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
That was the original goal anyway. I then realized that it could be used to host blogs whose articles are made entirely of commit messages.
I wrote about the functionality and purpose of gitpretty here: gitpretty.com/dchacke/gitpre…
No, it's a website that uses the GitHub API to render the commits of any public GitHub repo but (hopefully) more aesthetically pleasing. Markdown is part of that rationale.
Yeah I linked the title at first but it was just a lot of blue on the page. Maybe I should just keep them black even when they're links, because I think you're right that it's not clear where to click right now.
You say "no" but your statement and mine do not conflict.
At most it could pretend to feel boredom, and then pretend to be extra excited when you come home because you've been gone a while. And the logic for how to pretend would again come from the programmer.
Plus there'd be no ethical concerns. People may think animals are conscious, but there'd be no problems with, say, leaving a companion bot at home alone while you're on vacation. It would simply go to sleep mode—and even if it doesn't, it's not like it can feel boredrom.
Software updates could keep improving the companion's abilities.
The necessary iterations wouldn't require generations of dogs and selective breeding, but, like all software-engineering improvements, iterations in the minds of the programmers, which are much faster.
It should be possible to build a robot that, at least in terms of software/behavior, would resemble a dog (hardware might be harder to do for now).
And then, one day, one could make software that makes for an even better companion than a dog.
Somebody told me about this little companion robot:
I've been thinking for a while how cool it would be to build something like a dog that doesn't have any of the downsides of having a dog (feeding, waste, etc).
I'm not convinced that the healthcare system allegedly being overwhelmed justifies placing an unbearable strain on everyone's lives, or any amount of coercion.
It's not your job to ensure my health, nor the government's to force you to do so. But that's the tacit assumption.
I’m building gitpretty so yeah I can change it. Will need to think about how to solve that problem.
You’re not the first to make that argument. I do understand the argument and I’m not convinced by it.
Plus what you’re arguing for is not something I was arguing against in my previous tweet.
RT @OxfordPopper:
We look forward to hosting our guest speaker @dchackethal on 17th of February.
Dennis will speak to us about his ideas…
RT @Der_Postillon:
Dieser Mann hat das Geheimnis geknackt, wie man Spezi herstellen kann
der-postillon.com/2016/01/dieser…
It's nice to see how much effort people put into writing good git-commit messages. Here are the most recent commits in the Ruby on Rails repository:
Agreed, I’ll need to make navigation better in the second one.
If true, it may be tempting to consider these findings evidence of creativity in animals. Recall that the smarts of an animal (a matter of degree), as great as they may be, have no bearing on whether that animal is intelligent (a binary matter). twitter.com/DegenRolf/stat…
I'm trying out hosting my blog on gitpretty.
Compare the old one (blog.dennishackethal.com) and the new one (gitpretty.com/dchacke/git-bl…)
I prefer the second one. What do you think?
Blogs, what's stopping you from looking like this? 😃
Why not $10,000? If we’re measuring by ‘compassion’, let’s be compassionate! Also, hate to ask, who is payi…
"Restaurants, bars and hospitality industry have been slammed by this virus."
No, they have been slammed by the govt. forcefully shutting them down.
Don't pretend like you're coming to the rescue like a firefighter extinguishing the fire he set (cf. mises.org/wire/hoppe-loc…) twitter.com/WhiteHouse/sta…
I built a little blog engine called gitpretty that allows you to post articles by writing nothing but git commits 🤯 Zero files, no signup.
Here's a Q&A-style overview of what gitpretty can do for you:
The "free of charge" usually implies this, but just to be clear: others should be forced to pay for your surgery, and there should be an institution—ideally, the state—forcing others to pay for its force upon people in securing the funds for your operation.
@krlwlzn @reasonisfun @WorriedDenizen @iamFilos @EpistemicHope @Kaiwingchun @ToKTeacher @MatjazLeonardis @DavidDeutschOxf @DorfGinger @micahtredding @Vivify705 @bnielson01 @crit_rat
A counterpoint to feminist critique generally is that many women, especially (but not only) pretty ones, are valued extremely highly in society—to inflationary levels in some cases, I dare say. It's a lot more difficult for men to attain the same status.
@krlwlzn @reasonisfun @WorriedDenizen @iamFilos @EpistemicHope @Kaiwingchun @ToKTeacher @MatjazLeonardis @DavidDeutschOxf @DorfGinger @micahtredding @Vivify705 @bnielson01 @crit_rat
FWIW, men who exhibit traits desirable in women are also often perceived negatively. Maybe what's really the issue is the discomfort some people feel when somebody else—of any gender—doesn't conform to cultural norms.
Regardless, if you weren't able to follow him, be careful not to mistake that for him being brilliant.
I spoke with him and the others in that room briefly. Going off of memory—and I'll need to review the recording to be sure—he seemed to advocate for some mysticism/supernaturalism regarding the brain. Wasn't able to convince him otherwise.
RT @TheAtlasSociety:
The Burdensome Boxes Just Keep Stacking! #AynRand #Congress #ShrinkGovernment https://t.co/oHIbKM25io
RT @ThePracticalDev:
Previously, compound assignment operators were only possible with mathematical and bitwise operations. ES2021 now supp…
I'm starting to think 90% of what makes a good front-end design is a good font coupled with a white background and a basic layout.
What's interesting is that the smallest possible piece of matter moves at the same time at both ends when pushed. So either every push of any object requires faster-than-light travel, or none does, because no smallest object exists. Which leads me to believe the latter.
RT @Jan_K_Tyrel:
Leaving the Soviet sector...
Berlin Friedrichstrasse Station after midnight.
#Berlin #Fog #Friedrichstrasse #SpreeNoir #…
@reasonisfun @ScienceandLove @ella_hoeppner @dela3499 @bnielson01
Here's a summary of mine: blog.dennishackethal.com/2020/07/22/the…
The key differentiator compared to other theories of the mind is that it introduces and relies upon replication of ideas inside single minds. This has been a friendly point of contention with @ella_hoeppner.
@BennyChugg @ReachChristofer @RealtimeAI @crit_rat
If one isn't the author, one is an automaton. If one isn't the enactor, one isn't free to act on one's ideas. Both conditions are sufficient only when taken together, neither will suffice by itself.
2/2
@BennyChugg @ReachChristofer @RealtimeAI @crit_rat
What most ppl think doesn't make most ppl right, and it doesn't change the infinite-regress problem.
Re being "vacuously true," that's why it needs to be both author and enactor.
1/2
I imagine the left considers a claim by Pelosi that Trump might use nuclear weapons evidence of that same claim.
@BennyChugg @ReachChristofer @RealtimeAI @crit_rat
They can’t, and that’s not what free will is about. It would also lead to an infinite regress.
Free will is about being to able to have new conjectures period. It means that one is the author and enactor of one’s choices.
Thanks. I just read the two "problematic" ones. They're not inciting violence or anything remotely resembling that.
@KazoliasG @Ayaan
Indeed. And it's also libelous to claim somebody incited violence when they didn't.
RT @dchackethal:
@Ayaan
Check these screenshots people. I cannot find any evidence that Trump incited violence. Instead, I found the follow…
Check these screenshots people. I cannot find any evidence that Trump incited violence. Instead, I found the following two screenshots where he does the opposite.
(from archive.vn/2OyPa)
Screenshots or it didn't happen. https://t.co/MRAWRFmRjh
I'm not saying Twitter isn't allowed to. I agree they have the right to block Trump. I'm saying it's a bad idea.
RT @dchackethal:
@ladyunicornejg @Ayaan
I'd like to ask for quotes and links to Trump's tweets where he's "inciting violence" because I dou…
I'd like to ask for quotes and links to Trump's tweets where he's "inciting violence" because I doubt he did. But now nobody can quote him because he's been blocked!
.@ChipkinLogan, @bnielson01, @ks445599 and I are discussing the #TrumpBan live, chime in: neutron.app/rooms/68c65967…
Indeed. This was a bad move on Twitter's part. What happened to "I disagree with what you're saying, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."?
RT @Ayaan:
Silencing Trump is dumb and dangerous. OK, go ahead and ban us all!
When you accept government stimulus checks, you're trading your freedom. You're sending a clear message that says: "yes, you may take away my freedom as long as you pay me a dime for it." You're telling them that your freedom can be purchased, and for a very low price at that.
@codingChewie @Sferyczny @eggheadio @maxcell
What's the social preview?
I'd add two related core CR/Deutschian ideas:
- Universal "explainerness" means there cannot be such a thing as a "superintelligence," and a belief in one amounts to a belief in the supernatural
- "Alignment" is immoral because it's coercive
I believe the sky-diving example originated with David Deutsch in one of his episodes on Sam Harris' podcast.
Isn’t the fact that this is react rather incidental?
Correct, he'd need to get his shirts from shirt.gov: youtube.com/watch?v=IgrOYP…
In other words, under this forced contract, the state always retains the power to restrict its subjects’ movement.
The signature is forced, and movement requires a signature. There is no escaping this reality. The contract is null and void—we should work toward something better.
Statists like to claim that “society,” taxes, etc rest on a “social contract” (Hobbes). But a contract is null and void when the signature is forced.
Statists might reply that those who don’t like it can emigrate. That’s false, because the state issues travel documents.
"Look at me I know social-justice speak." twitter.com/JoeBiden/statu…
@BrexitCelebrity @janekin24 @DeRossiBeard @JennyCh03685868
If true, it's coercion.
I just double checked and yes, the linked article states that companies would be fined €43,000 ($53,000) for not complying.
Of course, what this is really about is extending government overreach into companies' workforces even further, dictating who they can and cannot hire and when and why.
There are lawsuits waiting to happen to companies required to fire women for being women in the name of representing women. Either that or they violate the regulation, which is presumably fined. They can't win.
For example, it would force some companies to fire women in the name of representing women when the number of employees increases (an analog of the Alabama paradox in voting).
I've written about perfect representation along gender (or other metrics) not only being undesirable but mathematically impossible because it leads to paradoxes those favoring representation couldn't possibly want: blog.dennishackethal.com/2020/11/08/bal…
I paraphrase the great @billburr: "If women are so upset about not being represented enough, why don't more of them start their own shit?" twitter.com/ClimateWarrior…
Because otherwise there wouldn't be much to show in the stack trace.
You say “using JS, for example.” What else would one use?
I've been wondering if that's the same thing as on the Stripe homepage?
And here I was thinking I had to make the Berlin transpiler do it... Will be nice to remove some lines of unnecessary source code. twitter.com/denicmarko/sta…
Exactly. It's a similar kind of asymmetry as the one Popper explains between confirmation and falsification.
And that, right there, is why programmers are Popperians, even if they don't know it. twitter.com/catalinmpit/st…
You want to learn about AGI, but where to start? Read these chapters from David Deutsch's The Beginning of Infinity for the cutting edge of AGI research:
@iamFilos @ToKTeacher @DorfGinger @EpistemicHope @micahtredding @MatjazLeonardis @WorriedDenizen @Vivify705 @krlwlzn @reasonisfun @DavidDeutschOxf @bnielson01 @crit_rat
Brett wasn't calling Eli anything. If I understand correctly, he was characterizing the views some people hold, not any particular person. I think he was trying to be helpful by offering criticism.
RT @RamenRockets:
@EpistemicHope
Also, Dennis Hackethal @dchackethal is pretty good at explaining the critrat position on AGI.
https://t.c…
@__adamjohnson_ @TahaElGabroun
Ah, I mean "understood" as in "you objectively contain the knowledge of how to solve the problem," not as in "you subjectively experience having found the solution." You're right that the latter may not happen.
@__adamjohnson_ @TahaElGabroun
I'd go even further: to understand something is to program it, if only mentally.
@__adamjohnson_ @TahaElGabroun
I do think if you can program it, that means you've understood it. Sometimes we programmers stumble upon a working solution by accident, but that's rare. And even then we're not content until we find out why it's working.
And today they would call it "artificial intelligence." twitter.com/PessimistsArc/…
FYI, since the request for refutation isn't being met, I may drop out of the conversation. (To be clear, I'm not saying it's your responsibility to come up with a refutation, I'm just letting you know that I may drop out and don't want to do so without an explanation.)
Like, one shouldn't drop a theory just because there is another one that's also hard to vary and explains more or less the same phenomena (if that is the case).
I think the NDTM is quite hard to vary as well. In any case, my point about the dinosaurs—or any arbitrary good theory—is just about what it takes to refute it, not about how hard to vary it is.
That's true of any theory and its refutation. A refutation explains why it can't be true, not why it need not be true. No theory need be true.
... just because there are infinitely many ways to explain fossils that don't involve dinosaurs and so one doesn't "need" them (so the argument goes).