This Slashdot post read so much like spam to me, that I thought there must be some catch, that maybe this was truly magic or a leap forward. So, I tried a few photos that I had paid someone on Upwork to crop, and it worked instantly. Had I had this tool, I would have saved $20 each. Then I googled, "Remove background from image" and tried the first results quickly, and none of them were auto-magical. You had to paint the foreground and background to crop.

So, yes this post is 100% written like spam, but upon closer inspection, it appears to be a novel leap in image editing.

We need to replicate the idea that we have a new sense, as opposed to a fast-acting hormonal response. One replication of this study could bring more clarity to the subject. Otherwise, in three years, it may fail replication but the gut-brain connection idea could have already gone viral by then, appearing in dumb TED talks, and spawning all sorts of pop psychobabble books.

I want to propagate a meme whereby any time a "new study" is cited, we ask reflexively, "has it been replicated?" Doing so seems to be the only way out of the replication crisis. We, as consumers of pop science, need to demand it.

Just add "on the Internet" to the key sentences and it all makes more sense.

The frantic global rush to connect everyone to everyone, all the time, is quietly giving rise to a revised version of socialism.

... on the Internet

These developments suggest a steady move toward a sort of socialism uniquely tuned for a networked world.

... on the Internet.

he aim of a collective, however, is to engineer a system where self-directed peers take responsibility for critical processes and where difficult decisions, such as sorting out priorities, are decided by all participants.

... on the Internet.

I wonder if these shocking cultural changes aren't as big of a deal as the Wired article makes it out to be, in that they're scoped only to the online world. The offline world may barely change in response. Then again, if everybody is more and more conducting most of their activities on the Internet, that's a different story.