Dennis Hackethal’s Blog
My blog about philosophy, coding, and anything else that interests me.
Tweets
An archive of my tweets and retweets through . They may be formatted slightly differently than on Twitter. API access has since gotten prohibitively expensive – I don't know whether or when I'll be able to update this archive.
But in case I will, you can subscribe via RSS – without a Twitter account. Rationale
Bummer, for a second I thought he turned it down because he saw through the charade.
"because it's the right thing to do" can still be a bit authoritarian or lead to authoritarian policies.
We should help people because we want to. That way, those who don't want to are free not to.
And calls for "equity" are the kind of thing that sabotages our ability to create more wealth, which in turn sabotages our ability to become healthier.
We have capitalism to thank for the wealth that allows us to create such vaccines in the first place.
Check out Wheelman on Netflix. Great footwork in that one.
@EricRWeinstein @DavidDeutschOxf @rickygervais
If not, they’d simply remain chimps—or something close to it, but qualitatively different from people either way. Which isn’t terrifying either. Or is it?
@EricRWeinstein @DavidDeutschOxf @rickygervais
I’m likewise unsure what the potential term might be, but why terrifying?
If chimps underwent the same genetic changes that lead to creativity/consciousness etc—ie personhood—then they’d be one of us. And they’d replicate our memes, become a member of our culture, etc.
RT @ChipkinLogan:
My article about the 1920 'Great Debate' over the scale of the universe has been published with @PhysicsWorld -
https:/…
If they simply made that fn part of the core there’d be no need for a new pipe syntax.
And you’d have more flexibility too because it would come with all the benefits of being able to pass the fn around programmatically, dynamically populating its arguments list, etc.
That one feels like something that shouldn’t be implemented on a language level but simply as a function.
let pipe = (init, fns) => {
return fns.reduce((acc, curr) => {
return curr(acc);
}, init);
}
Typed this on my phone but I think it should work.
Managed to convince him over the next 30 min or so that freedom and independence are more important and that in fact governments do not act for the "good of the community." He closed saying "yeah, persuasion is better than force." Success! https://t.co/dLe8yMRwk0
Just spoke to a Chinese about lockdowns (he left China for America before pandemic started). Asked him how he would feel if the government welded his doors and windows shut. He said he'd be fine it since it's for the "good of the community."
I'm still waiting for Saul to bring this up in Better Call Saul.
RT @thehill:
Illinois lawmaker seeks ban of "Grand Theft Auto" game following rise in carjackings hill.cm/7i9BhGZ https://t.co/vO6X…
Hatte ich einfach noch nie gehört. Aber es scheint ja regional bedingt zu ein, also ergibt es durchaus Sinn.
Parkieren klingt aber komisch.
How does that saying go: the harder the challenge the greater the triumph?
RT @TheAtlasSociety:
Yeah, We Didn't Think So... #SocialismSucks #ShrinkGovernment #GrowLiberty #AynRand https://t.co/dNsrF1fD3Z
Tomorrow we may find that DD's hard-to-vary approach is mistaken. And then we can reevaluate ideas we previously discarded. And look for a better principle. And so on.
Neither that principle nor the theory has any privileged status. It's just a way to criticize and discard theories, not to justify them.
Also, take DD's guiding principle in science: the search for good explanations. If a theory is a bad explanation, i.e., easy to vary, we reject it. If it is a good explanation, we tentatively keep it.
Right, I don't privilege any ideas. And it smells good to me :)
Btw, if it wasn't clear, I wasn't referencing BoI because I consider that an authoritative source or anything (that would ironically have been justificationist), but because the topic is well explained in there.
There's no meta-principle saying "when an idea and another idea that happens to be a principle conflict, always favor the principle."
Maybe you want to make an exception to a principle. Maybe lying is okay sometimes. The very fact that you're willing to make exceptions shows that the principle isn't "privileged," as you called it. It's just a guide to help correct errors and to avoid acting on whim.
Say you have a principle that says that murder is wrong. Or that you won't respond to threats. Or that lying is wrong. Etc.
You can then evaluate other ideas accordingly. Sometimes you may find that an idea conflicts with one of your principles.
It's not in conflict with the "framework" because principles are likewise conjectures and never set in stone and there are always conflicts between ideas. That some of those conflicts happen to involve principles in incidental.
Also, I recommend posting consecutive comments as children and grandchildren etc, not as siblings. That way, they're all on top of each other and easier to read as a result because they can be viewed at the same time in a single thread.
One can be principled fallibilist, a principled justificationist, an unprincipled fallibilist, or an unprincipled justificationist. These things are orthogonal.
No I don't assess the reliability of my knowledge according to a criterion.
I see if some idea conflicts with the principle. That can lead to either giving up the idea or sometimes even the principle. It helps correct errors. I'm not interested at all in justifying my ideas.
Regarding how it would work: as I said, people would ask for your consent before taking your property.
Regarding where it has worked: it has never been tried. But that doesn’t mean one shouldn’t try something new or that theft isn’t morally wrong.
To be clear, I don’t want people to have the ability to veto something they’ve already agreed to do. I want them to be asked for agreement in the first placement, whenever and before somebody wants to take their property.
Haven’t you heard? Everything is racist now. Wanting to keep them closed is surely racist, too.
RT @RonPaul:
The Questionable PCR Tests
Watch the whole show here: youtu.be/a6tLCjQD8mg https://t.co/oJfLTZBgZg
@GavinNewsom @fema @SteveBradford @HildaSolis @kdeleon
Do you ever post photos that you aren’t in?
And yes there’s a glossary at the end of every chapter.
People learn in school to lie to themselves about their interests. Some become good at things they dislike doing, which is considered a badge of honor.
@OxfordPopper @DavidDeutschOxf @RemindMe_OfThis
in four days.
It's not just a "move." And no, not supported—whether they conflict so you can correct errors.
Look up the entries on justificationism and fallibilism in BoI chapter 1 glossary and tell me they aren't opposites.
You don't need to push through. Having to push through is a sign it's not for you. Find something else you enjoy doing.
You're just judging ideas compared to the principle, not justifying. You can remain aware of your fallibility and be principled. One instance of that is being a principled fallibilist.
Another name for being principled is to take ideas seriously. blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/taking-i…
Being principled sounds justificationist or not being does?
When somebody tells you not to follow principles in a matter, that’s very bad advice because they’re telling you to act on whim. Also, that advice is itself a principle, so it cancels itself out.
Wie sieht's mit dem Wort "Nachfolger" aus? Klingt nach dieser Logik ebenfalls doppelt gemoppelt, ist aber doch ein feststehender Begriff...
RT @ClimateWarrior7:
This "delicious" desert is made entirely from the rectal effluent of a small goat.
In the future, to save the planet,…
RT @RonPaul:
Ron Paul response to reports President Biden may restrict interstate travel
We can certainly speculate, but even the evolution of existing technology is impossible to predict in principle. People think of genuinely new things to do with existing technologies. One cannot predict something that has never been thought of without thinking of it first.
Your system to order parts has been down for weeks. There is no website to check availability. People need to call, select options and hold for minutes every time they want to check.
What are you doing to make this better?
Quoting David Deutsch from his The Beginning of Infinity: “People in 1900 did not consider the internet or nuclear power unlikely: they did not conceive of them at all.”
That explains the existence of microprocessors retrospectively, but nobody could have predicted them before their invention. That would have taken knowledge nobody had yet.
Can we go from the descriptive to the prescriptive? From the status quo to how things should be? Again, we're in agreement about how things are right now.
You don’t get a personal veto on taxation.
Correct. Again, I agree that that is currently the case.
with a personal veto [...] anytime your “property” is involved
I had just given an example where one shouldn't get a veto, even in a libertarian society.
We will see re lockdowns. Hopefully not. But the precedent has been set. twitter.com/TheAtlasSociet…
The reason that is an exception is that defensive force is okay in response to aggressive force.
Do you have any refutations of that, instead of just trying to disparage me? Your attacks have gotten subtler, but not necessarily less mean.
I think you mean “affects” not “effects.”
I don’t think it means liberty means that. Eg if you use your knife (your property) to attempt to harm someone that knife may be removed from you and you don’t get a veto.
RT @TextSkizzen:
#Praxistipp: „nachfolgend“ ist übrigens doppelt gemoppelt. Formulierungen wie „folgende Mitteilung“ reichen vollkommen aus…
I don't disagree with what's currently the case. I had already said that I agree that one doesn't currently get a veto. And I'm also saying that one should get a veto.
Yeah, since all three examples presuppose the existence of "public" property, it's no wonder one doesn't get a veto.
What you're describing is what is currently the case. I was describing what should be the case, based on moral principles of freedom and property.
You should make your comments children of each other instead of siblings. Would be much easier to read.
Fixed that: "Parliament should insist that no legal restriction stays in place unless there is a good moral explanation not only that it is people's obligation to ensure availability of health services, but also that its effectiveness is worth sacrificing freedom over."
RT @SwipeWright:
A member of the NZ Parliament, human rights lawyer, and self-proclaimed feminist apologizing for saying "women's rights ar…
Kann es auch "hofmeisterische" heißen? Also mit i?
@nalryns @TheHarryPainter @billhabicht @GavinNewsom
As you can see, that question has been asked (and answered) before.
RT @ClimateWarrior7:
All gatherings are against the law.
Do not try to make your own pub.
Do not meet up with friends.
Meeting up is…
I should be entitled to be consulted on and get a veto on every decision that involves my property, yes. And so should everyone else for their property.
It doesn't indicate that. Somebody can understand how it works and still bemoan the fact that they don't get a say.
Btw, I didn't bemoan that I don't get a say in how the money is spent. I bemoaned the fact that the money is forcefully taken in the first place.
Also, why are you being so condescending and mean? Can I convince you to turn this into a more matter-of-factly, calm conversation?
U don’t get a veto
That's what I'm saying. Consent implies an opportunity to say "no."
And, while you could move to another city or state, moving to another country is different because you need travel documents. Over which the government has a monopoly.
Please tell me that’s not a Bundesverdienstkreuz.
Add an integrity attribute to the script tag in embedded tweets so that other sites can't get xss'ed when your script gets hacked?
I didn't say it does or doesn't exist. I said it's possible.
Civilization is possible without taxes.
Congratulations to everyone involved.
Before launch, I signed up to have my name etched onto a microchip on the rover alongside thousands of others, in writing thinner than a human hair. For now, that's as close as it gets to going to Mars in person. :)
[...] even ideas that are similar across soups can, in principle, arise.
Correction: they do all the time in separate minds, of course, through faithful meme replication.
When it comes to people and ideas, there are close to eight billion soups on earth right now that all arose separately :)
And technically, different soups can arise independently (and must have if there's RNA-based life elsewhere in the universe), and even ideas that are similar across soups can, in principle, arise.
It'd be a bit like finding tiger genes in another galaxy. Not impossible...
Possibly—but according to a colleague at a previous job, one of them would have overtaken by now, with the others most likely being extinct, or at least the entire thing being a single big soup by now.
Either way, once you have a single soup, similar ideas can arise indpndtly.
Check out @PanData19's website for statistics on the futility of lockdown measures.
That's a choice they should be able to make, and do make all the time when it comes to driving, sex and STDs, smoking, drinking, etc.
And it isn't even clear that hundreds of thousands would die. Death rate seems close to regular flu. But it wouldn't change my argument if so.
Letting people manage their own health is a solution, because everyone who prefers to self-isolate is already free to do so, no force needed. And everyone else should be able to go about their business normally, knowing full well they may pay with their health.
Harming people by taking their livelihoods away "for their own benefit" is not an option because one cannot trade one evil for another and make any (moral) progress. That people don't know what's best for them has been used as an excuse to do things to them since time immemorial.