A malicious gene drive. Basically, use molecular tools to ensure that a gene is always passed down from a parent to its progeny, regardless of the other parent’s genetic makeup.
Many choices available: propagate resistance to a pesticide for mosquitos, guarantee Huntington’s disease in a family, or crash a population of beneficial species by reducing fertility, to name a few.
Australia: carrying out elections.
Voting is compulsory and you will be fined if you don’t vote without an acceptable reason.
But because voting is compulsory, it’s extremely easy and accessible. Waiting in line for more than 15 minutes is a long wait. Even in the suburbs you’re not usually more than a five minute drive from a polling place.
If you think you’ll have trouble getting to a polling place on election day (a Saturday), you can request a postal ballot or vote early at a different polling place.
We have an independent electoral commission federally and in each state/territory to organise elections (depending on which level of government you’re voting for). They also handle district boundaries to remove gerrymandering.
All ballots are marked and counted by hand. The counting process is open and transparent: any candidate can send people to inspect the counting process and ensure there are no irregularities.
Did you ever contrast it with Brave New World? In many ways the latter is more disturbing since the masses are kept busy with frivolity to question their world.
I think this is a really interesting question. To me, if I hear a claim, I might say I accept it as knowledge or believe it as a worldview.
For example, I get irked by people asking if I “believe” in climate change. To me, it’s not a matter of belief: there is a body of knowledge being scrutinised by extraordinarily smart and talented people. I accept the existence of and need to mitigate climate change.
On the other hand, do I believe we’re not alone in the universe? I can’t rely on knowledge, it’s a lot of intuition.
I wish that naked TLDs were a thing. Like https://com/ or https://london/
I used to love forums back in the day, but I must say I’ve really gotten over the format of the medium. It promotes email-like long form responses with space used up with avatar images, handles and signature blocks. Nested replies become a nightmare steer several layer’s and you’re cooked on mobile.
Would love a Lemmy-like plugin to parse vBulletin forums. Endless scroll for topics, minimal non-content fluff, easy and quick replies. (The irony of this reply length isn’t lost on me. Most of my replies are short, promise!)
Thank you for reminding me of this one! I keep forgetting to try it out
FHS is an absolute dumpster fire that would never be dreamed up in this day and age
Exercising. When I hit 30, my metabolism wasn’t what it used to be and my appetite didn’t slow down to match. To stay a good weight, I decided either I’d have to eat less or exercise more. I chose the latter.
I formed the habit through the pandemic, but in the time since I’ve strengthened it further. I run, swim, and ride.
I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been and exercising during the week is just part of my routine. I think I’ve baked it into my life enough now that it’s here to stay.
I mean, Cunard does transatlantic sailings with the QM2, but your environmental impact for doing so would be high. Your impact would be far lower (per kilogram) if you did travel passenger on a cargo ship.
Ok hear me out. I’ll have a nap and be so glad to fall asleep. But then I get to bed and I’m like nahhhhh I just keep reading or playing this game.
I gotta get better at sleep hygiene 😅
Regardless of how you interpret the statistics, I think that this is a sign that the long vexed problem of software distribution for Linux has been significantly improved. Not quite solved, but for most desktop apps this is fantastic news.
King’s Cup
This is slightly unrelated, but I’ve been slowly moving to Linux from windows for a while. I haven’t made the full plunge yet, but here’s my biggest strategy:
Use as many apps on windows as you can on Linux.
I’m using Okular, Ghostwriter, Libreoffice, Cider, etc. every month or so, another app is moved across.
Then, I make the switch and all my apps are there as I’m used to them.
The thing is that there is always a bias. An AGI is created by humans and therefore will be imbued by human biases and, if it manages to rewrite itself free of human biases, will create its own. This has already happened with some so-called objective AIs and algorithms, where they show bias against racial minorities etc.
I would suggest you have a look at critical realism. At its core, this perspective states that there is an objective reality that exists, but it will always be perceived and interpreted through different perspectives because conscious entities create their own realities to navigate the world.
Therefore, there might be an objective reality, but its perception is always biased.
If you have the room, you can often buy these second hand for a bargain from colleges etc. They’re built like tanks and you can wash almost anything inside them. When they do break, laundry operators try to DIY so there are videos everywhere on how to do repairs.
Who should I buy routers from
I’ve had a decent run with their 4K monitors. They haven’t worked out a way to monetise them yet.
I miss the KDE 3.x crystal theme