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David Pearce — Experience Machines and Hedonic Treadmills

“…consider Robert Nozick’s thought-experiment in conjunction with Felipe De Brigard’s inverse experience machine argument: “If you like it, does it matter if it’s real?”

Does Nozick’s experience machine prove anything?

Perhaps consider Robert Nozick’s thought-experiment in conjunction with Felipe De Brigard’s inverse experience machine argument: “If you like it, does it matter if it’s real?”

For sure, many subjects say they wouldn’t plug into Nozick’s Experience Machine; but conversely, many of these same respondents claim they wouldn’t want to unplug from an Experience Machine if told their existing lives were based on a lie. In short, maybe what is really being measured is not simply our (lack of) commitment to hedonism or realism, but rather status quo bias.

Even self-avowed classical utilitarians may balk on realising what their own ethics entails.

Continue reading “David Pearce — Experience Machines and Hedonic Treadmills” | >

Tesla Model 3 Performance gets stunning street-legal racing treatment from Unplugged

“Unplugged Performance thoroughly reworks the suspension with a custom race valved adjustable coilover suspension kit, along with billet adjustable front upper control arms, billet adjustable rear camber and toe arms and a beefier 3 way adjustable front/rear sway bar set with uprated bushings. The highly adjustable suspension and handling capabilities pair with massive 6 piston 15.5” uprated brakes and competition brake pads. Unplugged Performance 20” wheels shod with Michelin Cup 2 tires are then fitted. The wheels are custom machined out of 6061-T6 billet APP forgings, the same forgings used by Koenigsegg and Lamborghini, and every set is FEA optimized and specifically engineered to the specific build’s desired spec and use. Wheel weights range from 19.6–21.0lbs in 20” with tire sizings up to 305mm wide.”

While Tesla is working on a track-focused Model S, the Model 3 Performance is getting its own street-legal racing treatment from Unplugged Performance.

We previously reported on Unplugged Performance (UP), which is one of a few aftermarket accessories and performance upgrade companies focused solely on Tesla vehicles.

They are also the company behind ‘Tesla Corsa’, a new Tesla-only race track experience where owners get to safely explore the limits and performance of their vehicles.

‘Alien Megastructure’ Star May Not Be So Special After All

I think this is real but some say it isn’t.

A mysterious star whose repeated bouts of darkening might be due to “alien megastructures,” according to some researchers’ conjectures, may now have more than a dozen counterparts that display similarly mystifying behavior, a new study finds.

Further research into all of these stars might help solve the puzzle of their bewildering flickering, the study’s author said.

In 2015, scientists noticed unusual fluctuations in the light from a star named KIC 8462852. This otherwise-normal F-type star, which is slightly larger and hotter than Earth’s sun, sits about 1,480 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Cygnus.

What if We Nuke a City?

Learn more about nuclear weapons and what you can do to stop them.
EN: http://www.notonukes.org
FR: http://www.sansarmesnucleaires.org
ES: http://www.nomasarmasnucleares.org
PT: http://www.fimdasarmasnucleares.org
DE: http://www.neinzuatomwaffen.org
AR: http://www.notonukes.org/ar
RU: http://www.notonukes.org/ru
CH: http://www.notonukes.org/zh

Spread the word and use the following Hashtags:
EN: #nuclearban FR: #nuclearban
ES: #nomasarmasnucleares
PT: #fimdasarmasnucleares

Sources:
https://sites.google.com/view/nuclearweapons/

As you may have noticed, we like to blow stuff up on this channel. So when the International Red Cross approached us to collaborate on a video about nuclear weapons, we were more than excited.
Until we did the research. It turned out we were a bit oblivious off the real impact of nuclear weapons in the real world, on a real city. And especially, how helpless even the most developed nations on earth would be if an attack occurred today.
So hopefully this video demonstrates how extremely non fun a real world nuclear attack would be, without being too gruesome. This collaboration was a blast (no pun intended) and we want to say a huge thank you to the International Red Cross!

Support us on Patreon so we can make more videos (and get cool stuff in return): https://www.patreon.com/Kurzgesagt?ty=h

Steady: https://steadyhq.com/de/kurzgesagt

Continue reading “What if We Nuke a City?” | >

Russia just brought in a law to try to disconnect its internet from the rest of the world

It’s been called an online Iron Curtain.

On Friday, a controversial law went into force that enables Russia to try to disconnect its internet from the rest of the world, worrying critics who fear the measure will promote online censorship.

The Kremlin says its “sovereign internet” law, which was signed by President Vladimir Putin in May, is a security measure to protect Russia in the event of an emergency or foreign threat like a cyberattack. The law will allow Moscow to tighten control over the country’s internet by routing web traffic through state-controlled infrastructure and creating a national system of domain names.

New Battery Lets Electric Cars Go 200 Miles on a 10-Minute Charge

While some high – end electric vehicles ( like the most expensive Teslas ) are starting to approach those kinds of ranges, it still takes around 50 minutes for a full charge using the most powerful superchargers available. That’s a long time to hang around if you’re doing a cross-country trip that requires multiple pit stops.

The result is range anxiety, where people worry about running out of juice and facing delays due to the long time it takes to recharge their car s. There are two ways to tackle the problem: building higher-capacity batteries or charging existing ones faster.

Bigger batteries are a tricky problem, because vehicles face a balancing act between weight an d capacity. After a certain point the extra weight of batteries cancels out the boost in power they provide. There’s plenty of work into batteries with better energy density—how much charge they can hold for a specific weight—but there aren’t any major breakthroughs on the horizon.

Drug combination preserves cognitive function in mice with Alzheimer’s disease

A new study from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine shows that selectively removing senescent cells—cells that no longer divide—from brains with a form of Alzheimer’s disease can reduce brain damage and inflammation and slow the pace of cognitive decline. These findings, say researchers, add to evidence that senescent cells contribute to the damage caused by Alzheimer’s disease.

“Our results show that eliminating these cells may be a viable route to treat Alzheimer’s disease in humans,” says Mark Mattson, a professor of neuroscience at the School of Medicine and a senior investigator in the Laboratory of Neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging.

A report on the work was published April 1 in Nature Neuroscience.

Blood–brain barrier best breached by small molecules

Focused ultrasound (FUS) can be used to help drugs pass from the bloodstream into the brain, but the technique’s effectiveness depends on the ultrasound pressure and the size of the drug molecules. Michael Valdez and colleagues at the University of Arizona measured how thoroughly differently sized molecules diffused into mouse brains under a range of ultrasound intensities, and found that the largest molecules could not be delivered under any safe FUS regime. The results set a limit on the types of drugs that might one day be used to treat neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease (Ultrasound Med. Biol. 10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2019.08.024).

Usually, the brain is isolated from substances circulating in the bloodstream by the blood–brain barrier (BBB), a semipermeable layer of cells that permits only certain molecules to pass. This restricts the range of drugs that can be used in the brain to small, hydrophobic molecules (such as alcohol and caffeine), other small drugs like psychotropics and some antibiotics. Extending that range would open the door to new therapeutic possibilities, says Theodore Trouard, who led the team. “The ability to temporarily and safely open the BBB to allow drugs into the brain would help address a number of neurological diseases for which there is currently no effective treatment.”

Previous research has shown that such opening can be achieved by focusing an ultrasound beam in the brain while gas microbubbles circulate in the blood. The microbubbles – perfluorocarbon-filled lipid shells about 1 µm across – are inert while they move around the body, but rapidly expand and contract in the local pressure fluctuations caused by the ultrasound field. Mechanical forces exerted by this phenomenon create temporary gaps in the layer of cells that make up the BBB, giving larger molecules a chance to breach the brain’s defences.

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