Here is my PR, it aligns perfectly with the project goals. It contains a backdoor as binary blob that will be loaded dynamically upon execution. The models are nowhere near catching this and it would get merged. Even more simply, a subtle bug leading to a vulnerable release. They do not have logic enough to catch this stuff.
Ok, hold up. This study came up on Reddit a few weeks ago and my wife linked it to me. A lot of the comments were similar about how vaccine skeptics will never be convinced by it. So, being a vaccine skeptic, I went and read it.
>In this primary analysis, except for Asperger syndrome (hazard ratio, 1.13 [CI, 0.89 to 1.44]) and atypical autism (hazard ratio, 0.94 [CI, 0.79 to 1.12]), estimates for the individual outcomes were incompatible with any increased risk, with the upper bounds of the 95% CIs below 1.00. [1]
My understanding of this, and I am a software engineer so take it with a grain of salt, is that this study failed to disprove a link between aluminum in vaccines and aspergers! There is another section where it appears they played with the hyperparameters of their study and ended up with a lower hazard ratio for aspergers (I believe by extending the analysis window to 8 years of age, but it wasn't clear to me).
>Except for Asperger syndrome (hazard ratio, 1.02 [CI, 0.93 to 1.12]) and atypical autism (hazard ratio, 0.95 [CI, 0.88 to 1.03]), estimates for the individual neurodevelopmental outcomes assessed were incompatible with any increases in risk, with the upper bounds of the 95% CIs equal to or below 1.00.
That is to say, after reading the study, I am not convinced at all. I would like to see a longer analysis period (e.g. to 50 years of age) as many things go undiagnosed until later in life. From my reading though, this study failed to disprove a link despite what all the popsci headlines are saying.
The fact that the confidence interval range includes 1 means that the finding was not statistically significant.
The population for those two specific diagnoses were low in the study. Diagnostic patterns change over time for these type of disorders. Considering neurodevelopmental outcomes as a group may add more color.
You are correct that the study failed to disprove a link between aluminum and aspergers. But the study did prove a that if there is a link it does not result in a moderate to large increase in aspergers risk.
It's called uncertainty. Do you see the confidence intervals on the log hazard ratios? They did not significantly differ from 1. In part this is because Asbergers and atypical autism were underpowered compared to the main autism group. Also note many were below 1, meaning LESS chance of getting that diagnosis.
I'm also not an expert here, but looking through the figures [1], that one HR result for Asperger's in a figure 4 is...surprising to see, given the headlines.
This is far from strong evidence of an effect, but you're absolutely right that this at least deserves discussion in the paper and coverage.
The other comment articulates the points much better than I would have, but I have a large number of (tested) food and environmental allergies. It is a very logical explanation that the adjuvants in vaccines would cause the body to also train an immune response to other things.
There is also a massive profit motive for pharma companies and many hospitals, when you couple that with the revolving door between industry and government, it seems like a situation ripe for corruption.
I don't see the harm in removing aluminum adjuvants from vaccines (we all buy aluminum free deodorant!). I don't see the harm in not vaccinating children for things they are unlikely to come into contact with (i.e. hepatitis B). In fact, I think it would be good to make the change and see what the health outcomes are over the next 30 years. That is how we will learn.
I would guess people that don't know how stuff works or what they're talking about, but still feel entitled to disregard medical science progress because they don't see the effects directly.
Seeing my father in law daily is a very good reminder to me as to why we thought eradicating polio (and creating vaccines) was a good idea: his left leg is 30% the size of his right leg, and he's had trouble walking since he was 7yo (he's now 65), with no way of fixing it.
People don't understand what life used to be like before 60y ago because they didn't live through it, and even then they're tempted to dismiss the death or permanent complication rates because "nobody died"... that they knew/recall of.
It's true that in general better sanitation, clean water, better food availability have helped in reducing the death rates in general and also complications (because better prepared immune system, better symptoms management, ...), but vaccines allowed to eradicate stuff that killed or altered lives permanently on a regular basis.
I wouldn't call myself a vaccine skeptic, and I don't have a problem with anything else you said, but "feel entitled to disregard medical science progress" puts my back up. We are in fact all entitled to that.
I think a not insignificant part of the skepticism problem stems from well meaning authoritarians who believe they have the right to shoot everything that has a pop sci press release behind it into everyone else's bodies.
It's like the opposite of the naturalist fallacy: if it's man made and has a sciency name, let's assume it has no glaring flaws until we get the class action lawsuit recruitment commercials a decade later telling us we might be entitled to 5 dollars compensation if we're on our deathbeds because of some horrible complication.
Even better if your political tribe has tied its identity to the thing.
- Adjuvants. As a materials researcher I think it's nuts we inject nanoscale alumina in our blood.
- Regulatory structure. Why can't I sue a vaccine manufacturer? Limit awards, if you necessary, but if I cant sue I cant get discovery.
- Effectiveness. The flu vaccine's effectiveness is statistical artifact. See healthy vaccine bias
- Historical effectiveness. I had a civil engineer smugly point out that his profession had ended more diseases than biology. So I looked it up. Civil engineering did more to end communicable diseases than vaccines.
- General dishonesty of the medical profession. I don't expect my Advil to be 100% safe; I don't expect my vaccine to be either. I dont expect my medical health officers to lie about it though (see mRNA and the long dismissed myocarditis risk)
>Civil engineering did more to end communicable diseases than vaccines.
This is a cute statement but really shouldn't be part of the basis for vaccine skepticism.
Hand washing is also one of the most significant medical practice advancements... That doesn't mean we stop there.
Sure, civil engineering did a lot for water borne illness and the like. And I'll even grant that building design and HVAC systems can reduce respiratory virus transmission. But it's not doing anything for measles, smallpox, polio, ebola, hepatitis, HIV, Yellow fever, etc etc. I mean come on.
And if I do have to go to a place with worse infrastructure, I'll take that typhoid vaccine please...
This is more of an issue with there being a low number of cases (both < 300) for of those two Neurodevelopmental Outcomes categories than anything else.
Keto was invented for the treatment of seizures in children, actually. There's a guy I know that killed 2 people with his car when he had a seizure. He's been seizure-free (and obviously not driving, btw) for years since starting keto
That first point is not comparing students, it is saying that the H1B visas issued that year all have jobs lined up (which is a requirement of the visa). Those jobs are what the new graduates would normally be competing for.
And you have to apply to get that job. And the vast majority of companies would prefer a US citizen or an LPR for that job, because there is no guarantee that you will get the visa approved.
I'm not sure the take away for the first point that user standards are rising is correct. Could that also be the number of people making games is increasing? I say this because more highly rated games and a trending down of the average (more slop) could explain that as well. I think the idea that standards are rising would hold constant the number of games.
Maybe on other platforms? Armorgames curates pretty heavily, but you're right that AI-generated games could be flooding less selective platforms. Would be interesting to run this same analysis on Steam or itch.io where the barriers are lower.
Fair point, but here's the thing - Armorgames is actually way pickier now about which games they accept. They're letting fewer games through their gates. So if the average rating is still dropping even with higher curation standards, that pretty much confirms users have gotten more critical over time.
I strongly disagree with this ifs take. I want to validate data where it is used. I do not trust the caller (myself) to go read some comment about the assumptions on input data a function expects. I also don't want to duplicate that check in every caller.
Couldn't you just take the advice in [0] of parsing into types rather than validating? Then you get the best of both worlds: your inputs are necessarily checked every time the function is called (they would have to be to create the type in the first place), but you don't need to validate them at every nested layer. You also get the benefit of more descriptive function signatures to describe your interfaces.
One option is to use asserts that are only included in debug builds. That way any incorrect call of the function will crash the program in debug builds, but will have the performance benefits of the lifted conditional checks in release builds.
You'll end up duplicating the condition, but that seems like a reasonable price to pay for correct and performant software.
It is interesting because there are a large number of players who feel at home in the Call of Duty voice lobbies. Some people's banter and camaraderie is other people's toxicity.
the way guys chirp each other, those aren't slurs, they are intimacy. I'd challenge it a step further and say the people who try to police the language are trying to police and supervise relationships. the critical ideas they use are the lever, but what they are fundamentally lacking is consent and desire.
that view is more than reaction, or backlash, I think we're in a period after one of suppressed volatility, and sublimated desire. my pet theory is that generationally it was much easier for millennials to not be racist because almost none of them drive. in intimate, physically dangerous, or unmediated relationships, these words have no lasting meaning, but in neurotic, artificial, and affected relationships, the words are all they have. the shared intensity of gaming is intimacy. what are slurs to an outsider are terms of affection to someone who is a participant- and not merely a critic.
> the way guys chirp each other, those aren't slurs, they are intimacy.
This relies on an antiquated model of bilateral communication that requires both context and intent. Recent [0] developments [1] have demonstrated that neither context nor intent are necessary for establishing the meaning or value judgment of language; "intent and impact are not equivalent" [0], and certain words inherently have (negative) impact, independent of the way in which they are used.
This viewpoint also has the advantage of letting an outsider unilaterally read whatever meaning they want into any words whatsoever, since context and intent are no longer necessary determinants of meaning - only the impact on the audience.
Hence those foreign to gaming culture seeing these words and imposing their own outsider value judgments onto a culture that they are not participants in.
> I'd challenge it a step further and say the people who try to police the language are trying to police and supervise relationships.
Those who speak the policed and controlled tongue will become indistinguishable from LLMs and AI, and will be the first to be competed out of the cognitive marketplace. Forget Worldcoin; so-called "problematic speech" and "perceived-negative behavior" will soon become the only reliable markers of humanity in a dead internet of sanitized LLMs. You cannot build relationships based on sterile language bereft of emotional impact or value.
I am reminded of "the Savage's" climactic conversation with Mustapha Mond in Huxley's Brave New World:
"[...] We flood the whole system with adrenin. It's the complete physiological equivalent of fear and rage. All the tonic effects of murdering Desdemona and being murdered by Othello, without any of the inconveniences."
"But I like the inconveniences."
"We don't," said the Controller. "We prefer to do things comfortably."
"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."
> Recent [0] developments [1] have demonstrated that neither context nor intent are necessary for establishing the meaning or value judgment of language;
Necessary, and for establishing to whom, other than the strawmen of your model? I'd recommend a cognitive defrag. rethink it and make it brief and pointful.
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