This is especially true for antidepressants because some are only effective on more severe cases (eg Zoloft); self-selection will yield a body of faux-depressed and mildly depressed people on whom the drug has no result.
Nymogenous
Karma: 202
I feel like it may have even obscured the point...I spent more time wading through the math than I did thinking about the bias shield effect. Since it didn’t really clarify anything, it came across as some kind of signalling...not sure if that’s what it was, but it’s certainly what it looks like.
That must be why underinformed nuclear programs require so little testing to develop a functional warhead. Oh, wait...
LW needs a (Funny) tag like Slashdot. I’m saving this for future use in dispelling the correlation/causation fallacy.
This seems like a sensible decision to me, comparable to the practice of withholding certain details about the technology used to make nuclear weaponry. No sense making it easy to duplicate hazardous research!
Well no, but an AI could figure things out and then not tell the physicists. Same thing as when you let a kid take apart a toaster to find out how it works instead of just telling them...or was that only my parents that did that?
Excellent story! I second the idea that this belongs in Main.
Also, I particularly liked your idea of physics being left to humans so as not to spoil the fun. It’s both an unusual idea and one of my personal requirements for a utopia...spoilers are so boring.
A lot of of events, like lightning and the origin of species, were once mysterious magic tricks, but now have been fully explained by naturalism.
Minor nitpick, but neither of those phenomena is fully explainable by naturalism yet. Last I checked there was still a good deal of debate about the rate at which evolution occurs and how gradual it is, and no physicist I’ve talked to is sure why lightning generates antimatter
Perhaps a better example would be something better-understood, like rain or magnetism.
EDIT: I found an unrelated, but nonetheless cool article about stimulating lightning
Ron Paul has stated opposition to the act in the past, but I’ve been unable to find any evidence of recent activity on his part, so I classed him as a non-active opponent of the bill. I seem to remember there being a whopping ten representatives signing an anti-SOPA pledge a while back, which is probably a decent estimate of how many representatives oppose the bill (certainly it would indicate a supermajority in favor of the bill).
I’m under the impression that both support and opposition to SOPA come from people on both the left and the right
At my last count, there were five representatives actively opposing SOPA (Representatives Issa, Polis, Chaffetz, Lofgren, and Jackson, with roughly equal representation from both parties). Also worthy of note: Congresspersons have repeatedly (and sometimes proudly) admitted to knowing nothing about the internet, and yet refuse to allow experts to come in and speak.
Most likely because last time a takedown case went to them, they ruled that it was a violation of the First Amendment to take down some unrelated content (stuff on the same IP block if I recall) while shutting down a child pornography website. People hate pedophiles even more than media pirates, as a rule, so I’d guess they’d rule in favor of free speech here as well.
Block Freenet servers? AFAIK Freenet doesn’t have servers to block, and the authorities have (to date) had serious problems tracking its use.
If one person knows about it they can tell anyone else who’s interested. Tools like Freenet are reportedly very popular in China, since people just pass them to their friends and they’re easy to use; I believe there are already Firefox extensions that allow the easy use of an alternate/extended DNS list, so those will likely be passed around in the same way.
I don’t. It’ll probably pop up in another nation in response to being censored by the US.
EDIT: Or did you think I was referring to the RIAA putting up an alternate DNS network? Because they’re not, they’re going to be censoring the globally-used one.
Okay, I know it’s a low-status signal to appear to be celebrating religious holidays on LW, but just admit it was a holiday party for LWers. There’s nothing wrong with that as long as you recognize that the pagan holidays are founded on incorrect ideas.The verbal gymnastics in your first paragraph are seriously painful to read.
What about international effects? To my knowledge all the main DNS servers are located in the US, meaning that SOPA will apply to internet users in all countries...seems like other governments might take exception to that.
Ah, thanks, I’ll update my post accordingly. Not having done a lot of work with online things, how essential is DNSSEC to day-to-day internet use?
Ah, I hadn’t seen that article. I’ll edit my post accordingly. Thanks for the correction!
Even better would be to have the option to attach a zipcode to your account, so that people can check where you live, and so that you can manage your information easily if you change locations (or want to obfuscate your location by repeatedly altering it, since I know some people will want to do that). Additionally this would allow implementation of location-specific actions (eg, you get an email if a nearby meetup is announced), which could be very convenient.
This is especially true for antidepressants because some are only effective on more severe cases (eg Zoloft); self-selection will yield a body of faux-depressed and mildly depressed people on whom the drug has no result.
EDIT: Apparently I was thinking of a different drug.