shirk-work

shirk-work t1_jaczazb wrote

Reply to ELI5: Why was Chinese culture so influential throughout all of East Asia particularly Japan and Korea? by astarisaslave

China has done the best at having culture, society, and governance for an extended period of time. China had ships ten times larger than anything in the west before the time of Columbus. They could have colonized the world long before anyone else but never desired to. They kept records well over an extended period of time so could build off the advancement of individuals. It was easy for developing cultures around them to copy their work instead of duplicating it.

Edit: I get it CPP bad but that's just from 70's to today. China has a much longer history.

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shirk-work t1_ja24zfx wrote

Reply to comment by Significant_Pain2883 in Reality is an openness that we can never fully grasp. We need closures as a means of intervening in the world. | Post-postmodern philosopher and critic of realism Hilary Lawson explains closure theory. by IAI_Admin

Animals make tools as well and to a limited degree go beyond their biological limitations. Of course the degree at which we make tools is far far superior. No matter the tools though we are left with the same brain to understand the information we find. When we start developing new brains and new consciousness that will be very different.

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shirk-work t1_j9xvdju wrote

Reply to comment by dbx999 in Reality is an openness that we can never fully grasp. We need closures as a means of intervening in the world. | Post-postmodern philosopher and critic of realism Hilary Lawson explains closure theory. by IAI_Admin

Do you know that puzzle game where you have to slide the blocks to remove a piece? I always thought of it like applying the right moves at the right time to unlock it. Once you know the possible moves you can get a feeling for unlocking things. In that way it's pretty similar to algebraic manipulation. Some people are amazing at that but it's not my favorite. Proofs, number theory, group theory, discrete math is moreso my jam.

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shirk-work t1_j9xrqkh wrote

Reply to comment by dbx999 in Reality is an openness that we can never fully grasp. We need closures as a means of intervening in the world. | Post-postmodern philosopher and critic of realism Hilary Lawson explains closure theory. by IAI_Admin

You can probably understand the principles just fine. Just trying to find the area under a curved line by cutting it into infinitely small blocks. Turns out there's families of curvy lin s where we can prove that there's rules to determine some finite sum and at least segments of other curvy lines that can be approximated within a given start and end point. It turns out that a lot of things in reality share this same relationship of curvy lines and the area below them and it's super useful for engineering. So that's why we learn calculus.

The real pain comes when you try to prove those rules in the complex plane. Makes even math majors cry. That said I've always preferred discrete math and more so the compsci side of things, algorithm analysis. Now machine learning is messing it all up with it's probability and statistics.

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shirk-work t1_j9xra3h wrote

Reply to comment by jdubf13 in Reality is an openness that we can never fully grasp. We need closures as a means of intervening in the world. | Post-postmodern philosopher and critic of realism Hilary Lawson explains closure theory. by IAI_Admin

I mean molecules follow equations in calculus, doesn't mean they know the equations. I do like the idea of one singular sage ant being hyper aware or better yet some hive mind being chemically processed at a slow speed and low bandwidth (compared to neurons being directly connected) being all hyper aware.

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shirk-work t1_j9u9lic wrote

Reply to Reality is an openness that we can never fully grasp. We need closures as a means of intervening in the world. | Post-postmodern philosopher and critic of realism Hilary Lawson explains closure theory. by IAI_Admin

In every single creature we are acutely aware of their limited awareness of reality. We don't assume ants can understand calculus. While we seem to understand more it shouldn't be the assumption that we aren't limited in our perception in the same way ants are. The absolute strangest option is that our perception of reality is anywhere near complete and accurate.

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shirk-work t1_j1u0d0s wrote

Reply to comment by dgamr in Battery swapping spurs Kenya's electric motorbike drive by For_All_Humanity

Figured the vehicle would be subsidized and it's not too difficult to set up some proprietary circuits so you can only charge the batteries at the official charger so you lock people into using the swap station which is where most of the money comes in. Those who are smart enough can hack the circuits to charge the battery themselves or course voiding the warranty and ability to be swapped.

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