rational_lib

@rational_lib@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A totally normal figure of cancer signaling pathways⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  “I have lung cancer? How bad is it?”
  “Well let’s just say it’s…non-small lung cancer.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon goes on a first date⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  If you’re not a normie, don’t match with hardcore normies. Usually it’s pretty easy to tell.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Behold, the peak of Twitter (formerly renamed to X)⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Really it’s the celebrities more than others. What’s really inexcusable is that so many Democratic politicians still have accounts - AOC, Bernie, the whole gang is still there.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨My favorite⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Olive Garden is Nickelback for pasta restaurants.

  Never Again

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨bird flu⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Isn’t that how these diseases are generated in the first place?

  No, livestock diseases were a problem long before vaccination. In fact it’s been hypothesized that the reason Europeans killed off Native Americans with disease instead of the other way around is that European livestock spread so much disease that it meant Europeans carried and were immune to a wide variety of diseases.

  As for why livestock diseases are so common, it’s probably due to the obvious - the cramped conditions, often in close contact with other animals. Think of the classic Chinese wet market with animals from many different places stacked in cages on top of each other with fluids flying all over. That’s the real bio weapons lab.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If investing in the S&P 500 is such a surefire way to make money, then why isn't everyone doing it?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  A large number of us CAN be millionaires.

  It’s actually technically correct that we all can be millionaires, at least on a household basis. The mean household wealth in the US was $1.06 million as of 2022, by now it’s undoubtedly higher. So with a full redistribution of wealth every household would have over $1 million.

  In reality though the median household wealth is just under $200k as of 2022, and doesn’t rise as consistently so who knows where it is now.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If investing in the S&P 500 is such a surefire way to make money, then why isn't everyone doing it?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  In my experience:

  • A lot of people do this with 401ks and such because many times there aren’t many other options.
  • People I know who are serious investors with a lot of money tend to not invest much in the S&P 500 because they think of themselves as superior investors, but I don’t know of anyone for whom this is actually true based on past performance.
  • I invest some 20% of my money in the S&P 500, which is probably not as much as I should. It’s some combination of the above hubris, which is natural, wanting to be diversified, and enjoying gambling on individual stocks.
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"Images of 'Saint Luigi Mangione, The patron saint of health care justice' have been making rounds on social media"⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Not quite, in America we always think of the sacrificed as belonging to the other tribe.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Happy birthday, peon⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  And the shoes (which are abnormally large) don’t look like any work boots I’ve ever seen, resembling trail running shoes but bigger. The laces seem to be oddly non-existent and instead the straps for lacing them appear to connect with each other.

  AI can get reflections right, just when it doesn’t it can be very creepy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Iraq War was preceded by the largest worldwide non-violent protests in history and the war happened anyway.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It was also preceded by a violent act of terrorism that made people support whatever the president wanted to do in the middle east.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Charities of Employees from "non-profit" I was going to donate too⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  If paying a CEO $200k more makes the charity $2 million more, it’s a no-brainer. Billionaires love to give to animal-related causes, so that’s easily plausible.

  In reality of course, predicting the amounts of money a CEO will bring in, so it becomes a nepo-baby-fest like everything else. People with rich connections are in high demand at pretty much every entity that has a need to raise money, so they cost a lot.

  Then of course you have the problem that in the wider scope, this reality creates an arms-race between charities for fundraising potential that diverts from the causes themselves. The only real solution to that problem is to punish charities that pay their officers too much by not giving them money.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨You don't need to answer this⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I think the message is that there’s a thin line between the hero and the villain. The villain feels the same anger and desire for justice we all do. Just add a bit of delusion, and you can turn Gandhi into Hitler, or Batman into the Joker.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Carcinisation?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  There’s two kinds of ground transportation: off-roading, and should be a train.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Causes of Death in London (1623)⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  “And in other news, the death figures were released today. Once again, the leading cause of death is: being a baby. Over the last year, 2,268 infants died naturally of babyness.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wait, my body's own heat is enough? Always has been.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Just embrace the cold and build up your brown fat which burns calories to keep you warm so you can eat pizza all day and stay skinny*.

  • Not really but sorta
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Prisoner's Trolley Problemma⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Yell to the guy on the other side that I’m going to pull the lever, so he’d better not.

  Then let it go because that both maximizes global utility and poses the lowest risk of the worst case scenario.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I am a very liberal person and I have very liberal children, except for one. I'm pretty sure my Gen Z son has been taken in by fascist doctrine. What can I get him for Christmas?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d be curious about what makes him different from the others. There’s been some research regarding fluid intelligence* vs. crystalized intelligence, where liberals tend to be more on the fluid side. It kind of makes sense because rather than trying to figure out what they can’t understand off the bat, conservatives tend to rage against it.

  As far as gifts, I dunno. Maybe a puzzle game? I don’t know what’s big in the puzzle game world now, if anything. The idea is make your son more comfortable with the idea of tackling novel problems instead of trying to cram them into an existing framework.

  *it’s called “intelligence” but I tend to think of it more like a thinking strategy. Fluid intelligence being “can I think of a way to solve this?” while crystallized intelligence is “what strategy that I’m familiar with already can solve this?”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why does it seem most people, mainly conservatives, against Trans people? Unless I am wrong I never heard of one shooting up a school church or whatever. The ones I have met have been pretty cool.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  They’re a convenient political target because it makes insecure men not want to be associated with them. Believe it or not, a similar thing happened last time Republicans won the popular vote in 2004 - back then the issue was gay marriage. Bush went hard on opposing that and it helped him win.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon questions our energy sector⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s because there’s no opposing corporate interest to building nuclear weapons. The way the world works is: profitable shit happens, no matter what the hippies think about it. See: every other environmental issue.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Habits of Insects⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The world just keeps getting more and more efficient at being dumb. Let’s just count all the appallingly stupid things crammed into this small meme with 2 million views:

  1. "Insurrection Barbie"
  2. Celebrating the defunding of useful scientific research by a new government efficiency agency
  3. This new agency is named after a cryptocurrency
  4. The cryptocurrency in question was created as a joke to satirize cryptocurrencies, but became a top prominent cryptocurrency itself.
  5. The “Department of Government Efficiency Agency” has 2 heads, both of whom have other primary jobs and were chosen in return for political support.
  6. There is also already an existing government agency that does the exact same thing, called the “Government Accountability Office”. But most people seem to be unaware of it, likely because it’s not named after a cryptocurrency/dog meme.
  7. This whole scheme was the idea of the richest person in the world.

  Idiocracy didn’t happen because of unnatural selection, it happened because social media unlocked a runaway chain reaction of stupidity.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Withdrawal is going to make people go mad⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Politically-motivated tea tax, what could go wrong?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a word, phrase, or trope for an idea that gets more popular the more it fails?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Sunk cost fallacy is definitely a subtype, but I’m going for I guess the more general concept of an idea that becomes more popular the worse it does

• Is there a word, phrase, or trope for an idea that gets more popular the more it fails?
  Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩ | ⁨27⁩ ⁨comments⁩