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Joined 10 months ago
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Cake day: May 13th, 2024

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  • Sorry, I thought this was in another thread that was actually talking about IQ. I’ve clicked through too many articles.

    This article doesn’t mention IQ at all, even though your response does. IQ isn’t an absolute quantitative measure for intelligence even though many people conflate them - this is probably why the article doesn’t mention it.

    I’d dig into the Financial Times article that this Neoscope article is about but it’s pay-walled. The neoscope article makes some case for intelligence declining (I don’t have time to read those citations right now), but I’d point out this doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with less intelligent parents having children. It could be evidence that the material conditions for us ordinary citizens is declining as a whole (I think we would both agree on that point). Cost of living is up, people are working longer. Long COVID probably has something to do with it, and stress.


  • Im not going to write some big long podt, just two things:

    1. people, on average, are not getting dumber. Anything you noticed observationally about dumb people having more children does not seem to have any effect on the world. Human nutrition has improved vastly over the past 100 years, as has education, etc.

    2. IQ increases every year. I don’t think this is evidence people are getting smarter because I think IQ is a poor measure of intelligence. I’m pointing this out to you because your statement about “IQ drifting toward the bottom’” is factually untrue.


  • the kneejerk reaction that the statement always gets is annoying.

    I agree with everything you said, but I’m going to point out something. If there is a common kneejerk reaction to some particular topic, there’s probably a reason for that. You yourself said its annoying? I suppose its predictable then. If you can predict that people are going to react in some way, you can write with more explanation to clarify that you aren’t actually supporting something like eugenics. The poster I’m responding to did not do this.

    I took this lack of explanation as support (which, on reflection, might be leaping to conclusions). The overall tone of the comment is rather judgemental.

    The commenter is also wrong; IQ hasn’t been “drifting towards the bottom”, the average IQ increases every year. Its why they have to constantly adjust the tests, because 100 is meant to be an average score by design. This is primarily why I chose to respond to him. He’s not saying " which is why we should invest in family planning" or “we should invest in children’s education”, he’s making an untrue statement, and then pretending that this will cause some sort of feedback loop. Dumb people making more dumb people.

    IQ is not some absolute quantitative metric of intelligence. The people who treat it like it is… I find that a lot of them are pushing some sort of angle or simply don’t understand it.




  • I think that you should keep posting with your signature if it makes you happy. I have some sincere doubts it will force a corporation to exclude your content from any aggregated data, though, nor do I think anyone is giving up their rights by not properly licensing their comments here. Copyright is automatic in the USA. The problem isn’t the licensing, its the fact that no court is properly enforcing these rights. And, too few governments have data privacy laws on the books.

    I’m not interested in relitigating those points though, I’m sure you’ve heard them. I guess I’m just typing that up so you know where I’m coming from.

    I do think your signature is valuable when it makes people consider who owns their data, and why the CC license is important.

    Personally I think you should put an explanation in your bio. I think your message will be served better if you can point to a pre-written explanation (or even an old style FAQ). But, I don’t think you’re obligated to do so. Its all gravy. People are going to fight you regardless.

    Did you see that post from that guy mad about a period character on slashdot? Lmao



  • I miss the old web, where if someone wanted to RP as a alien or a cat or something in all their forum posts, we just kind of rolled with it. The internet was strange and diverse.

    So many people are dog piling this guy because, in essence, he isn’t conforming. He’s including a little forum signature on his lemmy posts in 2025.

    Just ignore it and keep scrolling.

    I agree, but not in a “this guy is an idiot” kind of way, but in a “do whatever you want and keep the internet diverse and strange” kind of way. Let the guy have his small protest. Folks need to stop dog piling him. It shows up in many of the threads he’s in, and judgments about his little signature dominate over anything he actually had to say.






  • All federal employees have been reclassified to political employees instead of nonpartisan civil servants, meaning they are closer to at will employees.

    This has never happened before.

    All federal employees now serve at the will of the party in power. There will be loyalty tests. There will be entire departments defunded and dismantled.

    They are reviewing social media posts as we speak to decide who to keep. That’s right, that includes folks at the CDC, FDA, EPA… every paperwork jockey, no matter how minor their position, is now subject to the whims at the party in power in a way they were not before.

    All these firings will be contested. They’ll go to the courts. Say… Who owns the courts right now?

    You have no idea what is happening. The purges begin 90 days from now.


  • If I stole $62 million dollars (fta, Bilzerian owes this as his original amount), I’d be thrown in jail.

    They’ve let this guy dick around for 31 years and haven’t gotten the public’s money back.

    The USA has extradition with St Kitts and Nevis as far as I can tell. Running away to a tax shelter island (a British commonwealth, for fucks sake) shouldn’t be enough for the USA to shrug it’s sholders and give up.

    The capitalist class plays by different rules. Don’t let them get away with excuses like this.


  • women lawmakers have had to use the private quarters of the Speaker of the House just to find a restroom that reliably stocks tampons and pads

    ???

    None of the bathrooms at my work do this. Officially my job doesn’t let me keep my purse/bag near the work area (I do anyway, and my bosses acknowledge corporate policy is written by lizard people) and I have to grab pads/tampons and stuff them in my pockets before using the restroom.

    Are you telling me they just have a ladies room with supplies available? That seems nice. My job doesn’t pay people well so they’d probably get stolen hoarded by people who need them more than me.

    Though, my job treats trans people like humans and lets trans ladies use the ladies room, so we got that going for us.



  • There are no checks whatsoever, no email or phone number required, no verification options—it just hands you an account for a 99-year-old, with full access to all chat features. (It took maybe five clicks from having no account to being able to play Blood & Gore.)

    Come on now Kotaku. I was a kid once on the internet. I lied about my age once to sign up for Neopets, which had text forums, private messages and user-created pages. You could even use HTML and hotlink images. It really wasn’t a big deal because my parents paid attention to what I did online, and the audience of the website was just children or people who wanted to play a simple game.

    My mom ended up playing it, so she must have known I lied about my age to get access. She had hella neopoints.

    For content marked 17+, you do need to verify your age with documentation

    WHY IS THERE CONTENT FOR 17+ ON ROBLOX? Isn’t this the TRUE child safety problem? Why do this at all? Why attract people looking for 17+ content on a platform for children??? I read that Hindenburg report, the entire platform is a mess. This company deserves to fail and those investors deserve to be left holding the bag.


  • We need to stop pretending this is due to a lack of education or critical thinking. Sure, that’s true for some, but I’m betting the vast majority of these conspiracy theories are spread by people that know that they are lies and don’t care. Evil Russian propaganda bots aren’t a great explanation for the totality of the phenomena. People say outrageous things because it gets them clicks on the internet and hurts the “other team”.

    We saw it recently with the lady lying about hatian immigrants eating cats - link. She didn’t care how true it was - only that it hurt the other team. They have it comin’, anyway, is their perspective when they’re saying these things.