bronz

this is an excellent observation and it is actually the point of nucleation from which my current point of view was spawned. one can imagine a kind of scale that could be used to rate an individual person. left to their own devices, in many, many different scenarios, what kind of behaviour does that person exhibit? maybe the scale could be non-violent to violent or un-productive to productive. it is tempting to abandon the idea of "rating" people because people are complex, and their behaviour changes depending on the situation and various other factors. but there are examples that show that such a scale is useful. but we all know, anecdotally, that people can be rated on such a scale. people who benefit from great parents and mentors, who had excellent educations, had excellent nutrition and so on, reside on the more positive end of the scale.

so the people are the building blocks from which a society is built. everything in that society is a function of the people. so it is possible to assess a given society on a similar scale to the people: a certain society that has a certain distribution of certain kinds of people will experience certain outcomes. let us imagine that we take a large sample of societies and subject them to this idea where everyone gets their own personal nuclear weapon. in fact, lets boil it down to its logical core: let us imagine that every single person in society is given a button. if they press the button, the entire society will be instantly destroyed. they are all aware of this when they get their button.

on one extreme side of the scale or spectrum, a society filled with extremely smart, well educated, well adjusted and emotionally healthy people who all have great jobs and lives, in other words a properly structured society filled with very good people, not a single instance of button pressing would occur. you could in fact give each person the power to end the world and the world would go on unharmed. this is the goal. it can never be achieved because sometimes people go insane or have a bad break up or what have you, but its no different than an electronic device trying to use power as efficiently as possible: electronics strive for zero power consumption and societies should strive to reach the point where the aforementioned scenario is possible.

now we look at the real world. we see that gun control, voting, and all kinds of other things are actually the same thing: different ways in which citizens are trusted or not trusted with power. we see that in a healthy democracy or republic, the vote is far more powerful than the gun. we see that any healthy democracy or republic requires that its citizens are up to the task of handling power responsibly. and i think that if you agree with all the previous statements, you agree that much of the western world is in a lot of trouble right now. and say that without even the smallest shred of arrogance or snobbery.

so, this leads to a very interesting consideration of the limits of power that the citizens of the united states or the united kingdom might handle before something bad happened. and it is also fun to consider what the maximum amount of power the citizens are capable of handling after some kind of focused effort to make them ready. how much power could they handle if schools and jobs and everything were made better? what is the best outcome we might hope to achieve?

so the answer to your questions is that no, individuals probably shouldnt have nukes but they could probably handle some really dangerous stuff like chemical weapons or heavy machine guns if you just gave them the tools they need.

so carrying a shopping bag with domestic drain cleaner inside is obviously incriminating? and carrying a shopping bag with a new knife set is incriminating?

it is interesting how this topic intersects with gun control and society at large. the solution to this acid attack problem is the same as the solution to a gun violence or knife violence problem: somehow reduce the number of violent nothing-to-lose people that are on the streets. and the number one way to do that is to structure society in a way that gives children a safe and productive environment, and in a way that makes good behaviour much more profitable than bad behaviour. with current public schools and current job prospects, it is no surprise that their society has come to the point of considering a ban on domestic drain cleaner. if you have a well structured society, then eventually it will be filled with good people. and a society full of good people has no need for bans on guns or draino. i think that we could come closer to that vision simply by reaching out to a child in your area and teaching them something.

the parallels between this and the social credit system in china are interesting. their system is accompanied by new and powerful surveillance technology that uses facial recognition to pick out criminals from crowded settings. it is interesting to see two totally different societies come to similar ends through implementations that they find acceptable.

a tool like this will probably end up with a much higher rate of criminals and victims having their faces and other information posted and viewed online, like on reddit.

because even the most ideal implementation of cattle is inefficient, adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and, ultimately, not humane. industrial murder can never be humane. as a meat eater, i am eager to switch to synthetic meats because they are better in every conceivable way.

the nice thing about such a book (or series of books) is that the net number of experts could only rise, because this is an additional (and very powerful) source of information for people to use who are inclined to become experts. also, there would be a huge increase in the number of non-experts or amateurs. this is a good thing because even having a hazy idea of how things work is more beneficial to ones ability to live and carry out duties of citizenship than knowing nothing. just because there would be a lot of amateurs doesnt mean that there would be less experts from what i can tell.

i find it amazing that in 2017, a time when the internet has been fully realized and adopted by millions of people, there is no open source, universal textbook hosted anywhere. most people say that there is, and that its called wikipedia, but i dont think so. wikipedia is good for reference. its also good for learning if you are very intelligent and motivated. but for people who are not super intelligent or who have not learned to learn yet, there isnt really a single, centralized, high quality solution for learning things.

in my opinion, it would be very good for there to be a universal textbook that would not only contain all of mans information, but accompany that information with friendly and thorough explanations and guidance. it would foster understanding by being concise and structuring all its information is the simplest and most straightforward way possible. that is to say, it would be user-friendly. it might also include training programs designed to make anyone a good programmer, musician, physicist, etc. this would be a gigantic undertaking but wikipedia has done something similar so i think its possible.

i watched an interview you did on a podcast some time ago. i found it to be very interesting! in that interview you said that redox was not going to become a viable desktop operating system for a long time. you seemed to even dismiss the sentiment. is that still so?

oh thanks

actually the stock market and other investment markets (and credit markets) serve to offset the effect of money-saving on the cyclical flow of money through the economy. if people saved a lot of money and saved it all in cash, there would be less money available in the product market and would result in a downward spiral of high prices and low employment. the stock market solves this problem by re-injecting saved money as investment into the pockets of companies. please be aware that i am new to economics so i may be mistaken.

what the hell is going on with this web site? this is the most perfect news web site i have ever seen in my entire life. there is not a single false note in their entire presentation. after a video is done playing, a white border tastefully wraps around the next video to play. all of the visual design looks great. there are no annoying pop ups or weird pop down banners or anything like that. and the content is really nice too, all done very well. it is almost strange to come across a site where there are no glaring errors of presentation or execution. i really have to commend these people.

i knew a guy in highschool who was really into bicycles. one time i was talking to him about lance armstrong and he commented on how he has met him one time, and that he was a complete asshole. then he said that lance armstrong was using steroids during all his races and that he employed special techniques in order to evade the drug tests. this was in around 2007. obviously i thought that my friend was completely full of shit.

wow, i thought i knew something

you ought to get into the habit of looking at a spectral analysis of the sound in your home. modern power supplies and motors rely on the ever more powerful and cheap power transistors that we have these days -- they are able to switch power on and off at very high frequencies and thus reduce the size of the rest of the circuitry needed to raise or lower voltage. but this often results in extremely high pitched sound coming from parts that, for whatever reason, physically move or expand in response to current or voltage changes. in cheap electronics, this effect is not accounted for and controlled with vibration dampening materials applied to the vibrating parts, and the result is a maddening high pitched squeal. even if humans arent able to hear it, there could be devices in your house that make some kinds of pets uncomfortable. ive been meaning to buy something that will let me detect ultrasonic sound so that i can smash those devices with a hammer.

ive always wondered what it would be like if you used a dual motor system in a car, where one motor is wound and sized for very high torque and the other motor is wound and sized for very high speed. i think it would be great because, as long as they were induction based motors, you could run one and leave the other off with no interference from the one that is turned off. it would be like having a transmission without any of the energy loss or maintenance problems. you could also distribute power however you want among the two motors, and in a way have something like an infinitely variable transmission. that would be really cool.

economics as a field seems to be poisoned with fuzzy thinking. this guy says that the division of korea is an experiment that shows the results of communism vs capitalism, essentially, and then concludes that the lack of a free market in NK is the reason that it is very poor. is it not relevant that north korea is currently and has been for quite some time the target of heavy sanctions by the united states and its allies? a centralized economy is perfectly capable of performing as well as a decentralized one, provided that it is centralized well. pointing to this implementation of a centralized economy does nothing to advance the argument against the viability of centralized economies.

this guy says that the output of people is what determines the wealth of a country. this confuses me a little because isnt it true that if all the countries in the world were filled with productive people, there might not be enough demand for all of their services? would a large chunk of people not be left behind? and, according to my introductory economics textbook, if such demand exists that every person on this earth can be employed at a high salary, would that demand not have already been naturally met in this global free market of nations that has existed for some time now? and lastly, here in the united states, a very rich country, most people have relatively meaningless jobs. people are wildly overpaid for the work that they do here in many cases. there are professors of womens studies and social network or engagement experts who are paid a lot of money to essentially do nothing. i would be happy to be corrected.

i have never had a facebook account. seeing everyone agonize over the pros and cons of using facebook is ridiculous to me. is it better on a phone? with or without notifications? are my privacy settings dialed in? facebook is genuinely useless, if you agonize over how its so bad but also so good, just stop using it. if someone is really your friend, you can keep up with what their current email and phone number is.

this is such amazing work! how expensive are these radiators before and after scaling production? ignoring the pumps, how long should they last without repair?

ive read a little about this before so i havent bothered to read the article. but as i understand it, ted was cross-examined by someone at harvard as a part of the mk ultra program. and as i understand it, this cross examination was not aided with any kind of drug -- it was a simple verbal exchange. i think a lot of people assume that ted was already crazy, and that is unfortunate because that point of view overlooks the fascinating observation that a persons mind can be broken with nothing but words. i really do find it fascinating. if you pay attention, you will notice that there are many clues floating around. high intelligence has an anecdotal connection with being sensitive or prickly. the flight or fight response is activated when presented with ideas that counter yours, politically. and, there are other events that cause similar symptoms to ted, like a bad breakup. overall, everything points to this vague concept of "identity crisis." i think we have all experienced that feeling at least once. but what is an identity crisis really? it seems to be triggered when our core concepts and ideas about who we are contradict each other. and when its triggered, it can have very serious consequences. so does this mean that someone is justified in keeping their core ideas and principles private? does it mean those things shouldnt be discussed? it is interesting to note that ted could have gone through the examination without any ill effect by simply refusing to disclose things too close to his "core." and there is another interesting concept: the idea of purposefully restructuring ones framework of the mind in order to prevent an identity crisis and similar things. for example, instead of trying to create a logical reason for doing certain things, either during rumination or during cross examination, one could simply say that "i did it because i felt like it." or "because i wanted to." this avoids a cross examiner from pointing out two actions one has taken whose proclaimed motivations contradict each other. "because i felt like it" cannot be contradicted. i think that there are probably a lot of things one might do like this to "harden" ones mind.

i think that intelligent people are often more vulnerable to cross examination because they ruminate more often and deeply than other people, and during their ruminations they give structure and motivation to their actions and ideas. once that structure is proven wrong or that multiple parts contradict each other, an intelligent person is unable to ignore it. this causes the brains machinery to grind and in some way stop working correctly. that is what really fascinates me, that an identity crisis is not a conscious thing but the literal gears of the mind grinding against each other. an identity crisis is a manifestation of something low level going wrong in the brain, in my opinion. i wonder if there are drugs or therapies that might stop the gears from grinding.

there are things beneath the surface that must be set. the mind takes shape at certain levels during certain ages. if they take an unfortunate shape, the child will carry that burden with them forever. if you abuse a child, you can make this happen. it is universally accepted that childhood abuse can cause life long behavioral problems. what is not universally observed, however, is that child abuse has a kind of opposite. you can mold a young mind into being poorly adjusted and you can mold a young mind into being extraordinarily well adjusted.

not everything in life is conscious. in many situations that are new or ambiguous, a child will make a decision based on his or her disposition, his or her feeling. a well adjusted child has feelings about things that will help them. of course, those feelings and instincts dont guide all decisions, im not saying that.

and here is where our opinions intersect: the reason to control and form a child in their early development is because it provides a good foundation for the next step, which is self motivated learning. no child can learn anything unless they learn it themselves or if it is taught to them in an extreme way. by extreme, i mean that you take your kid aside and look him in the eye and you put on a face more serious and deadly than you have ever before and you say to him in a low voice "crossing the street without looking is not acceptable." those lessons should be few. what you want is to spark a chain reaction of learning by first teaching the child how to learn and then allowing them to build their knowledge on their own.

learning to learn comes naturally to some and not to others. being forced to learn complicated things forces one to learn how to learn. usually people get this in their twenties when they set a hard goal, like passing a chemistry or physics class in college. i believe that this can be done deliberately by the parent at a much earlier age.

so, my overall point is that a child must be raised deliberately.

whenever i see parents struggling with issues like this, i wonder why everyone wanders into parenthood without any forethought, any preparation. its so frustrating to see people take their hands off the wheel and say "well, i have no control over this situation. i hope my kid turns out ok." people have this idea that you cant influence your kids. they send them to school where you have 0% control over what they see and do.

parents do prepare when it comes to finances and having a crib, but its the larger picture that is not considered in advance. nobody seems to look at how kids are raised now and think "this is completely broken" and then make a plan to deal with it. children are like any other animal, they need to be raised deliberately. if you spoil a dog, and dont train it, what kind of dog do you wind up with? what kind of people do you end up with when they are sucked into ipads while still in a stroller, and they are sent to schools that are little more than zoos being overseen by air-headed sorority girls? well, what a coincidence, you end up with the poorly adjusted and frustrated kind of person that seems to be more and more common these days. just because society says that everyone has to use social media doesnt mean you have to let your kid use social media. fuck society.

people throw out good computers quite often.

well, you can get laptops for free quite easily if you are willing to compromise on performance a little. my last laptop was free.

it wasnt snarky at all, i have no idea why people downvoted it. i am extremely poor and starbucks and libraries are great places to use the internet and get things done. ive never encountered a starbucks that made you buy something. but that doesnt matter because free wifi is everywhere. just find a safeway, a cafe, or any other such place. i actually prefer the slower speeds you typically find in those places because they are perfectly adequate for downloading documentation, pushing to github and so on, ie do productive things. but it makes wasting time on youtube very painful.

if you want to compute for 0 dollars per month, buy a decent laptop and go to star bucks and libraries.

what a compelling story

i know a thing or two about loneliness. there have been periods of my life during which, i am now sure, i experienced some of the deepest loneliness that a person might ever experience outside of being marooned on a small island.

i guess i wont go into detail but i was completely alone for four years. during that time i developed mental health problems and negative habits that, at the time, i did not realize were due to loneliness. this was compounded by super bad stress from other things in my life. i reached profoundly low states of mental well-being -- looking back i actually am astonished. there is no doubt in my mind that whatever i encounter later in terms of loneliness, it will never come close to that.

after four years i met a girl and we lived together for another three years. the article hits the nail on the head about married couples -- having an so is the number one solution for loneliness. it turned my whole situation around and has left me off much better even though the relationship came to a sad end. if any of you guys are stuck being super lonely, i would recommend getting a girlfriend no matter the cost. also, i would recommend taking a complete multivitamin. something in those things makes my depression a lot better. good luck.

this whole emphasis that openai and deepmind put on human/robot collaboration is a paper thin pr move in my opinion. the robots will be better than any human, humans will not be able to contribute a single thing soon. but they try to make us all feel safe by making it look like they benefit from our brains.

perhaps youre right

i think programmers and a lot of other people get paid way too much. i used to wash dishes and the other guy who washed dishes, who worked right next to me, was an immigrant. he worked 12 hours a day every single solitary day. without him, the restaurant would grind to a halt. so, like stephanie, he was a huge part of all the money that was made. and yet, he gets paid less than minimum wage. he works harder than anyone else i have ever known and yet he gets paid a pittance. he make their business possible and yet he is paid a pittance. let me tell you that seeing programmers make 50k a year for basically no work compared to my friend, its amazing to me. and when i see white collar workers complain that they only make 100k, it makes me angry. the vast, vast majority of white collar workers are not worth anything close to what they are paid. i know a guy who works four hours a week and is paid more than 80k. four hours of typing per week. the level of privilege is astounding among programmers. so please dont complain.

since there are robotics people in here, would someone mind linking me to videos or blogs about tearing down/talking about the motors and drivers used in cutting edge robotic arms such as those used in the automotive industry?