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tediousdemise | 2 years ago | on: Uncleftish Beholding (1989)

Total nonsense.

Using valid words in one language doesn’t mean that they directly translate. Only the author knows the intended meaning—no one else would, without some sort of table that maps the nonsense expressions to the proper loanwords.

No one but the author would be able to decipher the true meaning of this essay, making it useless as a form of communication.

tediousdemise | 2 years ago | on: Someone asked an autonomous AI to 'destroy humanity'

This seems like something there should be some AI safety ground rules for.

The number one rule for firearm safety is: always point the muzzle in a safe direction. Even if you know the gun is unloaded, you always obey this rule.

Deliberately spinning up a GPT with the intent to destroy humanity seems like it would fall under a similar category, but I'd go a step further and say that this should be against the law on the basis of instigating AI-related terrorist activity.

tediousdemise | 3 years ago | on: Alphabet unit Verily to trim more than 200 jobs

When layoffs like this happen, I cringe for these companies and the poor souls who keep joining them. What HR really needs to do is a full retracement.

Who hired "X" employee, and why? Follow this up the chain. Follow it as far up as it needs to go, to the very email or slide deck from an upper-level exec whose failure of a pet project was greenlit to begin with. Fire the entire chain of command complicit in the lowest level employee's firing.

Truly, drain the entire swamp, otherwise the execs will keep making bad choices and playing music chairs while the boots on the ground get mutilated for them.

tediousdemise | 3 years ago | on: Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ to poachers (2021)

What is the actual mechanism of action here?

I assume it was an elephant coincidentally born without tusks, which then survived being poached thanks to the adaptation that was then passed on to subsequent offspring.

An impeccably timed advantageous mutation for an endangered species. We rely far too often on the word “coincidence” to describe what is clearly an unknown gene expression phenomenon, which gives me chills and seems to borderline the supernatural.

At what point to people throw in the towel and say, yup, God’s real? Or do we just keep saying these unexplainable things are coincidences since it somehow jives better with our worldview?

I never understood why people think that spirituality and science are mutually exclusive. In 2014, even the pope himself came out and said the Big Bang and evolution are real [0]. Maybe it’s part of the whole “works in mysterious ways” tidbit, if you believe that kind of stuff? Let’s try having an open mind.

[0] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/pope-francis-evolution-bi...

tediousdemise | 3 years ago | on: Virtual communication curbs creative idea generation

> What I have found is snake oil peddlers that like to hear themselves speak and throw around 'creative' ideas that get lost in a sea of dialogue.

What’s the real story here? Why characterize them as “snake oil peddlers who like to hear themselves speak?”

Anyone who makes a creative attempt to improve the workplace gets a gold star in my book.

Negativity is contagious, and I wouldn’t want an underminer on my team who characterizes other peoples’ ideas as “snake oil.”

tediousdemise | 3 years ago | on: Ask HN: How to find what I am really good at?

You’re getting a lot of advice about ADHD and the medications prescribed for it. My advice is to tread cautiously and know the risks, because most doctors won’t tell you (or they’ll just gloss over them).

Amphetamines are addictive and, used as prescribed, you can find yourself with way worse attention and psychological problems. This is especially true if you take them on a daily basis as prescribed. Taken this way, they can lead to chronically depleted adrenals and long term downregulation of your dopamine receptors, which means you’ll feel like shit when you run out of medicine. The road to up-regulating your receptors is long and arduous.

Hopefully you don’t have a problem filling your medicine, as most people who take controlled substances inevitably come across righteous pharmacists who will refuse to fill them (instead, they will tell you they are out of stock).

There are also long term risks such as the development of Parkinson’s disease. Is a little bit of productivity now for your boss worth developing a debilitating disease in retirement? Only you can make that call.

tediousdemise | 3 years ago | on: Parent time

Nice attempt at guilting me, Satan, but my mom is way, way worse than you.

If I were you, I’d be deeply concerned about only having 15 years left to yourself. Enjoy hell while it’s still warm and toasty down there.

tediousdemise | 3 years ago | on: Study finds Wikipedia influences judicial behavior

Knowledge influences behavior? No way, I don't believe it.

Say I want to learn how to do a backflip. I do a quick search, find an instructional video, and nope the fuck out because of how dangerous and difficult it seems to perform. A prime example of knowledge that influenced my behavior.

Pointless study since this is just common sense. So much time and money is wasted in science just so that people can make a name for themselves or get a promotion.

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