silent_cal

Yes, the same type of confusion we are used to hearing from pop physicists like Lawrence Krauss, Neil Tyson, etc.

The author demonstrates a common misunderstanding about medieval philosophy. The medieval Scholastic tradition does not maintain that the body and the soul were "distinct entities", or that matter was "vile". In fact that kind of thinking was the position of gnostic groups that Christian thinkers were resolutely opposed to. Read St Augustine's "Confessions" if you don't believe me.

Scholastic philosophers taught that body and soul were two components of the SAME entity, the human being, and that both were good because they were created by God. One good essence with two components, in other words. And while they claimed that the soul component was immaterial, that absolutely did NOT mean that the soul was not part of the natural world. To claim this is to seriously misunderstand their view of the physical world. To them, matter was only one component of creation.

The strict mind/body dualism was not introduced by medieval Scholastics, but rather by the advent of modernity in Descartes, and developed further by Kant and other enlightenment philosophers. In other words, this is very far from being a medieval problem - on the contrary, it a problem created by modern philosophy.

As for the author's equation between subjective experience and qualities of things, or his equation of processes in the brain with the mind itself, this just ignores the facts. Qualities we observe in nature are obviously distinct from the feelings they produce in us in many cases (beauty, sublimity, injustice, etc. produce distinct feelings like reverence, humility, anger), and if the mind were equivalent to brain processes, then certain powers of the mind that we obviously have would be impossible (such as our ability to reflect on those very same brain processes in ourselves).

If you think of yourself as a "programmer" or "coder" I think it's fair to say you might have incorrectly defined your role already. Your job is to design and implement software solutions that are reliable and compliant, and make business processes more efficient. Writing code should really be a relatively small piece of the puzzle, and arguably if you're spending a lot of time writing code, you're wasting time.

Writing code has always been a means to an end of getting the job done, and I consider being really interested in the practice of coding to be a bit odd. It's as if a carpenter got really into manual saws and got upset about an electric power saw because he "loves manual saws". Whether or not an AI spec is "code" really shouldn't matter if you're a software professional. You are designer/engineer of software systems, not a "coder".

No sympathy from me. Guy was the CTO, probably making millions a year, and now he's whining about how a $1.2B investment failed on his watch and nothing was his fault? Sorry guy but you are the leader, you are responsible.

From what I've seen, most scientists don't even publish their raw data.

Cool, thanks for the info. What do you actually trade? Do you buy ETFs, CFDs, or do you actually buy the futures contracts themselves?

What platform do you use for trading, and which commodities do you trade?

Many cops in the US have a massive superiority complex

One way out is to just admit that "justified true belief" is not a satisfactory definition of knowledge. I know that's not really the point of this article, I'm just saying.

How hard is it to just go to the public university in most states? Where I live, you can get your tuition completely covered if you keep a B average. Young people can get whatever degree they want without having to worry about debt as long as they have decent academic ability.

Yes you've nailed it. The P&V translations respect the way Russians construct thoughts and sentences, even if it differs from the way English speakers typically do so. This is (in my opinion) very important for showing the reader what the writer is really trying to say, and also getting the feeling that you are really immersed in the Russian culture while you're reading the book.

The fact that a 290 million euro fine isn't considered meaningful does tell me a lot.

I don't dispute any of this

I didn't say that America "shaped" the internet, I said that America invented it, which is a fact that you've admitted.

I hope so too. It's great literature and there is a lot to admire about their culture, although admittedly the golden age of Russian culture is now well in the past.

Here you are on the internet which America invented, on an American website, complaining about how America is unfair, while they pay you billons of dollars in fines.

It's kind of like an ambulance-chasing lawyer. Yeah the driver at fault did real harm and owes money to the victim. But the lawyer is not a selfless justice crusader - he's looking for a payday. That's how I see the EU in these cases.

It's my impression that big US companies can do pretty much whatever they want in a number of European countries. Just look at Ireland for example.

If it is then Europe doesn't seem too upset about it. How could they be when it pays them so well?

I know EU has stronger data privacy laws. I just wonder if they're really all that upset about American companies breaking them. They get to use the new tech and fine the companies that bring that tech to them. It's a win-win.

I love these two. If I ever read a Russian book I insist on using one of their translations. I can speak and read Russian on a basic level. They're able to make texts sound like Russian, but it English. It's pretty amazing really.

Everything old is new again

"...we may witness shameless intrusion into the privacy of well-known people according to the slogan “Everyone is entitled to know everything.” But this is a false slogan of a false era; far greater in value is the forfeited right of people not to know, not to have their divine souls stuffed with gossip, nonsense, vain talk. A person who works and leads a meaningful life has no need for this excessive and burdening flow of information."

- Solzhenitsyn

A notebook is just an IDE for writing scripts. There's software you can use (like Databricks and Azure Data Factory) to orchestrate them. But obviously if you are building an application they can't be the only IDE you use. A lot of the confusion in this article comes from trying to use them in a way that they're not designed to be used.

A lot of it is dead, but there are still some live wires. Phenomenology is a very vibrant field nowadays, for example.

I agree. I'm not sure if it's a fair representation of Margaret Maconald's view or not, but it's definitely inadequate. Philosophy has always been considered a "science" in the old sense of a discipline that allows you to actually know something. If it doesn't do that, then you might as well just turn to poetry and literature, because philosophy won't offer anything new.

However I think it is worth recognizing that what the modern scientific form of verification is pretty new (falsifiability requirements, data sets, hypothesis, experiments, and so on), and doesn't have a monopoly. It's just so commonly accepted nowadays that it feels that way. But there are other methods of verification that work well in philosophy: consistency, finding agreement from other reasonable people, clarity, etc.

I had a thought that maybe increased marijuana use is a factor in this. I did a quick search and there are a quite a few studies and stories on the relationship between marijuana use and suicidal thoughts and attempts. It could also be that people who already have other factors turn to marijuana, which makes it worse instead of better.

I'm sure it's not the only thing, but it is a major change for 20-somethings in the last 10 years or so that they have much easier access to THC products that are extraordinarily potent.

Nerds make things complicated, no matter what. It is their fundamental impulse that cannot be tamed, like the scorpion who must sting the frog that carries it across the river.

This has worked pretty well for me on iPhone:

1. Pacific Block app to block images and videos on the web

2. AdBlock Pro

3. Text Font Extension to make all fonts the same on Safari

4. Delete all social media apps

5. Block social media URLs

Surprisingly getting rid of pictures, videos and fonts goes a long way towards making the web less addictive.

I can't speak for everyone, but I have virtually no trust in it at all.