flora_explora @ flora_explora @beehaw.org

Posts

2

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627

Joined

2 yr. ago

Not that easy not to use the services of the big tech companies, is it? I don't get why you would even give them extra money if their main profit is selling your data anyways. The only solution I see is to try to establish independent, people owned spaces/websites and so long the majority is under control of the big tech, don't feed them your data and don't feed them any money either.

It depends very much how and why you pirate. I guess for many it is a hobby, they are data horders, etc. If you only stream pirated media online and use free cracked software like I mostly do, it is also totally free to pirate. But it costs you another resource then: time! So yes, piracy has a cost, the effort you have to put into it. It's the same like trying to avoid the big five. Installing a custom os on your phone, blocking ads and intrusive trackers, selfhosting stuff etc all takes a lot of time and effort. So most people just pay for this stuff with their money or with their data out of convenience. When it gets too pricey, then they start finding alternatives. I would argue that we shouldn't let convenience deter us from trying to be independent and having our sovereignty over our personal data respected.

Cringe!

Don't feed the troll!

Yes, this is the cause of the problems. Medical and psychological professionals often don't get updated with the newest insights in medicine. Although some of the examples above are from professionals that are barely older than me (in their thirties).

No? What is a hypothesis for then if not benefitting our understanding of the world?

Only read the abstract, but this paper seems to rather link the onset of autism to the gut microbiome. Very interesting though! Scanning the brain or your DNA would still work I guess. If a person has autism, they could theoretically show neurological differences. But maybe the variance of brains is just to large to ever be able to tell...

Yes, this! I live in a country where therapy is paid for by the state. But still, the various therapists I've talked to haven't had any idea of ADHD or autism. One therapist told me "well, you think you have both, ADHD and autism? The odds of that would be tiny!" After I explained to him that it is actually very frequent and that both increase the chances of inheriting the other, he admitted that I apparently know more than him. He later told me that we cannot diagnose ADHD because he would have to cure my depression first (duh, what if I'm depressed because of AuDHD??) Another therapist told me that I couldn't have ADHD because I could have a full conversation with her. Another therapist just laughed at my face in disbelief and another time told me "oh so now you also want to have autism?" One psychiatrist told me that he didn't believe in the existence of adult ADHD. Another psychiatrist (a specialist for diagnosing ADHD!!) told me that I sure display symptoms of ADHD and autism but that I'm too complex of a case for him. A doctor told me that yes, the situation for diagnosis is dire, but that she can't help me anyways. And with my current therapist I just avoid the topic altogether. I've been on waiting lists for ADHD and autism diagnosis since nearly two years. Doctors, therapists, psychiatrists in Germany are still back in time like 10-20 years with their knowledge of ADHD and autism. Meanwhile I listen to presentations and read papers by scientists about these topics (I'm a scientist myself). It is so infuriating!

So yes, I can totally believe how this massively adds to teens searching for answers elsewhere. Sure, in the US and many other countries just the inaccessibility because of high cost is a huge problem. But even if you have access to 'professional' treatment, you end up stuck. How can anyone trust in medical professionals when they are obviously telling you outdated bullshit?

I still don't get what the appeal of this thought experiment is. In the Wikipedia article one cited common critique is the truism of AP, because it only tells us, well, how the world is and how unlikely it is that it is just this way. And even if we go so far to say that it would be so unlikely to find other life out there because of the fine tuning, what so we gain? We already know the chances are super low for life to emerge and we have our ways to figure out how likely that is. I still don't see how we can benefit from AP apart from being in awe of the cheer vastness of the world and how unlikely everything seems.

Another even easier only-online solution would be to install modded Spotify via xManager

On bandcamp! If I want to support artists, this is the site I always go to. And yt-dlp works also great on bandcamp when I'm not feeling so generous ;)

Hm, I would handle it like I handle religion. Sure we don't know everything, but why believe in something like a god when there is no strong reason to? I haven't seen these good arguments for AP though, maybe they could give a compelling argument? In the end it is probably not necessarily a philosophical but a personal question what you need for yourself as a meaning of life/everything. I'm very much fine with the universe not having a creator and it not having an intention. Many people seem to get distressed by that thought and apparently prefer to believe in something intentional though.

Haha, I'm not a native speaker either so I can relate ;)

I read some of the Wikipedia article on AP and well, I still don't know what to make of it. It either tells me nothing (yeah, the universe is at it is) or it feels like a false deduction (why would the universe have an intention in producing intelligent observers?).

Well, it is always easy to say afterwards that everything added up to this moment. Hadn't person X said this and wouldn't have event Y happened at exactly that time, we wouldn't be talking here. Yeah, but what's the point? Sure, it is definitely mesmerizing that all albeit chances very near impossible to create this universe, what does this actually tell us? It might be a hint that there are a multitude of universes out there. But there might just be this one. Only by observing that the chances were so slim doesn't give us any information. The article has a similar reasoning as some religious texts arguing for the existing of a higher order because of how unlikely it was for evolution to create complex life forms etc...

I didn't find the text on the anthropic principle or rather the principle itself very convincing. But nonetheless, I think you might have misunderstood what the article you linked is arguing for. They say that "the idea that physical laws must be the way they are because otherwise we could not be here to measure them is called the anthropic principle". However, you talked about a universe that is "tuned" to us? Isn't the anthropic principle actually more likely to cause life in general, not only life on earth? That is, if the conditions are just right to cause us, why wouldn't this significantly increase the chances of creating life somewhere else?

Anyways, I liked the thought experiment on intelligent species destroying their home before being able to expand into space. I think you might have a point there. However, it also depends very much on the chance of new life emerging. In a gazillion times of life emerging, at least some will make it, even if chances are near impossible. So the question remains, how often does life emerge in our universe?

Regarding your "worst case", I don't really take it as a worst case. Why is life better than no life? I mean, let's make the most of it while we're here. But I don't think life itself in itself adds any value to a future universe without humans.

I'm so addicted to halls of torment right now!!

My desktop PC sits like 3 m away but I haven't played on it since I got my steam deck. Playing in bed, on the sofa or even on the toilet on the steam deck is so much more fun! In the summer I would just lie in my hammock outside and play for hours. Such a great time :)

I use all three apps, WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal, because others use them. And yes, none of my chats on telegram is encrypted because I'm mostly only in groups anyways.

What I've discovered is that especially groups show a certain inertness. For example, I observed that people from a certain context in one city all use signal but people from the same context in a neighboring city all use telegram. So all my groups from city A are in one messenger and groups from city B are in the other. This is weird, right? And these are really the same circles of people and I share many contacts between all groups. But I think it is just important what they started using and now they create more and more subsequent groups in the same messenger. None of them gives a reason to really switch to the other, so they don't.

Oh, and WhatsApp is only for the few people in my life that are quite unpolitical and uninformed, i.e. 'ordinary people'. Like people I meet at a language course or something work related etc.

Thanks for pointing that out. It is a bit like the distribution on a violin plot then. But it still is weird how the colors are distributed and albeit I think it does indeed look nice, I think this plot shouldn't be in this community...

This is an even more confusing answer!

Am I the only one who is totally confused by the lower plot? How is the data distributed among the positive and negative y axis? Is the negative portion supposed to be negative annual revenue? Why are CDs then in the positive and negative at the same time. I desperately need more labeling or explanation please. It sure looks nice, but I'm completely at loss...