This doesn’t read like science, but more importantly it is deeply flawed logic:
A person is in a car that is heading off a cliff. While they are naive of this fact, they are content but destined to an untimely demise. They are made aware of the fact and become deeply anxious.
What is causative in this scenario? Ignoring the cliff, we could say that the awareness is at fault for the person’s anxiety. But if the person were better informed about their state and there was no cliff, there would be no anxiety.
A root cause analysis would show that fundamental problem is not that the driver knows where they are going, but the fact that they are headed off a cliff in the first place.
To determine that social media is the root cause of increased teenage mental illness rates, we would need to confirm that social media in a utopian environment still causes mental illness. This is a claim without much evidence, particularly because the more one becomes informed about the world the more the will be exposed to its legitimate problems. What would be more practical, then, is to determine what incidence of mental illness occurs with awareness of these issues where social media is not a factor, and then to evaluate what if any factor remains to be explained by social media. The editorial does not take this approach, but instead appears to attempt a firehose of rationalizations that don’t converge to make a coherent thesis.
Perhaps the editorial author’s book isn’t selling well.
Hey guys, what are your thoughts on the existence of extraterrestrial life and the potential involvement of governments in concealing or studying such entities.
I expect that many other planets have life. I suspect that interstellar travel is not the only means of traveling between planets.
I am not at all convinced that foreign intelligences do visit, but I do consider it a very real possibility. If I were to somehow know they were here and nothing more, then I would feel confident that their visitation is being concealed.
It’s a wonderful topic, but I’m not particularly interested in beliefs related to it. I am much more interested in the possibilities.
In such a huge universe, even if FTL travel is possible, why should we expect Earth to be a common destination?
It is possible that only species who do not wish to colonize the galaxy will avoid the Great Filter and acquire the technology needed to colonize it.
Not all space-faring races must be highly populous, while less populous species will encounter less of the issues that would cause a population to collapse before becoming space-faring.
We could be colonized without recognizing it.
Colonization itself could be inherently unsustainable.
There is also no reason to limit the discussion to a galaxy. If we assume that an FTL civilization will colonize (in a way that we would recognize), then they could come from any galaxy. Given the expanse of the universe, if such a behavior is common enough that it would stand a chance of succeeding, then it should probably exist already. And yet we do not appear to be colonized. Which is more likely: That FTL intelligences must colonize, or that we are all alone in the universe? Axiomatic reasoning reveals that the latter is statistically much less likely than the former. So it is less likely to successfully explain why we appear to be uncolonized.
I swear, every time most of the time I see someone being particularly rude, ignorant, and inappropriate on a post (usually political in origin, or they swing it to being political) I click on their profile and see it has been created that same day....
I can’t find a copy of the full paper, unfortunately. But it sounds like it agrees with one of my favorite talking points, which is how the relationship between humanity and the environment was drastically changed by the adoption of agriculture and pastoralism. Both were very harmful to the balance of ecology upon adoption, and now most of those ecosystems have collapsed (which is seen through a drastic reduction in genetic diversity and the intrusion of non-native “invasive” species).
I was thinking last night about the population density that could be supported around me by hunter-gatherers even before the native ecosystem was destroyed. It would not be high. And humans are the one species that has to heat nearly everything it eats. Now add agriculture, and you get denser populations. And that means a lot more chopping down trees for fuel - that’s where we likely first hit the point we harvested more than the system could replenish, and started mucking around with the atmosphere.
Dense populations experience 2 notable conditions: They typically lead to a degree of emigration, and social organization allows for more efficient productivity which frees up labor and people’s time while supporting larger-scale projects. In Europe this led to the Age of Exploration which drove the deforestation of the continent for ship-building. These ships were used for emigration, pleasure, and of course colonization. There were of course alternative “lifeways” but as the abstract mentioned, these were stomped out over history. By capital established on the concept of private property, essentially.
Too many humans were too successful, and the destruction takes too long for decision-makers (e.g., the rich) to care about the harm. That’s another unique thing about agriculture: It allowed settling in one place and led to the ability to acquire property for the first time. A small wealth inequality developed almost immediately, the first kings were crowned, and that wealth gap has been exploited by those on top ever since.
I read posts about people quitting jobs because they’re boring or there is not much to do and I don’t get it: what’s wrong with being paid for doing nothing or not much at all?...
Meaning in life does not come simply from collecting money. It largely comes from how we spend our time. Most of us spend a large part of our time at work or commuting. If fulfillment does not come from your job, then it’s going to be hard to find time to be fulfilled.
Now, some who have nothing to do at work are able to fill their time in a way that is meaningful to them - especially remote workers. But to have to give up your time, to have no challenges to apply yourself to during those work hours, and to be prevented from doing anything else that would be meaningful? That sounds like the 9th circle of hell to me.
Life is short. Few things are worse than watching it tick away in boredom.
Eh, I don’t think it’s obvious. They would have to be more transparent for anything to be obvious.
The FBI requests these days are just to preserve the image of due process, they can already unlock iPhones on their own. And they aren’t the only ones.
The sub was divided well before the interview but it had good conversation early on iirc, it was about Graeber’s idea of bullshit jobs, how labor never receives the perks of productivity increases, and how this is destroying our planet. I don’t know if these ideas were not conveyed well to the newcomers, or whether the newcomers had no interest in understanding and discussing them.
As for WorkReform, I rank it up there with other classic reactionary subs like VoteDEM and CapitolConsequences. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a concerted push to funnel people to it, but “they” is more likely to be the terminally online bootlickers than TPTB imo.
Scientists have created a blazing-fast scientific camera that shoots images at an encoding rate of 156.3 terahertz (THz) to individual pixels — equivalent to 156.3 trillion frames per second. Dubbed SCARF (swept-coded aperture real-time femtophotography), the research-grade camera could lead to breakthroughs in fields studying...
I just lost an hour of my day reading the paper, but it was definitely worth it. And not just for the cute maple leaf video. Very cool development. I think it is going to facilitate a lot more research in many other fields.
I’m not so certain it will unroll slowly. I think there could be a feedback mechanism involved, specifically related to economic organization and its inability to react in a sufficiently timely manner.
He knows that the mega-corporations are evil and that the world’s future is hopeless. He knows he isn’t going to save anyone.
But he keeps killing the demons, because it’s simply the right thing to do. It’s who he is. Why did he get sent to Mars in the first place? Because he spoke up about the injustices he witnessed in the Marines. And as every Marine knows, that’s the worst possible thing you could do for your career trajectory.
But doomguy doesn’t care. Because doomguy doesn’t believe in other Marines, in corporate bigwigs and other cultists, in the scientists naively working towards enslaving the galaxy, or in ignorami such as you or I. Doomguy has been liberated from the chains of hope.
Now he lives a simple path, following his own dharma: Doomguy sees fucked up shit, and he fucks it up.
A true role model for those seeking reason in a life bereft of hope. Doomguy teaches us how to find meaning in the process, rather than the outcome.
Flowers can grow even in the most barren desert, and a Zen master can arise among even the most despondent. The demons cannot bear one with such control over the elements of their own faith and despair. And so, generation after generation, they taught their spawn to fear the coming of doomguy: The one who would overcome the trappings of hope and ego to selflessly deliver justice against his masters.
Only one who would sacrifice it all could destroy it all - to pursue ruin as progress - and only one who truly spites the mortal coil can offer such a sacrifice. Doomguy is the best of us.
Like most places I’ve heard from, the weather here is fickle and atypical. Flowers and blooms are coming months early. They started early and got hit with a freeze. Another false start would be very tough for them, I think.
This time last year the ground was frozen, but it is easily tilled now. I dug some more irrigation channels and I’m prepping more garden beds. I’ve also started sprouting some of my seeds from last year. I’m worried I might be starting too late and that I should have gone for an early sow and harvest, before summer gets brutal.
My petty investments are going pretty well (always a bad sign), but maintaining employment has become a challenge more and more since I first entered the workforce. It’s been years since I felt I wasn’t entirely expendable, years of always dreading the next quarter’s layoffs. It doesn’t help that the first few pages of jobs on Indeed are contracting for military work, which I’m not going to do. I’d rather let my skills go to waste and take a job moving dirt around.
I think world economies are shifting for war. Those are the jobs hiring, and the investments doing well. Money is flowing out of entertainment, and nothing is being committed toward expanding public-oriented infrastructure and third spaces. I think collapse could prevent WWIII just as much as it could start it, so we’ll see what happens. It irks me quite a bit, though. It’s sunk money that makes the rich richer, while creating an excuse to participate in conflicts. It eats up valuable resources for speculative purposes, and quotas are never made with prudent judgment - it’s “the more of anything and everything, the better.” And the way it is done these days, with everything contracted to private businesses and with all of the tentacles going from the government to these businesses creating a 2-way street of corruption, screams fascism to me. Our work is captured and that wealth spent to provoke war. What probably irks me most is how normalized this is - how people consider it normal, the way things have always been, common sense. It’s not common sense, but the harm it causes is to abstracted for most of us to assign it to the root cause.
I’m jaded. I’m burnt out. I’ve had a rough winter (not the worst, but certainly not the best). I feel like a loon but I’m making the most of the “nice” weather as much as any denialist. Probably more because spend more time out of climate controlled spaces than that lot. Spring may not be what it once was, but my biological calendar still yearns for it.
The climate papers coming out recently have been stellar. The body of work has become large enough that we’re starting to see how clearly we fucked we are, however with that corpus comes an additional complexity that will make it even easier to muddy the waters with miscontextualized quotes and such. The public discussion is decades behind. For years I had hardly realized how little climate literature existed. Now it all comes out at once, with no time to digest.
I feel exhausted trying to keep up with everything in life. But I keep pushing because I feel now is the time to act - to garden, to discuss, to prepare, to live.
Yes, Social Media Really Is a Cause of the Epidemic of Teenage Mental Illness (www.afterbabel.com)
Do you believe in Aliens?
Hey guys, what are your thoughts on the existence of extraterrestrial life and the potential involvement of governments in concealing or studying such entities.
'Pay or Okay' explained: Why more and more websites make you pay for your privacy - noyb (noyb.eu)
Does anyone else notice an uptick of extreme troll accounts?
I swear, every time most of the time I see someone being particularly rude, ignorant, and inappropriate on a post (usually political in origin, or they swing it to being political) I click on their profile and see it has been created that same day....
The human side of biodiversity: coevolution of the human niche, palaeo-synanthropy and ecosystem complexity in the deep human past (royalsocietypublishing.org)
Trolly problem solved any % WR (lemmy.world)
to those of you who get bored at work if there's lots of downtime, why?
I read posts about people quitting jobs because they’re boring or there is not much to do and I don’t get it: what’s wrong with being paid for doing nothing or not much at all?...
Amazon storing classified US government documents improperly (lemmy.ml)
wetdry.world/@ari/112230288896956003
Chat control is back as proposal in EU despite being voted out just few months ago (www.patrick-breyer.de)
Keeping your data from Apple is harder than expected | Aalto University (www.aalto.fi)
New study shows that the default apps collect data even when supposedly disabled, and this is hard to switch off
Dr. James Hansen Update - Global Warming Acceleration: Hope vs Hopium (2024.03.29) (www.columbia.edu)
Click on the top link under Recent Communications. Direct Link to PDF!...
Does anyone else remember when "they" broke up the anti-work movement on reddit by putting a mod on fox news then dividing the community by creating the work reform sub?
I some times think about it and how shitty people are
60 Percent Of Playtime In 2023 Went To 6-Year-Old Or Older Games, New Data Shows (kotaku.com)
You can't sue us for making games 'too entertaining,' say major game developers in response to addiction lawsuits (www.pcgamer.com)
Feds Now Adding Dragnet Searches Of YouTube Users’ Video Watching To Their Investigative Arsenal (www.techdirt.com)
This camera captures 156.3 trillion frames per second (www.engadget.com)
Scientists have created a blazing-fast scientific camera that shoots images at an encoding rate of 156.3 terahertz (THz) to individual pixels — equivalent to 156.3 trillion frames per second. Dubbed SCARF (swept-coded aperture real-time femtophotography), the research-grade camera could lead to breakthroughs in fields studying...
Let's discuss: Kirby (beehaw.org)
The format of these posts is simple: let’s discuss a specific game or series!...
In case you missed some key news and opinion on #deepadaptation (jembendell.com)
The Depopulation Bomb (thehonestsorcerer.substack.com)
Let's discuss: DOOM (beehaw.org)
The format of these posts is simple: let’s discuss a specific game or series!...
Monthly observations thread March 2024