mfed1122
@mfed1122@discuss.tchncs.de
- Comment on Death of beloved neighborhood cat sparks outrage against robotaxis in San Francisco 2 weeks ago:
Yeah this is the kind of thing where you really need statistics. This sticks out because it’s a prominent example of something new, an autonomous vehicle, doing something notable - killing an animal for the first time (or at least one of the very first well-publicized times on record).
For people’s reaction to this to be that this is because it’s an autonomous vehicle is the same sort of cognitive bias that causes things like, " The first person to get a math problem wrong in class was a girl so it seems like girls are bad at math". When of course it could be that the probability of boys and girls getting problems wrong is equal, and that the girl was simply the first one to get a unlucky roll on the dice of the universe. It could even be that boys are more likely to get problems wrong, and the girl was especially unlucky. It could in fact be that girls are more likely to get problems wrong, too, but this single instance doesn’t give us enough evidence for that. It could be that boys actually have gotten more problems wrong, but we only hear about the girl getting the problem wrong due to sociological biases, or vice versa. Etc.
I get that we shouldn’t trust corporations, and it’s not fun to defend a corporation, but it is important to defend rational thinking. And the rational way to approach this is to employ statistical methods to judge whether a vehicle being autonomous truly makes it a bigger risk to animals in the road or not. Any other line of reasoning is not right for this kind of problem.
- Comment on The Online Date Rape Drug 2 weeks ago:
I don’t have time to fully respond to this right now, but I just wanted to say that I do understand and sympathize with the things you’re bringing up here. I was hoping to engage with you politely, and my feelings are hurt by your insults, but I understand your anger. When I said I look forward to your counterargument, I meant that earnestly and respectfully. I’m sorry for upsetting you with my reply - I was hoping to lend an angle of positivity to you that you may not have considered, not discount your own view.
- Comment on The Online Date Rape Drug 2 weeks ago:
It allows individuals to distribute content to a network of hundreds of millions of people, with a very low barrier to entry, and in ways that are not centrally controlled. If my government is banning certain types of speech or information, websites in other countries may still be accessible with it. People in my own country may even make sites with that information, as it’s fairly easy to bypass those laws. The Internet holds all sorts of content that pisses off billionaires. Piracy, privacy tools, the Internet Archive, government document leaks. Think how I can read about the Epstein files so easily by searching or asking about it here on Lemmy - and then think about how much harder it is for me to find that information from a news company, if it’s even possible at all. Why do you think governments and billionaires around the world are so eager to monitor and centralize and rewrite the fundamental workings of the internet? They are coming after the internet because it is a threat to them.
I look forward to your counterargument.
- Comment on The Online Date Rape Drug 2 weeks ago:
Not the internet, but billionaire controlled platforms. The Internet is one of the best tools ever devised for fighting against centralized power!
- Comment on Mathematics disproves Matrix theory, says reality isn’t simulation 2 weeks ago:
It kind of sounds like you’re talking about it purely as a thought experiment or as something to inspire other philosophical thinking. But I think the issue most people have with the simulation theory is when people think that it’s actually the way that the world is or think that it’s worth investigating the way that the world is just because it theoretically could be the way the world is. But theoretically the world could have been created by the god of the Bible or any of the other million explanations proposed by the million other religions that have existed. Almost every religion proposes a hypothesis that could indeed explain reality, but just because it could explain reality doesn’t mean it’s reasonable to investigate it.
I agree with you that all the questions you raised are interesting and worth thinking about, but none of that really relates to thinking that we actually live in a simulation. You’re just using the idea that we live in a simulation as inspiration to start thinking about these other ideas. But actually thinking that we live in a simulation is much less reasonable.
- Comment on YouTube is taking down videos on performing nonstandard Windows 11 installs 3 weeks ago:
Yep, even on the side of the right ideas, half the people still got there via the same wrong methods that the people on the wrong side use. They just coincidentally happened to land on the right side instead. It is quite disheartening, exactly
- Comment on Hackers can steal 2FA codes and private messages from Android phones 5 weeks ago:
Not sure. Google patched it by just limiting the amount of blurs an app could request: …googlesource.com/…/20465375a1d0cb71cdb891235a9f8…
- Comment on Follow youre dreams 5 weeks ago:
Is it really being a pedant, or is it just being precise?
- Comment on Hackers can steal 2FA codes and private messages from Android phones 5 weeks ago:
"Our end-to-end attacks simply measure the rendering time per frame of the graphical operations… to determine whether the pixel was white or non-white.”
This is a prime example of something that is so simple, yet elegant, and brilliant. Fantastically cool and scary.
- Comment on Lasagnaius 5 weeks ago:
Drunken Noodlius
- Comment on Alternative app store AltStore raises $6M, connects with the fediverse | TechCrunch 5 weeks ago:
Yeah it really sucks. I was in the middle of developing an Android game and now I don’t really want to. Luckily I’m working with Unreal so I can just build it for desktop distribution anyways. But still, ugh.
- Comment on Alternative app store AltStore raises $6M, connects with the fediverse | TechCrunch 5 weeks ago:
How does this even matter if phone manufacturers block apps that aren’t approved by them? Forgive my ignorance, never done much mobile dev stuff
- Comment on I'm running now 5 weeks ago:
I think the most comforting way to take it is that when someone thinks “i could throw this drink and kill that guy” it’s more of their mind being vigilant about dangerous opportunities, and not necessarily an endorsement of those possibilities. Kind of like how if you’ve ever picked up a really sharp kitchen knife you might think “it would be so easy to kill myself with this”, that’s not necessarily a “suicidal thought” but just the mind raising an alarm about a possibility + it’s actually out of concern for not dying that my brain raises the thought. So arguably this thought crossing people’s mind is actually out of an abundance of concern for safety. The morbid joking about it is probably after the fact, non-intuitive, and for almost all humans totally not thought in earnest.
- Comment on I'm running now 5 weeks ago:
I’ve normally never shied away from dark humor or a fucked up joke but something about the innocence of that man just going about his day really makes me hate even joking about it. I’m not hating on you for posting this, but this just really hits a bad note for me. Downvoted, no hard feelings
- Comment on Why does the GOP think “ANTIFA” is bad? 5 weeks ago:
Thank you for saying it so I didn’t have to. It’s so disappointing to see people on “my side” say dumb crap like “wait so if ur anti antifa that means ur calling urself fascist haha 🕵️♂️🕵️♂️🧠 Q.E.D republikkkan”. Like fuck me. Just like you said it’s the same shit as Republicans saying “oh you’re socialist??? Google what Nazi stands for sweaty 🤭🤗”
You’d think people would learn not to use shitty reasoning when it’s used against them. But it seems like instead people only care that the reasoning is bad if it contradicts them. And as soon as they want to throw things at their enemy they’ll pick up whatever flawed garbage they can, not worried about how it reflects on them or how if undermines the state of reasonable public discourse. Any weapon is valid as long as it’s used against the Enemy. So disappointing.
- Comment on wax on 5 weeks ago:
Yeah it looks really disgusting, like it’s shitting soft teeth
- Comment on Experts raise privacy concerns over Michigan bill targeting pornography and VPNs 5 weeks ago:
Don’t think the fact that corporations use VPNs will protect us. There are all sorts of products that are legal for corporate purchase but not for individuals. Typically dangerous equipment, chemicals, tools, etc. The precedent is there as long as you can establish that a VPN is dangerous or unfit for the public. I’m very sure this will be the angle taken for Phase 2 of the “finally fuck up the internet for everyone” plan.
- Comment on Arizona ‘VPN’ searches surge amid Pornhub ban in state 1 month ago:
All politicians are united in their love of surveillance, as it allows them to subjugate the population via panopticon-induced threats. “We are always watching, so don’t try anything”
- Comment on Arizona ‘VPN’ searches surge amid Pornhub ban in state 1 month ago:
My issue is that the ones who aren’t bothering you with it are essentially not doing so because they know other people in their group are already handling that for them. Religions, especially those you named, come with a mandate to spread themselves and force others to comply with their standards.
It’s kind of like a really selfish kid who would steal all your lunch every day, but he’s not strong enough to do so, so instead he’s just nice and kind and smiles at you and lets you be. But if he ever gets strong enough, he’ll start taking your lunch every single day forever.
The religious people who aren’t forcing it down your throat either (1) think someone else is doing it for them so they don’t have to, or (2) don’t think they could get away with it without being counterproductive to their cause, and are waiting for a more opportune moment.
These are people who believe that they factually know what constitutes objective good. Imagine if raping children was legal and you ones your neighbor was raping children. You might just leave him alone about it because, what can you do? But the moment you have an opportunity to vote for a law to outlaw it, the moment you have a chance to kill him and get away with it, etc. you’ll try to act against him. Your polite indifference to him is a lie. This is how religious people are to you, except for instead of it being about reasonable things like raping children, it’s about stupid bullshit that makes no sense, like the fact you don’t pray every day at a certain time, or the fact that you’re attracted to the same sex, or the fact that you don’t want the ten commandments posted in schools.
- Comment on I Quit 1 month ago:
I feel ya, I also generally am very against “it’s just common sense!” type reasoning. But have you ever spent time with, like special education students? Like someone who will need to live with their parents forever because they can’t learn to do things like read or write? It’s nice to believe that maybe if only they had been given the right environment, they wouldn’t have those problems - it’s also just not true. Or perhaps we can take a more extremely example of someone who suffered a major brain injury. It sucks, and it’s unfair, but at the end of the day some people really are definitively less smart than others. And by that same token, those others are definitively more smart than them. Of course, once people are at a certain level, it gets a lot harder to tell, but that dynamic is still in play. Likewise, if you’ve ever had the experience of interacting with a gifted kid, it’s pretty clear that they’re smarter than others.
That’s a good distinction about intelligence being generally advantageous. That is why I said generally - it has some clear disadvantages like loneliness or a deeper awareness of the world’s problems, etc. But most of the time, being smart is advantageous, don’t you think? I mean, what is intelligence other than an ability to correctly understand reality? I do agree that sometimes having a false understanding of reality can coincidentally help you out, but knowing how things really are is certainly the superior strategy. If you think otherwise, it’s always easy to make yourself dumber and reap the rewards. I don’t mean that sarcastically or cruelly. I just mean, there’s a reason we don’t see intelligent people lobotomizing themselves to have better lives.
Agreed the chart only shows correlation and not causation in either direction.
- Comment on I Quit 1 month ago:
I mean, look. While it’s true that IQ tests aren’t a great measure of intelligence, it’s not like all humans are equally intelligent. We all know some people who are clearly smart and some people who are clearly dumb. And I think it’s completely expected that being smarter gives you some advantage at getting money. I don’t think anyone can reasonably deny that being smart is generally advantageous in life. This chart seems perfectly fair and reasonable to me…there is a slight correlation, moreso on the low end (how can severely mentally retarded people do most jobs or even have incomes?), and less so on the high end. It makes a mistake in talking about income rather than net worth, which is really the more pertinent thing in “being rich”. I bet we would see a much lower correlation there, because you can be born into having a high net worth. But the correlation isn’t too high, because, as everyone reasonable already suspected, being rich is almost entirely about being lucky. I don’t think this chart really has any import to the many social discussions about meritocracy or wealth or intelligence, except for maybe to disprove someone who believes that we live in a fair world where “if you’re smart and work hard you can make it”. But even then, that would rely on a misunderstanding of what the chart tells us.
- Comment on Google's shocking developer decree struggles to justify the urgent threat to F-Droid 1 month ago:
Ahhh I see, I was confused about what you were getting at. My mistake. And yes that’s very true…hmm. More dire than I was even thinking then…
- Comment on Google's shocking developer decree struggles to justify the urgent threat to F-Droid 1 month ago:
Yes, it does apply to every operating system - hence, the differentiator becomes whether the operating system has hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on dedicated security development. This is why a lot of companies now don’t even let you use Android devices for BYOD aside from Google or Samsung, because they’re the only companies with the resources to keep their security really up to date.
- Comment on Google's shocking developer decree struggles to justify the urgent threat to F-Droid 1 month ago:
I think the big problem with this, as far as I know, is that this code needs pretty rapid security updates that require a fairly huge and experienced team of people to both find, understand and implement the security changes. Otherwise it becomes very insecure very quickly. So yeah we can always use 2019 Android, etc. But it would just put you at a huge security risk.
- Comment on It's depressing, man 1 month ago:
My very rough very compressed minimal definition is something like:
“Ability to determine truths from falsehoods within the confines of available information”
- Comment on It's depressing, man 1 month ago:
Probably true, but I don’t think that warrants the stupidity being put in scare quotes like that. Regardless of whether it is intrinsic or extrinsic stupidity, stupidity by nature or by nurture, the result is genuine stupidity all the same
- Comment on Lies, all lies 1 month ago:
- Comment on 1 month ago:
But people are talking about it on Twitter, and what happens on Twitter is more real than reality itself!
- Comment on rawr xD 1 month ago:
Sun bears are definitely justifiably cursed.
So when she first said this. It was long ago, a time when red pandas were much less popular. So many in the group did not know what they looked like, I among them. From her fear, I inferred it must be something like, well, a panda, but red, and maybe skinnier and freakier. Then she pulled up a picture, and everybody lost it
- Comment on rawr xD 1 month ago:
This was asked of her. The answer was no, and the reasoning was that they won’t walk like that. She knew it was irrational lol