NateNate60 @ NateNate60 @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

The value proposition is absent for developing countries. When you have a lot more money, then nuclear starts to become a serious option.

You can build nuclear plants in almost any climate. That is not true for solar and wind. Nuclear plants are also "one and done". You don't need accompanying battery infrastructure to accompany them to get reliable output. As long as you have water, uranium rods, and nuclear scientists to run the plant, you will have reliable electricity output.

On top of that, one nuclear plant can produce as much power in two hectares of land as a wind farm could in a hundred hectares.

You don't get it do you?

"Nuh uh."

There. That's all I need to say to nullify everything you say. Because I have power and you don't.

If you hate nuclear energy because you think it's dangerous or polluting, that is as dumb as choosing to drive instead of taking the train for the same reasons.

Nuclear energy is one of the methods of generating electricity with the smallest environmental impact and also much, much safer than the alternatives. The number of nuclear accidents can be counted on one hand, while the number of people who have died from cancer from coal power plants is conservatively estimated to be in the millions.

Well, you see, I am a malicious entity that doesn't need to listen to your logic. All I need is the power that you have given me.

For your rules, since I am the malicious entity in charge, I can just say "I'm right, you're wrong", and there is nothing you can do about it.

This happened in Canada

Nope.

I'm a person who doesn't agree with you and I find myself in the position to interpret the rule. Therefore, I am interpreting the rule in my favour. A foetus is a person. The articles will not be delivered.

Hopefully this makes the argument a bit more clear . In this hypothetical scenario, a malicious person who disagrees with you is in charge of interpreting the rule. You have no power here and none of your arguments will convince them otherwise.

The only thing you can do is design a system that is robust enough that the damage that can be done by that malicious person.

You say a foetus is not a person. That person says "nuh uh". But they are in charge and you are not, so their interpretation stands and you have to suck it and now you regret giving that organisation the power to make that determination.

You can think of it all in terms of game theory. You get to write the rules, then I, a malicious entity, get to play by your rules, and you can only stand and watch. Once you put your pen down, I am in charge.

Now you can see that in this game, you would want to write rules that constrain what I can do as much as possible.

I don't disagree with this statement.

My issue with the policy proposal that follows is that the people in charge of determining what is intolerant will not necessarily be on your side.

And that's where trouble brews. This rule only works when good, knowledgeable, and tolerant people are in charge of administering it. And God knows that this does not always describe the people actually in charge

Let me try to twist this rule.

The delivery of materials informing women of abortion resources is now prohibited as this represents hate towards foetuses on the basis of their unborn status and advocates for killing them.

The delivery of materials promoting diversity in hiring and criticising the makeup of the boards of directors of large companies as being overwhelmingly white and male is now prohibited as this represents hate against white male executives.

You see, the issue is that you cannot guarantee that the person interpreting the rule you want to impose will think the same way you do.

The easiest, but not necessarily the most applicable answer, is that it is possible to wager money on the outcome of sports games. Very large sums of money. Ruinous, life-altering sums.

The more common answer is that this is a sense of personality for some people. They identify with a certain sports team and spend a lot of their time cheering them on and building up the belief that they are the best team, undefeatable under any fair circumstance. When that team loses, they then take it personally. After all, if their team lost, could it mean they're not actually the best team? Did I choose wrong?

No. Impossible. It's those damn referees, blind as they are, missing the most obvious fouls and treating my team unfairly, punishing my team's players more harshly for the tiniest infractions. Nay, not even that; my team didn't break the rules; it's that other team's fault!

&c., &c., until you get bored.

It isn't reasoning driving these decisions. It's emotion. And before any of us get too haughty about it, it's also a very human reaction. Humans were not designed to reason, we were designed to feel. And yes, everyone has a set of circumstances that will cause their logical processing to shut off and allow emotion to take control. It just might not be sports.

Pretty much anyone defending the postal worker here on the basis of what she did being "right" is missing the generalisation that must be made. If it's okay for postal workers to refuse to deliver mail containing viewpoints they disagree with, that means it's okay for bigoted postal workers to refuse to deliver mail from or to LGBT organisations. It means it would be okay for pro-life postal workers to refuse to deliver parcels containing birth control pills or flyers containing information about abortion services.

You cannot have it both ways. If you make a rule that there are cases when it is acceptable for postal workers to destroy or refuse to deliver mail, it will be used by the other side against you.

I don't believe that the Government being able to destroy mail containing viewpoints it deems objectionable is a power they should have.

Canada Post is legally obligated to deliver whatever meets the postal regulations and has proper postage affixed to it.

The postal worker in question doesn't own Canada Post.

I'm guessing this would be more historical to LGBT people. If you're a member of a group, I think you're more likely to be excited to hear another member of that group being appointed to office.

No, what I said is true if you use zero-based numbering. But when communicating with others in English, the label "first" refers to the element with the smallest index. In zero-based numbering, the label "zeroth" refers to the element with the lowest index. It's just not the default in English, but you can definitely use zero-based numbering in English if you're willing to edit the configuration files.

That's because you use English, a language where ordinals traditionally begin at one.

My argument is purely pedantic. Pedantry is the lifeblood of programmer "humour".

I'm not arguing that we should adopt zero-based numberingin real-life human applications. I am arguing that in zero-based numbering, the label "zeroth" refers to the same ordinal as "first" in one-based numbering. I am poking fun at the conversion between human one-based numbering and computers' zero-based numbering. That is why I am saying it should be called zeroth(); because human language should adapt to match the zero-based numbering their tools use. Whether I actually mean what I say—well, I leave that up to you.

It does not matter why indexes start from zero in computing. The memory offset argument is only salient if you are using it as an argument for why computers should use zero-based numbering. It is not an argument against the properties of zero-based numbering itself.

Zero-based indexing redefines the meaning of the labels "first", "second", "third", and so on. It adds a new label, "zeroth", which has the same ordinal value as "first" in one-based indexing. The word "first" does not mean "the element with the lowest index" in zero-based indexing.

If you are using a zero-based numbering system, you would absolutely say that array[2] is the final element in the array, that element having the ordinal label "second", and yet the length of the array is 3 (cardinal). There is no fundamental connection between the ordinal labels "zeroth", "first", "second", and "third" and the cardinal numbers 0, 1, 2, and 3. The similarities are purely an artefact of human language, which is arbitrary anyway. You can make an equally mathematically valid ordinal numbering system that assigns "third" to the element with the smallest index, "fourth" to the next-smallest, and so on. That ordinal numbering system is mathematically coherent and valid, but you're just causing trouble for yourself when it comes time to convert those ordinals (such as array indexes) into cardinals (such as memory locations or lengths of fencing to buy).

You can make an argument for why one-based numbering is more convenient and easier to use, but you cannot use the notion that zero-based numbering doesn't make sense given the assumed context of one-based numbering as an argument for why zero-based numbering is invalid.

I encourage you read up what is meant by "zero based numbering" because you and everyone else who has replied to me has tried to use "but that's not how it works in one-based numbering" as an explanation for why I'm wrong. This is as nonsensical of an argument as trying to say i (the imaginary unit) is not a number because it's not on the number line. It's only not a number in the domain of the real numbers. Similarly, zero-based numbering is only nonsensical in the context of one-based indexing.

It does not matter why indexes start from zero. The memory offset argument is only salient if you are using it as an argument for why computers should use zero-based numbering.

Okay, I will admit, you got me there. I did confuse indexing with numbering. From now on I will use the term "numbering" instead.

It is entirely how ordinal numbers work in zero-based numbering. There is no "right way" for ordinal numbers to work. You can create a valid ordinal numbering system starting from any integer, or just some other ordered list. You cannot assume one-based numbering is "correct" and use it as an argument against numbering beginning from any other number.

I encourage you read up what is meant by "zero based numbering" because you and everyone else who has replied to me has tried to use "but that's not how it works in one-based numbering" as an explanation for why I'm wrong. This is as nonsensical of an argument as trying to say i (the imaginary unit) is not a number because it's not on the number line. It's only not a number in the domain of the real numbers. Similarly, zero-based numbering is only nonsensical in the context of one-based indexing.

Zero-based numbering would number "foo" as the zeroth element, "bar" as the first element, and "baz" as the second element. "zeroth", "first", and "second" are labels representing ordinals. Your list has a length of 3 (which is a cardinal quantity unrelated to ordinals).

Although, I would like to point out, it is perfectly valid to construct an ordinal labelling system that assigns "fifth" to the element with the lowest index, "sixth" to the next, and so on. That system is mathematically coherent but it is just troublesome to when it comes time to convert ordinal numbers (such as the index of the last fence-post) to cardinal numbers (such as the length of fence to buy).

But this is now getting into the weeds of pure mathematics and most people here are engineers.

That's because the word "first" in first() uses one-based indexing. In true programmer fashion it would have been called zeroth() but that is wholly unintuitive to most humans.

I maintain that the element with the lowest index is called the "zeroth" element in zero-based indexing and "first" in one-based indexing. The element with index N is the Nth element.