Repost: Selena Simmons-Duffin, "'Live free and die?' The sad state of U.S. life expectancy"

Repost: Selena Simmons-Duffin, "'Live free and die?' The sad state of U.S. life expectancy"

Guy Ginton
USA, REPOST

"Everybody has a pet thing they worry about and say, 'it's oral health' or 'it's suicides' – everyone has something that they're legitimately interested in and want to see more attention to," says John Haaga, who was the director of the Division of Behavioral and Social Research at the National Institute on Aging at NIH, before he retired. "The great value of an exercise like this one was to step back and say, 'OK, all of these things are going on, but which of them best account for these long-term population level trends that we're seeing?' "

Repost: Slate Star Codex (Scott Alexander), "Black People Less Likely"

Repost: Slate Star Codex (Scott Alexander), "Black People Less Likely"

Guy Ginton
Controversial, REPOST, Dating & Preferences

The eight points above add up to a likelihood that black people will probably be underrepresented in a lot of weird subculturey nonconformist things. This is not a firm law – black people will be overrepresented in a few weird subculturey nonconformist things that are an especially good fit for their culture – but overall I think the rule holds. And that’s a big problem.

In Defense of Filming Crime

In Defense of Filming Crime

Guy Ginton
Controversial, Dating & Preferences, Technology, World, USA

So I say we should be ashamed of the crime rates and apartheid of St. Louis, where this man managed to murder and walk the streets for hours. We should be more ashamed of the media that pushes this content on us. And we should be even more ashamed of the social media that prioritizes clicks over mental health, wanting us to see content we explicitly do not want to see, just because it gets a reaction. We should never shame the bystandards of horror for their natural reactions. After all, most of us would do the same.

Repost: Eric Schmidt, "Why Technology Will Define the Future of Geopolitics"

Repost: Eric Schmidt, "Why Technology Will Define the Future of Geopolitics"

Guy Ginton
REPOST, Technology, World, USA, Controversial

If necessity is the mother of invention, war is the midwife of innovation. Speaking to Ukrainians on a visit to Kyiv in the fall of 2022, I heard from many that the first months of the war were the most productive of their lives. The United States’ last truly global war—World War II—led to the widespread adoption of penicillin, a revolution in nuclear technology, and a breakthrough in computer science. Now, the United States must innovate in peacetime, faster than ever before. By failing to do so, it is eroding its ability to deter—and, if necessary, to fight and win—the next war.

Repost: Jason Crawford, "Can submarines swim?"

Repost: Jason Crawford, "Can submarines swim?"

Guy Ginton
REPOST, Technology

Did any science fiction predict that when AI arrived, it would be unreliable, often illogical, and frequently bullshitting? Usually in fiction, if the AI says something factually incorrect or illogical, that is a deep portent of something very wrong: the AI is sick, or turning evil. But in 2023, it appears to be the normal state of operation of AI chatbots such as ChatGPT or “Sydney”.

Repost: Stephen Katz, "How to Speak and Write Postmodern"

Repost: Stephen Katz, "How to Speak and Write Postmodern"

Guy Ginton
REPOST, Philosophy & Time, Dating & Preferences

If that doesn't work, you might be left with the terribly modernist thought of, 'I don't know'. Don't worry,just say, 'The instability of your question leaves me with several contradictorily layered responses whose interconnectivity cannot express the logocentric coherency you seek. I can only say that reality is more uneven and its (mis)representations more untrustworthy than we have time here to explore'.

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