Amezarak

69 ms·

691.
by Amezarak 3y ago
You don’t. You just need dark skies. Careful observers with good eyes see much more than 7. It's also worth mentioning that, as I alluded to in another comment, myopia is much more common than it was pre-industrially, and it's sti
692.
by Amezarak 3y ago
I am the last person to promote historical criticism over oral and written traditions, but the case is much weaker than what people who repeat this suggest. 1. There's a lot of stars, and they were very important to most every ancient
693.
by Amezarak 3y ago
Considering all Seven Sisters are visible to people with good vision in sufficiently remote areas of Australia today, I don't know how one can draw any conclusions about how old the story is. Indeed, with sufficiently good conditions a
694.
by Amezarak 3y ago
Yes, nearsightedness is much worse in modern times. Many less people needed corrective lenses, even as they got older.
695.
by Amezarak 3y ago
Although I like the idea, there's no reason to posit the preservation of the myth of a lost star for tens of thousands of years. People can still see all Seven Sisters under the right conditions, and the right conditions were probably
696.
by Amezarak 3y ago
Potatoes themselves came from South America, so I don't know if that should really count.
697.
by Amezarak 3y ago
> My 2018 Model S has 110k miles on it, mostly Supercharged, with no maintenance except tires and washer fluid. I drive it like I stole it, not a garage queen. Similar reliability from our X and two more recent Ys. Is there any mass-mark
698.
by Amezarak 3y ago
> There's something called information warfare, which basically means manipulating public discourse to further one's political goals. Russia is notoriously good at it, for example. West sucks at it (it has Hollywood at least).
699.
by Amezarak 3y ago
This is certainly where the modern religious justification comes from, but it was commonly prohibited except in extreme cases or for adultery among many peoples before Christianity: the early Roman Republic/kingdom, among ancient Germa
700.
by Amezarak 3y ago
> no tax consequences for pooling earnings or for who pays the bills each month I'm not aware of any tax consequences for splitting bills, or for one person paying bills while the other doesn't, or for any such scheme. I'm
701.
by Amezarak 3y ago
IS there some reason to believe you wouldn't have the exact same problem in a pre-Covid world where people are being regularly exposed to colds, flus, RSV, and every other respiratory virus on a constant basis in their 20s and 30s? Why
702.
by Amezarak 3y ago
The article mentions overdoses. They don't explain the difference. > To some extent, we know what is killing the young, with an actuarial analysis of government data showing mortality increases in liver, kidney and cardiovascular di
703.
by Amezarak 3y ago
That doesn't mean they can't become less effective from Covid. The article mentions that deaths among the elderly are below pre-pandemic levels, which suggests that any such immune weakening is not the reason for excess deaths
704.
by Amezarak 3y ago
If Covid immunosuppression is the problem, then why are young people (per the article) a disproportionate share of the excess deaths? > Unlike in the pandemic’s early phase, these deaths are not primarily among the old. For people 65 and
705.
by Amezarak 3y ago
> Also, the model doesn't take account technological progress or mining resources from solar system etc. Technological progress is not a given or inevitability. There are real physical and material constraints affecting technologica
706.
by Amezarak 3y ago
> there's a real (10%+?) chance of total environmental collapse in our lifetimes I suppose I could be described as a doomer too, but I think this understates the issue. Even if we got carbon emissions to zero today, we're facin
707.
by Amezarak 3y ago
Reporters are very good at sweet-talking you into an interview or statement and then publishing a hit piece. For people who don’t work in PR and are associated with anything even remotely controversial it is usually better to not talk. I le
708.
by Amezarak 3y ago
Yes, but GP was suggesting it was just exercising editorial control over what they put out themselves.
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by Amezarak 3y ago
> Yeah that's the thing, if it can be done it will be done. In a way I think it's better to be us then. This isn't true at all, but it is at least a common trope among technologists. There's lot of things we don'
710.
by Amezarak 3y ago
> How is this different from, say, a newspaper with an editorial board, or a book publishing house with a particular set of standards and conventions? For that matter, how is this different from dang enforcing the rules of this board? I
711.
by Amezarak 3y ago
"AI safety" is completely bogus. There are people who genuinely believe in a singularity-type AI that would have the potential to wipe out humanity. I personally don't think strong GAI is possible, or at least it's not l
712.
by Amezarak 3y ago
Tolkien actually wrote a lot on this sort of stuff, you can find it in the Nature of Middle Earth. Elven marriages are, however, lifelong. Even the death of a spouse did not permit remarriage, except in on very exceptional case. FWIW, Elven
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by Amezarak 3y ago
Elves do Fade and become disembodied spirits haunting remote places, maybe even to this day, according to Tolkien. Manipulating those spirits was the main reason Sauron was called the Necromancer. It’s just a natural process that has nothin
714.
by Amezarak 3y ago
> ’m pretty sure Elves heal, perhaps even regrow limbs, otherwise just random accidents and war wounds would leave a lot of crippled, blind Elves, but Tolkien seems to they all look youthful, clear skin, no obvious wounds. Tolkien and Pe
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by Amezarak 3y ago
Elves "fade" because they live so long their spirits gradually "wear out" their bodies due to the fallen nature of the material world (thanks to Morgoth), which the power of the Valar can repair - the Valar also literall
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Vowels and Diphthongs in Sperm Whales(osf.io)
2 points by Amezarak 3y ago|0 comments
717.
by Amezarak 3y ago
There is another way: make your browser THE browser for power users. Add crazy features that appeal to 0.1% of the userbase. Allow a free extension system that allows developers to come up with features you haven't even imagined and se
718.
by Amezarak 3y ago
Sure. Prosperity gospel is a minority belief even among Pentecostals and other charismatic groups. “Charismatic”, as your article mentions, simply refers to the belief in very free distribution of the specific “charisma”/gifts of the H
719.
by Amezarak 3y ago
Prosperity gospel is a fringe belief, even among evangelicals. It's definitely real, but the amount of attention it gets on the Internet is disproportionate to its real-world influence. From Wikipedia: > Mainstream evangelicalism ha
720.
by Amezarak 3y ago
> the Greek word he uses for the receiving partner is specifically the word for an underage male slave kept for sexual purposes, I've seen this making the rounds on TikTok and it is absolutely untrue. What I find unsettling about th

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