ohbleek

Thank you for writing out this reply, so I didn't have to. I think that somebody who is not working in medicine or pharma at all would not be able to understand how views have shifted concerning the amyloid-plaque theory. It is largely discussed as a theory that has been tested extensively and has only highlighted our lack of understanding of Alzheimer pathophysiology.

That last part isn't a sidenote, it's the entire reason for discussing the theory.

A quick google will show you’re relying too much on your own views of what people desire for phone improvements. This law will lead to much needed changes and improvements in a mature and arguably stale market.

So, does this mean that people can simply argue in court now (if they were to be prosecuted for downloading media via bittorrent) that it is fair use if they used it to train a local model on their machine?

To quote Brennan Lee Mulligan, "Laws are threats made by the dominant socioeconomic ethnic group in a given nation."

The tone of their writing and their descriptions of the agents behavior lead me to believe they are lying about the level of direction they provided to the agent. They clearly want to appear to be more clever and ingenious than their skills will allow. They’re minimally admitting to a narrow set of actions to make it seem as if they have cleverly engineered an intelligent agent, but it too closely resembles their own personality to be anything beyond an agent that rephrases the operator’s own remarks and carried out the specific actions it was directed to do. Anything they admit to here we can safely speculate that they actually went 2-3 steps further.

“Study after study shows that money doesn't really effect the results of high-information elections“

Your earlier statement, in which you claim that “money doesn’t effect result” followed by a useless distinction of high or low info elections. You’re really trying to dance a fine line of nonsense here.

“ We find a positive and statistically significant relationship between campaign expenditure, campaign contributions and winning probability.”

From the same article you posted and the first academic journal result if you Google “studies on how money influences elections”.

That spark could end up being the rollout of chinas digital currency to the world and requiring payment using that currency when dealing with foreign businesses. This will kill the position of the US dollar as a reserve currency, slowly, but almost certainly.

I believe that is what is listed at the bottom of the page.

I thnk it does occur to people, but that's a choice for nepo babies and aspiring monks.

Maybe you've only spent time around PhD candidates at Ivy League schools where people are more likely to have access to wealth, but if you've spent any time at all around PhD candidates you'll find this is generally not the case. As a PhD candidate from a lower SE class, I've found that the majority of my peers are from a similar class. However, I am not connected to a private university though I am in medicine.

Studies on this show great variation across doctoral fields. Economics doctoral students tend to come from more affluent backgrounds, while the majority of Social Sciences doctoral students are from a lower SE class. Overall there seems to be a trend that doctoral students in fields with more lucrative career prospects tend to come from a higher SE class.

From what I have read, your claim only applies to the majority of faculty members, which tend to come from backgrounds with an income that is higher than the national median income.

Thank you for sharing these. My brother was murdered a year ago and today I’m trying to finish writing my victim impact statement to be read at the sentencing of his killer. I’ve been frozen in my processing for several days and your descriptions helped me place myself back in my body as I tend to disassociate when faced with the overwhelming grief of his loss.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181763/

Initially during the prodrome, a change in brain structure seems to be present in the temporal lobe volume and cingulated. On follow-up in those who have gone onto a psychotic episode, further changes can be seen in the cingulate, temporal lobe, and parahippocampal gyrus.

Structural changes occur before an episode has even occurred.

Nobody with clinical experience or even an educational background in psychopharmacology/medicine would make a comment like this. Antipsychotics are given with great caution as many have extrapyramidal effects and a few even require REMS programs.

Thank you for adding this information. It shows how important it is to get granular with data otherwise so much nuance gets lost in the interpretation.

This is gold.

It does seem like any sufficiently advanced AGI that has the primary objective of valuing human life over it's own existence and technological progress, would eventually do just that. I suppose the fear is that it will reach a point where it believes that valuing human life is irrational and override that objective...

Ok, but it fits so well with "liar, liar, pants on fire" and their reason for dismissal.

Thank you, this was very helpful. I was beginning to feel overwhelmed by the volume of information and opinions.

Am I misunderstanding his answer, or does he not essentially say it should be "descriptive"? In which case, I misunderstood what your comment is implying.

lovely

Diet Coke, which contains significantly more caffeine than regular Coke

It is true that Diet Coke has a higher caffeine content. Though I would not say it is significant:

A 12 oz. can of Coke contains 32 mg, Diet Coke contains 42 mg

A difference of 10 mg is not significant in this context.

I like the optimism of the author, and if their overall point is for there to be more open sharing of data in pharmacokinetics research, that is a valid and worthwhile topic of discussion. One that is worth advocating for, as the potential results it would yield for future research and for the progress of science.

That said, their view that it is simply a matter of collaboration and coordination is entirely wrong. Sharing of data and collaboration would absolutely be worthwhile (though it runs opposite to the direction of incentives in profit-driven drug development) but it's like saying we could start building a Dyson Sphere tomorrow and solve the worlds energy problems if we just pooled our talent and resources. In contrast to what the author claims, we need HUGE advances in technology and our understanding of the human body, pharmaceutical sciences, drug development, etc. before this is possible. To use their example of GLP-1 agonists, prior to their development and wide-spread usage, the psychological effects of these drugs were completely unknown. Both positive and negative, clinically. But what if those effects were much more dangerous? Many SSRIs have a black box warning, which is mostly applicable to specific age groups. Negative side effects that we see in teenage patients are much less common in other age groups. These kinds of effects are why medicine moves very slowly and experimental work is costly, because ultimately we are talking about peoples lives and not a machine that is easily replaced if we break it during the testing phase.

Millions of animals would be the first to rejoice and praise a model that didn't require in-vivo testing but, we may sadly never see that day. I'm skeptical that even the development of an ASI would be enough to get us there.

I did find that the author has a knack for explaining difficult concepts with simple and illustrative metaphors. As a clinician and scientist in the pharma research space, this is one of the few articles I would send to a friend that finds the topic interesting but lacks the background knowledge to understand most literature about drug research.

It seems to me that people always miss the factor that ultimately determines the differences between self interest and altruism, which is intent. If an action is performed without thought for oneself, yet there is some result that aligns with self interest, that does not somehow nullify any aspect of altruism. Why? For one, people cannot predict the future. What may be perceived as good in one instant can quickly become horrible in another. Similarly, what is in one’s best interest is also subject to perception and changes over time. And finally, one is not always in control of the outcome. I would agree with you that for an act to be viewed as self interest vs altruism is a matter of opinion, when intent is unknown. However, whether or not altruism exists at all (because "it’s not altruism if they somehow benefit") is not - which I am not accusing you of making that argument, though it may be interpreted that way by some.

Thank you for recommending this! I just finished it and this is one of the best video essays I’ve ever seen.

Do you have any more recommendations?

Or suggestions of channels to check out?

The opposite of a useless comment is not necessarily an aphorism.

Never in a million years did I think that I’d see a post about my hometown on HN. I opened my first bank account in that bank when I was 12. I had a paper route for the Vernal Express and I deposited my earnings. I had a checkbook with scooby doo checks. I still have that account today but I don’t use it anymore. I didn’t know this story at all and now I’m feeling oddly attached to that account.

I couldn’t disagree more. Magic is not real. The “magic” of reality is precisely found in its non-magical roots. Nothing is more beautiful than an understanding of the natural world. Fully understanding how the universe works illuminates the world and makes life brighter. The hand-waving act of calling something magic robs the us of that enlightenment. If you mean to say “wondrous” or “fascinating” in your use of the term “magic” then yes, we should strive to hold on to the wonder of life. But we can’t claim that the word “magic” means something that it does not.

I came to this conclusion after being raised in a religion that discounted and discredited any explanation of how the world came into existence outside of simply saying it was created by god. As I learned about science I realized that to believe god created the universe by the wave of a hand was to rob the universe of it’s beauty.

I realize that some overlap can exist between these ideas but in general, that is not the norm.

This topic is essentially why I postponed my PhD work. I’ve worked with animals for years and I finally found a PhD mentor that I saw my own vision and understanding of neurology in, I was elated. However, after two years, I simply couldn’t work with animals any longer. This essentially has ended my career path in translational medicine. For a long time I was able to continue doing lab work with animals due to the motivation of the “bigger picture.” It seems that is no longer enough. I’m still trying to decide what to do and where to go from here. Psychopharmacology is all I want to do and the kind of research I want to be involved with. As to the techs described in the article, I feel for them. It is evident that their job takes a heavy toll and their role is invaluable in research, yet severely undervalued and under recognized.

This was a fascinating read. I was unaware of both Robert Morris and Franklin’s anecdote concerning IOUs. Thank you for sharing it.

“Conservatism is the new counter culture” is a very old line that has been passed along by older conservatives as a way to allure itself with young right leaning teens in mostly rural areas. It takes a complete misunderstanding of what “counter culture” means in order to believe it. It was always just marketing.

I had always assumed that the “no fly” list was a phrase and that it didn’t refer to an actual list, but rather a database with more detailed information than a “can they fly?” Column with a Y/N entry. In pharmacy we have a database we have to access when we suspect there is abuse, fraud, or diversion of controlled substances. The database is regularly updated with current information about prescriptions that were dispensed including location, prescribing physician, etc. I had always assumed the “no fly” list would be something similar. Now that I think about it though, that wouldn’t be efficient or useful at all. It would make sense for it to be much more simple.