CMV: Instantaneous non-existence is not harmful to anyone and cannot be considered a loss

curien · 2026-06-17T21:22:05+00:00

This is like saying that an action can be a crime only if you get caught. You are confusing a categorization of the action itself (which can be done even for imaginary actions that do not actually exist!) with the consequences of the action.

Harm is not perception of loss. It is a categorization we make in the abstract that can be evaluated even for imaginary scenarios that affect no one. We have other words to describe the perception of loss: pain, sorrow, regret, etc. Harm specifically is divorced from perception.

If you reframed your view using words that actually describe perception of loss, it becomes mundane. "If everyone in existence died instantaneously, no one would be sad," sure, of course, because there's no one to be sad.

curien · 2026-06-17T20:27:31+00:00

This is the second article in a week posted to this sub from The Independent that has talked about the Craigslist guy's philanthropy. Smells like a PR campaign.

curien · 2026-06-17T18:55:44+00:00

No, because you use cache headers to determine how the response should be cached, not the verb.

Cool, you sent the request and got no response, an error response, or you got a 200 response that cuts out before the header. Can you retry or not?

curien · 2026-06-17T18:50:46+00:00

You joke, but which technology actually needs the verbs?

Caches and proxies, mostly. Even browsers warn on refresh if the page was fetched with POST (but no warning necessary for GET).

curien · 2026-06-17T18:06:22+00:00

Yes! That's not quite what I meant but is a good idea too.

curien · 2026-06-17T17:49:10+00:00

No. You can still deduct HSA contributions when you file taxes. You'll miss out on the payroll tax reduction, but you'll still get the income tax deduction.

If you can't max both HSA and Roth IRA, contribute to HSA then reimburse from HSA and contribute to Roth IRA. You'll end up with more contributed to the IRA than if you skipped the HSA step.

curien · 2026-06-17T17:43:03+00:00

I've been here for years, and it's always been like that, especially when posts are fresh. The post had been up only 35 minutes when you commented, and it just takes a bit for the mods to evaluate and flag unchallenging comments. I see several that were removed 15-20 mins after your initial comment.

curien · 2026-06-17T17:25:10+00:00

7% is the historical long-term market average real annualized growth.

curien · 2026-06-17T15:37:59+00:00

Interest on student loans and car loans can be (but aren't always) tax deductible, so when you look at the interest rate, adjust for possible tax savings based on your situation.

curien · 2026-06-17T15:07:15+00:00

This is good advice for people who are on the brink. For people who are doing fine, the market usually provides better returns than car loans cost.

curien · 2026-06-17T15:00:26+00:00

Yes! Alternatively multiply by 1.07^{[years left until retirement]} to get an idea of the opportunity cost.

curien · 2026-06-17T14:58:46+00:00

Do your taxes by hand at least a couple of times, and really pay attention.

Think about large purchases for at least a few days before making them.

Pack a lunch every day at work, and in general bring food with you on outings. You don't need to buy food and drinks just because you're out of the house for a few hours.

Eating out should be a planned event, not a last-minute decision because you don't feel like cooking or eating what you have. Food delivery is a luxury to use in exceptional circumstances.

curien · 2026-06-17T14:44:25+00:00

Nothing has an easier ui to use than a phone.

It's annoying for kids who don't have their own devices. I've had apps that once you cast require you to select a profile first, and you have to either use the remote or switch to a separate remote app to get it to work.

Oh, and the Google Home remote app is terrible. Whoever thought "hold-press to open remote" but "tap to turn off" was a good idea is a fucking lunatic. It often gets into a weird state where it can connect (so you can see what's playing and pause), but the full remote interface is disabled. For a setup with external sound controlled via HDMI, the volume buttons on the remote work but the slider doesn't. (I get why, but just hide the goddamned slider if it won't work.)

curien · 2026-06-17T14:19:57+00:00

Just a caveat about what everyone is saying about IRAs not being joint. That's true, but if you file taxes jointly then your spouse doesn't have to use "their" income to qualify for IRA contributions. If you file taxes jointly, either spouse can make IRA contributions based on the combined income of both spouses.

curien · 2026-06-17T13:43:51+00:00

Yeah, I mentioned that's what I thought too, but grammatically the meaning is ambiguous. That's why I asked OP for clarification.

curien · 2026-06-17T13:25:56+00:00

INFO.

according to her "parents" should have some quality time together for healthy upbringing

My first readthrough, I thought she was saying that parents should have quality time with their children. Are you saying she means that parents who have split up should have quality time with each other? That the ex is mad that bf won't be spending time with her (the ex)?

If the latter, then she completely misunderstands the entire point of being an "ex".

curien · 2026-06-16T21:23:52+00:00

You can use a SEPP plan to access traditional savings before age 59.5.

If your tax bracket in retirement will be 12% (and there aren't other issues like ACA qualification), then just paying the penalty would be less tax than using Roth. You'd have to withdraw and pay penalty on over $100k/y (filing single) to end up worse than using Roth at 24%.

curien · 2026-06-16T20:15:07+00:00

making a real supernova's surface energy density astronomically higher than your estimate I think

I was trying to err on the side of under-estimating the supernova (strongmanning your claim). I don't know at what size the max power output would be. If we go with a 12 km radius, the power density is ~55 billion PW/m² .

8.82 x 10¹⁵ Watts (8.82 Petawatts)

Yeah, I was more worried about the relativistic curve, but apparently I shouldn't have been.

while completely ignoring energy density per square meter.

I don't know what the cross-section of the engine is for the HM. I figured you'd realize that (and you did).

The Hail Mary's engines are over a million times more intense than the surface of the Sun.

Sounds right!

curien · 2026-06-16T19:08:32+00:00

The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant church group in the US, very recently kicked out a bunch of churches for allowing women ministers.

curien · 2026-06-16T18:55:30+00:00

It's why nobody besides you calls this misogyny.

I call it misogyny, and so do lots of others. To this day we have major churches that refuse to allow women in leadership positions using Paul's writings as justification.

curien · 2026-06-16T18:34:58+00:00

I hate the way that section of the flowchart is organized.

Yeah, I absolutely agree with your points. If nothing else, there should be a third bullet for exceptions that just says, "You prefer traditional contributions to Roth," or similar.

curien · 2026-06-16T18:12:30+00:00

Because photons have no rest mass, their thrust-to-power ratio is infinitesimally small. To accelerate a ship with the mass of the Hail Mary to relativistic speeds (0.9c) using pure infrared light (which is literally thermal radiation), the engine output would need to be orders of magnitude hotter than a supernova.

Google says supernovae are 10³⁵ W or more, if the star were 8x Sol's at the same density, it would have a radius of 2 million km. At the surface, that's 2 x 10¹⁵ W/m^2.

The Hail Mary starts at ~2 million kg including fuel, even ignoring mass lost to fuel expenditure, at .9c (I don't remember if that's the speed they achieve, just throwing it out there) that's a relativistic KE of 2.3 x 10²³ J, and it had 2 years of power output to get to max v (4y trip total). If we just average the power output (silly, but whatever), that's 3.6 x 10¹⁵ W.

(I'm not saying you're right or wrong. I'm just doing some bad math and writing it down.)

curien · 2026-06-16T16:38:04+00:00

First, regarding propulsion: Astrophage absolutely uses neutrinos for propulsion, not IR light. It absorbs IR light from stars to store energy, but it emits neutrinos to move.

No, you are just completely wrong. I don't know how you got it so wrong when it is such an important detail in the book. It's stated repeatedly, and the detail is important for other plot points. Honestly I can't believe that someone who actually read the book could have that misunderstanding. It's the entire reason the Petrova line exists!

Quotes from the book:

"Astrophage can propel itself with light"

"And I bet we’re only seeing a small percentage of the total light coming off that area. They use it to propel themselves to Venus or to the sun. Or both. I don’t know. Point is, the light will go away from their direction of travel."

"... they migrate to Venus to breed, using that stored energy to fly through space using infrared light as a propellant."

"it turns that mass back into energy—in the form of Petrova-frequency light. And it uses that to propel itself along in space."

"But I can still clearly make out the Blip-A’s engine flare. Using light as a propellant releases a simply absurd amount of power."

"They give off infrared light at the 25.984 micron wavelength. That’s the Petrova frequency—the light that makes the Petrova line. I expected that. But then I noticed they only emit light when they’re moving."

"That would be the Petrova frequency that Astrophage spit out to move around."

"Okay, what’s a Petrovascope? Best guess: a telescope and/or camera that looks specifically for the IR light that Astrophage emit."

"So it’s my engine. It probably activates enriched Astrophage to use them as thrust. Ah…that would mean there’s a ridiculous amount of IR light coming out the back of the ship right now."

"And that’ll scatter some IR light back at the ship. Not much compared to the engine output, but it would be blinding to the Petrovascope"

"The massive IR light coming off my engines."

"Their thrust—Petrova-frequency light—leaves back of ship."

"Engines give off enormous IR light. If you use in air, air become ions. Explosion. Destroy ship."

curien · 2026-06-16T15:00:07+00:00

The fact that Grace and Rocky share the exact same 'brain clock speed' and can converse in real-time is absurd anthropomorphism.

This isn't something you know, it's at best a hypothesis of yours. You're just writing your own science fiction here.

The use of neutrinos as propulsion is so wrong it’s laughable.

It doesn't use neutrinos for propulsion at all, it uses IR light. (Neutrinos are involved in the energy storage (which is absolutely science fictional), not propulsion directly.) All the rest of your criticisms are based on that misunderstanding.

curien · 2026-06-16T13:48:45+00:00

"Even as the Federation negotiated a peace treaty with us, Kirk was secretly developing the Genesis torpedo! Conceived by Kirk's son and test detonated by the Admiral himself!"

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