John BS @johnabs@qoto.org

@tiago

Can we please have a reasonable, polite discussion where we operate under the assumption that "the other person may be reasonable but acting under a different set of axioms, hence why they're drawing a different conclusion from my own"?

If you'd actually like a response to your post, I'm more than willing to continue the discussion, but if the comments about your views on my "deep confusion", "being ridiculous", and "projection" don't stop, I'm done. I have not acted in such a manner toward you, and I will no longer tolerate it.

Spoilers for if you decide to continue: this is not "abstract utility theory", this is about multi-criteria optimization, and the mathematical fact that vectors don't have an order unless someone imposes one, which is precisely what you are doing when making accuracy the primary/only metric by which you judge a model.

@hvwaldow @tiago

I would say that this statement is reasonable, and I like it!

But from a multi-objective optimization perspective, you would need to find a way to pick "the best" model in terms of accuracy which would lead you to constructing a Pareto set of model's performance in your K-dimensional decision space.

In that case, I assume Tiago would want to either find/construct a model that dominates the Pareto set (based on his prior comments) or would prefer to know with confidence the entire Pareto set, the corresponding Efficient set of models and their relative performance on all the K metrics so he could select one that suits his needs from the set.

Good comment, IMO! 😁

@tiago

Disregarding your internet psychoanalysis of my "deep confusion" on something that didn't even come up in the conversation, it seems that you actually agree with me:

> Personal beliefs are arbitrary. A person can believe that the moon is made of cheese, and that they are napoleon, etc.

To clarify, the personal belief I was referring to was your equating a model's accuracy with its utility. That IS a personal belief, and is the belief we disagree on, as I think accuracy is only one aspect of utility, not the whole enchilada.

> The utility of a model is not arbitrary. Although it is not universal — it depends on the situtation — they are not *arbitrary*.

We agree. That is exactly the argument I made: "the situation (read: application, context, and all the other synonyms I used in my prior posts) defines the utility of a model". I'll go even further to say that exceeding the level of accuracy required for a specific need, **particularly at the cost of computational efficiency or other beneficial metrics**, is NOT useful, despite the gains in accuracy. Thus, model selection is not a function of accuracy alone, but of *accuracy, time limitations, acceptable tolerances, etc*.

> the utility of a model of reality is primarily *ALWAYS* connected to how well it approximates it. This is never an irrelevant aspect. To reject this is to reject science.

We agree here. I never claimed that the accuracy of the approximation was irrelevant. I said you can pick and choose which level of accuracy and computational efficiency you need when selecting a model depending on your application. That is not the same thing as saying "accuracy is bullshit and I reject science" or whatever you managed to interpret out of my prior comment. But note that you're now weaseling out of your previous claim by saying utility is "primarily always connected to" instead of "equivalent to" accuracy, as we can see in your first post in the thread. So overall you've agreed on all my points so far.

The one part where we may disagree is:

>It's obvious that the context in question is a scientific one, where one tries to approximate reality.

I agree science is ONE of many contexts in which statistical models may be used. However, alternatives include finance, controls, etc, where we may not need to model a set of aspects of reality, but just one, and maybe not even that accurately. In that case, even simple models can be highly effective and accurate for making decisions or other usecases (see: A random walk down Wallstreet, for example).

@tiago

I did read it, the entire quotations section, and even included a quote from that section (from a book Box authored himself) that contradicts what you're saying. He literally asks "is the model sufficient for our application?". Thus, it is the application that defines the utility, and more applications of models exist than solely the scientific one.

And, clearly, we're not talking about models being right or wrong. It's already assumed they **are all wrong** (and factually, they are), we're talking about the utility of models which are assumed to be wrong a priori, and your *personal beliefs* about what constitutes utility is not universal.

And I find it ironic that you think I'm projecting when you didn't deal with the quote I presented directly from Box's book. Have you considered the possibility that your interpretation of his words may be the incorrect one?

@tiago

It's not about the scientific method; it's about the utility of models *in context*. Models can be used for more than just scientific inquiry, are ARE used for non-scientific purposes more often than the alternative. That is to say, the utility of any given model is not a myopic, one-size-fits-all definition that is universally applicable, but is, in fact, defined by the person(s) who are using it. Hence, "this level of extreme subjectivity" is unavoidable, unless you happen to have a universally applicable definition of utility.

He even says in a quote on the wikipedia page: "All models are approximations. Assumptions, whether implied or clearly stated, are never exactly true. All models are wrong, but some models are useful. So the question you need to ask is not 'Is the model true?' (it never is) but 'Is the model good enough for this particular application?'"

For example, the epicycle model of the geocentric universe was completely wrong, but it was useful for the people who developed it, in that its purpose was to predict (with a surprising degree of accuracy) the behavior of visible planets. Just because it was extremely wrong in terms of being an accurate representation of reality, didn't mean it wasn't useful for the people that developed it and their purposes.

If you use a linear regression to match a logit/probit curve, who cares as long as you know you're going to stay in the semi-linear regime? (this is done all the time in instrument calibration, for example) If you want to reduce your logistics and shipping costs, a TSP approximation is better than waiting 1e9 years for THE answer. So I can still pick and choose the level of utility I need for my application (whether it be absolute truth, or simply an improvement, or a "good enough" approximation), and, as I said in my original comment, you may select the model that suits your needs.

@tiago Or: "all models are wrong and useful to varying degrees, select the one that fits your needs for accuracy and computational efficiency". Not as pithy, but arguably the most accurate.

@freemo I have to say the kid’s not wrong if you look at the absolutely astronomical toll that technical debt and the lack of financial support for keystone FLOSS projects until a bug causes everything to fall apart (see log4j, for example). That’s not to say that some level of technical debt isn’t acceptable, but we have accumulating debt due to running a near constant technical deficit, which is bad for literally everyone and everything except the bottom line.

I suspect the kid (and I) would prefer a “software as craftsmanship” mentality, where you can still charge for your work, but you are compensated for the quality and time spent on a well designed, extensible, thoroughly tested solution rather than on the first PR that makes it into prod that ends up breaking everything because of strict deadlines. This rushed mentality prevents people from actually engaging with and understanding the problem and solution spaces thoroughly and being able to take true pride in refining their work. Imagine comparing custom woodworking from real wood to ikea and preferring the latter because it’s cheaper, even though the latter breaks under some very light loads by comparison.

Reward quality work over “rate at which you can add new features that nobody cares about except management” and I think we get a better software engineering culture.

@Tooden @EmilyMoranBarwick @actuallyautistic

I actually just wrote a book chapter on this in terms of a missing segment of the neuroergonomics literature targeting neurodiverse individuals as a key sector of the populace that could benefit by developing their own coping strategies with direct feedback from brain measuring devices. No work that I could find anywhere in the literature has been done on this, so we wrote it up as a way to hopefully bring some attention to it.

My wife was my inspiration as she was recently diagnosed, and it frustrated me how little we could do and how little research has been done to help develop functional coping strategies that are backed by the wealth of literature we have in other similar domains that have been studied for neurotypical people. If you guys want, I can link it, but the article is super dry and probably not exciting for most readers…and I think Springer paywalls it 😖

@queenofhatred @stdevel

Absolutely! Though I'll warn you, if you're on a multi-monitor setup the configuration is a little wacky unlike the other tiling wm's that handle it gracefully like i3 et al. Just let me know if you need any code for that and I can send you my config files 😄

Also, if you happen to be using Guix, you have to install some extra deps to build from the xmonad.hs file, even though "xmonad" will "work" without them. So just be careful there too as I hit both of these walls face first about a year (or two?) ago and it was...unpleasant 😂

@stdevel

I'm gonna throw my hat in the ring for Xmonad, but I personally love auto-tiling, CLI apps, and hate desktop icons so it's a bit more retro-minimalist than pure retro.

I would use stumpwm because I prefer lisp over haskell for config but it doesn't support auto-tiling yet q.q

@niclas @freemo

I'll just respond to 3 and 4 since I think we've agreed on 2, and we'll agree to disagree with the formulation of my argument on 1.

3. The rationale is that, from your perspective, your right to bodily autonomy wasn't violated (despite being extinguished) even though your right to life was, as (hypothetically) your subjective experience ends with your life. Thus, to you, someone taking your life without your knowledge is the same as dying in your sleep. Both circumstances impact your subjective experience equally, and both end your ability to control yourself and your actions. The outcomes are the same regardless of the means of their occurrence, but one is morally wrong, whereas the other is not. Thus if bodily autonomy is a right, it is a right that necessarily flows from your life, then your life must take precedence over your right to decide what to do with your life (hence the idea of life being sacred, and why I think suicide, betting your life, being hunted for sport, etc. are not within our rights to agree to).

4. Is it better for evil people to be completely free to be evil, or is it better that they are constrained by a system that limits their evil? Is it better to be beholden to something higher or not?

@niclas @freemo Sorry about your post limit, I'll keep doing what I did with the last one where I just respond to the most recent post (deleted and reposted to your now most recent post).

1. I agree with this point actually, at least with the "consent by existing" point. However, in that case, this is where I think people should have the right to relocate and select the country they wish to be a citizen of, or go rogue with those Atlantic rafts ;) I find that the circumstances of one's birth are too limiting in modern life, and the ability to select who governs you and the people you wish to collaborate with in society should be your choice. But this does not invalidate my previous point. Secondly, these "gangs" as you call them, are at least supposed to be beholden to a constitution, part of the higher authority you can appeal to when they wrong you. True gangs exist in a might-makes-right scheme, and have no restrictions on their ability or desire to violate your personal rights.

2. Okay, so if I, a concerned individual, vaccinate your child without your consent against this 50% fatal rabies. I have merely applied an "appropriate level of self-defense on behalf of your child". You more or less just made my point for me here. And no, I don't think that people wouldn't collaborate. My point was, if you disagree with the ideals of moral duties, then why would you collaborate with people on moral issues instead of ones that only profit you (it was just a hypothetical).

3. I can tell. I, personally, am a divine command theorist; hence, why I make claims about the sacred and the limitations of rights under a moral law. My "twisted hypothetical" was not twisted, it was illustrating a point. And it's obvious that your grievances end when your life is gone (unless you believe in an afterlife or a deity of some sort) because you can no longer grieve anything, particularly if you have no family or friends to avenge you. But what I did is still wrong, regardless of any negative consequences that befall me as a result. Another way to phrase my first point from the original post is "gluttony is a sin; it should not be encouraged and should be actively discouraged", which is a direct contradiction to the idea of "freedom above all" and "sacred bodily autonomy".

4. I don't cherish anything about statism or states. I'm simply pointing out the consequences of your philosophy. I hate war, and I think it's the first evil perpetuated by hierarchies that actively harms everyone involved *except* those who incite them. It's truly cowardly and it uses lives to further consolidate wealth and power. But wars don't stop when states stop existing, they just become smaller but more plentiful and frequent. It's as you say, people will always collaborate and help each other, but you seem to make the assumption that people are fundamentally good and will collaborate for good ends without laws to enforce it, whereas I believe the opposite, and human history bears my perspective out more than yours.

5. You claim to understand my mental state without even asking, lol. I love freedom, but even freedom must have its limits. That is to say: "I am truly free when I am a slave to nothing and have mastered myself". From my perspective, you are a slave to freedom, not having mastered it and understanding its proper place. I used to agree with you when I was younger, but after (IMO) growing in wisdom, I no longer do.

@niclas @freemo

1. This “coercion” is already an issue in literally all civilized and developed countries (assuming you mean taxes?). If you want to go live in Sealand or build your own raft in the Atlantic go ahead, but if you don’t consent to taxes then you don’t get to benefit from the infrastructure they provide (e.g. utilities, roads, state protection, police, military, grant funded research, etc).

2. You didn’t answer my question about children, or your moral duties and obligations to other people. And if you don’t think you have moral obligations to other people (other than simply not infringing their rights), then perhaps you should really get that raft in the Atlantic underway sooner than later. Society works when people are willing to collaborate towards improving the common good and their own benefit, not when highly individualistic people who are only “looking out for number one” are just trying to get the biggest slice of the pie.

3. No, I don’t think it is your right to kill yourself for sport. The only way bodily autonomy is sacred is if life is sacred, and that means life is to be protected in all but the most dire circumstances (e.g a DNR order is much different than euthanasia). To illustrate this point, as long as I kill someone instantly without them knowing, I haven’t violated their right to bodily autonomy because (from a materialist perspective at least) they no longer exist and cannot experience any personal rights violations. Hence, we need life to be sacred as a precursor for anything that flows from your life to be sacred.

4. No it would lead to gangs, and power struggles, and pointless violence. The point of the State is to have a highly constrained monopoly on violence so that people don’t take violence into their own hands. Would you really prefer to live in a modern “warring kingdoms” style regime where law and order are suggestions with no real ability to enforce them? Do you want to be in the position where a gang steals your property because there isn’t a higher authority you can appeal to? This was never good in the past and I doubt will be good in the future, despite what anarcho-syndicalists may believe. Nearly all modern innovation, including capitalist thought, occurred within a societal hierarchy with a State because innovation flourishes when people are protected from violence.

To conclude, I agree a Nanny state is a bad thing, funnily enough. But the difference between a Nanny state and a State needs a solid definition. If it’s a state where people’a rights are violated at will, then we should agree more, but rights have limits and must be protected by the people through responsible action. My original post was trying to define what I think those limits are with respect to bodily autonomy with respect to the rest of society.

@freemo Oh buddy, this is where it gets hairy for me!

I do NOT think bodily autonomy is always sacred, particularly under certain circumstances, and there would be plenty you would likely agree with.

A few examples come to mind immediately:
Should individuals who put dramatically more strain on a healthcare system due to their own choices receive equal care (or equally priced care) as compared to those who don’t? A personal example for me is obesity: I am obese (but I’m down 20lbs so far!!) as is my whole family, and perhaps if it was just us, it would be fine. But since ~40% of American adults (and a great many other countries as well, actually) are obese, diabetic, and have multiple chronic health issues, they disproportionately strain the healthcare system. So the question is: should people be allowed to “exercise their bodily autonomy” to balloon up to 600+lbs while expecting public programs to cover for them (SS/MC), or should people be forced to get preventative treatment to mitigate the far-reaching repercussions of their own self-destructive behaviors?

As a follow up to the prior one: replace Covid with highly transmissible “rabies” that has a 50% fatality rate without vaccination and 0.25% for vaccinated individuals. Does this warrant forced vaccinations to prevent the decimation of the populace and civilization as we know it? Should parents be allowed to prevent their kids from receiving the vaccine (as many have with Covid) or would this be considered child endangerment? If we value life and criminalize acts like Russian roulette (technically exercising autonomy here too), shouldn’t roulette with a virus be equally criminal?

A less extreme example: I take a loan from you and choose not to work to pay it back, and I’m broke so even if you sue me you get nothing. Should you not be allowed to force me (via a court order/legal paths, obviously not kidnapping lol) to work the losses off?

Long story short for my take: bodily autonomy is sacred when it doesn’t infringe on the rights and protected privileges of those around you, and when it doesn’t prevent you from fulfilling your moral obligations and duties. Once any of those lines are crossed, that autonomy goes out the window, and depending on laws/public benefits that you take advantage of, I think this necessarily further constrains bodily autonomy or the system would collapse.

@NoelWauchope@mastodon.social This depends on the particular nuclear reactions selected, and whether multiple reactors on the same site can feed into each other (e.g. recycling fuel, and or using alternative fuel paths, or even using a different "virgin" fuel source like thorium salts).

Additionally, some people at my university are currently working on making these reactors passively cooled (I mentioned radiative sky-cooling to them as well) to further reduce demand on water for coolant and such.

So while yes, these may present a few challenges initially, the reduced startup costs, means more clean energy produced faster to get us to net-0 CO2 or even negative CO2 (consider just one SMR could power a fleet of carbon capture devices which could be converted into eco-fuel, graphene, etc) and I think the potential benefits far outweigh the drawbacks, especially when you consider how safe appropriately stored nuclear waste is.

@NoelWauchope@mastodon.social I’m sorry, but to put it bluntly, I think this is an awful take based more on fear mongering than fact.

Nuclear waste has been practically solved, as waste-based reactors dramatically reduce the necessary storage lifetime of their spent fuel.

Costs are being attenuated by building SMRs, and having more distributed, smaller reactors means a more robust power grid in the event of a plant outage or a malicious attack.

Not all fissile material can be or is used to make bomb material, and having a 0 carbon, highly scalable, and REGULATED WASTE STREAM method to generate power is amazing.

Solar panels are full of perovskites which contain lead, or other materials that contain cadmium or other highly toxic heavy metals. They are often shipped to 3rd world countries where they are eventually burned and cause disease and death to the “recyclers”. And coal ash puts out more radioactive waste into the air and environment than nuclear by multiple orders of magnitude to the point that thyroid and other cancers are dramatically more likely to occur in their vicinity. You could walk past a nuclear glass concrete storage and experience less radiation exposure than living near a coal plant.

All this to say: bombs bad, electricity good, and you can literally say this about nearly ANY power source. The US firebombed Japan before nuking them and the firebombs did more total damage throughout the war, does that mean we should be anti-gasoline, or anti jet fuel, or any other combustible material? Granted, nuclear is much more devastating with smaller amounts, but can also be used for good, and it should be or we have absolutely NO shot of tackling the climate issues we will be facing soon without it.

@freemo Thou seem’st to be forgetting the luminary Paracelsus and his discourses on the three principles of salt, sulfur, and mercury. While he always acknowledged the Aristotelians and the groundwork they laid in the philosophy of the 4 earthly elements, these three principled elements are clearly far superior in both contenance and compositionality to produce—in appropriate proportion and preparation—the Philosopher’s Stone.

But water hog day is cool too I guess.

@vbuendiar (Not trying to spam you, I promise lol)

Have you seen/tried Org-Mode yet (it's available for more than just emacs now)? If not, I'd be happy to send you a demo-paper template I wrote for an IEEE journal. It's amazing for reproducible research, and relegates LaTeX to only the parts where you aboslutely need it (and lets you compile and display chunks of LaTeX without re-compiling the whole document), while allowing code, graphics, and citations! It also lets you write all your code in a literate way inside the paper, and you can compile straight to TeX and PDF (and html/beamer/etc if you want lol)! Submitting it along with your paper is one of the best ways, IMO, to provide an "all-in-one paper trail" for your work so other researchers can reproduce it.

I heavily recommend it as a proponent of reproducible research and open source, and I hope you'll give it a look! If you're interested, I can even send you links to my config and such 😁