Honestly, I'm beginning to wonder if it is actually an experiment in the extent to which the scientific community will accept or at least consider ludicrous claims because they come from an authority figure.
EDIT: And I'm not saying that these claims shouldn't be tested. But it would be interesting to see the way people react. Hesitation, for example.
I've actually switched from reading HN to mostly reading Reddit.
The level of discourse increases quite a bit in subreddits, and you can usually find good discussions on even obscure interests. On the other hand, its pretty rare for the level of discourse to get to the level of HN. But level of discourse isn't the only quality of Reddit.
I think the main reason for me switching to mostly reading Reddit was because I found it very comforting to read r/atheism (my family is very Christian, mostly fundamentalist and I was a closeted Atheist). I suspect that emotional support is what a lot of people go to reddit for.
Subvocalization has several draw backs. One is that it is very bad at multitasking (eg. try reading this comment while counting).
It turns out that when you are subvocalizing, you send tiny impulses to your throat as though you are speaking, just not strong enough to do so. So it is possible to eavesdrop on subvocalization (NASA has experimented with this -- see wiki article).
Some people naturally don't subvocalize because of learning disabilities; they usually have trouble writing and speaking because they have to translate their thoughts into English.
Of course the idea that you are thinking in a language is rather terrifying. Consider how it is moulding your thoughts. The idea that language effects your thoughts is called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. (Some people have tried to make better languages to think in, see lojban.)
I find it interesting to note that when I program, I think, at least partially, in that language -- I've even noticed that I attach sounds to some operators in C. I also notice that the way I think varies depending on the area of math I'm working in: when I am doing algebra or calculus, it's a combination of subvocalized math and visualisation of formulas, whereas complex analysis is often almost entirely visual and set theoretic topology often is neither subvocalized or visualised.
Also, by forcing people to invest time like this, they build customer loyalty. The customers don't want to admit that they were wrong.
On the other hand, this could backfire if someone gets fed up. It only builds loyalty if the customers tolerate this abuse -- because then they need to explain to themselves why they did.
But its not just the size of the market... Windows machines are more likely to come into contact with another windows machine than macs are to come in contact with other macs. Thus a mac virus will spread much more slowly...
This is why homogeneity is dangerous. The more diversity an ecosystem has, the less vulnerable it is to viri, whether we're talking about crops or computer networks.
And the result is that a lot of experts go and make their own wikis, because they can't merge their content into Wikipedia. Which kind of defeats the whole centralisation advantage of Wikipedia.
Personally, I've just started reading Hocking & Young (Shocking and Fun!) and it seems quite good so far.
I've made some substantial progress in _Counterexamples in topology_ and it's really good... It's not really a textbook, just a thing booklet that goes over general topology, then goes through a lot of examples and provides all these really nice charts of topological spaces based on properties. I actually made a graph, mostly based off it:
http://christopherolah.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/compactness-...
Oh, and Needham's _Visual Complex Analysis_ (in list) is awesome! Best math book I've ever read.
I read it as a sort of parody. The point of the article wasn't to sell the video but to demonstrate how to sell the video. It's a lesson on advertising in the form of an add. Very clever.
Some things were a little over done, but I'd assume that it's to emphasise techniques.
You know, I'd like to not block adds. I really don't want to. But some sites make me.
I didn't block them until a few months a go. But there were some adds that were just so obnoxious. The worst were these ones that played really loud sounds -- they made me keep my speakers mute, because I didn't want my computer to spontaneously start playing music and wake people up.
One day I was just utterly fed up. I went to Mozilla's site, downloaded an add-blocker, set it to the default settings, and voila! Everything was much nicer.
I'm going to reinstall my OS soon -- I find using apt-get to upgrade break things -- and I'll use the Internet without an add-blocker for a few days. If things are as bad as they were, I'll use one again. Maybe try and find a list that only blocks obnoxious adds, though.
> 400 years of brutal slavery and genocide inflicted on an entire race of God's chosen people?
You make it sound like the `God's chosen people' part is relevant to the moral discussion. If the Egyptians had been the slaves and Israelites the slave holders, would that change things?
What about if it was the Americans and their black slaves, a couple hundred year ago?
Would infanticide be justified then?
I don't even see how the Egyptians moral crimes are relevant. The party that is primarily punished is the only innocent one: children.
That's before we even consider whether the death sentence is ever justifiable.
> Two moral crimes, good sir, now who's to be the judge?
As the old adage goes, two wrongs, good sir, don't make a right.
It's hard to ask for evidence in advance (and probably mildly contrary to the scientific spirit :) ), but at the very least it will have to explain lots of seemingly contrary evidence (or show flaws in _all_ those studies).
update: I should also mention that I'm fairly trusting of at least some of those studies, since I know some people involved in them and they're both smart and trustworthy... Also, I'd be very surprised if CO2 was completely innocent.
There's actually a theory going around that land use may be a contributing factor to climate change along with CO2: a forest absorbs heat differently than a crop field which is different from a city. This theory demonstrates that CO2-based AGW isn't either-or.
Well, we're actually in a discussion of the magnitude of its effect at this point... (Which could lead to the discussion of whether there could be multiple causes for climate change rather than _just_ rising CO2...)
Like any chaotic system, it is difficult to predict the outcome, just that temperature is likely to increase. Think about the Mandelbrot set.
In any case, this is where one needs to look at other evidence.
Let me preface my answer with asking you a question. You see, you seem to have very similar beliefs to those I did a few years ago. My beliefs started changing once I asked myself the question: suppose Satan was all powerful and God/Christ was weak; Satan will reward those who will murder, rape, and torture but sentence those who try to act morally to eternal torture (Hell)... Would you still act morally or would you embrace debauchery? Which would be `right?'
If you are willing to act the way Satan wishes for you to, then the reason you act the way you do now is just selfishness. If you are not, you must be prepared to question the morality of God and to reject immoral actions. I came to the conclusion that the person I was required I reject `Satan' and you can see where things went from there.
>If you really believe that moral absolutes exist, then you must conclude that there exists some infinite being capable of being the foundation for that moral absolutism. Here's why...
It is my opinion that your comment does not proceed to demonstrate this. I will return to this later.
> A perfect morality is knowing all information at once, weighing all that information, and then making the perfect decision.
So an omniscient murder is a good person?
> We as humans are morally relative because we don't know all available information and knowledge. It's why a tribe on some island genuinely believes infanticide is acceptable (they genuinely believe the child is possessed), while you do not (you would know the child has a neurological disorder).
What the tribe does is wrong. The fact that they are doing it out of ignorance makes it understandable but it doesn't make it right.
It's possible that I, like the tribe, am wrong.
But lets reflect on what you've argued. At the beginning you stated:
>If you really believe that moral absolutes exist, then you must conclude that there exists some infinite being capable of being the foundation for that moral absolutism.
You haven't demonstrated this. The only thing you've really made an argument for is that only an omniscient being can know with certainty what is right or wrong. I don't agree, but am willing to grant it temporarily. You still haven't shown that morality can't exist without an omniscient being, or that an omniscient being is necessarily moral.
As Humans we must do the best we can.
Are you willing to argue, then, that infanticide is acceptable? Think about what (supposedly) happened for a minute: God killed thousands, perhaps million, of children. Some wouldn't have been able to speak. Most wouldn't be of an age where they could in anyway be held responsible for their civilisations crimes (slavery) by any sane morality (Yes, I know God likes to go and punish ``even until the third generation.'' I happen to disagree.).
If you are willing to accept this, are you willing to accept Herod's slaughter of the innocents? They're are many similarities between God's actions and Herod's.
Regardless, the question is whether you are willing to justify God's actions. Please answer: is the mass slaughter of children to punish their parents justifiable to you?
I can't say I've read all (or even most!) of the articles posted on HN about this topic, the ones that I have haven't been climate `denialism' but rather scepticism and more specifically scepticism towards individual claims... There were some people outright rejecting AGW in the comments, but even that wasn't that common.
I'm of the opinion that the AGW hypothesis is correct. I'm very confident of it. (In particular because one can derive a correlation between atmospheric CO2 and average global temperature directly from the properties of CO2.) On the other hand, I'm sure that there are many individual pieces of evidence that are false.
It's good that they're questioned and subjected to rigour. False evidence for a true hypothesis is not something we should accept.
This is how science works and it not a bug but a feature.
The political spin being put on it is a minor irritation that will go away with time.
And be thankful you don't have relatives who tell you that global warming is a government conspiracy to give power to the UN demonstrating that the Antichrist is near. That is really irritating.
>Wow, I strongly disagree. Our approaches diverge on virtually every case, as far as I can tell.
That was a poor wording on my part. Make that where they diverge most strongly.
>My approach would be to apply the exact damage to the aggressor that they applied to the victim, except where the victim forgives all or part (for monetary "damages" or some other consideration or reason).
I'm going to assume your talking about assault. If I'm wrong, sorry. In any case, we can't just let them settle it with a fee to cover damages. The aggressor demonstrated themselves a threat to the Public. Depending on the circumstances, the aggressor will need to spend some time in jail, with a psychologist, doing community service, reporting to a probation officer, et cetra, or most likely a combination of the above, for the protection of society.
If there was material damage in addition to that, it is not a criminal matter and can be settled in the way you described.
>As far as I can tell, your approach (along with the vast majority of existing legal systems today) requires sentencing or damages to be decided individually by a third party, rather than by the parties already involved, which seems inelegant.
As the previous example illustrates, this is only true for criminal matters.
EDIT: And I'm not saying that these claims shouldn't be tested. But it would be interesting to see the way people react. Hesitation, for example.