I am a person online.

  • 2 Posts
  • 55 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: July 10th, 2023

help-circle



  • If I were an American, I’d probably vote Harris if and only if I live in a swing state or a state where the margins between votes aren’t too high. In any state where the outcome seems set in stone, I’d vote a third party candidate (probably Jill Stein). They won’t get elected, but if there’s a noticeable increase in the number of votes for them, it might make democrats nervous that their political orientation choices aren’t viable. I’d also start campaigning for the third party the day after the election, regardless of the outcome.














  • There’s been scientific and philosophical debates for a long time about which cognitive traits are specific to humans and which are shared across species, and which trait is specific to each group. This is just another element to add to this debate.

    If you’re wondering how this can be applied, it’s not the researcher’s job to know. A lot of the time, a discovery’s practical applications are only found decades after the discovery itself. Some are never used, but we can’t know in advance which knowledge will be useful.

    So ideally, those who work in fundamental research needn’t consern themselves with the potential use of their work, they seek knowledge for itself. If there’s useful stuff in there, applied scientists and engineers will pick it up later. Ideally, but unfortunately, researchers may need to convince a patron that their research will be useful if they need private fundings, which can be a problem. Sometimes, they’ll have to put a little bullshit in their pitch for companies. But since this probably wasn’t a very expensive study, maybe public grants were enough. Or maybe they convinced some company that they could use it to promote cat antidepressants.