i am a visitor here, i am not permanent

inag, qpoc, 27

[fidough0926]

never in my life have i had more people think i'm an idiot for politely correcting what THEY misinterpreted than on this stupid ass site

[inkskinned]

my most ungrounded and unresearched fear is that so many companies are pushing AI in part because it builds them a pathway towards a subscription model for a huge number of things that should not be subscription, but theoretically could be:

do you want to talk to verizon's help desk because there's an error on your bill? to access a real agent, you have to pay for Verizon Access+, only 5.99 a month.

want to filter out all the fake job postings from the real ones? subscribe to Indeed: Advanced Tactics and only verified postings will appear on your dash.

sick of the infinite ai slop? buy Google Premium; it'll automatically detect ai within a site and gives it a credibility score. with premium plus, you can shuffle high-credibility results to the top.

do you want a "luxury" experience? well, you'd have to pay for that luxury, and since the company sure doesn't want to pay its employees; the cost would fall to the consumer.

when automation has made every experience unpleasant; the experience of genuine humanity will be commodified.

[marzipanandminutiae]

This is already happening – one of the softwares used by a museum I work at only lets you talk to a human help agent if you have their premium subscription. It's such bullshit

[inkskinned]

the fact you are not the only one in these notes saying "no this is already happening; i have to pay money to speak to a representative" is just... really awesome! you said a software used by museums is doing this shit? okay! great! wonderful!! anybody know where i can scream

[beemovieerotica]

the cognitive dissonance from people who want the products of modern medicine but get weird about animal research. like im sorry but this is necessary for the survival of the society we currently live in. and the scientists who work on these things are not evil cackling psychopaths. anyone you talk to in animal research has incredibly complex feelings about their work and incredibly complex relationships to the animals in their care. there are regulations and oversight and penalties in place to make the work as humane as possible and scientists are overwhelmingly the ones enforcing and advocating for better care.

[beemovieerotica]

@velvetdemon I'm doing a full reply because I want to give this question the time and space it deserves, and I really do appreciate your curiosity about this.

The short answer: It is deeply unethical. There are nowhere near enough willing patients in the world to be able to do this, and it would be criminal to put them through this.

The long answer: The one side of the equation you're focusing on is: how much of a drug is too much, to the point where it will cause negative side effects or even death? And this is crucial to know. But it's not just a matter of finding out the lethal dosage of a heart cholesterol medication, you need to know that it can actually lower the cholesterol of any living thing. There is no way to know this without giving it first to...a living thing.

But beyond this, I need to emphasize: The goal of a drug trial is to effectively cure people who are already suffering from disease, who are living on limited time.

Drug trials don't just happen on any member of the public, they need to happen specifically on people affected by the disease you're trying to treat. There is at any time a very limited and very marginalized population of the world affected by early onset, familial Parkinson's disease. Because you cannot ethically induce disease in a human being, you are working with, speaking with, and helping patients and their families who are hopeful and desperate for a cure.

If you were to jump straight to human trials from petri dishes, not knowing absolutely anything about how the drug functions in a living, breathing animal body, it would look like this:

We didn't know that minute quantities of the drug interact lethally with x, y, z medication that people are commonly also taking. X number of patients have died as a result.

We didn't know that the drug is fatal to people with [common variant] in their genetics. X more patients have died.

We didn't know the drug exacerbates x, y, z chronic illnesses. X number of people have acquired permanent, lifelong disabilities.

We didn't know the best way to deliver the drug, so we tried multiple ways: the people who received it intravenously are now suffering from a painful, costly, and debilitating condition that did not happen with the ingested form.

I could go on, and on, and on.

The vast majority of these problems can be nearly or almost entirely averted by testing other animals first.

These are all people who possibly could have waited for the normal progression from animal testing to human testing and thus received better outcomes. Some people will pass away in the time it takes to get to that point, and that's heartbreaking, and we all wish science could be faster.

But the cost of expediting science could mean a life of profoundly greater suffering or an even shorter life than the one where no intervention happens at all. And at that point, you have completely exhausted your trust, your goodwill, and your patients' hope, after you've failed to do anything or even worsened the lives of people who are already deeply suffering.

[manslaughter]

hi, i’m an animal research professional. making sure laboratory animals stay alive, healthy, and enriched has been my full-time job for several years now.

animal research is not the mad scientist wild west that PETA wants you to think it is. there are extremely strict federal laws in place to protect the well being of these animals. animal welfare organizations like AAALAC ensure that lab animals are treated with dignity & respect and are given enough specialized care & enrichment to be happy and content in captivity, just like AZA accreditation with zoos.

not a single animal from a zebrafish to a mouse to a dog to a macaque goes unaccounted for. if an animal gets moved to a new cage, paired for breeding, has a procedure performed on it, gives birth, gets sick or injured, dies, etc. it is legally required that this information is recorded and kept on file for the US federal government to access. failing to record & retain this information is very much punishable by US federal law.

let me tell you - if you abuse or kill an animal, even a mouse - you are almost certainly getting both fired & blacklisted from the industry. if you abuse or kill a more ‘advanced’ animal, such as a dog or monkey, you will likely face criminal charges. killing a monkey is as serious and disastrous as a nuclear meltdown. you are expected to reasonably explain every illness, injury, or death of an animal under your care. you must record all of this information. animals that are clearly suffering with low QOL are required to be euthanized according to AVMA guidelines.

research animals are highly expensive. yes, even the "lesser" animals like mice. the cheapest mice will run you a few hundred $ per individual, with some of the most expensive mice i've cared for being $25,000 per individual. in research we have the "three Rs" - reduction (reduce amount of necessary animals to a minimum), refinement (refine processes to ensure research is accurate and animals feel no pain or distress), and replacement (replace animals with non-living research models as they become available). i can assure you no proper research team is wasting animals (*do not* say "b-b-but elon musk--" his research team is actively being investigated for animal abuse by the government).

research methods that do not require live animals are currently being looked into & efforts spearheaded by - you guessed it - the animal research industry itself (notice how the animal rights people are strangely silent & unhelpful when it comes to this?) but current technology is rudimentary and does not compare to live animal models.

some research animal fun facts (US edition):

all species of animals are only allowed to have one single major surgery performed on them in their entire lifetime.

institutions with nonhuman primates must have a behavior program in place (run by knowledgeable primate specialists) to ensure that they are happy and receiving enough daily enrichment and social interaction.

institutions with dogs are required to have physical exercise programs in place. this means every individual dog gets a substantial amount of leashed AND free-roaming exercise daily, including playgroups with other dogs.

a majority of nonhuman primates get to retire to sanctuaries like peaceable primate sanctuary, and almost all dogs get retired and adopted out by organizations like homes for animal heroes. some institutions will also adopt out unneeded young rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, etc.

some strains of mice glow neon green (or orange or blue) under UV light. this is not harmful to them and is commonly seen in cancer research.

so yes, you can rest knowing that laboratory animals are treated with the utmost respect by their caretakers. and you can stop this awful, ignorant talk of human experimentation that will only end in the abuse of nonwhite people, LGBT people, disabled people, indigenous people, and so many others. please just take a look at this wikipedia page if you think “ethical” human experimentation can exist.

[texasdreamer01]

If you want to reduce animal testing - or at least, reduce the amount of things we need animals to be tested with - there is some growing traction in regards to mathematical modelling (also known as in silico studies), in vitro studies (i.e. test tubes), and 3D printing of organoids.

At the moment, this is not a substitute for animal testing. Bodies are incredibly complex and interconnected environments that we're still scratching our heads about, and animal testing is in a lot of ways the most efficient and least harmful way of testing things like medications.

If anyone wants to read more about these subjects, here are a few starting points (you will probably learn some new words, this is okay!):

Advances and Applications of Predictive Toxicology in Knowledge Discovery, Risk Assessment, and Drug Development research topic by the Frontiers in Pharmacology journal

Novel methods and technologies for the evaluation of drug outcomes and policies research topic by the Frontiers in Pharmacology journal

Spotlight on Artificial Intelligence in Experimental Pharmacology and Drug Discovery research topic by the Frontiers in Pharmacology journal

The Emerging Discipline of Quantitative Systems Pharmacology research topic by the Frontiers in Pharmacology journal

PDF Drug Combinations: Mathematical Modeling and Networking Methods by Vahideh Vakil and Wade Trappe

PDF Machine learning-based drug-drug interaction prediction: a critical review of models, limitations, and data challenges by Flaviu-Ioan Gheorghita et al.

PDF A review of 3D bioprinting for organoids by Zeqing Li et al.

3D Bioprinting for Engineering Organoids and Organ-on-a-Chip: Developments and Applications by Yuqing Ren, Congying Yuan, et al.

3D bioprinting of human iPSC-Derived kidney organoids using a low-cost, high-throughput customizable 3D bioprinting system by Jaemyung Shin, Hyunjae Chung, et al.

PDF Advancing organoid development with 3D bioprinting by Wenping Ma et al.

[blckgirlacid]

I need my weird alone time or I will explode

[hugh-lauries-bald-spot]

whats a stereotype for your country that you absolutely do. mine is that i unironically go "eh" and apologize a lot and i often drink maple syrup straight

[asteroidtroglodyte]

The grip that Burger & Big Drink has on the American People cannot be overstated

[dreamstars]

"Bird Trails", photographed by Edu Aguilera

[fidough0926]

갑자기 슬퍼졌어

[fidough0926]

unfortunately i smoked the weed that makes u think everything u have ever done is wrong tonight .

[marithlizard]

(via bsky)

In case anyone hasn't heard, the cyclospora outbreak affecting tons of people in the US right now is coming from Taylor Farms produce. Best to stay away from bagged lettuce and prepared salads completely right now, but especially the ones mentioned in the screenshot:

Taylor Farms Earthbound Farms Little Salad Bar (Aldi) Marketside (Walmart) Kroger House Brand Target private label greens Costco salads and greens etc Trader Joe's chopped salad kits and fresh produce Fast food: McDonalds, Taco Bell, (Yum! Brands), Chipotle, Subway, Pizza Hut, KFC, Olive Garden, Top Golf, Red Lobster, Burger King, etc.

This is not the first time I've heard about a Taylor Farms foodborne illness outbreak. I stopped eating their salads after reading a description of the conditions in their facilities. Doesn't sound like they've improved anything.

We need a fully funded and staffed FDA, and regulations with teeth - and that's exactly what we don't have under Trump. To make things worse, the CDC is no longer tracking these outbreaks. We're on our own.

[crescentalice]

girl with ptsd voice: hey, so something really bad is gonna happen, right? you guys are picking up on that too, yeah? The other shoe is about to drop, I just know it.

[chiarrara]

why was messi lowkey serving saddam hussein hiding spot

[konoko]

[nickmpreg]

you don’t gotta tell me to boycott the Nintendo prices by not buying bc i don’t have the money to get them anyways

[nickmpreg]

‘guys don’t spend 600-700 dollars on the new nintendo products to send a message’ im way ahead of you man

[tortellinigirl]

men really be like “well this woman has studied this subject her whole life, and i am a man, so we have equal knowledge on this”

[hcrzallerliebst-a-deactivated20]

it’s ok you could have just said “i hate men”

[tortellinigirl]

okay, i hate men

[fidough0926]

i don't know who needs to hear this but some of y'all don't say thank you enough. i need y'all to be saying thank you to your bus drivers, to your food service workers, to your sanitation workers, to your friends/family, etc etc etc. it's not hard and it is also kind ! thanks for reading 👍

[movementnudge]

Do you have physio exercises to do?

If no, movement nudge! 🤸🏻‍♀️

If yes, do those exercises! It'll help! 💪

[fidough0926]

card was declined twice this month in two separate instances of me trying to get $20 worth of wendy's. who want me