Echarmion

It really is an odd case. The virus seems to be harmless enough that it's unnecessary to worry about it on an individual basis if you're otherwise hea...

Unless my numbers are wrong, CFR in South Korea is only about .7 % at the moment (over 5000 cases, 35 deaths). That suggests that, even if China is un...

The current plan seems to be to slow down the spread enough to delay the peak until summer, when warmer weather will make it easier to deal with.

I feel like I am going to regret asking, but how do you figure Bernie is an authoritarian, or that his election would lead to authoritarianism? I thin...

Is that a Hitler specific thing? What if me zap guys like Trump, Duterte or Orban with the nicening ray?

There is an interesting application of this idea with regards to punishment. We could consider punishment for past actions, like a jail sentence, a wa...

Right, I was referring to the mortality rate.

Those are the raw numbers. But the actual infections are probably several times higher. Some say three times, some say 10 to 20 times. That's what I a...

It's very unlikely that the case fatality rate is 2%. Most experts are guessing between 0.3 and 1% now, though there is large insecurity for the lower...

In the same way as whether or not the sun will rise tomorrow is indeterminable, yes. But obviously no-one would refer to that as a "religious faith" o...

But what's fantastic or religious about that? You may disagree, or assigne a lower likelihood to it, but it's not, in principle, different from any ot...

I get that you're pessimistic about humanity's chances of survival, but what, exactly, is religions about the idea?

I think the big question is how much modification of behavior is warranted. There are a bunch of fairly simple methods which are effective at reducing...

I think the most likely explanation is that people with very light symptoms didn't realize they had anything other than a common cold and traveled. Th...

The Bostrom piece is mostly about late filters though, or rather how certain finds would make late filters statistically more likely. Great filters th...

The spread in China seems to be slowing down, which may be a sign that the preventative measures are having an effect. Granted, no european country is...

That depends a bit on what additional assumptions we are making. If we're treating minds as immaterial and not necessarily determined by physical proc...

Well if I think about what a troll is doing here, of all places, my conclusion is this: The philosophy forum probably ranks fairly highly on google se...

But how, exactly, do we distribute it better? We'd need a system that accounts for people's needs and desires, and also presumably for their willingne...

To do that effectively, I think the first step would be to learn a bit about russian history, especially the transition from sovjet rule to Putin. I m...

Well he just needs to look at your post history to see plenty examples. I am not sure there is much one can do on a reasonable time budget other than ...

The experience required here is experience in general. What a human mind needs to fully develop it's capacity for rational thought. It's not a specifi...

What's the predictive value? "God did it" is an explanation in the colloquial sense of the word. But it has no predictive value, so it's not an explan...

If that's the case, why is it of particular note what the majority of physicists thinks?

Well for one, the "explanation" isn't really one. It's just a convenient way to bypass the question. It's like a god of the gaps. For another, a hypot...

But what's the relationship between the block universe (a physical model) and the metaphysical interpretation of time? It seems to me that there are t...

The rarity of our own conditions for being is a self-sorting problem. For these kinds of problems, the mediocrity or Copernican principle causes seemi...

Altered Carbon is on Netflix, though I did not really like the plot.

There is plenty of research ongoing, but there isn't a single button to stop you from aging. In fact, the biggest problem is that we haven't yet figur...

So, Trump continues to dismantle American institutions, now the impartiality of the legal system. I wonder if those moves increase or lessen his suppo...

Perhaps it's also important to bring up the distinction between morality and legality here. What you describe sounds more like democratic law-making t...

*yawn* Is that all you have to offer? Sorry, not interested.

Again evading the question. A pity. Why so scared though? No-one has suggested we should. Unfortunately, this kind of straw-manning is all anyone ever...

Question: if Donna Laframboise wrote a book about how everything was fine with the IPCC and we should all listen to them, do you think that would sell...

You're not answering the question. Does the IPCC employ experts that write their reports?

So, the IPCC reports, are those expert reports or "propaganda media"?

So, since you're unqualified to do the research, and unwilling to listen to the experts, what do you do? What exactly is your position? That Climate c...

I don't quite see how that follows. For yourself, that may be true. But actions could still have consequences, and those consequences could be permane...

I'd say that perception is more than simply receiving stimulus. It also has to be processed, and that requires operation by the brain, which requires ...

Well, in one sense, reality isn't obligated to make itself known to us. In another sense, the (possible) existence of unobservable things is empty. If...

Cause and effect is itself a theory based on correlation, so I'm not sure what this sentence means. Really? Can we understand clearly the nature of wa...

This just in: Jury members not allowed to have opinions or political leanings. US justice system collapses. "All trials ever have been rigged", says o...

Obviously anything referencing the terms "direct" or "indirect observation" is philosophy and not physics. My point is that your distinction between d...

No. If I were questioning the nature of observation itself, I'd be asking whether and how what's in your mind is actually related to anything outside ...

What the hell are "direkt observations" anyways? It's not like the photons hitting your retina are a cat, a rock etc. Neither are the vibrations carri...

I don't have anyone in particular in mind, but when I last considered buying the book, I found a lot of references to negative reviews by peers.

Though it has also been criticized a lot. It's conclusion are very controversial.

I think this is a misunderstanding. Current physics do describe "dark matter" and "dark energy". These names describe physical phenomena that have bee...

Well, why do they evolve? One might argue that stagnation is the natural state, and evolution the unusual circumstance that requires explanation. In t...

How does it suggest that? There are principles apart from "you have to be elected" that have come to define representative democracies after WW2.