Dave

Building tomorrow's legacy systems. Groupthink-killer. Thought follower.

[Dave @shekelator]

Oof. What could go wrong?

[Bart Mol @Bart_Mol]

Me explaining AI to friends

[Dave @shekelator]

@ZoharAtkins The next move is to see all of our actions as having that kind of power

[Fareed Zakaria @FareedZakaria]

Hamilton said the constitution limits the President’s foreign policy powers because “an avaricious man might be tempted to betray the interests of the state [for] the acquisition of wealth.”

[Dave @shekelator]

Appalling. Post-truth indeed.

[Yashar Ali 🐘 @yashar]

Under pressure from the White House, the Smithsonian has removed President Trump from the impeachment exhibit at the American History Museum.

The exhibit now says that “only three presidents have seriously faced removal,” referring to Johnson, Nixon, and Clinton.

The exhibit now looks the way it did in 2008.

Full Story: https://t.co/R7UcDnS2ju

[Dave @shekelator]

Unreal

[Haviv Rettig Gur @havivrettiggur]

Holy cow.

[Dave @shekelator]

Not sure what in US politics would count as a bigger story than this:
Is America Still a Free Country? https://t.co/WT2q4R93HJ

[David Wolpe @RabbiWolpe]

Iran is 75x larger than Israel with 9x the population. Israel never threatened its sovereignty. Iran’s constant threats to destroy Israel are motivated by hatred. Its defenders are ignorant, foolish or similarly motivated.

[Dave @shekelator]

This theme of public figures and institutions (media networks, tech executives, corporations, etc, etc) being afraid to criticize the administration out of fear of retribution is the absolutely most scary aspect of our current situation IMO

[Don Winslow @donwinslow]

There was a clear choice today by the TV networks to provide minimal coverage to the anti-Trump protests across the country today. They gave it seconds when they should have been covering it live from the streets and interviewing the protesters.

They. Are. Scared.

[Richard Woodruff 🇺🇦 @frontlinekit]

French senator perfectly describes the Trump situation.

[Ari Lamm @AriLamm]

Hip hop sampling and the Bible

This really is among the best metaphors for understanding how the Bible wants you to interpret it.

From @DJMykaelV's podcast

[Dave @shekelator]

@general_we44830 @davidad Well if not, time to create one!

[Dave @shekelator]

@BrandonWarmke @HSJSpeaks It is possible that for liberalism to have integrity, it can’t be committed to its own survival as a goal. Which might be the same thing.

[Michal @itsmichalll]

1/ The containers story
In the Nova party compound, two large yellow dumpsters were placed.

[Alexander Granin @graninas]

I am thrilled to announce that my book, Functional Design and Architecture, has just been released by @ManningBooks!

FINALLY RELEASED!!!

😃😃😃😄😊😊❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

This has been a long journey, and I sincerely hope this book will make a significant contribution to the functional programming world. 🎇🎇

❓ Who is this book for? It's for all developers interested in practical functional programming. This book is useful for software architects, senior developers, and everyone else. The model language is Haskell, but the ideas are universal and applicable to languages like Scala, OCaml, F#, and even C# and C++.

❓What is this book about? It’s about applying an engineering approach to functional programming. Design patterns, design principles, application architectures, best practices, approaches, and deep ideas—all combined into a comprehensive and highly consistent methodology for building real-world applications.

📔 Functional Design and Architecture is structured, consistent, well-written, and approachable. I’ve made a special effort to ensure the content is accessible to a wide audience. The narrative is engaging, free of jargon and complex mathematics, and progresses in a friendly, gradual manner.

💡 The ideas are universal; some were known before, but many were developed throughout this project. There was a significant knowledge gap, and this book covers much of it for our benefit.

A titanic amount of work went into this book. Specifically, the following were created:

🟠 A full-fledged application framework, Hydra;
🔴 A proof-of-concept platform for creating spaceship management scenarios;
🟡 The methodology of Functional Declarative Design, covering various aspects of design and software architecture in functional programming;
🟢 A unique architectural approach, Hierarchical Free Monads;
🔵 A multitude of new design patterns, approaches, and practices, in addition to those that already existed;
🟣 Several demo applications, included both in the book and in the Hydra framework;
🟤 A wealth of accompanying material: articles, talks, and side projects;
⚪️ And of course, these ideas have been successfully tested in practice in several places.

You'll also find many links to other valuable resources in this book because the subject is very broad and deep. I am especially grateful to all those who initiated this movement toward the practical application of functional programming. I stand on the shoulders of giants and deeply appreciate their contributions. On the cover, you’ll find testimonials from these distinguished individuals:

🟡 @ScottWlaschin, author of Domain Modeling Made Functional (Pragmatic Bookshelf)
🟤 @debasishg, author of Functional and Reactive Domain Modeling and DSLs in Action (both from Manning)
🟣 @VBragilevsky @_bravit , author of Haskell in Depth (Manning)

I hope you enjoy the book as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Bon voyage!

[Dave @shekelator]

Human language is hard

[Dave @shekelator]

Still devastating, but important perspective

[Andrew Fox @Mr_Andrew_Fox]

Your regular reminder that Gaza is just a normal urban war. That doesn’t make it pleasant, or anything but appalling.

The big difference between Gaza and other recent urban warfare is the unprecedented levels of civilian protection taken by the IDF. Whether you like it or not, shifting millions of people out of harm’s way has saved tens of thousands of lives.

That doesn’t mean that the distribution of aid in a war zone isn’t an eternal problem. It doesn’t mean that innocent Palestinians aren’t homeless and suffering. The difference between this and other recent Middle Eastern urban battles is that in any other conflict, they wouldn’t be hungry and suffering: they’d be dead.

Has the IDF made fuck ups? Of course. Show me an army in any war, ever, that hasn’t. In living memory, god knows the USA, UK and Australia as a minimum have. It’s part and parcel of warfare, as much as armies do and should try to avoid them.

It’s not a genocide. It’s not deliberate starvation. It’s just urban war in cities where Hamas has turned civilian infrastructure into military targets and has a strategy of maximising civilian casualties.

Just for reference, here are Grozny, Homs, Raqqa and Kharkiv. All 21st century urban wars. Ignore the disinformation. This is what urban war looks like.

[Dave @shekelator]

<sizzle>

[Zohar Atkins @ZoharAtkins]

It's not hard to prove the existence of God. But the God you end up proving is very abstract. God is a prime mover. God is a unity. God is perfection. God is thought thinking itself. God is the cause of causes and causa sui (self-caused). The God of philosophy does not inspire prayer, song, dance. The God of philosophy does not command or invite. The God of philosophy does not ruffle leaves in the garden, calling out to us "Where are you?"

Even the more religious formulations of God are abstract: God is love. God is the Creator. Thus Pascal quipped, "The God of the philosophers is not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." Until the modern era, the existence of God (or gods) was a given. What was up for debate was the nature of God's relationship to the world and to humanity. Is God disinterested or deeply involved? Is God a protagonist in history or has God outsourced providence to the historical process? Does God have local jurisdiction?

Debates about divine immanence vs. divine transcendence, rather than existence vs. non-existence, were once the province of religous debate. Mystics have long claimed God to be deeply involved in the world. Rationalists typically see God as more distant, more abstract. But if you make God too distant, God ceases to be personal. If you make God too proximate, God becomes a mere synonym for nature. Thus, a la horseshoe theory, pantheism (God is everything) and atheism (there is no God anywhere) merge.

Biblical language celebrates not those who posit the existence of God, but those who are "God-fearing," or "God reverent" (yirei Hashem). The hard part is not grokking an abstract line of reasoning, but a) cultivating a relationship with God and b) experiencing God as a being that seeks relationship with us.

This is the crux of what we celebrate on Shavuot. Revelation is not only about the specific content of Revelation, but about the idea that God seeks relationship with us and that this relationship has specificity. God has a personality. God promises. God hopes. God desires. God cares.

A rational God might have created reason and left the world to improve itself via reason alone. But a relationship seeking God connection. The Jewish people are a chosen people. Why? Well in part to teach the point that God chooses. God elects. God had to choose somebody. Might as well be us.

The doctrine of Jewish election is not fashionable in a world dominated by Enlightened universalist morality (itself a weakened form of the particularist tradition that is Protestant Christianity), but it is a crucial idea. You cannot separate the doctrine of Revelation from the doctrine of Election. Positing that there is no Revelation = Positing there is no Election and vice versa. We were chosen to be representatives of the notion that the God of Philosophy is not enough.

Even if the content of Revelation were entirely deducible from first principles, and even if all Torah law were demonstrated to be fully rational and reasonable we would be missing the meta-point that we need Revelation as an experience or we are incomplete. The first commandment, "I am the Lord your God" cannot be fulfilled by drafting philosophical proofs. The chiddush (innovation) of the first commandment is that God says "I" and addresses Godself to a "you," (as Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig underscore).

For some, the beauty of the Torah serves as the "top of funnel" driving openness to the beauty of the Jewish people. For others, the beauty of the Jewish people serves as TOFU for conversion to Torah. The former is the teaching of Exodus, the latter the teaching of Ruth. Ruth converts to Judaism, and provides the blueprint for conversion, not on the basis of Torah study, but on the basis of her relationship to Naomi. "Wherever you go, I will go, your people will be my people."

The Jewish people are not for everyone and not intended for everyone. Orpah chooses not to join the Jewish people, as is her prerogative. But the fact that we're not for everyone is a thorn in the side of those who condemn Election and seek to enforce social conformity. We celebrate life, the liberation of hostages. Our enemies cheer for death in the name of equity and proportionality. Like the woman who tells the Solomon to split the baby, they would rather have more death provided that the death-toll is more equal.

Equality of outcome and Divine Election are opposite ideas. They are not opposite merely in effect, but from first principles. There is no right to Torah. Torah is not a human right, or even a Jewish right. Torah is a responsibility and a gift. Nobody says to a gift giver, did you give that gift to everyone else? If the gift were given in equal distribution to all it would not be a gift. It would be a public policy. The gift establishes a relationship. It says, "I want you to accept me."

A Midrash has it that God offers the Torah to every nation. But only the Jewish people accepts it. We are singled out not just by the Torah, but by our decision to accept the Torah, and with it, the logic of the gift.

Looking at Jewish history I can understand why one would reject the Torah and follow Orpah. It's not simply that Torah law is demanding and challenging, but that setting oneself apart often provokes jealousy and scapegoating. If you stood at Sinai and could see all the pogroms for thousands of years into the future, knowing this would be the price of your Election, would you choose it? Most would not.

Another Midrash has it that every Jewish soul stood at Sinai and accepted the existential burden of being chosen. Even the Marxist Jews and Bundist Jews; even the Jews who want to badly to erase their Judaism, undo their circumcisions, change their names, don whatever literal and figurative keffiyas will help them feel safe. Our souls run deeper than our politics, deeper than our psychological hang-ups, and deeper than the copium we have all had to develop to survive the slog of being strangers in a strange land. The pintele yid is the pintele of particularism that is bigger than any one Jew. It is the residue of the God of Revelation who will not assimilate into the God of Philosophy.

Chag Sameach
Zohar

[Dave @shekelator]

Can confirm

[The Jewish Meme Queen @jewishmemequeen]

The two types of Jews:

[Dave @shekelator]

@Noahpinion This sounds like a naive philosophy of "if you do the right thing only good things will come of it," or "there's no such thing as sacrifices in real life."

[Dave @shekelator]

@Noahpinion Haha love this discussion. But I disagree. Apart from hero/villain being a silly, narrow way to categorize everyone, I don't think the book makes it clear that there's a "make peace with the aliens and happily ever after" option on the table.