IFLScience: 23 Facts You Learned About Healthy Eating As A Kid That Are No Longer True

This is because people who skimp on fat (something our bodies need to function properly) are more likely to fill up on sugar and refined carbohydrates instead, and that can lead to measurable weight gain over time. Studies of people around the globe show this to be true time and again. [...]

"People who are more health-conscious overall tend to eat breakfast because they are following health guidelines," Lowery pointed out, "whereas people who skip breakfast are usually unhealthier overall because they are ignoring guidelines" [...]

Intermittent fasting can help people ward off diseases like diabetes, high cholesterol, and obesity. The practice can also boost the production of a protein that strengthens connections in the brain and can serve as an antidepressant. Scientists even think fasting can lengthen our lifespans by keeping cells healthy and youthful longer. [...]

A long-term study of over 131,300 people in the US found that the more animal protein people ate, the more likely they were to die of a heart attack, suggesting that it may be best to favor plant proteins like those from nuts and beans, rather than relying on meat.

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Big Think: Here's how to prove that you are a simulation and nothing is real

In fact, if we don't believe we are simulations, concludes Bostrom, then "we are not entitled to believe that we will have descendants who will run lots of such simulations of their forebears." If you accept one premise (that you'll have powerful super-computing descendants), you have to accept the other (you are simulation). [...]

Simulating the whole universe, including all the details "down to the quantum level" requires more computing oomph, to the point that it may be "unfeasible," thinks Bostrom. But that may not really be necessary as all the future humans or post-humans would need to do is to simulate the human experience of the universe. They'd just need to make sure the simulated minds don't pick up on anything that doesn't look consistent or "irregularities". You wouldn't have to recreate things the human mind wouldn't ordinarily notice, like things happening at the microscopic level. [...]

A fascinating outcome of all this speculation is that we have no way of knowing what the true reality of existence really is. Our minds are likely accessing just a small fraction of the "totality of physical existence." What we think we are may be run on virtual machines that are run on other virtual machines - it's like a nesting doll of simulations, making it nearly impossible for us to see beyond to the true nature of things. Even the posthumans simulating us could be themselves simulated. As such, there could be many levels of reality, concludes Bostrom. The future us might likely never know if they are at the "fundamental" or "basement" level. [...]

What are other implications of these lines of reasoning? Ok, let's assume we are living in a simulation – now what? Bostrom doesn't think our behavior should be affected much, even with such heavy knowledge, especially as we don't know the true motivations of future humans behind creating the simulated minds. They might have entirely different value systems.

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Slate: The Price of Equality

Yeah, I love that [Duggan quote]. I am responding to that line of thinking, absolutely. But I would add that I’m also approaching this as a sociologist, and there’s this whole body of sociological research that shows how marriage is a “greedy institution.” Once people get married, because contemporary marriage requires focus and you’re supposed to just be totally focused on your partner, it sucks all your time and energy away from your broader community. Research on heterosexual marriage shows that married people, they volunteer less. They spend less time with friends. They talk to their neighbors less. So as a sociologist, I’m just curious if we are going to see marriage being quite so greedy for queer folk as well or not. [...]

I think there are a few. One of the things that I found most interesting was the extent to which a kind of social etiquette seemed to make these once very critical people, or even people who still felt very critical of marriage as an institution, feel like they couldn’t express that as freely anymore. Because suddenly you’re getting wedding invitations in the mail. And it’s not this abstract debate that you’re having. Your good friends that you’ve known for years are getting married. And it might be seen as insulting to decline. Or, even more than to decline, to challenge them. Do you say, wait a minute, what about all those debates we used to have? I think there was this kind of self-policing going on. People realized that it just wasn’t seen as appropriate anymore to critique marriage as an institution because they were worried that if they did, it would come across as a personal attack. [...]

Sure. It wasn’t just that the people were keeping [their criticisms] in or felt like they couldn’t express them anymore. Over time, reluctantly or not, they acknowledged to me that their views had softened. People would tell me, well suddenly we were going to these weddings and you know, I couldn’t believe how overcome with emotion I was. I couldn’t believe how happy I felt for these people getting married. And so, the emotional power of marriage was really striking. You could have these intellectual critiques of marriage as an institution, but then all of a sudden it was happening and people got very, very swept up in the emotion of it. Like, people saying: How could you not be moved by watching an elderly couple on the news that had been together for 50 years suddenly being able to tie the knot? It was always sort of unhuman not to be moved by them. [...]

I suppose what I would say about the legacy is that there’s a loss. There’s a price to social inclusion. I heard this from my respondents in all kinds of ways. I have another piece that I wrote, which is about the loss of organized community. There is this sense the more included you are, the less need people felt for any kind of organized LGBT community. And so [after marriage] all these once vibrant groups and organizations started shutting their doors. So that’s one thing.

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CityLab: Berlin Will Freeze Rents for Five Years

The Berlin senate on Tuesday voted in favor of what could be the most radical rental laws anywhere in Europe. The decision, which awaits final ratification by the same assembly members in October, is the most drastic step yet in a city that has already gone further than most in its attempts to keep rents affordable. [...]

Once fully ratified in October, the law would be retroactive to June 18. Rent increases on Berlin homes would be banned for five years, with the exception of already subsidized public housing and newly constructed apartments. In practice, this means rental rates will remain in place on 1.5 million of the city’s 1.9 million homes.

To enforce the rule, tenants who sign new contracts could have them checked by the city to verify that rents have not been raised illegally. Meanwhile, existing tenants who pay a rate that the city deems too high could apply to have their rent lowered. (It hasn’t been decided yet what rates are considered too high.) [...]

This is already fairly strict, but its effect is to steadily pace rent increases, rather than halt them altogether. This has thus far prevented rents from galloping up year by year, which could cause real social chaos in a city where 85 percent of homes are rented. [...]

In a city where even relatively wealthy, well-connected people rent, this has led to a growing popular movement for greater collective control of the housing market. Berlin is already being swept by a campaign to renationalize former public housing blocks and ban mega landlords, one that may well be the subject of a city-wide referendum in 2020. Meanwhile the state has become more heavily involved in new housing provisions, though here it is currently falling behind its ambitious targets.

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TLDR News: Tactical Voting in the Leadership Election

Throughout the Conservative leadership contest theirs been speculation that candidates have encouraged their supporters to vote tactically. With the final two candidates selected we look back over the process and examine if there really been tactical voting going on.