Interesting Links for 23-05-2022

[andrewducker]

1. Gene-editing experiment unexpectedly turn hamsters into hyper-aggressive bullies

(tags:aggression bullying genetics hamster )

2. 'Shocked and scared': Trans man speaks out over reporting psychiatrist for conversion therapy

(tags:LGBT transgender )

3. Which is better for quality of life - capitalism or socialism?

(tags:capitalism socialism life health society )

4. How words are made

(tags:language )

5. UK isolated over Northern Ireland protocol as US-EU alliance rules out renegotiation

(tags:USA Europe uk NorthernIreland Ireland )

6. His cancer screening led him to invent dissolving wet wipes

(tags:invention cancer environment )

7. When we learn more about a stranger, we feel like they know us better too

(tags:psychology )

8. Can you tell if an image was created by a human or a computer (I got 17/30 - I absolutely cannot tell)

(tags:ai art quiz )

Comments

[bens_dad]

3. The paper compares socialist and capitalist countries with similar levels of gross national product per capita GNP/c, as a measure of economic development. However, it is not at all obvious to me that equal economic development will result in similar GNP/c under capitalist and socialist systems. Wouldn't a capitalist system be more likely to maximize GNP/c than a socialist one ?

[ng_moonmoth]

1. Reavers!
3. Yeah, sounds like just exactly opposite the way the US is running things these days. I am pleased that the best results come from universal services that are democratically managed: in other words, a monolithic state-run service is marginally, if at all, better than a monolithic or oligarchic service run for profit.

[dewline]

2. I want to read this, but "Subscriber-only" blocks are in place.

3. I am becoming increasingly skeptical about the value of capitalism as the decades go by. Naturally, its defenders become more fanatical in reply.

5. I think the UK efforts really are focused on getting rid of human rights protections as guaranteed via ECHR and the like. Putin, Banks, etc. really want those protections dead, dead, dead. And the Good Friday Agreement stands in the way of that slaughtering of human rights.

[andrewducker]

Huh, I'm hitting the same issue with #1 too now. How annoying!

[anna_wing]

The definitions of "capitalism" and "socialism" are so vague in common usage that I don't find them very useful as terms. But there are still a few places in the word where a largely command-based economy does exist (and Russia and Myanmar appear to be heading rapidly back in that direction). It is possible, though not necessarily easy, to go and see what life is like there. I also know a fair number of people who remember what it was like to live in a command economy (there used to be several in Asia), and they have very clear views on the subject too.

[andrewducker]

Oh yes, I agree that a total command-economy is a terrible idea. I'm fully on-board with a European social democracy of some kind. Regulations and control of the market, not replacement of it.

[channelpenguin]

Yeah. Euro Social Democrat Hippy here. Look at Portugal or Estonia for the sort of thing that's the right direction-ish in my book in many ways... not perfect.

I would not live in the USA,for example, if you paid me! I left the UK as it headed in a direction I disliked. (Somehow ended up in Germany, though, since 2015. Estonia had a neighbour problem, I thought. Em... well... yeah...)