burrows

Okay, yeah I was confused.

If ZFC (or some other theory) implements arithmetic, then the first incompleteness theorem says that if ZFC is consistent then there must be true sentences in ZFC (not necessarily sentences of arithmetic) that can’t be proved in ZFC. Correct?

> How would one know if arithmetic is consistent or complete within the context of being part of the universe?

The same way I know that it’s incomplete when formulated in ZFC (assuming ZFC is consistent), from the first incompleteness theorem.

> Suppose ZFC is part of the universe. Then arithmetic (the model of it as being part of the universe) is complete and consistent.

Why does this conclusion follow?

Are you raising the question of whether mathematical propositions can be justified a posteriori?

Or are you arguing that the incompleteness theorems don’t necessarily apply to theories formulated ‘as part of the universe’?

Doesn’t the incompleteness theorem say that any consistent proof system which implements arithmetic must be incomplete?

Then the system you are proposing, does it implement arithmetic or not?

> How do you know arithmetic is not complete or consistent? In ZFC arithmetic is complete and arithmetic is consistent. This assumes that ZFC is consistent.

Aren’t you just begging the question by assuming ZFC is consistent to demonstrate that arithmetic is consistent?

> But what if there is some universe (in the math sense), which is actually complete and decidable, it's just that the moment you take discrete subsets of it, you also remove the connections that make it consistent or complete.

Presumably this hypothetical universe implements arithmetic, so it’s not complete.

> The “inclusiveness checker” highlights phrases or words the firm believes could offend someone based on their gender, age, ethnicity or sexual orientation.

I don’t think words can intrinsically have the property of “being offensive”, it can only be that particular words offend a particular person. Assume Microsoft had self-reports from every human about which words offend them. How would they turn this data into The Bad Word List? Do they just count the number of people who find each word offensive then put the top N most reported words on the list?

Would I use the algorithm if it told me which words offend the particular recipient of my email or Slack message? Usually when someone reproaches me for saying “something offensive”, they are defending some hypothetical other who they say would be offended rather than reporting that they themselves are offended. So maybe I want the algorithm to tell me which words my email recipient thinks offend other people. Or I’ll just say whatever the fuck I want and deal with the consequences.

If they extort citizens of some other country, then that other country’s officials will make some attempt to prosecute them in their legal system.

You’re saying this expectation doesn’t match reality?

Is it synthetic a la Kant? Or is “conscious” a part of the conception “I”?

What is your argument for the claim, “I am conscious.”?

Well, what if I say that humans have certain parts (subsystems in the brain? Neurons? Idk, just guessing) and that these parts are a necessary condition for the “talking thing” to be conscious?

Also it might not be that I treat a human “with reverence” because I believe he is conscience, but rather because I think he is “like me”, his body is like my body, he has parents like me, he has genes like me and he moves like me.

Worse for who?

> Someone give me a good argument for why Apple deserves a THIRD of revenue generated from apps on their platform?

If you say “X doesn’t deserve Y”, then roughly I hear, “I don’t like that X is getting Y”. It’s like you’re asking, “Why should I like Apple’s revenue streams?” I don’t think I can answer that, but can you tell me why I should care about whether you like Apple’s revenue streams or not?

> What is your claim, that disorder, randomness and uncertainty DO NOT build up with time?

It depends on the system. Claiming that disorder builds up in all systems is false, afaik. From a Google search: Entropy increases in a closed system. In open systems, the entropy is kept low, or decreases

Are you claiming that codebases are closed systems?

> They don't make them easier. They make them POSSIBLE.

Are you arguing about the definition of “easier” or just trying to rhetorically emphasize the impact of tests on refactoring?

Would you agree if I said tests make refactoring A LOT easier?

Seems like we both agree that we’d rather refactor a system with tests than without (all else the same).

> Good tests cover all critical sections of functional specification (what is deemed critical depends on project). If you have functional rules x, y and z somewhere there, there need to be bunch of tests for x, y and z somewhere, ideally fuzzy, fast and without blank database.

You’ve told me what parts of the code you want to test, but not what guarantees the tests make.

> No offense, but you seem new in this business, and your aggression doesn't help at all.

You’re right I’m new. Thanks for your patience.

My first comment was specifically about the invocation of “entropy”, which I believe is just confusing nonsense. And as I said I don’t have the requisite background to really make the point, was hoping for some goodwill and assistance perhaps.

I’ll retract my comment about formal methods since I’ve never actually used them in a refactor. And I agree that tests make refactoring easier. But none of this demonstrates for me that tests are the “best” tool for facilitating a refactor.

And so, what specific quality guarantees do good tests make?

> In more of a real-life scenario, millions of people have spent the last 20 years wasting way more than 15 minutes standing in line to take off their shoes and get x-rayed every time they fly in an airplane to protect against a "potential national security threat" when the only thing that actually needed to happen was locking the cabin doors while the plane is in flight.

Where the unstated goal is to prevent hijackers from turning airplanes into aimable missiles? Yeah, I like your argument, what are the counterpoints?

> Its always decreasing because entropy builds up on longer projects. Its simply the fact of life, not particularly specific to coding.

I don’t know much physics, but this word-soup about entropy is mistaken, isn’t it? Because something something about closed systems vs open systems and putting energy into systems (eg, people working on the codebase)?

> The best you can do is to have automatic tests, lots of them, and make them work as intended (good tests are very hard to make).

I’m not sure what “best” means here, but there are other tools for improving software quality beyond tests, including and in particular formal methods.

> Those [tests] make refactoring possible and make specific quality guaranties.

What quality guarantees do tests make? That the build passes the test suite?

> It's easy to know what's best for yourself. It's not so easy to know what's best for your children. It's much harder to know what's best for another adult in your tribe. It's practically impossible to know what's best for someone outside your tribe.

I think this point is better stated without claims about value, ie “I know what is best”.

The predictions I make about the consequences of me doing something are more accurate than the predictions I make about the consequences of someone else doing something. Furthermore, my accuracy quickly degrades as the social distance increases.

What does ”I understand you.” mean? That I am able to correctly predict your future behavior?

I wanted to be totally clear.

If asked to pay for children who I don’t know to get meatspace time with their extended gene clan, who I also don’t know, I will decline and recommend they use Zoom.

> Are you this unempathic and selfish in real life?

I do as little as possible for people who do not do for me.

People who are not you should spent money so your kid can see his grandparents?

People are people.

This tautology doesn’t inform me of anything.

People should put more energy/money into getting vaccines to people who want them but don’t have access to them? Why?

> I can't quite make peace with just letting the un-vax'd kill one another off.

Why?

> There’s one major distinction between humans and animals: language. Not like “me want banana” language like in apes but like fully “ideas within ideas within ideas” language, with recursion and case and noun classes and all that. It’s incredible. It’s astonishing. We are like gods compared to other animals.

Does emoting about a claim make it true somehow?

Agreed, most apps are useless to most people, just like most people don’t read most books. And I’m not recommending the comparison to a cup of coffee as marketing.

For me there is absolutely no difference in paying $1/month and $10/month for a daily driver search engine and I’m letting everyone know this to establish dominance over OP.

If I still haven’t beaten the game of life or cracked the buried treasure chest or rescued the sultry wicked smaht blonde princess from the tower of doom thirty years from now safe to say it isn’t happening and I’ll just seppuku. But until then I’m going to drink tea in cafes and mumble about nihilism.

Just put it to a vote, “Who thinks we should be able to use our phones, eat hamburgers and readjust our balls while driving? Okay, yup. And the nays?”

This is a democracy people.

Right, which is suggested by “gamification”. If Billy and Bobby and Jimmy want to drive my car around because it’s part of the new Fast & Bicurious then everyone wins!

But if the policy fails, then what is the complaint?