Its official name is “Perimetr” but many Soviet-era nuclear control officers called it “The Dead Hand.” David Hoffman’s book with that title won him a Pulitzer prize. Now you can imagine President Trump tweeting away over how Harper Lee should give him hers. And, now, you should stop – it’s horrifying. [openlibrary] [Read more…]
My whole life I have felt there is a fascinating line between Nietzsche and Hume. Wow, that is profound, Marcus: “Some philosophers disagree.”
In various discussions about “what do we do with Venezuela?” we should not ignore that the people asking the question are representatives of a military superpower who took it upon itself to intervene in Venezuelan politics.
Defense Expert Dunc commented in an earlier post of mine, with a link to an article that we both find worthy of discussion. I think it’s worth treating as a separate posting, not Dunc’s words (if I have specific comments on Dunc’s thoughts I’ll make them elsewhere or on the OP)
I’m going to shovel out some opinions, here, and I will not be bothering (entirely) to support them with references and argumentation. Let me put that out front, since I am going to make some very negative assumptions about some people, and may even vent my spleen. Or, air it out, anyway.
You may have noticed (I hope, actually!) that my last posting sounds like it was written with the assistance of a bottle of cheap red wine and some screwdrivers. If it did, then that means it was “evocative” and “realistic” maybe. I won’t make a habit of it because I am wicked unimpressed with my drunk-blogging. Maybe I should be the new SECWAR?
I’m not in favor of assassinations; I’m especially not fond of sloppy wet work.
One of the things that sometimes frustrates me about AI is that they are constantly being tweaked and adjusted, so they don’t necessarily give the same answer every time. Of course, I’m getting a different run through however many billion nodes get involved in my question, but also, there are (as PZ seems to think is important) random numbers involved, and the generation/version of the various checkpoints that the AI is running.
It’s like asking me what I think about some point regarding Nietzsche before or after I’ve been reading Hume. My opinions on both of them change, mysteriously and below my awareness. But the answer I would give is different.
This will (I hope!) take a while, and I’m not going to bother being scrupolous about the sources of my ideas. I will also be scrupulous, in the philosophical sense, of the origins of my ideas but out of pride in my education, and since – like everything else I leave on the Internet – it becomes part of my legacy.
In an earlier posting about my osoraku dagger, I made a comment to the effect that rocks are pretty yawn-riffic. “Ha ha ha,” laughed the fates and fired up their favorite app: “Comeuppance”