richardatlarge

Quote: If what makes our houseplant special is a result, not of the evolution of the species, but of modern laboratory manipulations, do we perceive it in the same way? Should we?

Two things in this article seem bogus, and a I wonder what drives this scare mongering First, the experts cited want us to believe a more contagious variant is possible if not likely. This seems dubio…

The prevailing view is “he’s a natural.” Everyday, people are discouraged from becoming someone greater than their present self because we love the idea that biology is destiny

Moving slowly but continuously closer to the point where objectivity and common sense have lost their cultural foundation. That’s the recipe for true anarchy, like it or not. Society has a glue, some …

There are various studies that show how mental health declines for immigrants the longer they spend in the US, and drug use goes up

This is one of a number of examples where early on, so-called experts claimed the coronavirus was unlikely to mutate into more contagious or virulent forms. I think this type of expert poor-performanc…

Another report relying on flimsy data, ignore and wait

Wouldn’t that be inconsistent with the other, related data: Quote: “National data show an exponential increase in both new infections and test positivity rates during the first three weeks of this wav…

Quote: The study by Discovery Health, South Africa’s largest health insurer, of 211,000 positive coronavirus cases, of which 78,000 were attributed to omicron, showed that risk of hospital admissions …

Two of the thefts reported here: https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/122291004/bonsai-bandit... https://i.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/garden…

Here is the original article concerning the thefts: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/122291004/bonsai-band... …

Quote: The philosopher Nick Bostrom, who heads the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford, says that humans trying to build AI are “like children playing with a bomb”, and that the p…