Some Red State/Blue State Indicia

Today's list of 3 Nobel Laureates in physics includes an American. Born in New Mexico. Other recent American physics laureates were either born in blue states or in other countries. Must be something in the water that prevents children born in red states from developing into top scientists.

I do want to give a shoutout to Arkansas. John Jumper, a winner in chemistry last year, is from Little Rock. That satisfies the red state quota for this decade.
 
eh...women make babies...but men are a necessary accessory

and California has kneecapped itself with insane permitting regulations

so when will red state American emerge from being a technological backwater...or do they have excuses
 
nsacpi said:
eh...women make babies...but men are a necessary accessory

and California has kneecapped itself with insane permitting regulations

so when will red state American emerge from being a technological backwater...or do they have excuses
Click to expand...
I dunno about you but I prefer to live in a state that can rebuild my house when I lose it in a fire rather than getting access to latest chatgpt poem writer
 
surely thangs like scientific prowess and health outcomes are reasonable criteria for evaluating states/societies/countries

or are some just born dumb and unlucky
 
btw the aforementioned John Jumper of Little Rock, Arkansas won for the most impressive demonstration so far of AI's promise in solving hard seemingly intractable scientific problems...it might not help y'all make your reservations but in the right hands it can be mighty useful

Is the work John Jumper won the Nobel for an indication of the potential of AI and computational methods to solve very difficult problems

ChatGPT said:​

Yes — profoundly so.

John Jumper’s Nobel-winning work (shared with Demis Hassabis and others) on AlphaFold is one of the clearest demonstrations to date that AI and computational modeling can crack problems once considered intractable even for generations of scientists. Let’s unpack what this means more precisely:

1. The Problem It Solved: Protein Folding​

For half a century, predicting a protein’s 3D structure from its amino acid sequence was one of biology’s grand unsolved challenges — so hard that it was sometimes called the “holy grail” of molecular biology.

  • Traditional experimental methods (like X-ray crystallography or cryo-EM) were slow, expensive, and often failed on tricky proteins.
  • Even the best physics-based computational models struggled to reach accurate predictions.
AlphaFold changed this. Jumper’s team used deep learning architectures (especially attention-based ones) and large-scale evolutionary data to learn how proteins fold. The result was accuracy approaching — and in many cases matching — experimental resolution.

2. The Deeper Implication: AI as a Tool for Discovery​

What makes AlphaFold historic isn’t just that it solved one problem, but that it demonstrated a new mode of doing science:

  • Instead of human-designed heuristics, it relied on data-driven pattern discovery.
  • It inferred underlying physical and biological principles directly from data.
  • It achieved this in a field where “intuition” had failed to scale.
This shows that AI can augment or even transcend traditional theoretical modeling, provided it’s coupled to vast data and physical constraints.

3. Broader Impact on Science​

AlphaFold has already reshaped how research proceeds:

  • Its models have helped understand membrane proteins, enzymes, and viral structures — accelerating drug discovery and basic biology.
  • It’s inspired parallel efforts in AI-based chemistry, material science, and quantum simulation.
  • It’s opened new lines of thinking about how to represent and reason about complex, multiscale systems in physics and biology.
In essence, Jumper’s work provides a proof of concept that AI can function as an instrument of scientific discovery, comparable to the microscope or particle accelerator in its transformative potential.

4. The Cautionary Side​

AlphaFold also revealed limitations:

  • It predicts static structures, not dynamic behavior or folding pathways.
  • It relies heavily on existing sequence data and evolutionary context.
  • It’s not yet a general-purpose “AI scientist” — it excels in well-defined, data-rich domains.
Still, the precedent is extraordinary. It suggests that other deeply complex scientific problems — from climate modeling to drug design to materials optimization — might yield to similar AI-based approaches.

In Short:​

Jumper’s Nobel work is more than a triumph of biology — it’s a demonstration that AI can unlock scientific domains once beyond human reach.
It stands as a model for how computation, when guided by rigorous science, can revolutionize discovery itself.

 
mqt said:
I do wholeheartedly agree that the specific ways in which we handle these programs are insane and the cost of them is unjustifiably expensive for the outcomes it produces. While I don’t believe the answer is to instead jail them forever, there needs to be a complete and unending audit of how that money is being spent and what they could do instead. I am well aware we will diverge very quickly on the instead part, but I do absolutely agree that there is something insanely incompetent going on here in a way that necessitates change.

States like California are the reason it sucks that neither party seems to want to be reasonable about shit anymore. A halfway competent GOP in California would be a huge benefit to hold Dems accountable for their awful fucking execution on so many levels. Instead we get MAGA weirdos that stand no chance and the Dems learn no lessons from their failures.
Click to expand...
Romney was a monster for traveling with a dog cage on top of his car during a family vacation and a misogynist for referring to his binders full of women candidates for high level roles in his potential administration. McCain and GWB were both literally Hitler. The quality of GOP candidates hasn’t mattered much since the Pelosi takeover of the Democrats. That’s why Trump is successful, we’ve all heard every Republican candidate of the 21st century called the same names. Something something boy who cried wolf.

Democrats have lurched leftward enough now that candidate Obama would be considered too far right, and the California population has self selected enough at this point with all of the political migrations that no one to the right of AOC has any chance in a statewide election. There won’t be any Republican coming along to save them from themselves for a long, long time.
 
acesfull86 said:
The issue doesn’t seem to be whether the program works, whether the benefits justify the costs, etc.…hell, have those questions even been raised? No, the issue from Mamdani’s perspective is that based on skin color, too many of the “wrong” children are getting into the programs. That’s really it.

Given he explicitly and proudly announced on his campaign website that he intended to shift the tax burden to “whiter” neighborhoods, this tracks.
Click to expand...
The funny thing about this is that he’s calling himself a communist. The Democratic party has been taking this stance for years now, so I don’t know why he felt the need to distinguish himself.
 
thethe said:
He never accounts for the fact that after the leftist shitholes become even more of a hellscape all that fancy tech minds will race to red states that care about their citizens.
Click to expand...
Nah they would do what they do now, live in gated communities and send their kids to private school while having others shop for them. Gotta minimize the contact with those filthy poors after all. Also, continue voting for the same policies to encourage more of it and label anyone with a pejorative if they don’t like the results.
 
Jaw said:
Nah they would do what they do now, live in gated communities and send their kids to private school while having others shop for them. Gotta minimize the contact with those filthy poors after all. Also, continue voting for the same policies to encourage more of it and label anyone with a pejorative if they don’t like the results.
Click to expand...
HAHAHA - Love this.

But as their society continues to break down their gated communities won't save them from their terrible choices/policies.
 
Jaw said:
You’re making the mistake of treating this as a good faith argument. He knows his emperor has no clothes and is just being disingenuous.
Click to expand...

Completely fair - I've long noted that BL is tongue in cheek because he has looked so foolish with the benefit of hindsight.
 
nsacpi said:
that's nice...but what is the excuse red states have for being a technological backwater
Click to expand...
Republicans build our tech infrastructure in the greatest land we have. Thats generationsof tech infrastructure built, bringing the best tech people there to continue.

Meanwhile, those pesky red states lead in the way in the unimportant things like food and energy. We need something to power your robot poem writer... just have to sacrifice the toaster
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top