this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] aaaa 67 points 8 months ago (5 children)

What exactly are they arguing over? I probably shouldn't ask, but I've been fortunate enough to not encounter any of this controversy on my social media

[–] chemical_cutthroat 90 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Probably whether or not the ship was loaded with jet fuel or something...

[–] TheRedSpade 36 points 8 months ago (1 children)

My favorite thing about the jet fuel argument is that it's actually true. It's irrelevant, but it's true.

[–] MedicPigBabySaver 21 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Wait! Are you saying those planes had jet fuel in the tanks?

[–] chemical_cutthroat 26 points 8 months ago (1 children)

To make matters worse, it was loaded with a bio-organic payload that is mostly hydrogen and oxygen, both of which are incredibly volatile.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

:O omg we should ban that. imagine if people went around burning that stuff every day.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Personally I’ve seen:

  • actually a terrorist attack that’s being covered up, which includes lots of the bridge and ship version of “jet fuel can’t melt steel beams”

  • rebuilding it will actually not be expensive because (some insane shit nobody has ever done before). Elon Musk got in on this one!

[–] [email protected] 63 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)
  • rebuilding it will actually not be expensive because (some insane shit nobody has ever done before). Elon Musk got in on this one!

Let me guess, they're going to make a tunnel instead. But instead of underground they're going to put it above ground, suspended over the water supported by pillars. 🧐

[–] [email protected] 44 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

Oh, you bright and wonderful soul, untarnished by the knowledge of the depths of Musk’s stupidity, I envy you. I envy you and will destroy your blissful ignorance: he suggested reusing the collapsed truss steel.

You know, steel! The material that deals fantastically with being bent and twisted and doesn’t lose any strength at all from it! 😬

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago (2 children)

FFS that's dumb, that steel can't be reused without being reforged (or whatever the term is)

That broken bridge needs removed (hopefully recycled) and then a new one built in it's place

Hopefully it goes faster than the project to replace a bridge near me. It was built before WWI and it's still there, the talks have been going on for decades.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Sounds like a bridge near me.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

There is a bridge near me that was rebuild so cars can cross like 30 years ago. They had plans to repaint it, because it looks weathered. They put on 3 different kinds of paint to see which one would look best. The 3 samples are already weathered and peeling by now.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

and my axe i mean bridge.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

And let me guess; hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent on multiple studies figuring out whether or not the bridge should be replaced?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

Funnily enough no

Everyone knows it needs replaced

No one wants to agree on what should replace it though

Basically 2 different jurisdictions want to replace the bridge and then either one will propose a plan that inevitably gets shot down and then it's back to the drawing board

So the money is being wasted there not on whether it should be replaced or not

[–] superfes 14 points 8 months ago

That just might be crazy enough to work, perhaps the tunnel can be made of scaffolding, so people can get some of that sweet sunlight while they go through it?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

He can have it done in a month. Guaranteed.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

It only fits one tesla at the time

[–] cobysev 36 points 8 months ago (1 children)

A cargo ship lost power and couldn't steer, ended up crashing into a bridge and took it down. Drivers were stopped from crossing in time, but there was a construction crew on the bridge who fell with it. Several reported dead.

Now Facebook warriors are arguing that it's some sort of conspiracy.

[–] Aceticon 2 points 8 months ago

I still don't get the point of the OP.

Aren't Conspiracy Theorists experts in theories of conspiracy?!

/s

[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

My buddy brought the bridge up last week and I just said yeah the ship crashed into it, so what, what conspiracy theory is there?

And says oh no conspiracy theory... and then somehow started talking about racism.

So, I'm still clueless on the whole thing.

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[–] PriorityMotif 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I think people are saying that the bridge shouldn't have collapsed like that just from being hit by a barge and that there was some kind of structural defect in the bridge. The fact that investigators went straight to' "maintenance was just done to the ship" is sus.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

I wish I could have half the confidence these people have talking about the things I actually know about.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 23 points 8 months ago (1 children)

How do we know that we can trust this author though? 🤔

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

I guess you have to read it to find out...

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

Are they experts? I probably shouldn't trust them.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Confidence and Knowledge are anti-correlated... so please, be proud of the extent of your ignorance:-).

[–] force 14 points 8 months ago (2 children)

this isn't necessarily true. people who have more knowledge or reasoning generally have higher confidence in their abilities than those with less, although people with less knowledge tend to have a higher disparity between their confidence and their actual performance. people with more knowledge still think they know more than the people with less knowledge, even though despite the higher confidence they still underestimated themselves.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Useful corollary: smart people tend to overestimate others’ intelligence, sometimes drastically.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

To be more clear, I was incompletely referencing only the left side of this curve:

since it seemed closer to what the person I was responding to was speaking about. Ofc you are correct that the right side of the curve also exists, though the amount of effort to reach it seems extremely out of proportion to the level of confidence gained - i.e. it is far easier to just be dumb and think that (or rather, act as if) you know everything, than to make yourself smart and actually know everything, about a particular topic.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Same with covid.

[–] moistclump 51 points 8 months ago (2 children)

It’s hard because… you don’t want to dismiss legitimate concerns from uneducated populations. But then there’s a flip side to that where… do you have to hear them out if they’re too far wrong. Maybe it’s less about education and more about someone’s self awareness of the limitations of their own knowledge and willingness to defer to experts. I don’t think you have to be educated to be self aware and curious, and also express things and be heard.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 8 months ago

Maybe it’s less about education and more about someone’s self awareness of the limitations of their own knowledge and willingness to defer to experts.

A Dunning-Kruger Effect chart

[–] LonelyWendigo 17 points 8 months ago (1 children)

someone’s self awareness of the limitations of their own knowledge and willingness to defer to experts.

This is a cornerstone of ethics in engineering and many other discipline that I feel is being shouted down daily by a crowd that clearly never took a philosophy or ethics class. Even among engineers it seems to be an increasingly unpopular attitude. It seems to have become popular to praise the braggart and shun the ethical self aware.

[–] bisby 3 points 8 months ago

In my ethics in engineering class, we spent a lot of time talking about things like the Kansas City Hyatt Regency walkway collapsing. The takeaway for me was "Depending on what you are doing, people might die if you are too confidently doing things the wrong way."

Most people, even a lot of engineers, don't have lives on the line in their day to day. Things means that most people don't have the "What if I am wrong about this and people die?" part of their brain firing 24/7. For most people, the "consequences of getting things wrong" means either a lecture from their boss, or literally nothing. When people never have to face consequences for being wrong, they feel very empowered to be wrong.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Excuse me, but I've beaten all 3 Polybridge games. I think I know a thing or two about bridges. 😤

[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago

Design the bridge as a collapsible ramp for cars to jump across and this never would have happened.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Such a good game.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Has "Dear Ashley" not been online during the start and height of the Covid-19 pandemic? It's not an entirely new concept.

On the other hand, just because you got a title to your name doesn't make you intelligent or apt to discuss a topic. I have seen many PhD students in my time as one, who shouldn't have received a PhD in the end as they really weren't very good at what they were doing. E.g. manual counting of things in images and using the only statistical test that gives you significance, those sort of things in Life Sciences...

[–] BilboBargains 1 points 8 months ago

💯% the title ought to be immaterial or at most a loose guide to credibility. We examine the measurements and observations and propose a hypothesis that doesn't need to violate the laws of physics to explain what we saw. Anybody can do that but scientists and engineers are the obvious choice. Everyone else go look up the Dunning-Kruger effect.

[–] Rageagainstbelief 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

People are commenting on a comment about people arguing with insane people about a tragedy. This is tiring.

[–] Moops 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

And ya needed to engage because...?

Lighten up and live a little fam. We all just here having some fun :) Join us in the merrymaking.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Blood for the blood god! :D

[–] Rageagainstbelief 2 points 8 months ago

I downvoted the post thought I should explain why. I’m trying but the internet mostly just seems depressing.

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[–] PriorityMotif 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Bridge engineer is a very specific kind of structural engineer and nobody who is licensed to be a bridge engineer is going to risk their license tothrow in their .02

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