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rthomas6's comments
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rthomas6  ·  323 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: May 31, 2023

My understanding is that postmodernism is taking what was built by modernism and tearing it down, showing how it doesn't work, and otherwise deconstructing it and examining it piece by piece to the point that it loses all meaning. It is disillusionment with the modern world, and admitting that it's all bullshit. In a word: nihilism.

Then, Metamodernism is taking those pieces and using them to construct things, just not the things you started with, and not using the pieces in the same way. And thereby adding meaning back into the thing, just not the same meaning as before. So you are still admitting that the original was bullshit, but instead of blowing everything up and leaving, you're constructing something that works for you, with full knowledge it is arbitrary. In a word: existentialism.

rthomas6  ·  897 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: What’s Wrong with Socialism?

Ayn Rand's advocacy of self-interest above all other considerations is absolutely right, IF you only care about fairness. If fairness is our only metric, then a pure capitalist system would be close to optimal. There is still the matter of rent-seeking behavior, but that is another discussion.

The problem is, for most people, fairness cannot be the only metric. Some people are just worthless, and they deserve nothing. But we should give to them anyway, because people's fates, and character, are not entirely self-determined. Ayn Rand tries to gloss over this, but it's true, especially for children. Strictly speaking it is unfair and unjust to give to these people. But who cares? I don't want anyone to be homeless even if they deserve it.

On the other hand fairness and justice does matter. It's just as much of a travesty, in my opinion, to make value created count for nothing. The person that provides more value to humanity should be rewarded in proportion to the value created for others. In capitalism, that ideal is realized much closer than in socialism.

So any sane person will choose a mix of the two. And that is what we do. Then we squabble over the exact mix.

rthomas6  ·  897 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: What’s Wrong with Socialism?

The student debt situation is caused by the 1-2 combo of the loans being federally guaranteed, thus incentivizing the banks to lend almost unlimited amounts, and the loans not being dischargeable during bankruptcy. If you change those two things the problem will go away.

rthomas6  ·  897 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Workplace culture delta b/w Millenial Managers and entry level Gen Z

As a millennial, some of this isn't that different than what we wanted to do but felt we couldn't because of the economy at the time. Now Gen Z is entering the workforce at a time when there is a worker shortage instead of a job shortage. They have never experienced a recession. Of course they want to use sick time when they have cramps or emotional issues too intense to work. That is reasonable, who wouldn't want that? But young millennials would have gotten fired for even asking in many cases.

Other things are definitely different, though. The politics at work thing is very strange to me. I do not want to express my political opinions through my job... Corporations don't have morals and they don't have feelings. They are a tool to create profit through selling goods. Why would I want to express my beliefs through such a fake and meaningless medium as advertising? If the company is doing something immoral or harmful, that is a need for regulation or taxation. Because when the shit hits the fan in the economy and we have our next recession, any political changes that aren't meaningless platitudes will be gone if it gets in the way of the bottom line.

rthomas6  ·  909 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: California set to become first state to ban gasoline-powered lawn equipment

I have one of those Ego electric lawnmowers. It's pretty good, but one battery charge doesn't last as long as I would like. But it doesn't seem to have less power or ability compared to a gas powered mower.

rthomas6  ·  909 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Weird article about privilege in The Age. Posting without comment.

People act like you can get rid of the outgroup, but you can't. It's baked into human nature. There will always be an outgroup, an "othered" group that you perceive as dangerous and whose motivations seem malicious or unknowable, unless maybe if you practice metta every day or something.

A lot of wokeness seems to be shifting who the outgroup is, rather than actually making meaningful systemic changes.

rthomas6  ·  1195 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Tin-Can is now complete and available on Android and iOS.

Very cool! I had a very similar idea for an app, and the biggest difference is you actually built it and made it real. Congratulations!

It occurs to me that K meets most of these language design goals better than anything, and not many people have heard of it, because it's hard to read. Here is a program to list all the prime numbers between 1 and R:

    2_&{&/x!/:2_!x}'!R

Oh by the way, it's faster (!!) than C.

People don't use it except in niche applications because people can't look at it and see what it's doing. To me, it might as well be brainfuck with the amount of line noise it has. Readability and rapid comprehension are even more important, IMO, than brevity and power/expressiveness. That is why Python is so popular. It got all its libraries and ecosystem because it was easy to write AND easy to read, in addition to having a kind of syntactic brevity, so lots of people could rapidly iterate on it. It's not as powerful as Lisp or Haskell or whatever, but maybe it doesn't have to be for most applications.

I think Nim is a language to watch for these reasons.

rthomas6  ·  1257 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: America’s Next Authoritarian Will Be Much More Competent

Can you imagine if a Julius Caesar type got elected in 2016 instead of a bumbling idiot? Someone politically savvy, an MLK-level public speaker, militarily gifted, and damn charming? Someone like that could have done so much more damage. They could have ended the republic.

rthomas6  ·  1267 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: October 28, 2020

I would be okay with those things being laws here in the US. This is my fear, though: As long as the laws are enforced in a way that they prevent hate speech but allow the open and honest discussion of ideas with no cooling effect, all would be well. The problems start when people are afraid to research and discuss topics academically. With any sane person's interpretation of the laws, this would never occur. But the US seems rather insane to me lately.

rthomas6  ·  1267 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: PSA: We are no longer in the midst of an experiment.

Do you guys want more users? This community seems very insular to me now, for better or worse. Most commenters I recognize by name, and they all seem to know each other. I sort of feel like if users here wanted more fresh faces, I would occasionally see Hubski mentioned outside of Hubski.

rthomas6  ·  1267 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: October 28, 2020

The problem is, who/what determines what is true and what is acceptable to say? And how do you prevent that entity from being corrupted or taken over by a bad actor?

rthomas6  ·  1267 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: October 28, 2020

Maybe you can supplant him with better "podcast bros". I like Sam Harris, Jocko Willink, Tim Ferriss, Dan Carlin, and Jordan Harbinger, to name a few.

rthomas6  ·  1379 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pope pulls speech on Hong Kong freedom, raising questions over pressure from Beijing

Why would the pope do that? China and the Catholic Church don't exactly have a good relationship.

rthomas6  ·  1485 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: March 25, 2020

Working from home made me discover the huge importance of routine for me. It makes all the difference in the world. Time to embrace my slight on-the-spectrum tendencies and make a rigid schedule every day, and try to stick to it. It's a night and day difference for my mental health.

rthomas6  ·  1488 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: A fiasco in the making?

Why aren't they doing random sample population testing? It doesn't seem like it would be that hard to do, and then you would have all sorts of better statistical data to draw conclusions from. Right?

I'm glad they're asking someone at least...

rthomas6  ·  1498 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: March 11, 2020

> A virus that is perhaps ten times deadlier than the seasonal flu will have more severe symptoms than the seasonal flu.

Not necessarily. If you think of symptom severity as a bell curve, Covid-19's symptom severity bell curve center could be further to the right, but also have fatter tails. There is evidence for this since some people are asymptomatic.

rthomas6  ·  1498 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Garbage Language: Why do corporations speak the way they do?

We must all efficiently

Operationalize our strategies

Invest in world-class technology

And leverage our core competencies

In order to holistically administrate

Exceptional synergy

rthomas6  ·  1511 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: It's the Affordability, Stupid

I understand more or less why the cost of college and healthcare have gone way up, but why have the cost of transportation and housing gone up so much? And what systemic issues caused the increase? I don't understand what needs to be fixed to make those things more affordable. Government price fixing is a shitty band-aid in this case. What are the root causes?

Not too realistic, because everyone is super white.

rthomas6  ·  1665 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: I owe HUBSKI $$ -- but???

Related but separate question: Do you accept any other ERC-20 tokens in your ETH wallet? Namely USDC or DAI?

I think it's awesome that there are powerful institutions that benefit financially from slowing climate change. Maybe we can take advantage of their power to help us get something done about it. Who cares about the motivations involved, if the problem gets solved?

rthomas6  ·  1757 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: June 26, 2019

What the hell am I doing with my life. Why do I spend my time doing things like Reddit and Pokemon Showdown instead of things like writing, meditating, organizing my life, playing piano, writing software for myself, starting businesses? I know what will make me happier. I know what will make me proud of myself. But I don't do it. Instead I do the stupid yet easy thing, even though it feels like letting my soul die.

rthomas6  ·  1759 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: In Streaming Age, Classical Music Gets Lost in Metadata

I am strongly suspicious that this is a covert PR piece for the two new services linked in the article. I'm not saying the point they make is wrong, or that the products don't deserve attention, just that it seems like a covert PR piece.

rthomas6  ·  1759 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Don’t fall for the moral panic over children’s screen time

Until I see something refuting the studies that show screen time strongly linked to increased levels of depression and anxiety in children/teenagers, and also decreased attention span, I'll continue to be concerned. As far as I know the same link hasn't been shown for books. One could argue that kids who are already depressed/anxious just look at screens more, but that doesn't explain the massive increase of both in kids and teenagers over the past decade.

rthomas6  ·  1781 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: 'I Am A Woman': Track Star Caster Semenya Continues Her Fight To Compete As A Female

If we use chromosomes, what about a person who was born intersex, and does not have a distinct XX or XY? Born XY? Sure, rule them out. Born with an indeterminate sex? Testosterone levels must be sufficiently low.

Besides, Could such a person sweep after lowering their testosterone levels for a continuous period of six months or longer? I'm not so sure. At an elite level I'd think that would make an enormous difference.

rthomas6  ·  1781 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: 'I Am A Woman': Track Star Caster Semenya Continues Her Fight To Compete As A Female

In this context, I meant cisgendered men and women. Cisgendered men are stronger (and faster, and have faster training recovery) than cisgendered women primarily because of higher testosterone levels. So primarily caring about testosterone levels, to me, sidesteps all the gender politics and focuses on what matters for athletic performance. I rather like this method of doing things, because it's just defining a boundary for a competition class. Weight, equipment allowed, supplements allowed, gender, and now testosterone level allowed. It makes sense to me. In a sense it doesn't even matter how the competitors define themselves.

rthomas6  ·  1781 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: 'I Am A Woman': Track Star Caster Semenya Continues Her Fight To Compete As A Female

She's not being banned from participating. She just has to prove she has the testosterone levels of a cisgendered woman, and if she doesn't, she must get the level lowered. According to the ruling, if a woman has above a certain level of testosterone in her blood, the level must be lowered before she can compete. Seeing how testosterone levels are what causes secondary sex characteristics in men, and also the main reason why men are much stronger than women, this makes complete sense to me.

The ruling's press release claims:

    No female would have serum levels of natural testosterone at 5 nmol/L or above unless they have DSD or a tumour.

Assuming this is accurate, and a woman has testosterone levels above 5 nmol/L due to one of these reasons, AND it gives a significant advantage, having the athlete take a pill to be eligible in competitions seems okay to me.

I mean, when someone takes steroids, they're literally just injecting testosterone into their blood. If a woman has some medical condition that make her testosterone many times higher than normal, it's a pretty significant advantage. Like, arguably as much as taking steroids.