An hypothesis that cannot be falsified does not count as a scientific theory (according to Popper, not everyone agrees). That does not mean that is woo. It just means that it's outside the epistemological limits of science.
Another thing that is unmeasurable is science, and yet most people don't doubt it.
> The singularity and AGI are apocalypse for atheists.
It's a shame they won't revert the idiotic decision to ban adult content. The sense of freedom of expression and unrestrained creativity gave Tumblr its edge. Without it, it's just another boring blog engine, and this is just a matter of postponing its demise.
> Uh huh. I'll remember that the next time a ton of bricks falls on my head when passing a construction site.
Was it a common occurrence in the US, that construction workers would cause accidents because of smoking cannabis? And btw, do you know of any study showing a negative correlation between drug testing and accidents? Or is this more "lie detector"-style "science" -- an excuse to stick your nose in other people's private affairs?
> Do you have any reason to believe this is an actual, honest to God, widespread problem?
Yes, my professional experience. American workers seem to find intrusive practices such as drug testing perfectly normal, exactly in the way that you are expressing. In Europe, such tests are much more regulated, as well as many other forms of abuse of power by the employer, and yet I never had any problems with bricks falling over my head.
Yes, and a bunch of harder drugs that destroy lives and are much more dangerous than cannabis, but perfectly fine because some big corp is making billions selling it.
No security implications there. Of course, by security, it is meant "security against lawsuits". Actual human beings don't really matter in this equation.
"Safety and insurance implications" are an infinite excuse for employers to abuse you unless you have a legal system to protect you from asymmetrical power relationships.
No, I am saying that the US isn't the land of the free because, in practice, you seem to live under immense scrutiny and oppression when compared to other western countries. No privacy over even your own body, no job security, no health care without a job, no holidays.
I agree. Unfortunately, I have the impression it is already going in the downwards trajectory. The new redesign contains all the red flags. When "old.reddit.com" stops working, I suspect it's over for me.
I mean that, maybe you should distrust your own judgement that "HN is the only reasonable discussion forum remaining on the internet". Perhaps other places have environments that you don't like but other people feel that they are "the only reasonable discussion forum remaining on the internet".
> I'm part of a ton of other forums and communities, and over time almost all of them have devolved into complete and utter dogshit, just an endless stream of memes and screenshots of Twitter posts.
In my experience this has a lot more to do with algorithmic instead of chronological ordering. Facebook for example, where a lot of communities have gone to die, is a context-destroying engine. Only memes and shitposts can survive. What is the point of writing something thoughtful if you don't know if anyone will even see it?
Otherwise, online communities have a lifetime. Before HN there was Slashdot and Kuro5hin. They were nice at some point, then devolved into shit. Same thing will happen to HN and everything else, of course.
> The communities that remain successful either have total strict moderation or a "shitposts" section where all of the garbage ends up, but even then the quarantine zone ends up sucking up a lot of the forum energy. I think it's best to just not have it at all.
My favorite community uses a completely different strategy: there are no moderators but it is relatively obscure. Shit posters come and go, nobody reacts, all is fine. It has been going on for more than two decades. I will not disclose it because I do not want to ruin it, but I bet lots of things like this exist. They don't make money nor are they advertising arms of money-making operations, so nobody really cares. No newspaper will ever write an editorial about them -- this is why they are so great!
> No, you don't understand that the "you" that is the sum of your experience and history, and the "you" of a clone are different you's.
In what sense are they different? Consider that the molecules that make up a person's body are completely replaced over the course of n years. One decade ago you were a different chunk of matter, but the same person.
> Your copy is only like you, but not you.
Ok, let's assume you are right. The copy will still be 100% convinced that it is me. How do I know this is not happening to me already, that I am not a "fake" already?
> It doesn't matter if you're emulated, because the same would happen to the emulation, a fork of a emulation won't mean that the emulation would wake up in the body of the fork.
Organisms wake up and feel whatever they feel. An organism with an exact copy of my memories and processes will be 100% convinced that it is "me". This could already be happening to me, how could I tell? I am just repeating trivial arguments from an ongoing philosophical discussion that has been going on for millennia.
You propose to solve this discussion with authoritative proclamations, but I would rather read your arguments.
> What's uploaded can maximally be a fork of your mind, not your actual mind
>> Why? What makes you you?
> My history until now.
?
> that fork starts to diverge within that new environment as it adapts to it, and won't recognizable for long, so it's not even a good idea for conservation.
>> Maybe you are already being emulated, how would you know?
> What's uploaded can maximally be a fork of your mind, not your actual mind, or "you".
Why? What makes you you? Maybe you are already being emulated, how would you know?
> And that fork starts to diverge within that new environment as it adapts to it, and won't recognizable for long
That can also be said of the passage of time. Every moment there are forks in the road, and whatever you are is constantly diverging from what you were -- otherwise nothing would be happening to you.
Yes, our entire civilization is built on trust relationships. Trust relationships are easier to succeed when the interests of the two parts are aligned, or at least mostly aligned.
The ad business model guarantees that our interests are misaligned. I don't want to depend on intelligent agents that want to sell me things, and I don't think anyone with half a brain would either. The more intelligent they are, the more one should fear being manipulated and spied upon if one those not control them.
> You can not have both smooth service and complete privacy if the data is restricted, as the system will not get to learn you.
Sure you can, as long as you control the system. There is nothing preventing us from realizing the old dream of having AIs dedicated to working for us, the users, not some corporation.
It just so happens that the the current favorite business model of big tech is serving us ads, but does this business model serve us? I don't think so.
Not really. PageRank is a centrality measure for networks, not a sociological theory / hypothesis. It is very useful in finding the most popular nodes in a network, but it says nothing about whether this popularity is byproduct of culture or the other way around.
An hypothesis that cannot be falsified does not count as a scientific theory (according to Popper, not everyone agrees). That does not mean that is woo. It just means that it's outside the epistemological limits of science.
Another thing that is unmeasurable is science, and yet most people don't doubt it.
> The singularity and AGI are apocalypse for atheists.
I agree with that to a degree.