I grew up in Santa Cruz, and I've been to SF dozens of times. I lived there for about a year. I know many people who live there. It's you that's ignorant as to how people live in SF.
Wow, dozens. </eyeroll>
If you put five kids making minimum wage into a house, that's a household with income above $100,000, but everyone in that house is still in poverty.
No, they aren't. The poverty line for an individual is $11,670, and $27,910 total for a family/household of 5 people.
So according to your definition, a single-income family with a spouse and 3 kids with an income of over $100,000 is still living in poverty. I don't think so.
Actually, they wouldn't be even then. The federal poverty line is $11,670 for an individual. Of course, there's actually a nonlinear dependence on the household size - the line for a household of 5 is $27,910. I guess (like most) the parent doesn't really understand poverty.
And I encounter someone who is mentally ill on the street, I'm not sure what you think I could do for them that the social workers and the police couldn't.
It's hard not to take this as a troll. The police are not generally inclined to help homeless people - although I see police harassing them almost every day. Social workers for the most part would help the homeless - but they're underpaid, understaffed and institutionally handicapped. Maybe you don't live in the United States?
I personally don't expect you to personally spend time / effort / money helping an individual homeless person in some way, but if you're unhappy with how local, state and federal governments are handling the problem at large, then the same recourse exists as for any other social problem.
Here in Dallas it was tried over 10 years ago... million of dollars were spent to refurbish several old hotels and make them liveable, rooms were offered free of charge to homeless people to give them a place to get back on their feet, to give them a place to have a hot shower, give them a mailing address so they could look for work (you might find it hard to get work without an address), etc.
Can you provide a citation? I can't find any information at all about such a project.
Like other countries we have people that camp on welfare because it's easier than working.
I do agree with the substance of your post, but what do you mean by welfare? The United States doesn't really have any unconditional cash transfer programs, which is what most people think of when they hear the term "welfare." TANF for example is restricted to families with children, has a lifetime limit of 60 months of benefits for any individual and recipients must have a job within 24 months of joining the program. After doing a bunch of research on our means-tested social programs, I just don't see how it would be possible for a single, able-bodied, working-age individual to satisfy all their needs using federal transfers alone.
I also don't think it's far to call social insurance programs "welfare." They're insurance policies operated by government, with mandatory premiums garnished from wages. You have to have paid the premiums to get the benefits.
Where the US differs greatly is that our programs are abused at the top as well.
Agree 100%, though I don't think the US is alone worldwide in this regard, even if it stands out among OECD members.
Ever lived in San Francisco? Sounds pretty close to reality to me.
I can understand why someone who didn't grow up in the Bay and who hasn't spend much time outside of certain districts would have that impression.
About 25% of San Franciscan households have incomes above $100,000 and about 13% are poverty-level or below. For comparison, those numbers for Alameda County are ~17% and ~13%, respectively. Yeah, SF has more inequality, but not to the extremes sometimes imagined.
(Numbers from demographia.com and US census data).
the cliche'd "Shouting 'fire!' in a crowded room" example
A cliche first cited in law in order to uphold a criminal conviction for arguing against US entry to the first world war - in other words, a euphemism for what you call unacceptable censorship.
in something like a phone you automatically move it to the sweet spot
That's definitely true - for a phone. The parallax barrier approach clearly wouldn't work as well for e.g. television, but there are other forms of autostereoscopy.
I'm still using that phone - at the time I bought it, it was Virgin Mobile's only "4G" phone. WiMAX hasn't been switched off yet, so I get to use it on the odd day I'm in Mountain View or one of the other very few places it ever worked.
The 3D camera (aka two regular cameras) is nothing special, but the autostereoscopic display is pretty cool. Still a gimmick though.
There are already autostereoscopic displays. My phone has one (and a "3D camera," aka two cameras). They actually work fairly well but have a highly restricted viewing angle.
That is a very difficult one to explain to someone with no coding experience.
I disagree. The try-catch block just performs an action while listening for special return values indicative of failure. Take establishing a connection, which may succeed or fail. If the failure code (or exception) is found, the program reacts differently than if it is not. I think most people would catch on quickly, especially if with some pseudocode to point to.
How can you ask a computer to "try" something, really?
I think "try" is a lot like "do," with uncertainty. Take a look at the definitions of "try". Def. 1 seems circular, but Defs. 2 - 4 and 7 seem to apply pretty well to the program. Of course, if we use Def. 8 instead, then few of us ever "try."
Ahh, semantics (being the study of meaning, I actually think semantics is pretty important).
That reminds me of a story from my philosophy of science professor (I studied biochemistry but branched out in college).
After giving lectures/presentations, scientists would ask about practices in their work which resembled induction, to try to understand how these practices should be approached philosophically, but Popper would just respond with "it's not science" or "it's not my fault you're a bad scientist."
I haven't tried contacts for years (when I was a teenager), so I don't remember. Thanks for the advice, though, I will explore the options more carefully next time I go in for a new prescription.
Am I understanding that correctly that you basically define how an object should respond to data, thereby giving it a human-like response?
Pretty much, although part of the point I wanted to make is that "human-like" is not necessarily as broad as it's made out to be. For example, IMHO the "try" construct is intentional without being anthropomorphic - I think "try" is an accurate moniker for what the program does.
I think there are probably a variety of good reasons for it, too. Here's one speculation: When we communicate with a human, we must use some language that will be more-or-less understood by the other human.
That is a good reason, but IMHO the reason for the origin of the "intentional stance" is that it's simply the most parsimonious way to approach survival in a dangerous environment.
It seemed easier for me to organize things into classes for a poker program because anthropomorphizing the methods made sense in that case.
In what way did you impute human characteristics to the poker code? My guess is you didn't truly anthropomorphize, but rather used some form of intentional stance or design stance.
IMHO, Vaillant (not having studied philosophy of mind) is a bit confused about intentionality, which is actually totally inescapable in programming.
I wouldn't call it that, since there isn't any necessary imputation of human characteristics to the objects. Instead, it's to do with intentionality. Whether I have a variable called "train_speed" or a "train" object with a "speed" member, the key thing is that these data are "about" achieving a particular purpose. I think TFA (and Dijkstra's piece) could have been much more insightful if the authors were familiar with a few ideas from philosophy of mind.
As you point out, things are more clear for physical modelling than other domains because no one is going to argue that trains don't have speeds.
Firstly, to understand the difference between trying to do and "trying to do", read some Dennett. If correctly understood, anthropomorphisms like the attribution of intention to a non-intentional entity can be extremely helpful.
I have been saying something very similar in other comments here (and linking pages for intentionality and the intentional stance). I'm sure if Dijkstra or Vaillant were more familiar with the philosophy of mind, they would end up making this kind of distinction instead of just proscribing what they call "anthropomorphizing."
I do think, however, that the intentional stance doesn't necessarily imply anthropomorphization. Programs in particular are designed towards specific ends and we can talk about how they represent facets of those ends without imputing to them human characteristics. I would cite any self-documenting code conventions (even as simple as a "speed" variable) as examples.
The cause for the analogy to break down is that there's no equivalent to walking to the classroom in his example. All of his code simply assigns a classroom number, without any equivalent of the walking part. As soon as you add that - magic ! - the analogy works again.
It is accurate to say that a program tries to do something
The key is intentionality. Programs are intentional systems, and their "aboutness" is reflected in variable names ("speed", "name"), language constructs (try-catch) and, most importantly, however the algorithm achieves a specific end.
IMHO, we can go a long way in using the "intentional stance" without venturing into potentially misleading anthropomorphizations.
If you don't draw analogies (like anthropomorphism), or abstractions, how the hell do you choose your names in a way that lends itself to understandable code?
That's a good point. Our programs are "intentional" (in the sense used in philosophy of mind), because we design them as means to specific ends. They are inherently about those ends, and self-documenting code conventions reflect that.
I think it's possible (and quite natural) to use the "intentional stance" without anthropomorphizing as such, for example when naming a variable "speed," or saying a program "tries" to do something (again, reflected in self-documenting conventions like a "try" construct). Purpose and intentionality are everywhere in the the world, and are not properties of the human mind only.
Dijkstra and Vaillant are probably not very familiar with intentionality (or philosophy of mind in general), or they probably would be making this distinction instead of blanket proscriptions against discussing code in certain ways.
Slashdot Mirror
I grew up in Santa Cruz, and I've been to SF dozens of times. I lived there for about a year. I know many people who live there. It's you that's ignorant as to how people live in SF.
Wow, dozens. </eyeroll>
If you put five kids making minimum wage into a house, that's a household with income above $100,000, but everyone in that house is still in poverty.
No, they aren't. The poverty line for an individual is $11,670, and $27,910 total for a family/household of 5 people.
So according to your definition, a single-income family with a spouse and 3 kids with an income of over $100,000 is still living in poverty. I don't think so.
Actually, they wouldn't be even then. The federal poverty line is $11,670 for an individual. Of course, there's actually a nonlinear dependence on the household size - the line for a household of 5 is $27,910. I guess (like most) the parent doesn't really understand poverty.
I guess you dropped out before they covered "automatic stabilizers" in high school civics.
And I encounter someone who is mentally ill on the street, I'm not sure what you think I could do for them that the social workers and the police couldn't.
It's hard not to take this as a troll. The police are not generally inclined to help homeless people - although I see police harassing them almost every day. Social workers for the most part would help the homeless - but they're underpaid, understaffed and institutionally handicapped. Maybe you don't live in the United States?
I personally don't expect you to personally spend time / effort / money helping an individual homeless person in some way, but if you're unhappy with how local, state and federal governments are handling the problem at large, then the same recourse exists as for any other social problem.
Here in Dallas it was tried over 10 years ago... million of dollars were spent to refurbish several old hotels and make them liveable, rooms were offered free of charge to homeless people to give them a place to get back on their feet, to give them a place to have a hot shower, give them a mailing address so they could look for work (you might find it hard to get work without an address), etc.
Can you provide a citation? I can't find any information at all about such a project.
Like other countries we have people that camp on welfare because it's easier than working.
I do agree with the substance of your post, but what do you mean by welfare? The United States doesn't really have any unconditional cash transfer programs, which is what most people think of when they hear the term "welfare." TANF for example is restricted to families with children, has a lifetime limit of 60 months of benefits for any individual and recipients must have a job within 24 months of joining the program. After doing a bunch of research on our means-tested social programs, I just don't see how it would be possible for a single, able-bodied, working-age individual to satisfy all their needs using federal transfers alone.
I also don't think it's far to call social insurance programs "welfare." They're insurance policies operated by government, with mandatory premiums garnished from wages. You have to have paid the premiums to get the benefits.
Where the US differs greatly is that our programs are abused at the top as well.
Agree 100%, though I don't think the US is alone worldwide in this regard, even if it stands out among OECD members.
Ever lived in San Francisco? Sounds pretty close to reality to me.
I can understand why someone who didn't grow up in the Bay and who hasn't spend much time outside of certain districts would have that impression.
About 25% of San Franciscan households have incomes above $100,000 and about 13% are poverty-level or below. For comparison, those numbers for Alameda County are ~17% and ~13%, respectively. Yeah, SF has more inequality, but not to the extremes sometimes imagined.
(Numbers from demographia.com and US census data).
I think he's been playing games too long.
He certainly hasn't been reading San Francisco demographic information.
Basically you just entice them to move to another city.
This technique is a significant contributor to the Bay Area's homelessness problem.
the cliche'd "Shouting 'fire!' in a crowded room" example
A cliche first cited in law in order to uphold a criminal conviction for arguing against US entry to the first world war - in other words, a euphemism for what you call unacceptable censorship.
in something like a phone you automatically move it to the sweet spot
That's definitely true - for a phone. The parallax barrier approach clearly wouldn't work as well for e.g. television, but there are other forms of autostereoscopy.
I'm still using that phone - at the time I bought it, it was Virgin Mobile's only "4G" phone. WiMAX hasn't been switched off yet, so I get to use it on the odd day I'm in Mountain View or one of the other very few places it ever worked.
The 3D camera (aka two regular cameras) is nothing special, but the autostereoscopic display is pretty cool. Still a gimmick though.
There are already autostereoscopic displays. My phone has one (and a "3D camera," aka two cameras). They actually work fairly well but have a highly restricted viewing angle.
Depends on the city.
That is a very difficult one to explain to someone with no coding experience.
I disagree. The try-catch block just performs an action while listening for special return values indicative of failure. Take establishing a connection, which may succeed or fail. If the failure code (or exception) is found, the program reacts differently than if it is not. I think most people would catch on quickly, especially if with some pseudocode to point to.
How can you ask a computer to "try" something, really?
I think "try" is a lot like "do," with uncertainty. Take a look at the definitions of "try". Def. 1 seems circular, but Defs. 2 - 4 and 7 seem to apply pretty well to the program. Of course, if we use Def. 8 instead, then few of us ever "try."
Ahh, semantics (being the study of meaning, I actually think semantics is pretty important).
That reminds me of a story from my philosophy of science professor (I studied biochemistry but branched out in college).
After giving lectures/presentations, scientists would ask about practices in their work which resembled induction, to try to understand how these practices should be approached philosophically, but Popper would just respond with "it's not science" or "it's not my fault you're a bad scientist."
I haven't tried contacts for years (when I was a teenager), so I don't remember. Thanks for the advice, though, I will explore the options more carefully next time I go in for a new prescription.
Am I understanding that correctly that you basically define how an object should respond to data, thereby giving it a human-like response?
Pretty much, although part of the point I wanted to make is that "human-like" is not necessarily as broad as it's made out to be. For example, IMHO the "try" construct is intentional without being anthropomorphic - I think "try" is an accurate moniker for what the program does.
Actually very funny, but I've already commented a bunch in this thread. I have points too (sad face).
I think there are probably a variety of good reasons for it, too. Here's one speculation: When we communicate with a human, we must use some language that will be more-or-less understood by the other human.
That is a good reason, but IMHO the reason for the origin of the "intentional stance" is that it's simply the most parsimonious way to approach survival in a dangerous environment.
It seemed easier for me to organize things into classes for a poker program because anthropomorphizing the methods made sense in that case.
In what way did you impute human characteristics to the poker code? My guess is you didn't truly anthropomorphize, but rather used some form of intentional stance or design stance.
IMHO, Vaillant (not having studied philosophy of mind) is a bit confused about intentionality, which is actually totally inescapable in programming.
In that sense, it was a form of anthropomorphism
I wouldn't call it that, since there isn't any necessary imputation of human characteristics to the objects. Instead, it's to do with intentionality. Whether I have a variable called "train_speed" or a "train" object with a "speed" member, the key thing is that these data are "about" achieving a particular purpose. I think TFA (and Dijkstra's piece) could have been much more insightful if the authors were familiar with a few ideas from philosophy of mind.
As you point out, things are more clear for physical modelling than other domains because no one is going to argue that trains don't have speeds.
Firstly, to understand the difference between trying to do and "trying to do", read some Dennett. If correctly understood, anthropomorphisms like the attribution of intention to a non-intentional entity can be extremely helpful.
I have been saying something very similar in other comments here (and linking pages for intentionality and the intentional stance). I'm sure if Dijkstra or Vaillant were more familiar with the philosophy of mind, they would end up making this kind of distinction instead of just proscribing what they call "anthropomorphizing."
I do think, however, that the intentional stance doesn't necessarily imply anthropomorphization. Programs in particular are designed towards specific ends and we can talk about how they represent facets of those ends without imputing to them human characteristics. I would cite any self-documenting code conventions (even as simple as a "speed" variable) as examples.
The cause for the analogy to break down is that there's no equivalent to walking to the classroom in his example. All of his code simply assigns a classroom number, without any equivalent of the walking part. As soon as you add that - magic ! - the analogy works again.
Dennett-style reasoning - I like it!
It is accurate to say that a program tries to do something
The key is intentionality. Programs are intentional systems, and their "aboutness" is reflected in variable names ("speed", "name"), language constructs (try-catch) and, most importantly, however the algorithm achieves a specific end.
IMHO, we can go a long way in using the "intentional stance" without venturing into potentially misleading anthropomorphizations.
If you don't draw analogies (like anthropomorphism), or abstractions, how the hell do you choose your names in a way that lends itself to understandable code?
That's a good point. Our programs are "intentional" (in the sense used in philosophy of mind), because we design them as means to specific ends. They are inherently about those ends, and self-documenting code conventions reflect that.
I think it's possible (and quite natural) to use the "intentional stance" without anthropomorphizing as such, for example when naming a variable "speed," or saying a program "tries" to do something (again, reflected in self-documenting conventions like a "try" construct). Purpose and intentionality are everywhere in the the world, and are not properties of the human mind only.
Dijkstra and Vaillant are probably not very familiar with intentionality (or philosophy of mind in general), or they probably would be making this distinction instead of blanket proscriptions against discussing code in certain ways.