I think it's the difference between suspicion of the pharmaceutical vs the pharmaceutical company. You can criticize the company without criticizing the treatment.
In this case of doctors being paid to endorse drugs, the problem is that there is payment being exchanged at all. The issue persists whether or not the drug is effective.
sure but if we all agree that corruption is widespread , how can we discern what is effective? We're making our assignments based on corrupt testimony -- that of the corrupt vendors & doctors.
How much we trust the drugs rests entirely on how much we trust the industry
In fact this is exactly how they set the price for these curative treatments. Gargantuan sums but hypothetically on average cheaper than the overall lifetime costs of living with the disease. Lots of recent debates on this in the world of Hepatitis C.
pricing like that only lasts as long as the patent, the argument being that without the opportunity for that pricing, the research for the drug would not be worthwhile in the first place.
I'm not arguing this is true, but I wouldn't accept a counterargument based on "but it's people, it's people, think of the children"
- Most formal drug research, today, is already not worthwhile. The norm is that you spend several billion dollars and recover nothing.
- Most achievements that were worthwhile in retrospect were not worthwhile prospectively. Therefore it is not obvious that things need to be worthwhile prospectively in order to be done. Going into a career as a rock star is, objectively, stupid. But we have a huge supply of wannabe rock stars anyway.
I'll echo that it's a tremendous amount of work to appropriately format data and metadata for upload to a public repository. It's not as simple as just mass uploading raw data files. It's no surprise that people skirt around this requirement when possible, especially as the size of files and number of samples per paper continues to balloon.
That's not to say that it's not important, but the labor required is vastly underappreciated. I say this as someone who has completed the task for many papers.
Yeah this is the main reason, as anyone actually doing research knows. I don’t think civillians realise what an incredible amount of work it is to publish a paper.
Is there some way to work this in to the system? Like by having a different person do this work? At a very high level, all of science would benefit from more data being properly formatted and published, so maybe this is something that could be budgeted for in the planning phase? Or the work could be done by undergraduates studying for the field?
The amount for a non-modular (i.e. the default, you don't have to have a super detailed budget) NIH R01, which is the basic unit of biomedical science funding, has been stagnant since 1999.
Budgeting for a separate person to do this would eat up a tremendous amount of said budget.
Which is fine, except if we think about this from a productivity standpoint, the person who budgeted for that person is probably short a graduate student compared to the person who didn't, on the outside chance that someone cares about their stuff. For example, I looked at my lab's publicly available repositories linked to papers on Github.
Watches: 15 (probably half of these are people involved in the project)
Forks: 3
Stars: 4
Visitors in the Past Month: 4
That's it. For all of them. While I keep doing it based on principle, if I stopped tomorrow, it would impact me not at all.
And undergraduates, candidly, are not usually time savers.
Another anecdote: I felt my mental health declining from being sucked into "academic Twitter", which frequently devolves into unnecessary soapboxing in response to preprints or journal articles. I unfollowed all humans and now only follow institutional accounts. It really helped me.
They speculate that the harmful component of e-readers is the blue-shifted illumination. I’d be curious if newer e-readers with temperature controllable backlights set to “warm” mitigates some of this sleep harm
Also the kindles use significantly less light that aren’t emitted directly into your eyes (rather up/down on the screen). That’s what I thought this study was at first. I have a non illuminated kindle for years and I’m wondering the same thing for when I inevitably have to replace it. A built in warm & dim light is convenient especially if it doesn’t adversely affect things. If not back to candles for me!
It’s honestly so bad. No matter how hard I try, I find myself re-downloading TikTok or Reddit (Apollo) every month and then wasting away all my free time for a week or two before re-deleting them out of disgust. I truly don’t know what the solution is. I would just get rid of my smartphone if life wasn’t quite inconvenient without it.
I'm not joking, it's the best antidote to the thought-theft of "social media". Pick a subject in which you're interested, find a representively excellent text, and read. And then re-read, because unless you're a genius you won't absorb everything first time.
Also it's wonderful to just curl up with a book and a cup of tea and let time pass you by as you ... learn the considered thought of others! This is civilised!
Normally I'd recommend history but around these parts Category Theory in Context by Emily Riehl is probably acceptable :)
About re-reading, especially textbooks: it takes time and trouble to appreciate the difficult and often esoteric ideas represented in a text and understand the underlying deep thought. The author(s) wrote and re-wrote every damn phrase in terms of their imagined audience. The first pass yields a basic familiarity, but try every chapter again in light of the later insights.
I remember the first time I read Introduction to Metamathematics by Kleene, and I remember the fourth time so much better. I can feel the cloth binding, I can hear his voice clearly.
I would love to do this, but years of mindlessly browsing social media has seriously shortened my attention span. I used to read books all the time. I remember staying up late as a kid just to read the new Harry Potter book.
Nowadays I pick up a book, read a few pages, then immediately lose interest and go do something else. Anybody know how to get back into reading?
I've had some luck by going back to "simpler" books for a while - page-turner scifi, bestsellers, YA literature. For a while I only read things that really grabbed my attention, and I think that is gradually re-training my brain.
I'm not back to being as avid of a reader yet, but I'm optimistic I'll get there. I'm reading more now than I have in a few years.
I first kicked myself into it by starting the Discworld series of books. Pratchett is a great author (imo), the text has a certain kind of easy charm, I don't need to go in sequential order, the books are cheap to buy, and none are terribly long or dense.
I've also added some longer, more serious stuff to my reading list and bookshelf, but those are things I'll get to in time. I try to make myself read 100 pages per week, and if I don't like doing that with a certain book, I'll pick up another one. I can manage that at a leisurely pace in 2 to 3 hours on a weekend, or grab 20 pages a few times per week.
I can empathise with you. Warning : some armchair psychology ahead :
I think it's the age old "less dopamine kick" syndrome. Your brain is used to getting a steady stream of dopamine when you watch/react/post on social media. A book simply doesn't give it (yet). From personal experience, I experience "Aha!" moments when I read once in about 15 days. What I'd recommend is to re-read some of your old favourites and pick up adjacent ones (example : re-read Harry Potter - Prisoner of Azkaban (my favorite ;) and pick up some Greek mythology . ) Finding unexpected connections is one source of joy I experience. Good luck!
To me, nothing on the popular subreddits or in TikTok has satisfied my desire for depth and nuance. There are smaller subreddits that I like, but there's no way to specify what you want on TikTok, so I no longer use it. By shaping your philosophy of pleasure explicitly around stuff that only longform content can satisfy, I've been able to easily discard parts of social media that don't align with my personal actualization. I think it does take some deliberate and repeated introspection to harden this impulse.
I found it helpful to put myself in situations where the book is the best alternative. Leave your phone, get the book, walk to a park, sit down with a beer. Every time you get bored and restless, you'll put the book down, remember you have no phone and pick it up again.
As much as I want to say this advice is terrible and useless… yeah. Move the things that aren't books far away, and read a book. When it's boring, put it down, but don't let go of it. Wait a few minutes, then move it back in front of your face and keep reading.
It's possible you picked a bad book, but it's more likely that it isn't engaging enough. It normally takes me a few days (after half a year book-free) to get back into reading, but it's worth it.
I'm sorry but I have to ask this every time I see it. I have yet to receive an answer.
What is the point of censoring 1 letter in an otherwise extremely obvious word?
You are not redacting the word. People reading the word don't bleep it out in their head. You know you are saying 'fucking', we know you are saying 'fucking'. HN doesn't block posts with "naughty" words in them.
So what are you trying to achieve? Please tell me.
I suppose it's a nod of the head in the direction of "civilised discourse" without actually being so. It's lighthearted, not to be taken seriously, my apologies if it irritates you.
If you're looking for a book I wrote one specifically about this
problem. Some of you may like it. It's short and has short chapters
you can read in one "boredom chunk" of about 10 mins.
One reason for making it an old fashioned paper book is that some of
the ideas it presents would simply be censored on what the internet is
becoming.
It's not really written as "self-help", more as philosophical musings
for intellectual self-defence. Many people who have read it tell me
they successfully quit their smartphone.
As ongoing research in modern critical technology studies I'm trying
to keep a list of ones I read and at least found interesting (below).
Good luck finding the courage to take back control of your technology.
Jenny Oddell How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
Paul Kingsnorth Life versus the machine
Roger McNamee Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe
Siva Vaidhyanathan Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us
Virginia Eubanks Automating Inequality
Sophie Brickman Baby Unplugged
Mike Monteiro Ruined by Design
Thomas Kersting Disconnected: Protect Your Kids Against Device Dependency
Nicholas Kardaras Glow Kids
Jaron Lanier Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media
Douglas Rushkoff Team Human
Carissa Véliz Privacy is Power: Why You Should Take Back Control
Also, write. I find it easier to remember things if I’ve written them down, so when I mix writing in with reading, I feel like I better retain the things I read.
Start with a quote you liked when you were reading and just let your thoughts flow into the paper, you might go for many pages and an hour or more before coming up for air.
I like to call the activity of reading and writing “conversing with the universe.”
Conversely, I find that I can dump hours into social media and not remember anything when I finally snap out of it. It’s junk food for the mind.
I'm a huge book reader and I usually read very gripping novels. For me, TikTok is much healthier, because 1. it's easy to put down when I need to do other things 2. it's easy to refrain from opening it. Books however are very hard to put down, and very hard to refrain from picking up again. For me, starting a book = no life for a week.
Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows" is easier going than I thought it would be, and I'm doing even better than a chapter at a sitting, and sometimes have to make myself put it down. I think he wrote it for people with diminished attention spans - and that's a compliment.
Ooh yes anecdotally im with both of u on this. Found it very hard to quit but category theory by emily riehl was a great offramp to begin "thinking more seriously"
I think the first step is admitting that, even with any incidental value you get out of these services, it is an addiction and you are addicted. I don’t say this with negative connotation to your character. Digital media has made me realize how powerless addiction makes one feel, even if one is well adjusted otherwise. The reality is you binge, much like a binge drinker, and wake up a week later with the app hangover.
The same thing happens to me and I think the OP provides one good solution: stick to mobile UI in a browser. Generally, increase friction wherever you can. This only really works if you can stick to the worsened experience and not crack/redownload the app. One way to tackle that is to perhaps set a daily or weekly reminder to purge the apps you have a problem with (or all apps you don’t need) from your phone. Maybe you will redownload them again, but giving yourself that extra moment where you can go to the App Store will surely make you quit halfway once or twice, then consistently, before you fall for the trap.
I have an inadvertent example. I frequented a website on my phone for a while that relied heavily on a certain file format for videos. I switched phones and (by accident) got a new phone that doesn’t support the format and would require me to download external apps to watch it. That friction of needing a third party app, paired with a decision to only use mobile websites when possible, meant by browsing time on that site dropped precipitously and I’ve now almost entirely cut the bad habit.
Another habit is screen time. It is easy to go overboard and delete limits but you’re setting friction points where you need to think about what you’re doing.
> cocaine although a Selective Dopamine Reuptake Inhibitor (SDRI) is illegal
I know you were discussing recreational cocaine, but fun fact: cocaine can be prescribed legally in most countries including the US. For relatively obvious reasons it's an uncommon prescriber choice, and it's generally applied topically (including to the nose) rather than snorted.
Legal methamphetamine pills are also available by prescription, and of course also an uncommon prescriber choice when alternatives work well, although its chemical relatives in the amphetamine family are very much among the commonly prescribed ADHD drugs.
Nothing would surprise me, but clues are given out like the cocaine & morphine mix given to one the British Royals on the throne at the time.
This is where education, schools are used to monitor behaviours because if someone later expresses an interest to become a GP or Dentist, their behaviour will be used as part of an evaluation to see if they can be trusted. The educational system is just part of the state's intelligence estate.
If you must use Reddit, set up an account that's unsubscribed from all subreddits. Then only add small, niche subreddits and never any of the default or popular subreddits. At worst, you'll get a homepage that updates with new content maybe once or twice a day, drastically reducing the chance of scrolling your free time away. It's preferable to just not use it at all if you can, though.
You can do that in Apollo (iOS) paid version, the client I use the most. Although, I will have to check again, but I am sure you can set the same on Sync and/or Boost (Android) on the free version, as I have a multireddit set as default on launch. On the browser, you can use RES + old reddit and change default behaviour. I find it easier to keep a very small number of frequently used subs for the home feed, and stick the rest in multi, as it helps to make them portable and easily shared. You can also find lists in r/multihub -- compiled and shared by others e.g. cars.
I use the Reddit website. It's slow and horrible enough that even though I visit every day, but don't get sucked into spending hours on it.
I also watch YouTube instead of TikTok. YouTube is slower paced and hasn't (yet) fallen into the trap of continual submersion in content without a break. You have to consciously choose to watch another video. I can also tell myself that I'm watching content that is pseudo-educational in nature (like Jay Foreman, Stuff Built Here, Jazza or Mark Rober).
I've started using TikTok a couple of times and it just seems like the perfect engagement machine. It's like a machine that drip-feeds dopamine. Pure evil, in my opinion.
I had the same issue with the Reddit app so now I just use the neutered web app and consider the frustration stemming from its brokenness to be feature that keeps me from spending too much time on it.
Thought I'm not much on social media but I figured out that if I can restrict myself to browse between 11am and 4pm, work will certainly automatically force me off the 'scroll treadmill'. I wrote about that in this post[1] recently.
Life isn't that inconvenient without a smartphone, it's only been something people have had for a couple of generations at the most.
You just have to plan things in advance a bit more. It's liberating in a way. You plan dinner with someone on Thursday at 6:00 and it's set. You don't have to think about it, tweet about it, post it on Facebook, or anything else. Just show up.
It doesn't help that they now won't even let you read many subreddits without the app on mobile.
Once you're logged in, just to read that one thing, it can't hurt to engage on that one issue, can it?
Before you know it, you're 23 increasingly angry comments into a thread about sand, people are still wrong on the internet, it's 3am and you hate everyone, everything and yourself.
Curious as to why no one is recommending just paying for Google Workspace? $6/month for Google vs $5/month for Fastmail seems similar enough to avoid the hassle of transferring email servers.
I'm paying for Workspace and use it as my primary Google Account and really wouldn't recommend it unless you also have another regular Google account and use Workspace only for work, because the "Google experience" on a Google workspace account is really sub-par. Google assistant functionality is limited, you can't get invited to someone's home, you can't set up a family, actually you can't use Google One at all. The list of inconveniences is huge. I've been planning to move out of Google Workspace for years but it's a hassle to migrate primary inbox.
Adding on: I also can't use Google Pay on my G Suite Legacy account, we can't be invited to families for Google One/YouTube Premium either, and apparently my free Google Voice number might stop working if I fail to transfer it to a free @gmail.com account before they force me to downgrade.
I’ve been doing the same, primarily for the unlimited storage, which I have long used as an offsite backup. But just this month they have taken that away. It’s just another thing in a very long list that they kill with little warning. So add that to the growing list of reasons not to use GSuite.
One reason I am looking to move away is that Google simply has too large of a market stake in the email business. If I'm going to pay, I'd rather pay a smaller company in order to stimulate diversity in the field; it's just better for open standards.
I've looked at moving away from the google's data slurping for a while, but when including things like gvoice features, it integrates nicely for my custom domain fully. If you use voice through a browser, the web version is falling apart though. Seems like voice might die soon, one less reason to hang around if so.
What super annoys me is I use GSuite for personal use, but Google seems to think only businesses would actually pay. So much so they restrict things like my ability to leave reviews on either maps or play stores. I simply can't review anything, it doesn't even give me the option with a gsuite-based account. I was told because it's a "business" service, but certain some of us obviously do use this for personal as well for my personal domain alone and not using my employer to slander products in reviews.
Even more odd, I can't review maps locations from my pc, but I can my phone. Play store simply gives me to review option what so ever on both. My tickets and complaints went nowhere with them.
Because most people hate lock-in from surveillance capitalism companies but that choice was made before most understood the bait and switch and changing email providers is a pain. We took a seemingly-free deal we took a decade ago as our data was used to sell manipulation-as-a-service to the highest bidder.
Now weaponizing our data against us for profit is not enough money and they want to keep doing that and bill us monthly too? This finally gives the added motivation to put in the effort to leave a company that already lost our trust years ago.
Agreed. I guess quite a lot of people were already considering moving but since Google in own domain worked fine and was free it was not enough to spend time moving.
Yeah, very much the case for me. "Well is Fastmail any better?" "Oh Protonmail doesn't support IMAP or custom domains" "Ehh, maybe I'll check something later"
Well now Google have given me an ultimatum. And honestly the same service from Google is worth less than from a competitor because of the risks of being banned from ML and the level of risk from having so much stuff being bundled. So when being a Google product is a negative to the value proposition, yet Google are charging more, time to move.
For me the annoyance was that I had 4 legacy organizations that I had to spend hours figuring out how to merge (incredibly non trivial to get drive contents from one organization to another, shared drives work but only with files and not folders, so I had to move stuff over a folder at a time). If they’re going to do this crap, I wish they had proper migration tools. They left a lot of us high and dry. A lot of people aren’t against spending money, but if we already have to spend the time to move crap around, we might as well pay an organization we trust.
I'm doing my PhD on topics related to mRNA and took a seminar class with Meselson in college. Really crazy how quickly our field has gone from obscure to mainstream this last year.
This is cool, but what they're claiming is puzzling. Perhaps someone here can clarify.
Making generic drugs is non-trivial. The medicinal chemistry may be decades old, but you still need to do trials to demonstrate efficacy equivalency to the non-generic version. Are they really saying they'll do 100 of these trials by the end of the year?
While this is cool, I'm thinking that this type of initiative should be done by the federal government. A generic drug "mint" if you will.
Why does this generic have to be retested if it's the same as the existing generic? Can't they just do composition(?) testing to very it meets manufacturing standards?
I don’t have the best answer for you, but there are a number of considerations apart from the synthesis of the active molecule itself. Delivery vehicle can alter the physiological impact of the active substantially, and so the overall “package” needs to be tested even though the active is already approved.
To my knowledge, generic trials aren’t as involved as their non-generic counterparts for obvious reasons. But they are still non-trivial logistical undertakings.
That makes sense! This is where I feel like I have a disconnect between what I think applied science is and what it looks like in practice. It seems like they should know enough about the molecule, delivery vehicle, etc, to know that it will work the same. A medical "proof" if you will. I guess we're not quite there yet? Is there work pushing in this direction?
You're right. If it was just one drug, I'd think they were manufacturing it themselves. Apparently, they plan to have a single factory in 2022. Most likely, significantly all of their formulary will be copacked.
