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Small talk
  • Or maybe it's just the 'we' that's going to be out of the equation, which is fine too I guess. Our particular form of life just isn't that important in the grand scheme of things anyway.

  • Dentists are pulling healthy and treatable teeth to profit from implants, experts warn
  • Oh, you mean when you involve a profit motive in health care, providers will act accordingly at the expense of the patient? Get the fuck out of here! No way! Next you'll tell me when you introduce middlemen into the system they will also abuse their customers to benefit themselves!

  • Don't Engage with Trolls
  • The old thread I posted this in was deleted, but I wrote this:

    Okay so hear me out. I have this pet theory that might explain some of the divide between genders, but also political parties, causing paralysis which ultimately might lead to humanity’s extinction. Forgive me if I’m stating the obvious.

    I’m going to set up two axioms to arrive at an extrapolated conclusion.

    One: Human psychology tends to ascribe more weight to negative things than positive things in the short term. In the long term this generally balances out, but in the short term it’s more prudent in a biological sense to pay attention to the rustling in the bushes than the berries you might pick from them. This is known as the negativity bias.

    Two: The modern gatekeepers of social interaction, Big Tech, employ blind algorithms that attempt to steer your attention towards spending more time on their platforms. These companies are the arbiters of the content we experience daily and what you do and don’t see is mostly at their discretion. The techniques they employ, in simple terms, are designed to provoke what they call ‘engagement’. They do this because at the end of the day FAANG have not only a financial interest, but a fiduciary duty to sell advertisements at the behest of their shareholders. The more they can engage you, the more ads they can sell. They employ live A-B testing, divide people into cohorts and poke and prod them with psychological techniques to try and glue your eyeballs to their ads.

    Extrapolated conclusion: These companies have a financial and legally binding interest to divide the population against itself, obstructing politics and social interaction to the point where we might not be able to achieve any of the goals that we need to reach to prevent oblivion.

    Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

  • 23andMe’s entire board resigned on the same day. Founder Anne Wojcicki still thinks the startup is savable
  • I’ve never thought about it like that, but you raise an interesting point. From the point of view of patients insurance is an inextricable part of health care. I’m not so sure you can separate them that easily. Even in Western Europe the trend is towards privatization so when something happens to me health wise my first concern is insurance, never mind the actual problem. It’s a tragedy. Let’s just go back to setting up a mandatory fund and paying out from that without the profit seeking middlemen. We don’t need them.

  • ITAP of people socializing on a square

    Some negative space and symmetry, on a square in the Netherlands. Feel free to critique.

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    Cycling isn't legitimate transportation...apparently

    The person on the left is carrying bags, the one in orange is a delivery driver and a couple of people are wearing backpacks. Aside from car brained, Damaris is also blind.

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    InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)NE
    nehal3m @sh.itjust.works
    Posts 2
    Comments 496