Viewing profile — prestadige

I think it's a mistake whether for financial reasons or in terms of personal satisfaction. You go into a field because you are interested in learning and engaging with the problems…

Going into a career because it's noble, rewarding or because it "helps people" seems like a mistake.

Just have lots of different toys available to begin with and get more of whichever are played with the most. Don't restrict the use of computers. Don't worry about outcomes or what…

Wrong, perhaps, but 'badly' wrong? Despite the accident, building Fukushima saved lives and reduced atmospheric pollution relative to other power sources. Part of the reason we hav…

How can it be 'elitist' if the education is not only cheaper but its graduates are allegedly doomed to be exploited in their 'bubble'? The reality is that school leavers are more l…

True, except that it's more the case in unschooling for adults to be guided by the children, being available to give help or find help when required. It takes years for the average…

My daughter is unschooled and taught herself to read and type mostly from the web browsing. Most people somehow assume that because they learnt to read and write at school that one…

Considering one's future self as a different person could have the opposite effect. We might then sympathise with that person, and take measures not to be mean to him, in the same …

Oh, c'mon, the word "community" is thrown around willy nilly nowadays. Every day I read something about the "tadpole-owning community" or whatnot. It could be the other way around:…

I'm not a consumerist. Nor do I suffer from social anxiety. Who are you talking to, and giving advice to? Nothing in your comment addresses any of my points. Why not engage -- othe…

How is my dismissal 'easy'? I haven't heard it from anyone else and it acknowledges an unpleasant truth. What I dismiss are sentimental media ideas about 'community' which are all …

I wish my neighbours well, but for me socialising is a distraction from work and family. Those are my contribution to the (wider) community. Besides, I have trouble enough keeping …

Communities, rife as they were with gossip, ostracism and superstitious cruelty, were always based on mutual need , not on acting out some supposedly gene-based pantomime. I daresa…

This is a fantasy of course, which is a defence mechanism for frustrated minds. However, the quasi-religious defence of Science as a settled body of knowledge which people must be …

>Fusion has been 20-30 years out for the last 50 years. Michael Labgerge's chart gives a more complete picture of progress in fusion research: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m9kC…

Sure, it isn't ethical to experiment w/o consent. But in order to program an AGI, you need first to conjecture an explanation of how the mind works. One may be able to deduce from …

Nah, I don't assume it. Hence 'may' and 'attempts'. But the explanation is simple enough. If you can discover what it takes to code a mind then you're also going to learn some of t…

None of your examples entail building a mind. Also there's a kind of irony in my example, since as a branch of computer science it is independently funded and seemingly unrelated t…

Strangely enough it may be that our attempts to create artificial people (AGIs) will permit us to understand what mental disorders are all about.

But note that conforming itself requires creativity. One has to (consciously or no) conjecture what is the appropriate, conformist thing to do in any situation. There's no easy way…

Equilibrium lifestyle for humans? It amounts to saying that we could run out of problems . Since we can't, we'll continue to create new ideas and new technologies. And then deal wi…

This is great news. I've read about so many great nuclear projects in the past few years. Three thorium initiatives in China, India and Norway. ITER in Europe. Bussard Electrostati…

Feynman was in fact critical of the Soviet Union: >I think that Russia represents danger in saying that the solution to human problems is known, that all effort should be for the s…

>Creative people by and large don't have "day jobs". An excellent argument for the Universal Basic Income: \ http://basicincome.org.uk/reasons-support-basic-income/

Your child will, as ever, learn your true values. If you try to manipulate him into being honest then you are implicitly asserting that honesty is bad. Correct this by understandin…