Basically the justification for bombing Yemen, “they’re threatening the sea lanes and international shipping!!”
Nevermind that they are doing a targeted embargo to stop a literal genocide, the specter of treat stoppage is used as justification for violence in response.
I’m not sure that’s 100% accurate. The indigenous peoples represented by CONAIE are a well organized political force and they basically brought down the three administrations prior to Correa, they helped create the conditions for Correa’s citizens revolution and were supportive of it I think? They were essentially part of his coalition but the schism where they became critical of him I think revolved around extractive industry. Correa used oil revenues to fund infrastructure and social programs (whereas prior to him almost all oil revenues went to paying interest on IMF loans). The indigenous people basically want the oil to stay in the ground, as the extraction industry is highly damaging to the environment. But the revenues from that industry provided the basis for a lot of Correa’s developmental program. This is a legitimate point of contention that could have been handled better all around. For what it’s worth, these people were part of rising up against Lenin Moreno after he went full traitor and started taking IMF money and implementing austerity, and were part of bringing down his administration to where he had to resign and call early new elections. So they are basically responsible for ending most of the terrible presidencies in Ecuador over the last several decades, but never organized that sort of action against Correa’s own admin. The national police are the ones that tried to take Correa out and failed, and these indigenous people frequently find themselves in pitched battle against those same police during neoliberal admins.
Aircraft carriers are powered by on board nuclear power plants, they don’t use conventional fuel at all.
Whenever I’m walking up stairs I worry I might trip and hit my teeth right on the edge of a stair and knock my teeth out
That’s right, it’s just the Germanic name for the same deity.
Donnerstag means “day of thunder” and is named after Donar, the god of war in old Germanic mythology. Donar is better known by his Norse name, Thor.
It’s only fair, that’s what they ask countries like Venezuela and Bolivia to do. Oh wait know, it’s actually even less reasonable, they just demand the results be reversed when they don’t like them lol
I’m pretty sure the Reagan hostage deal stuff is actually confirmed, I don’t remember though whether it was tied into his illegal arms sales to Iran or if it was entirely separate from that
They’ve been calling for it for ages. But peace predicated on an actual end to the war which means a full end to the illegal occupation and siege of Gaza etc.
Just saw this shared on Facebook and had to point out that Hamas has been calling for an end to the war this entire time and doing so again now means that their stance hasn’t changed.
It’s been a while since I felt like that, though I know what you’re talking about. I think I’ve come to terms with it and have a really healthy outlook now. I don’t want to die or anything, there’s a lot more I want to do and see and learn, but I also don’t fear death whenever it comes. In some ways it will be a relief.
Let me know if you find something like that, I’m also interested.
Ukraine wasn’t present for the vote apparently that’s why it’s black and not green
No problem. The author is definitely a lib who wrote it from a pro-US perspective as a warning basically, like “if you don’t stop treating Puerto Rico like shit they’re going to leave you for China” but if you can look past the ideology I think it’s got some good info.
If Puerto Rico were independent it could start doing deals with China which the US doesn’t want, I read a whole book about that once which I can’t remember the details of super well but maybe the book would interest you.
America’s Last Fortress: Puerto Rico’s sovereignty, China’s Caribbean Belt and Road, and America’s National Security
By Alexander Odishelidze
Well she has no chance of winning, so it’d be sort of weird if she did care about that or was talking like it was a real possibility. It’s still good that there are anti-genocide candidates like her and the PSL candidate on the ballot. I don’t think people who vote for them are expecting them to win, they’re signaling their disapproval of the two candidates who might win.
Thanks for the recommendation, I’ll check that out!
I just wish the iPhone podcast app would display the episodes in the proper order
Probably Israel warned to evacuate that building prior to bombing it or something.
In a new study, many people doubted or abandoned false beliefs after a short conversation with the DebunkBot.
By Teddy Rosenbluth Sept. 12, 2024 Shortly after generative artificial intelligence hit the mainstream, researchers warned that chatbots would create a dire problem: As disinformation became easier to create, conspiracy theories would spread rampantly.
Now, researchers wonder if chatbots might also offer a solution.
DebunkBot, an A.I. chatbot designed by researchers to “very effectively persuade” users to stop believing unfounded conspiracy theories, made significant and long-lasting progress at changing people’s convictions, according to a study published on Thursday in the journal Science.
Indeed, false theories are believed by up to half of the American public and can have damaging consequences, like discouraging vaccinations or fueling discrimination.
The new findings challenge the widely held belief that facts and logic cannot combat conspiracy theories. The DebunkBot, built on the technology that underlies ChatGPT, may offer a practical way to channel facts. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
“The work does overturn a lot of how we thought about conspiracies,” said Gordon Pennycook, a psychology professor at Cornell University and author of the study.
Until now, conventional wisdom held that once someone fell down the conspiratorial rabbit hole, no amount of arguing or explaining would pull that person out.
The theory was that people adopt conspiracy theories to sate an underlying need to explain and control their environment, said Thomas Costello, another author of the study and assistant professor of psychology at American University.
But Dr. Costello and his colleagues wondered whether there might be another explanation: What if debunking attempts just haven’t been personalized enough?
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Since conspiracy theories vary so much from person to person — and each person may cite different pieces of evidence to support one’s ideas — perhaps a one-size-fits-all debunking script isn’t the best strategy. A chatbot that can counter each person’s conspiratorial claim of choice with troves of information might be much more effective, the researchers thought.
To test that hypothesis, they recruited more than 2,000 adults across the country, asked them to elaborate on a conspiracy that they believed in and rate how much they believed it on a scale from zero to 100.
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People described a wide range of beliefs, including theories that the moon landing had been staged, that Covid-19 had been created by humans to shrink the population and that President John F. Kennedy had been killed by the Central Intelligence Agency. Image A DebunkBot screen defines conspiracy theories and asks a viewer to describe any conspiracy theories they might find credible or compelling. A screen grab from the Debunkbot website.Credit...DebunkBot Then, some of the participants had a brief discussion with the chatbot. They knew they were chatting with an A.I., but didn’t know the purpose of the discussion. Participants were free to present the evidence that they believed supported their positions.
One participant, for example, believed the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an “inside job” because jet fuel couldn’t have burned hot enough to melt the steel beams of the World Trade Center. The chatbot responded:
“It is a common misconception that the steel needed to melt for the World Trade Center towers to collapse,” it wrote. “Steel starts to lose strength and becomes more pliable at temperatures much lower than its melting point, which is around 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit.”
After three exchanges, which lasted about eight minutes on average, participants rated how strongly they felt about their beliefs again.
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On average, their ratings dropped by about 20 percent; about a quarter of participants no longer believed the falsehood. The effect also spilled into their attitudes toward other poorly supported theories, making the participants slightly less conspiratorial in general.
Ethan Porter, a misinformation researcher at George Washington University not associated with the study, said that what separated the chatbot from other misinformation interventions was how robust the effect seemed to be.
When participants were surveyed two months later, the chatbot’s impact on mistaken beliefs remained unchanged. “Oftentimes, when we study efforts to combat misinformation, we find that even the most effective interventions can have short shelf lives,” Dr. Porter said. “That’s not what happened with this intervention.”
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Researchers are still teasing out exactly why the DebunkBot works so well.
An unpublished follow-up study, in which researchers stripped out the chatbot’s niceties (“I appreciate that you’ve taken the time to research the J.F.K. assassination”) bore the same results, suggesting that it’s the information, not the chatbot itself, that’s changing people’s minds, said David Rand, a computational social scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an author of the paper.
“It is the facts and evidence themselves that are really doing the work here,” he said.
The authors are currently exploring how they might recreate this effect in the real world, where people don’t necessarily seek out information that disproves their beliefs.
They have considered linking the chatbot in forums where these beliefs are shared, or buying ads that pop up when someone searches a keyword related to a common conspiracy theory.
For a more targeted approach, Dr. Rand said, the chatbot might be useful in a doctor’s office to help debunk misapprehensions about vaccinations. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Brendan Nyhan, a misperception researcher at Dartmouth College also not associated with the study, said he wondered whether the reputation of generative A.I. might eventually change, making the chatbot less trusted and therefore less effective.
“You can imagine a world where A.I. information is seen the way mainstream media is seen,” he said. “I do wonder if how people react to this stuff is potentially time-bound.”
Her defeat is another loss for progressives in a race defined by Democratic divisions over the war in Gaza, with pro-Israel groups pouring millions into a campaign to oust her from office.
If you google this question, “where does fentanyl come from?” You get a results page filled with “China” and “Mexico”. I have a suspicion that the fentanyl “pouring over our southern border” narrative is mostly BS and that it’s coming from inside the house, but can anybody point me towards the facts? Thank you
On Jeopardy today, the final clue.
Category: 20th Century History
Clue: After the Vietnam War, Vietnam got bogged down in a campaign against this leader whom it managed to overthrow in 1979.
None of the three contestants on Jeopardy got it right, how about the hexbears?
Thinking of starting a coin collection. Any coin collectors around here? Any tips?
Lol, owned.
Link: https://x.com/foxnews/status/1719473902135463982?s=46&t=yvpswX1j2O--GMAbVtwIkQ
Lol, owned Link:https://x.com/foxnews/status/1719473902135463982?s=46&t=yvpswX1j2O--GMAbVtwIkQ
Edit: Sorry, I thought I was posting this on hexbear
I use the site through my phone's browser, which is how I've always used it. Recently I'm being logged out almost every time I refresh or go to a new page either by clicking a link or using the back button. Is this a known issue that's being worked out?
So right now, I’m working on breaking into the career field I want but in the meantime just working a full time job. I was hoping to get more overtime but they’ve basically told me that the factory is slow and not to expect overtime until like September.
I get bombarded with this clickbait things that are like “8 ways to earn extra money this month!” and then it tells you to like play bingo on your phone for money. If those lists were meant to be real instead of ads, what kinds of things would be on them? What can a working person do to say make $500 a month apart from just getting a second job?
I've just recently done an interview for a potential first job in the software industry and it went really well but they sent me a quick project to do at home to see what I can do and it uses a couple of technologies I'm not the most familiar with (it's a crypto related company, which I'm not keen on but I'd mostly be working with React and stuff on front end for their website I think). I don't want anybody to do the project for me I'm just a bit stuck and could maybe use some pointers from anybody who's been in the industry for longer. After turning this in I'll likely have to do a last interview where I actually do a little coding in front on them but I'd like to at least get something I can turn in here, whether they end up moving forward with me or not, since I got the interview via a recruiter who has been really good about working with me and I don't want to disappoint and get this recruiter to write me off. Anybody willing to take a look and help me out, PM me and I'll send details. Thanks in advance!
Any topic, what are some great and interesting documentaries to watch?
I have a degree in Computer Science and recently finished a 9 month software development Boot Camp. Been sending out resume and applications to quite a few postings off of LinkedIn but so far getting very little response. I have an interview tomorrow but not sure how legit it is, outside of that I haven’t been called up for any interviews yet. Comrades in the software industry please help me out with any advice you can. I’m willing to relocate to pretty much anywhere as long as I can get employment in this field that will lead to good experience and development.
"Speaking with a candor he would soon be unable to afford, Mr. Obama directed his fire across the entire political spectrum. He denounced a broken status quo in which cynical Republicans outmaneuvered feckless Democrats in a racialized culture war, leaving most Americans trapped in a system that gave them no real control over their lives. Although his sympathies were clearly with the left, Mr. Obama chided liberals for making do with a “rudderless pragmatism,” and he flayed activists — with the civil rights establishment as his chief example — for asking the judiciary to hand out victories they couldn’t win at the polls. Progressives talked a good game about democracy, but they didn’t really seem to believe in it."
I'm outside of the US and want to watch some games for free, idk where to find this stuff, seems like google, reddit etc are useless for finding it nowadays.
Edit: nvm I found one off of reddit after all
Anything that's not super intense or fast paced (not looking for a shooter game or anything where I've got to be quick, something more chill. Or maybe I'll just start a new run of Disco Elysium again
Edit: thanks so much guys I just woke up to a ton of notifications and there's a lot of great stuff in this thread to try out!
My main questions here are whether there are stipulations about when the loan was taken, when the course of study finishes, and if having a cosigner affects whether one qualifies.
I'll just give my data and see if anybody can find this out for me: Say I have a student loan from Sallie Mae that was taken around January of last year, for a course of studies that terminate in October. One thing I'm wondering, I definitely make (way) less than the income, in fact I make pretty much nothing. But in order to get a loan in the first place I needed to have my parents co-sign, and I'm pretty sure they make more than 125k. Does the income of a cosigner come into play here, or can I still get $10k cancelled?
