John Green on human inability to instinctively appreciate large numbers and broad events:
...My current number one goal in life is to someday be as excited about something as Cheez Doodles Guy is about Cheez Doodles. But its a weird facet of human brains that some thins cause that joyful excitement and others don't. Like today, the World Health Organisation announced that maternal death over the last twenty-five years has fallen 44% worldwide. This is amazing news (arguably even better news than discovering Cheez Doodles in Antarctica) and yet while I am enc
There are people who really do enjoy woodworking. I can't picture a utopia where no one ever whittles.
That really expresses something I've been mulling over to myself for a while: that failed utopias in fiction, or at least a large class of such, only appear to work because they lack certain types of people. The Culture, ironically, has no transhumanists, people who look at the Minds and say, "I want to be one of those." Certain agrarian return-to-nature fantasies lack people like me, who couldn't psychologically survive outside of a city and ...
So I guess the real lesson is "figuring out which ideas are true is hard."
The alt-text of this xkcd comic.
To me, that sounds suspiciously like "The obligation of subjects to the sovereign is understood to last as long and no longer than the power by which he is able to compel that obligation." It's gilded up so it sounds better, but that's how it was in practice.
And just to be clear, the narrative being put forth above -- that everyone claiming to be poor is secretly rich -- is once more not something that anyone actually believes. Offer anyone saying it the chance to live in the public housing projects or trailer parks where these secretly rich welfare queens dwell and all you'll see is a cloud of dust and a tiny silhouette sprinting off into the horizon. But you don't need the majority to actually believe it, only to "believe" it.
Cracked pointing out the danger of belief in belief.
Any context? (e.g. what the suggestion is)
Summary: The superheroes of Worm regularly fight against existential threats called Endbringers, and have to work together with villains (some of whom are neo-nazis) to do it. They've been able to set up rules to ensure the villains can co-operate (no arrests, no using villains as bait, everyone gets medical attention afterwards), without which the Endbringers would win. However, the linked chapter explains that they've failed to extend this to post-fight celebrations, since the public won't accept any form of moral equivalence. Since the public will protest if villains are honoured for their sacrifices, and the villains riot if heroes are honoured but villains are not, no-one gets honoured.
I've now got this horrifying idea that this has been Quirrell's plan all along: to escape from HPMOR to the real world by tempting you to simulate him until he takes over your mind.
I dunno. If the bet is for less money than a can of cider costs and you have a glass ready it might be worth it.
One thing that might be worth changing/clarifying in the victory conditions is how a Friendly AI wins alongside its creator. At the moment, in order for a Creator/FAI team to win (assuming you're sticking with Diplomacy mechanics) they first have to collect 18 supply centres between them and then have the AI transfer all its control back to the human; I don't think even the friendliest of AIs would willingly rebox itself like that. Even worse, a friendly AI which has been given a lot of control might accidentally "win" by itself even though it d...
I suppose the cycle of increasing prices could be broken in one of two ways in a purely economic way: 1) The increasing profits either increases the benefit for the the gas stations to break the truce and slightly lower prices again (or for a new competitor to do the same). 2) The vast majority of cars entering the town are not desperate for fuel (or at least not so desperate as to be extorted) but are merely considering getting fuel here. Without knowing it, the gas stations are actually in competition with the gas stations of neighbouring towns.
It's probably worth mentioning that Guessers also have negative utility from refusing others requests, coming from a culture where requests are generally accepted. If the actors are ethical, then this gives a preference towards guessing. In particular, you can imagine strategy where an unethical Asker is skilled at pitching requests such that the cost to a Guesser is greater than the gain for the Asker, but less than the Guessers penalty for refusing. By doing this the Asker "coerces" Guessers into agreeing. Recognising this, an ethical agent in a society of mostly Guessers will likely also take a Guessing strategy.
For that matter, "being in the same worldview" does not mean consistent. Compartmentalisation is a wonderful thing.
Gotta agree with that. I live about 5 minutes away from 3 different supermarkets within metres of each other.
At first James thought they were joking because, "You know, Hidden Object Games". But then, after a moment, James realised they were absolutely right. Why hadn't we done a show on Hidden Object Games?
Extra Credits react to their surprise.
From the same article:
I do it because it's good for the brain. To do good work you need a brain that can go anywhere. And you especially need a brain that's in the habit of going where it's not supposed to.
We often like to think of World War II as a triumph of freedom over totalitarianism. We conveniently forget that the Soviet Union was also one of the winners.
I'm vaguely worried by the way 'elementalistic' structure and 'non-elementalistic' structure are separated in part A. It seems to have the connotation (I'm not sure if it was intended or not) that the elementalistic structures are better and the non-elementalistic structures are arbitrary. However, there's a reason why science - especially physics - have increasingly moved over towarda mathematical points of view and the sorts of language you've included under non-elementalistic. They really are better at describing the natural world: e.g. you lose out on ... (read more)