murftown

Hmm. Maybe what "counts as an observer" is relative to your reference frame, and so is the concept of "superposition". And thus, though the cat is making observations within its environment, since the environment is sealed off, the cat is not "an observer" from our reference frame because there is no interaction between us and the cat. From the cat's reference frame it is probably not in a superposition - If it is observing anything, it is alive, and if it is dead, it is not observing anything. But if we observe the cat, the wave function is collapsed from our reference frame and the cat is in one or the other state.

My understanding of quantum mechanics is pretty shallow so take this with an ocean of salt.

I love your advice for beginners (last 3 paragraphs of your comment). It definitely rings true that the attainment of desirelessness can become a desire in itself, just another dragon to chase.

I like your comment so much I was tempted to share it with my FB friends. Would you be ok with that? No worries if not. If so, would you like to be mentioned by your username?

Sorry if this is not an appropriate thing to comment here. I would have messaged you privately but HN doesn't seem to provide a way to do that, and I don't see an email address for you. Cheers

I mean, what data is going to get extracted? Your favorite color?

For instance, a log of every time I turn my lights on and off? Coupled with of course all kinds of fingerprinting info about my phone which is also tied to all my accounts. Others mentioned it could also scan the local network. Creepy.

So sick of apps being required for basic things. My ISP is trying to require one to admin my router...

Sure, but what debt does the average person own which is eroded? The money in their bank account.

For an article about privacy and not being snooped on, some HTTPS would be nice!

But then again, the author could understandably reply that TLS is an example of a system that has evolved to require "checking in" with a central authority - the opposite of what they want. So fair enough.

I can relate to the feeling of anxiety when the all-too-short weekend is drawing to a close. Glad you put this up! Hope it helps you feel a little more in control and able to do something creative. It makes sense that you chose to just get something out there without worrying about the details or polishing up the rough edges.

Happy Sunday! :)

you can choose what companies you interact with but you can't choose your government.

On the contrary, you can vote to change your government, but the corporations get to do what they want with 0 accountability. If they have a pseudo-monopoly (like several large tech companies do today), you can "choose" to use them or miss out on basic life services.

Yes.

I've long wondered about this as well. I think asking questions would be an important part of any self-editing process.

Off topic, but I really, really wish we could stop overloading the word "crypto" to refer to cryptocurrencies when it already is an abbreviation for cryptography. It's worse when we start saying things like "crypto networks", which is likely frequently misinterpreted/conflated with any kind of secure or encrypted network.

We owe it to ourselves to keep clear language available to talk about the concept of secure, private information storage and transmission. Blockchain is cool, but it's a very distinct concept from crypto.

I didn't read the article, and I know it's more about math than an actual plan, but as a tangent I wanted to say that there's a cost to preventing rain from reaching the earth - even if we eventually returned the water there and didn't pollute or reduce the water. I think by altering this age-old cycle, we would lose some of the impact on the soil, and plants, the way it rolls downwards into increasing rivers.

We've caused a lot of damage with pavement and structures. The benefit of the power generated would have to be weighed against this cost.

This seems really disingenuous, like you care more about dissing someone than understanding the pros and cons of using this tool that suddenly is one of the only ways to connect with people.

As others have mentioned a lot of this boils down to the wording of the 5th amendment. Specifically: "...nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself...".

I recently found out that, for example, the Texas Bill of Rights [1] has stronger wording that addresses this. From section 10: "...He shall not be compelled to give evidence against himself...".

1. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/SOTWDocs/CN/htm/CN.1.htm

Seems like (1) is doable, as long as it's opt-in. But if it becomes the default behavior, existing applications would break when they do something against the type system. I'm not sure what (2) buys you.

Not OP, but read your comment and felt inspired to respond.

I understand your mindset - in a sense, the absence of growth implies death, all life needs growth, etc.

However, growth is not a purely-quantitative, 1-dimensional value. There are an infinite number of possible futures that all constitute growth relative to here and now. Which aspects will do most of the growth? Will there be more humans? more relationships? more industry? more data? more meaning? There are an infinite number of things that can grow, and even within a single vertical, multiple ways to grow.

Therefore, any specific growth we undergo has an "opportunity cost" of whatever other ways we could have grown. Not to mention, most kinds of growth require some destruction, so in addition to potential value, you lose the immediate value of whatever you destroy.

Therefore, in my view, the 2 ways we need to grow the most are:

- Get smarter in the ways that would enable us to accurately predict good ways to grow. This helps us do the following better:

- Build up the -potential- to grow, or at least remain alive, in dimensions that, right now, to us, seem good or necessary.

- Learn how to know when, and how, to unleash that -potential-.

Does that make sense? And does it relate?

Totally agree that wealth creation is a thing distinct from distribution, and that it matters.

However, I'm not aware of any metrics or markers for wealth creation - other than revenue / profit. So in other words, most of our attempts to study economics ignore this, just like the model in TFA. They look at successful businesses and growing GDP and infer that wealth must have been created.

Another related concept - similarly murky and unaccounted for - is wealth destruction. If wealth is defined, say, as the capacity for people to live a good life, then how often is this capacity destroyed in the pursuit of growing business? We similarly have no markers for this factor in most of our economic models that I'm aware of.

Right?

As an aside, I was surprised by the repeated use of "climate hawk" throughout the article as an identity that we might be interested in taking on. Could they have said e.g. "people concerned about climate change"? I may just not know the term's history.

So for example if the person receives false ashes, as in the article, and then the ceremony is performed in which the "dearly departed's ashes" are scattered, but it's really unmixed concrete - then does that falseness of that ceremony not count as damage to you?

I wonder how you'd feel about this then: If someone cut out your brain while you were sleeping, and put it into a sufficiently high-quality simulation world, while simultaneously doing the same to all the people in your life who would care about you and thus be aggrieved - would that be perfectly fine, as long as they pulled it off smoothly enough that no one ever noticed?

To me that would be violent; I'd prefer people not do that - to me or others - regardless of how smoothly they can pull it off.

Off-topic, but I came here to say that my long-standing fear just came true about the word "crypto"; namely, that I totally misread it in TFA as meaning "cryptography" - which is of course what the term always used to refer to - and honestly forgot that it might refer to "crypto-currency" until reading your comment.

I knew someday that would happen! I made up some story to myself that comments in TFA about "#cryptowinter" and "FUD in the community" might refer to communities losing confidence in cryptography techniques after too many companies getting hacked. Out of touch, I know, to not be aware of that hash-tag. O_o

I really hate that we have another meaning of "crypto" now so that misunderstandings like this can happen often. As programmers, we know how important naming is and how costly it is to create confusing collisions. Cryptography is too important of a concept in tech for us to not have a clean word for it. smh

Cool, I'll bite. I don't know some of your mathy terms like "putative extensive transduction" or "anisotropy" so go easy on me.

But I hear you say things like "Neural nets are nonlinear iterated function systems by construction.", and it resonates with me. I've often tried to draw a parallel between the recursive tree structure of a program with the matrix structure of a neural network, which as I understand it is mathematically still a graph of functional nodes feeding into one another - it's just that treating it like a matrix allows the programs to be much more performant by using low-level structures like numpy arrays.

In any case, I often think about the tree structure of programs, and we whether could get to a place of programs that can analyze, understand and evolve the abilities of other programs. This could be seen as the old-school "symbolic AI" mindset. And then, the similarities and differences of that with the matrix-based neural network revolution that's happened in the last years. I wonder about possible holomorphisms and interfaces between those two paradigms.

I don't doubt that I barely skimmed the surface of what you were actually saying. The very general and meta way you were talking about information processing is intriguing to me, and I'd love to understand more. Thanks for sharing!

I get where you're coming from, but it's hard for me to watch you continue to balk at what people are saying to you. I am assuming good faith in your intentions to be scientific and well-reasoned, and it would be nice to be able to measure the changes people are talking about. Nonetheless...

What sources do you need to back up the "claim" that home ownership and health care are qualitatively more important in many ways than consumer goods? You can get all the "stuff" you want, but if you can't get a home or pay for health emergencies it will be hard not to live in some level of fear, always scrambling for slightly more security and feeling precarious. The area of my town that I live in for example, is full of homeless people, many of whom have computers or cell phones (many more don't). It is disturbingly frequent that I see one of them start to have escalating health issue, and eventually just "disappears". Disconcerting. I have no way to know if it was always this way, or if it getting worse...but certainly disconcerting.

TL;DR - Some of the people who seem to be pushing back on your "scientific rigor" may be just wanting to not forget about the actual hardships people are going through. They probably still understand that it's good to have sources for things etc.

I don't consider myself a good chess player at all, but I always thought the opposite way: When I'm ahead, I'm willing to whittle down both sides with even trades until they are left with no options and can be checkmated. When I'm behind, an even trade feels scary - I'm looking for a way to catch up.

Am I missing some reason why it would be the opposite?

a scientist while under the influence of neuroactive substances could be said to be ... irrational.

Just for thoroughness, what's your rational, logical deduction that someone under the influence of neuroactive substances is more irrational than someone who isn't? The whole brain is filled with neuroactive substances regardless of whether you ingest more.

That's hilarious. :) I agree that non-techies have plenty of ways that they're actually more balanced on average, and there are plenty of ways that a lot of techies probably seem scary to other people as well.

However, I think GP's point that the open Internet is that vulnerable to people's short-sighted social media desires IS scary. Equally scary that some people spend no time outside.

So I had to point that out despite enjoying your ironic jab.

privacy is inefficient. This is the main reason I despise it.

Certainly not in all cases, maybe not even most? For example, it's efficient to have a private key to log in to your server rather than just leaving it open to get hacked. It's efficient to have a private email inbox so your bank login doesn't get stolen. It's efficient to have a computer you can audit and control the software running on, so that your computer and data don't get compromised. Etc.

Everyone would be screwed without privacy. Being screwed is inefficient. This is the main reason I despise it. For people to move from more secure to less secure systems and paradigms in the name of "total transparency", they would need some assurance that they wouldn't be screwed. And I don't know if making an assurance like that is mathematically possible.

It also seems obvious that privacy is unsustainable and likely to disappear in the future. Knowing this, we should prepare for it. I don't see many people talking about this.

This may seem obvious to you but I don't see any evidence for it. For one thing, how can you (even approximately) "measure" how much privacy there is? Privacy is by definition what you AREN'T able to see or account for in your ("total transparency") system. So if for example SMSs, IMs, emails and phone calls all become "totally transparent" (i.e. not secure), then we still have no evidence that privacy is "likely to disappear", because, for example, anyone can still just write their ideas in a physical notebook, and we have no idea how much this happens.

TL;DR - I respectfully disagree.

Privacy is unfair because it highlights characteristics that are difficult to conceal.

The idea that privacy highlights characteristics that are difficult to conceal is possibly truthful, but it's a bit far-fetched, at least when making a case against something (privacy) and alleging that is causes damage (unfairness due to highlighting characteristics...). If privacy is guilty of this crime, then everything is unfair for all sorts of reasons. Some people being tall is unfair because it highlights others' feelings of being short. Some people being more attractive than others is unfair because is causes other people to feel badly about themselves.

None of these "causations" would lead you to believe we should actively try to "equalize" people across all those spectrums, right? That would cause (much) more damage than good. Have you read the Handicapper General? Kurt Vonnegut illustrates this idea.

Therefore, your catchy causation is not a good reason to recommend active destruction of existent privacy.

Rather than coming up with strategies to help people hide aspects of themselves, such as lying, we should help people to be more tolerant and understanding.

Wow, that's a pretty broad, meta-level prescription there. I have a couple reservations about it:

1. There's no reason to assume it's an either-or game.

Helping people have privacy ("helping people hide aspects of themselves") is not at odds with helping people be tolerant and understanding. In fact, wouldn't "wanting/maintaining privacy" be an example of such a characteristic that distinguishes people, that some people may feel it desirable to conceal due to people being intolerant or not understanding, and that therefore you just recommended people should be more tolerant/understanding of? Or does your proposed implementation of "helping people to be more tolerant and understanding" include an implied whitelist of only certain approved "characteristics" that should be protected this way, and "wanting/maintaining privacy" isn't on the list? I see possible issues with this approach too.

2. Regarding being more tolerant and understanding...

I think it's much easier to treat people this way if you feel more-or-less content in your own life. Otherwise it's easy to let bitterness and resentment steer you into intolerant / non-understanding narratives and mindsets; it's easy to make up stories that justify your bitter feelings about others, and these stories often hinge on assumptions we make against people based on stereotypes or generalizations.

Yet there's no evidence that taking away people's privacy helps them achieve this contentment in their lives. What are examples of places where people have no privacy in their lives? Prisons? North Korea? Where does our idea come from that "total transparency" is guaranteed (or even likely) to unfold in some perfectly equal way that brings fairness, tolerance and understanding?

The internet is already filled with angry people who are sincerely enraged by reading about one another's "unacceptable" differences and experiencing cognitive dissonance about how different other people are; it is too easy for people to enter one another's personal mind spaces, and it's causing intolerance and misunderstanding. So what is your idea - we just do more of it and people will become tolerant and understanding? I don't see any evidence that that's the case.

Yeah, the phone lines getting that polluted is not a pleasant prospect.

This conversation reminds me of "Lenny", a simple bot someone created to talk pointlessly in circles with telemarketers for hours until they hang up in frustration.

https://www.reddit.com/r/itslenny/

Ableton Live .als files are also gzipped .xml files.

Yeah ... I don't think someone who celebrates a bit of mostly untouched nature in the city they live in represents "one of the worst expressions of capitalism".

I follow your line of thinking, but I think it's a bit out of context.

I would even say it's selfish

(previously) cultures are emergent properties from markets

Honest question: Do you think selfishness is a bad thing? As you seem to have such apparent respect for the primacy of markets, I would think not. Why then would you choose to jab people with this idea that they're being selfish? Is it because you think they would be against selfishness and are therefore being hypocrites?