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
Look what wonderful people all the commenters are. twitter.com/deaflibertaria…
RT @nixcraft:
Alien language! OMG. LOL. https://t.co/HFbaqL2swI
RT @BernieSpofforth:
This isn’t China. This is the Howard Springs COVID quarantine camp in Australia.
For the “dangerous” people.
#COVID1…
RT @reycat_:
@kevindente @siracusa
It’s actually worse. Not only did it break the web experience. It trained hundreds of millions of people…
@codinghorror @danbrotherston @kevindente
You could local storage or some other mechanism perhaps but I believe (though I may well be wrong) these laws extend to ‘cookie-like’ technology.
Assuming this is not a troll:
If indigenous people need to reach for this kind of stuff to fight ‘injustice’, isn’t that evidence that they’re doing quite well in this country? Or perhaps she’s not representative of the plight? twitter.com/mountroyal4u/s…
@clairelouwhoo @JamesMelville
Btw, I didn't say bullfighting is okay. I asked why it shouldn't be allowed. As in, I invited to people to speak their mind on why it isn't okay, not on why it is.
@scottishgooner @ZoeRoberts53 @JamesMelville
OK but Zoe's claim was that "the rich and powerful make the laws". The queen is rich and powerful but does she make the laws? I thought parliament did that.
@clairelouwhoo @JamesMelville
I didn't say you're missing something. I merely asked you to entertain the idea.
Regarding:
If you think bullfighting is good or okay that says a hell of a lot about you and none of it is good.
you may find this of interest: blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/the-anim…
@ZoeRoberts53 @scottishgooner @JamesMelville
If they think they are above the law anyway, why would they bother making laws?
@clairelouwhoo @JamesMelville
Could be I'm missing something, yeah. Could it also be that I understand well why you think it's barbaric, and that there's something you're missing?
RT @SirajAHashmi:
holy fuck theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/… https://t.co/kO7DTfvJz2
@scottishgooner @JamesMelville
“[T]he UK still allows fox hunting even though it’s illegal […]”
Isn’t that a contradiction?
RT @realchrisrufo:
Parents are revolting against critical race theory and classroom indoctrination.
In the past 24 hours, school district…
In this conversation, Deutsch asks: “[T]here’s something different about knowledge creation from other physical processes. […] What’s the thing that makes creative computer programs different from non-creative ones?”
Here's a guess: blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/what-mak… twitter.com/DavidDeutschOx…
RT @GregAbbott_TX:
Texas safeguards the 2nd Amendment.
Today, Constitutional carry goes into effect.
Texans who legally own a gun are…
RT @michaelmalice:
They're more scared of getting the virus than having the virus bc they've been trained to believe that means they've don…
All this talk of ‘men’ and ‘balls’ is coming off sexist and patriarchal. You should #dobetter and #bemoreinclusive. #womencanhaveballs twitter.com/ClimateWarrior…
RT @NiklasKorber:
2020 Verschwörungstheorie, 2021 Realität. https://t.co/ZL9yn5zSZE
Klingt irgendwie komisch. Wäre ‘letztmöglich’ nicht vielleicht besser?
That triple ligature combined with the wide letter spacing elsewhere really threw me off.
I put my money on the guy with the ricin cigarette. twitter.com/DeathBattleBot…
RT @ClimateWarrior7:
Finally queer people can have access to bank accounts and are no longer forced to try to use straight bank accounts, i…
@ProfoundPilled
Read David Deutsch’s The Beginning of Infinity chapter 10 to find out why.
“Wir halten die Corona-Regeln ein. Damit unsere Lokale offen bleiben.” Das ist ein gemeiner Trick, um die Schuld für die Zwangsschliessung von der Regierung auf die Bevölkerung zu schieben.
(Obwohl nicht alle Nicht-Akademiker Hartz-IV-Empfaenger sind, deshalb ist Ihr Argument eh fadenscheinig.)
Nichts an dieser Grafik bedeutet, dass "Nicht-Akademikerkinder" nicht aus Hartz-IV rauskommen koennten. Im Gegenteil bietet sie Tatsachenmaterial dafuer, dass ca. 21 % dies sogar schaffen.
Yea that claim is false. There's nothing historicist about thinking reach in politics solves more problems in politics (by definition alone it means that).
I suppose so but which anarchist claims that anarchy is predetermined? And what does that have to do with Mat's original point that policies shouldn't have reach?
Having said that, many anarchists are wrong about methodology, but again not because they're historicists (they're not), but because they're revolutionaries.
I'm not aware of any anarchists claiming anarchy is the inevitable destiny of mankind. If some do, they're wrong for being historicists, not for being anarchists. But I don't see why anarchists would be historicist; merely working toward anarchism doesn't make them historicist.
Anarchy is historicism if interpreted as mainly a goal [...]
It isn't. Historicism isn't about a particular goal but about methodology. It's deeply mistaken about how history proceeds: historicists claim that there is some inevitable course of history.
Yeah but that doesn’t mean we should avoid political theories with reach.
I think you’re confusing something. Just because historicism claims to have reach it doesn’t have doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive for universal reach in politics. Universal theories in politics can be about things other than laws of progress.
So why don’t they also vote to force-sell all the stores so the government can lower all other prices too? And maybe they should force-sell all companies period and have the government be everyone’s employer so everyone can be paid more. Maybe they can also legislate cancer away. twitter.com/GeorgeGammon/s…
Clojure Koans are good too: clojurekoans.com
“Clojure for the Brave and True” is a good (and free) resource for learning Clojure. braveclojure.com
Yes I think that's fair.
Well, in that case people wouldn't get very far. We need conjectures with reach, ideally universal reach, to make progress.
Depending on the underlying cause obesity can absolutely be in ppl's control.
There's also astonishing research into how obesity can spread through groups much like smoking, drinking etc.
And nobody's asking for freedom to spread Covid. twitter.com/nntaleb/status…
And businesses are free to not serve people who are unvaccinated or have employees who won’t get vaccinated.
Yes, they are, or at least should be, but if Biden were to have his way, they wouldn't be free to not serve the unvaccinated, they'd be forced to not serve them. twitter.com/SurviveThrive2…
Maybe.
When you speak out against "universal conjectures" in politics you seem to be promoting parochialism. Or am I misunderstanding you?
The complexity of brains resolves itself into a simpler structure on a higher, more relevant level of emergence, where they are computers. By denying this step to the higher level of emergence it's you who's being reductionist.
From what you've said I don't think you understand enough about brains or computers to make that claim.
Brains are computers and then some, yes, eg they have input and output devices that our computers don't. But that doesn't change a thing about computational universality.
It's reductionist because it equates shared function with similarity of design/form.
That's not what reductionism is.
"You've been asymptomatic for a month. [You think] god likes you the most. He gave you the Jesus genes, right? You're special. Your friend down the street got the sniffles, now he can't taste his […] wife's ass when he licks it […] and it makes you feel better about yourself." twitter.com/dchackethal/st…
If you're such a fan of coercion and violence, maybe you should move to Australia or France or China so you can lock people into their homes and beat protesters, breaking their noses and bones so they stay healthy. Or maybe it's like Bill Burr says on his podcast (4-6-20):
... into a 'quarantine camp'. All those are physically violent, all in the name of 'public' health.
How would you persuade them?
I don't know but I'm not the one trying to get people to get the vaccine. You would need to figure that out, not me.
What violence are you referring to?
Have you not seen the bloody response to protests from several governments around the world? Then there's jabbing a needle into someone's arm against his will, which would surely be violent. Or dragging them from a peaceful activity...
Is your freedom to not get vaccinated so important that we risk a variant that is much more deadly […]?
Yes, but you're presenting a false choice. Find a solution that doesn't coerce people and doesn't cause them to die. Create new alternatives instead of comparing only 2
...you can't trade one evil for another. Find a solution that reduces losses and doesn't coerce people.
'Public' health is not an overriding concern that people should be forced to provide. And again, just persuade people. If you fail at persuasion that's no excuse to coerce
do you think losses are acceptable, should we just let it run its course and accept loss of those who don’t want the vaccine?
I don't think losses are acceptable but I also don't think they justify coercing people into preventing those losses. Problems are soluble and...
... or my responsibility to make sure hospitals have availability. You're forcing responsibilities on people they never agreed to, and you are turning people into sacrificial animals, even if you deny that.
Do you think the surges that crippled health care systems in Italy, New York, India were fake?
I don't know. Much of the media seems to have vastly overstated the impact. I've seen reports of many hospitals being underutilized. But whatever the case, again, it's not your...
Because of low vaccination rate, a winter surge that is worse than last year is inevitable. What is your response?
1) that's prophecy, 2) it's nobody's duty to ensure the health of his peers, 3) so persuade ppl to get vaccinated?
They're offered a 'choice' similar to when parents say to their children 'you can do your homework before or after dinner', with the implied threat of punishment.
So because I don't live in Australia what they're doing to their citizens is okay? LOL
And, they are free to leave just not come back?
Many would want to leave temporarily and come back eventually because it's their home. They don't want to abandon their home forever...
But once you take the epistemological implications of 'robotness' vs consciousness seriously, it follows from Dawkins' claim that animals are not conscious (whether he agrees with that is another matter entirely).
Also many people don't see that robot-like execution of algorithms on one hand and consciousness on the other are incompatible, so in that view there's no conflict between viewing people as robots and as conscious.
That said, I'm not sure he just considers the 'organisms are genes' robots' idea a metaphor. Do you have a quote?
When I attributed the idea to Dawkins I didn't mean to imply that he agrees with me about animal sentience – after all, what started this thread is my response to Dawkins' conjecture that animals may suffer more than humans! Just giving credit where it is due.
"clearly did not express"
manifest-truth error again
Communication is hard. You can't expect others always to understand what you intended.
BoI ch. 10 is good on this btw.
Indicative of your style of 'reasoning' again: just insist, don't explain why Dennis wrong. Dennis just doesn't see 'the obvious'?
Maybe we could even program consciousness into an amoeba, arguably are very primitive life form compared to others. Or maybe not.
We could program consciousness into a robot if we knew how (and also into much more primitive hardware as long as it's universal and has enough memory and processing power).
It's not like at some sufficient level of advancement robots suddenly jump to consciousness (which most think is true for animals – like thinking amoebae are not conscious but dogs are).
Are current robots advanced enough to have consciousness?
No, but it has less to do with lacking advancement and more with lacking the 'right' programming. We just don't know how to program consciousness at the moment.
Are biological dogs robots?
Yes, as are all organisms (except humans, and I can explain why). Following Dawkins, organisms are the slaves genes use to propagate themselves. Organisms are programmed to execute their genes' bidding.
You're still engaging in further analysis.
...that your explanation may not be the "obvious" one (since you keep going back to that word). You really don't want to be wrong or change your mind about this. You want to 'see the obvious' and then stop there and preserve 'the obvious' in its current state.
This is another difference in how we argue and why it's easier to change my mind than yours: I've entertained your idea. (I used to hold it myself, even be vegan etc.) I understand your point of view. I don't think you've seriously entertained mine, or ever stopped to think...
You think you see consciousness behind the pain because that's what your existing explanation says. You should criticize your explanation and see if there are other ways to interpret dog behavior.
That includes pain, which you can witness them responding to. Therefore they are conscious.
We can see the response but not the pain. So the 'therefore' doesn't follow. There, another refutation.
I've also explained that robots could be programmed to respond the same way as dogs, so dog behavior cannot be indicative of consciousness.
I just said I had previously pointed out your truth-is-manifest mistake. Now you're making the same mistake again: "[dogs] obviously aren't robots [...]" (the word "obviously")
You're engaging in further analysis which you claimed wasn't necessary.
...Instead you offer something unrelated (and aggressive again because you accuse me of having bad intentions) that I'm now also supposed to refute, in addition. So this very response of yours is in line with my theory that it's harder to change your mind than it is mine and why.
This doesn't address what I said about your (probably tacitly held and very common) methodology. It's switching arguments again: I present a theory for why it's harder to change your mind than mine. You don't refute that theory...
I understand that that's what you think. I don't think it means you didn't switch your argument.
Then you contradict yourself because by your own argument: a robot when lit on fire experiences "immense suffering". You can't now claim it doesn't and explain why because you said yourself that "no analysis is needed".
You also insist your arguments are true when I've already refuted them, no counter-refutation provided: twitter.com/AstralKing7/st…
The "no analysis needed" thing is the manifest-truth error I have pointed out previously.