Learn about why “everyday sadism” might help explain trolling and bullying; why our quality of sleep is worse during lockdown (and how to fix it); and a breakthrough random number generation algorithm that could help researchers analyze complex systems.
Learn about why “everyday sadism” might help explain trolling and bullying; why our quality of sleep is worse during lockdown (and how to fix it); and a breakthrough random number generation algorithm that could help researchers analyze complex systems. Plus: Cody nerds out about Games Done Quick and video game speed runs!
Blame "everyday sadism" for trolling, bullying, and violent crime by Kelsey Donk
Our sleep during lockdown is more regular, but lower quality (and there's a fix) by Kelsey Donk
New MIT algorithm can simulate a roll of loaded dice — and that could help analyze complex systems by Grant Currin
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/blame-trolling-on-everyday-sadism-how-to-sleep-better-during-lockdown-and-a-breakthrough-in-random-number-generation
CODY: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity-dot-com. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about a psychological tendency that might explain trolling and bullying; why our quality of sleep is worse during lockdown, and how to fix it; and a breakthrough from computer scientists that could help researchers predict the future more accurately than ever.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Psychologists may have come up with an explanation for what motivates trolling, bullying, and violent crime. And believe it or not, it has to do with sadism. Now, the word ‘sadism’ might make you think of serial killers, or criminals who torture people for pleasure. And sure, that’s what we see in horror films and hear about in true crime podcasts. But psychologists now recognize a milder version of sadism that lives in many of us that scientists call “everyday sadism.”
Everyday sadism is the capacity many people have to feel pleasure from other people’s pain and suffering — just less than someone with clinically diagnosed sadism. And it’s not as rare as you might think. For example, you might have cheered on a fight in the schoolyard when you were a kid. Or maybe grownup you takes a bit of pleasure in seeing someone mess up an important presentation at work.
But more than that, ‘everyday sadists’ also enjoy doing things to cause suffering. For an experiment, a team of Canadian and American researchers measured people’s levels of sadism, then gave them the chance to do some mildly sadistic things. Participants with high sadism scores were more likely to blast computer-game opponents with loud white noise. They were even willing to do a boring task to get another chance to hurt their computer-game opponents!
Other studies have found that people who score high on ‘everyday sadist’ questionnaires are more likely to engage in cyberbullying and trolling online, and traditional bullying in the real world.
People who score highly in sadism also tend to get high scores when it comes to the ‘dark triad’ of personality traits — that includes psychopathy, Machiavellianism (which is all about manipulation), and narcissism. But it’s not just that sadists are also psychopaths. Some researchers argue that the traits are distinct, and sadism can be used on its own to predict online trolling and other bad behaviors. These researchers say that the ‘dark triad’ should be expanded into a ‘dark tetrad’ of problematic personality traits that also includes everyday sadism.
If you enjoy other peoples’ pain just a little bit, don’t worry too much. Like most everything else, sadism exists on a spectrum. A lot of the time, people with a hint of sadism just enjoy violent movies and video games. But it’s important to know that about yourself. That way, when it pops up, it won’t take you by surprise — and you can stop, think, and do the right thing.
A new study suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic has altered our sleep schedules, for better and for worse. Our sleep schedules are more regular and we sleep for longer, but we’re not sleeping all that soundly. Fortunately, there’s a fix to help you sleep easy.
First, though, let’s talk about the research. Early on in the pandemic, back in late March, researchers from the University of Basel [BOZ-ill] wanted to find out how lockdown was affecting sleep. See, lots of sleep research has pointed to the fact that our normal, non-lockdown schedules are mismatched with our biological rhythms. Early work hours and late social activities pressure us to stay awake when our bodies want to sleep, and that leads to what sleep scientists call social jetlag.
But on lockdown, the researchers thought we might not feel this pressure. Without early commutes and late-night bar crawls, our schedules might end up more in line with our biological clocks.
So the researchers spent six weeks of the early pandemic asking 435 people in Austria, Switzerland, and Germany about how they were sleeping. Most of the people surveyed were working from home.
The study found that more flexible working hours did in fact lead to less ‘social jetlag.’ Instead of waking up at unnatural hours, people went to sleep and woke up according to their bodies’ internal signals.
And the participants slept longer on lockdown, too. Most participants said they slept longer during lockdown than they did before the pandemic — a few by as much as 50 minutes a night. Their sleep schedules were also more regular, which suggested that they cut down on social jetlag.
Great, right? Not quite. Even though social jetlag was gone, the study’s participants said they didn’t feel like they were getting better sleep. Quantity increased, but not quality. In fact, the participants said their sleep quality deteriorated during lockdown. That’s also not surprising. The pandemic has been stressful, and stress doesn’t do good things for sleep quality.
But the sleep experts do have a tip for those of us who are still sleeping restlessly on lockdown: outdoor exercise. The study suggests that people who do more physical activity outdoors also sleep better. And it’s possible to go for a bike ride or take a walk in the park while maintaining social distancing. Hopefully we’ll all be able to sleep longer and better.
Computer scientists have made a breakthrough that may one day help us do a lot of things: like, model climate change more accurately, predict the spread of disease more precisely, and better monitor Earth’s crust for signs of faraway earthquakes or nuclear weapon tests. Okay, so what’s the shiny new tech? Random numbers. Or, more precisely, a better way to generate huge sets of random numbers.
See, a lot of computer models rely on random number generators to help simulate real-life events as accurately as possible. Computers are good at a lot of things, but random isn’t one of them. Researchers back in 1976 designed an algorithm that could simulate rolling loaded dice, but they built the program to make calculations as fast as theoretically possible. That’s “theoretically” as in “use all the computer memory you need, even if it’s more than we have on Earth.”
ASHLEY: Hang on Cody, did you say loaded dice? That doesn’t sound super random.
CODY: Right, fair point. The new algorithm is even called Fast Loaded Dice Roller, or FLDR for short. Both this algorithm and the 1976 one generate random numbers in a certain probability distribution. That means you could tell the program, I want to flip a coin but I want a 90% chance of coming up heads. If you ran that a hundred times, you’d get heads about 90 times and tails about 10. It’s random because you don’t know which side will come up on any one coin flip. This is useful for lots of things — think of a baseball game where one team is favored to win, even though either team could potentially emerge victorious on a given day.
The new program has “fast” in the name, but it’s actually slower than the ‘76 model. Its crowning achievement is its memory efficiency. FLDR can use up to ten thousand times less memory than its predecessor. Its main competitor is a widely used technology called the Alias method, which is faster in some cases but also less efficient.
Why are computer scientists so interested in memory efficiency? One big reason is that it might lead to greater energy efficiency. That’s important because analyzing data uses a surprising amount of power. Another reason is the limited availability of computing resources. Not every climate researcher or computational epidemiologist has access to a supercomputer, and even those machines have their limitations. With FLDR, everything from AI training to advanced statistical modeling could become accessible to more researchers — and lead to exciting new advances.
ASHLEY: Let’s recap today’s takeaways. Starting with
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CODY: Today’s stories were written by Kelsey Donk and Grant Currin, and edited by Ashley Hamer, who’s the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Today’s episode was produced and edited by Cody Gough.
CODY: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!