baytrailcat

Exactly. Any one who has ever worked in SaaS industry realizes how many cogs in a wheel it takes to keep it running. Sure, there are always inefficiencies and redundancies. But, I highly doubt Elon figured out in a week that 50% of employees are not necessary. This looks like the vindictive and impulsive action of a man baby who has never been told that he doesn't always know what's best. Time will surely tell. All the best to those who were laid off, but most importantly, good luck to those who are staying back. They are in for a ride.

Find a company that is as less ambitious as you. A lot of "work load" in traditional tech sector businesses comes from either the ambitions of the company or ambitions of the higher-ups (nothing wrong with either btw). There are plenty of non-sexy, service-sector, small businesses out there that wouldn't mind having a dependable IT resource. But even if you found somebody like this, I wouldn't be forthright with this motive. Nobody would hire a self-professed slacker.

This comment made me lol.. Not sure if you were just joking or you were unaware that case system is overlaid on racial/genetic subtleties of Indian subcontinent. Brahmin casts tend to be light skinned. For outsiders, all Indians are same, but believe me, there are subconscious clues a trained human mind (through upbringing, culture etc.) can pick up.

In the twitter-verse, Matt is well known for his occasional "hot takes". But he is among the people who pushes the envelope ever so lightly all time and is still tolerated by woke twitter and I am glad for his role. He made out somewhat OK from the recent Harper letter controversy.

I thought Slack was not on AWS, but Oracle.

In a base sense, I agree with you. But this way of looking at it will lead to a misinterpretation that it's just our inability to measure it that is behind the weirdness. I tend to think of it like this: nature, at it's core, is fundamentally weird. Our frame of understanding is based on definite postulates that "things" have a certain "position", they can be only be in one "place" at one "time" and our body of scientific logic and reasoning is built on it. At core of QM, there is the Broglie concept of matter waves. What we used to consider as elementary particles are fundamentally a wave which exhibits particle-like behavior in certain scenarios. If you accept that everything (the double slit, the beam, the screen, a bunch of grey cells postulating about it) is a combination of fields of probabilities of what we call as "elementary particles", it will become easier to digest. "observation" is nothing but an act of interaction of some of these fields that takes away the "coherent" nature of an observed weirdness ("collapse").

This is my line of thinking too. Let's face it, the entire economy can't be shutdown till vaccines are available. Use this borrowed time (when we can afford total lockdown) to mass produce tests, medicines, ventilators, build hospitals, train staff etc. Relax restrictions slowly. Test everyone. Lock down specific areas where outbreak occurs. I really hope our leaders have experts in their staff who can model this.

Sign of the times. Upon reading the title, I figured the discussion would all be about closed time-like curves and causality violation and what not. But, here I am surprised to see HN commenters as open as a UFO subreddit. No complaints here though.

I believe most of us are living a "Google Bubble". When we are online, our exposure to knowledge on a topic is limited by Search algorithms, personalizations, the availability of content that is digitized and searchable, etc. The people who comment on discussions, who creates content, etc. are also subject to this bias. This slice is not really the same as the larger body of collection of knowledge and insights about a particular topic. Even considering the limitation of knowledge that is digitized, there are plenty of sources that are not accessible and searchable (papers, talks, radio programs, conversations, personal anecdotes etc.). Books give a window to this larger world. This is the way we have done it for 5000 years. Books, in case of non-fiction, are written by people who have spent significant (sometimes their lifetime) time learning about a topic. And I believe the same logic applies for fiction. The ideas and imaginations of whole of human kind is not same as those of people who devotes time to create content online. In short, books are a different way (and arguably better) to expand your horizon.

Looking forward to more and more discoveries and theories coming up in this field. Apart from providing a satisfactory answer to the quandary of "fine-tuned Universe" problem, there has been some observed anomalies for which multiverse theory provides explanation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMB_cold_spot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_flow

I think you are missing the whole point here. This is as specific as he can get, being still applicable to everyone - "a man must choose a path which will let his ABILITIES function at maximum efficiency toward the gratification of his DESIRES". He also points out a man's desire is shaped by his circumstances and heredity. So there's no way he can "flesh out" details for anyone. That part can be done by the individual alone. This dictum gives you a tool to navigate your thought process and arrive at an answer on your own.

It's an interesting narrative. But isn't it more likely that normalcy and predictability that we are so used to for the past few decades is the actual illusion? World is inherently chaotic and unpredictable. On top of that, human history does go through tumultuous periods where established systems are uppended.

Right on. For those who are encouraging dialogue, please show me one instance in the past 10 days where Trump has shown the least bit of ability to listen to the other side. Sometimes, brute force action is the only way to make your voice heard.

That is right. Forget voting, this bill may not even go to the Committee. I am not sure if this worth all this hysteria. If it is proposed by a ranking Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee, we will know it is serious.

Check this out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_history_of_the_Tea_P...

Pay attention to the 2010 primary races that happened within GOP. There were also some high profile races where the Tea-party/Traditional-GOP split even caused Dems to win some seats (like Christine O'Donnell in Delaware)

After that cycle, mainstream republicans mostly co-opted the movement and the rift wasn't that evident in successive elections.

I really hope someone from ACLU is listening in this thread and doing something about taking anonymous donations (can they even?). This is a genuine fear that many of us non-citizens have.

I was thinking the same thing. One obvious thing to do is not claim it as a tax deductible donation, since it will go into federal records, which is easily accessed by law enforcement. Getting your past credit card statements may require one more hoop to jump through for them.

Gosh.. how far have we fallen that we are seriously discussing this?

Lol.. history and norms. Norms like releasing your tax returns before running for office? You think we are going to a centrist judge because dems kept their powder dry? Outrage is the only thing left.

I think this is a Chess vs Checkers issue. It doesn't matter if you lay out a plan based on reason if the other side is playing a different game altogether.

Check out this simple strategy from the Republican playbook. They pour money into State elections (through Super PACs) during a census year and take control over legislature and the redistricting process and execute a horrendous gerrymandering which drives urban areas out of voting power. This leads them to hold on to a majority in the House at national level which forms the bedrock of their agenda execution at national level.

When have you seen Democrats executing such long-term ruthless strategy?

There is nothing stopping from Tech Billionaires doing the exact same thing Koch brothers did for the past 15 years.

I disagree that this will not be helpful. The old-guard of Democratic Party hails from these hyper liberal areas (Fienstein, Schumer, Pelosi), and based on what we have seen so far, they aren't even showing a slightest hint of resistance to Trump. See the senate democrat's response to Trump nominees for example. Put enough pressure on them, they will at least form a semblance of resistance which can inspire and have real effects.

For a practical example, if people of San Francisco jointly decide that they want Nancy Pelosi to do X, Y and Z (otherwise she will get primaried in 2018), she will have no option but to do that. This is exactly what the Tea Party did (with tremendous help from Koch brothers) in last eight years. They unseated the old leaders and took over the party.

Sure, ethno-nationalism has a claim on this mantle. But is it curving it towards the right direction? Remember, we have been here multiple times before (like the pre World War I world order). We had to suffer through a lot of carnage to reach here. As a species, we reduced the total human suffering, improved our lives, developed technology to overcome our ailments, began to adopt reason over organized religion and we are almost figuring out how to live with each other in spite of our genetic and cultural differences. Centuries from now, when we are cruising towards stars (if we are lucky enough) to spread through the galaxy, can we look back and say that this step was in the right direction? I don't think so.

I think it of as more as an over-correction, an exploitation of the flaws in the system which unfortunately will bring more bloodshed and suffering to get through before getting replaced.

To me, what is striking is that USA has always been glimmering example of a civilized society. An asymptote, if you will, of the curve of human progress. It showed other countries what laws are logical ("self-evident"), what is the best way to run an economy and what is the distilled essence of western civilization. Sure, when you look closer, you can always find flaws and internal-struggles. But the principles were always there as an inspiration.

Regardless of the geopolitical situations, it is fair to say that USA is rapidly reaching a point where it can no longer lay a claim on those principles. And I am not claiming that this happened on Nov 8, 2016. This has been happening steadily since the beginning of this century (Iraq War, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay etc.). And simultaneously it comes at a point where the long term sustainability of its other important contribution (free-market capitalism) is brought to question.

We are really living in an inflection point in history (Like end of European imperialism, fall of communism etc.)

This has been proven true more than once. Whenever "their turn" candidates run, they loose. See Kerry, McCain, Romney. Socioeconomics aside, Americans love novelty. With Trump in power, the game has been elevated to a different level and I think none of leading Dem politicians can unseat him in 2020. After a sufficient time has passed, when his novelty has worn off, some red blooded alpha-male type has to burst into scene and start challenging him. I am looking at you, Jason Kander!

This is an intuitive way of thinking about this without diving into the math. Here are the postulates: speed of light (c) is same for everyone. And there is no special reference frame; your physics is as good as the physics of your friend moving away from you in a space-ship in a constant velocity v. Now consider that your friend is actually moving in a spaceship away from you. He has an experimental setup with him using which he measures speed of light. You are sitting at home postulating about his experiment. Consider he is moving at velocity v, so is his experiment equipment. How can he arrive the same result (3*10^8 m/s) for speed of light? You conclude that only way is that whatever clock he is measuring the experiment with is running slower than yours (velocity=distance/time, he is measuring less distance, so time must be less too). Now imagine he is going at the speed of light. (The actual equations breakdown at this point, but you can imagine he is infinitesimally close to speed of light). How is he arriving at c? Only way is time is not passing for him (according to you). Now imagine he is going faster than speed of light. At this point, the equipment he is sending photons with is traveling faster than photons itself! How does he arrive at c? His clock must be running backwards! And keep in mind, your friend in all these cases is happily measuring speed of light as c without any of these conundrums you have. And now you can publish a paper claiming that your friend travelled back in time! Did he really do that in a "Back to the future" kind of way? Perhaps not.

I'm ok with FTL information transfer

Which will lead to the conclusion that Special Relativity (which was extensively validated) is either wrong or incomplete.

I have seen a revival of Pilot-wave theory here on HN, but the real conclusion (a real particle pushed around by the enigmatic pilot wave or quantum potential or whatever) is as bizarre or as satisfying as saying particle is in a superposition. Also, I haven't seen anyone satisfyingly explain, in a classical-deterministic sense, the Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser Experiment (also, see the the Wheeler Thought Experiment)

You cannot, as a culture, simultaneously underplay the importance of science and math education (nerds!!!) and complain when immigrants come in to occupy the high tech jobs. There is a big outrage about lack of high-paying jobs, yet there is rampant anti-intellectualism and discouragement of critical and analytical thinking which is needed for those jobs.

You have unknowingly stumbled into the heart of Special Relativity :) "travel" is the same all dimensions. If you think you are moving from (x1,y1,z1) to (x2,y2,z2) you are actually moving from (x1,y1,z1,t1) to (x2,y2,z2,t2). If you think you are staying put at (x1,y1,z1), then you are continuously moving from (x1,y1,z1,t1) to (x1,y1,z1,t2) to (x1,y1,z1,t3) and so on. The more you move in space, the less you move in time.

Also, when you put General Relativity in the picture, any sort of movement within this 4D space is possible (because the geometry of this space is wrapped) go to past, future, anything.

The wave function collapse and "spooky action at distance" for entangled particles are somewhat different concepts. The collapse idea arises as a part of Copenhagen interpretation, which states that particle always exists in a superposition state (aka wave function of probabilities). So when audience asks, "well why is it that my measurement device showing particle exists/doesn't exist in one place"? The interpretation then says, "That, my dear fried, is because the wave function collapsed to a single state just when you did the measurement". People have been trying to explain and figure out what/why/when this collapse occurs to make sense of Copenhagen interpretation.

Search for "Digital physics", you will bump into some info.

Are you entirely sure about that? There has been some solid efforts to explain collapse - like Ghirardi–Rimini–Weber theory