I am making a game. I use Vim (infinitely faster and more product than other text editors) and write a single command in my terminal to compile. Vim makes a lot of sense when you want to work fast and don't want bloated development toolchains to slow you down. There's nothing in modern IDEs that would increase my productivity that I can't add to Vim in about 5-20 minutes.
I think I'll have an alpha/beta testing period with interested volunteers. Then hopefully sell it. Then after some years and waning interest, probably open source it.
"So much faith"? People are just following the science. Are you really arguing that because one bad situation has occurred involving pharmaceutical companies, we should assume every new drug or treatment is bogus or based on evil motives?
In 2020 there’s science and The Science. The latter seems to be more religious in its application and what it means to its devotees. That makes life difficult.
Politicians, having long ago squandered their own credibility, are now working their way through someone else's. But it's not an easy partnership. Politicians, especially during an emergency, need to produce fast, clear, consistent answers; science, as I'm sure you know, is about the gradual and painstaking accumulation of knowledge, and about nuance and qualification and uncertainty and interpretation. Scientists love to be proved wrong; politicians can't stand it.
I'm not going to explain how clinical trials work and why you should trust that process. Again, bad situations do not invalidate all work being done in a field.
Are we talking about the same process which allowed companies for decades to hide trials which where not in their favor? Or until recently where not obliged to publish the trial results? Not to forget, many trials are not reproducible either.
Compared to the "hard" sciences, medicine has not very high standards. And trials are completely profit-motivated, that's a bad incentive. These trials are conducted by the same companies who had no qualms to sell highly addictive stuff to people. Why should I trust that the data they publish is the data they collected?
Unfortunately it's impossible to have this conversation when the person is saying "I'm following the science but I won't explain the science to you". You may as well run into a brick wall
No. The onus is on you to explain why experts who have devoted their entire lives to groundbreaking vaccine research are wrong. It's like arguing with a 5 year old.
None of those criticisms apply to these vaccine studies. There are many issues that can arise in trials, of course. But the current batch of 3-phase mRNA-based vaccine trials have all been intensely scrutinized at every turn. I think it will be difficult for you to argue otherwise, but feel free to enlighten us about the data corruption conspiracy if you have some evidence.
They didn't pick up the reactions people with allergies have in the "intense scrutiny". What have they tested it for? What sort of scrutiny did this vaccine come under?
Also too many people are claiming they are following the science but don't know the first thing about how science works.
Edit: not accusing anyone in particular, just e.g. when some mayor says "we're following the science" I know he's just parroting what he's been told because he has no scientific training whatsoever.
I agree with you on this one. If you try and have a rational discussion about the pros and cons of this vaccine it seems like a lot of the people for say: "we believe in the science" or something along those lines but then will give zero real insight into said science
I'm skeptical that any of those things actually "prepare" people to face death in the first place. Feeling like you're "prepared" weeks, months, or years before the final hours of your self or a loved one does not necessarily translate to those final moments when you are actually going through it.
There's nothing wrong with skepticism. Unless you let it stop you from learning. So I'd say be skeptical, but also be willing to explore.
Personally, I think there's a fair bit of reason to believe that both Zen training and hospice experience are useful to facing one's own death. Cultivating awareness of impermanence is central to Buddhist thought. Zen includes such traditions as composing one's own death poem [1] and specific meditations on death [2].
I also found spending time in a hospice to be useful. Anything unknown is hard to think about and possibly scary. Being in the presence of death made it more real for me. And I'm not alone in this; a hospice program founder has an excellent talk [3] and book [4] on what people can learn from hospice.
It's pretty well documented how terrified western culture is of death relative to others. The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell is an excellent book which goes into insightful detail on this subject.
Terrified is the wrong word. Western culture simply understands the reality of the situation. Sure, you can delude an entire society with fairy tales and they will feel better about dying...that's not a virtue though.
I don't believe that at all. Western culture is strongly influenced by Christian notions like an eternal soul which has life after death. And American culture has a strong element of the pursuit of eternal youth. Contrast that with the acceptance of the transitory nature of existence that's central to Buddhism. Or even things like the Mexican Day of the Dead, where death is celebrated as a part of life.
>Western culture simply understands the reality of the situation.
You mean not waking up again?
I don't see what is so worrying about that?
If one truly believe there's nothing after this life I'd think one should be very calm?
Edit: to be clear, I'm a Christian, - I just happen to be puzzled by why non-religious people are afraid of death (except for worrying about their loved ones and the pain of dying that is.)
>If one truly believe there's nothing after this life I'd think one should be very calm?
At the very least, most people feel a sense of responsibility towards their loved ones, and knowing they will no longer be around to take care of them is a significant source of stress. That is how it was for my father. And if it ever comes to pass where I am terminal but still lucid, it will be the primary source of my frustration as well.
Is the goal of parents raising children not to prepare them to be adults that can take care of themselves? That's the problem with "helicopter parents", they hold on so selfishly to their role as a parent that they stunt their children's growth and atrophy their capacity for autonomy.
There comes a point in all our lives where we become so old that we become burdensome. If the old never died, there wouldn't be room or resources for new life and ideas to be born and grow. In that sense, it is honorable to meet death, because you are making room for new life.
I spoke of the lifelong bond between parent and child. In healthy relationships, that does not end once the child reaches independence. Rather, it grows into a deeper relationship than before. If, when reading that, your mind goes to solely helicopter parenting, that is on you.
> Self-preservation is a behavior that ensures the survival of an organism. It is almost universal among living organisms. Pain and fear are integral parts of this mechanism.
>If you thought you'd never wake up again, how comfortably would you go to sleep?
If we have no choice but to go to sleep, why would we want to spend those last moments feeling terribly uncomfortable?
If we face the facts that death is a part of life, and that we all must die, what's the practical value in fretting over that fact? (Aside from being wise not to do stupid things that lead to a stupid death)
Excerpting my point out of context like this isn't helpful. I'm responding to the Christian's glib notion that he doesn't understand why atheists worry about dying.
There's no value at all in fretting over death once it's inevitable. There is great value in fretting over possible deaths we can avoid. And regardless, death for atheists is the loss of everything, and loss aversion is a well-studied component of human psychology, so it should be unsurprising even to a Christian that atheists are not particularly jolly about death.
Yes, I understand why atheists are so fearful of death, but also see the illogical and impractical nature of it.
>death for atheists is the loss of everything
Atheist logic should lead to the realization that from an individual standpoint, there is no possibility for the experience of this feared loss, at all. Immediately before the moment of death, you still have it all. Immediately at the moment of death, you have no conscious ability to experience the loss. Therefore the fear is not logical, it's irrational because your "total loss" is something you can never experience.
It's "not logical" only from certain poorly considered priors that have very little to do with how humans work. Emotions aren't supposed to be "logical". Emotions are part of the biological machinery that keeps meat-machines alive and active in the world.
>Emotions are part of the biological machinery that keeps meat-machines alive and active in the world.
Not all emotions are valuable, some are indeed quite harmful and anti social.
Which brings us back full circle to the original point of this comment chain: that western society is extremely emotional about the subject of death relative to other societies. This tendendency leads to unecessary suffering and the prolonging of life at all costs.
The US has come very far from its founding mantra; "Give me liberty, or give me death!" has seemingly been reversed to "anything but death"
> I'm responding to the Christian's glib notion that he doesn't understand why atheists worry about dying
I'm not glib.
It's an honest question. This puzzles me.
Also I'm Reitan, not "the Christian" and while you don't owe me much respect, some degree of politeness so you don't call me glib is expected here AFAIK.
It seems like I've struck a nerve though and for that I apologise, I just hoped for an answer.
I'm of two minds about this. Like most everyone, of course, I have this fear. I ponder the ways it is not adaptive. I find it lessens over time as I consider this.
First of all, I don't "hypothesize" anything - I am just pointing out what seems to be the obvious answer to "what happens when you die?". When the brain is damaged or undergoes chemical changes, we know that consciousness seems to disappear. There is no strong evidence to think this is different upon the death of any organism.
Second, I find your puzzlement with the fear of nonexistence utterly incoherent. Humans are born with the desire to live. We don't want to stop existing. Stating the obvious truth that one can't experience things when they are dead is completely void of content - the point is that we fear our eternal end WHILE we are alive because we'd like to continue on and be healthy again.
>When the brain is damaged or undergoes chemical changes, we know that consciousness seems to disappear. There is no strong evidence to think this is different upon the death of any organism.
People often have dreams under such circumstances, and there are many who have died and been resusitated that report having wild experiences inbetween.
>we fear our eternal end WHILE we are alive
Again, you're mythologizing/hypothesizing here with your use of the word "eternal".
But yes, when confronted with immediate life threatening situations, all animals including humans have a natural fight or flight instinct. However, not all humans (and seemingly no animals) have such existential dread like you do of a future of eternal nonexistence. Your fear is a result of your materialist reductionist mythology.
The simple fact of this discussion is: no one knows what death is truly like, so we can only extrapolate, hypothesize, and mythologize.
That physical damage to the brain results in loss or impairment of consciousness, and that there is absolutely no evidence that total biological death would entail anything but the cessation of this consciousness.
[EDIT: I want to be clear - I am NOT saying that it could never be the case that some form of "being" exists outside of what appears to us as a finite biological existence, I am merely pointing out that we have no evidence of this kind of existence, aside from vague spiritual feelings and experiences which are difficult to evaluate, so the skeptical position is the most honest one for the time being.]
>no evidence that total biological death would entail anything but
You seem very certain of your hypothesis. Is there anything that science has had a harder time defining, quantifying, or understanding than the nature of consciousness as it relates to reality? With that in mind it would seem more in keeping with the spirit of science to remain agnostic ("I don't know"), rather than atheistic ("I know")
>Those who raise questions about the God hypothesis and the soul hypothesis are by no means all atheists. An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed.
Exactly. Even if you try to make the decision ahead of time with a sound mind, where do you draw the line? And even if the line is drawn, what happens if you change your mind later but you're in the late stages? Which "you" gets precedence?
You know you're missing the point, right? There are some jobs that people just don't tend to enjoy or find meaningful. You can incentive people to do them by paying them lots of money, but that doesn't necessarily make people happy or fulfilled while doing the work, which was the original topic of this discussion.
You don't seem to understand the actual problems with screening. Try learning about the field before implying the FDA isn't doing their job: https://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.h6080
There is a huge misconception about the value of screening in the general population. It doesn't do what most people think it does. Even with emotional adjustment it is entirely unclear that screening for things like cancer is ever good for the patient. Look at work by the oncologist Vinay Prasad: https://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.h6080
It "feels revolutionary" to the author, but it is literally only capable of handling the simplest restaurant and hair salon reservations (the kind of thing you could do yourself in about 90 seconds). Seems like a silly headline, although the details are interesting.
> (the kind of thing you could do yourself in about 90 seconds)
I can also walk over to my kitchen, stepping around the dogs and cats, and pour a glass of milk in about 90 seconds too, but a robot that can reliably do that would be pretty damn revolutionary.
Don't underestimate the insane quantity of wetware computation going on during a short conversation.
Actually it fails at least 20% of the time. Your floor cleaning robot will fail at cleaning it up 20% of the time. I'm not good at math, but I think that means you'll be spending 95% of your milk drinking time cleaning your floor...
What on Earth are you talking about? The point was not that anything humans can do within 90 seconds is non-revolutionary when implemented in machines. An artist can create something unique and beautiful in 90 seconds, and a mathematician can explain a short yet difficult proof in 90 seconds. Those things would absolutely be revolutionary if implemented in machines. Who cares about the quantity of computation? As if that matters for how "revolutionary" a software technology is.
It is entirely unclear to me that a bot that might make simple reservations at small group of establishments that include only restaurants and hair salons is in any way revolutionary. Even if it worked 100% of the time, who is making daily hair and restaurant reservations that would benefit from the extra 90 seconds? It's silly the amount of hype this is eliciting. You have a very strange definition of "revolutionary".
> […] who is making daily hair and restaurant reservations that would benefit from the extra 90 seconds?
The wealthy have had assistants since practically time immemorial, and no one bats an eye at their "90 seconds". The promise of this tool is a democratization of both the convenience and the normalcy.
> It is entirely unclear to me that a bot that might make simple reservations at small group of establishments that include only restaurants and hair salons is in any way revolutionary.
If it is an extensible technology that requires relatively minor tweaks to expand the domain of applicability, then it is revolutionary thougj the effect won't be fully felt until it has been more broadly applied.
If it is narrowly tailored such that the next two domains will cost nearly as much time and money to build out as restaurants and hair salons, then, sure, it's minimally useful.
Google's been promoting it as the first, and that seems in character with what Google does.
> As if that matters for how "revolutionary" a software technology is.
Doesn't matter if you're only interested in it as a consumer. But then why would you be on HN?
Your entire comment would apply to introduction of the first transistors, which were worse than vacuum tubes in almost everything except size - and nobody at the time particularly cared for their size.
A chatbot that only works within a limited domain is not "revolutionary". It's been done before. The NLP part is relatively easy in a limited domain. Given enough time and enough users, it could be an ELIZA 2.0 level of programming.
The harder part is voice to text (not rocket science and that can be done pretty reliably) and natural sounding text to speech.
With Googles reputation of dropping products and letting them wither and die, and Google’s lack of ability to monetize anything outside of search, there is just as much of likelihood that they won’t make money off of it as I won’t....
Technology should aim to solve problems both big and small. If all we did was life-extension and deep space exploration, nobody would be solving problems we have today -- tracking how much food we eat automatically or how much fuel should be injected into the engine based on driving conditions/style.
You might think this isnt new "AI" technology, but as others have showed this is the first time we've seen an "AI" tech convincing masses that it is real human using voice.
