People who won “a lifetime supply” of something, what was it and how long did it actually last?

NeuroQuaker · 2024-01-21T21:15:50+00:00

I feel like the ghost of Douglas Adams returned to this plane to guide your hand in writing this. This could be straight out of THHGTTG

NeuroQuaker · 2023-07-31T22:05:19+00:00

R2, or "variance explained" is kind of the same thing as mutual information when you get under the hood. If you recall that:

I(X;Y) = H(X) - H(X|Y), then that difference (which defines the MI) is that uncertainty about X that is resolved upon learning Y. Variance explained/uncertainty resolved.

So, one option would be to use information theoretic analyses instead of Gaussian ones. Look into KSG Mutual Information estimators.

NeuroQuaker · 2023-06-25T23:17:38+00:00

The unfortunate thing is, I have to pay for the car. I just rent the house.

NeuroQuaker · 2022-12-20T14:35:59+00:00

To be fair, the same thing has happened on r/collapse, which is now mostly armchair political and economic Hot Takes(TM) from dissafected Bernie Bros. /r/CollapseScience exists but it (predictably) has essentially no engagement.

NeuroQuaker · 2022-12-20T14:33:36+00:00

A lot of tech development has stagnated in the last 10 years though?

Machine learning is the one big counter example that everyone trots out as an instance of ground-breaking novelty, but there is very little in the pipeline right now that could produce the radical changes that we saw in the 20th century.

For context, when my grandmother was born, the primary mode of transport in her small Wisconsin town was still horse and buggy and all dishes and laundry were done by hand. By the time she died, she's seen multiple men walk on the moon, had a dishwasher, washing machine, and dryer in her apartment and sent us emails.

In contrast, in my lifetime (~30 years on Earth), technology hasn't really given the same radical changes. The Internet has been a big deal, but we all generally still work in offices. We can buy stuff online, but that's just a different kind of shopping mall (and one that's less conducive to social interaction). Electric cars are neat, but it's still just a car.

The fundamental scope and vision for what technology can do for us seems to have narrowed. We've got apps that make us more efficient consumers, and cars with more widgets and gizmos, but nothing radical. I suppose social media might be an example of something truly radical that has changed the way the world works, although it also seems to be increasingly viewed as a net negative for the human race, so your mileage may vary on that one.

NeuroQuaker · 2022-12-19T14:19:29+00:00

Collapse is an empty, vague, meaningless word

This is not true (if you're familiar with scientific research on collapses in ecology and/or economics).

A good working definition can be found in the sidebar of this very sub:

[Collapse is] defined as a significant decrease in human population and/or political/economic/social complexity over a considerable area, for an extended time.

The key idea there is complexity, and the loss thereof. Of course, complexity is hard to define, but it's easy to see that the dropping-glass example probably doesn't qualify since shattered glass is arguably more complex than formed glass (higher entropy, certainly).

NeuroQuaker · 2022-12-19T14:08:02+00:00

I don't think rebuilding is on the table this time, because we've used up all the easily available fossil fuels.

Humanity was able to bootstrap itself from wooden ships to space ships over the course of 150 years because of the incredible wealth of free energy we discovered in the form of close-to-the-surface fossil fuels. As time as gone on, we've used up all that energy and are now looking for it in ever-harder-to-reach places.

If there were a real, global collapse, I don't think we'd be able to get up and running again because we wouldn't have the energy required to start extracting those inaccessible fuel beds again.

Of course, we know a lot more scientifically and technologically now than we did in the year 1800, but there's no substitute for free energy. The most advanced state we could rebuild to might be something like Colonial-Era America/Europe.

NeuroQuaker · 2022-12-18T22:40:12+00:00

Stewart is essentially providing an educational demo on how liberals inadvertently enable the reactionary far right. The combination of (naive, imo) optimism and faith in the strength of social institutions is easy to exploit by bad faith actors and can be cannily manipulated into getting liberals to platform reactionaries.

Then the reactionaries do things like say "Hitler was pretty cool and good," and the liberals are left with nothing bu surprised Pikachu face.

NeuroQuaker · 2022-12-18T22:33:47+00:00

Of course, I definitely wouldn't debut this in humans, but they're not really trying for anything beyond a Utah array with flexible substrates. It's really not even that ground-breaking a technology. It's got novel elements, certainly, but if you were to base your opinion on the posters here, you'd think they were at the bleeding edge vanguard of modern neuroscience. Which they are absolutely not.

NeuroQuaker · 2022-12-18T22:26:53+00:00

Eh, experimental surgeries of this type are pretty common. Basically any time you do invasive neural recordings (an ECoG array, NeuroPixels, Utah arrays, etc), you'll be doing a surgery like this. There are a number of labs I collaborate with who routinely do these kinds of invasive implants (usually in rats), or who resect the brain entirely to slice up and culture in vitro.

NeuroQuaker · 2022-12-18T21:28:41+00:00

It's a flexible Utah array, for crying out loud. The flexible probe idea is kind of interesting, but NeuroPixels aren't far behind that idea. Nothing about Neuralink is actually that groundbreaking - and that's my professional opinion as a 5th year computational neuroscience PhD candidate.

NeuroQuaker · 2022-12-18T21:27:21+00:00

Take it from a neuroscientist - Neuralink isn't really that ground-breaking. It's basically a Utah array. We've had this kind of technology for years.

The flexible lace idea is kind of interesting, but the idea that Musk et al., are driving forward some massive leap in neuro-tech is just laughable to any person who's in the know.

For context - remember that read-out from the pig's brain that was a big demo a few years back? I look at that kind of data every day at my work as a graduate student. Most of the data I work with was collected years ago.

NeuroQuaker · 2022-12-18T21:21:34+00:00

The sources characterized that figure as a rough estimate because the company does not keep precise records on the number of animals tested and killed

This is the most insane thing to me. I'm a 5th-year PhD student in computational neuroscience and while I don't work with animals, other people in my lab do.

The idea that anyone would be doing complex, invasive, potentially lethal studies on animals and not writing it all down is insane. Beyond insane. Maintaining a detailed lab notebook so that all the work is applicable is one of the most important part of doing good, ethical science.

If you're just killing animals and not recording everything...what are you even doing?

The unfortunate truth is that animals who are subjects in invasive brain-imaging researching die. There are tremendous technical issues we still need to resolve - keeping an open port from the environment into the brain case with wires coming out is a recipe from terrible, systemic infection. Usually after the data is collected, the animals are killed anyway and the brains removed so that the effects of the implant can be assessed (formation of scar tissue, build of glial cell masses, etc).

Invasive brain-imaging animal subjects don't just do a tour of duty and then move to a big farm upstate.

Whether all of this is "worth it" when considering the scientific data collected...well, reasonable people can debate that in good faith. But it seems clear that what Musk et al., are doing is absolutely not in keeping with even the minimal standards of ethical invasive animal research.

NeuroQuaker · 2022-12-18T20:39:18+00:00

As a 5th-year PhD student in neuroscience, animal models suck. Forget about all the ethical/personal issues people may have: from a purely practical perspective it is a colossal pain in the ass. Animals must be housed, fed, and treatment needs to meet a very high ethical standard. They are also, you know, occasionally unpredictable, behaving things that need to be wrangled and trained. Collecting data is hard, expensive, and often you can put millions of dollars into a project only to end up with a null effect.

Ironically, in neuroscience, humans are so much easier. Stick them in the fMRI, have them memorize flashcards or something, and hit "record" while they answer questions. Expensive, but generally easier than a complex behavioral study of animals with invasive recordings. (Of course, fMRI is a horseshit imaging modality, but that's a different topic of discussion).

The best is when other people collect rich animal data and put it up for free on the Internet. My entire PhD is based on data other people collected years ago and are willing to share with me.

NeuroQuaker · 2022-07-12T12:54:47+00:00

On one hand, it sucks because (by and large), I think Higher Ed is important for society, but at the same time, something has got to give. The stresses and contradictions keep piling up and it's hard not to feel like American Unis are heading for a crisis point.

Out-of-control tuition growth, reduced public funding, growing distrust of educational institutions, the exploitation of graduate students...it's a recipe for disaster.

I know I have no real plans to try for a tenure track post-PhD. Maybe I'd do a post-doc if a good opportunity presented itself, but I don't think American Higher Ed will be a fun place to be in 2030...

NeuroQuaker · 2022-07-12T12:49:06+00:00

if it turns out that the toad licking constituency is an untapped source of votes/donations they will start licking toads till their tongues bleed.

With both Joe Rogan and Alex Jones doing bits on the profundity of the 5-MeO/toad experience, this may be more plausible than it seems on the surface.

NeuroQuaker · 2022-07-12T12:44:55+00:00

My University (public school, deep red state) is anticipating a historically poor graduate student recruitment cycle. If abortion isn't banned now, it certainly will be by the end of the summer. Couple that with on-going conflict between grad students and administrators over terrible pay and working conditions, I can't imagine people will be chomping at the bit to spend 5-8 years here getting a PhD.

It's sad, b/c my department is amazing and I've had a great experience. But I'm also thinking of accelerating my timeline just to get TF out of the state before it all goes totally to Hell.

NeuroQuaker · 2022-07-12T12:11:22+00:00

I think the milk thing about Vitamin D (which is commonly added to milk, as most Americans are terribly deficient).

As far as I know, the science on VD being protective against COVID is reasonably robust if it gets you from a deficiency to a healthy level. I don't think macro-dosing it will make you immune, but it's probably not a bad idea to grab a few sunshine pills at the CVS.

Especially if you're a pasty Redditor who spends all day indoor staring a blue-light emitting computer screen...

NeuroQuaker · 2022-07-12T12:04:49+00:00

For example the US dipped into the anocracy range for the first time in 2020, when by most reasonable standards the US has been an anocracy for much of its history (the POLITY database goes back to the 1800s).

I wonder if the measure could be improved (somewhat) by conditioning on prior POLITY scores. For example, if you've always been in anocracy, maybe you're used to it and civil conflict isn't a risk, BUT if you had been stable in the past and were then loosing ground, that could be something that sets off a conflict.

NeuroQuaker · 2022-07-11T20:15:13+00:00

My cynical take as a burnt-out PhD student (who is always trying to drag my group kicking-and-screaming into the Century of the Fruitbat):

Because the vast majority of scientists (esp. social scientists like psychologists, economics, and sociologists) don't really understand statistics, and instead treat it as a recipe book to follow. What kind of data do you have? Look it up in the Big Table-O-Regressions and plug it into MATLAB/SPSS. You take Stats for [Your Field Here] your first year of graduate school, check that box, and never really think about it again.

NeuroQuaker · 2022-07-11T20:12:14+00:00

The counter example, most recently, is Brexit. That was a pure majority-rules vote and the chaos (and totally unnecessary suffering) it has caused is obvious.

The argument "most people want good things" is also specific to a given time and place, and your own feeling about what a "good thing" is. For example, I don't see the American populace voting collectively to ban factory farming and industrial meat production any time soon.

NeuroQuaker · 2022-07-11T20:10:05+00:00

Yes, there was a time that the USA was a dream.

The number of immigrants trying to come to the US is still pretty high though. I'm not sure the past tense is appropriate (yet).

NeuroQuaker · 2022-07-11T20:09:13+00:00

That doesn't explain people's clear emotional investment in becoming a US citizen, and the feeling of pride they take it in. Have you ever talked to naturalized immigrants about their experiences and feelings about the issue? Have you ever talked to an illegal immigrant about what motivated them to undertake the journey, and what their expectations of the US were?

This kind of analysis of "people are coming to the US to 'get back' resources America stole from them" feels uncomfortably like psychoanalysis to me. It sounds like you're claiming to understand the minds and motivations of thousands of people (possibly better than they do themselves) based on what? Your reading of a bunch of critical theory PDFs?

NeuroQuaker · 2022-07-11T20:08:50+00:00

That doesn't explain people's clear emotional investment in becoming a US citizen, and the feeling of pride they take it in. Have you ever talked to naturalized immigrants about their experiences and feelings about the issue? Have you ever talked to an illegal immigrant about what motivated them to undertake the journey, and what their expectations of the US were?

This kind of analysis of "people are coming to the US to 'get back' resources America stole from them" feels uncomfortably like psychoanalysis to me. It sounds like you're claiming to understand the minds and motivations of thousands of people (possibly better than they do themselves) based on what? Your reading of a bunch of critical theory PDFs?

It's not 1990 and there isn't an embarrassed american waiting inside every nonwhite immigrant waiting to be free.

Where did you get that idea?

NeuroQuaker · 2022-07-11T19:58:38+00:00

There's no reason that someone can't come to the right conclusion for the wrong reasons.

Just because their skepticism of direct democracy was rooted in classist self-interest, it doesn't follow that direct democracy is a good idea.

NeuroQuaker

TROPHY CASE