Viewing profile — mikeash

And that explanation was that he’s done a bunch of valuable stuff. But your first answer to me was “justice.” These don’t match at all. The comparison with the African kid went ove…

You seem to be saying that it’s not really about “justice” at all, but rather that it’s purely about defending people who have done a lot of visibly valuable things. Did I get that…

I don’t think it’s a false dichotomy at all. This same community discusses other things, far worse things, and we can compare them. When this community discusses victims of harassm…

Sorry, I’m going to call assholes assholes. I don’t know why people get so upset at swear words. People are saying all sorts of heinous shit in these comments, but apparently this …

There are millions of more pressing injustices going on right now. The people attacking him didn’t do anything wrong either so who cares at all?

Here’s what I don’t get: why are you all so concerned about what happens to this guy? He didn’t get lynched. He’s not going to prison. He had a comfortable life and he will continu…

It will until it doesn’t. What troubles me is that it’s hard to tell whether the risk is 1% per year or 0.000001% per year.

Nukes are not that powerful. See: https://what-if.xkcd.com/15/

“In the cold war people built concrete bunkers in their basement for fear of a nuclear Armageddon.” It’s not like this threat went away. People just stopped paying attention to it.…

Probably because satellites in LEO are too low to get such a broad view, and the camera-equipped satellites that are higher up are all over the equator.

Reminds me of a time I was searching for parking in downtown Washington, DC. Block after block was full. I eventually came to a street that had no cars parked at all. Jackpot, righ…

And what’s the term for a figure that’s hard to estimate but which you guess at anyway? An “assumption.”

There’s always an implicit (or explicit) “if conditions X, Y, and Z hold” on these statements. That prediction wasn’t wrong, conditions just changed, largely because predictions li…

The Drake Equation is perfectly reasonable. You just have to interpret it as “these assumptions imply aliens” rather than “there are definitely aliens.”

Yes, sometimes things go wrong. But if you’re always late, then you need to get started earlier.

One is about a year, the other is close to five years.

Wasting time and money getting lost, getting separated from companions with no way to find them again, significantly reduced transportation options, having some sort of emergency a…

Why every 4-5 years?

Anymore? Advertising has been the major source of newspaper revenue forever.

Historically, progress has resulted in more environmental damage and CO2 emissions. Relying on progress to fix these things is counting on a fundamental shift to happen. By compari…

Traffic police around here seem uninterested in enforcing any rules other than red lights and speed limits.

No, the US builds lots of real stuff. It’s not just assembly. Not by a long shot. The reason the trends are in opposite directions is because of increasing productivity. The number…

Exercising backups isn’t always a good idea. Testing your UPS? Yes. Testing your emergency parachute? No. I don’t see a pressing need to test my no-phone backups, and a lot of down…

Manufacturing employment has been on a long, steady decline. Manufacturing output is experiencing steady growth and has never been higher. The US is the second largest manufacturer…

The dude hates doctors and nurses so much that he thinks they deserve to be physically attacked. And yet he is desperate for their services. This is a contradiction. I’m attempting…