betwixthewires (u/betwixthewires)

betwixthewires commented on The United States’ Unamendable Constitution newyorker.com/culture/ann... · Posted by u/psteitz

betwixthewires · 3 years ago

> hasn’t been amended in any meaningful way since 1971

Already inserting subjectivity into the discussion to support it's premise. I'm not going to like this article.

> It’s always been hard to amend the Constitution. But, in the past half century, it’s become much harder

Yes, systems find stability, turbulence finds a local minima. Of course a lot more happened early on than later, if you expect a flat, linear, normal distribution of changes to something over time you don't know enough about what you're talking about to be talking about it.

Maybe the constitution has lasted 200 years precisely because it is hard to modify. A constitution should be harder to change than just passing any old piece of legislation. If it's just as easy as passing any law it's not a constitution, just another law.

If you think it's hard to amend the constitution, just wait until a constitutional convention convenes in DC in the next 5-10 years, we are almost there, something that hasn't happened since the Continental Congress, it's going to happen soon and it's going to be very interesting. I hope they ratify the equal apportionment amendment.

betwixthewires commented on Elites tried to monopolize hunting thereader.mitpress.mit.ed... · Posted by u/diodorus

_notreallyme_ · 3 years ago

I don't think it would actually be the case: Banning hunting as a hobby would be a massive win.

There is an artificial imbalance in the ecosystems introduced by hunters who feed specific animals at certain times in order to have more, and thus easier to hunt, preys. Because of that, there is a need to restore a viable ecosystem in some areas.

This kind of thing should not be let to the "elite", but to professionals...

betwixthewires · 3 years ago

Professionals...

A state has an asset. They can assess the population of a certain animal, assess its growth rate, assess the impact it can have, both to human populations and to the ecosystem, and determine how many need to be culled each year to prevent negative impacts.

Now it has a choice. It can get people to pay to do it for them, or of can tax you and pay someone to do it. They can consider the animals assets or liabilities.

A government that would turn something very valuable from a source of revenue to an expense is an incompetent government full of bumbling idiots that have no business governing a territory of natural resources or a population of human beings.

betwixthewires commented on Elites tried to monopolize hunting thereader.mitpress.mit.ed... · Posted by u/diodorus

topspin · 3 years ago

Hmm. Where I am there are a number of "Deer Feed" sellers and the buyers bring large trucks. Serious hunters do indeed attract animals with food.

In general you're correct, most hunters don't. But some hunters -- particularly the ones that hunt the most -- do feed prey. On the high end of that histogram are people that acquire property in communities that are designed to accommodate hunters. They feed a lot of game.

betwixthewires · 3 years ago

Its like fish bait. You set these feeders out to get them to hang around an area so that when you're ready to hunt you have an easier time finding them. Hunters don't feed anything near the amount of food mass needed to increase the wild population, this idea of an ecological imbalance due to feeding is wildly inaccurate, its like saying fishermen increase fish stocks with fish bait.

betwixthewires commented on Signal says it won’t compromise on encryption theverge.com/23409716/sig... · Posted by u/TobTobXX

a-user-you-like · 3 years ago

Is there anything more secure than signal that is widely used? Maybe something that doesn’t leak metadata or require a phone number?

betwixthewires · 3 years ago

There's Briar, its peer to peer and pretty great.

XMPP/Jabber with OMEMO encryption, it runs on federating servers.

Session is a fork of signal that doesn't require phone numbers, there's some cryptocurrency something or other in there I don't quite get, but I don't believe you need it to send messages.

There's Tox, another p2p sort of thing.

Then there's threema, wire, and a bunch of others im not all that familiar with.

betwixthewires commented on Signal says it won’t compromise on encryption theverge.com/23409716/sig... · Posted by u/TobTobXX

2Gkashmiri · 3 years ago

matrix

betwixthewires · 3 years ago

Matrix is great, but it leaks a ton of data.

betwixthewires commented on Not the Time to Get Greedy: House Flippers Getting Burned by US Housing Downturn moneywise.com/real-estate... · Posted by u/DocFeind

betwixthewires · 3 years ago

Why do these people always frame a reduction in housing prices as a bad thing and a turnaround to upward price pressure as a good thing? This housing market has been crazy for over a decade and progressively so, a cool down is much needed and IMO the only way to avoid future collapse. A place to live and throw a ball around with your kids should not be out of reach for average people on an open market, prices are distorted and if the forces causing the distortion don't get fixed there will be a crisis.

betwixthewires commented on A mechanical neural network learns to respond to its environment hackster.io/news/this-nov... · Posted by u/_Microft

akihitosan · 3 years ago

I think to call a big machine a material is very wrong.

betwixthewires · 3 years ago

Why? Isn't the distinction somewhat arbitrary? A lattice or scaffold is indistinguishable from a crysralling structure only due to it's scale, but when a large, rigid ststructure is built it functions on a larger scale as a sort of material.

betwixthewires commented on A mechanical neural network learns to respond to its environment hackster.io/news/this-nov... · Posted by u/_Microft

djokkataja · 3 years ago

> I think it's to demonstrate that fully mechanical systems can learn and react like a real brain plus muscles and sensors.

That wasn't the point of the research as expressed in the article (note that the final image has a label for "Control electronics" underneath the mechanical system):

> Thus, this work lays the foundation for artificial-intelligent (AI) materials that can learn behaviors and properties.

With applications such as:

> use in aircraft wings to morph the shape in response to wind patterns to boost efficiency, adding reactive rigidity to buildings to better withstand earthquakes and other disasters, shockwave-deflecting reactive armor, or even the creation of surfaces able to perform acoustic imaging.

betwixthewires · 3 years ago

Well of course they have useful applications in mind. But it does demonstrate something interesting: computation occurs naturally, on the "bare metal" of the universe, and systems can be built that perform computation that do not require an abstraction or purpose built computing device.

betwixthewires commented on Ask HN: Is Anyone Else Tired of the Self Enforced Limits on AI Tech? · Posted by u/CM30

NateEag · 3 years ago

The digital camera is still several orders of magnitude slower and more expensive to operate than DALL-E or SD.

Side note: if you're a materialist, you should believe that psychological harm is physical harm. It's obvious that being able to publish images of someone doing things they themselves find reprehensible could cause lots of trauma.

betwixthewires · 3 years ago

Well thankfully I'm not, but even if I were I think that's a bit of a stretch. A materialist acknowledging an effect he cannot quantify or directly observe is not much of a materialist.

betwixthewires commented on Ask HN: Is Anyone Else Tired of the Self Enforced Limits on AI Tech? · Posted by u/CM30

ethanbond · 3 years ago

The problem with extremely powerful forces (like new technologies) is that you can’t always predict what effects they’ll have.

This is doubly true with regard to technologies that seem not only powerful, not only adaptable to new domains, but also rapidly improving on both of those dimensions. I don’t know what is the right level or type of limitation, but there is nothing confusing or weird at all about wanting to be careful with such a technology.

If technology keeps advancing (it will), new developments will approach “looks kind of alarming” status faster and faster. This is because they will also approach “could destroy everything we know and love” status faster and faster.

betwixthewires · 3 years ago

At it's core, the argument for caution can be articulated as "utility and availability of this technology must be limited to incumbent actors in the industry for our protection" and that's very fishy. It's particularly fishy considering this technology cannot even so much as break a fingernail or cut a blade of grass. Is it consequential? Obviously or neither one of our arguments would exist. Does it have the potential to hurt people? Only if those people let it. To me it's overblown moral panic that's suspiciously convenient for the big players in the industry and software in general.