Viewing profile — Brain_Thief

I understand your frustration but I still cannot get past the point that, generally speaking, an individual must make a specific, conscious, and unforced series of decisions in ord…

The entire premise here is a bit odd to me; are people forced to spend their time and money watching a sub-par movie? Couldn't they watch one of the innumerable television shows th…

Interesting - your response makes sense. Thanks again for the information.

Thank you for the response, I find this very interesting. So is it true to say that the production of a particular solution to a differential equation is a statement about how a sy…

But are the statements "reality minimizes action" and "reality solves differential equations" actually, literally equivalent to each other? It strikes me that this is not in fact t…

I understand your frustration and share it, but I personally believe that we are at the point where this behavior (i.e., failure to act) should be expected of tech companies. The e…

You're spot-on with this analysis. I would add to it that decades of emotionally-manipulative, profit-driven corporate infotainment have apparently conditioned large numbers of Ame…

The idea that the number of employers who might pressure their employees into not using legally-enshrined sick leave could be comparable to the number of employers who, through the…

At the risk of being confrontational, I have to question whether you have ever had a low-paying job in the USA or if you have even taken the time to look at the typical "benefits" …

This is hands-down the most cringeworthy comment I've ever seen on HN.

Not OP, but I share his / her perspective. My reasoning is that the act of killing is a serious and irreversible decision that should not in any way be trivialized. Furthermore, a …

You didn't state a theory; to the extent that you implied a theory similar to the one I described the available data does not support it at all...

I agree with those points but I have not seen evidence for the idea that the availability of social safety nets is not also a significant factor in fertility rate trend, which I to…

The unstated conclusion of your response seems to be that the absence of basic social service rights has no impact on rate of demographic change in developed countries; however, yo…

Since when are sources required for basic observations on reality? Thanks to Republican opposition to providing first-world amenities to U.S. citizens (universal health care access…

I'm trying to interpret your comment in a charitable manner, but no matter what angle I come at it from it seems disingenuous ("whataboutism" comes to mind, for starters). No one i…

> At no point did I argue that we understand everything about nature. My point is just that every single thing in nature has turned out to be eventually accessible to rational mode…

The problem is that the American public elected a reality television show host who can barely string a coherent sentence together as president. Since expertise, honesty, and compet…

https://thenib.imgix.net/usq/8688038d-f99b-4224-872b-b8dd626...

I see this sentiment expressed a lot and, frankly, I just don't buy it. I dropped my FaceBook account years ago and have never had any trouble staying in touch with people or being…

It was a parameter stipulated in a hypothetical example.

These are good points you raise. I suppose what I'm really thinking is that there needs to be some sort of "interpersonal digital communications normalization process" for young pe…

Situations like this make me think that public educational systems should experiment with some form of "digital literacy" courses / exercises for young children with the goal of hu…

"For any reason" is exactly the opposite of why the Trump campaign drew the scrutiny of intelligence agencies.