never let philosophers do math

No. Equality is defined on sets, with exactly one exception, this stupid fucking notation.

Notation is invented to be useful. A lot of mathematicians and physicists write stuff like

f = g + O(h)

and then proceed to do a bunch of manipulations without getting bogged down in set theory syntax.

Also equality isnt just defined on sets, usually people start by defining it as like a formal thing satisfying a bunch of rules as a part of their logic, and going from there.

That's not an aside. The quote is pernicious because of its attribution to Ben. People invoke it without ever asking themselves if its true because they think of it as the hard won wisdom of a great man.

> The quote is pernicious because of its attribution to Ben.

It's not pernicious for any reason because it's absolutely true in general, Franklin was simply using a general piece of wisdom to justify particular government actions.

Yes, using it that way was an improvisation and a bit of a stretch, but the real issue here is why he needed to resort to it - that's a rabbit hole that pretty much goes to the bottom of today's problems which we're handling in a much worse manner than him back then.

What do you consider "absolutely true" or "in general" to mean?

A tariff can only cost as much to the consumer as an embargo.

So practically infinite downside?

Von Neumann was a mathematician, thank you very much.

So, is cloudflare just becoming proof of bloat?

Something tells me you aren't exactly steelmanning your opponents here.

You are literally comparing the US to China on censorship in this sentence.

Food is wayyyy better in America than Europe, are you kidding? Why do you think we're so fat?

Meanwhile, tracking consumption involves error bars that span a factor of 2. Go figure out how many calories are in an avocado. Is that per gram figure amortized for the weight of the pit, or is this just for the flesh?

Counting calories precisely was invented by the processed food industry.