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Comment Re: So a nomral average 20something life (Score 1) 217

You say a job with no skills, but being able to look at all that shit and compartmentalize it so it doesn't affect you is a necessary skill for this job. The problem is that they are not getting trained in the mental skills needed. Mirror neurons don't make a distinction between what we see and what we do. This affects everyone who gets exposed to that quantity of crap. The brain shifts its baseline for "normal" based on its environmental exposure. Unless the company is facilitating high quality positive experiences, the baseline for normal/healthy/sane is shifting subconsciously in the minds of the moderators.

Comment Re:"Scientists"? (Score 2) 86

Uh, computer scientists aren't scientists...

(Source: Am a computer scientist.)

Scientific Method
1) Ask a Question: Will this program I just wrote compile?
2) Background Research:
2.1) Previous experience with programming language
2.2) Previous experience with type of problem
2,3) Quality of Understanding of CS concepts
3) Form a hypothesis: First time to compile: no. Estimate X syntax errors and Z semantic errors per Y lines of code.
4) Experiment: Perform compile.
5) Analyze Results
6) Iterate on Experiment. (Fix errors, refine understanding.)
7) Present findings (Boss, it's going to be another 3 days for thorough testing)

The scientific investigation in Computer Science is on many fronts, but the most empirical aspect of science is the study of how well you, the programmer, understand the problem at hand and the tools you have for tackling it.

Perhaps you don't understand the Science aspect of Computer Science: The ongoing effort to refine our models of understanding about the world.

Comment Re:Colbert's remark wasn't homophobic (Score 2) 305

somehow I doubt that kind of language would be tolerated against Hillary, no network would air it to begin with, but if came up Democrats and Republicans would call it "woman hating"

If Hillary had bragged about how she likes to grab men by the cock, had multiple accusers of sexual assault, and was more than sympathetic to the will of the leader of a rival nation, I'm pretty sure calling her a cock holster for that foreign leader would be fair game. You are forgetting that Trump went crass long before Colbert did.

Comment Re: Does not follow? (Score 1) 805

You clarified a distinction between two memetic expressions, civil society vs civic society. The person you responded to was pointing out that going from a phenotypic expression (asian) to assuming a particular memetic expression (any number of different 'asian' cultures) is racist. The correlation between phenotype and memetic expression is weakening continually across the globe as cultures mix and mingle, especially here in the US. And if someone makes it all the way to being a CEO of an American corporation you can pretty much assume the correlation causes wrong inferences more often than right inferences.

Comment Re: The Actual Quote (Score 1) 805

I see your point. But he has also placed himself in the position of telling others what to believe. Either he cares about informing others about the actual truth and will make sure he has the right stats, or he cares about converting others to his warped perception of reality and spreads his confirmation bias. That he misread a stat and ran with something that should have made you go "say what?" and look closer, indicates the confirmation bias. It's a lie in that it is being told to others when it is not the truth. Regardless if it's an intentional lie or an unconscious lie from confirmation bias, he intentionally places himself in a position of telling others what to believe and is spreading lies.

Comment Re:The Actual Quote (Score 1) 805

I'm clearly missing the problem here? He has the wrong statistic (literally the opposite quantity), but what part of his statement doesn't make sense?

The question answers itself. He didn't take the time to have the right statistic and is running with a flagrant lie to insinuate something. What part of a civic society is founded on falsities?

Comment Re: So which one is it? (Score 1) 168

Observing at small scales is not a passive activity. You have to inject energy into the system (and have it reflect back) to make an observation. That injection of energy alters the system. So the universe does know when you are actively looking at it. Think of looking as not just looking with eyes passively but also shining a high energy flashlight in the direction of looking.

Comment Re: sTEM (Score 1) 219

I find computer science to be highly empirical and experimental. Does the program I just wrote meet the specification and solve the problem it is intended to solve? The hypothesis is yes. Unit testing and testing for corner cases is the empirical evidence that the specification and requirements are met. Debugging is the process of refining the hypothesis (statement of the program) based on empirical results.

You've been hired to fix a very elusive bug in a mission critical but complex low level system. Form your hypothesis based on the data available and test your correction to see I you were right. If bug still exists then refine hypothesis.

Computer Science gives you the reasoning tools necessary to empirically investigate computational systems. I teach computer science classes and I tell my students to experiment with different statements in python to see what happens. Learning how to program within a new language requires experimentation with combinations of expressions to develop the right mental model for the semantics and execution of the language.

If you can't see the science in computer science it's because you are stuck thinking that science applies only to the investigation of the physical world. Science applies whenever we try to tame the unknown and make it known. It is the process of refinement of our mental models. Every student engages in scientific exploration when they try to learn a new programming language. Each new discovery in relationship and properties of abstract systems is still a scientific discovery. For example, the discovery of unit propegation as a means of speeding up SAT solvers. It is a refinement of our mental models and integrating the theory into a coded sat solvers is empirical proof that the theoretical performance boost is indeed correct.

Comment Re: Excellent (Score 1) 153

You didn't choose your aesthetics, you chose to act in accordance with your aesthetics. Huge difference. It is the aesthetics (desires, preferences and sense of beauty and pleasure) that determine our wills. We do not have free will in altering our preferences and perception of beauty and pleasure. For a gay, straight, or bisexuals man to be willful in their choosing, they would have to be able to alter their aesthetics. Doesn't happen volitionally.

Comment Re:In other words. (Score 1) 288

Did you read the part of the linked to article that says that a similar request was refused and the court agreed that these records are not releasable though a FOIA request back in 2013? Yea, didn't think so...

And that proves there's nothing to hide because...?

It is standard practice for bureaucratic offices to deny requests which are not made through proper means. Citing that the request was made through improper means does not entail that there is something to hide, merely that the bureaucrats are either lazy or just not prone to sharing information unless required to by law.

The belief that "there is something to hide" is not supported by the events and is a projection of a mind prone to paranoia. That's not to say that there isn't something to hide, but merely that inferring such from the events is not a sound inference.

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