karaddin

Thank god it wasn't restricted to 8eps like almost everything has been lately. Would love more as well, its just fantastic.

On the nuclear proliferation discussion - I think the US invading Iraq was a serious body blow to non-proliferation and Putin using the "you give us your nukes and we promise we won't attack you" treaty as toilet paper put a stake through it's heart.

I'll be very surprised if there's no new nuclear powers over the next 20 years. 

To answer Ty however I'd be extremely shocked if Australia already has some, especially with the below in mind

On 4/15/2024 at 2:19 AM, Fez said:

I wouldn't be surprised if a few close US allies under our nuclear umbrella started looking into the feasibility of developing their own weapons after Trump made a whole lotta statements while President saying the US shouldn't defend our allies. But I doubt any of them actually have any yet, both because a nuclear weapons program takes a long time to spin up and because I think they would announce they have them as soon as they do.

I think there's a pretty clear sign in the AUKUS deal, namely that the nuclear subs Australia will be buying will have the capability to carry and launch nukes, that the US and/or the UK may want Australia to share the load so to speak.

I highly doubt we'd develop our own weapons program though, if it happens it will be another somewhat corrupt form of pork barreling where the deal to purchase the weapons is politically a gift to whichever leader is selling them to give a big economic injection to whichever state they need to bribe for an upcoming election. 

The other possibility is that they simply want to introduce ambiguity into whether Australia has them - if our subs have that capacity and you do a couple of other things to make it ambiguous then you might get some of the value without actually risking another nuclear power. The big thing I'll say is that for now at least this would be extremely unpopular politically in Aus so it's a forward planning thing.

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

Alternatively.

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She's the first successfully-created synth, from just before the war.

One of the reasons I think Fallout is really popular is that every piece of sci-fi pulp bullshit is in there somewhere.

I know the 50s America aesthetic is part of the appeal for some as well. It really puts me off though lol, both just that it doesn't appeal but my brain also really struggles to imagine a technological branch that's done all it has but still doesn't have any screens bigger than 14" by 2077?

If the bombs fell in the 1990s/2000s I'd accept it much better since then it's only a few decades of technological divergence rather than over a century.

Wasn't enough to stop me really enjoying this though, everything else is more than sufficient to overcome that initial hurdle. It did put me off playing the games though - I gave 4 a try and bounced off.

I guess that's one of the indications Wert was talking about that although they were ready and willing they didn't actually do it themselves in the end.

13 hours ago, Werthead said:

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3) The implication is that the Vault 31-32-33 complex has access to nuclear weapons, presumably the same ones that Vault-Tec was planning to use to start the apocalypse, although there's some signs they failed to do that, leaving the missiles intact.

I missed these signs, would you mind elaborating?

12 hours ago, polishgenius said:

Secondly, by most accounts Person of Interest is really good and ends very well, so I  wouldn't judge Nolan just on Westworld even as a tv writer.

Yeah it was fantastic, the last 2 seasons have some of the best episodes of television I've ever seen and it did end quite well.

11 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

Heard a newish word, not widely used: uchronistic.  Apparently created to be analogous to utopia (no-place), uchronia means no-time, used as a synonym for alternate history sci-fi, encompassing retrofuturisms like this.

That's definitely a useful word. I'd say there's something along those lines going on with some shows that don't have any genre trappings, Sex Education utilizes elements of it in the setting as part of creating a setting that's kinda both US and UK and neither. I'm sure I've watched something else recently that also had a similar vibe.

3 minutes ago, DMC said:

I dunno, I’ll reserve judgment.  If Israel engages in a largely symbolic response and the US slaps their hand that still might be an out for all parties involved.

Yeah I don't think I worded that the best, I still don't think (or at least hope) escalation to war is inevitable, but if Israel does what you're saying here it will be because that's the course of action they chose/were softly persuaded into - I don't think Biden can force them into backing down if they're set on escalation if this is the rhetoric we're seeing.

The accompanying statement from US officials sounds like they've already resigned themselves to being unable to talk Israel out of it and have switched to mitigating the damage which really isn't promising

Quote

US officials said on Monday that some form of counter to Iran’s attack, which involved more than 300 missiles and drones, was almost inevitable, but the Biden administration was still hoping it would be a limited counterstrike and not aimed at Iranian territory.

Quote

"We respect that that’s a decision the war cabinet, the prime minister, have to make. We know that they live in a very tough neighbourhood,” the White House national security spokesperson, John Kirby, told CNN on Monday. But he added that Joe Biden had “also been very clear that we don’t want a war with Iran. We don’t seek to widen and broaden this conflict. We don’t want to see things escalate.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/15/israel-will-respond-to-iran-missile-attack-idf-chief-of-staff

I feel like the only message that could actually punch through would be saying you're on your own if you start a full blown shooting war, and backing off on your messaging already really doesn't inspire confidence that you'd hold to that bluff.

Seeing statements from both the Minister of Defense and the IDF Chief of Staff that they'll be retaliating so this is going to be wonderful.

3 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

I accept that. I hope you can accept, in turn, that those who take the report seriously may be just as earnest, and may have approached the review with an equally open mind.

Yes? Much like my opinion on the review asking the wrong questions, I can simply disagree with people. My questions to HoI were an attempt to demonstrate our views are so far apart we functionally don't share a common frame of reference when reading the review.

20 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

I think this really sums up the disagreement here; you either think the Cass Review is credible or you don't. Those who don't can accuse those who do of confirmation bias, and vice-versa, and around it goes. I don't know what else there is to say.

I mean, my post is right above you - I tried to keep an open mind while reading the summaries and I'm not assuming bad faith or an ideological agenda on the part of Cass. I just think the review fundamentally misunderstands the important questions around this treatment.

You linked a thread which aims to summarize the study on cross sex hormone treatment of minors when we'd been talking about puberty blockers which doesn't exactly smack of good faith HoI, but I decided to click through and find the thread summarizing the PB findings from your own source for you

https://x.com/benryanwriter/status/1779232332508971409

I once again need to give the disclaimer that I haven't read the full report myself, my judgements are based on the summaries that I've read here and in other locations. The Cass review, from those summaries, has utilized fundamentally incorrect metrics for assessing the existing research on puberty blockers and this has been the case in every snippet of it I have seen. The purpose of puberty blockers is not to resolve the gender dysphoria, it is to prevent biological changes that will worsen it and cause undesired changes that will last for life. It's not expected to accomplish a positive outcome, its to prevent a negative one. So a review that looks as these studies and says "there's lack of a clear positive outcome here" has missed the point of them.

That thread also discusses findings that indicate a risk of several negative outcomes - damage to fertility, loss of bone density and shorter height. Despite being presented like this is new information, those all strike me as risks that were known and part of undergoing the treatment is accepting the risk of them. Now its possible that the implementation of the process did not adequately inform children and their parents of this risk and that is of course a problem that needs to be fixed - being informed is a central pillar of informed consent. That said the 3rd one is pretty shaky to actually call a negative effect - being taller isn't an objectively good thing, but it obviously is a side effect when it happens.

And that's basically the entirety of this thread's summary of the problems with PB treatment - it wants better quality research (which I don't opposite - I just oppose halting treatment while waiting for it) and flagged the above issues. Nothing here is a burning red flag that says treatment needs to be abruptly halted, nor does it say the entire body of research is junk. Its worth noting that some of the aspects aren't included in the studies on trans kids taking them because they're a known factor from initial research on the drug being used full stop - of course you won't expect to see that repeated.

So I fail to see how this review proves definitively that I've been "spreading disinformation" and that "ideology has taken over science in medicine", I just see a whole bunch of people trying to help kids that are stuck in shitty circumstances while the doctors have inadequate resources (high quality research to inform their treatment is in a resource doctors use). 

Oh and from earlier HoI:

3 hours ago, karaddin said:

I don't deny that some people do regret and detransition, so I'm sure there are some of them but I haven't seen any solid numbers for that.

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Really? We know harm has been done because detransitioners like Keira Bell have come forward to sue the Tavistock for their mistreatment. 

When I've already conceded that some detransitioners exist, providing the one single detransitioner you know of hardly strengthens your point. I suspect that if we were balancing "trans kids not receiving treatment" vs "cis kids incorrectly receiving treatment" your honest answer would be "all trans kids should be denied treatment if we can't guarantee a single cis kid won't receive incorrect treatment". 

If you argue for perfect research to be done before providing treatment when that research is literally impossible to do according to modern ethics guidelines, then you're advocating against treatment.

Oh I dunno, maybe something to do with having lost over a decade of my life and almost killed myself due to lack of treatment that I've now had which fixed all those problems?

ETA: I know many of you won't accept my first hand experience as giving me any kind of insight into the question as a whole, but to ask why I'd have this perspective is utterly baffling

Because at no point in the very long history of us talking about this have you ever accepted that the status quo without treatment is grossly harmful, and tragically often deadly, to trans kids. It's a difference in perspective so fundamental that each of our arguments do not make sense to the other. 

So I'll spare this thread another pages long detail of us arguing past each other. Just wanted to make sure everyone reading the thread understands the context of the claims being made.

I 100% accept there were terrorists in that building who were the target, but that doesn't change the underlying fact that bombing part of a countries consulate is different to engaging in a proxy war and unless you're already in a shooting war - its a massive escalation that is almost certainly going to draw a reprisal. That's more true if you view the country in question as a bad actor, which again is the case with the Iranian regime. 

Israel knows all of this, any decision to bomb the consulate building under those circumstances factors in an Iranian response as part of the cost/benefit analysis of the decision to bomb it - lets not treat anyone as stupid or incompetent here when there's no indication that was the case. Iran was always going to respond to this, and the way they chose to do so resulted in a single tragic casualty. Unless you do actually want a direct shooting war with Iran, the obvious course of action at this point is to decide you got a win (quote from Biden) and take the win. 

Iran are awful fucks, they're going to continue to be awful fucks but they're also going to behave in relatively predictable and self interestedly rational ways. I'm not sure what some of you are actually looking for in this thread? Do you think us saying that we don't want to see escalation is somehow praising Iran for being morally good and restrained? Because that sure as hell isn't how I mean it - I mean solely what I said. This action taken was within the bounds of expected state actor behaviour for a direct bombing of their diplomatic facilities in a 3rd party nation and killing of high ranking military personnel, please get off the railroad to a regional war before a whole lot more tragedies happen.

Nothing I've read in your posts explicitly demonstrates confirmed harm. There has been assertions that the safeguards in place as part of the process are inadequate, but inadequate safeguards doesn't actually mean that any (let alone all) children received improper treatment as a result of that. I don't deny that some people do regret and detransition, so I'm sure there are some of them but I haven't seen any solid numbers for that.

So a question that is probably illuminating on the difference in our underlying perspectives - how do you prioritize how bad these two scenarios are?

• Cis kid receives treatment they don't need, and shouldn't have received resulting in permanent damage to their fertility (so we're talking more than simply receiving puberty blockers - I'm giving you a more serious case)
• Trans kid is refused treatment that they do need, undergoing the wrong puberty and receiving permanent damage to their bodies development

1 minute ago, Tears of Lys said:

I've known several trans folk in my life.  Some I like and others, not so much, just like . . . I don't know the term for those who don't experience gender dysphoria, so forgive me. 

Bolded - yup, we've got our nice people and assholes like everyone else. By "those who don't experience gender dysphoria" do you mean people who aren't trans, or trans people who know themselves without experiencing the psychological distress of dysphoria?

The former is just "cisgender" and often shortened to "cis" following the ancient Greek naming convention for "same side" / "opposite". The latter I don't think there is a name for it, or at least certainly not one I'm aware of - if I was feeling flippant I'd probably just call them lucky lol. Its a minority of people under the trans umbrella but its certainly a group that does exist and are valid.

5 minutes ago, Tears of Lys said:

I'd like to learn more.  I, myself, have often felt more "male" than "female," which is perhaps why I'm so interested. 

I'm guessing this is informing the prior question about name for those who don't feel dysphoria - I certainly wasn't aware I was experiencing it for most of my life before my brain decided to crack my egg, but it is hard to really describe what it felt like. The part I can articulate most clearly is what did crack through my subconscious denial. You're right that this is drifting way off topic for the UK politics thread though, I'm happy to continue the conversation in another thread - probably easiest to just necro the LGBTQ one if you want.

/tangent

I don't really care how Israel chooses to interpret it as long as they also see the matter as settled. If seeing Iran as embarrassed gets us there, I'll take it. Exactly the same as how I view Iran thinking things are concluded.

You can recognize that bombing another countries consulate is an escalation even if you think the country in question are awful. That is in fact how I feel about it, the Iranian regime is awful and I look forward to the day the citizens overthrow it, and at the same time I understand they were going to feel they had to respond to the consulate being bombed.

So I'll stay relieved Iran chose retaliation that could be shot down and hope Israel doesn't decide to really try trigger a regional war.

If Iran is satisfied with waving it's dick around in response to the consulate bombing then I'll take it. Escalation is really not something anyone needs.

You insist that these numbers are larger than can be explained by societal change but the only evidence offered for why is "big scary numbers" and "trust me bro".

Even if these numbers are the true "new trans people within a yearly cohort" that's within prior estimates of the rate of trans people within the general population which were roughly 0.5-1% so these numbers shouldn't be "obviously" too large to be explained by removed barriers to treatment. If it continues at an exponential rate for another couple of years then the concern would make more sense at that point.

3 minutes ago, DMC said:

Thanks.  Hope providing that information was not preceded by a labyrinthine calculus in your head.

I found it easier than expected. Not sure if I accidentally performed a dark ritual first.

1 hour ago, DMC said:

I’m curious, what is the overall population?  As in, how many children/adolescents does NHS regularly see each year - or in other words, 250 or 5,000 out of how many?  I checked the link to try to find out myself but on a quick glance I couldn’t find anything.

There were just over 600k births in the UK in 2022, down from over 700k in 2020 (so dropping quite substantially). As for NHS visits

Quote

Over 420,000 children and young people were treated through NHS-commissioned community services in 2020/21. This is approximately 39.6% of children and young people with a diagnosable mental health condition, exceeding the target of 35% (based on the 2004 prevalence estimates that applied when the target was set). 

From https://www.england.nhs.uk/mental-health/cyp/

4 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

I'm not at all sure ths is the case in terms of receiving PBs, not at least from what I am reading. But that's not an issue related to the Cass report and I don't want to start thread drift.

It's literally summarizing one of the bits of the report you quoted. The quoted bits here are treating it [PB] like it's solely a cooling off period that gives people time to think, and most of them subsequently undergo treatment. I cannot fathom how that's an argument that people shouldn't even get to the stage of PBs - if anything it would support skipping them.

If most people decided not to proceed with treatment after PB then that would certainly be an argument for not rushing treatment, although it still wouldn't demonstrate that the process isn't working.

There's a difference between interesting and alarming. I don't think there's anything alarming in the increase. And if the review displays the same logic as was demonstrated about the puberty blockers I've got a lot less interest because honestly its so illogical its like the words mean something different.