Lunch at the Labs

Various web links I found to be of interest recently.

• America's Generation Gap on Ukraine

  Peter Beinart

  It sounds bizarre today but in the late 1990s, when the Clinton administration was considering expanding NATO to include merely Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic-barely anyone at that time was proposing admitting Ukraine-titans of American foreign policy cried out in opposition. George Kennan, the living legend who had fathered America's policy of containment against the Soviet Union, called NATO expansion "a strategic blunder of potentially epic proportions." Thomas Friedman, America's most prominent foreign policy columnist, declared it the "most ill-conceived project of the post-Cold War era." Daniel Patrick Moynihan, widely considered the most erudite member of the US Senate, warned, "We have no idea what we're getting into." John Lewis Gaddis, the dean of America's Cold War historians, noted that, "historians-normally so contentious-are in uncharacteristic agreement: with remarkably few exceptions, they see NATO enlargement as ill-conceived, ill-timed, and above all ill-suited to the realities of the post-Cold War world."
  ...
  In 2014, Henry Kissinger, the personification of the American foreign policy establishment, argued, "The West must understand that, to Russia, Ukraine can never be just a foreign country." If "Ukraine is to survive and thrive," he insisted, "it must not be either side's outpost against the other - it should function as a bridge between them." Instead of joining NATO, Ukraine "should pursue a posture comparable to that of Finland" in which it "cooperates with the West in most fields but carefully avoids institutional hostility toward Russia."

• The Histrionics and Melodrama Around 1/6 Are Laughable, but They Serve Several Key Purposes

  Glenn Greenwald, Jan 6

  That the January 6 riot was some sort of serious attempted insurrection or "coup" was laughable from the start, and has become even more preposterous with the passage of time and the emergence of more facts. The United States is the most armed, militarized and powerful regime in the history of humanity. The idea that a thousand or so Trump supporters, largely composed of Gen X and Boomers, who had been locked in their homes during a pandemic - three of whom were so physically infirm that they dropped dead from the stress - posed anything approaching a serious threat to "overthrow" the federal government of the United States of America is such a self-evidently ludicrous assertion that any healthy political culture would instantly expel someone suggesting it with a straight face.

  Putting the events of January 6 into their proper perspective is not to dismiss the fact that it was a lamentable event - any more than opposing the exploitation of 9/11 and exaggeration of the domestic threat of Muslim extremism, which I spent a full decade doing, meant that one was denying the heinousness of that attack. The day after the 1/6 riot, I wrote in this space that "the introduction of physical force into political protest is always lamentable, usually dangerous, and, except in the rarest of circumstances that are plainly inapplicable here, unjustifiable." I still believe that to be the case. There was nothing virtuous about the 1/6 riot.
  ...
  The Democratic Party, eager to cling to their majoritarian control of the White House and both houses of Congress, knows it has no political program that is appealing and thus hopes that this concocted drama will help them win - just as they foolishly believed about Russiagate.

• Founders Fund

  We believe that the shift away from backing transformational technologies and toward more cynical, incrementalist investments broke venture capital.

• Cover Your Tracks

  See how trackers view your browser.

  Test Your Browser.

• Dark Patterns

  Dark Patterns are tricks used in websites and apps that make you do things that you didn't mean to, like buying or signing up for something. The purpose of this site is to spread awareness and to shame companies that use them.

  For more details see Types of dark pattern.

• Is Old Music Killing New Music?

  Ted Gioia

  Just consider these facts: the 200 most popular tracks now account for less than 5% of total streams. It was twice that rate just three years ago. And the mix of songs actually purchased by consumers is even more tilted to older music-the current list of most downloaded tracks on iTunes is filled with the names of bands from the last century, such as Creedence Clearwater and The Police.

  But maybe it's just that More and more musicians are releasing their own music on sites like TikTok.

• Boomy

  Create original songs using AI Software.

• People Have Been Having Less Sex-whether They're Teenagers or 40-Somethings

  Between 2009 and 2018, the proportion of adolescents reporting no sexual activity, either alone or with partners, rose from 28.8 percent to 44.2 percent among young men and from 49.5 percent in 2009 to 74 percent among young women. The researchers obtained the self-reported information from the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior and used responses from 4,155 people in 2009 and 4,547 people in 2018. These respondents to the confidential survey ranged in age from 14 to 49 years.

Some recent items related to science matters.

• Social Media Bans of Scientific Misinformation Aren't Helpful, Researchers Say

  There are more effective ways to fight scientific misinformation than banning and removing content, according to the report.

  Instead of removal, the Royal Society researchers advocate developing what they call "collective resilience." Pushing back on scientific disinformation may be more effective via other tactics, such as demonetization, systems to prevent amplification of such content, and fact-checking labels. The report encourages the UK government to continue fighting back against scientific misinformation but to emphasize society-wide harms that may arise from issues like climate change rather than the potential risk to individuals for taking the bait. Other strategies the Royal Society suggests are continuing the development of independent, well-financed fact-checking organizations; fighting misinformation "beyond high-risk, high-reach social media platforms"; and promoting transparency and collaboration between platforms and scientists. Finally, the report mentions that regulating recommendation algorithms may be effective.

• The Attack of Zombie Science

  They look like scientific papers. But they're distorting and killing science.

  As scientists and science communicators, we see the harm that a system preoccupied with productivity and quantity of publications is doing to science and to the way science is perceived by the public. Such a system tends to reward zombie science, and research groups are going into it as a response to a perceived need for self-preservation. Zombie science, whether well intentioned or an attempt to game the system, consumes funding and bestows an aura of scientific credibility on results that are not answering real scientific questions.

• Sorry Antivaxxer

  Profiles of anti-vaxxers, many who have gotten sick and/or died.

  The purpose of this site is educational, except for a few exceptions, everyone listed on this site was/is an anti-vaxxer activist who helpe spread COVID-19 misinformation on social media. Share to stop others from making the same mistake. GET VACCINATED!

• The Institute for Replication (I4R)

  Improve the credibility of science by systematically reproducing and replicating research findings in leading academic journals.