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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3630 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for March 31, 2023

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oh, I was a bit confused by those questions, I answered yes for the physics ones because I took grad courses in those subjects. Was the expectation that rats would say they "know how to design nanotechnology" from just reading the sequences or something?

I'm highly skeptical anybody answering that survey actually knows how to design nanotechnology.

Maybe the question should've been "have you read Drexler's Nanosystems and understood all the math?", because "nanotechnology" isn't exactly as well defined as something like quantum mechanics.

Like someone mentioned elsewhere in the thread, I think those could have been there with intention of capturing a Dunning Kruger effect. Which I think is actually and underused tool in surveys to capture certain overconfident opinions people might have.

If graduate school doesn't count as studying something, I don't know what does.

The question isn't necessarily expecting overconfident claims, though. It just expects really high chance of comorbidity.

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