Readit NewsI remember reading an article years ago (I want to say in the New Yorker in the late 90s?) that made something like this point and kinda alarmed me. It pointed out that a second generation of anti-depressants (SSRIs like Prozac) had emerged and been aggressively marketed just as patents were expiring on the first generation (Lithium?) and some troubling long-term effects with those earlier drugs were becoming apparent. It questioned the long-term effects of this new generation of pharmaceuticals. (Or even shorter-term effects whose data had not yet been fully collected and analyzed.)
I have tried periodically to relocate this article but have not yet been able to find it. It's probably old enough now that one could even evaluate the validity of its forebodings.
Lithium is a mood stabilizer, and greatly predates modern psychiatric intervention. I believe that the earlier generations you’re thinking of are tricyclics and MAOI’s (Monoamine oxidase inhibitors). Both are still used, but are no longer the first pharmaceuticals of choice.
From the moon, you don’t need high quality weapons; you can compensate by increasing mass.
And that moon base could become independ3nt because of its ability to launch rocks (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress...)
Independence requires more than the ability to “drop rocks” it requires total self-sufficiency. Without that you’re bombing the people who can kill you just by withholding essentials like food, water, and air. No one is even pretending that a colony on the moon or Mars could be self-sufficient to thst degree with anything like our current technology.
My friend from China explained to me that the surveillance of people is as much top down as much as its bottom up.
- At every village level they have "informants" for the communist party who inform their higher ups regularly about village level activity. They are financially supported with healthcare and education subsidies and so it makes sense for everyone to join in and inform, especially the poor.
- At the city level they have more ways to collect information about people like companies feeding data bases, people interacting with the internet and retail.
He explained that the idea is even if 10% of the population is brain washed they can keep tabs on the 90% and when shit hits the fan they want to be in the know. After Tiananmen they have followed a formula: Keep enough people happy and conforming with economic prosperity and get ahead of the curb for restive remainder.
The formula of appealing to a small base which keeps you in power through cronyism is the formula for power. It’s true in every place you find political and financial power, from Beijing to small-town USA, to corporate boardrooms around the world, and tinpot dictators around the world.
You might enjoy reading The Dictator’s Handbook.
bcOpus commented on Finding Lena Forsen, the Patron Saint of JPEGs wired.com/story/finding-l... · Posted by u/lelf
I guess most people using it have no idea it's a picture from Playboy, nor a nude picture, nor a controversial picture. I used it a lot myself when I was working on content based image retrieval simply because all the literature was using it. It never even occurred to me I was being controversial or sexist.
Now that I'm aware of the picture's history, I agree that it was a poor choice back then but I disagree that using it today is somehow an endorsement of sexism. Using it today only means you are using the standard image processing image.
Not the person you’re replying to, and fuck me if I’m wading into the question of sexism, but professionalism and maturity are things. We get paid the big bucks now, we’re not snotty kids in our parent’s garage; a whole world of acceptable professional behavior goes along with that.
Tesla Inc.’s general counsel is leaving just two months after being hired in the wake of Elon Musk’s run-in with U.S. securities regulators. Shares of the electric-car maker declined on the news.
I don’t want to, but more and more I smell the hints of a dumpster fire around all of this. I hope that I’m wrong though.