antiviral

Per my other reply, i am curious about the content of article and how (formerly) prominent biologists have been affected and punished. The story about carol hooven, the former harvard scientist, was especially disheartening.

richard dawkins was no creationist either. the article mentions how his award was taken away for stating his opinion. Any thoughts on that?

interesting.. what about the content of the article itself?

I wasn't going to post this article, but this part caught my attention:

"In an earlier post, I asked whether scientists might soon be forced to consider the occult as science. Perhaps some readers think the concern far-fetched. But consider: Science is as dependent on the concept of public truth as the great religions are. In an age when private truth is rapidly gaining in power, it is just as vulnerable as religion."

Feel free to downvote me.

Why is it a fraud?

This is a recipe for killing an industry:

"When OpenAI’s ChatGPT took the world by storm last year, it caught many power brokers in both Silicon Valley and Washington, DC, by surprise. The US government should now get advance warning of future AI breakthroughs involving large language models, the technology behind ChatGPT.

The Biden administration is preparing to use the Defense Production Act to compel tech companies to inform the government when they train an AI model using a significant amount of computing power. The rule could take effect as soon as next week.

"

Your comment has merit. Even at it's peak Roman culture was marbled with cruelty and violence. During its decline, these aspects only got worse and became coupled with corruption and decadence. But I think we should see them relative to their historic peers (Gauls, Carthaginians, Parthians), not relative to modern societies to truly see what their contributions were, of which there were many, including in law, engineering, and medicine.

Also, there's this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xad5Rl0N2E

You should check out "The Darkening Age" by Catherine Nixey. Once Christians became the majority, and especially after Constantine, the direction of persecutions reversed, and was then by Christians towards the remaining pagans. Many of the broken statues we now see were vandalized by zealous Christians eager to remove the vestigial influence of the pagan Rome:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Darkening_Age

"Over the past decade, Meta —itself and through its flagship Social Media Platforms Facebook and Instagram (its Social Media Platforms or Platforms)—has profoundly altered the psychological and social realities of a generation of young Americans. Meta has harnessed powerful and unprecedented technologies to entice, engage, and ultimately ensnare youth and teens. Its motive is profit, and in seeking to maximize its financial gains, Meta has repeatedly misled the public about the substantial dangers of its Social Media Platforms. It has concealed the ways in which these Platforms exploit and manipulate its most vulnerable consumers: teenagers and children.2 And it has ignored the sweeping damage these Platforms have caused to the mental and physical health of our nation’s youth. In doing so, Meta engaged in, and continues to engage in, deceptive and unlawful conduct in violation of state and federal law"

Yes, and moreover, the important point in the article that some people seem to be forgetting is that Meta itself believed that certain design choices led to addictive products and worked to incorporate those designs despite harmful consequences to children and adults alike. It matter much less that anyone on the outside believes this or not.

Additionally, saying that children and adults should be wholly responsible for this is like saying the Chinese and not the British should be responsible for their opium addiction (see Opium War) and that homeless in San Francisco should be responsible for their Fentanyl addition. They can always just say no, right?

I worry that if nothing is done, this will only get worse, addiction will become the norm, of one sort or another, and you can just look at history of the Opium War to see where this leads.

Can anyone explain this?

“Remarkably, the letter’s signees include Ilya Sutskever, the company’s chief scientist and a member of its board, who has been blamed for coordinating the boardroom coup against Altman in the first place.”

Putting aside the way in which the OpenAI firing happened, I was curious to at least hear Ilya Sutskever's point of view in a coherent way. I think this video is a good start.

"Colorectal cancer (bowel cancer) is the third most common form of cancer worldwide, with around 1.9 million newly diagnosed cases and 900,000 deaths every year. Therefore, preventive substances represent an urgent clinical need. Aspirin/acetylsalicylic acid has proven to be one of the most promising candidates for the prevention of colorectal cancer. Among other findings, studies have shown that when patients with cardiovascular diseases took low doses of aspirin over several years, it reduced their risk of colorectal cancer. Furthermore, aspirin can inhibit the progression of colorectal cancer. Now a team led by Heiko Hermeking, Professor of Experimental and Molecular Pathology at LMU, has investigated which molecular mechanisms mediate these effects."

"Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg allegedly halted proposals aimed at improving Facebook and Instagram’s impact on teen mental health, according to internal communications revealed as part of unsealed court documents.

Zuckerberg allegedly vetoed plans to ban filters that simulate plastic surgery on Meta-owned platforms, according to the unredacted lawsuit filed by Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell (D), and ignored requests from top executives to boost investments in teens’ well-being."

"In the fall of 2021 a consultant named Arturo Bejar sent Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg an unusual note.

“I wanted to bring to your attention what l believe is a critical gap in how we as a company approach harm, and how the people we serve experience it,” he began. Though Meta regularly issued public reports suggesting that it was largely on top of safety issues on its platforms, he wrote, the company was deluding itself.

The experience of young users on Meta’s Instagram—where Bejar had spent the previous two years working as a consultant—was especially acute. In a subsequent email to Instagram head Adam Mosseri, one statistic stood out: One in eight users under the age of 16 said they experienced unwanted sexual advances on the platform over the previous seven days."