I love it!
This is basically the environment I grew up in for a good portion of my life (and I'm so happy for it).
Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous
201–210 of 275 posts
Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m pro-life, and I think killing an unborn baby for any reason is abhorrent — as you said, it’s the same as murdering an adult. (Although there are cases where the mother’s life is in danger - but that’s always about “who to save” in the middle of a surgery or something - that’s different.) I don’t know who you’ve heard that viewpoint from (abortion is wrong except in cases of rape/invest) but I don’t believe that a…
A neural tube isn't a baby.
A human zygote is a person, and so is everything that follows. From the moment of fertilization, there is a single developmental progression of a single organism. There isn't any other meaningful scientific or logical distinction that can be made. Before fertilization, you have the gametes from two separate organisms. Afterwards, there is a new, unique organism (a human being) who has a separate identify.
And yes, that means I think common in-vitro fertilization practices (including making multiple zygotes and throwing some out) are morally wrong and equivalent to abortion.
If anyone disagrees, I contend it's because of the moral implications, not any lack of soundness in the scientific or logical arguments.
Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is that? Did you make the mistake of teaching them to code?
Why is that a mistake?
I think starpilot is trying to make a joke off of the stereotypical "I taught my kid to ___ and it was a horrible mistake!" articles, especially the ones where the gist is "I taught my kids to code and now they sit in front of their computers all day".
Could be wrong in that assessment, but that's how I read it.
Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
Comparing snapshots of organisms isn't that useful. C. Elegans is never going to turn into a conscious human being.
Why not? So what?
I think the commenter is just pointing out a potential fallacy -- comparing things that are fundamentally different to force a conclusion that is nonsensical.
Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
To put it bluntly, the increased happiness of millions of children is worth a couple children's health, or even lives. That's a tough sell, but that sounds reasonable (well, I can talk, I don't have children). This is basically the same reasoning Yudkowsky presented with his dust speck vs torture argument argument: a sufficiently widespread benefit, however small, will outweigh a sufficiently improbable horrible even…
Well, I have a dozen kids, and I agree. Of course, part of the reason for so many kids is to minimize the percentage of my family that would be lost if one did die. My wife's uncle had the postcard family, one boy and one girl in a cute little city house with a picket fence. The daughter died, and the father completely fell apart. He lost 100% of his daughters. It is too late for him to create a replacement. Most fam…
Does your stance on redundancy of loved ones also extend to the number of spouses you have?
Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think subjective/objective makes more sense than obvious and not. Subjective danger is things that feel dangerous but aren’t. Objective danger is things that don’t feel dangerous but are. For example: a rollercoaster is subjectively dangerous but objectively safe. That’s its whole design objective, feeling dangerous while being totally safe.
Subjective danger is things that feel dangerous but aren’t. That's not what the word "subjective" means. Language is malleable and all that, but "subjective" doesn't mean "feels like but isn't". Not even close. Objective danger is things that don’t feel dangerous but are. And wow, that's really not what "objective" means.
Subjective (adj)
1) Dependent on or taking place in a person's mind rather than the external world.
2) Based on a given person's experience, understanding, and feelings; personal or individual.
#1 is exactly “feels dangerous but isn’t”. #2 also works because it fits into magicalhippo’s narrative about kids falling and adjusting their safety boundaries.
I won’t bother about “objective danger” because you didn’t either.
Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
A friend of mine designs playgrounds for kids, and is very good at it (his designs win 90+% of the competitive bids he enters). He's also worked hard to put in place a playground safety inspector certification system over here. One of his core ideas is that there are two types of safety: subjective safety and objective safety. For example, kids quickly learn that falling from a height is painful, and experiences such…
I like the dichotomy, but for me the names "subjective safety" and "objective safety" make no sense. "Obvious dangers" vs "non-obvious dangers" seems like much clearer language, even if it's the case that there's a way to squint to make the terminology you used make sense. Kids will naturally explore the boundaries around obvious dangers.
I think it's literally about dangers coming from the objects vs the dangers that are coming from the subjects behaviours.
You want to to eliminate unnecessary dangers introduced by the objects, and those are fully under the designers control. It's not reasonable or possible to try fully control the subjects to eliminate all risk.
Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The value of life is not infinite. The whole western civilization is standing on the assumption that it is.
Assume this is true. The NHS is in the UK and run by the government. The NHS has a maximum spend on a single person. The UK is part of Western Civilization. Therefore it rests on the assumption that life has infinite value. Therefore, the UK will spend infinite money to ensure a person lives. A contradiction.
OK, that's the UK, I'm not sure why it split off; thank you for pointing it out.
Any continental EU country will spend an unlimited amount of money to save someone. Even Ukraine will. Get your shit in the UK back together, I'd suggest.
Suggesting a maximal spend in my country would immediately lead to a revolt and change of government.
Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
To put it bluntly, the increased happiness of millions of children is worth a couple children's health, or even lives. That's a tough sell, but that sounds reasonable (well, I can talk, I don't have children). This is basically the same reasoning Yudkowsky presented with his dust speck vs torture argument argument: a sufficiently widespread benefit, however small, will outweigh a sufficiently improbable horrible even…
Well, I have a dozen kids, and I agree. Of course, part of the reason for so many kids is to minimize the percentage of my family that would be lost if one did die. My wife's uncle had the postcard family, one boy and one girl in a cute little city house with a picket fence. The daughter died, and the father completely fell apart. He lost 100% of his daughters. It is too late for him to create a replacement. Most fam…
You might still want to learn how to deal with grief and loss though. If you had 12 kids to avoid the possibility of losing all of your kids or all of one gender of your kids, it might still happen anyway. What if you lose your favorite one? What if you still lose all of them? I don’t wish any of that on you or anyone, but I just have to say that breeding for redundancy to avoid the pain of loss strikes me as being, and this is putting it mildly, a tad immature.
Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
To put it bluntly, the increased happiness of millions of children is worth a couple children's health, or even lives. That's a tough sell, but that sounds reasonable (well, I can talk, I don't have children). This is basically the same reasoning Yudkowsky presented with his dust speck vs torture argument argument: a sufficiently widespread benefit, however small, will outweigh a sufficiently improbable horrible even…
Well, I have a dozen kids, and I agree. Of course, part of the reason for so many kids is to minimize the percentage of my family that would be lost if one did die. My wife's uncle had the postcard family, one boy and one girl in a cute little city house with a picket fence. The daughter died, and the father completely fell apart. He lost 100% of his daughters. It is too late for him to create a replacement. Most fam…
You've increased your likelihood of experiencing tragic loss 12-fold!