RNG's recent activity
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Comment on Help me choose a small electric car in ~transport
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Comment on Help me choose a small electric car in ~transport
RNG (edited )Link ParentSo what I provided in the comment you are replying to are the reasons why hybrids are more reliable. That they are, in fact, more reliable isn't a contested claim. It's just a true empirical fact...So what I provided in the comment you are replying to are the reasons why hybrids are more reliable. That they are, in fact, more reliable isn't a contested claim. It's just a true empirical fact that HEVs are far more reliable than EV/PHEVs and at least somewhat more reliable than traditional ICE vehicles. Almost all the empirical data we have either puts HEVs in a window from being as reliable to substantially more reliable than ICE vehicles, and both are far more reliable than EV/PHEVs [1] [2] [3]. I will grant that EVs have a lower lifetime maintenance cost than all other segements [4] despite being less reliable than HEVs [3].
You still have the added mechanical complexity of the engine, which has an incredible amount of moving parts and points of failure. You’ve got spark plugs, fuel pumps, coolant systems, air sensors, timing belts/chains… the list goes on and on
Whether or not HEVs are less reliable than PHEV/EV/ICE vehicles is an empirical claim, one we have data on. Hybrids are consistently the most reliable vehicles. Hybrids have 15% less issues than traditional ICE vehicles while EVs and PHEVs have 80% more issues [1].
Buying a HEV means investing a lot of time and money on maintenance as well as extra money on gasoline, which we know is bad for our health and environment.
Sure, that's true, but I wouldn't contest that. HEVs use substantially less gasoline than ICE vehicles, so a transition to them is far better than going ICE. I'm not trying to dissuade people from going EV. In the long run, everything needs to be EV. But I also think HEVs get an entirely undeserved bad reputation despite being the most practical vehicles you can buy.
[2] https://www.carpro.com/blog/j.d.-power-2026-vehicle-dependability-study-results
Note: You may have to find this yourself if you don't have institutional access:
[3] ScienceDirect: Maintenance and repair costs of passenger vehicles with different powertrains: An empirical analysis
[4] ScienceDirect: Comparison between EV, HEV, PHEV, and ICE vehicles to determine the optimal choice for the automotive market
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Comment on Help me choose a small electric car in ~transport
RNG Link ParentI recommend this comment where I respond to this worry (a worry I used to share too!) https://tildes.net/~transport/1w1v/help_me_choose_a_small_electric_car#comment-ilduI recommend this comment where I respond to this worry (a worry I used to share too!) https://tildes.net/~transport/1w1v/help_me_choose_a_small_electric_car#comment-ildu
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Comment on Help me choose a small electric car in ~transport
RNG Link ParentThis is a common misunderstanding, one I used to hold too! I used to say, "but it's got two drive trains! We have all the normal ICE problems but with EV problems bolted on!" What I didn't know...but it also just doesn't make that much sense.
Hybrids - even non-plug-in ones - have all the components of a traditional ICE vehicle, and most or all of the components of an EV, which comes with all of the maintenance requirements of both.
This is a common misunderstanding, one I used to hold too! I used to say, "but it's got two drive trains! We have all the normal ICE problems but with EV problems bolted on!"
What I didn't know was that the "ICE" side is radically different from normal ICE engines. Additional power for acceleration, for instance, comes from the battery, not by running the engine harder. There aren't the constant RPM spikes that traditional motors undergo; the engine putters along at a stable speed. On top of this, the engine isn't always running for daily city driving. These factors considerably reduce the stress the engine is under.
The eCVT in hybrids is bulletproof and is unlike transmissions in ordinary ICE vehicles. This just isn't a failure point for hybrids in the way transmissions of all types are failure points for traditional ICE vehicles. I recommend the following video as a jumping off point for further investigation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnUFH5GX_fI
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Comment on Help me choose a small electric car in ~transport
RNG LinkThe most reliable and cheap to maintain vehicles are (non-plug-in) hybrids. You will likely get 300k+ miles without serious maintenance which is unheard of in traditional ICE vehicles. You also...The most reliable and cheap to maintain vehicles are (non-plug-in) hybrids. You will likely get 300k+ miles without serious maintenance which is unheard of in traditional ICE vehicles. You also avoid the tremendous battery replacement costs of EVs. If you can get an EV, great! If it doesn't pan out, this is the next best way to go.
On the small and cheap end is the Corolla LE Hybrid at $25k USD (56/46 mpg.) All Camrys are hybrids, so if you splurge, that's the next best option in this category.
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Comment on The latest weird thing to play Doom is the mapped-out brain of a fruit fly in ~tech
RNG Link ParentSpiking Neural Networks (SNNs) are the best analogs we have to mammalian brains. This is a leading neurological theory on how brains are functionally organized. My money is on my brain being...A fruit fly's brain does not resemble in the least the type of spiking neural network the Brian library is used for. It's not "some difference".
Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) are the best analogs we have to mammalian brains. This is a leading neurological theory on how brains are functionally organized. My money is on my brain being functionally an SNN.
The authors are talking it up. It just uses STDP. Which is not how actual brains work.
Actually, STDP is a leading neurological theory of how mammalian brains including human brains work! [0] [1] [2] It predates the application of these neurological findings to non-biological SNNs.
[0] http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Spike-timing_dependent_plasticity
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Comment on The latest weird thing to play Doom is the mapped-out brain of a fruit fly in ~tech
RNG Link ParentI agree that this is debatable, I'm highly uncertain myself. Even if they are, I think most people think fruit fly experiences and lives don't matter, at least not much. It's likely a matter of...I agree that this is debatable, I'm highly uncertain myself. Even if they are, I think most people think fruit fly experiences and lives don't matter, at least not much.
It's likely a matter of time before we simulate rodent, dog/cat, or human brains. We should start taking seriously the ethics prior to putting sim humans through 10,000 hours of excruciating pain in Doom for an HN post.
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Comment on The latest weird thing to play Doom is the mapped-out brain of a fruit fly in ~tech
RNG Link ParentIt appears to appropriately map the functional states of the fruit fly brain. It performs fruit fly-like behavior, and training is performed by stimulating dopamine receptors. Assuming regular...It appears to appropriately map the functional states of the fruit fly brain. It performs fruit fly-like behavior, and training is performed by stimulating dopamine receptors. Assuming regular fruit flies are conscious, are we super confident something crucial is missing from the model that's required for any kind of consciousness?
It's not enough to say there is some difference between the model brain and the fruit fly brain; that will always be true. The question is whether there's a difference that could plausibly matter for deciding that one is conscious and the other is not.
(Note: this brackets off considerations that regular fruit flies may not be conscious; in which case we can understand my point as discussing the difference between simulated brains and organic brains of a being who is uncontroversially conscious.)
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Comment on The latest weird thing to play Doom is the mapped-out brain of a fruit fly in ~tech
RNG Link ParentI think my worry here is the uncertainty regarding all of this. I don't see a strong reason to think that say cell death/growth cycles are crucial for felt experience. We have this concept of...We don't really have a working theory of consciousness
I think my worry here is the uncertainty regarding all of this. I don't see a strong reason to think that say cell death/growth cycles are crucial for felt experience.
We have this concept of "felt experience" that has two distinct features. One, it evades description in more fundamental terms. Two, it's usually said to be sufficient for some moral worth.
If we are still very unsure about all of this when we get to, say, human brains, we should err on the side of caution. We shouldn't roll the dice on whether our Doom program causes some being the felt experience of excruciating pain.
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Comment on The latest weird thing to play Doom is the mapped-out brain of a fruit fly in ~tech
RNG (edited )LinkThis raises ethical questions. They train the brain by activating neurons relevant to pain/pleasure. It seems at some point, we will simulate brains of animals that people care about morally...The process is quite complicated. Each frame of the game generates 3,335 brightness inputs and 811 R8 color inputs. These inputs are fed into the simulated fruit fly brain, which contains 25.6 million connections. These inputs hit specific neurons based on what the frame shows, and that information is used to determine which controls the fly uses. This process repeats each frame the game runs.
It even works with pain. Wormuth says that nonfatal damage targets the PPL101 dopamine receptors, which control hunger and aggression in real fruit flies.
This raises ethical questions. They train the brain by activating neurons relevant to pain/pleasure. It seems at some point, we will simulate brains of animals that people care about morally (e.g., cats, dogs, humans.)
We wouldn't think it's okay to cause a cat, dog, or a human to experience pain while being repeatedly forced to play doom. We don't know whether sim brains are conscious In The Way That Matters™, but we shouldn't be super confident that they aren't. If I'm unsure whether playing Doom in a certain way will cause a human excruciating pain, I shouldn't do it.
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The latest weird thing to play Doom is the mapped-out brain of a fruit fly
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Comment on What theme do you use with Tildes? in ~tildes
RNG Link ParentEverything is solarized light for me. I turn the brightness down on my monitors and it almost looks e-ink-ish.Everything is solarized light for me. I turn the brightness down on my monitors and it almost looks e-ink-ish.
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Comment on The tantalizing possibility of locating consciousness in the brain in ~science
RNG Link ParentOr babies, young children, and the mentally impaired, which are less intelligent than many non-human members of the animal kingdom.If this starts to become a consensus, I do have to wonder what it will do to peoples' views on veganism.
Or babies, young children, and the mentally impaired, which are less intelligent than many non-human members of the animal kingdom.
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Comment on The tantalizing possibility of locating consciousness in the brain in ~science
RNG LinkThe article uses the term "feeling" here to discuss two very different concepts: B-Feelings: Behavioral feelings (BFs). This is an understanding of "feelings" as functional states in the brain....The article uses the term "feeling" here to discuss two very different concepts:
B-Feelings: Behavioral feelings (BFs). This is an understanding of "feelings" as functional states in the brain. This is, in principle, entirely externally discoverable. An alien neuroscientist can know about my BFs far better than I ever could. This is because I know almost nothing about my brain's functional organization through introspection.
P-Feelings: Phenomenal feelings (PFs). This is an understanding of "feelings" as felt-experiences. This is the aspects of our experience that evade description such as the taste of mint, the smell of coffee, etc. I cannot tell my colorblind friend what the PF of seeing red is like. Nor can she discover it by examining my neurology. For the same reason, it's hard to say if we can ever know if some LLM experiences PFs.
If we somehow find a perfect mapping of BFs -> PFs by doing both neuroscience and asking people about their PFs, this data would be neutral on what some call "the hard problem of consciousness". It wouldn't tell us whether systems like LLMs that lack relevantly similar BFs to us are conscious. Nor why some BFs have associated PFs at all.
All philosophers of mind think there's an ideal mapping of BFs -> PFs[1] discoverable in principle. This won't help us make any progress at all on "the hard problem" (as the problem is currently understood.) If you want to know exactly why the problem is seemingly intractable or why BF -> PF mappings don't help, check out my comment here.
[1] Note that some think PFs either don't exist, or our reports about PFs are due to the way we form concepts about our experiences. They may reject BF -> PF mappings insofar as they reject that PFs refer to anything at all. In this case, understand the mappings as BF -> PF reports.
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Comment on There is no ‘hard problem of consciousness’ in ~humanities
RNG Link ParentType-a physicalists don't say the kinds of things Rovelli says here, because what he is saying are straightforward mistakes. He at no point was able to provide a basic articulation of the debate,...I think what the writer advocated for would fall into type-a physicalism, the "there is no..." is just framing it provocatively.
Type-a physicalists don't say the kinds of things Rovelli says here, because what he is saying are straightforward mistakes. He at no point was able to provide a basic articulation of the debate, provide reasons for taking the type-a view, or even reference phenomenal concepts, on which most of the debate hangs. For instance, take the quote:
I fail to make sense of the claim that there is such an “explanatory gap.” It regards what we would understand if we were to understand something that we currently do not understand. Forgive the muddled question, but: How can we know now what we would understand if we were to understand something we do not currently understand?
This is confused. The "explanatory gap" is the fact that the phenomenal conceptually underdetermines the physical (and vice versa.) I can't, a priori, do neuroscience by reflecting on my experiences, and (if we even have "felt experiences"), I couldn't know about the character of these "felt experiences" of someone merely by looking at their neurology. There are two broad physicalist responses to this worry, and it seems like Rovelli is unfamiliar with both of them.
Maybe this is my fault for choosing an article with such an aggressive tone because that's what many seem to get hung up on.
I don't mind an aggressive tone. It's just disappointing how often relatively basic mistakes in the philosophy of mind gain traction. I don't blame you at all; it's kinda lame the editors didn't have someone familiar with the subject review prior to publication.
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Comment on There is no ‘hard problem of consciousness’ in ~humanities
RNG LinkNon-philosophers including Rovelli do not understand the hard problem. At all. In a sense, everyone including physicalists about the mind grant there is a "hard problem". The hard problem can be...- Exemplary
Non-philosophers including Rovelli do not understand the hard problem. At all.
In a sense, everyone including physicalists about the mind grant there is a "hard problem". The hard problem can be summed up in a single sentence:
If we have ineffable phenomenal experiences, then these experiences are, in principle, indescribable in mathematical terms
This is because, trivially, if something is ineffable it is indescribable in any terms including mathematical terms. That's what ineffable means. "Physical things" are things that are in principle describable in mathematical terms. To understand the idea, we will need to understand what "phenomenal" and "physical" mean.
Phenomenal concepts are the language we use when we talk about "redness" or "pleasure". It is the "what-it's-likeness" or "qualitative nature" of an experience. The taste of mint, the smell of coffee. There are two important elements of these concepts: ineffability and privacy. These concepts are ineffable, which is to say that there is at least something about the experience that cannot be described to someone who hasn't had the experience before. If you are colorblind, I can't tell you what "redness" is, because when I talk about redness, I verbally "point" at an experience that only color-sighted people have had. They are "private" for roughly the same reason; we can never learn what it feels like to use echolocation by examining bat brains.
Physical concepts are all of the other kinds of language we use. Neuronal firings, avoidance behavior, disposition to become violent, etc. These are the "quantitative properties" of an experience. Quantities that fit neatly in formulas and models and describable mathematically.
Here are the broad categories of solutions here, none of which insist that "there is no hard problem":
- Type-a physicalism: the phenomenal, as stipulated, isn't describable in mathematics, and the phenomenal does not exist. "Consciousness" exists, but shouldn't be understood in terms of "felt experience" or "what-it's-likeness", rather in functional terms, behavioral terms, or otherwise in terms that in principle can be described in mathematics
- Tybe-b physicalism: the phenomenal, as stipulated, isn't describable in mathematics, but because there is an "a posteriori" identity (see below) between them and physical states, and physical states are describable, therefore the phenomenal is describable, even if it isn't conceptually reducible
- Anti-physicalism: the phenomenal, as stipulated, isn't describable in mathematics, and it exists independently of the physical
a posteriori identity: the ancients believed the morning star and the evening star were different stars. If you do more science, you discover they are both the same entity: Venus. We just had two ways of accessing, and two concepts for describing, the same entity. This is distinct from a priori identities which occur when two terms have the same definition (e.g., bachelors and unmarried men.)
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Comment on Boycotting palm oil in general is actually bad for the environment in ~enviro
RNG Link ParentI don't take anything Greenpeace says to be credible just because they allege it. They blocked the planting of life-saving golden rice and have vehemently and repeatedly misled the public about...I don't take anything Greenpeace says to be credible just because they allege it. They blocked the planting of life-saving golden rice and have vehemently and repeatedly misled the public about nuclear energy. This cannot be overstated: the Greenpeace-led bans on golden rice have killed millions of children.
If anyone wants to offset the genuine harm caused by this organization, I highly recommend donating to Helen Keller Intl’s Vitamin A Supplementation Program. This is one of the most effective, high-impact charities in existence at the moment, and donating can genuinely save children's lives.
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Comment on Modern, abstract art makes me angry in ~arts
RNG (edited )Link ParentThis is needlessly uncharitable. What did you aim to achieve making this point? The criticism of modern art seems obvious to me: it, at minimum, appears extremely low effort. Pointing this out, or...I would posit that this post displays a much higher degree of snobbism than any piece of modern art.
This is needlessly uncharitable. What did you aim to achieve making this point? The criticism of modern art seems obvious to me: it, at minimum, appears extremely low effort. Pointing this out, or being irritated by high value being assigned to what one perceives as low effort is not snobbism.
A meaningful contribution to this post would be to point out how the OP underestimates the level of effort involved, which you did in the case of monochromes (while also accusing the OP of the Dunning-Kruger effect. I'm not sure what you were trying to accomplish with a cheap shot like that.)
Not for nothing, but one can interpret the video as associating criticism of modern art with Nazism, which is ridiculous.
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Comment on Do you cook with cast iron? Is it the hassle everyone says it is? in ~food
RNG Link ParentThere are cheap, rapid-result swabs you can buy to test for lead. It's not a huge burden, and worth a couple of bucks if you are purchasing vintage.There are cheap, rapid-result swabs you can buy to test for lead. It's not a huge burden, and worth a couple of bucks if you are purchasing vintage.
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Comment on Do you cook with cast iron? Is it the hassle everyone says it is? in ~food
RNG Link ParentSorry I should've specified, in the US, soybean oil is just called "vegetable oil". All other oils, despite technically being "vegetable oils" have more specific names e.g. canola oil.Sorry I should've specified, in the US, soybean oil is just called "vegetable oil". All other oils, despite technically being "vegetable oils" have more specific names e.g. canola oil.
CR has a massive sample size of 380,000 vehicles. This is the largest sample space of any of the sources I listed by between 1-3 orders of magnitude. This is a substantially better source than the one you provided for your empirical claims.
You don't think that supports what I said? Let's see what I said:
That JD Power survey is the source where HEVs are as reliable as ICE vehicles (there isn't a substantial difference in the reliability of ICE and HEV vehicles on their report). It's also important that the number of vehicles in this survey is an order of magnitude less than the CR report.