OpenStars

At a guess, it would depend on where you live. For one thing, the number of non-religious people in the USA has doubled in the last 15 years, but notably, most do not go all the way to identify themselves as "atheists" (militant or otherwise):

Perhaps b/c the belief that there definitively is no such thing as any kind of "god" is a rather extreme hard-line stance, while "meh, there might be, but probably isn't, and anyway who cares?" seems much more popular lately (according to that study, and many others like it).

Also there are a HUGE fraction of people who are ostensibly "Jews" or "Protestants" or "Catholic" or whatever, but don't really give a shit and just hang on loosely b/c of historical reasons, or b/c of current cultural rather than religious affiliations.

Unfortunately (imho), while the article itself goes into some depth as to why various people believe as they do, the title itself seems extremely click-baity, trying to capitalize on people's prejudices and fears. Though despite all that, ultimately is accurate so... less so than normal, I guess?

There has never been a better time in the history of America to self-identify as an atheist, I think? Unfortunately, we might look back on this as a Golden Era, if McCarthyism returns and this time in the guise of evangelical christianity. And I say this as not even an atheist myself, just someone who will defend to the death someone else's right to believe what they wish rather than be forced (especially to the death! e.g. let's say a woman who is pregnant and experiencing complications) to believe something else - the latter is one of the chief reasons for the entire existence of America, but the pull of (christo-)fascism is indeed strong...

Step 1: it would be nice if we could at least talk about this in a friendly & civilized manner. I have spent a portion of my day today trying to defend even so much as casually mentioning in passing - in a reply to a reply to a reply even, iirc, much less a full-on post - that I would like something similar to what you said. I give up whenever I detect that someone literally did not read what I already wrote, at which point I see that they just wanted to complain rather than add something of substance to the ongoing conversation. And even if we took it for granted that I was a dummy Mc-Stoopid-buttface, nobody bothered once to explain why I might be wrong.

i.e., there seems to be significant push-back to this approach. I have no idea why though - it seems entirely logical and do-able to me? Especially if it were purely optional, like a new sort option rather than taking over the existing Hot one? At a guess, it may just be a difficult task, so it awaits someone to be interested enough to actually implement it. Also, please remember that the entire Fediverse has and continues to be under perpetual attack (message from DMV.social closing down due to being spammed by illegal CP & CSAM amid concerns over the ethical considerations of being a server that allows posts from external users, i.e. the entire Federation model, quoting: "Quite frankly, this is disturbing and I just don’t want to deal with the possibility of this crap.") - I do not know if it is Huffman, or Musk, or Zuckerberg, or whoever might not enjoy how this could potentially take away from their profits, but they are correct that if we continue to exist on our own, that we need to do something to protect ourselves against this type of thing. So... sorting is important yes, but I could see if it was not the HIGHEST priority, right now.

But moving on, one thought regarding it: allow each user their own customization filters for each "category" of posts, e.g. 1% politics, 2% sports, restrict news to 5% (though the latter requires significantly deeper thinking to implement - e.g. is an article in a Technology sub still "news"? tbh, "news" is probably not a real category then). Or, as you say, an algorithm that would just work mostly fine for most people. The problem with all of this being that tags would have to exist first, so someone would have to develop that before any of this could begin to be developed and tested.

Which brings us back to: it is really fun to talk about such matters, but ultimately it will take someone rolling up their sleeves first, maybe learning an entirely new language (or several - according to this GitHub page, Lemmy is: "Rust 76.4% PLpgSQL 16.4% TypeScript 5.5% Shell 1.5% Other 0.2%"), and just getting something done. Otherwise, beggars cannot also be choosers, if there is nothing else available to choose from.

DO parents create their children, really, or do they just FAAFO? But if you write a computer program, don't you have rights to it? The latter is a thorny question indeed, if it develops sentience. So it seems like both yes, at a lower level, but then no once it rises to a similar level as you. Similar to how an embryo or even more so an unfertilized egg is not a "person" yet (except in the Southern USA), but an adult is. Or some people may argue that Might Makes Right, which most of us would disagree with, but e.g. the likes of Putin would still push forth. So there is indeed no consensus there, and likely never will be. But my main point here, besides simply listing some of these factors involved, is to say that the act of Creation seems to involve more than just fucking, even knowing full well that a child would result from that act - full Creation involves a much deeper commitment, hence a higher degree of ownership.

Not always. Sometimes they are just looking to unload them onto someone else:-P.

Thanks for the link!

It did say that it reduces particle spread by 30-60% though, yet with qualifiers too.

My natural intuitive thought is that the lid down surely limits the spreading, i.e. the left side of this picture, especially as compared with the right side:

Also, I want to (half jokingly) complain that they treat the MS2 bacteriophage like one of the bad guys there, as if killing the E. coili wouldn't make it one of our allies in that fight:-). (I say jokingly bc most people reading such an article would know that, but also what they really used it for was a detection vector, probably bc the protein wrapping eases sample collection by reducing degradation.)

You are saying that there is balance in all things. I agree fully - we even need some of these people, so long as it works out, e.g. scientists, engineers, teachers, doctors - these people need their inflated egos, or how else would someone have the audacity to be able to do something like stick their literal hands inside of someone's literal guts to carve out the cancerous masses and thereby save people's lives? When it is appropriate, it can be used for all of our benefits - the literal definition of "good" then, as in aka advantageous.

Where you started to go off the rails is when there seems to be a lack of balance - though there too I think it will come, in the future and also here in the present in other ways. e.g. hard times begets strong people, who make better times, which makes weak people, who fall into hard times, and the cycle repeats itself.

Where it starts to matter the most, imho, is when we are hyporitical, then instead of choosing our own balance point, we (/they) are the ones who will get balanced instead, if you catch my drift. e.g. you alluded to people who upon first deciding that "covid is fake", refused to take the vaccine, then predictably got covid, then all of a sudden wanted help from a real doctor (why not call the likes of Joe Rogan then, huh?), then spread covid even further. Many irl actual doctors, media personalities, pastors/preachers/priests/ministers/whatever, and average families are dead now. This did not need to happen, yet it did. It was a choice to jump off the cliff, even though it was not always phrased that way by the people goading others into it (which sometimes but not always included themselves - see e.g. the Woodsworth interview where Trump said in advance that he was going to claim that the virus was not airborne, yet admitting that it was, in fact, very much known to be airborne; this was a known quantity, and he knew that he knew, but even so he knew, and even admitted, that he was going to say differently from what was known, which btw we used to call these "blatant lies", yet now refer to them as "alternative facts", b/c Might Makes Right I guess, and powerful people get to control the words rather than us adhering solely to what is Truth). And now, predictably (despite how we all act shocked, Shocked I tell you, SHOCKED!:-P), many nurses have quit, some by outright dying, others by simply leaving the field, and some I shit you not have literally taken to the hills and now live in some mountainous area far away from people (if their stories on Reddit were to be taken at face value, which seeing what I know myself I 100% believe that many of them at least are likely to be true).

Likewise, I am sure that you have heard the stories of doctors fleeing from states that refuse to perform abortions - I think it was Idaho who literally closed their final, last remaining (or was it second to last?) maternity ward, due to the final doctor retiring rather than put up with all the BS she had to endure on a daily basis, and they could not keep it staffed anyway due to harassment of the nurses too. I also heard a story in the early days of the pandemic (in Springfield MO iirc) of a doctor who had brought in federal funding to begin an entire new medical research institute there - a JOB CREATOR - but who, predictably, upon receiving death threats decided to cancel those plans and leave the state instead. He was not the first doctor willing to move to Missouri who was convinced to make alternate plans - I hear similar stories far too often, and even from literal decades in the past, to attribute them to anything short of an actual pattern of behavior.

I wanted to point out how those problems did not start there though, but themselves had earlier causes, and also that "those people" never simply remain where they are, i.e. appeasement never seems to work, as history has taught anyone willing to learn from it. e.g. when they got covid, they drove in from their rural areas where they already had decided not only to not fund hospitals themselves, but they also caused people who WERE trying to bring in outside funding to build those to flee. And when they came in, many treated the nurses (and doctors) horribly - sometimes threatening them LITERALLY AT GUNPOINT, to say or do whatever they wanted, e.g. "don't say that this is covid, everyone knows that isn't real, now just save them!". These kinds of temper tantrums affect us all, whereever we may be - and I do not mean solely emotionally. B/c when these same nurses quit their jobs, who now is lining up to take their places? Supposedly we held them up as heroes... with all the clapping and surrounding media blitz, but when push came to shove, we did not have their backs, nor do we have them even now as they continue to strike for better working conditions (where did all that media blitz go?), and one day we may find ourselves in need of medical care, but be unable to find a qualified practictioner, as a direct result of our choices of actions (again, even though the words went the opposite direction). We will be "shocked" to discover, then, that medical care is no longer what it once was, even just a few short years ago. (Also, importantly, while this does affect people "everywhere", it does not do so "equally" - some areas are, obviously, affected to a higher degree than others.)

We all just want "daddy to take care of us" - whether that be in the form of Big Brother, or a God (real or imagined), we cry out for salvation or at least acknowledgement of our pain. And Donald Trump... yes, just like every politician ever, gives them that. He gives them what they say and think that they need, and so they will vote for him, even again, even after all that has happened before. B/c appeasement always works, don't you know? :-(

One way or another, the balance of the USA, and UK, and Australia, etc. will be restored. Though we might not remain sovereign nations anymore as a result. Just. Like. Rome. The rich & powerful do not seem to "need" (or want) democracies around the world, anymore. So therefore we will not be allowed to have them any longer.

Exactly. The community could partner with the user to enhance findability - e.g. a community could label itself with the "hockey" tag, and if the user clicks somewhere they could see all the communities that likewise have that "hockey" tag, and just like the language function, include or exclude all of them in one group rather than having to do so individually. No "censorship" by external agencies need apply, and anyway this could be entirely optional to the user who could continue to exist entirely in the absence of such a thing.

Meh, would it not depend more on the saturation of the field? Like a physicist may literally only need a computer and desk (and a small salary, supported by teaching), while a biologist might need lets say contracting funds to do DNA sequencing, and yet even in that scenario the latter might still find a job more readily than the former? Though heavily influenced by factors such as willingness to move to elsewhere especially another country.

Additionally which (sub-)field someone is in has implications for how readily available even small amounts of funds are, especially if the various committees are using the hiree to obtain funds from a known source?

Even so, your seeking clarification about what you genuinely wanted to know more about resulted in DarkNightoftheSoul's fascinating reply, so it all seems to have worked out for the best!? :-D

Um... congrats, I guess?

Though there are still location-specific communities on lemmy.ml, e.g. !india@lemmy.ml, that you may or may not enjoy wanting to curate into or out of your various feeds.

But I am not trying to tell you how to live your life? I am just answering your question irt the fact that such posts do exist across the Fediverse. Perhaps you are not seeing them if nobody on your tech-focused instance has subscribed to any of those communities.