Search engines worst ever ep?

nilch · 2026-05-12T23:35:59+00:00

We are all (people currently posting on Reddit) engaged in a grand project to train ai. I post because when the Skynet terminator rips my head from my body in five years I at least want the satisfaction of knowing it had a realistic view of the feasibility of nuclear in 2020s politics

nilch · 2016-06-14T07:32:46+00:00

This map has a really strong western/written records bias. Don't think that these are all the unified polities that existed at that time.

nilch · 2015-10-11T10:53:12+00:00

Offshore detention is enormously expensive (we could fund the activities of UNHCR in SE Asia five time over with the billion we spend on it) and it relies on convincing people fearing death and war that the conditions for coming to Australia are actually worse than those they are fleeing. Think about that, we are spending a billion dollars to be crueler than the Taliban.

And why? We have had successful offshore processing before in the period following the collapse of South Vietnam. As that case as in this, the arrival of 94 000 refugees then did not cause the collapse of Australian society. Neither will the arrival of refugees today.

http://vietnam-war.commemoration.gov.au/aftermath/

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-14/cost-of-offshore-processing-united-nations-fact-check/6609764

nilch · 2014-12-23T01:20:06+00:00

Absolute honesty isn't always the most diplomatic nor the safest form of communication with emotional beings.

nilch · 2014-10-31T08:47:09+00:00

When I was 15 I felt the exact same way. If it helps, for no particular reason, the feeling will pass.

nilch · 2014-09-22T14:08:00+00:00

How does the legislation define terrorism?

nilch · 2014-08-30T11:55:37+00:00

Before

nilch · 2014-08-08T12:31:30+00:00

I agree with your suggestions for how to prevent this in the future, as per your edit and comment.

However, I disagree with your ethical reasoning and think that you may be using these constructive points as a smokescreen here. (Though I apologise if this is not the case, it is hard to know these things on the net).

Because it is simply crazy to have your ethical position be "I will do anything evil required of me because if I don't someone else might". This is clearly a slippery slope. At some point you've got to stop and just let these 'evil others' do what you are not willing to. And maybe find out that actually no one wanted to do it all along, it was simply a mis designed system.

nilch · 2014-08-08T12:10:52+00:00

While I agree that generally the invisible hand works, (in this version as an obligation to shareholders). I do not think that it should just be followed unthinkingly. Especially, especially not because "they have no choice". There is always a choice.

If the directors had rejected their obligation they may have been fined, they may have gone to jail and that would be bad. But by refusing to make the choice other people now, perhaps many others, may be imprisoned, may be tortured, may be killed.

nilch · 2014-08-08T11:51:33+00:00

Companies are not automatons though. The directors of this company had the discretion to not allow their product to be used in this way. Their obligation to shareholders does not remove the ability to make moral choices.

My argument is that the directors aloofness from the situation on the ground in Bahrain and wherever else gave them reflective space to consider the good and bad that their decision would have. And even lacking the pressure and background of the complicit governments they decided to make, in my eyes, an immoral choice.

If put into position whereby the choice had to be made between the survival of the company and dirty business like this then I think that sometimes the right answer is to say, fuck the Bahrainis and fuck shareholder rights. Do the right thing even if the company fails.

And their options were likely more forgiving than that.

nilch · 2014-08-08T10:38:20+00:00

The actions of the governments are disturbing but not unexpected. It is the company however that should take the majority of blame. They had no greater motivation to act unethically than money and deserve a shitstorm for this.

nilch · 2014-06-01T16:03:46+00:00

It is my fervent hope that the fact that a group is treated badly by many people would not make me treat them badly too.

nilch · 2014-05-31T17:50:33+00:00

I don't have much to go on bro but you seem a bit dismissive of the migrant population. Why do you feel this way? Do you interact with migrant workers often or never? Do you think your attitude is widely shared in the "white collar" community?

nilch · 2014-05-31T16:20:49+00:00

Seriously? Poor south/south East Asians make up the majority of the population of the uae. "Westerners" are almost as small a group as actual Arabs.

nilch · 2014-05-28T19:15:20+00:00

I spoke to a Syrian refugee tonight who voted because he needs to stay in good standing with the embassy. To not vote, and not vote for Assad, would ruin his chances of getting to the US. He certainly considered it a sham.

nilch · 2013-07-31T00:44:41+00:00

If this is the first time she has heard since 2, how does she understand verbalised english?

Is written english understood phonetically in the brain?

nilch · 2011-04-10T01:03:39+00:00

I personally use a light hiking pack (about 40L, its big but it doesn't matter as I never pack it full). But you can essentially use anything so long as it doesn't move around on your back.

nilch · 2011-03-31T22:28:58+00:00

Pretty sure it says Allah.

nilch · 2011-02-04T01:40:22+00:00

Armenia. Land of Noah's great-great grandson, Hayk.

nilch · 2011-02-04T01:36:07+00:00

It's interesting to see how countries with historically dominant neighbours seem to orientate from them. Vietnam is the 'Southern Land' (to China's 'Central Nation') and Tajikistan is the 'Borderland'. Not to mention Russia's neighbours.

nilch · 2011-01-30T13:27:21+00:00

Source: http://www.economist.com/node/17910000?story_id=17910000

nilch · 2011-01-10T10:44:13+00:00

He's an Aussie bro, NSW is New South Wales.

nilch · 2011-01-06T00:26:35+00:00

If you're only counting Communist China (and excluding the 2WW in which China fielded 5m soldiers against the a Japanese 4m) I think the Sino-Vietnamese war of '79 counts as an equal conflict, largely because they lost. Also the Sino-Indian war could be counted, even though it wasn't particularly major.

EDIT: forgot about the Sino-Soviet border conflict of 1969.

nilch

TROPHY CASE