gooddelta

This slop is exactly what ChatGPT spits out when it's leading you down the hole of AI psychosis.

This is an apples-to-oranges comparison.

Consider what a nuclear disaster (like Chernobyl) costs: the total price of that disaster is however many statistical lives are lost (look up "value of a statistical life" if you don't know what I'm talking about) plus the total current and future potential economic value of the land on which the disaster occurred. That number is insanely high.

The cost of a commercial airplane crash can also be extremely high (for example, if it ends up hitting tower filled with people) – but typically, it doesn't completely decimate the value of the land upon which the accident occurs and all surrounding natural resources. Those resources are recoverable. That's why we can (by comparison) YOLO with an aircraft, but not with a nuclear reactor.

I do think nuclear power is safe; I don't think we should relax safety standards to deploy it – the rigor is required for a reason.

I've been noticing an uptick in these dumb attempts to convince the public that a little radiation is good for us. Just like PTFE, right? It's all about small doses.

Works in Progress (this "publication") is owned by Stripe, who seem to have an agenda they're trying to push, lately.

ITT: People who don't understand safety-critical systems telling people how to write safety-critical systems.

The most popular answer in this thread is "you can only write safe C++" which is bullshit. The language that you use will likely be dictated by the toolchain you're forced to use to meet whatever standard your org has adopted. For example, if you're in the automotive realm and following something like ISO-26262, you'll only be able to use a qualified toolchain that's compatible with your safety MCU – so you'll likely be limited to C or C++, and then FURTHER limited by MISRA standards to a subset of those languages. There is no version of Rust that may be used for safety-critical systems, currently – despite the fact that it's arguably a better language, the rigorous verification/documentation work hasn't been done yet. If you're looking for an alternative to C or C++ for use in safety-critical domains, look at Ada.

You will likely not find any example of an open source codebase for safety critical systems. Rigorously-developed safety-critical systems cost millions of dollars to produce, document, run through V&V, etc. They don't tend to get released as OSS.

For the rest of the folks in this thread: type safety, memory safety, etc. are awesome features – but having a language with these features doesn't allow you to build a safety-critical system. It doesn't even begin to. If you're curious, you can start to look at the roadmap for the Ferrocene project – the company behind it is working with the folks from AdaCore (AFAICR?) to make a version of Rust for safety-critical systems a reality (one that I'm very much looking forward to!)

I apologize if it appears I've stepped out of line, or if this thread has been difficult for you to moderate; that wasn't the intention.

If you go back to my first comment on this post, it seems reasonably clear that my message is not particularly contentious – I'm simply suggesting that people apply some amount of ethical rigor to their work. Sadly, that message was heavily twisted in all sorts of ways that somehow fit within this site's guidelines.

Ethics and politics are indivisible from the act of creating software. It clearly stands to reason that software is fractal of the beliefs of the people that create it. By placing intellectual curiosity on a pedestal above morals and ethics, HN has managed to drive away some of the most talented and credible people in the industry from this site – and to promulgate a culture of no accountability for what we do, or fail to do.

I've fought year-long battles that have come close to costing me my job, just so I could prevent inaccuracies in systems that likely process your credit score. I've consciously killed projects that would disadvantage entire groups of people, no matter how technically cool or interesting they were. In much the same way that I'm not willing to negligently let someone die, I'm also unwilling to be part of the next Manhattan project – but it's becoming clear to me that I'm in the minority of the Hacker News readership that feels that way, or has ever even considered the impact of their work.

Over the past ten years, the attitude of this community has single-handedly convinced me that the end of our world will be because somebody could, so they did. If we can create "deep fakes" on demand, we will. If we can patrol the border with some hastily slapped-together CV and ML, we will. If we can use deep learning to decide who will go to prison, we will. All under the guise of intellectual curiosity.

I honestly believed tech was a good thing at one point in my career – now I spend most of my time building systems to protect people from my peers.

I know I can't delete my account here yet – I've tried. But I've never felt more disconnected from a community I'm supposed to be a part of.

Did I say "regulating speech"? No. If we're going to try to have a cogent conversation, please stop putting words in my mouth.

Free speech != the right to a platform, which is synonymous with saying that, just because you have a voice doesn't mean your message has immediate merit, or that it is the truth, or that people have to give your voice equal weight to others, or that people have to listen to you.

Dude, nobody is arguing that we should ban digital communications at all. Take off the tinfoil hat, chicken little. What I'm suggesting is that if we are going to make PLATFORMS available (i.e. WhatsApp) that are capable of amplifying and making individual communications instantaneous, we mightttt need some more thought, collectively, about how to combat fucked up human nature. Like, just a pinch of consideration for the fact that the notion of free speech didn't evolve during a time in which any asshole could pull a thought out of their ass, hit send, anonymously, and reach a thousand people.

EDIT: Sorry, I realize that I was speaking condescendingly here. I'm just trying to get the point across that asking us to actually solve the hard problem of platforms before unleashing them on the world shouldn't be too big a burden to bear. Some (myself included) would argue that our entire society is destabilizing because of the lack of ingenuity in solving this problem. It gets frustrating.

Printing creates a barrier to entry. You have to have enough conviction in your idea and determination to actually write the statement, lay it out, and print and distribute it. You don't just type "oh shit closeparen should be hanged lmao," hit send, and reach 100 people.

Printing creates a barrier to entry. You have to have enough conviction in your idea, and the determination to actually write the statement, lay it out, and print and distribute it. You don't just type "oh shit lxrbst should be hanged lmao," hit send, and reach 100 people.

You're basically describing why journalism is important, and still has an important place in our society.

Speed and reach, my friend. Lynchings happened in the US a while ago, but they weren't a universal phenomenon. A platform with the speed and reach of WhatsApp makes disinformation more potent.

Nowhere in my post did I suggest human beings shouldn't be allowed to freely communicate – what I'm suggesting is that maybe we haven't built the right tools to enable that safely, and instead, we're exacerbating the "broken human beings" side of this issue.

You're not wrong – part of the blame obviously lies there.

But even if it is simply enabling and perpetuating an existing problem, why haven't we asked ourselves why technology isn't addressing the issue? How is this future we've created any better? Because it's faster? Because the UI is nicer?

It's rare to see startup culture produce anything that I would call true innovation. Maybe I just have a higher bar than most folks. That could be what I'm arguing here, and that doesn't change the fact that you have a point – I just believe we have to do better.