beowulfey

We don't know how our own intelligence works, much less anything else's

We just went through institution of a union at my employer for one type of employee. The organizers did exactly this, and as an observer/affected party it was a little coercive. But you know it has to be, because people always prefer the status quo. It takes a lot of work to unionize and it ultimately never felt forced because we all wanted it. But man, the pressure to sign and put your name down was high, and BECAUSE there were no protections, definitely unnerving.

I would love something as responsive as the Remarkable tablet in this form factor

There is a market for smaller cars and trucks but its probably smaller than for other countries. We don't have the smaller roads/spaces associated with e.g. Europe. But for sure I would buy small cars or trucks first any day compared to the monsters on the road; there are few options though.

There is active propaganda against scientists and institutions; and scientists are decent but not excellent communicators. They lost the communication war and now the general public is very distrusting of science.

Why the hell ARE they even valued that way?

There's definitely something to this idea. Our toddler absolutely loves her Yoto player, which is kind of like a tiny Walkman with cards instead of tapes. It's new but has that same old-tech feeling, IMO. She loves to pick out her favorite "albums" (some of which are stories) and listen to them. We have them all where she can easily grab them and swap them out. Have definitely lost a few cards but they're cheap enough and they usually turn up again eventually, plus it helps teach her to keep her things organized (if you lose it... it's gone!).

We also got an old VCR for free, and pulled out all the VHS tapes from the parents' attics. Another great system for the kiddo. We have an assortment of tapes that she can choose from, and we let her pick the tape and insert it herself. I think the tactile feeling of selecting and starting it up is very satisfying.

Somewhere along the way we forgot the importance of touch in interfacing with technology. We are definitely starved for that sensation in the modern world.

Even if you test a batch once, do people who get testing done do testing on all batches?

The synthesis of peptides uses some NASTY chemicals. I would be worried about lax manufacturer policies leading to contamination, even if one batch passes. The costs of FDA certification are the effect of that protection.

But whatever, this is the same attitude that people have against owning insurance. It is hard to recognize the cost of risk.

Clinical trials are not looking for fundamental mechanisms, they are there to ensure an effect is strong enough to say a product should be sold for that purpose. Otherwise you end up with snake oil salesmen. Because how can you be sure you are even injecting the thing the sellers claim it is?

I would encourage everyone interested in peptides to read about the state of medical science before the establishment of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.

Causality was not the point. The point was to refute the seeding hypothesis, and because they found those molecules, the effort to falsify the hypothesis failed. Now we can move on to the next attempt to refute, which, as you say, might be to study whether molecules can survive conditions of reentry.

Experiments do not tell us that something IS a certain way; only the ways it is not.

LLMs talk like people; there is nothing wrong with this. It's perfectly fine to be nice to something even if it isn't human. It's why we don't go around kicking dogs for fun.

I understand why people don't act polite to LLMs, but honestly I think not thanking them will make people act more dickish to other humans.

where did you hear this?

Your first post specifically stated:

"I'm curious - do you have ANY idea what it costs to have humans write 100,000 lines of code???"

which any reasonable reading would take to mean "paid-by-line", which we all know doesn't happen. Otherwise, I could type out 30,000 lines of gibberish and take my fat paycheck.