health insurance != healthcare
health insurance profits only exist at the expense of human suffering.
but lets make sure everyone has insurance but not care
Yeah, there shouldn’t be health insurance, just health care. Some things are uncertain like whether you get in a car accident, or whether a weather event causes damage to your house. Health problems are not uncertain. People will all have them. Just spend the money on training and hiring doctors and nurses to treat these issues in a large enough quantity that the care is sufficient.
I thought this thread was for hot takes 😉
Is this your first time in an “unpopular opinion” thread? lol
Copyright is far too long and should only last at most 20 years.
Actually, George Washington would agree with me if he was still alive. He and the other founding fathers created the notion of copyright, which was to last 14 years. Then big corporations changed the laws in their favor.
Hot extreme opinion: copyright shouldn’t exist, and authors should be covered by other means, particularly public funding based on usage numbers and donations.
The world got essentially all classical music, the painting on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel, etc. without the need for copyright. Shakespeare’s work wasn’t protected by copyrights either. So, it’s not like amazing works of art require copyright. They’ll happen regardless. It’s more about how artists are incentivized to create and who profits.
Myers Briggs is posh astrology.
That doesn’t stop an absolute fuck ton of people believing in it. One of my friends is quite deeply into it, she’s in FB groups about it, and decides what everyone’s type is upon meeting them. According to her I only think it’s nonsense because I’ve only done the free online tests, not the proper one. She wouldn’t listen the other day when I tried to put her right about flouride in the water, either.
Sounds like the test itself isn’t the problem but how it’s used and how much people attach to the results, like with IQ tests. Neither that nor Myers-Briggs should be part of interviewing for a job either but apparently some US companies do it anyway.
No, the test itself is definitely the problem. Regardless of whether you believe a personality type test can be effective, the MBTI is particularly and provably ineffective in just about every measurable way:
It’s not reliable. It has terrible test-retest reliability. If I’m X personality type, I shouldn’t test as X type one time, and Y type the next, and Z 6 months laters.
It’s not predictive. If a personality test accurately judges someone, it should mean you now know something about someone’s behaviours, and can extrapolate that forwards and predict behavioural trends. MBTI does not.
It fundamentally doesn’t match the data. MBTI relies upon the idea that people fall neatly into binary buckets (introverted vs extroverted, thinking vs feeling, etc). But the majority of people don’t, and test with MBTI scores close to the line the test draws, following a normal distribution. So the line separating two sides of a bell curve ends up being arbitrary.
And finally, it’s pushed very hard by the Myers-Briggs foundation, and not at all by independent scientific bodies. copying straight from wikipedia:
Most of the research supporting the MBTI’s validity has been produced by the Center for Applications of Psychological Type, an organization run by the Myers–Briggs Foundation, and published in the center’s own journal, the Journal of Psychological Type (JPT),
I risk sounding very “AKSHUALLYY” here, but online tests do a huge harm to the credibility of MBTI, no wonder it gets such a bad rep when the tests are so unreliable and people nevertheless base their entire personalities on it… Originally it’s not supposed to be based on the binary choices of the 4 letters but the “cognitive functions” as defined by Carl Jung, which a lot of people will find to be just as much non-sense but with the right attitude I think they’re a useful tool to learn about ourselves and others.
It shouldn’t be taken as scientific truth but it can help you know yourself and others better, and it’s an insult to compare it to astrology because at least it’s not based on completely random things like the position of the planets when you were born. The issue is that most people only know MBTI as online tests, which are self-report and have extremely vague and stereotypical questions that can very easily be manipulated to get whatever result you want, with the worst offender being the most popular one, 16personalities, which isn’t even an actual MBTI test but a BIg 5 one (which is not to say Big 5 is bad, but it’s very misleading to map it to MBTI types). In reality to use MBTI somewhat effectively is going to take studying Carl Jung’s work, how MBTI builds on that, lots of introspection, asking people about yourself, and lots of doubting and double checking your thinking. And very importantly you have to accept that in the end this all isn’t real and just a way to conceptualize different aspects of our personalities and it’s in no way predictive, you have to let go of stereotypes, anyone can act in any way, it’s just about tendencies.
I used to think this, but I think the new posh astrology is mental disorders in general. It costs thousands of dollars to get professionally assessed, whereas MBTI is a free quiz online. Crippling anxiety, depression, OCD, panic attacks, etc., are the new ENFP
Jesus this is a bad take
Things that are scientifically provable are valid.
So you don’t think a rich person can use their money to shop around for sketchy psychologists? You don’t think it’s possible that Munchausen syndrome (something science has proved exists) could be becoming more common? Why did you even state things that are scientifically provable are valid? Duh. Things that aren’t scientifically disproven are also invalid, in case anyone else wanted another useless reminder to up vote.
You seem very upset about this. I doubt this will help since it doesn’t seem like your reasoning is influenced by logic, but, the fact that there are fraudulent doctors and diagnoses doesn’t mean science isn’t real.
Religions are mostly just popularized conspiracy theories. Believing in God is about as realistic as believing the world is flat.
Believing in God is about as realistic as believing the world is flat.
That is a bad comparison IMO. We have piles and piles of hard evidence the Earth is round. Saying the Earth is flat is just factually incorrect at this point.
But the existence of God. I would argue we have no hard evidence of God’s existence nor do we have hard evidence that God doesn’t exist. As far as science is concerned it is still a theory.
On top of that what makes a god a God there are multiple definitions of a God. If simulation theory is correct and we are all just in a simulation would be people outside of the simulation be our Gods? Or if an extremely advanced civilization existed would they be Gods to us? Or If we as humans advanced enough could we become Gods our self.
That is a bad comparison IMO. We have piles and piles of hard evidence the Earth is round. Saying the Earth is flat is just factually incorrect at this point.
We also have a lot of evidence that snakes can’t speak, people can’t turn plain water into wine, walk on the water and so on.
But the existence of God. I would argue we have no hard evidence of God’s existence nor do we have hard evidence that God doesn’t exist.
Claiming something which can neither be proven or disproven is what constitutes a pseudoscience. By that logic I could claim that we are in fact giant pink elefants hopping around on the moon, while imagining our reality as we currently think to perceive it. Since you can’t disprove that, I must be right. Or am I not?
As far as science is concerned it is still a theory.
No. A scientific theory can be proven or disproven, while the idea of a God, as interpreted in most religions, can not. Thereby constituting a pseudoscience. And thus, it’s not a scientific theory.
On top of that what makes a god a God there are multiple definitions of a God.
I suppose in the context of the parent comment the abrahamic God is meant, as interpreted by Christians, Jews and Muslims.
The Abrahamic religions do not have a monopoly on the concept of God. The irrationality of their particular fables, talking snakes and walking on water and all the behavioral quirks they claim God has expressed, has nothing to do with the concept itself.
Let’s say I popularized the idea that electricity is really just tiny pixies dancing around, and I came up with all manner of personality traits and stories to go along with them. Let’s say millions, billions of people embraced my pixie theory, and it mutated over time into schismatic alternatives with their own traits and stories. Do the ridiculous things now ascribed to electricity, so pervasively that most people picture little pixies when they hear the words, prove that electricity doesn’t exist?
The Abrahamic religions do not have a monopoly on the concept of God.
Yes. I just made few examples on popular concepts. And I can make similar examples for a lot of other concepts. However, to discuss this further, we need some clear definitions.
Do the ridiculous things now ascribed to electricity […] prove that electricity doesn’t exist?
This is a form or erroneous attribution. It reminds me of the luminiferous aether of which physicists thought for a long time that it exists until it was disproven. This is a testable hypothesis. Your pixies might even be testable to a certain degree. But beyond a certain point they aren’t. Therefore being in the realm of pseudoscience again.
If we observe electricity, of course elctricity exists. But if we don’t know its cause, it’s important to investigate it. We have to investigate cause and effect instead of just assuming that a higher power plays a role. That’s our only way to gain knowledge and separate fantasy from reality.
And currently, religions with their concepts of deities reside in the realm of fantasy.
Good, you’ve got the gist: a ridiculous claim centered in an observable phenomenon does not invalidate that phenomenon.
Now replace electricity with consciousness, subjective experience itself. We observe consciousness, we are consciousness, of course it exists. It is important to investigate the cause, determine the nature of the phenomenon and consider seriously the possible explanations.
By a due investigation, and serious and rational consideration, what possible explanations do you find for consciousness?
“An emergent phenomenon of the way our biological hardware works” is one possible, entirely rational and most importantly sufficient answer. And even if we did not have an answer, that doesn’t mean that there is not an entirely materialistic explanation for the phenomenon, even if we didn’t find the answer yet.
Because we have hundreds of thousands of examples of previously unexplained phenomena being sufficiently and completely explained by purely naturalistic, materialistic causes.
On the other hand we have exactly zero previous examples of a phenomenon being sufficiently explained by anything supernatural.
Since we observe consciousness solely bound to the existence of, reliant on the configuration of and changeable through the change of physical properties of physical matter, we can conclude that it is an emergent property that has arisen like other properties emergent from biological matter through the well known, well defined and observable process of evolution.
Could there be an alternative explanation? Yes!
Is the god-hypothesis in any way an explanation for consciousness? No! In fact it would raise more questions. It is neither sufficient, nor rational. What it is, is a god-of-the-gaps argument, another turtle on the way down.
we can conclude that it is an emergent property that has arisen like other properties emergent from biological matter
Examples?
We also have a lot of evidence that snakes can’t speak, people can’t turn plain water into wine, walk on the water and so on.
If I am remembering my stories correctly the snake wasn’t a normal snake but more of a representation of Satan. And I think god turned the water into wine and walked on water. We aren’t talking about an average person. Neither Satan nor God is around to let us do some experiments on.
Claiming something which can neither be proven or disproven is what constitutes a pseudoscience. By that logic I could claim that we are in fact giant pink elefants hopping around on the moon, while imagining our reality as we currently think to perceive it. Since you can’t disprove that, I must be right. Or am I not?
Yeah fair enough but my point still stands that comparison between god and flat earth is still a bad comparison. Considering the Earth is here right now, and we can experiment on it.
But it’s not about that for many people. For many people, being religious is more about finding strength and peace in that kind of guided spirituality
The same thing can be said about most conspiracy theories. People want to believe in aliens because then we aren’t alone and they feel more comfortable, for example. The biggest issue I have is it leads them to do things that are un-helpful for the rest of humanity.
But c’mon… There ARE aliens. Just maybe not here necessarily. But somewhere, there are 100% aliens.
Probably true, but we all know what we’re talking about here…
And explaining what happens when you die. Which by its very definition nobody alive can know
Of course we can. We have means to observe the dying process. There is already a lot of scientific knowledge on that topic.
Hahaha no absolutely not
How come that you refuse this so confidently?
Here just a few works from that wide field:
- Enhanced Interplay of Neuronal Coherence and Coupling in the Dying Human Brain
- AWARE—AWAreness during REsuscitation—A prospective study
- Neurochemical models of near-death experiences: A large-scale study based on the semantic similarity of written reports
- Surge of neurophysiological coupling and connectivity of gamma oscillations in the dying human brain
- Surges of Electroencephalogram Activity at the Time of Death: A Case Series
- Time to loss of brain function and activity during circulatory arrest
None of those explain what happens when you die, are you mad? Wtf?
From the outside, yes. We don’t have anything information about the post-death experience.
Because there is no “experience” after death. You just start to rot.
And what scientific evidence has there ever been suggesting that this is the case? We can’t even scientifically evaluate whether another living being has any conscious experience.
False peace through a false god
Believe is a powerful thing I would ague even if what you belief is wrong if that belief brings you peace it is not a false peace.
I agree with the first sentence, seriously disagree with the second. The shape of the Earth is a testable hypothesis, we have the technology to just go look.
As you go down the rabbit hole of consciousness and existence itself, with a purely rational and materialist mindset, the most reasonable and conservative hypotheses approach the descriptions of deity. Certainly the more specific claims of various religions are as you described, conspiracy theories, but the entire concept? Wholesale dismissal of the generalized God hypothesis strikes me as evidence of rationality applied incompletely, arbitrarily cut short.
Here’s one of them there conspiracy theorists I was talking about.
What a superb example of hypocrisy. Bro agrees with you, explains, however, that scientifically speaking your analogy is incorrect, and then you proceed to go against precisely the science you were idolizing earlier.
I am an atheist. My mother is Catholic. She is Catholic, because sometimes she needs mental comfort. Religion can be very therapeutic, a community and someone/-thing to prey to are things that comfort most humans. Note, my mother does not believe what it says in the Bible word-for-word, she believes in metaphors. Don’t be a jack-ass to these people, they have not harmed you. Be a jack-ass to the people who start spouting entitled crap and try to murder people.
His believe that science points towards a diety is of conspiracy level bullshit to me sure maybe there is some chance but its not overwhelmingly true. If there is a god it likely does not follow the fables written in any religious text.
It’s an opinion he has based on no or misguided facts just like many conspiracy theories. Yes there is a key difference in that you can disprove that the earth is flat but there are other conspiracies that are not easily disproven similar to how it’s hard to disprove the existence of a god, I put them into the same box, they and I am assuming you don’t put them in the same box. Sure I could have probably made a larger explanation but I was probably busy in the moment or otherwise didn’t feel like it.
Conscience is not limited to Humans, Humans are not special. Why would that ever point to there being a god?
Here’s one of those who arbitrarily stops using rationality I was talking about. What is consciousness made of?
Nuerons, and the small electrical signals that pass between them. Also religion and there being a god are two different things. The Bible can be easily disproven just like flat earth.
Notice the top comment compared belief in god specifically to flat earth theory, hence the structure of my response.
As to your hypothesis, I didn’t ask about brain activity, I asked about consciousness itself, the subjective experience. It’s still very much an open question.
Oh yeah I forgot the good old adage that everything that can’t be clearly explained must be a God’s work.
People are crazy when they promote closed-source AI (okay, okay, generative model) projects like ChatGPT, Bard etc.
This is literally one of the most important technologies of the future, and after all the times technology companies screwed them (us) up big time and monopolized the Internet, they go into the same trap again and again.
First they surrendered the free Internet, now they surrender the new frontiers.
Wake up, people. Go HuggingFace, advocate for free AI, and ideally - for a GPL one. We cannot afford for this part of our future to be taken away from us.
I pointedly avoid ChatGPT for that reason. When the NovelAI leak happened, it was amazing, and the open ecosystem flourished in response. I just can’t believe they call themselves OpenAi.
Ah, that name was left from when they’ve been open-source, which us why I advocate for the emergence of GPL-licensed projects.
The open-source license for GPT model was very relaxed, which OpenAI took advantage of and, once it could afford their own programmer staff, closed the code with all the contributions all the programmers from all over the world have made.
It’s an extremely dick move, and it was repeated by Google, too.
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I don’t use the current AI, specifically because it isn’t open source. Could I audit the code of an open source AI? Certainly not; it’s way over my head. However there would be an opportunity for experts to examine the source and report their findings. Currently? Black box, so no thanks.
There are so many projects that could become possible through novel use of an open source AI (or whatever it should actually be called).
Judging by the seemingly exponential improvements and integration, opinions such as ours are a grain of sand in Death Valley.
Pitbulls are not more genetically predisposed towards biting or mauling than other breeds and the supposed “statistical data” on the subject is based around a confluence of inaccurate metrics caused by 1) people not being very good at accurately identifying dog breeds, 2) existing groups that hate pitbulls pushing bad statistics for political purposes, and 3) a self-fulfilling prophecy of pitbulls having a bad reputation and actively being sought out by people who want vicious dogs and who will treat their dogs in such a way as to encourage that behavior. And I say all of this as someone who does not own a pitbull and probably never will.
I know a lot of it is from what people did. When I was a kid in the late 80s/early 90s, we lived in a town which had many illegal dog fighters in it. They mostly chose pitbulls but not solely. We ended up saving one puppy from them and he was some sort of mastiff mix.
One of their pitbulls escaped once. I opened my door and it came running from out of nowhere, snatched my cat from beside me and shook her to death in front of me. It was so terrible.
They would do the worst things to these dogs. They would beat them, use food against them and for a long time it was even really popular to feed them gun powder to make them more aggressive. They would condition their dogs in any way they could to make them good fighters and as aggressive as possible.
Pitbulls have a lot of sharp teeth and sturdy, muscular bodies, so they never had a chance with these assholes.
The dog breed I’ve personally seen get out of line as a pet and bite people the most is the German Shepard. That’s just my experience. Either way I believe that dogs are like people. They can have genetic tendencies but their environment will have the largest influence on them most of the time. I’ve never met an aggressive pitbull outside of those terrible dog fighter’s dogs.
Mate, have you seen the statistics?
https://topdogtips.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/US-Statistics-on-Dog-Bites_2-scaled.jpg
You’re saying that in 90% of cases the wrong dog breed was identified?
Omg thank you! The old place, you would’ve been downvoted 200 times and gotten death threats for saying this.
I did say this in the old place and people got PISSED.
I’ll bet they accused you of being an irresponsible pitbull owner and mockingly said some shit like “oh my little sweetie wouldn’t hurt a fly!”
Indeed they did.
Me too. Every. Fucking. Time.
The meanest, most dangerous dog I knew was an american eskimo owned by my ex wife. This was a 20 pound fluffball, and he looked like he would be friendly and fun to scratch behind the ears.
He loved to bite people, especially children. He had a specific thing he would do when someone looked at him: he would look up and smile, while vigorously wagging his poofy tail. You’d reach down to pet that brilliant white, angel-soft fur, and as soon as you were close enough, he would take a chunk out of your hand or arm. This wasn’t a playful bite, he would bite down hard and hang on.
So I think your 3rd point is highly likely, but I do disagree about the genetic predisposition. If it can’t be genetically influenced then goldens are not more friendly than others, and smart dogs (poodles, Australian shepherd, etc.) are not actually smarter; they all have the same genetic predisposition.
Having an aggressive breed is possible, but as I said earlier I think the 3rd point pushes up the numbers of maulings quite a bit. I’d add a 4th point of a lot of people being real shit dog owners and not knowing how to properly raise a dog to be socially capable without harming others.
Science suggests this is not actually the case and that environment has a much larger impact on animal behavior than almost any factor: https://www.science.org/content/article/your-dog-s-breed-doesn-t-determine-its-personality-study-suggests
The problem is that terriers are very susceptible to Kushings disease, which can lead to very irratic behavior. That’s manageable when it’s a 20lb Boston Terrier, but horrifying when it’s a 60 lb terrier of any type.
Pit bulls aren’t genetically predisposed to attacking things, but when they do attack things, they’re genetically predisposed to doing a lot more damage than most other breeds. Gameness is a thing.
On a tangent, I’ve seen many pitbulls breathing heavily. Is this normal for these dogs? Are other dogs races like this?
What? Ours does snore. I never related it to her phenotype (she is a mutt but very pit looking). I agree she doesn’t seem bred for aggression and she isn’t high strung, reasonably relaxed and gentle with the cats, playful and rough with the other dog (they are both pretty young). But she is freakishly strong. Smaller than our other dog but weighs the same, it’s like she is a black hole.
TikTok and YouTube shorts are brain-rotting garbage, and if you use them regularly you need to stop now. Yes, even if you claim you only watch educational stuff.
Also giving a child under the age of 8 or 9 a personal internet-connected device should be seen on a similar level as neglect if not full-on abuse.
Any comment that gets more than one upvote fails the subject.
I gave your comment its second upvote.
I disagree. Lemmy is a very small group of individuals and these type of threads are going to have similar minded people finding eachother. In the grand scheme of things we are next to nothing in scale of the billions of people on this planet.
Upvotes ideally don’t equate to agreement though.
Teachers should be paid 50% more. If you want good teachers to stay, you have to walk the walk, otherwise you’ll get a perpetual cycle of overwhelmed grads being bossed around by rusted-on bottom teer heads.
That is hardly an unpopular opinion.
If I can interject - I don’t think the OP is showing an unpopular opinion. The people they’re talking to aren’t mad. It looks to me like an opinion whose wisdom isn’t generally accepted - and there’s a difference.
Unpopular opinion: pedophilia is a mental disorder; child rape (including “statutory” rape) is an act of violence, cruelty, and power - or, in arguably the worst case, crimes of opportunity. Not all child rapists are pedophiles and not all pedophiles are child rapists. Pedophiles should be treated; child rapists should be imprisoned forever. (Those that are in the overlap can be treated in prison.)
This opinion is (I think) probably true, but if you go around talking about it, you will be unpopular.
Unaccepted opinion: well, there are a lot of them here, but this one - about teachers - could be tweaked into one: the only way we are going to see changes that would actually benefit our society and country, the things the news and politicians say are “luxury expenses” - aka health care, teachers’ salaries, rent and real estate regulation, etc - is with a general strike. The propaganda and gaslighting and victim blaming are so deeply entrenched that they have become the most profitable sectors of our economy.
This opinion is - again, in my opinion - probably true, and there are a lot of people who agree - but not enough. If the crowd in that picture represents a country of 350 million, then that one person represents maybe 0.5-1 million people? Which is way more than the supporters of a general strike.
Why did I say all that? Mostly because I’m bored - but I think it’s a neat distinction to make.
Piracy equals culture preservation in an age of subscription services.
I suppose all the people standing in front of you are record label executives then
No of course not.
I still pay for things I can actually own, however subscription services routinely change, limit or simple remove items that you supposedly bought.
People overlook vegetarianism and semi-vegetarian lifestyles as an option too much and it is not helpful that real life examples of vegetarian cultures, get co-opted by Vegans purists as “Vegan cultures” in easily disproven claims- thus hurting the whole movement
I’ve never been closer to vegan than I am now. And I love meat and animal products and have long given up on the illusion of any ethical consumption in capitalism. It just turns out meat is way overpriced and you can make some tasty meals for cheap without meat and most animal products.
I’m a vegetarian just because it’s the cheapest option. Meat is absurd in prices while going fully vegan, where I live, isn’t feasible either.
So I live off a mostly vegetarian diet. It’s not even for ethical reasons. It’s literally a “I want to save money” motivation.
Yeah the only animal I’m tryna save is me. Shits insane rn.
It’s pretty nuts what they’re asking for meat. I don’t do the major shopping in the family but last time I went to get some ground beef… holy sweet baby cheez wiz. I could swear it the price had doubled since the last time I looked (which was probably pre covid).
There are so many great vegetarian recipes out there. Like, I mean, original things that were designed without meat in mind from the start not fake meat stuff like those vegetarian ribs I made one time. shudders
You absolutely can’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
To be honest, I could see myself as a vegetarian. I can still eat eggs, have mayo, and most importantly, eat cheese. Also with vegans, they don’t just abstain from eating animals, they also abstain from consuming animal products, and using them in general meaning that not only are you giving up on eggs and cheese, but also leather boots and jackets etc. That’s too much. We are omnivores. Our ancestors survived on the scraps left by lions and other predators. Our only way to keep warm was leather skins. We could survive on berries and fungi, but we couldn’t keep warm with fire only. Anyways, I’m taking this a bit too far, but my point is, I’m supportive of vegetarians, but not of vegans.
I’ve had debates with vegans on something similar:
I’m not vegan, I’ll never be vegan. That’s a complete non-starter for me.What I have done is reduce my meat intake from 2/sometimes 3 meals a day to 1 meal per day - occasionally (less than once per month) two. Once Lab-grown meat is a viable alternative on cost/taste/texture, I’ll be all over that. I still won’t be vegan. Even if I reach a point where no animals are harmed from my diet.
I believe it is far easier to convince 1 Million people to do this than it would be to convert 100,000 people to full veganism. A Million people doing this would save Billions more animals per year than 100,000 vegan conversions and maybe even in itself convert a few of those people to full veganism along the way.
They’re never interested. It’s all or nothing. Black or white. Vegan or Animal killer. They usually have issues with lab grown meat, as well.
It’s as though they’re a member of an elite club and membership is more important than actually saving animals.
I mean, most vegans would still commend your effort to reduce animal product consumption.
But from a moral standpoint, simply eating less animal products really doesn’t have much value. Imagine using your argument for other moral dilemmas.
“Racism is wrong, so I reduced the amount of racial slurs I use to only 1/3”
“Rape is wrong, so I only rape on Mondays now” (in reference to meatless Mondays)I hate to be so militant about it, but you either think animal abuse is acceptable or you don’t.
Now, what I do think could be a moral standpoint, if you really want to still be able to eat meat, is to only eat “humane” meat. I put “humane” in quotes because even farmers with the best intentions are still killing animals young. I don’t personally believe any animal product can be humane, but even then I can recognize that any animal that was raised on a pasture and ate real food is more ethical to eat than one in a factory.
So if you genuinely only ate pasture raised beef and chicken (and you were sure about it), then I would say that is quite honorable.
But from a moral standpoint, simply eating less animal products really doesn’t have much value. Imagine using your argument for other moral dilemmas.
Ahh yeah about that: My reasons are not what you’re calling “moral”. We are naturally omnivores. We’ve been omnivorous since before we came down from the trees. Probably since before we left the water. I don’t have a problem eating meat. I think a vegan diet is unnatural for us, though I have no issues with anyone who chooses that lifestyle.
My reasons are from a sustainability/environmental position. Our present consumption levels already put a strain on the planet, and we sure couldn’t sustain it if everyone on the planet ate meat three meaty meals a day. This is another reason I’m all about that lab grown meat.
You don’t need to get married or have kids to have a happy and fulfilling life
What we’re currently calling AI isn’t AI but just a language processing system that takes its best guess at a response from it’s database of information they pilfered from the internet like a more sophisticated Google.
It can’t really think for itself and it’s answers can be completely wrong. There’s nothing intelligent about it.
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This whole open AI has Artificial General Intelligence but they’re keeping it secret! is like saying Microsoft had Chat GPT 20 years ago with Clippy.
Humans don’t even know what intelligence is, the thing we invented to try to measure who’s got the best brains - we literally don’t even have scientific definition of the word, much less the ability to test it - so we definitely can’t program it. We are a veeeeerry long way from even understanding how thoughts and memories work; and the thing we’re calling “general intelligence” ? We have no fucking idea what that even means; there’s no way a bunch of computer scientists can feed enough Internet to a ML algorithm to “invent” it. (No shade, those peepos are smart - but understanding wtf intelligence is isn’t going to come from them.)
One caveat tho: while I don’t think we’re close to AGI, I do think we’re very close to being able to fake it. Going from Chat GPT to something that we can pretend is actual AI is really just a matter of whether we, as humans, are willing to believe it.
Copyright should have stayed the original initial 14 years with possible renewal to 28 years. But like in France back then, also include the original authors (last one alive, if several) lifespan. Hence, a copyright would last either the authors lifespans or 28 years, whichever is longer.
Moreover, the patent system is being abused and does not serve the original goal of “any useful art, manufacture, engine, machine, or device, or any improvement there on not before known or used.” It granted the applicant the “sole and exclusive right and liberty of making, constructing, using and vending to others to be used” of his invention.. It needs major changes, including the requirement to have the “invention” be under examination by reputable third-party laboratories (such as Intertek, SGI, Underwriters Laboratories, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Technischer Überwachungsverein, SGS - Société Générale de Surveillance, etc…) before being granted a patent. Nowadays, patents are given almost willy-nilly to anyone no matter how vague or obvious the supposed invention.
Nowadays, patents are being misused in Patent Ambush mechanisms and scenarios, meanwhile Patent Trolls and Hoarders whole existence is are to impede/obstruct legally and impose exorbitant levies/fees onto organization and companies actually innovating and developing useful art/process/devices. Even more incredible, there are Submarine Patents being hidden away to suddenly take hostage existing products and process of various companies by imposing extortionate royalties.
We learn and teach inferior personal computing practice, and most people don’t realize how much they are missing.
The vast majority of people outside of enthusiast circles have absolutely no idea what a personal computer is, how it works, what is an operating system, what it does, and how it is supposed to be used. Instead of teaching about shells, sessions, environments, file systems, protocols, standards and Unix philosophy (things that actually make our digital world spin) we teach narrow systems of proprietary walled gardens.
This makes powerful personal computing seem mysterious and intimidating to regular people, so they keep opting out of open infrastructures, preferring everything to come pre-made and pre-configured for them by an exploitative corporation. This lack of education is precisely what makes us so vulnerable to tech hype cycles, software and hardware obsolescence, or just plain shitty products that would have no right to exist in a better world.
This blindness and apathy makes our computing more inaccessible and less sustainable, and it makes us crave things that don’t actually deserve our collective attention.
And the most frustrating thing is: proper personal computing is actually not that hard, and it has never been more easy to get into, but no one cares, because getting milked for data is just too convenient for most adults.
Completely agree. Now my hot take for this thread:
If governments some time in the 90s had decided from the start to ban computer hardware from being sold with pre-installed software then we wouldn’t have this problem. If everyone had to install their own operating system from scratch, which like you say isn’t hard if it’s taught, it would have killed the mystery around computing and people would feel ownership over their computers and computing.
How to learn this? The way it’s taught is so people don’t know they don’t know. What are good starting resources?
I am not a professional educator, but in general I think it is worth to start with basic computer literacy: identifying parts of a PC, being able to explain their overall functions, difference between hardware and software, and what kinds of software a computer can run (firmwares, operating systems, user utilities etc.). This would also be a perfect time to develop practical skills, e.g. (assuming you are a normatively-abled person) learning to touch-type and perform basic electronics maintenance, like opening your machine up to clean it and replace old thermal compounds.
After that taking something like “Operating systems fundamentals” on Coursera would be a great way to go on.
It really depends on your goals, resources and personal traits, as well as how much time and energy you can spare, and how do you like to learn. You can sacrifice and old machine, boot Ubuntu and break it a bunch of times. You can learn how to use virtualization and try a new thing every evening. You can get into ricing and redesign your entire OS GUI to your liking. You can get a single-board computer like RaspberryPi and try out home automation.
