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I strongly suggest anyone doubtful of the reasoning behind these concerns or asking questions like "well why don't we just do x to solve this?" go check out Robert Miles' YouTube channel[1].

It's quite an approachable intro, often entertaining, doesn't take a long time to get through all the core videos, and very thoroughly answers all the "why not just do x" questions if you go through the whole set.

He also does a good job of introducing a lot of the terms used in the field if you then want to go look up papers and get more into the details.

One important point he makes is that when you're making a risk assessment you have to both consider the probability of something going wrong and the scope of the potential consequences. When the potential consequences are an existential threat you don't need a high probability to take them seriously.

I also happen to think that if you watch all the material he makes a compelling argument that the odds of something going wrong are fairly high unless we start approaching AI research (and particularly safety and ethical concerns) drastically differently than we are now.

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pYXy-A4siMw


Godot isn't quite as robust or mature as Unity yet, but it is open source and it has had the benefit of learning from Unity's mistakes when designing its own workflows.

I think most Unity developers find the switch incredibly easy because most of the principles and many of the idioms are the same (and Godot is also more intuitive and has better documentation imo).

Godot 4 looks like it should remove most of the last few pain points too.

I'd say Godot is the superior prototyping/game jam tool, the superior 2d game engine, superior for building UI, and you don't have to deal with any licensing bullshit. It's also like 300 mb as a base install compared to Unity's 7 gb clusterfuck of spandrels.

I'd say the only situation where I'd recommend Unity over Godot is if you already have a ton of Unity experience and want to build something quickly without learning new stuff, or if there is something critical in the asset store you can't find in Godot's (definitely less content and tutorials because of the smaller userbase)


This is a bad take. All headlines are sensationalized for clicks, subject doesn't really matter.

If you ignore the headlines and do your own research on climate change, it's pretty nearly impossible in my opinion to come to the conclusion that we're not utterly fucked.

If anything news stories tend to focus only on individual events rather than larger scale patterns and potential feedback loops, so they often understate the actual scale of the problem.

I actually think there's been a conscious effort by some entities writing about climate change to focus on the short term immediate stuff because they realize that talking about the big picture would make people completely apathetic and hopeless.

I was studying marine biology last year and holy shit, the low end predicted effects and feedback loops -- even only looking at the ocean -- are going to be utterly catastrophic.

The planet is going to be unrecognizable for future generations -- enjoy the last bit of stability while it lasts.

Ultimately humans were very 'lucky' to evolve and exist in a period of extreme abundance and stability on Earth. We've totally squandered that with our ignorance, hubris, and drive for short term profit and now we get to see the flip side


I've heard this exact story for over 30 years. We're supposed to be entirely underwater by now on the east coast. In the 70s everyone knew that overpopulation and starvation was right around the corner, there were models then too.

The end has been nigh for all of human history but it seems like the world keeps turning.

If a quarter of a degree celsius over 100 years or whatever is 'utterly fucked', I think we'll make it. Take a deep breath.


It tells us that USA manages it well. In the third world, in the last thirty years, people struggle for drinking water in summer, aquifers depleted, more floods, etc.


Definitely. Maybe you even mean Africa. It probably doesn’t help that the population of Africa has risen from 177m up to 1.3b+ since 1950.


Yes, Africa, India, Pakistan, etc. Yes, population almost increased 7 folds.


Okay, but neither of those problems are actually an issue with smart homes as a concept, they're mostly issues with the way profit motive drives behavior in a capitalist system.

The first point is confusing because the majority of tools people use today they can't repair themselves. That's what happens as technology advances, you need specialists to understand each system.

If you look at things like earthships that are built to manage a lot more factors than a typical home, it becomes pretty clear how useful automating some of those systems and allowing them to share data could be.

If you had good open standards for the tech and were actually trying to make things that improved people's lives or saved energy rather than mine data or recurring revenue, you could make some cool shit.

Really the complaint should be about the way these products are developed and marketed, which is hardly unique to this sector.


Personally, I agree both parties are severely problematic, don't feel they're equally problematic.

I vote for third party candidates with policy I actually agree with when it isn't going to negatively affect me or others when they inevitably lose.

The sad reality is that FPTP makes strategic voting necessary if you want to have any kind of power. In addition to the issues you mentioned we need score or ranked choice voting so we can begin a transition towards actual accountibility, and hopefully eventually a more diverse set of parties.

Voting for a third party candidate is effectively throwing your vote away in a protest no one will ever hear in a FPTP system.


> Voting for a third party candidate is effectively throwing your vote away in a protest no one will ever hear in a FPTP system.

Voting for a 3rd party is not a de facto protest vote, nor is it throwing it away in any case. What power do you get for voting for a party not aligned with your interests? If a third party should achieve a 5% vote, they are eligible for federal funds and would have a big impact on ballot access nationally.

That may not be very persuasive to you (based on conversations I've had with others who felt similarly), but I no longer need regret voting strategically (which actually feels like throwing my vote away).


I actually voted for a third party candidate in 2020 because I knew I could do it without supporting Trump and didn't feel either candidate represented my views.

I was only able to do that because I knew my vote wouldn't ultimately matter in my state's contest though.

In score or ranked choice voting I could both articulate my actual preference in a way that was publicly visible and still make the strategic vote(s) I needed to get the least bad of likely options.

FPTP is one of the least expressive voting systems you could have, and it is objectively terrible for third parties. This isn't a controversial opinion, it's what that vast majority of political scientists agree with.

Third parties are irrelevant in American politics and will continue to be unless we change our voting system (and campaign finance).


Glorious, thanks


> I am not a Catholic scholar, but as far as homosexual sex goes, they can't. It's in the Bible, and literally set in stone as being an abomination to God as far as all of the Abrahamic religions are concerned.

You might be surprised to learn that those references are considerably more ambiguous than how they are generally talked about.

The Bible has been continually retranslated by people with specific agendas and moral frameworks. Some of those translation choices are pretty questionable. As one example, Thomas Aquinas chose to translate "don't practice witchcraft" as "don't interpret dreams" due to his own inability to manage his (intense) dream life. That probably singlehandedly set back discourse around dreams in Western culture a couple hundred years.

The idea that the New Testament speaks against homosexuality comes largely from the (mis)translation of the single Koine Greek word 'arsenokoites.' It has often been translated as 'men who lie with men' but does not have that literal meaning and was not used as a term for homosexuality at the time.

As just one proposed example other scholars have put forth, that line could actually be chastising 'men who lay about,' as in rich people who do nothing to contribute to society. It could also be referring to temple prostitution, something completely alien and irrelevant to most modern people. It isn't nearly as clear cut as homophobic Christians wish it was.

As one other example, the story of Sodom is actually about not providing shelter and assistance to travelers who come to you needing help. The licentiousness is secondary to the main moral teaching of that bit, which a lot of Christians conveniently ignore when they are actually called upon to support strangers in need.

Here's a bit on difficulties translating arsenokoites if you're curious: https://www.stopbibleabuse.org/biblical-references/paul/arse...

I don't know as much about the Old Testament, so can't really speak to that. Personally I find most of that stuff much harder to relate to than the reforms Jesus was trying to lead people into, so I have a harder time imagining how or why you might try to build a modern ethical framework from it. That said, it seems to me that Judaism generally does a better job of acknowledged the ambiguities and interpretative nature of translating religious texts; debate has always been a central part of Jewish religious discourse.


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