Biologist123

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31.
by Biologist123 1y ago
This was a great positive start to the day. Thanks whoever posted that. One point curious in its omission is whether the growth of renewables outpaces the depletion of our carbon budget. Presumably that’s the critical metric in all of this.
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by Biologist123 1y ago
I sometimes think of the internet as an alternative dimension: as mind space; it was Terra Nova and speculators rode in to grab the available real estate. But as the experience also showed us, there are maybe infinite mind spaces, and the j
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by Biologist123 1y ago
It’s a fair point, but as a thought experiment, how would you feel about AI writing the essays and simply regurgitating those? Legal but not in the spirit of things I think.
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by Biologist123 1y ago
It definitely wasn’t cheating. But I felt it was not in the spirit of the exam system which I believed - maybe wrongly - was designed to test one’s ability to write a fresh essay from scratch under timed conditions. What would you say about
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by Biologist123 1y ago
A college-friend from the Unviersity of Oxford, where students write one or two essays a week, got the top first (best mark) in his history degree. Initially impressed, one day I asked him his exam method - where each student must produce 3
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by Biologist123 1y ago
Perfect.
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by Biologist123 1y ago
Afrikaners held political power, English-descendents economic power.
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by Biologist123 1y ago
I remember Crap Towns, I loved it! And the Idler! Which had an entire section on jokes for which punchlines had been half-forgotten. Great and thoughtful reflection piece too. I’d like to add a few other ideas into the mix as for some rea
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by Biologist123 1y ago
You make the assumption that maintaining the status quo is the norm. In reality, change is the norm - sometimes slow, sometimes fast. I make this point because I strongly suspect humans become unhappy when their expectations divert from rea
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by Biologist123 1y ago
Thanks, “actively choosing” assumes we have conscious will. Whilst widespread, this belief is alas just an assumption.
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by Biologist123 1y ago
If you set up (or more likely inherit) a story that change = loss, you will also onboard a needless eco-anxiety.
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by Biologist123 1y ago
Well done in getting this up immediately. Pieces like this BBC piece are either implicit or explicit propaganda to define “nature” as a world without humans. Even the word “freakosystem”, as novel as it is, sets up an implicit good/bad
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by Biologist123 2y ago
I’m now weirdly keen to hear the answer to this. Telenovella level tension on HN.
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by Biologist123 2y ago
I can just imagine the experimental set-up…”son, what the f** are you doing”. “Chill out dad, I’m just going to blind fold you and run some electricity through this coil, and you have to tell me where New Bedford is, got it”. “I told you yo
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by Biologist123 2y ago
My old man - an old-fashioned cat by anyone’s description — can pick true north anytime, anywhere. It’s made me wonder if he has some kind of internal magnetic compass. And now, having read this, I wonder if this ‘turtle skill’ is latent in
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by Biologist123 2y ago
Wow, this news truly left me marveling at the small insignificance of my life and all those I know against the beautiful reality that fish barf will outlive all the greatest achievements of our civilization.
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by Biologist123 2y ago
You’re assuming they tailor to make money, not for the enjoyment of suit-making.
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by Biologist123 2y ago
Genuine question: what role did testosterone (added) play in Schwarzenegger’s outsized ambition?
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by Biologist123 2y ago
> Social networking platforms are among the most effective tools for mass influence, second only to religion. Religion is distributed through churches, synagogues, mosques etc, the medieval equivalent of a digital social platform. A soci
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by Biologist123 2y ago
If all the externalities were priced in, the model would certainly cease to exist. Several years ago I found a UN report saying the same about business more generally. I’ve recently tried to find it again, but it seems to have been removed.
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by Biologist123 2y ago
Fantastic example of a negative externality. Question: if the data costs were internalised, would an advertising-based revenue model be sustainable?
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by Biologist123 2y ago
I regularly use the ocean for surfing, diving and fishing and over my lifetime have seen the growing plastic pollution of our seas. I sincerely salute the efforts of this team. However, it’s also important to recognize that in a closed syst
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by Biologist123 2y ago
But hasn’t it become quite easy to deal with this issue simply by asking for the sources of the information and then validating? I quite like using the consensus app and then asking for specific academic paper references which I can then qu
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by Biologist123 2y ago
“Believe in God, but tie up your camels”.
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by Biologist123 2y ago
I’d say it’s less Freud than it is Internal Family Systems theory, which posits human personality is multiple. And we’ve somehow learned to suppress voices that we know sub-consciously to be unacceptable, maybe through socialization etc. Wr
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by Biologist123 2y ago
I sometimes wonder if the voices are suppressed in the “healthy” population, but to some extent still influential - but dangerous in that they operate out of sight. For reference: non-professional opinion.
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by Biologist123 2y ago
I’m neither an Elon fanboy nor a hater. But I do wonder both what he possesses and is possessed by to have created not just a successful company, but era-defining companies plural.
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by Biologist123 2y ago
Making money hand over fist.
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by Biologist123 2y ago
I’d speculatively propose the reverse: that a change occurred that led to our suppressing these “voices” to our subconscious, where they are still present but suppressed below the threshold of conscious awareness. Interestingly, in parts of
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by Biologist123 2y ago
Good luck with all your less profitable options: have a look at how much lobbying the sector does.

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