(US Study)

A study published in the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) found that between 2000–2002 and 2016–2018, the proportion of 18–24-year-old individuals who reported having had no sexual activity in the past year increased among men (but not among women).1 In another recent study, similar results were reported: American men belonging to the youngest birth cohort who entered adulthood were more likely to be sexually inactive than their Millennial counterparts at the same ages just a few years prior.

The 5% is thus having half the (penile–vaginal) sex in the world.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bioe.13134

AI self-preferencing in algorithmic hiring

tldr; using AI to craft your resume leads to better shortlisting rates

The bias against human-written resumes is particularly substantial, with self-preference bias ranging from 67% to 82% across major commercial and open-source models. To assess labor market impact, we simulate realistic hiring pipelines across 24 occupations. These simulations show that candidates using the same LLM as the evaluator are 23% to 60% more likely to be shortlisted than equally qualified applicants submitting human-written resumes, with the largest disadvantages observed in business-related fields such as sales and accounting.

source:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.00462

https://x.com/heynavtoor/status/2048088874686300431?s=20

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A facial aging clock trained on occupation-linked photos found that the gap between your biological face-age and your real age predicts all-cause mortality. The wider that gap, the higher your risk.

Women aged slower than men in every single occupation measured. No exceptions.

The ranking, from youngest-looking to oldest-looking relative to chronological age:

Athletes > service workers > sales > clerical > managers > professionals > scientists and educators.

source:
Face photo-based age acceleration predicts all-cause mortality and differs among occupations - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.16.649078v1

https://x.com/agingroy/status/2047745587143917991?s=20

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over the weekend, i had the pleasure of playing Blood On The Clocktower, a board game with some friends (and friends of)

some reflections that also reflect human psych from a fellow player:
• approaching with something to give makes people trust you more (providing value first)
• being present when information is being shared and how you share/shape the perception of it, snowballs into a greater force down the line (compounding)

speaking of trusting, it reminds me of the Benjamin Franklin Effect

Benjamin Franklin Effect

The Benjamin Franklin Effect is a psychological phenomenon in which a person likes someone more after doing them a favor. The effect can be explained with cognitive dissonance: individuals rationalize their helpful actions by assuming they must like the person, since their behavior would otherwise conflict with their typical behavior and self-perception. In this way, the effect shows how people adjust their attitudes to maintain consistency in their self-concept.

tldr; asking for a favour from someone makes them trust/like you more

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https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/benjamin-franklin-effect

remember the CEO airhead epidemic that was discussed^

the effects of these dramas and movies are real and already felt

https://x.com/HazelAppleyard/status/2048323256814313676?s=20

self protection by not working hard

what gets lost when a culture is commercialised?

https://youtube.com/shorts/8jQmcQmSMCY?si=cWqzUjaENuXlK_7Y

why meta glasses content is power porn

this clip explains why meta glasses are creepy in an eloquent way

to photograph is to possess, to transform a subject into an object

photography is framed as an act of taking: 'shoot', 'capture'

https://youtube.com/shorts/aH86R8Y41wA?si=a0Elj7EcUedUOljG

On Photography by Susan Sontag

Photography is a violent act.

Susan Sontag was deliberately provocative when she coupled photography with violence. There is, she wrote in the essay ‘In Plato’s Cave’ (1977), ‘something predatory in the act of taking a picture’. She pointed out that we speak casually about ‘loading’ and ‘aiming’ a camera: ‘Just as the camera is a sublimation of the gun, to photograph someone is a sublimated murder.’ Sontag knew that she was using hyperbole, prodding her readers to consider the seizing of someone else’s identity that is implicit in each portrait that is shot.

https://www.themarginalian.org/2013/09/16/susan-sontag-on-photography-social-media/

https://aeon.co/ideas/blinded-by-the-light-the-violence-of-flash-photography

Short-Form Videos Degrade Our Capacity to Retain Intentions: Effect of Context Switching On Prospective Memory

A study between Tiktok, Youtube, Twitter, showed that only Tiktok degrades capacity to retain intentions and has a significant detrimental impact on prospective memory performance. YT shorts not included in this study, only long-form content.

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3544548.3580778

Why bird songs are good for you

Birdsongs can calm the stress-inducing, ruminating parts of the human brain. They act as a "safety signal" that lowers anxiety, paranoia, and cortisol levels.

Evolutionarily, birdsong signals a safe, resource-rich environment. When birds stop singing, it often indicates danger, meaning their active song tells our nervous system to relax and stop scanning for threats.

Birdsong vs. Urban Noise
While birdsong promotes a "rest and digest" parasympathetic state, urban sounds (traffic) increase depressive states.

Positive Effects: High-diversity birdsong (different species) showed the best results for reducing depression.

Mental Well-being Lasts: Studies found that the positive mental impact of hearing or seeing birds can linger for up to eight hours.

Even recordings of birdsongs can provide these restorative benefits, making it an accessible tool for mental wellness, especially in urban environments.
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Reads:

Listening to birds sing really does soothe your brain. Here’s why.:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/health/article/birds-sing-brain-mental-health

Birdsongs alleviate anxiety and paranoia in healthy participants:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-20841-0

Benefits of Birdsong: 5 Ways Birdsong is Good For You:
https://www.nathab.com/blog/benefits-of-birdsong-5-ways-birdsong-is-good-for-you

currently listening to bird songs while getting work done 😁

https://youtu.be/rYoZgpAEkFs

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Ways of Seeing by John Berger

Seeing is never innocent; it is filtered through what we know and believe.

European painting and modern media often depict women as passive objects for a male spectator's consumption (the "male gaze"), transforming them into objects to be owned.

Traditional art history "mystifies" art by using intellectual jargon to hide the simpler, often monetary, reasons the art was created.

https://culturecounts.cc/blog/john-berger-ways-of-seeing-the-impact-of-context

https://hankystanky.livejournal.com/43914.html