Pilfer

That is not at all what I, nor the author, is claiming, and instead of retorting with a shallow dismissal I recommend you review the HN guidelines.

Looks like it triggered the flamewar detector. This usually happens if a post has more comments than votes, and the post did not reach the minimum threshold (40 points).

The effect size is quite large. From the paper,

The differences were substantial: in some cases, such as total brain volume, more than a standard deviation. The effect size of d = −1.41 for total brain volume (Table 1) translates to 92.1% of males being above the female mean, and an 84.1% chance that a randomly-chosen male will have a larger total brain volume than a randomly-chosen female.

Which is moving the goalposts and changing the question. He's asking if a "hypothetical human time traveler" could survive hundreds of millions of years ago, and based off historical CO2 data, it could be possible.

>It's common knowledge, especially among the scientists that publish claims about rising CO2 levels, that Earth has had much higher levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the past, and that at those times, there was lots of life.

This isn't common knowledge at all among non-scientists. Most people have no clue that CO2 levels were many times higher than today, and that earth and the ecosystem in general were just fine. Scientists may be aware of this fact, but why don't they inform the general public of this? Take the submitted article for example. Instead of publishing an article stating, "CO2 levels are higher than 800,000 years ago; but are likely lower than they were at any point from 20-200 million years ago" they only leave in the scary, doomsaying first part and neglect to inform the second part. It is the equivalent of looking at a 24 hour geological clock and only telling people about the past minute while neglecting datapoints from minutes or hours ago. Why aren't scientists informing the public of the historical data?

I understand why the climate change community may not want to bring up this point (it detracts from other issues) but people should be aware of this fact. Humanity, and life in general, will survive increased CO2 levels.

>The question isn't whether [X], it's whether [Y].

I am paraphrasing, but that's largely what your comment is saying. The article premise and its title, is about [X], where [X] is CO2 levels. It seems like the response to historical CO2 levels is to change the topic.

Edit: I don't want to reply to several comments, so I'll respond here.

Why do I believe the discussion should inform people about historical CO2 levels? Largely because I firmly believe CO2 emissions will not decrease through 2040. The incentives to cut emissions are just not there. Petroleum is simply too useful as a resource. The current projections I have seen predict 500ppm by 2050, and likely 600ppm by 2100. Given those numbers, I ask myself the question, how likely is it that humanity will face extinction in the next century? How should I interpret these numbers?

Given the geological data, I find it reassuring that biology and life on earth survived for hundreds of millions of years with CO2 levels between 1000-2000ppm. It means that increased CO2 levels will not cause the extinction of humanity.

>A hypothetical human time traveler, however, wouldn't survive a hypothetical time travel back to [the Cambrian explosion].

I assume you are referencing about CO2 levels. Yes, around ~500 million years ago, CO2 levels reached 10,000ppm, which would be hazardous (but not fatal) to a human traveler. However if you pick a point between 300 million years ago and today, when CO2 levels were at 1000-2000ppm, a human traveler would have no problem surviving in that environment. Heck, it is even possible to hit those CO2 levels in a modern day warehouse or office that is poorly ventilated.

Increased CO2 levels are very survivable and do not mean the end of the human race.

Fair, but that doesn't detract from the point that CO2 levels maintained 1000-2000ppm for over 100 million years. This was during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, when life was thriving on earth.

Present CO2 levels are low on a geological timescale.

Coffeeshops only need to print a piece of paper and tape it to the wall.

The cost of compliance is less than $0.20

I think there are better arguments for your PoV than this one.

The pedestrian is 1) wearing black 2) not wearing any sort of safety reflectors 3) crossing in darkness not under street lights. In the safety video I linked, it's clear that such a pedestrian in the road would be very tough spot and react to. The safety video says there is a very real possibly that a human driver would hit such a pedestrian.

Citing the camera's poor dynamic range, does not imply a human in the same situation would have enough dynamic range to spot a pedestrian in the same circumstance.

High beams would have saved a life here, however in many situations they are illegal to use.

I think the point the poster is trying to make is that if the pedestrian was looking while crossing the street, they would have ample time to react to the oncoming car.

Car headlights can be seen from over 1000 feet away, and at the speed the Uber car was traveling, the pedestrian had 20 seconds to see & and react to the vehicle coming at her.

From the video, it's clear they were not looking for oncoming vehicles while crossing the road.

I have read the lawsuit, and it accuses Facebook of making false and misleading statements in their data privacy policy. It takes issue with this section of Facebook's privacy policy:

While you are allowing us to use the information we receive about you, you always own all of your information. Your trust is important to us, which is why we don't share information we receive about you with others unless we have:

• received your permission;

• given you notice, such as by telling you about it in this policy; or

• removed your name and any other personally identifying information from it.

The lawsuit claims Facebook violated bullet points 1 and 2, citing the CA news. The lawsuit uses this point to argue Facebook lied to their investors, did not provide more information on this in their SEC filings, and that investors suffering financial loss when the stock price fell after CA news.