In response to comment by timujin on Zombies Redacted
Comment author: kilobug 08 July 2016 08:42:25AM 1 point [-]

Imagine a cookie like Oreo to the last atom, except that it's deadly poisonous, weighs 100 tons and runs away when scared.

Well, I honestly can't. When you tell me that, I picture a real Oreo, and then at its side a cartoonish Oreo with all those weird property, but then trying to assume the microscopic structure of the cartoonish Oreo is the same than of a real Oreo just fails.

It's like if you tell me to imagine an equilateral triangle which is also a right triangle. Knowing non-euclidian geometry I sure can cheat around, but assuming I don't know about non-euclidian geometry or you explicitely add the constraint of keeping it, it just fails. You can hold the two sets of properties next to each other, but not reunite them.

Or if you tell me to imagine an arrangement of 7 small stones as a rectangle which isn't a line of 7x1. I can hold the image of 7 stones, the image of a 4x2 rectangle side-by-side, but reuniting the two just fails. Or leads to 4 stones in a line with 3 stones in a line below, which is no longer a rectangle.

When you multiply constraints to the point of being logically impossible, imagination just breaks - it holds the properties in two side-by-side sets, unable to re-conciliate them into a single coherent entity.

That's what your weird Oreo or zombies do to me.

In response to comment by kilobug on Zombies Redacted
Comment author: Good_Burning_Plastic 09 July 2016 09:17:47AM *  3 points [-]

Or if you tell me to imagine an arrangement of 7 small stones as a rectangle which isn't a line of 7x1.

O.O.O.O
O..O..O
Comment author: gjm 07 July 2016 03:13:29PM -1 points [-]

I think the "liked" tab on your user page displays precisely those articles that you've upvoted. So upvoting an article will make it available there in the future.

Comment author: Good_Burning_Plastic 07 July 2016 10:26:27PM 0 points [-]

And downvoting an article will add it to the "disliked" tab. But please don't vote articles solely for this purpose.

Comment author: ChristianKl 02 July 2016 10:20:11AM *  1 point [-]

Downvoted for failure to provide the source.

Comment author: Good_Burning_Plastic 02 July 2016 04:58:26PM 2 points [-]

From the bullet at the end, I guess he tried to link it but got the Markdown wrong.

Comment author: Lumifer 28 June 2016 07:49:16PM 2 points [-]

At the bottom of that slippery slope is an ice floe.

In response to comment by Lumifer on Crazy Ideas Thread
Comment author: Good_Burning_Plastic 29 June 2016 09:21:03AM 0 points [-]

I'm not sure that's worse than what present-day Americans do.

Comment author: oath 21 June 2016 02:06:39AM 3 points [-]

Well, the numbers you give are frankly unbelievable and I don't believe them.

The fact the the sources appear to conflate spanking and child abuse is not encouraging in regard to their trustworthiness.

Comment author: Good_Burning_Plastic 25 June 2016 10:48:36PM 0 points [-]

Well, the numbers you give are frankly unbelievable

You might be generalizing from one example, e.g. if you were raised by middle-class parents you might not have realistic ideas about how fucked up lower-class parents can be.

In response to comment by gjm on Avoiding strawmen
Comment author: DefectiveAlgorithm 25 June 2016 10:12:59AM -6 points [-]

...Has someone been mass downvoting you?

Comment author: Good_Burning_Plastic 25 June 2016 10:22:35PM -6 points [-]

Yes, The Artist Formerly Known As Eugine_Nier is doing it.

In response to Crazy Ideas Thread
Comment author: Good_Burning_Plastic 24 June 2016 08:11:36AM *  1 point [-]

(had the idea after seeing this)

Each person's vote should be weighed by their life expectancy given their age.

(ETA: I will downvote any comment in this subthread discussing the object-level issue of whether Britain had better stay in the EU, no matter how reasonable and insightful it is.)

Comment author: JustinMElms 22 June 2016 09:54:35PM 4 points [-]

That's ridiculous: whenever I want to comment, I always observe that I am reading 4-year-old arguments and keep on scrolling.

Comment author: Good_Burning_Plastic 23 June 2016 03:42:50PM 4 points [-]

Necro-commenting isn't usually frowned upon around here.

Comment author: ChristianKl 24 May 2016 11:51:53AM 0 points [-]

that if we really believe in cryonics

What does "we really believe" mean? That seems like something we categorically don't do. (1) We don't hold group belief but individuals have different beliefs.
(2) We think in terms of probability that are different for different people
It seems criticism like that comes from people who don't understand that we aren't a religion that specicies what everybody has to believe.

If the people who belief that cryonics works with >0.3 are signed up for cryonics when available while the people who think it only works with ~0.1 are not signed up I don't see any sign of irrationality.

Comment author: Good_Burning_Plastic 19 June 2016 11:42:47AM 0 points [-]

If the people who belief that cryonics works with >0.3 are signed up for cryonics when available while the people who think it only works with ~0.1 are not signed up I don't see any sign of irrationality.

Has anybody looked at the data set to check if that's indeed the case?

Comment author: Lumifer 18 June 2016 01:34:38AM 1 point [-]

Carpe diem is more a predecessor of Nike's Just Do It, rather than "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow".

In response to comment by Lumifer on Buying happiness
Comment author: Good_Burning_Plastic 18 June 2016 07:39:09AM 0 points [-]

That might be what it has become in present-day popular culture, but the line in the original poem did continue with "quam minimum credula postero".

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