CharonY

I think you have no idea how many notes are generated in the course of a writing a paper and how much is not included because it would make the whole thing unreadable. There is a bigger point in putting somehow preserving even failed experiments into a repository to ensure academic integrity. But again, considering how much work really is just random thoughts and failed experiments (most of the time due to inexperience) it would be take a huge amount of time to create a dump that no one ever looks into. Folks look at Einstein's note because he is famous and folks are curious about him, not because it is necessary to understand the science. What I take away form the average student lab book is that they really need to learn to read and write better. Not everything is information and a key element of science is to condense meaningful information. If you want fluff to distract you from information, you got the internet.

As a former D&D player, I do not really see the issue here.

I don't understand that. I am not that familiar with math papers, but I would assume that any paper with a proof would report on it in a way that can be followed. Why would you put anything in the margins? if it is relevant it should be in the paper. I have no idea why the comparison with high school is supposed to do.

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That has been the trend for a while. I think the one born around 2000 are roughly at the brink where you still can find folks who area able to at least learn what is needed, even if it seems harder to mentor than the generations before. But looking at the current freshmen crop which is roughly just 5 years later, there is a noticeable drop. I think a part of it is just accelerated by the pandemic. But what I hear from current high-school teachers, the generation after that is going to be a doozy. Reading is a big issue, as so many other skills are connected to it. But it seems that school boards have been pressuring teachers to drop deadlines for assignments and other things that are considered to be affecting student's mental health. And this is translated into university and those kids will break during actual work.

Papers have a different purpose than wiki articles. The latter are oftentimes superficial summaries, which, in the best case also include some synthesis from multiple sources. For many articles this is not the case, however. The structure of a paper allows someone within the field to evaluate the hypotheses, assess the quality of the approach and possible weaknesses (methods section), the quality of the quality to support their hypotheses (results section). Discussions and introduction not only provide overall context, but also tells the readers where the researchers are coming from, and allow experts also to evaluate overall conceptual weaknesses and strengths. A paper is essentially a discussion tool for scientists. Changing that to a wiki article would defeat its overall purpose. I think you are not missing out much if you do not understand papers, it just means that you likely lack the necessary training to get the information out of them. After all it is a specialized tool, which is quite the opposite to an encyclopedia like wiki, where accessibility is more important than depth of information. That is a horrible idea. A paper is a cleaned up synthesis of often a lot of work. Looking at the raw version of it, would be entirely incomprehensible to except for the person generating int. I have to keep telling my students to clean up their notes as often I barely understand what they mean and over time, they will also forget what their notes mean. Research is almost never linear and 80-90% of the material never makes it into a paper for good reasons. This again is the opposite of what science is about. Science is about the synthesis of outcomes not just a bunch of data aggregates. I am repeating myself, a bit, but I think the desire to simplify the data processing process due to easy digestible (if useless) information on the internet has degraded the abilities of younger students to read and comprehend data. Folks are still capable of repeating snippets information, but the ability to comprehend and synthesize has definitely taken a nosedive over the last decade. This is also correlated with the inability (or unwillingness) of students to read longer texts. Textbooks are rarely read anymore, for example. Simplifying data presentation in sciences will IMO further contribute to that decline.

The downside is that it is going to be hard for folks who want to learn which are actually accurate and convey information and which are mostly entertainment with some facts or factoids thrown in. Generally, folks are more in favour of simply stories as they require less work to understand. But that also means that folks never learn to learn more complicated concepts. This is somewhat evidenced by the fact that in university, despite these diverse sources of information, the level of understanding of concepts has dropped. I.e. not needing to exercise those thinking muscles because of convenient media access could be a net detriment.

I think expertise in the various civil services is an interesting point- it is somewhat independent of the democratic process as those folks are generally not elected, but competence can be a big factor in the success of these institutions. That being said, they are a vulnerable to what I call an administrative mindset, where the administrative process takes precedence over the actual mission. And oftentimes elected folks further undermine it by hiring folks that are ideologically aligned, which can contrast with the mission of the service. Trump is a current example, but clearly not the only one. Intelligence and compassion is very intangible not a great criterion and arguably running for office and being in office requires more people skills than anything else. In the end, you are not working at the problems themselves, you are a decision-maker and if you are good in your job, you have assembled of team that bring all the right qualifications.

Neither satires nor parodies need to be funny- they tend to be extrapolations and exaggerations that could have an comedic effect, but don't have. 1984 is clearly a satire on totalitarianism. It follows a tradition satire where fictional exaggeration is applied to critique current societal situations. That being said, some parts of the books are potentially meant to be humorous, though they are written so realistically that it might not appear as such. For example, one could argue that the part where folks were confronted with a switch with whom they have always been at war with and the ensuing bewilderment how their banners were all changed by traitors could be seem humorous. However, especially in the light of current developments, it might just feel too realistic to be funny.

Especially as global capitalism has been around and while I don't have data at hand, in my memory unhinged conspiracy theorists didn't have such an easy time grabbing power (like in Romania, and arguably USA right now). At least superficially, that element looks more akin to what happened before global capitalism on that scale was a thing. Also interesting with respect to media literacy: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adl2829

That, however, has been always an issue with democracies. Some are seeing a repetition of the crumbling of young democracies in the 1930s. However, the argument there was that many countries lacked experience and/or safeguards to protect against anti-democratic actions. Now, it seems to me that the gains were effectively wiped away, and I don't see a real consensus on how it happened.

I am fairly confident that at the University level it is too late. First, college kids are only one small-ish segment of the segment. But even worse, one has to work against all the bullshit that is in their heads and their distrust is also increasingly directed against any form of expertise. Weird assumption regarding topics such as vaccinations and evolution have become increasingly prevalent (anti-evolution sentiments were higher 20 years ago, but dropped only to increase in recent times again). In some counties media literacy is being introduced into school curricula. The issue is that they somewhat still assume that there is a "normal" media landscape running parallel to the internet. However, traditional media are being dismantled and independent news are becoming a rarity. Well or there is no pendulum anymore. Well, that is symptomatic of the overall problem. Folks want to have competing things. They want the threat of climate change to go away. Simultaneously, they want to carry the burden of the cost for that. Similarly during the pandemic. Folks wanted restrictions and deaths go away. But things like masks were too much of a burden. That opens up the road for populism where you promise solutions but have no realistic paths to that. An ethical government should be transparent, but a transparent government would exhibit flaws that will be punished by the electorate. Rather hide and deflect and to stay in power. The system disincentivizes real solutions as techbro/populist approaches to solutions which promise convenient (if unrealistic) solutions are simply more attractive. Then add a media landscape that elevate those voices over critical (if depressing) ones and you have good mixture where you cannot get good solutions, and those who try will get blamed. Don't get me wrong, there are real issues that needs to be addressed, but there is a general and understandable unwillingness to make sacrifices. Instead, it is politically prudent to find someone to blame. And this approach has been supercharged in the last decade or so. Thinking a bit more about the techbro aspect- I feel increasingly folks have been promised and believe in simple, disruptive solutions. "Things are not working out, so we'll just break things but magically all will be better, just trust us." As we have seen, the magic promises that were made by the tech industry actually never panned out and virtually all promises of being ethical, transparent or being not-for-profit ultimately fell along the wayside. Rather than elevating the common folk, they became the product.

You are right, my apologies. I should have said that they were ideological aligned (i..e in the aspects of neoliberal economics) and not suggested that Reaganomics was to blame. My thinking fell prey to an (unfounded) assumption of US ideological dominance. This is especially bad due to European origins of the underpinning schools of thoughts.

I think this particular view of small government and reducing social systems as part of trickle down economic has entered the arena in quite a few European countries (and Canada). Thatcher was a poster child of basically similar ideas regarding free markets coupled with reduced government spending, for example. However, as already mentioned, this is not an issue of the Western world alone. There are different ways to measure wealth inequality, but using e.g. the Gini index, countries with the highest wealth inequality are found in Africa and South America, whereas the lowest include European countries such as the Netherlands, Czech Republic and Iceland. Also, the trends are not universally trending towards disparity. Looking at trends, it might seem that crises (including the pandemic) have resulted in upwards jump in inequality (suggesting that the economic system allows small groups to benefit greatly from crises). But we do not see that trend in Western Europe (quite the opposite). You can see below the Gini index (0=total equality; 1=total inequality) from US, China, Russia, Canada and some Western European countries (from ourworldindata.org). The details are more complicated, of course, but I am not sure whether a simple narrative is sufficient to explain these differences. And certainly it does not point to a singular issue exclusively to the West.

Many organisms reproduce asexually (basically all prokaryotes, a range of animals, plants and fungi). Then there is sexual reproduction among hermaphrodites, and I feel I forgot another method for some reasons. The development of sexual reproduction is a bit perplexing from a genetics perspective as instead of inheriting all your genes to the next generation, you now only provide half. This is referred to as the two-fold cost of sex.

I'll add some more responses once I get a few free minutes, but I found this article regarding an extremist candidate suddenly surging in the polls through social media quite relevant to the discussion: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/27/romanian-regulator-tiktok-suspended-cyber-interference-election-georgescu

I don't think this question makes much sense, as neither have engaged much in politics and such have provided much what policies they would propose. If anything, this post exemplifies what is wrong in politics, it is superficial, makes a lot of unproven (but also not explicit) assumptions and then presents itself as a binary choice. If your point is that voters didn't use information other than gut feeling to make their choice, you might not be wrong. But at least to me your overall point remains elusive.

Another billionaire trait is to leverage wealth to alter the rules rather than play the game better (or god forbid, ensure fairness in the game). Creating dependency on private organizations for national security is such a step, for example.

But that is the same thing that I have mentioned- it is perception vs reality. The anxiety and uncertainty we have- well they were there all along, but they were not perceived as such. In order to cut through that, statistics are important to quantify the change. Yet, it does not reach folks. Locally many things have improved massively, if we take things that can be measured. Such as food availability, life expectancy, heck, even things like entertainment. Yet none of this positive changes are felt. On the non-tangible side, you are correct though. Social changes are faster than they were and I do think that this adds to anxiety. And this is what a big issue is. Intangible are not rooted in simple measurable elements. And the latter are, as you mentioned, rapidly dismissed (as they are measured, but not felt). That suggest that we increasingly rely on our gut feeling and anxiety and all the other negative aspects and increasingly ignore the tangible facts.

While a lot of the focus in recent discussions is understandably focused on the US elections, there is a world-wide ongoing anti-establishment voting going on in Western democracies. We have discussed various elements related to that, and argued about the role (or rather, the diminishing role) of the political center. I cam across a Vox article that contextualizes quite a few of our discussion points and I think it may be worth a read, as it provides more general perspective on the shifting political landscape. https://www.vox.com/politics/388284/trump-2024-win-global-anti-incumbent-system It does not claim to provide answers, but I think it adds to the narrative that, well, something is going on that is not fully understood yet and that many traditional approaches to view and react to these things(including polling) may be off. As background: On the center: This bit I found striking. Personally, I feel that folks have lost a sense of perspective for some reasons (*cough* social media? *cough*) and are caught ins self-reinforcing narratives that can be pretty much evidence-less. Adding to that bad actors (though I am not even sure they are needed), it can result in a destructive process with no real way out. The traditional way to address these issues is to rely on facts and education. But again, I get the sense that this is not working for large swaths of the population anymore. And here I think the trend is moving into the wrong direction, especially with a view on college-aged kids.

That is true, but OTOH, they continue to control the majority of legislatures. Also, in Iowa and New Hampshire Republicans gained supermajorities, in Michigan Republicans control the house and in Vermont and New York Dems lost the supermajorities. As a whole probably still status quo, but unfortunately the status quo as a whole favored Republican efforts on State levels.

Taken over state legislatures has been a long-term strategy of groups like the Federalist society. There is no hope. Only cheese.

Going back to OP, apparently we will see insightful and well thought-out policies such as these: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/11/25/us/trump-news What a brilliant mind.

There is no set expiration date that I am aware of, but it degrades over time. Depending on the formulation it can kind of dry out and become powdery for example. Generally speaking, if it is not overheating it is probably safe to leave on. But if you want to remove it, you have to put new paste in to enable efficient heat transfer.

Interestingly, "racism" always had a negative connotations, even when folks enacted clearly racist policies. I have seen some surveys from the Jim Crows days for example showed that most white folks expressed negative feeling to racism, yet considered segregation a positive policy. This disconnect is also reflected in modern HR training where folks now emphasize "implicit bias" over racism, as the latter caused a lot of pushback, though functionally having the same systemic effect. I think often it is based on a limited experiences that causes a worldview that is implicitly racist. If you are used to interact predominantly with white folks, any minority will just pop up more. This can lead to awkward interactions (creating and reinforcing negative feelings) and/or things that are implicit discriminatory. Simple things like hair structure and styles are a prototypical examples, often with more severe consequences than one might imagine. This is what in recent times try to popularize with the term anti-racism, highlighting the active effort it takes not to be racist. But as with any attempts to move the needle, these almost always result in swift pushback from the establishment, sometimes further diluting the message. That, in turn, is seen as evidence how ineffective and performative the (any) approach is, justifying the status quo. The good news is that young folks are taking better to these new messages. The bad news is that they often do not understand what they mean and it risks becoming performative and vulnerable to revisionism. The overall point though, is that the way we learn and interact with our environment easily leads to elements of racism (regardless of your background) and these tendencies are easily exploited, as has been said. Just as a preemptively: the reason why a lot of discussion on racism in the US is focused on the white segment is because it relates to systemic, rather than individual racism. However, for elections, the latter might play a bigger role.