cassalian

What motivation does a crow have to build a jumbo jet?

Furthermore, the vast majority of humans have no idea how to build a jumbo jet, and throughout the vast majority of human history, there were no jets - jumbo or otherwise - does this mean that we only have higher intelligence in today's world, now that we are able to build jumbo jets? For the vast majority of human history, we only had the simplest of tools and if we compared those humans to today, by your standards, these humans do not possess higher intelligence. However, evolution has not progressed nearly as quickly as our ability to work with tools has; as such, the human brain really hasn't changed all that much in even the last 10,000 or even 100,000 years! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_human_intelligenc...

Finally, you have no proof that crows would be incapable of building a jumbo jet, you've simply asserted that they couldn't. To be clear, I'm not arguing that they could, merely conceding that because they haven't done so, does not mean that they are incapable of doing so.

> crows know what they know and can ponder the content of their own minds, a manifestation of higher intelligence and analytical thought long believed the sole province of humans and a few other higher mammals.

I've always found the common thought that only humans and a select few of other animals are the only ones that posses higher intelligence to be incredibly arrogant of our species. Why wouldn't they have higher intelligence? As far as I can tell, it's because there's no simple test that could be applied to confirm or deny whether higher intelligence exists within an animal, so we then jump to the conclusion "Because I can't prove that they do have higher intelligence, then they must not have higher intelligence" - logic doesn't work that way! Glad to see some people are willing to dig a little deeper and take the time to show that crows do have this capability.

I too have been having issues with finding good info on this situation. Hopefully something will come to light that provides a little more explanation as to the anger directed at Bella. :shrug: I would not be surprised if this is just being blown up in the media because it involves sex workers which is sure to peak readers interest.

The outrage at Bella Thorne seems misguided... After all, she did not change the policies, only fans did. Did her actions increase only fans timelines for these changes? Maybe. But at the end of the day, I don't think that justifies the outrage Bella Thorne is receiving over this. Am I missing some action that she took that should justify the outrage: for instance, Bella meeting with only fans to demand that the maximum allowed tip be reduced?

IMO having a hippocratic oath for software engineers is entirely pointless. There are plenty of people who would say the words with no intention of living up to them - not everyone is going to share your values.

I can't say for sure, but I have a feeling that the hippocratic oath is not what's stopping an unethical doctor from behaving unethically. Instead, it's the risk of lawsuits and loss of their license to practice medicine that keeps them in line.

I just don't think software could match the very real consequences to unethical behaviour that doctors face. We don't have a concept of a "licensed software engineer", and even if we did, there's nothing stopping an unethical engineer from working on their own. Doctors can be blackballed from hospitals, clinical trials, etc. Are we going to blackball software engineers from touching computers?

The above being said, I do believe that software engineers should try to be ethical. However, I do not think there's any mechanism that could be implemented that could force this behaviour, and any attempt to do so is simply a way for its promoters to say "look how good I am", and less so an honest attempt at making the world a better place.

People seem pretty upset about their clipboards, I wonder if apple/google will listen and make the reading of your clipboard something that you must get explicit user permission for (similar to your camera). IMO this is how almost every possibly permission should be and I think most users would agree with me that having 2 seconds of inconvenience when you first setup the app is worth the peace of mind gained.

And how does driving fit into your argument? It is both putting others and yourself at risk and yet we allow it... My point being that we can each sit here and pull out example after example that proves either side is correct. As such, is it not pointless to do so?

Did I say that you could not lose respect for that person? I simply pointed out that because a single person's motivations are selfish does not mean we should work to spite that person.

If I have made the argument that we must respect Elon (or someone who's motivations are selfish) that was not my intention and I will need to reflect on how I present my ideas in the future.

> So lets say we consider the action a net good, we can totally support the action, recognize the bad sides, and still lose respect for the person for the way they have conducted themselves.

It seems to me like we agree!

> The motive behind his dangerous tweets and tantrums is pretty clear for everyone to see.

Does his motive necessarily matter? Or more specifically, is his motive reason enough to essentially spite him?

If Elon wanted to cure all disease in every single on of his workers (because that would mean they would never take sick days, and thus produce more) does that mean you would oppose the curing of disease in Elon's workers? After all, Elon's motivations are purely selfish in this case as well

Now maybe you want to argue that curing disease in workers and allowing them to work are two different things and don't match up at all. Are they though? Jobs ensure quality healthcare, pay for the roof over your head, the food on your table, the pain killers you take for your bad back, etc. A lot of being 'healthy' and having a job (in the US) are intimately related.

I'm sure there are plenty of holes in my example above that can be quibbled over; however, my question still stands: is someone's motivation reason enough to spite something that could be a net good? I do not think so.

You may wish to argue that "the workers don't want to go back to work, it's worse for them to do so": are you one of these workers; do you know what the consequences are of them not being able to work versus the consequences of going into work?

> Damore committed the ultimate sin in the corporate world- he caused a huge PR mess.

I agree with you; however Damore is only partly to blame... IMO the leaker of the memo is just as responsible for the PR mess as Damore is for writing the memo in the first place (no leak = no PR mess) (no memo = no PR mess) (memo + no leak = no PR mess).

> Unfortunately, I just learned that I'm not getting hired.

Seems like a ton of effort to go through to not get hired. I'm curious as to why he wasn't hired; IMO it seems kinda strange to go through 8 interviews only to be rejected.

IMO the reasoning is more likely "you have to use our official app" rather than "text messages are expensive to send so let's discontinue"

> if we want to keep travelling then we must explore ways to travel that don't endanger others.

Last time I checked, traveling by car very often endagers others, and far more than flying, even when considering covid.

https://www.asirt.org/safe-travel/road-safety-facts/

> Approximately 1.35 million people die in road crashes each year, on average 3,700 people lose their lives every day on the roads.

> An additional 20-50 million suffer non-fatal injuries, often resulting in long-term disabilities.

> More than half of all road traffic deaths occur among vulnerable road users—pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists.

> Road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death among young people aged 5-29. Young adults aged 15-44 account for more than half of all road deaths.

>Road crashes are the single greatest annual cause of death of healthy U.S. citizens traveling abroad

> Again: Contact tracing (with intervention) is not only a reasonable solution, it's basically the only current viable option to get going outside of a cure or vaccine.

Based on the rest of your comment, I am having trouble understanding how this statement is related. IMO the rest of your argument very clearly explains why the economy is interconnected; and could even be said to be an argument for the need to re-open the economy. However, it does not address how contact tracing would be a part of this. Is it your assumption that "if we implement contact tracing, then we can safely send people back to work, thus saving the economy"? If so, I think your argument would benefit from more explicitly contacting those dots.

I work for a company that processes job applications for many other companies so I can say: yes, people are hiring, particularly in software, and it's actually up 3% from the glorious pre-covid days

Not every software department has been so lucky... I had similar thoughts to you and what do you know? A quarter of my team was let go yesterday.

I am far from a lawyer, so would someone with a better understanding of the law explain to me why this wouldn't potentially violate laws around trade secrets?

If someone uses a 'personal' email for setting up their business' trello account (including what could be categorized as trade secrets); and at some point in the future, they added a different companies domain to their account as a secondary login; and then Trello hands everything over to that other company; how isn't that a violation of trade secrets?

Makes you wonder how someone could approve that pull request...

I tend to take a similar approach to trying to be productive for the sake of keeping my stress levels down (and motivation up!).

When I'm failing to feel motivated or keep focused, I generally stop myself and instead ask myself why that might be: have I been getting enough sleep/exercise/socialization/etc? And I generally find my problem lies there, and then I can try to correct for it in the future (get to bed earlier, eat healthier, exercise more, etc).

If I'm still not feeling it after making corrections, then it's time to ask myself if what I'm doing is something that I really want to be doing? It's always disappointing when the answer is that it's not something I really want to be doing (sunk-cost), _but_ I've found walking away is better than continuing to beat myself up over a lack of motivation.

No disagreement from me! Just trying to clarify what I believe the parent would have interpreted as "too much 'social assistance'" in case it wasn't obvious for some reason

Not the parent, nor am I saying I agree with the parent. But I'm pretty sure the answer to your question is: "It also seeks to give workers new protections, including paid emergency leave, with both 14 days of paid sick leave and up to three months of paid family and medical leave, as well as enhanced unemployment insurance, which will extend protections to furloughed workers."

I have a feeling that the EARN IT act will pass based on that it so cleverly disguises it's ability to ban end-to-end encryption... I imagine most elected officials will hear something like this:

Person explaining: "It's establishes a committee to make sure people are using best practices to ensure child pornography etc isn't being distributed on their platforms"

Elected official: "Hmm, it actually sounds like this will help the children!"

Maybe it's just me shrug, but I have little faith in our elected officials to parse out the ramifications to encryption based on how the act is written.

Thank you for the link! ^_^

It looks like Barr has been pushing pretty extreme views for longer than I've been alive :/

I can definitely see why you would use the word fascist to describe him

"I'll wreck you on twitter, you flatten me on Facebook; we both cash out" ;)

My initial reaction to reading about Barr makes me want to agree with you. However, I really haven't looked into him too much - tbh I only really know about him from popping up in HN articles (where he is always cast in a negative light). Any chance you have some links relevant to his history of violating civil rights, etc? Would love to be able to read through them to form a stronger opinion myself.

I appreciate someone coming in with a different viewpoint. I admit that I haven't actually watched him talk, and only read 'choice' quotes from him in articles. I will have to take the time to watch him speak and google around a bit. At this point in time, my opinion of Barr is based more on gut feelings than anything else.

Can anyone explain why William Barr seems so intent on trying to change technology in such major ways as this? Does he not understand the implications of the things he proposes? Or worse, does he understand the implications and proposes them nonetheless? I just don't get this guy's motivation.

As far as I can tell, revoking section 230 would just result in people putting up fake content themselves and then suing the platform they posted to. Is there a reason why this wouldn't be possible?

Also, I see a lot of people focusing on major platforms, but why wouldn't such changes also impact tiny sites? In particular, it seems that anyone casually hosting their own site (not something they focus on often), will be forced to remove all user generated content or quit their day jobs to manage their site - am I misinterpreting the implications here?

Now that you mention it, I use "you" for my future self a lot... "you've got to do the dishes when you get home"

Does anyone else use the pronoun "we" to refer to themselves in their internal monologues? I'll often find myself switching between "I" and "we", for example, this morning I had to run the dishwasher and my internal thought was "We've got to run the dishes today" and then I laughed at myself for using "we"

I imagine that must be pretty frustrating considering that I get annoyed if someone doesn't check out my PR within a day...

IMO the best thing to do is exactly what you're suggesting: continue to lead by example, raise this as a concern (maybe frame it as lost productivity or something else a 'higher up' wants to optimize), and possibly consider other places to work (but know that the grass isn't necessarily greenr on the other side).