RationalWiki

RationalWiki, 4 months ago to bigfoot

#Bigfoot (also known as Chewbacca Sasquatch) is a mythical creature alleged by some to live in remote North American forests in the Pacific Northwest. As there is zero real evidence for the existence of Bigfoot, the study of the "beast" is considered to be a #pseudoscience. Bigfoot is also one of the more famous examples of #cryptozoology.

Bigfoot is sometimes described as a large, hairy, bipedal hominid creature, and many believe that this animal, or its close relatives, may be found around the world under different regional names, such as the #Yeti of Tibet and Nepal.

The most famous sighting is the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film, which shows a hairy bipedal figure walking away from the camera.

#RationalWiki
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Bigfoot

RationalWiki, 5 months ago to EyeHealth

The Bates eye method is an alternative therapy that purports to "cure" defective #eyesight and diseases of the #eye by means of specific exercises. It is based on the work and theories of William Horatio Bates, a medical doctor and eye specialist practicing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although rejected and later soundly debunked by his peers, Bates's method was readily adopted into the alternative medicine and health freedom scenes, where it became interwoven with nutritional and other pseudoscience in the hands of early "health fad" figureheads such as Bernarr Macfadden and Gayelord Hauser.

#RationalWiki #BatesEyeMethod #alternativemedicine #myopia
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Bates_eye_method

RationalWiki, 5 months ago to random

#Ballotpedia is a website that provides information on #US #elections and candidates for voters. It started out as a community-contributed site, but is now only edited by paid staff. It has information related to both US Federal government and US state governments, with a database of information on US state executives, legislators, districts, candidates for such positions & ballot measures.

The website claims to be #neutral & accurate. Due to the nature of the site, it does sometimes show decidedly non-factual quotes from other sources (such as public figures). Despite this, the site was founded by the Citizens In Charge Foundation, a #libertarian activist organisation. The site is currently run by a remarkably well-fed nonprofit called the Lucy Burns Institute, which is substantially funded by #Koch Industries money, funnelled in via various corporate shells.

#RationalWiki #NPOV #lucyburnsinstitute #KochIndustries
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Ballotpedia

RationalWiki, 5 months ago to random

The balance #fallacy is an informal logical fallacy that occurs when two sides of an argument are assumed to have equal or comparable value regardless of their respective merits, which (in turn) can lead to the conclusion that the answer to a problem is always to be found between two extremes. The latter is effectively an inverse false dilemma, discarding the two extremes rather than the middle.

While the rational position on a topic is often between two extremes, this cannot be assumed without actually considering the evidence. Sometimes the extreme position is actually the correct one, and sometimes the entire spectrum of belief is wrong, and truth exists in an orthogonal direction that hasn't yet been considered. Furthermore, oftentimes the two sides being compared aren't equally extreme, so a conclusion drawn from this fallacy will end up benefitting the more extreme side.

#RationalWiki #balancefallacy
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Balance_fallacy

RationalWiki, 6 months ago to philosophy

Austrian economics (or the Austrian school of economics) is #libertarian #philosophy masquerading as a school of economic thought. This school is notable for its lack of formal mathematical modeling and empirical testing. Among its more unusual traits, the Austrian school draws its conclusions based on deduction and thought experiments, rather than data. In place of the conventional tools of science, the Austrian School favors a narrative approach called "praxeology". Despite its shortcomings, some less nutty features of the Austrian School have leaked into mainstream economics while the more nutty have found a home at libertarian think tanks (Cato Institute and Ludwig von Mises Institute).

#RationalWiki #economics #AustrianEconomics #praxeology #catoinstitute #ludwigvonmises #capitalism
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Austrian_school

juergen_hubert, 6 months ago to random

A curious trend I noticed on other social media hellsites:

Apparently it is now popular among the alt-right crowd to claim that if something doesn't adhere to Mussolini's original definition of #fascism, it's not real fascism.

(Which then seems to lead to claims that the Left are the real fascists somehow, because what else did I expect?)

RationalWiki, 6 months ago to random

Libs of TikTok is a far-right anti-LGBT Twitter account run by Chaya Raichik. The account has become highly influential in conservative circles, and it has over 1.8 million followers as of January 2023. The central narrative pushed by the account is "grooming", the lie claiming that LGBT people are pedophiles manipulating children into sexual deviancy. The concept went mainstream after Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed a law banning classroom instruction on gender identity or sexual orientation in grades K-3 in Florida public schools, with his press secretary accusing the bill's opponents of being "groomers".

Raichik's posts on Twitter have been directly linked to transphobic and homophobic threats, violence, and attempted terrorist attacks. Incidents include bomb threats against a school in Wisconsin, a near-riot at Idaho Pride, and threats against a Jewish summer camp.

#chayaraichik #LibsofTIkTok #antilgbt #homophobia #antitrans
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Libs_of_TikTok

RationalWiki, 7 months ago to random

The Appeal to ancient wisdom is a naturalistic fallacy and thus an informal fallacy. It is the unholy love-child of the appeal to tradition and of the appeal to authority. In this sense, the appeal to ancient wisdom can be understood as being the appeal to traditional authority.

The appeal to ancient wisdom is most commonly used by woomongers of the New Age, some indigenous science advocates, and/or alternative medicine varieties.

#RationalWiki
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Appeal_to_ancient_wisdom

CryptoNaturalist, 7 months ago to random

The water in your body is just visiting. It was a thunderstorm a week ago. It will be the ocean soon enough. Most of your cells come and go like morning dew. We are more weather pattern than stone monument. Sunlight on mist. Summer lightning. Your choices outweigh your substance.

lauren, 7 months ago to random

McCarthy now says that some his own GOP House members want to "burn the place down." With nine days before a government shutdown, yesterday he said he'd keep members in town all weekend to solve this GOP-created problem -- they can't pass anything to fix it. Today he sent them all home for the weekend. These clowns aren't committing treason in a legal sense, but damn they're getting close.

ned, 7 months ago to random

While the ownership class makes it daily.

'The reason It's a Wonderful Life (1946) holds up so well is that George's line, "You know how long is takes a working man to save $5000?" has somehow not aged even slightly.'

JamesGleick, 8 months ago (edited 8 months ago) to ai

Two suggestions for interacting with ChapGPT and other LLMs:

1. Don’t speak to it as if it were a person. It will answer as though it is, which can lead to confusion.

2. Whatever question you ask, mentally preface it with the phrase, “Generate some text that sounds like a plausible answer to the following, even if you have to make stuff up.” (Because that’s what it’s going to do.)

#AI #ChatGPT

futurebird, 8 months ago to random

I get kind of worked up about attempts to rob young people of the few interesting things that we really know about nature and the universe. This anti-evolution content is designed as a kind of inoculation against gaining further knowledge on the topic.

It contains neat little counter arguments that prompt kids to stop listening before they hear anything really interesting.

It's so sinister.

heidilifeldman, 8 months ago to ethelcain

I’m constantly struck by parallels between slaveholders trying to force people in non-slavery states to participate in maintaining slavery (e.g. Fugitive Slave Acts) and this sort of behavior. #Alabama senator #Tuberville is holding up promotions to force the military to stop covering travel for medical care that includes #abortion. Gift access at https://wapo.st/3qlP6Ln #misogyny #ReproductiveRights

RationalWiki, 11 months ago to random

#Objectivism is a peculiar #philosophy formulated by novelist Ayn Rand. It sports a range of convoluted tenets, but is most infamous for redefining #greed as the prime moral virtue — and, to take things even further, literally redefining altruism as evil. The name "objectivism" was chosen because, as Rand was the single smartest person in the history of the world, anything she said had to be "objective".

As one might imagine, objectivism is very popular amongst those who already hold a rather egocentric view of the world. It lets them say, "Hey, I'm not being a selfish jerk, I'm following a philosophy!". Of course, this incredibly short-sighted and narrow outlook — only seeking short-term gains no matter the cost to everyone else — will not even maximize long-term individual gains (let alone short- or long-term societal gain).

…

#RationalWiki #aynrand #libertarianism
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Objectivism