> One reason the practice hasn’t been more widespread is that it delivers a diminished dose of a drug. It isn’t clear how much of a high secondary users receive, and some medical experts say there is no more than a placebo effect.
Yes, this makes sense. People are not actually getting high from this, so I doubt that very many people are trying to get high from injecting other people's blood directly.
This is the headline, I think. Street vendors sell hits of a syringe that may have already been stuck in someone else. Every time the needle enters a blood vessel, some of the blood goes back into the needle. It's not that users are asking for "blood-infused" syringes, it's that the vendors are sticking multiple people with a single syringe and now 50% of intravenous drug users in Sargodha have HIV.
That sounds far more realistic than some macabre attempt to transfuse. Just from a purely skeptical point of view, drug users want to get high, and it's more effective to split a dose in two separate shots than it is to recycle someone's blood. Never mind the issue of blood type aside, from a pure drug-seeking behavior angle it makes no sense.
> The injector injects 3 ml and keeps 2 ml (the scale) as injection fee.
Heroin users will first inject the drug, then immediately draw blood back into the syringe and then reinject that, to accomplish a kind of mixing the drug with the blood in the syringe. The study claims that people leave some of that blood/drug mix in the syringe as a fee.
To me, the most interesting sentence in this essay is: "[H]e, Gödel, had felt that a nuclear chain reaction would be possible only 'in a distant future'."
Gödel was second-to-none in analytic ability and he was paranoid. What made him so certain that nuclear chain reaction was a distant possibility? If it were anyone else, I'd say they were just trying to comfort themselves by not thinking about terrible consequences. I wish I knew what made him come to the conclusion he came to.
The only reason that nuclear energy/weapons are possible at all is because there exists isotopes that release more neutrons than they absorb during fission (the chain reaction). Nuclear fission itself wasn't fully understood until 1938.
I think this is the hard part of analyzing systems. If there exists mechanisms outside of your current understanding, there is no way to predict what is and isn't possible
"It always seems impossible until it's done." - Nelson Mandela
> Gödel was second-to-none in analytic ability and he was paranoid. What made him so certain that nuclear chain reaction was a distant possibility? If it were anyone else, I'd say they were just trying to comfort themselves by not thinking about terrible consequences. I wish I knew what made him come to the conclusion he came to.
The universe does not subscribe to rigorous, certain analysis. Being an unparalleled genius in mathematics can make you too certain of the applicability of conclusions deduced from axioms about the real world; in mathematics axioms are true because you decide to work in a model of them, but the real world usually doesn't care to cooperate with the axioms that make sense to you. My suspicion would be that that's what happened here.
There are an uncountable number of atoms in the universe. There are nondeterministic occurrences in many natural processes. Even if the universe is a simulation, that doesn’t mean that it’s able to be represented or formalized from within the simulation.
Math is possibly one of the best tools of the scientific method to make logical sense of the universe, but that doesn’t mean that we can compute any given thing due to the scales involved. Gödel was likely familiar with the unknowable nature of the universe given certain hard limits of calculation, computation, and measurement.
Physics is the tool we use to move the world, yet we may never be able to build a lever or fulcrum long enough to actually do so - physics and math only give us a place to stand and means to orient ourselves. Everything else is engineering, I’d say.
> Give me a place to stand and with a lever I will move the whole world.
I would like to hear your thoughts, however. I think you’re right in a sense, that physics and math are possibly inseparable syntactically, similar to the identity property. If a thing is what it does, physics is math as much as it is logic, or vice versa.
Like math, logic is what we understand it to be, regardless of correspondence to reality. Physics rather seeks to represent and model more than the abstract truths of math and logic, and physics has an element of necessary utility and correspondence to hypothetical or actually existing realities, possibilities, and observable phenomena, whereas math and logic are not burdened by testability, but are rather proven or disproven via internal consistency and formalisms.
Like many tools, their proper usage comes down to holding them correctly, both in hand and in mind.
If I’m following your train of thought, I read it like this:
All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. All physics is math, but not all math is physics.
As it applies to my understanding of your point and to my understanding of the MUH, Tegmark argues that the universe is necessarily pigeonholed by physics, and must be constrained by and embodies physics, which seems logical and consistent to me.
My point was perhaps a bit more pedantic regarding the distinctions between A: actually existing external reality independent of our understanding of it, and B: our representation of the universe that physics seeks to formally define.
I think it’s reasonable to assume that the universe is internally consistent and rational; that is to say that it’s bounded by so-called laws of physics, but we may not be able to reason about it because we currently lack the tools to make sense of it; that is to say we don’t know how to represent it mathematically.
I think we likely agree - the universe computes itself and proves itself by its essential nature and very existence. I don’t mean to speak for you, but only to find points of agreement.
No, the causal portion of reality. (Philosophers of metaphysics are still arguing whether acausal aspects of reality are, in any real sense, real, but we don't need to listen to them.) If we discover something non-physical (the usual example being ghosts), that'll just become a new branch of physics.
Physics currently talks about dark energy, the geometry of spacetime, and quantum superposition. I don't think you can get much less physical than that.
You are welcome to make an assertion that causal forces lie only in the physical realm, but declaring something to be true does not necessarily make it true, though at scale it can certainly make it seem true.
>> An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic...
>> The illusory truth effect (also known as the illusion of truth effect, validity effect, truth effect, or the reiteration effect) is the tendency to believe false[1] information to be correct after repeated exposure.
[1] The "false" designation here is unnecessary and flawed imho (or better: a fine example of how ubiquitous this problem is).
> (Philosophers of metaphysics are still arguing whether acausal aspects of reality are, in any real sense, real,
What meaning do you assign to the symbol "real" in this context?
Is it flawless?
> ...but we don't need to listen to them.)
In an absolute sense, no you don't. But to achieve certain desires you may have to. Like the saying goes: "You may not be interested in metaphysics (or truth, etc), but it might be interested in you".
But it's even more interesting: not only do you not have to listen to or seek truth, you can engage in mass collective story telling on the internet, confusing the population at scale. Don't believe me? There's a search function right here on HN, the evidence is there for the viewing!
> If we discover something non-physical (the usual example being ghosts), that'll just become a new branch of physics.
a) Science does like their Motte and Bailey.
b) I doubt you can actually see the future. If you disagree, please explain, using only physics, how you can.
> Physics currently talks about dark energy, the geometry of spacetime, and quantum superposition. I don't think you can get much less physical than that.
Do you believe that aggregate reality is constrained by your cognitive abilities, or are you perhaps more so describing your opinion about "reality"?
I don't think you understand what I'm saying. If we discover causal forces "outside the physical realm" (as we did when we first developed the theory of electromagnetism), we will simply redefine "the physical realm" to include the new, previously-unknown physics. (That, or we'll expand the domain of physics while preserving the legacy terminology, like when we decided that "world" meant a planet, or an "atom" could be separated into parts.)
> What meaning do you assign to the symbol "real" in this context?
Doesn't matter, because physics doesn't care whether or not its domain is "real". We can ignore the metaphysicians because physics is the study of models, observations, and discrepancies, and would work just as well if reality were an illusion.
> I doubt you can actually see the future. If you disagree, please explain, using only physics, how you can.
Information enters my brain. My brain gradually builds a predictive model, according to some (presumably physical) process that I call "me". I can then make confident conditional statements about the future, which historically have been overwhelmingly (though not exclusively) correct where the antecedent is satisfied. By induction, I infer that I possess the general ability to see the future with high accuracy, in certain domains.
Though information theory is usually considered a branch of mathematics, the (incredibly eldritch) field of thermodynamics allows theorems of information theory to be translated into theorems of physics, and (in some cases) vice versa.
> Do you believe that aggregate reality is constrained by your cognitive abilities,
My understanding is that QFT is not axiomatized - it works but there's a bit of hand-waving at the level of actual proofs. There are people working on this, but currently physics is physics and maths is maths.
QFT also becomes increasingly unwieldy for large systems. E.g., try calculating bond energies of complex molecules. You can do it for hydrogen and "hydrogen like" molecules, but once you get beyond a few interactions, the differential equation does not have closed form solutions. This is not a total loss as you can resort to numerical solutions in at least some cases.
Science is mostly about producing models that "work" whether this involves reductionism to more fundamental principles or not. At worst however, the model which describes the larger system should not conflict with the description of the smaller one.
Banach spaces looking like lightweight Euclidian spaces (in terms of constraints), and reality being experienced as data and applications, I'm going to try and say that:
Physics is a subset of Mathematics but which subset we don't exactly know.
In a sense, physics is the self-referential discovery of a subset of mathematics.
Mathematics is perhaps a subset of logic? I'm not very familiar with this space, but I think it's pretty cool that so much of math can be represented with very simple rules building up, especially with things like the Lean proof language.
It seems like less well researched hunches on nuclear processes often led programs astray with bad calculations.
The Germans focused on heavy water for their reactors instead of just using graphite, because they miscalculated neutron absorption allegedly because of measuring graphite pieces rich in boron. The entire program was subsequently after the heavy water sabotages in Norways seemingly taking too long and was depriorititzed (Did the world luck out on small happenstances like this and Lenard?).
The Swedish program likewise initially overestimated the required amount of fissile materials needed by an order of magnitude and it wasn't clear until years later, could an accurate figure have made the program progress quicker before public opinion turned? (a lot of complex and expensive designs were worked out to produce at the higher rate)
I didn't like how obsessed I'd become over Hearthstone. When this happened, I took it as an opportunity to delete the app and I haven't played it a single time since.
HODLers also use emotion and ideology to keep from selling.
It’s decentralized motivation to coordinate!! :)
Someone would do well to inspire a cult following and a viral one at that... then it will attract people who just believe in the To the Moon rocket emojis
This is some of the oldest stuff in the book in terms of human psychology: how to create group beliefs, how to punish defectors, etc. I think it might work surprisingly well, given the rise of populist movements in the past few years.
Same. Never before seen a thunderstorm where no precipitation hit the ground.
The heat doesn't feel so new to me. As a kid I was always watching for those 100F+ days with the fascination of hitting triple digits. I have 30+ years of seeing those.
that thunderstorm WAS epic, best I've seen since I lived here. Had the windows open all night, it was wonderful. it rained pretty hard at times here (Redwood City)
More like "Endurance Athletes Set New Records Due to Lack of Races." Everyone has had to reevaluate what they're doing without the usual competitions. I'm going for a 1-mile personal best, but FastestKnownTimes.com also seems pretty cool.
I made a few close friends there in the chat, where other hacker wannabes and philosophy neophytes would gather. The chat forum had fun weird bugs that my friends and I would play with in order to edit past posts, or obliterate each other's posts. It was wonderful little corner of the web for a short while.
That was just one part of that great site. In 1999, the Internet still felt new and full of potential. I loved all the concept art posted there, the trailers, and finding easter eggs.
Years later I recreated the full chat for my friends, including the bugs. It
After homeschooling, I also have a hunger for learning. It is the hunger of someone that did not always get enough to eat as a child and isn't going to let calories go by uneaten. The hunger of someone who suspects others know how malnourished they were as a kid and is afraid to look skinny. A hunger that keeps them up at night, telling them to eat and eat until sleep seizes them, then wakes them up early in the morning, so they can eat again.
Interesting. That wasn't my experience at all. Maybe hunger is the wrong word: love of learning is better.
I grew up to truly love learning and be excited for our weekly trips to the library to get more books. Then when I had access to the internet I spent so much time learning code and design. My parents taught me how to learn and then gave me access to whatever I needed (mostly just the library and a computer).
That's cool. I'm happy that some people had good homeschool experiences. I grew up in a house full of books and loved to read and it mostly turned out okay except for the constant feeling that I had never learned enough.
My point is only that homeschooling in the US has an enormous variety of outcomes. This should be expected, because there is very little oversight, even here in California where some of my siblings only acquired what education a reasonably bright child can acquire by cultural osmosis. If you think I'm exaggerating, it might because you've never had to explain to an intelligent 13-year-old that the '<', '/', and '>' they are learning to use for html can also mean less-than, division, and greater-than.
I see you are invested in a company catering to homeschoolers. I think it's fantastic that education is becoming easier and easier to come by. Homeschoolers need all the help they can get. As long as you are encouraging people to consider homeschooling, I hope you'll take a glance through r/HomeschoolRecovery and get a view of what happens when homeschooling goes wrong.
Public school also goes terribly bad. Graduation rates are problematic, the government’s own 2014 study on sexual abuse found that fully 10% of kids are abused at school, not counting abuse by other students including sexual abuse and bullying, some kids are promoted year to year without ever learning basic skills, many kids have to take remedial math and English in college to get up to speed, suicide rates of teens goes way down during the summer months compared to school months, schools teach to the test, funding is a a problem, California is 44th educationally in the nation, etc. As far as I can see, there is no epidemic of former homeschooled students on welfare or being any sort of drain on the state. Sure, there are bad outcomes... there are with any percentage of childhoods, period. But the advantages of homeschooling, the freedom of being able to choose with your child the kind of educational methods and resources one uses, including how learning happens, and making sure it doesn’t look like school (because that way doesn’t work for everyone), is what makes it amazing. Sure, it doesn’t look like school. It’s not supposed to, and that oversight you speak of is exactly what would kill it and make it Just like school. Which would be a problem because they don’t know what the hell they’re doing most do the time...not exactly the gold standard we should hold up as an example.
If you want an eye-opening, follow https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeschoolRecovery/ for a bit. I've seen some really terrible examples of homeschooling that left people stunted and overwhelmed by the world. The best I've seen is from parents that spent an immense amount of time working with their kids and who went out of their way to expose their kids to ideas that the parents didn't necessarily agree with.
The worst outcome I've seen has been my sister, who is in her thirties and rarely leaves my father's house.
Meh... if you want to read about the trauma of public schools just read the 'normal' mental illness subreddits. Public schools is so normalized that all the trauma it causes isn't attributed solely to schooling. Think of the number of kids upset about being bullied, suicides from peer pressure, etc.
Yes, this makes sense. People are not actually getting high from this, so I doubt that very many people are trying to get high from injecting other people's blood directly.
> Unusual injection practices in Pakistan include selling half-used, blood-infused heroin syringes. (link to https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19558668/)
This is the headline, I think. Street vendors sell hits of a syringe that may have already been stuck in someone else. Every time the needle enters a blood vessel, some of the blood goes back into the needle. It's not that users are asking for "blood-infused" syringes, it's that the vendors are sticking multiple people with a single syringe and now 50% of intravenous drug users in Sargodha have HIV.