xherberta

7 ms·

1.
by xherberta 4y ago
Crime as in algo crime; there are not humans pulling a lever labeled “trash this relationship.”
2.
by xherberta 4y ago
Observe how this amounts to crime. The platform has motive: -newly single users attract more views -newly single users are worth more to advertisers because they’re likely to spend on appearance, travel, new hobbies, and big ticket items fo
3.
by xherberta 4y ago
> What if a learning dataset simply has not enough info for a correct answer to have a greater weight than all the “con” noise? Indeed. I wonder what happens as available training data shifts from purely human-generated (now) to largely
4.
by xherberta 4y ago
Curiosity killed the cat. We’ve developed disgust and taboos and physiological responses like vomiting to safeguard our interactions with living things that are small enough to eat. Perhaps an advanced form of life/intelligence that ha
5.
by xherberta 4y ago
Here's a discussion on pain points in the ICU: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33661482
6.
by xherberta 4y ago
> think I’m burning out (home, kids, marriage, etc) Do you think you could manage the job if there were no expectations on you outside the job? Could your partner get on board with you needing some time with very few home responsibilitie
7.
by xherberta 4y ago
Art Against Despair is a book put together by The School of Life. It's arranged with one page of text for each image, so it's an easy serving size when you don't have much time or attention. These are not nice pictures of flo
8.
by xherberta 6y ago
One that Loeb has mentioned: the status quo 10-year plan involves searching exoplanets for oxygen, which could arise without life, and which organisms would not necessarily need or produce. Instead, Loeb thinks we ought to look for industri
9.
by xherberta 6y ago
If the US hadn't dropped the ball on enforcing existing antitrust laws in the 80s and 90s, we wouldn't have to ask. Perhaps many more regular people would own productive enterprises, and wouldn't be looking to government to a
10.
by xherberta 9y ago
Wow! I did somehow miss the 15 years aspect. Mysterious. I'm glad you're feeling better.
11.
by xherberta 9y ago
I am skeptical of the headlines touting medical mistakes as the No. 3 cause of death in the US. But to be fair, someone could put up a similar site listing thousands of people who have been harmed under conventional medical care. Your site
12.
by xherberta 9y ago
"The great secret, known to internists and learned early in marriage by internists wives, but still hidden from the general public, is that most things get better by themselves. Most things, in fact, are better by morning." - Le
13.
by xherberta 9y ago
I agree. Kahneman and Harari also discussed how the shift to agriculture, while a great step forward for humanity as a collective group, was a major bummer for the individual. (Much more interesting and healthier to be a hunter-gatherer tha
14.
by xherberta 9y ago
On people becoming superfluous to the market and the state as machine intelligence progresses: "... [in the future, work no longer exists for] most of humanity... That mass of people cannot work, but they can still kill people...&quot
15.
by xherberta 9y ago
> Even after multiple generations of mutations, Bacteria can do thousands or millions of generations more rapidly than we can tweak our nanotech.
16.
by xherberta 9y ago
I don't know. With the third-party payer system, cost is hardly a factor in medical decisions.
17.
by xherberta 9y ago
Point taken. Thanks for the call out.
18.
by xherberta 9y ago
Why talk in terms of one big company? Maybe small investors with conflicting ideas and interests would like to own and run small companies. Except, a couple of big companies are making that very difficult.
19.
by xherberta 9y ago
The US hasn't enforced its anti-trust legislation in over 30 years. Some link Reagan's "assault" on anti-trust to the breakage of the American job market. There's been zero net job creation in the US between 1999 an
20.
by xherberta 9y ago
I guess as long as there has been cheese, mice have been eating it.
21.
by xherberta 9y ago
I think you may be underestimating the real-world messiness of this water sanitation example, and other types of problems where location-specific factors WILL make or break the project. There's an enormous gap between knowing the specs
22.
by xherberta 9y ago
I agree. The incentives are out of whack. Being a self-pay patient over the last several years has been enlightening. The health care people I've dealt with are generally ready to go well out of their way to help make care more afforda
23.
by xherberta 9y ago
Here are a couple of related resources: An eye-opening conversation with a palliative care physician: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/11/becky_liddicoat.htm... "Five Wishes," a tool to guide y
24.
by xherberta 9y ago
There's only one place I'm aware of on earth where organs can be sold: Iran. Here's an interview with an economist who helped set up that market, which does seem to function fairly efficiently and has some safeguards in place
25.
by xherberta 9y ago
Right. Monetizing death. Ugh. I'm also not certain that you can donate organs if you've been on pain (and other) medications.
26.
by xherberta 9y ago
Unfortunately "Magician" doesn't sound like a person you would want messing around in your code base, though.
27.
by xherberta 9y ago
This is a good point, and to her credit, Cathy O'Neil is careful to say that humans are worse. She's arguing for better algos, ones that are carefully thought out to avoid the worst of these pitfalls.
28.
by xherberta 9y ago
>Even a minimum wage job should cover the cost of day care for their youngest child, who is too young for full-time schooling. In many markets, no it won't, if you can even find a daycare with an opening. Anyway, this plan sounds
29.
by xherberta 9y ago
This is a VERY important point. I don't use FB, but a data-promiscuous person who knows a ton about me recently unfriended my closest contacts. Ignorance is bliss?
30.
by xherberta 9y ago
As Cathy O'Neil points out, black-box algos are deciding things that have a huge impact on individuals' lives: which teachers get fired, which prisoners don't get parole, and which loan applicants get approved and denied. In

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