Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

mitchellh.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 313 posts

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#281

Post by imtringued »

alchemist1e9 wrote: post #127
sevenzero wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we cant grow past money as a species we are pretty much doomed. I'd rather have allegiance or community based incentives over monetary gain, given that most people on earth can't really afford life anymore and rack up debt so rich people can get richer.

Capitalism is the single greatest force for improvement in the human condition. Money is the foundation of capitalism. If you went to school and believe what you write then you went to terrible schools.

The problem is that the same people who say this also argue in favor of optimal extinction.

There is clearly something broken about the neoclassical market economy where it is optimal to not have children and to collapse the ecosystem with climate change (the economist who got a riksbank price for his climate change work suggested that 4°C warming is economically optimal).

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#282

Post by armchairhacker »

d4ng wrote: post #276
fooqux wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're being pendantic. Choose whatever symbol you want for "2" and "4". The point is that if you have symbol apples and someone gives you symbol more, than you have an agreed-upon number in total.

Agreed-upon, as in subjective.

The objectivity is in the relations.

If you define a system where “2 + 2 = 5”, but also “a square has 5 corners”, “carbon has 5 covalent bonding positions”, etc. your system is coherent, but you actually are stating the abstract property “2 + 2 = 4” in common math, just using the symbol “5” to represent what’s commonly represented as “4”. A bit confusing, a less confusing example is common math, substituting “2” with “B” and “4” with “D”, so “B + B = D, a square has D corners, …”

If you define a system where “2 + 2 = 5, a line segment has 2 ends, a square has 4 corners, 4 < 5”, you’re objectively wrong (unless you’re taking common math and substituting more than digits)…if you extend this system you’ll find contradictions (what happens if you combine 2 parallel line segments of the same length at that length distance?), especially if you try to apply it to the real world.

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#283

Post by tremon »

d4ng wrote: post #208
armchairhacker wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To clarify, there are formal truths: widely-accepted hard science, e.g. “2 + 2 = 4”. Technically, there’s a point where we can’t fundamentally prove anything (“if a tree falls and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?”), and rarely we get things wrong (e.g. classical physics)….but in practice, these are true, end of discussion. Then there are informal truths: e.g. “the Earth is round”, “the sky is blue”, “Gala apple…

2+2=4 is only a formal truth up to the axioms of arithmetic and how we denote numbers. The statement is not statement with regards to objective reality.

The statement is a formal truth exactly because it only exists inside the symbolic universe constructed by humans, not despite.

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#284

Post by elxr »

Johanx64 wrote: post #266
sph wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of the things that make you unhappy can be remedied with money Nonsense. Most of the things that can be remedied with money are not the truly painful things of life either. Will money save you from heartache? From the pain of losing a loved one? From being lonely? From having no respect from your peers? From losing your health to incurable cancer? At that point, all money can do for one is make them even more…

> Most of the things that can be remedied with money are not the truly painful things of life either. Have you done the math of what life consists of for most people? It's 9-to-5. Your life is DOMINATED - by large order of magnitude - by involuntary wage slavery. Where you literally sell away your time for pennies on a dollar to a highest bidder. That is the most painful thing in life, bar none, there is nothing wors…

Well said. This place has too many people who have never seen true poverty and people with the life drained out of them working shitty jobs just to be able to eat. Money has also directly lead to more happiness in my life.

In fact, it's almost a direct relationship.

The biggest impact isn't in the material objects it has allowed be to buy, but in the freedom it provides to self-actualize, to pursue activities and build skills that would've been near impossible if it weren't for money.

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#286

Post by Johanx64 »

Xirdus wrote: post #189
KerrAvon wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of that makes you happier. Define happiness, but there's a baseline for not being miserable (I have enough to eat etc) and then there's actual satisfaction with your life. If you doubt the thesis, consider the extreme examples of Musk and Trump. they have infinite wealth and power and are demonstrably, publicly miserable. The consistently happiest people I've personally met are Buddhist monks of various sects, w…

One of the downsides of arguing over internet is that whenever you provide an argument that precisely counters the point person A has made, there comes person B who makes a completely different point than person A, but still treats my reply to person A as if I was replying to person B instead. I define happiness as whatever the person before me defined it as. GP defined it as good health, love and respect of others.…

> One is that money makes people inherently happy. Which is so obviously wrong it's not even worth talking about.

Really. The mere fact of having large chunk of cash and resources, without necessarily even spending it as such - per say, can make people inherently happy-ier.

I'll give you an example: You can say NO whenever you wish. It reduces stress without having spent a single penny of it. It changes your attitude to life by mere fact of having it. Even if don't say NO (because situation doesn't call for it), having the mere option to say it at any given moment - makes you inherently happier and have a healthier attitude to life.

So not even this point stands. Money can make people inherently happy-ier. Without as much as even spending a penny extra as you would have had before you got the "big stash".

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#287

Post by Retric »

coldtea wrote: post #277
Retric wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So By acknowledging that nobody considers these objective truths, there’s nothing interesting to say on the topic. You were playing around with the linguistic ambiguity for whatever reason using a different definition than was used by “There is only a single source of truth and that is objective reality.” and I called you out on it. Thus the subject dies.

> By acknowledging that nobody considers these objective truths, there’s nothing interesting to say on the topic On the contrary, that's where most interesting things to say happen in the real social world. From relationships all the way to wars. > You were playing around with the linguistic ambiguity for whatever reason using a different definition than was used by “There is only a single source of truth and that is…

> you were limited by the one definition you had in mind

Intentionally misunderstanding what someone said is at best wordplay, and wordplay is fucking boring.

Stop being boring.

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#288

Post by warmwaffles »

robocat wrote: post #212
warmwaffles wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went from Alacritty to Ghostty for ligatures and some other small goodies. I could probably get those same goodies with Kitty, but I didn't want to try nor have the desire to try. I may go back to Alacritty if I grow tired of Ghostty.

I've always found ligatures (fi, ff, ffi etc) really ugly. Or are you talking about using them for hacked purposes (-> in C)? Then again I don't put different foods on my fork when eating - which seems relevant.

`==`, `===`, `->`, `-->` are more pleasant to read with ligatures on. It's silly, but nice.

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#289

Post by d4ng »

armchairhacker wrote: post #282
d4ng wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed-upon, as in subjective.

The objectivity is in the relations. If you define a system where “2 + 2 = 5”, but also “a square has 5 corners”, “carbon has 5 covalent bonding positions”, etc. your system is coherent, but you actually are stating the abstract property “2 + 2 = 4” in common math, just using the symbol “5” to represent what’s commonly represented as “4”. A bit confusing, a less confusing example is common math, substituting “2” with…

You are not objectively wrong. You have simply defined an incoherent abstract system in language. The claim you have made simply does not compute in the system in question. Regardless, that claim is not a claim about the objective world, however that may be defined.

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#290

Post by d4ng »

tremon wrote: post #283
d4ng wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2+2=4 is only a formal truth up to the axioms of arithmetic and how we denote numbers. The statement is not statement with regards to objective reality.

The statement is a formal truth exactly because it only exists inside the symbolic universe constructed by humans, not despite.

You are right.
Post reply on HN