The implied analogy is limited.

Anti-gun folks argue that since so many people die as a result of handguns, they should be banned. But despite the fact that in car/bicycle crashes the cyclist inevitably gets the worst of it, no one is seriously calling for the elimination of automobiles.

> no one is seriously calling for the elimination of automobiles.

I think it is because they see cars as much more necessary than guns. IMO The reality is that both could benefit from more regulations and harsher penalties and enforcement.

There are serious movements calling for the elimination or heavy restriction of automobiles in places with cyclists and pedestrians.

Paris' "School Streets" are an effective and widely written about implementation, but most modern cities have some concept of car-free street and a few examples, even if it's not widespread.

If you've ever spent time in a city area that has these car bans/restrictions in place. It's fantastic.

Cancellation is about a self-appointed minority taking malicious action against someone for an action or opinion for which the law itself does not specify a penalty. No one should be cancelled. And no one should be downvoted (or worse) on HN.

So the mass of the universe would suddenly become infinite?

No, that infinite swarm is in a superposition, so each photon contributes only an infinitesimal amount of energy. The net effect from a distance acts exactly like the original photon.

Assuming it could be done at all, which it can't. The article says "If you could do an impossible thing you'd get a strange result", which, duh.

Wouldn't you need a tool that moves faster than the speed of light to cut a photon in half?

Not necessarily. They imagine a kind of shutter that could close in the middle of a photon's wave.

That's not quite as ridiculous as it sounds: a microwave photon could be centimeters long, and a lower-wavelength photon could be meters or more. You could think of the shutter as an LCD screen, which could change from clear to dark in less than the time it would take for a meters-long photon to pass through it.

You can't actually do it, though the speed of light isn't the reason. The calculation is for an infinitely thin, infinitely black barrier. You could do an approximation of it, but the complexity of the approximation swamps the already-complex wave form the theory gives.

I thought photons didn't have any mass?

No. But they do have energy, and that creates gravity in general relativity (if I understand it correctly).

But also, you could have a Zeno's Paradox of particles - one with half the energy, one with 1/4th the energy, one with 1/8th...

To be clear, I personally did think that electrons had a non-zero mass, so my bad.

Do they even exist?

The Pre-Crime Division

I like your explanation of why "agent" is entirely the wrong term to use. But "clanker"? It has such an ugly sound to it. What's wrong with plain old bot?

"That’s the main thing good tutors do differently. If motivation decreases, they switch to lighter content, or even transition into non-lesson conversation. If motivation increases, they ramp up the difficulty of the lesson."

I would say that's reasonable (but not optimal) if we're talking about an adult client who is footing the bill himself or herself. But in the case of, say, high school students, parents don't like that kind of laissez-faire ambiance.

My experience is, if anything, the opposite. People who pay for tutelage out of their own pocket get stressed about not "getting their money's worth" when lessons lighten, even if that's exactly what they need at that time.

In conrast, parents like seeing their children's motivation increase almost as much as they like the test score improvements that come with increased motivation.

Might be a cultural difference, though.

Prefer "Chinese".

I'm gonna go out on a limb and predict that this attempt will be unsuccessful.

I think the bar complaint is credible, in which case it’s going to depend on how many lawyers Alito has pissed off in New Jersey.

My guess is that’s a lot.

The author (David C. Brock) uses and defines the word "decidable". There exist, it has been proven, mathematical statements whose truth or falsity cannot be determined. That is, they are non-decidable.

What a useful notion to bear in mind, beyond the scope of mathematics! I think the next time I find myself in a dispute over a fine point of politics I shall say: "Perhaps we can agree that the matter is non-decidable".

Is it not the same thing as/very similar to falsifiability in philosophy of science?

Yes, I think it is, now that you mention it. But maybe "non-decidable" could be dropped into a casual conversation more easily?

But if I say that I think an issue is non-decidable, my interlocutor is likely to think that I simply can't make up my mind!

In substance I agree with you. But at the same time I think HN would be better off without downvoting at all. An ethos of free speech is entirely lacking.

I don't know why you would expect an ethos of free speech from a privately-owned, privately funded service provided to you at-will by venture capital. YC isn't a charity organization.

I think you're right, not essentially because YC is a privately-funded service, but because their sense is that the majority of their users enjoy expressing their disapproval of those with whom they disagree.

The fundamental reason why you're not entitled to free speech is because HN is not public property. You can manufacture whatever kind of persecution complex you want, I don't care.

I'm not talking about a legal entitlement, hence ethos, not right. You know, just common courtesy -- the kind that resists the temptation to throw around accusations of "persecution complex". But perhaps the concept is foreign to your kind if thinking.

On the contrary: we know, from the paradox of tolerance, that some speech must not be tolerated. That's philosophy, but real world experience backs it up. The parable of the Nazi bar has roots in the world, and we have the example of the heat death of Usenet as well