Stephen Dawson

Freelance Home Entertainment and Tech writer

[Stephen Dawson @stephencdawson]

I wrote this seven months ago having collected 104 cigarette packets. I'm now up to 223. My survey shows 70% of packets are illegitimate, 68.1% of cigarettes. Methodology and caveats in the thread.

[Stephen Dawson @stephencdawson]

What's the size of the illicit tobacco market in Australia? The ATO said (in late 2024) it was 18%. Industry estimates put it at 28.6% in 2023, which health lobbyists poo-poo. I conducted my own survey to get a sense of the size. 1/9

[Stephen Dawson @stephencdawson]

@EconTalker I'm embarrassed that I didn't think of this myself. In sports, we frequently compare across many decades ... foolishly. In cricket, a "4" used to be hitting the fence. Now it's crossing a rope inside the fence (for safety reasons). The records aren't comparable.

[Stephen Dawson @stephencdawson]

A certain type of intellectual feels free to judge the internal lives of millions or billions of others. The apotheosis of this is one of the oldest: "the unexamined life is not worth living".

[Steven Pinker @sapinker]

"Overall, across the world, there’s reason to believe that happiness has increased for obvious reasons: people are living longer, they’re less poor, they’re better educated, and so on. That would suggest, though not prove, that there has not been a decline in meaningfulness. It’s still possible, but just anecdotally, there have been complaints that life is meaningless as far back as you can go.

You know: Ecclesiastes—“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” Henry David Thoreau, in 1854: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Now, how a guy living in a cabin on a pond could know this is unclear, but that was the perception. T.S. Eliot: “We are the hollow men, we are the stuffed men,” in the 1920s.

Starting in the 1950s, there was a great fear of alienation. That was the big issue, and part of the counterculture was the idea that suburban middle-class life was meaningless, empty, plastic, and artificial. The Pursuit of Loneliness, a 1970 bestseller by Philip Slater. Jimmy Carter’s “malaise” speech in the late 1970s.

So it’s a constant complaint. The fact that people say it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true."

@HumanProgress

[Steven Pinker @sapinker]

"Overall, across the world, there’s reason to believe that happiness has increased for obvious reasons: people are living longer, they’re less poor, they’re better educated, and so on. That would suggest, though not prove, that there has not been a decline in meaningfulness. It’s still possible, but just anecdotally, there have been complaints that life is meaningless as far back as you can go.

You know: Ecclesiastes—“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” Henry David Thoreau, in 1854: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Now, how a guy living in a cabin on a pond could know this is unclear, but that was the perception. T.S. Eliot: “We are the hollow men, we are the stuffed men,” in the 1920s.

Starting in the 1950s, there was a great fear of alienation. That was the big issue, and part of the counterculture was the idea that suburban middle-class life was meaningless, empty, plastic, and artificial. The Pursuit of Loneliness, a 1970 bestseller by Philip Slater. Jimmy Carter’s “malaise” speech in the late 1970s.

So it’s a constant complaint. The fact that people say it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true."

@HumanProgress

[Stephen Dawson @stephencdawson]

@minilek @IgorNaverniouk I wonder if "highly likely" is a term that has been adjudged at some point, such that the decision-maker felt legally bound to go with 85%.

[Stephen Dawson @stephencdawson]

@IonaItalia Try the first one and see what you think. Pretty unique story line, although there are space opera elements.

[Stephen Dawson @stephencdawson]

@AdoxtA @rationalhumanis I think that what you're seeing is soccer is largely a black sport in South Africa. The SA rugby and cricket teams are largely white.

[Stephen Dawson @stephencdawson]

@IdeasAndReality @IonaItalia I was going to say that!

[Stephen Dawson @stephencdawson]

@DianneF70877261 @BananaKingCo Albo is a politician, so of course he lies. Nonetheless, his mother going on a pension at that age doesn't seem very compatible with the usual meaning of a life of privilege.

[Stephen Dawson @stephencdawson]

@LorenzoFrom "Poe's Law"

[Stephen Dawson @stephencdawson]

@pegobry_en And after a momentary boost of happiness, most would have been frittered away in weeks, if not days, every rich person in the US would be emigrating to Dubai or some such, and employment would collapse.

[Stephen Dawson @stephencdawson]

@JamesLNuzzo @TheRealMenToo For context, an average of 3.5 people die on Australian roads each day.

[Stephen Dawson @stephencdawson]

@IonaItalia You really have acculturated to Australia ... "bless [its] little cotton socks". Sounds like you've joined the Country Women's Association!

[Stephen Dawson @stephencdawson]

Claude agreed when I confronted it.

[Stephen Dawson @stephencdawson]

I didn't know that 44100 equals 2² × 3² × 5² × 7². Claude told me. Unfortunately, Claude went on to tell me that 44100 Hz was chose because it is "a highly composite number chosen for practical engineering reasons". No. It was chosen because it works on VHS machines.

[Stephen Dawson @stephencdawson]

@SteveStuWill @JamesLNuzzo It's encouraging to see one field perhaps turning away from foolishness, but others remain unrepentant. https://t.co/dAOQzdlr0o

[BabblingBeaver @Babbling_Beaver]

MIT's Department of Anthropology elevates indigenous oral tradition above DNA evidence as Western Science surrenders to other ways of knowing.

MIT Anthropology Department Digs Its Grave Deeper
https://t.co/bvgiiPG00L

[Stephen Dawson @stephencdawson]

@SilasUnleashed That must have hurt her knuckles @ 16 seconds.

[Stephen Dawson @stephencdawson]

@walterkirn Getting those first few words down, even if you suspect you'll remove them in an edit, is the hardest part. When I'm disciplined, I write a paragraph or two about some aspect of the thing, to be properly knitted into the piece later. That makes it easier to return.