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
@FallingIntoFilm @ella_hoeppner
It's conceivable that not just the constants but also the structure of physical laws are (or seem) finely tuned.
@Setsuna7 @NASAPersevere @HiRISE
Me, of course. I meant we will be there in person, standing on the surface.
@FallingIntoFilm @ella_hoeppner
Same laws of physics with different constants are different laws of physics. I think DD writes something to that effect somewhere in BoI.
One day we will see that with our own eyes.
Some. How many more buildings would be built, and how much more would the real-estate market be thriving, if property tax didn't exist?
You're suggesting in effect that since property tax hasn't completely decimated the real-estate market it's not doing any damage.
In effect, government is taking out a loan in their citizens' name and then threatening them with violence to pay it back. And charging interest, too. Even if the citizens never wanted the loan in the first place.
The government provides certain services. That is correct. But once certain laws are passed, citizens do not have a say in whether to pay for those services. So they can't be responsible to "taking" something that was just given to them without them asking for it.
When you encounter someone on the street and you have the power to kill him, do you think it would be okay to do so if you don't know what his preferences are?
What if, instead of a random stranger, it was your child?
Yes, true, the laws of physics are the same across the multiverse.
No precautions for the world's safety because none are needed. The primary "precaution" (postcaution?) is that of being prepared never to turn the AGI off again without its consent.
That said, I think Deutsch says somewhere that the multiverse does provide a measure. I may be wrong, though.
But how one could know that they're all within a narrow range, I do not know. Especially since there are so many possible combinations of constants in different ranges that might all lend themselves to apparently finely tuned phenomena.
One could fix it by saying that while there are infinitely many laws of physics that allow life, they're all within some narrow range of possible values for constants. Then there'd be fine-tuning again.
Isn't that the thing where we don't have a measure for that? To say "comparatively"? Since there are infinitely many laws of physics that would result in both.
Hmmm... then, presumably, that universe would end up with one giant black hole after a while, since all the other holes would attract each other, and if anyone were there to see it, he'd marvel at how the laws of physics were so finely tuned as to create this one giant black hole
I recall, but I don't recall him saying anything about whether there could be any universes in which the laws of physics don't seem finely tuned. Or maybe I missed something.
@ewarren @PramilaJayapal @RepBrendanBoyle
You're doing the thing again where you speak of "two cent" but mean "two percent." It's misleading and dishonest.
OK, if there are no possible universes from within which it would seem that the laws of physics aren't finely tuned, why is fine-tuning a problem?
Question re fine tuning: are there any logically possible universes with different laws of physics from within which it wouldn't seem like the laws of physics are finely tuned?
Selbstverständlich. Im Singular auch.
Oder einfach: Kolleg+•|:;$%inn{]en++. Da sollte sich wirklich jeder angesprochen fühlen.
Yes, because it also means that government theft compounds. “Giving back to society” is a very misleading description of what happens. Especially when one never took anything.
Building on your post, I analyze a recent tweet of @ewarren : blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/wealth-t…
Auf dem Bild werden Menschen buchstäblich mit Schafen verglichen!
Witzig, dass man früher “gesamt” mit zwei m schrieb.
If true, the irony is, of course, that Biden is saying this to make government more authoritarian. twitter.com/hofrench/statu…
Yup was gonna say the same thing.
Zzgl. zur wissenschaftlichen Haltung bedarf es auch moralischer Haltung.
"studies show", "evidence-based ...", "lived experience"
I mentally said "goodbye" to Google when their developer documentation had a black banner at the top for BLM. Like, put it in your press release, but don't disrupt developer workflows with your signaling.
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?