CharonY

Well, what are the chances that things might be dependent on whether the operation is a in a red or blue state/county? Meanwhile, the acting director of ICE claims that they don't even need probable cause to arrest folks. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5396985-trump-homan-immigration-detainments/

Well, probably the least surprising development in recent times.

Oh I see. At least in the agriculture sector it seems that most developments in that area a still smaller startups. They are trying to put AI in everything and it might be a market that they may be eyeing, but I am not sure how profitable it might or might not be. But honestly, that looks like too much long-term planning for techbros.

I am not sure why that would be an issue, they can implement automation regardless of immigrants. They have been quite in favour of H1B visas in the past, though. It does not mean that they won't help enforcing deportation, if they get to make money out of it, though.

I think it is too early to tell. China had multiple slowdowns and even some short-term plateauing pre-COVID, fuelled by aggressive investment into renewables. Part of it was a drive to be a leader in this segment. However, following those dips (I think around 2015ish) there was then an uptick in fossil fuel use due to expansion energy production via coal. It is possible that the recent slowdown could be part of a larger trend, but might as well be reversed if they see a short-term need for fast energy expansion.

Moderator NoteConsidering that arguments are made with AI input predominantly to handwave away arguments it is unlikely that the discussion is going anywhere. Therefore the thread is locked.

I think there are different motivations here at play. There are many companies wanting a disposable workforce with little power, which is often filled by immigrants. They are also less likely to unionize, for example. Right-wing workers OTOH therefore see those guys taking their jobs. I just don't see how deportations has any positive financial impact for the rich. It is much easier to redistribute wealth by getting more tax money to the top. Most from what I read is that the big corporations (as e.g. outlined by recent SEC filings) are rather against deportations for financial reasons, even if they are ideologically aligned.

Yes, but I think they have far more effective ways of redistribution to the top. Especially as they get to make all the rules. I have doubt that the deportations will have any impact on that.

There is certainly a confluence of capitalism, technocracy and politics. Especially as the power has finally accumulated so heavily in the top, that they are now beyond reproach in influencing or controlling politics. At least in the past there was a need to pretend or play coy for fear of some sort of public repercussion. That is clearly gone now. That being said, I don't think that grabbing assets is a part of the plan. These are just peanuts considering what they amass. I rather think that being cruel to those without power is part of the panem et circenses strategy, essentially to rally bigots and stoking fear, hatred and other divisive emotions (which then can be commercialized).

I think we are seeing the development of a new society where facts do not matter as much as emotion, driven by a fractured media landscape that has realized that standards and regulations are not needed anymore and are, in fact, an hindrance to make money. Instead, attention and anger is the new (old?) currency. Add to that the regression of critical thinking skills and we have grift-based system where folks propagandize themselves without the need for centralized efforts.

I will also note that there are some studies showing a beneficial effect, but they were all in the context of a study where use was directed (e.g. in classroom settings). There sometimes benefits are seen, but I think this is a common issue in testing benefit of approaches and technologies for education. These studies are often with selected or self-selected students and because the it is a novelty, almost everything you do (multimedia, AI, exercise, dancing) students get more engaged and perform better (for a while). But after implementation in large scale, the benefits vanish or things get worse. One area where I have seen actual improvement is in underserved regions, provided the infrastructure has at least some level of computerization (e.g. in form of cell phones).

There are even worse consequences. One we have seen is that folks are not only taking in LLM or AI outputs uncritically. More and more, they are not even reading the outputs and just parrot them. Basically folks parrot those stochastic parrots. The danger here is that folks are not only losing the ability of critical thinking- basic skills like reading and reading comprehension is also diminishing. I am aware that in the past there there was always a kind of moral outrage from the older generation lamenting how tools are going to degrade human skills. However, we are starting to see real shifts in basic reading skills especially (but not exclusively) in the younger generation, which are not filled by other means. And in contrast to archaic skills that have become obsolete, reading and being able to process information is, in my mind, a foundational skill that is needed in every society, regardless how technologically advanced it is. For the first time we are seeing evidence of things happening that old folks have been yelling about for millennia, mostly because it is happening way faster than anything else I am aware of.

Even less than that. Evolution is basically just what we call the process by which allele frequency changes with time. It is like watching a pot boil and try to derive intention of the pot and its purpose. Yet all that happened is that a heat source transferred energy into the liquid. It did not boil because the pot really, really wanted it. Evolution is just the consequence of things happening to the gene poll when certain conditions are met present (basically, deviation from Hardy-Weinberg conditions). If you put together a combination of mechanisms, such as mutations, non-random mating, gene flow, and selection, the gene pool will change.

Even worse, it is literally just talking to a chatbot. What is the point if there is no person on the other end to talk to?🤖

So you are saying just because something affect something else in the future, there must be an intention? That suggests that there is no action without intention, at which point the worm "intention" becomes meaningless.

You failed the most basic thing that you learn in school regarding providing references (and not using LLM to write your work). The continued attempts at obfuscation suggests that the arguments are not made in good faith. It is trivial to provide at least the abstract, which is always freely available, or failing that, provide the full reference. As you cannot pull them up, it is clear that you could not have read the abstract. I will also note that ChatGPT likes to make up references with Gao as the first author for some weird reason. Funnily, there is actually a researcher named Gao who works on the field of LLM and imaginary references. If a hinge moves increasingly smooth by being operated multiple times so that in the future the movement is very smooth, did the hinge act with intention?

You are missing the point. What you are posting is what the LLM is saying the presumptive article says. If we are asking for references we ask you to go to the source and read it. Otherwise we are just discussing imaginary musings of an LLM. If the paper exists and you have read the abstract, you should be able to provide enough information for others to find the article. That is the main purpose of references. Also even if the first article article existed and the summary is accurate, it still merely says that cells are able to read subtle cues and anticipate reactions. As it says nothing about genetics, it does not not actually address evolutionary forecasting. Rather if a mechanism existed to anticipate change, that one would be a selective advantage, which again would be classic selection. The issue here is that the LLM really doesn't understand the difference between signaling, cellular adaptation and evolutionary adaptation. For example there are papers discussing mechanisms which allows bacteria anticipate stimuli (through "priming" of signal cascades and related mechanisms) but these are not evolutionary adaptations.

So just some quick information, will add details when I got more time, but all cohorts are longitudinal: InCHANTI cohort is an Italian age study with ~1,500 folks with a broad age range, the Singapore study (SLAS-2, IIRC) had close to 3,000 with mostly folks >55. The Tsimane cohort (TLHP) had around 600ish participants. I am not familiar with the Orang Asli cohort and will need to dig out the paper again.

Well, the bias does not follow the US bipartisan axis. That being said, they will obviously be biased on their own perceptions. So you will see a different type of bias here. But there are outlets who try to characterize news media in terms of bias, such as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Bias/Fact_Check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllSides https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_Fontes_Media You can check their methodologies and see if you agree with them.

Aging is generally associated with an increase in chronic inflammation. There are multiple hypothesis why that might be the case, including cellular senescence causing issues that the immune system tries to clear up to issues with the immune system itself. These chronic inflammations are associated with a wide range of issues, including dementia. This study is interesting as it provides some preliminary information challenging the notion by looking at inflammation markers across populations with different levels of industrialization. And found that in non-industrialized populations, inflammation is associated with infections, but not with aging, compared to industrialized countries. It suggest that there is a lifestyle effect that impacts how we age. It should also be noted that while there are biomarkers associated with inflammation, they are rather broad with different molecular functions and there is no consensus panel that we can pull out, rather it is a bit of a patchwork of markers that are involved in immune signalling (e.g., cytokines) and/or modulating immune responses. https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-025-00888-0

On the college level It is a trend that I have seen in the UK, US and Canadian systems. In each case the reasons are that a) they cost more many than they bring back and b) especially younger students dislike them as it is harder to get perfect grades without putting much effort in. In Germany and from what I have heard in France and China labs are still very much present and a requirement. One of the reasons is that the students do not really pay meaningful tuition and the university is not pressured cater to the bulk of the students who want an easy time and learn little. With regard to video tuition, for the most part I found it useless. Learning via video is more difficult at the best of times and most are paying even less attention. I also found that me just hovering around is a strong motivator. They hate it, but they accidentally learn stuff just just to make me bugger off.

In a way they are, but within that the usage tends to be fairly specific. I think you have been thinking about homologous traits, which refers to similar basic structures that are found in different taxonomic units. Within a population this, to my knowledge is not referred to as that. How we define taxa is a somewhat different issue. But generally speaking, if we have free gene flow I don't we would refer it as those. Mind you, I am mostly coming from a molecular perspective so I am not sure whether there is another usage (I suspect that I would have come across that by accident, though).

By definition no fertilizer can be persistent. Their function is to be metabolized by crops (and other organisms) so they would eventually be used up. A big issue is overfertilization, of course, leading to algal blooms which has immensely detrimental to many river and lake systems. DDT and other organochlorines are persistent, but typically the big issue is that the are bioaccumulative (i.e. organisms cannot effectively get rid of them and they accumulate over time). This can lead to issues but we are typically looking at longer-term impacts (compared to fertilizers).

That is impossible to answer as there are generally various configurations for SEMs. But depending on capabilities you are often looking at 60% or more of the original price for a working instrument. I assume you refer to magnification? Generally zoom is not the term used here except for the idea of digital zoom (and in light microscopes zoom usually refers to continuous magnification objectives).

I am not entirely sure what you mean or at least the use of the term homologous seems a bit odd to me. Do you mean present in all members of a species, such as in a fixed allele? That is unlikely as they looked at many loci. The likelihood of many variants arising and being beneficial within a short time frame is rather slim. And that also somewhat addresses your comment regarding diversity- we are not looking one specific allele that is getting fixed.