I’m getting busy, so I will not be on this app for a while. I’ll be taking three classes this semester: mathematical statistics, mathematical logic, and linear algebra. And, I’ll do grad school applications later this fall. I’ll have non-academic activities too, such as my job and social life. I have both academic goals and non-academic goals to accomplish this year. Real life is always more important than online life.

I’ll take a course on mathematical logic soon. I’m getting one or two library books to help me, because it looks like the instructor isn’t assigning a book. The gray one is the well-known textbook by Joseph Shoenfield. I’m aware that Mendelson’s is also popular. The yellow book on top looks readable. Logic is the geekiest subject anyone can study, but I think it’s important. However, I don’t see myself becoming a logician. I really want to be able to make money outside of academia.

These people can go buy the stuff and eat it, but the prices will not be lower than the prices of real meat. This is all about economics. The markets for real agricultural products are very competitive. That keeps profit margins and prices low. Yes, there are big ag companies with economies of scale and big profits. But, there still are numerous small farms from whom you can buy food directly. The manufacturing processes for artificial meat, butter, et cetera will be in the hands of only a few producers. People aren’t going to be setting up small-scale local meat factories. So the markets will be less competitive. If the government begins to regulate the natural foods (which is likely to happen—based on environmental excuses), then people will be forced to pay higher prices than ever. The artificial foods will have lower marginal costs to the producers. But their market power will let them restrict supply. That lets them get higher profit margins while consumers pay more. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark…

The obsolete “Calories in, Calories out” thinking is very stubborn. I’m a student, and I work part-time for the university’s dining services. I was just contemplating this topic today, because I had a lunch for work in which each of the three courses was a starchy or sugary food (I was able to put together some low-carb things for myself). The chef who was in charge today is great, but he talked like he was oblivious to the idea that anyone would not eat bread for any health reason besides celiac disease. The people in charge of the dining services are super serious about accommodating vegetarians, people of certain religions, and people with allergies/intolerances. But, the idea of accommodating people who have to eat ketogentic or low-carb for their health is just completely absent. It ought to be common sense by now that obese people and diabetic people should eat low-carb ketogenic diets. This is seriously indisputable at this point. We need more widespread awareness of these facts. Since around 50% of adults in America should be on keto, I hope it becomes the norm that the menus at restaurants, cafeterias, etc. have good options for those who eat keto.

This is how you know the game is rigged. There are 100s of studies, including 20-30 RCTs & 20-30 long term studies that show low carb diets can reverse obesity & chronic disease. So why will the govt pay for overpriced Ozempic but not steak & eggs? There are 116 side effects for Ozempic but only 1 debatable side effect for low carb.

Why I avoid both brown and white rice for my health. h/t @coookwithchris

新华网：西藏地广人稀，农牧民居住较为分散，为实现核酸检测“应检尽检、不漏一人”，基层防疫工作人员纷纷采取徒步、骑马、驾驶摩托车等方式，把核酸采样服务点对点地送到偏远农牧区。 不管多高多远，确保不落一户、不漏一人。 --2022-08-25

I’m not an anti-technology weirdo or anything, but I know a little economics. These people promoting industrial factory-made substitutes for natural foods always go on about how the costs of these fake foods will come down until they are equal to or cheaper than the real foods. If you’re paying attention and you know a little about business or economics, then you know what I am getting at: Cost and price are not the same thing! If product A can be made by any decent farmer with the necessary inputs, while product B is manufactured via a complex patented (or secret) industrial process by only one or a few companies, then guess which product will be more expensive for consumers? If the two products are identical, and they compete for market share in a truly free market, then the prices will be equal. But what will really happen? Imagine a future in which one of these artificial food substitutes has reached “cost parity” with its corresponding natural food. And, in this future, the government wants to force (or incentivize) everyone to eat the artificial food. So, it creates new laws to regulate production of the natural food and increase its cost. Then, supply of the natural food decreases, and more consumers switch to the artificial food, while the prices of both increase! Do you think governments will resist the urge to regulate the natural foods and promote the artifical foods? I doubt it. We’ll end up with the “product B” situation I described above: people will be paying a higher price for an equivalent product than they would have paid in the “product A” (the natural food) situation. Perhaps the environment will be helped by these artifical foods. I’m severely skeptical that humans will benefit. A constriction of the food supply to the industrial products made by a few companies sounds like the premise of a dystopian science fiction novel, but it might actually happen to us.

When I was a kid in the 90’s to early 2000’s, I thought America was meritocratic. I thought America was a country where each unique individual was respected, where we no longer discriminated for and against people based on factors irrelevant to their merits (such as which “race” they belong to). Now I think that we were indeed close to achieving this back then, but we’ve since regressed. You’ve all seen what’s been going on. We’re finally making progress again. Americans should feel encouraged. Given a little more good luck, we will be able to hold a national funeral for racial discrimination and DEI in a few years hence. Then we can finally live up to our principles. People will be respected and dignified as individuals. They will no longer be pushed around by social engineers with too much power according to political ideologies dreamed up by out-of-touch fake intellectuals. Young Americans especially can begin to feel a genuine hope that they will be able to find the right opportunities for themselves, that they will achieve whatever they have the potential to achieve. If you’re someone who still wants to discriminate for members of group x against members of group y (or vice versa), then I do believe that you are either cruel and selfish or lacking common sense. Either way, you want to hurt people, and I have absolutely no sympathy for your desire to do so. Individual rights and meritocracy are the principles we must follow to move forward together.

What an absolute tankie piece of shit! He should take his little pinky ass to the PRC and stay there! Total dumbass loser!

If you think teenage criminals often get off easy in America, don’t go to the PRC. The leniency towards minors who do despicable things is appalling and downright creepy.

On this day in 1966, just weeks into the Cultural Revolution, Bian Zhongyun—principal of Beijing’s most elite girls’ school—was beaten to death by her own students. Leading the mob was Song Binbin, daughter of top CCP official Song Renqiong. As a reward, she represented the Red Guards to put their armband on Mao on the Tiananmen tower where Mao famously suggested she change her name from “Binbin” (gentle) to “Yaowu” (militant/violent). Like countless other crimes of the Cultural Revolution, this one was never prosecuted. What happened to Song Binbin? She moved to the U.S., earned a Ph.D. from MIT, and lived out her American dream as a MA state employee. She died last year, peacefully and surrounded by family—all U.S. citizens. Thanks to our broken immigration system, up to 95% of CCP elite officials have children or grandchildren who are American citizens. Think about that.

The anti-white bias in faculty hiring is pervasive. I spent way too much time in academia, and ended up getting to know many tenured professors who were grandfathered in long before the DEI madness. Many were serving on hiring committees where their job was to interview potential candidates for entry-level faculty jobs; some also served on tenure committees. At first it was a slow drip. Every now and then, a candidate would be denied purely because the administration prioritized a woman or a person of color for that position. By 2018, it was pretty much the conventional norm. Professor friends told me “I don’t even know why we are going through this show trial.” A candidate with a stellar research and publishing record, an entrepreneurial streak and tons of charisma would easily be overlooked because he was a white male (being gay didn’t help). It is not just the white male candidate that suffers from being denied a cushy university job. It’s also the students who are paying what, $80,000 a year to go to college or graduate students who have applied themselves to work under the tutelage and mentorship of a great research scientist. We are depriving all these students the opportunity to learn from and work with the best. The costs to this disastrous policy is a race to bottom. @SwipeWright, I hope you win, but even if you do it’s not enough. The culture must change. This must stop.

Even the concept of “circulatory death” isn’t even death. Some people can be resuscitated from this. You’re not dead unless there is no way back. In the future, perhaps, organs can be grown from stem cells, and no one will need to “donate” organs anymore. I’m absolutely not sorry about the fact that I am a stubborn asshole who will cling to this life as long as I can. I love life, and I only have one.

“Race-based hiring erodes trust in science, undermines excellence, and has demoralized a generation of qualified scholars.”

people who keep tweeting for 0 likes and 50 views are the ones who will eventually win

China has so much potential if they'd stop doing dumb shit like this, give locals and foreigners actually fair trials and stop messing with the market Also make the stock markets actually function because right now they're rigged too and you can't ACTUALLY benefit much from investing in China like you can investing in the US

Here is my take on this whole controversy about men talking to women whom they’re attracted to: It has literally always been true that most men are too timid (at least most of the time) to approach women and express any romantic interest in them. But, there also have always been a few men who overcame this fear (or never had it). These men do approach women in real life, and the result is that they experience many rejections and a few successes. These men know that the rejections literally do not hurt them (or the women) at all. Rejection literally is nothing. The “worst” rejection I’ve experienced from a woman I approached was a time (several years ago) when I stopped on a sidewalk to greet an attractive woman who was walking towards me, and she immediately—without saying anything—turned 180 degrees and ran away. Obviously that was an overreaction, but she herself likely didn’t have amazing people skills. Regardless of “why” that girl ran away from me, that “rejection” literally did not hurt me (or her) at all. It was nothing but a funny anecdote from my experience to share occasionally. I don’t need to go into much detail about the “successful” interactions I’ve had from approaching girls in real life, but I have indeed dated girls by meeting them this way, and I’ve had great connections and memorable experiences with some of them. I’m not talking about mere “hookups”. I’m not even interested in that. There still are men and women in this world who want to find romantic love with the right person. If you are a single straight man who doesn’t approach women, then you are missing out on some potentially amazing connections. Think about that pretty girl whom you saw at a supermarket or a café. You could have talked to her. There was a non-zero probability that the two of you would have been really attracted to each other and really compatible with each other. I myself have found that I’ve gotten to a point where I’m obviously better at approaching and talking to women than most men. I’m still not really good, and I still chicken out too often. I have no real “game”—I’m not amazing at flirting or starting fun conversations. However, I do it anyway; and occasionally, the results are amazing. I will also address this idea that a man should not approach a woman who hasn’t first explicity displayed interest in him. This is silly, and it’s merely an excuse to be a chicken. Any women (and men) whom you see in public are usually just going about their lives, absorbed in their own little worlds. Moreover, in most cases, a man whom a woman doesn’t know is simply a neutral, non-sexual presence to her (if she even notices him)—that is until he initiates an interaction with her, displays his personality, and a good vibe develops between the two of them. If you wait for “permission” to approach a woman, then you probably won’t get it. Get that idea out of your head. You do not need permission to talk to someone! Seriously! I don’t want to go into a whole thing about dating apps or online dating, but I hope that it is abundantly clear to everyone by now that meeting people in the real world is the superior way. To summarize: Men should approach women in real life, and they should stop being afraid of rejection. Also, it’s important to understand that any type of relationship (not only hookups) can begin this way.