Viewing profile — coffeecat

While I do reject realism, I disagree with all three claims. > “the Universe sprang into existence last Thursday” I have memories from before last Thursday; therefore, this claim w…

> Could it be that later generations of archeologists took the opposite view because the preponderance of evidence uncovered in that time pointed in that direction (and because the…

During Albright's time, the archaeological evidence was generally interpreted as being in support of Old Testament narratives. Later generations of archaeologists mostly took the o…

> We know the Exodus didn't happen because the supernatural elements described cannot have happened, ... Of course the supernatural events could have happened! Unless you're certai…

> Claude has been quite helpful in reviewing my investments, and I have made a fair amount of money on his advice. His availability is unparalleled compared to any sort of financia…

It's important not to assume that LLMs are giving you an impartial perspective on any given topic. The perspective you're most likely getting is that of whoever created the most tr…

I'm sure there are people who spend their time doing this, but I don't understand the motive. Doesn't one post in comment threads because one wishes to share their thoughts with ot…

It has no owner. It's controlled by a self-replicating (or at least self-propagating) AI-based system.

Ehh, you really can't imagine any way that an AI system might escape human control and act autonomously? while crypto_balance > 0: generate_scam() send_out_emails() deposit_proceed…

Take my baseless speculation for what it's worth, but could it be that you were depressed because your life was too easy? We humans are meant to struggle through adversity. Can you…

> The top 10% income bracket of the US is broad enough to include basically all US software developers, isn't it? I wish! My salary is a bit below the median US household income.

"80% as good as the real thing, at 20% of the cost" has always been a defining characteristic of progress. I think the key insight is that only a small fraction of people who read …

After spending some time prompting LLMs and then talking to actual people, I've once or twice been tempted to phrase questions along the lines of "Comment on x, with an emphasis on…

Surely, someone must have already thought of this. Perhaps what we really need is a curated index of curated indices.

"Risk of internalizing spurious explanations" is an excellent way of putting it. LLM output is, essentially, a polished-looking, authoritative-sounding summary of what the top few …

Yes. We had $50k of taxable W2 income ($63k including pre-tax insurance premiums and HSA contributions), $13k of taxable family leave benefits, $4k of interest/dividends (mostly qu…

The social security "tax" should really be conceptualized as an investment, not a tax. The typical fast food worker has probably not passed the first bend point in the Social Secur…

shrug I hear that sentiment a lot, but it doesn't seem right to me. My salary is pretty close to the median plumber's income, and my family's effective tax rate last year came in a…

Lately, I've been asking ChatGPT for answers to problems that I've gotten stuck on. I have yet to receive a correct answer from it that actually increases my productivity.

I think your premise is flawed. In America, the access-to-healthcare versus income curve is U-shaped. If you have literally no income (or your income is entirely "off the books"), …

Filing a DIY tax return with investments is intimidating at first, but it's really not hard once you've done it the first time. Assuming you're not doing any esoteric cost basis ad…

I'll follow this with a more substantive comment. Science is a machine. To get papers published, pass your dissertation, win grants, and get tenure, there's an easy road and a hard…

There's been an astonishing amount of research done on the lead-IQ relationship over 50+ years. It's no exaggeration to say that this is one of the most thoroughly investigated pub…

I've got two things to say about that: 1) Multiple researchers have obtained U-shaped lead-IQ curves which regress toward the mean at extreme values. This, in my opinion, strongly …

You'd think that, but...