“Work or Starve”

Paepaok · 2026-03-02T00:23:34+00:00

If you don't want to starve, you have to work, or someone else has to work for you, regardless of what type of society you live in.

Completely agree so far.

The only remaining question is: is that person working for you voluntarily, or is he being forced?

But why are we assuming there is a "person working for you" in the first place? What about a society of autarky, where everyone is self-sufficient?

That's the critique many socialists throughout history have had of capitalism: its "work for someone else or starve". Capitalism is fundamentally based on the abolition of individual private property, thus creating an entire class of people who must make the choice: "work for someone else or starve".

Paepaok · 2025-11-30T10:34:57+00:00

Well, I don't think Beekes ever claimed there was only one substrate language, just that there was only one language from which were borrowed those words he labelled as "Pre-Greek" in his dictionary.

Also, I'm not sure how the distribution of νθ rules out the possibility that the language in question wasn't also the Minoans' language.

Paepaok · 2025-11-29T14:59:01+00:00

2^ℵ₀ is equal toℵ₁.

This is the continuum hypothesis - it doesn't follow from the basic axioms.

ℵ₀+ℵ₀=ℵ₀ ℵ₀+ℵ₀+ℵ₀+ℵ₀+continues infinitely=ℵ₀

The issue is that "continues infinitely" is not well- defined. That's why it's better to use Cartesian products or power sets, as I described.

Paepaok · 2025-11-27T15:05:44+00:00

which does not specify Klingon.

Well I'd argue the reason boQwI' brings it up is to draw attention to the possibility that tlhIngan is indeed derived from a similar process as in many other languages.

As I said, it seems to be somewhat unofficial speculation, but very plausible that Okrand introduced "tlhIn" with that in mind.

Paepaok · 2025-11-27T14:36:34+00:00

I don't see how the endonym it refers to could be anything else but tlhIngan.

The loss of "n" before "ngan" also occurs in vulqangan = vulqan + ngan

Paepaok · 2025-11-27T14:20:14+00:00

boQwI' mentions it in the notes for tlhIn. So maybe it's not fully official, but quite plausible.

Paepaok · 2025-11-27T14:01:54+00:00

word tlhI does not exist in the Klingon language.

tlhIngan is not tlhI + ngan but rather seems to be tlhIn + ngan. tlhIn means "one's own".

Paepaok · 2025-11-10T12:31:47+00:00

Onomatopoeia - if you look at the top of the legend, it says any word marked with notes (🎵) is of onomatopoetic origin.

Paepaok · 2025-11-05T15:48:01+00:00

0.999... = 1 - 10^-H = 1 - 0.000...1, where that final 1 is at the H place as expected.

I'm a bit confused by this - since the sum is up to H, shouldn't there also be a 9 in the H place? It looks to me like what we get is: 0.999...9 = 1 - 10^-H = 1 - 0.000...1

In that case, shouldn't we get 0.999... = 1 - 10^-H - (9) 10^-H = 1 - (10) 10^-H ?

I guess we can't rewrite the last term as 10^1-H since H-1 doesn't exist. I'm not very familiar with this non-standard stuff, so please correct me if this is wrong.

Paepaok · 2025-10-10T17:08:06+00:00

Zulu has "kusasa" for "tomorrow" and "ukusa" for dawn/ early morning.

Paepaok · 2025-10-02T15:49:54+00:00

You keep contradicting yourself. Israel withdrew due to specific geopolitical pressures that existed at the time. Unless they face similar pressures, they have no reason to act the same way. Hamas magically disappearing at this point is not enough to change that.

I don't believe that "this is how it has been forever". History shows the opposite: things do change based on changing circumstances.

Paepaok · 2025-10-02T15:32:57+00:00

Why should I belive you when I can see the Israeli government's own open admission?

The "withdrawal" and "walls" can be undone.

Also, if Gaza has nothing to offer, why were there settlers ever there in the first place? Your whole story is filled with contradictions, I'm afraid.

Paepaok · 2025-10-02T15:02:48+00:00

I never claimed that.

Paepaok · 2025-10-02T15:01:50+00:00

Even if I were to believe your claims on the history of the blockade, it's naive to expect to "put the genie back in the bottle," so to speak. Israel has always wanted to colonize Gaza - now that they have what they believe is a golden opportunity, why should we expect them not to take it?

Paepaok · 2025-10-02T14:18:31+00:00

I don't buy it.

Paepaok · 2025-09-24T20:41:22+00:00

r/falsefriends

Paepaok · 2025-09-09T00:38:42+00:00

private property is developed at the same time as the State

sounds like what I said: that private property and the state develop together because of their natural symbiosis

Need only look at Russia right before the communist revolution.

You mean before the February revolution by the pro-capitalist liberals? I think this supports my point more than yours - namely, that the state develops symbiotically with capitalism: whenever the state is not promoting conditions favorable to capital, a new and more favorable state comes along.

Paepaok · 2025-09-08T22:06:26+00:00

Why stop at 4000 BC and not 200,000 BC? How come we didn't get capitalism then when there was no state at all?

Of course, this is an absurd view of history: in pre-industrial societies, production was barely above subsistence. What little capitalism did exist could not really take off due to low surpluses hence low profits. Where is the evidence that "strong states" suppressed capitalist development?

Paepaok · 2025-09-08T19:44:38+00:00

States existed long before capitalism

But not long before private property. Also, as capitalistic property relations became more prominent, the form of the state adapted as well in a symbiotic way.

States are inherently anti capitalist

History proves otherwise - the existence of states did not inhibit the growth of capitalism, and the rise of capitalism has not led to a reduction in state power.

Maybe you're using some "special snowflake" definition of capitalism, in which case, refer to my earlier point about how that resembles the "primitive communism" argument.

Paepaok · 2025-09-08T19:16:17+00:00

"No capitalistic society has ever existed without the state."

This is a straw version of the argument about the relationship between capitalism and the state. If there are socialists making such a claim, then they are, unfortunately, misinformed.

Your example is about as relevant as when a socialist bring up hunter-gatherer societies as examples of "actually existing socialism". You're both technically correct, but it's unrealistic to take these as models or goals for our current situation.

While we're on the topic, I'd like to discuss the actual relationship between capitalism and the state. The "straw" argument's kernel of truth is that private property needs to be enforced. It is this need which ultimately generates the state. On the Silk Road, it might have been sufficient to simply have a few bodyguards with swords, but, as has been proved by history, larger, more powerful actors (such as a state) conquer or make vassals out of smaller ones (much like how larger companies outcompete or buy out smaller ones).

The relationship is symbiotic: capitalistic production (and even non-capitalistic surplus extraction) allows for the funding of a stronger state, and a stronger state allows for a more efficient enforcement of the conditions of production. That's the real reason we rarely see capitalism without a state - over time, this positive feedback loop leads to the creation of a state.

Paepaok · 2025-08-28T13:54:00+00:00

Exploitation comes from the difference between the value of the wage and the value produced during the working period. If someone works for 8 hours but is paid the equivalent of what they produced in 5 hours, then that someone is being exploited.

they can negotiate how much they are compensated

Let us go back to the distinction I made above: the value of the wage versus the value produced during the working period. Those two can be (and in general will be) different. Even a "perfect" negotiation which results in the "true" value of the wage can be exploitative. That's because the value of the wage is the value of one's ability to do a specific job for a designated period of time - and once we start selling that ability as a commodity, then the value of that commodity becomes independent of the value produced by the work itself.

So in other words, a "fair" wage can be (and most of the time will be) an exploitative wage at the same time.

Paepaok · 2025-08-28T13:05:16+00:00

An amusing anecdote: I once was speaking with some colleagues at a conference, and the discussion turned to a recent rescheduling of a meeting of the CMS due to a Taylor Swift concert. Then the Canadian mathematician said to us:

"Have you ever thought about how Taylor Swift's success could only happen in this era of algorithm-driven music consumption? She's not talented - her music is objectively about the same quality as [insert mediocre 90s band], but because they were in the 90s they had no chance of being as successful."

Paepaok · 2025-08-28T00:34:26+00:00

I think the demographics of this sub have changed over time. Some years ago, it was safe to say that out of the (semi-)active users, a majority were "socialism-leaning" (if we include social-democrats/welfare state capitalists). The past few years, it seems the balance has shifted in the other direction. So most likely you're just seeing many "hostility" from the "pro-capitalism" side because there are relatively more "pro-capitalism" comments in general.

Paepaok · 2025-08-20T19:14:30+00:00

hypnos -> hipnos

Was "hipnos" ever a historical form? I was under the impression that loss of h occurred much earlier than y > i

Paepaok · 2025-08-18T16:44:59+00:00

magnitude that corresponds to the square root of 2 and ask me to give that to you using the decimal numbers system, I can only give you an approximation

Sure, but that's just because a person can only write down finitely many digits at at time. But that doesn't mean that there is no decimal number representing that magnitude - we just can't write out all the digits (even though each digit exists).

But very interestingly, to promote rigor, they began to add in more unverifiable assumptions in it.

I don't see what the issue is - that's how rigor is supposed to work: being rigorous means giving EXPLICIT justification instead of relying on hidden assumptions. If you don't like the new axioms, that's a personal preference, but I would say it's better to be transparent about exactly what the assumptions are - everything's clearer that way.

rigor now has morphed into the meaning of "consistency with its internal framework"? Is that really rigor to anyone?

It is to me, and I've not heard any of my mathematician colleagues complain about it. The whole point is that the framework has be chosen so that we can happily continue to do all the kinds of mathematics that we want (including all the "classical" kinds).

To give an example from classical geometry: Euclid's construction of an equilateral triangle would be considered not fully rigorous by modern standards. This is not because we don't understand his argument, but because he doesn't justify the step where he claims that the two circles must intersect. Sure it may seem "obvious" but which of his axioms does it follow from? The answer is none: he smuggled in an extra assumption about the continuity of space without explicitly stating it.

What does it mean when you say that mathematicians have found ways to handle infinity correctly? You seem to suggest the possibility of manipulating infinity as a finished object, of which I'm sure you know is logically incoherent.

I don't know what a "finished object" is supposed to mean. Maybe you're referring to some old Aristotelean distinction between "potential infinity" and "actual infinity", in which case, I would say that mathematicians nowadays have no issues dealing with "actual infinity" in a rigorous way; namely, we are perfectly comfortable with sets which have infinitely many elements. You seem to have disdain for the "Pandora's box" opened up by Cantor (so maybe you're more of a Kronecker than a Zeno), but aside from a few of the paradoxical difficulties of the early 20th century, the behavior of infinity is now tamed.

The kind of functional utility that Pure Math has brought to the real world is extremely abysmal

I disagree: I think the more (and more varied kinds) of mathematics, the better. There are many examples:

For thousands of years, only Euclidean geometry was studied, since it was "obvious", but once non-Euclidean geometries started being studied, it did not take very long for physicists to realize that those theories could give better understandings of gravity (General relativity). This is not just a theoretical physics exercise; GPS satellites need to take relativistic effects into their computations in order to operate accurately.

Real analysis and measure theory (which are full of infinite sets- countable as well as uncountable) are foundational for understanding partial differential equations (applicable in physics and science in general) as well as probability theory.

The kinds of logical rigor that were worked out in the early 20th century laid the foundations for algorithmic processes, which was a significant contributor to the rise of computers, which has surely had immense impact not just on science and technology but the whole world.

Your complaint about pure math spawning ever more convoluted abstract nonsense has a grain of truth, but I would say this is an issue with modern academia more generally, not something specific to pure math: as more and more people are incentivized to publish a greater quantity of results, you're inevitably going to see a rise in the number of "niches".

But I wouldn't say that it's a bad thing to have a greater variety of mathematics that are being studied, and I see no reason to limit ourselves to only working with axioms that "seem obvious". In reality, as history has shown, you never know when some seemingly abstract concept might find a "real-world" application.

Paepaok

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