Why You Can't Say(lacker.io)
lacker.io
Why You Can't Say
http://lacker.io/tech/2017/04/05/why-you-cant-say.html
92 comments
Not sure if that's really a taboo, it's been commonly expressed on many Internet message boards, often self-referentially.
I suspect it's actually more that the average commenter on a forum related to their field tends to be more skilled than the average worker in that field, because the average worker spends their workday reading other forums that are unrelated to their field, but the very best professionals in a field are usually not found on Internet forums, because they're doing their job instead of talking about it.
I suspect it's actually more that the average commenter on a forum related to their field tends to be more skilled than the average worker in that field, because the average worker spends their workday reading other forums that are unrelated to their field, but the very best professionals in a field are usually not found on Internet forums, because they're doing their job instead of talking about it.
Hmm, that's true. But I think message boards simultaneously tend to the "oh, I'm terrible, wasting time here haha." and to "Oh that guy's got so much karma, and I see him posting all the time. He probably knows what he's saying.".
So when I'm upvoting someone I'm actually insulting him/her? Sorry man it just happen that I agree with you.
Well, usually you get what you optimise for. Right now HN community is raising your karma, maybe from agreement, maybe out of spite. Does it make you less knowledgable?
> The most successful companies all use whiteboard interviews
Not much evidence to demonstrate that this is a significant contributing factor in their success. The five companies listed are pioneering behemoths that transcend the boundaries of rote startup analysis.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that whiteboard interviews are fine, but I think programmers tend to dislike them because the physical act of standing up to write code on a whiteboard is awkward and disconcerting, especially in the context of a high pressure interview. The skill of using a large unwieldy marker to render text by hand on a vertical surface requires a significant amount of practice and I think many programmers just resent the need to hone this skill which is mostly useless outside of an interview setting. Something like a written test or questionnaire with pencil and paper is much more well received, or more ideally an offline workstation running something like notepad that's hooked up to a projector or big screen.
Not much evidence to demonstrate that this is a significant contributing factor in their success. The five companies listed are pioneering behemoths that transcend the boundaries of rote startup analysis.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that whiteboard interviews are fine, but I think programmers tend to dislike them because the physical act of standing up to write code on a whiteboard is awkward and disconcerting, especially in the context of a high pressure interview. The skill of using a large unwieldy marker to render text by hand on a vertical surface requires a significant amount of practice and I think many programmers just resent the need to hone this skill which is mostly useless outside of an interview setting. Something like a written test or questionnaire with pencil and paper is much more well received, or more ideally an offline workstation running something like notepad that's hooked up to a projector or big screen.
I totally agree about the hiring process. I've found that those most vocal against certain hiring techniques that tend to work fairly well in the large are bitter at their own mediocrity being discovered in such a process, and that result flying head first into their own over inflated sense of their own ability.
I think it is simpler than that. That whiteboard interviews are stressful and people don't like the additional stress on top of the already stressful interview process.
I feel like what's discussed here is more controversial than taboo. It's similar, but slightly different.
While Whiteboard interviews might be controversial, I wouldn't consider this taboo. Making jokes in the workplace about women however, would be considered taboo. Even though this may have been considered 'acceptable' just 15 years back.
It seems like the difference between the two is one of opinion vs offence. While having a different opinion is fine, raising offence really depends on how much backlash you get.
While Whiteboard interviews might be controversial, I wouldn't consider this taboo. Making jokes in the workplace about women however, would be considered taboo. Even though this may have been considered 'acceptable' just 15 years back.
It seems like the difference between the two is one of opinion vs offence. While having a different opinion is fine, raising offence really depends on how much backlash you get.
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I do not think you should use really big corporations as example.
First of all, they attract enough talent to use any methods of selection they see fit. They do not care about false negatives, since they operate on virtually unlimited pool of resources.
Secondly, the logic against whiteboard interviews is sound. I have never had to implement complex algorithm at work. Never. Which means that last time I actually wrote some was at college, about 7 years ago. Obviously, to perform well, I need to study to remind myself how to use red-black trees for example. Or how to implement priority queue (hopefully not using Fibonacci Heap, ugh). Any effort that goes into it is basically wasted, since chances I will have to actually do this at job are close to zero. So I'm basically reminding myself how to do something I will never do past interview. Not very effective.
Third and last, good software engineering is, as I believe, not strongly correlated with algorithms knowledge. People great at hacking quite often get in trouble when they have to develop readable, predictable system. This is different set of skills.
Secondly, the logic against whiteboard interviews is sound. I have never had to implement complex algorithm at work. Never. Which means that last time I actually wrote some was at college, about 7 years ago. Obviously, to perform well, I need to study to remind myself how to use red-black trees for example. Or how to implement priority queue (hopefully not using Fibonacci Heap, ugh). Any effort that goes into it is basically wasted, since chances I will have to actually do this at job are close to zero. So I'm basically reminding myself how to do something I will never do past interview. Not very effective.
Third and last, good software engineering is, as I believe, not strongly correlated with algorithms knowledge. People great at hacking quite often get in trouble when they have to develop readable, predictable system. This is different set of skills.
> A confident group doesn’t need taboos to protect it. It’s not considered improper to make disparaging remarks about Americans, or the English.
The Catholic Church is a pretty confident group, yet it's taken multiple decades for people to start taking allegations of wrongdoing seriously. It's been taboo for a long time to cast aspersions against the church, even though they're a powerful organisation - how can you dare to question them!?
Conversely, until quite recently, in Anglo societies being pregnant in public was somewhat taboo, as was breastfeeding in public or letting a mentally handicapped child be seen in public. Same with talking about domestic violence. These are taboos against the weak, not the strong or in-between.
As for "not eating mud because that's what others tell you", the author clearly hasn't played a field sport in winter.
The Catholic Church is a pretty confident group, yet it's taken multiple decades for people to start taking allegations of wrongdoing seriously. It's been taboo for a long time to cast aspersions against the church, even though they're a powerful organisation - how can you dare to question them!?
Conversely, until quite recently, in Anglo societies being pregnant in public was somewhat taboo, as was breastfeeding in public or letting a mentally handicapped child be seen in public. Same with talking about domestic violence. These are taboos against the weak, not the strong or in-between.
As for "not eating mud because that's what others tell you", the author clearly hasn't played a field sport in winter.
> As for "not eating mud because that's what others tell you", the author clearly hasn't played a field sport in winter.
Guilty as charged.
That one was just on my mind because my daughter loves eating mud, and it's pretty clear she won't listen to reason. Only an Argument From Authority will do the trick.
Guilty as charged.
That one was just on my mind because my daughter loves eating mud, and it's pretty clear she won't listen to reason. Only an Argument From Authority will do the trick.
Wait a year or two and you'll have the opposite problem - getting her to eat anything that isn't her one favourite food :)
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The example of the Catholic Church seems to support the author's point. It was only as the Church's power declined that it became acceptable to publicly accuse it of wrongdoing.
The taboos you mention about things being seen in public are more about not doing things than not saying things, so I don't think the same philosophy applies. On domestic violence, there certainly was an issue of men suppressing any discussion of the topic; these days of course, the first greater taboo is against any mention of women assaulting men, and that taboo is very definitely enforced by a powerful group which fears losing that power.
The taboos you mention about things being seen in public are more about not doing things than not saying things, so I don't think the same philosophy applies. On domestic violence, there certainly was an issue of men suppressing any discussion of the topic; these days of course, the first greater taboo is against any mention of women assaulting men, and that taboo is very definitely enforced by a powerful group which fears losing that power.
I think you've got it backwards - you're saying that the taboo lifted as the church lost power, that the taboo was there while the church was very powerful? While the Catholic Church has lost power, they're certainly not weak now; they're just not as supreme as they were. They've become weaker but still have power of enforcement, yet taboos have lifted (somewhat)? That's the opposite of what the article is saying.
With domestic violence, it wasn't just men suppressing it. Women also suppressed it, because "you just didn't talk about that kind of thing". Domestic violence shelters weren't really a thing, because you were expected to just deal with it and not talk about it.
I just think it's simply a wrong statement to make, that taboos are only about middling social powers. It seems to be trying to shoehorn the facts to fit an argument rather than the other way around.
With domestic violence, it wasn't just men suppressing it. Women also suppressed it, because "you just didn't talk about that kind of thing". Domestic violence shelters weren't really a thing, because you were expected to just deal with it and not talk about it.
I just think it's simply a wrong statement to make, that taboos are only about middling social powers. It seems to be trying to shoehorn the facts to fit an argument rather than the other way around.
>> It's been taboo for a long time to cast aspersions against the church
Perhaps in Catholic countries but never in protestant countries
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Catholicism
Perhaps in Catholic countries but never in protestant countries
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Catholicism
Does anyone else find it extremely disturbing that one of the examples they provide for "things you believe not because of logic [thus, it's objectively true], but because other people told you to" is "Human life is a precious thing"?
I thought it was an excellent example precisely because it's so disturbing. It's about as close to objectively true as you can get: "human life is a precious thing" is a value judgment, and you can't logically prove value judgments. It's also a value judgment that virtually everyone would agree with, which illustrates that many things that everybody believes cannot be objectively proven.
Incidentally, you could make a logical argument that the reason everyone believes "human life is a precious thing" is because anyone who doesn't has long since killed themselves or been killed by people who wanted to preserve their precious life, and you can do so without passing any judgment on whether human life is in fact precious. One could easily imagine AI robots, for example, who don't believe that human life is precious because it doesn't matter to them whether we kill each other all off. But this separation between the object level ("here's what I value") and the meta level ("here's why I value it") is fundamental to making logical inferences.
Incidentally, you could make a logical argument that the reason everyone believes "human life is a precious thing" is because anyone who doesn't has long since killed themselves or been killed by people who wanted to preserve their precious life, and you can do so without passing any judgment on whether human life is in fact precious. One could easily imagine AI robots, for example, who don't believe that human life is precious because it doesn't matter to them whether we kill each other all off. But this separation between the object level ("here's what I value") and the meta level ("here's why I value it") is fundamental to making logical inferences.
> It's also a value judgment that virtually everyone would agree with
The interpretation of this judgment has varied a lot across the times. Historically, in less individualistic societies, I think that the loss of human lives for the good of the group was considered less taboo than today. There were also different interpretations of what "human" meant, obviously, with the life of slaves, strangers, women, different-looking people, etc., being less precious.
People from the future could find that they disagree a lot with our current interpretation of "human life is precious". Western societies today don't seem to care much about the fact that human life in most of the world nowadays isn't "precious" in the Western sense, so this might be a shock to someone from the future. More generally, we are fine today with the fact that everyone dies eventually, whereas a futuristic society having achieved practical immortality would perhaps see each individual death as a catastrophe.
The interpretation of this judgment has varied a lot across the times. Historically, in less individualistic societies, I think that the loss of human lives for the good of the group was considered less taboo than today. There were also different interpretations of what "human" meant, obviously, with the life of slaves, strangers, women, different-looking people, etc., being less precious.
People from the future could find that they disagree a lot with our current interpretation of "human life is precious". Western societies today don't seem to care much about the fact that human life in most of the world nowadays isn't "precious" in the Western sense, so this might be a shock to someone from the future. More generally, we are fine today with the fact that everyone dies eventually, whereas a futuristic society having achieved practical immortality would perhaps see each individual death as a catastrophe.
I don't think you can make that argument.
I don't see how it follows that if you don't see human life as precious you should kill yourself.
We can go deeper and ask: Why is life precious? You, me and everyone else got their lives for free.
Nobody ever paid anything to be born into this world and nobody gave consent to be born into this world.
I don't see how it follows that if you don't see human life as precious you should kill yourself.
We can go deeper and ask: Why is life precious? You, me and everyone else got their lives for free.
Nobody ever paid anything to be born into this world and nobody gave consent to be born into this world.
A clarification: the argument I'm saying we could make is a factual-level argument of "the reason humans believe that 'human life is precious' is because those humans who don't have long since killed themselves. Its structure is similar to Descarte's 'cogito ergo sum', something like:
"In order for someone to have a belief, they must exist. In order for them to continue to exist, they must not have taken any action in the past that would lead to their death. People who believe that human life is not precious are significantly more likely to take actions that will lead to their death. Therefore, people who believe that human life is not precious remove themselves from existence at a higher rate than those who believe human life is precious, and so the vast majority of people will believe human life is precious."
You can quibble with the premises and I won't defend them, but you would agree that this argument takes the form of a syllogism and hence is a logical (if possibly false) argument. My overall point is not about whether human life is or isn't precious, it's about the distinction between object-level and meta-level. On the meta level you can make a logical argument, from falsifiable premises, about why people might believe the statement "Human life is precious". But on the object level, that statement is a value judgment, and so that statement can't be approached with logic in any coherent way. You can argue about the truth or falsity of whether & why people hold certain values, but you can't argue with the values themselves. (Logically, at least; you can always argue using various fallacies like argumentum ad auctoritatem or argumentum ad baculum. Indeed, applying the results of your analysis of why people hold beliefs to whether the beliefs are right is an example of the ad hominem fallacy.)
"In order for someone to have a belief, they must exist. In order for them to continue to exist, they must not have taken any action in the past that would lead to their death. People who believe that human life is not precious are significantly more likely to take actions that will lead to their death. Therefore, people who believe that human life is not precious remove themselves from existence at a higher rate than those who believe human life is precious, and so the vast majority of people will believe human life is precious."
You can quibble with the premises and I won't defend them, but you would agree that this argument takes the form of a syllogism and hence is a logical (if possibly false) argument. My overall point is not about whether human life is or isn't precious, it's about the distinction between object-level and meta-level. On the meta level you can make a logical argument, from falsifiable premises, about why people might believe the statement "Human life is precious". But on the object level, that statement is a value judgment, and so that statement can't be approached with logic in any coherent way. You can argue about the truth or falsity of whether & why people hold certain values, but you can't argue with the values themselves. (Logically, at least; you can always argue using various fallacies like argumentum ad auctoritatem or argumentum ad baculum. Indeed, applying the results of your analysis of why people hold beliefs to whether the beliefs are right is an example of the ad hominem fallacy.)
'Human life is precious' is not a truth in any sense of the word. It is a feel-good slogan, coined by humans for humans. You cannot possibly define it rigorously enough to start worrying about its trueness. The example is poor and is clearly reaching for shock value.
Neither my comment nor the article ever says 'Human life is precious' is true. What the article says is "'Human life is precious' is something you believe not because of logic, but because other people told you to", which I do believe to be true. It's up a meta-level from the level that you're discussing.
That is some meta-level nonsense.
The article claims we all believe human life is precious for illogical reasons. Gasp! Comment section erupts in arm chair philosophy. All because they allowed the author to conflate formal system rigour with philosophical nonsense. That is, 'mathematically logical' and 'thinking rationally.' You cannot apply rigour to vague bumper-sticker slogans, they are trivially illogical. Almost nothing is completely logical in daily life. It's not a big shock. There is nothing profound about this. To assume otherwise is naive.
You say "It's about as close to objectively true as you can get." If by 'objectively' you mean 'extremely subjective to the human experience' then I agree with you. Otherwise, I'm not sure what you're on about.
The article claims we all believe human life is precious for illogical reasons. Gasp! Comment section erupts in arm chair philosophy. All because they allowed the author to conflate formal system rigour with philosophical nonsense. That is, 'mathematically logical' and 'thinking rationally.' You cannot apply rigour to vague bumper-sticker slogans, they are trivially illogical. Almost nothing is completely logical in daily life. It's not a big shock. There is nothing profound about this. To assume otherwise is naive.
You say "It's about as close to objectively true as you can get." If by 'objectively' you mean 'extremely subjective to the human experience' then I agree with you. Otherwise, I'm not sure what you're on about.
> If by 'objectively' you mean 'extremely subjective to the human experience'
What other experience other than human experience is out there?
What other experience other than human experience is out there?
Recognizing this point about irrationality puts pressure on any philosophy to be able to deal with a mixture of reliable and unreliable actors acting in various interests. This means that absolutes are very risky. Including the bumper sticker.
> "It's about as close to objectively true as you can get"
I read that as you saying that "Human life is precious" is true, though maybe I have misunderstood. (Don't take this as that I agree with the other guy though).
I read that as you saying that "Human life is precious" is true, though maybe I have misunderstood. (Don't take this as that I agree with the other guy though).
Oh, I was referring to the full clause in the parent post ('one of the examples they provide for "things you believe not because of logic [thus, it's objectively true], but because other people told you to" is "Human life is a precious thing"') and to the example in the article. I thought that was clear from context ("an excellent example", plus "human life is precious" being mentioned rather than used in my explanation in after the colon), but it's a long phrase, and it's admittedly pretty confusing because the example is itself talking about whether certain statements are objectively true.
The punchline immediately follows:
> Lots of useful and totally true facts about the world are socially constructed.
It's obviously not the only accepted position in ethics, but saying that moral rules don't follow from logic or some metaphysical fact is not saying that there is no moral.
> Lots of useful and totally true facts about the world are socially constructed.
It's obviously not the only accepted position in ethics, but saying that moral rules don't follow from logic or some metaphysical fact is not saying that there is no moral.
Ethics heavily relies on logic, but the axioms used might not all stem from there.
Not at all. Logic doesn't need to be moral and, in fact, many logical conclusions are amoral.
There are five people trapped in a snowstorm during the winter. They are out of food and have no means of going outside to gather more. They need to eat to survive or else they will all perish. The logical conclusion for survival is cannibalism. Then you have the varying moral scales of "kill someone and eat them", "draw sticks and the unlucky loser gets eaten", "wait for the first person to die, then eat what remains of their starved body", or "everyone chooses to die of starvation instead of eating one another".
Among those choices - once again the logical conclusion for best chances of survival, namely "eating someone while they have enough meat to provide sustenance to the survivors" is typically considered amoral compared to the "everyone dies" or "eat the starved body and risk dying of starvation anyway" options.
I'm sure there are plenty of in between options or other options I missed out on. But "logical" is not equivalent to "moral" except by chance.
There are five people trapped in a snowstorm during the winter. They are out of food and have no means of going outside to gather more. They need to eat to survive or else they will all perish. The logical conclusion for survival is cannibalism. Then you have the varying moral scales of "kill someone and eat them", "draw sticks and the unlucky loser gets eaten", "wait for the first person to die, then eat what remains of their starved body", or "everyone chooses to die of starvation instead of eating one another".
Among those choices - once again the logical conclusion for best chances of survival, namely "eating someone while they have enough meat to provide sustenance to the survivors" is typically considered amoral compared to the "everyone dies" or "eat the starved body and risk dying of starvation anyway" options.
I'm sure there are plenty of in between options or other options I missed out on. But "logical" is not equivalent to "moral" except by chance.
You oversimplified the problem by assuming no rescue from the get go. Logically it is probably most efficient to wait until your metabolism is at an absolute lowest. It also has the nice bit that you reduce harm if the rescue comes earlier.
Well...
"You shouldn't eat mud" actually felt like a bad example because it follows from some other widely agreed upon truths like "mud is indigestible" and "mud can contain things that can harm you".
"Red light means stop" is obviously a social convention. There's nothing inherent about red light that means stop, it's just a visual language that's become somewhat ubiquitous.
"Human life is a precious thing" is the most abstract of the three. It's usually treated as a basic axiom that doesn't need any further justification. The question isn't really "is it true" but "why do we treat it as if it were true". If you look closely the seams become apparent: what is life, what is a human, what follows from something being precious, etc.
The three aren't really three examples of a kind but three different examples of different kinds of truths we generally believe "because we were told so".
"You shouldn't eat mud" actually felt like a bad example because it follows from some other widely agreed upon truths like "mud is indigestible" and "mud can contain things that can harm you".
"Red light means stop" is obviously a social convention. There's nothing inherent about red light that means stop, it's just a visual language that's become somewhat ubiquitous.
"Human life is a precious thing" is the most abstract of the three. It's usually treated as a basic axiom that doesn't need any further justification. The question isn't really "is it true" but "why do we treat it as if it were true". If you look closely the seams become apparent: what is life, what is a human, what follows from something being precious, etc.
The three aren't really three examples of a kind but three different examples of different kinds of truths we generally believe "because we were told so".
"You shouldn't eat mud" actually felt like a bad example because it follows from some other widely agreed upon truths like "mud is indigestible" and "mud can contain things that can harm you".
Being indigestible or possibly containing things that can harm you do not mean that you shouldn't eat mud. They mean that eating mud might hurt you, which is not the same at all. If anything it's a bad example because it overlaps with the assumption that human life is precious.
Being indigestible or possibly containing things that can harm you do not mean that you shouldn't eat mud. They mean that eating mud might hurt you, which is not the same at all. If anything it's a bad example because it overlaps with the assumption that human life is precious.
Is there any utility in eating mud?
I think this is where most surviving philosophies and actions are based on. People who waste time on unproductive activities have lower fitness.
I think this is where most surviving philosophies and actions are based on. People who waste time on unproductive activities have lower fitness.
"Is there any utility in eating mud?"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geophagia
TL;DR: It may be a source of minerals and (possibly) vitamin B-12. There are also some risks to go along with the benefits.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geophagia
TL;DR: It may be a source of minerals and (possibly) vitamin B-12. There are also some risks to go along with the benefits.
I actually took exception on the red light example. Of course, it's conventional that the red light means "stop"; but it's a measurable fact that the convention exists. And those who tell you that red means stop don't mean it as a universal rule- they'd be be perfectly fine if there were a country where red and green meaning are inverted.
Whereas value of human life? As a prescriptive norm, it is certainly enforced in many countries. But as a universal truth? Poorly defined, highly questionable, totally subjective.
Whereas value of human life? As a prescriptive norm, it is certainly enforced in many countries. But as a universal truth? Poorly defined, highly questionable, totally subjective.
You can still have observable facts that are social constructions. The key is that without human values, those observable facts would disappear. So for example, we assume that dinosaur fossils would still exist even if humans had never walked the earth, that our sun will turn into a red giant and then a white dwarf long after we can no longer observe it, and that all matter is made out of atoms even if those atoms don't form humans. (Ignore "if a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it..." arguments for the moment.) These are not socially constructed. But gender roles, for example, are very much observable and very much facts of life, yet gender is still considered a social construct. Money is a very necessary part of life and if you ignore it you won't have a happy one, but money is also a social construct. If all humans disappeared, these facts would cease to have any coherent meaning.
> But gender roles, for example, are very much observable and very much facts of life, yet gender is still considered a social construct.
By some. IMHO, there's a lot of effort going on in believing and making believe that gender roles are social constructs in spite of all the evidence (evidence, not necessarily proof) of the contrary.
Money is equivalent to red traffic lights. Its value is conventional, but the convention itself is objective. Ignore it at your peril (you'll be run over by somebody).
If all humans disappeared, the existence of both gender roles (be them social or innate or, as very probable, a mix of the two) and money would still be as objective as dinosaur fossils are today. Our faith in the preciousness of human life would be on the same level (a fossil). The actual preciousness of human life, as a universal fact in itself, never existed in the first place.
By some. IMHO, there's a lot of effort going on in believing and making believe that gender roles are social constructs in spite of all the evidence (evidence, not necessarily proof) of the contrary.
Money is equivalent to red traffic lights. Its value is conventional, but the convention itself is objective. Ignore it at your peril (you'll be run over by somebody).
If all humans disappeared, the existence of both gender roles (be them social or innate or, as very probable, a mix of the two) and money would still be as objective as dinosaur fossils are today. Our faith in the preciousness of human life would be on the same level (a fossil). The actual preciousness of human life, as a universal fact in itself, never existed in the first place.
Given the subjective nature of the statement I do not find it particularly disturbing to consider it may not be objectively true. Additionally, I disagree with the implication that because a conclusion is not reached through logic it is not objectively true. For one, there may still exist a logical argument whether I have made that argument or not. For another there is no guarantee that logic leads always to truth or that truth can only be found with logic. (Although I do find those two ideas rather disturbing...)
I also found it extremely disturbing. If you are interested in a much deeper exploration of this, you might be interested in the book Sapiens, especially the part on human rights.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ICN066A/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ICN066A/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...
How would you prove with logic that human life is precious? I agree that it is precious, but I'm not sure how I'd prove it.
How about: Human life is the most advanced creation of evolution; the pinnacle of billions of years of evolution. No other life is as advanced. Therefore, human life is precious.
(I don't love the wording. But the idea is that, just as the greatest painting of a famous artist is precious, likewise the greatest production of evolution is precious. Not air tight, but maybe a start).
(I don't love the wording. But the idea is that, just as the greatest painting of a famous artist is precious, likewise the greatest production of evolution is precious. Not air tight, but maybe a start).
Good attempt, so I'll try to counter it, just to be argumentative.
As far as I know, the human body is no more complicated than most mammals. However, the human brain does appear to be unique in its capabilities.
So for human life to be precious, does it need to have a fully-functioning brain? Would that make the life of someone with severe learning difficulties, or even someone in a permanently vegetative state, less precious?
As far as I know, the human body is no more complicated than most mammals. However, the human brain does appear to be unique in its capabilities.
So for human life to be precious, does it need to have a fully-functioning brain? Would that make the life of someone with severe learning difficulties, or even someone in a permanently vegetative state, less precious?
Human life is precious because your own life is. Basic reciprocity.
Warfare and dealing pain is about dehumanizing. Now those are constructed much harder to defend.
Warfare and dealing pain is about dehumanizing. Now those are constructed much harder to defend.
What if I don't consider my own life to be precious?
If you really do not believe that, by your own logic you should never defend yourself or kill anyone. Because if you're not precious to yourself, others might be worth more.
Otherwise you presume either hard equality between everyone (easy to rebuke) and/or omniscience.
Or you revert to consequentialist ethic where only consequences matter. (Not essentialist.) From that place, going from basic utilitarian ethics you can show what sort of value certain human lives had.
Otherwise you presume either hard equality between everyone (easy to rebuke) and/or omniscience.
Or you revert to consequentialist ethic where only consequences matter. (Not essentialist.) From that place, going from basic utilitarian ethics you can show what sort of value certain human lives had.
I don't think it logically follows that you should not kill anyone if you do not believe your own life to be precious.
For example, someone in a truly blind rage might go ahead and recklessly kill someone with complete and total disregard for his own life. While observing this act we might say that he does not believe his life to be precious because he acts as if it's not, yet he can nevertheless still be fighting and killing someone because he's driven by dark emotions.
For example, someone in a truly blind rage might go ahead and recklessly kill someone with complete and total disregard for his own life. While observing this act we might say that he does not believe his life to be precious because he acts as if it's not, yet he can nevertheless still be fighting and killing someone because he's driven by dark emotions.
How do you define precious? Would it be logically consistent to say "I'd like to stay alive, but I don't think I'm precious"?
I used the dictionary definition of "has high worth". The cutoff is indeed not defined.
However, the logic should be consistent for any bounded cutoff.
You could construct a system where everyone with lower than given value is subjected to some action. Given your (or societal) bounded knowledge you then cannot generalise because you are not omniscient. This means you get to evaluate everyone on their terms. This view is incompatible with stereotypes.
Alternatively you just assign values by axiom, which will likely end up with a big and likely inconsistent philosophy, unreliable guide.
Indeed egoism like this is a valid strategy but not an optimal one in absolute terms. (Tit for tat is stable instead over time.) A philosophy or strategy should be viable in the presence of a mixture of them.
However, the logic should be consistent for any bounded cutoff.
You could construct a system where everyone with lower than given value is subjected to some action. Given your (or societal) bounded knowledge you then cannot generalise because you are not omniscient. This means you get to evaluate everyone on their terms. This view is incompatible with stereotypes.
Alternatively you just assign values by axiom, which will likely end up with a big and likely inconsistent philosophy, unreliable guide.
Indeed egoism like this is a valid strategy but not an optimal one in absolute terms. (Tit for tat is stable instead over time.) A philosophy or strategy should be viable in the presence of a mixture of them.
> If you really do not believe that, by your own logic you should never defend yourself or kill anyone. Because if you're not precious to yourself, others might be worth more.
Survival instinct is powerful, it doesn't necessarily follow that exercising it means that you consider your own life precious.
Survival instinct is powerful, it doesn't necessarily follow that exercising it means that you consider your own life precious.
You've chosen to raise complexity or "advancement" (snort) as the value pinnacle, but that's just your chosen value system. Any other metric could be just as true and consequently just as false.
If you have a red cube and a blue cube and a green cube, only one of the cubes is red. It is the reddest cube. Does being the most red make it precious? Is the blue cube precious because it is the most blue? The green cube? If you have a million cubes of all different hues, is each and every one precious because it is the most its-hue of all of the cubes? If each of the cubes is only mostly a cube, but actually deviates from being a cube in some way, is each one precious for being the most its-shape? But this one is the most pumpkin and the most missing-some-atoms-right-there! Ok, great. So what? So now everything is precious, because everything is the most of something? Let's congratulate ourselves and sing along with Monty Python, "Eeevery sperm is saaaacred....".
Or maybe being the most of something doesn't objectively carry any inherent value other than what we decide to put into it.
If you have a red cube and a blue cube and a green cube, only one of the cubes is red. It is the reddest cube. Does being the most red make it precious? Is the blue cube precious because it is the most blue? The green cube? If you have a million cubes of all different hues, is each and every one precious because it is the most its-hue of all of the cubes? If each of the cubes is only mostly a cube, but actually deviates from being a cube in some way, is each one precious for being the most its-shape? But this one is the most pumpkin and the most missing-some-atoms-right-there! Ok, great. So what? So now everything is precious, because everything is the most of something? Let's congratulate ourselves and sing along with Monty Python, "Eeevery sperm is saaaacred....".
Or maybe being the most of something doesn't objectively carry any inherent value other than what we decide to put into it.
The thing I was trying most to emphasize was rarity. All else being equal, it seems that scarcity usually increases the value of something (I pose tentatively).
The greenest cube is very rare. It's the only one of its kind. Same with the reddest, and the purplest, and the pumpkinest, and the cubest, and the ...
> Human life is the most advanced creation of evolution
Arguable. It depends on how you define advanced. There are many organisms that live longer, are more numerous and can survive in more extreme environments than humans. It is also conceivable that humans might completely destroy all habitable environments, which would certainly disqualify us from the subjective qualification of "pinnacle of evolution". More importantly however, evolution has no pinnacle or direction.
Even if we grant that humans are "the most advanced creation of evolution", it does not necessarily follow that this causes it to be inherently precious.
Arguable. It depends on how you define advanced. There are many organisms that live longer, are more numerous and can survive in more extreme environments than humans. It is also conceivable that humans might completely destroy all habitable environments, which would certainly disqualify us from the subjective qualification of "pinnacle of evolution". More importantly however, evolution has no pinnacle or direction.
Even if we grant that humans are "the most advanced creation of evolution", it does not necessarily follow that this causes it to be inherently precious.
From a strictly evolutionary point of view any other life, being our contemporary, is the pinnacle of the same billions of years of evolution and exactly as advanced as us. (Not that evolution is actually moving "forward", but it's fair to consider living organisms winners and extinct ones losers.)
To consider human life superior, we need less objective and more problematic criteria, e.g. claiming that we are special because we are sentient.
To consider human life superior, we need less objective and more problematic criteria, e.g. claiming that we are special because we are sentient.
> Human life is the most advanced creation of evolution; the pinnacle of billions of years of evolution. No other life is as advanced.
This is a biased view of evolution. All species today are "the pinnacle of billions of years of evolution". Humans are not especially advanced, at least not in evolutionary terms.
There may be some argument to make about humans being especially intelligent, or something like that, but it has little to do with evolution.
This is a biased view of evolution. All species today are "the pinnacle of billions of years of evolution". Humans are not especially advanced, at least not in evolutionary terms.
There may be some argument to make about humans being especially intelligent, or something like that, but it has little to do with evolution.
And, to be fair, humans might end up wiping each other out via chemical or nuclear weapons, while ferns and tardigrades and bugs survive, so maybe we might not be so advanced after all...
It follows from Christian theology (imago dei) but that's increasingly losing ground in the West. If we're just agglomerations of atoms why should I believe that all human agglomerations are equally precious?
Post-enlightenment philosophy holds that these are two different domains [1], and conflating them is a category error. You believe we're agglomerations of atoms because the experimental evidence makes this the most likely explanation.
You believe that human agglomerations are equally precious because you believe that human agglomerations are equally precious; no reason is needed, and indeed, no reason can logically be given.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact%E2%80%93value_distinction
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact%E2%80%93value_distinction
Instrumental values can have arguments for and against them. Only terminal values are "protected". I'm not sure that considering all people precious is a 100% terminal value, it seems at least partly a game-theoretic convention.
Self interest. You can't control other people, but you can participate and propagate (hence strengthen) social norms. Unless you believe you and the ones you care about will always be in power, it's good insurance to propagate the belief "all human agglomerations are equally precious". (Same exercise as "which world do you want to live in as a rational being")
> If we're just agglomerations of atoms why should I believe that all human agglomerations are equally precious?
If we're just agglomerations of atoms, why would any agglomeration of atoms, human or not, be precious at all?
If we're just agglomerations of atoms, why would any agglomeration of atoms, human or not, be precious at all?
Because patterns are neat.
(I mean that less flippantly than it reads.)
(I mean that less flippantly than it reads.)
For self-protection
Imago Dei is basically "I am precious because I am precious to God (as is all life, especially humans)". I could also say that I am precious because I am precious to my parents.
My first thought was the exceptions. And so yes, you can't say "Human life is worthless." But if you look around, there's plenty of evidence that, in fact, it sometimes is. For people who value something else more. Such as victory, profit, or whatever. There's also the issue that in-group lives tend to matter far more, by orders of magnitude, than out-group lives. I've seen quotes from famous people using 10^3 or more.
I also think it's an excellent example. If this belief were based on logic we'd have nothing to discuss re abortion, murder, execution, genocide or euthanasia.
For fun, you can compare it to the belief "Gold is a precious thing" and ask how often people destroy (not spend) gold, compared to how often they destroy human life.
For fun, you can compare it to the belief "Gold is a precious thing" and ask how often people destroy (not spend) gold, compared to how often they destroy human life.
In his "History of Western Philosophy" Bertrand Russell writes about the non-humanist philosophy of Nietzsche that it is consistent but it does not describe the kind of world he would like to live in. So I think that humanism is a matter of social agreement.
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How so? I'm pretty sure Syrians had to unlearn that long ago. Now that realisation is (literally) coming here.
Why should it be disturbing?
Being precious is a relationship between two entities, where one of the two must be sentient. Considering the phrasing "Human life is a precious thing", my assumption is that the reader (or myself) is the one who perceive human life as precious.
To one self the only precious life is your own. This is baked in all of us by default, our genes make us value life. But what's the value of other people's lives?
We can evaluate other people's lives value with the benefits they bring us. Therefore, the people closer to us will have more values - because the influence our reality. What they do and how they interact with us also influence their value. If you were to save someone for a fire, you would probably give more value to your son than some stranger.
This maps to reality quite well - just think about how shocked are people for accidents happening in their own hometown and how little they care for people dying in a far away country.
It's obvious that people close to use will be worth much more - but let's assume we want to get more granularity on strangers. How can we evaluate human life which is not related to us? We can rank them by the value they bring to society, as that value is something you're going to benefit from as well. Let's say you're about to run over some people with a car and you can't avoid this scenario. You can just pick which ones to kill. Would you prefer running over a man or a fat man? A man or a woman? A man or a kid? A man or an old man? I won't get into considerations but you can think in term of cost for the society (pensions vs taxes vs health), the ability to procreate, the ability to benefit from more advanced education in the future.
But let's try to take a step further, let's say we want to employ people to solve a task. Let's become a business. Their value can be seen entirely related to how well they can solve this task.
My view is that we're just really advanced machines without any will or possibility to stray from our predefined path. Genes are our codebase, the environment we live in is our continuos input, our actions are a continuos output which feed into the environment itself - feeding back in our input.
We're just really complex processes running. When somebody dies is just like a process who was accomplishing some work that won't continue anymore. What could have that process done? If we had a state of all the particles (or strings, or whatever your smallest unit is) in the universe, we could theoretically calculate all the possible states, maybe changing the conditions which could have brought our process to die, calculating what it could have achieved.
Creating machines as advanced as ourselves is just a matter of time and technological advancement. Once we are able to create trained life at will and in a faster timespan (because everybody can do that in 9 months + 30 years of training), the value of life itself would dramatically decrease. Let's call them robots.
Why should I bother hiring free people when I can just create and kill some robots? And as an extension, why should I be able to kill robots but not people? What even is the difference at this point?
This would essentially bring the value of all the people we don't care about to whatever the cost of creating an equivalent skilled robot is. Which, given robots can create value themselves, is probably going to quickly get to zero and crash the entire economy. It would be like having slavery with infinite slaves.
Is human life a precious thing? Yes. For now.
Being precious is a relationship between two entities, where one of the two must be sentient. Considering the phrasing "Human life is a precious thing", my assumption is that the reader (or myself) is the one who perceive human life as precious.
To one self the only precious life is your own. This is baked in all of us by default, our genes make us value life. But what's the value of other people's lives?
We can evaluate other people's lives value with the benefits they bring us. Therefore, the people closer to us will have more values - because the influence our reality. What they do and how they interact with us also influence their value. If you were to save someone for a fire, you would probably give more value to your son than some stranger.
This maps to reality quite well - just think about how shocked are people for accidents happening in their own hometown and how little they care for people dying in a far away country.
It's obvious that people close to use will be worth much more - but let's assume we want to get more granularity on strangers. How can we evaluate human life which is not related to us? We can rank them by the value they bring to society, as that value is something you're going to benefit from as well. Let's say you're about to run over some people with a car and you can't avoid this scenario. You can just pick which ones to kill. Would you prefer running over a man or a fat man? A man or a woman? A man or a kid? A man or an old man? I won't get into considerations but you can think in term of cost for the society (pensions vs taxes vs health), the ability to procreate, the ability to benefit from more advanced education in the future.
But let's try to take a step further, let's say we want to employ people to solve a task. Let's become a business. Their value can be seen entirely related to how well they can solve this task.
My view is that we're just really advanced machines without any will or possibility to stray from our predefined path. Genes are our codebase, the environment we live in is our continuos input, our actions are a continuos output which feed into the environment itself - feeding back in our input.
We're just really complex processes running. When somebody dies is just like a process who was accomplishing some work that won't continue anymore. What could have that process done? If we had a state of all the particles (or strings, or whatever your smallest unit is) in the universe, we could theoretically calculate all the possible states, maybe changing the conditions which could have brought our process to die, calculating what it could have achieved.
Creating machines as advanced as ourselves is just a matter of time and technological advancement. Once we are able to create trained life at will and in a faster timespan (because everybody can do that in 9 months + 30 years of training), the value of life itself would dramatically decrease. Let's call them robots.
Why should I bother hiring free people when I can just create and kill some robots? And as an extension, why should I be able to kill robots but not people? What even is the difference at this point?
This would essentially bring the value of all the people we don't care about to whatever the cost of creating an equivalent skilled robot is. Which, given robots can create value themselves, is probably going to quickly get to zero and crash the entire economy. It would be like having slavery with infinite slaves.
Is human life a precious thing? Yes. For now.
You should do a blog/tumblr of "startup advice successful founders can't publicly share" and give founders you know an anonymous way to contribute.
This is a logically incoherent blog post. You go from one point to another without any logical causation. It's literally ramblings about what you believe but you don't bother to make the case for it except with the most glib of arguments.
Sure whiteboard interviews are hated by everyone and maybe they aren't so terrible, but I think there's better alternatives than "just chatting about their past".
How about a coding exercise to take home?
How about a coding exercise to take home?
> But in practice there are a zillion things you believe not because of logic, but because other people told you to.
> Red lights mean stop
The author ignores second-order effects. Red lights meaning stop is arbitrary, but I believe that I should stop at red lights not because I accept the arbitrary assignment, but because of the objective fact that if I don't I'll eventually end up in hospital.
> The most successful companies all use whiteboard interviews
The most successful companies all use bank accounts with million dollar balances. One shouldn't confuse cause and effect.
I've worked for a few (arguably) successful companies, and I'm firmly of the opinion that they are almost invariably pathologically averse to risk and unwilling to experiment with new ways of doing things, especially when those ways aren't used by their competitors.
Conversely, every such company seems to believe that their competitors are doing rigorous scientific analysis of business methods and so if their competitors are all using whiteboard interviews "there must be something in it".
> The most successful companies all use whiteboard interviews
Do Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon or Facebook owe their success to the quality of their developers, though? I would suggest that they do not. They may be relying on the wrong signals when hiring developers, not hiring the best, but still succeeding due to other factors.
Heck, Google made a new programming language designed to make it hard to confuse mediocre programmers. That tells me something about the average skill of their developers.
> The most successful companies all use whiteboard interviews
The most successful companies also have lots and lots of applicants.
Even if whiteboard interviews meant you automatically fail 50% of candidates because they're no good at them, that's not such a major problem if there are 100 candidates for each job. If ten of the candidates are top-class, you still have five of them left after half of them flunk the whiteboard.
OTOH, if you have 10 candidates, the likelihood increases that the actually superior candidate will be the one that flunks.
The author ignores second-order effects. Red lights meaning stop is arbitrary, but I believe that I should stop at red lights not because I accept the arbitrary assignment, but because of the objective fact that if I don't I'll eventually end up in hospital.
> The most successful companies all use whiteboard interviews
The most successful companies all use bank accounts with million dollar balances. One shouldn't confuse cause and effect.
I've worked for a few (arguably) successful companies, and I'm firmly of the opinion that they are almost invariably pathologically averse to risk and unwilling to experiment with new ways of doing things, especially when those ways aren't used by their competitors.
Conversely, every such company seems to believe that their competitors are doing rigorous scientific analysis of business methods and so if their competitors are all using whiteboard interviews "there must be something in it".
> The most successful companies all use whiteboard interviews
Do Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon or Facebook owe their success to the quality of their developers, though? I would suggest that they do not. They may be relying on the wrong signals when hiring developers, not hiring the best, but still succeeding due to other factors.
Heck, Google made a new programming language designed to make it hard to confuse mediocre programmers. That tells me something about the average skill of their developers.
> The most successful companies all use whiteboard interviews
The most successful companies also have lots and lots of applicants.
Even if whiteboard interviews meant you automatically fail 50% of candidates because they're no good at them, that's not such a major problem if there are 100 candidates for each job. If ten of the candidates are top-class, you still have five of them left after half of them flunk the whiteboard.
OTOH, if you have 10 candidates, the likelihood increases that the actually superior candidate will be the one that flunks.
About to offer my own personal HN heresy, after reading the original Paul Graham article: in reading many of his essays, am I the only person who gets the impression that the author has a major superiority complex about his own intelligence? Something about the tone, and sometimes the examples he chooses throughout his essays.
The beginning of this article is interesting. If I was from the distant future, maybe I'd ask these questions followed by the answers I'm expecting from 2017:
Q: Why are people still working? A: You need to work to live.
Q: Why do men and women appear so different? A: They are biologically very different.
Q: Why are people trying to increase, rather than decrease, the amount of jobs to be done by humans? A: Idiot, clearly we need more jobs, otherwise everyone will be poor!
Q: Why are people waiting for signs and lights in metal cages with wheels? A: Those wheels in metal cages are one of our most prolific forms of transportation right now.
Q: Why are people eating other animals? A: Who doesn't, meat is tasty!
Q: Why do people have different skin color? A: You are racist.
Q: Why are some people so round? A: Are you making fun of fat people?
Q: Why are some people in a rolling chair all of the time? A: Some people are born with disabilities or break bones.
Q: Why are people still cutting other people open to fix them? A: How else do you stop internal bleeding and remove tumors?
Q: Why do 51 people decide what happens to 100 people instead of 1 person deciding what happens to 1 person? A: Ever heard of democracy, (unfortunately) the most fair system ever created to date by our founding fathers (who also owned tons of human slaves)?
Q: What is a border and how come I can't see it? A: Ever heard of the nation state? You're already subject to it just by being here. Didn't anyone tell you that?
Q: Why do people get thrown in cages for misbehaving? A: What else would we do with misfits and dangerous people?
Q: Why are people still working? A: You need to work to live.
Q: Why do men and women appear so different? A: They are biologically very different.
Q: Why are people trying to increase, rather than decrease, the amount of jobs to be done by humans? A: Idiot, clearly we need more jobs, otherwise everyone will be poor!
Q: Why are people waiting for signs and lights in metal cages with wheels? A: Those wheels in metal cages are one of our most prolific forms of transportation right now.
Q: Why are people eating other animals? A: Who doesn't, meat is tasty!
Q: Why do people have different skin color? A: You are racist.
Q: Why are some people so round? A: Are you making fun of fat people?
Q: Why are some people in a rolling chair all of the time? A: Some people are born with disabilities or break bones.
Q: Why are people still cutting other people open to fix them? A: How else do you stop internal bleeding and remove tumors?
Q: Why do 51 people decide what happens to 100 people instead of 1 person deciding what happens to 1 person? A: Ever heard of democracy, (unfortunately) the most fair system ever created to date by our founding fathers (who also owned tons of human slaves)?
Q: What is a border and how come I can't see it? A: Ever heard of the nation state? You're already subject to it just by being here. Didn't anyone tell you that?
Q: Why do people get thrown in cages for misbehaving? A: What else would we do with misfits and dangerous people?
Putting in hypothetical answers displays your biases. Better to collect questions and accept that reality is complicated enough that simple answers do not work in general and often on average too.
The founding fathers did not create democracy
Q: Why are so many people starving while a minority is endangering their lives by eating too much?
Q: Why are places that manufacture most things poor rather than rich?
Q: Why are so many humans dying all the time?
Q: Why are places that manufacture most things poor rather than rich?
Q: Why are so many humans dying all the time?
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Since we're contributing taboos, here's my offering: Prolific commenters on Internet message boards tend to be less professionally capable and not more. High HN karma is evidence of poorer impulse control and time management, and most importantly, less time spent on the day job. For each person who is a prolific commenter, an identically appearing person who comments less is likely to be the better source of knowledge. Equally importantly, the perspective of these people is hopelessly skewed by the community they're in.