Rotundus.com

Generating Geothermal Power from Carbon Dioxide

Seems like it might largely depend on CO2 captured from fossil-fuel-powered plants but still seems kind of interesting.

The Rise of Technological Unemployment

"Economists long argued that, just as buggy-makers gave way to car factories, technology would create as many jobs as it destroyed. Now many are not so sure. Lawrence H. Summers, the former Treasury secretary, recently said that he no longer believed that automation would always create new jobs."

Forget Wearable Tech. People Really Want Better Batteries.

The need to constantly recharge them is perhaps my biggest gripe about smartphones.

The Soviet Scientist Who Dreamed of Melting the Arctic with a 55 Mile Dam

"As much as we worry about climate change today, a warm, melted Arctic was actually a dream of geoengineers since at least the 19th century."

Euthanasia patient fought back as doctor tried to give her lethal jab

What was the local review committee's response? "Committee spokesman Jacob Kohnstamm added he was in favour of the case going to court: 'Not to punish the doctor, but to get judicial clarity over what powers a doctor has when it comes to the euthanasia of patients suffering from severe dementia.'"

How sexy are sexist men? Women's perception of male response profiles in the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory

"the benevolent sexist was rated to be most likable" - AKA women seem to particularly like men who treat them more positively in certain way even if feminists argue that this negatively impacts 'gender equality'

Risk taking and information aggregation in groups

"We find that a considerable number of subjects exhibit ‘reverse confirmation bias’: they place less weight on information from others that agrees with their private signal and more weight on conflicting information."

Dimensions of Knowledge: On the question of trusting experts

What do you think of this hypothesis? "Experts are conditioned to think in certain ways, by virtue of their institutional training and practice, and when stakes are fairly low, they do. But once stakes are high enough, things change. What might seem like a fairly regular problem in ordinary times, a mere question of technicality, may not look like one in times of crisis. At this point, regular expert-thinking breaks down and things become a little more contested."

Is Artificial Intelligence Permanently Inscrutable?

"Modern learning algorithms show a tradeoff between human interpretability, or explainability, and their accuracy. Deep learning is both the most accurate and the least interpretable."

There’s no emotion we ought to think harder about than anger

A Nelson Mandela quote: "Your duty is to work with human beings as human beings, not because you think they are angels."

A Pastor Walks Into a Room Full of Atheists

On a pastor's time as part of a rationalist group - "Me joining that group was not only unusual for me. I heard from atheists there that their experience of having a pastor join their group was just as strange. But at least for me, I think that it was strange in a good way. When my personal community grew to include more atheists it opened my eyes to new ideas."

Can bright light at night lead to obesity?

"The study doesn’t prove light bulbs cause obesity, and scientists aren’t yet certain how lamps or the glow from gadgets like tablets and televisions might influence how much people weigh, researchers caution. But it’s possible artificial light might contribute to obesity by suppressing the production of melatonin, a hormone that helps regulate sleep cycles. These lights may also contribute to what’s known as social jet lag, or disruption of the body’s natural circadian rhythms that happens when people sleep and wake at times that are at odds with their internal biological clocks."

Sometimes you might be able to fully suppress something but, if you fail then things can get pretty bad and end up providing credibility to unsavory characters.

Quoting Mehrdad Amanpour from Who gave us post truth, conspiracy culture and the alt-right?, written in the wake of the most recent US presidental election but looking at a coverup that kept sex crimes in Rotherham unaddressed:

A PR guru once told me that the best way to handle potentially detrimental information is to get your retaliation in first. Report the bad news yourself and come out ready to face your publics. Do it with truth and decorum – bovine rebuttal and personally attacking your opponents might look good to those within your organisation, but to the public they make you look like a loser.

Do that and you’ll have some control over the narrative. You keep some credibility. The worst thing possible is to refuse to discuss the issue, try to deny, cover up or sugar-coat it. The truth will out and your opponents will achieve credibility for exposing it. They will control the narrative. They will be able to embellish and twist it to suit their own purposes.