My problem with Spotify shuffle was that it always ended up throwing a similar order of songs. The same group of songs would end up in the same general position on the playlist every time. It’s not random, and it stands to reason that people doesn’t actually want real random order. But it was super obvious, noticeable and quite annoying to hit the same songs at the same time on your walk every single time. They even admitted publicly that their shuffle function sucks.

In what I’ve seen, the best masons are on construction sites planning the work before hand. The inexperienced and newby masons mix mortar and carry bricks around. The top elder guys lead the prep work planing when and where stuff needs to be for what is being built. But once the machine starts mixing the cement all those guys do is lay bricks.

They don’t shovel, they don’t mix mortar, they don’t carry materials. Just laying brick after brick until they run out of materials or the construction is done. It’s quite mesmerizing to see a good contractor working efficiently, rare but fascinating.

I wouldn’t say that neither Germany nor Japan had a normal that they went back to after WWII. Both countries are politically, demographically and culturally very different today from their pre war selves.

One of the saddest things I learned from working with convict’s mental health was that an alarming amount of child abusers weren’t pedophiles. It was a crime of opportunity, not desire, for most of them. And that sort of fucks you up, because most people want a neatly ordered world, however, bad people will do horrible things regardless of whatever neat little boxes society wants to create to put them into.

So now we are quoting Korzibsky. Remember that its development, Bateson for example, has as a consequence of the ontological limitations of sensible experience, that one could say the territory is ultimately inaccessible to the mind. Why bother with it thus, since the hypothetical tree only exist because the mind has thus elaborated it and put it in the hypothetical forest to make it fall by sheer will of the model, based on previous sensible experience. A falling tree has to be observed and mapped, in order for a mind to conceive a tree that falls unseen. Its reality cannot be asserted but post-hoc, after observing evidence of its fall. Or ex-ante, by predicting its hypothetical fall by way of a priori evidence.

Or perhaps consider the Bonini’s paradox whereas a model as complex and specific as the reality it represents would be impractical and useless for science. To delve and insists on a science that removes the human is folly. The models we create exist entirely within the limits of the mind. Or as Brudilliard puts it:

Today abstraction is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror, or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being or substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: A hyperreal. The territory no longer precedes the map, nor does it survive it. It is nevertheless the map that precedes the territory—precession of simulacra—that engenders the territory.

The model precedes reality. In fact, what reality we can think about if there is no thinking mind to model it? To question what reality would be without a human to think it, is circular idiocy. Suggesting to remove morality from the model requires one to create a thinker without morals, a non human, effectively an alien, that would not be any more real than the moral one. In fact, it would be further removed from reality, as the observer doesn’t exist but on the map. What reality can be attested by a meeple that stands over a map?

To remove morality you have to remove humans. No humans, no politics and no science.

You can’t argue with that. You either have morals and science, or you have pure objective amoral reality but no humans.

Objective truth is an oxymoron, to have objectivity you have to remove the subject. Thus eliminating the dichotomy entirely and making the argument collapse. To have true-false value arguments and statements, you need subjectivity and a frame of reference. This is a logical constraint, without anyone to observe and judge the truth, there’s no objective reality to be judged. Minerals and crystals, despite our best efforts, do not elaborate moral judgements, and they definitely don’t conduct science.

Historical lesson from first hand experience. There is no return to normal. Political history has no undo button. The social and psychological changes that created and have been caused by this administration are permanent. The USA will never be the same.

Dealing with it in a “go back” POV is a losing strategy. It disconnects from reality. Instead go for a forward thinking approach, face the conflict and reality head on or you will be forever at the mercy of the dictator.

It works if it weren’t unethical doesn’t make the argument you think it makes.

The notion that we suck at choosing the good genes is entirely misled, even if it is just sarcasm. The final question is also morally misled because science and the notion of truth is not amoral. Science, without humans, doesn’t exist. And humans are moral beings (constrained by social and moral considerations).

Eugenics is one such field which notions cannot be true because its axioms are inherently unethical. “It works” is not an isolated amoral argument. If it needs the morals of a society to be radically altered to work, then it is not science. It is just racism in a lab coat. The case of dog breeds, for example, doesn’t support eugenics. On the contrary it dispproves it.

We have genetically altered dogs (and many other animals) by selective breeding in ways that, according to eugenics, should’ve eliminated inbreeding and genetic defects. Guess what? it hasn’t done that and actually might have made it worse. Historical analysis lead us to the idea that running wild with eugenics will always lead to genocide, regardless of which genetic traits are selected as the best, eugenics is genocide. So, it cannot be severed from its ethical considerations. Science cannot exist devoid of ethics.

It’s really not, when you really go down into the actual numbers. Are the differences significant? yes, do they matter? most likely not. Because even if they are significant, it says nothing about their magnitude, just the likelihood that they are caused by the independent variable.

What this means is, sure, there are genetic differences that correlate significantly with common social categories of race (scientists use ethnicity, because of eugenics), due to continental size selection pressure, which is very broad and non-specific. However, this brush is actually so broad that it doesn’t contraindicate common treatment at all. An individual person could or could not be hypersensitive to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, for example. This has been found to have some pharmacogenetic correlation with some ethnicities. But if you were to alter treatment to one ethnicity assuming that they are more likely to have this genetic difference, you would lose far more patients than you would save. Because the correlation exists, it is significant, but it’s magnitude is not very large. Instead, we have individual tests that are far more straight forward and will tell you with higher degree of certainty than ethnicity whether someone has or does not have NSAID sensitivity. There’s also no basis to decide to whom to apply this test, based on ethnicity, either. Because all and any ethnicity can have NSAID hypersensitivity. So, we just do the test to everyone and every single patient gets the question “are you allergic to any drug?” regardless of ethnicity, doctors just don’t think about ethnicity all that much if they are doing evidence based medicine and are not blatant eugenic racists. That’s is how useless of an analysis category race is in science. Genetically speaking, large masses of people are actually not that different from each other that it grants much differential treatment. You rather treat the individual.

There’s an entire TikTok side, not just one influencer but several, that have centered their accounts around random chat apps where they ask north-americans if America is a continent, for comedy. Now, this is truly just anecdotal, however. I’m talking about several influencers who pump dozens of this kind of videos each, every day. Every video has 2 or 3 video chats, sometimes multiple people per chat. There’s so much content that they are their own hashtag and tiktok sphere, of videos making fun of north americans for not knowing basic geography.

You have to be the worst scumbag on the planet if a patent troll looks decent standing next to you.

I once watched two idiots online argue between using sociopathy or psychopathy to describe a fictional character. Is there a difference? yes, kinda. Does it matter? no. It was mostly harmless, but psychologists avoid actively to use either term ever, both in discussions of cases and official reports. We stick to the definitions and terms on diagnosis manuals, and we focus on describing symptoms mostly. Diagnosis are long winded and arduous decisions that require observation, tests, logical argumentation about applicability of criteria. The goal is to help the patient, diagnosis is but a tool not the end goal. Either term appear exactly once on the DSM-V, and they appear together on ASPD.

But people love to argue online about asinine topics.

Traffic segregation, car free zones, public transport, lower speed limits, car size based taxing, stricter driver license conditions, three strike limitations, temporal license suspensions schemes, these are all measurements that would reduce car accidents just as much, and could be implemented within the next week anywhere at very low cost. It’s not a pipe dream, it’s a lack of political will.

It doesn’t take several billion dollars of R&D onto a tech that will never work outside of 1% of the road network and could actually not reduce cars accidents at all once it faces real world conditions.

If the goal is to reduce traffic accidents, this is the most expensive, slowest and inefficient way to do it.

EDIT: Autonomous driving will solve traffic and traffic deaths as much as EVs are going to solve global warning. They are plausible lies that techno oligarchs use to distract from the real causes of the problems they purport to solve and are actually just new money funnels for the oil industrial complex.

“We can’t stop killing children in the short term, so we are not gonnna do anything to stop the kid killing machine. To stop the kid killing machine would be a pipe dream. Instead, we have this automated machine that kills children, slower.”

That is a wild take, but the orphan crushing machine must keep churning, I suppose.

It’s not worth to go looking for it. It’s a mediocre film at best.

I can get you one better. There won’t be car accidents if there aren’t any cars. Car free cities, or walkable cities are preferable. We don’t need safer drivers, we need more public transport.

Apology for hitting kids is wild. An expansion of services will only raise frequency of accidents. Waymo only works in pristine infrastructure conditions. As it moves away from these conditions, accidents will rise. Then we will understand if these technology is actually better than human drivers.

There’s no such thing as nationalizing the vote. That’s fascist talk, we can agree with that.

But you do realize that the US is in this mess because people have been frozen into inaction by the perception that fighting back is just as bad as first hostility? This has frozen critical thinking and effective political activism (I have seen it work in other countries as well). There are healthy democracies in the world that work perfectly fine and are healthier because they have sensible limitations on voting rights and decision making procedures. You cannot have everyone vote, it is stupid. It is letting the Nazis into the bar. In the end you have a Nazi bar. You let irrational idealism run amok (unlimited freedom!) you end up right where the US is right now.

The US hasn’t been a democracy for several decades now, stop trying to pretend it is and actually start to fix it. Unlimited freedom is not a good value, a moral and well functioning society needs limits on people’s freedoms and rights, so they don’t curb stomp on other people’s freedoms and rights. The problem is how do you draw the lines. The US just gave the chalk to the KKK and the democrats think it would be impolite to wrestle its control back. The US is doomed to become a dictatorship or a country in civil war because of this attitude you express. “Uuuh, you are saying the same thing as Trump” Idiot! Trump will spout any shit that keeps him in power, his words should never be taken seriously. Just accept he is a bully authoritarian and stop taking up his bullshit. Stop being reactionary to everything he says and start actively building the democracy that is needed to have a truly functioning country. Trump is a symptom, the disease has been running its course since two or three decades before Reagan. I have seen other countries run this road, and it is always accelerated by reactionaries who have no other thought to offer than freeze in place out of fear.

To what? keep elaborating. Remember when we were told that gay rights to marriage was a slippery slope? to what? their answer was people marrying animals, because that’s what they think about gay people. What would this be a slippery slope to? we already limit the voting rights of adolescents and children, convicts serving crimes, active service military personnel. People under 30 cannot serve political offices in most of the world, in the US you cannot be president if you are too young, or a senator at 29. What would make this one instance different is we were to say, for example, people over 80 years old shouldn’t vote. There are parts of the world where judges, and other public offices have forced retirement ages. Why is the US the only country wheeling people on the brink of death to the senate floor on literal medical beds?

Yeah, I don’t think you understand Calibre at all, because you are somehow annoyed by it. I get it. But there’s no e-reader on the market that supports Calibre. Quite the contrary, there’s a titanic effort from the Calibre team (it’s been several people since 2009) to reverse engineer support with every single e-reader and tablet in the market that should not be minimized. You’re also painting a picture as if somehow Calibre is the Windows of e-book and everyone hates it but is forced to use it, when in reality that is not at all the case. Yes, it has quirks and people have constructive criticisms, but calling a guy’s name “rough” is not positive criticism. Overall, most people appreciate and like Calibre for what it has achieved and enabled for readers all around the world.

Again, it’s fine if you don’t like it, don’t understand it, and don’t want to understand it. But that doesn’t excuse insulting a person who actively is making your petty life a bit easier and free from corporate control. It takes a very weird person to feel like commenting negatively on someone’s name is somehow appropriate, it’s bully attitude. If that is all the criticism you can bring to a discussion of software, save it for yourself and stop replying. You’re all over this thread complaining, completely unprovoked like a little wuss. No one is forcing you to use Calibre, it just so happen that no one has done anything better, as you yourself admitted in another comment.

Good, so if you know what needs to be fixed it should be easy for you to make a new alternative, with modern web UX, self-hosting in mind and NO quirks whatsoever.

Really, it’s so easy to insult those who are making solutions when you have never contributed at all. There’s constructive criticisms, but calling people who are fronting free labor for your benefit as nerd aliens is not it.