQ of 293.15.
ulyssessword
6mo ago
The extra parts aren't padding, they're a functional element of a good post.
- Facts provide background which helps outsiders (like me, on this topic) understand what is happening and why it is important.
- Commentary is the meat of a comment thread, as we are here for discussion. Commentary in a top level comment provides a kickstart to the discussion and focuses it in one direction.
- Questions are a poor-man's replacement for facts, and the "focus" half of commentary.
Comparing the two posts, I see:
Your post:
- Facts:
- Dianne Feinstein's death
- Commentary:
- N/A (implicit only)
- Questions:
- How do civics work?
- What will they decide?
- etc?
This one:
- Facts:
- Diane Feinstein having died
- Gavin Newsome can now select anyone he'd like
- promised...black women.
- Maryland resident Laphonza Butler
- qualifications (quoted/linked)
- Commentary
- win for patronage
- rarely see so blatantly
- all rather offensive
- transient grifter
- Questions:
- N/A (implicit only)
They aren't similar at all by my framework.
ulyssessword
7mo ago
I'll always point to ProPublica's Machine Bias as the example of lying with statistics and stories. Compare their pair of graphs "Black Defendants’ Risk Scores" and "White Defendants’ Risk Scores" to the Washington Post's article's graph "Recidivism Rates by Risk Score".
Maybe don't include that example in your assignment, though.
ulyssessword
8mo ago
most people didn't have time for games
We all have time to participate here, so none of us have a super-constrained schedule.
ulyssessword
8mo ago
I'm wary of Chinese robber-ing...
Sometimes, one example is enough. I don't think that example is (it could've been a bored cop, and asking questions without a warrant isn't illegal), but the ones downthread are.
Think of what was required for the 11 arrests for football tweeting:
- (optional) There is a background level of public support which makes this popular,
- Politicians pass a law that affects it,
- (optional) There is specific outrage and/or reporting by the public
- Police investigate it and make arrests
- The news reports on it, and doesn't include any significant backlash.
- (forthcoming??) They are tried, convicted, and punished.
ulyssessword
1yr ago
Go for it. Why can't you apply for reinstatement now?
I don't expect them to accept your request, but it's not like they can do anything worse than super-banning you for asking.
ulyssessword
1mo ago
See also: Lockdown: The Coming War on General Purpose Computing, a 2012 speech/blog post by Cory Doctorow. It's outdated by now, but this has been going on for a long time.
ulyssessword
1mo ago
I am generally a fan of strict and exact legal definitions of identity X, if X is supposed to give you considerable legal privileges and perks.
I bet you that this 2018 story gets your goat:
With the new birth certificate in hand, he changed his driver's licence and insurance policy.
All to save about $91 a month.
"I'm a man, 100 per cent. Legally, I'm a woman," he said.
"I did it for cheaper car insurance."
ulyssessword
1mo ago
Am I? Are they?
Yes, unless I'm severely misreading your tone. Even your own beliefs about HBD are "paying rent" in the Yudkowskian sense: You anticipate that adopting it would have a specific utilitarian effect.
even if HBD is true (and that is an "if") what value does "HBD Awareness" add over a colorblind meritocracy in terms of anticipated experiences?
That's a category error. HBD is a set of beliefs. Colorblind meritocracy is a set of policies.
A person that believed in blank-slatism would anticipate that a (true) colorblind meritocracy would provide demographically-equal outcomes, and might (or might not) promote those policies depending on how it lines up with their values. A person that believed in HBD would anticipate that a (true) colorblind meritocracy would provide demographically-unequal outcomes, and might (or might not) promote those policies depending on how it lines up with their values.
Do you also dispute the wavelength basis of color? It fits in perfectly:
Put plainly, everything is a fuzzy socially-defined category, even the categories used in the hardest of hard physics. Bringing up this argument for genetics only is an isolated demand for rigor.
More options
Context Copy link