sparr: (Default)
 Last night I was trying to show someone my implementation of a linked list, and I realized linked lists don't exist.
 
Sure, you might have an object that contains some additional metadata about a linked list such as the type of its contents or its length, and methods such as an iterator or deletion or insertion, but the list itself is a purely abstract concept.
 
What exists are the nodes and the links between them. Without unnecessary metadata, a reference to a linked list is really just a reference to the head node.
 
When you find the middle element of the list and set node.next=null (or your language's equivalent), you've only performed an operation on a node, and suddenly you've truncated the list and created a whole new list starting at the next node. Magic!
 
Just like strings in C don't exist. A string in C is just a pointer to a character in memory, and you have to walk forward until you hit a null to find out what's in it or even how long it is. There are plenty of ways, and plenty of approaches in other languages, that wrap additional metadata and methods around this concept, but without them you're left with just a pointer. And if you drop a null byte in the middle of where a "string" used to be, you suddenly have two separate strings.
sparr: (Default)
 I am part of a community that has some internal problems that require significant effort to deal with. Multiple organizers of the community have become burned out under the stress of this situation. Prior to being completely spent, they were subjected to the ire of many members of the organization who wanted them to do more to address the problems. They were also told they should spend more time avoiding making members upset while still making at least as much headway on the issues at hand. More reasonable community members point out that these people aren't getting paid, they are doing this out of their desire to see the community thrive and grow and continue and their commitment to the well-being of the community. They don't have to do all of this work. It would be perfectly reasonable for them to not do any of it at all. So reasonable that that is exactly what happens when they step down because too much is demanded of them. They are being perfectly reasonable when they offer a dichotomy of doing as much as they are willing to do or doing nothing, regardless of how many people suggest that a third option of them doing even more work would be better for everyone [else].
 
I see a parallel here to how people respond to my approach to dealing with controversial topics, or interacting with people in general. The same sorts of people who are upset at those community organizers for not doing more work for their benefit are also upset at me for not doing more work for their benefit. However, some of the people who recognize what is wrong with those demands of community organizers are also upset at me for not doing more work for their benefit. I am curious what drives that discrepancy. Where I see a very similar distinction between the two groups, the people in them must see something different for a significant number of them to draw the line in a different place.
 
To elaborate on my situation... I often do things that others find abrasive while I am intent on achieving some outcome that I think both myself and those others have as a shared goal. In some cases people tell me they don't see how my actions could lead to those outcomes, but that's a different problem for another discussion. Here I am thinking of the cases where they do recognize the good that comes of my actions, but they want to convince me that it is my responsibility to choose a different course that both achieves those goals and avoids causing strife. I offer them the dichotomy of me doing nothing or what I already do. They implicitly support doing nothing, by failing to in any way address the many people around us who choose to do nothing on a particular issue. But instead of accepting what I do, they push this third option on me, as if it is my responsibility to choose that path if I choose to do anything at all, rather than it being acceptable for me to choose any path that is better than doing nothing.
sparr: (Default)
 This is a post about half of the people that I know. If this post is not about you then it is not about you.
 
Read more... )
You: "Of course not, it's not his fault or responsibility that people react negatively to him just because he looks weird, nor does he deserve punishment for it."
 
Them: "A hot guy did X. I caught his eye I gave him a wink. We're having drinks tonight, wish me luck."
Also You: "You go girl!", "Woo", "Get some", "Lucky!"
 
Them: "A guy did X. It made me uncomfortable."
Also You: "Ugh", "guys like that are creeps", "that's why I avoid [place X happens]"
 
You appear to be exhibiting cognitive dissonance. Your beliefs seem to be incompatible with each other. If you think there is some line to be drawn here that explains your apparently contradictory responses then I would very much like to know where that line is. I do not fault you for having emotional reactions to things. I do fault you for using your emotions as an excuse to treat people in ways that your other actions show you know are inappropriate.
 
 

sparr: (Default)
"Here is a book. You can read it for a month and then a hidden fuse inside will cause it to dissolve. You are forbidden from finding and disabling that fuse in order to keep reading the book longer. It would be both illegal and immoral for you to do so. Also, you can't buy a copy without a fuse."

Read more... )
At the top of this post I offered a hypothetical quote that is effectively equivalent to what Adobe and other software subscription services are doing. I hope that at least some people reading this will recognize how ridiculous it sounds. I think this decision is long overdue: I will no longer shy away from pirating or cracking modern software that is not available for sale, particularly including software that has only ever been available as a subscription.
sparr: (cellular automata)
I follow a variation of consequentialism, filtered through the opposite of paternalism which doesn't have a more specific name.

My value system is how I decide which outcomes are better than which others. It is important to note that the philosophical concepts below are not dependent on that value system. Everything in the next few paragraphs holds regardless of what value system we are considering. Wherever you see "good", "bad", "positive", "negative", "better", "worse", etc below, those can mean whatever you want them to mean, especially if your value system is internally consistent and universalizable. I sometimes even prefer to operate in your value system, if we are discussing a situation where the positive and negative outcomes affect mostly to only you.

I apply a maximax criterion regarding the choices of other actors with agency. That's someone like you, in most cases. When I take an action that allows you to choose between two actions of your own, I am responsible for the most good outcome you could choose, and you are responsible for any less good or more bad in the outcome that you do choose. If I opt to not give you that choice because I expect you would choose the less good outcome, I am denying you agency in the situation, and that would be paternalistic. When I tell you that your dog is trapped in a burning building, you might decide to run inside; if the outcome of your choice is worse than if I had not told you then you are responsible for that outcome, not me. When the villain drops two people off a bridge and you can only save one, someone is responsible for the death of the person that you do not save, and it is mostly to completely not you.

I apply an expected value criterion regarding actions with random outcomes. When I play a game of Russian Roulette, the death of the loser is as much my responsibility as that of the person who made the unlucky trigger pull.

Finally, I do not recognize a fundamental distinction between action and inaction. If I tell you that pressing the button will do something and you press it, you're responsible for the outcome. If I tell you that not pressing the button will do that same something and you don't press it, you're equally responsible. Not pressing the button is just as much a choice as pressing it. This concern is most often illustrated with variations of the trolley problem where the two tracks are switched, which I don't consider to actually change the problem at all.

That's all I've got for now. This is my first real attempt to put this all together in a reference document. It will certainly be revised in the future, as I get a better grasp on the concepts that drive my decisions, and also continue to become better at describing them.

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Clarence "Sparr" Risher

February 2025

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