You just invented the semantic web. :-)

I really like "Ram"

That article does not dispute the claim that net immigration from Mexico has been negative.

Well duh, because it explains how the definition of deportation has changed to include catch and release, which wasn't the case beforehand. This is literally an article reassuring Democrats that Obama's deportation numbers are higher but don't fret about it, because it's not really the case.

> I know that our budgets are already creaking under the load of our spending and entitlement programs

Federal budget has been ~ 30-35% of GDP since the '80s, although there was a spike during the Great Recession for obvious reasons.

Physics is arguably the most successful branch of science (at least in terms of the accuracy of its predictions), and yet physics hasn't resolved the basic dispute between Hume and Kant regarding the nature of causality and objective reality.

Same thing is likely to hold vis-a-vis neuroscience and philosophy of mind.

Let me ask this - if/when the issues regarding the nature of causality and objective reality are finally resolved, will this be a result in physics or in natural philosophy?

If I knew, I'd be the next Hume :-)

I suspect it couldn't be a physics result, because the question is something like "Why does the universe follow natural laws at all" and/or "what IS a natural law, in metaphysical terms" ?

That's the part I don't understand about their feud. (I haven't read the translation, just reviews of Beam's book.) It seemed clear that Nabokov's translation aims at a different purpose than more "readable" translations, and there is a valid place for both approaches.

Because the U.S. has evolved a model where childcare is very expensive and people are expected to work > 40 hours per week. We need public pre-K and a 30- to 40-hour workweek.

(3) isn't a completely separate issue. Incarceration sucks up a lot of public funds that could go toward treatment programs.

I still see a lot of people describe introversion as "not wanting to do what extroverts do", as if being an introvert is defined by an absence of something.

But for me, time spent by myself isn't an empty expanse that I'm too scared to fill with socializing. It's absolutely vital to me, it's when I can really think, write, read, be creative, experience my emotions, etc.

I'm fine with socializing (preferably in a small group, with close friends -- I don't get much out of parties or big get-togethers) but I need to make room in my schedule for solitude.

Bayesian probability. I see a lot of popular reporting that talks very naively about probability and relative risk.

A lot of people on HN consider themselves logical because they know how to work with Boolean logic and they know how to identify some Boolean fallacies (slippery slope, correlation does not imply causation, etc.).

Of course, this is absolutely insufficient for almost any real-world scenario; Boolean logic does not equip one to make probabilistic inferences about the state of the world, which is the best we can do for the vast majority of everyday propositions.

The reality is that "slippery slope" is a very powerful heuristic, correlation correlates with causation, etc. People here often mistakenly think probabilistic arguments are Boolean (e.g. thinking Occam's razor tells you to believe only the most a priori likely hypothesis) or mistakenly think that Boolean arguments can be interpreted probabilistically (e.g. "Correlation doesn't imply causation, so I'm not going to treat this demonstrated correlation as evidence for causation").