docgonzo · HackerTrans

قبل 3 سنواتdiscuss

A series on the Peloponnesian War from the Great Courses. Heard but not seen. I had been listening to some series on Greek history that seemed to culminate with this "civil" war. There are fascinating lessons about how democracies can fail. The lecturer (Ken Harl) is amazing and gets excited to the point he's almost shouting (not in a bad way) by the end of lectures. Some highlights include the Athenian democracy voting itself out of existence, multiple betrayals, and a cameo from Socrates. I got a copy from my local library at the time ~ 2014. https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/peloponnesian-war

docgonzo

قبل 5 سنواتdiscuss

https://localwiki.org/davis/Banning_leaf-blowers finally a political party I can get behind

docgonzo

قبل 5 سنواتdiscuss

Non-GMO still uses herbicides. Glyphosate is comparatively very safe [0]

[0] https://www.epa.gov/ingredients-used-pesticide-products/glyp...

docgonzo

قبل 6 سنواتdiscuss

Organic farming uses pesticides as well. Are they safe for the environment? We don't know because they're organic and therefore must be safe. See links within: https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/organic-pestic...

docgonzo

قبل 6 سنواتdiscuss

I feel this is closely related to Therapeutic Touch. While these practices may be generated by a placebo affect, I would argue that there is a difference between feeling better and being better. Therapeutic touch was largely debunk by a 10 year with a simple experiment that blinded the practitioners as to whether they were applying their touch to a patient or not using a piece of cardboard [0]. The practitioners could not tell the difference. Interestingly, the author is the youngest person to publish a research article. Science based medicine has a nice response to this article as well [1]. [0] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/187390 [1] https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/no-editors-of-the-atlantic-...

docgonzo

قبل 6 سنواتdiscuss

When I was a UC grad student, it appeared to me that the UAW preyed on idealistic students that the UAW could take advantage of. I agitated for having them ejected but was told something along the lines of "we're not allowed to talk about that." I would have liked to continued questioning, but I lost the floor at that point.

docgonzo

قبل 7 سنواتdiscuss

>The barrier of entry to biology is artificially high due to all sorts of reasons, mostly regulatory. Considering the nature of the placebo affect and the difference between feeling better and being better, I am skeptical of pulling down many of the barriers to DIY biology. Forgive me if I am misunderstanding and making a straw-man here, but we already have therapies that do not work, such as acupuncture or a wide range of So Called Alternative Medicines. "Stem cell" treatments that are outright fraud already exist [0,1]. My fear is that this will be replicated with CRISPR technology. Personally, I would like treatments that work and am skeptical that the market could decide what's best (I don't think this is the argument that you are making, but I want to address it nonetheless). The CRISPR babies that I believe you were referring to are an example of needing regulations. One rogue doctor made changes to their genome that are not preventative. This was incredibly shoddy work that should not be applauded [6]. I would also argue that the barrier is not artificially high. Doing biological research is incredibly difficult. Unlike with your analogy to Tesla, people can die from treatments [2]. Additionally,with CRISPR there are off target affects that need to be understood before wide scale use [3]. There is great promise in biotech [4,5]. However, the consequence are not just billion dollar explosions, but lives. I may be over dramatizing, but I think a careful approach is important. Also, the increments are still progress. Could there be another way to approach this kind of research, absolutely! There I think you hit on something very important. My bio graduate education did not at all prepare me for any kind of business thinking. > remember the donation you made to the local animal rights campaign helped hinder biological research and development by decades I think this is a little over dramatic, but I agree with the feeling without really knowing if this has been studied.

[0] https://www.nature.com/news/stem-cell-ruling-riles-researche... [1] https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/more-stem-cell... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/43977 [3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31911131 [4] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/boy-rare-disease-get... [5] https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/8/360/360ra134.full [6] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/did-crispr-help-or-h...

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