My version of the atheist’s wager is:
If god exists the greatest gift he ever gave us was our minds, our ability to assess and decide. We owe it to our gift to use it wisely, carefully and judiciously. Particularly in the most important question of all, does god exist. But which god? Surely not Zeus. That one is obviously made up by men. How about Odin? Also made up. Ra? Again, made up. For thousands of years we’ve made up gods that are clearly not real. How curious would it be if for once, this time we didn’t. (Though we followed all the usual forms for the previous religions made up by men)
If we don’t apply our intellect to the most important question of all, if we don’t make the best decision possible we insult our greatest gift. Sadly the application of my reason leads me to think that all gods, deities, spirits, are made up by people. But all is not lost, it also leads me to think that the undeniable awe and mystery of the universe are vaster by far than our puny imaginations can comprehend.
The driver ran her car into an officer hitting him. Anyone who’s played gta knows a car is a deadly weapon. Pretty sure the officer was justified in using deadly force.
He shot while only being a few feet away from the car, which had already started to drive off.
Why would a trained officer believe that shooting at the driver from only a few feet away would have a higher chance of improving his chances against being hit by the car (which was already well in motion), than trying to physically move out of its way? That makes no sense.
All of this happened in a split second. As explained in TFA, the relevant legal standards do not require the application of hindsight or sober second thought. They are only concerned with what a reasonable person would do in the circumstances, with the information available in the moment. Training does not and cannot possibly prevent instinctive actions that appear irrational or ineffective after the fact.
Wouldn't the proverbial reasonable person jump out of the way of a vehicle that's already nearly on the verge of colliding with them? Pulling out a gun seems to be the less instinctual thing to do in such a situation.
I also wonder if they'll ever find out who screamed "F*ing B*tch" at her in that moment.
100% justified. We can Monday night quarterback it all day, but ultimately it comes down to having to make split second decisions based on training and experience. Many officers would have jumped out of the way, many would have taken the shot. There is no one size fits all.
Even if the person didn't intend on running the officer over, it's reasonable to assume that the officer felt their life was in danger. The person in question was also already committing a crime by continuing to block federal government operations.
Anything that happens while you are in the process of committing a crime is mostly on you.
A dishwasher with a WiFi chipset is not a durable good. Nor is a fridge with a touchscreen, an oven with Bluetooth.
You know what is durable? The simple and straightforward electromechanical mechanisms we used for three centuries before integrated circuits.
One can find plentiful examples of midcentury and older appliances still in service without major maintenance. It's tough to find a modern appliance in service for more than a decade.
The inability to sprinkle magic obsolescence silicon dust over everything will only lead to an increase in quality and durability.
The mechanical timer in a 1980s washing machine will never have a firmware update blocking you from using it. A 1950s fridge runs perfectly fine essentially forever without a cloud API and a goddamn app.
This hypothetical situation is only bad because you've accepted consumerism and forced obsolescence as the norm. These situations are much worse than not being able to buy a $1600 phone every year.
You should be indignant about the unimaginable amount of resources we throw into landfills because the manufacturer decided that you should buy a new one. You should absolutely not be indignant that you can no longer buy shit to throw away.
Do you repair your appliances or do you throw them away and have a new one shipped from the other side of the planet? Do you see the problem?
A dishwasher with a WiFi chipset is not a durable good. Nor is a fridge with a touchscreen, an oven with Bluetooth.
You're completely misinformed. You can buy appliances without any of these and they will still have chips in them. Those buttons controlling the dishwasher? That's a circuit board. The motor driver running the compressor loop in the fridge? Silicon again (and possibly something more exotic for the IGBTs).
Digital logic is just how things are built now. Even if you don't believe in going all the way back to relay logic and analog computing, do you want to give up the switch mode power supplies everywhere in favor of linear regulators?
>The simple and straightforward electromechanical mechanisms we used for three centuries before integrated circuits
Lets see, 2026 minus 300 is 1726. No electronics, analog or digital back then at all. Not even gas powered streetlights.
Did you mean, three decades ago? That was 1996... so no, it was pretty much digitally controlled, even at the 'washing machine and toaster oven' level.
By 1976 Motorola and Advanced Semiconductor Materials were both in full production. Intel and Microchip Technologies, which was where the 'chips controlling appliances' movement really began as a spin-off from General Instrument's microelectronics division, were online by 1986.
Yes, much more can and should be done to improve and refine the wasteful consumerism treadmill that is central to US industry, but it is not a fundamental need to drive this improvement via cheering the loss and destruction of modern semiconductor manufacturing global capacity. Perhaps you are just repeating some misinformed "it will be better after we finish breaking everything" rhetoric.
The rest of us need to do whatever we can to keep this uninformed point of view from 'catching' in yet another corner.
You are more than welcome go back to washing your own laundry in a wringer bucket and storing winter ice in a shed for summertime cooling. So, kindly run along, log off and dream about the good old days in the shade of a waning empire.
As others have stated, there's fabs all over the world. They're insufficient in quality and quantity to satisfy current demand at current prices but they're there and can do a lot of it, especially as demand and requirements get reduced to meet what's available.
Don't get me wrong, it would suck, but probably suck less than when everything shut down for covid.
>Car manufacturing grinds to a halt.
>New appliances cannot be manufactured
Until they figure out how to repeal the laws that mandate the features/specs that require the semiconductors in the types and volumes that would be a non-starter.
Maybe your washer doesn't need to detect how much stuff you put in and second guess your water setting?
What are the statistical odds a $15k Nissan Kix being sold in the desert will ever benefit from ABS?
>no new iPhone for five years. No new electronic hardware at all
It's not absolute like that. It's more like move the decimal one place on everything and that makes whole classes of products non-viable.
>New appliances cannot be manufactured. What does the [severe reduction in proportion to their semiconductor and irreplaceable foreign part contents] absence of new durable goods do to the economy?
Fixed for realism.
Demand is elastic to some extent. Prices go up. Industries shrink, alternatives grow.
In any case, it's a relative transfer of wealth and power from most of HN to their plumber and landscaper and those otherwise less affected.
Pumping out a lot of noise is usually easier than locating a source of a weak signal. That said, Russians likely have the necessary technology. The question would be do they feel like selling it to Iran and are Iranians capable of using it properly?
> Pumping out a lot of noise is usually easier than locating a source of a weak signal.
Not at the frequencies in question - this isn't 2.4GHz where a magnetron ripped out of a microwave oven will wreak havoc, these are highly-directional, beamformed signals. Also, ostensibly, there should be zero unapproved energy whatsoever in those bands.
Well the US has long prided itself on being an innovative technology leader. Battery technology and products is an area where we are not leading. In fact, we might not even be in the race.
“No one told me when to run, I missed the starting gun”
“ I don’t think China is eating our lunch, per se. I think they made their own lunch. The nation invested in the kitchen, hired better chefs, refined its recipe year after year, and turned its offerings into something people like me genuinely crave.”
Sounds like David has some time on his hands now and might be interested. If you have any particular ideas he might be open to doing a bit of sleuthing.
I was crushed to hear that Oliver Sacks made up key details of his books. He’s taught in every intro class. Millions of people are carrying around false facts about psychology and brain science.
Counterpoint: unreasonable ai exuberance has done a lot of damage and is not helpful to society:
The unreasonable cost in power and water is disproportionate to the value. (And destroyed big tech’s climate change emissions goals)
Shoving AI into everything devalues both the AI and the thing it is shoved into. (Who wants AI hallucinations in their excel spreadsheets!? Hint it’s nobody, nobody asked for it, nobody wants it)
AI bias is in no way solved. E.G We train on racist data and the models are racist (show an LLM 10 photos and ask which one is likely to be a criminal, it’s black people every time. Why because racist policing skews mugshots towards being more black. Racist policies generate skewed data, skewed data creates racist AI)
AI slop is invading science, law, security research, etc
Nobody has an answer for how to run an economy when AI takes the jobs. (Which is 100% happening especially for new grads). There have been millions of lost jobs in tech in the last few years. How you gunna eat, pay rent, get healthcare, buy things if you don’t got a job? When the percentage of people like that grows too large society collapses. What percentage? Don’t know but we’re sure on track to find out!
Need I continue?
Probably not. If you don’t know by now you never will. If you can hear, you’ve already heard.
If we don’t apply our intellect to the most important question of all, if we don’t make the best decision possible we insult our greatest gift. Sadly the application of my reason leads me to think that all gods, deities, spirits, are made up by people. But all is not lost, it also leads me to think that the undeniable awe and mystery of the universe are vaster by far than our puny imaginations can comprehend.
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