3x

Just a joke, phrasing it referring to "you" wasn't meant to be personal.

> immutable biological trait

So now your two SUVs and white McMansion with a picket fence are an "immutable biological trait"?

Social mobility doesn't have anything to do with it really. Even if it is easier for the average citizen to become wealthy, that doesn't entail that the ones actually doing meritorious work are being rewarded accordingly. The "merit" in your idea of a meritocracy only measures the ability to accrue wealth, which is meaningless (as proxy for the more general notion of merit) when rich assholes are rewriting the laws to their own benefit.

> One thing is for sure, housing prices would skyrocket!

Sure, in the hypothetical of instantaneously doubling the population without any time for the market to adjust for increased demand. But if the population doubles over the course of 30 years? That's only about 11 million people a year, the market would expect and adjust to the influx of people easily. Governments would also ideally be devising initiatives and changing policy to promote affordable housing. The high cost of housing in the US is its own issue anyway.

But it's not... the feds will utterly fuck you over for possessing cocaine. Just 5 grams of crack in many states is going to land you in jail for a long time. Maybe you mean for research purposes, but even that I would doubt.

Such a shame because cocaine is a blissful, perfect drug and smoking crack is an especially excellent way to consume cocaine.

The difference is that these agencies never even bother with a warrant to store all of our data, and claim to not "collect" anything all while using algorithms to conduct mass surveillance at a scale far beyond the KGB's wildest dreams. And when they do want to spy on an individual more directly, it's done through gag orders and secret courts with no accountability to the public.

Digital data is actually afforded even fewer protections than your example of letters in the mail.

Actually if you check out more of his work it looks quite different from what was chosen for this article. I think the article wants to portray a logical progression from modern art to generative art, or just to show that an algorithm is capable of generating images that are similar to those of highly creative human artists.

https://www.behance.net/manoloide

https://www.google.com/search?q=Manolo+Gamboa+Naon&num=100&h...

He also is a young guy with plenty of time ahead to develop his own style. As someone who also experiments with generative art and music I am absolutely impressed by what he's done so far.

Me too!

> Well at any rate, the difference is that nearly anyone can learn to read, whereas there is no evidence to suggest that more than a few percent of people can become a computer programmer.

LOL, programmers aren't that special. I would stake my life that 90% of people have whatever genetic potential necessary to become at least an average programmer.

It's a common complaint on HN that too many articles include irrelevant details about the people and scenery of technical fields, but this article really pulls it off perfectly. It is dense in technical information and the personal stories complement this information and make it more memorable (e.g. I didn't know that the duration of an earthquake is a rough proxy for its magnitude, but I won't forget after reading the narration in the opening paragraphs).

> Sitting alone, staring into a wall while listening to music is not a thing most healthy people do. For most, music is a secondary activity.

It's called listening carefully and it's something that every serious musician does on a regular basis. What a strange notion you have that this, an act that requires concentration and discernment, is unhealthy.

Biodiversity loss would be measured in loss of biodiversity, I would think.

We're in the middle of a mass extinction, what more indication do you need that this in not going to go well? The immediacy and stern tone of environmental news reporting is totally appropriate as climate change compares only to nuclear war as a probable doomsday scenario. The environment is not going to "adapt" toward any state that is either pleasant for humans or conducive to our collective progress.

That's the whole point, isn't it? That's a good thing, right? Of course society at large should incentivize and facilitate the creation of open source software, but it seems the alternative you're suggesting (that the people making millions must financially support the original creators) would render the software proprietary.

Deal with it, recreational drug users have been under a constant state of threat and abuse since forever. We've had to put up with a lot more than you, so next time you notice the smell of marijuana just be glad that no one is trying to lock you up.

Wheat has a decent protein-to-carbohydrate ratio and you can make seitan from it, which is a great alternative to tofu / tempeh and other legume-based protein sources.

Has anyone ever experimented with Calea zacatechichi, Entada rheedii, or any other natural oneirogens to induce lucid dreaming?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calea_ternifolia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entada_rheedii

Overdoses would decrease. Nearly all recreational drugs should be legalized with regulation to promote safe drug use. These substances should be sold in single individually-packaged doses, with clear and explicit labeling. Taxation can be used to selectively promote the use of safer alternatives to the hardest drugs, for example making marijuana, opium, and mushrooms cheap compared to drugs with a high risk of overdose or long term health implications. The most dangerous drugs like fentanyl can remain prohibited and there will be no market left for them. And, most important of all, the violent black market around drugs would be massively diminished, and there would no longer be situations where addicts are scared to call an ambulance because they will end up in jail. Inconsistent drug purity by itself is a huge factor in opioid overdoses, and it is one of many harmful side effects of criminalization that will effectively disappear under a well-regulated legal market.

Eating fresh vegetables and fruits all day is glorious, not miserable. Foods like legumes, seitan, tempeh, tofu, nuts, and mushrooms are all excellent sources of protein and can even be made to taste very similar to meat. Since I stopped eating meat there are a few tastes that I'll miss like bluefin tuna, soft-shell crabs, etc. but overall it's not difficult.