Daniel Dvorkin @medigoth@qoto.org
Bioinformaticist / biostatistician, veteran medic and infantryman, armchair paleontologist, occasional science fiction author, vaccinated liberal patriot.
Joined Oct 2022
Holy shit, the #House passed a solid #Ukraine aid bill. Miracles can happen.
Of course they could have passed the #Senate version weeks ago [1] but this is, fortunately, a case where "better late than never" really does apply. Ukraine has suffered terribly due to the pointless delay, but I have a reasonable expectation the Senate will pass it quickly, #Biden will sign it immediately, and the aid will be on its way in short order. If nothing else, this should put a serious dent in #Russian plans for a late spring / summer #offensive.
I have no idea what's going on in #Johnson's head [2]. If he wants to be yet another #Putin / #Trump tool [3] like so much of the #Republican Party clearly does, he could have kept delaying practically forever. If he wants to do what's best for the country, for any value of "best," he should have done that already. Ukraine will benefit from this aid, absolutely. The benefit would have been considerably greater if Ukrainian cities hadn't suffered under Russian #missile strikes without adequate air defenses and Ukrainian soldiers had enough #artillery shells to break up Russian formations at the front.
Oh yeah: *please* do not turn this into a discussion about Israel and Palestine. That conversation is going on elsewhere, all over the entire internet. Plenty of forums to say your piece. My post isn't one of them. I'm talking about Ukraine here, and that's all.
[1] Months? I've lost track.
[2] Huh-huh, huh-huh.
[3] These lines just write themselves.
In light of this, the current "#HellChicken" a.k.a. #Anzu should be promoted to Hell Turkey, while the as-yet-unnamed small variety should be Hell Cornish Game Hen.
@freemo Yeah. And I think there are a whole lot more anti-scientists than, uh, scientismists. Like, on the order of a thousand times or more. I see a lot of false equivalence on the issue from people who IMO ought to know better.
I see a lot of people talking about #science as a #religion, or the closely related idea of "#scientism," the purported ideology that says science is the only way to know things. Oh, I'm not talking about *you*, they'll solemnly assure anyone who objects. Naturally you know better. Just ... you know ... them. Those people, out there. The great unwashed. On the #internet, nobody knows how long it's been since you took a shower.
You know what I hardly ever see? The phenomenon in question.
There are people who think that way. Yes. Ideologues of science—hardly if ever #scientists themselves—who invoke The #Scientific Method™ (that's a whole 'nother rant) as the be-all and end-all justification for whatever nonsense they spew. Such posts and comments have crossed my feed a time or two. But they are *vastly* outnumbered by those who complain about them, at least where I can see both groups. I have no reason to believe my experience is atypical in this regard.
As a scientist myself, I think science is a very good way to understand certain things. In my field, it's the best way to know what makes you sick, and hopefully what will make you better. There are other ways to learn these things, sure, and many of them can be useful places to *start*. If you don't end up with a #clinical #trial sooner or later, you're as likely to kill as cure.
To know what we're seeing when we look up at the lights in the sky. How the natural world around us, of which we're a part whether we like it or not, changes and how we both affect and are affected by that change. What came before us, and what might come after. The fundamental building blocks of reality. All these *require* science for real understanding. If you try to puzzle them out any other way, you may learn something, but you'll also fill your head with a lot of nonsense. Sorting the wheat from the chaff later is a lot harder than doing it right the first time.
Other questions are at least *amenable* to scientific inquiry, although that process itself may not be enough. What my fiancee does as a #historian looks, to me, a lot like what I do as a #biomedical #researcher. Make observations, construct #hypotheses, gather evidence, test and revise. (And revise, and revise, and ...) But #history vanishes every minute. What's left is always fragmentary, and shaped by the interactions of modern minds with those long since gone to dust. There will never be an objective truth, only the truest story that can be told.
And then there are things beyond any kind of quantitative analysis, or even rigorous qualitative description. We may be able to agree on what makes a true story, more or less, but what makes a *good* one? That's inherently personal. A happy marriage, a tasty meal, a satisfying job—only we can define what these goals mean for ourselves. Science may at best, occasionally, provide vague guidelines. Even then, my advice will not determine your experience.
My perspective is unusual in one key way, sure: not too many people do science for a living, at least not compared to other jobs. With regards to the way people *talk* about science, I think it's not unusual at all, except maybe that I pay particular attention.
The division above—things that clearly belong in science's domain, things that clearly don't, and a whole bunch in the middle—is a whole lot more common than the idea of science as the One True. It's at least *somewhat* more common than blanket rejection of science too, but not as much as it should be. That's also a rant for another time.
Which all makes me wonder what people who never miss a chance to bring up "scientism" and science-as-religion get out of it.
#Troodon may once again be a valid #genus. Or, uh, so I've heard.
#Brontosaurus is smiling, and #Diatryma is waiting patiently.
Huh, I can now write about #antivax without frothing at the mouth *too* much. That's progress, I guess.
Text, for anyone who doesn't want to click the link. Every once in a while I can convince myself I'm still a writer.
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"How did the 4 years in the #infantry change your life?"
Thanks for the A2A. It wasn’t four years in my case, only two. At that time the US Army offered short enlistment for various MOSs including 11B, and fortunately I took one.
I was a mediocre infantryman, to be honest. I was very good at what are perhaps the two most important infantry skills, marksmanship and road marching—but lousy at the rest of the job. In particular, I have a poor sense of direction so I get lost in the woods easily, I don’t tolerate sleep deprivation well, and I’m terrible at throwing so I was just hopeless with hand grenades. One of my best friends was a former minor-league baseball pitcher, and an absolute wizard with grenades as you’d expect, but a really bad shot. We made a deal that if we ever went to war together, he’d give me all his ammunition, I’d give him all my grenades, and we’d stick close together.
Fortunately we never did go to war: that had to wait until Desert Storm, by which time I’d gone over to the Air Force as a medic, a job which suited me much better. Two years in peacetime humping a rucksack, burning through ammunition at the range, and moving a whole lot of dirt with an entrenching tool didn’t make me some kind of super-soldier. It was a job, with its good and bad points like any other. I was glad I’d done it, and glad to leave. The big-picture outline of my life would probably be about the same if I’d never done it at all.
But it did change me, and for the most part I think in a good way. Infantry work requires a level of endurance few other jobs, military or civilian, can match. You don’t have to be especially strong or smart or tough to be a grunt. You do have to be to determined. To keep going, mile after mile. To find what creature comforts you can in the midst of heat and cold and mud and sand. To meet the worst the world can throw at you with tempered pride and a sense of humor. To *not stop*, no matter how much you want to, because you won’t let your fellow soldiers down. You can whine, you can curse, you can even cry. You just can’t stop.
I’ve been through other hard things in my life since then. Working in the base ER as a medic, and then as a civilian EMT, showed me more blood and pain than I ever saw as a grunt. My divorce and subsequent romance with the bottle came closer to killing me than any enemy bullet. Getting my PhD was a very long hump indeed, with plenty of agony along the way.
Through it all, I told myself: You marched through Georgia. You can do this too. One foot in front of the other. Rest and food are over the next ridge, or maybe the next one after that. You’ll get there, because you have no other choice. Infantry.
#Hooah, as the kids say these days. In my day it was #ooshah, and we wore #onions on our belts when Uncle Billy #Sherman led us against the #Redcoats on #SanJuanHill.
https://www.quora.com/How-did-the-4-years-in-the-infantry-change-your-life/answer/Daniel-Dvorkin-3
Decades ago in junior high and high school, long before something like #ChatGPT was remotely possible, I was several times accused of #plagiarism for writing good essays. I understand why #teachers are so concerned about #AI-generated #homework. Teachers also need to understand how discouraging and overwhelming the accusation of #cheating is to #students who are simply doing their best.
"Oh, you're one of *those*. Never mind."
Works for about 90% of internet arguments.
#Hospital #commanders are close to being gods in their domains: possibly no other #officers in the entire #military have more autonomy except #submarine #captains. It takes a *lot* to lead to this kind of shakeup. We'll almost certainly never hear the details, but I admit to a great deal of morbid curiosity.
@TruthSandwich Yeah. And I honestly can't think of a single time leftist accelerationism has ever produced the desired outcome, but that sure doesn't seem to keep people from trying.
<a href="https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Pres/Maps/Mar17.html">Seen on another site</a> anent the prospect of #Trump winning in #November because sufficient numbers of #progressives and #leftists stay home or vote #thirdparty:
"Sometimes a little short-term pain is needed for long-term gains."
And here is maybe the #left's biggest blind spot. There will be *no* long-term gains from another Trump #Presidency. Zero. None. The country is not going to "wake up" en masse, eject #Republicans from office at every level from Washington to the county dogcatcher's office, and usher in a glorious new age. It. Is. Not. Going. To. Happen.
This was true in #1968, it was true in #2000, and it's true in #2024. If there's ever a time when it *isn't* true, I don't expect to live to see it.
But there will be a whole lot of short-term and medium-term and long-term pain. Maybe disgruntled voters with a long list of reasons why #Biden isn't morally pure enough think they'll live through it. Hell, maybe they're right ... which says a whole lot about their version of morality, none of it nice.
Their "short-term pain for long-term gain" is suffering and death for people I love. Anyone who's okay with that can GTFO.
Bioinformaticist / biostatistician, veteran medic and infantryman, armchair paleontologist, occasional science fiction author, vaccinated liberal patriot.
Joined Oct 2022
