> There can be no such thing as multiple possibilities which are truly in the present, since we are doing whatever is possi- ble in the present. So any talk of multiple possibilities is referring to the future, not the present.

This doesn’t follow at all. Firstly, if we accept that the present has only one possibility then different possibilities can exist in the past as well as much as in the future (ie they can’t). Secondly, multiple possibilities can exist in the present, if we accept the many worlds hypothesis. It is not necessarily the case that there is only one present.

It’s the thing that looks like the sun. That’s what the moon looks like when you expose for a night landscape.

> I'm not quite sure where you're getting that there's no elbow room in space.

Launching stuff is incredibly expensive, so you can’t afford to have a whole room just for elbows on a space station.

Ha they thought they were joking

Can you use PCR to reset? (ie take your small yield of correct sequences and multiply them so you can start again at the top of the yield drop-off curve with part of your sequence already in place)

So you would disagree with the original article?

I’m laughing at the idea that you think your earth human bullshit has anything to do with absolute truth.

> Harris's concept of a moral landscape relies on an axiomatic claim (as all sciences do) that the worst possible misery for everyone is bad

Ah see here’s your misconception. The actual moral truth is that the worst possible misery for everyone is good.

In answer to you saying “the counter claim is unfalsifiable”: both claims are unfalsifiable. There is no scientific truth about morality, only extrapolation from unfounded axioms.

I think we are at cross purposes.

If an alien says “making others suffer, just for its own sake, is morally good” there is no scientific disproof of that. I’m not saying “maybe suffering can lead to better things”, I’m saying the idea that causing unalloyed suffering for no reason is “bad” is at best an axiom not amenable to proof.

This is the same error that Sam Harris pursued in The Mora Landscape. It’s obviously a Roach Motel for slightly smart public intellectuals. But clearly science has no way to dispute the claims of someone who says “it is inherently good to make others suffer”.

This is a common misconception. Ancient artefacts were almost never buried in solid gold.

As far as I know this is the first article I’ve read by him, but he strikes me as one of those cheerleaders who give obscurantist philosophers all their heft by proclaiming them to be geniuses without ever really elucidating their (ineffable) philosophies. I feel like I learned nothing significant about the actual meaning of Latour’s work from this article, except that maybe he’s another of those continental philosophers who I’m definitely serious you guys has for real this time finally blown the lid off what’s wrong with all previous philosophy.

I think it’s the opposite. He’s saying it uses lots of motors to use lots of energy for high acceleration for takeoff, and then goes down to a more efficient, less powerful system for sustained flight. You can see the folding propellers along the wings in the picture with the article, and the wingtip propellers don’t look like they have piston driven aircraft engines behind them. He also used the term “all electric”

According to the guides it was also to stop elephants, because it’s hard for them to charge in a confined space. Made sense to me at the time.

> The gates of Indian fortresses were also frequently studded with metal spikes to prevent an attacker from using elephants to bash down the gate.

Also sometimes built on a corner at the top of a narrow ramp for the same reason.