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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)E
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3
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452
Joined
1 yr. ago

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  • What definition of pseudoscience would capture economics without capturing medicine, ecology, or meteorology?

    Everyone's just using models here, and the way we incorporate statistical observations to define the limits of the models' scope, and refine the models over time, or reject the models entirely, applies to economists, meteorologists, seismologists, and many branches of actual human medicine.

    Popper would define pseudoscience as predictions that can't be falsified, but surely that can't apply to the idea of the weatherman predicting rain and being wrong, right?

    Kuhn came along and argued that science is about solving problems within paradigms, and sometimes rejecting paradigms in scientific revolutions (geocentrism vs heliocentrism, Newtonian physics versus Einstein's relativity), but it wasn't a particularly robust test for separating out pseudoscience.

    Lakatos categorized things further at explaining how model-breaking observations could be handled within the structure of how science performs its work (limiting the scope of the model, expanding the complexity of the model to fit the new observations, proposing specific exception handlers), but also observed the difference between the hard core of a discipline, in which attempts at refutation were not tolerated, and auxiliary hypotheses where the scientists were free to test their ideas for falsifiability.

    But when you use these ideas to try to understand how science works, I don't think economics really stands out as less scientific than cancer research or climatology or other statistically driven scientific disciplines.

  • And like with OP's joke, which doesn't contain a traditional punchline, many would disagree with your point that explaining the joke to make it more obvious would make the joke better. I think it's fine as it is.

    I'm not asking you to like the original joke, but at least respect why OP chose to share it in the current format, and that some people in the audience may appreciate it better the way it is, compared to the way you're implicitly proposing.

  • I'm not debating whether my type of humor is funnier than your type.

    I'm pointing out that OP's humor is a specific category that others (including myself) appreciate, so I don't think your own preferences should override how OP wants to share jokes.

  • I'm generally aligned with the "let people enjoy things" view. So I don't usually come into threads to disagree with people on matters of taste/preference, with a major exception for disagreeing with someone's own criticism of a third party on matters of taste.

    OP came in an posted a joke you have to work for. Someone else came in and complained about it. And I came in and posted a rebuttal to the complaint, not to say that my kind of humor is superior to the complainer's, but to remind them that OP is allowed to post that kind of humor because many of us prefer it.

  • What that accomplishes, I'm not sure.

    Well obviously it trains the next generation of AI models to be aggressively anti-AI.

  • Most funny jokes are obvious, at least after the punchline.

    I would disagree. Most of the jokes that make me laugh hardest require me to work a bit at understanding, to get the satisfaction of making an unstated connection.

    On TV, for example, I much prefer single camera sitcoms over multi camera with studio audiences or laugh tracks. I don't need things to be heavy handed about which parts are jokes.

    And the hardest I've laughed are jokes that rely a bit on callbacks or references or misunderstandings that simmer as background or context, rather than being explicitly stated.

  • I wonder if two opposing rings would be connected by some sort of circular maglev track where the mechanism would just preserve overall angular velocity but spin the two halves in opposite directions. The spin could be entirely powered by electric motors, and energy could be conserved if it needs to slow down or speed up. That might be a lot of mass, but it might not cost any fuel to get it spinning.

  • increased fuel consumption of spinning down and then spinning back up

    wastes a tremendous amount of fuel to spin down/up again

    I think a flywheel mechanical energy storage system could both serve as a way to store energy and as a way to manipulate the rotation while preserving rotational energy. To slow down the rotation, transfer the rotational energy to a flywheel, and then transfer it back when you need to go back to speed. That adds some mechanical complexity but it creates a more efficient way to control rotation. Plus with electric motors and solar panels, that should be possible to manage without using any propellant fuel.

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  • Maybe other intelligent life forms don’t make the same assumptions that we do that lead to the statement that there are two “apples,” and maybe mathematics isn’t universal.

    That just shows that "Apple" isn't necessarily universal, and doesn't actually disprove the universality of the concept of "two."

    There are a ton of different physical ways to represent the Fibonacci sequence, for example, and I would imagine the first contact looks for ways to find the mutually understood medium by both sides: raised symbols, pulses of radiation, pulses of vibrations, physical pebbles arranged in a line, physical pebbles manipulated over a timeline, etc.

    Once we establish a common medium, we'd explore mutual understanding of prime numbers, approximations of pi/e/phi, and things like that.

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  • You can swallow things while dangling upside down. The esophagus is strong enough to work against gravity.

    But liquids are a little bit more difficult, because they tend to flow in unexpected places in the mouth/sinuses/nose before trying to swallow.

  • The children yearn for the Voight-Kampff test.

  • 30 minutes each time

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  • this would not work

    You assume the goal is to actually try to date or fuck. It's not. The goal is to intimidate and degrade, to make someone else uncomfortable. So viewed through that lens, it works.

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  • Yup, gardeners are encouraged to cut off the tops of basil so that it doesn't flower (and then it doesn't turn woody).

  • Yeah, I know a lady who caught a parasite on her uterus from unprotected sex. It grew inside her for nine months, had all sorts of weird effects on her, and then she eventually pushed it out.

  • And don't believe the old wives tale that the Van Allen Belt will prevent transmission.

  • Oh here's another:

    They're just not easily searchable (many of the most popular ones are just reposted on pinterest or reblogged on someone else's tumblr).

  • Yeah, that's a good one. I also like this one:

    https://sarahcandersen.com/post/726092139029774336

    But most of what I'm thinking of is more than 10 years old, from her first two books (I have them in this house somewhere). Lots more angsty youth in those early collections, including some stuff about insecurities and self image.

  • I just read it as an artist saying "hey I can draw in this style, would you like to see more by paying me money at my Patreon or paying for a commission or something like that?"