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And it was obvious that heavier things fell faster than lighter things, up until it was actually tested. You claimed it was a fact, not that it was obvious (to you) Other things that seem obvious that prison time reduces the odds that someone would re-offend, or that the death penalty is a deterrent, and people claim these things are true. But those “obvious” things don’t hold up to scrutiny. “A large body of research finds that spending time in prison or jail doesn’t lower the risk that someone will offend again. In some instances, it actually raises the likelihood that they will commit future crimes.” https://daily.jstor.org/rethinking-prison-as-a-deterrent-to-future-crime/ The death penalty does not deter crime “there is no credible evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than long terms of imprisonment. States that have death penalty laws do not have lower crime rates or murder rates than states without such laws” https://www.aclu.org/documents/death-penalty-questions-and-answers#:~:text=A%3A No%2C there is no,than states without such laws. So yes, I expect that issues of deterrence have been studied. And they have been. “Research shows clearly that the chance of being caught is a vastly more effective deterrent than even draconian punishment.” “Increasing the severity of punishment does little to deter crime” https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/five-things-about-deterrence So apparently there are studies. If it’s a “great incentive” one might expect clear evidence of the deterrence. The bottom line is that if you claim something to be true, you have to be prepared to back it up. Others do this regularly, and it’s required by the rules. It’s exhausting having try and get you to do this when you’re posting an opinion that you’re asserting as fact. It takes time to debunk you and it’s not fair that you can just spout BS and move on. It’s a fundamentally dishonest debate tactic, and common enough that it has its own name - Brandolini’s law, aka the bullshit asymmetry principle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini's_law

! Moderator Note Fact? Where are the studies that support this fact?

You can read up the interpretation of CIs here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_interval Specifically: A 95% confidence level does not mean that 95% of the sample data lie within the confidence interval. A 95% confidence level does not mean that there is a 95% probability of the parameter estimate from a repeat of the experiment falling within the confidence interval computed from a given experiment.[16] Because a) in terms of safety we only look for certain defined endpoints (e.g. death, cancer, etc.) so potential other effects can be easily missed, and b) experiments are set up to test the null (i.e. no effect) so it is not really possible to calculate the likelihood of no effect. For the extremes and for short term you can establish a measure of safety (i.e. no one dying within 6 months of taking a medication). But if you want to look all effects (liver, kidney, inflammation, immune modulation, cardiovascular health, and so on) or for effects in the long term, confounders will have an increasingly bigger role (such as diet, lifestyle, age, health status etc.). Controlling for all these factors is near impossible (there would be a near infinite list to track for each person). I brought up the issue of diet, which had over the years huge cohorts and long-time data, but the effects have not been reproducible.

I do, indeed. There’s literally decades of research supporting this topic and the conclusions are consistent. That said, they’re OT, mistermack wont read them, won’t change his stance as a result of them, nor will he offer counter examples showing them wrong (choosing instead to rely on his common sense folk wisdom outdated opinion) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228187332_The_Effectiveness_of_Correctional_Rehabilitation_A_Review_of_Systematic_Reviews

Some may say that the only viable occupation left for you after being admonished with such a label is the US Presidency. Impotent, indeed. Influence, nudge, and ring fence. Motivate, encourage, and restrict. Leverage, blackmail, and regulate. I could go on, but this is hardly math we’re doing here and I suspect that’s the type of precision you’d prefer. Alas, you won’t find it, as even when we use the same words their meaning differs from person to person and even within ourselves from yesterday to today.

Humility would serve you well. If someone can't understand you, putting the onus entirely on them is unreasonable when you possess the intelligence to meet them halfway with your own clarification and employment of the common parlance. As it is, you come across as cute but a bit solipsistic.

Thanks! I will read this with a pair of fresh eyes tomorrow!

(Think I spoke too soon when I said I will only need to block one person...) Got handed multiple papers to read by contacts. Two of them here: 1. "Inruption theory" of consciousness (given to me in response to me mentioning underdetermination. The theory proposes making use of increasing and decreasing amount of underdetermination detected in future experiments) https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/25/5/748 My summary conclusion is that the theory is useful for advancing the science. It does, however, admit that it still doesn't provide a specific modeling of the mechanism. This fits George E. P. Box's aphorism "All models are wrong, some are useful." The paper's author happens to be in the thread, and agreed. 2. A about meaning and whether current LLMs are capable of understanding the meaning of words and language https://www.academia.edu/86274770/Dumb_Meaning_Machine_Learning_and_Artificial_Semantics The paper is very well written in its exposition of the grounding problem, which makes some of the same point I did in my article. However... I completely disagree with the solution that's being presented, namely: a. It accepts subsymbolic/connectionist systems as "not programmed" when in fact they are STILL programmed (e.g. neural nets have algorithms which of course are programmed and thus still not actually learning (this is basically a major quibble of mine, and not actually his "solution" or anything as much as the treatment of the issue, but thought I'd mention) b. It seeks to branch out the meaning of the term "meaning" itself which is a complete no-no, especially when the author already mentioned the warning that were given by experts regarding terms like "intelligence". Okay, noting the effects of correspondence is fine, but please please PLEASE don't call it "meaning." It's the whole "intelligence" and "learning" obfuscation disasters all over again, with most people just misinterpreting those technical terms (neglecting or flat out ignorant of their technical meanings) when mixed with venacular usage. If anyone has a paper they want to refer me to in support of whatever point they want to make, feel free to give me a link but please state what particular point(s) I'm supposed to take from it.

Here's a Venn diagram explaining why Marjorie Taylor Greene's book isn't selling well:

I'm just returning a small portion of the snarkiness and bitchiness that you sent my way in the artificial consciousness thread. If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. You had nothing better to do in that thread but make statements like "He is a waste of time" because well, you had nothing to stand on. Better look in the mirror before throwing rocks. That said, what you typed was a category mistake, because the statement I made was not from the societal angle; I was being consistent throughout. You're mixing personal action with societal evaluation. Nah, I'm not your ally. I have no choice but to not be!