Ask Lemmy

That food stamps or any handouts at all are a serious problem. Our (the US) government launches a single bomb that's worth years of food support. Idgaf if the food stamp recipients never do a damn thing but watch TV. I'd much rather millions of people doing that than bombing brown people half a world away.

Trump was good for the economy.

During the election this kept being repeated even though the economy collapsed because of his covid response

God.

That the general population are directly responsible for the amount of pollution occurring a la "carbon footprint" when there are 10 companies producing 70% of the world's pollution

Oh plenty...

The myth of "alpha wolves" and all the men who build a toxic social and psychological image of themselves and other men because of it, apparently because they would like to live in a zoo and get into conflicts with other men they have never met before or something.

But seriously, there were some grave errors in how this came to be. This wasn't observing wolves in their natural environment. There are no "alpha wolves" in nature. The researcher, David Mech, who was in part responsible for this stupidity has been working since then to correct this, but media and society already swallowed the misconception too hard.

Next one:
"LLMs are not AI." Yes, they are. AI is a scientific label for a bunch of methods, algorithms, and models.
"But they are not 'intelligent'." My dear fellow flesh bag, we do not even have a clear definition of what 'intelligence' even is. Come up with a good one, then let's talk about this particular label. Until then, you can rename AI to 'pesto alfredo' for all I care as long as we agree what kind of methods we mean by that to categorize a bunch of computer science stuff.

In the opposite corner:
"We have achieved AGI with LLMs". No, we have not. There is still a substantial lack of capabilties and properties.

Or: "LLMs are sentient and self-aware". To the best of my knowledge, they are not. To be fair, there is little room for debate, which often boils down to stuff like semantic arguments about consciousness and definitions of understanding, but the consensus is that they are not.

Another one:
"Homeopathy cures diseases." No, it doesn't. It has a placebo effect but that's pretty much about it.

There is more:
"Evolution theory is just a 'theory'." No, it's a proven set of explanations and models supported by overwhelming empirical evidence. Popular confusion of the colloquial use of the word "theory" with the scientific one.

Colloquial meaning: a guess, hunch, speculation, or unproven idea.

Scientific meaning: a well-substantiated explanatory framework supported by extensive evidence and capable of being tested and potentially falsified.

And there is even more, but I have already written a wall of text and am tired now.

Marginal Tax brackets drive me insane especially my parents constantly misunderstand and think a payrise will make them lose money.

They don't understand that the tax is only paid on the money earned in that bracket. So going up 5% isn't your total income being taxed an extra 5% its only the money earned on that bracket that is taxed at the higher rate.

New cars are reliable.

First of all, no. Their more complex and failure prone, and you are the guinea pig they test new crap on.

Second of all, you literally cannot call a one year old vehicle reliable. You do not have enough data to make that claim. My jeep is about 40 years old, and with the 40 year old head start will still out live a brand new jeep. It has no "limp mode" because u slipped out of 4 lo in the woods (actual customer example), and it doesn't require Internet connection + a security gateway authentication to reset things like limp mode and doing a clutch position relearn. If you want a reliable vehicle get something made between 85 and 05, as long as it doesn't rust out from underneath you it will give u less headaches than anything made in the last 20 years.

Tryptophan makes you sleepy on Thanksgiving.

Large doses of Tryptophan can make you sleepy, but the amount you get in turkey doesn't come close. Thanksgiving meals make you sleepy because you eat a huge meal. Eat a huge meal without turkey and you will be tired, eat a normal sized meal with turkey and you won't be more tired than any other meal.

That Social Security is going to collapse. I've been hearing it for literally 50 years. I honestly grew up thinking SS would not be there at retirement, and now I'm collecting it (although I'm not retired). It was a psy-op the whole time, trying to keep workers anxious, and at the grindstone.

Social Security is literally the easiest problem in DC to fix. All they have to do is raise the income cap. Right now, the cap is $184,500. You pay into Social Security on the first $184,500 of income, and anything over that doesn't get touched. If you make less than that, then 100% of your income gets tapped for SS. But if you make more, you pay a much tinier percentage of your total income.

So if SS is looking like a problem, all they have to do is raise the cap. It goes up a bit every year anyway, but there is no reason it can't be $500,000, or even $1 million. Of course the rich will scream, but they're always screaming. We have to learn to ignore that as background radiation, nothing to be concerned about.

Raise the cap enough, and you not only protect Social Security forever, you can give Grandma a nice raise. Doesn't she deserve it for all those delicious cookies? Or brownies actually, in my Grandma's case. She made the best homemade brownies, and she cut them BIG!

Hairs grow longer, thicker and darker when you cut them.

That we eat spiders in our sleep. Just grab them and nomf or they willingly crawl into our mouths of something.

I got another one. It bugs me when people say that it's not possible for two dark haired people to produce a blonde child. These people think they're so smart because they know genetics exist. But if they learned anything about genetics at all, very basic punnet square genetics you learn in highschool biology explains why it's not only possible but pretty common. If both dark haired parents are carriers for the blonde gene, there is a 25% chance of a blonde child. And reality is probably more complex than what I learned in highschool.

It's like the stubborn fuckers who refuse to accept the science of sex and gender being any more complex that "penis man vagina woman". They think they're so smart for knowing "basic" biology and refuse to fucking learn anything beyond that.

The persistent myth that corporations are legally required to act only in the service of shareholders’ financial interests.

Powerful groups have a vested interest in keeping the myth around, but it doesn’t even pass the smell test— they were more interested in social control with the return to office stuff. Even though productivity is higher and costs are lower with WFH. Even if you argued it served the interest of shareholders as a broad class, without checking for the real estate holdings of the company’s shareholders, they could accidentally assist companies that their shareholders don’t have investments in. Or worse, competing ones.

It goes further. Why not treat employees better to reduce turnover or improve performance? No, of course not. It is used exclusively to justify immoral actions.

That Dems are Communists. Like, if only.

"survival of fittest "was not coined by DARWIN, it was by herbert who co-opt his research.

Chronic lyme does not exist as a disease, and its coined by non-scientist which has snowballed into a large industry(providing questionable testing, LYME DOCTORA) by providing services that is equivalent to pseudoscience AND Belief its in more than 1 country, eventhough its mostly found deer ticks in americas, and not ANY TICK species. people actually went a little crazy with the Rx. basically people have what psyches called, delusional parasitosis, or psychosomatic disorders, i visited these forums and it seems alot of these people have mental illness+ they long term damage from using supplements and plant extracts that are likely somewhat toxic. seems pervasive in the midwest, and what a surprise chronic use of antibiotics from these "lyme doctors" also have cause long term damage. and this pairs with homeopathy/naturopathy/alternative medication.

Most MSMs prior to trumps 2nd or 1st term is not "liberal leftist" media, none existed for decades. the only 1 i see was a podcast/on a obscure channel and time Demcry now! is the closest thing to be talking even something remotely "left". every other just fawns over "Fallen soldiers" even cnn did often, plus its significant amount of copaganda show.

also recently the artemis launch is , and the cold war launches are wildly still believed by asians as faked, and done in by studio. the most common excuse is why "is there wind in space, because the flag is "flapping"...etc. i was actually surprised older asians still widely believe it. during 2019, and currently to.