> Any article that talks about Myanmar and doesn’t include the word “China” all over it, is probably propaganda of some sort.
And every article that does include this word is still most likely propaganda.
> I won’t go more into this and I will allow people to do their homework and make up their own minds
One of the least useful things one can say on a controversial topic.
China alarmism is in vogue these days; people are supposed to have made up their minds and to nod along sagely. But your assumption that an incredibly unstable and violence-ridden country with powerful military cannot undergo a military coup without Chinese meddling sounds like Western projection.
Current (well, previous I guess) regime has been convenient to China, being, for example, a signatory to letter in support of Uyghur treatment in Xinjiang [1].
Why would China need to foment a coup is beyond me. They'll surely try to capitalise on it, strengthening their positions, but are in no way certain to succeed ahead of India and even US. Both Chinese drive and aptitude for "hegemony" are widely, incredibly overestimated by the West, largely through the efforts of think tanks on MIC payroll.
South-East Asia is a highly complex region and not merely setting for another round of Great Game.
No, his other post is hot garbage. He's using his knowledge, wit and ability to obfuscate, ridicule and discredit the information critical to our well-being as a species – all the while committing character-assassination. It's honestly despicable. Let's look at it closer.
> One of Watson’s obsessions has been to “improve” the “imperfect human” via human germline engineering. This is disturbing on many many levels. First, there is the fact that for years Watson presided over Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory which actually has a history as a center for eugenics. Then there are the numerous disparaging remarks by Watson about everyone who is not exactly like him, leaving little doubt about who he imagines the “perfect human” to be. But leaving aside creepy feelings… could he be right? Is the “perfect human” an American from Chicago of mixed Scottish/Irish ancestry? Should we look forward to a world filled with Watsons?
Then he brings up the topic of "good" and "bad" SNPs and seques into an inane argument about ethnicity of perfect human: «since many disease SNPs are population specific», "admixed" Puerto Ricans are superior. But that's working backwards from the conclusion, not a knockdown argument against Watson's dream. To wit: Watson is racist and racists are obviously wrong, therefore we should renounce research into human germline engineering. Most damningly, Pachter poisons the well of engineering by tying it to eugenics with nothing but guilt by association.
Now, any non-indoctrinated human can understand that the issue of "perfect" phenotype is not about modern groups at all; indeed, every human on the planet has a decidedly wretched genome. A word to Maynard Olson, one of the founders of the Human Genome Project:
> So, what have our first glimpses of variation in the genomes of generally healthy people taught us?... What is on the top tier? Increasingly, the answer appears to be mutations that are “deleterious” by biochemical or standard evolutionary criteria. These mutations, as has long been appreciated, overwhelmingly make up the most abundant form of nonneutral variation in all genomes. A model for human genetic individuality is emerging in which there actually is a “wild-type” human genome—one in which most genes exist in an evolutionarily optimized form. There just are no “wild-type” humans: We each fall short of this Platonic ideal in our own distinctive ways.[1]
It seems that Watson was correct again.
The degree to which we fall short, to which we are damaged by deleterious mutations, is hard to appreciate, but near-certainly astronomical. By helping to suppress this line of research with his non sequitur and vitriol, Pachter subjects future generations to an avoidable misery of historically known human condition.
Gwern makes a compelling case for intelligence: «since existing differences in intelligence are driven so much by the effects of thousands of variants, the CLT/standard deviation of a binomial/gamma distribution implies that those differences represent a net difference of only a few extra variants, as almost everyone has, say, 4990 or 5001 or 4970 or 5020 good variants and no one has extremes like 9000 or 3000 variants—even a von Neumann only had slightly better genes than everyone else, probably no more than a few hundred. Hence, anyone who does get thousands of extra good variants will be many SDs beyond what we currently see.
»[2]
But since so much is heavily hereditary, the same logic is true for longevity, willpower, general health, mental health, hedonic tone, beauty of course... Our descendants could be as Gods, way above ugly squabbles for ethnicity rankings that we have and Pachter is obsessed with – but only if some Professors of Computational Biology don't succeed at completely brainwashing people on fairly uncontroversial topic.
Article Pachter links to is also just opinionated blather and guilt by association:
> Watson then sought to pre-empt any scientific self-doubt: “We should be proud of what we’re doing and not worry about destroying the genetic patrimony of the world, which is awfully cruel to too many people,” he said. “We get a lot of pleasure from helping other people. That’s what we’re trying to do.” ... Making “better human beings” differs from making human beings better by curing their diseases. Making better human beings is more closely aligned with the old eugenics vision. The previous century’s eugenicists sought to breed better humans by promoting specific types.
Besides the heavy–handed implicit demand to clutch pearls at Watson's suggestion, I don't see how he is wrong or bad, and how the author is making an argument at all.
A community of hackers should be able to easily understand the eldritch horror or a long, highly redundant, 90% dysfunctional code that evolved by random alterations and no fitness function sans "can actually survive" running their entire biochemistry; as well as the potential for improvement here. But no, listening to politically motivated demagogues is more fun I guess.
I don't think Watson is after some narrow, technical relationship between a particular gene and a particular ability. Instead, he make wide, unconstrained and unscientific generalisations which can only be defended by shrinking what he says.
To quote Watson: “I think now we’re in a terrible sitution where we should pay the rich people to have children.. if we don’t encourage procreation of wealthier citizens, IQ levels will most definitely fall.”
Now, any non-indoctrinated human can understand that the issue of "perfect" phenotype is not about modern groups at all;
TO be clear - it is Watson who is making racial arguments about Irish, Black and Jewish "races".
The whole point is what you are saying - the "perfect" human isn't about racial selection. It's Watson's clear racism (and he admits he is racist!) that makes it so dangerous.
This isn't some indoctrination thing - it's anyone who has read the Nazi or Communist "scientific" justifications of their theories that should hear alarms.
We don't want hard-core ideological battle on this site, so please don't do it here. It's off topic, because devoid of intellectual curiosity, and is sure to drive away the users who want to use HN as intended.
Some people in the comments express distaste for the very idea of McDonald's being a community hub, but claiming that this sentiment is "feudalistic" is also wrong-headed. McDonalds is tacky – not just because it's cheap. The colors are cartoonish, the music is loud and, frankly, this is just not what it was created for. At its best, McDonald's is, and always has been, a place for families with children.
That said, the alternatives are also poor. Bars are small, obscene and focused on drinking; "serious" restaurants are exclusionary and expensive; parks are, well, open to elements.
Where I live, we have many anti-cafes. Some are highly thematic, quiet, stylish, with comfy rooms for groups which want privacy, and time there is cheap enough to make food joints non-competitive. Then there's libraries (though in the US, it seems, they've come to serve another community function, for an even lower income demographic).
The sentiment that this is "a new low" is not nearly as damnable and undemocratic as some here try to signal. It is possible to do better than having a gaudy corporation's food joint serve as the core for modern community.
>The colors are cartoonish, the music is loud and, frankly, this is just not what it was created for.
Not to discredit your argument, but in some places (countries) McDonald's has changed their "look" to something more akin to a restaurant, with less cartoon-ish colors, quieter-ish music (or no music at all) and different ambiance lighting to actually resemble a place a family would go. I've heard before that in the US there's this big disparity where in one state/city McD has a completely different "look" than others from other regions, sometimes making it look like a completely different brand only having the trademark M to identify it.
Every McDonald's I have been to in Australia has been remodeled to look like an average cafe, there is no music and the color scheme is mostly, white stone texture / brown wood.
It's not a deluxe restaurant but it's not horrible. The coffee they serve is perfectly fine as well.
Yeah, I have been in McDonalds in European countries that would rival US fast casual restaurants. Order at a counter or automated kiosk, have a seat and food is delivered. The stores are also very clean.
In Australia they seem to have made the kiosk the only option when in store. Tbh I don't mind it as the UI on these kiosks is very well done and I can spend my time looking through the list of available options.
Much prefer the kiosks, especially if I'm making changes/additions to the normal stuff on the order. Plus they often let you jump the massive queue at the counter. A lot of people seem quite averse to using them, and self-checkouts.
I wasn't so much opposed to using them originally but I just had no reason to use them since regular ordering worked fine. Now that they have removed the regular counters I have bothered to learn the self serve ones and I feel mostly indifferent about it.
Last time I went to the counter an employee said "let me serve you from here(the self serve)" at that point they are just educating you on how to order yourself next time.
I live in Spain and I haven't been to many mcdonalds restaurants but I don't remember there being any music at all? Just loud chatter. But people here are generally loud so perhaps they simply didn't think it was a good idea to have music.
I don't know much about how they looked in the past but currently they have sober colours. This is what a current restaurant looks like: https://s3-media0.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/RxMy6l6HjBZujf7pHjtR... Seems like mostly hamburger colours? Mustard, lettuce, tomato.
And every article that does include this word is still most likely propaganda.
> I won’t go more into this and I will allow people to do their homework and make up their own minds
One of the least useful things one can say on a controversial topic.
China alarmism is in vogue these days; people are supposed to have made up their minds and to nod along sagely. But your assumption that an incredibly unstable and violence-ridden country with powerful military cannot undergo a military coup without Chinese meddling sounds like Western projection.
Current (well, previous I guess) regime has been convenient to China, being, for example, a signatory to letter in support of Uyghur treatment in Xinjiang [1].
Why would China need to foment a coup is beyond me. They'll surely try to capitalise on it, strengthening their positions, but are in no way certain to succeed ahead of India and even US. Both Chinese drive and aptitude for "hegemony" are widely, incredibly overestimated by the West, largely through the efforts of think tanks on MIC payroll. South-East Asia is a highly complex region and not merely setting for another round of Great Game.
1: https://thediplomat.com/2019/07/which-countries-are-for-or-a...