MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by geye1234 | 2025-09-04 19:44:02+00:00
Here's what I just posted to the other person. Perhaps you can tell me where I'm going wrong, because it seems to me that physicalism is impossible.

The UMD paper you link to elsewhere describes the central proposition of mind-brain identity physicalism as follows:

> a pain or a thought is (is identical with) some state of the brain or central nervous system

or

> ‘pain’ doesn’t mean ‘such-and-such a stimulation of the neural fibers’... yet, for all that, the two terms in fact refer to the very same thing." [emphasis in original]

(If you search for this second sentence and see it in context, you will see that substituting 'thought' for 'pain' is a fair reflection of the document's position.)

But this is problematic. Consider the following:

1. Thoughts are, at least sometimes, about reality.

2. My thought in some way refers to the object of that thought. Otherwise, I am not thinking about the thing I purport to be thinking about, and (1) is false.

3. That reference is not limited to my subjective, conscious experience of that thought, but is an inherent property of the thought itself. Otherwise, again, (1) is false.

4. Physicalism says the word "thought" and the phrase "a particular stimulation of neural fibers" refer to the same thing (from document above).

5. "A particular stimulation of neural fibers" does not refer to any object outside itself. Suppose I'm thinking about a tiger. You cannot analyze a neural state with a brain scan and find a reference to a tiger. You will see a bunch of chemical and electrical states, nothing more. You will not see the object of the thought.

6. But a thought must refer to its object, given 2 and 3. So "thought" and "particular stimulation of neural fibers" cannot refer to the same thing. (I will grant, and it is my position, that the latter is part of the former, but physicalism identifies the two.)

This seems to imply physicalism is false.

What step am I going wrong on?
by ProofHouse | 2025-09-04 19:44:27+00:00
I gotta say of all the flipcard apps I’ve looked at, at this point I don’t wanna create all my flip cards manually AI should Do it, and I’ve seen none that do. Sure the ability to do that and adjust but at this point, it should just be AI first. Let me put in the topic and refine it in my cards are set up for me on the top things I need to learn.
by scotty79 | 2025-09-04 19:44:37+00:00
> I feel like you’re glossing over some very thorny details that it’s not obvious we can solve.

Yeah. I tried to be funny. It's not that easy. However AI people already started doing it and AI gains perhaps of the last year come mostly from this approach.

> For example, if you just get two LLMs setting each other puzzles and scoring the others solutions how do you stop this just collapsing into nonsense?

That's the trillion dollar question. I wonder how people are doing it. Maybe through economy? You ultimately need to sell your ramblings to somebody to sustain yourself. If you can't, you starve.

Maybe that's enough for AI as well? Companies with AIs that descended into nonsense won't have anymore money to train them further. Maybe companies will need to set up their internal ecosystems of competing AI training organizations and split the budget based on how useful they are becoming?

Phrasing this in a terminology of "truth" is probably counterproductive because there's no truth. There's only what sells. If you have customers in manufacturing probably things that sell will coincide with some physical truths, but this is emergent, not the goal or even part of the process or acquiring capabilities.
by glitchc | 2025-09-04 19:45:07+00:00
Wikipedia has plenty of propaganda. It's often at the fringes of knowledge, in niche subjects where there isn't yet an established group of proponents and detractors. It can be quite subtle too, will fool most laypeople, even those who are otherwise intellectually savvy.

It's only when a subject becomes popular that the propaganda gets recognized and rectified.
by jawilson2 | 2025-09-04 19:45:12+00:00
Same here. Hollow Knight and Elden Ring are the only two games in the last decade that I've put more than a few hours into. E.g I used to love Civilization, but none of them since 4 have done it for me. Same with Simcity2000. I'll play Madden or Fortnite with my kids, but I'm done mentally after 20 minutes.

The last game I liked like these was Morrowind back in 2004 or so. One of the great things about being a parent is sharing these kinds of things with your kids. I've already got Silksong downloaded on our Switch and XBox to play together when they get home from school in ~1 hr.
by TheCleric | 2025-09-04 19:45:59+00:00
I feel completely the opposite. What would it look like in an alien war? Would we have defectors like we do in actual war? Could some of those fighting for the aliens actually be enslaved and riot?

All of this adds depth and texture to a game instead of "humans good, aliens bad". The world isn't simplistic and I really don't want a game with a theme to either.
by corimaith | 2025-09-04 19:47:18+00:00
>What ultimately defines democracy is the population at large having control.

Politics is the question of how political heterogenity is resolved. The political system is the range of acceptable methods used in that resolution and how power is distrbuted amongst those competing groups. In that restrospect, Democracy and Authoritarianism exist on the same axis. The former resolves things peacefully through voting, the latter has a single interest overriding all others violently.

Hence if you say "population at large having control", it's largely a meaningless statement because if a population is in agreement there is no need for politics and thus no need for a political system. In reality, politics always exist, groups are not homogenous, especially not a group on the size of billions. 99% of people don't really care about what OP says, in so much that they would forsake that for more pettier thing. We will all disagree over the tiniest of issues, and thus from there heterogenity springs and a political system is formed.

Hence, the issue of "delivering results" is largely tangenital and irrelevant because that occurs after Politics. It's a given after all that a interest group would achieve it's goals without the political restraining it. So no, China isn't "more democratic" because the CCP is effective in achieving it's goals when it already has total political control. That's axiomatic.

But there is explicit rejection of plurality, and thus the expression of political heterogenity, there is only one center of power allowed, and political decision-making is resolved violently. So it is Authoritarian, full stop. It is not "Democratic", in the same way it is a oxymoron to state a "Democratic Absolute Monarchy" or a "Democratic Military Dictatorship" even when the latter two can produce results. If you want to call it something, just call Authoritarian Populism.
by goku12 | 2025-09-04 19:47:33+00:00
Our economy is energy-starved and our biosphere is in a precarious situation. Meanwhile, the current generation of AI is energy inefficient as hell, for both training and inference. They need massive datacenters to teach a model what little kids learn effortlessly. The two are neither compatible, nor sustainable. What fraction of AI training and inference is justifiable under the current circumstances? I understand that AI has some novel and urgent applications, including for tackling the crisis itself. But if the justification for AI chatbots for people too lazy to do an old-fashioned web search is corporate profits against the destruction of massive amounts of biomass, we better apply the emergency brakes on it fast. The biosphere and countless lives are vastly more important than the greed of a few rich people who don't even know what to do with the wealth they have.
by monkeywork | 2025-09-04 19:48:05+00:00
The first thing that came to mind to me - and maybe I'm a million miles off here - but all the recent drama around visa / mastercard / etc pressuring sites like Steam to modify their terms of use... maybe Stripe is thinking they can come in and be an alternative by doing it via crypto and hoping their name brings enough trust to cause users to jump on board.
by aetherson | 2025-09-04 19:48:08+00:00
When you make bad law that involves trying to apply a fuzzy rule to a fuzzy situation, judges make bad calls. And you also make it possible for people to be very harassed by bringing cases to court where it's not possible to easily dismiss them (because the rule is fuzzy and there isn't a clear standard to dismiss) so even if the judge makes a good call, you've punished good behavior.
by mrcjkb | 2025-09-04 19:48:20+00:00
- It's not at the top level namespace, it's usually in the `vim.g` or `vim.b` namespace. There's no more namespacing than with a Lua module + function.

- global configuration variables don't have to be tables. They can be a union of `table | fun():table`, which enables laziness. [rustaceanvim does this, for example](https://github.com/mrcjkb/rustaceanvim/blob/12504405821c0587...).

- lazy.nvim's heuristics to auto-detect and invoke `setup` functions and pass "config objects" are a hack that could just as easily have been implemented around global config variables. This is a symptom of the problem, not a solution.

- If you don't need any code to require the plugin, there's also no need to keep the configuration and the code to require it in the same place.

- If a plugin is implemented correctly (by not making lazy loading the responsibility of the user), there's no need to worry about when the user sets the global variable.

- Most plugins' `setup` functions are idempotent. If you want to provide the ability to reconfigure your plugin at runtime, you can provide a `reload(opts)` function that sets the global config variable and then reinitialises the plugin. Or, you could add a metatable to the config variable that triggers a reload if the plugin has already been initialised. There's hardly ever a valid reason to force the coupling of configuration and initialisation on your plugin's users.
by brandall10 | 2025-09-04 19:48:48+00:00
If you're taking that standpoint, then all entertainment has zero practical value. Game devs/studios, actors/movie studios, musicians, board game designers, etc, etc - all worthless.

Would you prefer they all do this work out of the goodness of their hearts, simply as fun hobbies? Gifts to society?

The vast majority of wealthy celebrities are such because they provide entertainment.

Back in the early 90s in my 10th grade econ class, the teacher spent a whole class examinging Michael Jordan's value through salary and endorsements, and whether or not he actually deserved it. By the end of the class, he made the point that not only did he deserve it, he was vastly under-compensated for the value he brought the NBA and the companies that endorsed him, and ultimately, society of a whole.
by compass_copium | 2025-09-04 19:49:18+00:00
Hmm, I remember reading that the Soviets had significantly better preparations for civilian protection in nuclear war than the US (including more bunkers in cities), but I'm struggling to remember where. Possibly Raven Rock (subtitle: The Story of the U.S. Government’s Secret Plan to Save Itself–While the Rest of Us Die) by Garrett Graff.
by Imustaskforhelp | 2025-09-04 19:49:30+00:00
That's exactly the same take as mine.

As someone who actually worked on some crypto project (nanotimestamp) and also has got paid in crypto. I usually just convert it into stablecoins / gold coins for a short term (1 year max) where since I am still a minor, I don't have a bank account and so I mean, the end goal is to get my stablecoins out of the chain into real money not vice versa.

I had written something like this, just with a clickbaity title but its basically that I hate everything in crypto except stablecoins which I really like. Like there is paxgold which has gold and I genuinely like the fact that I think that we might be able to pay in gold or etc. stuff, I also like USDC too.

Here's my article: https://justforhn.mataroa.blog/blog/most-crypto-is-doomed-to...
by throwup238 | 2025-09-04 19:49:38+00:00
Yes the money has to show up in someone's account but where and when it is taxed is very important. The profit is shifted to entities with tax credits or industry specific tax incentives, timed net operating losses, lower rates altogether, or different state/foreign rules so the total cash taxes fall in absolute number.

If you want more info on how this all works look into single-purpose production LLCs (aka SPVs, which is where the accounting happens) and federal consolidated groups for how its taxed. That this all allows screwing over anyone ignorant enough to accept points net in their contract is just a bonus that happens to have cemented itself in Hollywood pop-history.
by insane_dreamer | 2025-09-04 19:50:50+00:00
> add capacity to scoop up the additional revenue.

they are; but Big Tech isn't paying the cost to add that capacity, because it's getting volume discount prices to attract them in the first place. So the utility has to raise prices on everyone else to cover the cost of adding the capacity.

so essentially, all the other consumers are subsidizing the extra power needed for the data centers (instead of the data centers paying for it)
by criddell | 2025-09-04 19:50:54+00:00
I think what a lot of people missed when they were talking about shared cars a few years ago is that people seem to mostly like their cars. They spend far more on them than they need to. The average price for a new car is almost $50k now when a vehicle costing half that would satisfy most people's needs.

I'm guessing people mostly overspend on kitchens as well. When our renovation happens, I'm sure we will and I'll feel pretty good about it.

For cars and kitchens, utilization considerations seem to be ranked way, way below things like comfort and convenience and beauty.
by sensanaty | 2025-09-04 19:51:02+00:00
Might just be 'cause I'm Serbian (we swear a lot, and the swearing tends to be very vulgar) and also grew up surrounded by Aussies, Kiwis, Brits and Irishmen, but to me "dickhead" barely registers as an insult or even all that unprofessional. I obviously wouldn't go around calling just about anyone a dickhead unprovoked, but I've been a part of plenty of teams where we talk to each other along those lines. Hell, I've had my fair share of "Cunt"s thrown around too. Obviously there's a cultural element at play here though, so what might be okay for me won't be for someone else.

That said I really don't think something like this warrants dismissal, unless it's a frequent problem. Obviously we shouldn't be going around and insulting each other for no reason, but are bosses really so fragile that they can't deal with a single instance of their subordinates being sorta mean to them and calling them names?
by Cthulhu_ | 2025-09-04 19:51:14+00:00
With limited knowledge (the What If link posted earlier), would a tsunami created by a nuke be more damaging than a direct nuke itself? You'd lose the explosive and heat damage for the most part, and at least in my head the water would contain and dampen a lot of the explosion (although on the other hand water isn't nearly as compressible as air)
by glitchc | 2025-09-04 19:51:32+00:00
> For many/most students, the home is not particularly conducive for doing homework a variety of reasons.

I think this speaks to the parents and the type of home environment that they create. This is one of the major sources of disagreement between the right and the left, where the former (sometimes strongly) feel the parents bear responsibility for the type of environment their kids grow up in while the latter (equally strongly) feel that they can't really help themselves due to external factors (abuse, addiction, sickness, etc.).
by AnotherGoodName | 2025-09-04 19:53:11+00:00
I think the op must have been confused by the inverse square law for omnidirectional wireless transmission.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law

This is where you picture an expanding wireless sphere of transmission from a point source and since the surface area of this sphere grows by the square of the distance you get this "power attenuates by the square of the distance" rule.

This of course doesn't apply to power over a 2D cable.
by howenterprisey | 2025-09-04 19:53:31+00:00
When I said anyone can verify it, I meant it; go make an account on wikipediocracy, go to the "Wikimedian Folks Too Embarrassing for Public Viewing" forums, and go through the posts by that user.

Quite to the contrary, it's a very transparent organization because edit histories are public. It would be trivial to link to any instances of doxxing on the project, unless they don't exist, which they don't. Wikipediocracy doesn't count when talking about Wikipedia doxxing.
by _mlbt | 2025-09-04 19:53:46+00:00
I don’t think the World War II economy is repeatable today. It was a time of great patriotism with the majority of the nation supporting the war. People were willing to sacrifice for the cause and accept rationing of goods and making substitutions. They also knew that these sacrifices were temporary and helped their loved ones win the war and hopefully return to them sooner.

Today in America it is hard to get more than half the population to agree on anything. There is no unifying catalyst to bring about the consensus, cooperation, and personal sacrifice that would be necessary to implement a centrally planned economy in the United States today.
by creatonez | 2025-09-04 19:53:48+00:00
> The strategic insight behind Arc was perfect – your browser IS the Operating System, and so we should build a browser that can function as that platform.

I'm sorry, but this is the exact same insight that MSN Explorer had. And everyone in retrospect sees that as an absolute spamfest. Ironically, in a very similar way as AI features are seen today.
by thomasfortes | 2025-09-04 19:53:56+00:00
Nine Sols was clearly built on top of Hollow Knight, but my take on the combat is a bit different, Hollow Knight and Nine Sols would be like Dark Souls/Elden Ring (HK) and Sekiro (NS), one is focused on fast movement and dodges while the other is more focused on parry and counter attack mechanics.

I enjoyed both games but I found that with the exception of the last boss Nine Sols was a way easier game after you figure out how to parry effectively.

I also enjoyed the whimsical art style of HK a bit more than the (as said in a comment) "taopunk" style of NS, but that's purely subjective.

But if you enjoy metroidvanias both are great games that you should try.
by bigyabai | 2025-09-04 19:54:45+00:00
Moscow in particular has a few low-hanging-fruits that can be mentioned; the Metro bunkers[0] and A-135 system[1]. Both were designed to make the city deeply survivable in the event of a targeted conflict, but it's questionable how well they would have worked.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro-2

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-135_anti-ballistic_missile_s...
by pastage | 2025-09-04 19:55:26+00:00
The idea of the city effect is suburbia romatization. My view is that people (me included) tend to be biased in what they like. I love cities and dense areas and hence most interactions I have are positive.

I like what you said about the kinship through hate, I feel no connection to a city though rather I see the segregation of suburbia as the breeding ground for hate.
by 3PS | 2025-09-04 19:55:38+00:00
I think you're technically correct here: if you just have a bunch of Merkle trees where each one tracks the hash of the previous block, it would be accurate to refer to it as a blockchain even if you're not bothering to implement any of the distributed consensus algorithms that cryptocurrencies are actually known for. It's probably not the first thing that would come to mind, but it is a correct way to use that word.
by Imustaskforhelp | 2025-09-04 19:55:54+00:00
That's the fun part, You don't have to "buy" anything to invest in this vision.

You just can't "invest" in this vision just as you can't "invest" into treasuries, I mean you could but they don't give 100x the returns.

I skimmed through and I don't see anything that promises a lot of returns and THAT'S A GOOD THING. Just like how things like (okay, I was thinking of some universally loved non ipo company and I thought of silksong which is going to get released, so team cherry!!) So if you want to invest into team cherry, the best you can do right now is maybe buy the game but that isn't investing I think its in the similar manner and its a good thing since it prevents frauds and false returns advertising

There is (usually) no free lunch. Nothing that can give 100x returns anyway, there is insane competition on things like on beating the market consistenly even with 1% is really hard and only very few companies do and even then, their past record doesn't indicate the future remains the same. Tldr: I am that salesman of index funds. also diversify, s&p have a huge concentration on AI stocks and so please diversify into world stocks or maybe even more into non american stocks since american markets are heavily focused on AI and I doubt that it will play out since the markets do feel like they are in a bubble right now
by SkidanovAlex | 2025-09-04 19:55:59+00:00
The most important aspect of blockchain that is relevant here is that your counterparty half a world away and you both agree that you trust the state of this blockchain, and thus can transact on it.

For business running the same code on their 1 node instead of N is not a replacement, because their counterparty has no reason to trust whatever is running on that 1 node.

Your reasoning re: N nodes are expensive is also flawed. Executing a single payment transaction takes a fraction of a second of compute. Even if it is replicated 10,000X, it's still extremely cheap compute-wise. The low cost of transactions has nothing to do with subsidizing.
by Cthulhu_ | 2025-09-04 19:57:13+00:00
The Star Trek series require a lot of suspension of disbelief, especially since in the years after it came out real life technology surpassed the stuff depicted in there. Like, in TNG people walking around with glorified e-readers but having to go to the big computer or to ask Alexa things instead of just tapping on their screens.

At least they got OLED style touch screens, and for a while it looked like everything would go that way but at least in cars some are going back to physical buttons.
by cyanydeez | 2025-09-04 19:57:22+00:00
especially when theres reports that suggest only 5% of businesses have leveraged AI for value.

The "AI revolution" seems as a cover story for covid related job cuts and likely includes losses stemming from over investing in AI supplements.

But regardless, real business data is nigh impossible to penetrate because private business is now a first class citizens and the rest of us are at it's mercies.