paisawalla

I'll defer to your expertise on what people find weird, but it seems like you should be able to have a throat-based device that could hide under a shirt collar. I have the Meta Ray Bans and even though I love the functionality, I don't care for the bulky frames. And those are designed by Ray Ban, meaning they're presumably at the upper end of what can be done stylishly.

How have the glasses been received? I don't understand why they're required, is it only to have a consistent mount point for the radar sensor, relative to the face? Have you thought about a throat mic?

À propos of nothing, my favorite Picard episodes:

1. The Drumhead

2. Tapestry

3. The Inner Light

4. Chain of Command

5. Darmok

I know a lot of people would put "Family" on that list, I just can't say I enjoy that one too much. I also like his dialogue in "Yesterday's Enterprise", but I wouldn't call it a Picard-focused one.

"He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that."

Everyone thinks they know better than others, and that's why their group and way of thinking should lead. Because of this, reasonable people ought to feel the need to present results, or at least make credible and compelling arguments, for why their way should prevail. All I'm seeing here is hackneyed, and very strained, WW2 analogies. And weepy moralization.

The only thing exceptional here is the gall you're showing, in suggesting that these tired, middling arguments are reasons why actually "the voting booth is wrong and I'm right, even though I (presumably) value democracy"

I don't know how to say this except by repeating myself: I recommend you ask a thoughtful person, or a capable LLM, to argue against "a big reason that ... [ad hominem patronization presented without evidence]"

In the age of LLMs, it's pure negligence to let your perspective be this uninformed and low-resolution. And it's violence against the attentions of others to share it with them, to be hyperbolic.

If this is your honest, best faith rendering why 50% of the country votes differently than you, then I recommend you leave politics alone. If you won't try and understand why people are the way they are, and instead are going with "they're all too stupid to know they're being fooled, unlike me" then yes, this is an unhealthy worldview which can damage your sanity.

The implication is that even if I might agree with you, we ought not be subjecting each other to incoherent rants in lieu of substantive arguments. Just don't say anything, if the only thing you have to say is They Watch Fox News.

Even if you're inclined to believe the conclusions, this should recognizably be a silly rant and I don't want to live in a world where we justify sloppy arguments if we agree with the conclusions. If it triggers your defenses to the point where you can't see that this is a poor rant, it could be instructive to copy/paste it into an LLM and ask for an analysis or some counterarguments.

> Trump actually isn’t corrupt? Or Biden was actually secretly as corrupt as Trump is?

Incredible to me that you could think this is anywhere implied. Maybe you understand something better than I do, but I submit that it's brainrot to think my comment was somehow "Trump is not corrupt and/or Biden is equally corrupt".

However, the question of whose corruption rises to the level where a person is morally suspect if they don't speak out, is one that certainly cuts conveniently, isn't it?

Woah! You're never going to believe this, but my opponents' beliefs are also unfounded, arising from their inability to perceive self-serving biases, and in general, their ignorance.

I wonder what else we have in common?

Per the second chart:

Since 2024, Democrats went from being the most trusting (57%) to the most skeptical (91%), bringing all groups to within 10 points of each other on the question.

This is not a "both sides" situation: Republicans dropped from 87% to 83% after their guy was elected, whereas Democrats nearly 1.5x'd their number of skeptics. There is no universal implication here IMO, this is just Democrats joining the 80-percenters, i.e. everyone

"middle class" shouldn't be synonymous with "knowledge worker". And that latter itself has become conflated with "credentialed" increasingly, I'd argue.

My fundamental observation is that there are a lot of people who are not particularly suited for knowledge work, but are funneled/attracted to it because it's the only viable path to a reasonable effort:outcome lifestyle ratio. Therefore, my fundamental hope is that yes, I want there to be fewer knowledge workers. In place, I want AI that enables people of various competencies to succeed. I'd much rather see AI make my carpenter friend, who made an awesome desk for me, be empowered to compete as a solo/SMB against big retailers: perhaps by automating his marketing, streamlining his ops, participating in design, and so on.

Uncharitably, is your complaint "a lot of people will have to labor with their bodies and minds differently, and it's easier to sit down"? I'd ask you: is butt flattening really all that "must preserve knowledge work" has to recommend it? Because your comment doesn't hinge on anything else except that construction work is back breaking. Well, construction is a diverse field, and it can benefit from the inclusion of intelligent and motivated people, just like many others.

Add in the number of people who have fond memories of BeOS

I spent some time researching how to teach commodity LLMs to pose geometrically correct figures and challenges, for the purpose of teaching middle school trig. I originally wanted exactly what you've described here, using AI to unlock Bloom mastery. There's a decently large surface area I covered before shelving the project. Happy to share my lessons with you

when people say "it's rational" they're invoking this feature of rationality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounded_rationality

in other words, if you see behavior in others that doesn't seem reasonable, there's two possibilities:

1. it makes sense to the subject, using the axioms they're reasoning from, which they've chosen because they have a stake in the outcome

2. an uninvolved, anonymous commenter on the internet knows -- better than the subject -- what's best for them

It's not always the case that (1) is correct, but it's the better prior than (2). And this fact being a downvote magnet here doesn't change that.

I would appreciate the timer not turning red. It's better to be surprised that time's up, rather than be surprised to know it's running out.

> an organisation funded by almost all of big tech

Agreed, and this sucks, but what should be done about this? Some NGO called "We Stop Bad Guys" approaches your company with its hand out. You have two choices:

1. kick down some money, get great headlines

2. don't, and then have it known that you don't support stopping Bad Guys -- then maybe write ten thousand never-to-be-read words about how your position is actually quite principled

I hate it, but the first is obviously rational?

As with many of your premises throughout this thread,

> And you think that's worth a 30 year sentence?

this claim was never argued.

> met to have some coffees and a chat ... with the intention to commit a violent crime

I'm sorry, do you believe it's legal to meet someone for coffee and credibly plan the commission of a crime, which you then go on to commit?

I don't accept that J6 involved over one thousand violent criminals and you seem to be incredulous that others don't hold this prior.

You also seem unwilling to acknowledge severe differences in the grade of violence being discussed, even when you begrudgingly admit that such differences exist (but then caveat them with your own speculative conclusions)

If you constrain your analysis to: who is a violent actor, and how severe was the violent act in question, I think you can produce a more reasonable comment tbf. As is, your comment seems quite unreasonable as you don't believe anyone else can see these obvious and material differences.

I'm sorry to disagree with a venerable python shell like this, but even if I accept your entire characterization here, these two situations look nothing alike.

> - were a group of at least 1000 people

> Granted they did not explicitly shoot any federal agents with a firearm, but in the J6 case, I’d say I’d lay blame for the subsequent deaths of the police officers who did die at the hands of the rioters.

Oh ok, so you grant we're talking about completely different scales of intention, personal responsibility, and outcomes, but you want to keep making this comparison? Because you think it's nuanced and informative?

I think if you append "with the intention to commit a violent crime" to each item on the list, you'll see the issue.

> For you to even list them shows a fascist bent.

If you want to concede that it's fascist to want violent criminals prosecuted, then sure, the shoe fits.

You actually are not allowed to conceal evidence that your wife committed a crime.

Just to be clear, the Prairieland case involves defendants:

- coordinating using a Signal group

- bringing firearms, body armor, and first aid kits to a location just outside a federal facility

- taking up a concealed position along a tree line

- throwing fireworks to distract and lure agents

- shooting a police officer in the neck

Readers should be aware of these facts: they bear on whether your comparison here is offered sincerely.

God bless Hacker News, where "just start building your own package management system, like I did" is an earnest comment, including a sketched out implementation.

(I'm admiring this, not mocking it)

The thread you're weighing in on is about whether the four-fifths rule is merely diagnostic, or functionally punitive.

You're arguing about something else, using the form "given we know that racism is happening, and furthermore we know where and how it is happening, why shouldn't we just do these Totally Cost Free and Obviously Good Things that are just like fighting money laundering"

Well, I just don't think any of these things are as evident as you seem to assume they are. Also fwiw I grew up in the US, where I was called all sorts of slurs -- like, the real ones you probably censor in your internal monologue when you see them written -- throughout K-12 education. I still don't believe in the existence of pervasive and oppressive racism the way you seem to assume it.

You've misunderstood the point.

Prior to the beginning of your excerpt is the word "You", meaning the comment's author is the subject, not "companies". I'm saying the commenter is appealing to black letter law for the answer to the question "what happens when..." but we have observational evidence to answer the question.

I don't start from the conclusion that disparities are evidence of racism.

What evidence would disprove the claim that systemic racism is the cause of a persistent disparity?

You are selectively adhering to the letter of the law, when the practical effects are already well known and studied. One is not obligated to ignore literature, nor abstain from doing a simple extrapolation from the incentives placed on the table.

There is a large body of literature concerning the question "does disparate-impact enforcement cause employers to alter hiring behavior in ways unrelated to actual productivity or discrimination?" and the answer is largely "yes". As you suggested elsewhere in this discussion, Google may be useful.

This is an application of the disparate impact doctrine. Even facially neutral policies are considered suspect if they produce results that correlate against protected groups, irrespective of intent.

This doctrine is the basis for much of employment law. It is a significant reason why employers don't administer IQ tests (or equivalents) to screen candidates since ~the 90s.

A common objection to the doctrine is that it leads to unfalsifiable discrimination claims, which is why it seems nonsensical to you.

I recently bought a used Dell R240 and 4x 20TB for less than this. From TechmikeNY if anyone's interested.

That's the role of rhetoric as a skill: all the true and sufficient syllogisms in the world will be ignored by most readers, if the argument leads with priors-triggering hyperbole and bombast.