• 0 Posts
  • 706 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: July 1st, 2023

help-circle

  • Pretty sure every human who understands the concept of death are stressed about it at some point in their life.

    Right, but how does one express their anxiety over the concept of death? And if someone does not express their anxiety in a perceivable way, does that mean they do not experience it?

    If we took away a person’s ability to vocalize their grievances, what kind of behavior of theirs would we attribute to an existential crisis? And how would we determine that type of anxiety from normal interaction with the external environment?


  • I mean, that could just be a fault in observation. The same line of thinking was utilized by people like Thomas Jefferson to validate his own use of slavery.

    The language we use to describe intellect and emotions are inseparable from biased interpretation by humans. Can all humans “stress about theoretical concepts”? If a human lacks the ability to do so, do they become less human, or more animalistic?


  • Yeah… My oldest cat makes different noises for different requests. Yowling near door to go outside, chirping near bowls for dinner, and little mews while following you around to be picked up. And I’m not really sure it’s an outlier case as the other two younger cats are starting to learn to do the same.


  • If however a country would be prepared to cut through the red tape and have a standard design developed for say 10 plants at the same time, the price and construction time would be decreased greatly.

    That’s a pretty big ask for a democratic government where half of the politicians are actively sabotaging climate initiatives…

    The only countries where this is really feasible are places where federal powers can supersede the authority of local governments. A nuclear based power grid in America would require a complete reorganization of state and federal authority.

    The only way anyone thinks nuclear energy is a viable option in the states is if they completely ignore the political realities of American government.

    For example, is it physically possible for us to build a proper deep storage facility for nuclear waste? Yes, of course. Have we attempted to build said deep storage facility? Yes, since 1987. Are we any closer to finishing the site after +30 years…no.


  • No, it won’t. That’s the point of the misconception. You even get to it later then dismiss. We aren’t taking about overall health. We aren’t talking about the 'betes.

    I mean, whenever you are talking about health you always consider total outcomes. The articles you are linking are talking about a very specific type of dehydration.

    None of those things will dehydrate you more despite people saying differently. Not soda, not milk, even beer under 2% beer will be better. You will be rehydrated, there WILL be a net gain of water in your body. There is no net loss of water no matter how much people say sugar or caffeine will lower the net gain.

    “Beverages with more concentrated sugars, such as fruit juices or colas, are not necessarily as hydrating as their lower-sugar cousins. They may spend a little more time in the stomach and empty more slowly compared to plain water, but once these beverages enter the small intestine their high concentration of sugars gets diluted during a physiological process called osmosis. This process in effect “pulls” water from the body into the small intestine to dilute the sugars these beverages contain. And technically, anything inside the intestine is outside your body. Juice and soda are not only less hydrating, but offer extra sugars and calories that won’t fill us up as much as solid foods, explained Majumdar. If the choice is between soda and water for hydration, go with water every time. After all, our kidneys and liver depend on water to get rid of toxins in our bodies”

    From your own article…

    If you’re dehydrated, you’re lacking salt. There’s a reason why physically demanding companies provide free drink packets to their crews. They don’t want road crews dying by the side of the road because they slammed water and had no salt on a 100 degree day working next to a machine shooting out molten tar and rock. We aren’t pumping people’s blood full of sterile water. Saline bags are .9% salt for a reason.

    Again, you are talking about a specific type of dehydration… hyponatremia is exceedingly rare and is usually a sign of an undiagnosed kidney disease. Your nephrons will usually regulate your thirst in conjunction to the available salts in the body.

    Dehydration is not just a lack of salt, it’s an imbalance of salt. Meaning that you can just be low on fluid with too much salt available.

    https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/when-replenishing-fluids-does-milk-beat-water-202211142849

    "Unsurprisingly, the ad is sponsored by the milk industry. And while I’d never heard this claim before, the studies behind the idea aren’t particularly new or compelling. "

    Finally, the main benefit of water is that it’s neutral. The reason why people don’t tell you to slam a glass of milk or soda if you’re dehydrated is because it can upset your stomach. When concentrated amounts of sugars or fats enter the intestine the dilution process can go overboard and cause diarrhea, which can dangerously dehydrate you further.

    Hydration is more complicated than what you are alluding too. Simply stating everything but piss and liquor is better than water is just ridiculous and misleading. In specific scenarios other liquids may provide some advantages, but it’s highly reductive to make that claim so broadly. Especially considering it requires you to separate hydration from kidney health, you know the things that control your thirst in the first place.


  • Wikileaks was never really a beacon of free speech its always been more of a platform where people can leak information about goverments and other powerful individuals or organizations doing bunch of shady or downright evil stuff behind our back. These often offer rare glimpse behind the scenes allowing us to be little less blind when voting during whather elections comes next.

    When WikiLeaks first came about it’s original goal was aimed at leaking information about authoritarian governments, primarily China and some countries in the Middle East. It was pretty big news at the time because assange had wrangled together a team of some pretty high profile Journalist and privacy tech people.

    However, most of those people were never really involved in the organization, and were mainly utilized as a marketing scheme. The rest slowly left the organization as works in their fields within WikiLeaks stagnated, or left over security and leadership concerns.

    Imo Assange has always been a duplicitous attention seeker. However, if that were illegal, pretty much everyone involved in media would be thrown in a cell. I think his biggest failures that should tarnish his public image is his handling of the leaks. Him rushing to release information against the advise of his security experts, information that hadn’t been properly vetted to protect the whistle blowers from prosecution.

    Multiple people have had their lives ruined because he didn’t take the time and effort to protect his sources. And not because they didn’t have the ability to, or lacked the proper protocols, but because Julian didn’t care so long as his name got air time.


  • You know what’s better than water when you need water? Nearly everything that isn’t alcohol or literal piss.

    I mean it really depends on the person and their current condition. The article you linked kinda has an abstract definition of hydration that doesn’t take into account things normally associated with dehydration.

    If you are working hard outside and are mildly dehydrated I wouldn’t recommend slamming down a sugary soda with caffeine. Excessive sugar is diluted in the intestines which can cause further dehydration, and caffeine is a diuretic.

    Normally this wouldn’t really matter, but if you’re already dehydrated it can make the situation worse.

    Water is great, it may not be the most effective hydrator in the world as it doesn’t have the electrolytes and sugars that something like Gatorade has. However, it’s the best thing for your overall kidney and liver health which is what really matters. Most Americans already have an excess of salt, fat, and sugar in their diets, so even after working outside and sweating your ass off you are probably better off just having some water.





  • Don’t. I already did a little write up about this a while ago, I work in orthotics and prosthetics.

    This device was created by an 3d printer artist and tested by a cognitive science lab. It’s really not a medical device, and wasn’t tested to the same degree that medical devices are subjected too.

    When testing devices that are actually made to help the disabled, the criteria isn’t just that the pt can utilize it, but that the utilization the device provides is greater than what the patient would be able to do without it.

    None of the actions done by the second thumb are things you wouldn’t be able to do as an amputee in the first place. People are highly adaptive and will figure out ways to utilize their body or what’s left of their amputated limbs.

    There are a few reasons this will never be utilized by disabled people. The largest one being that foot controls aren’t ever used in upper limb prosthetics, mainly because they only work when you are sitting, or standing still. If this has been made by a prosthetic lab they would have used myoelectrics, the same tech we’ve had for like 40 years.

    Secondly, how is an amputee or disabled person going to don this device by themselves. A medical device that’s meant to give you more independence also requires help to put on?

    And lastly, the main benefit of having a thumb in the first place is that it is opposible. The thumb isn’t really useful by itself, it’s meant to work in conjunction with other fingers for manipulation. If you wanted another place to hold or pin something in place you would just stick it in the crease of your elbow.

    It’s a neat art project, but pretty limited as far as a prosthetic device. My main criticism is for the cognitive lab that partnered with the artist in the first place. The university is using this as a marketing device for their department, and shouldn’t be claiming it’s a medical device. If they were serious about it they would be partnering with actual orthotist or prosthetist or a biomedical engineering department, not cognitive science.


  • A person’s sex is science, but their gender is a social construct.

    Even sex is not the black and white dichotomy most people make it out to be. The way we define and dictate someone’s sex isn’t reproducible for everyone. The intersex population is larger than what most people assume, and can vary in ways that defy the way we normally evaluate sex. It can range from someone having different chromosomal pairings, to having a varied arrangement of secondary sexual organs.

    Anyone saying that someone’s sex is scientifically dependent on “x” is either ignorant, or academically dishonest.