TheVat

The "it's Wendy's" response comes from cultural norms about social boundaries when people are eating, AFAICT. The idea is that Wendy's, not being a dinner theater or rowdy tavern or singles bar, is a place where you are focused on interaction with your dining companions (or if solitary, with your food). IOW, the principle is to not have people at other tables too aware of you. Maybe this kind of boundary setting is partly from the idea that meals are peaceful occasions where food is best enjoyed when we can focus on the sensual enjoyment of it. Subcultures differ on the degree of peace, for sure. But there is a common thread, starting from the traditional family dinner table, of not bringing up contentious topics or shouting or roughhousing, etc. That said, I see plenty of violations of these unspoken rules at many fast food places. Once in a while, my eating partner and I find it a source of amusement. But mostly it's just annoying. Guess I would cast a vote for quiet or quiet-ish eating.

Depends on the species. Franklin's 50/500 rule is often cited for humans (I just wrote on this on another thread but can't find atm) and that top number is seen as what is needed for longterm viability and sufficient genetic diversity. Lower numbers and a species can wither. Too much inbreeding, losses of useful genetic variants to genetic drift, etc. Most mutations are deleterious, about 75-80% of single nucleotide variants, so the lucky dice roll of a positive mutation (roughly 1-2%) that adds useful diversity is going to be rare in too small of a population. I've seen debate on the number, but there seems to be some agreement that 500-600 is enough for humans. I know NASA has funded some studies on this, with a longterm view to understanding what are viable populations for establishing colonies on other worlds.

When in France, I greatly amused some locals by referring to the cruise liner company as Conard, instead of Cunard. This was how I learned that connard is French for asshole. I wasn't too embarassed, thanks to the friendly company and my already earned status as something of a clown.

I will confess that I sometimes wear pants that say, f you, I just want to be comfortable. I have tried to advance the position that my running pants are more stylish than mere sweat pants but it's been suggested they are really just fancy sweat pants with pockets. My position is that running pants with pockets are: A. Pants. Suitable for most public venues and occasions. B. Warm. This is important in a cold windy climate. C. Have a flexibility and ability to stay up (elastic waist plus drawstring*) that makes them ideal for most physical tasks. So this approach to public pants display combines logic and empiricism in a beautiful synergy, while also serving as a superficial snobby twit detector. That said, embarassment is a useful thing for social creatures when it causes us to regret transgressions like dishonesty or foolish boasting. * belts are digital, drawstrings are analog, and analog + waists = freedom! Sounds quite stylish. My son often wears such attire, and looks splendid in it. Some people really rock black, and not just classical musicians. Though July in the American Midwest, where he lives, tends to concentrate the mind on somewhat cooler clothing choices.

Anyone even remotely involved in it. A bitter bloody destructive war that shattered the nation, destroyed cities and vast areas of land and the South's economy, leaving dire poverty and hunger and around 2 million wounded on top of 600,000 dead. Your question is like someone suggesting the Hutus in Rwanda took machetes to their Tutsi neighbors and hacked them to death because it livened up block parties.

I sort of regret my earlier post, which was meant as a bit whimsical, suggesting that sugar was the most dangerous chemical. I did understand that danger, in the OP context, was meant in the sense of extremely toxic in tiny amounts and not "might give you pancreatitis or diabetes in a few decades of nonstop bingeing." I was offering it in the same way that someone will say mosquito when asked what's the world most dangerous animal. True answer, but often not what the asker had in mind. Danger must be defined, it having multiple meanings. Ask an electrician and they would probably say "squirrel." 🙂

No they weren't. FFS, read some Civil War history.

Could be either Rachel Carson or E. O. Wilson (though he was a bug guy, not a marine biologist). There is also Stephen Hart, though he is probably not "very influential." Oh crap, wait, it has to Loren Eiseley. Damn, we grew up in the same town and I once lived a couple of blocks from his childhood home in Nebraska. Yeah, he was a big cephalopod fan.

C12H22O11. Around 1.5 million deaths per year. (before sucrose was widely available, diabetes was relatively rare) Definitely competitive with ethanol, nicotine, and plasmodium DNA. But I think nicotine is the champion, with 8 million/yr.

I've wondered about octopus intelligence because of their intelligent behavior (they test smarter than human toddlers, in some respects) and also things like having the highest encephalization quotient of any invertebrate, a degree of synaptic plasticity more associated with learning and memory centers of vertebrates, sophisticated control of 5 different types of chromatophores, and the whole "embodied" brain thing which is so unlike vertebrates. My guess is that they do have a unique form of intelligence that we are only starting to be able to measure. I have wondered if someday we discover that they are able to use chromatophores as a sophisticated language system, and not just for camouflage or basic emotions. Half a billion neurons is a lot, when you are invertebrate and weigh 6-20 lb. Another factor is that they are both predators and prey. This dual role usually makes more higher overall intelligence in the animal kingdom.

This isn't an argument. It's just contradiction.

Even emojis can be argued with.

Some processes are more feasible when done on a larger communal scale. Sewage treatment might be one of those. Some cities started using sewage to make fertilizer, though some of those programs were discontinued due to PFAS and other toxins turning up in the product that farmers were putting on their fields. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/04/10/176822392/cities-turn-sewage-into-black-gold-for-local-farms And home composter devices generally cannot handle human poop. (unless it's a large and expensive composting toilet, which cannot be used with a van) Nor are the chemicals that would neutralize the odor anything you would want to be adding to a landfill or sewage system. Emptying your van receptacle into a public toilet is likely the best destination. Or networking with someone in the area who has a composting toilet and is willing to take shit from you, so to speak.

In our federal system there is always a potential for interstate conflicts. States will resent federal control over matters where they prefer some autonomy. Especially where profit is concerned. In the Civil War, the economics of slavery (and other states rights) was such that landowners in the South felt it was advantageous to expand the slavery system into the western territories, while the North, especially the new Republican Party which had gained majorities in almost every N. state, were determined to open those territories to free labor alone. The GOP was founded by Abolitionists, some more radical than others but they all agreed that chattel slavery could not be allowed to expand beyond the South. Democracy is inherently messy. Especially given the natural tendency towards what DeToqueville called "the tyranny of the majority." (which our Constitution keeps evolving to prevent) If the minority that is experiencing that tyranny is concentrated in a state or cluster of states, then attempts at secession are always a possibility. If you want tidiness and purity, you need a totalitarian dictator.

Could posters please post their discursive points in text and not by saying "here, click this." It's against forum rules, and it's a nuisance when you are somewhere that you can't watch videos. Usually, a clear text explanation of one's position is also much faster to read, especially when it comes to presenting facts. (I've seen videos that take half an hour to get to the point that one paragraph of text could have adequately made) Also, @Otto Kretschmer should retract his inaccurate comments about SSRI treatment and respond to my post addressing that. There is nothing wrong with critiquing pharmaceuticals used in treatment, but it needs to be done from an informed and fact-based perspective.

This is inaccurate. Your "proof" is like saying milk isn't helping calcium deficient bones because blood calcium levels rise within hours of drinking but it takes weeks for bone density to increase. After carrying a message, serotonin is usually reabsorbed by the nerve cells. SSRIs work by blocking reuptake, meaning more serotonin is available to pass further messages between nearby nerve cells. This isn't a rapid mood booster in depressives, but rather provides an unusual surplus of neurotransmitter which assists in a healing process that can take quite a while before a more favorable (to emotional response) pattern of signaling pathways is established. Further quite a bit of therapeutic knowledge exists as to how to reap the most benefit from an SSRI course, so we do know a bit about the mix of chemical, behavioral, environmental, and social contributions to depression. Not having seen the video, I don't know how far I'd go in agreeing with NDGT, but your "how come SSRIs don't work in a few hours" criticism is not based on an understanding of how SSRI works.

Possibly we are seeing high school students using LLMs in countries where it is common to assign the task of "publishing" a paper online. Since legitimate academic/pro journals are generally not going to accept such papers, they just put them up on online forums and the teachers accept that.

A handsome and muscular man walks into a bar, opens up his backpack, and sets out on the counter a tiny man and a miniature piano of compatible size. The tiny man begins to play, with great skill. That's amazing, says the bartender. Where did you find him? A genie in an old bottle gave him to me, says the man. I had three wishes. The first two were good looks and immortality, and those were provided - today is my 157th birthday. The man sips his beer and looks sadly over at his tiny companion. Unfortunately, says the man, the genie didn't hear me clearly on the third wish so instead of my actual request he gave me a 12 inch pianist.

Well first, Franklin's RoT is 50/500, just to get our decimals in the right place, and it is highly dependent on species reproductive rate, habitat needs, average number of harmful recessive alleles (it's around 5 in humans, IIRC) and probability of disruptions to the ecosystem. Also, an artificial one, i.e. a zoo or wildlife preserve in an O'Neill colony or what have you, would have different requirements than a natural ecosystem where the goal is to save from extinction. Franklin et al were trying to make a RoT for wildlife conservation in natural settings, especially ones under siege from human depredations. So the space habitats you envision might work with a lower number. The 50 is a minimum in a locality to reduce deleterious inbreeding between close relatives, the 500 is the total number of that species in the entire habitat needed to reduce negative effects (low diversity) of genetic drift and maintain a healthy adaptive population. Again Franklin's model is very dependent on species and habitat and what controls are in place (a space habitat, I would imagine, would have a lot). I'd have to think a bit on how well the 500 popsicles scenario, with AI injections (each generation, most likely) would work out. I guess it could play out like, e.g. small bands of humans (50 per) in a forest which occasionally meet up for wooing and intermarrying between the bands.

The pedestrians actions still don't answer the eternal question - why did the chicken cross the road?

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Let's really think outside the box here. One could build a Temple of Nothingness....out of nothing! Buy an inexpensive lot, put up a sign, maybe mow the weeds and put in a low-maintenance ground cover and...done. Maybe an area covered with wood chips where congregants can stand or sit and worship. Enormous saving on construction costs, permits, utility bills, property taxes. This could mean funds going directly to worthy causes like sheltering the homeless, feeding hungry children, promoting justice and peace. And when people thanked you for helping, you would just reply, "Oh, it was Nothing really."

So let me drill down into this question (haha). I am Thorvald Vatsson, and I have one billion dollars* to reduce CO2, without leaving Iceland to do this. What will give me the highest overall CO2 reduction per gigawatt - build a fancy air scrubber, build geothermal generation capacity for my country (or export), or some optimal combination of the two? (planting a fast-growing forest is off the table, this being Iceland) I know there are some "depends" issues here. But I would hope there could be some way to determine a break even point, in a very rough way. *US dollars, not those nearly worthless Canadian ones

That is, essentially, what any method that slightly slows the asteroid does. Hit it frontally with a kinetic weapon, it slows a tiny bit, thus arriving at the impact point a tiny bit later...and Earth has moved slightly farther along in its orbital path. You "moved Earth out of the way." 😀

That was where I was poking at the idea. You make a fair point - as they say, "politics is the art of the possible." And I was also looking at the technical side. I.e. if my country has 20 gigawatts accessible from geothermal, is it more efficient to use that all for power (plus export, say, as hydrogen or filled superbatteries), or to use some for air capture? If the former keeps 50 million tons out of the air, and the latter only keeps out 30 million tons, then the scrubber would have to remove >20 million tons just to break even on the process. So one should look at break even points on these expensive scrubbing systems. Also compare them, in longterm cost, to forest plantings (or seagrass meadow plantings, say) which remove and fix equal amounts of carbon. Hence my question as to planting forests, seagrass, boosting phyto in the sea, etc and how they compare in overall carbon removal. The C capture approach strikes me as the fancy boutique approach - looks cool, captures lots of publicity and hype - but I wonder how it really makes much dent.