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Are you arguing this?

(Premise 1) If a country has 350 million people, then the Senate will produce unrepresentative outcomes.

(Premise 2) America has 350 million people.

(Conclusion 1) So, the Senate will produce unrepresentative outcomes in America.

(Conclusion 2) So, the Senate is bad for America.


The Senate is not the group meant to represent the people, so why would you think OP is arguing this?


I think OP is arguing that because they literally said "The Senate is fundamentally a ridiculous way of representing 350 million people and we’re going to continue to get absurd unrepresentative outcomes for as long as it remains a relevant body."

What do you think they are arguing?


Right, but that's explicitly not the body of government meant to represent people. So is he saying the Senate is fundamentally a ridiculous way of representing 100 states, or is he saying the House is fundamentally a ridiculous way of representing 350 million people?


Maybe we are talking past one another.

> Right, but that's explicitly not the body of government meant to represent people.

I haven't claimed that the Senate was intended to represent the people. I also haven't claimed that OP claimed that the Senate was intended to represent the people.

> So is he saying the Senate is fundamentally a ridiculous way of representing 100 states, or is he saying the House is fundamentally a ridiculous way of representing 350 million people?

He didn't say either of those things. He said this "The Senate is fundamentally a ridiculous way of representing 350 million people."


I know that's what he typed, I'm asking what he meant. The Senate does not represent 350 million people. It has never represented people. It was never meant to represent people. Of course it's a ridiculous way of representing people, in the same way that a hammer is a ridiculous tool for heating something up. It's a completely nonsensical statement.


> We're nowhere close to AGI and don't have a clue how to get there.

Do you have an argument?


So do we already do this? And if not, why not?


We sure do, Sweden imports trash (actual trash, not recycling) because it's a huge part of their energy source.

A large amount of plastic recycling is burned, but always in secret, because when people find out they freak out, because they mistakenly think that making some new plastic out of it is somehow better.


> Sadly, the answer is that you can't.

Suppose there are two distinct entities, each such that if it is learned about, then it kills the learner, call them Geigh and Ritaar. What happens when Geigh learns about Ritaar?


How did you make a blank comment? I thought hn prevented it


How did you reply to a comment that doesn't exist? Is HN glitching?


Burma Shave


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How is that the same thing?


How are college endowments similar to hedge funds?

For one, they put money into hedge funds as investors. And broadly, they're long on illiquid investments but have short term obligations for salaries, pensions etc. That's a hedge fund with a slightly different time horizon and intent.

Some of those short term obligations are covered thru grants, fed money. But when that dries up (eg, Harvard and Trump), you're squeezed.


> In order to not have to explain everything, almost all lessons are mostly teaching you some axioms, even if they really are disputed, or have caveats, etc. Good teachers make clear where there is an axiom, and where something is just being simplified or assumed for the sake of saving time.

What exactly do you mean by the word “axiom” here?


Something assumed to be true without proof.

Think of it as one layer of abstraction above the model under discussion. Like a hyperparameter. In later years, students get taught the same topics again, with the hyperparameter tuned to be more realistic.


Something that is taught to be a self-evident or universally recognized truth


Does “self-evident” just mean that anyone who knows the sentence’s meaning can determine that it is true without any need to gather empirical data?

eg, All bachelors are unmarried.

eg, If X is a triangle, then X has three sides.

eg, the world is round or it is not the case that the world is round.

And does “universally recognized” just mean that most people believe the proposition is true?


In this context an axiom is a nonlogical axiom, in other words an assumption, one that is not to be questioned or discussed


Okay. So, in your original comment are you asserting that teachers are mostly telling students to believe propositions without giving any epistemic justification for those propositions?


Yes, as part of teaching one topic, teachers have to tell students to "not worry about" some other related topic and just take it as given fact, even when that's not technically true


> My personal rule is just not to disrespect people and parts of their culture they find important.

What even is named by the word “disrespect”?

Is disrespecting me just any behavior that I call “disrespectful”?

Seems like bullshit to me.


To me, disrespecting you is any behaviour which _I_ find disrespectful. If I was mistaken, I'd apologize. I can't control how you feel, burrows, I can only control what I say.


How many self-help books and YouTube videos does it usually take before someone starts offering advice like this?

absolutely great stuff


> We're making a better world for consumers, but sometimes I wonder if it's a better world for people.

Have you actually on multiple occasions wondered about this? Or has your brain just been colonized by pithy statements?


Do you have anything constructive to say or are you just going to be a jerk?


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