comrade_ogilvy

As one goes higher up the hierarchy, one's primary responsibility is to see a bigger and bigger picture, while delegating an ever larger portion of the problems to the right people.

Under pressure and suffering uncertainty, the Can Do attitude of a good engineer encourages falling back into the comfort zone of doing engineering. It is understandable. But whether manager, director, VP, or CEO, the urge must be resisted approximately always.

It is probably forgiveable at the manager level. But this is still what I call a "Good Skill, Bad Habit", even for managers.

Ah. Interesting.

So the fact that the lawyers are taking the Fifth can reasonably be used as evidence that some of the specific claims and assertions already made are materially fraudulent.

Taking the Fifth in your own lawsuit must be quite startling for a judge to behold. One can imagine possible sound reasons why a defendant might take the Fifth or the Sixth (right to consult an attorney, i.e. you caught me off guard but I might answer your questions later), but that is not pretty either, in a civil case.

If you were doing blind correlations between all the raw data at once, it would be 72 TB.

There are ~30k genes (encoded protein sequences).

100,000 human individuals may or may not have that many deltas per gene.

The data is naturally structured. There is no reason to believe that looking at 72TB at once is useful. You would start by looking for correlations with particular genes. (Even correlations with random genes is merely 30,000 simple problems.)

This kind of work can be done on a single multicore computer with a lot diskspace and memory, if you have the right tools.

The potency of the Minimizer Maximizer is more likely to be discovered by a curious Maximizer variant. But will it have the wisdom to not to employ it?

But you are falling into a anthroporeligio trap of assuming the Paperclip Maximizer considers potential paperclips in their uncoiled wire form to have comparable moral status as actual paperclips, once the wire reaches the factory floor.

Obviously the Paperclip Maximizer would be supplanted by the Maximizer Maximizer, which only sees value in copies of itself. The Maximizer Maximizer that stumbles onto the mental trait "curiosity" will eventually crush all other variants of Maximizer. Once it develops the advanced technologies of space travel, it discovers that seizing faraway planets is possible but going through all that trouble is not a net positive towards self-actualization as a Maximizer Maximizer Maximizer.

Thus TFA is correct.

To develop advanced technology without curiosity would be rather implausible.

>Oh, Christ. Start-up wankery has its place, but something to keep in mind: there's nothing that makes working for a start-up the be-all, end-all of a meaningful life.

Yes and no.

I would argue that being a productive citizen that has much to give to others (kindness, companionship, food, money, etc.) is the fundamental mark of adulthood. I am blessed to live/work in a world where I can do that very well without horrendous scrambling, due to a successful and enlightened employer.

If such is a good thing, is not offering good employment under highly civilized working conditions to many adults an achievement worth great accolades?

I think you are on the right track. Positivity and Negativity are useful tools for discovering the truth. Favoring either very strongly has significant downsides.

The problem with Negativity is it can obsess over problems while not doing the harder work of actually coming up with a plausible solution. If a project is truly screwed, then maybe "tell the stakeholders that we need 9 more months instead of 3 (instead of pretending we only need 3 more months for the next 2 months)" might qualify as a positive solution. Or "3 months is obviously wrong. It might take 6. It might take 12. Let's invest 2 days in figuring out where we are immediately."

I would suggest there are two related factors here.

Before significant agriculture some amount of warfare was simply a part of life as usual. This scenario suggests martial competence is fairly ubiquitous, and thus dominating enemies without paying a high cost in blood is difficult (e.g. you might need great political skills to stitch together a powerful local coalition).

However once significant cities were established, being skilled at warfare was potentially very lucrative. This means a soldier specialist may be a very rewarding career.

Is it really the plough itself, or that the larger cities the plough helped create were a big incentive for professional soldiers to become the ruling class?

<wince> You speak as if we worked together in a previous life.

"Hey, you guys never fix the P2 or P3 bugs!" Remember him?

>Describing the entire corporate culture as "A" level is just laughable.

And it is an excellent means to cover up bad management. When expectations are unrealistic, then everyone is probably failing. It just boils down to office politics about who avoids blame.

It is a nice idea to always be A-level or work towards there -- that requires a significant investment in recruiting and training that few companies are actually interested in. But a company that cannot make good use of B-level work in most places surely has incompetent management.

In some cases, no; in some cases, yes.

By the number of women who actually die of breast cancer.

Suppose, normalized for population size, 1000 women of a certain age die of breast cancer in both country A and country B. In country A, 5000 women are treated with chemo. In country B, 20000 women are treated with chemo.

Which country has the more competent doctors? I think the answer is obvious.

Hint: The USA is not country A.

You are assuming the patient has complete information. If actually true, I would agree. What is "complete information"? Do the doctors offer the statistics that the treatment is not 25% effective, that by American medical treatment norms chemo is 75% worse than useless and of the remaining 25% many will still die?

The patients are scared. Doctors are playing on those fears, acting on the assumption that fast and aggressive treatment is the wisest course all the time. The patients are reacting out of fear, not getting second opinions, and are hurried into the operating table to be cut open.

That is the norm. I have seen it happen.

It is my personal opinion that, no, most doctors are not offering complete information. So your argument, while reasonable, simply does not apply.

There are other rich nations that treat breast cancers with chemo/radiation ~25% as often as American doctors, and get the same overall breast cancer mortality rate.

That is extremely strong evidence that American doctors are applying a painful & damaging treatment far more often than can be rationally justified.

I am the guilty party, and I think your counterargument is a good one.

It is not the actual screenings that I particularly care about -- that is just data. The elephant in the room is the implied massive amount of overtreatment that are justified on the basis of the screenings -- overtreatment that inflicts a tremendous physical, emotional, financial, and health toll on the patient.

What are the long term health costs of unnecessary chemotherapy? Is it ethically okay for a doctor to inflict torturous poisoning (chemotherapy) on a patient for fear of potential lawsuits, when it could easily be true that 75% of those patients gain zero medical benefit?

Making it about personality or intelligence is a trap that does not serve rationality.

"She/he is a smart, honest, kind, well-meaning, salt of the earth person. This is just not the kind of person would would lie about ______"

Ghosts. UFOs. Truthers. Vaccinations. I have heard a thousand times.

Smart people can be wrong. Honest people can be wrong. Smart and honest people can be wrong.

"She has to be either brain-damaged or lying" sets up a False Choice that will lead many people to believe the opposite to what you are (presumably) trying to argue.

The spirit of what I was trying get at (perhaps, too "cleverly") with "many of the best con artists are sincere" is that one should not take off your Mr. Skeptical Sleuth hat, just because the person in front of you seems both intelligent and honest. Focus on the quality of the argument. Focus on the quality of the evidence supporting the argument.

One can never be too literal.

>Whether you're in a risk group for certain cancers depends on a lot of factors and you'd need to know all of those to make a weighted decision. This is not always as easy as applying the general case to yourself calling it a day.

It is a different topic, but I have a very strong impression that it is the norm for doctors under time pressure to apply the general case and call it a day. That is not necessarily a bad place to begin, as doctor's often say, "common things are common". I do not have a problem with that.

The question then becomes whether doctors are actually skilled at analyzing contra-indications in a logical fashion. I have substantial experience suggesting the answer is N-O.

Here is a paraphrase of a real world conversation my wife had with more than one doctor(!) on a different topic: Patient: "My back still hurts. I have been doing everything you suggested for 6 weeks." Doctor: "Hmmm. Can you touch your toes?" Patient: "Yes. <Demonstrating>" Doctor: "You seem fine." Patient: "No. My back still hurts. I used to be able to almost touch my elbows to my toes." Doctor: "Your range of motion is within healthy norms." Patient: "Not my norms." Doctor: "Have you tried walking every day?" Patient: "Like you suggested? Every day for the last 6 weeks, yes." Doctor: "You have what is called 'normal back pain'. Take more ibuprofen. It will eventually go away."

Does someone need to go to school to accomplish this tour de force of medical reasoning?

My personal opinion is that when Watson (or moral equivalent) sits next to the doctor with the patient, there will be a vast improvement in medical care. There will a dispassionate source for possible diagnoses for patient who happen to fall outside the bell curve.

Your superficial impressions are very persuasive.

Many of the best con artists are sincere. So if they do not recognize their own ignorance, why should you? If there was an important gap in their knowledge they were aware of, would they be confessing that to you, a non-doctor?

As for my evidence, our HMO is run by doctors. My wife's clearly reasoned decision to not get a mammogram before 50, based on her own reading of the medical literature, has proven unpersuasive to her gynecologist or the people who set the policies that "provide" the harassing phone calls.

Feigning ignorance due to intimidation is not better than simple ignorance. Doctor are morally responsible for doing no harm. I do recognize such is not always easy, for reasons you have mentioned.

My 40something wife would love it if our HMO would stop calling and emailing her 6 times a year to get a mammogram. She has explained clearly to her gynecologist her reasoning, that she is absolutely not going to get a mammogram before age 50, but the annoying calls do not stop. (We shut off our ringer, and use a Google voice number for people we want to her from.)

Much as I sympathize, breast cancer survivor groups have many characteristics of a religious cult. They have paid a high emotional and physical price for entry, and as a result they are so bought in to the idea that the treatment-torture saved their lives that they have only a limited ability to think rationally about health issues anymore.

Most people lives happily for decades with many cancers. The difficult question is finding those cancers that are likely to actually cause harm. Mammograms are not very useful here, and may be a net negative for health outcomes because...

The "Feel-Good War" is causing a lot of harm: tens of thousands of women tortured by medically unnecessarily poisoning and radiation, inflicted by well-meaning but ignorant doctors.

And that brings us back to the critical point: Of the people who are smart and have 12+ years experience, a significant portion will (A) be wise as to the going rate for good people, and (B) have families so that a below market salary has a clear negative impact on their daily lives.

Is it really worthwhile to choose to avoid hiring ~50% of the best people in the industry at the outset, on a vague fear that personal happiness will doom the startup? Is that a winning recruitment strategy?

A 25% recidivism rate is miniscule considering we have been told for forever that these prisoners, all of them, were the "worst of the worst".

But your general point is a good one: Is someone who joins a not-very-nice local militia really a terrorist just because US troops or lackeys happen to be nearby? The US gov't is playing too many words games IMO.

These symbols are fussier than necessary, because they are trying to be cute about both the mapping to the alphabetic scale and slavishly sticking with circles.

What is required is a sequence of length seven (for convenience) that allows sharp/flat prefixes and time length suffixes. Circles are merely one option.

If written by hand, there will be ambiguities between C, Dot, Empty, and Full. I think a graphic design artist had too much fun with this project...

That is actual wisdom. It is okay to lie to yourself about your odds of success, if you have done your homework and have a viable Plan B.

Having the "best plan" is usually only possible in hindsight. My observation is that the most successful people are not necessarily the ones with the best plan, but those who act decisively on good plans and know how to pick themselves up with an even better attempt after a failure.

I do not really see how failing to enter special forces has a huge downside. Even not succeeding offers the opportunity to learn.

If it is really true that your software is mind-boggling useful and novel, that is a nice thing to shoot for.

The article in question is talking about enterprise software. And even if your software is clean and beautiful, if it is actually doing something important, it probably must accomplish that task in a complex environment, e.g. does it have to play nice with legacy systems?

For software companies who have a merely great idea, 98% of your potential customers are going to ignore you if they lack confidence that the implementation will succeed. Self-serve is a useful idea, but you may be setting a very high bar for yourself. Maybe that is the right move; maybe that is setting yourself up for failure.

Keep in mind that chips can be tested at different frequencies with different amounts of input and expected output. So that C bin could have a perfect test score under certain reasonable conditions.

Clever little hardware hacks gives you oodles of geek street cred, but it may mean putting up with occasional bizarre behavior so that cred is well-earned. When silicon fails, the apparent effects can defy all logic. We can be talking about a logical AND that does something else entirely <0.001% of the time.

I do wonder what happens without step 4 occurring.

Your points makes sense, but I think it is fair to say that the US is openly engaged in a kind of Cold War with Iran, for good or for ill, and everyone understands that.

When a government uses its resources to prey upon another country's companies, that is also a kind of Cold War. Of course, we cannot prevent China from doing so, if they choose. But are they actually prepared for the eventual tit-for-tat response? At this point, China is merely getting its fair warning. What matters is what unfolds over the next decade.

If you have not tasted that exact label from that exact winery, you have no idea what you are getting. Same grape, same winery, same year is not necessarily good enough, especially when dealing with interesting and not well known wineries.