aalleavitch

16 ms·

31.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
Check out AntsCanada on YouTube, he films tons of ants behavior that is really fascinating to watch.
32.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
If you feel like it shouldn't be this hard, it's because there's a massive force pushing against you. Our situation isn't an accident; the status quo actively seeks to maintain itself, and incentives become structured in
33.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
I'm a huge proponent of trying to build solar microgrids in as many places as possible; a system where every small municipality has its own local solar microgrid with battery storage, each self-sufficient but patched into a much larger
34.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
We can't ignore the opportunity costs. Every cent of money and effort we put towards digging fossil fuels out of the ground is money and effort we don't spend towards developing new and better sources of renewable energy. Even if
35.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
When there's a massive profit motive for someone to lie to you about something, you approach it as if it were a lie. If it's a win I'll take it as a win, but I'm going to scrutinize it in the extreme before I go about ta
36.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
It's closely tracked when it's something that could seriously impact the ability of the operation to continue producing revenue. But what about when it's simply an environmental externality? Some contaminated water supplies c
37.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
I think my favorite part of Stand-Alone Complex by far (aside from how incredibly prescient much of it is) are the Tachikomas. I really love the idea that the first AGI we develop will necessarily have to pass through a pretty childlike lev
38.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
> There are absolutely no square circles and there are absolutely no round squares. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squircle Absolute truth exists relative to axioms. Given x, y. Even the law of identity is not metaph
39.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
I know I live a life that is driven by a need to fulfill debts that I was tricked into by a society that told me I had to go into debt to become successful. Now I have little choice in what I do but to make as much money as I can in order t
40.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
Then they're contingent on agreement and thus fail to be absolute. It is more accurate to say that truth is a negotiation.
41.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
I think disregarding the beliefs of others as brainwashing is not giving why they feel the way they do a thorough enough examination; even if they genuinely do live in a manner oppressive to their own freedoms, it's often that they acc
42.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
I've lived in the US all my life, and I've been subjected to propaganda my entire life as well. Everyone grows up in a society that tries to justify why it's the best and everything else is worse, point at a dozen good qualit
43.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
It's strange how people see everyone else's culture as brainwashing but don't stop to think about how much of their own is too.
44.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
This just once against demonstrates what Orwell really meant and America never heard, everything he painted in his dystopia was just as possible under authoritarian capitalism as it is under authoritarian communism. The American education s
45.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
I keep saying this: we don't need to be attacking the symptom, we need to be attacking the disease. Regulating what people are posting online will never get rid of the real problem, there is simply too massive of an incentive to manipu
46.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
For a really long time I've wanted to start an organization for this explicit purpose: raising awareness of disinformation and exploitative online scams and how to identify and avoid them, and teaching people positive ways to interact
47.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
Again, this isn't just some necessary aspect of human nature. This is something that very powerful people actively want to be the case, because when people behave in this manner it's easier to manipulate their behavior on a broad
48.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
If 45% of your population "ought to know better" that's not just a moral failure of a handful of people, that's a systemic problem. The solution isn't "they just need to figure it out", something very fund
49.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
Media as it stands is highly motivated by profit, it has to build a dedicated viewership, and enflamed emotions and viewpoints you already agree with sell much better than honest reporting. By far, I think the most even-handed media are thi
50.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
I don't think we really want a centralized entity deciding what is "honest, fair, and equitable". I think what we want to do is reduce the incentive for media to be dishonest.
51.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
We're never going to figure out how to rebuild trust until we can figure out how to redesign our systems of government and commerce to not reward lying and manipulation, or at least to mitigate its appeal. The problem has never been th
52.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
Science shouldn't be funded this way
53.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
The problem is that if everyone involved in this aside from Bloomberg is doing their jobs correctly, we would never know the truth either way. This is not a thing anyone involved would actually want us to know.
54.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
I could make an argument against that: The factory workers are leaving underutilized what is by far the most useful tool in the entire process, the human brain. A cottage worker has sight over the whole process and is directly empowered to
55.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
For the record, I'm not dismissing them at all, I'm putting forth a hypothesis regarding them. My "political topspin" here is informed by the study, my main point of contention regards the interpretation of the direction
56.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
> About 11% of the workers reported suicidal ideation at follow-up, while 3% of them reported moderate/severe suicidal ideation at follow-up. After controlling for age, marital status, race, family history of suicide, and suicidal i
57.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
The past is almost unanimously a worse place to live than the present, but this is due to a large number of social, political, and technological changes that have occurred over time. Part of the reason the industrial revolution improved sta
58.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
What I do have is reliable data regarding the working conditions of average people in industrializing economies, and the correlation between consumer debt, depression, and suicide: https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts&#
59.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
I won't disagree with this, I'm sure that what your grandma struggled through was difficult. I wouldn't argue for us going back to pre-industrial society. Technology can be a massive unadulterated good when it is applied corr
60.
by aalleavitch 7y ago
I don't disagree in principle with the idea that the physical aspects of/influences on depression are worth studying. I do, however, think the overall approach we are taking towards depression as a society is fundamentally backwar

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