507 karma · joined September 29, 2024
I too find this a bit strange. Downranking results that would otherwise be naturally highly ranked seems only to inhibit the operation of the search engine.
https://bluenotary.us/how-many-american-citizens-don-t-have-...
To use OP's example, we know that the gene mentioned is frequently found in the Inuit population. But if an Inuk does not have that gene, it does not somehow make them less Inuit. We can't quantify percentage Inuitness, and doing so is logically unsound. This is because the term "Inuit" doesn't mean its biological correlates. It simply has biological correlates.
To use an example of a personal friend, slightly anonymized: My friend is an Ashkenazi Jew. There is absolutely no uncertainty about this; Jewishness is matrilineal, and their mother was an Ashkenazi Jew, and her mother before her, going back over eight documented generations of family history. But alas - their grandfather was infertile, a fact that was posthumously revealed. Their maternal grandmother had a sperm donor. The sperm donor was not an Ashkenazi Jew. Consequently, can said friend be said to be "only 75% Jewish," having missed the "necessary" genetic correlates? Of course not. By simple matrilineage they are fully an Ashkenazi Jew.
Why are these terms used in medicine, then? Because, put simply, it's the best we can do. Genetic profiling is a useful tool under some limited circumstances, and asking medical subjects their ethnicity is often useful in determining medical correlates. But there is nothing in the gene that says "I am Inuk, I am Ashkenazi," because these ideas are social first, not genetic first.
Put another way, the population is simply too variable to attempt to eliminate all confounding factors. We can, at best, eliminate some of the ones we know about, and acknowledge the ones we can't.
(I also take minor issue with a study "sponsored by Alkili" being reasonably construed as independent, given that "the funder had a role in study conception and design, confirming data and statistical analyses, and conducting the study." But this of course does not necessarily invalidate the underlying science.)
(Or the related / more in depth "Polling is not a substitute for discussion" - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Polling_is_not_a_s...)
The difference between a wiki and a social media network is that anyone can spin up a template social media site; the fundamental user-side barrier to entry is pretty small. The same is not true of wikis - at least not high quality ones. Documentary standards, tone, quality, reviewership, consistency, policy, moderation, accountability, leadership, thoroughness, these are all qualities that take time and commitment to develop. They are hallmarks of centralization for a reason: arguably the innovation of human governance is centered around qualities like these. They take a long time to develop.
As a counterpart to Wikipedia, well... fragmentation is often a death knell for efficient knowledge transfer. We are already losing massive swathes of our early Internet history due to fragmentation, attrition, and destruction. The thought that any piece of knowledge stored in a safehouse could go offline at once, without replication or warning, it scares me a bit. The thought that we don't really know who we're trusting as stewards of human knowledge in a federated model disturbs me too. You can have your issues with Wikipedia but at least you know who they are. You know their biases.
That's not to say there aren't use cases for this... but man, this seems like an easy way to lose or destroy important parts of our shared history on accident.
On the legal side, "almost effortless to break" is not the same as non-functioning. In many cases the legal purpose of a lock is to establish intent and culpability: you can't aimlessly wander into a locked room, even if it has the world's shittiest Master lock on it. You gotta break the lock to do that. It serves as a semiotic indicator that an area or item was supposed to be off-limits; as a member of society the onus is on you to respect that.
Locks are likely a poor analogy for software engineering.
Strange example to pick as someone who did not write.
- If one is good at their job, why does that imply that either they won't be paid well, or they'll hate it?
- If one enjoys their job, why does that imply they must be paid poorly or suck at it?
- If one is paid well, why does that imply they will be eaten alive by work or terrible at their job?
The assertions such diagrams make just don't stand up to scrutiny when viewed in reverse. They should stand up to symmetry, and clearly do not; the veneer of logic is peeled away. Instead it reveals the underlying issue: they serve only to elucidate a cynical outlook.
Perhaps in general, I'll admit, there is presently a shortage of opportunities working for the public good; but I'm reluctant to even give an inch on that because it lends itself to a cynical belief system about the world which the statement alone does not imply: it is not necessarily a true inference to say that, if there is a shortage, there will never be; or, that if one wants such a job, they will never be able to get it and best give up early.
Don't let cynicism take you. It will take, and take, and take, and leave you only table scraps of joy.
I see in comments below some hypothesizing that it was written by LLM. If you are right, that likelihood is significantly higher...
Before the 1900s, some methods of mechanical reproduction did exist. These methods could be used to mechanically reproduce the written word and very specific forms of visual media. But one factor governed the creation of reproducible works: the work had to be made in a format that permitted reproduction. Put another way, the author of a work must have designed their work for reproduction, implicitly or explicitly consenting to it.
For example, a Japanese wood block carver chooses to make a wood block rather than draw directly on the page; this deliberate choice creates the means of mechanical reproduction. Even when this is done, the choice to do so often comes at prohibitive cost, and while the cost of reproduction is reduced, it remains nontrivial.
But for the rest of art and artists, exclusivity was not just implied, it was an expected standard. There is only one Mona Lisa. It was made in so-and-so year by so-and-so. Around this grew a nearly occult tradition of reverence for the individual, as expressed through their work - their true work, the one in front of you, unique and inviolable.
Through the 1900s artists were reckoning with the creation of film, and later, digital media. I won't rehash all these arguments. Suffice it to say that one main challenge was to the ethos of art itself. If the work is infinitely reproducible, then where has the artist gone? Today, anyone who wants to see the Mona Lisa has already done so. The original is a mere novelty, except to certain very rare specialists. This has only grown more true with digital media, as the ease of reproduction and fidelity have both increased dramatically.
Among a certain type of art culture enthusiast, or maybe dogmatist, there remains a belief that art has lost something material as a result of its reproducibility. And it is undeniably a reasonable belief that if people are provided the requisite data, they will, eventually, reproduce the artwork to a satisfactory degree.
To many of these people, call them any jeers you want, sculpture remains one of the last bastions where the occult value surrounding the artist, who made the work, has not been diminished, because no one has yet figured out how to mechanically reproduce a sculpture to a high degree of fidelity.
Certain museums hold this as a guiding principle, because it is their interpretation of what "art" is supposed to culturally mean. A 3D scan of a sculpture destroys that final bastion of sanctity against the oncoming tide of reproducible devaluation.
Now, I don't believe this argument is a good one. Frankly I think it's a bit Pollyanna, but I have to acknowledge I set it up so I could be strawmanning it a bit. But the reason we're not likely to hear it here is because, despite (what I suspect to be) its central importance to the Rodin, it is not, at its core, a legitimate legal argument.
"You gotta be good. You gotta be top notch."
"It's like he knew what every team needs before he even applied."
Man, oh man. Comedy gold.
If I were putting together a web development team, would I recommend Rust? ...probably not. But that's because I'm putting together a team, not a playground. I'm paying people. I want to use common, well-supported, time-tested methods, unless steering away from that is truly needed to make the project successful. For web dev, that assuredly ain't Rust ("yet," some may add).
But for me? Just for me? I think it's a language I'll always enjoy. Within that line of thinking, I do feel there's room for better web dev tooling in Rust, though what's already there is probably enough to at least get started.
Put another way, "you can't control what you can't measure" (or in this case, characterize more generally).
Is it rescue? Maybe in the sense that you can't leave when you wanted to and now you have to wait. But not in the sense that you were ever in any real danger.
(Admittedly, maybe there is a bit more danger for these astronauts because a malfunctioning spacecraft is inherently a bit of a safety hazard. And the SpaceX operation is certainly not as routine as a ferry showing up at a dock, though it's still safe.)
It seems that it is both a bit subjective whether one calls it "rescue," and also a bit sensationalized to put in a headline too.