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drailin, to asklemmy in If you got COVID and lost the ability to taste things, did it ever come back? Otherwise, did you experience any other long term consequences from the pandemic in general?
@drailin@kbin.social avatar

Totally lost my sense of smell for about 2 weeks, but it came back pretty quickly. The worst long term symptom has been a substantially heightened gag reflex. Talking while chewimg gum has become a balancing act or I start heaving, just brushing my molars is enough to trigger gagging some days, and brushing my tongue after my teeth is a sprint to avoid puking. It's trash.

drailin, to science_memes in 1.1 History
@drailin@kbin.social avatar

It is interesting, but it feels like there are too many compromises made at the expense of observational data.

  1. The first issue is the reliance on a ~2eV neutrino to compensate. While sterile neutrinos could theoretically be that massive, we have yet to find conclusive evidence of steriles and don't know the absolute masses or the mass ordering of the neutrinos mass eigenstates we have observed. (I am in neutrinos, so this is the point I am most familiar with.) While the discovery of steriles could occur, my buddy works on a search for eV scale sterile neutrinos and all of his findings have shown that there is no preference for any sterile signal at or around 1-100eV. Normal neutrinos also can't work: While we don't know the masses of each neutrino mass eigenstate individually, we know the sum of the neutrino masses, ~0.06-0.1eV, eliminating normal neutrinos from contention as well. This is a core failing, as it relies on the presence of an equally unproven particle as DM, but isn't as good a fit as DM in many ways, leading into point 2...
  2. It has a hard time fitting to galactic cluster data. The Bullet cluster is one of the best observational proofs of DM, and MOND doean't offer a good explanation for what we see. It also doesn't account for gravitational lensing, which is a problem given we can see that quite clearly. Since it is only effective at huge scales and can't be easily checked in a lab, it needs to at least consistently describe observations before I can consider it over DM, which does an excellent job of describing observation. This leads into my final point...
  3. There isn't really any way to experimentally verify/refute it. I am an experimentalist, and while not every theory needs to have a labrotory confirmation, it seems like there is no way to falsify MOND. DM experiments have long proposed models that allow for some DM particle interaction mechanism, however infrequent, with barionic matter that would confirm/deny those models. While far from exhaustive, it at least allows for the ruling out of certain models if the expected flux isn't there. MOND seems opaque to even this sort of experimental checking.

There are other issue too, but I am not well versed in GR, which is where many other tensions exist. Overall, it seems like an interesting math problem, but I can't take it seriously until it gives us something to test or describes what we see much more accurately.

drailin, to science_memes in 1.1 History
@drailin@kbin.social avatar

This is the truth. I am a few months away from getting my PhD in particle physics and the core questions being raised in all levels of the field at the edges of our decent big-picture understanding are so exciting.

drailin, to asklemmy in Why do most people refuse to accept that they are wrong
@drailin@kbin.social avatar

Sometimes, mainly when it is stuff that isn't rooted in true or false. If I am factually wrong, it isn't usually concious and I tend realize my mistake after the fact. If I am in the wrong in an emotional/moral way, I tend to realize my mistake while I am still emotionally charged, so I am not always ready to acknowledge it or effectively communicate my apology, though I still try to either admit fault or tell the other person I'd like to discuss it after I have calmed down.

Either way, I usually allow some amount of time for self reflection, which I think is better for me. It allows me to formulate my reasoning for apologizing/admitting my mistake, calm down, and let go of the ego. I have found that even if there is a long pause, the other person almost always will take the follow up discussion with kindness and respect, and appreciates the emotional/intellectual honesty and vulnerability. Nobody has ever rubbed it in my face. Which helps encourage the practice going forward.

It also, in general, facilitates better real-time admission of incorrectness to practice in this way.

drailin, (edited ) to asklemmy in Why do most people refuse to accept that they are wrong
@drailin@kbin.social avatar

I have struggled against this for a long time. I tend to be a pretty prideful person and the urge to shift blame when I fuck up and deflect when faced with being wrong is something that has I have to actively work to correct. The difference for me came when I was younger in dealing with my parents: My dad was far from perfect and there were plenty of times he was in the wrong, but always made sure to sit down with me and apologize if he fucked up. My mom, for the most part, was better at avoiding being in the wrong in the first place, but when she was, I never once got her to apologize or admit her mistake. Of the two, I was hurt far more by the latter, and make it a point to be willing to admit my shortcomings.

The most difficult part after I identified it as an issue is to not let my willingness to apologize/admit my mistake become a carte blanche for continuing the behavior. If I fuck up, apologizing only means something if I work on the mistake. If I am wrong about somethimg, I should learn about both the thing and where my misconceptions came from.

For a lot of people, realizing it is an issue is difficult, because you first have to let go of the pride by acknowledging it. Shame isn't a good motivator, as it makes most people double down on pride.

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