3mo ago

Habits of Insects

135 comments

Sure, that's great but it's not even the point. Fundamental research and other type of "useless" scientific endeavors help humanity as a whole to better understand our universe but would never be privately funded because they don't have any concrete and immediate financial benefits. This is precisely what a government should finance, because no one else would do it and yet it's small stuff like that that make us collectively move forward as a species
- Musk fans don't want humanity to advance. They hate technological progress.
  
  For OTHERS, yes. But many want the cutting edge for themselves, at no cost to themselves.
  
  Where did Musk come from? I don't see any mention of it here
- help humanity as a whole
  And here you've identified why they hate it. They cannot stand the idea that resources might benefit other people, resources that they could hoard instead.
- Oh, they’ll probably publicly fund it for private profit

In addition, government research in the sciences is miniscule. You could cut ALL of science funding and be no where close to the 1 trillion that Musk claims he'll be able to reduce the budget by
- Now if he could start making cuts to the military…
  
  How dare you threaten the poor defense contractors.
- Regardless, he'll claim he cut 500 bajillion dollars no matter what he ends up doing
  
  My bet is that if he expects to cut 2 trillion, he will end up increasing the budget by 4 trillion.
- He actually claimed 2 trillion.
  
  I knew Elongated Muskrat was a dumbass but I didn't know he also can't do math.
- The goal's more about cutting all the science funding than reducing spending. These are people who bitch about Ukraine when they don't even plan on spending that money on something else they're just guzzling Russian propaganda.

The world just keeps getting more and more efficient at being dumb. Let's just count all the appallingly stupid things crammed into this small meme with 2 million views:
"Insurrection Barbie"
Celebrating the defunding of useful scientific research by a new government efficiency agency
This new agency is named after a cryptocurrency
The cryptocurrency in question was created as a joke to satirize cryptocurrencies, but became a top prominent cryptocurrency itself.
The "Department of Government Efficiency Agency" has 2 heads, both of whom have other primary jobs and were chosen in return for political support.
There is also already an existing government agency that does the exact same thing, called the "Government Accountability Office". But most people seem to be unaware of it, likely because it's not named after a cryptocurrency/dog meme.
This whole scheme was the idea of the richest person in the world.
Idiocracy didn't happen because of unnatural selection, it happened because social media unlocked a runaway chain reaction of stupidity.
- Why are people saying that it was named after a cryptocurrency?
  Isnt the dog the first thing people think of when seeing "doge"?
  
  Its reasonable to make the connection to the coin, as this particular cryptocurrency was propagandized and manipulated by musk, who will be running the agency.
  
  True! It was then technically named after a meme...which the coin named itself after, as it was supposed to be a "meme coin".
  Still stands though.
  "Government agency named after meme. Such dumb. So chaos. Woooooow." Lol
  
  Isnt the dog the first thing people think of when seeing “doge”?
  It used to be so, but in recent several years Doge has lived and pretty much been defined in public consciousness by the cryptocurrency, which Musk has openly endorsed/memed.
  
  Is it better to be named after a stupid meme instead?
  
  It was for me until a few years ago. I used doge as a base for most of my internet alias since I like the meme (as you can see from my username). One time inside a game, I was asked if I was a crypto bro because of my ign. At the time, i don't like crypto but have no hard feelings against it. Ever since then I loath those crypto bros and their worship of crypto currencies for destroying the image of doge and with their stupid crypto currency nonsense.

And so the US lost decade becomes the medieval dark ages
It'd be fascinating as an outsider if the choices made by the US didn't basically impact everything, everywhere.
- I thought we were done with the "medieval dark age" myth.
  
  How’s Neo-Feudal Gilded Age strike you?

Say it with me:
No. Research. Is. Useless.
If we say that research is useless because it doesn't bring you mo ey we could stop teaching children math beyond the absolute basics because "it doesn't brinf them anything". This is stupid, because those are the fundamentals that tech children to thing logically and become useful member of society. Same with research. It teaches us the things necessary to maybe invent some of the most useful stuff ever seen
- Republicans want drones and cannon fodder, not scientists and intellectuals.
- You say that but I've heard concerningly many people say that there is no point in teaching everyone stuff like basic math because chances are they won't use it
  
  I also hear that argument often and I absolutely hate it. They always say "tech them things like insert manual labor work. Nobody needs Math."
  It always depends. A lot of people will likely never use a saw outside of school. Especially in a time where a lot of people go to university the skills that complex math teaches you are basically the bare necessitys. Also school usually is teaches you the basic broad knowledge and skills required to get more specific education on a specific topic. This includes studying all different subjects and also getting training as a woodworker. It is literally impossible to focus on everything and that also isn't really the use of school. Its just the first and universal form of education.
  
  India just removed pythagorean theorem from their educational curriculum for the very reason you mentioned.
- I agree no research is useless but some just goes straight into the bonkers folder.
  
  Yeah, but just because a scientist calculated what would happen if we replaced the earth with blueberrys doesn't mean we should defund him.

"preventing next corn plague" with resources used being a box of soil and bunch of underpaid grads seems pretty efficient to me, but i guess that since the common clay of the new west already voted they can be safely disposed of
at USDA, they're turning beetles kinky! 😡
alex jones fuming aimlessly while being stored in some container
- The Onion buying Infowars is the only good news I've heard this week.
- The common clay of the new west
- Fun fact, Gene Wilder ad-libbed "you know, morons", so Cleavon Little's reaction to it is genuine. It's such a delightful scene.

China is going to devour the scientific world of we keep it like this
- Won't happen, or at least won't be useful if it does. Lotta Chinese authors are faking data for the sake of the CCP and their studies don't replicate. If that takes over, it'll be like a global Dark Age.
- Hell yeah
  
  A scientific monopoly is a bad thing regardless who you cheer for
- Going to continue devouring the scientific world with lots of smart Westerners leaving the new SlaveTastic^tm USA
  
  Republicans deserve no progress. Let them fall back into the ages they desire. No Smartphones. That's which science.
- China has a problem. It isn't good at finding the best people and putting them into science (or whatever else). Instead it gets the loyal people and gives them the best jobs, they then select people below them however they will
  People then strive for recognition and advancement so scientific fraud is rife

Neolib idiots don't see the (immense) value of fundamental research because it doesn't directly generate profits, more at 11
- They're not neolibs, they're fascists. The Democrats are neolibs
  
  True, but I don't think many of them would say that to your face (including musk who I assume would pretend to be neolib, who do kind of have a hate boner for basic research, at least in my country)
- Which is stupid, because even video games make you research sticks before you can make nuclear reactors. Guess even entertainment can't teach dumb shits anything. Just retaining nothing.
  
  They've never seen a game complicated enough to have research tbf.
- It directly generates profits, they're just too stupid to understand how.
  
  Yeah but sometimes it might not because that is not the main goal ! Useless, I tell you !

Welcome to the new Dark Ages, brought to you by religious fascists.
- Elon isn't even religious. Like always religion is just a fucking disguise for enriching themselves, both with money and power.
  
  Neither is trump, or any of these other people.
- again
- Stupidly funny, right? Like watching a movie, where something dumb is about to happen. You are watching and screaming in agony, pleading for the characters on the screen not to do the dumb thing. But you watch in horror, as all your words are without any effect, you can't reach anyone.
  But now with the added bonus, that the dumb thing might affect your life. Or that of your loved ones, neighbours, friends.
  
  Living in Australia, with China just to the north as our largest trade partner, I'm not looking forward to what is going to happen with America's allies in relation to China
- I’m thinking this too… let’s hope Renaissance mk2 only takes a few years to blossom - but my confidence is not high.

Hell can we mention that the cold war era these fucks idolize was also the golden age of the government throwing money at side projects?

Like the dead don't realize they're dead, they don't realize they're stupid. They're just everyone else's problem.
- We've built a society with full guard rails. There's very little a stupid person can do to remove themselves from the gene pool before they procreate. Being stupid seems to actually increase the odds that they'll procreate early, and often.
- They were when they were alive, too

The appointment of Elon Musk to lead the proposed department of government efficiency raises concerns, given his track record of business management.
His handling of Twitter/X after its $44 billion acquisition has resulted in a significant decline in its value, with some sources putting the valuation around $9bn.
Doesn't seem very efficient to me.
- This idea has been around for a while. Make government more efficient by putting a private enterprise person in charge
  It never worked because the private enterprise person got efficiency by having a cool project or forceful personality in the private enterprise which let them pay their employees poorly. Or maybe they paid their employees well and had excellent success. But then they have government employees who are hard to fire, have highly specialist knowledge, aren't in it for profit and so the private enterprise maverick is usually [worse than] useless
  I don't expect it to work this time either, especially as Musk is more interested in Tesla, SpaceX, and his other companies
- Not just significant, I'm pretty sure the loss in value is some sort of a record, for real.

Yeah, we've been studying the sex lives of various different animals (including ourselves!) for centuries now, yet nobody bat an eye until now. 🙄

It's also helped develop advances in flight, metamaterials, physics.
But Barbie makes a good point with a meme about how she treats her cuck husband.

the 2010s science bazinga man being the reason all the cool science gets cut is darkly sad. hate this man.

Welcome to a new era of weaponized ignorance
- Galileo wept

Roasts are equally lost on them, these people only understand bullying

Yes! I was just reading a few scientific articles about the mating patterns of darkling beetles. (not a gov't employee tho)
- Possibly funded by govt grants

Like they said after Brexit…”tired of experts”.

"Haha, I'm insurrection barbie, get it? Because the libs think when Donald Trump lets a massive mob of his supporters to the Capitol to disrupt the election certification process the libs thought it was an insurrection!"

Goddamn, it really is impossible!
How the fuck am I gonna filter US politics out of my feed when it creeps in through Science Memes?
- There's only one way to filter politics out of your time online: don't go online.

Fuck dude, I’m about to get an awesome job with the usda after being unemployed for over 2 years, and time is literally running out for me to get my contract finalized before these ghouls fuck everything.
A kind fuck you to every hexbearite ironically cheering on the destruction of the civilian government workforce, although I’ve only seen this opinion from a few
- time's literally running out for insects too
- Jsyk Trump is planning to politicize the beauracracy, so be prepared to be fired for following your moral code/loyalty to the nation over Trump.

I’m too stupid to understand. How does this all connect?!
- reproductive habits of some insects are of critical importance in pest control in agriculture
  natural product chemists (it's a subfield of organic chemistry) find and identify new weird shit in obscure organisms (esp marine organisms) all the time. because amounts are tiny, then their work is on synthesis of the same thing. some of these turn out to be useful
- Its actually quite simple. Snaily often eat crops and thereby reduce the production of said crops. The more snails reproduce, the more crops will be eaten. When you know how their reproduction works you can start looking for solutions on how to reduce their reproduction (and so the production of crops).

135 comments