Outside of politics, have you ever had a position on something that you have doubled down on and refused to move an inch on to the point of upsetting someone? Were you right?
I believe that GenAI is a scam that should've been treated and criminalized/prosecuted like one long before it got to the point of destructiveness that it's currently at and will die on that hill.
They tried to argue that all math was useless bullshit because it couldn't deal with infinity.
I tried to show different ways math has been useful for me personally, and for humanity generally. None of that mattered to them. I tried to explain how math can actually work with infinity. They insisted I was lying.
A part of me thought they were just trying to troll me, but after seeing and interacting with them multiple times afterwards, I'm pretty sure those were their genuine beliefs. They were also a moon landing denier, but after the whole math discussion I didn't touch that topic with a ten foot pole.
I now consider it one of many examples of the idea that you can't use reason and evidence to change someone's beliefs, if they never used reason or evidence to conclude those beliefs in the first place.
I feel sorry for those who have never felt the excitement of changing their beliefs based on new evidence or understanding, especially when due to their own hubris. Being wrong is an opportunity to learn and discover. Everyone who has ever lived, and will ever live, is sometimes wrong.
In a way, that's the general theme of this thread. We stood our ground when we knew we were right and could prove it with reason and evidence, while facing opposition that was based on stubbornness, hubris, and refusal to admit to being wrong.
I feel sorry for those who have never felt the excitement of changing their beliefs based on new evidence or understanding, especially when due to their own hubris.
Not only is it sad, nearly everything wrong with the world right now can be boiled down to a handful of people having this character flaw
"Nearly everything" seems a bit hyperbolic, but I absolutely agree that it's a major problem that has caused, and will likely continue to cause massive unnecessary suffering worldwide.
Just adding to aMockTie here: I love math, a math-lover, if you will, and I don't find the incompleteness theorem disappointing, I find it incredibly interesting and captivating. It's like learning that black holes are real. It gives me the same feeling that watching superfluids in chemistry flow up their containers do.
The fact that the universe conspires to keep us ignorant is so goddamn interesting.
I never made the connection until reading your comment, but I now wonder if they heard about the incompleteness theorems and came to their conclusions about math based on a misunderstanding.
I'm sorry to hear that concept disappointed you, but I personally don't think it ultimately matters or effects the usefulness of math. I see it as similar to the difference between science and engineering. An engineer can create something useful by knowing what works, without knowing precisely why it works. A scientist tries to uncover why things work the way they do, regardless of the utility of that understanding. Often the output of those two fields overlap, but they don't have to.
So many people never even look at calculus & how it addresses infinities, it's got this reputation as difficult but that's just because of all the different algorithms and rules to learn for different cases, but you can teach the basic operations and build intuitions of differentiation and integration to grade schoolers.
I was once a consultant for wine companies. I was working on helping establish a new wine brand. The client was really clear that they did not want to rely on the idea of terroir, nor their vineyards closeness to the ocean as selling points.
My boss thought the brand should use a bunch sails and anchor imagery to sell the terroir and the vineyard's closeness to the ocean.
I told him the client wouldn't like it as they'd been clear that's not what they wanted. He said I was wrong. If he'd told me the client was wrong that would have been fine but he insisted that I had heard it wrong and started gas lighting me.
Turns out the client felt they'd been really clear that they didn't want a brand that focused on the terroir and closeness to the ocean and refused to pay for that round of work.
TIL Terroir means "the complete natural environment in which a particular wine is produced, including factors such as the soil, topography, and climate"
I have to be "that guy" sometimes when it comes to fire performance safety. There's huge risks involved so there really isn't a lot of wiggle room. I try to treat any fuckups as learning opportunities though, I don't want to scare away the newbies
Yes, we had a tooling design and it was going to fail because the angles and mechanisms were not right. My boss overruled me, under protest, and we built it how the customer wanted it with no changes.
It failed in production.
There was a big meeting with everyone upset. I said I told you! And tried to reexplain why it doesnt work. They denied knowing about the issues previously.
Thankfully the president stepped in and said, I was in the initial meeting and remember you warning of the potential failure. Then everyone shut up.
I have the same story (with a huge failure at a metal factory) that I had a dozen times made a big scene about how terrible an idea it was. The corporate guy who suggested it decided to email god and country that if only (my team specifically of) engineering had supported us more it wouldn't have happened like that. I was fuming, spent half the night furiously detailing and outlining my proof of how we supported him, bad idea, etc.
I ended up drunkenly scrapping the entire write up and just reply alling "fuck you (name)". Perhaps my proudest work moment, tbh.
Playing noise on your phone in a public place is wrong. Violators should be put in one those midevil contraptions that lock your head and wrists in a plank of wood so that we may all pelt you with rotten fruit and vegetables.
No one wants to hear that shit. You're an asshole and should feel bad.
If you're walking down stairs or an escalator you stand/walk on the right. always. If you live in a country that drives on the left side then you apply the same to stairs.
When walking on the sidewalk you pass on the right.
People who walk down the opposite side are a cancer to society.
Adding to this, if a group is walking together shoulder to shoulder taking up most of the sidewalk, it's that groups responsibility to stack when a single person is coming. The single walker should not have to move off the sidewalk to accommodate.
I like two to seven pieces of candy corn a year. After that it's too much and I can't take it anymore, but every year the counter resets and I don't know how many I'm going to get to eat before I'm sick of them again.
I liked candycorn till one of my kids made a bunch of it at home and pointed out the layers are just food colour and not a different flavour ingredient etc. The facade was ruined.
Eh, it's fine. I mean, did you ever expect the different parts of the seasonal pumpkin shaped candy corn to taste like pumpkin? Nah, its all candy corn.
I like, and have always liked, candy corn. Consider me a very dedicated gas lighter if you must, but I am probably older than you which makes this quite the complex conspiracy theory.
That smart phones are surveillance/psyop devices, and that they own you, not them. I've been 100% phone free for 5 years now. I'm a 30+ Year IT expert. Also, fuck A.I.
ALL: I don't own a smartphone, dumb cellphone, landline, or anything else. I don't own a tablet either.
I only use my computer without any camera's, microphones or other feedback systems that social media can use to listen in or watch what my eye is focused on. I limit my online time to less than 2 hours a day, and often go several days without it at all.
I do have a media player that uses yt-dlp too download a few youtube channels I like, but with all the ads and whatnot removed. It's as anonymous as I can get to limit what big tech knows I've consumed. Censorship and book burning start by knowing the source of the offending information.
Ive thought about going smartphone free, but I literally need it for a lot of 2fa stuff and travel.
However, all I do on it is, read, read lemmy, and talk to friends. Sometimes play nethack. Im not on toxic social media. So other than being on lemmy a little too much, I dont think its a bad thing to have, minus all the spyware, which I hope to get a pixel or light phone someday to rid that.
What I do think is good and needed more is respecting it. I dont need to be on it when im with friends. I dont need to look at it first thing in the morning. I dont need it when im in public and could sit contently or talk to a neighbor. Usually on weekends I leave it in my sock drawer and check it once or twice (unless i just need it for 2fa)
I think having pets is fundamentally unethical. Your dog lives in a tiny fraction of the world with absolutely no agency and only “loves” you because it is literally programmed to after centuries of breeding for traits that promote that. Your pet did not choose you and if it “loves” you at all, it’s only because they are utterly dependent on you because they have been taken far from where their species can survive or that place has been ruined by humanity. Animals cannot consent period and by extension cannot and never do consent to being property.
I’m not a PETA freak. I don’t shame people for having pets, but I’m unable to think of pets without considering these facts and it makes the entire thing seem gross and wrong to me. I rarely bring it up because it never leads to an engaging or productive conversation. No one ever really has an argument against it besides something along the lines of “Humans have had pets for millennia” or “It’s too late to put them back” which don’t actually prove me wrong in any way.
Domestication is interesting because your average German shepherd is arguably living a significantly higher quality of life than a wolf living in the wild. While they may not have the same "freedom" as a wolf living in the woods, the wolf lives in its own shackles, always fighting for food, shelter and protection from predators. While I don't disagree that having pets is fundamentally a problematic concept, I also think its always a bad idea to attribute abstract human traits and concepts onto animals, most of which want food, water, safe territory, and engagement.
Almost every animal specialist I talked to never talks about animals as if they were people, they always have a sense of respect for them being an animal and of a different species. I suppose they have a greater understanding of what an animal "wants".
The second part of the question was were you right, and I think you're probably wrong most of the time on your stance, but there are definitely areas where you are correct.
My argument would be that even though many of these pets have ingrained psychosocial issues that make them more amenable to being owned as pets, the counterpoint is, is there is no fundamental and absolute right way to live.
If there's a tiny little section where people and animals can be happy, then there's nothing wrong with that happiness.
Blaming someone for not taking the entirety of the universe into account for something that gave them happiness is generally considered a dick move.
I’m not really blaming anyone. It’s a complicated idea. I don’t expect every person to philosophize about the problem. Ultimately I’m just one person who gets uncomfortable when I consider what a pets life really is. It’s not a high priority to me and I don’t get preachy about it. There are more pressing issues in the world to me.
To your point of an “absolutely right way to live”, I agree, but my belief is that living things should ideally have the freedom to choose how they want to live rather than someone assert their personal opinion of the correct way to live. Pets however have absolutely no freedom to choose how to live. They don’t choose their owners nor the conditions they live in nor can they truly do anything about how they are treated.
The fact that they are (sometimes) happy makes it an easier pill to swallow except for the fact that their happiness comes largely from a variety of factors that limit their perspective. That’s not even considering the unknowable number of mistreated pets there are or innocent creatures that lived entire lives of misery and abuse due to uncaring owners.
Yours is a fascinating perspective that I haven't considered before.
My "shooting from the hip" response is to consider the life of an animal in a 2x2 grid.
The first column is pets, the second column is non-pets (i.e. Animals living in the wild).
The first row is animals with sufficient access to food, shelter, and overall wellbeing. The second row is animals without those needs being met (i.e. Suffering under the hands of either humans or nature).
In my opinion, based on my personal life experience, and only if you consider the animals that are not typically used for food (that's an entirely different, but also important discussion), the number of animals in the top left quadrant are second only to the number of animals in the bottom right. Because of this, I believe that the concept of pet ownership is an overall net positive.
That still absolutely does rob the pet of the free will to decide their own destiny, and that is still absolutely a moral quandary.
Edit: Another way to frame my opinion that pets are a net positive is that we humans have done a great deal to improve our general quality of life (for better or worse to the world at large), and have mostly brought our pets up to a similar quality with us. Food, water, and shelter are usually provided to pets at a minimum, but those are anything but guaranteed in the wild. Pets lives also greatly improve compared to wild animals if you consider modern heating and cooling, pet friendly dietary considerations, veterinary care, and an overall pet friendly society.
I mean you can make the same argument for many humans, we as children don't choose where we are born and who are our parents. And each country and society will decide for them the "correct" way to live. If anything, you could say we are currently treating tiny humans as pets.
if it makes you feel better, there are different ways to take care of a pet (or companion animal if you prefer that term)
my dogs (**my **as in they are under my care, like children) don't know tricks, they are free to perform any behavior that doesn't put them or any other animal in danger
around me they are free to keep doing whatever they want or ask to be pet, the only orders I give them is to sit down and stay still when I give them treats so they don't start a fight over it and to move from one part of my yard to another when we need to move heavy stuff
whenever the capitalist system let's me keep enough energy after my chores I take them out for walks but when that's not the case I play with them in my yard
Pizza that traditionally comes with sauce on top would be better if you did no sauce on top and instead dipped the pizza in sauce as you ate. I like my crunchy.
Climate change is real and damaging to everyone and we need to take action to mitigate its progression. People who deny it are just insane. Not sure why some folks think losing freshwater and having more extreme weather events isn't a problem but it will end human civilization as we know it and eventually our species as a whole. We need to get with the program and stop politicizing a global issue.
It's cheese curds and gravy that make it a poutine, not cheese. You can put cheese AND cheese curds on a poutine along with other stuff, but without cheese curds, all you have is fries and gravy with assorted hangers on.
This is correct. I used to live in southern US and could not find any place that served even something similar to poutine much less actual poutine with cheese curds. Youd think they would be more into that stuff its got fried stuff, gravy and whatnot
From watching the commercial, I had an immediate revulsion to the Lunesta sleep aid because of the green moths that would fly in through your window and land on you and you would fall into a beautiful peaceful sleep.
I had friends and family that took it and they said it was the only sleep aid that worked for them and that I was being irrational.
And then it came out that people would take the shit and then sleepwalk and go for drives and wake up in their underwear out in the middle of the fucking woods because the Lunesta sleep moth had taken over them and made them do all kinds of crazy shit.
Ok, but you're still being irrational... Their advertising choices are not at all related to real life side effects of the drug. The moth was probably thought up by an overworked, unpaid intern during a brainstorming session.
Yeah, I had no reason to feel that way, but I'm already prone to sleepwalking so lunesta would have likely fucked me up, so I was irrational but I was right.
Oh my ex wanted me to cut his hair, but just pulled it over one shoulder and said cut it off. He wanted to see it cut, understand? No, neither did i. I said "no, it will be slanty because it's all pulled to one side, let me cut it into a haircut." He said no, it will be fine, just cut it. "It will be slanty!" He was getting mad, JUST CUT IT! Finally he just took scissors and cut it how he wanted. "Oh no, it's all slanty!"
Random programming one, but some of the changes in C++20 are terrible and do not belong in the language. I will die on the hill of just because something is easier to learn/work with doesn't make it better.
In progressive spaces this is USUALLY met with agreement. That's easy whenever we are talking about equal rights for people who have been historically been oppressed. However, a dark corner of progressive spaces likes to hate. Hate on men, cis people, white people. It's usually just one or two people, who have probably been personally hurt by people who happen to fall into those groups, and the rest don't feel like they can say anything.
I strongly believe that things like segregation are fundamentally wrong and make the world a worse place. Not that they were tools that were used for evil and can now be used for good in the right hands. Not just temporarily as balancing measures for society. Equality isn't just something you can pick and choose when to believe in, when it's pretty and convenient and makes you feel good.
Happens often and most of the times is it because of a misunderstanding. Usually we actually agree with each other but we think we are disagreeing and arguing about how the thing we agree on is correct.
I have seen this happen with two coworker many times and it makes me laugh every time until it gets too serious. I actually had this kind of "discussion" yesterday, my coworker said he couldn't see change x in my PR and I told him how it was before and how it is after the change and then it became heated (I assume it is because he wrote the code and the tests) he stepped back when I told him even the tests expected the faulty state then he understood what outcome we needed and saw that the change was there and it was actually correct.
Yes, all the time and here often, when it comes to epistemology and ethics. I believe in objective reality and morality, I'm the weirdo in postmodern societies, lol.
Besides the natural limitations of people's intellectual capacities (so, good faith and honest actors who simply can't process things efficiently enough for it to be shown in the argument), many don't because 1) self-imposed, intellectually lazy, extreme "uncertainty" allows you to be unserious with life without feeling bad, (it's comfy to live in a framework where A can be B and 0 can be 1, nothing is something, reality can change at your whim); 2) moral relativism allows you to be a dick/dickish without having to admit to yourself that you are one/acting like one. Basically, fear and dislike of guilt and an avoidance of personal responsibility are at the core of these untenable positions, not sound and valid arguments.
Am I right? I cannot grasp final truths, who can?, but I certainly feel like I'm in the right direction with these "takes". It certainly feels like it when I see the inherent confusion, aimlessness and emotional instability of those who live denying 0s and 1s, rights and wrongs. And, btw, this is at the core of any argument that can be made, bought and defended by imperialists regarding their amoral murdering and pillaging, and also MAGA regarding their kidnappings and executions, because what is wrong, really? 🤷
There's the Qur'an if you want to know the overall left and right limits (or just the Ten Commandments if you just can't read that much, lol, but it's better to do so), but regardless, your soul points towards it, always. Any honest conversation about a situation will end up with two people, happily or not, having to admit there's one path more moral than others (it's more ethical not to steal the towels from the hotel, even if you want a souvenir, lol. You might still do it cause you decided you could afford the lack of virtue, and in small cases like this I understand, but it's still less ethical than just not stealing the towels). Wanting to do it or not is something else, but right and wrong and clearly defined in every situation, and even in the absence of data the general attitude and direction of action you have to take are obvious (sure, maybe that one homeless dude got more fent with the money you gave him but being charitable is the right thing to do, for example).
Any honest conversation about a situation will end up with two people, happily or not, having to admit there's one path more moral than others
You don't say that they agree on which path is more moral than the other, but I'm assuming that's what you mean. But also, no, that doesn't happen. In an honest conversation where you disagree on morals, you just learn that you both have different values.
There are some things that more people are likely to agree on, like your example about stealing a towel from a hotel. But there are also many that people vehemently disagree on. For example, is it morally right to kill someone who has (and will continue to) indirectly kill many of other people?
How could you disagree on that? Okay, there are two options: either the person in this situation is shooting/stabbing people and cannot be reasoned with presently, so, in order not to let another innocent soul die by his hand, you take him down. He went from man to rabid dog so we had to put him down. That's a clear-cut scenario, right? Now, another, in which someone used to kill indiscriminately and has vowed to do it, again, he's unrepentant and just unimaginably bloodthirsty (so the "will continue doing so" makes sense because people do have free will and can repent and change their ways, we cannot see the future after all)... You could either kill him, or simply restrict his freedom forever, in solitary so he doesn't kill. But these are two goods we're arguing about, so the direction (not allowing a killer to continue killing, because we believe murder is wrong) is still the same, and this is not a major issue comparatively, not a major disagreement that would collapse our moral framework but just a limitation of our judgment and understanding. It's clouded, but we can both see the same, more or less, behind the veil.
Now, from my perspective as a religious man, and because we simply cannot see the future, I'd choose solitary confinement. Who knows, maybe he'll see the light in his dark room, with good, enriching literature, maybe he will repent, at least in spirit if not in action because what can he do in containment, and he'll have a better chance with God and His judgment. What do you think? Even if you're not religious, don't you think it's better to give this person a chance to reflect and repent than die a complete villain? Isn't it more humane? And the resources are there, it's not like there are that many serial killers percentage wise in the world, right?
I think you missed the "indirect" part. This isn't someone going around stabbing people. It's someone who goes obstructing people from getting medication or medical treatment that they need, or from acquiring food, or someone who indiscriminately gets people fired from their jobs and put on the streets where they'll die a slow death.
Regarding solitary confinement: As an individual, you don't have the power to detain someone in that manner. But you do have the power to kill.
But why can't we do something about it before having to murder the dude ? We live in a society! This scenario doesn't make much sense, IRL you can report it to the authorities, bring it to the media, etc etc. Sure, if you live in a corrupt decaying empire/police state like the USA, maybe it's more difficult but even then I feel there are so many things to do before just going full vigilante murderer...
But the whole point is that societies usually have a moral framework when they're not entrenched in moral relativism, so of course this is not the case for America but around the world, as corrupt as people can be, they can never be like America. I mean, bribery is legalized and the president openly receives bribes and gifts and posts it online, lol, it's crazy. And everything happened because American society, which for a while had a working democracy, doesn't have a proper moral framework. Just saying. 🤷
I feel like this argument falls apart when considering things like the trolley problem. To wit:
A trolley has lost control and is traveling down its track towards a group of people. Nearby there is a switch that will divert the trolley onto a different track where there is only one person. Do you
A) Activate the switch, thereby being actively responsible for a person's death.
B) Do nothing and allow multiple people to die due to your passive inaction.
How might your answer change if that one person were your child? Or if they were a notorious criminal? What if the group were all children? What if they were prisoners? Different people will reasonably disagree on which choice is more moral.
No, what you're saying is that being emotionally compromised and biased might make me choose differently. And of course, we're people. But the better, more humane, nobler and fairer option can be easily found, and if not, at least the direction of action. I mean, trolley wise, everything else being equal it's obvious that it's better to be 4 people up than 4 people down, and with more details in this thought experiment (which, btw, is extremely unrealistic and has very little uhh ecological validity) you can develop, slowly but surely, a set of answers to it (what if the 5 guys are 5 Hitlers?! and stuff like that requires a bit more analysis, but again, it's very divorced from reality).
Emotion is not necessary for the different scenarios to have potentially different moral considerations. For example, does your moral responsibility as a parent to nurture and protect your children change the equation?
Even if you assume everyone involved are strangers, what is the better, more noble, more humane option or direction of action?
No, no it doesn't, because we're all equally valuable by default, they're all someone's kid and that doesn't change just because I'm involved. It would just be a superbly shitty position to be in and I would almost certainly save my kid in exchange for 5 lives, but that ain't right, it's just what I would most likely do. I mean, sacrifice my child (that I truly love) for the greater good (and more lives saved, ceteris paribus, is the greater good)... who am I, Abraham? 😅 You need to be on the level of a prophet to see this clearly and then act upon it, detached because the worldly life is passing and not that important, etc etc, basically.
So if I'm understanding your answer correctly, and assuming everyone involved were strangers, you believe that saving many lives at the cost of one is the more moral choice.
What would you say to someone who disagreed because they could not bring themselves to be actively responsible for the death of someone, and considered inaction the more moral choice because the group would have died anyway if they weren't there and able to intervene?
The point I'm trying to get at is that I don't believe there is a correct answer as to which choice is more moral. There are valid reasons to conclude that either option is both moral and amoral in equal measure. You could argue for either choice in circles, and both parties would be correct while never convincing the other.
In my opinion some questions of morality are clear and easy to answer, but some are much more nuanced, and that is where there is room for subjectivity.
I feel like I explained myself well enough, lol, which part is confusing? I believe that there are not "two sides to every story", and disagree with right and wrong (and not everything can be weighed on this scale, some things are different only superficially but have no moral component, like many burial rituals for example) being purely circumstantial, cultural, and overall meaningless when judging a person's character, but universal and obvious to anyone arguing in good faith. 👍
Saying "reality is objective and deeper than narratives and perspectives, and so is morality" makes me crazy ? I mean, I can see why you'd think that but come on, at some point y'all gotta engage in good faith, right? 🤷
To anyone who still needs to know: When Monotheist says "reality is objective and deeper than narratives," they're referring to God. God is the objective morality they're talking about.
I don't know if they would try deny this here, but I have seen them say it explicitly elsewhere.
God's the objective moral judge, but the "best possible decision, ethically speaking" exists independently of whether we can/want to see it, that's my position. But yes, being a monotheist is very relevant to this conversation, lol, and many others I have here which is why I chose this nickname. 👍
That hatred is probably warranted, so I'm sorry for whatever negative experiences you had. I'm not one of those (aren't those Trinitarians too?), please don't put us all in the same group. 🙏
Also, yes, but I'm more of a GT, hairy SS4 guy myself, lol.
That reality and morality are undeniable and doing so is intellectually dishonest/lazy and to your own detriment? Well, what's your take? Or did you just comment to throw shade? 😞
I believe that GenAI is a scam that should've been treated and criminalized/prosecuted like one long before it got to the point of destructiveness that it's currently at and will die on that hill.
You have my sword.
You want a scenario of 'what if Theranos was actually successful and Elizabeth Holmes didn't get busted?' That's GenAI in a nutshell.
They tried to argue that all math was useless bullshit because it couldn't deal with infinity.
I tried to show different ways math has been useful for me personally, and for humanity generally. None of that mattered to them. I tried to explain how math can actually work with infinity. They insisted I was lying.
A part of me thought they were just trying to troll me, but after seeing and interacting with them multiple times afterwards, I'm pretty sure those were their genuine beliefs. They were also a moon landing denier, but after the whole math discussion I didn't touch that topic with a ten foot pole.
JFC don't send them stopdoingmath.jpeg
I now consider it one of many examples of the idea that you can't use reason and evidence to change someone's beliefs, if they never used reason or evidence to conclude those beliefs in the first place.
I feel sorry for those who have never felt the excitement of changing their beliefs based on new evidence or understanding, especially when due to their own hubris. Being wrong is an opportunity to learn and discover. Everyone who has ever lived, and will ever live, is sometimes wrong.
In a way, that's the general theme of this thread. We stood our ground when we knew we were right and could prove it with reason and evidence, while facing opposition that was based on stubbornness, hubris, and refusal to admit to being wrong.
Not only is it sad, nearly everything wrong with the world right now can be boiled down to a handful of people having this character flaw
"Nearly everything" seems a bit hyperbolic, but I absolutely agree that it's a major problem that has caused, and will likely continue to cause massive unnecessary suffering worldwide.
You can't even prove numbers are real!
Sounds irrational
We should all imagine imaginary numbers together.
Ha! You got me there!
What really disappointed me about math is that there is a proof that there must be mathematical theorems which cannot be proven or disproven.
Just adding to aMockTie here: I love math, a math-lover, if you will, and I don't find the incompleteness theorem disappointing, I find it incredibly interesting and captivating. It's like learning that black holes are real. It gives me the same feeling that watching superfluids in chemistry flow up their containers do.
The fact that the universe conspires to keep us ignorant is so goddamn interesting.
I never made the connection until reading your comment, but I now wonder if they heard about the incompleteness theorems and came to their conclusions about math based on a misunderstanding.
I'm sorry to hear that concept disappointed you, but I personally don't think it ultimately matters or effects the usefulness of math. I see it as similar to the difference between science and engineering. An engineer can create something useful by knowing what works, without knowing precisely why it works. A scientist tries to uncover why things work the way they do, regardless of the utility of that understanding. Often the output of those two fields overlap, but they don't have to.
So many people never even look at calculus & how it addresses infinities, it's got this reputation as difficult but that's just because of all the different algorithms and rules to learn for different cases, but you can teach the basic operations and build intuitions of differentiation and integration to grade schoolers.
https://youtu.be/tt2DGYOi3hc
I said in a meeting "that's a really bad idea"
They still did it.
During years, we had trouble with it. I kept saying "I told you it was a bad idea".
After 6 years, they finally removed it. I said "well, I said it was a bad idea".
Sounds like youre not a team player. /$
I was once a consultant for wine companies. I was working on helping establish a new wine brand. The client was really clear that they did not want to rely on the idea of terroir, nor their vineyards closeness to the ocean as selling points.
My boss thought the brand should use a bunch sails and anchor imagery to sell the terroir and the vineyard's closeness to the ocean.
I told him the client wouldn't like it as they'd been clear that's not what they wanted. He said I was wrong. If he'd told me the client was wrong that would have been fine but he insisted that I had heard it wrong and started gas lighting me.
Turns out the client felt they'd been really clear that they didn't want a brand that focused on the terroir and closeness to the ocean and refused to pay for that round of work.
TIL Terroir means "the complete natural environment in which a particular wine is produced, including factors such as the soil, topography, and climate"
I have to be "that guy" sometimes when it comes to fire performance safety. There's huge risks involved so there really isn't a lot of wiggle room. I try to treat any fuckups as learning opportunities though, I don't want to scare away the newbies
Yes, we had a tooling design and it was going to fail because the angles and mechanisms were not right. My boss overruled me, under protest, and we built it how the customer wanted it with no changes.
It failed in production.
There was a big meeting with everyone upset. I said I told you! And tried to reexplain why it doesnt work. They denied knowing about the issues previously.
Thankfully the president stepped in and said, I was in the initial meeting and remember you warning of the potential failure. Then everyone shut up.
We redid everything my way.
Sounds like an awesome president.
I have the same story (with a huge failure at a metal factory) that I had a dozen times made a big scene about how terrible an idea it was. The corporate guy who suggested it decided to email god and country that if only (my team specifically of) engineering had supported us more it wouldn't have happened like that. I was fuming, spent half the night furiously detailing and outlining my proof of how we supported him, bad idea, etc.
I ended up drunkenly scrapping the entire write up and just reply alling "fuck you (name)". Perhaps my proudest work moment, tbh.
Lol
Friends is not a good show and of course I'm right.
Ever since someone pointed out that it's just a whitewashed version of Living Single, I'm completely unable to take Friends seriously.
It's kinda like white noise for me. Like I probably won't turn it off if it's on but I won't pay a ton of attention to it either.
It's so fucking bad. Always has been. And coming on directly after Seinfeld only highlighted how supremely unfunny the show was.
I honestly judge people irl who tell me they think Friends is funny. I truly cannot stop myself.
Playing noise on your phone in a public place is wrong. Violators should be put in one those midevil contraptions that lock your head and wrists in a plank of wood so that we may all pelt you with rotten fruit and vegetables.
No one wants to hear that shit. You're an asshole and should feel bad.
To extend that, people that have there notification sound on all the time is really annoying, just leave it on vibrate it's just as useful!
If you're walking down stairs or an escalator you stand/walk on the right. always. If you live in a country that drives on the left side then you apply the same to stairs.
When walking on the sidewalk you pass on the right.
People who walk down the opposite side are a cancer to society.
Adding to this, if a group is walking together shoulder to shoulder taking up most of the sidewalk, it's that groups responsibility to stack when a single person is coming. The single walker should not have to move off the sidewalk to accommodate.
Now playing The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony
You walk on the right, but if someone is slow, and there's no room on the right, you can def pass them on the left. Like driving.
Nobody likes candy corn and anyone who does is trying to gaslight me personally
I love candy corn. I like sticking it onto my front upper incisors like I'm some weird harvest vampire. Yes I'm an adult.
I like two to seven pieces of candy corn a year. After that it's too much and I can't take it anymore, but every year the counter resets and I don't know how many I'm going to get to eat before I'm sick of them again.
I like a small handful a day while it's seasonal.
I do that too. I buy a bag after Halloween at a deep discount, then it lasts me a couple of months. I even like it a little stale.
Mine doesn't last that long because my wife loves the stuff too lol
I liked candycorn till one of my kids made a bunch of it at home and pointed out the layers are just food colour and not a different flavour ingredient etc. The facade was ruined.
Eh, it's fine. I mean, did you ever expect the different parts of the seasonal pumpkin shaped candy corn to taste like pumpkin? Nah, its all candy corn.
Hmm that inspires me to make pumpkin flavoured ones
I like, and have always liked, candy corn. Consider me a very dedicated gas lighter if you must, but I am probably older than you which makes this quite the complex conspiracy theory.
Time is relative
That's why my household buys it every year for certain
That smart phones are surveillance/psyop devices, and that they own you, not them. I've been 100% phone free for 5 years now. I'm a 30+ Year IT expert. Also, fuck A.I.
100% phone free or 100% smartphone free? Thats wild
ALL: I don't own a smartphone, dumb cellphone, landline, or anything else. I don't own a tablet either.
I only use my computer without any camera's, microphones or other feedback systems that social media can use to listen in or watch what my eye is focused on. I limit my online time to less than 2 hours a day, and often go several days without it at all.
I do have a media player that uses yt-dlp too download a few youtube channels I like, but with all the ads and whatnot removed. It's as anonymous as I can get to limit what big tech knows I've consumed. Censorship and book burning start by knowing the source of the offending information.
Ive thought about going smartphone free, but I literally need it for a lot of 2fa stuff and travel.
However, all I do on it is, read, read lemmy, and talk to friends. Sometimes play nethack. Im not on toxic social media. So other than being on lemmy a little too much, I dont think its a bad thing to have, minus all the spyware, which I hope to get a pixel or light phone someday to rid that.
What I do think is good and needed more is respecting it. I dont need to be on it when im with friends. I dont need to look at it first thing in the morning. I dont need it when im in public and could sit contently or talk to a neighbor. Usually on weekends I leave it in my sock drawer and check it once or twice (unless i just need it for 2fa)
yeah I'm autistic this happens very often
I think having pets is fundamentally unethical. Your dog lives in a tiny fraction of the world with absolutely no agency and only “loves” you because it is literally programmed to after centuries of breeding for traits that promote that. Your pet did not choose you and if it “loves” you at all, it’s only because they are utterly dependent on you because they have been taken far from where their species can survive or that place has been ruined by humanity. Animals cannot consent period and by extension cannot and never do consent to being property.
I’m not a PETA freak. I don’t shame people for having pets, but I’m unable to think of pets without considering these facts and it makes the entire thing seem gross and wrong to me. I rarely bring it up because it never leads to an engaging or productive conversation. No one ever really has an argument against it besides something along the lines of “Humans have had pets for millennia” or “It’s too late to put them back” which don’t actually prove me wrong in any way.
Domestication is interesting because your average German shepherd is arguably living a significantly higher quality of life than a wolf living in the wild. While they may not have the same "freedom" as a wolf living in the woods, the wolf lives in its own shackles, always fighting for food, shelter and protection from predators. While I don't disagree that having pets is fundamentally a problematic concept, I also think its always a bad idea to attribute abstract human traits and concepts onto animals, most of which want food, water, safe territory, and engagement.
Almost every animal specialist I talked to never talks about animals as if they were people, they always have a sense of respect for them being an animal and of a different species. I suppose they have a greater understanding of what an animal "wants".
The second part of the question was were you right, and I think you're probably wrong most of the time on your stance, but there are definitely areas where you are correct.
My argument would be that even though many of these pets have ingrained psychosocial issues that make them more amenable to being owned as pets, the counterpoint is, is there is no fundamental and absolute right way to live.
If there's a tiny little section where people and animals can be happy, then there's nothing wrong with that happiness.
Blaming someone for not taking the entirety of the universe into account for something that gave them happiness is generally considered a dick move.
I’m not really blaming anyone. It’s a complicated idea. I don’t expect every person to philosophize about the problem. Ultimately I’m just one person who gets uncomfortable when I consider what a pets life really is. It’s not a high priority to me and I don’t get preachy about it. There are more pressing issues in the world to me.
To your point of an “absolutely right way to live”, I agree, but my belief is that living things should ideally have the freedom to choose how they want to live rather than someone assert their personal opinion of the correct way to live. Pets however have absolutely no freedom to choose how to live. They don’t choose their owners nor the conditions they live in nor can they truly do anything about how they are treated.
The fact that they are (sometimes) happy makes it an easier pill to swallow except for the fact that their happiness comes largely from a variety of factors that limit their perspective. That’s not even considering the unknowable number of mistreated pets there are or innocent creatures that lived entire lives of misery and abuse due to uncaring owners.
Yours is a fascinating perspective that I haven't considered before.
My "shooting from the hip" response is to consider the life of an animal in a 2x2 grid. The first column is pets, the second column is non-pets (i.e. Animals living in the wild). The first row is animals with sufficient access to food, shelter, and overall wellbeing. The second row is animals without those needs being met (i.e. Suffering under the hands of either humans or nature).
In my opinion, based on my personal life experience, and only if you consider the animals that are not typically used for food (that's an entirely different, but also important discussion), the number of animals in the top left quadrant are second only to the number of animals in the bottom right. Because of this, I believe that the concept of pet ownership is an overall net positive.
That still absolutely does rob the pet of the free will to decide their own destiny, and that is still absolutely a moral quandary.
Edit: Another way to frame my opinion that pets are a net positive is that we humans have done a great deal to improve our general quality of life (for better or worse to the world at large), and have mostly brought our pets up to a similar quality with us. Food, water, and shelter are usually provided to pets at a minimum, but those are anything but guaranteed in the wild. Pets lives also greatly improve compared to wild animals if you consider modern heating and cooling, pet friendly dietary considerations, veterinary care, and an overall pet friendly society.
I mean you can make the same argument for many humans, we as children don't choose where we are born and who are our parents. And each country and society will decide for them the "correct" way to live. If anything, you could say we are currently treating tiny humans as pets.
if it makes you feel better, there are different ways to take care of a pet (or companion animal if you prefer that term)
my dogs (**my **as in they are under my care, like children) don't know tricks, they are free to perform any behavior that doesn't put them or any other animal in danger
around me they are free to keep doing whatever they want or ask to be pet, the only orders I give them is to sit down and stay still when I give them treats so they don't start a fight over it and to move from one part of my yard to another when we need to move heavy stuff
whenever the capitalist system let's me keep enough energy after my chores I take them out for walks but when that's not the case I play with them in my yard
I respect and love them in that way
I agree but I think it’s alright to have rescued pets. Would be better if they didn’t need to be rescued but that’s the way it is.
Iffeel the same way, especially about cats.
I'm a structural engineer. It is part of the job.
I've been mostly right.
A profession where I’m sure it’s beneficial to be very rigid…
Except during seismic events.
Tell me, as a structural engineer, should I build my home on sand?
Depends on the sand.
That's also generally more the geotechnical engineer's call.
What about the graboids?
Pizza that traditionally comes with sauce on top would be better if you did no sauce on top and instead dipped the pizza in sauce as you ate. I like my crunchy.
I do cheeseless pizzas and if you have the right amount of sauce on top its fantastic with a deep dish crust.
Climate change is real and damaging to everyone and we need to take action to mitigate its progression. People who deny it are just insane. Not sure why some folks think losing freshwater and having more extreme weather events isn't a problem but it will end human civilization as we know it and eventually our species as a whole. We need to get with the program and stop politicizing a global issue.
It's cheese curds and gravy that make it a poutine, not cheese. You can put cheese AND cheese curds on a poutine along with other stuff, but without cheese curds, all you have is fries and gravy with assorted hangers on.
And them curds better be squeaky!
This is correct. I used to live in southern US and could not find any place that served even something similar to poutine much less actual poutine with cheese curds. Youd think they would be more into that stuff its got fried stuff, gravy and whatnot
From watching the commercial, I had an immediate revulsion to the Lunesta sleep aid because of the green moths that would fly in through your window and land on you and you would fall into a beautiful peaceful sleep.
I had friends and family that took it and they said it was the only sleep aid that worked for them and that I was being irrational.
And then it came out that people would take the shit and then sleepwalk and go for drives and wake up in their underwear out in the middle of the fucking woods because the Lunesta sleep moth had taken over them and made them do all kinds of crazy shit.
https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-adds-boxed-warning-risk-serious-injuries-caused-sleepwalking-certain-prescription-insomnia
Ok, but you're still being irrational... Their advertising choices are not at all related to real life side effects of the drug. The moth was probably thought up by an overworked, unpaid intern during a brainstorming session.
Yeah, I had no reason to feel that way, but I'm already prone to sleepwalking so lunesta would have likely fucked me up, so I was irrational but I was right.
Oh my ex wanted me to cut his hair, but just pulled it over one shoulder and said cut it off. He wanted to see it cut, understand? No, neither did i. I said "no, it will be slanty because it's all pulled to one side, let me cut it into a haircut." He said no, it will be fine, just cut it. "It will be slanty!" He was getting mad, JUST CUT IT! Finally he just took scissors and cut it how he wanted. "Oh no, it's all slanty!"
Yes. OS Security. A bunch of "don't do that or you'll learn why" stuff.
Have I been right on all of my positions? Not yet.
Yet.
Random programming one, but some of the changes in C++20 are terrible and do not belong in the language. I will die on the hill of just because something is easier to learn/work with doesn't make it better.
Bigotry is bad. Segregation is bad.
In progressive spaces this is USUALLY met with agreement. That's easy whenever we are talking about equal rights for people who have been historically been oppressed. However, a dark corner of progressive spaces likes to hate. Hate on men, cis people, white people. It's usually just one or two people, who have probably been personally hurt by people who happen to fall into those groups, and the rest don't feel like they can say anything.
I strongly believe that things like segregation are fundamentally wrong and make the world a worse place. Not that they were tools that were used for evil and can now be used for good in the right hands. Not just temporarily as balancing measures for society. Equality isn't just something you can pick and choose when to believe in, when it's pretty and convenient and makes you feel good.
Happens often and most of the times is it because of a misunderstanding. Usually we actually agree with each other but we think we are disagreeing and arguing about how the thing we agree on is correct. I have seen this happen with two coworker many times and it makes me laugh every time until it gets too serious. I actually had this kind of "discussion" yesterday, my coworker said he couldn't see change x in my PR and I told him how it was before and how it is after the change and then it became heated (I assume it is because he wrote the code and the tests) he stepped back when I told him even the tests expected the faulty state then he understood what outcome we needed and saw that the change was there and it was actually correct.
Yes, and yes.
😏
Yes, all the time and here often, when it comes to epistemology and ethics. I believe in objective reality and morality, I'm the weirdo in postmodern societies, lol.
Besides the natural limitations of people's intellectual capacities (so, good faith and honest actors who simply can't process things efficiently enough for it to be shown in the argument), many don't because 1) self-imposed, intellectually lazy, extreme "uncertainty" allows you to be unserious with life without feeling bad, (it's comfy to live in a framework where A can be B and 0 can be 1, nothing is something, reality can change at your whim); 2) moral relativism allows you to be a dick/dickish without having to admit to yourself that you are one/acting like one. Basically, fear and dislike of guilt and an avoidance of personal responsibility are at the core of these untenable positions, not sound and valid arguments.
Am I right? I cannot grasp final truths, who can?, but I certainly feel like I'm in the right direction with these "takes". It certainly feels like it when I see the inherent confusion, aimlessness and emotional instability of those who live denying 0s and 1s, rights and wrongs. And, btw, this is at the core of any argument that can be made, bought and defended by imperialists regarding their amoral murdering and pillaging, and also MAGA regarding their kidnappings and executions, because what is wrong, really? 🤷
So what defines objective morality. Even if God is real its just their subjective morality.
There's the Qur'an if you want to know the overall left and right limits (or just the Ten Commandments if you just can't read that much, lol, but it's better to do so), but regardless, your soul points towards it, always. Any honest conversation about a situation will end up with two people, happily or not, having to admit there's one path more moral than others (it's more ethical not to steal the towels from the hotel, even if you want a souvenir, lol. You might still do it cause you decided you could afford the lack of virtue, and in small cases like this I understand, but it's still less ethical than just not stealing the towels). Wanting to do it or not is something else, but right and wrong and clearly defined in every situation, and even in the absence of data the general attitude and direction of action you have to take are obvious (sure, maybe that one homeless dude got more fent with the money you gave him but being charitable is the right thing to do, for example).
You don't say that they agree on which path is more moral than the other, but I'm assuming that's what you mean. But also, no, that doesn't happen. In an honest conversation where you disagree on morals, you just learn that you both have different values.
There are some things that more people are likely to agree on, like your example about stealing a towel from a hotel. But there are also many that people vehemently disagree on. For example, is it morally right to kill someone who has (and will continue to) indirectly kill many of other people?
How could you disagree on that? Okay, there are two options: either the person in this situation is shooting/stabbing people and cannot be reasoned with presently, so, in order not to let another innocent soul die by his hand, you take him down. He went from man to rabid dog so we had to put him down. That's a clear-cut scenario, right? Now, another, in which someone used to kill indiscriminately and has vowed to do it, again, he's unrepentant and just unimaginably bloodthirsty (so the "will continue doing so" makes sense because people do have free will and can repent and change their ways, we cannot see the future after all)... You could either kill him, or simply restrict his freedom forever, in solitary so he doesn't kill. But these are two goods we're arguing about, so the direction (not allowing a killer to continue killing, because we believe murder is wrong) is still the same, and this is not a major issue comparatively, not a major disagreement that would collapse our moral framework but just a limitation of our judgment and understanding. It's clouded, but we can both see the same, more or less, behind the veil.
Now, from my perspective as a religious man, and because we simply cannot see the future, I'd choose solitary confinement. Who knows, maybe he'll see the light in his dark room, with good, enriching literature, maybe he will repent, at least in spirit if not in action because what can he do in containment, and he'll have a better chance with God and His judgment. What do you think? Even if you're not religious, don't you think it's better to give this person a chance to reflect and repent than die a complete villain? Isn't it more humane? And the resources are there, it's not like there are that many serial killers percentage wise in the world, right?
I think you missed the "indirect" part. This isn't someone going around stabbing people. It's someone who goes obstructing people from getting medication or medical treatment that they need, or from acquiring food, or someone who indiscriminately gets people fired from their jobs and put on the streets where they'll die a slow death.
Regarding solitary confinement: As an individual, you don't have the power to detain someone in that manner. But you do have the power to kill.
But why can't we do something about it before having to murder the dude ? We live in a society! This scenario doesn't make much sense, IRL you can report it to the authorities, bring it to the media, etc etc. Sure, if you live in a corrupt decaying empire/police state like the USA, maybe it's more difficult but even then I feel there are so many things to do before just going full vigilante murderer...
But the whole point is that societies usually have a moral framework when they're not entrenched in moral relativism, so of course this is not the case for America but around the world, as corrupt as people can be, they can never be like America. I mean, bribery is legalized and the president openly receives bribes and gifts and posts it online, lol, it's crazy. And everything happened because American society, which for a while had a working democracy, doesn't have a proper moral framework. Just saying. 🤷
So morality is relative in a society that doesn't have a proper moral framework?
I feel like this argument falls apart when considering things like the trolley problem. To wit:
A trolley has lost control and is traveling down its track towards a group of people. Nearby there is a switch that will divert the trolley onto a different track where there is only one person. Do you
A) Activate the switch, thereby being actively responsible for a person's death. B) Do nothing and allow multiple people to die due to your passive inaction.
How might your answer change if that one person were your child? Or if they were a notorious criminal? What if the group were all children? What if they were prisoners? Different people will reasonably disagree on which choice is more moral.
No, what you're saying is that being emotionally compromised and biased might make me choose differently. And of course, we're people. But the better, more humane, nobler and fairer option can be easily found, and if not, at least the direction of action. I mean, trolley wise, everything else being equal it's obvious that it's better to be 4 people up than 4 people down, and with more details in this thought experiment (which, btw, is extremely unrealistic and has very little uhh ecological validity) you can develop, slowly but surely, a set of answers to it (what if the 5 guys are 5 Hitlers?! and stuff like that requires a bit more analysis, but again, it's very divorced from reality).
Emotion is not necessary for the different scenarios to have potentially different moral considerations. For example, does your moral responsibility as a parent to nurture and protect your children change the equation?
Even if you assume everyone involved are strangers, what is the better, more noble, more humane option or direction of action?
No, no it doesn't, because we're all equally valuable by default, they're all someone's kid and that doesn't change just because I'm involved. It would just be a superbly shitty position to be in and I would almost certainly save my kid in exchange for 5 lives, but that ain't right, it's just what I would most likely do. I mean, sacrifice my child (that I truly love) for the greater good (and more lives saved, ceteris paribus, is the greater good)... who am I, Abraham? 😅 You need to be on the level of a prophet to see this clearly and then act upon it, detached because the worldly life is passing and not that important, etc etc, basically.
So if I'm understanding your answer correctly, and assuming everyone involved were strangers, you believe that saving many lives at the cost of one is the more moral choice.
What would you say to someone who disagreed because they could not bring themselves to be actively responsible for the death of someone, and considered inaction the more moral choice because the group would have died anyway if they weren't there and able to intervene?
The point I'm trying to get at is that I don't believe there is a correct answer as to which choice is more moral. There are valid reasons to conclude that either option is both moral and amoral in equal measure. You could argue for either choice in circles, and both parties would be correct while never convincing the other.
In my opinion some questions of morality are clear and easy to answer, but some are much more nuanced, and that is where there is room for subjectivity.
YappyMonotheist what the fuck are you talking about?
I feel like I explained myself well enough, lol, which part is confusing? I believe that there are not "two sides to every story", and disagree with right and wrong (and not everything can be weighed on this scale, some things are different only superficially but have no moral component, like many burial rituals for example) being purely circumstantial, cultural, and overall meaningless when judging a person's character, but universal and obvious to anyone arguing in good faith. 👍
Oh. It's this guy.
This guy's a staple of the Lemmy cooker community. Wouldn't be the same without them
Saying "reality is objective and deeper than narratives and perspectives, and so is morality" makes me crazy ? I mean, I can see why you'd think that but come on, at some point y'all gotta engage in good faith, right? 🤷
To anyone who still needs to know: When Monotheist says "reality is objective and deeper than narratives," they're referring to God. God is the objective morality they're talking about.
I don't know if they would try deny this here, but I have seen them say it explicitly elsewhere.
So yes, their username is relevant.
God's the objective moral judge, but the "best possible decision, ethically speaking" exists independently of whether we can/want to see it, that's my position. But yes, being a monotheist is very relevant to this conversation, lol, and many others I have here which is why I chose this nickname. 👍
Ohh~ I can feel my hatred for the westboro baptist church building up. Once it bubbles over, I'm going to hit super saiyan III.
That hatred is probably warranted, so I'm sorry for whatever negative experiences you had. I'm not one of those (aren't those Trinitarians too?), please don't put us all in the same group. 🙏
Also, yes, but I'm more of a GT, hairy SS4 guy myself, lol.
Someone's gotta tell you, lol.
Already heard it for about 20 years of my life
That reality and morality are undeniable and doing so is intellectually dishonest/lazy and to your own detriment? Well, what's your take? Or did you just comment to throw shade? 😞
Bro what the fuck are you even talking about
😞