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
@ToKTeacher @bnielson01 @HeuristicAndy @DavidDeutschOxf @reasonisfun
"What could?" Neo-Darwinism could be falsified “if an organism was observed to undergo only (or mainly) favourable mutations” or “[i]f organisms were observed to be born with new, complex adaptations – for anything – of which there were no precursors in their parents” BoI ch. 4
@HeuristicAndy @DavidDeutschOxf @ToKTeacher @reasonisfun
This may help: ncse.ngo/what-did-karl-…
Many successful people give to charities to "give back." But they never took anything in the first place!
People like Steve Jobs, through the production and marketing of computers, have done way more to lift people out of poverty than charities, without even trying to do that.
Charity is overrated. It doesn't create anything new—it's just a transfer of existing wealth and is a zero-sum game. Trade, on the other hand, results in the creation of value for both parties.
I suspect for other items, the factor is even starker. How much would someone have to pay you never to use clothes again? Or salt? Or cars?
Let's say people spend an average of $10,000 on computers in a lifetime. Those $10,000 are effectively worth $10 million to them and computers outperform their cost 1000x.
I had a sense that this would be the result, but it's still worth thinking about what it means. For one, it means that computers are extremely valuable. For two, it means that entrepreneurship is much more helpful to people than even extremely generous charity.
“Sie sind beide in Brüssel untergetaucht und haben dort überlebt.” ??
Looks like he’ll need to win all of Fla, Ga, Iowa, mich, nc, nev, Ohio, and Texas if Biden gets the remainder. Doable. But if he loses a single one of those, he loses overall.
Not according to politico.com/2020-election/… if Biden wins all remaining states.
School kids in France stood for a minute of silence to acknowledge the beheading of Samuel Paty by an islamist terrorist.
"A minute of silence means nothing if it’s forced. If we’re serious about freedom, we need to stop forcing kids to go to school."
Macron is doing the right thing standing up to islamists—unfortunately, it's ironic that children are learning about freedom in a classroom setting they are forced to attend.
Would you accept $10 million on condition that you never use any computer ever again (including smart phones, tablets etc)?
What are the consequences for Newsom and the CA government as a whole? Do they at least have to pay damages?
It’s a great day for California!! twitter.com/KevinKileyCA/s…
@MatjazLeonardis @DavidDeutschOxf
Then again, we’re not after justification, so maybe this isn’t such a big problem?
RT @DavidDeutschOxf:
@richard_landes @SamHarrisOrg
Don't analyse it as a policy, where it is obviously nonsense. Analyse it as a general-pu…
To be clear, I'm not looking to weigh pros against cons. I'm looking for a single con that would refute the entire thing.
RT @MurraySuggests:
“Whenever someone starts talking about 'fair competition' or indeed, about 'fairness' in general, it is time to keep a…
“It’s about giving people the resources and the help they need...” doesn’t that sound lovely! If only she shed light on the theft and violence that are silently happening to “give people what they need.”
The idea may not explicitly encode that feature, but it's part of its reach (albeit a bad kind of reach). And yes, I think that for some ideas, it's the associations that make it troublesome.
This casts doubt on the possibility of persuading you with outcomes alone, as there may always be "other potential benefits" you can mention. It would be better to pinpoint and offer one specific criticism that would definitely change your mind.
@cziscience @ChanZuckerberg @WatchRatio
This whole account is a social-justice treasure chest.
Whenever an idea seems so obviously true that you cannot imagine yourself possibly finding a flaw with it—when it makes you think that it must be true—that in itself is a flaw with the idea.
@tiffanyiwaddell @podia @WatchRatio
coach offering services to recruit and promote based on skin color
To illustrate this point, imagine you eat cake all day and never exercise. If somebody then forces you to eat healthier and exercise every day, you'll get in better shape (i.e. better outcome). But forcing you would still be wrong and the better outcome doesn't make up for that.
Also, outcomes aren't everything. The methodology matters, too. For example, coercive methodologies should be avoided in favor of non-coercive methodologies.
What about if someone convinces you that income inequality and consolidation of power aren't bad per se? Would change your mind about UBI, too?
Affected by corporate wokeism? Here are some tips on how to counter it:
To be clear, if that's what you were referring to, the fact that UBI wouldn't alleviate poverty by printing money is true even if printing money is not coercive.
In any case, have you given any thought to how one could change your mind and get you to reject UBI?
Ok but I don't think you've refuted the notion that printing money is theft. And if it's theft it's still coercion.
Assuming that printing money is not theft, printing money does not create wealth because the USD is not a consumer good, and so it won't help abolish poverty.
All employment and company actions are already voluntary. No UBI needed for that.
You're confusing the necessity of work with coercion (a common mistake). Relieving the necessity of work does not impact the presence or absence of coercion.
Given that this presents an inconsistency with my "world view," why does that lead to disagreement with my previous two tweets?
@vharrelle71 @TragerSteele @EthicalSkeptic
Once you read Popper, you will encounter good criticism of Wittgenstein, too.
How UBI could possibly help avoid coercion at work I do not know, but it would also be a case of "coercion to fight coercion," since we have already discovered that UBI can only be brought about through coercion.
I kindof like the concept of everything being voluntary, but I think it's important that employees are not coerced into doing anything that they don't want to do either.
The "but" doesn't work there, it's like saying "we need coercion to fight coercion."
All of that is non-coercive so it's fine and their prerogative.
We can find voluntary measures to discourage bad actors. Trade associations, rules, competition, etc.
“In theory we should have more of a say in how the govt functions and that would be our route to have a say in how private companies function” is code for coercing companies into doing things they do not want.
Yeah it’s voluntary. Also hospital has a PR incentive not to do something like that or lose customers. And even if it didn’t, “sometimes bad things happen” and “bad actors exist” is no excuse for institutionalized theft.
There's no reason to think a free society couldn't solve those problems. Also there’s currently little in place to prevent governments from exploiting people.
BTW voluntary trades cannot be exploitative, unless one of the parties commits fraud.
It would reduce its activities to essential services, slowly hand over more and more of that to private corporations, first through collaboration, then through handoffs, and steadily reduce taxes until they're 0 and the government has been fully replaced by voluntary alternatives
@IdkMike @ValaAfshar @AndrewYang
Again, poverty cannot be regulated away. I understand the urgency, and poverty sucks, but politics won't help. Let the free market continue to lift people out of poverty and in a few decades we may see the end of poverty. Keep interfering and that will only slow things down.
@IdkMike @ValaAfshar @AndrewYang
Not really, no. Inflation artificially reduces the value of everyone's money. It's just a sneakier way to steal.
That's the problem: government has two primary ways of procuring money. Theft through taxation or theft through inflation by printing money.
Na, wenn er so "bedeutend" ist, rechtfertigt das sicherlich den Entzug der Freiheit!
Made my day. I love changing people's minds. twitter.com/vharrelle71/st…
You're welcome. On the topic of science and evidence, this book's chapter 1 may interest you: amazon.com/Beginning-Infi…
And Karl Popper's books, particularly "Conjectures and Refutations" and "Objective Knowledge."
@IdkMike @ValaAfshar @AndrewYang
Yes, taxes, exactly. Meaning the "contribution" would not be voluntary. Meaning you would forcefully burden one part of the population to finance another. That's immoral.
As I said in another tweet, the end of poverty will come, if we don't ruin it through regulations.
@DeliberateZero @IdkMike @ValaAfshar @AndrewYang @ChipkinLogan
In time, poverty will be a thing of the past. But it takes time. One can't regulate poverty away in a snap.
Worst thing that can happen is for politicians to come in and mess it all up through regulation. Best thing that can happen is for politicians to just stay out of it.
@DeliberateZero @IdkMike @ValaAfshar @AndrewYang @ChipkinLogan
Also, to @IdkMike's point, all private citizens of the world are already working on abolishing poverty through trade. There have never been fewer poor people in the world than today, thanks to capitalism.
@DeliberateZero @IdkMike @ValaAfshar @AndrewYang
Yeah, exactly. As @ChipkinLogan has said, why doesn't the government just declare "all problems are hereby solved"?
@IdkMike @ValaAfshar @AndrewYang
Poverty is a soluble problem, yes. But it can't be regulated away.
The percentage from automation, how would that reach poor people? How would it be transferred from those owning the devices performing the automation, and who would be in charge of the transfer?
@IdkMike @ValaAfshar @AndrewYang
And where would the government get that money from?
@IdkMike @ValaAfshar @AndrewYang
Ok how does that information support your claim that we could abolish poverty?
“When a theory has this property, it fails Popper’s test for being scientific, applying his criterion of demarcation. Isn’t that something that a magazine that calls itself scientific should take seriously?”
“Whatever happens, advocates can always rescue their theory in support of lockdowns, and nobody learns anything.”
@IdkMike @ValaAfshar @AndrewYang
How is it defined by the government?
Another issue (I think) is that empiricism kicks the can down the road. For, if knowledge can be derived from the senses, where did the knowledge in that alleged process of derivation come from?
Poverty is natural. Humanity was born into the utmost poverty of nature. It’s the default state of man. It isn’t something one can just abolish. One has to create wealth.
Rising cases don’t justify the castration of freedom. Instead, they should be used to persuade people to manage their health more wisely.
Agreed, healthcare doesn’t strike me as a Randian governmental responsibility.
“[...] visits to the homes of family and friends will no longer be allowed, and only one close contact will be allowed outside the household.”
Has there ever been this kind of tyranny in the free world? How long will it take for people to rise up against it? twitter.com/FridaGhitis/st…
@AndreaW09647358 @markusabsent @SwipeWright
I added a sun to it! https://t.co/3N6T9ECi3N
I agree that we shouldn't blindly ignore them though!
Not so—evo psych is largely false. Premonitions may well result from knowledge we develop ourselves during our lifetime.
New guest post by @ChipkinLogan about the three deepest theories of reality blog.dennishackethal.com/2020/10/27/thr…
Inwiefern das mit Ihrer zweiten Frage zusammenhängt, weiß ich nicht.
Kommt drauf an, was Sie mit „KI“ meinen. Wenn Sie eine vollwertige Simulation des menschlichen Verstands meinen, dann per definitionem „ja“, da dieser ja alles kann, was der Mensch auch kann.
@Jorgensen4POTUS
BLM is a Marxist organization. You’re not a libertarian.
On the love triangle between open borders, social-justice warriors, and murderous Islamism. twitter.com/Ayaan/status/1…
Yeah. Note her lamenting when kids "get what they want." :(
New blog post. Also, this is the new home of my blog now.
To those arguing in favor of lockdowns based on outcomes alone, will this change your mind?
And if not, what will?
“When you ask them to stay home, in many cases you’re asking them to starve.”
Translates to “those who seek freedom are selfish.” You’re making totalitarians proud.
No he didn't. He specified it's the air he considers filthy.
Evidence-based epistemology wouldn’t help with that (it’s false). Popperian epistemology would.
@DrunkenMighty @DavidDeutschOxf
Depends on my mood. If I'm interested in the machinery and stored goods I might find the warehouse more interesting.
Plus, I think people can create much more enjoyable environments than forests (and enjoyable for much longer). Homes, for example.
There is also an underlying assumption that it's a politician's job to ensure the health of people, regulate (directly or indirectly) hospital usage, etc. (It isn't.)
In some countries, people are paying (through taxes) for the enforcement of their own house arrest. It's nuts.
I agree that solutions can lead to other, better problems, and then that's progress—the lockdown doesn't seem to fall into that category.
Yes, there's definitely that. And it's possible that I'm fudging "solution" and "common preference" as defined by the TCS glossary.
That said, a lockdown might solve a politician's problem but still ruin other people's lives. So, morally problematic.
RT @ClimateWarrior7:
While Stalin went off the rails a bit, Lenin was actually responsible for no more than 3 million deaths at the most, a…
@DrunkenMighty @DavidDeutschOxf
Why should complexity afford moral significance/protection?
RT @ClimateWarrior7:
I remember when human rights were about people not being tortured or arbitrarily detained.
Fortunately that's all bee…