unrelated: @OP looks like you accidentally posted this many times. Imo would be good to delete the others to keep the conversation in 1 place.

I generally agree. The system is utterly rotten.

Only thing I’d mention slightly counter to that is peer review - as a process - is still something I believe is useful.

That is, the process of people with relevant domain expertise critiquing methodology, findings etc. When its done right, it absolutely produces better results which everyone benefits from.

Where it fails is when cliques and ingroups are resistant to change on principle, which is ofc actually an anti-scientific stance. To put it another way, the best scientist wants to be proven wrong (or less correct) if that is indeed the truth.

It also fails, as you identify, when the corrupt rot of powerful publishers (who are merely leeches) gate-keep the potential for communicating alternate models.

It also fails where laypeople parrot popsci talking points without understanding that peer review is far from infallible. Even the best of the best journals still contain errors - any genuine scientist is the first to admit this. Meanwhile popsci enthusiast laypeople think that just because something was printed in any journal, that it must be unequivocally 100.000% truth, and are salivating at the opportunity to label any healthy dose of skepticism as “antiscience” or “conspiracy theorist” etc.

It also seems to fail when popsci headlines invariably don’t include the caveats all good scientists include with their findings etc.

Final point which I think would help enormously is its very very difficult to get funding or high worth publications in reproduction. The obsession with novelty is not only unhealthy, it’s unproductive.

Reproduction is vastly undervalued. Sadly its not easy to get funding or support for ‘merely’ reproducing recent results. There’s two reasons why this should change, firstly it will ofc help with the reproducibility crisis, and it will also afford upcomers excellent opportunities to sharpen their skills, and properly prepare for future ground-breaking work. To put another way, when reading a novel paper you think you understand it. Only when you take it to the lab do you truly understand.

nice! how to you assess if the old appliance is likely to be salvagable or not? either when viewing online, or in person at their place?

https://librivox.org/

If ads are a form of payment, then unsolicited ads are theft

brilliantly put, love it!!

when anything is that important, the medicine must be opensourced ¹.

if so, and it’s handled correctly, you can still have body autonomy in those situations due to the resulting freedoms - much akin in nature to the software foss freedoms we all cherish. and in that sense, would not be a limit of “Your body, your choice". while still maintaining, if not increasing, the public protection to such threats.

it was really refreshing to see some discussion in public health policy from some very smart and relevant people for opensourcing those medications. unsurprisingly it was swiftly shot down, but it was nice to at least see it taking place - which is a small positive change.

¹ naturally we decouple authentication and traceability from commercial interests. and ofc it does not mean noone gets paid

some more

public philosophy mirages

eg.1 “free market will balance everything”

will it now? until we actually see one, we’ll never know. we don’t live in a free market, and never have. they rig the shit out of it with eg. drm and region locks, and then gaslight us that its free & balanced. lol.

eg.2 “democracy is the best we have”

same as above, when i see a true democracy i’ll let you know. caveat: unsure of your exact country’s situation, but when was the last time you consistently voted on what you want to happen, rather than who will fail to implement their election promises (with 0.0% accountability btw).

also, friendly reminder: mostly the “who”, you can vote for was already chosen in a private vote by the political parties, before they even pretended to care about our opinion. lol.

strawman public discourse

arguing in the media over the wrong points in an issue to keep public discourse on a ‘lively’ treadmill

eg.1

Q: Is climate change human caused?

A: Doesn’t change the issue: stop poisoning the water, air and soil - we need them to live. duh.

eg.2

Q: Is being lgbqta a choice?

A: Doesn’t change the issue: if its not a choice they can’t control it, leave these people alone. if it is a choice, its a free country, leave these people alone.

edit: if you disagree with any of the above, please expand, i’m open to a new perspective.

i suspect that’s a big part of ops point. without proper transport alternatives (eg. bus, bike etc) you’re fucked.

our strange treatment of animals

we anthropomorphise and infantilise our pets, yet boast about the animals we eat who’ve had legit insanity level cruel lives thanks to our systems.

[ not saying fussing over your pets is bad, i love it too, just the contrast is whiplash++ ]

lack of body autonomy

hint: most lqbqtia rights, reproductive rights, medical/medication rights, are all the SAME RIGHT:

your body, your choice.

it is constantly under attack, and diffused into separate arguments when its the one right effecting all these issues. newsflash: when it comes to my body, your unwelcome opinion, religious or otherwise, ain’t worth the air its vibrating through.

slippery slope gatekeeping laws

making harmless x illegal because a subset of x might lead to harmful y. if y is bad, then enforce your ban on y, and fuckoff trying to use it as an excuse to control x₀, x₁, x₂ etc.

and how just by buying gas you are automagically a ‘more important’ road user than anyone else.

i get that as a general optimisation, the avg speed of vehicles should be considered from a routing perspective.

but its been entirely normalised that cars are “important” and everything else is inherently secondary to them. which is ofc pure bs, but most people assume it by default.

and we seemingly need endless war to keep getting it out of the ground