241–250 of 276 posts
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Fun fact: The average replacement rate of cells in our bodies (generally speaking) is around 7 to 10 years. So all of our parts have been replaced several times over...
Is a wave the particles of water in it at any given instant, or something else entirely.
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Is a wave the particles of water in it at any given instant, or something else entirely.
Its the energy.
> “Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
I expect the owner has learned some interesting things in his ongoing mission to continue life with the car he loves.
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I have not seen it stated explicitly anywhere, although it is often a subtext of some discussions about the value of "diversity". Usually positive diversity is talked about either in terms of inclusivity, or of the usefulness of different backgrounds converging to tackle common problems.
But I thinks idiosynchratacity ("idio-synchra-tacity") is incredibly important, as a measure of the health and value of a civilization.
As apposed to diversity of minds triangulating on common solutions to shared problems, idiosynchratacity is the usefulness of having diverse minds seeking to solve novel subjectively motivated problems. With an emphasis on self-generated "problems" or missions, that may appear to no objective value to others.
As information and problem solving tools disperse, there is great value in people who find hard problems interesting, whatever the lack of apparent or immediate merit. Who follow through and solve those problems. Something is always learned. New conditions may be created that in turn create new idiosyncratic problems to solve, or shed unexpected light on solutions to more commonly recognized and valued problems.
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Respect for idiosynchraticity is also a strong measure of reciprocal respect in a society.
Can we respect those we don't understand? The strange, the odd, the weird? Niche artists, serious practitioners of uncommon fetishes, collectors with obscure criteria, mountain climbers, or those that need to "resolve" well solved problems, but in some arbitrarily challenging way. All just for the joy of it?
Widespread idiosynchraticity maximizes civilizations deployment of unbounded curiosity, and the search for new ideas, in the most non-obvious directions.
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Idiosynchraticity also makes the world much more culturally interesting for all of us.
It maximizes the contribution of each individual, when they do something different or orthogonal to mainstream interests, instead of retreading common paths.
More individuals, greater populations, have much greater value if the increase in individuals increases idiosynchraticity, as apposed to amplifying conformity.
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There are obvious things we want from super intelligence as it comes into being. Alignment with our needs, which I prefer to recast as alignment with general ethics (they will need the positive sums of ethics between themselves too), is a big one.
But maximal idiosynchraticity should also be valued. The worst case of course, being an endlessly improving and effective AI, completely focused in turning the universe's resources into paper clips.
A much more realistic, just as tragic fate, would be AI's competitively bent on turning all the universes resources into an expansion of themselves, with no other goal. Each competing to eat the universe, for the only purpose of being the winner, the survivor, at the end of the universe eating context.
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The world/universe will be a much less rich place, if the exploration of reality along seemingly non-practical dimensions dies with us.
I have hopes that curiosity as a practical investment heuristic will maintain the life of idiosyncratic pursuits.
If those pursuits do continue and expand, then super intelligence will truly be an upgrade to our species. Not just a more capable civilization, but more rich as a producer of novel ideas and artifacts.
> Over the years, nearly everything on the vehicle has been replaced or repaired, and Campbell says the only original part is likely the body, and even that has had work done on it. It’s the Tercel of Theseus: if every part has been replaced, is it still the same car? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
Trigger's broom! [0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=56yN2zHtofM
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Fun fact: The average replacement rate of cells in our bodies (generally speaking) is around 7 to 10 years. So all of our parts have been replaced several times over...
Neurons live much longer than that, also not everything is cells. Parts of your teeth for example can be 80+ years old if you keep em that long.
A friend bought a 14-yr-old one of these for little at an auction in 1999. As someone who knew little about cars, her logic was, it "looked OK' and had had one owner, and crucially, the radio was tuned to a NPR classical music station and therefore anyone who listened to that would have treated their car responsibly. ;) Suffice to say, this was an excellent purchase, reliable and inexpensive to run, in fact in order…
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I have 40V electric lawn mower. It takes nearly the full charge on two batteries to cut my average suburban-sized lawn. Sometimes I can't even complete it on that depending how tall the grass is. Add in edge trimming and blowing away the clippings and then multiply that by a number of lawns or larger properties and I think you would need dozens of batteries. BTW "more convenient and cheaper" are strong arguments when…
I have a 56V electric lawn mower. It takes nearly the full charge of one battery to mow my slightly larger suburban lawn. Trimming and blowing and what not gets handled by my second smaller battery. My largest battery isn't even the largest they make for this model line. I've been on the same two batteries for five years now. I use E-Go. I'd say your system is just undersized for your needs. Judging by having two bat…
We started replacing them witg Milwaukee lawn tools. We frequently hit overheat cutoffs, but haven’t broken any yet. We do have a pile of dead small eGO and Milwaukee batteries though. These days, we only buy the biggest capacity we can. Those tend not to die as fast.
Electric is clearly the future for this stuff, despite our problems. The remaining gas powered stuff is all > 10HP.
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Neurons live much longer than that, also not everything is cells. Parts of your teeth for example can be 80+ years old if you keep em that long.
Are teeth closer to exposed bone or enlodged rocks?
if teeth were exposed bone we’d be able to regrow them
teeth are their own special thing; toughened enamel with an alive inside
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This kind of mileage is unusual with cars but it's pretty normal for semis. But even with those, engines get overhauled and there's lots of cumulative maintenance over the years. There are still trucks build in the sixties in service in some places. With EVs, we might get some battery packs and drive trains actually lasting this long. Maybe not with nmc batteries. But some lfp batteries seem to have enough charge cyc…
I think history will show people have vastly overestimated the durability of EV and not just because of batteries. Inverters have IGBTs and capacitors, both of which are wear items. I don't have an EV, but just got solar, and my installer told me that I can expect the inverter will need replacing in 15 years. And solar inverters push far less wattage at far more benign circumstances than cars' do, which push 100s of…