Carrolade

@Carrolade@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is the evolutionary benefit of loving a pet so much you melt into a puddle when they are around?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Certainly. But we still cannot say that should mean every beneficial mutation for their lives was likely to be adopted. Like I said earlier, the majority of possibly good things are left on the table, even when drawbacks are not considered.

  Including drawbacks muddies it up even further, we can look at how cardiovascular shock occurs and how the particular traits that create it were a bit of a double edged sword.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is the evolutionary benefit of loving a pet so much you melt into a puddle when they are around?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  But what is the likelihood of this autonomous stress relieving function arising, how many mutations would be required to implement such a thing? Would it have any significant drawbacks or side effects in other aspects of our biology?

  You can’t look only at the propagation side of things.

  Another thing, stress isn’t event based per se. It’s more of a floating value that always exists to a certain degree and provides both positive and negative effects at different levels and in different situations. The negative health impacts come in when it remains high for a long period of time. So what we’d really want to look at is something like the frequency of headpats given to your dog or something, and the effects of this compared to other potential stress relieving activities like meditation.

  Lastly, I would check your data on pet availability, I think it’d be far, far higher than 10%.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is the evolutionary benefit of loving a pet so much you melt into a puddle when they are around?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Negative health outcomes are an evolutionary pressure.

  Also, evolution does not work from a plan, we do not spontaneously generate all the things that would benefit us over a long enough timeframe. Instead, random things happen and certain ones propagate while others don’t. Because it is not a conscious force operating from any sort of plan, and instead works via random mutation and propagation of beneficial traits, it leaves a whole bunch of potentially beneficial things unadopted.

  Otherwise all life would just move towards some sort of optimal form, maybe crabs, instead of evolving greater and greater diversity that can better handle changing environments.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is the evolutionary benefit of loving a pet so much you melt into a puddle when they are around?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  One I can think of would be stress relief. Stress contributes to a lot of negative health outcomes, and cuddling with a pet can help mitigate some of that stress. Wouldn’t surprise me if amount of stress also has a more general effect on overall decisionmaking.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Firefighter With O.C.D. and the Vaccine He Believed Would Kill Him⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I feel like the worst thing about severe OCD would be, not just the disruption that comes from all severe mental disorders, but the banality of it.

  Like this guy said, he wasted his life … by cleaning stuff. It’s basically Sisyphean, being condemned to spend your life in labor that you cannot actually ever finish, benefit from or retire from. To me that’s in its own tier along with things like severe agoraphobia. You’re basically healthy, except for this one paralyzing fear that makes you just watch other people and long for something you can’t have. But you appear healthy to everyone else, you’re not hallucinating or spouting the craziest shit, but inside you may as well be.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Did the western world just suddenly go back to pretending wrestling is "real" for some reason?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, that’s kinda silly. I can see an argument that WWE wrestlers are athletes, no problems there. But they don’t actually perform in any sort of athletic competition, which makes thinking of it as a “sport” a little weird. If WWE is a sport, then so is ballet.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How majestic⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Those are clearly whiskers. gtfo.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is Baldurs Gate 3's voice acting so great that it ruined other games for me?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Agreed. Great voice acting is one thing. Quality voicing a cast that gigantic is another. I first noticed with that frog in the hag’s area. You don’t even get it if you don’t cast speak with animals and talk to this random frog hopping around, but if you bother to, you get this short, amazingly acted dialogue.

  The attention to detail is just off the charts.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is this possibly a jealousy thing?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Bullies get positive feelings for themselves by making others suffer. Who they target with this isn’t too different from how a predator selects prey–choose the vulnerable.

  Your sister, for one reason or another, is vulnerable, meaning the bully is less likely to suffer any consequences for picking on her than if they picked on someone else. That “someone else” could have more friends willing to stick up for them and fight back, they could have a really sharp wit and be able to verbally humiliate the bully if they wanted, they could be huge and practice MMA, being able to physically knock all her teeth out with one swing, they could be a teacher’s favorite and able to go to an authority figure to get backup and inflict consequences that way. All sorts of possibilities.

  But one way or another, your sister has been selected due to having fewer plausible defenses than any of the potential alternatives.

  Best way to resolve that is to bolster her defenses in some way or another, so the bully picks a different, more vulnerable target. Making the bully actually stop bullying everyone isn’t very likely, though. As someone else pointed out, the bully is most likely suffering a lot themselves, and participating in bullying is how they themselves are surviving their own difficult circumstances. The easiest fix would probably be the “sharp wit” route, as verbally tearing into someone in a humorous way is a learnable skill. Otherwise a physical intimidation route, where your sister or another makes them afraid for their teeth remaining in their mouth if the bullying continues.

  To answer your direct question, yes, jealously could be a part of it. There isn’t much use in wondering about it, though, there’s no real solutions to be found down this line of thinking, that I’m aware of.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How would world politics be like if the top 100 countries (in terms of military strength) all had their own nuclear arsenals?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, I think people need to recognize that this arms Kuwait, Tunisia, Lithuania, Oman, Netherlands, Chad, Yemen, Bulgaria, Tajikistan, Rwanda and Cameroon all with nuclear weapons. (Ranks 91-100 if we just go by number of military personnel, active and reserve, an imperfect but very convenient way to measure.)

  If I’m not mistaken, two of those countries are currently involved in conflict. (Yemeni Civil War and Rwanda involved in Congo)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Opinion | It Isn’t Just Trump. America’s Whole Reputation Is Shot.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  These are not mutually exclusive preferences, they can easily coexist in a single person. I think you’re both correct, basically.

  We could even examine if simplicity vs complexity have any coding as “hard” or “soft”, if we wished. Say, a piece of equipment breaks, do I bust out technical sheets, troubleshoot what went wrong and replace a broken component, or do I whack the whole thing with a wrench? I would argue that the simpler option of intentionally failing to understand and whacking it with a wrench codes as “harder” than the alternative, due to stubbornness and unwillingness to learn/change being a component of our cultural understanding of “hard” in America.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sun God⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  My fav is just that the sun is, all by itself, 99% of the total mass of our solar system. Most of the rest of that 1% is Jupiter.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  For a conservative that’s amazing, I’d be kinda proud of him. I’d comply with his request, assuming he wants you to see a couple other doctors and not attend some conversion camp or something. I’d just frame that as getting a second/third opinion, basically, which is always a good idea anyway.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Memory Wiped⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  … really? Even we learn a fair bit about the British Empire, though I suppose Anglo-American history is somewhat intertwined, so it makes sense. We covered Magna Carta, 100 Years War, Henry VIII, then some British Empire. And the World Wars of course.

  We don’t really go over the Commonwealth nations that much, but we definitely touch on Britain quite a lot. Though we did cover Indian Independence a little bit, Gandhi and all that, if memory serves.

  Glazing over the largest empire ever created on our planet seems a little odd to me though, especially when its your own. That’d be like Greek kids not covering Alexander.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Memory Wiped⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes, it is very much an ongoing battle, that’s for sure.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Memory Wiped⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You also said it was a Hollywood production.

  I’m neutral on your overall argument, I think it’s a little frivolous. I don’t know of any way to accurately guage how effective CCP methods are, and I have no personal experience with living in China, so a comparison is impossible for me to make. Your opinion is noted, but it’s just a random opinion to me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Memory Wiped⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes, we are talking about education. You can receive education in all of these things in more advanced studies, it is available and anyone can choose it. This is because the information is not suppressed.

  I’m unfamiliar with this PR campaign you’re discussing. Is this the film you’re talking about?

  en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_for_Haditha

  If so, it’s British and you seem to have your facts incorrect. Though I do agree the DoD engages in domestic propaganda and is overly aggressive with classifying information, no question about that. This does not prevent any American from receiving an education that includes what is known of the real events, however.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Memory Wiped⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  North Dakota makes sense, that’s a fairly conservative region if I’m not mistaken. I’m from a more purple region.

  I don’t expect everything to be covered in junior high or high school, there isn’t enough time in a general US history or world history class to focus on most details. They’re not US imperialism classes, they’re generalist with a lot of material worthy of time and attention. This is what more advanced studies are for.

  This is entirely different from actively suppressing information. The information is available, even if teaching it to all teenagers is not mandatory. One thing is active suppression, another is prioritization of limited time.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Memory Wiped⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I learned about around half of that in junior high and high school. Where did you study? That has a lot to do with it, our education system is controlled at the local level by individual school boards.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Memory Wiped⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  We also had discussions on war crimes, though that wasn’t until high school.

  This was before 9/11, so the War on Terror had not happened yet. It was mainly focused on Vietnam. We did learn about some of the covert stuff, but most of it was not covered.

  I agree none of it is part of mainstream US discourse, but neither is the vast majority of the things covered in history class. This reflects American anti-intellectualism overall imo.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Memory Wiped⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It is kinda weird. We don’t have any problems talking about our historical atrocities, unless your community is really, really conservative. I first learned about the Trail of Tears in elementary school, we even took a field trip to a historical location on it. That’s some heavy shit for a little kid. We didn’t go into all the gory details, but the wide scale of the suffering and betrayal we committed was covered.

  Even into current events, American bombs falling on Gaza was a big deal.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I am in the US and its gotten very political but as pretty much a peon do I just tune the stuff out thinking its fear mongering? Or should I closely pay attention to it?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Really minor side note. I don’t think comparisons of Trump to Hitler really help that much, there’s too many differences between the two men. What I think helps much more overall is comparisons of Trump to Benito Mussolini, who he much more closely aligns with, and who predated Hitler in the interwar period as a fascist dictator. The term fascist is originally an Italian word, even.

  Mussolini comparisons capture Trump’s smallness and bumbling nature while still highlighting his ability to do great harm much more accurately. Trump is an American Mussolini.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Does the USA simply have no food safety standard at all?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Some plastics are more stable than others. That said, we are admittedly far too lackadaisical with them in general.

  To answer your direct question, we do have an FDA that does a passable job with some things, salmonella outbreaks, emergency vaccine development, stuff like that. There is probably some regulatory capture at play, though, where business interests get their people appointed into oversight roles. When a full half of our government is so vocally and rabidly pro-business, this is difficult to prevent in the long run.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Charities of Employees from "non-profit" I was going to donate too⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I never said it was fair, don’t get me wrong. How it got this way vs whether that’s a good idea or not are two totally separate topics.

  I’m not sure that most boards of directors are full of CEOs either. It is full of rich people though.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Charities of Employees from "non-profit" I was going to donate too⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The CEO does not set his own compensation. He is hired by the owners of whatever company to operate it for them. They ultimately determine the compensation.

  I agree there’s no struggle to find top candidates, that’s for sure. That’s partly because the compensation tends to be very good. The trades, which do not compensate as well as a chief executive, are struggling more. If plumbers frequently pulled CEO pay, we would not have a shortage.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Charities of Employees from "non-profit" I was going to donate too⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s not an absolute, it’s just an incentive. Talent is also an intangible, it cannot really be measured. Nor does high pay in some way guarantee you will get a talented or qualified person for your position, it just gives you better odds. It’s bait, basically, but you cannot guarantee your bait will work to attract what you want.

  I’m not sure of any evidence, I’m not an economist. I’m discussing the theory of how capitalist systems are intended to function. How well they succeed at this is very messy and muddled at best.

  Lastly, I actually disagree that our hypothetical construction person makes less because they are less talented. It’s that their skill is in lower demand. They could be extremely talented, but there are simply more of them available, so less needs to be offered to attract them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  She seems to be playing politics. Kissing his ass may be extremely distasteful and embarrassing, but it’s also a prudent move when his foreign policy is based so heavily on his own personal feelings towards another country’s leader. It’s the hand she’s dealt, so I don’t blame her for playing it this way.

  It’s a big if, but if she actually is seeking American support against encroaching Russian influence for the sake of her citizens, then I respect the decision and would offer her a bottle of mouthwash to maybe get the taste of Trump’s ass out of her mouth. I cannot imagine that tasted good.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Charities of Employees from "non-profit" I was going to donate too⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Hypothetically, if you were looking at two civil engineering jobs, and one paid 100k/yr, and another paid 200k/yr, which would you pick?

  Would it matter much if any of the construction guys doing the actually construction of your projects made 50k/yr? Are they less talented than you for that?

  It’s not so much about “talentless hacks” vs “a decent job” as trying to entice the best person you can afford.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Should South Korea launch a preemptive attack on North Korea?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  War is very seldom inevitable. We tend not to focus much attention on wars that never started, because that does not make for very engaging history content. It happens far more frequently than a war actually starting though.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Charities of Employees from "non-profit" I was going to donate too⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  No, a company definitely doesn’t have to pay their CEOs generously, and not all do. The median pay for a CEO is actually about 250k/yr.

  www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes111011.htm

  Though if we just look at CEOs from S&P 500 companies, that jumps up to 16 million. There’s going to be a lot of factors involved, from the size of the company to the cost of living in the area. A CEO in San Francisco is probably going to make a lot more than one in Milwaukee.

  It’s less propaganda and more just understanding how the capitalist system is intended to function. It applies to other jobs as well, a software engineer can make quite a wide range of pay, depending on who they work for. Then they can also get increased pay for advancing up the ranks of their organization, as promotions often involve raises.