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Chrisprattalpharaptr

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Chrisprattalpharaptr


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
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				Kevin Dolan - 2023 Natal Conference: "In our lifetime, every government, every culture, every belief system, and every family on Earth will pass through a bottleneck -- a bottleneck tighter than the Black Death, predicated on one question: will your children have children of their own?"
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I also wouldn't describe that program as 'trivial.'


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't have any particularly useful commentary to give. I only had half an hour to spare and I spent it trying to get through some of the source material, but one of the citations literally leads to a 3,000 page dump of Fauci's emails and many others lead to cascading substack articles.


Do you know the source of these quotes, and where I can read them in context?  Reading this slack post comes across as much less damning than the substack article would have you believe. Moreover, the slack post captioned there was written a month after the Nature Medicine paper, no?




These aren't exactly the most charitable framings for each possibility, if perhaps more charitable than focusing on Andersen's certainty this paper got him tenure.




I'm skeptical they had severe financial or tenure-related conflicts of interest. Kristian Andersen's lab doesn't seem to engage in any kind of research that would remotely be affected by stricter regulations of GoF bans. The piles of money in Nwallins' video are bitterly funny after spending a solid chunk of my life earning a graduate stipend with 5-6 roommates. Perhaps if they had pushed the lab leak hypothesis at that point they may have suffered negative consequences, although it's worth noting that Alina Chan, Ruslan Medzhitov and  numerous other scientists who pushed it later are doing fine. Overall, I'm drawing a bit of a blank as to why they'd be compromised beyond TDS or groupthink.


Regardless, none of the above is written to try and worm out of the fact that the scientific community has earned some lumps on the topic.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In the same way that withholding maternal/infant care wouldn't cause the human race to go extinct, withholding HIV medication wouldn't cause the extinction of the gay community. Clearly OP means 'dependent on medical care' as shorthand for 'dependent on medical care for a relatively normal healthspan/lifespan,' not 'dependent on medical care for the group to exist, period.'


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 8, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The life sciences have the Journal of Visualized Experiments. The problem is that most protocols have a plethora of minor details to be tweaked, so getting a protocol from the literature is often more of a first step than 'plug and play.'


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 25, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Why do you believe your prefered policy a good idea? Why is it a better idea than doing nothing?






Do you understand that your prefered policies have costs? That they have consequences? That if government is a coherent concept at all, you need to actually try to anticipate these things and steer a course toward positive outcomes? Is politics literally nothing more to you than good fucking vibes?




You're cheating.


    

  1. You point out instances where we intervened and shitty situations failed to improve or did, in fact, get worse. What about instances where the isolationism and appeasement carried the day?
    2. 



How'd Rwanda go? I guess there weren't any stars and stripes draped caskets flying home, but at the same time hundreds of thousands of people died in large part due to the apathy of the West - your choice to do nothing also carries consequences. I can even imagine a hypothetical counterfactual where we did intervene, and after averting genocide and saving a quarter million lives, the isolationists could still I-told-you-so about the failed Rwandan state, neocolonialism, continued ethnic violence between Hutus and Tutsis, incompetent American foreign policy wonks, whatever.


Similarly, there's a parallel universe where we failed to arm South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and any or all of them fell into the orbit of China/USSR. Any of these countries could easily have been failed states suffering under communism rather than the prosperous, developed nations they are today. Airlifting supplies to West Berlin? Fuck that, have you seen the price of sugar in New York?


    

  1. 

    Many of the examples you give are just categorically different from Ukraine. Selling/donating a country arms to defend it's right to self-determination is distinct from us putting boots on the ground and invading a sovereign nation ourselves. If the Ukrainians decide the juice isn't worth the squeeze, and hey, whatever, those Russians aren't that bad anyways.
    

    2. 

  2. 

    Implicit in your writing is that Ukrainians lack agency and are just useful pawns for the West to push around a board. My impression is that support in Ukraine for prosecuting the war is fairly high. Internationally, many loathe Putin even more than they used to and support for NATO (cold comfort to you, perhaps) and the West are boosted. Again, the inverse of many of the examples you gave, no?
    

    3. 



Failure would be Ukraine being completely conquered and subjugated by Russia. Failure would be the Ukrainian army deserting en masse, as they lose a sense of national unity and their appetite for the war. Failure would be swathes of the world aligning with Russia, China and/or communism/authoritarianism.


As you point out, it's harder to paint a rosy picture of success. Childish dreams of kumbaya moments where Russia and China join our big hugpile and all the nations of the earth are buddy-buddy as we blast off in SpaceX rockets to other solar systems are unlikely to follow from sending Ukraine some artillery shells and tanks. Success may just be another frozen conflict and DMZ around Crimea and the Donbas. But the Ukrainians can make that decision for themselves, and if they decide to fight, I believe that they should be given the means to do so within reason.


Overseas military adventures don't particularly interest me, and I align with you in large part in your condemnation of the wars we have prosecuted in the last half-century. But I disagree that absolute isolationism in every scenario is the appropriate heuristic to pull from that. s


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Should lifetime prisoners be incentivized to kill themselves?
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As well take a look at the posts in the main thread here and conclude that anti-woke purity spiraling inevitably turns into Stormfront.


Dogmatic adherence to utilitarianism doesn't lead to any better outcomes than dogmatic adherence to the Old Testament. Anything has to be alloyed with common sense and some flexibility for appeals to emotion, otherwise you end up with one Repugnant Conclusion or another. TRVDITION is all fun and games and human flourishing until you have to disown your daughter for marrying the Wrong Sort (oops, guess I've been reading too many of SecureSignals' posts).


There's also an aspect of status signaling, whereby emotion is low status. The more coldblooded, the more points you get for being purely rational and high IQ - thus, nuke the GPUs/kill the degenerates/forced sterilization and eugenics.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I don't think it's necessarily great for everyone, but as an unironic freedom-loving patriot, I always feel happy to come home to the good ol' US of A. Japan is great to visit, but it's stultifying. Much of Europe is nice, but it's so goddamned poor. Australia and Ireland are legitimately pretty close, I think I just like the States better because it's home, but I can see the case.




Seconded. Perhaps I've become too accustomed to vice in America, but in Japan the rampant alcoholism among professionals getting hammered on a Monday night was especially offputting, combined with the gambling dens and maid cafes/strippers on every corner of Tokyo. I'd consider Canada, but there's nowhere to live outside Toronto and Vancouver unless your quebecois is impeccable and for our profession it's boring as hell.




Is New York City the best place to live? No, it's a filthy shithole run by corrupt scum. You should expect to be accosted by Jordan Neely, taxed aggressively to support parasites, and treated like you're the asshole for thinking that bodegas don't make it all worthwhile.




You guys all seem to take this as a given, but again - I've lived in large American cities for over a decade now and I've had literally zero problems. I'll spare you the gory details, but I used to get obnoxiously drunk and walk 4-5 miles across downtown to get home at 2-3am on a fairly regular basis. I've been taking public transit both ways for my daily commute for the last two years without ever witnessing anything close to the Jordan Neely incident, and at least for one of those years, wasn't living in the greatest neighborhood. Ditto for my wife.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 14, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Advice seems highly contextual based on the type of person you and she are, so it seems like a bit of a fool's game to try and give you specific tips. I personally wouldn't worry about 'things' like the cooler, etc - I think you're already ahead of the game if you're at that level of detail. It's probably going to be more about the conversation and who you are - be self-confident without being domineering, try and ask questions until she's talking about something she's passionate about and be interested in it, don't come on too strongly. The classical FORD (Family, Occupation, Recreation, Dreams) don't RAPE (Religion, Abortion, Politics, Economics) worked well for me once upon a time.


Just relax and enjoy yourself, you got this :)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 21, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
And I've read Babel, so between us we've got the whole bibliography.


Spoiler: It was bad.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 15, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Are we pretending Yanukovych wasn't overthrown?




Indeed; the automaton peasants (who lack agency) of Ukraine were told by their CIA handlers (who have agency) to riot and oust the hapless Yanukovych (who lacks agency) and was replaced by American puppet Zelensky (who has agency and should use it to sue for peace). This led noble leader Putin (who lacks agency; anyone in his shoes would do the same) to regretfully declare war.




"Presidents come and go but the policies remain the same." - Vladimir Putin




Makes sense. As you say, they're beset by the same scenario and conditions. Anyone in their shoes would do the same.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The point is that one side has disseminated rulebreaking, because there are a lot of them. Hlynka had concentrated rulebreaking, because there was one of him. Take the bottom percentile of shitty posts distributed across a dozen people and always direct them towards Hlynka. If he were to respond in kind, he'd eventually eat a permaban while the others would take a day here or there.


I've studiously ignored every single one of the threads he would get involved in, so you and the other mods know the situation much better than me. That being said, the forum is a worse place without Hlynka. This is how you end up with conformity and groupthink even with neutral and fairly-applied rules.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Economy aside, Joe Biden aside, whatever personal animosity you might have for me aside - my man, what are you doing spending 6.75$/lb for chicken at Costco as 'cheap meat?' Just checked and I spend 1.79$/lb on chicken thighs, something like 2.99$/lb for the organic/ethical stuff at the cheapest supermarket nearby. Chicken breast is still something like 4$/lb for the cheap stuff. For 6.75$ I'm pretty sure I could get a rotisserie chicken. I don't live in Manhattan but I am in a probably top 5 or top 10 CoL area. Costco isn't cheap anymore, it's only good if you want the brand name stuff for slightly less than elsewhere. Local discount chains with store brands or Chinese/ethnic markets are cheaper.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 11, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The problem is that the community grants status based on writing long, winding posts, obscure references and vocabulary geared more towards showing off intelligence than legibility or appropriateness for the audience/tone of the post. I'm skeptical that a top-down approach would change any of that.


Aim for concision and distilling your thesis into smallest and most airtight argument possible if you want to avoid overly long posts. Use bullet points. Independent clauses before dependent clauses. etc. Not to imply that you don't already do these things, but it's what I try to tell myself.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 14, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I always liked:


    

  1. 

    What do you like to do for fun/what to do get up to in your free time? Everyone is excited about something, it's just about finding out what it is. One person got awkward and said something canned about netflix, but when I started talking about houses her face lit up and she went on at length about the real estate market. IMO it's less about filler questions and more about fishing for that thing they're passionate about and then showing interest.
    

    2. 

  2. 

    What books are you reading/have you read lately?
    

    3. 

  3. 

    Sometimes I'd try to have random pop culture stuff to bring up if it's good for a laugh...like when Tiger King was a big thing, if you could to it organically could be good for a laugh and bonding moment. Crazy thing local sports team did, funny local city thing (where were you when the local train caught fire?), etc.
    

    4. 



				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 25, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Alongside his personal history, Vance raises questions such as the responsibility of his family and people for their own misfortune. Vance blames hillbilly culture and its supposed encouragement of social rot.




In retrospect, it's wild to me that someone with a law degree from Yale and who worked as a tech VC with Peter Thiel got elected to the senate with that message. But yes, I'll grant you that one.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Trans/queer; the new punk


A plague is corrupting the youth of Athens. Men dress like women, sport long, dyed hair and refuse to wrestle in the coliseum or participate in polite society. Women dress like men. Both mutilate their bodies to the consternation of their elders and abscond from their parents homes in droves.


I am, of course, talking about punks. And emos, goths and metalheads if I can lump everyone into the same bucket to make my life easier.


Having a fluorescent blue footlong mohawk, tattoos, piercings and a leather jacket made you eminently unemployable outside of menial service jobs and was the fashion equivalent of telling the world to go fuck itself. ‘Posers’ would get a tiny tattoo on their ankle or something and listen to the wrong music, then cover it up for their day job. Plenty of people will be nonbinary on the weekend and just pass as whatever gender they were assigned at birth Monday-Friday. 15 years ago, the mainstream was sharing cringe videos of emos and goths instead of the ‘it is ma’am’ person.


I believe that there are genuine trans people in the world who have always felt uncomfortable in their body. Numerous posts here have already described the rapid rise in trans youth so I won’t belabor the point, but my thesis (which will no doubt tank my career when this account is doxxed) is that a large fraction of these youth are protesting the gender binary and heteronormativity rather than experiencing a true, deep-seated gender identity different from what they were assigned at birth. A man wearing a dress, long hair or makeup is rebelling against arbitrary norms around clothing/fashion that evolved for a vastly different society with different needs. Spend some time on Feeld, okcupid or other dating apps (especially within the poly community), and you’ll see many people who identify as trans or queer and aren’t so much trying to pass as telling the system to go fuck itself by refusing to conform to gender norms.


Boomers and Gen Xers decrying trans youth and trans culture are Barbara Streisanding the phenomenon; the fact that you hate it is what makes it appealing to many kids in the first place! In the same way that being a punk is a nonissue today, the future of trans is becoming a minority of the population who wear the clothes that they want, use the bathrooms they want and nobody cares. Meanwhile, we’ll all be losing our minds about otherkin or pluralkin. Or maybe this guy. This isn’t to dismiss the harms that punks and anarchists may have caused in their time; I can think of a couple small-scale riots and businesses burned in my hometown during Mostly Peaceful demonstrations that got out of hand. The trans movement undoubtedly isn’t an unalloyed good and criticism will likely be valuable to reign in the excesses as it evolves into whatever the endgame is.


History may rhyme, but it’s true that it never directly repeats itself. The punk community, obviously, placed a large emphasis on music and art. While queercore is a thing, as was PWR BTTM pre-cancellation, the trans movement clearly isn’t centered on music in the same way. This could just be a shift in protest/underground culture, as neither punk nor metal carry the same bite that they used to - I saw Rancid about 10-15 years ago and even then no amount of cocaine could give them the energy they had in the 90s. Napalm Death was a hell of a time, but it hits a bit different when the entire crowd is in their 30s-50s instead of their teens. Kids are on their phones instead of listening to the radio, hanging out at the skate park and going to punk shows - as a result, protest culture just looks different than it used to, but I believe the trans movement are the ideological inheritors of the punk movement.


The other major difference, and one place where I expect the most pushback, is that punk was  anti-authoritarian, anarchist and explicitly ungovernable. On the other hand, major media outlets, schools and ‘The Cathedral’ are explicitly pro-trans. I would argue that while the progressive activists are genuine they are vastly in the minority, and opposed by an equally loud minority with inverted views if not quite the same institutional reach. The majority in the center make pro-trans noises, but at the end of the day they aren’t going to date a trans person or wear clothes that don’t match their gender.


As an aside, if I can ramble for a bit - the corollary to Cthulhu swimming left is that youth crave rebellion and transgression, only to grow up and normalize whatever was shocking to their elders. Septum piercings and tattoos were ‘big deals’ growing up, whereas I have friends who are academics in good standing with visible tattoos and piercings. Going way back, lindy hop in the Savoy ballroom 12 was viewed as scandalous, whereas now it’s largely practiced by white retirees in their 60s-70s and millenial STEMlords who like dancing predetermined patterns. Elvis shocked the nation with gyrating hips in a performance tamer than 99% of the content on instagram. Punk and metal have vastly less appeal for Zoomers in the same way that the Beatniks and Hippies held no sway over the Millenials; each generation of youth pushes for progress and wants to do something transgressive. I’ll leave it to someone smarter than I to make the case that this freedom and spirit of rebellion is core to what makes America and the West great, but I do genuinely believe it.


Anyways. I, for one, can’t wait to see 60-70 year old millennials trying to dance like this. See you all grinding on the nursing home stripper poles in a couple decades.


Obligatory statement to head off some remarks: minors being able to medically transition against the wishes of their parents makes me deeply uncomfortable. I don’t support public school children being forced to attend drag queen story hour, but have no problem with people who want to bring their own children. Most other trans-associated culture war topics (pronouns, bathrooms, clothes, whatever) I'm fine with.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Not to be snarky, but if you keep reading his work I can pretty much guarantee his politics will drive you up the wall. Red Mars and 2312 are sublime, I also enjoyed the gold coast quite a bit. You may get some mileage out of the years of rice and salt. The rest will probably not be enjoyable.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Violent Class: the Point of Empire.
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Interesting, thanks for the writeup on a world i think most of us would otherwise never be exposed to. Based on the comment about the tip of the spear being very fine indeed, do you think it abnormally so for the post-korean and/or Vietnam war era? And is the implication that you think the US military is particularly impotent at the moment?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


They probably fear that if they don't, they'll be hounded. They don't want to be associated with Bad People so they go out of their way to make the distinction even in the midst of mourning.






It's Havel's Greengrocer: Family Tragedy Edition.




Is it really so difficult to believe that she might just be a good person who genuinely cares enough about doing what she believes is the right thing despite her grief? You may typical mind her to the point that her speech and feelings can't possibly be genuine, but not everybody processes their emotions in the same way as you.


Tell me, when Fox News regularly interviews families with children murdered by illegal immigrants are you similarly disgusted? Do you cringe and berate them for giving speeches on national television rather than grieving alone at home? How about Trump giving a panel with Bill Clinton's victims?


Most people are fundamentally good and want to do the right thing. I think she's deserving of at least as much charity as you're willing to extend to your tribe.


As an aside, is this comment:




Honesty is alien to the Arab, Chinaman, Indian, etc. They have a difficult time imagining a world in which you can look to a man as your equal and take what he says as a sincere expression of his beliefs. I think Americans have been somewhat orientalized in this regard.




So unremarkable that nobody here even bothers to point it out? I know, don't feed the trolls and all, but that tweet is just funny and self-sabotaging to the point of satire. Not to mention the followup tweet 'Hitler! Hitler! Hitler!'


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 25, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Much of the core messaging on the right is explicitly 'anti-agency,' for lack of a better word. You're unemployed because the government shipped your jobs overseas, you're addicted to fentanyl because of corrupt doctors and politicians in bed with Chinese companies flooding the country, men are depressed and committing suicide because of feminism/hostile society/subversion of traditional gender roles, you're poor because immigrants are driving down your wages.


When is the last time a politician or right-wing influencer told someone from West Virginia that they have the power to improve their life by relocating, retraining or abstaining from drugs? I can accept that even if they did believe that, saying so publicly would be political suicide...but do you think that they believe it? Do you yourself believe that, or do you agree with most of the statements I made above?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 11, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Apologies for the naive question, but I'm largely ignorant of the nuts and bolts of AI/ML.


Many data formats in biology are just giant arrays, with each row representing a biological cell and columns representing a gene (RNA-Seq), parameter (flow cytometry). Sometimes rows are genetic variants and columns are various characteristics of said variant (minor allele frequency, predicted impact on protein function, etc).


Is there a way to feed this kind of data to LLMs? It seems trivial for chatGPT to parse 'This is an experiment looking at activation of CD8+ T cells, generate me a series of scatterplots and gates showcasing the data' but less trivial to parse the giant 500,000x15 (flow) or 10,000x20,000 (scRNA-Seq) arrays. Or is there a way for LLMs to interact with existing software?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
But how could America have been founded in America if America didn't exist prior to the founding of America?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 26, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The main argument against repealing the Civil Rights Act is that if people have the option to discriminate against racial minorities in jobs, housing, and school admissions, they will do so.




What is the main argument in favor of repealing the Civil Rights Act?




In order to know if this is true, we would need to look at a country that has a similar racial mix to America, but no anti-discrimination laws, then compare the life outcomes of Africans or other historically oppressed groups in America to their life outcomes in that country.




I can guarantee you the general population has absolutely zero interest in this fact. Maybe it would help you win some arguments on the internet. That's likely why this isn't a priority for Libertarian think tanks, and if it is, is probably symptomatic of their general ineffectiveness.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 26, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Females develop eggs after 20 weeks so you could make 1000 per generation, polygenically screen them all, pick the best and iterate.




Those eggs are immature. I'm not a developmental biologist, but would you expect in vitro maturation protocols to work on eggs forcibly harvested from a 20 week old fetus?


I'm also not confident that there's enough genetic diversity starting from one person to get a true 1 in a billion; won't there be a bunch of alleles where neither parent has what you want? I admit that this may be a nonissue if most of the alleles you want are relatively common, I don't have a good handle on the numbers here.


Put it a different way - Do any of us have a 1 in a billion chance of giving birth to Shaq? I would tentatively guess no, modulo some genetic conditions like acromegaly. Do you have evidence that this is true?




In just over a year you have 3 generations and the pick of 1 in a billion (of descendants of your starting stock)




But what then? You have one embryo. Somatic cloning? Things are getting pretty complicated my man.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 25, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


You're going to have to cite your sources if you want to make blanket statements about American announcers being terrible, especially when Hockey Night in Canada featured the grating Jim Hughson for so many years.




Source: Me, after living and breathing hockey for a decade and a half growing up and then moving to America as an adult. Maybe things are different in Pittsburgh, but watching games for the local team in one of the smaller hockey markets (i.e. outside the original 6 and the midwest) was excruciating. Announcers were explaining relatively basic rules, clearly had no grasp on the strategy, positioning or how the game is played and just shoutcasted goals.


Even in Boston, if you go to a Bruins game the presumably CTE-riddled fanbase seems to operate on two principles: if a Bruins player has the puck, yell SHOOT THE PUCK at the top of your lungs. If the other team has the puck, yell HIT HIM. If the Bruins lost, it's probably because they didn't shoot the puck enough.


I grant that things may have been better in Pittsburgh.




As for Fox and the glowing pucks, I wasn't a fan of them either, but it wasn't because they thought Americans were incapable of keeping up with the game.




I mean, maybe I just fell for the Canadian 'hurr durr America dumb' propaganda, but it sure seems a lot of people talked about it that way:




In 1994, Fox won a contract to broadcast NHL games in the United States. David Hill, the head of Fox Sports at the time, believed that if viewers could easily follow the puck, the game would seem less confusing to newcomers, and hence become more appealing to a broader audience...The FoxTrax system was widely criticized by hockey fans, who felt that the graphics were distracting and meant to make the broadcasts cater towards casual viewers; sportswriter Greg Wyshynski stated that FoxTrax was "cheesy enough that it looked like hockey by way of a Mighty Morphin Power Rangers production budget",[5] and considered it "a sad commentary on what outsiders thought of both hockey and American hockey fans". Acknowledging that Canadian-born journalist Peter Jennings (who was interviewed as a guest during the 1996 All-Star Game that introduced the technology) stated on-air that Canadians would "probably hate it", Wyshynski suggested that FoxTrax was an admission that American viewers were "too hockey-stupid to follow the play" or "need to be distracted by shiny new toys in order to watch the sport."[2]






Edmonton won't win a cup in the foreseeable future because they haven't figured out that you can't put your superstars on the same line. Especially when one of them is a center.




I watch far from every Edmonton game, but I'm pretty sure they've experimented with splitting up Draisaitl and McDavid a few years back and I don't think it went well for them. At that point, you can trade Draisaitl for some depth I guess - but man would it take some massive balls to try and explain why you traded one of the top scorers in the league and one half of the most productive duo in the NHL for some solid second-line players.


Kane and Nugent-Hopkins should be able to match Geno on paper. But maybe I'm too deep in the hopium. Perhaps McJesus was the false prophet all along and Brock Boeser will bring Lord Stanley's cup back to the motherland.




There's a reason the Pens won three cups — when you have Sid on line 1 and Geno on line 2, it doesn't matter if you're feeding the puck to Chris Kunitz or Ruslan Fedotenko or fucking Max Talbot.




The Pens won three cups because they had a hell of a lot more than Crosby and Geno. Letang and Fleury were pretty damn good too, and Kessel was on an eldritch hot-dog fueled rampage just to spite the Leafs (which I fully approve of).




The rest of the team is scrubs and has-beens. Defense and goaltending are decent but not stellar. They might make the conference final, but overreliance on offensive firepower killed many a team. This is why the Penguins traded John Cullen in '91 and Mark Recchi in '92.




Dude, their defense and goaltending are ass. They averaged over 3 goals against this season with a franchise record winning streak. But they're also fucked by cap space; how are they going to improve their back end without trading their stars? See comment above about massive balls required to trade some of the best scorers in the league.


All that said, I'm just a meathead who played a lot of hockey growing up and beer leagues as an adult. I have no idea what makes a good NHL team, but thankfully, that seems to be fairly universally true. See the Golden Knights for the entirety of their existence, somehow this year's Canucks.