Hehe, good point.

people need to read more code, play around with it, break it and fix it to become better programmers.

I think AI bots can help with that. It’s easier now to play around with code which you could not write by yourself, and quickly explore different approaches. And while you might shy away from asking your colleagues a noob question, ChatGPT will happily elaborate.

In the end, it’s just one more tool in the box. We need to learn when and how to use it wisely.

Much like that comment. Can you give a better example, or express why it’s a bad example? That would bring some quality in.

FYI you can self-host GitLab, for example in a Docker container.

In contrast to a monarchy, where people cannot choose their leader, in capitalism people can choose from which company they buy, or even create their own.

As another person already pointed out, these are obviously two different categories.

The question then is, why do people choose the way they do, both when buying and when running a company? To me it seems, they don’t because of some external pressure (like monarchy requires).

The point can be summed up as a question: Why don’t people run (more) non-capitalist services and productions, and why don’t they prefer them when looking to satisfy their demand?

These non-capitalist things exist, it’s certainly possible. But as far as I know, they are all very niche. Like a communal kitchen, some solidary agriculture or housing project. Heck, entire villages of this kind exist.

So the alternative is there, but it requires actual commitment and work. I don’t see how capitalism could be abolished in an armed uprising (in contrast to monarchy). But it can be replaced by alternative projects. Partially. Why are they so small and few?

One is multiple parallel goals. Makes it hard to stop playing, since there’s always something you just want to finish or do “quickly”.

Say you want to build a house. Chop some trees, make some walls. Oh, need glass for windows. Shovel some sand, make more furnaces, dig a room to put them in - oh, there’s a cave with shiny stuff! Quickly explore a bit. Misstep, fall, zombies, dead. You had not placed a bed yet, so gotta run. Night falls. Dodge spiders and skeletons. Trouble finding new house. There it is! Venture into the cave again to recover your lost equipment. As you come up, a creeper awaitsssss you …

Another mechanism is luck. The world is procedurally generated, and you can craft and create almost anything anywhere. Except for a few things, like spawners. I once was lucky to have two skeleton spawners right next to each other, not far from the surface. In total, I probably spent hours in later worlds to find a similar thing.

The social aspect can also support that you play the game longer or more than you actually would like. Do I lose my “friends” when I stop playing their game?

I don’t think Minecraft does these things in any way maliciously, it’s just a great game. But nevertheless, it has a couple of mechanics which can make it addictive and problematic.

You can use more debug outputs (log(…)) to narrow it down. Challenge your assumptions! If necessary, check line by line if all the variables still behave as expected. Or use a debugger if available/familiar.

This takes a few minutes tops and guarantees you to find at which line the actual behaviour diverts from your expectations. Then, you can make a more precise search. But usually the solution is obvious once you have found the precise cause.

The infinite regress of creator’s creators.

I found this interesting to watch, thought-provoking. I also enjoyed the animation style. Amazing how much emotion you can put into squares.

I’m unsure how much of it is true. It’s the first time I heard this story. My previous conception was that people “before” had to work longer just to survive, and working hours reduced over the course of history. Maybe that’s true for the last hundred years, but inaccurate otherwise.

What I wonder: Why don’t self-employed people work much less, without the pressure of a capitalist overlord?

Especially farming the land has not become harder. The influx of sunlight and the amount of calories a person needs remained pretty stable.

If farmers back then managed to take off every other day on average, why do I hear from farmers nowadays they can hardly make holidays whatsoever? The reasons they give seem compelling; animals and plants don’t take holidays either.

Interested in other comments and viewpoints in either direction.

It’s impossible to definitively prove without traveling to an alternate timeline where the industrial revolution never happened, but ALL signs point to “yes”.

Exactly, we find it reasonable to treat this as a fact. I agree. But until we find an answer to these questions, it’s ultimately based on opinion:

What is the difference between fact and opinion? How can we tell them apart, without relying on opinion?

What you say about science may be true, but what value we assign to these statements ultimately depends on epistemology. In the end, we don’t even know if causality exists or if things just randomly happen as if causality existed. There are many weird and useless ways to view the universe. We rule them out, not because we’ve proven them wrong, but because we agree to focus on other theories. We share the opinion that this world probably works in a way which allows us to do science in it (me too). All other science is based on that opinion.

I will flatly refuse to talk to you about anything if you believe that whether or not our planet is getting hotter year over year is a matter of opinion and therefore no more significant than someone’s favorite movie.

You can have a different opinion. No one will hound you for saying… I dunno, Asteroid City was better than Across The Spiderverse. And I’d have some choice words for anyone who did. What you cannot have is alternative facts.

In practice, that’s exactly my position. Just from a very epistemologically viewpoint, my previous comment results.

Simply put, we have no way to show which is fact and which is opinion. One attempt to do that is science. But there are many "but"s with this.

It isn’t obvious which philosophy of science is “correct”. Different schools of thought exist.

Let’s assume there was only one “true” science. Even with that reduction, we still need approval (peer review), and to establish a consensus.

We have no tool or process which you could point at a fact, and then that thing says “Yup, that’s a fact!”. Or at least, we have no way to agree over which tool that should be, how it should work. Even if we disregard all political and religious squabbles.

Of course facts exist. But all you can ever perceive is your perception, and all you can ever communicate is your perspective.

To treat facts in the way you want (and me too), we need to agree what those facts are. We need to convince each other.

Of course some of these opinion-facts weigh much more heavily than others. Climate change is very much more serious than which movie someone fancies.

But fundamentally, what is the difference between fact and opinion? How can we tell them apart, without relying on opinion?

I get where you’re coming from and agree to the sentiment. On the other hand, no one is obliged to argue with anyone.

There can be many valid reasons apart from facts and opinions why people might choose to not continue a discussion with someone.

Yes, I refuse to watch a lengthy video or even read a book as a replacement for the other person making an argument.

If that source is so good, make arguments based on it. You’re in a much better position to find the relevant parts, since you remember them.

The last time I disregarded this rule was iconic. I watched their video, assumed to understand what they meant, came back with counters.

“That’s not what I meant.”

Yeah, great. You have no point, until you make one.

To be fair, “I did my own research” is not an argument, and should be considered unconvincing. It’s a claim, an unsubstantiated claim.

A meaningful answer would produce an argument informed by that research, how they disagree, and why.

As a side effect, this proves they did their research, although that part is entirely irrelevant. It allows to clear up misunderstandings, in case they missed important parts while doing their research. Some crucial insights aren’t that obvious.

Most importantly, making an argument informed by your own research contributes constructively to the discussion and advances it.

Hot take: Fundamentally, everything is opinion.

What you consider right and wrong, fact or fiction, is your opinion. If you disagree with that, that’s your opinion.

Philosophers may try to make statements about the world, but all they can ever do is speak their mind, express their view, voice their opinion.

Further, everyone can only ever experience the world through their individual, subjective point of view. That’s an additional explanation why people disagree over what to consider objective facts. We ultimately lack objectivity and have to find a consensus; agree.

Just for the record, I hate the post-fact world with needles disagreements over otherwise established facts. My comment is not meant in defense of that.

Also note the academic discourse is far from that clear-cut opinion-fact-dichotomy. Experts disagree how to weigh and interpret evidence. Fields try to establish a consensus.

Finally, we aren’t these perfect rational beings, but individuals with backgrounds, fears, ambitions, circumstances. There’s a lot more going into what people consider facts than pure logic.

A design professor actually proposed this idea to us. Make the user feel how the computer is working, so they can appreciate the result more.

“Monad” is a shorter term though. “Structured data type” reads almost as bulky as “Curve of constant normal intersection points”.

I think that’s a helpful analogy and comment. Please remember this while I go on to nitpick. I’m aiming at in both fields, there may be more math-leaning scientists and concrete-leaning workers, with the engineer being somewhat in the middle.

Declaring bridges safe probably involves a lot of math and tables in the background. I guess we don’t actually run a million trucks but estimate the safety theoretically, with a few experimental tests. Likewise, a security specialist can define the edge cases against which the tests should be run. That may be the same person who also implements the test, but I want to emphasize it’s two different roles. And we might consider one more of a scientist, and the other more of a worker.

So how much your activity resembles that of a mathematician, or a traditional engineer probably depends on your specific task, and how much your team requires you to generalize or specialize.

Sorry und viel Glück! Alternativ ist ein Hochrisikogebiet ja auch gleichbedeutend mit niederschwelligen Beschaffungsmöglichkeiten für Ersatz, falls du des deinigen verlustig wirst. Und wie die Statistik zeigt, wäre das eine Niedrigrisikotätigkeit.

The obvious solution is to abandon your project not too late; leave on a high note.

I also found it very useful to document every step of my setup procedures, right after I figured out what works. At least the respective CL.

Right, I get now what you mean. In defense of the other person, they said this may be the case. Which implies that it also may not be the case. It’s a worry spoken out, maybe without thinking too much about how to word it in a way which does not come across as insulting.

I would frown at this in a direct conversation, but not so much in an indirect, general talk about opinions. In the current setting, I appreciated the opinion as open and direct. I don’t think anyone’s feelings have been hurt here, unless someone actively wants to feel offended.