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
Say an amoeba displays quite complex behavior, such as navigating and mapping out the world, going around obstacles, escaping predators, etc. For each of these behaviors, can you think of ways the amoeba could perform them without being conscious, and if so, how?
I could answer those questions directly but you're attached to your dog so let's take a different example:
@somegreybloke
If you think about it, all characters do equally questionable things. Skyler smokes while pregnant, Marie shoplifts, Hank smokes Cuban cigars, Junior drives poorly... Even Gus does something questionable at some point, I think he opens a box wrong using a box cutter? Anyways...
No. For example, biological evolution solves problems—the main one, from the gene's eye view, being the problem of how to spread through the gene pool—but biological evolution as a process isn't conscious.
Now, while it is true that you can’t correct errors when you’re dead, that doesn’t mean consciousness is required to correct errors. That’s because you also can’t be conscious when you’re dead, so it might be the other way round. Agree so far?
Okay, I can go with “the mainstream view that consciousness is synonymous with awareness” for the sake of argument.
Note that was I more explaining than defining (which is my bad, you asked for a definition).
LOL not to spoil the results but so far they speak volumes about people’s misunderstanding of economics and ‘Mother’ Theresa. (I voted Elon) twitter.com/gleason_colum/…
Hmm. Do you agree that pretty much all widely held beliefs today (eg that the earth revolves around the sun) were fringe ideas in the past?
Note that King isn't addressing "antai-vaxxers". He's addressing people who already agree with him so he can show them what a good boi he is. twitter.com/StephenKing/st…
I don't know (nobody does). I think consciousness has something to do with error correction, self-replicating ideas, and what I call 'fleeting' properties of the mind, but I know more about what consciousness is not than what it is.
I see what you mean. I agree that the woke do this, e.g. they see racism in math or whatever, which is nonsense. But I think injecting children with something against their will or effectively forcing adults to get vaccinated really is tyranny.
So... have we made any progress converging upon the truth or have we reached an impasse?
No, the woke love tyranny and coercion twitter.com/KilbrideinRO…
@meaningfulideas @realchrisrufo
Which is highly coercive btw. I’m only somewhat familiar with your work on non-coercive parenting but I’m curious how you’d square the desirability of non-coercion there with your coercive claims about white males. What about white male children, are they racist and sexist too?
RT @ClimateWarrior7:
Spoiler alert. In the new Matrix film, "Neo" takes the blue pill, realises trans women are women and the climate emerg…
Then you're transvaxx. Which makes you very brave. Also part of a minority. Too bad you're not a person of color though, losing points there.
@meaningfulideas @realchrisrufo
... While at the same time insulting huge swaths of people as racist for their skin color and sexist for their sex and entirely ignoring their individuality.
@meaningfulideas @realchrisrufo
... spreading awareness of the harm people like you are doing), "It's good to see something positive happening" (same problem) etc. It sounds very 'hey man, we're all here to be friends man, I'm not here to judge man, live and let live man'. ...
@meaningfulideas @realchrisrufo
That's cool but I can't say the feeling's mutual since you've already insulted me (along with all other white men). But you mask it by saying things that are hard to disagree with, like "I'm very grateful" and "I'm glad they are spreading awareness" (even though they're ...
@meaningfulideas @realchrisrufo
When did I say it was? You're addressing points I didn't make.
@meaningfulideas @AlpinePatriot @realchrisrufo
I have no interest in self Blame [...]
You sure seem to have a lot of interest in blaming others though.
"People didn't complain as much about forced vaccinations in the past, so they shouldn't complain now" twitter.com/KilbrideinRO…
Do people also post mask-wearing selfies because of fear of catching Covid? twitter.com/jchalupa_/stat…
They understand it's convention and participate in it when it's convenient
Yeah, that's exactly the kind of second-handedness that spreads mask-wearing for status reasons.
@meaningfulideas @GhostRodriguez3 @realchrisrufo
Who are "these other folks" you refer to? Me and @AlpinePatriot?
@meaningfulideas @AlpinePatriot @realchrisrufo
Calling people racist without knowing anything about them is dehumanizing, disrespectful, and agitating.
@meaningfulideas @realchrisrufo
The fact that we come to different conclusions about "the messages that [we] were fed all through [our] lives" doesn't mean I haven't thought about them.
RT @RNCResearch:
Joe Biden is a liar.
Pass it on.
https://t.co/a0Qm38FYGg
RT @PrincessTekki:
walter white pony https://t.co/JpL7QEaVGG
“Force has been applied in the past so more force is okay” twitter.com/KilbrideinRO…
RT @michaelmalice:
it makes perfect sense
it's simply about obedience
RT @TheBabylonBee:
Constitution Dies Of Coronavirus babylonbee.com/news/constitut…
RT @GregAbbott_TX:
Biden’s vaccine mandate is an assault on private businesses.
I issued an Executive Order protecting Texans’ right to ch…
RT @firstofequals:
Tonight we are announcing a six-pronged plan to fight COVID-19. The prongs will be attached to a new type of medical dev…
It's the government placing limits on you, not the unvaccinated.
@meaningfulideas @realchrisrufo
Have you read @realchrisrufo's thread?
@meaningfulideas @realchrisrufo
I asked:
Does the video continue like that?
It's a simple yes or no, but you didn't answer that question. You wanted me to watch the whole video instead.
@meaningfulideas @realchrisrufo
When you wrote...
I'm glad they are spreading awareness. It's good to see something positive happening around this issue instead of all the denial.
...you either didn't understand what @realchrisrufo is arguing for or your video turns out to be ironic. I'm hoping the latter.
@meaningfulideas @realchrisrufo
Almost 20 min is fairly long. Why withhold that information when you could easily say 'yes' or 'no'?
@meaningfulideas @realchrisrufo
I'm five min in and these are just the kinds of videos @realchrisrufo is working against, for good reason.
For example, at 5:07 you say:
I am a cis [sic] heterosexual male, which means [...] that I am sexist and I am misogynist.
Does the video continue like that?
RT @realchrisrufo:
SCOOP: Google has launched an "antiracism" initiative claiming that America is a "system of white supremacy" and that al…
RT @meaningfulideas:
Beware of anyone who uses science to justify coercion. (A thread)
So often we see people talk about children's brain…
RT @SwipeWright:
@thehill
Wait, do we really know all their pronouns???
RT @KevinKileyCA:
Joe Biden is coming to campaign for Gavin Newsom. Imagine being so afraid of losing your job that you make the president…
Consider the case where both mother and child are expected to die. In that case, the child dies either way, so the mother should definitely be able to abort. twitter.com/PamRobins3/sta…
RT @michaelmalice:
Cathedral Narrative:
Trying to undo an election: Treason
Trying to undo a Supreme Court confirmation: Democracy
Sie mischen sich in Dinge ein, die Sie nichts angehen.
New blog post: 'What Christians Get Right'
blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/what-chr…
@iamFilos @astupple @ella_hoeppner @bnielson01
Have you entertained that Aaron might be right and you wrong? When you do that, does his tweet read differently?
I think this is DD’s argument btw can’t quite remember
When has the state not thought of children as assets? twitter.com/Chesschick01/s…
Wearing a mask has become a way to abuse creativity to fit in especially well. Static-society stuff. twitter.com/JoeS619/status…
The printing press, because spreading ideas is more powerful than spreading steam engines. Caveat: Rome would have needed to become dynamic first for the printing press to really make a difference. But the printing press in turn could have helped Rome become dynamic. twitter.com/tolmasky/statu…
Maybe you should also avoid stepping on stones just in case you’re wrong about them not being conscious?
“kostenlos” und “Die Maßnahme soll zwischen sechs bis sieben Millionen Euro pro Jahr kosten” im selben Tweet.
Das ist nicht kostenlos. Jetzt werden Leute dazu gezwungen, die Bahnfahrten Jugendlicher zu bezahlen, und zwar unter Gewaltandrohung. Ekelhaft. twitter.com/Weltspiegel_AR…
What was worse, judging by first impression, not knowing what was going to happen—Walt visiting Andrea or Todd visiting Andrea? twitter.com/brbascript/sta…
Remember this picture. Remember that a hypocrite like him does not deserve to be in office. Vote recall. twitter.com/CARebelBase/st…
RT @SJobs_Stories:
"Most people never pick up the phone and call, most people never ask, and that's what separates, sometimes, the people t…
RT @astupple:
@bnielson01 @dchackethal
True freedom is exploring the infinite number of ways to persuade ppl to get vaxxed.
Coercion is st…
RT @ConceptualJames:
Are you paying attention yet? https://t.co/gynwYbaQFn
No I didn’t either. Try disabling JavaScript.
Then I guess you'll need to read the article.
It says "vaccine mandates" (emphasis mine)
RT @SteveStuWill:
“In total, between 100 and 150 million people were killed by their own, Marxist governments in the twentieth century. To…
Then it’s time: clojuredocs.org/clojure.core/a…
JS slowly catching up with Clojure’s as->, only worse. twitter.com/buildsghost/st…
@ZoeRoberts53 @scottishgooner @JamesMelville
Can you name one such rule?
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?