Also, I'd like to note that my 6 year old Honda Civic has a recall and they are required by law to repair the issue free of charge to the consumer. I know laptop failure won't result in potential death, but customers should be protected from poorly designed products that fail. No other laptop or desktop I have ever used has had keyboard issues.

I'm glad you thought about it too, but to assume that the authors are just silly and don't understand the problem space is really not a good contribution to conversation.

The parent comment is harshly criticizing (fairly, in my view) a paper, and not the authors. Smart people can write foolish things (ask me how I know). It’s good, actually, to call out foolishness, especially in a concrete way as the parent comment does. We do ourselves no favors by being unkind to each other. But we also do ourselves no favors by being unnecessarily kind to bad work. It’s important to keep perspective.

"It seems to me all this paper does is define tasks in a highly abstract way that imposes a uniform cost to process '1 bit of task information'."

The paper uses this number and acknowledges that it is not the only possible measure, and explains why they use this number and how it was derived. It is just the start of the paper, not "all this paper does." The paper primarily focuses on counterarguments to this number to then address the primary question of the relationship between the inner and outer brain.

A few questions it poses: does the superior colliculus contribute to a bottom-up "saliency map" to ultimately direct the attentional bottleneck in cognition? Why does the brain use the same neural circuitry for both rapid/parallel sensory processing and slow/serial cognition? This is not even how other parts of the body work (e.g., type I and II muscle fibers). Perhaps the associated routing machinery between input and output accounts for the billions of neurons? Maybe, like the visual cortex, the prefrontal cortex has a fine-grained organization of thousands of small modules each dedicated to a specific microtask?

We do ourselves the most favors by reading research with some skepticism, and asking questions. We do ourselves no favors by writing comments after only reading an abstract (please, tell me if I'm wrong). I only point out that discounting research so blithely does nothing for improving research. This was a perspective paper - an author asking questions to better understand a possible issue and guide research. And maybe the commenter is right, maybe this is the wrong focus, but I do not believe it was truly considered.

It's nothing more than saying: we know that wires have electrons, and are made of metal, and can support a transfer rate of 1Gbp/s -- and we know that an LLM takes 1 min to answer "Yes" to a postgraduate physics question -- so how/why does the current in the wire at 10^9 bit/s second, support this 1bit/min mechanism?

It's extremely wrong-headed. So much so the paper even makes the absurd claim that Musk's neurallink need not have any high bandwith capabilities because a "telephone" (to quote) would be sufficient.

This is like saying an internet-connected server, hosting an LLM, need not have a high bandwidth RAM, because it only needs to transmit 1bit/s to answer the "yes" question.

In my view there isn't much worthwhile to say under this framing of the problem -- it's a pseudoscientific framing --- as is quite a lot of 'research' that employs 'information' in this way, a red flag for the production of pseudoscience by computer scientists.

Their implied premise is: "computer science is the be-all and end-all of analysis, and of what one needs to know, and so reality must be as we conceive it". Thus they employ an abuse of abstraction to "prove" this fact: reduce everything down to its most abstract level, so that one speaks in "bits" and then equivocate in semantically-weighty ways between these "bits", and pretend not to be doing so. This ends with pythagorean levels of mysticism.

But, I will counter your comparison regarding LLMs and the transfer rate of wires. We, humans, have wired up the LLM ourselves. Evolution wired our body/brain and we do not know all of the filters and connections that exist in the transfer and processing of data. There is so much about the body we do not know. With LLMs, we've created every part so it doesn't really compare.

And to say that fields of science should not consider the knowledge gleaned from other fields is preposterous. I read about a new discovery in Math almost every few months in which a person from a different field brought in different techniques and looked at a problem from a new angle. Maybe this framing of the problem is silly in the end, or maybe it is just what someone needs to read somewhere to spark an idea. It doesn't hurt to think about it.

*Which you are most likely using, since it integrates with Sumatra out of the box. And with MuPDF. And Skim, etc. It's cool like that.

I tried Sumatra a while ago, before switching over to Linux. It seemed pretty decent, nice and snappy.

This creates a huge problem. Rental properties have different regulations in different places. My brother-in-law was not given a lease renewal amnd was forced to move (within 30 days) while, where I live, that is illegal unless there is cause for eviction. It creates instability. Also, my rent increased $550/month in just two years. Who can afford that? This creates a tenuous housing issue. Thankfully, I was able to move and buy a very small condo so I have a set monthly payment and no longer need to worry about losing my home every year when my lease ends.

There is a huge difference in how I can plan for the future knowing I am not going to be, potentially, homeless every year.

Imagine what life would be like if we let billionaires buy up all the lakes, rivers, and other freshwater reservoirs. Water prices would shoot through the roof and we'd all be forced to pay the "water barons" whatever they decide to charge. It would be a dystopian nightmare and absolutely toxic to society. If you're curious, this is the premise of the classic sci-fi book Dune.

Obviously, the housing that short-term rentals use has to come from the housing stock somehow, so it's not interesting to point out that Airbnb's cannibalize the long-term rental market.

(Over the medium-long term this is a problem that'll be solved by a combination of more construction, which is desperately needed anyways, and ordinances regulating Airbnbs, like NYC just passed.)

Outside of capitalism? Many more possibilities.

This sounds interesting. Is this hypothetical? How does that equity get transferred/slowly leaked to the next tenant? How does one liquify it?

I have personal opinions on this matter that are irrelevant. What matters for the future is how this affects the U.S. competitive advantage with technology, and how this affects the job market. If the impact is significant, Congress needs to act. If not, i.e. if only a few smaller companies are affected, then nothing will change and everyone needs to adjust.

People incorrectly assumed that Congress would extend or repeal the sunset. But its not like the tax law was changed on Dec 30th and put into effect on the 31st.

I have read much of his writing, though far from even most of it. Even if I had read all of it, I know my answer would be the same.

This study used cognition, productivity, decision-making, and well-being as outcomes. It did not discuss the economic effects related to deleterious health from long-term sleep deprivation. Is higher productivity and output from increased time at work and decreased sleep time outweighed by the burden taken on by society from the other effects? I worry that some people will see this research and use it to feel better about making their employees work more hours and exploiting low income labor.

The 2008 recession is not really a comparable event to the current GME short squeeze. It was rather a broad series of events, most of which were unfortunately legal, some of which were probably not.

In that case I would be in favour of charging the ratings agencies with fraud, and possibly the financial regulators with gross incompetence.

Edit: I don't see it as "big guys vs small guys". I see it as "law abiding people vs not".

So my reaction is not "its unfair to prosecute the little guy," but rather "we didnt get those criminals but at least we can get these criminals."

I'm not sure I see a clear line in there to call any of it illegal.

First off, not all "market manipulation" is illegal. If it was, a company announcing a new product would be "market manipulation", because it impacts the stock price. But I think you're right that the line is definitely grey in a lot of situations. And really, that's why we have courts.

> Do you think that something like "Elon Musk tweets the word 'bitcoin'" can/should actually be charged as market manipulation?

If Elon Musk had just bought a whole bunch of bitcoin, then tweeted it out, and then sold his newly acquired bitcoin, then yes. He 100% knows that what he tweets affects markets, and attempted to directly benefit from it. If you want to argue that he doesn't know that his tweets affect the market, the SEC has already determined that it does based on the "TSLA private at 420" situation.

> What about people selling their newsletter of stock tips?

Market manipulation requires actual market manipulation. I dno't believe that "attempted market manipulation" counts (but I may be wrong). All of these newsletter attempts fail, so there's nothing to really charge.

If any of these newsletters actually have a measurable effect, or if the person sending them is buying-sending-selling (at a profit), then yes, it is market manipulation.

> What about printing an article in Bloomberg suggesting that XYZ is undervalued/overvalued for $reasons

This is kind of what Bloomberg does, and they typically have arguments in both directions (which I think kind of evens it out). That being said, true information, with real evidence, is not illegal market manipulation. DFV's initial "due diligence" and legitimate bull case are not illegal market manipulation.

> What about some nobody on reddit posting to wsb to say let's go to $321!

Now you're getting grey. I'm not qualified to answer. This answer will likely be very similar to whether or not something is "inciting a riot", and will be super context-dependent.

But note that this is different than saying "GME is going to $1000 because of <totally false and made up reasons>" (especially if you already have a position, and if you make a profit as a result of the market that you influenced. Remember, if you don't actually influence the market, then it doesn't count.

But whether or not you succeeded in influencing the market can easily be determined after-the-fact. Just because you get away with it in the moment, doesn't mean no one will look back.

> What about being paid to tell clients what you think they should invest in?

If this is your job, you are likely licenced in some way, and the rules are likely different.

> What about telling other users on reddit for free what you think they should invest in?

I think the answer here is the same as the WSB-specific question

---

Feel free to disagree with me, these are just my opinions, and again, context matters.

> If you want to argue that he doesn't know that his tweets affect the market, the SEC has already determined that it does

The SEC found that as CEO his public statements are considered official announcements, but that doesn’t really say anything about him “being able to affect the market” in general. I believe that would not actually be market manipulation because he was telling the truth - the regulations require fraud or misstatement (lies). They don’t technically require statements to have evidence or even be true, because people can be wrong.

> But note that this is different than saying "GME is going to $1000 because of <totally false and made up reasons>"

Exactly. Telling other people to invest in something because you believe they can make money at it is not market manipulation so long as you believe what you are telling them.

Where people think WSB could get into trouble is actually purchasing the shares - because what is perhaps illegal is the act of making a trade to drive up the price for short sellers and make them buy back stock - and some of them may have said things that show this intent.

However this version of manipulation is a very unclear concept - the plain reading of the law makes general trading to make money basically illegal, so it has been heavily interpreted by the courts and there is actually a circuit split on whether any otherwise valid trade can be illegal because of intent.

https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/financialregulation/fi...

I believe there is also thought that this concept could get some people in trouble.

There are a fair number of "sounds right but actually aren't" accusations floating around about GME (along with complete garbage[0]); if you know that these are false statements when syaing them (which in some cases is definitely provable), then you could be in a bind.

[0] I think the most striking example of "complete garbage" that I've seen (but unfortunately can't find any more) is a set of claims that Microsoft is going to acquire GameStop to turn all GameStops into XBox E-Sports lounges. I mean, could it theoretically happen, yes, but I don't think that anyone believes that at all. That's the kind of boiler-room style shit that used to be considered clear-cut fraud.

However:

1) It's still not too late to go after those people. Some NY DA should make his career on this.

2) The biggest financial crime ever has been the years of unmitigated QE which has consistently taken money from the income-earning class and handed it to the wealthy asset holding class. This is a bigger travesty than all other financial crimes. Not clear what to do about it, there is nobody you can vote for who thinks it should end.

You bring up a good example, but I'd probably be in the category of believing guns are good for a democratic society (or at least so deeply entrenched that they can't get pulled out at this point). However, I also believe in some pretty strong gun controls and requirements for a more modern society. I'm not foolish enough to believe that people with guns could win a civil war in the day of modern weapons, I also don't think it's the most important civil liberty to protect for a free society. But it's a political pressure that can do some good, and there are very few practical means of getting rid of it, and I'd rather we focus on global warming while making reasonable changes to gun laws to minimize deaths where we can.

Every reader of this paragraph will have a different reaction to my personal level of hypocrisy when I send thoughts and take a moment of silence for the victims of any shooting. It's subjective, but without that context I assume a lot more would find my thoughts and prayers objectionable. I get your stance, there's a lot of the never my guns people on the internet, and a lot among politicians.

I've just personally been pushed by tribalism to not be able to talk to many people on the internet over my personal beliefs and share ideas. I enjoy the other side of every argument, but when people get attacked for their ideas they tend to shutdown and look for others who agree more.

I know HN hates opinions like this, but I'm a very staunch 2a supporter. My position is that citizens should have so-called "weapons of war", the same automatic weapons that the military carries with tons of ammunition. Joe six-pack should be able to walk to his local gun store and buy an M60 if he so pleases. In such a case, there's a very good chance that civilians could win a civil war.

I'll be honest - after the last few months I don't know if I trust an armed American populace any more than an armed government. Simply putting guns into the hands of vigilantes doesn't necessarily lead to a freer state. I certainly don't want idiots like that couple in St. Louis to have even more firepower.

I see nothing principally wrong with what the couple in St. Louis did (i.e. defending one's property), though the wife was an absolute dumbass to point her handgun at the crowd. Anyone competent knows not to do that without serious intent to fire.

I understand your position: moron with automatic is possibly more dangerous than moron with semi-auto. But I think there are risks and downsides to living in a free society, and that's one.