AbouBenAdhem

@AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Assuming humanity last another few hundred years; How many human languages do you think are gonna be left in 100 years? In 200 years?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Once we get good, universal real-time translation, we might start to see a new proliferation of local languages. And of small groups inventing their own cryptolects for privacy, trying to evolve them faster than AI can keep up.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a word for when someone is not capable of, or doesn't try to understand verbal communication in a language, they are fluent in similar to functionally illiterate but for speech?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Aphasia or aphrasia?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why did Montreal need to prove that it's a real place? What happened to the people who called it Montimaginary⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Montreal is just the real subspace of Montcomplex.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I wonder what the Hapsburgs would have thought about pugs⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Probably the same way Putin feels about Dobby.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It can be harder to surveil private conversations if everyone just used sign language.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Sign language isn’t just another way of expressing English that can be picked up like learning a different alphabet or a secret code. It’s a full language with its own complete vocabulary, syntax, inflectional system, etc. that takes as long to learn as any other spoken language.

  It would be great if more people knew it for the sake of communicating with the deaf, but as a means of foiling surveillance, there are many other approaches that would be more effective for less time investment.

• Maybe "CAESAR STABBED IN BACK BY BRUTUS AND CASSIUS" was just a metaphorical clickbait headline, and the actual event was a minor policy dispute instead of a literal assassination.
  Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ to ⁨showerthoughts@lemmy.world⁩ | ⁨10⁩ ⁨comments⁩
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is it called "overseas" even if a dispora population move to a place connected by land?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Before trains, sea travel was the standard way to travel long distances even if a land route was available. Sea voyages came to represent any destination that was far enough away that communities wouldn’t be in continuous contact.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Maybe there was a cure for human cancer, but it didn't work at all in mice.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Assuming that

  • human phenotypic traits that correlate more closely with mouse traits have more-predictable outcomes with mouse-tested medicine, and

  • more-predictable medical outcomes correlate with higher survival and reproductive rates,

  can’t you plug that straight into the Price equation?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Maybe there was a cure for human cancer, but it didn't work at all in mice.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  In the long run, using mice for medical testing will result in selection pressure for humans whose physiology more and more closely resembles that of mice.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is re-visiting a place of trauma a good idea? Have anyone done it?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t have any direct experience with that—but I’d say if you’re going to do it, do it with some friends and try to create some positive new experiences to overwrite the traumatic ones.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Poetry is like a set of compression tools for meaning⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d say devices like metaphor and synecdoche are compression tools for meaning, and devices like rhyme and meter are checksums for error correction.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What exactly is the reasoning behind Satan ruling Hell?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah—Milton’s Paradise Lost seems closer to the modern conception.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A hotdog should be the opposite of a cool cat, but it's not.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s like a double negative: a cool dog is the opposite of a hot dog, but a cool cat is the opposite of a cool dog, so you end up back where you started.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Would it be correct to say that enshittification is the physical manifestation of the economic ai bubble bursting?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think that’s reversing cause and effect: the AI bubble is the result of the preexisting corporate practice of enshitification getting a new toy to play with.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨When kids come trick-or-treating, what happens if I choose trick?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Immediate civilizational collapse.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨From what I've seen, public transit is either expensive and terrible or cheap and good.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah—ideally, fares only need to cover the marginal/fluctuating costs, not the fixed cost of the whole system.

  For private transportation, fares need to pay for both, and generate a profit on top of that.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨From what I've seen, public transit is either expensive and terrible or cheap and good.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Being good and being cheap are both indications that public transit is being properly funded. When funding is short, they have to raise fares and cut services.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Would one run faster without arms?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Additional weight makes it harder to accelerate, but once you’re up to a steady speed it doesn’t make so much difference.

  On the other hand, using your arms as counterweights makes it possible to transfer more force from your foot to the ground with each step.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do I need a domain to access my Funkwhale library but not SyncThing?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Syncthing uses a centralized discovery server to connect device IDs to IP addresses (although you can change this to point to your own discovery server, too).

  I don’t know if Funkwale has a similar option.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Scientists Say We May Have Been Wrong About the Origin of Life⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The paper and the phys.org article are a year old—any guess why Popular Mechanics is reporting on it now?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨When did people start saying "have a good rest of your day"⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Sometime after sunrise.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sneaking snacks into the theater is objectively wrong if you are a movie fan⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  If your criterion is that the theater isn’t making as much as they otherwise would, then failing to donation your entire paycheck to the theater is also “objectively wrong”.

  I generally don’t eat in the theater anyway, but when I do I buy from the theater’s concessions… as a courtesy, not because I think it exemplifies some kind of objective morality.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How many people would a generation ship need to have for inbreeding to not be an issue?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  There are actually two issues:

  • The most obvious effect of inbreeding is the increase in homozygosity for deleterious mutations, causing more birth defects.

  • A subtler effect is the loss of genetic diversity reducing a population’s ability to continue to evolve in response to future selection pressures. This would be especially important when migrating to a new environment with new selection pressures the species has never encountered before.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If you eat free range eggs, you're probably ingesting trace amounts of rooster cum⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  No—unless you’re eating eggs from your backyard hen, the eggs are unfertilized. Laying hens on commercial farms never even come into contact with roosters.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Historians never talk about the "good old days".⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Nah—see Goodhart’s law (When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure).

  As soon as Santa published his lists, people would start figuring out ways to game it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Historians never talk about the "good old days".⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Historians don’t talk about “good” or “bad” unless there’s some unambiguous measure in the historical context.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The bourgeoisie could technically unintentionally end capitalism...⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  There’s not much value in money that can only be used to purchase land/raw materials.

  On the contrary—with automation converting raw materials to finished goods essentially for free, raw materials would be worth more than ever.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The bourgeoisie could technically unintentionally end capitalism...⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  There are still (some) consumers—other capitalists.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The bourgeoisie could technically unintentionally end capitalism...⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Labor would become worthless, but money would still have value derived from ownership of capital (factories and raw materials). A tiny capitalist class would still produce and sell to each other, while the rest of humanity would be left with literally nothing to work with.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are the demands of the No Kings protests? What's the plan if they win?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You’re not wrong—the protests in their current form aren’t going to achieve anything by themselves.

  But adding some specific set of demands will accomplish even less: it will alienate supporters who don’t agree with all the demands, and it will allow Trump to claim to address the issues by cherry-picking and distorting the demands beyond recognition (see the Black Lives Matter protests a few years ago).

  If we reach a critical point where mass protests can achieve some real, concrete good, it will be due to contingent circumstances that neither side was able to predict. But the contribution the current protests can make to that moment is to give everyone the confidence that the numbers are on their side, once a productive channel is found.