buvanshak

> If done approriately..

This is the whole point. It is the difficulty in doing so, or the difficulty in deciding if this was done appropriately or not is the only thing that it untrustworthy..

>People lie while speaking English every day yet I don't encounter many people claiming that English is inherently untrustworthy.

No one expect a statement to be true simply because it was uttered in English.

>For example, celestial events are almost never reproducible. Our understanding of celestial mechanics nonetheless rests on solid science.

I am not sure this is correct. The rules that govern celestial bodies is same as the ones that govern objects on earth. So why are they not reproducible? It does not require to measure forces between celestial bodies to measure the value of G. Measuring the forces between two masses on earth is enough.

>scientists criticizing how the scientific process is currently conducted for the purposes of improving the scientific endeavor.

I think what happening here is a bit more serious. They are showing a widespread crisis. It is not just some minor feedback to improve the process.

>It does not in itself show that science is inherently untrustworthy.

I think when statistics is involved, the results are inherently untrustworthy. This is not really surprising because there is a whole bunch of ways these studies that involve statistics could go wrong. And we are still finding new ways on how this could go wrong.

Then there are things like publication bias, that takes this to a whole new level. Things like that means that a biased body of journals can project any consensus that it favors just by selecting studies that fit its narrative. The inherent issues with statistics means that you can find studies that shows any possible outcome.

> not to impress people with a snazzy demo.

Never said it was their intention.

Have you come across the idea that "All advertising is good advertising".

Even people blaming/skeptical or even hating on Elon Musk is doing good PR for Musk and his companies.

What something like Musk cannot afford is indifference from people. So the important task for something like Musk is to get people talk about them. It does not really matter if it good or bad.

>We also live in a time where stuff that conspiracists and cynics have been saying for years is absolute bullshit.

We are also living in a time where things like ubeam and Theranos can get millions in funding..and various nefraious schems that intend to take the naive public for a ride...

May be, don't fall for that..

>No, you’re just a run-of-the-mill conspiracist, and cynic.

May be those are not really bad. We are living in a time where stuff that conspiracist, and cynics have been saying for years turning out to be true...

Also, while you accuse them, are you sure you are just not being a true believer of the cult of Elon Musk

> it hits that sweet spot requiring specialist knowledge to see through the hype

Couldn't have said it better. Another real life manifestation of this is the vertical rocket landing thing. People are flabbergasted when they see one landing, despite the fact that we regularly employ control systems that are as sophisticated (or more) than required to land a rocket vertically.

When they see them landing. they "feel" like they are witnessing sci fi, for real, and they worship the man behind it as their new (false?) prophet.

And then there is the mars thing, and space tourism. But the most blatent display of this I have yet seen is the 'bio weapon defense mode' [1] in Tesla cars.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2015/9/30/9421719/tesla-model-x-bio...

> That's exactly what Waymo does...

People should not care what Waymo does.

There should be an independent body to frame these tests (with enough random stuff thrown in), and have the cars pass them.

It is quite meaning less to make the cars pass tests created by the company itself.

And if you see the videos, none of the people were ever in real danger. Say, where is the test when someone crosses when the car is going to 45mph? I am not asking to put real people in real danger. But just make some robotic dummy (even something on wheels will do), and make it cross without notice infront of the car when it is doing 50+mph.

So I not what you mean so that I can show will next or could be so.

Is it a matter of taste that the above sentence is well constructed or not?

Git, to me, feels like a purposefully obfuscated tool. Using git is painful to me in two levels. First one is the actual pain in using the tool. Second one is the disturbing realization that this tool became the defacto standard for version control system, which indicates a systemic issue within the programming community, where something, despite its obvious flaws and availability of superior options, can end up winning over the competition...

> Use a Git GUI like SourceTree..

It quickly fails to scale. The issue is when you want to use commands to find the successors and build some processing over it..

>"The mental model for Git is needlessly complex" - Again, a Git GUI can make it really easy to keep track of "changed but not ready to commit..

That is a very limited situtation. In the course of using a VCS, for a long running project, one encounters numerous situtations where having a complex mental modal quickly feels exhausting...

> The exact same thing is available in Git via "git log --graph --all --decorate" or a GUI that shows the graph.

No. it is a bit different. In Git, branches can easily jump around, and the commits that were previously under a branch will have no information in them regarding which branch they were originally made..

>. Again, there is tooling available for Git to remove this requirement.

Again, you are not thinking like a power user. GUI's only works if you follow some predefined "happy path"..

> I'm just saying that his arguments here show a lack of knowledge about the available tooling for Git

To me, it seems that you are lacking enough experience to identify what the author is talking about..

> I believe that Waymo would not be so callous as to apply for this permit if it had not 100% proven that its technology would not do something as blatantly bad as that.

It it could prove this 100% to itself, it should be able to prove it to the general public and the authorities in a test environment..

> Because it demonstrates to senior management and the public the progress the team has made.

Public is not asking them anything. Public does not sign up being part of a beta/alpha or what ever test, for sake of "senior management"...

I saw couple of those videos. I didn't notice this addressed in any of those. Most of the stuff was showing how car handles intersections where it is actually slow moving..

The DARPA Grand challenge only required the cars to drive across a desert.

So I am not sure how that answers my question.

> Waymo has worked towards this point for years, reporting every disconnect and minor fender-bender.

Is there a list of scenarios the Waymo car can handle?

I think there is a fundamental limitation with detecting stationary objects right in the path of the car. Did the waymo cars share this issue. If not how did they overcame it?

Why in the world! are people allowing this without making the cars pass any sort of road worthiness test?

For example, make a robotic dummy walk in front of the car without notice. Does the car break and avoid a collision?

Such basic things can be formulated into a test and have the cars pass them before allowing them (even with a driver) on the roads..

It amazes me that people just stand by and allow these "tests" to happen within an unsuspecting population...

You seem to be responding to something I didn't say.

I only said that demand for any preventive measures against X, can be artificially inflated by injecting fear of X into the populace.

Since vaccines are a preventive measure, this is applicable to vaccines as well.

> Physical consumer society is turning our biosphere to shit. Digital commodities, on the other hand, are much more lenient on the environment.

But often turns minds of droves of Humans to shit, and turns every moment of idle human thought into raw material....

Optical Illusion is not similar to not being able to see an object behind an opaque object. And when you say "brain can be cheated", it means an optical illusion.

That is the only thing I was responding in the start of this discussion. Essentially the person was saying human brain can be cheated just like a computer.

I am saying, No. Not just like a computer. Human brains does not get cheated so easily like a computer. Claiming that is outrageous and shows you have no idea of what you are talking about...

What part of my comment are you responding to?

Which part of my comment is "Anti-vaccine"?

I am sorry, but what part of my comment are you responding to?

Vaccines provide, a nice, predictable, ever increasing demand. It is even possible to create arbitrary demand in the case of preventive measures such as these.

Profit from any normal drug is dependent on chance that a certain number of people will fall sick of the corresponding disease. The company cannot also count on outbreaks since it will have no clue when, where and for which disease the outbreak will occur. The expire date for drugs means that the companies will not be able to stockpile these drugs in hopes that there will be an outbreak some point in future..

> The 'ideal' drug from a business point of view not only not cures the patient long term...

There is another one. Vaccines. Or any preventive medicines that does not actually require people to be sick.

You just need to inject massive amount of fear of diseases (Statistics is your friend here) into the populace to create a nice, ever increasing demand of your produce...

> You're thinking a lot further in the future.

That is what every pyramid scheme expects out of its victims.

This startup is just another vaporware to continue funding SpaceX. The money invested in it will ultimately end up in Spacex as it will be used to send all these satellites into the orbit.

So Spacex just won a client for a long time, and that too at the cost of investors money..

In other words, and elaborate Pyramid scheme...

Can you list all unwarranted ones among all the Tesla hate you see?

>I was not talking about Tesla's general marketing. I haven't seen Musk do anything like you claim. That is certainly misleading and irresponsible if he does do that and implies that any current Tesla can "drive all be itself"

Please take a look at the very start of the video attached here [1]. It says "The person in the driver seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself".

Now, the next one [2], where Elon Musk retweeted a video of a Tesla navigating an unmarked road. There is a reddit discussion about the same here [3]

[1] https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2231417/tesla-shows-off-self-d...

[2] https://twitter.com/Teslarati/status/980476745106231297

[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/88yk66/elon_ju...

>That is a weird stance to take if their only goal is to sell more cars.

That is only to weasel out of the legal issues. They are doing marketing stuff that pushes the feature as vastly more capable on the side..For ex Elon Musk tweeting videos that shows cars traveling by itself on unmarked roads..And having declarations such as "The human behind the wheel is only for legal reasons, the car is driving all be itself" and such..

So the actual marketing is based on this unrealistic projection, and only these "statements", which the public will soon forget, is based on its true capability..