ultramundane8

The fact that you're retreating to the semantics of the word narrative and ignoring all surrounding words is a dead giveaway that your blinders are growing longer.

The author also says this, but also basically claims literacy hasn't improved humanity. So you repeated him without adding anything (in fact subtracting much), and I repeated myself. If anything, we've either supported my point or demonstrated your lack of deep literacy.

This is a really interesting piece. I've been wanting to rage against illiteracy lately but I'm not too active in public discourse (even this).

That said, I don't think it's some secret key to improving humanity. I think this because literacy is ultimately a luxury, even in modernity. The literate may be able to form more nuanced opinions, but that matters less if they can't increase literacy consistently across populations.

There's an irony here that assumes deep literacy is productive and essential but doesn't use it to explain the proposed lack of deep literacy itself.

The parent comment never endorsed Gall-Peters.

It's unclear whether they were simply made aware of different projections through the show or if they thought Gall-Peters was the ultimate solution, as you assumed.

The problem with this line of thinking is that a state is not a person is not a company is not an x. (Let's put aside any tangential Citizens United rebuttal.)

Or more simply, why is California one of the wealthiest economies? Is it because a typical California resident is one of the wealthiest people (on certain scales I wouldn't be surprised if this were actually true)? Or are there several subsets of people who are very wealthy due to California's unusually successful industries with global reach (I can think of two obvious giants.)? And how large are these subsets? If we answer all of these questions, we should answer your original question or at least come close.

Edit: Changed "every California resident" to "a typical"

I've been over these stats 4 times and reread the parent comment and its post but still have no clue how one is supposed to tie to the other.

I think the point I'm having difficulty with is the thin majorities in the study. Does the study say much? Or did pew do a study and publish its research just because...well...that's what it does?

If that puts me in some hivemind, so be it.

The short answer is that Fox News has been outrageously successful and dragging all discourse into the mud for almost two decades now.

Just from experience, I'm not sure I'd trust a military-style assessment to accurately identify skills. For example, I scored off the charts on linguistic comprehension (the Defense Language Aptitude Battery DLAB) and had a job as far from that as you can imagine.

It might be worth considering who "they" are (from your insanely outraging "why can't they lay bricks?" akin to "let them eat cake"). And why wouldn't "they" sweat for a good wage? Seriously, do some soul searching.

Your world is to make people starve or lay bricks?

Literally your entire comment is based on the assumption that I advocated "a single, winner-take-all-bloc." Elementary reading comprehension in all its scarcity reveals that I never said that.

What is your point exactly?

"More representationally elected" does NOT equate to any of the absolute garbage you are assuming are my views.

Please respond to actual comments rather than your vivid imagination.

I mean, seriously, try to find evidence of your response in my comment. Please, try your best. This is why there is no more "good faith."

I really can't grant that first paragraph in good faith without some evidence.

How could you possibly divine the intent of the 2016 Trump campaign? We still can't agree on a vast number of its actions, let alone its strategy.

I think you're right about the outrage that the electoral college gets, but not its actual faults.

To be sure, it's silly to oppose the electoral college due to personal political leanings. But arguably, the president wouldn't wield so much power were she more representatively elected.

I guess my objection is just that there's a clear feedback loop in power structures, and better representation is one of many avenues available to slow that.

Sadly, "burden of proof" has never gained traction despite its essential nature.

I really wish I were intelligent enough to systematize it, but billions of dollars have so far failed to establish procedures for sound reasoning. Or maybe just make those procedures commonplace.

I think laws are extremely far-reaching. Imagine you're a group of like-minded people in power in the world's most powerful country right now. What's to stop you from dismantling a company?

Or in other terms, do you think that laws are slower than the cost of innovation? You're right to quote "innovation" here, because it seems nebulous. But the only reason it seems so is because it is difficult. To "innovate" independently of national boundaries, a company must have infrastructure, talent, and capital (at the least) that can pick up and move.

I'm aware of capital mobility, but at some point "the buck stops." In the case of innovation, real results need to come from real people. You can't business and finance it away to some remote island.

Edit: Changed something like "imagine you're a group of GOP officials" to "imagine you're a group of like-minded people in power in the world's most powerful country right now." My thoughts aren't meant to be political, so interpret the latter however.

Could you elaborate on a plan (of course a really rough sketch) for "creating infrastructure jobs" during a global pandemic?

I agree with the premise, but I would like to know how to accomplish something like this. Especially if you have domain knowledge, it could be enlightening to the HN readership. There are a lot of accomplished people who read these forums, and it would be cool to see a seed get planted.

The key phrase you failed to comprehend was "root cause" two posts up. That's where it was asserted that it is about healthcare. Your comment is therefore out of context.

I don't know a lot about Freeman Dyson so I read that article, but don't quite get it yet.

So he was a very outspoken mathematician and physicist, and people like his sci-fi ideas?

Regardless, blaming all critique on a "current moment" is utterly nonsensical.

Edit: op said "current moment," I incorrectly recalled it as "cultural moment."

Are they not also carbon based fuels coming out of the ground? The farts are a byproduct of digested organic matter like corn and grass, and contain some unusable or "un-harvest-able" fuel(s)?

This thread is absolutely bananas. I actually read most of it at 759 comments.

The short version is that people with kids are insanely defensive about it. In many cases, they have literally rewritten their brains to see reproduction as exclusively good and necessary. If you suggest anything else, you will be swiftly brigaded and condemned.

Those without children are all over the place. Their opinions vary from complete disinterest to strong resentment of parents.

According to this article:

Blockchain, big data, cloud computing, AI, and magic are roughly equivalent.

Don't waste your time reading it even if blockchain is weak.

Thank you! I don't like admitting to this behavior, but I can't trust a headline (any headline).

The net beneficial effect mentioned refers to some kind of societal net benefit. The sentence doesn't stand independently from the rest of the post.

I believe the simplest perjury in this case is that the officer necessarily lied about their probable cause.

I think the explanation there is as simple as "there are lots of different people." I can't write software half as well as a significant percentage (maybe a majority) of HN users, but the average person can't write software half as well as me.

Of course, I could just be dead wrong. I'm just conjecturing while I procrastinate.

I don't completely follow this line of reasoning. Something like "a minor enhancement like this would have been selected for by now, so it not being selected means it has a drawback?"

I'm no evolutionary biologist, but it seems like the increased intelligence (or more accurately, cognitive performance) may not have had all that practical a benefit until just recently in our history anyway.

I accept that the verdict is still out on tDCS, but am clamoring to reach that verdict.

Haha, yes it would. But likely my ability would at least enable me to convince others of this discovery!

This reads like a form of faith. I don't share it. Is there literally no potential for artificial selection to outpace natural selection?

I know this thinking can be dangerous and contains serious ethical problems, but the factual side of your statement I just can't agree with. Not without more to convince me.

I may run into a lot of experts (from multiple fields) here on HN with strong opinions to the contrary, but here are my two cents.

If I could double my cognitive ability for 5 years, then die from an unknown complication with this type of therapy, I would do it without blinking an eye.

Thanks, I didn't know what the article was referring to either. Your link is a clear demonstration, and I think I get it.

I now feel like anyone who cares about this is unhealthily nitpicking.

Fact: If you think that everyone who wants money wants it in order to "create the biggest impact possible," you are either incorrect or have an unusual definition of "biggest impact possible."

Opinion: It's almost nice and idealist for you to think this, but you ruined it by being generally sour (on my interpretation).