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seriousquestion

1,042 karma · joined March 24, 2021

Questions, asked seriously.
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seriousquestion··on It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness
Social contagion can result in surprisingly self destructive behavior.

> For the first time that I am aware of, we are seeing clusters of people seeking voluntary amputations of healthy limbs and performing amputations on themselves.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/12/a-new-w...

That was in 2000 and since then it's only increased in scale. Tumblr alone saw widespread suicidal ideation, depression, self-harm and a host of identity crises.

Now the question is, what's the solution?

seriousquestion··on T. rex’s jaw had sensors to make it an even more fearsome predator
> This completely changes our perception of T. rex as a dinosaur that was insensitive around its mouth, putting everything and anything in biting at anything and everything including bones.

I mean, wouldn't sensitivity be the default assumption? Why were they otherwise convinced?

seriousquestion··on EU to make Bitcoin traceable, ban anonymous crypto wallets
To build on this; Is code equivalent to speech? Is Bitcoin free speech?
seriousquestion··on Youtube-dl is possibly dead
yt-dlp is a good fork.

https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp

Any other recommendations?

seriousquestion··on John Carmack visits Starbase
You think John Carmack, a legendary engineer who had his own aerospace company and has likely toured others, is wrong that it's extremely impressive? Which would be relative to others.
seriousquestion··on FDA Approves First Covid-19 Vaccine
Do you see how this escalating though? Already concerns are being blithely dismissed, and it only starts as optional and non essential.

In Australia you can see the next step already where it’s being applied to grocery stores. You have to start pushing back before it gets to that.

seriousquestion··on FDA Approves First Covid-19 Vaccine
Does the first part matter in the context of what the OP was talking about? If Trump mandated it many would not take it on that basis alone. That’s the point I’m responding to.

“If the public health professionals, if Dr. Fauci, if the Doctors, tell us we should take it, I'll be the first in line to take it, absolutely. But if Donald Trump tells us that we should take it I'm not taking it.“

Note “But if…”. That programmers aren’t able to parse this if else statement is concerning.

seriousquestion··on FDA Approves First Covid-19 Vaccine
You don't even have to imagine. Kamala Harris: "But if Donald Trump tells us to take it, I’m not taking it."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dAjCeMuXR0

The same thing was broadly expressed on twitter at the time too, she was far from alone in that sentiment.

seriousquestion··on Palantir CEO Alex Karp gives $180k to ousted hermit River Dave
Here's how meaningless this smear campaign is:

> Palantir worked with Cambridge Analytica on the Facebook data it acquired

Google, PG&E, DoorDash, Edible Arrangements, worked with Cambridge Analytica...

> Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens

The government does using some of Palantir's tools. Does Palatir itself do that?

> NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

So?

> Leaked Palantir Doc Reveals Uses, Specific Functions and Key Clients

So?

> U.S. regulators accuse Palantir of bias against Asians

Accuse being the key word.

> How Peter Thiel’s Palantir helped expand the NSA’s global spy network

How Google, PG&E, DoorDash and Edible Arrangements helped expand the NSA's global spy network. Maybe the NSA is the problem here, not service providers?

> Britain gave Palantir access to sensitive COVID-19 patient records in £1 deal

Why did Britain give them access to that?

seriousquestion··on What is ‘elite overproduction’?
If that's the case, then why is student debt such a problem? Or is that equally overhyped?
seriousquestion··on Second largest US mortgage lender will accept crypto payments this year
Is that the only explanation? Or is it possible they see weakening institutions, weakening petrodollar and want to get ahead of the curve or diversify?
seriousquestion··on Second largest US mortgage lender will accept crypto payments this year
How is that marketing? When I'm in Mexico things are priced in pesos, but I pay with dollars and crypto.
seriousquestion··on SEC charges Netflix insider trading ring
Now that they got a small fish at Netflix, how about looking into the whales in congress?

https://unusualwhales.com/i_am_the_senate/congress

seriousquestion··on Atlas robot does parkour
Is Boston Dynamics primarily a viral video company? If not, why do they keep getting bought and sold?
seriousquestion··on I'm a landlord with 24 properties. We're suffering during Biden's eviction ban
The optics are so bad it comes across as a joke. But it's the Insider, not the Onion, so...

Is the article 1) unaware to a comical degree or 2) a psyop?

seriousquestion··on Many Americans not aware of being tracked with facial recognition while shopping
How does that work? How do they get the ID? And is it location accurate enough that it would not get confused with another phone a few feet away?
seriousquestion··on Where does the plastic in oceans come from?
North America <> US

And when you are solving a problem, do you sort by % ascending or descending?

seriousquestion··on There Is a Tennis Ball Shortage Too Now
That's important perspective. What did it look like in the early days of the shortage tho? Did it start off as minor and become more severe over time? Or did it go from plentiful to none right away?
seriousquestion··on Alien Dreams: The long history of speculation about extraterrestrials
Yes, exactly. Fundamentally it's a way to attract attention. If the claim is getting less attention, you would expect it to die out.
seriousquestion··on China quietly sets new 'buy Chinese' targets for state companies
Furthermore, how many US industries and companies are compromised? Hollywood, the NBA, Blizzard, are a few that come to mind.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/10/10/steph...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitzchung_controversy

seriousquestion··on Alien Dreams: The long history of speculation about extraterrestrials
Do people still make claims about alien abduction? Or has that been made extinct by the ubiquity of smartphones?
seriousquestion··on Investors overseeing $14T call for vote on company climate plans
What are these investors invested in, exactly? So we know what we should invest in, because they will no doubt push it in a direction that's self interested.
seriousquestion··on Who Owns My Name?
This is one of those cases where the news cycle and court of public opinion spiraled out of control, never to be corrected. Imagine how surreal and frustrating that must be? And she makes a good point about how these things get named:

Who had the power in the relationship between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky? The president or the intern? It matters what you call a thing. Calling that event the “Lewinsky Scandal” fails to acknowledge the vast power differential, and I’m glad that more people are now referring to it as “the Clinton Affair” which names it after the person with the most agency in that series of events.

seriousquestion··on CDC Internal Delta Variant Presentation
Careful, I got buried by the downvote and flag brigade for pointing that out.
seriousquestion··on CDC Internal Delta Variant Presentation
"Acknowledge the war has changed"

Maybe it has? For example, DC has reported 11 homicides since its last reported COVID death.

seriousquestion··on You can be shy and still be a CEO
Does your country really not have people that would love to work at SpaceX?
seriousquestion··on Facebook is now claiming official CDC.gov links are “False Information”
An honest label would be "unapproved".
seriousquestion··on Facebook is now claiming official CDC.gov links are “False Information”
Frankly, does anyone have business in fact checking at this point? Who checks the fact checkers? I can't think of any source that hasn't repeatedly bungled information over the past year. What we have is consensus checking, at best.
seriousquestion··on Show HN: An app that helps engineers fight back against pointless meetings
Should Zoom build this in as a feature? Why or why not?
seriousquestion··on Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices
That's true, but they are the foot soldiers for the technocrats. Like Mao's Red Guard, they are the ones enforcing it on the ground, ousting dissidents and running the struggle sessions. They humiliate, bully, ostracize, get people fired, destroy reputations. Without them the technocrats would have far less power.
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