Spartaco Pécora {🇻🇪 ⋂ 🇮🇹} @zpartacoos@qoto.org

@freemo hahaha I wasn't thinking of a monarchy

@freemo appropriate incentive structures would need to be in place from the beginning to ensure that this country/society doesn't implode as we are seeing right now in the west. I think Charles Hoskinson's thoughts on "decentralized social media" could be extended to be relevant to a wider society. By setting the right incentives we could significantly increase the chances of people being open minded to things they disagree with and preferring long nuanced discussion over quick sound bites.

@freemo can we get everybody in qoto together to build a country with rationalism, logic, freedom and stem as a foundation?

I came across a Nigerian dude a while back complaining about his government and talking about a possible way to create a new country with a government system from scratch. His idea was to start as an online movement which would attract people of similar values and ideas about how to make governing structures. Then, you put them in a truly anonymous block chain where they can have a "passport" from this digital country and a platform where ideas and plans are made from ground up (using something like ADA/cardano or ICP/dfinity). For example, people can work on the legal infrastructure and other aspects of the country where everybody gets to vote and decisions are settled with smart contracts. All out in the open. Eventually, when sufficient people have joined the system, make a colony in a suitable piece of land (or multiple even in different geographical locations), either on earth or else where. So, you'd build all the values and digital infrastructure first and the actual physical system last.

What do you say?

Why does society put doctors on a pedestal?

In my experience, they are just regurgitation machines who lack critical thinking skills. Maybe this is just a UK thing but the number of stupid doctors I've seen is outstanding and they think that just because they have a medical degree they immediately known what is wrong with somebody, refusing to look at the latest research and other factors. They literally think the same way as those "AI" expert systems from the 80s written in prolog. In fact, I'd say those are probably better since they never forget and can be updated whereas the doctors forget a lot over time and can't consistently make the same diagnosis given the same data.

Here is a summary of my last two doctor interactions:

#1
Me: has rare condition
Doctor during a general checkup : gets a lot of details wrong about my condition and what it does
Me: points this out
Doctor: DiD YOu gO ToMeDiCAl scHOOl?

#2
Me: has trouble breathing and get 89-92% SpO2 for whole night
*goes to see a doctor in the morning*
Doctor: that's perfectly within range
Me: shows first result on google showing that it's not the case
Doctor: Google didn't go to medical school
Me: searches for research papers supporting my statement
Doctor: no, no, your values are perfectly within range, don't believe everything you read, studies might be biased
Me: *contemplates how this woman got so far in life*

@johnabs not on Tusky at least.

@jmw150 hm when you say data assisted program synthesis is that it's own field separate from FM or is that a fancy way of saying "Machine Learning"? Please clarify.

Also, would you say that course is a good place to brush up on modern FM? Are you aware of other resources on the latest stuff?

@jmw150 why do formal methods professors keep over hyping their courses?

We've had automated proof assistants as well as a lot of the mathematical paradigms mentioned in the course (Pi-calculus and its many variants, lambda calculus, Coq, etc.) For many many years...yet software is still brittle and few people use these tools/mathematical frameworks. Typically, you only see them in defense companies or banks. So, why lie to the students telling them they can guarantee "safe" code when in reality very few students will actually use these methods in practice? The fast pace of software companies rarely allows for deep analysis of a program. When you're in the 100,000+ code lines then none of this stuff is particularly useful.

On the bright side, I'm glad we have the formal methods folks as without them we wouldn't have safe airplanes, medical devices , etc...

@kingyoyaki @kensanata@octodon.social another point worth highlighting here where I disagree with people talking about current negative reactions after taking the vaccine. The problem with that is that the rate at which these rare adverse reactions occur is drastically smaller than the rate at which covid itself does damage. So, if your only squabble is that some people have had adverse reactions to the vaccine then you need to review high school stats asap!! However, I think the more interesting conversation (for me at least) is regarding the future side effects (think 1-40 years). And this is where I think we ought to have the humility to admit that at the moment we don't yet know which is worse/better neither at an individual level nor societal level. As new evidence comes in we'll know with increasingly greater certainty.

Thus, I think there's no point in judging people because they choose different than you.

@kingyoyaki @kensanata@octodon.social I agree that many people feel this way. And also think it's perfectly within their right and valid to feel that way.

My issue is with compulsory use and with the labeling of "anti-vaxxer" for people merely discussing potential issues surrounding the vaccine.

Also, it must be noted that although the vaccines are new, so is the virus (and it's long term effects are not known either). So, if you haven't had covid yet, then either way you'll have to pick between getting an unknown virus/vaccine at some point in the near future.

@kingyoyaki @kensanata@octodon.social right. I think people should make the choice out of their own volition rather than "because government says so", being from Venezuela this line of thinking has never sat well with me for current and historical reasons... In any case, part of the issue is the pretentious attitude that this set of vaccines in question are identical to others in general. Realistically, we can't know for sure what the long term effects will be (same can be said for covid tho) so it is up to each person to pick their own risk to societal help ratio. Of course, those who proclaim themselves to be 100% in the societal help bucket are making the implicit assumption that less covid now is better (I.e flattening the curve asap) however in my eyes there are valid reasons for questioning that assumption on the basis of evolutionary virology which tells us that by vaccinating a population at too quick of rate might cause a lot of evolutionary pressure for the virus to become much more fit and vaccine immune thus we could even be causing a much worse virus in the future.

So, I think the whole vaccine deal is much more nuanced than most give it credit for. Perhaps the best is that we are open to ideas and discussions rather than blindly labeling those having these conversations "anti-vaxxers" which at this point is used as a derogatory term. Instead, let's keep the conversation rolling and the discussion alive while updating our probability weightings as new evidence comes in.

Disclaimer: I'm fully vaxxed

@kingyoyaki @kensanata@octodon.social most people should probably get the vaccine. However, allowing people the option of what to do or put in their bodies is their choice. There's a big difference between saying no to compulsory vaccination and saying no to vaccines in general.

@freemo do we have any mRNA tech experts here? I've been talking to somebody who I consider highly educated and smart that is pushing hard for alternative covid treatments such as Ivermectin and making claims about Pfizer's vaccine being cytotoxic. I'd like to get a second opinion to inform myself better, preferably from somebody who is actually involved in this domain as a researcher.

@freemo The mac in "Mac and Cheese" is for macaroni which is not spaghetti by definition. So, perhaps you just want "Spaghetti and cheese" but that's already a thing and there are many similar recipes that are heavy on cheese and/or bacon bits like four cheese, Alfredo, carbonara, etc..

@freemo so turns out this is a Tusky issue since I can follow people just fine from my laptop. The weird thing is that I googled the crap out of this issue and searched on GitHub but nobody seems to be having this problem. And I'm on the latest version of Tusky.

@freemo tbf my account has been weird since I transfered to this server, even the follow button doesn't work, although now I made peace with that after lots of googling and told myself it's for the best since it makes me spend less time on my phone

@lucifargundam @freemo hmm maybe it was just me then