Who in his right mind would have expected that scientists suddenly have to justify their findings and projections and get called "alarmists" or "payed of/bribed by renewable industry" etc.
Sadly, anyone who was watching the tobacco lobby's tactics in the 60s and 70s carefully, and had a small realisation, probably could have predicted it.
So just to be clear, are you saying that whoever came up with or promoted steady state cosmology knew it was bullshit and was trolling the scientific community? Maybe they were shilling for Big Astrophysics, or something like that?
The key word here, which you may have missed, is "deliberate". Like the Piltdown Man, which is the only significant example that I can think of.
I thought it was completely logical. If it helps, replace the word "Trump" with "Oprah" and see if it still seems illogical to you.
If your first thought was "but Oprah could never be POTUS, the American population would never do anything that stupid", then remember that this is exactly what all the experts were saying two years ago, and it happened.
I'm cool with that. If you're the sort of business person who routinely takes contracts that a critical mass of people think are highly unethical, it's probably best if you didn't hire anyone with a conscience in the first place.
For many people, it was more or less OK when a lot of people didn't seriously think that Trump could win.
No matter who wins in 2020 or 2024, no matter how competent they are, any future project of this kind will be tainted by the fact that someone else could realistically have control of it in the future. If you work at a US tech company, the question you should be asking yourself is "Would I be okay with Oprah or Kanye controlling this?" If the answer is "no", then you shouldn't be doing it.
Well one you don't constitute a consensus on anything.
Correct, I'm just a guy on the Internet.
But if you are saying it's rare for the consensus for scientific fields to be wrong, [...]
No, I said that it's rare for deliberate falsehoods to take over a scientific field. Science is often wrong, but it's rare for science to fall for a deliberate hoax/lie/conspiracy for very long. If it does happen, it rarely (if ever) takes over the field.
Morse tops out at about 140wpm IIRC. It beats any mobile device input and is probably fast enough for most people but it doesn't compete with professional typists.
I don't like liars either. Lies can capture the public's imagination, but it's rare for deliberate falsehoods (genuine mistakes are another matter) to take over expert consensus, especially in a scientific field.
Indeed. These devices don't compete with keyboards and keyboard-optimised editors...
But that's not to say that it couldn't be done. We would have to design programming languages with a syntax that was optimised for some new HID but still possible to use a text editor with (because editor lock-in tends to kill most languages where this is tried).
In 1968, Erich von Daniken published "Chariots of the Gods" and a lot of people read that too.
The interesting question is what experts think in total, the consensus as well.as the spread. You don't just get to pick the sensationalist outliers at either end.
The humanities are overwhelmingly liberal, as they should be. Free speech, free inquiry, and opposition to the supposed divine right of kings and popes is anathema.
"Liberal" is only the same as "left" if you're in the Estates General. Similarly, "libertarian" is not "conservative" is not "fascist".
Python is the classic example of implementation-defined semantics. The semantics of Python are whatever the reference implementation does. This is always a bad sign, but let me give you an example.
Most Python programmers don't know exactly what the rules are to decide when a new variable is created. People used to Algol-like languages (e.g. C) might naively think that a variable is scoped to a block, since Python seems block-structured. They would be wrong. Python variables are scoped to functions and classes. Oh, and comprehensions. And generator expressions. And probably a few other things that I don't know about.
Here are a few examples, but the best way to get a crash course in how broken the variable semantics are is to try (and fail) to write a compiler or interpreter for Python.
The brokenness of the object model is uncontroversial. Every object model based on that of Simula is broken. Just ask your favourite search engine why "OOP is broken" and you'll get it all. (See Smalltalk for an example of a less-broken object system and Haskell for an example of a principled class system.)
And of course "everything is an object" is flatly untrue; unless you are specifically doing simulation, most interesting things in the world are not objects.
I can't stand Python because it has broken variable semantics and a broken object model (made worse by the fundamentalist "everything is a broken object" approach).
I'm pretty certain that Python is designed for programmers who like writing tests and debugging running systems more than they like writing features.
Economists routinely publish papers based on results calculated in Excel. I can't stand Python (although significant whitespace is one of its less obnoxious features) but it's a definite improvement.
If I was being paid Amazon stocker wages, and someone was offering me money to complain, I'd probably take it. Especially if the combined income was enough to live on.
Slashdot Mirror
Who in his right mind would have expected that scientists suddenly have to justify their findings and projections and get called "alarmists" or "payed of/bribed by renewable industry" etc.
Sadly, anyone who was watching the tobacco lobby's tactics in the 60s and 70s carefully, and had a small realisation, probably could have predicted it.
So just to be clear, are you saying that whoever came up with or promoted steady state cosmology knew it was bullshit and was trolling the scientific community? Maybe they were shilling for Big Astrophysics, or something like that?
The key word here, which you may have missed, is "deliberate". Like the Piltdown Man, which is the only significant example that I can think of.
I thought it was completely logical. If it helps, replace the word "Trump" with "Oprah" and see if it still seems illogical to you.
If your first thought was "but Oprah could never be POTUS, the American population would never do anything that stupid", then remember that this is exactly what all the experts were saying two years ago, and it happened.
There is only one thing worse than being talked about...
I'm cool with that. If you're the sort of business person who routinely takes contracts that a critical mass of people think are highly unethical, it's probably best if you didn't hire anyone with a conscience in the first place.
For many people, it was more or less OK when a lot of people didn't seriously think that Trump could win.
No matter who wins in 2020 or 2024, no matter how competent they are, any future project of this kind will be tainted by the fact that someone else could realistically have control of it in the future. If you work at a US tech company, the question you should be asking yourself is "Would I be okay with Oprah or Kanye controlling this?" If the answer is "no", then you shouldn't be doing it.
Well one you don't constitute a consensus on anything.
Correct, I'm just a guy on the Internet.
But if you are saying it's rare for the consensus for scientific fields to be wrong, [...]
No, I said that it's rare for deliberate falsehoods to take over a scientific field. Science is often wrong, but it's rare for science to fall for a deliberate hoax/lie/conspiracy for very long. If it does happen, it rarely (if ever) takes over the field.
Morse tops out at about 140wpm IIRC. It beats any mobile device input and is probably fast enough for most people but it doesn't compete with professional typists.
Yes. Obfuscated Perl is optimised for programming with 1994-era vi over a 1200 baud connection.
I don't like liars either. Lies can capture the public's imagination, but it's rare for deliberate falsehoods (genuine mistakes are another matter) to take over expert consensus, especially in a scientific field.
But that doesn't work for coding.
Indeed. These devices don't compete with keyboards and keyboard-optimised editors...
But that's not to say that it couldn't be done. We would have to design programming languages with a syntax that was optimised for some new HID but still possible to use a text editor with (because editor lock-in tends to kill most languages where this is tried).
I'm sure Millennials are due to kill QWERTY keyboards any day now.
In 1968, Erich von Daniken published "Chariots of the Gods" and a lot of people read that too.
The interesting question is what experts think in total, the consensus as well.as the spread. You don't just get to pick the sensationalist outliers at either end.
He's using an obsolete definition of liberal.
While we still use the term "liberal arts", it's not obsolete. It's just not the definition that the current political establishment uses.
There are a lot of people who call themselves "liberal" and "conservative" who aren't.
The humanities are overwhelmingly liberal, as they should be. Free speech, free inquiry, and opposition to the supposed divine right of kings and popes is anathema.
"Liberal" is only the same as "left" if you're in the Estates General. Similarly, "libertarian" is not "conservative" is not "fascist".
Python is the classic example of implementation-defined semantics. The semantics of Python are whatever the reference implementation does. This is always a bad sign, but let me give you an example.
Most Python programmers don't know exactly what the rules are to decide when a new variable is created. People used to Algol-like languages (e.g. C) might naively think that a variable is scoped to a block, since Python seems block-structured. They would be wrong. Python variables are scoped to functions and classes. Oh, and comprehensions. And generator expressions. And probably a few other things that I don't know about.
Here are a few examples, but the best way to get a crash course in how broken the variable semantics are is to try (and fail) to write a compiler or interpreter for Python.
The brokenness of the object model is uncontroversial. Every object model based on that of Simula is broken. Just ask your favourite search engine why "OOP is broken" and you'll get it all. (See Smalltalk for an example of a less-broken object system and Haskell for an example of a principled class system.)
And of course "everything is an object" is flatly untrue; unless you are specifically doing simulation, most interesting things in the world are not objects.
It usually takes a screw driver and a pair or wire cutters.
I take it you've never tried to open up a Nexus phone.
In other words you hate being forced to write readable code.
No, I just like programming more than I like debugging.
I can't stand Python because it has broken variable semantics and a broken object model (made worse by the fundamentalist "everything is a broken object" approach).
I'm pretty certain that Python is designed for programmers who like writing tests and debugging running systems more than they like writing features.
You did ask.
Economists routinely publish papers based on results calculated in Excel. I can't stand Python (although significant whitespace is one of its less obnoxious features) but it's a definite improvement.
If I was being paid Amazon stocker wages, and someone was offering me money to complain, I'd probably take it. Especially if the combined income was enough to live on.
Nobody died and made anyone king. Canada already has a queen. But it's also a democracy and as such everyone is allowed to propose dumb ideas.
Having said that, read the last two sentences again. This looks a hell of a lot like a negotiating tactic to me.
After 40 years of intense research?
Just like fusion power, yes.
For comparison, Australian High Court justices have a mandatory retirement age of 75. That's not a bad compromise.