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2 yr. ago

The Karen of Lemmy

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  • Indeed, this isn't my only account, nor is it even my primary.

  • The Karen of Lemmy

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  • At least on Lemmy.world, it's now visible when comments are removed. It's not uncommon that I see multiple comments complaining about what the tankies are going to do and few to no removed comments. Given Lemmy.world is also the instance whose members I see gripe about tankies the most, I currently believe it's just people using an out group to achieve some sort of personal goal, even if it's just as simple as wanting to comment but not really having a lot to say.

  • The Karen of Lemmy

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  • Tankies are pretty annoying, but what's much more annoying to me now is people whinging on about tankies that aren't even there. The amount of comments to the effect of "just wait for the tankies to read this and do (X)" vastly out numbers the number of comments I see from actual tankies. More often than not, those tankies fail to ever materialize.

  • I looked up the page and it gets worse.

    You will need to shop for a car inverter. Find one that is at least 1,500 watts, and it will help you power your refrigerator for up to five hours—usually without damaging your car battery. Considering how much food we keep in our refrigerators, a $200 car inverter is a bargain!

  • Ooooh, that sounds like the Göta Canal, making you Swedish! The Masurian Canal was built far too late to be correct but my brain was fixated on the uselessness aspect.

  • I grew up believing the same until somewhere in high school, when I started taking science seriously.

    ... a jumble of local maximums and chance.

    I really like how you phrased this. I'm totally stealing it.

  • Oh no, rate of mutation is definitely a thing and is controlled by several factors. A big one is generation time, which is what it sounds like, the time between each generation. The copying of DNA is a source of mutations. This is why many controlled experiments on evolution are done with bacteria, who have super low generation times. For example, depending on temperature, the generation of many salmonella species is around 20-30 minutes. That lets you crank out massive numbers of potential mutations, then introduce a selective pressure, like an antibiotic the species normally isn't resistant to or an energy source it normally can't utilize, and see what happens.

    To answer your question, yes, a higher mutation rate would confer an advantage. To a point. Most mutations are deleterious and usually lead to death, a few are benign and do nothing (at that point), and a very rare few are immediately advantageous. As long as the rate of mutation isn't so high that the deleterious mutations combined with whatever other pressures are wiping out the population, more mutation means more chances to have the right trait to deal with a novel pressure or, very rarely, do something better.

  • I think you're referring to the Masurian Canal, so you could be in either Russia or Poland.

  • To preface, I'm a microbiologist, so I have skin in the science game. I hate how these articles often have science illiterate authors or authors who are imprecise with their wording. They repeat misinformation on basic topics that science educators have been striving to correct for decades, perpetuating the cycle.

    ...the study shows once again how evolution throws up multiple solutions to basic problems...

    In this case, it's the "mysterious force of evolution that whips up solutions to problems". Evolution doesn't create solutions. There is no guiding force behind evolution.

    Evolution through natural selection selects for existing solutions that were generated randomly through mutation, increasing the frequency of that trait because those without either die or are outcompeted. What happens if a trait is required for survival but no organisms have it? They all die. That's why over 99% of all multicellular species that have ever lived on Earth are extinct. If you include microbes, make that 99.99999%.

  • CFCs

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  • It's not. I'm guessing they did a Google search, looked at a few misleading article titles, and then decided they were a scientist.

    On average, the hole has been shrinking, but 2023's hole was the 12th biggest on record. The eruption of Hunga-Tonga was thought to be the main factor.

    The mass die-off reference likely refers to penguin chicks dying because climate change is causing sea ice to melt earlier than before. The poor little guys are falling into the ocean and drowning. It's not ozone layer related, though

  • I like that you're thinking of alternatives, though! Don't ever lose that, it's less common than you might think.

  • Seriously. If these "media pros" are actually concerned, it appears my personal server adheres to higher standards than their industry.

  • Hmmm

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  • Check out OP's post history. They whine a lot about women, especially feminists and the pay gap, and Muslims in that cringy way boomer men more often do. Pretty sure they're a boomer.

  • I'd imagine an increasingly hostile world economy coupled with a then-looming but now beginning climate crisis might have a huge impact there.

  • Vote inertia and dog piling. I've seen it happen so many times. If you are voted to the negatives, it's less likely you'll receive many positive votes unless you receive enough to tip you back into positive numbers or someone points out that other, similar comments aren't being down voted. The converse is also true, although the follow up comment phenomena seems not to hold.

    I've even experimented with it on Reddit, way back. I'd leave a comment I know would be well received, then edit it to make it poorly received, but not so awful that it'd get mobbed. It'd usually keep going up, albeit less quickly, or sit stagnant.

    On the flip side, I'd leave a shitty comment, then change it to a paraphrasing of a different, very well received sentiment once it was around -3 to -5. Despite the notion being well received elsewhere, the negative votes kept rolling in unless someone pointed out the collective hypocrisy in a follow up comment.

    Tl;dr: Lemmy is run by bipedal, social apes whose behavior and opinions are biased by the perceived opinions of their fellow apes. This bias can sometimes be overcome by pointing it out.

  • Right now, many are! Fight back and retake our rightful place as people with rights above those of corporations.

  • It'd be bad. Real bad. An algae bloom of massive proportions. It has one huge issue.

    Enough algae to make the rivers run green will use up enough oxygen at night to kill off fish and oxygen hungry invertebrates, starting a chain reaction of death.

    Now you have a river full of dead organisms, so they start decomposing thanks to microbes. You know what many types of bacteria love? Oxygen. So they start using up oxygen, multiplying all the while. Night hits and the algae need to use oxygen, but a bunch die because there's not enough. Now the river is full of literally hundreds, maybe thousands of tons of decomposing matter. The river largely goes anoxic (meaning there's no oxygen) so things start dying left and right. A bunch of those bacteria can live with and without oxygen, so they use up what they can and keep on chugging without.

    Now we've moved from aerobic respiration to anaerobic. You know what the primary byproducts of anaerobic respiration are? Organic acids and alcohols, which smell. The river begins to smell like an infected wound. It's no longer green but deep, murky brown from the suspension of decomposing organisms. This continues until the river flushes everything out, but it kills what's downstream as it continues until it hits the ocean, where it likely continues to kill everything in the vicinity until it becomes dilute enough.

    I'm a microbiologist and worked with algae and cyanobacteria as an undergrad. Never underestimate the impact of uncountable billions of trillions of living organisms.

  • That's one hell of a slippery slope argument.

    Do you think they'll try to garner votes from murderers and rapists? Maybe they'll attempt to make pigeons American citizens so they can vote too.

  • Am I reading this right? Are you conflating pedophilia with transgender support and feminism? Is this a joke or sarcasm of some kind I'm missing?

    Edit: wait, is this super meta unpopular opinion?