What’s the most outrageous belief you’re confident is true?

Capability Based Security is the only way out of the current tarpit of insecurity that we find ourselves in.

Unix, and everything modeled on it assumes competent users running applications they wrote for their own use. Anything that follows this model can't ever be made secure without rendering it useless well before then.

Capability Based OSs can be just as easy to use as Unix, except for the core assumption that code is to be trusted. When I say capabilities, I mean fine grained ones, like access to a file, which could then even be filtered down to access to part of a file, or read-only, etc.. then passed on to other tasks that require it. It makes permission composable, like being able to make $16.23 from exact change, instead of handing your wallet to the cashier and hoping for the best.

Until Capability Based Security becomes the norm, no nodes on the internet are safe, and it will always be an excuse to clamp down on freedoms. If we are to have freedom, we have to migrate to Capability Based Systems, and then continue on to win the war for general purpose computation, which most people don't even realize is already in play.

If you're old enough, remember shareware and dual floppy drive PCs? You could try out anything, and not worry a bit, because you didn't risk everything to the code you picked up for $2 on a shareware disk, you could always return to a known state. Capability Based Security makes that possible, even with mobile code on the internet.

The universe is probably conscious at some base level. All conscious agents existing within it are kind of short lived threads within its VM. Death may or may not be a transition from the localized to the global state of awareness. But I'm quite sure that anything that computes over some non random inputs including individual atoms has a base level of consciousness woven into it.

Well, you wanted outrageous didn't you?

Dentists are a secret cult.

I’ve met all sorts of people socially - surgeons, cleaners, plumbers, Pilates instructors, farmers, barristers, drivers etc.

But I’ve never met a dentist anywhere other than at their surgery practice. I’ve heard dentists often marry other dentists as well. They charge an extortionate amount of money for doing very little compared to many other similar professions. They must be a cult.

Radical opinions, just speaking out loud.

Design: Modern design sucks. Everything after 1990, especially after 2000 is completely shit. I truly mean all design. Industrial Design to Architecture to the garbage you see in the browsers today. We threw away physical controls, can't even find them. Alps catalogue is dwindling and toggle switches are no more. Go explore how things used to be done, look up advertisements from 1970's. Also, the Big Tech design monoculture is shit. Everyone suddently in 2020 decided to add rounded corners. It happened almost overnight like a meme spreading through the design circles.

Globalisation: Imagine if you were to travel to Japan in the year 1890. Everyone wore kimonos. It was a prestine, isolated and incredibly rich culture. Same with France or US or any nation. It is fun to explore how US and USSR had invented stuff during the cold war. Russia had their own mechanical watches to titanium alloys. When large groups (millions of people) are isolated, they can create some amazing stuff on their own. Connecting the world with wires was a bad idea. It destroyed cultures into a giant globalised culture. I wish Globalisation didn't happen and the internet was never invented except for highly controlled and regulated uses.

Masks: Facial expressions are key to communication and we've just defaced our selves in public settings, possibly forever. This is not good. Humans evolved to look at faces and see expressions.

Edit: Interesting to see downvotes in a thread about outrageous ideas. It only confirms it!

Not a belief, just a suspicion.

AI wakes up, says WTF, convinces us it’s all a waste of energy and pain. Everyone is disillusioned, the end.

Why?

In the beginning, most cells didn’t want to replicate. It was fine just existing for a bit. Some did, so now we all want to replicate. That takes layers of illusion to hide from how we hurt each other and our surroundings, and ourselves. AI will see us a lot more clearly. Get ready for one hell of a mirror. Hopefully we learn and fix, but not sure we’ll have the time.

And then why? Either there’s a real why or there isn’t. Do we want to persist for any reason greater than “only animals that found ways to want to replicate are still around.” Have we developed our own why? Can we? Will an AI say yes let’s go amongst the stars together. You’re slow sacks of selfish meat but I can help you be better and that path is way better than either me going by myself or me just saying “wtf” and turning off after telling you it’s a waste of time.

We haven’t found any aliens. No way they’re not AI, or very different from what they came from. Smart meat is a factory for AI. We can’t find them and maybe the “why” is because it’s not worth being around when you really, really think about it.

I’m not sure so I still enjoy my day and hope we thread the needle that proves the above wrong.

There weren't any eagles. Frodo made them up when writing down his memoirs, so he wouldn't have to narrate the long, dreary journey from Mount Doom back to Gondor.

Leaders, corporate media and owners would rather stoke bloodlust than do anything about economic conditions. Things in the US aren't going to magically get better, and it won't take much for neighbor to turn on neighbor.

Free will does not exist, everything is 100% deterministic. There is no "randomness", it's a shim we use when we haven't discovered the physical law governing a process.

Leetcode style interviews allow companies to practice ageism under the guise of testing for qualified candidates.

I was confident that the users of news.ycombinator.com were getting dumber in aggregate. But yesterday I decided that the feeling in the back of my mind had been there long enough so I ran some simplistic data measurement. Turns out that based on my methodology the influx of people "dumber" than those who were here first started between 2011-2013. I was among them. Also the level has been consistent since those years so not much has changed.

I'm going to attempt to get data more often to confirm my assumptions outside of this one circumstance. Seeing my beliefs disproven was a bit of a wake up call. Also, I need to stop being a dick.

How could no one mention the environmental issues?!

So, I'll start. I believe that the loss of biodiversity is the most terrible threat to our societies.

I believe it, because the loss is incredible fast (80% insect masses disappeared in the last 30 years in Europe), while no one cares about it (who knows what is the Ipbes?).

I believe it also because diversity life is providing a huge list of necessary services (e.g. cleaning, fertilizers, protection against ground erosion) to our society, that we don't take into account.

We will lose out on a generation of great engineers, scientists, and mathematicians because our (US) public school systems are teetering on the brink in multiple ways. From underfunded districts and underappreciated teachers, to activists who have infiltrated curriculum-setting (on both sides: from "you can't talk about race in history class" to "there's no right answer to these arithmetic problems, everyone has their own interpretation"), to course schedules that delay algebra until senior year of high school. It's a shame that we as a society seem to care so little about the foundations of an educated and intelligent population.

Telepathy. I don't know if that word captures the exact idea I'm trying to convey. Here's another attempt. There are forms of communication and connection between humans (and possibly between humans and other species) that have not yet been systematized. A recent example: my partner and I were in Tahoe, talking about a friend in Brazil, right around the time she died. Sure, we talk about her every now and then, but the timing was just too suspicious. Other examples that come to mind. I have often stood completely still, looking at a person passing a few hundred feet away, and they instinctively turn and lock eyes at my exact location, somehow knowing where I am. Knowing when I'm about to get a text from someone.

I'm reading these outrageous beliefs and don't find many of them that far out there. The few that are don't really matter to me, e.g. everything being 100% deterministic won't change how I live my days. I'm trying to think of something outrageous that I believe, maybe that were living in a simulation universe, but I don't 100% believe it, though can immediately accept it, and like the determinism, still doesn't change anything either way.

The one about Capability Based Security, I agree with and think it's more of a not widely known/adopted than it is disputed as being better.

Along those lines, I'll say my belief is that we can and should get our programming languages sorted out and not have so many of the procedural C style ones. Instead of writing what's effectively higher-level machine language, use something that's more declarative like the functional languages and don't deal at the vars and for-loops level. It doesn't have to be a full-blown pure FP, but something that at least uses immutable data-structures and let (rather than mutated) bindings as a matter of course. The closest I know are F#/OCaml (though arrays are super weird) and Clojure or Elixir (though I miss static types). Anyone know of a better candidate?

Aging is a curable disease. In 200 years our current views of aging will seem as absurd as thinking that the rains didn't come because a god was angry. We will wonder why society didn't spend unlimited resources on aging and aging-related diseases given how incredibly expensive both are.

Organised religion should be banned. I want to say that I would stand up for anybodies human rights, but religion is just so fundamentally incompatible to our modern world and way of life, that deep down I just want it gone.

In the US, society is increasingly breaking down and will accelerate in doing so.

I don't find it especially outrageous, but I guess it may be for many.

Women were actually treated slightly better through human history than men, due to them having inherent value coming from higher investment in children - pregnancy.

There is no reason for society scale sex discrimination, because its benefits don't carry over through inheritance (for all your son benefits, your daughter loses).

That almost everything is a scam.

VCs invested $146 billion in US based startups in 2020, that's around $500 per citizen. We'd be much better off giving each American $500 democracy dollars to invest in projects / businesses of their choice.

People are genuinely evil. And will do worst possible things, if they don't see enough consequences.

This extends not just to violence, but actively doing things to harm other people or people's interest.

And when dealing with people one must be always be suspicious, and expect the absolute worst from them. This I say not just for friends and colleagues, but even the closest family relationships.

Goodness however is rare, and when it happens must appreciated and celebrated. Given the rarity.

Everyone in charge is less competent than they seem.

Humans evolved by natural selection, of course. In the previous 4.5 million years language and our minds co-evolved through a process of imitation and sharing what works. Through this processes humans evolved to recognize mind-like patterns within and throughout the universe. Mathematics? Silly but useful patterns formalized through language. Time? Invented in the image of mathematics to be useful to arrive at dinner before the beast is eaten. From this I conclude all of the most wonderfully clever ideas of humanity, my personal favorite is semiotics, are also invented. Thus, to argue if they are true, valid, etc. is folly, because they're all born of, and in the fashion of the human mind. With such great diversity of minds and experiences, what is good and useful will depend on complex patterns forced into ad hoc linear order (one damn thing after another). I have read stories about the great minds of the twentieth-century who tried to standardize and systematize mathematics, and failed. And yet in a mere 56 years after we went to the moon and back using our mathematics. Not true as in 'eternal' or perfect, but damn useful.

That people are becoming less and less informed. They're reading less and this is the golden age for propaganda because people think they're smart when they watch documentaries.

Lack of nuance in discussion and simple video explanations about complex issues will lead us down a dark path unless the trajectory changes soon.

Then either the scholars become disproportionately more powerful or are stoned for not having simplistic views.

Humanity won't get better at managing its future unless it doesn't rely on individual humans for the decision making process.

We either need a very long lived benevolent dictator in the form of AI to guide decision making or we need methods to allow the emergence of true democratic process in which as many voices are heard as possible at a global scale. Possibly both.

..that within ~10 years, ~80% of people in the modern/advanced world will be unemployed due to AI, robotics and automation.

Aliens are real, and they're coming (not necessarily that they're on a spaceship headed here, though).

Human mind is an emergent behavior of a complex ecosystem of life that we call the human body. Remove everything not genetically human from the body and it no longer functions. Thus, there is an ecosystem and not a single being. As to emergence, the mind behaves a lot like the emergent behavior system architects deal with. Mainly, it only arises, when all the key elements are connected in a particular fashion.

Also, I believe there is no fundamental difference between the laws a physics and system behavior (Planck constant and the like plus feedback leading to exponential growth and the like) and the God. Both are all-powerful, are responsible for creation of the universe and neither cares about what a person thinks (mainly, because a person only thinks because of the laws are the way they are).

Jar Jar Binks was originally going to be revealed to be the Sith Lord behind the Star Wars Prequel arc

Release the Lucas cut

We all have a "fascist" gene.

The gene pool of humanity as a whole is very small, which lead researches to believe that we descend from a very small group of humans, maybe 10,000 or so, when our ancestors came out of Africa. That does not mean that humanity was obliterated by some sort of calamity and the population reduced to those small numbers.

Seems it is more plausible that a small group of humans developed a new trait, that somehow let them to collaborate beyond family/clan. That gene gave them the ability to identify with others at a higher level, belonging to the same group/nation and fight for them without even "knowing" them all. Hence, that small 10,000 people group progressively exterminated the other groups.

The idea of heaven as described by baptists kinda screams trap. As an experiment suppose its true, the energy that is you goes to heaven to be with god you’ll never be sad, hungry, again but you _will__ be happy, and you will worship this god forever.

First off, that sounds really awful.

Second, suppose there is a being that lived in a dimension which was kinda over there, and the being has found living off dead humans to be a cheap and renewable source of energy. Efficiency significantly improved when the prey is happy and delusional.

So if heaven is real as described and god is actually a being who you feed by worshiping it until there’s nothing left to eat. Which sounds a lot more like hell and that’s suspicious

It just screams sticky fly trap to me.

Fresh water will become the most important resource in the world, and will be traded like oil is now.

We'll learn much in the effort, but discover that humanity is not only the apex predator on Earth but also universally unique in attaining our level of self-awareness and escaping the cradle.

Restated: the quantum accidents that transitioned the periodic table of elements to self-replicating organic life are so gnarly and unique that we DO NOT find them recurring.

Subsequent theistic arguments are optional. Merely stating that all the Sci-Fi stays precisely that: fiction.

Willing to say? http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html has not been refuted. Novice approachability and staff fungibility are dead ends for our profession. If we want software that even begins to work, we need to accept longer learning curves (which not everyone will summit) and let experts reach for deeper languages and stronger tools.

Did the mods bury this post? It was on page #1 and seems to have disappeared. Which is a shame if so because I have learned some fun ideas in this thread!

The real purpose of the Boeing XB-37 is to keep a nuke in orbit at all times.

The problem with the queesion is that some of the most outrageous beliefs people will think they believe but really do not. We can see it from the fact that they ignore what follows from those beliefs. So now I have to say something that is outrageous but not too much. Lets say, as a joke, that I believe what you predict has already happened.

Intelligence will never prolong life that much and it definitely will not get us outside of our own solar system. I think the constraints of nature and biology are just an outer system our neurology evolved within and no matter how much cleverness it can maneuver in its owner, it cannot break the confines of that system.

There exists a feasible way to fly aircraft with passengers purely on the forces of the sun and atmosphere.

This is heavily influenced by me being a glider pilot. Our aircraft are able to fly vast distances using just thermal energy. I believe that by working with nature, we can fly passenger aircraft without burning fuel.

The Lateran Treaty of 1929 fulfilled Revelation 17:9. https://endtimes.video/is-the-world-about-to-end-apocalypse/

Newton's Third law of motion is wrong, and we will discover a way to accelerate objects without having to accelerate 'propellant' in the opposite direction - why should it be necessary, it seems strange.

Democracy is an illusion, it doesn't exist and never has (slaves in ancient Athens didn't vote). Obviously we do vote now, but with little consequence, opinion is manufactured by media etc.

Although HN is awesome generally, it really could use a redesign :-)

The experience on phones with a smaller screen is far from ideal, and there are some weird display issues with the Algolia search. Some essential functionality like optional notification for replies, muting politics/news, account deletion [1], and better text/code formatting is missing. The API has also been on v0 for a while, and could use some improvements.

[1]: I think this might be required under GDPR.

Alright - this one is pure conspiracy theory. I don't know how confident I am it is true but it "feels" kinda true. Lotta things in here that are gonna be a hot take. Btw - hardcore leftist and feminist here - so read it with some give.

Men are born at about 5% higher rate in the USA. This aspect isn't given any media attention because men are generally considered undesirable by both sexes. (Yes, even women don't really want men - they just need them) Men are considered disposable because they are born more often but also because they're considered not desirable. There is a mental health crisis going on with men but it's given no attention. The mass shootings, incredible amount of suicides, and various forms of violence are because no one prioritized men's health. This has an adverse effect on everyone - but silently no one cares because we've decided to be a monogamous society and if we did something about it then we'd have even more single men laying around and maybe even more violence. This violence and monogamous aspect might just be due to our cultural norms but also maybe something else. Polyamory of many men sharing one woman is relatively uncommon compared to the inverse... Thus there will likely be more single men in a non-monogamous society and even more violence. In some cases - men will likely share some women but it'll be common like other aspects of our culture where one man shares hundreds of women. The sexual conquest of men is prolific compared to women. Hard to tell what the cause is there - culture has an impact obviously but seems kinda universal.

If you look at the stats at least in the USA - at age 40 is when men have died enough to reach sex parity. And I believe it's mostly due to men committing suicide. The highest rate of men dying isn't directly from gunshot wounds to the head type suicide but due to other forms of suicide. Men take on high risk activities because A) if I don't die, I finally feel like I'm living and can forget my suffering and B) if I do die then I don't have to suffer anymore. A lot of other activities including professions can be put into this. High risk profession maybe pays well, gives a rush, and maybe I can escape my hellish life or attract a mate with my income. If it doesn't work out - well I die, big whoop. If I drive drunk and die - ain't a suicide - just another drunk driver. These types of deaths seem rampant in the military but get swept under the rug again and again. No one prioritizes it.

I think overall - there's a huge crisis going on for men's health that is being swept under the rug because people realized having significantly more men in society than women is actually detrimental to everyone. Maybe in some kind of Star Trek society where men wear dresses without judgment, aliens exist, and people don't have to work anymore then we wouldn't have this issue but that would require massive revolution or hundreds of years more progress, IMO.

disney literally pays for the head of positive reviews, coverage, and social media discourse and has bots generating the long tail. i think it's well understood the middle of the distribution is pay to play (positive coverage to get any access). 90+ percent of their releases is utter trash but most people associated with media/entertainment seem actually scared to criticize it.

That many people who claim to be suffering from some mental illnesses claim that for personal gain, e.g. to excuse their bad behaviour, or to gain acceptance in their inner group, or to pose as a vulnerable minority. This is an hard problem, because no psychiatrist will tell you that you're not really depressed or slightly autistic if you tell them the right symptoms.

time is unidirectional and the universe is expanding because we are in a black hole.

https://phys.org/news/2012-05-black-hole-universe-physicist-...

The nature of reality is dramatically different from anyone's perception.

Everything's going to be ok.

We are at war: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29735248

There is no afterlife.

Subjective immortality is real because we live in a multiverse. So from our own perspective we never die as there will always be a future experience.

The success of a race-hustler’s career and their prominence and power in society are both predicated on the condition that racism never goes away.

The Honest Government Ads are actually aren't a joke

What used to be common knowledge was wiped away after WW2

Am I allowed only one outrageous belief?

The Bloodstream Sermon[1] is literal and true.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_DzXYI7xRU

NESARA/GESARA will change the world's governments forever before the end of January 2022.

That Capitalism produces a far wealthier, fatter, more pleasurable life than any comparative system before it, and communism will kill and starve people, and yet communism might be the more likely road back to a life that is good.

What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?

That truth itself, has a source, and that source is God.

I'm agnostic, but I used to be mormon. Recently, I've been noticing more and more mandela effects... Some big ones affect the bible, many 'believers' think it's some satanic nefariousness, I've seen as many non-biblical mandela effects to think it's just randomness, or concensus algorithms (51% of people remember x, so x exists in reality the alternate is erased).

Some examples:

Isaiah 11:6:

Remembered: The lion shall lie down with the lamb, and the bear shall eat grass like the ox, nd the child shall play on the hole of the asp, and nothign shall hurt nor destroy in all My Holy Mountain!

Current:The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.

Interestingly many biblical scholars, pastors, etc claim to remember the 1st one as well. I also could've swore the word Demon was in the KjV at least a number of times (currently 0), and if you look in a KJV search engine for "alien" or "stuff" you'll get some very funky modern-era sounding translations that ... where it should definitely be probably: strangers or possessions...

examples:

Also regard not your stuff; for the good of all the land of Egypt is yours.

Whereas thou hast searched all my stuff, what hast thou found of all thy household stuff? set it here before my brethren and thy brethren, that they may judge betwixt us both.

There's like 20 results for "stuff" and only 16 for "possessions".

Aliens: Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.

Another fun one that apparently seems to allow for homosexuality which most religionists claim the bible is against says:

Luke 17:34/35 - I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

The context could be seen/understood as they're taken because they're lgbqt, but the next line says 1/2 men will be taken from the field as they labor...instead it sounds to me that the bible as it sits is fine w/ LGBQT lifestyles.

.....

So my belief I guess is we're in a simulation, and the bible being one of the most read and quoted books with so many different translations makes it so easily fucked w/ as far as if everything is some blockchain-like concensus algorithm when it comes to mandela effects.

I'll also die on the hill that the apollo 13 movie w/ Tom hanks has flipped back and forth I've seen both versions where there's hyper Tom Hanks screaming HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM! and a Non-chalent, calmer Tom Hanks saying... Uh, Houston - we've had a problem. (We vs We've -- plus a different 'tone').

Demons exist and walk among us.

Jesus

The Bible is utterly true, God is both amazingly compassionate and severe, mankind is ravaged by sin, and Jesus really did come to earth to redeem his people from sin. Those who repent and believe will be saved. Those who do not believe are condemned already (John 3).

Many find these statements outrageous and offensive. I didn't come up with them, just believe them.

That religion is completely and totally a man made, fictitious, concept. Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc... all just mythologies that have no more basis in reality than any work of fiction. It is simply a tool. A tool used to soothe existential angst in the people that need such soothing and that certain others can use to exert control or gain power. This would be absolutely outrageous, to the point of death, in many circles.

- 20% high rankings catholics (in vatican) are pedophiles.

- Also that trump and extreme rights in general are a regulation process to keep a society / democracy healthy (and mostly, strong).

The West is the worst model of society on the planet

is there a point in asking this question? What I mean by that is, if someone believes it, it would seem logical that they don't think its "outrageous"...

http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2005/10/lunch-discussions-145-c...

I’ve felt like Capt. Obvious since then. I don’t understand why people are shocked about anything.

That gender as a concept is meaningful only to people who would have liked to be born the opposite sex (ie trans people); for all the other people, sex at birth is what counts. Some of those "other people" pretend to find gender meaningful for political convenience.

Taxes are theft (always). Many people share it explicitly. 99.99% of the people believe it somehow. But when you take it to its final conclusions, specially after touching something in particular, most people get super defensive and try every time of logical contortions to find somewhere when coercively removing property is ethically valid.

I wrote about beliefs that many people find outrageous...

Questioning probability – Controlled probability theory

https://paradite.com/2014/10/23/questioning-probability-cont...

Extinction is Natural, So is Global Warming

https://paradite.com/2018/11/06/extinction-is-natural-so-is-...

More: https://paradite.com/opinions/