51–60 of 68 posts
2nd law of thermodynamics. IMO it applies to virtual systems. A big misconception about software among laypeople is it doesn’t need maintenance. It’s just not true. Even the best of them need maintenance and up gradation for the simple reason that the environment in which operates is continuously changing.
1.)Quantum entanglement, to instill a sense of appreciation for the unknown. 2.)Astrology, to grant an understanding of the language of archetypes.
Astrology is not a science, and while quantum entanglement is a fascinating and important concept, it's not clear what it has to do with "the unknown". Was that humour?
Have the workings of entanglement been explained?
Am I missing something? This is a link to an article where a bunch of scientists and public intellectuals answer the question, and it provides all kinds of cool content, such as "impedance matching", and the notion that natural selection implies that our DNA can tell us about the environments our genetic ancestors lived in. Instead of reading, reacting, or engaging with any of those ideas, people are just directly re…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In more practical terms, yes you absolutely should trust scientists, and it's important to know the difference between an "appeal to authority fallacy" and "deferral to expertise". https://thelogicofscience.com/2015/03/20/the-rules-of-logic-...
Scientists are not in the business of making recommendations to lay people. There are other professions for that: doctors, lawyers, bankers, teachers, journalists etc. Scientists are mostly in the business of disproving the conjectures of other scientists.* * actually grant-writing, but I’m not sure that counts either Also, I’m pretty sure that the inclusion of “deferring to experts” in the accepted rules of formal l…
We're also not talking about formal logic (I clearly started my comment by saying "in more practical terms", did I not?), we're talking about a distinction between an appropriate and an inappropriate heuristic. I highly recommend you finish reading the article I posted.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Astrology is not a science, and while quantum entanglement is a fascinating and important concept, it's not clear what it has to do with "the unknown". Was that humour?
Astrology was a science long before the western Enlightenment, which is irrelevant to its unique contributions to human knowledge - as a language of archetypes. Have the workings of entanglement been explained?
Astrology in the context of personality traits or "archetypes", as you put it, has never been a science and has always been a pseudoscience.
Smarter minds than me understand the workings of quantum entanglement about as well as they understand the workings of gravity. There are plenty of things we don't know.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In more practical terms, yes you absolutely should trust scientists, and it's important to know the difference between an "appeal to authority fallacy" and "deferral to expertise". https://thelogicofscience.com/2015/03/20/the-rules-of-logic-...
It's still a fallacy. As with most fallacies, it exist because it's a good enough rule of thumb to live our lives.
Am I missing something? This is a link to an article where a bunch of scientists and public intellectuals answer the question, and it provides all kinds of cool content, such as "impedance matching", and the notion that natural selection implies that our DNA can tell us about the environments our genetic ancestors lived in. Instead of reading, reacting, or engaging with any of those ideas, people are just directly re…
I think there's a huge problem with attention span on the internet. Dopamine rush from new content is a thing and there is so much of it available that people can't help chase it all the time. This kind of engagement really degrades the quality of a community and I think we should do all we can to keep it at bay. Explicit, inoffensive, boring headlines can go a long way in weeding out people who are looking for their…
Often the articles themselves aren’t even more than a few minutes reading and the comments have questions and ideas that were directly addressed by the piece. There has been a long discussion about what to do about this problem (from slashdot to digg to reddit and so on) - however the idea of requiring commenters to jump through hoops or unpaid moderators to somehow keep the discussion factual seems more like a way to kill the site.
For your amusement: pay casual attention to the comment count on any HN post that contains “apple” or one of their better known trademarks. No one is reading anything - it’s just a gangbang.
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Work 100km. Driving 80km/h with little lane switching is 75 min. Going 150km/h also with little lane switching is 40min. Is saving 35 minutes worth it: absolutely.
Going faster than 130 km/h (85 mph) is not worth it in most cars because you can't recover the extra time needed to refuel due to higher fuel consumption.
An actual scientific/mathematical/statistical concept that ought to be more widely known is convergence to the mean.
Formal Logic and Argumentation I find it amazing that people can argue endlessly about conclusions or personal judgements, especially when morals are concerned, without any effort to discover the premise upon which the disagreement rests. I think people should learn about argumentation as a method to discover truth and agreement, rather than a competition. I’m not highly knowledgeable in this domain, just a person th…
People parodying two completely different court cases against each-other and claiming some kind of "injustice" is a common example of this. It's charitable to even consider this kind of lowball mental gymnastics a middle-school level of argumentation.
Tbh, I think most people who haven't studied logic or understand why first principles are important just let the current tide of politics / emotion completely drive their perception.