Viewing profile — thinking_cactus

Hang on, ethics does not disappear just because you're a hacker (I know there are multiple usages of hacker). Back then, if you were a phreaker, you basically got a few free phone …

I know that it isn't always (heh) used as literally always and necessarily, but really there are no laws or always with human behavior. It's extremely dynamic and reactive. No orga…

> First, personal flying vehicles are definitely not going to be a common mode of transportation. If and when this happens, it will be for ultra rich, select few people, effectivel…

No, this story takes it to the extreme, that you end up basically having no brain. Take it this way. People seem to judge that LLMs are not conscious and thus have no real inner ex…

Smarter in some ways at least. Probably still not quite as smart at understanding human emotions (and things that aren't well enough catalogued on the internet or amenable to Reinf…

If that's as effective as comments suggest, then it seems indeed unmasking pseudonyms has only been a matter of effort for a while. I still think people underestimate the power of …

I alternate my thoughts frequently (which I believe is healthy), and sometimes I think we should let things take their course a bit more before reacting. It's certainly tiresome an…

I think it's more that "Some human some time has known how it works", not that "Any given human knows how it (all) works.". But yea this glosses over a bit trial-and-error designs …

Honestly, no? I think in general failing to prosecute a crime is much less of a problem than committing a crime. Committing a crime has real first order effects (in case the law is…

If you over-commit to uncertainty that's another error. Like there's a dying screaming child and you go "I don't know, I'm not sure of anything, what is life about anyways? Does an…

Idk, I think UT has some really neat design elements, like the shock rifle that are really unique. It rewards predicting the enemy a lot and a lot of mechanical skill etc. Plus the…

I think conservatives don't really know what they are, and that's a big problem. I think Sagan discussed this. Like science is a pretty well established "institution" dating back c…

Honestly, (not knowing about this case specifics) I don't think even copying Camus or de Broglie passages (not an entire text of course) is much of a problem to be honest. At one p…

Being a human may be sufficient (with important exceptions) to play chess, but playing chess well is not sufficient to be a human. Likewise with math, it turns out, it appears. Lik…

Also powerplants are quite (relatively) efficient in terms of heat-to-energy output, often >50% afair. So a 1GW power plant will generate something like 2GW of heat (or less), not …

Well then... make a matrix of such fuse-containers? (say every 20cm or whatever) I guess manufacturing such a matrix would be pretty expensive though, you'd need to carefully autom…

No. This doomer position isn't helpful at all. All reductions we can get will severely reduce suffering and mass migrations, and prevent an enormous amount of biodiversity loss. We…

I think there are many things people mean by "capitalism". I think a system where people buy and trade stuff, getting income from their job is basically fine and almost a given. So…

I agree that if profits are always put about everything else, disaster for any society is essentially guaranteed. (I'll leave the proof as an exercise to the reader)

Irrespective of anything else, I think libertarians of any kind have to contend with that Corporations can be extremely powerful entities that can be just as bad as governments. At…

Well, as a secondary consequence maybe, but then you could not set your kitchen on fire and still renovate it. Supposedly the first step you think of when renovating your kitchen i…

Remeber (to you both) extrapolation is a perilous business. Obligatory xkcd https://xkcd.com/605/

What's the threat model here? If the user must click through a tons of disclaimers (including locked 60-second timeouts with huge WARNING: SCAM ALERT or something) in something bur…

I agree. Although in this specific point, I would say we always had depletion (since the most basic microorganisms, after all otherwise life would replicate until it faces depletio…

Just probably don't want to put those outside, that would probably count as noise pollution for them.