beerpls

Lol all of y’all are interpreting my comments in terrible faith but because you support the narrative it’ll be accepted.

Never mind friends. I just wanted to make people think a little, but that’s always a mistake here.

For the record: I’m quite skeptical that the lab leak theory is true.

“ Now realize that publicly stating your lab had a protocol failure of this magnitude and you face career death, the possible eradication of your lab and it’s connections, etc.”

From my previous comment.

It wouldn’t be the least bit surprising that these researchers wouldn’t say it happened even if they had strong evidence it did.

The downsides are obviously not good for them nor their careers in any way. God forbid they themselves could be found connected to the responsibility and would inevitably become a scapegoat.

And if they did come out and nothing happened to them - what positives would occur? “Reforming safety protocols”? All that would do is create more red tape in the future and inhibit research even more.

I think you should better evaluate the context of what a scientist in that position would face and think. You really quickly see there’s a lot of grey area, and we can’t think very highly of our typical standards of proof.

Of course, i’m not saying “absolutely it was a leak”. Simply that you’re holding the theory to such high standards of proof as to be, imho, unreasonable.

“scientists who believed a lab leak idea was plausible couldn't muster up an argument that would hold up under peer review”

Scientists work with covid viruses, scientists accidentally contract virus when one of a thousand technical protocols accidentally slipped, scientists unknowingly spread virus.

I worked in a clean lab for years with, presumably, much lower tolerances than you would want at a lab studying deadly viruses. We had leaks all the time even with protocols in place. Scientists are smart, they aren’t perfect and make mistakes.

Now realize that publicly stating your lab had a protocol failure of this magnitude and you face career death, the possible eradication of your lab and it’s connections, etc.

You’re saying no lab leak claims “held up under peer review” and it’s “not supported by facts”. I’m not sure if you get this, but if this did leak from a lab then there would probably be zero way to trace that without speculation. You’re not going to go find a covid virus with a time stamp and location of where it came from or where it moved. How on Earth would one ever prove this?

I have a feeling that your terms of proof a priori make it impossible to ever conclude a lab leak was the cause…

On the other side of the spectrum - code reviews have never, not even one single time, given me any real opportunity to learn something of value. They have only ever been someone else shoving their preferences onto my coding style (for better or worse)

I was shocked at my first job to realize the code reviewer didn’t even read my code, merely glanced over and demanded style changes (which were not consistent from review to review in the slightest)

It really felt more like how you hand your advisor your thesis with obvious easy to fix errors so he doesn’t compulsively decide “well something must need improvement” and make you fix something difficult

“ I look for readable, maintainable code, and try to make sure the writer is doing appropriate testing. But whether or not it works and is correct, that's not my job, that's the developer's job.”

And I personally refuse to work with this style of workflow anymore

Does the code do what it needs? That’s objective and it either does or doesn’t. I can manage that kind of review.

Does the code look pretty enough? This is subjective and guarantees i’ll waste hours of my life every month bc someone else felt anxious/neurotic/masochistic and wanted to dump a chore on me.

No thanks, if you have style guidelines i’ll follow them. I’m not your whipping boy that will ask how high when you say jump.

Yeah, this is an issue with way more science than anyone (esp scientists) is comfortable acknowledging

In grad school I encountered experiment after experiment, paper after paper where the authors went around emphasizing the parts which were statistically “sexy” while ignoring glaring issues like this

It’s almost like the methodology for creating science is more rigorous than the science itself

Sometimes the sample is too small. Sometimes they assume a correlation that doesn’t exist. It’s troubling and was a large part of why I left academia

“Powering cities”

Hyperbole isn’t good

Alcohol was used by more people. The governmental play that had to be carried out to make the people tolerate the tyranny was minimal.

Remember it’s not about what a piece of paper says the rules are - it’s what you can get away with in power.

Lol this point is true but it’s downvoted.

I love how the IQ of this place keeps spiraling downward.

That would take will power and fix the problem.

In the modern world we download another app and then feel better despite nothing having changed.

Um how do you figure?

Gravity cares about distance and mass, and as large parts of the planet move their density distribution shifts affecting both of those factors

I don’t really follow. There are billions/trillions of these creatures who are eaten alive every year in the wild. Why is it so significant that humans also do this?

Are we trying to make reality fit our wholesome romanced version of reality?

Not that I could stomach it myself, but I don’t really see this as much of a moral issue.

Devour to survive. So it is, so it’s always been…

people who take this emotional and illogical approach is exactly why the homeless suffer to the extent they do

stop virtue signaling and start thinking or kindly avoid this topic because you’re only causing harm

lol people would rather be poor in the US than mexico yes.

your dichotomy is a false representation. and a poor one at that

I have to assume through some form of leptogensis or similar that we could engineer our galaxies or maybe entire universe so that this feature is at least delayed much longer, if not avoided entirely

It was just a casual bbq with very relaxed friends.

Being social and fitting in is a skill like any other. So many people in tech believe they don’t need to work this particular muscle and it shows

Can you talk about things with a stranger at length that aren’t in your core interests?

Can you make people interested in what you’re talking about even if they’re not exactly your kind of people?

Do you have confidence when you speak, at least enough to get your words across? Do you enjoy being around others in a purely social situation?

All these kinds of things are important. And personally I think they should be developed before one injects themselves into foreign places. For safety as much as the respect of those you travel to

It’s a warm climate with large cities which provide sufficient incentive for people to choose to be homeless over other avenues of living

Homeless people obviously want to live somewhere like Cali over Canada for the winter. California also provides massive welfare to homeless. They also have a very open arms policy to illegals who are often poor and homeless

These aren’t exhaustive reasons why, but it’s a core part of it. California politicians seem to be unwilling to address complicated social problems head on and instead virtue signal and allow these problems to grow and fester

I’m not going to provide you with sources. It’s too politicized of a subject. If you don’t want to accept it for being this way i’ve learned not to argue. But at the very least if people really can’t see why this problem exists as it does, here an entry

Unlike others, i’m going to say I get it.

I had a stranger recently come up to me and ask to come to an event I was inviting others to. No problem! Come along

But the thing is the dude was very shy and awkward. Which isn’t a problem, but definitely cast a bit of a cloud over our social event

All of a sudden I was managing him, taking time and focus out of my night to make him feel welcome. I’m sure he didn’t intend it, but he didn’t make it seem as though he were ungrateful

There are so many little social cues to make social work. And if you’re not even remotely part of the group, you’re probably going to clash

Which is all well and good - it’s let of meeting people… but this guy was just blowing through town. All the investment for what? So he could be 1,000 miles away next week? (he said he would be)

The problem with nomads or even superficial travelers is you are taking from the environment you travel to but rarely give much back. And as the trend grows this back and forth becomes tiring fast

So basically if you’re going to travel or be a nomad - be a badass people want to be around. Commit to it and be ready when you get there to shine a personality. If you can’t do it in an environment and culture you’re familiar with - respect the people you travel to by working on yourself first.

Don’t expect other people to be the prop up to make your life interesting

Go to a nursing home sometime that isn’t super duper nice and expensive. You’ll see underpaid healthcare professionals using unwieldly and underserving equipment treating people they disdain all for gross profit from corporations

Then ask yourself if elderly abuse is really surprising at all

No, from a young age I just appreciated computers and machines and logic.

Tbh I don’t love programming. It’s just the best way to make my wage-slave status work best for me. Remote work, chill colleagues, relatively interesting (tho boring) day work

I knew it wouldn’t be as fun as hobby programming bc you have metrics and a boss. But such is the life of the wage-slave

“Amazon employees stage walkout over… climate goals”

Really? You think people working in Amazon warehouses have at the forefront of their mind climate goals?

No these people want less shitty work and less shitty pay. They want to have dignified working life.

Injecting climate propaganda into every topic isn’t clever

Stop living your life under the ruse that is our government/capitalist elites and start living it for yourself

The drugs will come naturally after that (if you want them to)

I don’t understand the mentality that API ought to be open and free

If you’re building something on someone else’s property, are you not prepared for the reality they may say you no longer get access to the property?

By all means if we want to treat social media as some public utility let’s do it, but as it is this line of reasoning makes no sense to me

Are you implying humans will go extinct because of climate change?

What’s too late? Why are the doomers wholly unable to provide a solid claim or example of a prior claim of catastrophe that has come to pass?

Stop saying it’s too late, and use words to explain exactly what you’re saying. Otherwise it’s fear mongering and that’s all this conversation ever is

Now consider that these people are also the ones who have created the rules and policies of online discourse

Now apply the fact that talking is how we think and formulate thoughts

Explains a lot in the last 20 years wrt politics and social movements… a very small elite who isn’t affected by the dangerous decisions they make

What specific costs are you talking about?

So when the mega wealthy control the laws and politicians and then you come to me asking how we should get the laws and politicians so what we want, what do you expect me to say?

I’m not suggesting anything about bankruptcy. I’m saying it’s foolish to think voting will make this right

Not to mention that developing tech faster can lead to subsequent tech that will help clean the mess.

We don’t talk about climate change as an engineering project, but it absolutely could be.

Think if we spent a fraction of what we spend on war every decade and instead dedicated that to tech to cleanse the atmosphere or oceans, or maybe even fusion.

Just look at most of the comments in any climate thread. They are mostly people dooming “it’s too late” or similar (nothing has been done!)

Ignoring the scientific realities, the public is hopelessly lost and emotional on the subject.

It’s frustrating to say the least but this is the effect of mass programming. The question to me is why are these people being programmed to think that everything is hopeless?

It’s not a helpful strategy for actually making changes that can help the climate

“Nearly all of the attendees were vaccinated, but 70% said they didn't mask.”

Why is the mask thing even mentioned, it was dubious as hell when they first pushed it but study after study comes out showing they don’t stop spread

But then again, the CDC was pushing the idea that getting vaccinated means you won’t get sick so I guess believing the CDC holds some scientific validity is an error to begin