AlteredEgo
@AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml
- Comment on [deleted] 17 hours ago:
Yeah I imagine it could depend on lots of things, like the composition of biome that is already there, environment, lifestyle or diet.
- Comment on [deleted] 19 hours ago:
Interesting anecdote. Maybe that is the point of all those cleanses or fasting stuff, to sort of “reset” an out of balance gut biome.
- Comment on [deleted] 19 hours ago:
Yeah there would be serious dangers to creating a synthetic biome, but theoretically it should be possible to vastly improve through actual engineering instead of natural selection. And it should be easier than doing any genetic engineering on a human genome, because you could create a more simple model for a single celled biome with specific input and output chemicals. I imagine LLMs could help with creating the map of inputs and outputs, then generate candidates to refine. But I understand we still don’t even have a scientific model for a single cell.
Like produce everything a human needs just from sugars, fats and some minerals. That’s not the way to do it but in an extreme case you could. Maybe we could even engineer to digest cellulose.
Of course you’d want a quick and easy killswitch and be able to replace a synthetic gut biome it with a natural gut biome again. And you’d want some kind of “predator species” that kills any foreign bacteria, like in any biome.
- Comment on YSK the Venezuelans community in the US is not representative of Venezuelans as a whole. 20 hours ago:
Your question is an infohazard
- Comment on [deleted] 1 day ago:
Are there efforts to genetically engineer superior gut biomes? Like a set of microbes that digest better, more efficient, filter out more toxins, produce vitamins, ignore too much carbs or fat, destroy harmful foreign bacteria or microbes etc?
It seems a relatively easy way to genetically improve homo sapiens. Can we do stuff like that already with the advances in AI for e.g. protein folding?
- Comment on YSK the Venezuelans community in the US is not representative of Venezuelans as a whole. 1 day ago:
The problem with your take is that you’re still applying liberal values to foreign policy that the USA has ignored for decades - they have been fascists in regards to other shithole countries, even Obama. So what do you think would be wrong with this? Why would anyone with half a brain object to this?
Imagine it was Hitler in 1940 Germany. How many countries are defacto at war with the US, as the US defines war, e.g. sanctions are an act of war. Is Trump and his regime not a fascist regime that should be removed from power? Same with Netanjaho of course.
A malicious tumor should be excised. I do not have the money to buy the laws for this, but it’s still the morally correct answer, no matter if you’re in favor of a utilitarian, principles or kantian ethics.
- Comment on 2 months ago:
Nice! I want to build a rack too but want to fit a regular ATX board to fit older / cheaper hardware. So it has to be at least 304mm wide, probably 400mm
- Comment on Head of the Signal app threatens to withdraw from Europe 2 months ago:
Hey, next time you go to a protest just glue your government ID card to your forehead.
- Comment on Why does the GOP think “ANTIFA” is bad? 2 months ago:
Fascism is capitalism in decay. It’s what you can sell right now. A modern definition is “moral belief in inequality based on identity (race / gender)”. This is what is selling right now because the dream of prosperity with liberalism is over. Shit’s bad. So that is what the propaganda channels have been churning out, on on fox, on social media, on youtube for younger audiences. Ultimately the reason is greed for money / priviledge by people without scruples.
Check out What Is Fascism? An Excerpt From “Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It” | Truthout
It’s only going to get worse from now on.
- Comment on Head of the Signal app threatens to withdraw from Europe 2 months ago:
Obviously not. Think about supply and demand. Because a toxic product is being hailed as secure there isn’t enough demand for an actually anonymous and private messenger. So calling signal “secure” is just helping state security.
If you actually want to message about revolutionary (illegal, “terrorist”) activity and don’t want to be traced immediately by an agent of state security or an informant, Signal offers nothing (unless you use criminal activity like identity theft). In such a case a warrant will obviously be granted and they can immediately find and arrest you.
Can you see the logic how Signal isn’t secure at all for an actual dissident?
- Comment on Head of the Signal app threatens to withdraw from Europe 2 months ago:
Just let it happen
- Comment on Apple has REMOVED the ICEBlock app from the App Store due to “objectionable content.” 2 months ago:
Thanks. I’d already be happy with updating/mutable v2 torrents for browsing static websites via hashkey.
- Comment on Head of the Signal app threatens to withdraw from Europe 2 months ago:
A regular captain of industry for whom the automatic searchers of his zero-privacy messenger is one step too far lol
- Comment on Head of the Signal app threatens to withdraw from Europe 2 months ago:
There can be no security without privacy and a central server that can be extorted. But keep lying if you like.
- Comment on Head of the Signal app threatens to withdraw from Europe 2 months ago:
plans in the EU to allow messengers to have backdoors to enable automatic searches for criminal content
- Comment on Head of the Signal app threatens to withdraw from Europe 2 months ago:
Try to think a bit before you post
- Comment on Head of the Signal app threatens to withdraw from Europe 2 months ago:
Signal is considered one of the most secure messengers.
I mean lol, they require a phone number to sign up, which you can only get with an ID in many countries. You chat with a gestapo officer and they know where you life.
Signal IS GARBAGE. Fucking garbage article, gaslighting bullshit. Fuck this timeline. Honestly this article is fucking terrorism.
- Comment on Apple has REMOVED the ICEBlock app from the App Store due to “objectionable content.” 2 months ago:
What the fuck is a DIDs?
- Comment on IT'S A TRAP 2 months ago:
This hypothetical post is a thought crime!
- Comment on Missing banana for scale. 3 months ago:
Haha well that is much darker and sounds like a good premise for a science fiction / fantasy. I think star trek had a story like that. And planet of the apes / the time machine.
Crazy enough, there have been attempts to create a hybrid between an chimpanzee and a human. Luckily, none succeeded lol
- Comment on Missing banana for scale. 3 months ago:
Yeah that’s basically what we’ve done to wolves, horses, cats and cows/oxen through breeding. A giant ape would be a little more intelligent and sapient, but not that much. What would be unique would be a domesticated animal that can grasp and pick up and carry things, and trained to use some tools.
- Comment on Google's shocking developer decree struggles to justify the urgent threat to F-Droid 3 months ago:
How does google plan to enforce this? Will they disable side-loading for any app that isn’t registered with google?
- Comment on Missing banana for scale. 3 months ago:
Imagine homo florensis had managed to domesticate Gigantopithecus, riding on their shoulders like toddlers shooting arrows.
History would have played out differently with a mini Genghis Khan and his horde riding on giant apes!
- Comment on 'Windmill': China tests world’s first megawatt-level airship to capture high winds 3 months ago:
What matters is scalability and how much material and cost you need to produce per energy unit. Kites (either parasails or fixed wing) are much simpler, can be scaled up too, and you only need a simple cable that pulls the generator’s winch. Overall kites seem much more efficient to scale up.
- Comment on “You can't be expected to have a successful AI program when every single article, book or anything else that you've read or studied, you're supposed to pay for” Donald Trump said 5 months ago:
Don’t worry about the AI companies, they can afford it and then make a profit (eventually).
Worry about the open source AI models that you can run locally using solar panels. They will become defacto illegal piracy. Affordable hardware to run large models without too much power is finally appearing (Ryzen AI max), but the software will become proprietary intellectual property of those who own the world. Which is the worst case scenario.
- Comment on Adblockers stop publishers serving ads to (or even seeing) 1bn web users - Press Gazette 5 months ago:
Yeah public broadcasting is under attack because of advertising. Advertising fuels private broadcasting and it’s in their owner’s interest to push anti public broadcasting propaganda.
Any system humans design to serve us as a society will over time become “min maxed” by people or institutions seeking to maximize their profit or gain more power or maintain power in the face of changes. Advertising is a primary vector how those with the most economic power can influence society without people even realizing it. And everything is political.
For example take the ratings and something like yellow pages and announcements for new businesses like a plumber - needing to invest additional capital in advertising has an effect too. It makes it so new businesses are more indentures, more like wage slavery, than if no advertising existed at all. Obviously no advertising at all would favor seniority. But we have advanced in technology since we designed our government systems - there should be an independent “forth estate” or fifth or something for economics and regulation. They could be independently voted on to the executive or legislative. And their job would be to deal with regulation in the public’s interest, and sponsor things like an independent ratings portal that is moderated, and force shops like amazon to use the independent ratings for the products and the vendors. It will stay a struggle to stay ahead of people trying to abuse the system for gain, but right now we pretend the tools we have right now are somehow god given. We Europeans are far more conservative than we like to think.
If we want to have any resiliency against what is coming (because we destroyed our planet and let wealth inequality spiral and social media is nearly completely controlled by plutocrats) we need to push for better tools to govern democratically. And advertising is a major obstacle because it allows unmitigated influence of those who own the world.
TLDR: We don’t *have to * screw over new plumbers, but we should do it if we had to because stopping the brainwashing is more important.
- Comment on Adblockers stop publishers serving ads to (or even seeing) 1bn web users - Press Gazette 5 months ago:
Ok, it’s obviously a complicated task, and banning advertising will make things more complex. But that is what progress often is.
But before the internet we used to even have TV shows reviewing things, under the mandate they don’t get paid to do so. People do have an interest in learning about new cool things or improvements to old, and comparative reviews. There is no reason this wouldn’t serve the legitimate need for information better. Now we have ratings and that could be improved as well, through better technology to gather independent reviews.
And yeah, there are not free lunches from corporations, but there are from people or from the government. We pay collectively for things and distribute them for free all the time. Public broadcasting could be extended to youtube or even news papers, to make them more independent from profit driven behavior or owners. You can’t have democracy without free press, and currently we don’t have that. We have corporate press and every single youtube channel has to serve corporate news. And as you point out, in capitalism there is no free lunch. But we can make it free so we can stop the insanity of neoliberal and fascist propaganda currently destroying our civilization globally.
Another thing I forgot to mention, advertising is the main vector to increase consumerism. Which is killing our planet.
- Comment on Adblockers stop publishers serving ads to (or even seeing) 1bn web users - Press Gazette 5 months ago:
There are also market effects on what type of content is produced / profitable to advertise on.
And mostly unknown psychological effects of advertising on the human mind. Maybe advertising has altered your mind so much that you “don’t even mind” it any more. It is a brainwashing technique after all haha. Maybe all those youtube ads made about 5% of the people’s brain soft enough to vote for MAGA. Maybe the effect of advertising is as bad as lead in gasoline.
- Comment on Little Bullshitter 5 months ago:
This should be banned for self-censorsh!t.
- Comment on People angry that Superman represents kindness are outright admitting that they don't want to be good people 5 months ago:
Yeah the value of art is that it can express or show things about the world that are hard to express in words. And we desperately need a new way and clarity about the failure of the old ways, because that is what leads to the cynicism and hopelessness. So either keep politics out of it, or have a bloody brilliant take on politics that provides actual value.
I quite like superhero movies as escapism, like a fantasy world where clear definitions of good vs evil exist. But I can’t stomach biopics or docudramas that mix this fantasy with real world propaganda, like some nostalgic fantasy about US politics or journalism any more. It feels like they all want to recreate the beautiful fantasy of Sorkin’s “The White House” or the classic thriller take of “a bad apple in a good system” but today that is a dangerous lie.