AbouBenAdhem

@AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If you argue for a cause like affordable housing for everyone, is it necessarily hypocritical if you also own investment properties?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  If you’re arguing for a particular public policy, then generally no. If you’re arguing for social change driven by private behavior, then perhaps.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a word for the happiness in finding the exact right word?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Felicity.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do I "sabotage" my own online content to throw a wrench in AI training machines?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Ironically, the thing that most effectively poisons AI content is other AI content. (Basically, it amplifies the little idiosyncrasies that are indistinguishable from human content at low levels but become obvious when iterated.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If there's a sort of "apocalyptic" event but there are still surviving communities, will people be able to make eyeglasses again, or are people with vision issues gonna be fucked?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Just saw a YouTube documentary that reminded me of this comment—it describes how Galileo made his lenses by hand from window glass using an artillery ball as a grinder.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are eugenics bad seen?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  For one thing, the idea that there are “bad” genes stems from the outdated idea that there’s a one-to-one correspondence between genes and physical traits—but the reality is that most genes govern hundreds or thousands of traits, and most traits depend on similar numbers of genes. So bad traits usually result from the wrong combination of genes that are not bad in themselves—take sickle-cell anemia, which results from the wrong combination of genes that by themselves offer malaria resistance. (Most cases are far more convoluted than that.) If you remove the genes that cause the “bad” traits, you’re also removing the good traits they cause in other contexts.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are eugenics bad seen?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Without even looking at the human issues, the underlying idea that you can improve a species by removing its biological diversity in favor of the “best” variant is catastrophically wrong.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If there's a sort of "apocalyptic" event but there are still surviving communities, will people be able to make eyeglasses again, or are people with vision issues gonna be fucked?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You can make a rough magnifying lens by trial and error using glass and a hand grinder—not the same as prescription lenses, but for many it would be better than nothing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If suffering is good because it gives life meaning, wouldn't it follow that hurting people is good?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The original (and still valid) meaning of “to suffer” is “to tolerate”.

  Is it possible that whoever told you that “suffering is good” had that definition in mind?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Does anyone say "What ho!" anymore?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Was it ever a common exclamation, or was it specific to Bertie and Wooster?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Soup of Theseus⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Sounds like homeopathic soup.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If you had 1 dollar and 24 hours what would you do?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Give the dollar to someone who looks hungry, then go to the park and read a book.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Does the ping between your eyes and brain increase when you're tired?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  In the literal sense of the time it takes neuronal spikes to travel from your retina to your visual cortex, I doubt it.

  The more likely cause, I think, is the amount of resources your brain is devoting to the real-time modeling of your environment that those visual signals feed into, and that has to be processed before you become conscious of any changes.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's the equivalent of rose coloured glasses for always seeing something in a negative perspective?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  A jaundiced view?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Who discovered/"invented" fire?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Dont say Prometheus

  Ok—it was Προμηθεύς.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's the best way to respond to a family member who says the COVID vaccines are being used to depopulate?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Try Bayes’ theorem. Ask them to give percent likelihoods for the following:

  A. The odds that the government (or whoever) is trying to kill everyone, before taking the evidence of excess deaths into account
  B. The odds of seeing excess deaths for any possible reason, not just their conspiracy hypothesis
  C. The odds of seeing excess deaths if the conspiracy hypothesis were true.

  Then logically, the odds of the conspiracy being real given the excess deaths should be A*C/B. If you disagree on the outcome, you must disagree on one or more of the assumptions (probably A—if it’s B, you can find the objective odds by checking historical data).

  If you still disagree on the prior assumption (A), you can set aside the excess deaths argument and ask what other evidence led them to form that prior assumption. Then you can repeat the process until you either reach agreement or they’re left with an assumption with no evidence.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why does Dairy Queen sell food?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  They’ve got to do something with the cows once they’re too old to milk.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is empathy based on a financial bell curve?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think it’s more likely that you need to empathize with someone in order to be able to recognize when they’re being empathetic, and you empathize most with the middle class.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨why do some people put a space before a question mark or exclamation point?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It was the standard printed style in the US and UK from the 1860s until the early 20th century, gradually phasing out by the 1950s.

  For printers with variable spaces, it was more usual to use a thin space before the punctuation and an em space after.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Does anyone use a phone without a protective case?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I get the smallest phone available and don’t use a case because I don’t like the bulk.

  I also figure a smaller piece of glass is less likely to break when dropped, so the size is a sort of protection in itself.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Would having two hearts be better or worse for the human body?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Not absolute pressure, but pressure per unit of work (i.e., efficiency).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Would having two hearts be better or worse for the human body?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Even if they were physically separated you’d want them to pump in sync, to maximize the pressure. So having them share electrical signals is just the optimal setup for two hearts.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Would having two hearts be better or worse for the human body?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s better, which is why we already do.

  Mammals have a double circulatory system, with the left and right ventricles effectively acting as separate hearts that happen to be physically connected.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨what’s the difference between “he died” and “he’s dead”?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  And preceded by “it’s worse than that”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are the ethics behind purchasing a book from an author you don't agree with?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Do most public libraries have holocaust denial works?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are the ethics behind purchasing a book from an author you don't agree with?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Legally, you could buy a used copy if you could find one.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That depends on whether angels are bosons or fermions.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think it’s Staten Island.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Does the average person know markdown?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Most people are probably at least aware that there are contexts where you can use some basic, intuitive ASCII-based formatting (like asterisks for bullets) and it will get cleaned up to a prettier format when you post it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Pedestrians Walking on Right or Left?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think the general rule (that also applies on one-way streets, etc.) is that the pedestrian lane closest to traffic should face in the direction of oncoming traffic, so cars aren’t approaching from their blind spot.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Iceland approved the 4-day workweek in 2019: nearly 6 years later, all the predictions made have come true.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  There were fears of a drop in productivity, increased costs for businesses and difficulties in adapting to maintain service levels. However, the Icelandic experience has swept these fears under the carpet.

  I don’t think that metaphor means what they think it means.