Interesting Links for 31-05-2021

[andrewducker]

Humans domesticated each other

(tags:humans animals behaviour evolution comic funny )

SNP finance boss Douglas Chapman quits over lack of information

(tags:SNP money )

How did Boris Johnson marry in a Catholic ceremony?

(tags:catholicism marriage BorisJohnson )

Which Disney villains are redeemable?

(tags:Disney evil )

Herding dog versus lawn roomba!

(tags:dogs funny )

Drones may have attacked humans fully autonomously for the first time

(tags:drone weaponry automation )

Privacy group aims to end "cookie banner terror" and issues more than 500 GDPR complaints

(tags:privacy cookies europe web )

Comments

SNP Finances

[danieldwilliam]

Something odd is going on inside the SNP's financial governance.

Re: SNP Finances

[andrewducker]

It is.

Re: SNP Finances

[danieldwilliam]

For example

https://twitter.com/DeanMThomson/status/1373691397610569733

Re: SNP Finances

[andrewducker]

Yup. I've been hearing about that kind of thing for a while. They're going to have to come clean at some point. I just wonder how long they can hold it off!

Re: SNP Finances

[andrewducker]

Also:
https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/police-scotland-asked-to-investigate-allegation-of-snp-indyref2-fighting-fund-fraud-3189048

[danieldwilliam]

I wonder if noyb could do something about spam marketing emails.

[andrewducker]

You should be able to report those yourself. I don't know how much attention is paid to them though!

[danieldwilliam]

Oh I can, and I have, but I'd love an automated routine that I could run on my corporate email server that automatically sent a complaint about being on a marketing list if I pressed a button.

[danieldwilliam]

So many disagreements about the human evolution cartoon. We're not soft. We're optimised for very effective co-operative hunting. If anything we've been domesticated by grass and continue to fight quite violently over control of grasslands. More fundamentally, is being hard an evolutionary advantage? Is having all individuals being hard an evolutionary advantage?

[andrewducker]

I think it is in certain situations, such as when there's regular conflict.

[danieldwilliam]

Yeah, but there are different types of hardness and different versions of hardness are differently useful in different conflict situations. Lions and Spartans are one type of hardness but one of the most feared and destructive groups of warriors - steppe nomads - fired arrows at you from a distance and ran away if you got too close. Lots of human conflict is raid - ambush - counter-raid where avoiding actual combat is prized.

[dewline]

And some of us are actively trying to end that "regular conflict". Not with much success, although someone like Steven Pinker might argue otherwise.

[alithea]

Yes, it annoyed me too. The writer has also blatantly never lived with a collie, because they wouldn't think they are so inferior to wolves if they had!

And no, being a good provider for your children is an evolutionary advantage. The type of conflict where you protect your resources from a distance and run away is much more effective than getting into physical combat and risking serious injury or death - exactly why many animals do a lot more posturing than actual fighting when faced with a breeding rival.

[danieldwilliam]

Collies and wolves do different jobs.

Wolves are pack hunters in northern temperate forests. Collies have a symbiotic relationship with humans and sheep I suppose in more hospitable terrain. I bet there are more collies in the world than wolves.

But I think the different jobs thing is an important part of watching evolution. The aim of the game is to get your children in a position to have children themselves. There are no evolutionary style points to be won by doing it a particular way.

[kerk_hiraeth]

I would ask if Disney is redeemable myself...

Answer really is in the question.

And re: Johnson... Hypocrisy?

kerk

[anef]

To be fair to Boris (not that this is something I particularly care about) if Carrie is a Catholic and therefore wanted a Catholic wedding it may well have been something he did to make her happy. I don't think that per se makes him a hypocrite.

[melchar]

I loved the lawn roomba herding - and had to read most of the Arwen stories to my husband. Laughed so much!