Peter Maksym

Astrophysicist. These days, I'm mostly wandering into galaxies and looking for the light switch. Personal account, views my own!

[Peter Maksym @StellarBones]

Yesterday would have been my dad's 78th birthday. It's been 10 years since his last birthday. A father's life looms large over his children, and it takes time to understand one's parents. To unpack a life as seen from the outside takes work. https://t.co/7NocSIqwyg

[Peter Maksym @StellarBones]

@astrogrant Have you ever been to Huntsville?

[Rob Henderson @robkhenderson]

The Ultimate Status Flex: Countersignaling

Very successful people can often engage in counter-signaling, or doing things that look low status but don’t hurt their status the way they would for most others.

Here’s an example from the advertising executive Rory Sutherland. If you work at Pizza Hut and ride a bike to work, it’s probably because you can’t afford a car. It’s a necessity.

But if you’re a top executive and ride a bike to work, it’s a high-status activity because it’s a choice.

In the simplified model, low status is riding a bike to work. Medium status is driving an expensive car to work. High status is riding a bike to work.

You can see this with restaurant menus too.

Cheap fast food restaurant menu: “Hamburger”

Mid-tier chain restaurant: “Wood-fired sizzled USDA grade beef on our house made sesame bun”

Upscale chic restaurant: “Hamburger”

Counter-signaling, whether it’s the CEO on a bicycle or the upscale restaurant with a minimalist menu, is an expression of confidence. Of feeling secure in one’s position.

A study found that PhD students at lower-ranked universities used more complex language in their dissertation titles. Students at higher-ranked universities used simpler language. It’s as if they’re saying they have little need to impress you with a sophisticated title. They already study at an elite program and have nothing to prove.

At some universities, they reserve parking spots for Nobel Prize winners. You’re more likely to see a basic sedan or a 15-year-old beater parked there than a luxury car. “I won a Nobel prize, I don’t need to impress anyone with how expensive my car is. I’m too busy advancing the limits of our knowledge.”

[Peter Maksym @StellarBones]

@JeremyTate41 Nobody who understands grief and loss as well as Tolkien has led an uninteresting life.

[Rob Henderson @robkhenderson]

Those who take stability for granted often mistake the need for it as a defect of character.

[Jonathan Pageau @PageauJonathan]

Finally saw "You Can See Everything". Video coming soon.

So brilliant. It contains the last postmodern move revealing that pure "investigative journalism" is impossible and accurate portrayal can never be the purpose of representation. Realism sometimes attempts to hide its artifice which brings it closer to lying. The movie blows this up in ways that will send long waves into culture.

[Peter Maksym @StellarBones]

In such a situation, I'm guessing the "American placebo" finding might have an interesting consequence: tons of American researchers report at least some benefit, while foreign researchers start to get very skeptical and report none.

/🧵

[Peter Maksym @StellarBones]

Apparently, placebos are getting more effective. But *only* in America.

This wonderful little video runs down what placebos are, their importance & impact, & recent evidence that the placebo effect is increasing in America (not elsewhere). It also speculates as to *why*.

👇

[Peter Maksym @StellarBones]

the placebo makes it look like it does help a little. Then add the "reverse tinkerbell" effect on top of it: everyone believes it is perfectly safe. Well-understood. Common, nasty side effects are heavily downplayed or rationalized.

[Peter Maksym @StellarBones]

RIP Walter Koenig. I loved Chekov too, but it's time for a Bester tribute.

[Peter Maksym @StellarBones]

@peterrhague People who are stuck deep in an ideological hole will fail to understand why anyone would work with their enemies (even acknowledging their flaws) because they are incapable of acknowledging or examining the even worse flaws in the alternative.

This happens all the time.

[Peter Maksym @StellarBones]

@Thinkwert Have you read "The Space Child's Mother Goose"? 70 years old and evergreen.

This Atlantic article is but part of the book version. I'm particularly fond of "The Theory Jack Built".

https://t.co/X6GGC52GxW

[Peter Maksym @StellarBones]

@Skirt_Go_Spinny @Xlovehermadly @TTExulansic If next-of-kin, it is time to talk to a lawyer about 2nd degree murder, manslaughter and malpractice.

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯 @japan_nobunaga]

People ask how Japan and America went from bitter enemies in 1945 to brothers who would die for each other in 2011.

Here is where it started.
April 11, 1945. Off the coast of Okinawa.
The sky was black with anti-aircraft fire.
A nineteen-year-old Japanese pilot named Setsuo Ishino flew his crippled Zero fighter straight through a wall of 40mm tracers and slammed into the starboard side of the battleship USS Missouri.

Gasoline exploded across the deck.
When the smoke cleared, American sailors found the broken body of the teenage Japanese pilot trapped in the wreckage near a gun tub.
Furious and shaken, sailors grabbed a fire hose to wash his remains into the ocean.

Then a voice thundered from the bridge:
“STOP WHERE YOU ARE!”

It was Captain William Callaghan.
Understand who this man was:
Three years earlier, at Guadalcanal, Captain Callaghan’s own younger brother—Rear Admiral Daniel Callaghan—had been killed in combat by the Japanese Navy.
Every man on that ship knew the Captain had lost his brother to Japan.

Yet Captain Callaghan looked down at the dead nineteen-year-old boy on his scorched deck and gave an order that stunned the crew into silence:

“Recover his body gently. Tomorrow morning, we will give him a military burial at sea. Find white canvas and red cloth, and sew him a Japanese flag.”

A young officer protested:
“Captain, he just tried to kill us! Your own brother died fighting them!”

Callaghan didn’t flinch.
“He was a nineteen-year-old boy doing his duty for his country with everything he had—just as our boys do every day. In life, he was our enemy. In death, he is a fellow warrior. On my ship, we honor courage.”

That night, in the sickbay of an American battleship at war, a Navy pharmacist’s mate stitched a red sun onto white cloth by hand.

The next morning, April 12, 1945.
Six American sailors carried the boy to the rail beneath that hand-sewn Japanese flag.
The ship’s chaplain prayed.
The bugler played Taps.
A Marine rifle squad fired three volleys into the Pacific sky, and Captain William Callaghan—the brother of a slain admiral—raised his right hand in a crisp, unyielding salute as the boy slipped into the sea.

Four months later, peace was signed on that exact same wooden deck.
You defeated us with strength.
You won our souls with honor.
Thank you, America. 🇺🇸🤝🇯🇵