The Anti-Targ

Excess deaths and life expectancy report for the first 2 years of the pandemic, from the latest analysis of the Global Burden of Disease study. https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/covid-19-nz-bucked-global-life-expectancy-trends There were only a handful of countries that did not experience a decline in life expectancy. It should not be a surprise to most which country was one of those...hint it rhymes with blue cheeseland. For all the arguments about how deadly or not deadly earlier strains of COVID-19 was, the excess mortality and decreased life expectancy across almost all countries in those years defies an explanation other than it was almost all down to C-19. Trigger warning: the article quotes someone using the L word.

I would credit arguments raising concern at a surprising increase in trans referrals being indicative of a problem in the medical and psychological field as long as the people making that argument first acknowledged the objective truth that trans people really do exist and they have a right to be who they see themselves to be, and to be respected, accepted and loved. If we can settle on that as an objective reality perhaps there can be good faith discussion absent suspicion of having a transphobic or trans-grooming agenda. It may seem like people who are trans, and people who see themselves as trans allies, have an ideological agenda with the Cass report. But really to me it's that there is worry about the ideological agenda of people raising this as a thing that should cause significant concern and thereby seeking to further marginalise and persecute a minority group. It's not like legitimate scientific research with legitimate conclusions hasn't been removed from context and weaponised for ideological purposes to demonise and marginalise minorities before. The first thing that needs to be determined is whether the conclusions of the scientific report are valid (i.e. the conclusions themselves are not compromised by ideology), I doubt any of us here are capable of coming to an expert conclusion on that point. The second thing is that the report is not used for invalid ideological purposes. The medical community (and science in general) is not free from bias and ideology, especially when it comes to controversial social issues. The only people who don't have an opinion about trans people are people who have never heard of the concept or come across trans people. The more emotive any written material is about the topic the more likely the material is shaped by the bias of the author(s) and thus has diminished objectivity. A report on exactly the same data will read very differently if written by JKR vs being written by Natalie Wynn.

I doubt there is a connection. There are plenty of non-nuclear countries who treat minorities like shit, and who in the world would do anything militarily to help the Uygurs if China didn't have nukes? Iran doesn't have nukes (so far as we know) and the world has done jack shit to put a stop to its pogrom against the Baha'is that's been going on for over 40 years.

I lack the insights to be able to analyse this video. It's predicting 301 ECVs to Trump pretty much achieved by Trump getting the 44 rust belt ECVs. The reasoning seems pretty sound to someone who doesn't know those states at all well. It does seem like to key to who will win is the rust belt. The person says the 3 rust belt states always go for the same candidate.

But isn't the point of hiring undocumenteds because they can be exploited much harsher than immigrants who have work permits? But it's always the case that people blame the desperate immigrants for stealing citizen's jobs by being willing to work for low pay and little protections when it is the businesses who are certainly fully aware that the immigrants are not legally allowed to work and so the business is also acting unlawfully. If businesses acted lawfully undocumented immigrants would not find work. Perhaps that one thing, US businesses not employing undocumented immigrants, would do more to reduce the number of undocumented immigrants entering the country, than any border control measures state of federal govts might put in place. But capitalism doesn't work without exploitation of the poorest and most desperate, and so the hiring and exploitation of undocumented immigrants will continue.

Given that, in the context of this discussion, every single person who goes onto PBs is someone who's self-identity leans pretty significantly towards transitioning it's is not unreasonable to see a close to 100% move from PBs to hormonal transition. A significant number of people choosing not to transition after taking PBs would tend to suggest a misdiagnosis, and possibly inappropriate prescription of PBs in the first place. So on balance I would say it seems like a good thing that almost everyone who takes PBs ends up going on to hormonal transition. The best way to really know if PBs are causative of people choosing to transition is if you put a control group of pre-pubescent children not experiencing gender dysphoria on PBs and see what happens. There is simply no way any ethics board would approve giving any child PBs if they are not diagnosed as experiencing gender dysphoria. This is the problem with drugs like PBs, the sorts of scientific studies needed to determine if the drug therapy itself causes altered self-identity are almost all totally unethical (some smarter person might be able to come up with an ethical trial process). The question is whether it's more or less ethical to treat kids with gender dysphoria with PBs without a clear scientific answer about the direct effects of PBs. There are ways to come to a conclusion about that, which would be how many trans-people end up regretting the decision they made earlier in life, excluding for the reason that they have been made social and family pariah's because of their transition? If the number of people regretting their transition is very low, then that would suggest the effect of PBs is pretty benign.

I am all for an open border policy for all developed countries for both Palestinians and Israelis who would like to leave. But I prefer such people to move to a new country for positive reasons, not because their current home has become an unbearable hell hole.

Interesting to see that some retired ladies in Switzerland have successfully sued the Swiss govt for violating their human rights due to climate change. The unique case is that older women are at most risk of death from heat waves and that climate change is already causing heat waves that elevate the risk of death in older women. The plaintiffs in the case were only allowed to be women over 55 (from memory) for that reason. That the EU human rights court found in favour of the plaintiffs potentially means other demographically based cases could be brought against governments.

Indeed, before you can assess the merits of any therapy you have to define the outcomes you are wanting to achieve. Improving mental health is completely different to stabilising mental health which is different again to slowing the deterioration of mental health. Depending on the situation any of those outcomes can be what is intended. Puberty blockers are clearly a stop gap measure meant to give the person time to figure out what and who they want to be. If you are expecting a person's mental health to improve while they continue to experience doubt and uncertainty about their identity then your expectations are unrealistic. Similarly if you are expecting a person's mental health not to deteriorate when they have fully formed their gender identity and it is not the one their body presents as and the only thing they are being offered is puberty blockers then you also have unrealistic expectations.

The thing with gathering evidence on long term effects of gender hormone treatment on children and young teens is it's hard to get evidence without treating children and young teens. Without reading the report I can certainly imagine that there has been no or little long term academic follow up with young people who have received gender hormone therapy, and if that is a significant failing then that needs to be fixed, and applied retrospectively to carry out follow ups with people who received therapies over the last 5+ years.

I have a very strong view that drug use and possession of personal consumption amounts of drugs (any drugs, not just weed) should not come with a criminal conviction or time in prison. If I have to take a side on whether sale of some drugs should be legal I'd come down opposed to sale (and that includes alcohol and tobacco - yes I am in favour of the decommercialisation of booze and ciggies), all drugs, drug users and drug pushers should be equal under the law. Though I would still tend to be against prison or felony convictions if the sale is in small quantities. Prison time should be reserved for the "executives" of business ventures that are making/growing/selling at scale. It's associated behaviour by all involved in the consumption and supply chain that should be criminal, public disorder, driving while under the influence, violence between competing interests. Ultimately what moderates drug taking and prevents social harm is people living happy and fulfilling lives. That's what govts and civil society should be trying to achieve. Get that right and the drug problem takes care of itself.

So Trump has put out a video announcement that he is strictly pro state's rights when it comes to abortion, which means he's not strictly pro-life (or pro-choice). He's fine for states to pass laws allowing at will abortion, which is anathema to the evangelical / christian nationalist bloc, and he's basically stated a position (for now of course, which could change before or after his election) that there should be no federal law on abortion. I assume it won't really damage him among pro-lifers, he's the Republican nominee and no one of any note is running against him with a more conservative position, they still hate Biden way more than being pissed at Trump not being as pro-life as they want, so I don't see it as demotivating for them to the point that they won't vote. I guess the question is whether pro-choice voters in swing states might be attracted to his side because he's kind of gone agnostic on abortion. I suppose if the state as a whole is pro-life it won't influence them, because only a pro-choice administration and congress can pass federal legislation to override pro-life state laws (if that's even constitutionally possible). If it's a pro-choice state such voters might feel less worried about voting Trump because they think he won't put federal abortion bans in place. I wonder how many swing voters there are who's main reason to vacillate is because they are pro-choice and were concerned about Trump's position on abortion.

I guess if X defies a court order the court can give the whole platform a timeout (i.e.block access in Brazil) until it complies with the court order. I suppose that would be a pretty extreme action but ultimately what is a court going to do if a company refuses a court order without going through the legal appeals process to get the court order overturned? I guess daily fines are good but what if X refuses to pay? If Musk makes this all about standing up for some kind of principle then refusing to pay fines will be part of that moral stand.

So the dumbness of this timeline is yet to be determined.

Very interesting effect of climate change that I'd never heard of before now. Vegetables are losing their nutrients. Can the decline be reversed? | Vegetables | The Guardian I lot of people have placed the blame of nutrient loss on industrial farming, which may or may not be contributory (and is often given as a reason for why a person eats organic food). But given some of the nutrient loss is because of increased atmospheric CO2 that loss has nothing to do with farming method. I don't think it's necessary to manipulate crops to put nutrients in that are not naturally part of the plant, since a balanced diet should give you all the nutrients you need. But bringing the natural nutrient contents back up to early 20th century levels seems like a necessary climate change adaptation. It seems like common sense to say people should eat more fruit, nuts, vegetables etc, but if everyone needs to eat 50% more in order to meet their base nutritional needs, esp for micronutrients, then that just means there's less to go around, so it's better to pack more into every gram than for people to need to eat more to get what they need.

Talking about tipping in the US politics thread, I would have thought, is the opposite of a thread derail. Politically speaking, paying service workers properly so that tipping can go back to what it was originally claimed to achieve (better levels of service for the customer) seems like a topic worth discussing. I would be interested to know who is in favour of tipping as a way to compensate for service workers only being paid $2.13/hr. I understand federal law requires businesses to ensure incomes in any given week are topped up to at least the minimum wage if the worker doesn't get there with tips + $2.13/hr. So I wonder, is the standard tip rate going from 10%, to 15% to 20% (over the last decade or so) less of a support the workers thing and more of an allows the business to not have to pay top ups often / ever thing?

Wait, so that means past operations have not been based on intelligence? Shocking!

I always hated the idea of tipping (coming from a non-tipping culture), but since it became a necessity to keep service workers from starving and becoming homeless I now know it's objectively bullshit and has no place in a society that values all work. Businesses have to pay workers a decent wage from standard revenues received. If they can't do that and make a profit, then perhaps they're not competent enough to be in business. We don't tip, we have a much higher minimum wage and yet small service businesses (cafes, bars, restaurants etc) still manage to operate profitably*, partly because the service workers can afford to go to cafes bars and restaurants themselves on their days and nights off.

I'm no lip reader, but I don't see an "f" at the start of the word he's saying from the way his mouth moved. Doesn't look like word starting with "m" either. So I have no clue what he's saying, but 95% sure it's not a word starting with f.

I tried to Asian-ify Spaghetti All'assassina. Oddly it didn't taste as different as I thought, I used fresh ginger, lemon grass and peanut oil for the frying oil, and msg, with sesame seed oil for the drizzle after plating and chopped green onion for the garnish instead of italian parsley. It was very good, but no where near as different as I hoped. I guess I need more ginger and lemon grass. I thought I used a decent amount for 120g of pasta.

It does make me wonder how a person can be convicted of hate speech towards a white police officer under current laws and yet those laws not be sufficient to protect minority races, trans people and women from the same sort of hate speech.

Come on, at least get the lore right. A wizard is a wielder of arcane magics, the prophets are conduits of divine magic, thus they are either high-clerics or paladins. Zombies are undead, any dead person who has been brought back through revivification or resurrection spells is alive, not undead. So far as I can tell the biblical resurrections aren't making zombies. So, Jesus is definitely not a lich in the way his miracles and resurrection are described in the source material. But the end times descriptions, when people will be rising from their graves en mass, do sound like zombies.

There is no need, because the Fermi paradox is not a scientific theory established by rigorous experimentation and confirmation of predictions made based on the paradox. It was just speculative musing made to look sciencey. We can have a conversation about life elsewhere once we've found several thousand planets with more or less identical (or better) habitability potential to Earth and confirmed none of them have any kind of life we could recognise as such. But for now, we haven't even firmly ruled out life arising independently elsewhere in our own solar system. It was only 40 or so years ago that science thought planets around other stars would be rare. No serious scientist thinks that any more.

Unlike the Life of Brian and Dune, in the real world the Messiah always identifies them-self as such and owns their station completely, as do many distinctly non-messianic deluded persons. MLK will never be widely regarded as a Messiah, because he knew he wasn't one and he never claimed to be such. Given there are people who say they think Trump is a Messiah of sorts it's certainly possible, even probable, that some people will come to believe it, or see some advantage in laying such a claim whether or not they believe it. I feel certain that MLK will weep tears of sadness if anyone was to try to make him a Messiah, that people would equate him with his own Lord and Saviour, Jesus, would be a great blasphemy to his spiritual ears. He was a martyr for a great cause (racial equality), but it seems people are not satisfied with such an elevated state for this heroic, but no more than human, figure.

I think a major catastrophe is going to end such selfish and wasteful decision making and behaviour, but it will be one of our own making, not because of aliens. Possibly unlike many my belief is that any Alien civilisation advanced enough to travel the stars and visit other worlds with civilisations capable of putting people into space has already gone through and worked out their bullshit selfishness, aggression and desire to conquer, enslave and colonise. We'll get there eventually too, for the most part we've already realised conquering, enslaving and colonising is bad and not something we should do. I have faith. It just might be a few centuries before we get there.