TheVat

I'm sure Balzac would have some input, if he were alive.

Spending time with Chalmers, Dennett, Tononi, Koch, et al might help the OP to gain some tools for grappling with the HPOC. Sometimes works better to take a specific concept from the field, and then craft a thread that responds to one particular position in a published paper.

We Yanks are limited to "humor" due to our impatience in typing words. And also limited in our meaning of "piss-taking," though we do it more frequently as we age. Anyway, I agree on the value of astutely observed ridicule. And I recognize that comedians will often approach the line of transgression, and ease a toe across, to deliver it. My impression is that RG does this by poking fun, not at trans people, but at some forms of trans activism and ideology. My sense of things is that the latter is fair game for almost any group. And then there is wordplay: It takes real balls to have an orchiectomy.

Thanks, will have a look. I've found some of his "cringe comedy" to be funny stuff. I hope that groups who get fun poked at them can realize that being in a joke is a measure of acceptance. To me, it says in effect, "There's nothing so awful or so special about you that we can't joke about you the way we do our other friends." That said, I haven't seen SuperNature and I don't know how many lines it crosses, or in what way. Sometimes jokes that demean people can be dangerous. OTOH, sometimes carefully avoiding jokes about people, as if everyone is too polarized and deadly serious, can also be dangerous when it blocks needed societal safety valves and comic relief. It really depends on the particular joke, eh?

Why would a python need an open CV, or any kind of resume? What is their work experience or education, beyond eating and sleeping? "Have swallowed 46 piglets in the last fourteen years. Took many digestion naps." I guess you could hire one as a Greeter at Wal-Mart.

One could also partake of avocados. A number of avocados, perhaps. (We are deep in the nerd jokes here...) For those following along.... https://www.britannica.com/science/Avogadros-number

I celebrate by reading a John LeCarre novel.

Thank you. I spent years as admin at a website where we'd get people arguing basically "look at how many views my [nutty] thread has received - clearly the world is fascinated!" I would point out no one had bothered to reply to their thread "The amazing smithereen particle at the heart of all matter!!" in six years, despite their daily 3000 word updates, and they would invariably point to the click counter.

After all the many pages of incisive postings, I still have the feeling that the two major camps on trans women on womens teams are inherently not reconcilable. The camp that envisions heavy mesomorphic trans females crushing cis females on a field strike me as not moved by arguments like "well that's quite rare," or "hormone treatments cancel all that" or "their suicide rates will soar if we don't include them." One reason such issues are so hard to resolve is that humans have hair-trigger reactions to anything perceived as unfair. And, with this issue, the data points are so few (because, as many noted, trans women on womens teams in explosive-strength/mass-dependent sports are so rare) that casual perceptions and anxieties can rule, and some will be sniffing for unfairness like bloodhounds. I would suggest the debate only really ends with what would be a social experiment. Let them in for a defined trial period, see what happens, collect data. And there's the rub - many would not want to be (or have their child be) a guinea pig.

If the population is stable, then only 1/1000 of the population needs to be replaced in any given year. If maturation happens at the same rate as now (IOW, a greatly extended adulthood), then it would be a society with very few children and teens. This would definitely change the menu of choices at the multiplex. Concepts like "family friendly" would be less important to most people. And I can see some stratification, as we find that centuries long spans of time change people's perspective, so that there might be special cultural offerings that cater to the tastes of near-millenarians, and not so much to mere centenarians. People would be likely to have several careers. Someone who started out as a doctor, and practiced for a century, might go back to school and become a flamenco guitarist or interplanetary food critic. Then, after another century, perhaps off in another direction. It would be rare, I think to self identify by one particular line of work, though there could be exceptions where a particular level of interest and talent converged. People might finally tire of The Simpsons. Its 14,000th season would be the final one. "Jeopardy" however would continue and offer contests with specific age categories. The near-millenarians, if they retained their mental acuity, could have (to us) staggering levels of knowledge going deep into earlier historical eras. (though historical eras, as we know them, might be greatly elongated as society grew more conservative and slower to change)

KAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLIIIIIIII!!

Or they're locked in an intense competition to have the best vacuum cleaner. Some aliens can be quite shallow, you know. You have raised maybe an interesting speculative topic - could a tech civilization grow that had only wood (or other surface plant materials) as a fuel? I suppose if they could make it to glassmaking then they could stumble on solar furnaces and such, and then leapfrog over the dirty fuel era.

We still have toilets, actually. But you may want to bring your own toilet paper. Seriously, I think this new bill, depending on its final draft, could be seen as an incremental bit of progress. And I agree on the power of global opinion, over a longer time scale. And that influence may be bolstered if foreign tourist numbers drop because they are afraid to come here. Re: slow change Bear in mind that slow change can sometimes be a tough sell to people who feel they are in immediate jeopardy. And people whose lives are touched by gun violence (which is now a pretty big segment of America - my wife has a friend who was shot in the face, I had an acquaintance years ago who shot himself, my son had a close friend who killed himself with a shotgun...and I expect many people you might randomly stop on the street would have their own similar stories) may find "now's not the time for this" really hard to accept. So I hope this first try at a gun bill will start some momentum.

It's worth asking at what point compromise has become capitulation to a shrill minority. Looks like we (the majority of Americans polled) can't get the assault rifle ban, the ban that was federal law for ten years and then not renewed. Mostly because of... ...as @J.C.MacSwell put it. This seems to be the pattern of recent years. Small vocal minority telling the majority how they should make private medical decisions, what are acceptable topics of study in school, who can get married, which groups are Real Americans, etc. I'm not sure I'm really interested in compromise, if that word only means capitulation to bigotry, unreason, partisan power grabs and screaming ignorance.

I've heard it's quite common to hear voices or music in the sound of water. Something about the frequency range, and the cognitive fill that @Peterkin describes. Have noticed the "babbling brook" effect on several occasions. As I kid I also noticed from the back seat that engine and highway noise, on long trips, would sometimes seem to have choral singing in it. When I was a little older and saw 2001: A Space Odyssey and the black monoliths emitted those long choral notes I recognized it immediately as the singing of a 1965 Dodge Dart on the Kansas turnpike.

Har! As Al Hamilton noted, when it comes to pertinacious minorities, it's good not to allow the filibuster. Hamilton also spoke against flyspeck states like Rhode Island having equal power with the big ones, in the Senate. But he and his pals knew they couldn't get the flyspecks to join the new Union, if they didn't toss them that bone. IIRC Rhode Island and a couple other small colonies were threatening to ally with some Euro power, if they didn't get that deal. So now we're stuck with what Al called "contemptible compromises of the public good."

Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist Paper, no. 22: To give a minority a negative upon the majority (which is always the case where more than a majority is requisite to a decision), is, in its tendency, to subject the sense of the greater number to that of the lesser.… The necessity of unanimity in public bodies, or of something approaching towards it, has been founded upon a supposition that it would contribute to security. But its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority. In those emergencies of a nation, in which the goodness or badness, the weakness or strength of its government, is of the greatest importance, there is commonly a necessity for action. The public business must, in some way or other, go forward. If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority, respecting the best mode of conducting it, the majority, in order that something may be done, must conform to the views of the minority; and thus the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater, and give a tone to the national proceedings. Hence, tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good. And yet, in such a system, it is even happy when such compromises can take place: for upon some occasions things will not admit of accommodation; and then the measures of government must be injuriously suspended, or fatally defeated. It is often, by the impracticability of obtaining the concurrence of the necessary number of votes, kept in a state of inaction. Its situation must always savor of weakness, sometimes border upon anarchy. (1787)

Hi, Jimmy. There are some therapies that are cognitive, and not pharmaceutical or ECT-based. I don't know of any that result in any quick alleviation, probably because quick fixes don't exist. And I am fairly certain there are none which don't require the training a LMHP would have. Your best course might be to contact a professional, and then see how you can help, as a friend, as that therapy progresses, provided your friend can take the first step. Depression is uniquely resistant to "coaching and encouragement," in fact that's one of the distinguishing features of clinical depression and why families and friends feel so powerless to do anything. (and also why some pharma intervention is so often on the table) Also, and I cannot stress this too strongly, some who suffer deep depression are especially vulnerable when their depression starts to diminish. So, even if you did manage to give some help, there would be critical junctures where the supervision of a pro would be vital. Some depressed patients have been known to attempt suicide, not when at the lowest point, but as they experience an increase in energy and activity. Not trying to scare you, but to underscore that this kind of mental illness ain't no place for amateurs!

@mistermack Interesting variant on the rare Earth idea. Or maybe I should say rare big brain on Earth idea. It is a possible formulation of Frank Drake's equation, where N is zero because fi is zero. I too have given some thought to that fi parameter and wondered if we tend to extrapolate badly from a single data point. There could be planets, too, where intelligence arises, but confounding factors keep it from doing anything technologically. Brilliant philosophizing parrots who can't do much with tools beyond poking sticks around. Smart apelike creatures with a metal-poor environment who never do metallurgy. And so on.

Some seem to want simple answers that satisfy their poutine-addled minds. So, here is one, the one that Bernie Sanders (the candidate I didn't have to hold my nose while voting for) offered: electoral reform. A completely level electoral process where every vote in every state has exactly the same influence, and everyone has easy access to the polls, no matter their income, location or work schedule, voting for candidates who rise or fall on their policies and ability to answer sharp questions and not on how deep their pockets are. Oddly, the (name deleted to spare the delicate feelings of those who hate partisan strife) Party had no interest in that. Could it be that when the majority know your policies stink, they won't vote for you? Could that be why only 26% of registered voters cast a vote for TFG? Maybe failure mode is needed. Let the (name deleted again, because I'm almost as nice as a Canadian) Party burn down at least part of the house, so that people will finally realize they aren't very good housekeepers. We may all end up sleeping on that hideabed in the basement that has a painful lumbar ridge, breathing ash, but at least we will know something!

(Above is an scontent file, so the post may be deleted if that file disappears. )

The P1/P2 scenario illustrated well how compromise doesn't happen. Some asks just aren't reasonable, or constitutional. This is why abortion conversations implode all the time, for example. ProChoice sees the woman's complete right to reproductive decisions as constitutionally enshrined - take away any pieces of that right and the other side is seen as trying to pick rooms to burn down. And, with gun rights, it's one block of the conservatives that feels that way. To channel the drama critic Addison DeWitt in "All About Eve," they have a point - an idiotic one, but a point. And, @J.C.MacSwell I will try to reign in my "nopes" - I see your point. And it's not idiotic.

Thanks to @Markus Hanke and @Alex_Krycek for elucidating the game theory behind Dark Forest. I was operating more from an assumption I see was hidden in my previous post, which is that civilizations without ethical constraints and the cultural mechanism to limit consumption would become nonviable and therefore never pose an existential threat beyond their own solar system. But I do see your points and agree that I cannot say absolutely "never" as regards survival to an interstellar phase. Will try to get at some of your specific points later - am dealing with that American curse, "the busy weekend."

Look into vasopressin and angiotensin. These hormones are key to what the brain does when you are dehydrated.

wow I don't think our Molson's chugging friends to the north quite realize that our Democratic Party is, by the standards of pretty much every other democratic nation on Earth, quite moderate. And has been trying to find compromise every way possible with a GOP that has moved far to the Right and now snuggles with white nationalists and Christian theocrats and bizarro science deniers. And their undertow pulls along others who should know better. Due to our flawed electoral college system, and the deeply skewed Senate (where in a few short years, the most conservative 30% of our populace will have 70% of the Senate), and a ton of gerrymandering, a minority has hijacked the political process and has little interest in real conversation about issues or compromise. FFS, we are just trying to survive as a democracy at this point. And so many of us are straining to reach out to conservatives, try to find some way to shift in their direction without abandoning whole demographics at risk, struggling to have some kind of rational fact based dialog with them that has some anchoring in the reality of the 21st century. Outside of a few places like Boston, Seattle, or San Francisco, I don't think you find that many liberals who are loftily proclaiming their wisdom and rightness or are not willing to compromise. You really have to know compromise is all we do these days. I had to vote for Biden who, in any other recent decade, would have been seen as centrist, and has not had a career I would call terribly progressive. My vote was a compromise, as were many others' votes. And anyone I vote for in South Dakota is a compromise (and I think other Red Staters would likely say the same).