Ragebait isn't about seeing what the other side says.

It's about seeing an inflammatory caricature of the other side.

For example, a Liberal isn't going to see some Conservative discussing some of the hard tradeoffs we'll need to pay down the debt. They'll see a Conservative proposing that Trump be given a 3rd term and trans kids get rounded up and forced into conversion therapy or some crap like that.

Meanwhile, Conservatives won't see some Liberal discussing the economics of Universal Healthcare. They'll see someone proposing that the police be defunded and all drugs are legalized.

Ragebait creates echo chambers because it gives the false impression that everyone on the other side is insane.

It's a fun conspiracy theory, but this is actually just how biology works.

There's basically four kinds of things that can go wrong with our bodies. Infections, mechanical issues, system errors, and cancer.

Infections we can cure by helping the body to kill off the infection, it's only some rare stubborn ones like AIDS that are chronic like you describe.

Mechanical issues we can fix with surgery.

System errors? That's stuff like genetic disorders where our body creates too much of hormone A or doesn't create the proper form of protein B. The problem is in our DNA and you can't cure it without rewriting our DNA (which we're getting to).

And then there's cancers, which are similar to infections, where we try to kill it (as they're doing here), though weirdly, some research suggests treating it as a chronic issue might be better for the patients.

In either case, it's not the fact that pharma is deciding "don't make a pill to cure it, just find a lifetime treatment!". It's only in the past few years that we're reaching the point where we can actually cure things that were traditionally chronic.

And Threads now appears to have roughly 66% more monthly active users than X.

I've heard almost nothing about Threads recently. Certainly no indication they were more popular than Twitter.

Is their user count some sort of trick with how they interface with Instagram? Or is Twitter just turning into a ghost town without people realizing it?

This is one of the reason why Western governments do invest in foreign aid.

It's not just charity (though that's certainly an element), but the more stable and prosperous developing nations are the less likely they're going to have to deal with a refugee crisis.

I think there's some nuance needed there.

Pelosi's trading is legal, it's highly problematic from an ethics perspective, but it's completely legal and somewhat common for legislators to do. So she can be criticized for using an unfair advantage, but it's not unprecedented nor a major sin.

Trump's grifts on the other hand do violate laws and precedent, those laws just aren't enforced.

For an extra $100k you get a pardon!

I'm not even sure if it's that deliberate, or it's just the fact that Trump is thinking about rigging the election... so he talks about rigging the election.

But it's hilarious how consistent the pattern is. Normally with something like that there's just a few occasional examples. But with Trump if he says "Democrats are kicking puppies!" chances are that we're about to find out that Trump kicked a puppy.

He's not a genius, I sincerely think he's average to slightly below average intelligence for a software dev. Just look how clueless he really is when he pretends to be a technical guru in front of actual experts.

That doesn't mean he doesn't have some exceptional skills, but IQ isn't one of them.

First, he's hard working, at least in spurts (during critical deadlines), and he's willing to make and implement big decisions quickly. Just look at DOGE, Republicans have been trying to lay waste to the US government for decades, but Musk is the only one to actually do it. It was a complete disaster, but it wasn't ethics or common sense that stopped the previous attempts, that's a legit talent for Musk.

Second, CEOs aren't allowed to lie, but Musk has figured out that you can get around that by building a cult of personality and then making ridiculously optimistic predictions and then sell minor advancements as progress. The result is he has a core group of retail investors that buy his stocks based on vibes and refuse to sell once in. Since these retail investors prevent the stock from going down too much institutional investors also jump in on the ride. It's basically tulip bulbs.

I agree he has an extremely high risk tolerance, though that doesn't make him a good person.

His car company is pretty small as car companies go, SpaceX means some new satellites, but Starlink is the only thing that's really making a difference to normal people. And Neuralink might help a lot of people in the future, but it largely R&D now.

His wealth doesn't come from what his companies have done. It comes from his ability as a promoter and its ridiculous effect on the stock price.

He worked hard to get Trump re-elected, if he was in fact the tipping point, he has harmed the environment far more than he has helped.

Not to mention all the potentially hundreds of thousands of people who died due to his cuts to DOGE.

It sounds like this is more to do with your ideology than Elon Musk.

Humans are tribal, in modern times that tribe is usually their nation, and they care deeply about the survival of their tribe.

If immigration is seen as changing the fundamental nature of that tribe (nation) people will resist it.

We need to figure out a way to deal with that fact if we want to continue to have relatively open borders.

It's not hype, Anthropic is literally saying there's no actual risk they're aware of.

What actually happened is they refused to let US Intelligence agencies use their models to perform illegal surveillance. So now the US government is illegally punishing them.

The whole point of stock markets and such is that you have hard core rational investors ensuring valuations are accurate.

But Musk figured out that you don't need solid fundamentals, all you need is a hyper-loyal core following of retail investors who support you regardless of fundamentals. So you just bullshit just enough to keep them happy, without crossing too far into fraud, and the retail investors stay on board.

The retail investors create a floor for the price and their crowing about their winnings creates a bubble. The institutional investors then see what's happening and hop along for the ride.

The result is the two most overvalued companies in history (Tesla and SpaceX). In theory, the whole pile eventually comes crashing down, but just like any bubble the fund managers who buy are unlikely to be the fund managers left holding the bag.

Would make sense, if you're right handed and turn to the right you're leading with your dominant eye (and hand) so better able to handle threats that emerge.

Similar if you choose to pass someone on the left, you present them with your stronger (right) side.

But this study supposedly found no correlation to handedness, so either something else is going on or maybe a sample size issue.

Drop the bigotry. They left because their land was being given away by Western superpowers to a bunch of foreigners. They did exactly what any group of people would do. And they had a far better claim to that land than Jews who hadn't lived there for centuries, especially considering those Palestinians were actually descended from the ancient Israelites.

On the other hand the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank being carried out by Israeli Settlers, with the support of the Israeli government, is not typical or excusable.

The main difference is that this technology will be harder to contain. A terrorist burying a landmine in a park is plausible, but not the most practical attack.

A terrorist letting out a few of these things in a park... that is terrifying.