WoodScientist

@WoodScientist@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is the origin of aliens looking like humans? Why and when did it become the norm?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago⁩:

  One headcanon explanation I have for this is:

  Not all, but some sci fi universes make a central component of their setting the existence of a myriad of alien species (Star Trek, Star Wars, any setting with interacting with countless other species.) When we see species that humans are regularly interacting with, we are only seeing a small subset of the species that exist in that setting. It’s just an unfortunate fact of biology that species find it easier to interact with beings that are most like themselves. The Federation mostly consists of humanoid aliens. We do occasionally see really exotic life forms find their way into Star Fleet, but they’re the exception, not the rule. In my canon, they try to make contact, diplomacy, and exchange with every species they can. But they are inevitably more successful with humanoid aliens than non-humanoid ones. It’s just a lot easier to make meaningful communication with beings more similar to yourself.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨what was the last game you played in 2024?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Timberborn! I do love those beavers.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The best option⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  If he’s convicted, Luigi should set up a small side business in prison where he writes insurance appeal letters for people.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I think we might be leaving the "boring" part of this dystopia⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, that’s the kind of persistent vegetative state you don’t want to wake up from.

  But really this kind of abuse of people in these states goes way beyond pregnancy. If we’re willing to do this to women, why not keep vegetative patients of both sexes alive for years as continuous blood donors? I could easily see someone justifying that, especially if the victim has a rare or that universal donor blood type.

  Or how about organ donation? We do currently take organs from deceased donors, but usually it’s a one time deal. When it comes time, if the person is a willing donor, you pull the plug, and then harvest whatever organs you can that you have a recipient for at the moment. But you could make that a lot more efficient if you could keep the donor alive for a long time, perhaps years. Just keep them alive, waiting for someone in need. Someone needs the first kidney? Give it to them. Someone needs a second kidney? Give it to them and put the donor on permanent dialysis. Someone needs a hear or lung? Take the donor’s and keep them going via artificial means. Or maybe we could take skin graft after skin graft, growing new skin again and again. Treat them like sheep being shorn. It’s the difference between having to use a butchered animal up all at once vs being able to freeze most of it for later. Hospitals could have whole wards of these donors caught for years in a state of half-disassembled living death.

  This is an ethical Pandora’s box we REALLY do not want to open.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If you are a young person you have no idea how bad everyone and everything smelled until at least the 1990s.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Try working in a restaurant. I worked as a server for awhile, right at the tail end of when they still had smoking and nonsmoking sections. It was awful.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I think we might be leaving the "boring" part of this dystopia⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Essentially yes. Again, we all start as parasites. A uterus primarily is just a way for pregnancy to be survivable. But in theory it is perfectly doable in males.

  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_pregnancy#Ectopic_impl…

  As that article notes, pioneers in reproductive healthcare have even commented that it would likely be possible. We just don’t do it because it’s medically unconscionable to deliberately create an ectopic pregnancy. It goes against the whole, “and first, do no harm” principle. But if we’re throwing ethics to the wind and involuntarily impregnating people we consider already dead anyway, why not do the same to males?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I think we might be leaving the "boring" part of this dystopia⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  With all due respect, you seem to be actively seeking to be offended. This comes down to bodily autonomy. And providing an example of how this effects everyone is not some monstrous thing perpetuating the patriarchy. I think you’re a little too deep in the gender theory here.

  I’m a trans person. I have had to fight for bodily autonomy my entire life. The fight for bodily autonomy is what ultimately connects trans rights with what are traditionally labeled “women’s issues.” Ultimate the right to abortion or contraception is about the right of everyone to bodily autonomy. To have final ownership and control of your own flesh and blood effects women’s reproductive rights, trans rights, the right to die, organ donation, etc. This goes way beyond just traditional women’s issues.

  And honestly, the scenario isn’t convoluted or absurd. If the government did ever allow this kind of surrogacy, there would be no need to confine it to just one sex. Hell, I would be actively petitioning to apply it to everyone regardless of sex. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, and I AM that pettty. I would absolutely demand that atrocities be applied equally. And if we’re doing this, we’re probably also doing involuntary organ donation. So again it all comes back to bodily autonomy.

  What is horrifying about this proposal is not that it would be done to women. What is horrifying about it is that it would be done to human beings. And I don’t feel the need to throw up artificial barriers and get offended that someone would dare to point out the broader implications of this beyond narrowly defined and ghettoized “women’s issues.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I think we might be leaving the "boring" part of this dystopia⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  What I really hate about longtermism is that it actually tells us nothing about what policies are best, as we don’t know what paths will lead to the best future.

  You could argue that low taxes on billionaires will give them the resources needed to do space colonisation. Thus, in the long term, not taxing billionaires now is good. Or you could argue that a robust social safety net and UBI is the best path to a long term best future. How many Einsteins throughout history died illiterate peasants? By providing resources for everyone, we maximize our chances of the truly talented having a shot at elevating us all through new science and discoveries.

  Hell, I could even justify a nuclear war through longtermism. Economies grow more worn-in and sclerotic over time. Every so often you need a historical arsonist like Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan to run through an area, burn the existing order to ashes, and give people a chance to start again. Existing elites prevent necessary change. And often the only way to remove them is to burn everything down. On the next attempt at civilization, they can learn from their predecessor’s mistakes. For example, destroying the fossil fuel industry now is effectively impossible; they’re simply far too entrenched and powerful. By voluntarily starting a global thermonuclear war, we will smash their power. Civilization can then rebuild powered entirely by solar and wind. Yes, we lose 90% of the human population today, but we prevent total human extinction via complete biosphere collapse, which appears to be the road we are on now. From the long term perspective, deliberately starting a global thermonuclear war is the only rational choice.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I think we might be leaving the "boring" part of this dystopia⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  You’ll be pleased to know that it would be perfectly possible to use men in persistent vegetative states as well. In theory, it’s perfectly possible for a male to carry a pregnancy ectopically. It just hasn’t been done, because as the embryo grows, it latches onto and messes up the internal organs. The placenta has to be cut out like a cancer afterwards.

  But if we’re using people in vegetative states like this, there’s no reason to throw out half of our potential surrogates. Males in vegetative states could easily be used as one time use surrogates. You first castrate the male to nuke testosterone production. Then you introduce estrogen and progesterone. Finally you implant an embryo in the abdominal cavity. After it grows to term, you remove it surgically and let the surrogate father die.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I think we might be leaving the "boring" part of this dystopia⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Good news boys, if we’re willing to use women this way, we can actually do the same for men! This is one unique sexual reproduction horror story that can in theory be inflicted on both sexes!

  Pregnancy without a uterus, impossible! You say. But ectopic pregnancies are a thing. We all start out as parasites. As an embryo develops, it looks for a surface of flesh rich in blood vessels to latch onto. The primary function of the uterus is to provide an inner lining that is sort of a “disposable surface.” The inner lining is rich in blood vessels, the ideal environment for a zygote to latch onto and grow from. The embryo can integrate its blood vessels with the uterine lining and thoroughly mess those up. Then after pregnancy the whole inner lining is just sloughed off. That in inelegant terms is the uterus - an organ that produces a nice safe surface for the zygote to latch onto that won’t harm the person carrying the pregnancy.

  But, things don’t always go well. If a zygote somehow tears through the uterine wall, then ectopic pregnancy, pregnancy outside the uterus, can result. And this a serious life-threatening medical condition. The fetus as it develops will latch onto not the intended uterine surface, but the vital abdominal organs. Giving “birth” in this case is done surgically, and it’s more akin to cutting out a cancer than a healthy live birth.

  But while it hasn’t been tried due to the obvious health risks and huge medical ethics issues, there’s little reason to think that ectopic pregnancies couldn’t be carried in a male admomen. DNA and chromosomes shouldn’t be a barrier. The placenta that the fetus grows is evolved to prevent the fetus from being rejected like a donor organ. It’s not like mothers and infants share their DNA.

  So in theory we could use men in vegetative states as one-time use surrogates. There has been research proposed and papers written on the possibility of trans women carrying children via uterine transplant, but this method, deliberate artificial ectopic pregnancy, is in principle a lot simpler. You don’t need to transplant a delicate organ and find a way to carry a pregnancy while taking anti-rejection drugs. You just implant an embryo in the surrogate abdomen and let it go to town. Let it latch in to whatever internal organs it wants. Then after nine months, just cut open and discard the surrogate father.

  It wouldn’t be as simple as just implanting an embryo. The pregnant vegetative man would likely need to have his hormone profile monitored and heavily manipulated. But this is easy enough. Testosterone production could be nuked by simple castration, and erogenous estrogen and progesterone could then be introduced as needed before and during the pregnancy. After the pregnancy, it is unlikely the man would survive. So this is a one time deal. But if we’re OK treating people in persistent vegetative states like resources to be exploited, I see no reason to throw out half of our potential surrogate population simply because they happen to be men.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Le Reddit Army is Here⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  What you miss is people aren’t arguing from a constitutional perspective. They’re saying that it’s fucking ridiculous that sites like reddit censor perfectly legal speech while also billing themselves as bastions of free speech.

  There is a certain logic to it. If you want to bill your site as a public square, then maybe you shouldn’t censor anything other than speech that is actually illegal. It is not illegal to say things in support of Luigi Mangione. In fact, it’s perfectly legal, and totally Constitutionally protected, for me to go right now and hold a big sign in front of NYPD headquarters saying, “Luigi Mangione is a saint, and I hope to see a hundred more like him!” The law restricts true threats, but those are defined way, way narrower than many on social media seem to think.

  People aren’t saying that reddit or other platforms can’t censor content on their platform, they obviously can. But you also shouldn’t bitch about people pointing out the rank hypocrisy of sites that bill themselves as public squares censoring content to serve their corporate overlords.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Accused killer of US insurance CEO pleads not guilty to 'terrorist' murder⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Luigi? Nah. That’s not him in the video. It’s literally Saint Michael the Archangel! He personally came down to drag a wicked soul to Hell! Luigi just happens to bare a resemblance to St. Michael.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Accused killer of US insurance CEO pleads not guilty to 'terrorist' murder⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  In Ye Olden days, there used to be formally separated court systems, one for nobility and one for commoners. Turns out, they just got a lot better at hiding this system.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Accused killer of US insurance CEO pleads not guilty to 'terrorist' murder⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Even if the politics doesn’t change, enough CEOs getting cast into Hell sure might do the trick. People say that it won’t change how companies operate, but I disagree. First, changing CEOs isn’t easy for a company. The sudden loss of one is disruptive, and it means they can’t implement whatever plans they had for the company. A company with repeated CEO murders is one that will be thrown into chaos. Second, regardless of what shareholders might want, CEOs have to consider their own interests. Even a $10 million salary doesn’t mean much if you’re dead before you can enjoy it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Israel plans to double population in Golan, cites threats from Syria⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Israel needs Lebensraum.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do the majority of women still take their partner's last name?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I also took my husband’s name when I got married. I personally am not a big fan of hyphenated names. For those that like them, fair enough, but they’re not for me. To me, the problem with hyphenated names is that while they seem a way to avoid the “whose name do we give the kids” problem, they just kick the problem down the road a generation. If you have a hyphenated name, and you marry someone who also has one, are you both going to start using a 4-part surname? How about the generations after that, are they going to use an 8, 16, or 32-part name?

  Of course not. At some point, now or in the future, someone is going to have their surname dropped. It either happens when you get married, or it happens when your children or grandchildren themselves get married and have to decide which names to drop. Rather than putting that burden on your kids or grandkids, I think it’s better to make those hard decisions yourself. Better to just come up with a shared name for both partners and move forward together.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do the ultra-rich consume popular media?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Ah don’t be such a pessimist.

  They’ve also seen the fires of Hell!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do the ultra-rich consume popular media?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Well, it made sense that Reagan was elected in the 1980s. That was the age of the camcorder, the first portable personal miniature TV production studio. With anyone being able to be a TV studio, it was only natural that actors would become presidential candidates!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do the ultra-rich consume popular media?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I would be content seeing him sent to one of RFK Jr’s wellness camps.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do the ultra-rich consume popular media?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Except, like any religion, the rules were ultimately self-contradictory and open to any convenient interpretation.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do the ultra-rich consume popular media?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I mean, plastic surgery is pretty advanced these days. The body mod scene can also get pretty extreme. Musk certainly has the resources for it. Fuck it. Let’s all just try to convince him to get himself surgically altered to have giant Ferengi forehead and ears.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon questions our energy sector⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s for the nuclear industry to figure out. But the fact that companies from different companies originating in entirely different countries suggest that it’s a problem with the tech itself.

  The hard truth many just don’t want to admit is that there are some technologies that simply aren’t practical, regardless of how objectively cool they might be. The truth is that the nuclear industry just has a very poor track record with being financially viable. It’s only ever really been scaled through massive state-run enterprises that can operate unprofitably. Before solar and wind really took off, the case could be made that we should switch to fission, even if it is more expensive, due to climate concerns. But now that solar + batteries are massively cheaper than nuclear? It’s ridiculous to spend state money building these giant white elephants when we could just slap up some more solar panels instead. We ain’t running out of space to put them any time soon.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon questions our energy sector⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Also 10s of billions is still insignificant for any power, transport, or healthcare infrastructure in the scheme of things -

  Bullshit. If you can get the same amount of reliable power by just slapping up some solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries, then obviously the cost is not insignificant.

  That sentence shows that you really aren’t thinking about this as a practical means of power generation. I’ve found that most fission boosters don’t so much like actual nuclear power, but the idea of nuclear power. It appeals to a certain kind of nerd who admires it from a physics and engineering perspective. And while it is cool technically, this tends to blind people to the actual cold realities of fission power.

  There’s also a lot of conspiratorial thinking among the pro-nuclear crowd. They’ll blame nuclear’s failures on the superstitious fear of the unwashed ignorant masses or the evil machinations of groups like Greenpeace. Then, at the same time, they’ll ignore the most bone-headedly obvious cause of nuclear’s failure: it’s just too fucking expensive.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon questions our energy sector⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Who cares? We use economics to sort out the relative value of radically different power sources, not cherry-picked criteria. Fission boosters can say that nuclear has a small footprint. Solar boosters can say that solar has no moving parts and is thus more mechanically reliable. Fission boosters can say fission gets more power from the same mass. Solar boosters can point to the mass of the entire fission plant, including the giant concrete dome that needs to be strong enough to survive a jumbo jet flying into it.

  In the end, none of this shit matters. We have a way of sorting out these complex multi-variable problems. Both fission and solar have their own relatives strengths and weaknesses that their proponents can cherry pick. But ultimately, all that matters in choosing what to deploy is cost.

  And today, in the real world, in the year 2024, if you want to get low-carbon power on the grid, the most cost-effective way, by far, is solar. And you can add batteries as needed for intermittency, and you’re still way ahead of nuclear cost-wise. And as our use of solar continues to climb, we can deploy seasonal storage, which we have many, many options to deploy.

  The ultimate problem fission has is that it just can’t survive in a capitalist economy. It can survive in planned economies like the Soviet Union or modern China, or it can run as a state-backed enterprise like modern Russia. But it simply isn’t cost effective enough for fission companies to be able to survive on their own in a capitalist economy.

  And frankly, if we’re going to have the government subsidize things, I would much rather the money be spent on healthcare, housing, or education. A lot of fission boosters like fission simply because they think the tech is cool, not necessarily because it actually makes economic sense. I say that if fission boosters want to fund their hobby and subsidize fission plants, let them. But otherwise I am adamantly opposed to any form of subsidies for the fission industry.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon questions our energy sector⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Who gives a fuck about energy density beyond some physics nerds? Unless you’re planning on building a flying nuclear-powered airplane, energy density is irrelevant. This is why solar is eating fission’s lunch.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon questions our energy sector⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  The coal mining industry employs about 38,000 people. Dunkin Donuts alone employs seven times as many people as the whole coal mining industry. There just aren’t that many coal miners anymore.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon questions our energy sector⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  It has that low death rate precisely because it is heavily regulated.

  The typical nuclear booster argument works on the following circular logic:

  “Nuclear is perfectly safe.”

  “But that’s not the problem with nuclear. The problem with nuclear is its too expensive.”

  “Nuclear is expensive because it’s overly regulated!”

  “But nuclear is only safe because of those heavy regulations!”

  “We would have everything powered by nuclear by now if it weren’t for Greenpeace.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Elon's Death Machine (aka Tesla) Mows Down Deer at Full Speed , Keeps Going on "Autopilot"⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Full self driving should only be implemented when the system is good enough to completely take over all driving functions. It should only be available in vehicles without steering wheels. The Tesla solution of having “self driving” but relying on the copout of requiring constant user attention and feedback is ridiculous. Only when a system is truly capable of self-driving 100% autonomously, at a level statistically far better than a human, should any kind of self-driving be allowed on the road. Systems like Tesla’s FSD officially require you to always be ready to intervene at a moment’s notice. They know their system isn’t ready for independent use yet, so they require that manual input. But of course this encourages disengaged driving; no one actually pays attention to the road like they should, able to intervene at a moment’s notice. Tesla’s FSD imitates true self-driving, but it pawns off the liability do drivers by requiring them to pay attention at all times. This should be illegal. Beyond merely lane-assistance technology, no self-driving tech should be allowed except in vehicles without steering wheels. If your AI can’t truly perform better than a human, it’s better for humans to be the only ones actively driving the vehicle.

  This also solves the civil liability problem. Tesla’s current system has a dubious liability structure designed to pawn liability off to the driver. But if there isn’t even a steering wheel in the car, then the liability must fall entirely on the vehicle manufacturer. They are after all 100% responsible for the algorithm that controls the vehicle, and you should ultimately have legal liability for the algorithms you create. Is your company not confident enough in its self-driving tech to assume full legal liability for the actions of your vehicles? No? Then your tech isn’t good enough yet. There can be a process for car companies to subcontract out the payment of legal claims against the company. They can hire State Farm or whoever to handle insurance claims against them. But ultimately, legal liability will fall on the company.

  This also avoids criminal liability. If you only allow full self-driving in vehicles without steering wheels, there is zero doubt about who is control of the car. There isn’t a driver anymore, only passengers. Even if you’re a person sitting in the seat that would normally be a driver’s seat, it doesn’t matter. You are just a passenger legally. You can be as tired, distracted, drunk, or high as you like, you’re not getting any criminal liability for driving the vehicle. There is such a clear bright line - there is literally no steering wheel - that it is absolutely undeniable that you have zero control over the vehicle.

  This actually would work under the same theory of existing drunk-driving law. People can get ticketed for drunk driving for sleeping in their cars. Even if the cops never see you driving, you can get charged for drunk driving if they find you in a position where you could drunk drive. So if you have your keys on you while sleeping drunk in a parked car, you can get charged with DD. But not having a steering wheel at all would be the equivalent of not having the keys to a vehicle - you are literally incapable of operating it. And if you are not capable of operating it, you cannot be criminally liable for any crime relating to its operation.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨New mobile features are sh*t these days⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Linus Torvalds reckons AI is ‘90% marketing and 10% reality’⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think we should indict Sam Altman on two sets of charges:

  1. A set of securities fraud charges.

  2. 8 billion counts of criminal reckless endangerment.

  He’s out on podcasts constantly saying the OpenAI is near superintelligent AGI and that there’s a good chance that they won’t be able to control it, and that human survival is at risk. How is gambling with human extinction not a massive act of planetary-scale criminal reckless endangerment?

  So either he is putting the entire planet at risk, or he is lying through his teeth about how far along OpenAI is. If he’s telling the truth, he’s endangering us all. If he’s lying, then he’s committing securities fraud in an attempt to defraud shareholders. Either way, he should be in prison. I say we indict him for both simultaneously and let the courts sort it out.