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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 20th, 2023

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  • Yes I would tend to agree—it seems anecdotally correct that if you restrict the possibility space for a child down to something very narrow, the opportunity to learn and adapt must reduce as well. Which is probably why “good parenting” is such a tricky concept, because you have to somehow maximize the possibility space while also removing anything that can plausibly kill/hurt your child. A daunting task…

    I have noticed some nephews of mine being particularly limited—they grew up during pandemic years and are home schooled, and they don’t have meaningful interactions with other children or adults, which seems to really be leading to some issues.


  • His argument went one step further as well I think: aside from the literal culling, he argued also that they used their brains far more often to solve actual real problems and avoid harm, and that this active engagement of their brains with their environment likely led to higher “general intelligence” than say safe western world inhabitants. As an employee of the “spreadsheet factory” I find this speculation highly plausible and compelling.


  • I saw possibly these same elephants a year ago during a visit to pilanesbirg, and they were majestic and gorgeous. Our guide was very experienced and was very clear with us that the elephants didn’t want trouble with us, but that they will knock over cars and charge people if they feel like their babies are under threat. We saw some tourists in private cars try and drive up close to a mother helping two babies (calves I guess?) across the road, and she turned on the jeep, stamped and made a very impressive trumpet blare (basically her being like FUCK YOU, BACK OFF) before walking back off.

    I feel bad for the guy, and it’s a sad story, but having seen one of these herds, and seeing how incredibly large and powerful they were, I cannot imaging trying to walk up to them or approach them in any way.

    Seeing animals like these elephants was a humbling experience for me that drove home that we are small, and probably not as special as we like to think. I locked eyes with one while they were eating a tree and I don’t know how to describe it, but it felt like looking at another human—my brain had no doubt that this was a highly intelligent sentient creature. I would rate this visit to pilanesburg as probably one of the most memorable and impactful experiences I’ve ever had.


  • They basically did something similar to what happened to Bernie with the DNC. they did a full court press antisemitism campaign against him, but like many of the charges of antisemitism in the US right now, it was largely based on criticism of Israeli policy AFAIK.

    Edit: to clarify—they ousted him because labor was looking ascendant, and the more centrist and corporatist elements of labor could not stomach the idea of actually having a PM that wanted to do left wing things that aligned with the theoretical purpose of the labor party, so they took him out by getting enough articles published in the famously above-board uk media to force him from leadership.



  • I would say that based on whatever calculus/evidence they have access to, Canada has decided that the threat of an all-out war, or least Israel carpet bombing Lebanon with munitions the US just sent them is high enough to warrant evacuation. That’s an above-average signal that something bad is about to happen, because it’s a big deal to evacuate all those people. It doesn’t mean something is definitely going to happen.

    That said, bibi needs forever war for the time being because he’s facing jail if he gets punted from his position, and they’ve pummeled Gaza about as much as they can at this point while still pretending that they can end Hamas, so murdering civilians in another country is probably starting to look pretty appetizing to him. They’ll still keep slamming Gaza but he needs something big and existential for his domestic audience to keep them from taking him out.

    So long story short, I’d say the probabilities of something like regional conflict happening have been raising pretty sharply lately. Hopefully the Canadian evac will prove to be alarmist, but our timeline hasn’t exactly been going the way I hope last few years so…



  • Everything about this screams fake. It also all sounds like a horrible idea. They’re basically discussing traumatizing inmates at 10x speed. Given that a lot of criminals come from a background of trauma, I’d wonder here if you’d be doing more harm than good. There’s claims in this article that are absurd, without some form of clarification. What the hell is a “creative scientist” as a title—I’m not familiar with that discipline. Also, let’s uhh say am that all this was real, and possible. This tech would be a net evil in the world. If you can use it to brainwash inmates into cringing when they think about doing crime, you can also use it to torture dissenters into conformists. Given that the tech is already aimed at an element of the state security apparatus, there’s like no chance this wouldn’t get used for much worse purposes. I think they’re also misunderstanding how prison is used in many places. In NA, prison does not seem to be about rehabilitation, but just punishment and getting free labor.






  • It’s almost worse than actually just laying off x% of a workforce—you stress everyone out and force them to contemplate leaving, some amount do (achieving the ulterior motive) and the rest who didn’t leave now have increased workload and are also immiserated by being forced to commute to a stupid cube farm some portion of the week. It’s like they found a way to make layoffs affect everyone more than they already did in the past.



  • From another article I read, this is a nuclear-powered sub, that is one of a handful that has been retrofitted from ballistic middle duty to cruise missles. So basically it’s a cruise missle platform. The headline is playing a little fast and loose for effect.

    Also worth considering that subs that launch nukes are assumed to be out, patrolling in enough areas to ensure last-word MAD deterrence, so you can just assume that US nuke-launching subs are already able to strike most major population centers and don’t need or want to broadcast their specific location (unless, like, a very intelligent former president specifically puts their location on a new broadcast for clout)


  • I’m in a similar boat. The use case where I really would use it regularly, simming, is hamstrung by two things. One, it’s so damn fiddly and laborious doing settings non stop to make it playable, and two, even if I get the settings right—I start noticing weird crap with my eyes after a couple sessions. Like you end up basically crossing your eyes all the time inside the visor, and I’ll notice fatigue/trouble focusing after using it a lot, what I would imagine it feels like to have a bad prescription or something (don’t personally have glasses).

    And as you say, it’s bloody uncomfortable. Something like big screen beyond with good AR/passthrough would go a long way to fixing that I guess.


  • Yeah I don’t understand the clamour. This sort of situation has happened many, many times. I remember reading about a guy dying in a cave near the Everest summit. Other climbers sat with him and shared water, comfort, but from that location, if he couldn’t move on his own, there was no way he was getting down. Also the numerous “landmark” bodies that the climbers pass right off the trail… there’s no safe way to remove them.

    I think people assume that you can just carry someone out on a stretcher or arrange a helicopter—but people are literally operating on bleeding edge of oxygenation and helicopters can’t get up their for the same reasons… you aren’t going to be able to remove an incapacitated person who needs total physical support from others to move.

    You could say, well it’s fucked up that people are paid to support these climbs, because they need the money, and there’s some validity to that, but in that case it’s not that different from something like deep sea welding or being in a combat unit of a military, etc.