Interesting Links for 06-08-2025

[andrewducker]

1. Scientific fraud has become an industry, alarming analysis finds

(tags:science research publishing fraud OhForFucksSake )

2. An Investigation Into the Firm at the Heart of the Democratic Spam Machine (Finds that less than 2% of the money raised goes to the candidates)

(tags:democrats fundraising corruption )

3. Didn't Take Long To Reveal The UK's Online Safety Act Is Exactly The Privacy-Crushing Failure Everyone Warned About

(tags:UK privacy censorship politics OhForFucksSake )

4. World Athletics' mandatory genetic test for women athletes is misguided. I should know - I discovered the relevant gene in 1990

(tags:genetics sports gender )

5. Tech billionaires are arguing amongst themselves about how exactly humanity should go extinct

(tags:extinction humans ai thefuture )

6. When Disney Went Digital (earlier than you'd think)

(tags:Disney history computers technology art animation movies )

7. Labour got a bunch of former-Conservative voters in Scotland, and are now in danger of shedding them to Reform (might explain a few things)

(tags:scotland politics Conservatives labour )

Comments

[juan_gandhi]

Thank you. Good stuff, pretty informative.

[calimac]

3) Peter Kyle's offensive comment is an example of how supporters of measures disbelieve in disagreement over tactics - the question of whether the measure will achieve its goal. Instead, they read all disagreements as over the basic goals - despite that reading not making any sense.

4) It was a half century ago that I took courses in genetics and molecular biology, and I learned way back then that biology is messy, and that the notion that humanity is divided into two neat little boxes labeled M and F, is a fallacy.

5) I haven't encountered anybody advocating extinction as described here, but I did once know a man who was looking forward with pleasure to the idea of uploading his consciousness into a machine. But he suddenly died young, and if he'd known how fragile his physical envelope was, that might explain his attitude.

5.

[channelpenguin]

I never really cared about the long term survival of humanity. I am pretty sure the planet will host some sorts of life until the sun goes boom. I am also pretty sure that there are untold numbers of other lifeforms on other planets (and in other types of places out there too maybe).

But my views are not like any of those mentioned.

Those do seem to me to be like religion, suffering here on Earth is irrelevant it is your immortal engrams uploaded into *whatever* that matter (or we are all damned and deserve to die out). So it just gets filed in my brain under "total bollocks" the same way. Of course 1) it is a subject of scientific curiousity as to the psychology / sociology that leads people to think/feel/act like that - including myself and my views noted above. 2) it could fuck things up for lots of people,animals,plants etc. in the interim. Which isn't nice Sigh.