An AI would give a generic definition of Saturn and a generic definition of tea and then say something irrelevant like “scientists disagree about the exact composition of Saturn’s core”

Saturn is a mixture of gases. It has a solid rocky/hydrogen core surrounded by a layer of liquid hydrogen/helium. You could argue that this intermediate liquid layer might have solid particulates, and this would agree with the definition, but overall Saturn is too complicated to be classified this way. A better extreme example would be something like Earth’s oceans.

Al is a major element in the solar system. Most rocks have Al2O3 on the order of 3-10 wt.%. That includes chondrites (the major class of meteorite) which have plenty of feldspar, a mineral that’s like 20 wt.% Al2O3, and calcium-aluminium inclusions (CAIs), which are as their name suggests, Al-rich.

Cool. Enjoy your dystopia.

Corporations want to be perceived as people, and they are protected by law as such. A person who knowingly manufactures weapons that are being used to commit a genocide is a psychopath. Psychopaths typically feign empathy to appear normal and blend in with society. Lockheed Martin supporting Pride is an example of such behavior.

Of course corporations are profit maximization engines, not people. By allowing them to act like people, we are normalizing psychopathy.

How about you only have to work 28.8 hours a week?

You had to be there.

Intra-uterine devices?

Haber will obviously continue to be used and work but as long as there’s a fossil fuel price to make it happen expect more extreme storms, fires, droughts, floods, ocean acidification, and possibly methane clathrate release triggering a runaway greenhouse effect like during the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum.

I think it’s the degree of bullshit that increases gradually. To speak from experience, when you are a grad student you get a feeling like there’s corruption but overall your project seems like it’s important and making a real contribution (hopefully). You also don’t have to worry about where the money is coming from. Sometimes the grant as a whole is total bullshit but there is enough discretionary spending included that great science comes out of it. But you don’t realize this until you’re writing grants, and by then you’re maybe too deep in the game to pull out. Essentially, you end up becoming a manager once you get tenure. There is no epiphany; it’s more like a slow creep.

There is no alternative if you actually want to do science and don’t have millions of dollars to buy labs and materials and instruments. Science gets done in spite of everything she is describing.

I love this. “Israel invades Norway” would be such a great news story to follow.

Sometimes. Sometimes it’s an intro sentence that already has 2 citations and just needs a 3rd, and you just find a paper with more measurements and the same conclusions.

And nobody on the internet is asking obvious questions like that, so counterintuitively it’s better at solving hard problems. Not that it actually has any idea what it is doing.

EDIT: Yeah guys, I understand that it doesn’t think. Thought that was obvious. I was just pointing out that it’s even worse at providing answers to obvious questions that there is no data on.

Pre-Columbian Meso-Americans were already exploiting nitrogen fixing bacteria with the milpa (corn, beans, squash). Anyway the point is if your yield is dependent on how much fertilizer you produce industrially then the sky is the limit for how much coal to burn.

Right, those are all irreplacable parts of global capitalism and its ruling oligarchy.

Haber Bosch is basically just squeezing nitrogen and oxygen together with a catalyst to make ammonia. To generate high pressures you need energy which you get by burning hydrocarbons. Legumes and bacteria can also do this, which is why crop rotation and letting fields lie fallow has been done for centuries. But you can’t let your field lie fallow if you have to compete with other firms who are burning coal to make fertilizer…

Monoculture is terrible for the ecosystem. Fertilizer runoff causes algal blooms and dead zones in the ocean. Multinational agricultural conglomerates force developing world farmers to purchase their GMO seeds sue them for copyright infingement if they try to use their seed stock in the next season. Rainforests are being burned down to make room for pastures of methane emitting cattle and monocultured palm oil plantations. The Haber-Bosch process is responsible for 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Should I go on? At what point am I supposed to like this?

Yeah see here you go. Response to “meat is bad” is “meat is fucking awesome.”

Evidence for meat is bad: I mean just drive by a factory farm. Look at any of the standard practices of the industry. Objectively horrific by any standard.

Evidence for meat is awesome: bro check out this sick bacon weave. Guy Fieri. Etc. all of it divorced completely from the process, and acknowledging meat only as an industrial product that comes packaged as a block or cylinder.

It’s an absurd argument. Nobody is arguing that meat isn’t delicious. We’re saying that everything about its production is awful.

I love how people try to make this some kind of cultural issue about picking restaurants or providing options. Anybody who spends 5 minutes looking into the industry will realize it goes against basic human decency.

Literally children who want big loud vroom vroom trucks with lots of chrome.