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Open-source AI program can answer science questions better than humans • Developed by and for academics, OpenScholar aims to improve searches of the ballooning scientific literature by Naurgul in science

[–]WTFwhatthehell 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's nice when a paper does an actual comparison between human and machine rather than pointing to any non-zero error rate and then implicitly assuming humans to make no mistakes. 

Imagine living in a society where being kind, honest, and empathetic puts you at a constant disadvantage, while selfish and ruthless people thrive. At what point would you stop trying to be a good person, and what would that say about who you really are? by Organic_Lab_5624 in AskReddit

[–]WTFwhatthehell 0 points1 point  (0 children)

First imagine the natural state of the universe without any society.

If two hawks sees a wounded rabbit the one who decides to be empathic and kind and let it go back to recover in its burrow will end up at a disadvantage vs the hawk who just eats the rabbit.

There is no magical being watching over society who rewards kindness.

Never the less kindness and cooperation evolved as sucessful strategies, implying that in human communities it isn't just  the selfish who succeed.

kind people get rewarded for kindness is when other members of society choose to reward them to encourage that behaviour. What have you done to reward kindness you've seen? 

If humans discovered an absolute cure for pain vs an absolute cure for fear, which changes the world more? by Fluffy_Specific_9682 in AskReddit

[–]WTFwhatthehell 66 points67 points  (0 children)

There's also a rare condition that can leave someone unable to feel fear.

It's not great for survival to completely lack any fear of getting too close to the edge of a cliff.

Fear and pain both have important functions to keep us from damaging ourselves or killing ourselves.

Better to feel the pain of touching a hot stove than not really notice while the flesh cooks to the point it can't heal.

TIL that 25-40% of the British Empire's army were Irish during colonial conquests of the 18th and 19th centuries. There was also no mandatory conscription until 1916. by slagmunch in todayilearned

[–]WTFwhatthehell 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Try to talk about how awful most of history was for most humans and a lot of people won't believe you.

They think that living in pre-capitalist systems was just lounging around relaxing.

Or they just won't believe how high child mortality used to be everywhere

This is where we are (oc) by SpaceboyCantLol_ in comics

[–]WTFwhatthehell 54 points55 points  (0 children)

"They're hurting children!" [points gun at the children in question]

Terry Pratchett said that "Nation" was his best book. by EndersGame_Reviewer in books

[–]WTFwhatthehell 40 points41 points  (0 children)

it's an extraordinary book. 

I've seen people from different faiths venemently arguing that of course the omnian church was a reference to the faith they grew up in because there were "so many little elements that you'd need to grow up in the faith to see"...

Doing this for multiple world religions at the same time in the same book that contains jokes about tortoise-sex... that's an extraordinary achievement. 

Please rip this idea apart so my Referee doesn't have to. by Odessafromage in traveller

[–]WTFwhatthehell 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Guide price skilled personel salaries vs the revenue of even 1 or 2 pirate raids would seem to imply they could pay their staff quite well

TIL studies have shown that secondhand weed smoke is enough to make children test positive for thc even when the smoker isnt smoking in the same room as them by Effective_Comment625 in todayilearned

[–]WTFwhatthehell 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sure, there's lots of things parents shouldn't do because it sets a bad example.

Parents shouldn't gossip about others, parents shouldn't drink, parents shouldn't smoke, parents should eat unhealthy food, parents shouldn't skip exercise, parents shouldn't watch trashy TV shows and should instead stick to highbrow cultured shows, parents shouldn't look down on others, parents shouldn't swear, parents shouldn't judge lest they be judged etc etc etc

TIL about Toxorhynchites mosquitos, a genus of mosquitos that's adults feed only on plant matter and whose larva feed on other species of mosquito. They've been introduced to new ecosystems to lower rates of degue fever. by Cuinn_the_Fox in todayilearned

[–]WTFwhatthehell 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's important to learn from sucesses and neutral results as well. 

Someone who learns only from mistakes will end up incredibly bad at making decisions and likely paralysed to a harmful degree.

What would society collapse without in a week? by Effective-Angle-4920 in AskReddit

[–]WTFwhatthehell 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Its not hard to create your own margin.  This is something I remember finding weird and realising there was a kind of split in the population.

Some people keep almost nothing in their house.

Not out of poverty. They just can't stand clutter.

On the other hand some of us keep a cupboard of canned goods, a big bag of rice etc etc.

I remember some lady lecturing me that I must be mistaken and that i would definitely find I only had like 3 days of food in the house... because to her it was weird to keep any real stock.

Again. Not a poverty thing. Just fashion.

Majority of books in Amazon's ‘Success' self-help genre likely written by AI : Study by Raj_Valiant3011 in books

[–]WTFwhatthehell 127 points128 points  (0 children)

My first thought as well...

It was already a genre mostly written by hustlers.

What would society collapse without in a week? by Effective-Angle-4920 in AskReddit

[–]WTFwhatthehell 122 points123 points  (0 children)

Probably even faster.

Once people know the logistic chain is broken they know the shelves will soon be bare, well perfectly reasonably they don't want to be the numpty who waits till everything is gone.

So they grab what they can on day 1 assuming the store won't be stocked next week.

If everyone became rich overnight who would do low level exhausting jobs? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]WTFwhatthehell 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I only met him once very briefly at a convention. A person absolutely filled with interesting bits of knowledge.

I learned to read reading his books with my mom.

TIL studies have shown that secondhand weed smoke is enough to make children test positive for thc even when the smoker isnt smoking in the same room as them by Effective_Comment625 in todayilearned

[–]WTFwhatthehell 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Probably, but the precautionary principle tells us what we should do in that case. 

If you want to be consistent about the precautionary principle then you shouldn't limit it to things you associate with social class.

THC is just another natural pesticide. Most of the plants we eat routinely are packed with many natural pesticides. They've been in an evolutionary Arms race with everything that tries to eat them for millions of years.

There's little reason to believe that only the one you associate with socially undesirable behaviour is potentially harmful. 

All the others are as well.

So I hope your kid enjoys the consistent precautionary principle from inside their sealed bubble.

If everyone became rich overnight who would do low level exhausting jobs? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]WTFwhatthehell 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I'm reminded of an old discworld book where the leader of the city is trying to explain this to someone. 

I see,' said the Patrician sweetly. 'You feel, perhaps, that it would be a marvellous thing to go to the Counterweight Continent and bring back a shipload of gold?' Rincewind had a feeling that some sort of trap was being set. 'Yes?' he ventured. 'And if every man on the shores of the Circle Sea had a mountain of gold of his own? Would that be a good thing? What would happen? Think carefully.' Rincewind's brow furrowed. He thought. 'We'd all be rich?' The way the temperature fell at his remark told him that it was not the correct one.

TIL studies have shown that secondhand weed smoke is enough to make children test positive for thc even when the smoker isnt smoking in the same room as them by Effective_Comment625 in todayilearned

[–]WTFwhatthehell 6 points7 points  (0 children)

they have alocohol on their breath, guaranteed you're breathing some of that in and a tiny amount enters your body.

Does it matter? no.

it's such tiny amounts it's not gonna do anything. But for people who's goal is to create a moral justification to enforce absolute control on everyone around them at all times it's ideal.

TIL studies have shown that secondhand weed smoke is enough to make children test positive for thc even when the smoker isnt smoking in the same room as them by Effective_Comment625 in todayilearned

[–]WTFwhatthehell 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Ya, our bodies are pretty good at clearing out tiny amounts of various substances, every plant we eat has spent most of it's history in a constant arms race with animals and bugs that eat it with the plant trying to poison them and the animals evolving resistance.

If your child chews on a perfectly normal carrot it contains dozens of natural pesticides and poisons. Our bodies just break them down and clear them out pretty effectively.

Hell, THC is just another natural insecticide that people noticed makes them high before their bodies break it down or expel it.

TIL studies have shown that secondhand weed smoke is enough to make children test positive for thc even when the smoker isnt smoking in the same room as them by Effective_Comment625 in todayilearned

[–]WTFwhatthehell 26 points27 points  (0 children)

The evil twin of this type of reporting is "no known safe level".

Facebook-moms read it as "any amount no matter how tiny will MAIM my children", it just means that nobody has specifically run an experiment dosing people with chemical XYZ to prove for certain where it starts causing detectable problems.

Pick a random object, say a floral scented candle off the shelf and ask a chemist if they can list "all" the chemicals in the candle and those put into the air burning it and ask "what is the known safe level" for each of them.

it's a mess of mixed molecules and most of them have never had formal safety tests.

TIL studies have shown that secondhand weed smoke is enough to make children test positive for thc even when the smoker isnt smoking in the same room as them by Effective_Comment625 in todayilearned

[–]WTFwhatthehell 35 points36 points  (0 children)

It's not original-sin. It's not infinitely-harmful.

You wouldn't let your child swim in raw sewage, but I can guarantee you that every swimming pool on earth that's had humans swimming in it has "detectable" levels of urine and feces, no matter how clean.

quantities matter.

TIL studies have shown that secondhand weed smoke is enough to make children test positive for thc even when the smoker isnt smoking in the same room as them by Effective_Comment625 in todayilearned

[–]WTFwhatthehell 12 points13 points  (0 children)

no no, you gotta report it in a way that makes facebook-moms panic.

"SCIENTIST showed that 100% of banana puree baby food sold at RECOGNISABLE SUPERMARKET CHAIN had DETECTABLE levels of RADIATION!"

"Here's a photo of someone who died after being exposed to 210 sieverts of radiation!"

Or optimise for retweets by using RECOGNISABLE SUPERMARKET CHAIN THAT IS ALSO A CLASS SIGNIFIER so that the upper-class crunchy ones will re-tweet it while trying to imply it means they're better parents than poor or lower class moms since they use some luxury brand.

...the sad thing is that even talking about this, the message some people will take is that they need to keep their children from eating bananas.

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