Everybody Is Doing Something
from fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz on 03 Jul 00:35
https://mander.xyz/post/33277594

#science_memes

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bad_news@lemmy.billiam.net on 03 Jul 01:11 next collapse

Japanese Buddhist curated amino acid diet for the win

Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de on 03 Jul 19:05 collapse

i’ve been chugging DNA juice for 10 years and i’m just about to evolve

riskable@programming.dev on 03 Jul 01:26 next collapse

The truth is, anything but saccharin.

Ameripol@lemmy.world on 03 Jul 01:30 next collapse

Is this the same guy who wrote the Harry Potter Rationalism fan-fic and started the ai worshipping cult?

fullsquare@awful.systems on 03 Jul 01:39 next collapse

yeah all while being a high school dropout he never went to high school

iusearchbtw@feddit.uk on 03 Jul 05:58 collapse

wasn’t he entirely homeschooled

fullsquare@awful.systems on 03 Jul 10:03 collapse

you’re right, he couldn’t be high school dropout because he never attended high school. he went to normal schools before that allegedly, but 8th grade broke him

bigfondue@lemmy.world on 03 Jul 11:41 collapse

He thinks he is too High IQ for school.

juliebean@lemmy.zip on 03 Jul 06:14 next collapse

from my understanding, the ai cult initially sprang up on the forum he hosted (hosts? idk), but he didn’t exactly start it, any more than Queen Elizabeth II invented punk rock.

but he did write the fanfic, and it’s honestly pretty good. low bar i know, but dude’s a better author than jowling ever was, and i definitely recommend it to anyone into HP fanfics.

fristislurper@feddit.nl on 03 Jul 07:09 next collapse

Counterpoint: danluu.com/su3su2u1/hpmor/

lemming@sh.itjust.works on 03 Jul 07:37 collapse

It’s interesting. I only read a bit so far and it is definitely right sometimes, but I think it often misses the point. For example complaining that the magic system doesn’t make sense is silly, since the magic is obviously trying to appear the same as in the original books (where it makes much less sense) while creating an impression that there might be some rules behind it and it being unintuitive and opaque is the whole point, since the rules are hard to find, else they would be found long ago.

my_hat_stinks@programming.dev on 03 Jul 09:42 next collapse

People are always praising that fanfic for some reason so I tried reading it a while back. If it’s the one I’m thinking of then hard disagree, the protagonist is a self-insert Mary Sue clearly written by a kid who thinks they’re the smartest person alive. One part that still sticks in my mind years later is their fundamental misunderstanding of how fiat currency works, it was some ridiculous get-rich-quick scheme like melting down wizard currency into pure gold to sell to non-wizard community then using that money to buy silver which they’d trade up to magic society gold coins. It was some years ago so I may be misremembering the details, but there should be a ton of issues that immediately jump out to you there.

I trudged through and got as far as the first meeting with Malfoy where the author realized they were being too friendly with each other, but since Malfoy is supposed to be a bad guy they decided he should randomly blurt out something about how he wants to rape some girl.

Maybe it’s just because I don’t have the context of other bad fanfics, but that’s a solid 0/10 from me.

burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de on 03 Jul 11:58 next collapse

The get rich quick scheme I thought was well thought out, for the ‘in universe’ principles that had been laid out. One galleon converted to a lot of copper, so the mary sue could take gold from the muggle world, get it made into galleons in the wizard world, trade those for a metric shit ton of copper knuts, and then take those to the muggle world to be sold for a much larger sum of money than had been used to buy the gold.

As long as you don’t expect it to work forever, it would be fine. The writing was terrible, but the character established all the nuts and bolts of the operation by ‘just asking’ questions to the diagetic narrator: pure gold was able to be made into galleons for a fee, banks would give you your money in knuts if you asked, and the prices would work for it.

The writing was jank and the protagonist narrator insufferable, but the conclusions he drew did make sense for the world he had been placed in, as appropriate for a ‘rationalist’ critique of harry potter.

Edit: the part where I just threw up was where the narrator had an immediate, perfectly-thought-out-but-the-writer-couldn’t-come-up-with-an-actual-thing when mcgonagoll threatened to alter his memory, but he had thought of a perfect solution to that years ago. It reminded me of terrible ttrpg players who just ad hoc added parts to their backstory so they could be mary sues in a collaborative game.

my_hat_stinks@programming.dev on 03 Jul 12:44 next collapse

If the coins are 100% gold or copper then you’re in one of two scenarios: the value of the coin is the scrap metal value, in which case swapping between gold and copper makes little difference; or, the mint buys your scrap gold and converts it in-house, pocketing the difference. A mint has no reason to convert your gold to significantly higher value coins for you, that only loses them their economic and political power in the form of currency control.

The only way it would work is if you specifically build a world where everyone else is incredibly stupid just to make yourself seem smart.

agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works on 03 Jul 13:53 next collapse

The whole basis of that scheme was the different relative exchange rates in the muggle and wizard world. There are I think 17 silver sickles to 1 gold galleon, but in the muggle world gold is more like 50 times the value of silver. The plan was to take a galleon to the muggle world, melt it down and sell the gold, use the proceeds to buy silver, bring that silver back to the wizard world and have it minted into 50 sickles, and trade those sickles for about 3 galleons.

Like many scenes in HPMOR the author is mostly just roasting Rowling for lazy world building. He didn’t have to build a world where everyone else was stupid, the point is that Rowling’s wizarding world already fulfilled that requirement.

my_hat_stinks@programming.dev on 03 Jul 15:40 collapse

Exploiting the difference in value of a commodity between communities is a valid way to make a living, traders have existed for a very long time, though if there’s little effort required the values will quickly align with each other. Turning it into an infinite money glitch by having a mint convert your raw material into coins is nonsense.

That’s all still assuming the coins are made of pure gold/silver for some reason. And assuming the mint is willing to just make money for you in spite what I’ve already said.

Edit: And that’s all if you ignore the fact alchemy, conjuration, and transfiguration exist in that universe so the entire thing is moot anyway. The angle they should have taken is that physical currency makes no sense in a world where you can just summon more, but I suppose that’s harder to turn into “I’m so much smarter than the entire world”.

agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works on 03 Jul 16:11 collapse

I mean if you actually read it, basically every point you made except transfiguration is addressed in the conversation Harry has with a goblin at Gringott’s. And transfiguration is addressed later in the book, it’s actually a really crucial plot point. Long story short, no, you can’t just summon more without the philosopher’s stone, which is exceedingly rare.

The angle taken, that from currency to time turners the setting is poorly constructed, is valid. Incidentally, HPMOR Harry suffers due to his “I’m so much smarter than everyone” hubris multiple times throughout the story. Once the story really gets going, Yudkowsky doesn’t really shy away from pointing out when Harry’s absolutist rationalism comes across as childish, impractical, or straight up unethical.

LeninsOvaries@lemmy.cafe on 04 Jul 10:22 next collapse

Yeah, Harry Evans’ best friend is a Wizard Nazi. He’s not supposed to be a paragon, he’s supposed to be a flawed character whose flaw is hubris.

squaresinger@lemmy.world on 04 Jul 13:02 collapse

Harry Potter, especially in the first few books, is really not hard fiction at all. Rowling’s worldbuilding is only there to make for a nice, somewhat magical backdrop for a children’s story. Close to none of the in-universe rules she sets up really work if you look at them hard enough.

It starts with Wingardium Leviosa (and many other spells) blatantly breaking the laws of thermodynamics, thus allowing for infinite energy generation and thus infinite matter generation, but this continues not only throughout the magic system but also throughout every other system she sets up. Because most of it is nothing but a whimsical caricature of real things.

The money system is a caricature of the old British pre-decimal £sd money system.

Quidditch is a caricature of football (thousands of ways to perform a foul), rugby (brutal tackling and violence on the pitch) and cricket (a game can last for months) rolled into one.

The house system and house cup are only slightly embellished versions of what exists in real-life British boarding schools.

Just a few examples. The books are specifically not written in a rational-logical way. Attacking that is so easy that it’s just boring. It’s like proving that raindeer noses don’t glow bright or that gingerbread lacks the static properties to be used to build life-sized houses for witches.

superb@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 03 Jul 20:20 collapse

This kinda shit happens in the real world between real currencies

Natanael@infosec.pub on 03 Jul 14:18 next collapse

That’s just arbitrage

It works until others realize there’s an arbitrary opportunity and prices equalize

juliebean@lemmy.zip on 03 Jul 21:31 collapse

regarding your edit, it was hardly a perfect solution. he just bit his lip real hard. that was his message to himself. i think it’s mentioned a few paragraphs before he tells mcgonnagall about it. it is in there, but it is easy to miss on the first read through, to be sure.

chocosoldier@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 04 Jul 15:32 collapse

“rationalism” is the choice religion of 87 IQ brainlets who think they’re geniuses for being able to read Voltaire.

vga@sopuli.xyz on 03 Jul 13:36 collapse

Possibly the only thing more annoying than Yudkowsky are the anonymous online people who think they figured him out. Many of them are in these threads.

hpmor.com for anyone else with delusions of literary grandeur.

juliebean@lemmy.zip on 03 Jul 21:16 collapse

youtube.com/watch?v=0la5DBtOVNI

vga@sopuli.xyz on 04 Jul 07:49 collapse

Sure, of course, and not liking things can be done without psychoanalyzing the author and it does not require feeling superior to them or ridiculing them.

fullsquare@awful.systems on 03 Jul 12:02 collapse

that ai cult also doubles as a get smart quick scheme

Mainwave@lemmy.world on 03 Jul 02:24 next collapse

Downvoted for Yud. Ice this clown out.

Cruxifux@feddit.nl on 03 Jul 02:56 next collapse

If you eat more plants and animals and less breads and sugars you do lose weight and feel better. I’m no science guy but that does work. People over complicate this shit.

fox@hexbear.net on 03 Jul 03:10 next collapse

It’s mostly the plants tbh, dietary fiber is frequently ignored in macro discussions but absolutely critical

Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de on 03 Jul 19:04 collapse

fiber is so strange because it’s function is basically just to pass through you, and yet it’s so vital for the digestive system to function properly

everyone keeps saying “oh dietary supplements are just pissing away money” but fibre supplements are the one supplement most people would benefit hugely from taking, just get some psyllium husk or whatever and enter toilet nirvana

Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de on 04 Jul 12:49 collapse

Just for context, it’s a uniquely American problem. The rest of the developed world on average eats more balanced diet and don’t need to supplement fiber.

Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de on 04 Jul 14:14 collapse

The uniquely US problem is poor people having terrible diets, but lack of fibre for non-poor people is a thing all over the world aside from maybe like, japan…

i’ve personally benefitted greatly from just opting for whole-grain versions of things like pasta, much better poops now.

Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de on 04 Jul 14:22 collapse

Some people around the world eat what is sometimes known as “american diet”, but it’s not a norm yet, not everywhere.

Lemmygradwontallowme@hexbear.net on 03 Jul 04:01 next collapse

well, besides that other remark, sugars come from plants, though not all sugars are equal (ahem added sugar; fruit sugars are prolly fine)

burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de on 03 Jul 12:13 collapse

fruit sugars are prolly fine

Fruits in general aren’t as good for you as general thinking have them. The majority have been bred to be so exaggerated in their sugar content that, as an example, you can’t feed pet primates fruit very often or they will get diabetes (without getting into the horrors that keeping primates as pets encompasses). You can quickly get an idea of this by searching for ‘wild strawberries vs grocery strawberries.’

The fibrous parts of fruits is good, the ‘nutritional’ aspects of them are decent, but the absolute black-hole-mass of sugar on the one side of the teeter-totter is a pretty big negative for them.

Bristlecone@lemmy.world on 03 Jul 04:22 next collapse

This is some ignorant shit, you.

LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 03 Jul 04:42 next collapse

This has been my experience. I find nutritional science incredibly boring, I’ve tried many times to get excited about it, but I just can’t seem to find an ‘in’ with it to make it my 2-week special interest and learn the basics properly.

At this point the bar is “if you can’t explain in one sentence, written, what meal I can make for cheap in less than 1-2 min of active effort and no more than 10 min total prep/cooking time with no skills, effort or culinary knowledge that will be tasty to give me dopamine for the day and feed me for the entire day, I’m not interested”.

I just eat bacon, pork sausages, eggs, and throw in some kale, spinach & watercress. I’ve cut out all bread, sweets, snacks and alcohol. It’s probably not healthy but fuck it we all gotta go sometime. Right now though, feels great, I lost a ton of weight. Hard not to overdo it on the salt added to eggs but I keep a close eye on it.

The only negative I’ve noticed it as I often get hit with random low blood sugar fainting like symptoms after my 2nd-3rd coffee, later I realized I basically was consuming no sugar at all, so now I gulp down 4 red bulls a day with my elvanse for breakfast and the problem went away. MH got way better too.

For dinner I have some frozen pizza or something like that that I can make without any effort or time, but lately it’s way way way too much effort to cook/eat.

Wish there was some “nutri-slop 3000” type magic pill that just gave me all nutrients I need for the day so I wouldn’t have to worry about this shit.

This is all meant with no offense to nutritionists/scientists, way I see it, y’all doing god’s work. Literally. If that lazy mfer bothered existing or got off his ass we wouldn’t be cursed with this shit fr.

Edit: Wow what’s with the downvotes? Le Reddit hivemind is upset?

tja@sh.itjust.works on 03 Jul 05:37 next collapse

I mean, there are these “complete meal” drinks, specifically for people like you who don’t really want to think about their next meal

LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 03 Jul 18:17 next collapse

Yeah but they seem lame, not tasty and they give people the shits. Literal corposlop.

Cruxifux@feddit.nl on 03 Jul 19:41 collapse

I struggle finding ones that aren’t fucked with empty carbs and processed sugar personally.

idiomaddict@lemmy.world on 03 Jul 05:51 next collapse

You calling it elvanse makes me suspect you have access to maultaschen. Bürger vegan maultaschen (Typ 1) have macronutrients in the proportion suggested by nutritionists; taste good raw, sautéed, or in soup; cost <€2,50; and keep very well. Other varieties are possibly similar, but I don’t know if they can be eaten raw or how they keep.

Plus, they’re a good base for taking elvanse.

I_am_10_squirrels@beehaw.org on 04 Jul 14:28 collapse

Homemade soylent recipes

www.completefoods.co

Silic0n_Alph4@lemmy.world on 03 Jul 13:13 next collapse

I no longer trust anyone who talks about “plants” or “animals”. It turns out, every single plant or animal is doing something different!

If it copies like a pasta, it’s copypasta!

flora_explora@beehaw.org on 03 Jul 22:46 next collapse

How is bread and sugar not plants?? Oversimplifying stuff doesn’t make it better…

Cruxifux@feddit.nl on 04 Jul 13:23 collapse

Say whatever you want but you can’t argue with results my man.

flora_explora@beehaw.org on 05 Jul 12:36 collapse

Well, if it works for you, great. But that doesn’t mean that it will work for anyone else.

technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 04 Jul 15:44 collapse

You’re over complicating this shit.

Weight loss is primarily just calories burned minus calories eaten…

(times some factor, plus/minus some constant, ignoring higher order terms, excluding exogenous variables, etc.)

Cruxifux@feddit.nl on 04 Jul 19:15 collapse

Yeah that’s a good rule too. Calories in vs calories out.

KingCake_Baby@lemmy.world on 03 Jul 03:14 next collapse

Sugar manufacturers lobbied for fats to take the blame for all of the serious health issues people have had in the last 60 years

Newsteinleo@midwest.social on 03 Jul 14:03 collapse

I know in my case, cutting sugar and simple carbs has done more than cutting fats.

NewOldGuard@hexbear.net on 03 Jul 03:49 next collapse

This is so ignorant lmao

fullsquare@awful.systems on 03 Jul 16:47 collapse

this is about exactly what you can expect from a man whose approach to science is take a phenomenon -> think about it really, really hard -> just know how it works and have an answer (without checking if it’s correct or not, he already thinks he figured it out and won’t change opinion ever even in the face of contrary evidence)

BodyBySisyphus@hexbear.net on 03 Jul 03:52 next collapse

Pictured: The creature who has promised to protect us from sentient machines not sounding like a carbon-based life form

P00ptart@lemmy.world on 03 Jul 06:10 next collapse

Trust the overseer to do what’s best for you. /s

breecher@sh.itjust.works on 03 Jul 07:14 next collapse

This reads more like an anti-science meme. Things are complex, if you don’t understand them fine, but keeping yourself deliberately ignorant isn’t going to stop reality from being reality.

porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml on 03 Jul 08:22 next collapse

It is, this guy is a known fraud and all-round bad dude

fossilesque@mander.xyz on 03 Jul 11:04 next collapse

I literally thought this was a parody/sarcasm when I posted it lmfao.

porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml on 03 Jul 11:05 collapse

Understandable

blarghly@lemmy.world on 04 Jul 21:12 collapse

By who?

Everything I’ve heard about big yud is that he’s a bit of a douchebag with a cult of personality. Never heard he’s anti science, or that he’s done anything wrong.

IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world on 03 Jul 16:33 next collapse

this is borderline.

there’s a point where we can argue that the US has shit standards for food safety. and there’s arguing that chemicals names are scary.

plus, he’s a bit of a weirdo with the Rocco’s Basilisk and his weird harry potter fanfiction

juliebean@lemmy.zip on 03 Jul 21:12 collapse

i assure you, there is much weirder harry potter fanfiction out there. i once read a Hogwarts Castle/Giant Squid smut fic.

Also, pretty sure a fellow named Roko came up with the basilisk, not Yudkowsky.

IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world on 03 Jul 22:22 collapse

the Roko’s basilisk was from his forum, true, not directly his idea, but hes sort of related.

he is just a guy that sometimes, I hear wierd stuff and then I am not surprised hes involved in that.

That harry potter fan fic is weird, because instead of smut or shipping, it’s like what if Harry Potter was a humanist philosoper instead if a normal child with magic powers.

squaresinger@lemmy.world on 04 Jul 12:45 collapse

Was that Harry Potter and the methods of rationality?

I read the first dozen or so chapters maybe 10 years ago, until I realized that the total number of chapters approaches infinity and it got pretty boring after some time.

IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world on 04 Jul 13:40 collapse

yes, that chapter count was indeed impressive

bss03@infosec.pub on 04 Jul 14:57 collapse

Maybe he’s got a finer point, but it actually just looks like an argument against categorization. It’s like saying I don’t trust math about “triangles” or “scalene triangles” or “rhombuses” when you find out about the special properties of the equilateral triangle or the square.

The fact that there are differences between elements of a category does not eliminate the utility of the commonalities shared by elements of a category. It does limit that utility, yes.

For example, just because you are getting plenty of protein, if you somehow completely avoid one of the amino acids that the human body uses but can’t synthesize, then eventually you will have some fairly specific health problems. That’s not strong evidence that it’s worth micromanaging your macronutrients by tracking your intake of all amino acids individually. (It might be; I haven’t seen it studies either way.)

Maybe I’m missing some context, but I also get the “anti-science” vibe from the image.

blarghly@lemmy.world on 04 Jul 21:15 collapse

I think it’s a shit post about how he’s been reading into the science and it is just way more complicated than what most people talk about.

IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world on 03 Jul 16:32 next collapse

go back to your harry potter fan fiction

RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world on 03 Jul 21:14 next collapse

Fucking what? Is he suggesting “protien” is a social construct?

nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca on 03 Jul 21:16 collapse

No he’s suggesting he’s completely confused and is going to tune out.

Almacca@aussie.zone on 03 Jul 22:41 next collapse

My standard response to that kind of statement is ‘Good for you. Have a cookie.’

grrgyle@slrpnk.net on 04 Jul 12:40 collapse

My standard response is I would like to know more

TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works on 04 Jul 01:59 next collapse

this sounds like the kinda thing that I (uneducated in this topic) would go “heh… yeah…” and upvote not understanding the joke

then I open comments and it’s actually about tossing toddlers into a volcano and I am immediately sentenced with the guilt of upvoting a meme about child volcano sacrifice and I have to come to terms about how I am a horrible person who will blindly follow someones agenda because they were using big words and I am actually incredibly foolish and don’t deserve an opinion about anything ever

or it’s just an extremely nerdy joke that nobody really understands but upvotes anyways

lime@feddit.nu on 04 Jul 09:41 next collapse

no you were right the first time

grrgyle@slrpnk.net on 04 Jul 12:39 collapse

Same.

I was like oh it makes sense that there would be different types of protein. Here I go into the comments to increase the fidelity of my mental model! rofl guess not

JayDee@lemmy.sdf.org on 04 Jul 14:41 next collapse

This guy should learn to view science more like a constructivist. Pretty much everything in science is just something we made up that mostly aligns with the natural world, and just because one model is less accurate than another does not mean it’s no longer useful.

We didn’t abandon Newtonion physics when Einstein’s model was accepted for instance, since Newtonian physics is still very useful, and much easier to use compared to others.

Edit: changed language from ‘proven’ to ‘accepted’.

MnemonicBump@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 04 Jul 15:14 next collapse

I wasn’t familiar with the term, but I always (until this moment) assumed that everybody viewed science that way.

JackbyDev@programming.dev on 04 Jul 15:27 next collapse

The amount of people who think that scientists don’t understand how bees fly is evidence that most people don’t have this world view. As if someone would see a bee flying, not only having been around for eons, but a very common creature most people are familiar with, would just throw their hands up and say “WHOA! THIS VIOLATES ALL THE LAWS OF PHYSICS! THIS SHOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE!”

JayDee@lemmy.sdf.org on 04 Jul 21:36 collapse

Not so. There are those that believe objectivism is the true way of viewing the world. They view that we are on the way to understanding the universe as it truly is, that human perception will not pose an obstacle to that pursuit, and that there will eventually be one true method of viewing the universe in its entirety that is yet to be discovered. Constructivist beliefs directly oppose that idea, since all science is a man-made construct that can only approximate reality in their view. Constructivism also, then, leaves room for multiple theories coexisting because they provide better utility and insights in different circumstances. In the example of Einstein’s Relativity vs Newton’s Physics, we are talking about an older theory and the theory which usurped it because it was more accurate, and the general expectation is that another theory will be accepted down the line which will be better than both. That expectation is fairly objectivist, since it assumes there is a true model which we just haven’t discovered yet. Constructivism does not make that assumption, since the universe likely does not fit neatly into our constructions in its image.

The other thing, is that constructivism challenges scientific realism to some extent, in that it challenges the existence of many things which we cannot directly observe, such as quarks, proteins, particles, etc… because “how can we actually confirm these things exist, when we physically can’t observe them, and the things we’re using to show their existence are constructs made up by us?”

This topic is still very much in a state of debate that has very strong implications around the philosophy of how science works and how it should be conducted. That’s also just talking about constructivism’s implications in the physical sciences. Things get much hairier when you start looking at the social sciences, where biases and perception are extremely influential on what we discover. Constructivism directly challenges the attainability of scientific objectivity, which has serious implications across all fields of science.

technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 04 Jul 15:41 next collapse

We didn’t abandon Newtonion physics when we accepted Einstein’s model was proven

7toed@midwest.social on 04 Jul 16:16 next collapse

Well did I miss hearing that someone has proven Einstein?

Zink@programming.dev on 05 Jul 04:35 collapse

That depends on what you mean by proven.

Time dilation is easily measured and it’s essential for things like GPS to adjust for it. And we finally got that picture of a black hole recently where you can see the light from behind the black hole wrapping around. I think it was Sagittarius A*?

JayDee@lemmy.sdf.org on 04 Jul 20:52 collapse

That’s fair. Language changed for accuracy.

blarghly@lemmy.world on 04 Jul 21:10 collapse

I mean, it’s a shit post about how nutrition science is hard and full of misinformation.

finitebanjo@lemmy.world on 04 Jul 19:34 collapse

The research is pretty consistent that Transfats are worse for your health, if only due to correlation with high processed factory made meats, though.