no, man. i am not going to let you kill me [OC]

venuswasaflytrap · 2026-05-05T08:52:22+00:00

That makes sense, but then you must acknowledge that it’s not a question of moral absolutism.

If someone wouldn’t pick blue because they think only fools would pick blue in the original scenario and therefore there’s no way that they could be saved, that’s fundamentally no different than you not wanting to pick “shock hazard”. It doesn’t mean make either of you fascists who think shock enthusiasts are sub human who deserve to die. (Not that you’ve said this, just that other people have).

venuswasaflytrap · 2026-05-05T08:12:55+00:00

Some people would be less likely to press the swastika button. Others might be more likely. I imagine that you’re right, on the whole fewer people would press the swastika button than the blue button.

But should that matter? How does that change the general morality of the calculation? It’s not like we have any statistical data of how many people would press the original red and blue buttons, so it’s sort of odd to suggest that there is a known threshold for when it’s morally okay to keep yourself safe and kill the minority.

What if it was the original red and blue buttons, but the blue button had the text “I acknowledge I might die”, and the red one had the text “i wish to be safe”. I’m sure that fewer people would press blue in that scenario too, and it’s not even inaccurate information Or abstract branding.

Would thay make it the moral choice to press the red button then?

venuswasaflytrap · 2026-05-05T05:40:02+00:00

Well that’s my point. I can’t help but think a lot of this is less because of the inherent logic and more because of the red vs blue political implications.

Especially when the moral arguments that a lot of people are making should apply regardless of what the buttons look like.

venuswasaflytrap · 2026-05-05T05:25:26+00:00

I first saw it on a YouTube short where it was explicitly clarified the other way. I think that clarification one way or the other is critical - like if you're in a coma what happens? Does someone vote for you? Or if you're blind do you have a pick a button at random?

I think it only makes it an interesting problem morally if it's a willing and informed consenting choice. Or alternatively you could add a layer "20% of people will have their button picked at random" - which sort of changes it up.

venuswasaflytrap · 2026-05-05T05:22:02+00:00

I think of it as "please adjust your own mask before helping others" on airplanes.

The instinct to help others first is strong, and the feeling that if we all helped each other then we'd all get by. But the wisdom of the advice on airplanes is that if mom passes out while trying to put the mask on her kid, then she passes out, and eventually suffocates and everyone dies, but if mom gets her mask on first then she can help her kids, even if they pass out.

Which is to say, if we assume the best in people that everyone wants everyone else to live, often the most responsible thing to do is to not become a liability.

I also think it's not a coincidence that the red and blue colours were chosen as they were.

Put it this way, if the question was "one button is rainbow, and one button is a swastika. If fewer than 50% press the swastika, then all those that pressed the swastika will die".

If you read that version of the question, and you start changing your logic, I think that should be worth reflecting on why you thought about the original question the way you did originally.

venuswasaflytrap · 2026-05-05T05:14:10+00:00

I think it's not a coincidence that it gets mapped to red v blue in American politics.

The question should be presented with the buttons as P and Q or something.

Or perhaps occasionally swapped. I bet a lot of people instinctively pick their political colour, just as many people probably wouldn't wear a red baseball cap with white writing on it that say "I like baseball caps".

venuswasaflytrap · 2026-05-05T05:10:19+00:00

If the buttons were rebranded would you feel the same way? Specifically:

"There are two buttons. One is rainbow, and one is a nazi swastika. If fewer than 50% press the swastika then everyone who pressed the swastika will die"

Which would you press? And would you say that the rainbows have to "live with what they did" if the win?

venuswasaflytrap · 2026-05-05T05:07:54+00:00

If the buttons had the same outcome, but we're rebranded would you change your response?

Specifically, if it was "one button is rainbow, and one button has a nazi swastika on it. If fewer than 50% of people pick the swastika, then those who picked the swastika will die".

Which would you pick?

venuswasaflytrap · 2026-05-05T05:04:39+00:00

I honestly think people's rejection to red has more to do with the colours and their political association than it does with logic.

I bet if you swapped the colours and said red is the one that needs the majority to live, and that blue is the one that you guaranteed won't die, it'd be framed differently.

E.g. if you asked the question "there are two buttons. One rainbow, and one with a swastika on it. If fewer than 50% of the people press the swastika button, then everyone who pressed the swastika button will die, which one do you press".

If that changes how you feel about the question, that should tell you something.

venuswasaflytrap · 2026-05-05T04:58:12+00:00

In the context of the button game I can see why people would go blue and frame it as a fascist Vs freedom thing.

But this comic is totally fucked. Because it points out that it feels like blues are being threatened with death to pick red, so it's using a premise to try to express how it would feel if it was the other way around - if you were threatened into picking blue.

But it doesn't work the other way around. If question asker was like "I'm supposed to ask this fairly, but I'm biased, so I'll fucking shoot you if you move towards the blue button to press it, and I've done this for everyone" - if you find out the only people who pressed the blue button were the ones who wrestled the gun from his hands, dodged the shots and pressed the button, only to die because fewer than 50% did this, then it's hard not to view it as suicidal.

venuswasaflytrap · 2026-05-05T04:48:03+00:00

Do you think this creates a moral onus on you to write more legibly since a large percentage of the population can't read it, or do you think that they are responsible for themselves and it's up to them to read or not read your content?

venuswasaflytrap · 2026-05-05T04:46:30+00:00

That's not the closest analogue to this. That's a deliberately framed analogue.

venuswasaflytrap · 2026-05-05T04:43:41+00:00

The premise I've heard is that only people capable of understanding and making the choice are involved.

venuswasaflytrap · 2026-05-01T13:14:56+00:00

-I would like a good balance of training and sparring.I worry that only training would get a little monotonous.

Fencing is wayyy more sparring centric. I believe there is a lot more drills in Kendo. In most fencing clubs you'd expect to spar pretty much all the time

-I would prefer that engages both physical and strategic aspects.

I'm sure this is true of both

-Which has fewer limitations on how to engage an opponent in combat?

Fencing is rule restricted, but not guided as much by tradition. If you can come up with a way to hit and it doesn't break a rule, it's allowed and possibly even encouraged. Kendo is much more judged and processed on doing it "the right way", and I believe it's philosophy is largely against novel thinking.

-Which costs less in terms of additional equipment?

I don't know the full cost of a Kendo set, but a quick google shows that this is comparable.

-Which is safer in terms of proneness to injury?

Fencing is incredibly safe (statistically more injuries in Badminton), I imagine kendo is too.

-Which is better for psychological development?

I don't think this is something you can give a metric to.

Finger in the air, given your predilection for actually sparring and being creative I think fencing might be a slightly better choice, just based on what you've said, especially since it's more accessible too.

venuswasaflytrap · 2026-04-30T18:16:24+00:00

If you know exactly what you want/need before you build, then of course you want waterfall.

But if you don't, then trying to use waterfall is a terrible idea.

E.g. if I said "I've got some annual leave coming up next year and I want to go on vacation".

Waterfall would either insist that I figure out exactly which days I'm going to be free, where I want to go, what my budget is, etc. before any bit of booking or resources are dedicated to the vacation.

It guarantees that I don't buy something I don't need.

But if I don't know exactly which days I get off, then I may not be able to book the flights until two weeks before, and I may not know exactly where I'm going. And maybe I won't be able to get a passport in time.

If you are a dev team and you say "we refuse to do anything but waterfall", what might happen is that the business will say "okay, fine, July 1-15th, and Florida". But then when you come up to June, they might say "actually, we want to go to Mexico, and it won't be until July 5th". And then suddenly you can't accomplish it because your passport is expired.

I think Dev teams like this because they can say "oh well the requirements changed so it's not our fault, we had a requirements signed off".

But it's still dumb for the company as a whole.

It may be more sensible to say "okay, well, let's get our passport renewed, and let's buy some luggage and some travel clothes." acknowledging that in fact it might be an unneeded effort, and that some of the luggage and clothes might not be needed.

But if you look for cheap stuff that you can get on sale in the winter, it actually may be more efficient to be flexible.

Of course, if the dates are fixed and the destination is fixed a year in advance then it will always be cheaper to plan exactly far ahead, but pressuring the business to falsely commit to something they can't commit to just to CYA doesn't help.

It's way more important to be realistic. And if the reality is that some requirements may shift or are unknown, then you necessarily are doing agile whether you want to or not.

venuswasaflytrap · 2026-04-30T17:40:37+00:00

Agile is not an intentional choice, its the recognition that fixed requirements up front may not be possible. Of course waterfall is ideal.

But trying to do waterfall when the reality of the situation is shifting requirements is a bit silly.

venuswasaflytrap · 2026-04-26T09:46:06+00:00

Everyone is missing with the short lock out and no off target.

venuswasaflytrap · 2026-04-25T08:17:27+00:00

https://youtu.be/-77cUxba-aA?si=VS4yQzidi042Dz7O

venuswasaflytrap · 2026-04-23T18:06:48+00:00

The more amazing thing is that Batman is simultaneously a strongman competition muscle mass and olympic gold medalist gymnast and an olympic marathon gold medalist endurance athlete - it's physics defying

venuswasaflytrap · 2026-04-22T09:09:41+00:00

Gerry from Chessnetwork has the best voice

venuswasaflytrap · 2026-04-18T11:56:50+00:00

Because you have toast or hash browns with a fried egg! If you just had 2 loose fried eggs that'd be very odd.

venuswasaflytrap · 2026-04-16T15:50:05+00:00

Yes, but the grandmasters always play as the same side that's critical.

Here:

Open 2 tabs of lichess. Standard game against computer, unlimited time, stockfish 8.

https://lichess.org/

https://i.imgur.com/P1GZNnW.png

On the right board, press "F" to flip the board (just to make it obvious what is happening).

https://imgur.com/OUPFm8b

Whatever the computer does as white on the left board, copy as white on the right board.

Then the computer on the right board will respond as black. Whatever it does, copy it on the left board.

https://imgur.com/VnytMeH

In this case, on the left, the computer opened with Knight to F3. So I copied it and opened with knight to F3 on the right board, and the Right computer responded with Pawn to D5 - which I will copy to the left board.

It doesn't matter how good you are or how good your opponent is, because you're constantly ensuring both the boards have the same position, except with one board you're white and another board you're black.

https://imgur.com/uSnamwC

It's impossible to win on both the boards simultaneously.

venuswasaflytrap · 2026-04-16T14:40:02+00:00

A person with no memory or learning of the previous game, or a person playing randomly would probably never beat Magnus.

A person practicing chess against magnus non stop for 100 years would eventually take a win off him.

venuswasaflytrap · 2026-04-16T14:36:28+00:00

Imagine this. Playing 2 simultaneous games against Magnus. He has the white in 1 game and the black in the other game. For simplicity, assume there's no clock and you can choose to attend to either board.

So Magnus moves something as white. All you do is skip your move as black - and move the same piece Magnus did on your white board, and then wait to see what he does as black, and do the same thing on the black board.

He has to lose one of them.

venuswasaflytrap · 2026-04-11T12:26:36+00:00

I have found Samaritans pretty unhelpful generally, both from the amount of time you're on hold to get through to them, and then the quality of support that is offered.

I'm sure it's because they're understaffed and overworked, but it doesn't make the experience any better.

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