Paper is paywalled, but from the SciTech article it looks like mostly it was sodium sulfate. They did also make some “ocean-degradable plastics”.

Thanks for the link and breakdown.

It sounds like a better description of the estimated thinking speed would be 5-50 bits per second. And when summarizing capacity/capability, one generally uses a number near the top end. It makes far more sense to say we are capable of 50 bps but often use less, than to say we are only capable of 10 but sometimes do more than we are capable of doing. And the paper leans hard into 10 bps being a internally imposed limit rather than conditional, going as far as saying a neural-computer interface would be limited to this rate.

“Thinking speed” is also a poor description for input/output measurement, akin to calling a monitor’s bitrate the computer’s FLOPS.

Visual processing is multi-faceted. I definitely don’t think all of vision can be reduced to 50bps, but maybe the serial part after the parallel bits have done stuff like detecting lines, arcs, textures, areas of contrast, etc.

It does look like they don’t currently have any funding issues. They have 1.5 years of reserves and give about 15% of their income out in grants to other organizations. And like most web sites, the actual hosting costs are a relatively small part of their operation.

The advantage of a straightforward UBI over NIT is that voters are selfish and stupid. If everyone gets a check, they are far more likely to support maintaining and increasing the benefit. It also removes the stigma that would be present for those receiving NIT payments.

Ah, my old enemy,

Goods Unite Us (https://www.goodsuniteus.com/app/)

They did mention the name, but doesn’t hurt to highlight it.

Disclaimer: This is not an endorsement. I know nothing about the app except that the poster above mentioned it.

Yeah, such a shameful lack of bigots’ POV.

omg Toad, you can’t just ask people why they’re purple!

If there was a government-mandated monopoly on coffee and it was sold in L/s, we probably would.

Surprised not to see any posts referencing the Arbitrary List of Popular Lights or !flashlight@lemmy.world.

One of the requirements to make it on the list is:

A user interface where a single click turns the light on in a reasonable mode, and another single click turns it off.

That assumes “you” are just the conscious part. If you accept the rest of your brain (and body) as part of “you”, then it’s a less dramatic divide.

tell me source of any one claim

The report provides sources, as well as its criteria and methodology. If you are interested in facts, you may find them there.

It’s typically not an instant thing. Below is the description from page 25 of the pdf linked by OP, from which the charts were taken; I have highlighted some mentioned timeframes. There is also a graph on page 24 showing the change over time.

India’s process of autocratization begins in earnest from 2008 and characteristically proceeded in the incremental, slow-moving fashion of the “third wave”. Over the years, India’s autocratization process has been well documented, including gradual but substantial deterioration of freedom of expression, compromising independence of the media, crackdowns on social media, harassments of journalists critical of the government, as well as attacks on civil society and intimidation of the opposition. The ruling anti-pluralist, Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with Prime Minister Modi at the helm has for example used laws on sedition, defamation, and counterterrorism to silence critics. The BJP government undermined the constitution’s commitment to secularism by amending the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) in 2019. The Modi-led government also continues to suppress the freedom of religion rights. Intimidation of political opponents and people protesting government policies, as well as silencing of dissent in academia are now prevalent. India dropped down to electoral autocracy in 2018 and remains in this category by the end of 2023.

India is like 18% of the world population, so it becoming an autocracy explains most of the population swing.

Lemmy without politics is kinda a ghost board. There is maybe 3 or 4 new posts a day.

I think your approach of blocking any user who posts about politics is eliminating the most prolific posters when 95% of their stuff is non-political. This is not to say your approach is bad, just that it doesn’t actually represent “Lemmy without politics”.

I think transforming “it’s possible to think without language” into “language is not a tool for thought” is an overreach. Definitely a lot of our internal voice is post-thought, but crystalizing those thoughts into words can provide footholds for further thought. Some would argue it’s not possible to think through a complex issue without writing:

• https://paulgraham.com/words.html
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtIzMaLkCaM&t=312s

Interlibrary loans are a wonder of the world and a glory of civilization

-Jo Walton, Among Others

Oh man, don’t stop

You got it! Here’s some other consumer protections the administration has introduced recently:

• Direct filing with the IRS
• Price limits on asthma inhalers and insulin for seniors
• Requiring ISPs to provide consistent up-front information and pricing
• Restrictions on college junk fees and disallowing witholding of transcripts

Hungry for more? Check this out:

White House Statement on Junk Fees

That’s from October, so some of it overlaps, but among other stuff there’s still a “Click to Cancel” rule working its way through the FTC.

Sadly Biden has been spending a bunch of time on lame crap like climate change, human rights, health care, infrastructure, election integrity, etc., so it might take a bit longer for him to single-handedly usher in consumer utopia.

This seems entirely opposite to my observation. I’d say Biden and his administration are unusually focused on unfair or annoying business practices. In just the past two weeks the Biden administration:

• Set clear rules requiring cash refunds for flight delays
• Banned non-compete clauses
• Set new rules on “junk fees” for credit cards
• Increased the minimum salary for overtime exemption
• Expanded fiduciary duty to retirement “advisors”
• Announced a lawsuit against Live Nation (TicketMaster)
• Re-instated net neutrality

There are over 2 million animal species on Earth, and one species is responsible for 99.9% of all lethal attacks. Ban Humans (from existing)!