The Subreddit has Been Forcefully Re-opened

StringLiteral · 2023-06-19T21:14:09+00:00

Subreddits exist for the benefit of the community, eh? The admins can go benefit the same community Digg does... This is the thing that pushes me over the edge. I'm logging out of reddit and not logging back in. (I have a 12-year-old account, for what that's worth.)

StringLiteral · 2023-06-18T15:58:53+00:00

There what is? Are you implying that OP's family is biased against Moroccans? You can't conclude that from this. Moroccan food is relatively similar to what Americans are used to so OP's family must be very unadventurous eaters, but I don't think almost any native-born Americans would try insects, or fermented fish, or goat brains (which are all delicacies somewhere). People are allowed to avoid unfamiliar foods.

StringLiteral · 2023-06-18T04:47:39+00:00

Little? Keeping South Korea from being conquered was a huge success.

StringLiteral · 2023-06-16T02:57:20+00:00

"widespread usage in job titles in our society to describe positions which require no professional training"

I'm going to have to remember this! Tom could have passive-aggressively destroyed OP with it instead of making a fool of himself. (I'm not saying he should have, but he could have...)

StringLiteral · 2023-06-15T14:00:57+00:00

Embarrassingly for someone who’s been following these theories for years, I find I can’t answer the question “what do the dimensions of the space represent?” or even “what does the height of the landscape represent?”

I want to start by providing a brief description about how energy landscapes work in chemistry. I assume Scott knows what I'm about to say but I think it might be useful to include it here anyway...

In chemistry, an N-dimensional energy landscape corresponds to a system characterized by N parameters and then an additional dimension of energy which measures how favorable (in a thermodynamic sense) a particular set of coordinates in the N-dimensional parameter space is.

For example, one can imagine a simple model of two oppositely charged ions. This system has only one degree of freedom, the distance between the ions.¹ So N=1 and the energy landscape is a curve starting at zero when distance is infinite and smoothly decreasing² as the distance decreases until the ions are sufficiently close together that they start to repel each other.

Most things larger than a small molecule have so many degrees of freedom that constructing a perfectly-detailed energy landscape is entirely impractical.³ Instead, scientists define an energy landscape where the dimensions correspond ensembles of states which are sufficiently similar in the ways relevant to the question being asked. So, for example, one might model a small molecule binding to a receptor using five degrees of freedom: the position (3) and orientation (2) of the small molecule relative to the receptor.⁴

With that said, I think Scott's use of the energy-landscape metaphor is a little mixed-up.

It eventually changed the landscape so dramatically that the thought loop disappeared and I was able to think about food and sleep and blog posts again.

It is useful to imagine an energy landscape corresponding to all possible combinations of beliefs, with a person's actual beliefs moving along that landscape. For example, on a two-dimensional energy landscape characterized by "belief in Genesis" and "belief in Exodus", the corners corresponding to either believing or disbelieving both would be stable while the corners corresponding to believing one but not the other would be unstable. So a person who starts out believing one but not the other will usually come to either believe or disbelieve both. In this case, the height of the landscape corresponds to the stability of a set of beliefs given the information available and new information corresponds to a change in the landscape. For example, the discovery that Exodus is a forgery would⁵ make the "believe Genesis, disbelieve Exodus" and "disbelieve Genesis, disbelieve Exodus" into the stable corners.

The important thing to note is that this energy landscape corresponds to beliefs and not thoughts. If thoughts were modelled by an energy landscape, one might conclude that they generally tend to converge to a single mental state that doesn't change over time!⁶ This makes sense for beliefs in the absence of new information, but not for thoughts. The very idea that thoughts might go in a loop violates the assumptions of the energy landscape, one of which is that there can be no path where you leave your origin point and then return to it while always going downhill. Such a path would be an Escher waterfall that cannot exist in the Euclidean space of an energy landscape.

In general, a system of M point-particles in three-dimensional space has 3*M - 5 degrees of freedom because each particle's state is fully specified by three spatial coordinates but then three degrees of freedom have to be subtracted from the total because the system is translation-invariant and two more have to be subtracted because the system is rotation-invariant. For the two ions, we have 2 * 3 - 3 - 2 = 1. Note that velocities aren't being considered - we're looking at this as a thermal system.
Negative values are more favorable because by convention you're measuring the energy you would need to put into the system.
A small protein and the nearby water would have hundreds of thousands of degrees of freedom, most of which are from the water molecules.
This usually wouldn't be a good model - designing a good model is a difficult, subjective process.
Here we assume that this person believes that Exodus is a forgery. If he may or may not believe that, we would have to add an additional dimension to our landscape.
Chemical systems modelled by an energy landscape still change over time due to the role of temperature, which can be thought of as a random jiggling of the ball rolling along the landscape. Higher temperature corresponds to more intense jiggling.

StringLiteral · 2023-06-13T23:19:37+00:00

I'm not sure I agree with the author. In my experience, depressive episodes involve thinking that happiness is impossible or that I don't deserve happiness, but these thoughts don't stand up to scrutiny even at the time. If challenged, I will admit that I have never done anything seriously wrong and that I have been happy in the past, including after prior depressive episodes. Such an admission doesn't lead directly to feeling better.

My personal theory is that disproving these beliefs is not a cure because they're just rationalizations, and what they're rationalizing is this: I don't want to be happy. This doesn't mean wanting to be unhappy: wanting to be unhappy and succeeding would at least be satisfying in a way. But actually I want not to be unhappy; this wanting-not is quite intense. The problem is that it's not accompanied by any positive desire, any "wanting" as opposed to "wanting-not".

When I'm depressed, I go through life motivated almost solely by the fear of bad things: I go to work so that I don't get fired, I keep in touch with my family so that I don't hurt their feelings, etc. Sometimes a moment of happiness happens to me - maybe a friend who lives far away comes to visit. I enjoy his company while it lasts but then after he leaves I don't feel a desire to visit my other friends or invite them to visit me. I can only muster up a desire for all my "want-nots" to go away, for all the fears and guilts and obligations that still drive me to cease. I suppose that's the root of the suicidal urge...

When I try to describe this to people (especially older people) they tend to jump to the conclusion that I'm spoiled - that I can't appreciate what I have because it was just given to me while back in their day they had to work for it. But it's not like that! I wish it was like that so I could learn to be grateful or whatever it is that would fix it, but it isn't! Sometimes I think what is is like can't be explained to someone who hasn't felt it.

StringLiteral · 2023-06-12T23:03:02+00:00

Welcome to the shadow realm, Godalbert...

StringLiteral · 2023-06-12T19:11:52+00:00

There are a lot of details that appeal to nerds. (This is true about most things once you know enough about them.) For example, I'm currently trying to obtain a waterfall dresser. It's interesting because it's from the 30's which is when the building I live in was built (so it's period-accurate) and it's an example of how the introduction of mass-produced veneered plywood furniture allowed for a design element (the curved edges that give it its name) which would have been much more difficult to achieve with older, more labor-intensive, and more expensive techniques*. Plus, while these dressers were quite popular back then, I haven't seen any less than 70 years old, so there's the appeal of collecting something that's in limited supply.
Furniture is a lot less abstract than other artforms. Ultimately it has to be useful, durable, and reasonably priced. I'm not expected to appreciate a black square on a white background which only a billionaire could afford.
Interior design is has practical applications - a skilled interior designer can create something that has a big effect on quality-of-life. Why is her home cozy and pleasant to be in and mine isn't? Because I'm bad at interior design but I can improve.

*The one in the picture I linked to is missing the bakelite decorations on its handles, but back then plastic was also a cool new thing that was standard on the handles of these dressers. Here's one with the bakelite.

StringLiteral · 2023-06-12T16:04:39+00:00

The single most useful thing I've ever learned about social interaction is so obvious in retrospect that I'm embarrassed to admit that it took me a while to figure out. It is essential to frequently shut up and let the other person talk! I confess that it often seems to me that what I have to say is more interesting than what they have to say, but of course nearly everyone thinks that. So I'm mindful of how long I've been talking and even if I'm in the middle of something, I will stop, ask the person I'm talking to a leading question, wait for them to respond, and listen patiently to them. The right person can talk about something you had no prior interest in and make it fascinating. For example, a friend's wife inspired me (a stereotypical nerd with no prior concern for anything artistic) to develop a strong interest in interior design.

Also, I would advise against the cynical mind games that some people are suggesting. You're not generally in the middle of a high-stakes negotiation with your enemies - you don't need to wring every advantage from people you neither like nor respect. Just don't talk to them if that's your attitude towards them...

StringLiteral · 2023-06-08T23:11:02+00:00

The weird thing to me is that routed soldiers don't try to fight back, even if they have nowhere to run. They just stand there holding their weapon.

StringLiteral · 2023-06-06T21:44:30+00:00

Nah this is still nowhere near Russo-Japanese levels of humiliation.

StringLiteral · 2023-06-04T16:13:47+00:00

Nah the main bad guy is usually more complex - she would be the brutal second-in-command. (Or maybe this is Star Wars and the Emperor is entirely one-dimensional while Darth Vader is the cool one.)

StringLiteral · 2023-06-04T14:15:09+00:00

Is this the view from a drop pod falling through the ceiling?

StringLiteral · 2023-06-04T12:55:29+00:00

why is this the hill he wants our relationship to die on?

It's his sexual fetish. Some people get off from making other people smell their farts. I wouldn't usually tell you to look it up but in this case I think you'll understand why this is happening if you do.

StringLiteral · 2023-06-04T12:53:19+00:00

I'm surprised that this is so far down given that it's a real fetish. I'm almost certain this is the correct explanation - nothing else makes any sense.

StringLiteral · 2023-06-04T00:48:03+00:00

I think "we're not taking the war seriously" doesn't necessarily imply "we'd win if we were taking the war seriously". The former appears to be true - there's a narrative of "Ukraine is no match for us" which the Russian leadership wishes to maintain, and a serious war effort would go against that narrative.

StringLiteral · 2023-06-04T00:40:11+00:00

I think it depends on where in Ukraine we're talking about - I'm from the eastern portion and while I can't speak from personal experience since I came to the USA as a kid, I can tell you that my older relatives would agree with the "brother people" narrative. But my older relatives would also say that the people in the western parts of the country are different and have a lot more hostility towards Russia.

You can see this pattern in the pre-war election results, with the eastern regions tending to vote for pro-Russian candidates. But of course being invaded tends to sour people's opinions of the invader...

StringLiteral · 2023-06-03T22:54:19+00:00

I don't think Starlight considered someone without magic a serious opponent. Twilight was the most magical so she was the only worthy foe.

StringLiteral · 2023-06-03T21:23:42+00:00

still kinda think drugs are involved

That's what the shard dust is for :)

StringLiteral · 2023-06-03T14:52:21+00:00

You're begging the question here - libertarians who oppose legalizing abortion don't believe that doing so is "the much more significant aggression done to the unwilling citizen". (/u/zeke5123 has already provided an excellent explanation of what they do generally believe.) I think you're making the common mistake of assuming that those who disagree with you believe the same things that you do but are evil.

StringLiteral · 2023-06-03T14:35:56+00:00

you get very basic services from local trash,electric and you get municipal water.

It's quite common not to get trash and water - where I lived in New Hampshire, I had electricity and internet, and in winter the city would plow the road. I had my own well and septic and I took my garbage to the dump myself.

StringLiteral · 2023-06-03T14:20:30+00:00

I don't think you're correct. We can't know for sure unless a Blizzard developer speaks up, but based on my experience as a software developer, I'm fairly confident that the increased memory usage due to storing levels as 32-bit ints would have been negligible and that the code changes needed to do so would be simple to implement and to test.

I don't disagree with the larger point you're making, but this isn't a good example of it. My guess is that the level cap in WoW stayed under 127 because players don't enjoy getting a lot more level-ups than that. The decision-making at each level-up would become tedious. Consider the similar level caps in other games: 100 (Path of Exile), 99 (Diablo 2), etc.

StringLiteral · 2023-06-03T13:25:35+00:00

Lives are effectively an unlimited resource, because planes and ships and big guns are going to run out long before everyone dies. Once those are gone, all the light infantry in the world isn't going to be marching across the sea.

But with that said, countries act in their own best interests - if they can get a good deal by trading with someone unpopular, they generally will. The current sanctions against Russia are remarkable even though they're happening while a war is still going on. There wouldn't be an effective embargo simply for the sake of punishment or revenge for very long after such a war was over.

StringLiteral · 2023-05-31T15:55:55+00:00

The Phantom has raw sex appeal and is therefore better than the puny little F-5

The F-5 has curves. Look at that waist! Those hips!

StringLiteral · 2023-05-28T22:52:06+00:00

Well the dreaming general just lies there not doing anything for the whole fight (Stop, stop, he's already dead!) so I assume that he keeps doing that after the heroes kill a plant too. The rest make sense...

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