Rereading “What Happened”, the 2016 campaign postmortem by #HillaryClinton and am reminded once again of what could have been. Man, she would have made a great president.
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Roger Herikstad
@grero
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https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-024-01845-7 Very interesting study providing evidence that the dynamics of neural populations, at least in the motor cortex, might be supported by mechanisms that are hard to volitionally change. They did this through clever application of brain-machine-interfaces (BMI), whereby subjects were shown a 2D representation of the neural state of their motor cortex. The subjects were unable to reproduce projections that violated the natural time course of their population activity.
Donald Trump’s America will not become a tech oligarchy
https://www.economist.com/business/2025/01/21/donald-trumps-america-will-not-become-a-tech-oligarchy
from The Economist. I’m not sure why they are so eager to jump on the ‘nothing to see here’ bandwagon. It’s not the share of the overall economy that matters, but rather that these tech billionaires have a direct line of communication to the White House, thereby able to push an agenda that out their interest for profit far above that of ordinary people.
https://www.economist.com/business/2025/01/21/donald-trumps-america-will-not-become-a-tech-oligarchy
from The Economist. I’m not sure why they are so eager to jump on the ‘nothing to see here’ bandwagon. It’s not the share of the overall economy that matters, but rather that these tech billionaires have a direct line of communication to the White House, thereby able to push an agenda that out their interest for profit far above that of ordinary people.
@biorxiv_neursci interesting study on pre-activation of neural activity representing upcoming movement. It would be really interesting to see whether this can be seen on a single neuron level using eg NHP recordings. Would one find that the pre-activation happens in a sub-space that is initially orthogonal to the movement potent space, and that then rotates into this space, like what Churchland and others found.
@nic221.bsky.social If only they could also take over the tedious task of training our NHPs…
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1150769
This paper by Mongillo, Barak and Tsodyks is one of those that I keep coming back to. The authors show quite convincingly short term memories can be encoded through synaptic potentiation, and how a non-specific pulse of activity to the entire population serves to refresh the encoded memories. The debate is still ongoing whether this is how the brain actually encodes these short-term memories, or whether they are maintained by persistent neuronal firing. #neuroscience
This paper by Mongillo, Barak and Tsodyks is one of those that I keep coming back to. The authors show quite convincingly short term memories can be encoded through synaptic potentiation, and how a non-specific pulse of activity to the entire population serves to refresh the encoded memories. The debate is still ongoing whether this is how the brain actually encodes these short-term memories, or whether they are maintained by persistent neuronal firing. #neuroscience
2) The war in Gaza. Here, I would place the blame on President Biden's shoulders. He has done woefully little to convince anyone that he actually cares about Palestinian lives, and Harris, as his VP, and despite deviating from Biden in rhetoric, could not escape the fact that she is part of his administration. As a result, many potential Democratic voters stayed home, or voted 3rd party, or even voted for Trump as a protest. This despite the fact that Trump will be a disaster for Gaza.
https://newrepublic.com/article/188597/democrats-left-election-interest-groups I don't know I keep getting triggered by these 'No, this is why Democrats REALLY lost' arguments. I agree with much of what is being said here, but I think fundamentally the Democrats had two main issues. 1) The economy. Despite every objective measure to the contrary, the electorate was convinced that the economy is doing badly, and blamed the current administration for it, completely ignoring, or being unaware of, the many policies enacted to actually help people.
Matt Gaetz’s nomination to be attorney-general is an ill omen
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/11/14/matt-gaetzs-nomination-to-be-attorney-general-is-an-ill-omen
from The Economist. I’m kid of amazed that the Economist is acting all surprised as some of Trump’s cabinet pick, especially Matt Gaetz. Throughout his campaign Trump kept yammering about how he would go after those who criticise him using the full force of the justice department, so of course he would nominate someone who would absolutely carry out such orders.
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/11/14/matt-gaetzs-nomination-to-be-attorney-general-is-an-ill-omen
from The Economist. I’m kid of amazed that the Economist is acting all surprised as some of Trump’s cabinet pick, especially Matt Gaetz. Throughout his campaign Trump kept yammering about how he would go after those who criticise him using the full force of the justice department, so of course he would nominate someone who would absolutely carry out such orders.
@dedicto All good points, though in my opinion, any democrat who sat this one out, principles or not, bears responsibility for what happened. In a two party system, a protest vote, or a non-vote, is a vote for the winner. In addition, it’s baffling to me that the Biden administration, who for instance tried repeatedly to forgive the student debt of millions, only to be stopped and again in the courts, somehow don’t care about the working class and did nothing to improve people’s lives.