Links - 8th March 2019 (1)

Nate Silver Dismantles 'Russian Disinformation Stole The Election' Narrative In Tweet Thread - ""If you wrote out a list of the most important factors in the 2016 election, I'm not sure that Russian social media memes would be among the top 100," he added in a follow-up tweet. "The scale was quite small and there's not much evidence that they were effective."... Fake Russian profiles and Facebook pages didn't just promote pro-Trump rhetoric, they promoted anti-Trump rhetoric, Black Lives Matter events, and other left-wing causes. Their impact is unclear but almost certainly overstated, as Silver argues. As for Cambridge Analytica, which became the scapegoat for Facebook data mining problems, the hype surrounding the firm was proven to be overblown early on."

Report: Parrot Used Alexa to Order Snacks from Amazon

Oxford ends women-only fellowship after university rules that it breaches equality law - "The Joanna Randall-MacIver junior research fellowship, established in the 1930s for women studying fine arts, music or literature, was deemed to be “discriminatory on the grounds of gender” by Oxford’s Council.This is the first time that the university has opened up a historically female-only fellowship to male applicants, and the move has prompted a backlash from previous recipients.The decision means that other research fellowships could be under threat, including those run by Cambridge's female-only college Newnham"
Women don't really want equality?

America Is Losing Its Grip - "the idea of a loss in human strength, expressed through a statistical measure hardly anyone had previously heard of, seemed to hint at some latter-day version of degeneration.That message was reinforced by the sheer predictive power of grip strength. In a study published in 2015 in The Lancet, the health outcomes of nearly 140,000 people across 17 countries were tracked over four years, via a variety of measures—including grip strength. Grip strength was not only “inversely associated with all-cause mortality”—every 5 kilogram (kg) decrement in grip strength was associated with a 17 percent risk increase—but as the team, led by McMaster University professor of medicine Darryl Leong, noted: “Grip strength was a stronger predictor of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality than systolic blood pressure.”"

‘Everything is gone’: trees, lights and bells vanish amid China’s Christmas crackdown - "It took less than 24 hours for all the Christmas trees, lights and bells to disappear from a 27-storey shopping and office complex in the Chinese city of Nanyang. Even the giant teddy bear at the mall entrance was not spared... a growing emphasis on traditional culture by the ruling Communist Party and the systematic suppression of religion under President Xi Jinping are imperilling Santa Claus’ position... Before becoming president, Xi went to Finland in 2010 and was photographed with Santa Claus. That kind of chumminess appears to be a thing of Christmas past"

The Puzzling Link Between Vegetarianism and Depression - "In a 2018 study of 90,000 adults, French researchers examined the impact of giving up various food groups on depressive symptoms among meat eaters, vegans, true vegetarians, and vegetarians who ate fish. The incidence of depression increased with each food group that was given up. People who had given up at least three of four animal-related food groups (red meat, poultry, fish, and dairy) were at nearly two-and-a-half times greater risk to suffer from depression... the frequency of Seasonal Affective Disorder was four times higher among Finnish vegetarians and three times higher in Dutch vegetarians than in meat eaters... You have to be careful about link-think. Take the link between animal cruelty and human-directed violence. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this link is surprisingly weak. Most kids who abuse animals become normal adults and most serial killers and school shooters do not have a history of animal abuse... some traits may predispose some people to both depression and to vegetarianism. Women, for example, are twice as likely as men to suffer from depression, and there are also more female vegetarians than male vegetarians. And, while the evidence is mixed, some personality types may also be particularly drawn to vegetarianism. In addition, vegetarian diets can be isolating"

What’s the Deal With Vegetarians Who Hate Vegetables? - "some supertaster vegetarians overcome their dislike of cruciferous vegetables. But the low prevalence of supertasters that Dr. Cliceri and his colleagues found among vegetarians suggests that genetics may make it more difficult for some people than others to give up meat... fewer than 4% of Americans are true vegetarians or vegans, and about 85% of them eventually revert back to eating animals"

84% of Vegetarians and Vegans Return to Meat. Why? - "'while I theoretically cared about animals and the planet, mostly I just wanted to be different... for the next 17 years, it seemed like I was always hungry no matter how large my bowl of beans and rice. Even worse than constant hunger, I didn't seem to enjoy food the way other people did. Eating was a chore, like folding laundry or paying bills, but even more annoying because if I didn't do it I would die. I was sick of being hungry, I was sick of beans and rice, and so at the age of 31, I have made a decision: I will try and become a meat-eater.'... the fact that five out of six vegetarians go back to eating meat suggests that an all-veggie diet is very hard for most people to maintain over the long haul. Hence, the authors of the report argue that animal protectionists would be better off concentrating their efforts to persuade “the many” to reduce their consumption of flesh than trying to convince “the few” to take the absolutist route and give up meat completely"

Aggressive vegans are putting a quarter of Britons off vegetarianism, finds study - "26 per cent of meat-eaters are discouraged to try giving up meat and/or all animal products due to “the attitude of certain vegetarians/vegans.”... 25 per cent of the meat-eating respondents also revealed that they’d been lectured about their diets.Despite the findings of the study, more and more Brits are shunning animal products, with research last year finding that the number of vegans in the UK has risen by 360 per cent over the past ten years.This also makes veganism the fastest growing lifestyle movement in the UK."

A third of meat eaters say they wouldn't date a vegetarian - "sharing food is a ritual central to all members of the animal kingdom... '[Vegetarians] are advertising a particular lifestyle, that they are high-maintenance. Their needs require others to bend - even if their philosophy may be a healthy philosophy.'"
This has interesting implications for diet as modern secular religion

Do Vegetarians Smell Sexier? - "women rated the body odors of the men to be sexier, more pleasant, and less intense after they had given up meat for two weeks... the men who ate more vegetables and less meat tended to have yellower skin. And, like the researchers predicted, the sniff-testers rated the armpit odor of men with yellowish skin as more pleasant.But in contrast to results of the Czech study, the Australian women rated the body odors of frequent meat eaters to be more pleasant than men who ate a lot of vegetables. No one knows why the two groups of researchers obtained opposite results when in comes to how meat-eating affects body odor"

Women’s Hedonic Ratings of Body Odor of Heterosexual and Homosexual Men | Request PDF - "Women rated the body odor of homosexual men as being comparatively more pleasant, sexier, and more preferable than that of heterosexual men but not significantly different from the unused T-shirts. This finding was consistent with contemporary research demonstrating that an individual's sexual orientation significantly impacts their olfactory function, both in terms of body odor production and olfactory perceptions of certain compounds."

Thousands of patients diagnosed as vegetative are actually aware - "the brains of minimally conscious patients were activated when exposed to narratives read by family members. When the same narratives were played backwards, becoming gibberish, activation did not occur. The implication? The brains of patients who looked inert and who appeared unable to respond to language were in fact processing language... There is an irony that, in establishing one set of rights, we have trampled on the rights of others. In establishing the right to die, a right that I wholly endorse as an extension of our liberty interest, we have marginalised conscious individuals and deprived them of their right to a self"

Syrian Kurds accused of ethnic cleansing and killing opponents - "Syrian groups backed by the West have been accused of driving people into the arms of Isil, executing prisoners and killing hundreds of people in recent inter-factional fighting... “There are no perfect angels in this war, but there are some that are worse than others”"

'Kick Them Out’: Syrian Women Tell Europe to Send Men Home - "Syrian women are complaining that there are not enough men to rebuild the county, and have told Europe and other Western countries that have absorbed their young men to “kick them out” and send them home.Journalist at Swedish public broadcaster SVT Johan-Mathias Sommarström travelled to Damascus, Syria, and spoke to some of the students at the University of Damascus, 70 per cent of whom he observed are women."

Yellow rage through Syrian eyes - "Of the thousands of people witnessing the “yellow vest” protests in Paris over the past few weeks, three young men have had a decidedly different perspective.Cameras in hand, they have had great fun at the demonstrations, exchanging knowing looks, smiles and jokes whenever they crossed paths. Every once in a while, a painful memory or a philosophical reflection would pierce through the merriment. Then the good humor would return.They are Syrians who have seen friends and loved ones die and their hometowns reduced to rubble. Having escaped war, they are now covering violence in a European capital. With a smile...
'they will actually let you into the protest zone if you have a camera! I walked up and said in my broken French that I was a journalist, showed my ID. The cop asked me for the official media card. But I don’t have one yet. So I googled myself on my phone and showed him the pictures that I’ve taken. He was shocked by them, and he let me in right away.In Syria, if you have a camera, you’ll be kidnapped by the police. You stay as far away from them as possible.'"

Hallmark Movies Reinforce White Supremacy, Says Liberal Writer - "A number of opinion writers have been employing their keyboards this holiday season to tackle the “unwatchable whiteness” of hallmark movies."
This is why we can't have nice things

Activist Believe That Curing Genetic Diseases Is Tantamount To 'Genocide' - "“We’re talking about removal of diseases,” she said. “That’s forever. That’s a change — a modification — that will be passed on to future generations. So that’s actually genocide. It’s a form of eugenics where certain lived experiences are seen as undesirable and unimaginable.”... Her concern is with doctors having the authority to decide what’s a life worth living by curing conditions which they consider to be “disabilities.” That, according to Wong, would constitute “ableism,” pure and simple."
The end (?) point of identity politics