4dpuzzle

Let me know if and when this makes insulin cheap enough to afford. If we’re going to continue making big companies richer at the expense of sick people, we might as well not gloat about these achievements.

And if you’re going to talk about the dependence of price on demand and supply, you’re still not getting it. These companies are masters at creating artificial scarcity by several means including patents and price gouging cartels.

There was a vlog by a foreigner in Xinjiang. Throughout the video, he ridiculed the foreign narrative of oppression of Uyghurs there - all the while recording the presence of a few specific individuals trailing him.

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No prizes for guessing who the international conspirator is. They should adopt the tagline “Wrecking democracies reliably - for generations (We also serve freedom in oil rich countries)”.

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The main issue here is that it’s the evolution we’re talking about. Even if China is exaggerating, it’s not a stretch to think that the virus could become infectious or even transmissible among humans. And remember that covid19 has an asymptomatic high transmission phase. Again, it’s not a stretch to think that a lower fatality rate or a longer incubation period could lead to a high transmission rate. To put it simply, it’s not favorable for even the most incompetent people to play with bioweapons - the resilience of evolutionary biology more than makes up for it.

The veto power is the truly horrendous idea that’s the nail in the coffin for the UN. It’s based on neither the representation of population, nor on justice. Rather, it’s based on military might and the ability to bully the other nations. Even neglecting the fact that the world order is subject to change and challenges, it’s hardly surprising that any nation takes the UN seriously with such a petulant assertion of authority. Whoever came up with that idea isn’t a visionary of world peace - but rather a moron drunk on the kool-aid of ensuring world peace through the military might of a few over the self respect of the rest.

I’m not a very religious person. But if Jesus (the human being) could see what his followers have become, he would be disgusted. I don’t know how they can read the bible and say that Trump is the sort of person it heralded. There is a major cognitive dissonance in the miswired brains of these ‘evangelicals’.

I don’t think they have any religious basis for this.

The same applies to Russia. You can say something similar about ultra conservative Catholics, since the Pope has called for tolerance. Yet, they would rather denounce the Pope than tolerate LGBTQ+.

The key idea is that bigotry is not driven by religious affiliation, but rather by authoritarian attitudes. That’s what’s common between China, Russia and the ultra conservatives in the US. Tolerance of LGBTQ indicates freedom and liberalism in some sense. And both are challenges to the stakeholders of authoritarianism. They want a world where people live within the framework they dictate - and thus the bigotry.

Enough with the ‘it’s the worst and it will get even worse’ stories. Start publishing the names and actions of those who benefitted from these catastrophies. Start publishing their plans to ride out the crises when the rest of us struggle in a disaster they made. Start publishing the actions they took to sabotage the world’s search for energy independence and sustainability. Start publishing how much money they made/stole with this. Start publishing the number of lives lost per person who benefitted from this.

I don’t understand the f***ing pacifist strategy against a bunch of greedy sniveling mass murderers.

Like somebody else here said, it isn’t because these magics aren’t viable. It’s just more profitable to fleece sick people with treatments than it is to cure them.

Surprisingly, my guess was C too. And for some reason (which I’m trying to recollect), my mental model was almost exactly the same as in the parallel paths experiment - I was expecting the currents to ‘slosh around’. So it wasn’t a big surprise when the initial probe showed multiple steps after switching.

I guess there are multiple ideas at play here. The first is that it’s not very accurate to model current as the flow of electrons. Current is more like a wave in a sea of electrons. Meaning that though current moves at speeds approaching the speed of light, the electrons themselves are much slower. This is what makes the water channel model in the video so appropriate.

The second is about characteristic impedance. It isn’t just another impedance. It’s a point property of the transmission line. It’s also fundamentally related to wave propagation. It comes up anywhere wave propagation is involved - for example mediums that carry sound waves have acoustic characteristic impedance. An intuitive explanation of the concept…may take a few pages. I just don’t have the energy to do it now. I will just say that it’s a really really important property. It’s well worth it to go back to it, study and iron out all the misconceptions, even if it takes you hours to do it.

I’m not a doctor, but a technologist. A new diagnostics tool? Good! But I can guarantee that good doctors won’t ditch the stethoscope for anything else. No amount of automation can replace the reassurance that your own senses give you.

This is perhaps more true in the case of mechanical engineering. The touch and feel of the machines can be unfamiliar and changing. And the diagnostics tools are more available (because invasive probing is more acceptable). Despite this, I have noticed that myself and others depend on sight, sounds, heat and sometimes even smell to keep a tab on their health. I don’t think any professional would consider completely cutting off their own senses.

Honestly, the entire world could have been in a much better situation if we had pushed for renewables a long time ago. The first identification of the global greenhouse effect was in 1892 - more than 130 years ago. There was plenty of time to come up with alternatives, considering how fast technology develops (how many knew mobile phones before 1995?).

We are in a serious mess not for the lack of understanding or resources. Some people wanted to be rich at the expense of the majority of ordinary people, all other species and the entire planetary biome. They made sure that no other technology would challenge the world’s dependence on oil. They chose profits over countless lives on the brink of a mass extinction event.

I understand why you feel the need to blame the government. But I can’t help but rant about the insatiable greed and the crime that resulted from it on a scale that the planet has never witnessed before (I don’t think any species, much less a few individuals, ever caused so much destruction before). And while those criminals (for lack of a better word suitable for their actions) live a life in luxury without consequences, the rest of us are being gaslighted by the same vermin for the damage they caused.

I’m sorry for the lengthy rant. Thank you for understanding!

You can’t compare other countries with the likes of Norway or Iceland. For most countries, hydro isn’t enough to meet the needs. Not to mention the fact that it isn’t truly renewable. What happens when climate change makes water more scarce?

The true renewable production became possible only recently with the advances in PV, wind and battery tech.

Academic publishers? Ticket sellers?

People’s belief in what’s on the internet (conspiracy theories) naturally implies their distrust in the NHS’ words, since both are contradictory. I still believe that mistrust is a major driver here.

However, you’re right that the internet may be swaying public opinion of those who are indecisive. The rise of the internet may be partially responsible for the rise of mistrust and antivax sentiments.

I’m not going to completely disagree with you, since the answer isn’t so black and white. You are arguing that people are turning antivax due to loss of generational knowledge of these diseases (which you are equating to stupidity). There is probably some element of truth in it.

But we also have examples to the contrary. The covid pandemic and its vaccine are certainly a product of our generation. Yet, we have people outright denying the seriousness of the disease (it’s just a flu!) and completely neglecting the massive loss of lives. That is not due to generational forgetfulness, but clearly due to mistrust.

I can’t be sure, but I feel that the latter (mistrust) is a more significant cause of antivax sentiments than the former (loss of memory).

I’m not an antivaxxer and certainly won’t recommend going unvaccinated against such preventable diseases. But IMO, it’s wrong to just brush off antivaxxers as stupid. There are two reasons for this. The first is that vaccination rates are dropping. That would mean that wise people are turning stupid. No - there has to be a different explanation, which we will get into later. The second reason is that we need everyone (except those who can’t for medical reasons) onboard for vaccinations to work. Herd immunity is an important thing in vaccination.

Antivax sentiments, like any conspiracy theory, comes from a distrust in authority - be that the government or the bigpharma. One reason could be religious beliefs - religion always has something to mislead people. But another reason could be that these authorities are genuinely untrustworthy. In the US for example, you could be forgiven for thinking that the big pharma is out to make money from your ailments - sometimes getting you sick in the first place. The nexus between big pharma, hospitals and medical insurance companies are genuinely out to squeeze people. Big pharma gets rich out of other people’s misery and the government just doesn’t do enough to stop it.

In such cases, a healthy skepticism of big pharma and government is actually warranted. But there’s no clear definition of what’s healthy. And people often stray into the unhealthy territory, ending up with antivax and other conspiracy theories. Antivax is just a symptom of public and private institutions losing the trust of ordinary people. And while the doctors are often on the people’s side, they’re also part of the system. People’s trust in them depends on their personal experience.