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Ask HN: What have you changed your mind about recently?

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Re: Ask HN: What have you changed your mind about recently?

#101

Post by mistermann »

protomyth wrote: post #88

This year has brought me to the belief that the forth estate is dead and has been replaced by pundits of all shapes and sizes. You can argue where every news organization fits on the political spectrum (other than they all fit at one of the sides and the middle is an illusion), but I don't think there is any network or newspaper that just prints the facts of the case. Every network has their favorites and calls the o…

So true.

For example: http://consortiumnews.com/2009/102409b.html

This won't be on the news, yet I bet every American would have a strong opinion (for or against) this practice....but it is not newsworthy. A boy who may (or may not) be floating away in a balloon, however, gets 24x7 coverage.

Whats that saying about something becoming a parody of itself? Thats how I see America today....they have such passionate beliefs about what they are as a people, but their actions are the exact opposite. It's sad...of course, a lot of this has been happening for decades, but what can be pulled off now in the light of day with no public reaction (torture, war crimes, unprecedented financial fraud, etc) is just mind boggling.

Re: Ask HN: What have you changed your mind about recently?

#102

Post by mistermann »

crystalis wrote: post #42
icey wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you clarify? You haven't been registered here for long, so I'm curious as to what sort of trends you've noticed that have caused you to change your mind.

I've lurked longer than I've trolled. There is a surface appearance of intelligence (thanks to a couple dozen prolific and intelligent participants) but a great deal of unproductive conversations. Too often, people talk past each other. Too often, people nitpick like http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=782752 Too often, edw519 gets upvotes for 'pithy' statements like http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=864709 Too oft…

Good call on the singularityhub....

Re: Ask HN: What have you changed your mind about recently?

#103

Post by RiderOfGiraffes »

TeHCrAzY wrote: post #84
RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a match is close to symmetrical, but "usefulness" perhaps isn't. I get a great deal from this site and the musings of many of its participants. It's only reasonable that I should try to give something back, but repeatedly things I think are interesting get absolutely no response. With me getting a great deal out, but the community not getting much back, are we therefore a good match? Perhaps that's not really t…

Or they have nothing to add to the discussion/your point.

Usually if someone finds something find, interesting or enlightening they'll up-mod it. I don't care about the karma, I care about things being thought interesting enough to be up-mud.

Re: Ask HN: What have you changed your mind about recently?

#104

Post by a-priori »

yan wrote: post #68
a-priori wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, his writings are eye-opening. I know a bit too much about neuroscience, I think, so sometimes when he ventures that way in The Blank Slate I'm unconvinced, but the core of his arguments always stand. My first encounter with his works was The Language Instinct , which was required reading for a course I took on psycholinguistics. If that were more recent, I would have mentioned it in my initial post, because…

Some of his writings is how I'm getting my introduction to neuroscience. Also, following stuff like the brain science podcast and reading any popular science books dedicated to it. I'd love to get more in depth, but currently lack direction.

Well, if you're looking for a textbook, I suggest Biopsychology by Pinel. It was required reading for two courses I took, and I found it to explain things quite well. Something to watch out for though: he tends to over-simplify things in places, which may lead you to develop overly-rigid mental models. There are exceptions to every rule, and some recent papers may contradict what Pinel says about the functions of some areas of the brain, or show that things are actually more nuanced. It's still a good start.

Once you have a good grasp of the fundamentals, I suggest reading Nature Reviews Neuroscience. They often have excellent review articles that summarize the state of research in a particular area. http://www.nature.com/nrn/index.html

If I were to suggest one area to focus your attention on, it would be memory. Memory is a central ability of the mammalian brain, and pretty much every area of the brain is involved in memory somehow. Here are some papers that I've found enlightening:

Gaffan. Against memory systems. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: … (2002)

Martin and Morris. New life in an old idea: The synaptic plasticity and memory hypothesis revisited. Hippocampus (2002)

Frankland and Bontempi. The organization of recent and remote memories. NATURE REVIEWS NEUROSCIENCE (2005) vol. 6 (2) pp. 119-130

Ross and Eichenbaum. Dynamics of hippocampal and cortical activation during consolidation of a nonspatial memory. Journal of Neuroscience (2006) vol. 26 (18) pp. 4852

Dudai. The Neurobiology of Consolidations, Or, How Stable is the Engram?. Annual Review of Psychology (2004) vol. 55 (1) pp. 51-86

Fischer et al. Recovery of learning and memory is associated with chromatin remodelling. Nature (2007) vol. 447 (7141) pp. 178 (but don't worry too much about the parts that are heavy on the biochemistry).

Rasch et al. Odor cues during slow-wave sleep prompt declarative memory consolidation. Science (2007) vol. 315 (5817) pp. 1426

One thing you may notice is that all of these papers are published in the last decade. That's about the shelf-life of research in this field. Let me know if you can't find these articles online; I have PDF copies of all of them.

Hope that gives you some direction :)

Re: Ask HN: What have you changed your mind about recently?

#106

Post by alan-crowe »

pasbesoin wrote: post #33

Gun control in the U.S.. I used to be more in favor, with the goal of a safer society as well as one less inclined to the isolation of sub-populations. Now, I'm considering widespread ownership more in terms of a last bulwark against one or another form of totalitarian rule. Perhaps it is a limiting factor against pushing the population too far. You might call this a knee-jerk reaction; nonetheless, it's on my mind.…

I think that the "bulwark against totalitarian rule" idea comes in two versions. The naive version imagines that the USA suffers an actual attempt at a military coup, and that the coup is defeated by gunfights started by armed citizens. The sophisticated version asks about ambitious young men: when they dream of gaining political power, what route to the top do they dream of?

If you are an ambitious young man in a country that has had military coups in the recent past, you might join the army, hoping to rise in ranks and be in the right place at the right time. That could also apply in a country with disarmed civilians. It is no part of the American dream. If you want political power in the USA you go to law school (or into banking?)

The 2nd Amendment protects against tyranny because it shapes the Zeitgeist. It makes the idea of staying in office after losing an election seem silly: you would only get shot. Since the very idea is silly the scenario is never played out.

This poses a puzzle to the would be Hari Seldons amongst us. Does the 2nd Amendment inherently undermine itself? Do we end up, after two hundred years of political freedom, thinking that the idea of protection against tyranny being provided by an armed citizenry is just plain silly, because we never see it in action? Where does that lead? Do we repeal the 2nd Amendment, leaving our grandchildren to discover, one hundred years later, that the Zeitgeist has changed and that old Amendment really mattered?

Re: Ask HN: What have you changed your mind about recently?

#107

Post by Zarkonnen »

protomyth wrote: post #87
Zarkonnen wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switzerland is actually a very bad example to use. The unusally (for Europe) high number of firearms there is because the members of the militia army keep an assault rifle at home. This is rather different from a handgun or a shotgun, and you're not allowed to use them outside military training.

In a lot of ways, I think it is a very good example. They have access and advanced training (assault rifles are actually very hard to use). The fact that the citizens obey the law and don't use their weapons for greater crime is telling.

But would you want to use an assault rifle in a mugging?

Re: Ask HN: What have you changed your mind about recently?

#108

Post by pg »

eugenejen wrote: post #85
pg wrote: post #18

The late Roman empire, thanks to Theodosius: The Empire at Bay : http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?bi=0&bx=of... I used to have very unclear picture of the late empire. Without thinking about it too much, I bought into the pervasive idea (probably due mostly to Gibbon) that the late empire had lost its Roman mojo: that it had become barbarized (what does that mean?) and worn out (why then?). Now I have a…

In "Mohammed and Charlemagne" by Henri Pirenne, the whole Mediterranean region after collapse of the Roman empire still enjoyed prosperity. The economy went down after trades in Mediterranean sea decreased due to Muslim Arabs had taken control the area.

It's a great book, but the Pirenne thesis has since been pretty thoroughly debunked.

Re: Ask HN: What have you changed your mind about recently?

#109

Post by mpf62 »

Zarkonnen wrote: post #74
protomyth wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About 15 years ago, I was at a state sponsored meeting in Minot ND. A group the state hired was there telling us about risk factors in the community. The group hired was from the west coast and all the research they cited was studies done in low income urban areas. They pointed out guns were a big risk factor. The head of one of the local social service programs took exception to this. He asked how many people in the…

Switzerland is actually a very bad example to use. The unusally (for Europe) high number of firearms there is because the members of the militia army keep an assault rifle at home. This is rather different from a handgun or a shotgun, and you're not allowed to use them outside military training.

I can’t see much difference in comparison to a shotgun. I have had training with the older Sig SG 510 and the newer Sig SG 550 assault rifle of the Swiss Army and they’re both about as easy to use as an airgun.

Even if you walk around in public with your assault rifle, nobody becomes suspicious. Active members of the army have to show up for a mandatory shooting program every year and shooting matches are very common too, so “Rambo look-alikes” on the streets aren’t an unusual appearance in Switzerland.

Nevertheless, 40% of all homicides are commited by cut and thrust weapons and “only” 10% by guns. The latter accounts for about 70% in the US.

Re: Ask HN: What have you changed your mind about recently?

#110

Post by snprbob86 »

steve19 wrote: post #96
snprbob86 wrote: post #55

I used vim to edit a config file here or there for four years of college. I always hated it. I just couldn't wrap my head around command vs insert mode. Since I never edited more than a few lines at a time, I never really learned it. I thought it was just a stupid idea. Then, about 9 months ago, it clicked. I started loving it. Now, you couldn't pry it from my cold, dead, Python editing fingers. (Although, I still co…

did any particular tutorial make it click for you?

This in my vimrc helped tons:

  map  
  map  
  map  
  map
But the big thing that really made it click was just that I used it for real work, not small quick editing tasks. You have to really live in the app for a while before it feels like home.
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