ezra_sinclair

ezra_sinclair t1_j1g2s7d wrote

Sapolsky used that specific language either in his Standford lectures (which are on YouTube) or in his book Behave: The Biology of Humans At Our Best and Worst. I would highly recommend both. Whether he was sighting a study or merely offering a hypothetical that he felt sufficiently confident in, I don't recall, but I trust his expertise and would encourage others to expose themselves to his work to determine their own opinions on the credibility of the viewpoint I've offered.

94

ezra_sinclair t1_j1en4h7 wrote

According to behavioral biologist Robert Sapolsky, testosterone levels between men aren't well correlated to any particular behavior (aggression, sex-drive,etc) with the exception of status seeking behavior, which will manifest in a culture and individual specific context. Give a bunch of Buddhist monks testosterone and you don't see increased aggression or deeper struggles with vows of chastity, you see more giving, more prayer, more studying, etc. This is just to say that generosity, which is to be encouraged almost regardless of how the individual performing it conceptualizes it internally, can be a status seeking behavior and so because narcissistic individuals have an abnormal conceptualization of their status we can speculate that their response to anything which elicits status seeking behavior is likely to also be abnormal.

719

ezra_sinclair t1_iyilh7w wrote

I think Zuckerberg is absolutely right that as virtual experiences become more lifelike, digital assets as a market will explode, but I don't think that time has come and I haven't seen anything yet to suggest that Meta is going to be the company with the skills and the taste to capitalize on that. Zuckerberg's not very likeable, but I think his general thinking about the trajectory of things is correct and so he at least deserves credit for that.

3

ezra_sinclair t1_ixb8mm9 wrote

This show really went off the rails. Solid first season or so, and then it literally devolved into something put together on a dare, or else by someone who had to write, direct, and edit the whole thing by themselves while still being the manager of a busy highway Wendy's. After the vampire mom got a tongue transplant which for some reason caused her to speak with an American accent from then on even though it was in no way relevant to the plot, I completely checked out. Still, it was my initial exposure to Bill Skarsgard and for that I'm grateful.

3

ezra_sinclair t1_ix6ipa1 wrote

Hmmm, well I do still have the plate, so let's put a pin in that. The lab has many forbidden snacks already, the chocolate agar, one particular mold that looked like the frothy cinnamon seasoned top of a latte... We later named that mold Fred and kept him in a steel canister with a smiley face drawn on it as he was so virulent he'd grow right out of a closed plate. Broke my heart when I had to throw him out, but I don't doubt he survived the incinerator in some form. No, but apparently I could exclude b.anthracis by streaking it on to blood agar, which I do have, as my reading says it's the only one in the b.cereus group that doesn't display beta-hemolysis on blood agar, but at this point I prefer the mystery.

9

ezra_sinclair t1_ix5da8b wrote

Mmm, this reminds me of bacillus anthracis, the bacteria that causes anthrax infections, though soil to human transmission is rare. I had something in the lab not that long ago in the bacillus cereus group, which includes b.anthracis, couldn't identity it any further than that since the species under that category are so similar beyond some extraneous plasmid DNA. Probably it wasn't b.anthracis though, very fastidious, very hard to culture, still there are several other things in the b.cereus group that'll at least give you some pretty serious food poisoning. I resisted the urge to eat it.

14