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ctrlalt_g | 9 years ago | on: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?

It's a stupid anecdote to point out the fact that differences in cultural attitudes can explain and somewhat justify test scores. I'm not even American, and I never claimed that the anecdote is true.

ctrlalt_g | 9 years ago | on: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?

I once heard an anecdote that might describe some of what's happening. In the trenches of WWI, when it was time to fight, soldiers would have to climb up a ladder onto a battlefield. The problem was that German snipers could see the tops of the ladders. The Germans would keep their rifles fixed on where they knew the enemy would emerge and simply shoot them down once they saw helmets appear.

The European Allied soldiers were so disciplined that they just kept climbing up the ladders and getting killed one by one, following their orders to their deaths. The Americans saw this and said, "fuck that, I'm not climbing up there."

I think most Americans are pragmatic and they won't do something unless it makes sense. And to be honest, most people don't need to study math. Or at least it's not obvious that they do. I think most of the math professors I've talked to would agree. They view math, as it's taught in core curricula, more as an art than as having vocational value.

ctrlalt_g | 9 years ago | on: China’s plan to organize its society relies on ‘big data’ to rate everyone

A lot has happened in the past decade, and it's not 3% driving the 97%, not that it ever was (http://www.pewforum.org/2016/05/12/changing-attitudes-on-gay...).

But either way, the percentage of people who believe certain morals does not matter. No matter what our individual beliefs are, we bind ourselves to the law of the land. That's what it means to have a constitution. Even if 100% of Americans wanted to take away your freedom of speech or your freedom to bear arms, we could not do it legally.

ctrlalt_g | 9 years ago | on: China’s plan to organize its society relies on ‘big data’ to rate everyone

In the U.S., the courts can't decide whether something is moral or immoral. If we throw people in jail for corruption, it won't be because they were found guilty of having a bad moral character. It will be because of an illegal conflict of interest or anticompetitive practices or something like that. That's what a separation of church and state means in this context.

ctrlalt_g | 9 years ago | on: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

I'm probably going to be downvoted to oblivion, but I would actually be more at ease in general if most people would defer critical judgments to a reliable and open-sourced AI. For example in terms of driving, my discomfort about how an AI would handle being Kobayashi Maru'd is far less significant than my discomfort about encountering a teenage driver.

ctrlalt_g | 9 years ago | on: Hacker takes down CEO wire transfer scammers

You should go ahead and call your local police department. Chances are that they don't deal with cyber crimes unless you live in a large city (or if your city contracts with a larger police department).

There's also the issue of jurisdiction. If the crime is originating across some border (which more than likely it is), there's probably not much they're willing to do about it.

ctrlalt_g | 9 years ago | on: Religion without belief

I don't understand people who call themselves clowns and calls everyone else clowns as well, then expects to be taken seriously.

ctrlalt_g | 9 years ago | on: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

It's not strictly about security. Some people like to close their curtains at night not because they think it makes them safer, but because that level of exhibitionism seems weird to them. It's the same principle.

ctrlalt_g | 9 years ago | on: Valve – Handbook for New Employees (2012) [pdf]

yeah but mainstream culture is always defined by a small group. and it is recognizably American. like having a million of those ribbons and plastic trophies from science fairs or organized sports. or republicans calling poor people "freeloaders".

ctrlalt_g | 9 years ago | on: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

hedonism can look great when it's practiced by people who believe that the greatest pleasure comes from appreciating art. but it can look horrible for example in the case of suicide bombers, who i believe to be rational agents (i don't believe that they're mentally handicapped or on drugs or something). these are men who are completely convinced that they're doing the victims a great favor and that they will be rewarded with the highest pleasure imaginable. so in this case, the definition of pleasure has been moved so far that what is meant to be an expression of the highest pleasure imaginable is indistinguishable (to an outside observer) from pain.

maybe that's too extreme of an example, but it illustrates the point that the hedonist notion of good and bad is vastly ambiguous and can lead to undesirable situations, most notably in cases where people try to optimize for the afterlife, but also in varying degrees in other cases. so i think it ultimately it fails in practice as a moral philosophy.

I also think hedonism tends to stigmatize pain to an impractical degree. i think experiencing and accepting pain is an important part of life, not because it leads to greater pleasure, but because pain is a part of the human condition and there's value in observing it and recognizing its importance. in regards to art, there can't be catharsis without pain, so it doesn't make sense to me to say that pleasure is somehow better than pain in that sense. i think pain and pleasure are two sides of the same coin.

i don't know. maybe i'm just crazy

ctrlalt_g | 9 years ago | on: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

> but it doesn't match what I've seen from the behaviour of hedonists.

it matches what i've seen.

> Furthermore, they aren't 'pain avoidant' they are 'pleasure seeking', there's a big difference.

no one is arguing that

> I don't think what I said was unclear

you put words in my mouth and then made up two other irrelevant arguments

ctrlalt_g | 9 years ago | on: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hedonism/

"Psychological or motivational hedonism claims that only pleasure or pain motivates us. Ethical or evaluative hedonism claims that only pleasure has worth or value and only pain or displeasure has disvalue or the opposite of worth."

I'm mainly concerned with the second category, since the first is more of a question for psychology and neuroscience. Anyway, you're constructing a false ideal. Even if we use Google's poorly defined and colloquial version of hedonism, the more representative real world examples are cases of pain avoidance, overeating, risky behavior, gambling/shopping addiction, and so on.

> Perhaps you don't believe it's possible to have fun with old senile people

What?

ctrlalt_g | 9 years ago | on: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

Finding value in pleasure is different than saying that only pleasure has value. It seems to me that a hedonist would not bother playing games or telling stories with senile parents, since only the games and the (pleasant) stories have value, and that they would do these things in more pleasant company instead.

Either way, there just doesn't seem to be any reason to deny that accepting and knowing pain is an important part of the human experience.

ctrlalt_g | 9 years ago | on: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

You can move around the definition of pleasure, but then you end up with situations where pain as a means to pleasure is indistinguishable from pain as equal to pleasure, which undermines the whole premise of hedonism (that only pleasure has value).
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