antidesitter

That argument doesn’t really make sense.

RationalWiki is not a credible source.

> the end result is the same

Not even close. In China, you cannot even talk about politically-sensitive topics like the Tiananmen Square massacre. I don’t think you appreciate the massive chilling effect of its policies, and the strength of the Party’s grip on the social consciousness. It’s a different ball game.

It is a worthwhile comment because some people in this thread (including you) are pushing for collective punishment.

Legal responsibility for murder is apportioned to individuals, not “communities”. And that’s a very good thing.

> At some point in time I don't think it's worth picking apart that nuance anymore.

Good thing you have nothing to do with the justice system, then.

A permissive license doesn’t grant “the right to deny others” a so-called “right” it doesn’t define or even refer to.

> the right to enjoy future improvements to the code

Why is that a “right”?

The comment they’re replying to said “I don't think it's a viable business model for all of us,” not that it’s not a viable model for any of us.

> Is that not worth fixing or not one of the better uses of resources?

At all costs? No. Otherwise? It depends.

You said it yourself: Some people are dealt terrible cards, and that can include (as yet) unfixable aspects of brain function.

We can’t be above nature because we are part of nature. And some things are not fixable at all or even worth fixing without diverting significant resources away from better uses.

You assume rehabilitation is always possible or cost-effective. From a utilitarian viewpoint, it might be best to simply rid society of some people forever. I’m not arguing for or against that view, but it’s a possibility. The issue of “free will versus determinism” doesn’t settle the question of capital punishment like you think it does.

> I mean that I consider cryptocurrency scene to be net social negative

This sounds like nonsense. Cryptocurrencies allow people to perform secure financial transactions without relying on central banking systems, and to use the blockchain for things like decentralized time-stamping, automated escrow, prediction markets, online voting, and other services. There’s a huge amount of social value to these innovations.

> an environmental disaster

What specifically are you referring to?

> should have never left the research stage

I’m glad it did. In addition to their utility as decentralized mediums of exchange, they have inspired a lot of research in the fields of game theory and cryptography, including work on voting protocols, mechanism design, and secure multiparty computation. I think the world is much better off with this newfound knowledge, though you seem to think otherwise.

> As for Uber, their only innovation so far

Their innovation was revolutionizing ridesharing and ride-hailing. In 2015, and in the United States alone, they created $6.8 billion of consumer surplus [1], a surplus which has only increased since then. Over 95 million people use it on a monthly basis [2], with 14 million trips completed each day [3]. It is popular with the public, especially the young [4]. There is huge demand for services like Uber and Lyft to become more widely available. See for example [5].

You clearly have an axe to grind and it’s clouding your ability to evaluate things objectively.

[1] https://www.nber.org/papers/w22627

[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/833743/us-users-ride-sha...

[3] https://www.uber.com/en-CA/newsroom/company-info/

[4] https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/canadian-millennial...

[5] https://globalnews.ca/news/4895650/bc-ridesharing-poll/

> don't know, #cryptowinter makes me feel warm inside, and for Uber I only wish it happened sooner :)

What did you mean by this?

Where did you get that number?

> The notion that "people" aren't "able to make money" with FLOSS is just a fallacy

Which fallacy?

What does “economic”, in opposition to “social”, mean in this context?

The article has an image illustrating the no-boundary proposal.

Countered the downvote because I’m interested in this line of reasoning. Could you expand on that? Why do you think having no memory of “waking up” to existence makes it less meaningful?

I'm reminded of the following quote by Alan Watts from The Way of Zen:

To the Taoist mentality, the aimless, empty life does not suggest anything depressing. On the contrary, it suggests the freedom of clouds and mountain streams; wandering nowhere; of flowers in impenetrable canyons, beautiful for no one to see, and of the ocean surf forever washing the sand, to no end.

According to some theories, space and time arise from causality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causal_sets

Boltzmann brains may not occur after all [0], which is reassuring [2]. See De Sitter Space Without Dynamical Quantum Fluctuations [1].

[0] http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/05/05/squelchi...

[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/1405.0298

[2] https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.00850

Energy conservation is a consequence of time-translation symmetry (by Noether’s theorem), which is broken in general relativity. Hence, broadly speaking, energy is not conserved in general relativity.

https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2010/02/22/energy-...

> Have the net founders in that list discussed the topic recently? I only see results from 2007

You must not have searched very thoroughly. Here’s the first article that came up when I searched “David Farber net neutrality”: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/531671/are-we-really-savi...

> it could have meant something different at that time

Nope. It meant basically the same thing it does today.

> It is unsurprising that investors like Andreessen are opposed to net neutrality: they stand to get richer without it.

The firms and investors backing NN also stand to benefit from it, so this ad hominem is moot.

> Point is people who understand NN support it.

Absolutely wrong. Among people who understand NN and oppose it are people like Bob Kahn, Marc Andreessen, David Farber, David Clark, Louis Pouzin, and Jeff Pulver, not to mention numerous economists.

> Mastodon is a cesspit

Explain what you mean.

That’s just a contextual multi-armed bandit.

How exactly are you measuring “concentration of wealth”? And why do you think high values of that measure are “detrimental to society as a whole”? Take note of the difference between cause and effect.

> So in a free society, power should be given out according to the whims of the already powerful?

It depends on what you mean by “power”. If by “power” you mean money then the answer is yes, if it’s their money. The same applies for the not-so-“powerful”.

Wealthy people invest their money. It doesn’t “stagnate”.

But you just said “the overall benefit I receive from increased contribution greatly outweighs having that money in my bank account”. The marginal utility to the government of your cheque only decreases if more people do the same.