TheVat

Yes, that further underscores what I was trying to say. Ethics is hard, life is messy, sometimes we need to look at principles of good will and apply them with the nuances that moment calls for. PS - thanks for mentioning the floating quote thing. My problem was I was on an old tablet this morning that made going back to previous page difficult.

Then again, I might think "rock" is your word for index finger. 😀

(edit box won't let me access previous post - I am responding to previous post before the page break) What if ignoring the rule about causing harm to others were applied to a mass shooter who was preparing to mow down the audience in a theater? If you were behind the shooter with a heavy object in your hands, would you refrain from harming the mass shooter? Just making the point that "do no harm" is simplistic. It's for this reason doctors have ethics boards and complex nuanced criteria for administering dangerous drugs. The drug might make you very ill or kill you, but the disease is ten times as likely to do so. For this reason, I think ethical principles are better than rules. It's like the different between common law and Napoleonic codes.

I am wondering how your thread experience has paralleled Dawkins's. You seem to be going strong, I can see no evidence you've been silenced. I'm not saying Dawkins, Rowling et al haven't experienced attempts to gag them, and I oppose using ideological correctness to stifle free discourse, but this is a biology thread so I would see the only restriction here as that one must show some fealty to facts regarding phenotypic expression. The fact I've gleaned, from the start, is that there are biological effects in the phenotypic expression of sex chromosomes, relating to pre-natal hormone levels in utero and epigenetics and androgen insensitivity, such that gender is not just a social artifact. IOW, feeling one is a woman inside a male body is a genuine and valid experience, not a social fad one has taken up. The Endocrine Society said, in a position statement that "Considerable scientific evidence has emerged demonstrating a durable biological element underlying gender identity. Individuals may make choices due to other factors in their lives, but there do not seem to be external forces that genuinely cause individuals to change gender identity." https://www.endocrine.org/advocacy/position-statements/transgender-health

Ahh. Drivers keep switching until the system reaches a Nash equilibrium, which is not optimal for flow. That helps, thanks.

There may be a Bayesian analysis that escapes me here. For one thing, if these are chronic high traffic roads then it may always be faster to use the 20 roads. If the t10 legs always take at least 30 minutes (with at least 300 cars at any time on road), for example, then you will always do better to take only the 20 legs. The problem is rather unreal, given there are no roads that "take only 20 minutes regardless of traffic," and no actual driver would believe such a thing. If everyone took the 20 roads, then they would by normal human expectations cease to be 20 roads.

I knew that! (looks smug, inspects fingernails) I stayed at a B&B long ago where a lunch was also served, and the proprietor grew rampion in the garden, and sliced the root into salad. Like radish, but I found it more flavorful. Tobacco use is another one. Decreases blood flow and oxygen to the follicle. Heavy smoking is linked with androgenetic alopecia.

Paging Dr. Wittgenstein, line two!

Indeed, and I guess the challenge for society is how to remove the stigma from a disorder without removing the help. It's unfortunate how people have historically tended to have different rules and levels of sympathy for physical and mental disorders.

Charlie Daniels weighs in on yesterday's news...

Wondered why I was getting a notification on this thread. So there's a trend now in bots, with echoing old posts. Weird.

Yes, I didn't write clearly. I meant without the "Wheatstone" pathway. And plus one to @exchemist for that clever joke. As for the rest, I misunderstood the game theory aspect of what the driver, or we, would assume about other drivers. I will chew on this a little more. Hopefully I won't drive in circles!

We hope to see it soon. The 3:15 running time has made it a little more difficult to fit in at a busy time, but the coming week things slow down so should not be a problem. We were actually in line for the show last week when it sold out, which was surprising in this town, it's not the sort of movie that usually sells out here.

Well, minimum travel time, by any route, will still be 20.1 minutes (assuming your own vehicle counts as 1 car on the road, so t/10 will be O.1 minute for just you). A driver who starts on a t/10 road and encounters heavy traffic (where t >200) will assume they should not take the PQ instant road because that would dump them in more heavy traffic that will take more than 20 minutes. So they will continue on the 20 road. A driver who starts on a 20 road cannot predict traffic on the t/10 leg, so they will have to select the path based on past experience of it. If they anticipate heavy traffic (>200), then they would take PQ, knowing they are certain to only take 20 more minutes. If not, they would take the t/10 road, hoping to take less total time. So the optimal route really depends on the driver's knowledge of traffic conditions on those roads, it seems to me.

There are many things I would enjoy doing that I would not feel good about actually having done. Cultural forces shape us powerfully. And there are groups of humans (religious ascetics, e.g.) who studiously deny needs and feel much better about themselves. There are also arguments that many people make that we should sometimes engage in activities we do not enjoy, where those activities benefit others, express love and support, take us outside our comfort level in some character-growing way, etc. I think the relationship to alleles or groups of alleles will always be pretty murky.

I was unsure what was meant by "my index." @MSC ? Is this a specific meaning of index used in philosophy?

It is hard to change, partly owing to driving really being a group activity - goal: getting everyone safely to their destination - while many drivers want to play a zero-sum game of some kind where they "win" something. Driving should be ballet, not battle. One thing that I find mildly annoying is the way a long line of cars responds to a green light. If we were all really focused on cooperation, we would all start rolling forward when the light turns green. But, as we know, that is not what happens. Instead, each driver waits for the car in front of them to start moving before they do. (and given how tightly drivers pack themselves together at a red light, the optimal All Roll Together method would be difficult to achieve even if drivers were all attentive) IOW, most drivers don't respond to the larger situation. We're not fish, we don't coordinate our movements as a school of fish does. My overall answer, which is somewhat OT, is usually "mass transit," since I don't see most cities as really designed for huge numbers of private vehicles. We try to do that in the US, but the results are pretty awful.

Post was in jest. Was young women locked up in high towers not sufficient clue?

Absolutely! If stress is extreme, like being thrown in a dungeon in chains, follicular hair production increases tenfold. You will have a full beard in about three days. That's why dungeon dwellers in magazine cartoons always have long beards. There is a similar effect with young women who are locked up in high towers, except that it's head hair instead of facial hair. The hair grows quite long and more rope-like.

I did enjoy a good LOL at the above. A possible tack for an ethics thread might be to explore the OP question here: Is it okay to make yourself a little stupid with drugs, if it doesn't harm you, and helps you relax and enjoy activities? I lean towards yes. With the caveat that stupidity can be verrrry seductive. If you value an intellectual life, then "robotripping" (the general term I've heard for self-IQ-lowering) might be something to do in moderation. Especially where some respite is needed from possible overthinking of things.

True, and that's not the veracundiam fallacy because we are respecting the Nature author for being gatekeeper to good data and allowing peer review, not because they said so. IOW, we value authority when we believe in its integrity with evidence and honest and sound interpretation of that evidence. We value authority when it says in effect, don't value this based on my authority, just listen to the evidence and consider me a conduit for that evidence. So, with Francis Crick, we might say I will check out his claustrum hypothesis because he's brilliant and has made terrific hypotheses in the past. But we won't say, Francis, he's the authority on where consciousness comes from, so...case closed!

I think you are correct, because any proposed measurement would lead to circular logic, with no new information acquired. 5, the number, is itself a measure. Measurements, in this context, would be like saying My yardstick is 1 yard long.

Scopus is also good for citation count. Bear in mind, though, not all citations mean validation or approval of the paper in question. You could have cites that say basically James Clemens got it wrong and here's why... Which all serves to remind that Appeal to Authority (argumentum ad veracundiam) is a logical fallacy. Even someone who's a Nobel prizewinner in their field can be mistaken and fool themselves. For fun, google Francis Crick claustrum hypothesis.

Yes that could be in the mix, too. Though sad to think the kind of men who are engaged in the ultimate test of cerebral fitness and getting their kicks above the waistline (I'm grabbing phrases from the musical, Chess - credit to Tim Rice) would sink so low. Chess is not the first thing I think of when sexual harassment cultures come up. From my brushes with the chess world I would say that is not the best temperament to have for chess. Good chess comes from a fairly "zen" place. Well, that, and OCD. Just saw this. Yep. Well put, and LOL.

It's numbers. Chess used to be so dominated by men (watch the series Queen's Gambit for a taste of the early days) that it was thought that having a separate women's division would help them get past some intimidation and in the door. Gender divisions nowadays in chess are absurd. Almost all modern competitions in chess are open to all. Segregated divisions now only make sense in backward places where women are already socially segregated and a women's chess group at least prevents them from being completely locked out. The fact that women in Riyadh need a chess division is a symptom of their barbaric society, not lack of intellectual capacity. The only advantage men had was that they were more likely to be praised when very young for an interest in chess, were more encouraged to join a high school chess club, got more positive feedback for obsessing for hours over chess study and practice, etc.