294000+ entries in 0.069s
mircea_popescu: witch-finding and crime-solving and conspiracy-theories -- that really
mircea_popescu: unnatural training is required for that. But gossiping and
mircea_popescu: naturally. Certainly it naturally sucks at doing science; much
mircea_popescu: blame, because witch-hunting is something the human brain does
mircea_popescu: want the cure now! And when we don't get it, we look for a witch to
mircea_popescu: "We all act as though we're immortal until we get sick, and then we
mircea_popescu: in other news, people living in africa get less sunstroke.
mircea_popescu: "experiment" studies people who already did live there. helpful o.O
mircea_popescu: "In one of the most comprehensive studies of its kind, researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in partnership with the Harvard School of Global Health have found that people living at higher altitudes have a lower chance of dying from ischemic heart disease and tend to live longer than others."
mircea_popescu: the "no pain, no gain" equation holds all sorts of critical, unexpected applications.
mircea_popescu: decimation: yeah that's a good point. I think the money is less important than the relative status, which is less important than just getting people to defer to their betters quickly << no, not quickly. painfully.
mircea_popescu: decimation: it is probably terrible to become an object of some fad among elites today << you know, i'm a poststructuralist jus' fine.
mircea_popescu: The20YearIRCloud: i've been off reading physics articles trying to grasp things and lost the conversation << should probably be the motto of b-a
mircea_popescu: knew a camwhore who slept with her laptop because the one time she didn't it felt snubbed and wouldn't work right the whole day.
mircea_popescu: govt offices, newspaper offices, phone pharms, i seen it everwhere.
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform i can attest the faith healing already happens, in those sad sad caves where middle aged women huddle to stroke their collective pretending to be part of civilisation.
mircea_popescu: there's no distinguishing sufficiently advanced tech from magic, nor sufficiently decayed tech from faith.
mircea_popescu: but if you ever wondered why towards the end of an epoch art moves from classical to trollage... well... art is a sort of societal immune system.
mircea_popescu: society in general and civilisation in particular is predicated on making sense of the world, which readily reduces to avoiding being humiliated. this is fine and dandy until it actually works.
mircea_popescu: she is a "wiser woman" now. happily married now. at her place in life now. well...
mircea_popescu: when she's 16, she runs out of school (for which she risks a reprimand) and hides behind the bleachers to... kiss (for which she risks quite a lot of societal shunning)
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform consider the life and deeds of gabrielle, a buxom blonde girl.
mircea_popescu: (something needs to push rocks up in the air, and the space station too. what's needed to push them down ?)
mircea_popescu: <asciilifeform> (of what? if we knew, there'd be at least a hypothetical pill.) << the public appetite for personal humiliation decays, and with it, the possibility of life.
mircea_popescu: right. this was accidental, not the result of conspiraci, ie, political organising.
mircea_popescu: and the subsequent ones didn't spread out but converged ?
mircea_popescu: for that matter, recall the story of the milikan pious fraud i think it was ?
mircea_popescu: no but srsly, i can see perfectly valid reasons to not trust measurements made by new guys on new tools.
mircea_popescu: decimation basically, it was a new immigrant vs old immigrant debate. the old guys had savings and wanted to keep them. the new guys had mortgages and wanted to get rid of them.
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform i really don't think its as political as all that.
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform: (how to know that schwartz (or taleb, or...) collects 'prize' rather than usg stooge with a shannonizer and irc connection - exercise for alert reader.) <<< if you recall something sort-of like that was tried, except this "major prize" approach is flawed as you explain. so, better version was tried :)
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform: if ussr were alive, perhaps he'd have defected. << a fine example of why the "one world, one fuhrer" delusion of government is unproductive.
mircea_popescu: decimation: I called up NIST a few weeks ago, asked them how much it would cost to measure the phase noise of an oscillator. They said it would only cost their time, which would come to about $10k! for a morning session <<< in other words, "can only work if you have supply of bezzle dollars", ie, "only with scrip saying it's ok signed by stalin"
mircea_popescu: decimation: okay that makes sense << what he means by provenance being that if you measure in argon and he measures in xenon, it's not directly obvious what the functions look like to verify if you got the same result and quantify the eventual differences.
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform: there's always an 'imaginary particle' involved <<< in phairness, this is how physics works all through.
mircea_popescu: specifically, the "foreign interest" was putting forth gold standard to fleece the "hard working" "real" americans.
mircea_popescu: amusingly, all the "buitres" scandal in argentina today is exactly reminiscent of midwestern and californian pro-silver aggitation in the 1880s
mircea_popescu: decimation: yeah back in the early 1900's the whole idea of the 'silver dollar' was the precursor to the modern bezzle << not so clear cut, really. more like a power struggle between west and east.
mircea_popescu: The20YearIRCloud: With regards to coins, you only need to avoid the very, very limited types that are assumed to be stolen from the mint << it's only limited for now, and as a reflection of the coins actually physically found so far. as more juicy morcels make the beast salivate, they'll become less limited.
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform: kanzure: nah, those're plain old ruins <<< and this you know how ? :D
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform ah that's where saddam was keeping his chem weapons ?
mircea_popescu: (in general your take is about the same as if publishing a book : about 5 to 10% after govt, agent, editor etc is done raping you)
mircea_popescu: The20YearIRCloud how much did he get to buy beer for ?
mircea_popescu: The20YearIRCloud here's an exercise for you. today you find in a yard 1k coins of 10 grams each, minted 1750.
mircea_popescu: it seems to me it's time to go down on sam's club for acting like a bank w/o a license.
mircea_popescu: seeing how supermarkets also offer lockable containers on the same premise as banks do
mircea_popescu: this is what fucking moral hazard means, incidentally.
mircea_popescu: <asciilifeform> decimation: in usa, people have contracted the disease of thinking that money can substitute for everything, including brain and balls << well their government kinda depends on this principle, so if it';s good enough for the king...
mircea_popescu: <decimation> asciilifeform: yeah I think the main point is that you might store papers and things that would be moderately annoying to replace in case of fire << divorce.
mircea_popescu: (look at what happened when people thought the church is a people, started donating a little to it and inadvertently created the largest landholder because unlike them, thge church didn;t die regularly)
mircea_popescu: decimation it's complicated, but in general property is the bane of human existence, so any absolute property has the potential to be absolutely murderous.
mircea_popescu: and people who like to live have enough sense to understand this difference.
mircea_popescu: if you like living, pay is not really a relevant consideration.
mircea_popescu: and it links quite well into "what would the devil have to pay you for you to love him".
mircea_popescu: in it. This can’t be delegated, it’s a personal thing. Like citizenship. Like nationality. The only nation immune to the fate of Rhodesia is a nation of that kind of people, living in that kind of world.
mircea_popescu: There isn’t, nor is there going to be a way, manner, instrument or device through which to protect the passive from the active. If you’re not prepared and absolutely willing to spend any amount of time up to the entire rest of your life seeking out and butchering leeches with only the satifaction of well applied, excruciating cruelty as your reward, you’re not made for this world and you won’t long have a place
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform: very few physical objects are worth the cost of raising an army to keep arbitrarily large horde of orcs away << this argument is flawed in the following way : for he who is repulsed by war, this holds true. for he who however enjoys war, no payment is necessary.
mircea_popescu: (you wouldn't be able to arrest anyone, but you would be able to void any application for a warrant)
mircea_popescu: decimation: The20YearIRCloud: When I say "allodial title" I mean something like having the right to arrest anyone - including government employees - on your property << that';s maybe going a little far. but the right to quash any action of anyone involving that land is germane.
mircea_popescu: xmj experienced live a tiny case study of this general principle, originally.