We know that they share predators. We know that they share environments. We know that they share impact patterns. We also know that more than half a million people die from malaria every year.
> Certainly we must be missing some factor from this analysis
This is like saying nobody should ever take any medicine ever, even after years of study and analysis, because there might be some unknown harm that we haven't yet identified from it because we aren't looking in the right places. And yet we have collectively decided that taking medicine when we are sick is actually a good thing to do, because being sick in known catastrophic ways is objective and true while the unknown unknown is purely hypothetical and unfounded.
Well millions upon millions of people are dying, objectively and truly, and we can stop it. And what you have to say against a proposal that has had substantial risk analysis already done, where the harms have been determined to be nil, is something completely unfounded without a basis in any known mechanism in the real world.
It has been analyzed to death. At some point it becomes important to recognize that further objection on the same basis that has already been rebutted time and again is no longer clever and is just obstructionism with a willfully catastrophic cost.
> This is like saying nobody should ever take any medicine ever, even after years of study and analysis
Surely no-one would argue against the benefits of antibiotics, and yet after decades of successful use we're only now discovering that in using them, we're breeding resistant bacteria that we have no way to deal with. We're clever monkeys but we should remember that however hard we think, we can always miss something important, especially when we're talking about large complex biological systems.
If we can develop effective vaccines then I personally don't see the need to start deliberately exterminating species, even the truly loathesome ones.
Antibiotic resistance was foreseen pretty much from the start. And this is hardly a cautionary tale. Antibiotic resistance just makes antibiotics less effective, and you’re still better off than you were without antibiotics.
A better example would be something like tetraethyl lead, which poisoned (indeed continues to poison) huge numbers of people for relatively minor gain. Even then, the problems were known, the profit motive just won out over the don’t-poison-everyone motive.
> Surely no-one would argue against the benefits of antibiotics, and yet after decades of successful use we're only now discovering that in using them, we're breeding resistant bacteria that we have no way to deal with
People have been constantly arguing against all kinds of medicine, including antibiotics. And we have solutions to resistant bacteria. It's a social problem of developing expensive new antibiotics while restricting their market to the last line of defence. And finally, the analogy breaks down: we did develop and deploy antibiotics, and have been able to see the consequences and adapt as a result.
We're mindlessly eradicting species all the time. There might be a trolley problem in intentionally nuking one. But that's, again, socio-philosophical. If the first ecosystem we eradicate in collapses, against the predictions of practically every expert in the field, we can stop. In the meantime, we avoid a useless debate that costs millions their lives.
> If we can develop effective vaccines then I personally don't see the need to start deliberately exterminating species, even the truly loathesome ones
Again, a social problem. It's easier to get rid of the diseasse by taking out mosquitoes than it is to continuously convince populations to get vaccinated into perpetuity. (To say nothing of vaccines' adverse effects.)
Every vaccine has some fraction of the population is affects adversely. We’re super strict about that hazard. But it exists. Eradicating a mosquito isn’t risk free, but it’s (a) one and done and (b) strikes me as less risky.
> ... the analogy breaks down: we did develop and deploy antibiotics, and have been able to see the consequences and adapt as a result.
Not sure what you mean here; I was replying to this:
> Certainly we must be missing some factor from this analysis
> ---
> This is like saying nobody should ever take any medicine ever, even after years of study and analysis, because there might be some unknown harm that we haven't yet identified from it because we aren't looking in the right places.
...my point being that we are now facing previously unknown harms despite the best research available at the time (maybe antibiotic resistance itself was foreseen, but did anybody warn about hospital run-off and agricultural usage creating reservoirs of resistance-breeding via competition and horizontal gene transfer inside sewage systems? This is the sort of unforeseen consequence I'm talking about).
> We're mindlessly eradicting species all the time. There might be a trolley problem in intentionally nuking one. But that's, again, socio-philosophical. If the first ecosystem we eradicate in collapses, against the predictions of practically every expert in the field, we can stop. In the meantime, we avoid a useless debate that costs millions their lives.
This is exactly the kind of hubris I'm arguing against.
The fact that we're doing it all the time anyway is not an argument to do more of it. It's a compelling reason to do less.
Ecosystems don't generally exist in total isolation from each other, and don't just collapse when we poke them. Far more likely is that we will cause a problem that takes years or more to manifest, by which time it's out of our control and much more difficult or impossible to fix.
The debate is not useless when we're meddling with things that we don't fully understand, with unknown consequences for the environment that we live in. This is the trolley problem - do we save people from malaria now at the cost of potentially worse problems in the future? Since we don't know for sure what effect our intervention will have on a grander scale, what can't know what if any damage we're doing further down the line. I think it's OK to consider that carefully; in the meantime, vaccines are still our best option, and social problems are generally easier to quantify and address; we're pretty good at human psychology these days.
The factor you are missing is that aedes aegypti is an invasive species in most countries. Eradicating it isn't harming the environment, it's restoring the environment.
Ad-free, compute intensive, non-CRUD, massively scaled, complex cheat moderation, infinite puzzles/analysis, educational (studies/tactics/openings explorer), etc. All this for free. I'm curious what's the best website in your opinion
I could elaborate, but rather, let me ask you this instead since its more relevant.
What is the point of responding with any legitimate criticism when any potentially negative sentiment however mild, upfront, expressing disagreement, gets downvoted to the point where the mechanics of the website squelches the person and silences them (by purposeful intent).
Can you ever have any legitimate intelligent conversation after a participant has been harmed and effectively silenced in this way?
When you cannot speak freely, there can be no intelligent communications raising the bar objectively. The opposite occurs, and anything provided, even seemingly rational conversation falls after such a threat or action of violence, all conversation then falls into the gutter as a result of the added coercive cost imposed. You may contend that its not violence, but it meets the WHO definition for such which properly accounts for psychological torture and coercion (of which this is a common form).
It should go without saying, but you cannot have any intelligent conversation when those who embrace totalitarian methods prevent you from speaking (and yes these meet the criteria).
At the point this happens, regardless of valid criticism, or pointing out errors in methodology, it all dies on the vine, the communication is clear; you will be punished for disagreeing. That destructive behavior inevitably leads to ruin.
This is fairly basic stuff, in order to think and be intelligent, one must be able to risk being offensive. In order to learn something new, one must risk being offended.
When neither are possible because you or someone else muzzles any conversation expressing disagreement or corrosively add cost, even under such modest terms as here, the fallout is silent, yet devastating.
It might not seem like much, but the light goes out of the world as those with intelligence withdraw their support, and the natural consequences which were held at bay by these people, albeit slow moving, become inevitable.
Best of luck to you. There is only the possibility of harm by continuing any discussion under these circumstances.
I'd suggest remembering this when you start wondering, "where have all the intelligent and competent people gone?".
Silence doesn't indicate agreement. It is indicative of the best and brightest no longer contributing to the same systems that seek to destroy or enslave them.
It seems like your negative sentiment above has been downvoted a lot, and I understand your frustration. Your comment was indeed not offensive.
But I believe it was just that: a negative sentiment. Not exactly a "constructive, intelligent criticism". And when you go there, the reality is that people will vote to reflect their own opinion. If you say "This project is so amazing!" and get a ton of upvotes, it does not mean that your comment is super useful; just that many people agree. Similarly, if you say "Naah, it sucks" and get a ton of downvotes, it means that many people disagree. Not that they want to silent you.
Now try an actual constructive criticism: you may get downvotes (that's how it is because people are emotional beings), but probably upvotes as well if you bring interesting insights.
> There is only the possibility of harm by continuing any discussion under these circumstances.
That's fair. I think one mistake there is that you should have started with a constructive criticism rather than an admittedly polite "naaaah, I think it sucks".
There is no point, even my previous response was significantly downvoted, and that was quite constructive which contradicts your entire statement.
You might suggest such, but this has the effect of just baiting me for a response so it can be marked down more where you are engaging me for the effect to further punish.
You see these people don't do this because of their opinion, they do it because it causes psychological harm, its a totalitarian tactic that is not unknown. Silencing was used somewhat heavily during Hitler's rise to power.
Forcing the only conversation to first agree before moving forward, at any point, causes you to fight your own psychology to remain consistent and the process warps you subtly. Most aren't self-reflective enough to notice but the effect is the same regardless.
Robert Cialdini wrote quite a lot about the various lever of influences that are often used as mental compulsion/coercion, and Joost Meerloo and Robert Lifton both cover these structures and techniques in detail in the context of WW2 torture and moving forward. These behavioral structures run parallel with those of the Nazi's, and other totalitarian regimes.
This is what is happening, and when mild conversation causes this type of behavior, this is the time you should be most greatly concerned because its arbitrary, causes mass delusion, and continues until destruction, albeit slow, overtakes that group.
As far as I'm concerned, the people doing this can ride their train right to their own demise for all I care. They are true evil, and they'll be doing the world a favor when that happens. The rules of society will no longer protect them once they destroy society.
We were taught from children to not be violent. This is violence, there is no excuse for bullying, and people are no better than animals if they can't reason and be civil. What one does in small things, they do first in large things that matter.
If they want to be violent for a mild comment like that, they won't get anything from me, and I'll reciprocate in the only way I can right now, withdrawing and not providing anything of value.
I'll pray I never meet them in person because if you or anyone else tries to harm me, I'll be exacting an equal or greater cost in self-defense.
This destructive behavior is despicable on so many levels, and you say its not so bad but you don't realize just how bad it gets, this behavior promoting menticide, and robotization is what led to the gas chambers in Germany during WW2.
When no one questions rationally, or can express disagreement, evil flourishes. You can't ever argue with evil, you have to kill it, as we had to do during WW2 (at great cost).
Read the notes from the Wannasee Conference, or if you can't be bothered, rent Conspiracy (2001). The history is well documented by experts who studied these things to prevent it from ever happening again, and yet it seems no one has learned their lessons since they repeat it yet again.
They are emotional beings (/s), can you imagine that being a valid defense of Nazism during WW2? For the deaths of all those Jews in the camps? If it's unjustifiable at the extremes, it is unjustifiable anywhere.
These are the same things, the only difference is perspective and the fact that you don't have perfect information upfront at the bottom level, you only ever find out afterwards, and its a goose-step death march ever forward and people don't realize this is how it works. One step at a time, pivoting, with no questions.
This is only the beginning, and when you can't stop it early, then its too late to do anything later to prevent the massive destruction that these people inevitably bring on themselves and everyone else.
This is why it is so damn important to protect and maintain freedom of speech in a civil atmosphere. There can be no rational support for this behavior, not ever.
Well, moderation is very hard. I guess in an ideal world people would be able to upvote/downvote based solely on the quality of the comment, and flag for moderation when they genuinely think a comment is unacceptable. In such a world, your polite "nah it sucks" would still be downvoted (because it's neither insightful nor pleasant for Lichess supporters, let's be honest) but it would not disappear; it would just appear at the bottom of the list and you wouldn't know how many people disagreed with you. But that's not how it is, so your comment looks like it got moderated when actually I genuinely believe it just got downvoted by many people.
Now I would not compare this to Nazism or call it "true evil". Try to pick someone randomly in the street, go talk to them and politely explain why you find them unattractive (e.g. "I just would like to say that anyone finding you attractive would have pretty low standards"). Would you call it Nazism if they asked you to leave them alone?
Isolation does weird things to the mind, one of which distorts reflected appraisal, other parts where reflected appraisal is denied in communications are even more impactful. It induces a involuntary hypnotic states which varies in intensity by exposure.
The tortured takes on mannerisms of the torturer, and when denied communication, or only distorted reflected apprsail long enough their entire being unravels, and you have psychotic break or disassociate completely. The psychotic break is a semi-lucid state where planning is capable. To make an apt comparison, an active shooter might fall into this latter category. Years of investigations into what causes these people to do what they did, and the powers that be can only say with certainty that these people were bullied, but no clear cause can be found.
Coercion is a dangerous thing.
You can corroborate what I've said with the literature in the books I mentioned, or with isolation studies where the studies had to be cancelled early for the safety of the study participants. There is a lot of research out there.
Destroying someone's identity, their personality, what makes them them, is true evil, and these structures are how you do it which is why its so important to recognize the problem, few do.
Your comparison is apples to oranges. It is not asking someone a opinion, its silencing them entirely by force, where they are disadvantaged when they don't answer. There is a very big distinction between the two.
I do understand, and it is unfortunate that moderation gets mixed up with score. If you have a better solution, feel free to explain it! Because not moderating at all is a problem in its own.
It wasn't always like that. The actual solution is something that all forums have done for decades starting in the 90s with BBS/moderated usenet groups.
You only allow moderators to do the actual moderating. You don't allow upvotes or downvotes because they are used following a sybil attack structure (many sock-puppet accounts to one person) to silence or amplify messages.
You have a flag button (which they already have in place for HN), to report content that should be flagged for violating rules.
Those that report spurious (good) content get warned/punished for abusing the flag features. They may have the feature silently revoked (shadowbanned) for abuses, or banned for other activity suggesting the accounts are sockpuppets (i.e. going directly to an article when normal viewing requires first loading the index, then following a link with the associated metadata including the referrer to get to the page to make a report.
It really is that simple.
This moderates, and it limits bad actors, its still done in most online forums that are still around; because it works.
> Those that report spurious (good) content get warned/punished for abusing the flag features.
What about this? Sounds like it may "silence" people who flag stuff that [those in power] think should not be flagged. How is that different from you thinking that you are silenced because people did not like what you wrote? Someone could feel like they get silenced/warned/punished because they genuinely flag what they see as inappropriate content, right?
> What about this? Sounds like it may "silence" people who flag stuff that [those in power] think should not be flagged.
In practice, when you write clear consistent community rules and guidelines that are unambiguous, the averse silencing issues of arbitrary action are non-existent. The only people who get warned are bad actors, or others with mental illness often based in delusion (who should be de-amplified and silenced as they are unwell).
Echo chambers promote the spread of mass delusion and the psychosis needed by totalitarian regimes to persist in their destructive natures towards a final outcome. This includes state-run media (a tyrant's best friend).
These use the same mechanisms we use naturally to develop our identity and adopt our culture as we grow from children to adults, but towards more destructive outcomes, the banality of evil and the radical evil (WW2) are well studied subjects.
It should go without saying these moderator actions all inherently come with reasonable graduated responses based on severity and persistence of the threat; sophistication naturally increases severity, but remains consistent unlike HN news.
You are told what you did wrong when you do wrong as opposed to the Chinese Anaconda in the Chandelier Strategy whose outcome will only result in all rational people being eaten first, then the irrational rest, then no ones left (since the Anaconda dies from not eating and it ate everyone).
Being told what rule you broke and having it be reasonable, fair and just, is fundamental in having due process, and underlies the basic "rule of law", and avoids conformist irrational silencing by mob or corrupt officials (as under a "rule by law"; you show me the person I'll show you the crime.)
> How is that different from you thinking that you are silenced because people did not like what you wrote.
At its core, you have to ask yourself what is the difference for you between objective reality and delusion, and secondarily (or primarily), what is your working definition of delusion. Finally, should the delusional be allowed to force you to become delusional through mental coercion? Those who are delusional are fundamentally destructive because they are blind to the truth (a requisite of evil people).
Needless to say, this is the bundle of questions underlying the core question you are asking, though it has intrinsic ties to how we know truth from falsity in the first place which is based in western philosophy. Unfortunately, this subject is not taught in developmental curricula anymore (K-12), and classical education covered this under the curricula that included both Trivium and Quadrivium curricula elements pre-Prussian school model of centralized education. The classical education gave rise to generations of hyper-rationalism which allowed rapid technological progress and advance up until WW2 when the change (given maturity time lag), occurred. At any one time two to three generations live side-by-side, a generation being 20 years. Those raised under the prussian model came of age in the 1930s-1940s. The late 1940s-1970s are when societal problems started occurring beginning at the critical point an individuals 30s-40s where political power is transferred generationally. It progressively has gotten worse ever since to current day.
Unfortunately, answering those questions without allowing ambiguity would exceed several pages and laying it out step-by-step so you can see the mental gymnastics done to point out the subtle distinctions, make this area fairly irreducible in a post here (its too long).
At its core, the issue is often started with corruption of language and definitions which involves creating circular or contradictory alternate definitions (not tied externally or objectively). As an example, take a look at the google definition for delusional (2), and then deluded, both claim to be from the Oxford Dictionary (from google). What happens when you say something based in fact, and they adjust the context deceitfully using these contradictory definitions.
Once you check those definitions out, then go to the Oxford Dictionary website and find that definition pre-1970. You will find there is a subtle but important distinction and that they are not the same. Newer similar ambiguous words are being adjusted to be tautological as well. The false premise being if you don't have words to describe something accurately, then it doesn't exist (often an underlying communist/marxist thought theme).
This lessening is what Orwell tried to warn against in his dystopian book related to language, deceit, and its impact on people.
This isn't an accident either, it is being done purposefully by intent and design following socialism/communism themes. The selfish ledger is a leaked google document that uses elements from Maoism in Google's own words, and debunked researchers, to mislead and promise utopia while leading to dystopia. This is why its important to keep older dictionaries when online references can be poisoned/paywalled without notice.
Check out Dr. Epstein on Youtube related to Google's Worst Enemy. You'll no doubt notice he's being discredited algorithmically by matching related videos up with Jeffrey Epstein to manipulate you. This is the common level of sophistication and it goes so much deeper in the literature, and its rationally supported.
To answer your core question.
The delusional or schizophrenic person doesn't base their reality on external objective evidence following rational principles, or structure. When someone does base what they say with evidence/fact, they aren't and can't be delusional until they use something incorrectly that may be valid but is not sound. Baseless feelings don't generally matter, they are transient where objective facts and supported premises do matter (above all else).
> Someone could feel like they get silenced
People can feel whatever they want, guidance is issued by moderators when something is unclear to remain consistent. Unwell people are encouraged not to participate. Using references to words like feelings, and other aspects of the mind all boil down to whether the person in question is being rational or delusional. If the latter, they are unwell and should be moderated. If the former, they can participate. The rules are consistent to segment the two based on rational behavior.
Rationality and our ability to discern falsehoods is largely what separates us from animals, and we are living through an age of lies, deceit, and ruin never before seen. Taken to one of many possible logical conclusions, eventually dependent systems will collapse as all systems have been made progressively more brittle as concentration/sieving occurs at all levels of centralized planning (predicted), and eventually just like under Mao, there will be a great dying only it will be much worse. A calamity, never before seen at such a scale. This is the natural consequence when you have a generation die off who disadvantaged their children through changes they made, so profusely that they don't have a replacement birthrate (i.e. depopulation).
As you can see many things are intertwined but they largely all come back to the fundamental building blocks of society and what made it work previously, which has been changed and made more brittle systematically over time, prior to bringing stress to cause failure for a pivot to statism.
If one isn't educated on what those building blocks in the first place are, its difficult to even have a discussion, or get traction on problems since there is no common ground for shared meaning.
Putting it mildly more damage is done with unsound methods based in delusion, and an incomplete picture on the failure domains, than no action at all. People today largely were never taught to think rationally. A very small minority are an exception, and they have no real voice.
Cascading failures on two sides of a shrinking cliff-side, with the delusional leading the way over the cliff like lemmings, and preventing any other path forward secure in their hubris and death march towards destruction.
It is not a hopeful outlook once you get to a point of no return, but that's how it is when people become complacent and eventually delusional.
A more suitable word would be that we "emulate" the bones, etc., rather than simulate, which to me implies that you are testing against a replica of a thing. But I don't really think emulate works here because they're not especially analogous; these are fundamentally different approaches to flight so any form following the function would be incidental at best.
The type of propulsion is not, though.
Nothing in nature has 360° rotatory motion.
Airplane is not an exact simulation of a bird.
Only an approximation
People who have the stake or dry powder to move the share price of a bank (or megacap tech company while we’re at it) are in no way interested in socially useful pricing around dickhead behavior.
