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00:00 - 21:0021:00 - 00:00

00:02
@Laurel And today's are a product of their time as well, which has, arguably, become formulaic as well as unforgiving of questions whose answers evade easy research.
Perhaps. We need HNQ but for questions which are really hard to answer
The ones that are really hard to answer don't make the HNQ. It's the ones that have a popular "hook" that get HNQ'ed.
Yeah, because the HNQ rewards people who answer extremely fast and get upvoted just as fast. The easy stuff
Anyway, I just had a really good burger. It had no business being so good since I just cooked a patty and put it on a bun with cheese and seasoning
The best burgers are the ones you eat when you're really really hungry.
Let's just say I had a pretty good Saturday earlier today lol. It makes perfect sense
00:12
Good on ya.
00:29
@Laurel How do you feel about this change?
@Cerberus What change exactly? I do know a lot about the old days, hopefully to the point where I can look at everything that happened and find the stuff that worked and the stuff that didn't and move us (as a site) in the right direction. The whole ongoing meta discussion should be proof of that
For that particular question, I think it didn't really work. I could find answers to the same question elsewhere that are better, on platforms more suited to opinion based discussions like that
 
1 hour later…
02:10
@Laurel What was the problem with allowing that question to stay open?
@Robusto The best burger is a glass of milk. Think of it as an unprocessed cheeseburger with all the unhealthy non-cheese ingredients removed.
Still on the diet?
@Cerberus Eh, I've reduced my milk consumption. I think i felt better when I was on the milk diet, but maybe that's just because I was in a mental state that made consuming an all-milk diet sound like a good idea.
02:34
@Cerberus I mean there would probably be no harm. But it's the type of question that could get a lot of answer and if it did get a ton (30+) that would be hard to navigate
Also it kinda makes me think about this:
-44
Q: Discussions experiment launching on NLP Collective

BertholdToday (August 21, 2023), Stack Overflow is launching an experiment with a new subjective content type. Discussions is a space for threaded conversations where users engage in deeper dialogue and share perspectives on technical topics. As with other new content types like Collections, this experim...

@Laurel I don't trust those raccoon baby formulas. Raccoon breast is raccoon best
@Vikas I'm sorry to hear that!
It's easy to overlook a snake in the night.
@alphabet Did you try a ketogenic diet?
Word of the day: treenail
@CowperKettle Nah it seems like too much effort.
02:57
@alphabet I'm thinking of a tisane diet.
Herbal teas, also known as herbal infusions and less commonly called tisanes (UK and US , US also ), are beverages made from the infusion or decoction of herbs, spices, or other plant material in hot water. Oftentimes herb tea, or the plain term tea, is used as a reference to all sorts of herbal teas. Many herbs are used in herbal medicine. Some herbal blends contain actual tea (e.g., the Indian classic masala chai). The term "herbal" tea is often used in contrast to the so-called true teas (e.g., black, green, white, yellow, oolong), which are prepared from the cured leaves of the tea plan...
They say that a tisane diet is good for restoring eudaimonia
Apparently "tisane" is a name for "herbal tea"
Which has no actual tea in it. It's just flavored water.
What kind of herbal tea, though?
Time to switch to an all-water diet
03:06
Probably nobody wants to hear this but I'm finally making progress with my weight
:3
I like tea composed of scalding water, a piece of lemon, and a dash of powdered ginger
@Laurel This is great!
It has to be the exercise. I've never regularly exercised before this summer
Meanwhile my diet hasn't changed that much
I just eat what I want, and try to eat as much as I can
I count calories.
Yesterday I had 3200 calories.
But exercise is great too!
IIRC current evidence shows that exercise has no substantial effect on body weight, if that's what you care about
I tried counting calories but it just made me feel bad. I don't think I was even able to get to 2000 most days
But that was a while ago
03:14
I'm not counting them precisely.
I do it approximately.
@alphabet I just need one more "no substantial effect on body weight" and I'll be at the minimum to donate blood. However, I think I'm just going to sign up now and lie about my weight
@Laurel It probably does increase your body weight since you gain muscle mass. But it doesn't decrease your body weight to any appreciable degree.
Have you tried eating almost nothing all day, then eating an entire family size bag of Tostitos at 1am?
@alphabet Yeah well I'm trying to gain weight. I certainly can't afford to go in the other direction too much
@alphabet I sometimes skip single meals but I don't think I'd be able to skip more than that in a row
Also it sounds like you're describing binge eating
I've found that if I try eating too much between meals, I end up skipping meals so I don't do that
I've been having this protein powder with buff guys on it: kroger.com/product/images/large/front/…
03:33
@Laurel Whey protein! You are successfully avoiding non-milk foods
> "Her conscious tail her joy declared;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,
Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,
She saw; and purred applause."
> And THE MORAL is this: Be it madam or miss
To whom you have something to say,
You are only absurd when you get in the curd
But you’re rude when you get in the WHEY!
From "The Embarrassing Episode of Little Miss Muffet" by a poet who died tragically young
Guy Wetmore Carryl (4 March 1873 – 1 April 1904) was an American humorist and poet. == Biography == Carryl was born in New York City, the first-born of writer Charles Edward Carryl and Mary R. Wetmore. He had his first article published in The New York Times when he was 20 years old. In 1895, at the age of 22, Carryl graduated from Columbia University. During his college years he had written plays for amateur performances, including the very first Varsity Show. One of his professors was Harry Thurston Peck, who was scandalized by Carryl's famous statement, "It takes two bodies to make one seduction...
.. the which was simply persiflage.
I memorized this one many years ago.
@alphabet Hmm so what do you eat now?
@alphabet I mix it in oat milk
@Laurel Hmm my personal preference would be to leave questions up that people like, in general. They can always be protected in case they receive an excessive number of answers.
03:49
I will stock up on pumpkin seeds, peanuts and butter, and try out the ketogenic diet.
@Cerberus I think, one thing at a time. Getting through this one meta post would be so much
I don't think it will do much harm, if tried for a couple months. I cannot concentrate, and my antidepressant stopped working years ago.
My aunt and her family are on keto or something similar
I always get that mixed up with paleo
paleoconservatives
.. and ketoconservatives
.. and lactovegetarianservatives
@Laurel Yes, sure.
I don't know how the subject moved to that question.
04:02
> India's moon lander detected movement near the lunar south pole. It could be the first signs of a moonquake in nearly 50 years.
04:12
@Cerberus I'm on the "I'm impulsive and make poor life choices" diet
I think it's been 2-3 months since I last purchased fresh produce
I haven't died yet, so that's good
Apparently all those protein bars might give me a heart attack though
@alphabet Very healthy!
@alphabet Hmm then what vegetables and fruits have you eaten?
> A programmer has been arrested for writing unreadable code.
He refused to comment.
@Cerberus Does the salsa in Chipotle burritos count? What about the dried fruit in trail mix that's 50% sugar by weight?
I take a multivitamin, so I'll be fine /s
We have stalls on streets, where Uzbeks and Azeri people sell fresh greenery.
I bought a kilo of tomatoes and ate it 2 days ago.
Tomatoes have more vitamin C than oranges.
And I eat 30 grams of walnuts/day, after reading a clinical research on it.
So there's a big jar with walnuts from which I take the daily dose.
The best part of adulthood is not being forced to eat vegetables anymore
Probably someday I'll get some sort of illness from this
It'll be worth it
04:23
What is the best part of hobbledehoyhood?
@alphabet I don't really know what those are, exactly, but I imagine not.
Most vegetables and fruits should be eaten fresh or frozen, not processed or dried.
@alphabet I assume you know the efficacy of those is dubious...
@alphabet Scurvy?
You don't need a huge amount.
But eating some regularly matters.
Fibres are also good for you in various ways, in addition to vitamins.
"They keep you regular, they're really good for ya" (Zappa)
@Cerberus No, no, all fruits should be eaten dried and mixed with M&Ms and just enough cashews for it not to be considered candy.
@Cerberus Your body needs a little bit of scurvy. Everything in moderation.
@alphabet Is chocolate also a fruit?
@alphabet I hear it can be painful.
"I will not try the grapes today,"
I said - "My appetite is
Fastidious, and anyway
I fear appendicitis"
(I am that part of the elite who spell it /sait/ instead of /seet/)
04:36
Who needs fiber to stay regular when you can chew tons of sugarfree gum?
@Cerberus "pain is just weakness leaving the body"
The weakness is ascorbic acid
I want to thank Mentos Gum for providing some much-needed positive portrayals of raccoons in the media
Haha.
@alphabet It's not about chewing; it's about nutritional fibre.
@Cerberus Chew a bunch of sugar free gum (the kind sweetened with sorbitol) and you'll understand.
I do chew an absurd amount of gum. It's a good way to fidget while leaving your hands free.
Chewing gum, isn't that a children's thing?
Oh, sorry.
I suppose it's probably harmless?
04:45
Bah! Chewing gum is for everybody.
I don't know anybody who buys that stuff.
Now you do.
But do your own thing.
The undersides of the tables at school used to be a moonscape of chewing gum.
And it is seen stuck on street bricks everywhere.
@Cerberus I hear in Singapore they've illegalized it.
I have heard that too.
04:48
I fail to understand why people fail to discard gum properly.
And you pay a huge fine for littering.
People suck.
They litter.
Especially children and uhh certain people.
Generally, people who feel they are less a part of civil society.
You can even just swallow it; it's only dangerous in large quantities.
No microplastics?
I believe that it legally needs to be nontoxic.
Sure.
But microplastics are a bit unclear.
 
1 hour later…
06:04
> How did Michael Jackson pick his nose?
From a catalog
@Cerberus That's why we were punished at school for chewing gum, and were forbidden to do it.
And there was a good tradition in Soviet schools, of making children clean classrooms and corridors.
I've heard that nowadays, it's mostly hired adult cleaners, which is bad.
Hmm.
Here they only clean as punishment.
We cleaned, older kids also painted things and re-applied lacquer in the corridors, or changed linoleum covering. In 10th grade I painted doors in school.
At the arts and crafts lessons, kids did some small repairs for school.
It was as it should be.
Not bad.
Now, teachers are afraid of punishing children, so the most boorish ones can make life a hell for the whole class. In the Soviet times, a teacher could just throw a kid into the corridor for making noise, and not admit him back until he comes with parents to apologize.
A teacher has got to have power.
If the parents cannot make their child behave, let them teach him at home.
At the arts and crafts, we were fighting with huge files, playing Star Wars, so that sparks were flying from the files as from light sabers. The teacher came in, and threw us both out. We had to bring parents, apologize, and buy new files.
A file is a tool used to remove fine amounts of material from a workpiece. It is common in woodworking, metalworking, and other similar trade and hobby tasks. Most are hand tools, made of a case hardened steel bar of rectangular, square, triangular, or round cross-section, with one or more surfaces cut with sharp, generally parallel teeth. A narrow, pointed tang is common at one end, to which a handle may be fitted.A rasp is a form of file with distinct, individually cut teeth used for coarsely removing large amounts of material.Files have also been developed with abrasive surfaces, such as natural...
It should not be the teacher's problem to deal with idiotic children. The teacher should focus on teaching.
@alphabet Fun fact: You can chew 12 Ice Breakers Ice Cubes (3 at a time is fine) and lose 12 lbs in a day, or whatever it all weighs. So there you go, YW.
06:39
@CowperKettle In my school the punishment for gum chewing was sanding a desk after school, with sandpaper wrapped around an eraser. I sanded two desks.
07:13
@Laurel Well, I would say always check your health first, but I usually gain weight by baking easy banana muffins and peanut butter cookies, in the wee hours, b/c my husband can't stop buying bananas and PB even though our PB&B kid is 30 y/o…
For weight gain, milkshakes or a pint (of ice cream) a day.
07:32
@CowperKettle today we saw your authoritarian side ;)
Kidding aside, IMHO the problem with giving teachers 'the power to punish' is the ones who will exercise it are the ones least fit to exercise it. The sadists also incidentally tend not to make good teachers.
On paper, punishment does make sense, as long as it doesn't violate some international law and, more importantly, serves a purpose other than stress relief
@Cerberus in gum? Why would it have more microplastics than any other foodstuff?
I don't think the packaging is much different, though of course this varies by country
@M.A.R. I'm not for physical punishment but for exclusion of unruly kids.
Because they make life hell.
@CowperKettle well, it's a blurry line what's humiliating and what's not, and another blurry line whether or how much humiliation is okay in punishment
We should plot d(Humiliation)/dt by age and define a critical limit
08:12
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I'm intrigued how you got your first two rows.
Wordle 813 3/6

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(But of course, explaining those results will give the game away)
08:42
Wordle 813 5/6

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2 hours later…
10:37
@alphabet I started taking this when pandemic started. Because of fear of cough and all that amazon.in/Dabur-Honitus-Ayurvedic-Kaadha-sachets/dp/B074KRKRGW/…
Some of the ingredients.
I wonder why wouldn't someone call it herbal tea as well.
Basically you mix it in hot water and drink it like tea.
@Vikas Do you believe in Ayurveda?
@Laurel My first priority is modern medicines only. I don't know much about Ayurveda but if I see something is good and good reviews I might prefer that as well.
I know it wouldn't treat covid at all but I was scared at that time like many others XD
I wanted all precautions.
It's basically unheard of here in the US. My only exposure to it has been people on Skeptics asking questions like "Does cow urine cure X malady?" to which my reaction was what you'd expect XD
…I hope your "hot sip" is vegan lol
10:53
@Laurel LOL. So you were basically interested in that topic XD
@Laurel It most probably has green mark over it. If it were red mark I would notice it as I'm vegetarian.
All I know a lot of Pakistanis make a lot of fun of Indians on this cow urine topic on social media.
@Vikas I learned about those labels recently -- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…
Interesting. Here in the US there are some labels that indicate if a product is certified vegan/vegetarian by some authority, but they're uncommon and inconsistent
@alphabet Oh. Aren't they universal? I thought they are common everywhere.
Ah, but none of those are for vegan food, which doesn't have any animal products in it
@Vikas We don't have those in the US
@Vikas Nope, only in India. There's nothing like it in the US.
Because you don't mind if it is vegetarian or not?
10:57
A lot of people do
So they would manually check the ingredients itself?
In some restaurants it's marked with a V or a leaf (with an explanatory footnote because both start with v)
Yep. It's because we don't have as many vegetarians. India is unusual because of the large Hindu population
Yes that's why those signs matter a lot here. Also not everyone understands the ingrdients mentioned in English. Especially the scientific names.
Being vegan/vegetarian is more common than being Hindu here, but they're still in the minority
A lot of vegetarians accidentally eat animal products like gelatin
11:00
If you want to be a very strict vegan you can't even rely on the ingredients list, because of things like sugar filtered with bone char
@M.A.R. I used to solve such problems (math) in University, but now I totally forgot the meaning of "dt" in formulas.
@CowperKettle Delta time? (The change in time)
Could be
I don't have very strict rules about me being vegetarian. For example, sometimes I would eat the cake on birthday parties of my friends and later realized it contained egg in it (which I don't eat) but it wasn't like I felt bad about it. But some people do take it very seriously.
I respect those vegetarians that do it out of compassion to animals.
I hope they just don't forget to supplement vitamin B12.
11:03
Here most (non-Hindu) vegetarians eat both milk and eggs
Dairy products have Vitamin B12. It is true that India has fairly high rates of iron deficiency though, as I recall
I eat dairy products. But milk doesn't suit me that much so I eat only yogurt.
Yes, that iron deficiency statistics hit me like out of left field
"Out of left field" is American slang meaning "unexpected", "odd" or "strange". The phrase came from baseball terminology, referring to a play in which the ball is thrown from the area covered by the left fielder to either home plate or first base, surprising the runner. Variations include "out in left field" and simply "left field".According to the Major League Baseball website the term means "crazy." Cook County Hospital (by the West Side Grounds, the Chicago Cubs first location under what is now the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine) had a mental institution behind left field...
@alphabet Yogurt too? That would be only source for me.
@CowperKettle Never understood "dt" completely. I could solve the problems and pass the exam but I never knew what is it.
It was in Physics also I guess.
Same here!
> Mice fed a diet containing zinc and a chemical from cruciferous vegetables—such as broccoli—that stimulates the AHR were almost completely alleviated of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
I come across people laughing at the words "leaky gut syndrome" and simultaneously upon studies researching it.
@Vikas Lol, shots fired. We know how certain people feel about milk in this chat
11:17
I love kefir
I don't think I've ever had kefir
@Laurel Interestingly, I checked that product boxing again and there is no veg or non veg sign on it. I guess it has something to do with Ayurveda being vegetarian itself.
I wouldn't care about it anyway.
It felt good just like tea.
@CowperKettle This is kinda interesting. Searching for just the name brings up articles that say it's only a proposed condition but searching for that alongside "autism" brings up articles that say it's not only real but also causes autism
@Vikas I mean I would hope "herbal blend" on the packaging accurately reflects what's in the ingredients and that they didn't slip in any cow urine
@Laurel Well in that case we can't do anything about it. Anyway that "Dabur" brand has good reputation here.
@Laurel I've heard that it's just something naturopaths made up to sell supplements.
11:29
@alphabet That pisses me off. I don't like the supplement industry at all, and in this case they'd just be targeting their practices at a vulnerable population
I wasn't aware that LGS didn't have much or any evidence behind it before now
@Laurel Also, the "your gut causes autism" community overlaps a lot with the "vaccines cause autism" one, since supposedly it's the vaccines that mess up your gut
Yeah well I believe that autism causes vaccines :p
It's really a depressing subject because the deeper in you go, the more you hear about stories that just boil down to parents abusing their own kids who can't do anything about it. The worst of it makes the whole vaccine thing seem not too bad
> Unlike the scientific phenomenon of increased intestinal permeability ("leaky gut"), claims for the existence of "leaky gut syndrome" as a distinct medical condition come mostly from nutritionists and practitioners of alternative medicine.
> Advocates tout various treatments for "leaky gut syndrome", such as dietary supplements, probiotics, herbal remedies, gluten-free foods, and low-FODMAP, low-sugar, or antifungal diets, but there is little evidence that the treatments offered are of benefit.
11:58
Now I have to double check some other stuff I thought was true… At least mitochondrial disorder seems like it's real: chop.edu/conditions-diseases/mitochondrial-disease
@Laurel There are indeed many diseases that involve mitochondria, though it's not a single condition: my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/…
Yeah, just like cancer is treated as a single thing but it's not
12:12
@alphabet As a raccoon, wouldn't you'd eat any fragment of any burger fresh out of the dumpster?
12:56
@Vikas why are you scared of coughs? They're always the manifestation, not the reason. And unless you cough so much you irritate the linings of your mouth and throat, they're pretty healthy too. After all, better eject the infectious cause, not keep it in, right?
@Vikas maybe because people would feel like overcharging for herbal tea is unfair, but Coriandum sativum is badass.
And besides, any herbal antitussive is only effective when you're actually coughing, it doesn't stop coughing from happening. It's because it forms a layer over the linings of your mouth and throat, so it soothes the irritation that would have already happened due to coughing.
IOW, coughing begets more coughing, and herbal stuff prevents that to a certain extent.
@Laurel oh of course. But mitochondrial dysfunction manifests itself as a disruption of the activity of whichever tissues it affects. For example, liver damage due to valproate is caused mainly due to mitochondrial dysfunction.
@alphabet "leaky gut" is vague. The version alt medicine charlatans colleagues tout is almost definitely not scientifically sound.
But, for example, the cholera toxin binds some channel on the apical side of intestinal cells and activates cell signaling that leads to crazy amounts of chloride and water secretion, and that's why it causes diarrhea. That fits the definition of a leaky intestine, but is it the one they talk about? Is it the one they intend to treat with some irrelevant herb?
> Leaky gut syndrome is a proposed intestinal condition in which a weakening of the intestinal walls allows bacteria and toxins into the bloodstream.
1) Very vague, the part that you can claim is true. Research has shown numerous compounds that alter intestinal permeability. 2) "allows bacteria and toxins into the bloodstream" is vague but almost certainly untrue. It does sound like a traditional medicine claim, but today we know that bacteria and toxins entering the central bloodstream is no joke.
13:14
AI art
There's no evidence that in otherwise healthy people that come up with a mild condition some of the intestinal flora (whose bacteria outnumber the total number of human cells BTW) enters the bloodstream.
@CowperKettle looks like a Happy New Year postcard
Because bacteria run away during blood sampling.
Well, an Iranian HNY postcard since ours tend to be themeless
Because Islam forbids painting faces?
@CowperKettle they put on Groucho glasses so we can't tell they're bacteria
13:18
In Russia, we have Ded Moroz (Old Man Frost) who arrives on New Year, and in Ukraine they have St. Nicholas (Mykolai)
@CowperKettle it doesn't. Just that we really don't have many themes for celebrating things
In this Ukrainian song the boy sings that Mikolay won't arrive to him because he was unruly at school.
@CowperKettle we used to have Amoo Nowruz with a glorious blackface
I can't tell if it was supposed to be racist
It's either a curse or a blessing that no Imam is associated with Nowruz
@alphabet I think Russia should also move to 25 Dec.
13:21
#Worldle #597 1/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
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https://worldle.teuteuf.fr
It's preposterious already. It's just a mismatch in counting.
@alphabet Eh, I'm ambiva no actually I'm not ambivalent. That sounds stupid.
> "Celebrating December 25 is logical. This is how Europe celebrates. We celebrated in December this year and there was nothing difficult about it. We want to be closer to Europe and to the world,” Pavlo said.
WTF, CNN is not censored. Is it my birthday?
@alphabet yes sounds like a very logical move. People are known for their impeccable logic during wars.
@M.A.R. At least you don't have Zwarte Piet (though I hear the Netherlands is finally moving away from the full-blackface version)
13:24
I think that the whole world should move on, as swift, as possible, to the huge issues. Peak Oil, loss of diversity, loss of Earth's carrying capacity, climate change. It's tragic that humanity loses time and resources while being in the largest crisis for tens of thousands of years.
If civilization crashes, nobody would care 10 000 years from now on which date Christmas was.
@alphabet I think he's the loser side kick, so it's kinda racist. But our Amoo (Uncle) Nowruz is not a side kick, and not a loser AFAIK. So obviously we were actually trying to be inclusive since centuries ago
🌎 Sep 10, 2023 🌍
🔥 26 | Avg. Guesses: 4.33
⬜⬜🟩 = 3

globle-game.com
#globle
hugs self
(I've been listening to Nate Hagens on YouTube again)
@CowperKettle Too true. But I already don't care, so I'm ahead of the game.
13:28
@CowperKettle the flaw with that logic is there's not a simple relation between not spending time talking about blackfaces and devoting time to talking about important stuff
There's a zero percent chance that climate change will end civilization/humanity. It will, however, cause harm to pretty much everyone, with a massively disproportionate impact in developing countries.
The media is supposed to direct attention towards the important but boring stuff. So the model should somehow be changed to reward clickbait tabloid nonsense less.
#Worldle #597 1/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
⭐⭐⭐🏙️🪙
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr
@alphabet What if nuclear war erupts out of fight for resources?
@M.A.R. Yes..
13:32
If you don't believe climate change is an existential crisis, then you haven't been paying attention.
Emissions are going to decline, because of existing policies and the rapidly falling cost of solar panels. The only question is how fast.
Wordle 813 3/6

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@Robusto Even a full-scale nuclear war would not cause humans to go extinct (though it would kill billions).
@alphabet But it could.
A world without wifi is not a world worth living in
Daily Octordle #594
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Score: 60
13:43
@Robusto This article (by a member of the IPCC) clarifies things: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9464613
TL;DR: "existential risk" is poorly defined in its usage by certain activists; people mostly use it to mean "very bad consequences."
> The expected effects of climate change, according to organizations like the IPCC and the World Bank, are fairly terrifying.
> But here’s one thing they don’t predict: mass civilizational collapse.
@alphabet "Existential" doesn't necessarily refer to global annihilation. If its scope is limited even only to you and your milieu, it can still be viewed as existential.
If some hardy band of humans still survives after a nuclear conflagration, that is not a circumstance we should be aiming for.
@Robusto That's how activists use the term. It is not how the scientific and academic community use it.
> The research community on existential risks typically defines existential risks as threats that could cause the extinction of humanity or destroy the potential of intelligent life on Earth (Bostrom 2002).
@alphabet So? If I'm dead, what do I care?
14:03
@Robusto My point is: you should make specific predictions instead of using the term "existential." In the scientific definition, climate change is not an existential risk; as it's used by the public, the term "existential" is too vague to be a useful way of describing the actual risks.
And my point is that scientists have one definition of that term. There are others. At its core, it can refer to a single individual.
@Robusto Yes, but there are lots of other definitions people have tried to give the term, none of them widely adopted by the scientific community. So you need to specify what meaning of "existential" you're using.
And I already did that. See above.
I'll take my response offline. Must get ready to do my Sunday 50-mile ride.
Have a good ride. I'll drop this argument.
14:42
@M.A.R. Yeah but sometimes they can be stubborn. Don't go away easily.
14:56
People who use "LOL" after every sentence:
(It's Instagram link)
15:07
Awesome explanation of the Australian/Kiwi BOAT vowel
It's always stood out to me, whenever they say 'No'. It always sounded like neeaaoo to me but this explanation really ... explains it.
I wonder what American BOAT vowel sounds like to them
I've started the Mabry syndrome page in the Russian Wikipedia ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/…
15:25
On this day in history, the Siege of La Rochelle started in 1627
@alphabet Yes, it's not existential, it may only crash the current civilization, but humans will survive
I think that the peak resource crisis is more severe. The preview was in 2008, but humanity did not heed it.
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15:45
Curiously, recently it was shown that an AI system can diagnose Mabry syndrome by observing people's faces.
AI systems are being constantly built into everything.
At the store nearby, they made a button which you press at the automatic checkout, and the AI detects what you've placed on the scale, so you don't have to thread through the menu to choose "tomatoes from the greenhouse" or "lemons". It tries to discern them, and offers you several options.
@alphabet Good to hear that.
16:05
To be clear: climate change will be very bad. The worst effects will be on the developing world (which, unfortunately, includes India).
In terms of resources, the good news is that the human population will likely peak at around 10 billion (25% more than today, but likely within humanity's capacity to cope). Birth rates are, of course, falling precipitously in the West, and some combination of economic development and cultural shift will almost certainly cause this to spread.
Of course, politicians in the West and parts of East Asia are now becoming paranoid about underpopulation.
16:22
@alphabet Wouldn't countries like UK lose some of its land?
@Vikas Yes, and it will be very bad, causing massive population displacement. The difference is that the UK has enough money to allow for this displacement to occur without completely destroying the country. Other low-lying areas with high population density will not have that money and will experience massive refugee crises.
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@Robusto If you really think climate change will end the existence of the human race, then I would what you think will happen, exactly.
As long as we have a breathable atmosphere and some arable land or sea, I don't see how that could ever happen.
@M.A.R. I actually have no idea what's in gum, I thought it might be some kind of plastic.
But then I'm glad it's not.
16:50
@Cerberus The top 3 ingredients in my gum are xylitol, sorbitol, and "chewing gum base." Wiki tells me that the latter often is some sort of synthetic polymer. Often it's polyethylene, so literally just everyday plastic.
From the BBC: "chewing gum is basically plastic doped with flavours and colourings."
I wouldn't swallow it in bulk. But if I were walking around the city and my only options were (a) spit it on the ground and create a disgusting mess for someone else to clean up or (b) swallow it, I would choose (b). Then, next time, I'd carry tissues with my gum, since I prefer to consume limited quantities of plastic.
I may be rude sometimes. But littering is for psychopaths.
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@alphabet Ahh so it is!
@alphabet Yeah there is never any need to throw chewing-gum on the street.
You could always put it into a public rubbish bin.
Or stick it on a piece of rubbish already lying around, then it will be cleaned up eventually.
No freezing or chemical scrubbing needed.
Indeed
@alphabet 👍🏽
 
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18:29
@jlliagre injecting a breath of fresh air into the controversy
 
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19:39
@Mitch mdr
20:06
@Cerberus It's a long process, but it involves a lot of internecine conflict over a lot of dwindling resources. It may not end the world, exactly, but a lot of people might wish it had.
20:17
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#waffle597 2/5

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wafflegame.net
It depends a great deal on the resource in question, and on how much a society can afford the absence (or, more likely, the increased prices) of that resource.
@alphabet How about food? That's already a problem, and climate change isn't improving the situation.
I was late to the party, so I had to sprint the first 17.5 miles (28 km) to catch up.
20:33
@Robusto In the US, climate change will increase food prices, some much more than others. What will happen here is that people will switch from more expensive foods to cheaper ones; there is plenty of room to do so, since the food we eat is far more land-intensive than the food we need to survive.
@alphabet I'm not sure we can accomplish anything like that without a fight.
In undeveloped parts of the world, though, there's no room to go down: they're already eating the cheapest possible calorie sources and won't be able to afford any increase in relative prices. Famines will become much more likely.
And famines breed wars.
And desperation breeds a nothing-to-lose attitude.
@Robusto Yes. Those undeveloped countries (e.g. sub-Saharan Africa) could well have more wars against each other. Not against the US, though, since they'd lose immediately.
The jump to us will be slower, but it could eventually escalate to that.
20:43
@Robusto Could it? Possibly but very unlikely.
The point is, we're already at several razor's edges, politically speaking, so how are we going to avoid a conflagration when everyone displaced by rising seas suddenly wants to take land from those inland, and the prices of everything skyrocket, and more bad energy is put into virtually all systems.
@alphabet More likely our problems will come from within. What happens when most of Florida is under water and Fox News is convincing Republicans that it's because of the "woke" Democrats?
drops mic
@Robusto Keep in mind: this will not be sudden. It will be a gradual process over the next century. We will have to relocate large numbers of people. But that is something the US can afford to do.
I said it will be a long process. But I despair that, given the political climate, we can get Americans to reason together to find a solution for this. The Republicans already have a solution: more drilling, less restrictions.
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I don't know how this will play out politically. But I doubt it will substantially increase the risk of a full-blown civil war.
That strikes me as rather a Panglossian summation.
20:54
@Robusto Indeed. On that point I certainly agree.
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Obviously we need to fight to reduce emissions. But it is simply false to assert that climate change has a substantial chance of ending civilization as we know it.
Oui, tout va pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes possibles.
Again, in rich Western countries, where we are very privileged. Many poorer places will absolutely experience famines.
@alphabet The devil is in the "as we know it." It might not end civilization, but it could make our new lives, if such exist, unrecognizable from what we have now.
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