stuff HN says 3 years ago in Everything
[..] Our children will have to adapt or become extinct. [..]
Sounds bad! I'm open to ideas on how to prevent such radical disruptions. But the author suggests that we need to end fossil fuel consumption, reconfigure our economic system, reconsider what it means to have a decent life, and eliminate our desire to consume lots of goods and services. Shouldn't we expect a comparable amount of disruption from these huge changes?
3 years ago in Everything
The CCP has really worked exceptionally well for the people.
3 years ago in Everything
When someone can point to the part of the brain that causes the feeling of "feeling" something, then we'll be that much closer to creating a machine that replicates the behavior.
3 years ago in Everything
You are being completely disingenuous.
I am not being disingenuous in the least.
3 years ago in Everything
I bet 2000 years from now Doom is belongs to canon like Iliad. It's of the timeless classical epics among the oldest extant works from the early silicon era. Doomguy is mentioned with Gilgamesh and Odysseus.
3 years ago in Everything
Curiously, I frequently see drivers speeding down the street here with their vehicle windows down, no masks, and acting like there's no such thing as a virus.
3 years ago in Everything
I wake up and the first thing I do is check my phone and I don't think that's unhealthy. Quite the contrary I believe.
3 years ago in Everything
I've been noticing on my walks how many Amazon delivery trucks there are, how many Amazon boxes are sitting outside in the trash piles. While people certainly aren't spending money dining out, they're still going HAM with their online shopping.
There's so much doom and gloom in the news, but when I look at the real data I'm not seeing anything that supports the apocalypse predictions.
3 years ago in Everything
I really don't understand why people immediately want to discredit the idea that US patient zero was not the first in US.
3 years ago in Everything
It looks like remote work is going to become the new normal!
3 years ago in Everything
I don't think it's at all likely that this author is consciously making an explosive political claim about Taiwan in a post about epidemiological cartography.
3 years ago in Everything
No more waiting to see whether that bunch of disaffected art students sitting around drinking absinthe and smoking strong cigarettes come up with anything good, get a bunch of computers to do it in a fraction of the time - and with far less angst.
3 years ago in Everything
I figure its only a matter of time before I'll be hard pressed not to make the difficult decision of giving up my arms for the eventual advantage of a prosthetic, and the seamless way he is able to control the synth brings that horizon much closer.
3 years ago in Everything
In 100 years we might have dedicated phonemes for emoji, making a terse language similar to Chinese. Or as smartphones become ubiquitous and children are exposed to these graphemes earlier and earlier, we might skip vocalization altogether and just beam pictograms directly to the visual cortex via AR.
exciting times!
3 years ago in Everything
We should also consider that as the ambient CO2 density rises we're also going to lose a lot of our cognitive function. If we're going to rely on nuclear energy to see us through we might need to rely on AI to carry on operations for us.
Or alternatively, personal CO2 scrubbers (already used as a part of diving rebreathers) become standard equipment for knowledge workers.
3 years ago in Everything
I think that instead of trying to reverse the situation (for instance, by convincing the largest carbon emitters like China to stop - which they won't), we should try to make use of the situation.
Too much carbon being released? Free carbon! How can we use it to make something else / convert it to something else? Too much acid in the ocean? How can we extract it and use it for something? Rising temps? How can we make use of this to grow crops that need warmer environments, or use it for better solar generation, or use thermal power generation in these areas. Our best hope it to adapt to the new norm rather than fight a losing battle. I know it's fatalistic, but I think we will last longer as a species if we adopt this approach instead.
the one insightful reply is of course downvoted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21809442
3 years ago in Everything
And though a propaganda machine has power... like all things it creates and equal an opposite power that eventually destroys it. The question for individuals is only: where am I in the cycle, how long will this cycle last, and what is my role to play?
3 years ago in Everything
No fully automated slaughterbots. There has to be a man in the loop that at least clicks a mouse every time the robot kills an enemy combatant.
3 years ago in Everything
Sorry, but that's the way it is. Internet is the future of human interaction. [..] You might not like it but that's reality and there's no comming back because internet is the best way of interacting with people thanks to its speed, memory and safety (when compared to any other form of interaction with exactly same people).
3 years ago in Everything
The size and striking appearance give a sense of safety, nobility, and a feeling that the structure's purpose exists beyond what people think of it.