Live data from Hacker News

Harold and George Destroy the World

tomclancy.info

81–90 of 322 posts

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#81

The "silver dollar" change isn't -- it's the dime. The design was in the works before the current administration [1], and is only intended to be for the 250th anniversary [2]. The Dept of Defense was only created in the late 1940s. Before that the US had the Dept of War, the Dept of the Navy, and other organizations. The point of calling it "defense" was not because "everyone has the right to defense", but because th…

[flagged]

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#82

The "silver dollar" change isn't -- it's the dime. The design was in the works before the current administration [1], and is only intended to be for the 250th anniversary [2]. The Dept of Defense was only created in the late 1940s. Before that the US had the Dept of War, the Dept of the Navy, and other organizations. The point of calling it "defense" was not because "everyone has the right to defense", but because th…

Just to add, it was in the process of manufacture during Biden, signed into production during Trump. A unfortunately timed nothing burger.

Not to say that War is Peace folks won’t jump on it.

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Something being old doesn't meant it's false. It even has a name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_novelty

People have predicted the end of the world for literally thousands of years. Should’ve happened by now, right?

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#84

No need to do a drive by on Predator Badlands like that, it's a perfectly enjoyable film in its own right. I agree with the author though, there's nothing nearly as emotionally deep or socio-politically engaging as One Battle After Another, and so it would make for poor choice as a double feature to run second in the pairing.

thank you! spoiler alert if anyone hasnt seen Predator Badlands

Tom self owns himself quite a bit by dismissing a movie as drivel and then comparing it to dumb plots made by adult children. the entire point of the movie is to demonstrate how dumb and bad overt masculinity is. yes its oversimplified but its Predator. the audience is hormonal teenage boys who might think toxic masculinity is cool. the entire setup Tom thought was dumb is more or less called out as dumb later in the movie

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#85
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education is a weird field with perhaps a few thousand years of very good unimplemented ideas. Imagine training an llm by putting it in a room with other untrained LLMs? All that knowledge is sure to rubb of!

I mean, that LLM idea _sounds_ ridiculous, but similar ideas have worked really well in machine learning for games like Chess and AI.

This is assuming that the knowledge space being aimed at is discoverable solely by exploration of 1v1 games. Maths and maybe some of the sciences could be set up like this if you were very clever about it, but not much else.

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something being old doesn't meant it's false. It even has a name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_novelty

People have predicted the end of the world for literally thousands of years. Should’ve happened by now, right?

This has names too btw: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#87
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The movie did have an unfortunate eugenic implication, which is doubly unfortunate because it wasn’t even necessary for the plot. Society can just get dumb due to people not valuing education. Genetically we’re not that different from cavemen, so the floor (without any weird eugenic theories about dumb people breeding too much) is “tamed caveman.”

Education is still very much present in Idiocracy (Brawndo blah blah). It's the lack of value in logic and thought process that causes the problem. When people value winning an argument on a logical fallacy, there's a severe issue. Education is oft used as the fallacy itself. Much like today on all sides of every significant debate. Where the loudest most emotional rise on feelings over logic. If a person doesn't imm…

A room full of people in charge of the most power nation wouldn't fall prey to something like false dichotomy, during an important address to said nation? Would they...?

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#88
post #16

The effects of Idiocracy are much worse than we appreciate. I believe it's hidden in part by technology (as a cognitive crutch) and part by top skilled immigration (people previously suppressed in their undeveloped countries). And education is much, much worse almost everywhere by leaning more to memorization and catering to the lowest common denominator. Student A is bad at math and good at language, student B is th…

> (people previously suppressed in their undeveloped countries)

Ah yes, the undevelopped and oppressive countries able to provide them good enough education and not make them debt-ridden for it.

I don’t blame people for moving for better wages, but the level of rationalization used here to make brain drain feel virtuous is off the charts.

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#90
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education is a weird field with perhaps a few thousand years of very good unimplemented ideas. Imagine training an llm by putting it in a room with other untrained LLMs? All that knowledge is sure to rubb of!

A big part of the problem education systems are solving is not "how do we get knowledge to children", but "how do we get masses of children to learn without coercion of the ugliest kind". Some children are innately motivated to learn. Some are motivated so strongly you could give them a smartphone and watch them learn all they need to learn in life. But those children aren't the norm - they're the freaky 1 in 1000 ou…

>Some children are innately motivated to learn. Some are motivated so strongly you could give them a smartphone and watch them learn all they need to learn in life. But those children aren't the norm - they're the freaky 1 in 1000 outliers. And education has to work with everyone.

I worked as a teacher for a year. Children are innately motivated and curious (this is not just a cliche). If there was any laziness it usually stemmed from fear of not being good enough but they definitely all tried, even students that didn't know their 5 times table by age 10. Some students have greater self-perseverance than others though, some can't handle being wrong and fear being seen as less-then their peers. Others like to challenge themselves without such fear.

Post reply on HN