RamblinDash

Karma: 657

RamblinDash 17 Jan 2025 14:41 UTC
11 points
0
on: Patent Trolling to Save the World
This idea kind of rhymes with gain-of-function research in a way that makes me uncomfortable. “Let’s intentionally create harmful things, but its OK because we are creating harmful things for the purpose of preventing the harm that would be caused by those things.”
I’m not sure if I can formalize this into a logically-tight case against doing it, but it seems conceptually similar to X, and X is bad.

RamblinDash 17 Jan 2025 14:39 UTC
5 points
2
on: Tax Price Gouging?
Just to make the math easy, let’s suppose the gouging tax is 50%.
The air purifiers problem seems like not a big problem? If they are normally “worth” $150 and you value having them at $300, you could post them up for sale at $450. Then, if someone really needs them, you get your $300, they get their air purifier, and $150 goes to disaster relief. This tax only prevents the trade if the buyers would buy them for $300 but not for $450, which limits the amount of deadweight loss here to a maximum of $149, rather than potentially unbounded deadweight loss under current policy.

RamblinDash 8 Nov 2024 11:49 UTC
0 points
0
in reply to: Thomas Kwa’s comment on: Should CA, TX, OK, and LA merge into a giant swing state, just for elections?
Sorry

RamblinDash 7 Nov 2024 15:46 UTC
−3 points
2
on: Should CA, TX, OK, and LA merge into a giant swing state, just for elections?
Many states have already passed something like this, which only takes effect once enough states sign on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
However, I think it’s unlikely that this will get over the 270 hump anytime soon, because right now GOP-run states (correctly) perceive that the EC has a pro-GOP tilt (for now at least); and the swing states benefit a lot from swing status.

RamblinDash 1 Nov 2024 19:14 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: Wbrom’s comment on: Dentistry, Oral Surgeons, and the Inefficiency of Small Markets
Those kinds of VC-run business can also often have other problems. For example, Aspen Dental was sued for deceptive marketing.

RamblinDash 1 Nov 2024 19:10 UTC
13 points
2
on: Prediction markets and Taxes
It’s not true that you can’t pay negative taxes on your betting market losses, at least if you are someone who uses prediction markets routinely. You are allowed to deduct your gross gambling losses from your gambling gains, and you only pay tax on the net gain. See https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-news/at-02-53.pdf.

RamblinDash 25 Oct 2024 1:51 UTC
3 points
0
in reply to: jimrandomh’s comment on: Jimrandomh’s Shortform Posts
Just to push back a little—I feel like these people do a valuable service for capitalism. If people in the reviews or in the press are criticizing a business for these things, that’s an important channel of information for me as a consumer and it’s hard to know how else I could apply that to my buying decisions without incurring the time and hassle cost of showing up and then leaving without buying anything.

RamblinDash 13 Oct 2024 21:54 UTC
3 points
0
in reply to: Matt Goldenberg’s comment on: Matt Goldenberg’s Short Term Feed
I treat chatGPT as a vibes-ologist; it’s good for answering questions about like which X is most popular or what do most people think about X. I agree it’s less good for “X is true”

RamblinDash 9 Oct 2024 13:30 UTC
11 points
0
in reply to: Sweetgum’s comment on: Agreeing With Stalin in Ways That Exhibit Generally Rationalist Principles
Well, you don’t see them as much because they don’t necessarily interact with the metaphorical pope(s)/cardinal(s)/etc. I’m just talking about all the thousands of people who have read the sequences and/or other foundational rationalist texts, interpreted them for themselves, and did their best to apply those lessons in their own lives. Many such people exist! They just don’t live in the Bay Area, don’t necessarily go to rationalist meetups, and might not be active LW posters. So the reason I don’t have examples for you is precisely because Active in the Rationalist Community is highly correlated with both “LW readers are likely to know who this person is” and/or “this person is publicly identifiable as a Rationalist,” and also with “Catholic within this metaphor”—Official Rationalist Spaces are effectively catholic churches, in the metaphor. Of course you won’t find a ton of protestants there!
The Protestant/Catholic schism was fundamentally over whether the Bible should be interpreted by the Pope and the Catholic church, with the role of the faithful to listen to their priest and take what they say as the Received Interpretation of the Word of God, or instead whether each individual Christian should become literate, and read and interpret the Bible for themselves. Of course, there were particular points of dispute but they all stemmed from this—is it possible for the Pope to be wrong, and if so, what does that say about our faith?
The Catholic position was, it is not possible for the Pope to be wrong within the bounds of our faith, and therefore if there is proof that the Pope is wrong then it would prove that our faith is wrong. The Protestant position was, like, of course its possible for the Pope to be wrong, he’s just some guy. So when Martin Luther was saying “it is possible for the Pope to be wrong” that was a big f’in deal. But you don’t see modern protestants going around defiantly asserting that it’s possible for the Pope to be wrong—they know there are millions of people who already agree with this idea, and it just kinda seems silly or beside the point for them? A protestant generally doesn’t care what the Pope thinks any more than they care what other prominent world leaders think.
This comment probably won’t get a ton of readership on an old post, but if you understand my metaphor and think you are “protestant,” please react with Checkmark, even if you are mostly an LW lurker. If you understand and you think you are “catholic”, react with Xmark. If you think this metaphor makes no sense or is fundamentally wrong, then I guess react with something else.

RamblinDash 1 Oct 2024 16:45 UTC
6 points
6
on: Conventional footnotes considered harmful
Footnotes are good in translated works. I read the 3-body trilogy translated into English, and it was very helpful to have notes from the translator explaining certain points of cultural context that a Chinese reader would be expected to be familiar with.

RamblinDash 26 Sep 2024 18:33 UTC
2 points
−3
in reply to: Shankar Sivarajan’s comment on: What prevents SB-1047 from triggering on deep fake porn/voice cloning fraud?
Well, “fish” is a statutorily defined term that clearly includes all invertebrates. What did you want the court to do, ignore the statutory text? Arguably, that outcome supports the notion that the courts are less likely to just ignore text limiting the kinds of harm that are cognizable, not more likely, as you seem to be arguing.

RamblinDash 26 Sep 2024 16:54 UTC
1 point
−7
in reply to: cfoster0’s comment on: What prevents SB-1047 from triggering on deep fake porn/voice cloning fraud?
I have a hard time imagining a Court ruling that “Other grave harms to public safety and security that are of comparable severity” could embrace something so different-in-kind than the listed items.

RamblinDash 26 Sep 2024 11:02 UTC
2 points
−2
on: What prevents SB-1047 from triggering on deep fake porn/voice cloning fraud?
It only counts if the $500m comes from “cyber attacks on critical infrastructure” or “with limited human oversight, intervention, or supervision....results in death, great bodily injury, property damage, or property loss.”

So emotional damages, even if severe and pervasive, can’t get you there.

RamblinDash 12 Sep 2024 14:41 UTC
1 point
0
in reply to: NoSignalNoNoise’s comment on: Physical Therapy Sucks (but have you tried hiding it in some peanut butter?)
I guess it depends on whether you are trying to maximize the amount of [exercise X] you do, or whether there’s a fixed quantity of [exercise X] that you are trying to force yourself to do. If the latter, obviously it will take longer if you do it while playing Civ but that’s not necessarily a problem.

RamblinDash 10 Sep 2024 17:04 UTC
4 points
0
in reply to: Declan Molony’s comment on: Physical Therapy Sucks (but have you tried hiding it in some peanut butter?)
Civ is famous for “just one more turn”—maybe you can hide whatever it is in between turns?

RamblinDash 22 Aug 2024 11:35 UTC
1 point
0
in reply to: Nathan Young’s comment on: Nathan Young’s Shortform
Just move the percent? Instead of “RFK Jr is very unlikely to win the presidency (0.001%)”, say “RFK Jr is very unlikely (0.001%) to win the presidency”

RamblinDash 17 Jul 2024 20:58 UTC
8 points
5
on: Baking vs Patissing vs Cooking, the HPS explanation
I think this post is good but a distracting factual inaccuracy in it is that yeast are not bacteria.

RamblinDash 10 Jun 2024 20:40 UTC
4 points
1
in reply to: milanrosko’s comment on: Why I don’t believe in the placebo effect
If it did work, you might call it “immaculate contraception”!

RamblinDash 6 Jun 2024 13:31 UTC
1 point
0
in reply to: Benaya Koren’s comment on: Benaya Koren’s Shortform
This is equally applicable under normal law, under which property taxes already exist, they just tax both structures and land instead of just land.

RamblinDash 5 Jun 2024 20:50 UTC
2 points
1
in reply to: sunwillrise’s comment on: D0TheMath’s Shortform
For opinions that’s right—for news stories about complaints being filed, they are sometimes not publicly available online, or the story might not have enough information to find them, e.g. what specific court they were filed in, the actual legal names of the parties, etc.