Dude, there wasn’t any other option in the primaries. No one else was running. Seriously running against an incumbent in your own party is basically political suicide.

Palmer was the closest and I didn’t even know his name until after our primary. It was only a good move for him because he was already an outsider who just wanted some publicity.

Basically, you either voted for Biden because iTs ThE rIgHt ThInG tO dO, or because He’S tHe iNcUmBeNt…

…or you desperately, nihilistically voted uncommitted.

That’s a good (and reassuring) observation!

Still, even if it’s a bot/troll/etc. post, if we don’t call it out when we see it, the culture of the community slowly shifts towards “bigotry is acceptable here”…

I’m gonna keep pointing this stuff out when I see it whether the user is acting in good faith or not :)

Aight you got me there

I, too, am down to clown tbh

Sure, notice that I included this possibility in the last paragraph.

Also notice that that possibility doesn’t reinforce the perspective that “women are sluts for clown daddies”

The fact this has 40 up votes right now makes me feel like lemmy is losing a diverse user base. Like, where are the women to down vote this obviously shitty take?

Let’s list some reasons why these women could have done this that aren’t “women are sluts for clown daddies”:

• he’s their boss, and leveraging his insane power over them to make it hard to say no and keep their job
• he’s just an extremely powerful man and they’re afraid of pissing him off
• they have insecurities, (like the “loser cuck” fallacy!) that they aren’t valuable or desirable as partners, and attention from someone as powerful as him feels like affirmation of their value even if they don’t like him or he treats them badly
• they understand that, by not resisting his advances, they might be able to provide themselves a link to a financial source that could support them and a child
• he literally sexually harasses, assaults, or rapes them and they don’t feel like they can criminally pursue one of the richest men in the world

Like, yeah, some of them might be individuals who have bad taste in men or are shitty people themselves. I’m even certain that some of them are! But damn, can we take the perspective of the woman for one second? It’s not a good look to find yourself agreeing with incels on the internet

Why post this summary article from an obscure news group when you could have posted the actual report from the former official?

It’s written in accessible language, so it’s not like it’s too technical to understand or anything…

Just curious, when you say “those products are still on the shelves”, do you mean they’re selling product from the lot numbers that were recalled?

You should be able to tell the grocery store employees and have them remove it if they’re selling recalled products, but also I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re only selling products that are no longer part of those recalled lots

Edit: WAIT you said “still not on the shelves”, sorry! Ignore my comment lol

I feel like I’ve seen this take a lot more in the past ~5 years than I did before. Not just that zoos are unethical, but that any animal ownership (or really interaction of any kind) is inherently abusive.

You’re certainly entitled to feel however you want about animal ownership and act accordingly, but personally I feel like it’s honestly kind of a weird take?

Humans are obviously not the only species that develops symbiolotic relationships with other organisms (in a diversity of power dynamics), but we are also not the only species who take on specifcally ownership or shepherd roles for other species (like spiders with frog pets, or fungus farmer ants, among many many other examples). Thus, the ontological position this opinion must operate from is that humans are somehow distinct and superior to nature, such that we have separate and unique responsibilities not to engage in mutualistic ownership with other organisms, on the basis that like, we’re somehow “above” that? That we’re so enlightened and knowledgeable that we exist in a category of responsibility distinct from all other organisms?

Of course, a lot of our relationships to animals can be described as harmful in other terms without needing to take this specific stance. Like, our relationship with many agricultural animals can be critiqued through the harm done to their individual well-beings and through the harm their propagation does to the global environment. Or irresponsible pet owners can be critiqued for how their unwillingness to control the reproduction or predatory abilities of their pets can harm local ecosystems, like an introduced invasive species might. Or valid criticisms of many zoos when they prioritize profits over animal welfare, rehabilitation, ecosystem restoration, and education. Or that the general public picking up wild animals is a problem because it disturbs their fragile ecosystems and traumatizes them, especially when done on the large scale of human populations (but distinctly not for ecological study, wild animal healthcare, education, etc., like Steve Irwin et. al) But none of these are specific criques of the mutualistic ownership relationship itself as much as problems with the way we handle that relationship.

Idk, I’m interested to understand your opinion, especially if it has detail I’m missing beyond “we shouldn’t have pets, zoos, or farms because we’re better than that”!

Pretty much every day, multiple times a day, with strangers, acquaintances, and friends. I think it usually brightens people’s day, and with strangers, I think delivery and content is much more important than what I look like or who I am.

For content, I only compliment choices, not attributes:

“Cool shirt!” is good, “Nice legs!” is not

“I love your haircut!” is good, “Your hair has such a nice texture!” is not

Tailored compliments are even better, ex. “That book (or other media) is awesome!” is great, if I really do like it, and it can start a conversation, but obviously I don’t lie and pretend I know it when I don’t.

For delivery, I keep it light and casual. I am mindful to only do it when they aren’t preoccupied, like on the phone or reading something. For tone, I guess I pop the compliment, smile, and movie on. For example, if we’re walking past each other-- I don’t slow down, and I look away immediately after giving a friendly smile. I don’t mean that I don’t care about their response, because of course I’m mindful to be sure I didn’t offend them, but I don’t burden them with needing to respond with gratitude or happiness. I think of it as, I want this person to have the (hopefully pleasant) information that their choice was seen and respected by a stranger. I don’t want anything back from them.

I would say 95-100% of the people I compliment seem to be genuinely happy I did, and of the ones who don’t react positively, I’d say the vast majority react neutrally. In the rare case where my compliment has totally failed, I usually go “Oh! I’m sorry” and again, disengage.

Obviously, with friends and acquaintances the options open up a little more, and usually I do follow up/continue the conversation instead of moving on. But it’s similar in the philosophy that I’m usually just trying to give them positive information, and not seeking anything in return. Compliments are not a tool to get people to talk to me or be friends with me. That can and does happen, but it’s not the point. Honestly, I think that’s the part that most people struggle with, if they feel like they don’t get good responses with compliments. It’s not for us.

I do think I’m probably an outlier, because I give compliments a lot. But I continue to do it because it seems to really make people smile!

I’m sorry! My knowledge of this process does not extend to the point where I could even give you a hint of the answer. To be honest, it would require me diving into the underlying mechanisms of your condition, and it sound like your doctor has said it isn’t even settled science why it’s happening, so I don’t think anyone can tell you if this would work for you.

I know that isn’t what you wanted to hear, but two things: 1) this treatment is a long way off anyway, so anyone will have to wait for it to be available, and 2) there are probably many other treatments coming down the line for your condition… even if those also take a long time.

Anyway, I’m sorry for your pain and that I couldn’t help! Honestly, I hope something will be available to help you many years before this becomes a treatment option.

You’re not oversimplifying from my description, my description was just too simple itself! Unfortunately, no, it wouldn’t work like this. The whole idea is that the cell would pick up anything and discover that it isn’t as dangerous as it thought. That’s the opposite of what we’d want for cancer cells!

Luckily, there are many, many other treatments for various cancers coming in due time, also. My research is actually closer to cancer research than immunology, so I can tell ya-- there’s good stuff coming!

Maybe? But it works by flagging specific proteins related to allergenic response. For people with higher tendency to develop allergies in general, I imagine you’d need a LOT of different flagged proteins to cover the bases of what one’s immune system was already alerting to.

Tbh, it might be a good treatment for those individuals for their few, most problematic triggers, but I think in general there are probably better approaches for them!

Hi hello I’m your friendly neighborhood molecular biologist and I want to tell you (or anyone who might think like you) that you’re totally fucken wrong lol

It is commonly accepted by contemporary biological scientists that sex exists on a spectrum. The technical definition of sex involves the size of gametes (in humans: sperm and egg cells) that are created by the organism, but we don’t usually go around “unsexing” people who don’t make gametes (the infertile, the elderly, etc.)

Instead we might look at chromosomes, genitalia, or secondary sex characteristics (beard, breasts, voice, etc.). Although the state of these characteristics often aligns (ie. XY usually means penis and more hair) they for sure definitely do not always.

You can have unusual chromosome combinations (XXY, XXX, etc.), you can have a modification of the signalling pathway for sex hormones (androgen insensitivity), you can have mutations in specific genes relating to secondary sex phenotypes (extra hair, no hair, voice changes, etc.). You might have a person whose gentalia say “female” but chromosomes say “male”. You might get a person whose face, voice, and body says “female” but whose genitalia say “male”.

You might think these things are too rare to bother with, but intersexuality (defined as a person who’s sex can’t be conventionally filtered into male or female) is estimated to be as common as 2% of the population (basically the same as red-headed people in the USA). Many people estimate that the actual incidence of unalignment between all sex characteristics as assigned gender is even more common if we expanded the definition to include internal brain structures relating to sexual and gender identity, or natural differences in hormone quantities that overlap between members of different sexes. Basically, science says non-binary is valid as fuck.

That’s not even to get into the social construct of gender, but there’s a whole scholarly discipline there as well. But I’m a biologist and people weirdly trust essentialist constructs of sex and gender more than social ones, so here I am.

This is basically my fear, also. How can I retain hope that new, amazing treatments will help people if we don’t even have equitable access to the current treatments?

For example, we still make people seeking medicines for mental health try going through a gauntlet of dependency-forming drugs from greater than half a century ago (that have been shown to be effective in less than half of people who take them) before insurance will pony up for contemporary alternatives (that work much more often).

I don’t work in the clinical space so don’t trust me too much… but jeez we have so many things to solve before the “bio golden age” really helps normal people

Nope! This research is all done in rodents, to my knowledge. I’m always like “wow what a cool and maybe lifesaving discovery!.. for people in like a decade+!” 🙃

(thanks for the book rec!)

That is so funny… tbh I know I’d get shit for this professionally, but it definitely frustrates me that we don’t allow people with few other choices to have access to crazy, left field treatment stuff.

My best friend died of a specific and rare cancer this year. We know exactly how that cancer works on a molecular level, and we’ve found a few chemicals that interfere with the function of those cells in vitro while not seeming to harm average cells.

Sure, it’s a huge risk to take that drug that’s only been tested in a dish, and it wouldn’t be worth it for most people. But he was going to (and did) die within a year of diagnosis. It’s not like he had other options.

Maybe he should have invested in a rat costume ;)

Well, you’ll also be happy to know that they started this work on allergin way before working on autoimmune disease, and in my opinion, the evidence that it works for allergies is much stronger than how it works for autoimmune diseases! Not necessarily because it won’t work for auto immune stuff… just that they have done less confirming.

I have severe allergenic asthma so I was excited about it too 😁

This article is garbage but I’m a molecular biologist and the publication they’re talking about is really neat.

The “ELI5 to the point of maybe reducing out the truth” way to explain it is that the researchers can add “flags” to proteins associated with immune responses that make cells pick them up and examine them. This is shown to work for allergins (so say, add a flag to peanut protein and the cells can look at it more closely, go “oh nvm this is fine” and stop freaking out about peanuts) as well as autoimmune diseases (where cells mistake other cells from the same body as potential threats).

It’s not nearly to a treatment stage, but tbh this is one of the more exciting approaches I’ve seen, and I do similar research and thus read a lot of papers like this.

There’s a lot of evidence that we are entering a biological “golden age” and we will discover a ton of amazing things very soon. It’s worrysome that we still have to deal with instability in other parts of life (climate change, wealth inequality, political polarization) that might slow down the process of turning these discoveries into actual treatments we can use to make lives better…

Still, don’t doubt everything you read! A lot of cool stuff is coming, the trick is getting it past the red tape

Love this quote, but struggling to look the book up. Do you by chance mean “The Prophet” by the same author? There’s a painting by his cousin (with the same name) called “The Prince” so I could totally see the names getting confused.

If it’s really The Prince, can you link it? I just love this quote a lot

Actually… If an animal you own/trained makes art… you did get to have the copyright to the art, until recently with these same legal developments. Now it’s less clear.

I also agree more with the other posters interpretation in general. We copyright art made by random chance emergent effects (Polluck et al.), process based art (Morris Louis et al.), performance art (so many examples… Adrian Piper comes to mind), ephemeral art, math art, and photography, as the poster says. None of those artists are fully in control of every aspect of the final project- the art makes itself, in part, in each example.

If a human uses a math equation for the geometric output of a printer, and they tweak the variables to get the best looking output, we consider that art by law. Ai is exactly the same.

It’s funny, I find that illustrators hate ai art, but “studio” artists (for lack of a better term) usually adore it