UpshotKnothole
Joined 8 years ago
Karma
551
Submissions
151
Member since
Aug 1
Recent submissions
Comment · 8 years ago
No offense to this site, I like it a lot so far, but I wouldn’t favorably compare it in terms of non-technical knowledge to most of the educated population. You listed a ton of really infamous events, ones that are routinely covered in intro classes at all levels of schooling, and have entered even pop culture. If you think that most people are unaware of all, but a couple of them, you’re grossly underestimating people. I’d argue that the only two many people wouldn’t know are the actions of the pope one, and the Chin emperor. The rest are familiar to pretty much everyone who made it through high school.
Comment · 8 years ago
The original premise was that black marks will be overlooked. I don’t know how to break it to you, but the ones you’ve listed are infamous and hardly overlooked.
Premise: No they won't, it'll be whitewashed in textbooks and only those who study history will know. There's already so many so-called black marks that are worse and already quietly overlooked.
And you just offered a ton of support for the competing hypothesis that our period of history will be infamous along with the ones you’ve listed.
Comment · 8 years ago
That’s nonsensical. Could a character in a computer game do that, even if they realized they were a character in a game? Their existence would be completely dependent on the hardware and software they ran on, and their existence would be unsupportable in the “real world” beyond. This is taking an already empty sci-if/religious speculation to a ridiculous conclusion.
Comment · 8 years ago
The whole thing feels like encroachment of some kind of bizarre secular theology into physics.
Yeah, people really really want to believe that they’re not just an accident, that hasn’t changed. “Simulation” is the new creation myth, and no more rigorous or convincing. It doesn’t even pretend to answer fundamental questions, it just puts them off by one level. It literally does nothing except make people rephrase the question slightly, a la “Ok then, how did the simulators’ universe come to exist?”
It’s as boring and inconclusive as religion, without the self-awareness in many of its adherents of it being explicitly religious. It has all of the characteristics of a religious belief, from the lack of falsifiability, to the existence of potentially interventionist powers beyond our reality, creators, a higher purpose, etc.
Comment · 8 years ago
True, but took about much more than a century for that, and for quite a long time tobacco smoke was seen as medicinal!
Comment · 8 years ago
It’s like people who make those posts didn’t remember that the tobacco industry still exists. Literally killing people and lying about it for profit isn’t “company ending” if you have scads of money and lawyers, and a market eager for your poison.
Comment · 8 years ago
Never underestimate the value of condoms for purposes other than intercourse. They’re highly portable, durable, can hold a lot of liquid, and are waterproof. You can use them to waterproof anything from a car’s spark plugs to some tinder or even food. They’re useful as part of dressing certain minor wounds too.
Comment · 8 years ago
She won more lotteries than that. She won the lottery of being born rich, white, and connected. And in a country like the US. She won the lottery of being beautiful, of having an excellent voice and musical talent, of having parents willing to use their money and power to further her career of choice. She won the lottery of not having any crippling mental illnesses or learning disabilities, of not being sexually assaulted, and more lotteries besides.
But Bo Burnham’s quote really isn’t about that, he’s talking about getting lucky and having your career take off. The truth is that many many lotteries typically need to be won before you can even enter that lottery. My point was that Taylor Swift didn’t just “take a chance” on music, she used all of her existing wins to stack the deck in her favor. If you look at a lot of CEO’s the same is true of them, and it’s not just the luck of their career taking off, but the luck of ever being in a position to have that happen.
Comment · 8 years ago
Stealing: The felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it.
Copyright infringement is copyright infringement, not theft. Playing word games like “piracy” or “stealing” doesn’t strengthen your case, rather it exposes a central weakness. If what you’re claiming is so terrible, why do you have to pretend that it’s actually something else? This is an old game that was started in the 80’s by industry groups, and its sad to see it internalized by people on HN who should know better.
If you want to argue the merits or downsides of copyright infringement, do so, but don’t move the goalposts to unrelated crimes.