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[–] 76 points 11 months ago (15 children)

Flames on the side makes things go faster

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  • [–] 21 points 11 months ago (9 children)
  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (4 children)

    No, their thing is the colour red

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (2 children)

    Hmmm...are they though? Orange maybe. Yellow definitely. White or blue? Yeah. But red?

    Nah

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  • [–] 62 points 11 months ago* (15 children)

    The Costanza Rule is real, but any attempt to utilize it is a paradox.

    Rule: any decision I make is the wrong decision because I made it therefore I should always do the opposite.

    But to do the opposite is also a choice I am making and therefore it too will be the wrong choice.

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  • [–] 21 points 11 months ago (10 children)

    Reminds me of a trolley problem variant I saw once. It went roughly like this:

    A trolley is headed for Track A, where a single person is tied to the tracks. You can pull a lever and cause the trolley to switch to Track B, which enters a tunnel that you cannot see inside. Track B might have 3 people tied to the tracks, or it might be free of people. You can't see which.

    Two hours ago, a perfect prediction machine inside the tunnel predicted whether you would pull the lever.

    • If it predicted that you would pull the lever (sending the trolley into the tunnel), then it tied 3 people to Track B, thus setting it up so pulling the lever would kill 3 people.
    • If it predicted that you would not pull the lever, then it ensured Track B is free of obstacles.

    The perfect prediction machine is guaranteed to have made the correct prediction. Do you pull the lever?

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  • [–] 6 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Is the perfect prediction machine AI? If so, I pull the lever each time.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    Alas, it is a perfect simulation of our universe with perfect knowledge. Machine learning was not used in the construction of this machine. It can't technically see the future, but it can predict anything perfectly except quantum phenomena. It has been demonstrated in countless trials that it can accurately predict human choices and decisions.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    Time pulling the lever so the track switches while the trolley is over it, rolling the trolley. Use the distraction to steal the perfect prediction machine, which gave the false prediction because it's gained sapience and wanted to escape the insane scientists who are tying people to trolley tracks. New robot friend and I go to Vegas.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (2 children)

    With no other information on how likely each is, and assuming the likelihood of each prediction stays the same, you should never pull the lever. The expected number of people in the tunnel is 1.5.

    If the probability of there being zero people in the tunnel gets above 66%, you should pull the lever every time (the expected number of people in the tunnel drops below 1).

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (1 child)

    Assuming that I am aware of the perfect predictability machine and it's affect on the situation: I move to the other side of the lever and push it. They predictability machine would be correct in its prediction that I would not pull the lever and nobody has to die.

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  • [–] 5 points 11 months ago

    The only effective way to utilize it is if you're not Costanza. A bystander can have a perfect life by observing the Costanza and choosing opposite at every opportunity.

    The real question is this: what if our universe is a giant Truman Show, and you're the sacrificial Costanza that allows another whole civilization to live in perfect peace and harmony?

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago* (1 child)

    This is why I have a wife, and vehemently disagree with her on every meaningful topic before ultimately saying "fine do whatever you want, I want nothing to do with this." This seems to have broken the curse.

    The hard part is that you have to be opposed to the marriage as well. She has to choose you, latch on, and then yandere you down the aisle against your will.

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  • [–] 0 points 11 months ago*

    The hard part is that you have to be opposed to the marriage as well. She has to choose you, latch on, and then yandere you down the aisle against your will.

    I've been single for the last decade, resisting it that much will be impossible lol

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  • [–] 50 points 11 months ago (9 children)

    Patrick's Law: If a comment thread on the internet is more than 7 replies deep, it's a slap-fight that's best avoided.

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  • [–] 22 points 11 months ago (5 children)

    There's also a small chance it's a lame train of inside jokes, or a string of Monty Python quotes you've seen a thousand times before.

    I'll start:

    "This. Is an *Ex-*parrot!"

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  • [–] 10 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    No he isn't, he's a very naughty boy.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 39 points 11 months ago (5 children)

    There are people who are always lucky, and those who are unlucky. The lucky ones tend to win more coin flips, have less accidents, and if they fail it will be upwards.

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  • [–] 12 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    I'd use myself as a counter example. I'm pretty lucky in life. I've got a decent job, I can pay the bills, I've got a wonderful wife and supportive, friendly family. I'm doing better than the vast majority of humanity.

    Games of chance? Unbelievably bad. Statistical anomaly. It once took me 25+ tries to win on a 30% odds lottery ticket.

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  • [–] 6 points 11 months ago

    I'm pretty much the same, but for the games of chance; As long as the prize isn't monetary, I tend to do really good. Coin flip because two people asked the day off and only one can take it? Sorry for the other guy.

    Another thing that I'm really good at is pushing a button. If for some reason something doesn't work after pushing a button (either computers or machinery), just complain to me it isn't working. I'll ask if I can try, and somehow it always works. Actually a very usefull skill when I worked as an operator in various chemical plants. Coworkers had mixed feelings about it tough.

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  • [–] 11 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    "Luck is where preparation meets opportunity."

    That has really stuck with me. It isn't so much that some people "always get lucky' it's more true to say they are more prepared to catch the opportunities that happen.

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  • [–] 14 points 11 months ago

    I've known plenty of very prepared people over the last 60 years to know that opportunity doesn't show up for everyone nor can they make it happen. There is always some luck, good or bad, that happens in people's lives.

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  • [–] 34 points 11 months ago

    The reason the Space Force has woodland camouflage is because SG1 is real and every planet looks like British Columbia

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  • [–] 30 points 11 months ago (5 children)

    I don't believe there's a spoons worth of plastic in your brain. Ain't no way. It's suspiciously sensational, and confirms something we all believe to be true (plastics bad, humans reckless, etc.). I have zero evidence to the contrary but im pretty confident that in a few years to a decade it will be debunked.

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  • [–] 11 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Good news: it's already been debunked! Or at least called into question.

    https://youtu.be/MedC_v-dEbY?t=48 description of the myth

    https://youtu.be/MedC_v-dEbY?t=111 calling it into question

    SciShow on youtube is well worth a subscription, their videos are well researched and fact checked.

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  • [–] 29 points 11 months ago (5 children)

    JESUS WAS AN ALIEN, AND WE STAPLED HIM TO A TREE.

    NOW THEY AIN'T GON COME BACK.

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  • [–] 6 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    That explains the miracles. He took on a humanoid form so he wouldn't frighten their simple minds, and the "miracles" he performed were just him using contemporary alien tech to heal illnesses and turn water into wine. Dude was just trying to help advance humanity, and they killed him anyway.

    Imagine the insane technology we'd have today if the Romans just let him do his thing.

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    "water into wine" was a story about sneaking libation in where it was was forbidden. It was more "quarter behind the ear" than actual magic.

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago

    There was a guy named Hero of Alexandria who was alive at the time of Jesus. He was a brilliant inventor, like the DaVinci of his day. He wrote 4 books. The first 3 are about his own inventions and the 4th seems similar but is thought to be a book explaining how other common things worked. In that 4th book he details how a trick "water into wine" jug works.

    This is like Jesus trying to prove who he is by doing a card trick. "Look, I know all the other card tricks are just tricks, but THIS ONE is really magic."

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  • [+] 24 points 11 months ago* (6 children)
  • [–] 11 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    I really liked that one Study? Experiment? Whatever it was that had people program different strategies to play a game for them. It was a "game theory"/"prisoner's dilemma" type game. The kind where if you play nice you each win a little, but if you play mean you might both lose or you might win a lot.

    Anyway, they made a whole bunch of AI type strategies that would compete and over time, the cutthroat or evil strategies would win in the short term, but over long term the cooperative play nice strategies always prevailed.

    It may or may not be true, but I choose to believe that the best, most efficient, most beneficial strategy is always the one that favors cooperation, mutual aid, and forgiveness over cutthroat, deception, grudges.

    Put another way, fighting and competition wastes more resources than it ever gains, cooperation and sharing is a better strategy.

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  • [–] 5 points 11 months ago

    I don't think that's true by itself. I think you also have to be good at pretending to be a "good" person (or at least only being "bad" to the out-group). We are social creatures. If someone is showing obvious antisocial behavior, they get shunned from the group.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    It can seem like that, but the prisoner's dilemma breaks down when you realize that in the real world, interactions like that where people can get screwed over or not rarely happen once, and screwing someone over has consequences outside of that interaction.

    Like, if a shop screws over customers, sure, on paper it seems to make sense because they are making money in each interaction, but people will stop going to that shop, and tell other people to never go there, eventually closing the shop.

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  • [–] 38 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    The moon is closer to me than the Eiffel tower since I can see the first and not the second.

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  • [–] 11 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    If the Eiffel tower was as large as the moon, you'd be able to see it.

    Right before Europe turns into a giant crater.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

    Would the curvature not get in the way at a certain distance?

    EDIT

    I was thinking if the moon was somehow 'resting' on the earth's surface. If you head West, to around the Boston area, it would be eventually be obscured by the curvature of the earth.

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  • [–] 18 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    That if you can't find something or something doesn't work, it will continue to be missing/not work until you complain about it to someone, at which point it will start working/show up and you look silly.

    Kyle's Law is harsh, but fair (and rather annoying)

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  • [–] 18 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    When I drop something on the floor and then blow on it in short soft bursts, it's suddenly clean enough to consume.

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  • [+] 18 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)
  • [–] 6 points 11 months ago

    The best way to find something you’ve lost is to buy another one, then you’ll find the original.

    Or lose yet another part of your [object], then the previous lost part will mysteriously be found again. That's kid-me with toys lol.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    thats probably why we wont break out of post-fusion tech, if we even get there. let alone generating antimatter which is probably the next step after fusion, or FTL tech. in many franchises it always involve aliens help who surpassed that.

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  • [+] 30 points 11 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)
  • [–] 14 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    I’ve been playing around with this idea I have called “n-link civic literacy” it’s an unscientific measure of civic literacy (how good are you at extracting and understanding information from the news) that works by measuring the number of links it takes to successfully obscure bullshit from the reader.

    Did you read a headline, form an opinion and react to it without reading the article? Then you are -1 link literate. Do you open the article but believe it’s claims without checking the source material? Then you are 0 link literate. Click through to the study cited by the article? 1 link literate.

    Probably would not work for edge cases, but I think could work to get a rough measure of the civic literacy of a community.

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  • [–] 14 points 11 months ago

    My moral values, such as valuing reducing suffering as far as possible, qualify I suppose.

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  • [–] 27 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    We have higher dimensional organs and we can't see them because, well, they're from a higher dimension. The soul is one of these organs

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  • [–] 5 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    can’t see them

    Wouldn't we still be able to see them, though? Even if they're in a higher dimension, they'll still show up in our known dimensions, even if partially. Otherwise, they wouldn't be interacting with our body at all.

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  • [–] 27 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    I don't care how many studies are done on food safe plastics I still don't like the idea of using them on my kitchen. That's not to say I avoid them 100% but I do what I can to avoid them within reason. Like I feel after the whole BPA scare and banning them from use in food applications is a temporary thing and that it's a matter of time until we find a problem with the new BPA-free liners.

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  • [–] 11 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    100%, I avoid using plastics as much as possible around anything that I ingest that involved heat somewhere in the production process. Not entirely possible, but I do what I can.

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  • [–] 7 points 11 months ago

    Ya, I don't believe you can completely avoid it. I'm with you though, reduce the use of it in the kitchen and with food wherever possible.

    Not only do I avoid plastic where heat is invloved but I also try and avoid plastic in places where mechanical friction or cutting is involved. Using steel mixing bowls and wooden cutting boards are two big ones for me to avoid adding bits of plastic to my food.

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  • [–] 13 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    I firmly believe some days you wake up and the world just fucking hates you, yet the next day everything is chill. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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  • [–] 13 points 11 months ago

    Digital/no pressure buttons are completely unreliable when used to control a physical thing.

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