"average person eats 3 spiders a year" factoid actualy just statistical error. average person eats 0 spiders per year. Spiders Georg, who lives in cave & eats over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted
My diet contains a non-zero number of spiders that were ultraprocessed into genetic sludge and incorporated into the undifferentiated mass of frankenfood that I shovel into my face.
I may never live gloriously like Spiders Georg, but I proudly eat more spiders per year than the mediocre non-arachnivores out there.
This reminds me of quicksand. In the 1980s, kids in my circle were scared of it. I recall a middle school teacher describing how we could safely escape it. But I grew up in Michigan and to this day have never seen quicksand. I’m also pretty sure now that quicksand fatalities must be practically nonexistent.
I've had it pointed out to me a couple of times, in a couple of different places. If I hadn't been told, I never would have known it was there (it's not like I would have set foot in it anyways, most likely).
...not sure how I randomly stumbled upon this substack. But this is good dang stuff. Keep going. Tiny pressures on the universe of words could eventually lead humanity somewhere good.
I was a work colleague of your Mom’s when she was at EHOVE Career Center. I have a daughter about your age and we would often share stories about our amazing children. I enjoy your Experimental History articles and enjoy even more your reading of them. Tell your mom that Mary Jean said hello.
(10) the thing about PC Insider, PC World and PC Magazine which all existed at roughly the same time (I know because I worked in a number of retail PC stores back in the day), is that the Editor's Choice Award which each mag ran a version of all consistently went to the company produce which bought the most advertising the previous period. Insane you say? Perhaps. I AM NOT SAYING THAT SPIDERS PURCHASE ADVERTISING. Well, maybe I am. IDK. Good work, as always.
I admire the integrity with which you demolish your discipline, and wonder when the Senior Herr Doktor of Psychology will come to rip off your epaulettes.
I like your arguments more than those of Vartanova et al.
"Really makes you think about the mindset of whoever made the universe, am I right?"
Slight correction to the first footnote -- the linked paper says n=46 to demonstrate that men weigh more than women, so that would be 23 men and 23 women, on average. The footnote currently overstates the required sample size by a factor of 2.
Thank you for the links and congratulations on your Sydney award! That was an excellent essay.
Actually after looking at this further I think n here is per cell, not per study. When they give the sample size of the whole study, they use the capital N, so I'm pretty sure they're following the convention of using lowercase n for individual conditions.
(4) Choice overload/underload sounds exactly like the totality of each human’s existence. What if in every moment there was just one choice and it was “Am I trusting Love?”
(12) I’m sure when they were designing the universe they were having lots of fun and probably dancing and maybe drank a bit too much wine.
the part that got me is how many of these collapsed because someone went back to the original notes. festinger's field notes, sacks's letters to his brother – they were always there. the official story was the publication, but the archive is the receipt. every consensus finding has a file cabinet somewhere... makes you wonder what future archivists will find in the preprints and slack messages of whatever we're doing right now.
Good question! I don't know of any research on it, and it would be hard to make a fair comparison over time––hopefully the options get better and not just more numerous as the years pass, so recommending a treatment may also become more likely to be the right option.
For those unaware of the classsic:
"average person eats 3 spiders a year" factoid actualy just statistical error. average person eats 0 spiders per year. Spiders Georg, who lives in cave & eats over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted
My diet contains a non-zero number of spiders that were ultraprocessed into genetic sludge and incorporated into the undifferentiated mass of frankenfood that I shovel into my face.
I may never live gloriously like Spiders Georg, but I proudly eat more spiders per year than the mediocre non-arachnivores out there.
Thanks again for bringing joy to the internet.
So glad you're on this planet.
I, too, am glad that Adam is not suffocating on a barren asteroid somewhere in the Kuiper Belt.
or some other reality; instead, grounded here.
This reminds me of quicksand. In the 1980s, kids in my circle were scared of it. I recall a middle school teacher describing how we could safely escape it. But I grew up in Michigan and to this day have never seen quicksand. I’m also pretty sure now that quicksand fatalities must be practically nonexistent.
I *just* read someone's quicksand anecdote right here on Substack. I swear they were at Inkhaven at the time...
I've had it pointed out to me a couple of times, in a couple of different places. If I hadn't been told, I never would have known it was there (it's not like I would have set foot in it anyways, most likely).
...not sure how I randomly stumbled upon this substack. But this is good dang stuff. Keep going. Tiny pressures on the universe of words could eventually lead humanity somewhere good.
I was a work colleague of your Mom’s when she was at EHOVE Career Center. I have a daughter about your age and we would often share stories about our amazing children. I enjoy your Experimental History articles and enjoy even more your reading of them. Tell your mom that Mary Jean said hello.
Hi Mary! I let her know and she says hi as well.
(10) the thing about PC Insider, PC World and PC Magazine which all existed at roughly the same time (I know because I worked in a number of retail PC stores back in the day), is that the Editor's Choice Award which each mag ran a version of all consistently went to the company produce which bought the most advertising the previous period. Insane you say? Perhaps. I AM NOT SAYING THAT SPIDERS PURCHASE ADVERTISING. Well, maybe I am. IDK. Good work, as always.
I admire the integrity with which you demolish your discipline, and wonder when the Senior Herr Doktor of Psychology will come to rip off your epaulettes.
I like your arguments more than those of Vartanova et al.
"Really makes you think about the mindset of whoever made the universe, am I right?"
Yes, you are right.
:-)
Really really love this
Slight correction to the first footnote -- the linked paper says n=46 to demonstrate that men weigh more than women, so that would be 23 men and 23 women, on average. The footnote currently overstates the required sample size by a factor of 2.
Thank you for the links and congratulations on your Sydney award! That was an excellent essay.
Good catch, thank you! Just fixed it.
Actually after looking at this further I think n here is per cell, not per study. When they give the sample size of the whole study, they use the capital N, so I'm pretty sure they're following the convention of using lowercase n for individual conditions.
(4) Choice overload/underload sounds exactly like the totality of each human’s existence. What if in every moment there was just one choice and it was “Am I trusting Love?”
(12) I’m sure when they were designing the universe they were having lots of fun and probably dancing and maybe drank a bit too much wine.
I knew it was the bear all along.
Thanks Adam, great work as always. Love you.
I attempted a replication of (3) in high school and it 100% did not replicate (n≈50)
If you write it up and post it on the internet, I'll share it in the next links post!
The artist piece was super interesting and relevant, I think, beyond just the visual arts.
the part that got me is how many of these collapsed because someone went back to the original notes. festinger's field notes, sacks's letters to his brother – they were always there. the official story was the publication, but the archive is the receipt. every consensus finding has a file cabinet somewhere... makes you wonder what future archivists will find in the preprints and slack messages of whatever we're doing right now.
Re: (4), I'd be curious in time as a variable - are today's researchers any more likely to recommend treatment regardless of the number of options?
Good question! I don't know of any research on it, and it would be hard to make a fair comparison over time––hopefully the options get better and not just more numerous as the years pass, so recommending a treatment may also become more likely to be the right option.
The aliens are already here they're just keeping a low profile.
I visit an alien friend who lives in the sub-basement at Denver International Airport. They have many wise, humorous observations about human beings.