As a professional gambler, I thought I was estimating "true probabilities" of outcomes.

This was useful fiction. There is no truth in probability. Whatever happens was always going to happen. Probability is a model of personal ignorance.

— Alex Adamou (@alex_adamou) November 28, 2018

No. Quantum probability has actual, real indeterminacy built in. And since the world is structured at its base on quantum phenomena, this would strongly imply that the cosmos itself also possesses this innate indeterminacy — unless you posit that QM is wrong (unlikely) or that somehow quantum mechanics has no impact at all on macro events ever (seems a bit fishy to me).

When I say that quantum mechanics has real indeterminacy built in, this isn’t quibbling or guesswork. It’s just a fact of how the universe works. There is no way in principle to predict, say, when a uranium atom will emit a photon due to radioactive decay. Even knowing every single fact up to that point about the entire universe, that photon’s emission would be by nature unpredictable in the very strongest sense of that word. There is nothing we could learn to tell us when it would occur, or even why. Again, this is not about not having enough information. There is no information that could allow us to learn this in advance.

So I’d disagree with this, and here’s why. I am convinced quantum mechanics is correct. To believe as Alex does, you’d have to assume that QM never has any effect on the macro world of any kind, which just seems a bit absurd since the entire universe is built on its actions. Note that it doesn’t take QM effects occurring on every interaction to invalidate these sorts of ideas — that they occur at all makes this view of probability suspect because it then becomes unreliable in general. Also I should be clear that doesn’t mean I think probability and statistics has then become unusable, but that I am negating the idea that probability is (only) a model of personal ignorance.

I miss the old internet pic.twitter.com/twi5qHJD4B

— Holly Jolly Brockwell (@holly) December 13, 2018

Me too. Normals, scolds, puritans, and non-geeks invaded and now it’s much worse.

It’s totally selfish, but in my ideal world the internet would’ve semi-fizzled and it would’ve had only about 300 million users worldwide, mostly science/geek and related type people, with some journalists and such thrown in. Meanwhile, the masses would’ve continued to ignore it.

Even Kubernetes devotees admit it’s not secure:

I love tech that comes broken out of the box. Nothing more fun.

I have reservations about this — and the rah-rah coprorateness of it all — but the basics aren’t wrong. Being a sedentary lump of apathy on the couch, munching Cheetos day in and day out, is not in any way healthy. Obesity and sedentarism exacerbate and in many cases cause innumerable health problems.

So it boils down to the fact that we must ask is this better than nothing? And will it help anyone without harming others more? And I think the answer is yes.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more tolerant of imperfection in search of something good enough for now — unless it’s a blatant scam like the ACA.

You don’t need Crossfit for getting fit, but anything — any damn thing — that gets some people off their couch and prevents them from getting diabetes or other chronic conditions is probably on balance worth it. Personally, I’d recommend a lot more weightlifting and a lot less jumping around like a crazed chicken, but anything that avoids death by couch is a win.