Our Collapsing Civilization

[Thad]

Stewart did a pretty good bit on that last night.

"In America, we tend to err on the side of letting people say whatever the fuck they want, as long as they don't show any nipple while doing it."

[Friday]

While in France, they tend to to err on the side of showing their ass to the enemy.

[Blossom]

80% of those surveyed said they would support a mandatory label on all foods containing DNA.

[François]

So, what's left? Salt?

[Classic]

Even sterilized materials probably still have the remains of destroyed microbes on them, and although only some of them have DNA, I'm not sure how easy it would be to remove it.

[Blossom]

So, a big box of nothing but viruses would not bear such a label. If it was the right kind of viruses.

... what would that even look like? Just, enough viruses to fill a bowl, no filler or growth medium or anything.

[Mothra]

[Mongrel]

... what would that even look like? Just, enough viruses to fill a bowl, no filler or growth medium or anything.

My God! I never imagined!

[Classic]

So, a big box of nothing but viruses would not bear such a label. If it was the right kind of viruses.

... what would that even look like? Just, enough viruses to fill a bowl, no filler or growth medium or anything.

iirc, there are still prokaryotes that don't use DNA.
EDIT:
Also iirc, viruses (that target eukaryotes) actually have DNA in them besides.

[Cthulhu-chan]

So, a big box of nothing but viruses would not bear such a label. If it was the right kind of viruses.

... what would that even look like? Just, enough viruses to fill a bowl, no filler or growth medium or anything.

Probably just a big old bowl of goo. Or a giant blood clot.

[Cait]

Randall Munroe did a thing on that.

[Mongrel]

Good Krugman column today. Nothing new in it, but nice to see the word spreading all the same.

Hating Good Government

[Büge]

Hoo boy.

At a breakfast hosted by the Police Foundation at the Mandarin Oriental, [New York City police commissioner] Bratton announced 350 officers will be permanently assigned to rove throughout the city, with rifles and machine guns, in anticipation of possible terrorist attacks. These officers will also be used to assist on crime scenes, and help with crowd control and other large-scale events.

[Mongrel]

I like how the rest of the article is all about community policing in an effective way, but then you have this to just shit all over it.

EDIT: So it's not clear from the article, but does "Rifles and machine guns" mean like, hunting rifles and automatic rifles... or automatic rifles and actual machine guns. Because based on that wording, it's not impossible that the NYPD is actually considering roaming patrols armed with pintle-mounted .50 cals.

I imagine it's the former and the speaker is just using shitty terminology, but uh, the speaker is a police officer and should probably know better.

[Disposable Ninja]

And in one fell swoop every black person in New York said "Fuck it, I'm out" and left the city forever.

[Blossom]

And in one fell swoop every black person in New York said "Fuck it, I'm out" and left the city forever.

[TedBelmont]

So I'm probably late to the party on this, but I just found out about the Dark Enlightenment movement, and I just...what the hell? What the goddamn pineappling hell?

[Classic]

Sounds like some kind of mystic fraternity.

[Brantly B.]

Sounds like a White Wolf LARPing group.

[Mongrel]

Oh! I had no idea who the "dark enlightenment" was, but Mencius Moldbug and neo-reactionaries. Okay, yeah, I've heard of them.

Actually, Slate Star Codex had a whole extended debunk session on them. He did a column where he first played devil's advocate and genuinely tried to argue for neo-reactionaries as faithfully as he could (which was significantly better than most of the movement's own advocates can actually manage on their own) and then went back in his next column and tore the reactionary arguments to shreds (this is not hard, because well, they're idiots arguing for a comically regressive set of ideas, but he does so in a very nice and thorough manner, albeit in his incredibly long-winded way).

Anyway, logical debunkings won't really matter. Seems like every week there's a new group of lunatic white males with an overblown grievance axe to grind, none of them grounded in the least sort of reality. At this rate, I'm going to be part of an ethnic group roundly hated and feared by the time I'm old(er).