Hacker News: ptoo

New comment by ptoo in "An Alien Mind"

ptoo — Sun, 06 Sep 2026 22:06:22 +0000

This essay was literally typed by billionaire hands. Please, do tell us more about your concerns regarding concentration of power, Jakub Pachocki.

New comment by ptoo in "Being ambitious and being a dad"

ptoo — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 08:18:50 +0000

Not only do they play but they also learn to care for each other. Parental effort doesn't increase uniformly with each child – if you're lucky and have done a good job parenting them, children create a society and help with raising each other.

New comment by ptoo in "Show HN: Jmail – Google Suite for Epstein files"

ptoo — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 11:22:45 +0000

Exactly.

>Share everything to the world, and let everyone make their own judgement based on what they see?

What's the alternative to this? They don't share all the information with the world and we're expected to believe their evaluation of the evidence?

New comment by ptoo in "Sora: Creating video from text"

ptoo — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 23:36:06 +0000

There will always be things humans can do that AI cannot. And if there ever comes a point when that's not the case, there will be no need to distinguish the two.

New comment by ptoo in "Potential Microbiome Links to Skin Aging"

ptoo — Sun, 21 Jan 2024 05:21:43 +0000

I'm leaning towards there being no causation between skin microbiome and wrinkles.

Did anyone in the study have botox? Crow's feet wrinkles are generally caused by two things: UV damage, and movement of facial muscles breaking down collagen. Which naturally tend to increase with age. So that's where I'd wager the causation is.

If a person uses factor 50 every day on their face and gets biyearly botox injections on their crow's feet area, they'll likely have no prominent wrinkles but they will still be old and with a greater skin microbiome.

New comment by ptoo in "Goodreads is terrible for books – why can’t we all quit it?"

ptoo — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 13:34:57 +0000

I was hoping to do this as a project. The issue I had was having access to a database of all books with an ISBN, or which books to include.

New comment by ptoo in "Apollo will close down on June 30th"

ptoo — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 17:41:04 +0000

People have tried to create alternatives to Reddit numerous times over previous controversies. It never sticks. I don't see this time being different.

New comment by ptoo in "Rural children now grow slightly taller than city children in wealthy countries"

ptoo — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 04:44:45 +0000

The premise isn't exactly that people shouldn't select for traits that they desire, rather that it is irresponsible for journalism and other forms of media to make allusions to height being a positive trait.

If people want to make judgements about a person's worth based on their racist or heightist tendencies that's their prerogative, but we have seen with racism that negatively portraying people of colour only serves to propagate negative stereotype beyond that which is "innate". It is clearly equivalent for height, given the many examples people provide of height not providing societal advantages in certain other cultures. It's by and large a cultural phenomenon, not biological.

Is it really that preposterous to expect the media not to mischaracterise people born with an arbitrary genetic trait as lesser individuals?

New comment by ptoo in "Rural children now grow slightly taller than city children in wealthy countries"

ptoo — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 00:17:29 +0000

Sure, some forms of intelligence or other personal qualities could be opted for when choosing a mate. Should inconsequential physical traits such as race and height? You tell me. Or at least explain the distinction between the two as you see it.

New comment by ptoo in "Rural children now grow slightly taller than city children in wealthy countries"

ptoo — Wed, 29 Mar 2023 23:55:06 +0000

To me, that's even further evidence that both race and height are totally inconsequential. That fact that these things can bestow social advantages is no reason to view either of them in a positive light.

Racism is certainly bad and should be discouraged. Somewhat controversially, apparently, so should heightism.

New comment by ptoo in "Rural children now grow slightly taller than city children in wealthy countries"

ptoo — Wed, 29 Mar 2023 23:52:50 +0000

I'm not implying anything about the biological racial differences between humans. When I say racism, I'm talking about people of colour who experience prejudice based on the colour of their skin which is indisputable.

New comment by ptoo in "Rural children now grow slightly taller than city children in wealthy countries"

ptoo — Wed, 29 Mar 2023 23:43:04 +0000

I think we can ignore the outlier of basketball players playing at the highest level. We could also point to CEO's of Fortune 500 companies and their races but that shouldn't lead us to make judgements about which phenotype is better.

New comment by ptoo in "Rural children now grow slightly taller than city children in wealthy countries"

ptoo — Wed, 29 Mar 2023 23:36:44 +0000

That's a good corroboration of my point that height being a positive characteristic is largely cultural/societal and of no true importance as it relates to a person's worth.

New comment by ptoo in "Rural children now grow slightly taller than city children in wealthy countries"

ptoo — Wed, 29 Mar 2023 23:34:23 +0000

The majority of women, especially before we began to actually combat racism, would also agree that being white is preferable, as would black men who were subjected to the results of living in a racist society. We currently live in a heightist society so naturally being taller is perceived as better. The crux of the issues is that it shouldn't be considered better. It's a totally inconsequential trait.

New comment by ptoo in "Rural children now grow slightly taller than city children in wealthy countries"

ptoo — Wed, 29 Mar 2023 23:31:17 +0000

My point doesn't relate to whether rural or urban children become taller. Height is largely genetic, and discounting malnutrition it has no bearing on a person's health. Shorter people actually live longer on average.

Social advantages based on arbitrary phenotypic traits should not be encouraged. White people generally have social advantages given the fact that racism exists.

New comment by ptoo in "Rural children now grow slightly taller than city children in wealthy countries"

ptoo — Wed, 29 Mar 2023 23:25:46 +0000

Again, substitute the "socially beneficial" arbitrary trait of height for race and ask yourself if that sounds acceptable. Should people opt for white children simply because racism exists? Should people opt for tall children because heightism exists? How do you make the distinction in your own mind?

New comment by ptoo in "Rural children now grow slightly taller than city children in wealthy countries"

ptoo — Wed, 29 Mar 2023 23:22:51 +0000

Height certainly exists, but it has no bearing on a person's worth, despite what this article or society at large would have you believe.

New comment by ptoo in "Rural children now grow slightly taller than city children in wealthy countries"

ptoo — Wed, 29 Mar 2023 23:22:00 +0000

Why does it matter if they reach their full possible height, barring health complications? At least 80% of height is genetic so creating a value system based upon something that has no bearing on a person's qualities, aesthetic or psychological, is of no importance. Always substitute race for height and see how the line of argument sounds. The only difference is that one trait is generally culturally acceptable to disparage while the other is not.

New comment by ptoo in "Rural children now grow slightly taller than city children in wealthy countries"

ptoo — Wed, 29 Mar 2023 23:14:23 +0000

Using the terminology of children turning out slightly "better" in cities in the context of height is slightly distasteful, even though it is societally quite prevalent. Height is an arbitrary physical trait, much like race. Who cares who turns out taller? Discounting malnutrition, there are no health benefits to being taller. There are of course social advantages, but the same can be said for race too. When will we begin addressing heightism in the same respect as other obviously unimportant phenotypic differences?

New comment by ptoo in "Nokia launches DIY repairable budget Android phone"

ptoo — Sat, 25 Feb 2023 20:24:58 +0000

Re the AppleCare+ point. If you are unlikely to break a screen more frequently than every 2 years on average, it's more economical to just not get the service. This is ignoring other benefits the AppleCare+ may provide.