as

"Deals fall through."

At Justin.tv, Emmett has a framed picture of pg with this caption.

It's true that I didn't make any effort to soften what I said.

If your understanding of the nature of things was largely formed more than 200 years ago, chances are that it's wrong.

I've been down voted, but I only say this because it's been the case in every one of the (literally) hundreds of discussions I've had on the topic.

That'll be the case in anything where people have strong attachments.

Yea, many schools of Buddhism have a lot of supernatural trappings that are basically ornaments and interpretations from the cultures they grew to prominence in. I think this is why the most popular school of Buddhism in the west is Zen, which strips most of that away.

I don't find this convincing. The arguments are thousands of years old, but most of the relevant data is <200 years old. The reason most religious hackers don't talk about it is that they know better - that unless you're sufficiently vague, believing in supernatural stories born of bronze age cultures is logically indefensible.

That's the problem, it's hard to tell what you're saying.

Here's a data point for you - I changed my mind because of evolution. Here we're not really interested in smart people - many smart people believe in God. We're interested in the subset of smart people with a special kind of honesty, the kind great scientists almost always have, and great philosophers often do. The 'smart people' you claim changed their minds because of fashion aren't the ones we're really interested in talking about.

Also, I like to distinguish between deliberate atheists (like myself) and people who are atheists by default. Some people are apathetic about philosophical questions and will say they don't believe in God simply because they weren't brought up with any religion.

I don't see a coherent argument here, which further suggests that it doesn't mean anything.

Our having a concept of infinity has no metaphysical significance. All our definitions are phrased negatively, by what it's not:

Infinite: That which has no limit. From the Latin 'infinitas', meaning 'unboundedness'.

Try and see if you can define infinity by what it is rather than what it isn't.

"As a neuroscientist, I know that finite matter gives rise to visions of the infinite."

I'm pretty sure this doesn't mean anything.

That kinda sucks. It's already precisely the color I'd make it.

Ella Fitzgerald at low volume behind the gameplay music? Brilliant!

The low average DH# of the comments only strengthens the OP's claims of people being unreasonable about it.

I've had this on my wall for months.

Things Peter Thiel has funded:

The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (Making sure our eventual AI overlords are benevolent)

Aubrey De Grey's Methuselah Mouse Prize (Research toward ending aging)

The Seasteading Institute (Build your own nation)

I'm really excited about the kind of people the tech boom has made rich.

Agreed. I'd personally love to design a game world and story, but am not willing to devote 4 years of my life to just making something rudimentary.

40mph can still kill.

That's always been my favorite color. I feel so validated.

Why do you hope for his sake he's built Eliza-like behavior into HN such that his responses to all "Ask PG" questions are fully automated?

Can you elaborate on the differences?

Or you could attend SuperHappyDevHouse.

I second that fear. Remember the Segway bug that caused the motors to spontaneously reverse? Imagine that on the highway at 60mph.

"They hate to work on routine things - they would much prefer to build complex theoretical solutions, and leave the implementation of the system to others. They are intensely interested in theory, and will put forth tremendous amounts of time and energy into finding a solution to a problem with has piqued their interest."

-Description of an INTP

Because quantum consciousness is a 'special sauce' theory analogous to what vitalism was in biology - the idea that biomechanical processes are not enough to account for life and that some magical 'vital principle' is necessary. Fueled by people with an emotional agenda, that debate went on for decades before being thrown on the same garbage heap as geocentrism.

Maslow wrote that those people who were most successful at life, who were self actualizing, had succeeded at overcoming either-or thinking and had reconciled seemingly contradictory qualities.

I just listed to one at your suggestion. I'll vouch a +1.

That was Bill Watterson's theory.

Someone has been watching Battlestar Galactica.

The play button doesn't work for me either. Firefox and Ubuntu.

Clicking 'Put Me In Center' when trying to set my location doesn't do anything.

Same here.