Recent submissions

Comment · 3 months ago
Of course! For example, luck may be the difference in being in good health or not, or having people that depend on you being in good health or not. If you are suffering from a depression, or (undiagnosed/untreated) ADHD, or a broken leg, or blindness, or you have to take care of a sick loved one, those are all things that you have little control over but they affect your ability to do household chores. And if you are disabled but you also happen to be rich due to a large inheritence (so luck), then you can hire a housekeeper. There are so many factors that can influence your ability to complete household chores that are outside your control, that we should surely include luck as a factor.
Comment · 3 months ago
The slaves were sentient at that time. AI, as it stands now, is not.
Comment · 4 months ago
It's not as lucky as you think. We formed from the same cloud that made the sun, so the material that made the earth was already in a fairly stable orbit.
Comment · 5 months ago
It isn't. Typescript is basically javascript with type annotations. There is a shorthand for class member initialisation and for defining enums, but that's basically it. There are no extra safety checks inserted. You get compile-time typechecking and nothing else.
Comment · 5 months ago
It means trust builds slowly but can be lost rapidly. It's not about horse theft.
Comment · 6 months ago
Preferably neither, but anywhere is better than Israel. Who would want to live in a genocidal apartheid state? Iran was a democracy before US and UK intervention, perhaps they will be again when they win the illegal war against them.
Comment · 6 months ago
Literally about land, oil, rare earth minerals…
Comment · 6 months ago
We very much do compete for resources. People die of famine, thirst, exposure, and other lack-of-resources-related causes every day. That we could theoretically feed everyone doesn't matter when people compete for more than their fair share.
Comment · 6 months ago
The extreme version of this would be insects like ants and certain types of bees, where the vast majority of individuals are biologically incapable of reproduction, and serve the one or few queens that are capable.
Comment · 7 months ago
You realize that the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf are different places, right? Your link does not support your argument.
Comment · 7 months ago
Surely the number of people needed to maintain a reasonable throughput of the legal system scales approximately linearly with the number of offences? I don't see why a country of millions would be unable to have an efficient and functional legal system, even if the US does not.
Comment · 8 months ago
I have seen at least one stretch of highway in Germany that has overhead power lines for trucks. I think it's a very interesting concept: the big downside of batteries is slow charging (compared to diesel) and limited range. Charging while driving on highways would largely solve these downsides.
Comment · 8 months ago
Sure, I just think we if we're going to pathologize activities with intent to pass laws we ought to at least stick to a science-based approach. Right now there is no basis to conclude that even a single person is addicted to TikTok, since no such diagnosis exists.

The word 'addicted' is used informally in all kinds of contexts where it's a wild exaggeration. Just like people say they have OCD or autism when they sort something, or say they are hypochondriacs when they wash their hands more often than average. Of course people who actually have these conditions might do the same, but a lot of the time it's just perfectly neurotypical people using hyperbole and/or a flawed understanding of psychiatry.

Let's wait until psychiatrists agree on the existence of TikTok addiction and come up with a set of diagnostic criteria. Until such time we should take the existence of such addictions with a grain of salt, and refrain from moral panic.

Comment · 8 months ago
Yes, which is why substance addictions are in the DSM-5 and internet/gaming/social media addictions are not.

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