“Less cognitively capable than previous generations” sounds like kids are getting dumber, but…

Gen Z is the first generation in modern history to score lower on standardized tests than the previous one.

… just does not mean that. Many factors influence test scores, like say, more people growing up in poverty.

This article reads like fortune magazine enjoying their own farts.

There’s a credible argument that we’re just strongly overestimating what consciousness is.

I don’t think AI is conscious. But it processes information and comes up with an output that’s often dumb, obvious or not really on topic and then rarely kinda cool - just like humans do. It doesn’t have a will, but most experts agree that free will is scientifically impossible, even if many think we should just pretend that it’s real. AI doesn’t have the feeling of subjective experience, but that’s not really very important - we could still see a red light, understand what it means and execute appropriate bevahiour if we lacked the subjective experience of seeing the color red.

AI is not conscious, similarly to how a ventilator is not human lungs. It’s not, but it’s still doing mostly the same thing.

Of course, but sinophobia and yellow peril narratives having been going strong in Aus for over a century.

To be more unpopular than Xi with australians is a big deal.

Got the muchies for a california cheeseburger.

I lean toward that interpretation but am open to being wrong.

I work in mental health and was surprised by the amount of people in the field who believe marijuana is part of the problem, not just a symptom of it.

Cannabis use was more common among: … Youth on Medicaid or living in more deprived neighborhoods

Regular reminder that correlation =/= causation. Living a more stressful life due to poverty makes both mental illness and adolescent cannabis use more common.

That said there is a credible biological pathway to cannabis use having a causal role:

THC acts on CB1 receptors, which are highly expressed in the adolescent brain and play a key role in emotional regulation, motivation, and cognitive development.

However we still don’t have definitive evidence of causation:

Q: Does this study prove cannabis causes mental illness? A: While causation can’t be definitively established, cannabis use was associated with an increased risk of developing psychiatric conditions

Stick mexican flag bumper stickers to cybertrucks and sports cars, got it.

My favorite UFO explanation is that it was largely a ploy to waste the USSR’s money. They’ll have to expend more resources chasing down a red herring than it takes us to lie about it. No coincidence then, that as a near-peer competitor emerges again we get UAPs.

“I’ll release some BS we made up” is incredibly appropriate as a desperate distraction.

This misunderstands the situation.

Most of the conservative majority on the court are active participants in the ongoing fascist coup, probably a few are just committed sympathizers.

This isn’t the supreme court enforcing the law against the president, this is a disagreement between factions within the regime about the priorities and direction.

Shootie and the blow-fiend.

This should be in an Enough Newsom Spam community so we can block it.

There’s only one pro-american program i’d like to see.

Stay tuned for the seasonal finale of We Got The Guillotine, where someone very famous will shit himself on camera for the last time!

Idaho > Oregon does not seem correct.

This might be the single least shit shitpost i’ve ever seen.

That clock rules. What a thing of beauty.

I don’t think any hominin of floresiensis-like size emerged from Africa. Just floresiensis on Flores and luzonensis on nearish Luzon. They’re probably descended from erectus that shrank “on site” so to speak.

They are some aboriginal australian stories about two other kinds of people - tall thin good ones and short stocky bad ones. I’ve wondered if that’s describing neanderthal, denisovan or some other close but extinct branches of homo.

The dot com bubble burst but we still have more interwebs then ever.

AI can be both a bubble that pops and an inevitably large part of the future - the two aren’t mutually exclusive.

30% of US adults voted for trump.

In a democracy, that would be a crippling defeat that might spell the end of your party, not give you complete control of all branches of government.

Underrail is so good.

Gaudi architecture is legit amazing and worth the wait and crowds. Didn’t even have time to see the sagrada familia, just the hotel and the park. Then we had the worst meal of my life in a tourist trap resteraunt on las ramblas. Even including that, so worth it.

Jiufen, taiwan - the village that people falsely claim inspired miyazaki’s spirited away - is also just incredible. The views, the winding lantern-bedecked staircase, the teahouses. It’s crowded and full of touristy knick knacks but i still took everyone who visited.

You don’t purge the military of anyone who disagrees unless you plan to do some shit that the military would try to stop.

This move can only be read as our illegal fascist regime consolidating it’s grip on power.