R3qn65's recent activity
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Comment on Anyone have any ketogenic diet stories? in ~food
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Comment on Trolley problem, again in ~humanities
R3qn65 Link ParentRespectfully, I think if you understood more about what the trolley problem is and why it exists, you wouldn't have such a problem with it. It's not trying to be a real-world scenario -- it's...Respectfully, I think if you understood more about what the trolley problem is and why it exists, you wouldn't have such a problem with it. It's not trying to be a real-world scenario -- it's trying to help us clarify our moral intuitions.
Here's a separate thought experiment, to try to clear away the baggage associated with the trolley problem. Peter Singer asked whether you would have a duty to save a drowning child, if you walked by the pond that the child was drowning in. Almost everyone responds yes, naturally. He then asked whether you would still have the responsibility even if it had some small material cost to you - your wallet was ruined, say. Almost everyone still responds yes. And if you saved one child, but the next day saw another drowning child? After all of this, Singer asks what ethical difference there is between ruining a wallet to save a child drowning right in front of you and a child dying of malaria on the other side of the world, who could be saved if you donated some money.
To say "but Peter Singer, I never run across drowning children, much less multiple" is just plain silly. That's not the point.
Similarly, the trolley problem isn't trying to teach us what to do when we see runaway trains. It's trying to help us clarify our moral intuitions. Most people answer very differently when the choice is to pull a lever versus to push someone onto the tracks. Why? The answer is important, and to say "a person wouldn't really stop a runaway train" is missing the point. The trolley problem came into being specifically to try to understand how doctors were making ethical decisions in the case of abortion. The simplicity and rigid nature of the thought experiment are features, not bugs, because it forces us to discard all of the "well, but..." and focus solely on the ethics.
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Comment on What is your pet peeve with language acquisition? in ~humanities.languages
R3qn65 Link ParentThe language module thing is almost entirely discredited, for what it's worth.The language module thing is almost entirely discredited, for what it's worth.
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Comment on What is your pet peeve with language acquisition? in ~humanities.languages
R3qn65 Link ParentThe critical period hypothesis is indeed only a theory, but researchers are aware that children live different lives. The "experimental and observational studies" section of the above link is...The critical period hypothesis is indeed only a theory, but researchers are aware that children live different lives. The "experimental and observational studies" section of the above link is pretty good, if you're interested in going through it, and explains the experimental foundations for the various strengths of belief in the theory.
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Comment on What is your pet peeve with language acquisition? in ~humanities.languages
R3qn65 Link ParentAs a word of caution, researchers suspect that there are physiological differences in how children learn languages. Simple immersion works for elementary education, true, but not necessarily for...As a word of caution, researchers suspect that there are physiological differences in how children learn languages. Simple immersion works for elementary education, true, but not necessarily for adults.
https://news.mit.edu/2018/cognitive-scientists-define-critical-period-learning-language-0501
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Comment on Do you think you're special? in ~talk
R3qn65 Link ParentReally interesting post. I'm going to riff on what you said a little bit. You talked about how your own feelings of being special came from observing or being told that you were more intelligent...Really interesting post. I'm going to riff on what you said a little bit.
You talked about how your own feelings of being special came from observing or being told that you were more intelligent than other people throughout early and middle school, and that you then lost that feeling because you kept running into people more intelligent than you. (To paraphrase poorly.)
I have a very similar start but a different end. Throughout the early and middle stages of my life, I kept being sorted into increasingly differentiated groups, frequently with a warning that this next time, I would be outclassed. That never happened. I have, of course, at this point in my life met multiple individuals who clearly had more g than I do -- typically but not always people from elite academia -- but the relative rarity of that means that rather than taking it as a sign that I'm not special, it's more like a sign that I belong in that club.
So I do feel special. Professionally administered IQ tests, standardized testing, etc., puts me in the top 99.xxx% of the population. At a certain point, to claim that I didn't feel special because of that would be much closer to self-denigration than to humility. However: yes, I am very bright, but that doesn't mean that I'm inherently good at everything, not even everything relying purely on intelligence. We often think in terms of raw processing power for everything when that's really not how the brain works at all. Studies have consistently shown that people vary enormously at discrete skills, even people within the same band of overall intelligence. So yes, I feel special -- and even superior, frankly -- but so what? There's more to life, and more to being a good person, than being smart.
This is not something I discuss very often because it's unnecessarily arrogant (whereas this way, it's only necessarily arrogant). I mention it now to provide a foil to your view.
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Comment on In fighting for every black child, did I forget my own? in ~life
R3qn65 Link ParentFor the sake of discussion, I share your general horror but I think you're being a bit unfair to Hannah-Jones. She wrote fairly extensively about wanting to live up to the legacy of Brown, about...They talk about how they could donate to the school because they are rich. Guess what: you can donate to any school you want, even if your kids aren’t suffering there.
For the sake of discussion, I share your general horror but I think you're being a bit unfair to Hannah-Jones. She wrote fairly extensively about wanting to live up to the legacy of Brown, about how it's just different when you're advocating for your own kid rather than advocating for faceless children, about how she couldn't face herself in the mirror if she spent her entire career trying to convince parents with choice not to flee bad schools and then did exactly that when she had skin in the game.
Her ideals ran into the cold hardness of reality, that's true. But she's not the first to face that and won't be the last. And frankly, I admire idealists as much as or more than I pity them.
I don't know if you're a black American, but I'm not, and I think that plays a role that I really can't understand too.
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Comment on Gemini AI hacked three companies in a testing breakout, Google says in ~tech
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Comment on Gemini AI hacked three companies in a testing breakout, Google says in ~tech
R3qn65 Link ParentThe revenue backlog is not included in or part of reported growth. I know that seems pedantic, but it's the crux of what we're talking about. Also... 40% isn't even most, let alone all, let alone...The revenue backlog is not included in or part of reported growth. I know that seems pedantic, but it's the crux of what we're talking about. Also... 40% isn't even most, let alone all, let alone "without which it's shrinking."
I get that there's wiggle room on specifics when we're just conversing like this rather than writing thinkpieces or whatever, but still.
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Comment on Gemini AI hacked three companies in a testing breakout, Google says in ~tech
R3qn65 Link ParentThat's not really how that works though, no? If I give you 50% of my company, that doesn't affect our profits. You just now own 50% of them. I certainly agree that the odd mutual financing cycle...I'm pretty sure Anthropic isn't profitable this year due to stock/equity regardless.
That's not really how that works though, no? If I give you 50% of my company, that doesn't affect our profits. You just now own 50% of them.
I certainly agree that the odd mutual financing cycle is a big risk factor.
For me, I'd say the biggest issue is the cost of training new models -- particularly given that all 4 of the major players have strong incentives to burn all of their cash on training to compete with one another. I think they're all going to start racing to build walled gardens, even more than they have already.
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Comment on Gemini AI hacked three companies in a testing breakout, Google says in ~tech
R3qn65 Link ParentHappy to discuss this -- why do you think profitability is temporary?Happy to discuss this -- why do you think profitability is temporary?
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Comment on Gemini AI hacked three companies in a testing breakout, Google says in ~tech
R3qn65 Link ParentDo you have any sources for this statement? I did some Googling (ha) and could only find indicators in the opposite direction. Google's cloud business is expanding rapidly, and anthropic is...However, all of its cloud growth is Anthropic. Without Anthropic, Google's cloud has been shrinking.
Do you have any sources for this statement? I did some Googling (ha) and could only find indicators in the opposite direction. Google's cloud business is expanding rapidly, and anthropic is certainly part of that, but they don't publish specific revenue breakdowns by customer.
Their playbook is basically "Enron, but with lessons learned from Enron so nothing is technically illegal, especially since we're a private company for now."
If you're thinking about the circular financing deals, those are mostly between openAI and Nvidia, not anthropic. But also, even if that's what you're thinking of, an Enron comparison is a bit silly. The whole point of the Enron scams was that they were secret. I can find 37,000 articles on the financing deals right now.
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Comment on Gemini AI hacked three companies in a testing breakout, Google says in ~tech
R3qn65 Link ParentAnthropic is currently profitable. Google is (obviously) very profitable. OpenAI is not.These companies go under the (relative) instant that they go public and have to reign in the subsided subscriptions to turn a profit.
Anthropic is currently profitable. Google is (obviously) very profitable. OpenAI is not.
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Comment on On US Democrats who cave in response to anti-trans attack ads in ~lgbt
R3qn65 Link ParentI don't really get this. Sports already has all kinds of discriminatory bars that are not reflected in broader society. For what it's worth, I do agree with this, strongly -- But I think it...if people are barred from participating in sports based on genetic tests, that sports will not be the end of that segregation.
I don't really get this. Sports already has all kinds of discriminatory bars that are not reflected in broader society. For what it's worth, I do agree with this, strongly --
Once laws have been passed for the "protection" of a group of people, based on the villainization and dehumanization of another, I think it creates momentum to continue to segregate the villainized group in new ways.
But I think it applies way more logically to things like bathroom bans than sports.
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Comment on Independents/freelancers: how do you find new business? in ~finance
R3qn65 Link ParentNo way :) it's dependent on the business, of course, but generally for a salesperson in a position where you're cold calling, you'd want to see upwards of 20 calls/day, with something more like 50...I also guess that the pace she has isn't strictly necessary, maybe it would be enough to do 5 and 5 over the course of a week.
No way :) it's dependent on the business, of course, but generally for a salesperson in a position where you're cold calling, you'd want to see upwards of 20 calls/day, with something more like 50 being typical. She may have meant that she has 5 actual conversations with cold leads a day, which is indeed a good pace -- but it's about right, not something she could slack off from.
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Comment on The age of wonders and terrors in ~science
R3qn65 LinkThanks for posting this. I think we've discussed this article on "The Fall of the Theorem Economy" on tildes before but it's extremely relevant here and well worth a read.Thanks for posting this. I think we've discussed this article on "The Fall of the Theorem Economy" on tildes before but it's extremely relevant here and well worth a read.
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Comment on Zack Snyder's ‘The Last Photograph’ is getting destroyed at TIFF: “Unabashedly sh*t on every level” in ~movies
R3qn65 Link ParentI feel bad for him. I agree with the consensus here that his movies have gotten worse and worse as he's gotten more control, but he doesn't seem like a bad guy and it has to be awful for him to...I feel bad for him. I agree with the consensus here that his movies have gotten worse and worse as he's gotten more control, but he doesn't seem like a bad guy and it has to be awful for him to read this sort of vitriol.
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Comment on Irish, Scottish and Welsh leaders meet to plan break-up of United Kingdom in ~society
R3qn65 Link ParentDoes the IRA still exist as a paramilitary force?And when the referendum doesn't pass in NI, the IRA will make it pass
Does the IRA still exist as a paramilitary force?
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Comment on Deciding whether (or not) to have a child in ~life
R3qn65 Link ParentI stand corrected, but does that really change my core point? From the very section you quoted isI stand corrected, but does that really change my core point? From the very section you quoted is
... but now scientists say that even their best case scenario still shoots past that signature temperature mark. On the other end, those same new scenarios no longer include the coal-heavy future that would lead to 4.5 degrees Celsius (8.1 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming by 2100, a scary scenario that many scientific studies used in their future projections.
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Comment on Deciding whether (or not) to have a child in ~life
R3qn65 Link ParentAs someone with the ability to choose whether to have kids (e.g. with access to reliable birth control), you're already part of a global elite. At least half the planet lives in circumstances...Can someone be faced with circumstances worse than ours and still find their life worthwhile and fulfilling?
As someone with the ability to choose whether to have kids (e.g. with access to reliable birth control), you're already part of a global elite. At least half the planet lives in circumstances worse than yours. I'm sure you wouldn't argue that none of those people live fulfilling lives.
I think you have a bit of a perspective problem, honestly.
I think you need to approach this more like an alcoholic would. When you say "I may stop keto one day, but what I'm not going to do is eat packaged foods all day like I used to," it's not that that's wrong, exactly, but it's completely missing a plan and an acknowledgement of just how hard it is to not do that. It's like an alcoholic saying "I'm just not going to drink too much anymore" when they've already tried that. I see you bouncing from diet to diet - even in this thread! - from keto to eating only foraged foods or whatever.
None of this is going to work. Crash diets never work. That's just not how the body is wired. You've got to learn how to eat normally without putting extreme restrictions on yourself. Primarily, that likely means getting junk food out of the house, not going to where the junk food is, and not letting yourself get so hungry that you lose self-control. Eventually, your body's thermostat will re-regulate, to at least some extent.