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vokep

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This got me to some interesting thinking. If the library contains no information because you need the information you look for, what about the ability of it to at least match to information you look for? Or put another way, the library does begin to have information if you have the information you're looking for. The fact of finding the particular information is different than the library not containing it.

I can't seem to figure out how to type this out in a way that maks sense but basically I'm thinking when an AI like GPT-3 is working its sort of sorting through the library of babel and finding words. Or when speaking its as though the library of babel is at immediate call in the brain, which sorts through near instantly finding the book that satisfies the next word. The website that allows browsing the library helps show what I mean, you can look on it and click random and search for information in it. The thing itself contains "no information" but it also does as in this case you may find something (first page I saw had the word 'beef')

Is this really a meaningful thing? I mean, of course it is somewhat in terms of how things are viewed. But, theres no religious law that NFTs must be a pure blockchain thing. Possibly they're finding their niche, and that is to be a sort of intermediate, which uses traditional systems as the origin of verification/trust, but can then go forward on its own with no further verification. (Of course, your wallet keys could be stolen and used to impersonate you, but the same is true for login credentials of twitter blue checkmarks)

But they aren't. They're pieces of cardboard with a particular story. The card has no value itself, which is why a rookie card isn't very valuable, unless its of someone famous. Why? because one is a story right at the beginning, which may not even be a good one, where there other has an established success story behind it. Owning the card is representative of owning a chunk of that story. You can say its arbitrary, but the fact is the picture on the card is of a real person with a real story, and their image on the card is part of literally that same story.

So with NFTs, its the same, anyone can write a document that says "this certifies ownership of a picasso painting" and it doesn't mean much of anything. However if Picasso writes up a document broadcasts somehow he has done so and the document says you own x painting, then its easy enough to certify to anyone that you own a Picasso from the man himself. The story is not arbitrary, this is precisely why it has value. The arbitrary easily copied stuff is cheap and meaningless and known as such. The "rare" NFTs and stuff selling for massive prices is expensive because it is genuinely so. You can write a comment here about how easily you can create a counterfeit NFT, but how easily can you actually convince someone to buy it from you? You can observe that baseball cards are just pieces of cardboard but how easily can you acquire a card printed when batter X was a rookie?

I'm not saying this sort of value is easily quantifiable, but it is easily observable, identifiable that its reflective of a real element of reality and not (entirely) arbitrarily imagined.

Who says neural networks aren't in pain when their fitness (reward function) is subtracted from? or happy or orgasmic when the function is bumped up?

Pain/pleasure seem to have easy enough analogue to at least something like a reward function, but what really gets me is colors. I feel like if honestly considered, the word "color" is all that's necessary to disprove materialism. Color is. How? Dunno.

Its incredible to think the shape was only discovered in the last few years and not earlier in computing history (80s/90s or earlier). Just goes to show there is still much to be discovered.

This is what I come to hacker news for!

The rate of recovery after first dose, directly correlated with it was plain and clear. If you take a drug and experience significant effects within hours of taking it, you don't question if you randomly would've felt that way anyways, you know exactly whats causing it. This person was getting nearer and nearer to hospitalization possibly, when someone in that situation has a 180 in condition just hours after a dose of treatment, you don't question "oh maybe the treatment did nothing at all".

I understand of course questioning causation/correlation, except when something is so absolute and its life and death, its criminal and morally devoid to deny access to treatment.

It works. Look deeper into it if you really care, or stop saying anything against it. If you don't know someone with covid who's been treated with it, how can you take your own opinion seriously? You can question about the reality of how effective it is of course, but its wrong to argue against something that is harmless and may be life saving.

72% improvement in 27 early treatment trials and 86% improvement in 14 prophylaxis trials https://ivmmeta.com/ is a bit easier to digest

Sure more research is still needed but with these sorts of results so far, if someone wants ivermectin, they should be able to get it, easily, cheaply. There is no excuse for it to be banned or doctors only allowed to prescribe it later into treatment (or not at all in some cases), its criminal, and when you've seen someone saved by it, you've heard the difference in their voice hours after first dosage, its absolutely infuriating that anyone would take a single action against easy access to ivermectin and information about it. It has been researched for use as malaria treatment for decades, so it being safe for people to take isn't even in question whatsoever. If it in some way made the infection worse, that would already be clear in the studies that have been done. It should be available to anyone who wants it.

I've personally seen it help someone who was getting significantly worse day after day. The effect was undeniable, and makes it infuriating to see claims of the drug as being dangerous or needing more study. Because the FDA is the FDA doesn't mean what they're publishing isn't misinformation. The dose used was about the same as would be used for malaria, within hours of the first dose there was already massive improvement in breathing and overall energy. After further doses it wasn't long before complete recovery. To deny easy access to this sort of thing, for doctors not to offer it as an option when a patient is found to have covid, is criminal.

Where is the basis of any of the FDA's claims? Because the mechanism of action isn't fully understood? Does it matter when it saves lives?

Many of these stories would be prevented if ivermectin was more readily available. Yet the first thing that comes up when googling it is the FDA making baseless claims of it being dangerous. Of course it can be dangerous when people have to turn to questionable sources instead of being able to get it from their doctor with instructions for use.

No, to force anyone into human experimentation is a violation of the Nuremberg Code. Specifically sections 1, 3, and 8. Other sections could be easily argued to be in violation as well, but those 3 seem to be entirely against the current vaccine situation and policies being adapted by companies.

You initially would for having claimed something interesting is not, however you also started a discussion which is pretty interesting, including your own further comment, which also adds interest to the situation. Paradoxically you two now may be the most interesting here.

uninteresting to you

A lot of discoveries of interesting stuff resulted from something uninteresting being considered interesting and deeply contemplated. Others look and say "what an idiot, spending such time on such uninteresting x", I say, "you're only my self-imagined disagreeable other, I'm your god, your consciousness is my consciousness, what say you now?" and they would say nothing since the puppeteer has been revealed and there is nothing left to say. I guess this is why God will never prove he exists.

Very, very useful.

Just to frame it a particular way, biological systems are basically solved nanotechnology, extremely good, self-sustaining, resilient little machines that have spent a long time optimizing to be better and better. But all the designs are preset, if we can crack the code and design our own little machines, then amazing things like more plastic-like cellulose could be made, all sorts of problems are suddenly far easier to solve. But also a lot of new problems emerge that weren't even imaginable before, since the code being cracked is a big chunk of the code of life itself. So, yknow, playing God and all, so there probably will be some negative consequences of this too.

Because nothing is precisely what does exist. But nothing implies something, so my working theory is that nothing's implied opposite something is itself the first thing, then some cellular automata like progression results from similar logical self-reference and down the line our physics (and the entirety of every logical permutation of information n-dimensionally) results from that.

A similar conception I've heard is that its like something and nothing, at the beginning of time, made a bet whether there'd be something or nothing, but the act of making the bet was already something, rigging it in something's favor. Nothing thought that was bullshit and tried to call it so, and they've been battling it out ever since.

Unless I'm mistaken, there is a license to call a port a USB port, though goods are commonly sold without that. In theory the solution is simple: only buy products that have the actual USB logo and ensure certification, and the USB-IF should retain the right to significantly fine any manufacturer advertising being to spec and using the logo who is in fact not.

In practice, people aren't going to stop buying nintendo switches, unfortunately.

Still, its not entirely necessary to support all specs or have that be entirely clear, what does need to be clear is if you can expect safety specs to be followed. If I plug in my nintendo switch to a charger thinking it'll charge at lightspeed but it takes hours, oh well. If I plug it in and it destroys the device then that should be pretty much an unforgivable problem. Personally I'd be happy to abstain from buying such a device due to that, though also personally I did buy one, expecting no issues, and only found out months later when seeing it mentioned somewhere online. Ideally research is done on every product to ensure things like this aren't the case, but again in practice, that doesn't always happen.

I'm not sure what the fix is, other than outright making USB not so universal by requiring a license for any and all vendors using the design, if the license is cheap enough, maybe that could work? I don't know the legalities so much but maybe a free license could be required for any implementation, which would only have the spec of "make sure it doesn't brick charger or device, and make sure it doesn't catch on fire"

why does everyone assume—when obviously, demonstrably massive profit incentives are on the line—that everyone in key positions of power will act 100% honestly and altruistically?

If I hit the nail on the head, you hammered it all the way in putting it that way. Thank you. It's really bewildering, I never expected to see something like this happen, I mean, to see a massive government/corporate push of something, sure, but to see so many just go along with it with seemingly little to no questioning of legitimacy...and when the ability to do further research with hard factual numbers you can think up your own conclusions from...its just bewildering.

a) We do not have sufficient data, and threat of sterility is a serious concern which is yet to be ruled out

b) Thats your choice. I've never opted for the flu vaccine because the lack of accountability of its efficacy and profit incentives don't make sense as far as motivating any belief that that sort of thing is designed to be good for me

c) Examine the numbers of actual confirmed deaths from COVID vs comorbidities. Yes, it still is more deadly, and I clearly say that, but its not enough more to justify how its being treated.

You're sure those are ICUs full of people in critical condition due to COVID? How many went to the hospital the instant they got COVID despite lack of critical symptoms?

I don't think you're trying to be hyperbolic, I think you've been fed accurate information clothed in fear so as to lead to a bad-faith worst case interpretation of that data.

The most intelligent people I know who have the most experience in the medical field, have always suggested, and still do with the COVID vaccine, to wait a minimum of 5 years before expecting safety in something like that.

To be clear, to the response "be glad it isn't in your area", it is, I've had people directly claim to me a local hospital is overrun with patients. A friend had to goto the same hospital for unrelated reasons. Parking lot was nearly empty, calm and boring inside. Someone is lying, my friend doesn't have a trackrecord of lying, quite the opposite. The news media on the other hand, I can't say the same.

As a society, the choice is crystal clear: vaccines that do not kill people today

The vaccines are killing an alarming number of people today.

versus a virus that demonstrably overwhelms health systems,

This is not true. Hospitals were and have been fairly empty. Small hospitals at times have been overloaded and imagery from those exaggerated as though its a general pattern when it's not.

killing lots of people now. This is as close to an IQ test as it gets in public policy.

The death numbers are slightly higher than that of the flu.

Take a look at historical deaths and those this year attributed to COVID. It doesn't add up to any sort of justification of the handling over the last year, nor the push for vaccination.

The IQ test is if you assume headlines are honest condensation of information or not. Every single day I see tens of articles claiming things about COVID that sound terrifying, only to turn out to be the most fearful bad-faith interpretation of the actual information brought up in the article.

This perspective would seem more reasonable if it weren't based on headlines alone. The sort of headlines it's based on, when you dig into how they conclude to those headlines, often are fairly detached. There are cases of wild stories, but nothing consistent. We don't go in a panic over this sort of possibility with flu strains, when the same possibility does exist. Don't compare COVID to HIV, there isn't a good reason to. COVID is mildly more deadly then the flu, if you wouldn't be scared of dying from the flu, its unreasonable to be afraid of COVID.