Richie O'Farrell

25 / 🇮🇪 in London

[Richie O'Farrell @Richie_OFarrell]

@BenedictSpence @metpoliceuk Nobody shows up either way

[Richie O'Farrell @Richie_OFarrell]

@JChimirie66677 @pangram slop

[Richie O'Farrell @Richie_OFarrell]

@AaronBastani @WillKingston Yes it is. The specific bureaucratic problem with a wealth tax is that wealth is highly ambiguous and as a result more difficult to measure than income. That is why wealth taxes can cost more money than they make.

[Richie O'Farrell @Richie_OFarrell]

To give you an idea of the quality of this study: it includes the following figure – the colours reflect differences in brain activity between those who said they watched lots of short videos vs those who said they didn’t. It took me about a minute to spot any colour at all.

[Nicholas Fabiano, MD @NTFabiano]

Watching more short form videos is associated with widespread brain hyperconnectivity.

[Dwarkesh Patel @dwarkesh_sp]

The way math is presented can be really misleading about the actual nature of math.

In theory, someone could have discovered quantum information theory decades before quantum mechanics even existed. It's just about combining linear algebra with probability.

But nobody would have known it was worth combining these fields - or how, exactly, to combine them - before QM.

Math papers and textbooks go rigourously step-by-step, starting with axioms and definitions, then deducing theorems. It's great for making sure proofs can be verified and ensuring the subject is based on sound logic.

But for learners, it hides the really important thing: where did the axioms come from? Why these definitions and not others?

The thing that's missing is the sense that there were concrete problems that these ideas helped solve.

[Richie O'Farrell @Richie_OFarrell]

@sineadaw @pangram slop

[Visegrád 24 @visegrad24]

BBC reporter tries to convince a teenage girl that Starmer did the right thing by banning social media for everyone under 16.

The girl is not convinced and gives the BBC reporter a sharp answer

[Richie O'Farrell @Richie_OFarrell]

@JewishChron I attended one of Orkin’s workshops in UCL last year. It was clear to me and everyone there that the university were not allowing him to do his job freely. He was restricted to discussing well-known generic tropes / stereotypes about Jews instead of the ongoing campus lunacy.

[Richie O'Farrell @Richie_OFarrell]

The machine is more complicated than we thought. Therefore it must be something else entirely.

[Institute of Art and Ideas @IAI_TV]

The living cell, once thought to be a precise molecular factory, is turning out to be more like an improvising jazz ensemble. | https://t.co/rMt7NTItxd

The old dogma—one gene, one protein, one function—has collapsed.
Molecular biologist Ewa Grzybowska argues that recent discoveries show that proteins can switch folds, shift shapes, or even remain gloriously unstructured, improvising their roles as they go.

Genes are not blueprints but texts, open to continuous interpretation by cells.

Life, it turns out, is not built like a machine but is instead fluid, improvisational, and brimming with creative possibility.

[Richie O'Farrell @Richie_OFarrell]

I don’t understand how anyone who studies consciousness could be this hostile/arrogant, given how bad all of the theories are.

[Stuart Hameroff @StuartHameroff]

Anil that sounds like an excuse to continue to ignore and suppress the only theory of consciousness with experimental evidence, explanatory power and biological connection. Before you go, please tell us what the leading theory of consciousness is. If you’re offended by 🐓🐓 🐓then please answer to show you’re not.

Would you debate me at the next TSC conference?https://t.co/nmDUsktZvx
Dave? @davidchalmers42

[Richie O'Farrell @Richie_OFarrell]

@bnielson01 I recall David Miller saying that engineers, clinicians, etc solve problems by finding the right initial conditions, while scientists do so by finding the laws

[Richie O'Farrell @Richie_OFarrell]

@ToKTeacher @nivi Have you seen the prompt? That doesn’t seem like an accurate description of what happened in this case.

[Richie O'Farrell @Richie_OFarrell]

Dorset is a nice place

[Richie O'Farrell @Richie_OFarrell]

@lorintbc @lewis_goodall The Palestinians, who famously accepted the Jews after WW2. Incredible stuff here.

[Richie O'Farrell @Richie_OFarrell]

@MiguelDelaney @calax12 That’s always been true. Success requires investment. Success in a competitive field requires more investment. You seem to be suggesting that the sport is now less exciting for it. I don’t think any football fans I know would agree. The quality is just much higher.

[Richie O'Farrell @Richie_OFarrell]

@MiguelDelaney @calax12 Why should it not be that difficult? It’s a hugely competitive sport watched by billions. Naturally winning it is going to be difficult, and that will favour wealthier clubs. But look at the gap between United and City. It isn’t explained by spending.

[Richie O'Farrell @Richie_OFarrell]

@MiguelDelaney @calax12 City have won lots, sure; but almost every year it’s been down to the wire. If your argument is that the premier league is a less competitive league now, you should look at how many points separate Chelsea and Nottingham forest. Leicester never happened either, of course.

[Richie O'Farrell @Richie_OFarrell]

@MiguelDelaney @calax12 Palace won it last year. Spurs are about to get relegated. West Ham won a Europa. One of Forest or Villa will probably win it this year. The ‘top 6’ have not comprised the actual top 6 for about ten years. Just doesn’t hold up under a moment’s scrutiny.

[Richie O'Farrell @Richie_OFarrell]

Way to put down the smartest people you know

[Michael Knowles @michaeljknowles]

When I was a kid, only dummies denied Darwinian evolution. Increasingly, denying Darwin is the standard position of all the smartest people I know. https://t.co/XPzflXEIwP

[Richie O'Farrell @Richie_OFarrell]

@dela3499 Have you read this article? It’s about the evolution of sentences: https://t.co/auGDmcdU8P