Re:Ask HN: Where do conservative, pro-military software engi...
by downerending on Friday February 28, 2020 @01:26PM
(#22445032)
Here's a hand-wavy analogy from the ML world. When searching for "better" under uncertainty, one has to decide how quickly to "learn", which is basically updating one's learned information (parameters) in a way that one hopes will ultimately lead to better results.
A "conservative" strategy updates that information more slowly, while a "progressive" strategy updates faster. The tradeoff is that if one updates too slowly, one loses the possibility to improve more quickly and perhaps to adapt more quickly to changing circumstance. If one updates too quickly, one can actually "forget" hard-learned lessons, leading to poor outcomes.
Looked at that way, a conservative is someone who is more wary of change, for fear of losing important societal knowledge.
Other than that, mostly they endure soylentnews.org and news.ycombinator.com as best as possible.
In real life, they tend to have families that suck up lots of time. If you want to meet them in real life, work for a defense contractor. They might also be found working for relatively industrial companies all across the middle of the USA.
Re:Ask HN: Where do conservative, pro-military software engi...
by throwaway15392 on Friday February 28, 2020 @11:19PM
(#22448790)
soylentnews.org lol
ya it totally makes sense those with more traditional family values spend more of their life in real life. working for a defense contractor is an interesting idea. thanks for the links i'm going to check them out
Re:Ask HN: Where do conservative, pro-military software engi...
by jmspring on Friday February 28, 2020 @12:11PM
(#22444270)
The interesting thing is there are technology intersections, like drones, radio, etc.
Discussion here are always interesting in that interesting forms of libertarianism come through, some discussions even what would be moderate positions on things like homelessness get attacked, etc.
The question and responses are certainly interesting.
An example where a discussion can be neutral but go very left or right - off grid living, homesteading, etc - off gridder or prepper? Same topic in many discussions, but different flavor of discussion.
Re:Ask HN: Where do conservative, pro-military software engi...
by remarkEon on Friday February 28, 2020 @08:17PM
(#22447967)
I'm having a hard time parsing what a "conservative" discussion of these topics would mean though. Like the left right now, the right doesn't really seem to have a coherent take on these technologies, except maybe some hostility to those who run the companies that make them. It's a grab bag of techno-libertarians, leftover neocons, traditionalists, and some statists. None of these people agree on much of anything anymore.
So, insofar as there's any interesting discussion to be had at all it would just be a mirror version of the left's own infighting on these topics.
>Discussion here are always interesting in that interesting forms of libertarianism come through, some discussions even what would be moderate positions on things like homelessness get attacked, etc.
I assume you mention this because you'd think it interesting to see less libertarianism leak through in the discussion. I'll admit, yeah, that does sound like an idea I haven't really explored too much.
https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/390048/
A "conservative" strategy updates that information more slowly, while a "progressive" strategy updates faster. The tradeoff is that if one updates too slowly, one loses the possibility to improve more quickly and perhaps to adapt more quickly to changing circumstance. If one updates too quickly, one can actually "forget" hard-learned lessons, leading to poor outcomes.
Looked at that way, a conservative is someone who is more wary of change, for fear of losing important societal knowledge.
https://thedonald.win/p/4AjIzHU/im-a-coder--there-are-many-o...
https://thedonald.win/p/46BjSob/want-me-to-build-a-mobile-ap...
Other than that, mostly they endure soylentnews.org and news.ycombinator.com as best as possible.
In real life, they tend to have families that suck up lots of time. If you want to meet them in real life, work for a defense contractor. They might also be found working for relatively industrial companies all across the middle of the USA.
ya it totally makes sense those with more traditional family values spend more of their life in real life. working for a defense contractor is an interesting idea. thanks for the links i'm going to check them out
Discussion here are always interesting in that interesting forms of libertarianism come through, some discussions even what would be moderate positions on things like homelessness get attacked, etc.
The question and responses are certainly interesting.
An example where a discussion can be neutral but go very left or right - off grid living, homesteading, etc - off gridder or prepper? Same topic in many discussions, but different flavor of discussion.
So, insofar as there's any interesting discussion to be had at all it would just be a mirror version of the left's own infighting on these topics.
>Discussion here are always interesting in that interesting forms of libertarianism come through, some discussions even what would be moderate positions on things like homelessness get attacked, etc.
I assume you mention this because you'd think it interesting to see less libertarianism leak through in the discussion. I'll admit, yeah, that does sound like an idea I haven't really explored too much.