Links - 25th May 2018 (3)

The differences in career preferences between genders - "The results were based on a poll of 15,000 university students across the UK and it seems that women are more likely to be driven by ‘serving a greater good’, whereas men want to be seen as technical or functional experts... almost three quarters of women are more likely to apply to a firm with a good benefits package, a third consider the brands commitment to corporate social responsibility, and over half are swayed by the availability of flexible working... men tend to prefer ‘macro’ employers with women favoring medium sized orginisations. And males want to work in companies they perceive to be constantly innovative, offering high levels of responsibility and rapid promotion schemes. Females want to work for organisations with high ethical standards, opportunities for international travel or relocation, respect for their people and a good basis for a future career"
Maybe Damore went back in time to interfere with this study's methodology to justify his sexism and misogyny

What’s Wrong with the New NIH Study on Transgender Kids? - "It’s common practice for federal bureaucrats to design and then publicize biased studies to promote their preferred policy. We outlined this practice in our new book, Deconstructing the Administrative State: The Fight for Liberty. The process is simple: (1) issue requests for research proposals slanted in favor of a particular outcome, (2) fund studies that reach the expected conclusions, and (3) cite that research in subsequent studies to claim that a “growing body of evidence” favors the preferred policy. These techniques are now being deployed in a new area: treatment for gender dysphoria. Dr. Quentin Van Meter, an Atlanta pediatric endocrinologist with extensive experience in the science of gender dysphoria who trained at Johns Hopkins Hospital, states flatly that there is “zero point zero zero” evidence that the concepts of gender fluidity and gender identity have any scientific basis. But it takes a courageous physician to risk opprobrium and accusations of insufficient compassion by rejecting the new dogma... What data are there about children who are treated with puberty blockers so that natural puberty, with its likely positive effects on their gender dysphoria, is short-circuited? A study from the Netherlands of seventy such children found that all of them went on to embrace a transgender identity—unlike the vast majority of children not given such treatment. According to the American College of Pediatricians (ACP),
This is a cause for concern...
To have 100 percent of pre-pubertal children choose cross-sex hormones suggests that the protocol itself inevitably leads the individual to identify as transgender. There is an obvious self-fulfilling nature to encouraging a young child with GD to socially impersonate the opposite sex and then institute pubertal suppression...
Research has also established that administering cross-sex hormones after puberty-suppression creates a multitude of harmful physical effects (some certain, others potential). These hormones will render the patient infertile for life, since they prevent the maturation of gonadal tissue and gametes in both sexes."
Keywords: hormone blockers

Transgender Regret Is Real Even If The Media Says Otherwise - "sex change regret is quite common. One such study commissioned by The Guardian of the UK in 2004 reviewed 100 studies and reported that a whopping 20 percent (one fifth) of transgenders regret changing genders, ten times more than CNN’s Costello reported... Consider the findings of a 2011 Swedish study (not the study Ms. Costello used) published seven years after the 2004 UK review. It looked at mortality and morbidity after gender reassignment surgery and found that people who changed genders had a higher risk of suicide... According to several studies, the majority of transgenders have co-existing disorders that need to be treated. This helps to explain why regret and suicide are prevalent among transgenders. The following studies provide irrefutable evidence that transgenders overwhelmingly suffer from a variety of mental disorders... 41 percent attempt suicide, 90 percent have a “significant form of psychopathology”, 61 percent also have other psychiatric disorders and illnesses, 50 percent had depressive symptoms, 40 percent showed symptoms of anxiety... Every time a transgender ends his or her life, the LGBT will blame society or the victim and push for more laws to “protect” them"'

Optimistic mothers have boys, study says - "Evolutionary biologists call this the Trivers-Willard hypothesis. It suggests that when a mother feels under pressure, from anything ranging from poor health and living conditions to scarce food, it makes biological sense for her to give birth to a girl rather than a boy."

The Hero Nobody Wanted - "*Virtue Signal* 'Minorities need me to speak for them!'
The hero nobody wanted. The hero nobody asked for"

Ethnic Chinese and want to live in China? Find out if you qualify for new five-year visa - "Foreigners of Chinese origin will be allowed to apply for visas from this Thursday that permit them to stay in China for five years or enter the country multiple times over that period, provided they meet set criteria. The new policy, which takes effect from February 1, is an improvement on the current one-year multiple-entry visa for this group. Foreigners of Chinese origin with residency will be able to extend the period of their stay from three to five years... a foreigner of Chinese origin refers to a former Chinese citizen who has obtained foreign citizenship, or the offspring of present or former Chinese citizens. The applicant only needs to have one parent, grandparent or ancestor who is or was a Chinese citizen. The authorities specified no limit on the number of generations"

Is organic really better for the environment than conventional agriculture? - "Despite strong public perception of organic agriculture producing better environmental outcomes, we show that conventional agriculture often performs better on environmental measures including land use, greenhouse gas emissions, and pollution of water bodies"

The Real Causes Of Depression Have Been Discovered, And They're Not What You Think - "Depression is often measured by scientists using something called the Hamilton Scale. It runs from 0 (where you are dancing in ecstasy) to 59 (where you are suicidal). Improving your sleep patterns gives you a movement on the Hamilton Scale of around 6 points. Chemical antidepressants give you an improvement, on average, of 1.8 points, according to research by professor Irving Kirsch of Harvard University. It’s a real effect – but it’s modest. Of course, the fact it’s an average means some people get a bigger boost. But for huge numbers of people, like me, it’s not enough to lift us out of depression – so I began to see we need to expand the menu of options for depressed and anxious people. I needed to know how. But more than that – I was startled to discover that many leading scientists believe the whole idea that depression is caused by a “chemically imbalanced” brain is wrong. I learned that there are in fact nine major causes of depression and anxiety that are unfolding all around us. Two are biological, and seven are out in here in the world, rather than sealed away inside our skulls in the way my doctor told me. The causes are all quite different, and they play out to different degrees in the lives of depressed and anxious people. I was even more startled to discover this isn’t some fringe position – the World Health Organization has been warning for years that we need to start dealing with the deeper causes of depression in this way"

Swallowing tapeworms, the beauty fad that continues to haunt us. - "The Victorian era, roughly the 1830s to 1900, is notorious for its bizarre notions of beauty and its even more bizarre secrets to attaining it. The ideal of the time was modeled after those afflicted by consumption (tuberculosis). Pale skin, dilated eyes, rosy cheeks, crimson lips, and a meager and fragile figure. From swallowing ammonia to bathing in arsenic—which they knew to be poisonous—to using figure-molding corsets in a never-ending quest for the “perfect” 16-inch waist, there was no limit to what fashionable Victorians would do... What’s scariest about this diet is not that it may have been used by the same people who willingly ingested carbon but that its idea continues to be around. Like air pollution and zombie films, it simply refuses to die. Its presence is evidenced by the numerous online forums dedicated to the question of the diet’s efficiency, and the (fairly dubious) reports of Mexican clinics that will give you the treatment for a couple thousand dollars."

Egos inflating over time: a cross-temporal meta-analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory. - "A cross-temporal meta-analysis found that narcissism levels have risen over the generations in 85 samples of American college students who completed the 40-item forced-choice Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) between 1979 and 2006 (total n=16,475). Mean narcissism scores were significantly correlated with year of data collection when weighted by sample size (beta=.53, p<.001). Since 1982, NPI scores have increased 0.33 standard deviation. Thus, almost two-thirds of recent college students are above the mean 1979-1985 narcissism score, a 30% increase. The results complement previous studies finding increases in other individualistic traits such as assertiveness, agency, self-esteem, and extraversion."

Struggling Taiwanese Food Stand Quadruples in Sales After Hiring 小桃子 - "A struggling food stand in Taiwan was able to turn its business around after hiring a miracle worker to tend to their customers just for one night. The owners of the braised meat snack stall located in Beitun District, Taichung City revealed that they recently invited Vivi, aka Little Peach (小桃子), to serve as their “one-day shop manager” to see if she could help draw in more customers."

Undocumented Immigrants, U.S. Citizens, and Convicted Criminals in Arizona by John R. Lott - "Using newly released detailed data on all prisoners who entered the Arizona state prison from January 1985 through June 2017, we are able to separate non-U.S. citizens by whether they are illegal or legal residents. Unlike other studies, these data do not rely on self-reporting of criminal backgrounds. Undocumented immigrants are at least 142% more likely to be convicted of a crime than other Arizonans. They also tend to commit more serious crimes and serve 10.5% longer sentences, more likely to be classified as dangerous, and 45% more likely to be gang members than U.S. citizens. Yet, there are several reasons that these numbers are likely to underestimate the share of crime committed by undocumented immigrants"
To liberals, immigrants and illegal immigrants are the same thing so maybe this will be used as justification to reduce all immigration

Venezuelan Pirates Rule the Most Lawless Market on Earth - "Venezuela and the island of Trinidad are separated by only 10 miles of water and bound together by the most lawless market on Earth today. Playing out at sea and on the coasts, it is a roiling arbitrage—of food, diapers, weapons, drugs, and women—between the desperate and the profit-minded. Government is absent, bandits are everywhere, and participating can cost you your life"
Anarchist Paradise! I'm sure the anarchists will find some way to blame government still

Malaysia tops in South-East Asia for online child pornography - "Malaysia has the highest number of IP addresses uploading and downloading photographs and visuals of child pornography in South-East Asia"

Freedom versus democracy - "Democracy and freedom are too often confounded. Britain itself did not have anything close to democracy until the Reform Act of 1832. But it had freedom long before that. The fundamentals of freedom -- limited government, separation of powers, an independent judiciary, free speech, jury trials -- existed in Britain for many generations before the franchise was extended to most males. The whole spirit, and many of the phrases, of the Constitution of the United States derive from British law and government. Just as freedom can exist without democracy, so democracy can crush freedom"

Serwer Error: Misunderstanding Trump Voters - "In a recent article for Foreign Policy, the neoconservative writer and analyst Max Boot credited Serwer, and these figures specifically, for helping him to finally acknowledge his own ‘white privilege.’ The only problem is that the figures are incorrect. I’ve been studying the reputable American National Election Studies (ANES) 2016 election survey for almost a year now, so this was relatively easy to check... In foregrounding racial resentment, he downplays the importance of other variables that help account for Trump’s election win. First, it should be noted the degree of anti-minority sentiment among Trump voters appears to be overstated. According to the ANES out-group feeling thermometer data (scored along a 0-100 scale), Trump voters, on average, evaluated Blacks (mean=63.8) and Hispanics (mean=64.4) in the ‘warm’ direction. By comparison, the mean ratings for both of these groups among Clinton voters were 75 and 73.9, respectively—warmer, but not as much as one might expect. Second, while Serwer blames Trump’s presidency on racial resentment, one could just as easily point the finger at ‘PC fatigue’. For example, a recent Cato study found that 58 percent of Americans believe “that the political climate today prevents them from saying things they believe.” And whereas 73 percent of Republicans and 58 percent of independents endorsed this statement, a majority of Democrats (53 percent) did not. As this relates to the election, my own research — which I’ll soon be submitting for publication — finds that even after controlling for various measures of prejudice (sexism, hatred of minorities, racial resentment, etc.), issue-attitudes (economic discontent, immigration, refugees, etc.), and ideological orientations (authoritarianism, social dominance orientation), opposition to political correctness significantly predicts voting for Trump. This finding is consistent with the results of a recent experimental study, which found that priming ‘PC norms’ elicited greater support for Trump (and greater opposition to Clinton) irrespective of political ideology. Likewise, I found that even among Clinton voters, greater opposition to PC linearly coincided with greater positivity (albeit still negative) towards Trump. The ANES data also suggests that anti-immigration attitudes are more informed by cultural and economic anxieties than anything having to do with skin color. For example, support for decreasing immigration was most strongly correlated with assimilationist attitudes (immigrants should learn English, adopt American customs etc.) and the belief that immigrants take away jobs but only weakly correlated with self-reported importance of ‘white identity’ and negativity towards ‘people of color.’... All told, the evidence suggests that Trump’s election had more to do with economic disquiet, the fear that America is trending towards a culturally balkanized identitarian society (i.e. political multiculturalism), and a climate of PC that discourages voicing of concerns about either. We can debate whether these concerns are reasonable. But the hypothesis that they’re simply a guise for white bigotry and the continuance of white supremacy finds no support in the present data. In the end, it’s almost as if Serwer’s explanatory model conveniently includes only those variables that absolve the Left of any culpability in the Trump phenomenon... I worry that these broad-brush ‘whitelash’ interpretations allow the Left to demonize millions of Americans and dismiss their concerns. Should this continue, the appeal of the Democratic Party will forever be confined to cosmopolitan bubble-land."

Effects of physical attractiveness on political beliefs - "Controlling for socioeconomic status, we find that more attractive individuals are more likely to report higher levels of political efficacy, identify as conservative, and identify as Republican"
"political efficacy is the citizens' faith and trust in government and their belief that they can understand and influence political affairs. It is commonly measured by surveys and is used as an indicator for the broader health of civil society."

The Fake-News Fallacy - "“No political body must ever, under any circumstances, obtain a monopoly of radio,” she wrote. “The greatest organizers of mass hysterias and the mass delusions today are states using the radio to excite terrors, incite hatreds, inflame masses.”

We Are Truly Fucked: Everyone Is Making AI-Generated Fake Porn Now - "More people are creating fake celebrity porn using machine learning, and the results have become increasingly convincing. Another redditor even created an app specifically designed to allow users without a computer science background to create AI-assisted fake porn. All the tools one needs to make these videos are free, readily available, and accompanied with instructions that walk novices through the process... “Top is original footage from Rogue One with a strange CGI Carrie Fisher. Movie budget: $200m,” derpfake wrote of his creation. “Bottom is a 20 minute fake that could have been done in essentially the same way with a visually similar actress. My budget: $0 and some Fleetwood Mac tunes.”"

In male-dominated subjects, hiring favors women—for teachers in France - "One of the main conclusions of the paper, co-authored by Thomas Breda and Mélina Hillion of the Paris School of Economics, is that in fields as diverse as mathematics, physics, economics, and literature, there is no evidence of discrimination against the underrepresented gender. “We rather find that the gender in minority is increasingly favored” during teacher hiring as the level of underrepresentation in academic faculty positions increases"... The most plausible explanation, they continue, is that examiners were trying to counteract gender stereotypes
Going against stereotypes leads to discrimination

No, feminism is not about choice - "we all critique the notion that “choice” should be the ultimate arbiter of women’s freedom... the choice arguments are fundamentally flawed because they assume a level of unmitigated freedom for women that simply doesn’t exist. Yes, we make choices, but these are shaped and constrained by the unequal conditions in which we live. It would only make sense to uncritically celebrate choice in a post-patriarchal world.
Good to have a feminist admit it, and that they don't support women's choices