darkmatterrat

This whole post just reads as a shallow attempt to justify odd behaviour and poor communication and try to disguise it as some argument against vanity (while ironically being quite vain as his tone comes off as high handed).

I wonder how many times he thought he knew better and it bite him in the arse? He did allude to it, but I suspect it far more often than he would be willing to admit.

> Car insurance: the last time I bought car insurance, I had to confirm three times that I only wanted coverage for damage I do to others with no coverage for damage to my own vehicle if I'm at fault. The insurance agent was unable to refrain from looking at me like I'm an idiot and was more incredulous each time they asked if I was really sure

This is typically more expensive as people that get third party insurance are usually newer (and younger drivers) so the insurance company will charge you more because their algorithm for determining cost will factor that in. So I don't doubt he was getting strange looks because it likely cost him more money and you don't get the obvious benefit of full comprehensive.

This and the laptop situation screams of "I made a strange request and didn't explain my motivations and then I wondered why I got strange looks".

It is just him communication poorly. Which isn't anything to brag about.

> On the flip side, the person I was living with at the time didn't want to wear the mask I got her since she found it too embarrassing to wear a mask when no one else was and become one of the early bay area covid cases, which gave her a case of long covid that floored her for months

The whole mask effectiveness isn't as straight forward as he thinks it is. His flatmate after the mixed messaging from the media probably thought it was a wash and decided to just fit in with everyone else and was unlucky as a result.

I have no idea why this guy is so popular. Whenever I read anything from him he seems completely unlikeable.

EDIT: Rephrasing.

> People had enormous confidence that Newtonian physics was true UNTIL a better model proved to be more accurate (relativity). There is no problem with 100% consensus in science. There are still accepted methods to change the system when new ideas are actually better.

Newtonian Physics is a fine model as long as the speeds are not relativistic. Relativity was not the "replacement" and Relativity and Quantum Mechanics do not mesh at all.

If I am a Mechanical Engineer, I would not be applying Quantum Mechanics of Relativistic Theories. I would be applying classical theories.

> So has "humans cause climate change" gained trust over time, based on more and more evidence. It is the closest to truth we can be. It is perfectly plausible that a better theory may arise, but it's incredibly unlikely. We must accept it as fact until that time (which may happen centuries from now, or even never).

In the soviet union there was an idea of Lysenkoism was the accepted by it was politically expedient to do so. Those that didn't agree I would imagine had to leave the Soviet Union. In the same vain many people think that much of the agreement is politically motivated. I have no idea of how true that is. However telling people "well we all agree, shutup" will heighten suspicions not lower them.

That is an extreme example. However there was many times when many scientists all "agreed" because it was politically expedient or because other ideas were pushed out of the consensus due to various factors e.g. the Scablands is one such example:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/channel...

Telling me that 99% of all scientists agree doesn't mean much when there is plenty of times where scientists in the past all agreed on the wrong thing.

I definitely think the climate is changing, but I am wrong to be suspicious when I am just told "well everyone agrees and shutup"?

> Because unlike relativity vs Newtonian physivs, math is not enough to show the validity of the process.

Neither is it for Relativity, Quantum Mechanics or Newtonian physics. People have verified the theories through experimentation.

e.g.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafele%E2%80%93Keating_experim...

They flew an atomic clock around the world twice to prove special relativity.

No it wasn't. Mandates were enforced on flimsy evidence that they might work. It was simply security theatre. In some cases many have even admitted that it was done to make people "feel safe".

The Effectiveness (or lack thereof) of specifically the masks has been investigated in many settings with the flu many times before.

e.g.

This was published back in 2014:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

Page 44-47 of the PDF goes over in length masks used in a community setting. They specifically talk about compliance, what sort of mask was being worn and whether the mask was fitted and how that may have affected the results of various studies, transmission rates etc. Many studies found that people stopped complying after a certain amount of time, other found it varied on the culture.

What did we see with mask usage during COVID? Many people wore the same mask for days on end, or they put them in their pocket, or just stuck one of the passenger seat of their car (like my neighbour did). Some stopped bothering wearing the mask after a few weeks, and there was differences in compliance dependent on the culture.

A lot of this was known back in 2014.

You can find numerous other studies going back years now on the relative effectiveness of masks and different types of masks and the result for cloth masks (which the types that people were using) weren't great.

Are you telling me that all these medical professionals that had the ear of officials didn't know about any of this?

Not at all. Most of this is (IMO) dross and has no practical value.

Thanks for the recommendation.

I was hoping it would be a list about game design, game programming, history or anything substantive. Unfortunately nothing really of substance there.

UKIP went from having a 3% share of the vote in 2010 to 12-13% in 2015. People constantly downplay this to make it out as if it was only an internal Conservative party dispute. However there was growing pressure to have the referendum.

> They draw voters from the more aligned main party, causing that aligned main party to lose elections.

That is the entire point! The mainstream political party won't address particular issues unless it feel that it position in power is threatened.

That has happen. UKIP forced the Conservative Party in the UK to offer a referendum because their members were voting for UKIP (UKIPs voter share in 2015 hit about approximately 13% of the total vote). Whatever you may think of UKIP

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/results

However there is several negatives to this:

1) That political party won't get any credit for it. 2) The policy will be implemented hardheartedly. 3) It may destroy your party if one or more of the major issues that the alternative party is implemented. As voters won't see any more need to vote as they have got what they wanted. 4) Thee political momentum will be lost for other reform / change. 5) The existing party duopoly will still exist.

To expand on the final point. I dislike all political parties (I am somewhat of a anarchist) and I don't believe in political solutions. However the Labour party in the UK immolating itself will hopefully end up with its destruction. Which will make space in the UK political landscape for new ideas, new people. Some speculate that it may also lead to the destruction of the Conservative party. Peter Hitchens described both Labour and Conservative parties as two corpses that are propping the other up and if one collapses the other may as well. However I personally think that is a fantasy.

> The vast majority of the actual content of the internet is provided by people for free to the internet in general.

That maybe provided for free. However the hosting infrastructure is paid typically by advertising.

I don't know how old you are but things pre-internet electronics just worked, because there it was assumed that there was probably connection. Before everything was internet connected. Yes everything did just work until component failure.

* Games consoles and games were plug and play. Until the PS3 (late 2000s), none of the game consoles required any sort of updates. Yes there was hardware revisions but what you bought in the box was what you got.

* Most computers before the PC was dominate in the UK, just switched on and you operated them.

* Mobile phones didn't require updates, the only thing I need to do once was restart the phone because the sim needed to update a setting because I wasn't receiving SMS. These old nokia phones still work btw and my newer smart phones many don't work or can't be updated now.

* Almost all my media was on VHS and/or Cassette. As long as the player worked, my media would play.

I tend to do a lot of retro-gaming / retro computing now and all this stuff that is pre-internet and doesn't assume an internet connection just works (even on modern operating systems) without much interference.

There was of course bad products, but they didn't require an internet connection either so it was just a bad product that you replaced with something better if you cared to.