etangent's comments

etangent | 4 years ago | on: RT turns to Peter Thiel's Rumble after Big Tech companies block the network

Well, neither am I, considering that the Western governments have been using the term "democracy" to launder a specific flavor of apparatchik authoritarianism.

etangent | 4 years ago | on: RT turns to Peter Thiel's Rumble after Big Tech companies block the network

Insane take, especially considering that over the past 10 years we have observed a steady creep of authoritarianism here in the West.

etangent | 4 years ago | on: Machine learning is still too hard for software engineers

Even so, there are procedures, protocols, and best practices for working with (and validating) black boxes, acquiring which may require time, skill, and patience.

etangent | 4 years ago | on: Machine learning is still too hard for software engineers

One might as well write an article claiming that "UI design is still too hard for software engineers" or "controlling a nuclear power plant is still too hard for software engineers" -- which are true (and it is equally true that software engineering is hard for UI designers and nuclear power plant operators).

Who came up with this silly idea that something that is a valid knowledge domain of its own is suddenly going to become "easy"?

etangent | 4 years ago | on: An open letter on E.O. Wilson's legacy

You know, I started out thinking that very bad language should indeed be censored. But considering what I see -- how eagerly language is used to eliminate one's political opponents from the public sphere, and how expansive definitions become over time (e.g. what happened to "literally violence") -- I now believe in complete freedom of speech, even down to fully genocidal rhetoric (and yes, that includes freedom from civilian consequences, not just government-imposed consequences). As a free speech absolutist, I now believe that the government should perform a proactive role in ensuring that the 1st amendment is obeyed -- not just a passive one.

etangent | 4 years ago | on: An open letter on E.O. Wilson's legacy

You make an excellent point. Let's wait until people are actually beaten to death and imprisoned (and not just one, like a good few thousands of them!), and only then start complaining.

etangent | 4 years ago | on: Proposal to add build graph output to GNU Make (2020)

etangent | 4 years ago | on: Experts vs elites

Cases when experts propose something and then elites disagree with the experts are not surprising. It is the default state of affairs everywhere in the world. That's a "dog bites man" situation---essentially a non-story.

What is really surprising (and revealing) is when elites do propose something and then experts follow along even though it runs against their previous opinion from just a week ago. For a vivid example: most experts before the pandemic agreed that masks help limit spread of respiratory diseases, yet nevertheless in the very first few weeks of the pandemic most of them followed along with the completely unscientific claim that masks do not help and that everyone should simply wash their hands instead. Likewise, we had expert voices making sophisticated arguments that shutting down international travel would do nothing to limit spread of the virus---a claim that a middle-schooler would call out as largely bullshit.

etangent | 4 years ago | on: The Peril of Politicizing Science [pdf]

> And no, being jailed for anything you can name does not mean we are on a path to following the USSR (or any similar trajectory)

Ex-USSR person here. It absolutely does mean that.

etangent | 4 years ago | on: The Peril of Politicizing Science [pdf]

The next step isn't "forced farm labor," that would indeed be a non-sequitur. A most likely next step is putting someone in jail over a tweet (already happening in the United Kingdom). It takes three or four more steps to get to forced farm labor.

etangent | 4 years ago | on: NvChad: An attempt to make Neovim TUI as functional as an IDE

How do you open a grid with 6 files using keyboard only in your IDE? I assume it's possible.

etangent | 4 years ago | on: Nerds don't respond to marketing; try technical documentation instead

It's not that nerds do not respond to marketing -- everyone does -- it's that they respond to a different type of marketing than those who don't consider themselves nerds.

Some here say that the difference lies in rational vs emotional appeal, with nerds being presumed to be more "rational." But I think the difference is somewhere else. I don't think nerds are any less emotional.

A lot of traditional marketing relies on a thing where the marketer tries to sell the consumer some feature of a product in a way that does not involve delving into details of the product (this avoidance is seen as good thing -- often the fewer details are specified, the more polished the marketer considers the message to be). To a nerd, that avoidance is a very bad thing, because a nerd prides himself on knowing the details. So the marketing message that avoids details and tries to sell some "powers" that work "out of the box" hurts the ego of the nerd. This feeling of hurt is certainly an emotion, so I wouldn't say nerds are less emotional!

etangent | 4 years ago | on: Entrepreneurs don’t have a special gene for risk, they come from rich families

where do rain droplets come from?

etangent | 4 years ago | on: Scientist finds early virus sequences that had been mysteriously deleted

This is an extraordinary comment. To follow up, however, wouldn't suppressing talking about this stuff provide even more validation?

etangent | 4 years ago | on: Ask HN: Do software engineers have leverage?

A lot of people have horrible ethics in the sense that the issues they strongly believe in end up having a net negative impact on the world.

etangent | 4 years ago | on: Cristiano Ronaldo snub wipes billions off Coca-Cola’s market value

ah that makes sense, ty very much

etangent | 4 years ago | on: Cristiano Ronaldo snub wipes billions off Coca-Cola’s market value

wouldn't this be something already arbed out? Dividend dates are known -- one can make a quick buck shorting if one knows for sure the price will change.

etangent | 4 years ago | on: Cristiano Ronaldo snub wipes billions off Coca-Cola’s market value

"or change the world"

"change the world for the better, right? right?"

etangent | 4 years ago | on: Perl Data Language: Scientific Computing with Perl

your hunch is correct

etangent | 4 years ago | on: Ask HN: Anybody Started a Research Institute?

Yeah, we won't accidentally stumble upon it---we will painstakingly create one, with our best intentions in mind and while receiving accolades for it.