It’s interesting that only one out of the lot of them was (at least within the last 6 months) gay. All the rest with same-sex relations were bisexual (at least within the last 6 months).
I once saw a crow look both ways before walking across the street and I thought “Wow. What a dumbass, he could just fly over it and not have to worry about cars.”
I once saw a human look both ways before walking across the street and I thought “Wow. What a dumbass, he could just walk a mile to the unterpass and not have to worry about cars.”
When you think about it like that, there’s an insanely higher (but still ultimately miniscule) chance that only some part of you will make it through the wall and then just leave you stuck there.
That’s why photovoltaics need much more R&D. They are the only true advancement in electricity production since the inception of broadly adopted electrification.
“…he sought funding from the private sector to start Celera Genomics. The company planned to profit from their work by creating genomic data to which users could subscribe for a fee.”
piracy isn’t theft, but how do you feel about “stealing” from a thief? in the case of corporate software, the company already stole the surplus value created by their developers’ labor.
Publishers and film makers too. Keep it in print or lose rights (though I’d rather have much shorter copyright periods). Changed products get their own copyright, but the old version falls out if you stop selling it.
Don’t do this, but remember: the richer a person is, the bigger the ecological footprint. You are higher on that list than you might realize. Especially ecofascists tend to forget that fact.
Yeah - everyone is shitting on the top 1% here in Germany until they realize that half the population here makes it into that percentile and suddenly it’s the 0,1% that’s the problem.
It’s all about putting the blame on someone else so you don’t have to question if you might be a little bit responsible, too, with your lifestyle…
They’re talking about the top 1% of Germany VS the top 1% of the world. If you reframe your thinking to be about the world instead of just your country, you might find your position as one of the 99% percent changing. I don’t make much in the USA, I certainly wouldn’t call myself rich, but just being employed, above minimum wage, and single means I’m probably above that threshold.
Half the population of Germany makes it into the global 1%? So 40 million Germans are in the 1%, a group that is 80 million people in the world?
People severely estimate how many Westerners there are. The US alone is like 4 or 5% of the world population. If you’re in the west, you’re in the top 15% of the world, but not likely the top 1%
That’s true! But I think more than one “front” can be open in this battle. And we also need the ones that can be won quicker or easier. Or at least start those too.
Lmmfao, yeah good luck with that.. (hint: the people who own those companies also own the government who makes the laws, there is no reforming capitalism, it's designed that way)
The problem is that to obtain those big pistons, you need the financial backing of those big companies. So eventually as an honest politician climbs the ladder, he has to sell out, or fizzle out. You can’t win federal elections without PAC money.
Until you hit critical mass on those small politicians, and they change the playing field. The problem is seeing them only as stepping stones on the way to greatness, and not as a power in their own right.
How do you think we could stop the pollution from those companies (most of which are oil producers) without also directly impacting normal people? There’s no way of getting at the structural that avoids individual change.
Individuals should change. We absolutely do not need the majority of products, and can still keep the modern conveniences without all the excess and waste.
The statistic that “Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions” is better understood as “Just 100 companies responsible for selling 71% of global fossil fuels”. It’s fundamentally saying that there’s a few large coal, oil and gas companies worldwide selling us most of the supply.
If you want those companies to stop polluting, that amounts to those companies not selling fossil fuels.
Which is honestly the goal, but the only way to do that is to replace the demand for fossil fuels. Cutting the US off from fossil fuels would kill a ton of people if you didn’t first make an energy grid 100% powered by renewables, got people to buy electric cars, cold climate heat pumps, etc.
The worst part of this comic is that philosophy bro is clearly not even very good at his field, since there’s a much better Cartesian parallel to be made here (and I’m not even a philosopher).
“I think, therefore I am” is actually leaving out (imo) the most important part of Descartes’s argument. He was trying to find literally anything that he could know without a doubt was true. The problem is, that’s really hard, as our existence-troubled shopper has discovered. Descartes could doubt the existence of God, he could doubt the existence of goodness, of truth. All of these things might not actually exist. Descartes could even doubt his own existence.
In fact, literally the only thing Descartes could conclude without a doubt was true was the fact that he was doubting at all. So, since that’s the only thing he could be sure of, that’s what he built his argument for rationalism upon.
This perfectly mirrors the existential crisis the so-called philosopher comes upon, but instead of starting the shopper right where Descartes started, he instead just provides what must seem like almost a non sequitur in context, since if the man is currently doubting his existence, he can also doubt that he’s thinking. What he cannot doubt, is that he is in fact doubting.
“I doubt. Therefore, I think. I think, therefore I am.”
But what if you’re just imagining or dreaming that you’re doubting…? How do you even know you are the thing that’s doubting…? “You” could be a spurious Boltzmann brain, randomly manifested out of quantic chaos, in a state resembling that of a person doubting their own existence, for a mere Planck instant before dissolving back into the chaos from whence you emerged…
In the grand scheme of things, a human lifespan is in the same ballpark as a Planck instant when considering an infinite universe. That doesn’t mean either are insignificant in their own context though.
Time can be infinitely subdivided For all we know, billions of entire universes could be created and destroyed within ours in an instant. Our own universe could be as insignificant as an atom in some higher level universe. We can’t know that. But what I do know, is that I exist in this moment, and that’s enough for me.
Slightly related is the anthropic principle, or the “observation selection effect”, which is nicely summarized by this analogy:
This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!’ This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything’s going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.
Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt
The takeaway I get from this is that it’s important to appreciate the time we have, since everything comes to an end eventually.
I’ve been making six figures while getting my PhD. There are plenty of opportunities to get your PhD funded if you are a US citizen. There are plenty more valid places to poke fun at pursuing a PhD but it is very common to have funding and thus no debt.
Like the guy who found this somehow important new shape not to long ago? I don’t think he has a PhD. But he did contribute. Not saying that it’s easy though.
Presumably you could meet the boundary with “a dollah fifty in late fees at the public library” and find a way to push through from there. You’d have to find a way to publish or share your new knowledge. Studying at uni gives you access to experts in their own thing that likely have knowledge that could help you with your thing as well as a system designed to churn out these papers when you eventually find your thing.
Every day people discover new things but it takes attention, effort, and will to PROVE it’s a new thing and more yet to share that with the world. Too bad you can’t get an honorary PhD for doing that, at least not reliably.
It’s funny but you see the same thing in sports, or I see it specifically in hockey. Phenom kid gets drafted and at 18 has the social skills of the hockey puck he’s playing with. By the time he’s 36 he’s not the player he once was but is a more well rounded individual with age and experience. When you focus all your energy to become the best at something, like a PhD, athlete, musician, whatever, you sacrifice some things along the way for sure.
When u look at most people I feel like the trending alternative at 18-50 y is personality of a hockey puck and also skills of a hockey puck, with the reasoning ability of the hockey puck.
That’s not universally true. I know several people with PhD who have encyclopedic knowledge completely outside their specialisation. Some people are just super intelligent, talented and have enormous memory. The world is not fair.
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