twirligigue's comments

Exactly. I don't have anything to hide, but there are some things I need to protect.

Yes, although I think the absence of those power hungry narcissists (who no doubt lurk back at Star Fleet HQ) would be more down to having a relatively isolated and small group of people living and working in close proximity. Dark triad individuals can be identified early and worked around or placed where they cannot harm. An explicit code of ethics would be an Achilles heel because any such a code can be hacked or subverted.

Yes! I think TNG showed some of the problems with automated doors:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKdqBHExH9I

The motivation is probably due to Star Trek. Who wouldn't want swishy Star Trek doors? Ironically they were opened by hand from behind the scenes, at least in the first shows.

Also, 'Computer, locate my husband.' 'Your husband is in the attic'. etc.

Sometimes people can dislike something but they are unable to articulate the reason. Yet the reason may be valid.

So I would say: permit downvoting, but as well as removing one point from the downvoted, let it cost the downvoter one point also.

This reflects real life where it's possible for me to lose my temper in a conversation but it always inflicts a psychological cost on me for doing so. I don't get to express displeasure for free. Which helps keep the discourse civil.

Biology or no, there are problems with living in giant hives as we do now. We simply don't know (personally) the people who rule us, so there's no question of rule by consent. We don't even know people who know them.

Dunbar's Number squared seems like the ideal population size. Enough people that some level of privacy/anonymity is possible but not so many that rule by a sociopathic elite can emerge.

Agree on both scores!

The thing that stood out for me in The Mission was its dramatic depiction of the power of repentance (i.e. a genuine change of heart) which we saw when Mendoza (de Niro) finally put down his burden at the intervention of the very people he'd persecuted.

In A Man for all Seasons it would have to be the Thomas More's famous replies following Roper's “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7515521-william-roper-so-no...

Funny, though, we still think goodness can be manufactured by the passing of laws instead of by changes of hearts.

Why can't we polish concrete more? Buildings and benches would be so much more attractive. Perhaps more weather-resistant too? But pavements slipperier when wet...

Is this because we learnt to write before we learnt to type?

Thanks. I like his motto, 'Clear intentions, lightly held'

One thing that shoelace teachers seem to get wrong is teaching with empty shoes. In reality shoelaces are tied under tension. This affects the grip we used or what the rest of the hand is doing. Small wonder children find it difficult.

Even the Ian's knot demo uses an empty shoe. Since I haven't learnt his tying technique, can anyone please say if it works under tension?

In exchange I'll give you a free tip on how to dry your shoes. Remove the insoles and wedge inside a ball of absorbent paper such as kitchen towel for 10 minutes. Remove and then insert a vacuum cleaner nozzle inside. Switch on the vacuum and leave it running for 20 minutes or until dry.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/782216-everything-is-intere...

Elephants form social hierarchies too (which provide 'value comparison', surely?) and have larger brains than us but still they are less smart, no?

They make vocal calls and signals but they haven't evolved a general-purpose language. Presumably they could have. But they haven't.

Whereas humans did. Language is a huge meme transmission booster and we evolved other boosters such as large sclera so you tell roughly where someone is looking.

I don't know why elephants haven't gone that way. Perhaps because their adaptive niche and lifestyle isn't so dependent on memes to start with. Whereas our ancestors were relatively helpless, physically speaking, and thus utterly dependent on their memes both for survival as well as for social position. Which placed strong survival and sexual selection pressures for improved meme transmission and storage.

People who behaved or even dressed differently were looked down upon by their tribes or social groups and thus were less likely or simply unable to access food and mates. So, you're right, there is a connection between social hierarchy and intelligence. But fundamentally it's to do with memes (see David Deutsch's The Beginning of Infinity, Chapters 15-16).

It's an interesting piece of natural history and discussion. It talks about some of the things that made smartness possible, including big brains and roaming around. However it doesn't seem to address the question of what actually made us smart.

My answer would be: our genes, and later on our culture too, began to optimise for meme transmission and storage. This process snowballed and we went further down that route than any other species.

So the way to self-soothe is with self-talk? Are there any other ways?

Yes, and as much as I dislike political correctness, I sometimes wonder if it's a response, perhaps even a necessary response, to the accelerating politicisation and polarisation brought on by the web. If all events and even facts must be framed according to a simplifying narrative then I wonder if the human mind/brain is doing something similar in order to operate stably? This could be the origin of the ego -- a set of unacknowledged fears and desires which shape a personal story or set of goals through which we attempt to organise our lives.

As a child I used to stick a school ruler out of the back window of the car and rotate it slightly to make it move upwards, like a plane's wing. Intuitively I felt that this happened because it was pushing some of the horizontal airflow downwards and the air was pushing back up on the ruler. Yet the books I read about aeroplanes referred to something called Bernoulli's principle which was pretty demoralising because I couldn't understand it.

Woah. How is that even collected?

Scrub those vegetables well, friend!

I'd guess the chances of infection go up if you have a vegetable garden in a suburban environment. Cats use freshly turned soil as a litter tray and salad vegetables such as radishes and spring onions are often eaten raw.

There seems to be a new background assumption that one's identity can be chosen, whereas I think in reality it's inherited.