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Posts by Obbe
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2017-11-21 at 11:51 PM UTC in Does any culture not have holidays?
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2017-11-21 at 11:48 PM UTC in A very SG Message to all
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2017-11-21 at 11:48 PM UTC in A very SG Message to all
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2017-11-21 at 11:45 PM UTC in So what's the best cheap beer?I've always liked Coors.
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2017-11-21 at 11:36 PM UTC in A very SG Message to all
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2017-11-21 at 11:14 PM UTC in Does any culture not have holidays?
Originally posted by Speedy Parker Read it, understand it, and get back to us.
https://www.amazon.com/Animal-farm-Fairy-George-Orwell/dp/0451526341
I actually bought this like a month ago. Is it really as terribly written as Lanny says? -
2017-11-21 at 11:03 PM UTC in Do you think there will ever be self driving cars?
Originally posted by Lanny I think it will happen and it'll be a good thing. Not because I have any particular faith in tech companies or regulatory authorities but because it's a convenient thing that will make an incremental improvement in the lives of first world citizens i.e. it's the type of technology who people who are involved in making technology actually give a shit about.
When I was in school I took an ethics in sci/tech course and one of the hypotheticals that came up was this: you're in a self driving car going over a bridge. A school bus in front of you full of children hits the breaks, your car has this information and also knows it can't stop in time to avoid the bus. The car has a "choice" to hit the bus likely killing all the kids but deploying airbags and saving your probably or swerving off the bridge almost certainly killing you but keeping the expected death toll low (one person vs. the majority of a full bus). What is joe programmer writing implementing the car's logic supposed to do? I thought the answer was pretty obvious, responsibility to minimize loss of human life far exceeds a company's duty to its customers. It seems pretty uncontroversial that a pharmaceutical company manufacturing like thalidomide for example, knowing the risks and marketing it to pregnant women, is doing something wrong even if its customers understand the consequences. Likewise we shouldn't sell people cars that are going to increase the total deathtoll just to soothe their anxieties (indeed it would even, in aggregate, put such customers at greater risk since they're more likely to be on the other side of that kind of dichotomy). It was surprising how mixed reactions to that case are, a lot of people really believe that there's something wrong with a car that might sacrifice its driver for the greater good.
I think an actual automated car would automatically leave enough breaking distance between itself and other vehicles that it wouldn't have to "swerve off the bridge" so scenarios like that would be unlikely. -
2017-11-21 at 4:43 PM UTC in Do you think there will ever be self driving cars?Yes it will happen and overall it will make transportation safer, but like the Unabomber said, as technology/the system continues to grow it will continue to erode humanity and freedom, changing human behavior to suit the needs of the system, and then one day before you know it we won't even be humans anymore. So it goes.
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2017-11-21 at 4:35 PM UTC in Does any culture not have holidays?
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2017-11-21 at 12:14 PM UTC in CLOSE_REG_FFSso it goes
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2017-11-20 at 8:49 PM UTC in Dropping two tabs of acidSo it goes.
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2017-11-19 at 9:41 PM UTC in Dropping two tabs of acidThe inexorable universe doesn't care about our lives. It's up to us to make life what we will. Sometimes that is a pretty poor showing and sometimes it's fantastic, so it goes. Sometimes awful things happen to innocent people, so it goes. Sometimes the most beautiful things happen to awful people, so it goes. Sometimes everything works out just the way we want it to, so it goes.
I really don't know, it's just me and my mind making things up.
So it goes. -
2017-11-19 at 9:35 PM UTC in Anyone ever get "voices "in there head?
According to Jaynes, ancient people in the bicameral state of mind would have experienced the world in a manner that has some similarities to that of a schizophrenic. Rather than making conscious evaluations in novel or unexpected situations, the person would hallucinate a voice or "god" giving admonitory advice or commands and obey without question: one would not be at all conscious of one's own thought processes per se. Research into "command hallucinations" that often direct the behavior of those labeled schizophrenic, as well as other voice hearers, supports Jaynes's predictions.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology) -
2017-11-19 at 9:20 PM UTC in Dropping two tabs of acidRecommended lesson:
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2017-11-18 at 4:29 PM UTC in best cerealI like "Life" cereal. Also sometimes "Harvest Crunch".
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2017-11-18 at 4:17 PM UTC in Does any culture not have holidays?
Originally posted by Lanny Do primitive societies have holidays? Holidays in sustenance farming communities seems a little weird (it's not like "here's free money", it's like "I'm paying not to work today for some reason") but they seem to exist. Do we have any evidence one way or the other for hunter gatherer societies?
Guess it depends what you mean by "holiday", they did have celebrations:
"The solstice may have been a special moment of the annual cycle for some cultures even during neolithic times. Astronomical events were often used to guide activities such as the mating of animals, the sowing of crops and the monitoring of winter reserves of food. Many cultural mythologies and traditions are derived from this. This is attested by physical remains in the layouts of late Neolithic and Bronze Age archaeological sites, such as Stonehenge in England and Newgrange in Ireland. The primary axes of both of these monuments seem to have been carefully aligned on a sight-line pointing to the winter solstice sunrise (Newgrange) and the winter solstice sunset (Stonehenge). It is significant that at Stonehenge the Great Trilithon was oriented outwards from the middle of the monument, i.e. its smooth flat face was turned towards the midwinter Sun.[4] The winter solstice was immensely important because the people were economically dependent on monitoring the progress of the seasons. Starvation was common during the first months of the winter, January to April (northern hemisphere) or July to October (southern hemisphere), also known as "the famine months". In temperate climates, the midwinter festival was the last feast celebration, before deep winter began. Most cattle were slaughtered so they would not have to be fed during the winter, so it was almost the only time of year when a plentiful supply of fresh meat was available. The majority of wine and beer made during the year was finally fermented and ready for drinking at this time. The concentration of the observances were not always on the day commencing at midnight or at dawn, but at the beginning of the pagan day, which in many cultures fell on the previous eve.[5] Because the event was seen as the reversal of the Sun's ebbing presence in the sky, concepts of the birth or rebirth of sun gods have been common and, in cultures which used cyclic calendars based on the winter solstice, the "year as reborn" was celebrated with reference to life-death-rebirth deities or "new beginnings" such as Hogmanay's redding, a New Year cleaning tradition."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_solstice -
2017-11-15 at 7:11 PM UTC in No, I'm serious, how do I meet more women.Aren't you gay?
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2017-11-14 at 11:43 AM UTC in How do you keep yourself from becoming absolutely obsessed with all that is going wrong in the world
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2017-11-13 at 10:48 PM UTC in I'm alive, but not well.
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2017-11-13 at 9:37 PM UTC in I got some books today
Originally posted by LegalizeSpiritualDiscovery I'm about 70 pages in and really enjoying it. A couple parts at the beginning made me actually chuckle, which isn't too common for a book. It's hard to find time to read with all the shifts I've been working lately, but I try to read some before or after work.
The whole Bokononism thing made a big impression on me.
