noam87

Don't read it end-to-end like a novel. It's a great book to keep around. Open it, every once in a while (even at a random page), read a passage or two, think about it, and go on with your day. Over time the ideas seep in and really change how you approach certain aspects of life, I've found.

What do you use? -- I've tried with lynx and its ilk but I find that too many websites these days are completely broken without javascript, and the layout often unreadable without CSS.

> "really understanding" is just something a computer program thinks it can do once it gets complex enough to be conscious.

At the same time, consciousness might not be a requisite of higher intelligence at all; it could merely have been evolutionarily advantageous early on in the development of complex brains because of our natural environment... it's hard to imagine an intelligent animal with no "me" program doing very well.

But maybe a digital intelligence (one that did not evolve having to worry about feeding itself, acquiring rare resources, mating, communicating socially, etc.) would have no use for a central "me" program that "really experiences" things.

Such a creature is kind of eerie to think about.

considering YouTube makes me watch 25 seconds of advertising for a 40 second video... could be a lot.

Anecdotal: nothing helped my IBS. Dietary changes, exercise, nothing. Drs said nothing looked wrong. By the time I was 26, it was so bad I would stay home and not socialize often. I would need immodium like candy just to get through a social function. It was truly a nightmare. I was ready to give up.

4000 UI vitamin D a day, and about four weeks in it magically goes away 90%. I've gotten thanks from other people I passed the tip to.

Incidentally, the symptoms started abruptly about a year and a half before my diagnosis of melanoma; another disease with a vitamin D link.

This article has too many holes to count and reads more like someone in denial.

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BUT, as an aside: I think a decent argument exists for the non-certainty of intelligence explosion.

The argument goes like this: it takes an intelligence of level X to engineer an intelligence of level X+1.

First, it may well be that humans are not an intelligence of level X, and reach our limit before we engineer an intelligence superior to our own.

Furthermore, even if we do, it may also be that it takes an intelligence of level X+2 to engineer an intelligence of level X+2 (Etc. for some intelligence level X+n.), in which case we at most end up with an AI only somewhat superior to ourselves, but no God-like singularity (for example, we end up with Data from Star Trek TNG, who in season 3, episode 16 fails to engineer an offspring superior to himself -- sure, Data is far superior to his human peers in some aspects, but not crushingly so).

> Brutal? Sounds like a regular blue collar job.

Which is to say: brutality is regular.

While of course the current move towards exposing harassment in the office is important, I don't hear much recognition that the people getting the most benefit are those whose prospects are already cushy to begin with... how much of this is actually "tricking down" to people working in often dehumanizing conditions?

I worked minimum wage until my mid-20's, and most of my high school friends didn't do college (or even graduate high school, in some cases); my parents (who both hold degrees) also worked in warehouses and stuff like that for a while when we first immigrated. In many jobs, being treated like trash, bullied, etc. is the norm. Being constantly talked down to and treated like a child is certainly the norm. And the sexual harassment stories are also much more frequent, and much worse. But people at the lower rungs don't have the social capital to take to Twitter safely, jump ship to a different company, etc. Doing so risks losing next month's bills, losing a good reference, etc. So it's just the way it is.

And I'm talking here in Canada where we have much better worker protection laws, so I can only assume it's even worse in the US.

Same with workplace safety. Sure, on paper you have the right to refuse unsafe work. But don't be surprised if all of a sudden you start getting less hours or get reprimanded for "not being a team player" or some crap.

There's no denying they promote a certain narrative in their PR, but are there known examples of leaks withheld by Wiki Leaks, where the whistleblower had to go elsewhere?

Eve looks interesting, thanks I'll try it out. (And the detailed response.)

Most of my programming is in the domain of "take some data, do stuff to it, produce an output" and my experience with Idris so far is very positive -- more so than Haskell (which I admittedly gave up on early on), the language does feel ergonomic, and like the type system is "guiding me" rather than getting in the way. I also find its approach to metaprogramming interesting. Whether this translates to Real World™ productivity / maintainability gains vs a mainstream language, it's too early for me to compare.