yesman

@yesman@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do you go about evaluating sources of information for truth/credibility/etc.?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  The short answer is you don’t. Even in philosophy, a leading model of “truth” is something like “a statement is true if it’s true”. We humans are doomed to be confused and unsure.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Toxic MDPI⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Well, don’t be hasty. How much in grants does he pull in?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨In the American class warfare, there seem to be an awful lot of parallels between typical Republican voters and Uncle Tom, a negro who was exceedingly subservient to his slave masters.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Everyone assumes that Uncle Tom was a character like Sam Jackson’s Stephen from “Django Unchained” or Uncle Ruckus from “Boondocks”. The character in the book is nothing like this. In fact, Uncle Tom is an admirable character. How this man’s name became a slur is more complicated than it first appears.

  The weird part about reading “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is that its advocacy literature, and most of us don’t need much convincing that slavery is bad. But we need this context to understand that Uncle Tom was created by a white woman to appeal to a white audience because it’s his tragedy that is supposed to persuade the reader. Uncle Tom didn’t fashion himself to please some master like Calvin Candy, he was created whole-cloth as a device to awaken empathy of white audience. It’s not his character, it’s his raison d’être.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Whoopi Goldberg calling herself 'a working person' garners criticism from 'The View' fans⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  She’s forgotten her roots. Back in the 90s she had to hold down all kinds of jobs to get by like psychic, showgirl-nun, and dinosaur cop.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Say it again, Dexter⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  The problem with biology is that it attracts too many cool people. Especially those marine biologists studding sharks and shit. That’s why taxonomy is one of the refuges for real pedantics and nerds. No danger of running into anybody with a tan in that department.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What has Critical Theory actually achieved?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  What’s learning good for?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Chance⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  It turns out that it’s hard to tell the future. Polls have to make assumptions and the safest assumption is that this election is going to look like elections in the past. From the early voting data, we know that this election isn’t like 2016, or 2020, and what that tells us pretty reliably is that the polls are wrong.

  This is how Trump got an upset in 2016, he turned out loads of people who normally don’t vote, and were therefore underrepresented in the polling. It is likely that many of these same voters are going to sit it out this year while all the polls are counting them double.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Worst Apology Video on the Planet⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This guy should be pilloried.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Dragon Age: The Veilguard Reviews⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I still haven’t played Wasteland 3 or Divinity Original sin 2 even though I own both. And Balder’s Gate 3 is due to get discounted at Christmas. At some point, you have to measure RPG purchases against your life expectancy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Please be patient.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Nobody wants to covalent anymore.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The EchoChamberinator 9000!⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think it’s time to consider the possibility that our grandmas and pop-pops are not tricked or indoctrinated, they just plain old support fascists.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is the price of real estate rising so dramatically?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Prices are falling in Florida, and inventory is stacking up.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I think the best use of GenAI is to summarise webpages⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  AI is like the office worker who’s the nephew of the CEO. They’re never going to go away, but can be useful for tedious work, so long as someone checks behind them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why don't we just gather up all the ocean's trash and all the nonrecyclables, put them in a rocket, and launch it into the sun?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Ocean trash comes from plastic manufacturers. Responsible wealthy countries ship their dutiful recyclables to garbage pits in poor countries.

  Most poor people don’t even have the education or resources to polymerize crude into poly-vinyl, it’s harder than you’d think.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Whether you've got big plans for your Sunday or are just going to relax, Putin could change your plans, end your life, kill all of your family, and incinerate everything you own.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  During the early '00 flight sim fans were enjoying a Russian game called IL2. The other offerings from Microsoft and Janes just couldn’t compete with the level of detail in the flight models. Turns out, the people working on the game were all trained in aerospace engineering. The guys who went to school to work for the famous Russian aviation firms were making video games instead because it paid better.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A Night at the Garden - 1939 pro-Nazi rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden archival footage⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Did you guys know that the American/ German Bund and other nazis were the target of Jewish brawlers organized and financed by gangsters like Meyer Lansky? They would interrupt meetings, throw stink bombs, and split scalps.

  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer_Lansky#World_War_II_i…

  They kept it up until the American nazis suddenly lost all popular support at the end of 1941 for some reason.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A fair proportion of the suffering in the world can be laid at the feet of binary thinking.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Systems are not the sum of the individual actors who participate in them. Systems can influence and even control individuals back. Therefore, individual flaws in character or intellect are necessary, but not adequate to explain why systems are flawed.

  Consider the future imagined in the movie “Idiocracy 2005”. Society is collapsing because people are dumb. This is the explanation for all problems in that society. Capitalism, Resource extraction, environmental degradation, political corruption, and a rather authoritarian government are all blameless. The implication is that capitalism an authoritarianism are good if we could just be smart about it.

  This is a big difference between left and right thinking. Republicans argue problems can be solved by reforming individuals; the police are good, there are just a few bad apples. Or that the right individual, at the helm of a system, can clean up all the issues with strength and resolve. This is the central pitch for supporting Trump.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft fires employees who organized vigil for Palestinians killed in Gaza⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This is a Neoliberal anthem: rights are for citizens; employees need to sit down and STFU.

  Why do we reject tyranny.gov, but embrace tyranny.com?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google, Microsoft, and Perplexity promote scientific racism in AI search results⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  IQ does show differences between the races. However, this isn’t evidence that white supremacy is correct. It’s evidence that IQ testing measures culture when it’s supposed to be measuring biology.

  Race is constructed. Genetic, evolutionary, anthropological, and archeological evidence all point to shared ancestry and kinship. All the people’s of the world aren’t separated by near enough distance or time to explain a significant biological difference. And that’s ignoring the wide interbreeding that was always a thing. Remember Rome was cosmopolitan empire. Many of those Roman soldiers who marched down the first paved roads of London were swinging black cocks.

  So what can we make of a so called “objective” measure of a “biologically determined” trait that hews to culture above biology? This isn’t just a bias that needs to be tweaked, the whole concept of biologically determined intelligence is a reification fallacy and IQ as an instrument is hopelessly broken and should be abandoned.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are 'micro-apartments' converted from offices the answer to the housing crisis?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think this deserves a closer look. This isn’t just affordable housing, but affordable housing in the middle of Downtown areas loaded with walking distance services, jobs, and public transportation. Moving working class people into urban areas is a good thing that can have a reverse-gentrification knock-on effect as the extra housing inventory pressures landlords to cut rents.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nihilism spectrum⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Nihilism (the philosophy) needs a new label. Like “retarded” or “manic depressive”, the common usage has overtaken the academic meaning. I’m not complaining, this is a natural and good process of language. Just saying we need a new term.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Veganism is pro-fossil fuel⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  No, because the vegans are right, eating meat isn’t justifiable. You can’t “both sides” morality. The attempt is an admission that you’ve lost the plot.

  Consider the possibility that your feelings of guilt or being judged is a call coming from inside the house.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Veganism is pro-fossil fuel⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

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• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨FBI finds hundreds of weapons at home of suspect in Arizona Democratic Party office shooting⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The tragedy of gun ownership in America is having a stockpile doesn’t protect you, it’s actually a magnet for criminals and government agents.

  When I was young, the gun culture was one of secrecy. It was rude to ask a person what kind of guns they had, and you might never know unless you go hunting with someone. The cowboy clowns of today post their whole inventory on Facebook. And they update it for every new weapon or accessory they buy. (and your typical numbskull gun owner puts more effort into accessorizing than a fashion model).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨...⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Do you hate Foucault because your a Marxist or a Petersonian?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Worshippers of Cthulhum, a Lovercraftian themed town builder where you play the bad guys, released in early access on Steam⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This is genius! A citybuilder as a lovecraft cultist? How has nobody thought of this before?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Youtube - Bryan Lunduke - Sanctions Hit Linux Kernel, Russian Programmers Banned⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This is not because of an executive order from Biden. This is because of the murderous war perpetrated by the criminal Putin.

  If the whole Linux project died out, it wouldn’t be on the top 10,000 important things that have been destroyed by Russia.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨...⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You forgot Foucault’s Power/Knowledge.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Cognitive Biases⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  YSK: the Dunning-Kruger effect is controversial because it’s part of psychology’s repeatability problem.

  Other famous psychology experiments like the ‘Stanford prison experiment’ or the ‘Milgram experiment’ fail to show what you learned in psych101. The prison experiment was so flawed as to be useless, and variations on the Milgram experiment show the opposite effect from the original.

  For those familiar with the Milgram experiment: one variation of the study saw the “scientist” running the test replaced with a policeman or a military officer. In these circumstances, almost everybody refused to use high voltage.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Absolute Units⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Maybe he just knows about the ‘Just so’ fallacy and he’s suspicious of even good-faith science communication being presented as narrative? I know I have that problem sometimes.