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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 4th, 2023

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  • If I was guessing, in general, I think people who advocate for a pure meritocracy in the USA feel the world should be evaluated in more black and white, objective terms. The financial impact and analytic nature of STEM and finance make it much easier to stratify practitioners “objectively” in comparison to finding, for instance, the “best” photographer. I think there is also a subset of US culture that thinks that STEM is the only “real” academic group of fields worth pursuing, and knowledge in liberal arts is pointless -> not contributing to society -> not a meaningful part of the meritocracy. But I’m no expert.


  • As a general rule, yes. People who are able to better perform a task should be preferentially allocated towards those tasks. That being said, I think this should be a guiding rule, not a law upon which a society is built.

    For one, there should be some accounting for personal preference. No one should be forced to do something by society just because they’re adept at something. I think there is also space within the acceptable performance level of a society for initiatives to relax a meritocracy to some degree to help account for/make up for socioeconomic influences and historical/ongoing systemic discrimination. Meritocracy’s also have to make sure they avoid the application of standardized evaluations at a young age completely determining an individual’s future career prospects. Lastly, and I think this is one of common meritocracy retorhic’s biggest flaws, a person’s intrinsic value and overall value to society is not determined by their contributions to STEM fields and finance, which is where I think a lot of people who advocate for a more meritocracy-based society stand.




  • I mean if the only way they’re gonna have jobs is through predatory hiring practices that could leave them fired and without severance, then yeah. Because if the company is planning on hiring these younger workers for the long-haul, then this shouldn’t be a significant change. I think overall national policy should discourage unnecessary high-turnover and predatory hiring. I’m sure there will be situations this is still unavoidable, but that doesn’t mean we have to endorse it by way of law/policy.


  • I’m going to digress from the economics a tad and focus on the ethics of this. I feel like companies should be on the hook for this. You should invest in capital (including human labor) based on your confidence in its expected return. Companies should not be able to hire a myriad of workers for funzies and not have to meaningfully consider if that person will be necessary in 6 months. If it is a legitimate business venture, then the cost of potential severance for new hires should be folded into the economics of the decision to pursue that venture. Larger severance pay/worker protections encourage employers to not utilize exploitative hiring practices.





  • All remote based typing is awful, T9 included. I can’t speak for everyone, but I can type with swipe gestures on a virtual keyboard via remote faster than I can input T9 text. I’m unaware of any stock remote for a device with a full keyboard. I would argue Apple has text entry perfected at least as well as any other major manufacturer. You have virtual keyboard entry, solid voice-to-text, and it can be configured to push a notification to your iOS device when you enter a search bar which will auto-open to the remote app and pull up the keyboard. Because of this feature passwords can also be autofilled from Keychain to make logins easier.

    You may personally prefer T9, but I’ve never seen anyone in the last decade input anything into a TV via T9. And you’re asking why it doesn’t have voice input, when it does. You admit to having never used an Apple TV yourself. I hate the idea of app-only interfaces features, but this isn’t a case like that. Maybe you should understand the features of a product before you call it “fucking stupid”.


  • You’ll have to strike a balance between security and ease. Your two major options are reverse proxy and VPN (Tailscale is one option for VPN)

    For reverse proxy, you functionally open the app to the internet. Anyone with the correct web address can access the login page. This is inherently less secure than VPN, but not irresponsibly so. Beyond the reverse proxy itself, you’ll also have to learn how to configure an HTTPS certificate to increase security since it will be open to the internet.

    For VPN, every user you want to be able to access the service has to be tied into the VPN and have the VPN running throughout their access. Tailscale is arguably the easiest way to configure a VPN right now, as you won’t have to manually deal with VPN configuration files for every device. VPN use will functionally make it like you’re on your home network. VPN access to your network should not be given to tons of people if at all possible.




  • Section 2, first paragraph. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6956183/

    At their core phages are viruses, there is no reason to expect the host immune system to not recognize them as foreign and attempt to eradicate them outside the GI tract, where most serious infections occur. The GI tract, skin, and to some extent the lower UG tract will likely tolerate these through mechanisms we tolerate colonizing bacterial flora, but colonization, even with antibiotic resistant organisms, is not a primary indication for empiric treatment for eradication. In fact there are some studies that attempting to sterilize the UG tract in colonized asymptomatic women promote symptomatic UTI.

    These colonizations become problematic when growth becomes unchecked and infection develops, or they seed infection into another compartment. There is no reason to think something as foreign as a bacteriophage wouldn’t be recognized as foreign in a sterile space (kidneys for pyelonephritis, liver abscess from migrated gut flora, endocarditis, etc) where these serious infections occur.

    This ties in nicely with your suggestion of phage cocktail therapy. Yes, that can expedite the delivery of phages, however excessive use of phages could result in anti-phage antibodies, limiting future treatment in a method similar to the development of anti-drug antibodies in epoeitin analogues, insulin therapy, antivenin, and anti-inflammatory antibody therapies like adalimumab (Humira)