rjf72

34 ms·

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by rjf72 7y ago
He was executed for failing to honor gods nobody believes in anymore, and for 'corrupting the youth' with his teachings which are still studied and extremely highly regarded thousands of years after his death. It was the exact cas
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by rjf72 7y ago
Socrates and Galileo are but two of the more recognizable names on an endlessly long list. That list being made up of individuals who were correct but had their views judged by the masses, and lost. Socrates was killed, Galileo was merely i
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by rjf72 7y ago
Imagine there was a button you could push that would give every single person everything you're mentioning - a free house, free healthcare, and all the things you're not mentioning - free education, free sustenance, free childcare
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by rjf72 7y ago
The period I'm referencing with 30,000-50,000 years ago is known as the Upper Paleolithic Revolution. This is where a very large number of things happened nearly simultaneously. Homo sapien began to interbreed with various other specie
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by rjf72 7y ago
As a peer mentioned, species predates genetics. But even when you go for a genetic solution it's not clear. How would you propose this? For instance various studies using different metrics put humans and chimps at between 95% and 99% i
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by rjf72 7y ago
Looking for the monoliths? Jokes aside, probably not much. Biological classifications don't imply sameness. You don't get anatomically modern humans until 30,000-50,000 years ago. Even that doesn't tell you much about cogniti
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by rjf72 7y ago
This defense of "free" platforms is reminiscent to feudalism. In feudalism you of course did not pay rent. You simply took care of the land and in exchange your lord would provide you a small share of the produced food, a place to
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by rjf72 7y ago
No, they're not. The only 'evidence' for this is cranial size. Neanderthals had larger brain sizes than modern humans. Now let's look at all the other evidence. Neanderthals existed longer than the entire existence of hu
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by rjf72 7y ago
Epigenetics is indicating that our traditional view of genetics is probably just completely wrong, but going with that traditional view - it's not that an environment changes a species, but randomness. And traits randomly evolved that
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by rjf72 7y ago
I'm sure you'd agree that a wolf and a chihuahua are different species. Yet they can interbreed and the offspring would likely be fertile as well. Species are primarily created when two groups do not interbreed for a sufficiently
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by rjf72 7y ago
Everything you're stating is driven by wild assumptions that seem to be based on nothing except for trying to paint a pessimistic picture as possible. Everything would be contingent on a huge variety of variables - the algorithm, the
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by rjf72 7y ago
One might argue that the current system is making things much more terrible than any alternative. Software as a service makes sense for some things. But for the majority of things its now being used for, its only purpose is rent seeking. Cr
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by rjf72 7y ago
I do not know the answer for leukemia but this is another issue that was considered in the paper. If people are put off by the paywall: https://sci-hub.tw/#about
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by rjf72 7y ago
Two ways. By looking at the causes of death of those that did live to old age as well as by considering cancers (such as bone) that tend to occur disproportionately in young people.
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by rjf72 7y ago
There was an interesting study here [1]. They researched the prevalence of cancer in ancient societies using a variety of methods - remains, reporting, etc. The goal was to determine whether the relative lack of cancer in ancient societies
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by rjf72 7y ago
Consciousness is not an outward product but an inward one. We are, in large part, deterministic. Our genetics and other factors can determine an increasingly large amount about us long before we're even self aware. Yet, for whatever re
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by rjf72 7y ago
Consciousness is something separate from environmental awareness. Consciousness is what you have that lets you observe yourself carrying out the actions you are all while thinking yourself to be the one running the show, even though its ent
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by rjf72 7y ago
Of course you're correct that these also had higher, and probably much higher, mortality rates. But what matters is overall impact. Let's say that x% fewer people die in childbirth today. What would that mean? What you'd star
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by rjf72 7y ago
There was no magic longevity potion those of means had. All they had over the common class are the things we all have and take for granted today - protection from the consequences war and mostly stable access to clean food and water. The up
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by rjf72 7y ago
The BBC ran a phenomenal article here [1] detailing a wide array of data on the longevity of people through the ages. How long did higher class Ancient Greeks live? Ancient Greece dates back to starting around 3,300 years ago. In spite of t
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by rjf72 7y ago
Incognito mode is mostly useless as an actual privacy tool. You're still exposing a substantial amount of information. The most basic would be your IP. Most IPs are of course dynamic, but there are two factors here: 1) The IP only chan
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by rjf72 7y ago
You can't ignore economics here. When you raise prices, sales tend to decrease. This sounds peculiar because it seems difficult to imagine that somebody would be "Okay, I will pay $3 for my burger, but $3.30? Oh no way." But
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by rjf72 7y ago
Bloomberg ran a nice piece on what it's like to own a McDonald's franchise here [1]. The raw numbers sound nice - $2.7 million gross, $1.8 million in gross profit. But after your various expenses come into play, the honeymoon ends
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by rjf72 7y ago
If CCTVs led to a perception of safety, New York/London/Chicago would rank highly as areas people feel safe walking around at night in. Or, similarly, it would suggest that people would not feel safe walking around in areas in Kor
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by rjf72 7y ago
The Neanderthals lived hundreds of thousands of years longer than the entire existence of homo sapien . Their peak technological development was stone age, which sounds even nicer than what it is. Pound two rocks together, notice sharp pie
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by rjf72 7y ago
I think this sounds reasonable until you really consider Earth's history. We've gone through far more radical changes in environment - not only in terms of temperature shifts from ice ages to worldwide saunas but also in terms of
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by rjf72 7y ago
It's still very much something for highly qualified 'dare devils.' Around 4% of all astronauts have ended up dying 'on the job.' It's getting safer, but it's still one of the most risky jobs there is. For
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by rjf72 7y ago
One philosophical question. This action is one that's going to be controversial. You are planning on dropping 1.5 tons of rat poison on a group of islands that has extensive native wildlife and is not especially far from human inhabite
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by rjf72 7y ago
One interesting distinction is that many of the modern protections that have in many ways shaped modern society, are not protections against other people - but protections against governments themselves. This is a recurring theme in the con
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by rjf72 7y ago
I think many people do this not out of need but as a time waster that pays a bit. As the article mentions, 75% of 'Turkers' are American. The article's subject says, "I’d literally be sitting around bored half the day wi

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