If the state can prove that he undoubtedly did it, he should be punished.

If the state’s case is weak enough to leave some lingering doubts, he should walk.

The defense doesn’t have to prove anything. Their job is to cast doubt on whatever the state claims.

That’s how our justice system works.

Are any of the photos from the crime scene?

Because if you find a guy who matches “photo of guy getting coffee”, you still don’t have evidence that he’s a killer. You have evidence that he got some coffee.

only rich folks or those who are willing to accept money from venture capitalists

Or non-profits that are willing to accept money from supporters.

ActivityPub already existed when they started BlueSky. They chose to not make their protocol compatible.

Because AT protocol has features that are incompatible with ActivityPub, and those features are important to some users.

Notably absent from Walz’s speech was any real substance on foreign policy

It’s not the VPs place to introduce policy proposals, that’s the job of whoever is at the top of the ticket.

That said most Americans rank Gaza low on their list of priorities, so expect Harris to focus on issues they find important like women’s rights and housing.

The vast majority of employees are not at the top of their pay scale. If you told them their salary will never grow faster then inflation, unlike you they would look for another job.

The average growth in corporate income over the past two decades is 4%/year. That’s comparable to what the average employee expects from their long-term salary growth.

I think it’s disingenuous to keep pushing this idea that corporations cannot survive without ever increasing income.

What would happen if your employer said you would never again get a raise? Most people would probably start looking for another job. At a minimum, they expect their long-term income to keep with inflation.

But if employee salaries are expected to grow over time, then so are the company revenues that pay those salaries. A company whose revenues stop growing is like an employee whose salary stops growing. They will not last long at whatever they are doing.

Because the vast majority of animals who see the upcoming eclipse will never have seen one before.

Scientists uncover further evidence that the brain may play a role in learning.

Next they will investigate whether learning piano has any association with finger movement.

Yes, that’s what it makes it such an effective barrier.

Ok, but there are countless planets within that space that might contain life.

And if someone were intentionally trying to prevent life from colonizing other planets, then lots and lots of empty space between planets would be a good solution.

Who says the universe is empty? It’s mostly inaccessible by humans, but it might be teeming with life. Though not necessarily intelligent life.

The point is that you are assuming “inaccessibility” is incompatible with a universe “made for life”. But it’s entirely possible that inaccessibility is a feature, not a bug.

At the risk of anthopomorphizing, every nonhuman life I’m responsible for is given very little access to move elsewhere. The fish stay in their tank, the dogs stay in the yard, the plants stay in their pots. They are not meant to freely roam (or seed) the rest of my town, much less the universe.

why put so goddamn much of it out of reach

You’re assuming that it was only tuned for human life and/or that life is meant to leave its home planet.

A gardener designs a garden so that each plant has a place and doesn’t let any plant take over the whole garden. If “someone” designed this place, it is entirely possible that we are stuck in a corner for a reason.

if we add true randomness to an input-based decision, it stops being predetermined, but there’s still a logically conclusive choice you’re going to make, based on the incomplete inputs you have. You cannot ‘freely’ decide to not pick that choice

I think you are contradicting yourself. If you cannot freely choose something else, then your choice is predetermined.

Whereas if a choice stops being predetermined, then there is no “logically conclusive choice” that you are definitely going to make. There is a range of possible choices, one of them is chosen by you, and the others could have been chosen but weren’t.

For example, you choose a tuna salad sandwich for lunch, but you could have chosen a ham sandwich. That choice was quite possibly not determined by logic, considerations of evolutionary fitness, or genetics. If it were, then you would probably always choose tuna salad over a ham sandwich.

I don’t think it’s that simple. Decisions can be based on more than one factor. Nobody doubts that the things around you affect your decision, the question is whether they fully determine your decision.

Which is not to say that free will definitely does or does not exist. But you’ve described all decisions as necessarily predetermined or random. Technically that is correct, since formally a “random” variable is simply one without a fixed value (ie something that is not predetermined and should be described as a range of possible values). Using the formal definition, “randomness” is exactly what you would expect if free will exists.

The more common understanding of “random” is “completely arbitrary” or “outside anyone’s control”, in which case you have presented a false dichotomy. If free will exists, then a decision could be non-arbitrary, within one’s control, yet not predetermined.

Yes, I deleted my comparison to Harvard. Its most relevant peers are Oxford, Cambridge, and a few other schools in the UK. There is even a program for reciprocal granting of degrees.

LOL, fair enough!

And don’t worry. Trinity College, aka the University of Dublin, is the top research university in Ireland. It is the Irish counterpart to Oxford and Cambridge, and it was founded by Queen Elizabeth I, not the church.

I am aware it’s real, but I’m not aware why it specifically applies to Mitchell.

Do you not like his conclusions? Because that would be confirmation bias - on your part.

Confirming what? Neuroscience?

What? Neuroscience has a lot to do with Mitchell’s argument.