BBC Radio 4 - Moral Maze, The Psychology of Morality
"I do believe in vice and virtue and I think to denounce the sin but not the sinner just makes vice too easy for us all. But I'm actually quite amused by how our view of vice advice changes over a short period of time on things like homosexuality, divorce, single parenthood and I am amused too by how vehemently those who don't keep up with fashionable morality are condemned by the so called progressives...
You can see that those people who've got traditional ideas of morality are now branded as intolerant redneck religious bigots on the one hand and on the other hand we've got this kind of moral indifference or moral relativism of non judgmentalism and so. And then we've got the moral shallowness of virtue signaling...
Circumstances make a great effect on how altruistic you are. So for example when people are watching we are more altruistic. Now does that mean that we're just doing that to get the respect and social status that we derive from other people? Maybe. Or maybe it alerts us to our place in the world...
There's only one good way of virtue signaling - that's being virtuous...
This is something that's completely lost again I think in contemporary society between judgmentalism and making judgments. So on the one hand making judgments is something that is absolutely unavoidable for a human being. We are rational creatures, we have to make judgments. Every time I wake up in the morning I'm making a judgment...that's different from being judgemental which is to say making judgments on the basis of insufficient evidence...
What was the one sin that Jesus hated? No not sex, not money. Not all the other things that we get self righteous about but self righteousness itself so obviously this attitude that this survey is throwing up is at least two thousand years old and presumably a lot older than that...
'The New Testament seems to be very judgmental. I mean there are the Pharisees, the money lenders in the temple, the rich men who cannot pass through the eye of the needle. Lots of judgmentalism going on, isn't there?... I thought you just said that Christ didn't like judgmentalism'
'Yes that's exactly what I said is the sin he hates is the self righteousness of the Pharisees and the people who think they're ok.'
'Yeah but he's making a judgment'
'He is but he's god, I mean he is entitled to'
'Ah. But we're not. I thought we were made in his image... so we shouldn't judge Pharisees?... Should Christian churches condemn or condone homosexuality or divorce?'...
The reason we love to hate pedophilia is most of us are not tempted by pedophilia. So it may go on being that something wicked. But what is much more interesting Michael is to second guess what in fifty or a hundred years time you know if things reverse. So for instance it is possible to imagine that in a hundred years time we might be as shocked by abortion as we are by slavery...
When people in good conscience try and be I think rightly judgemental because by the way if you don't judge somebody morally what you're actually doing is treating them with indifference. I mean if you don't care what they think I mean and you are also treating your own ideas with indifference. If you believe something in good conscience you don't want to keep it to yourself, you have to go out and persuade. That's part of being accountable as a human being... we confused that with moral grandstanding which is to condemn people for their good faith"
L'origine de Bert
Wednesday, September 13, 2017
Links - 13th September 2017 (2)
Sexism in tech: Why a startup founder had sex with an investor - "Even back then, I got how female commerce worked. I understood that letting a man lust after me was the price for entry. I knew being hot got me in the door and that after that I had to make that work for me. Culturally, we are taught as women that our main power is our looks and sexuality. Then it's a matter of what you do with it. Personally, I used the s--- out of it, and I was more successful than my male colleagues because of it... I gave him permission to act this way. My sleeping with him is actually part of the problem... It would also be so easy to jump on the "inappropriate investor" train here. Had I said no and left the bar offended and appalled, I could have easily overlooked how I created a business meeting in my head that had never existed for the other person. I could have come out accusing him of being inappropriate, using text messages to back it up. But I have to own my part in that, too. He never gave me any indication it was a professional meeting. That was my agenda, and one he clearly did not share. So who am I to call him out? It's complicated. Because in an ecosystem where socializing and happy hours are a big way to meet or get to know investors, there are no real clear lines about what is personal and what is professional. I think clarifying this up front has to become a big priority for both men and women. Real talk. I'm also not the first or only woman who has ever used being a woman to get time with a man. This is where we as women need to take more responsibility, too. I was saying to a friend about the stories coming out that these are not even the worst ones, because these women didn't sleep with these men. And men wouldn't keep behaving this way if it didn't work... it's really important that when we expose men, it's real and warranted and not a one-sided story open to interpretation. Once these stories are out, there is nothing a man can do to defend against falsehoods. I think we have a responsibility as women to be introspective and to be honest with ourselves... we can talk about changing men until we are blue in the face, but the only person who is ever truly responsible for my safety is me... I've done work with many teachers around this topic, and one of my favorite teachers is Lynne Forrest and her work with the "victim triangle." She teaches that while we may have been a victim of something, we can learn how to move out of "victim consciousness" (allowing your identity to crystallize around being a victim) to a more empowered place. For all I have been through, I don't identify as a victim, and I'm so grateful for that empowerment and freedom. "
Silicon Valley sexism backlash: 'Boys will be boys' - ""Should Dave McClure pay for his mistakes? Most likely yes. Should he have to step down into the shadows of the company he made? Hell no," said Petraeus, founder of a digital technology company, Corpus Caeleste. "I don't understand why a guy, who is an otherwise great businessman who helped over a thousand companies around the world, should have his professional life erased simply because he likes to sleep around"... Under intense public pressure, Caldbeck resigned, bringing his venture capital firm, Binary Capital, to the brink of collapse, after six women detailed his sexual advances as they met with him to discuss funding, jobs and advice... One prominent venture capitalist, Vinod Khosla, said this week that he does not believe sexual harassment is that common in venture capital. “It’s a reality because it’s perceived as a reality”... Concern is also growing in some quarters that the punishments being meted out don't fit the crime. There's a "witch hunt mentality," says Heidi Dangelmaier, who runs an all-female innovation firm, GirlApproved, in New York. Tatyana Kanzaveli, CEO of health-care start-up Open Health Network in Los Altos, Calif., says she's worried about a broad indictment of men. The globe-trotting McClure, who favored sandals and T-shirts and colorful language, had a reputation as someone who helped women, people of color and entrepreneurs in developing countries, says Sarah Cone, managing partner with Social Impact Capital. He "lacked all professionalism," Cone said, "but that's also what he built his reputation on. You don't hang around Dave for his buttoned-up nature.""
Why Britain banned mobile apps - "Apps are “very expensive to produce, and they’re very very expensive to maintain because you have to keep updating them when there are software changes”... How did the UK reach an increasingly mobile population? Responsive websites, he replies. “For government services that we were providing, the web is a far far better way… and still works on mobile.” Sites can adapt to any screen size, work on all devices, and are open to everyone to use regardless of their device. “If you believe in the open internet that will always win,” he says. And they’re much cheaper to maintain, he adds, because when an upgrade is required, only one platform needs recoding... Key to the GDS’ approach is designing for user needs, not organizational requirements... Most Ministers might want there to be sharing options on websites so that citizens can easily promote government on Facebook and Twitter. But the GDS tested this, and found that only 0.1% of citizens ever clicked on them. These stats allowed officials to remove them from the design, making the site simpler, cleaner and quicker to load. Secondly, the GDS has an approach that “Google is the homepage”. They don’t assume that citizens will visit the main government site; instead, they design for them to have come to a page after looking for a search engine... A third rule is to strip out all unnecessary questions and steps in a process. For example, he says, every service asked citizens their marital status, but it was only a legal requirement for one application. This approach allowed them to remove half of the 500 steps it required to get an allowance to care for an elderly relative or disabled loved one. Fourth, the design team removes all unnecessary design. For example, the pages on Gov.UK – the central portal – don’t have any pictures on them. This is because they distract from the information on the page, and user research showed that they reduced the clarity... How does Britain measure digital success? It isn’t necessarily the popularity of a digital service, Terrett says. “It’d be nice if they like it, don’t get me wrong, but liking is not really a useful metric.” Instead his team looked to see if users have completed an online transaction, or stopped halfway through. Equally, did they find the information they needed and leave a webpage, or did they have to search for more information?"
I'm glad I'm not the only one against the app fetish
The North Korean Army is rusting away. So it's getting creative. - "Forced to make do without traditional weaponry, North Korea is expanding its "asymmetric" forces, including nuclear weapons, commandos, and hackers, the report concludes... Pyongyang is cultivating commando and cyber forces for isolated, coercive attacks meant to forcefully shape North Korea's external relations without resorting to full-blown war. For example, a pocket submarine like the one that sank the South Korean corvette Cheonan in 2010, enraging South Korea and underscoring the North's reputation for volatility, is more useful than a full-size conventional submarine that might survive a few hours during major combat."
Chinese, Korean, Japanese (genetic edition)
Chinese, Japanese and Koreans are genetically distinct
Unrequited Love…or Stalking? The Pitfalls of Dating in Korea - "In Korea, it is accepted practice for men to relentlessly pursue the objects of their heart’s desire, sometimes for many years, and despite if said objects clearly, repeatedly, and vehemently express their disinterest. Far from being viewed as stalking however, it is generally viewed as both a sweet and noble sign of one’s love and dedication. There’s even a proverb specifically for this: “열번찍어 안넘이 가는 나무 없다,” which roughly translates as “There is no tree that can withstand being chopped 10 times.”... many Korean women would surely exploit the practice, in a playing hard to get fashion (some more Korean that comes to mind is “희망고문하다,” literally to “hope-torture [someone],” or to repeatedly string someone along and then break their heart). But I think that the consensus of most Westerners is that if the woman says she’s not interested…then she’s not interested, and hence that the man’s behavior after being told is stalking, regardless of how sweet or noble his intentions"
Insider Perspective: Seven Reasons Why Korea Has the Worst Productivity in the OECD - "1. Rigid Structures and Hierarchy
2. Communication Issues
3. Mobile Phones and Online Communication
In a recent survey of 706 office workers by job search portal Career.co.kr, it found that over 61 percent of respondents said they have a resting place at work. Of these 61 percent, a quarter said that they would escape to the toilets, with just under 45 percent responding that they use their phone during this time for games, Internet, SMS, and phone calls. Go into any office building toilet in Seoul and you will hear mobile message tones or game sounds going off like firecrackers.
4. Hungover Workers Taking Excessive Breaks
5. Form Rules Over Substance
6. Poorly-equipped, Older Graduates
7. The Art of Looking Busy"
Are we too quick to cry 'bully'? - "Say the word in almost any school these days, and it will get a quick reaction. In many cases, advocates said, that's helpful. But sometimes, when it's not really bullying, kids miss out on a chance to learn to cope with minor conflicts on their own.
"The label 'bullying' is really incendiary," Englander said. "It ratchets everything up emotionally. It makes it hard to really address, rationally, what the best course of action is"... "Being deliberately isolated and laughed at cruelly every single day can be devastating socially and academically, because the target must both endure the present and constantly dread the future," Englander wrote in the book "Bullying and Cyberbulling," released this month. "It's this unrelenting cruelty and the callous nature of such an environment that is watered down when we include every social slight or quarrel under the bullying rubric." "If everyone's a victim," she wrote, "then no one's a victim"... Becki Cohn-Vargas, an educator for more than two decades, recalled how conflicts between students were never as black-and-white as they seemed at first. A child who bullied might express remorse, then relapse. A girl would complain of bullying by a child she'd once targeted. LGBT students in a school known for its kind atmosphere would quietly admit to daily torment. Religious students were targeted, and secular students, too. All over the playground and lunchroom, students might freeze out another child, demeaning him without saying a word. To identify a child as a bully or victim was difficult -- and dangerous."
Could Your Child Have Too Much Self-Esteem? - "We have long believed that low self-esteem is to blame for many of society’s ills, from academic failure to high-risk behaviors such as substance abuse and unprotected sex. But the past two decades of research suggest that low self-esteem many not be as destructive as we once thought, and high self-esteem can be equally problematic. In fact, our modern emphasis on praise may be contributing to a generation of self-obsessed, irresponsible and unmotivated kids. Roy Baumeister, a professor of social psychology at Florida State University, found that criminals and drug abusers actually have higher self-esteem than the general population"
Don't call students 'genius' because word is associated with men, Cambridge lecturers told - "Cambridge University examiners are told to avoid using words like “flair”, “brilliance” and “genius” when assessing students’ work because they are associated with men, an academic has revealed. Lucy Delap, a lecturer in British history at Cambridge University, said that History tutors are discouraged from using these terms because they “carry assumptions of gender inequality”... Dr Delap, who specialises in gender history, said that one of the reasons why men get more first class degrees at Oxford and Cambridge than women is because female students struggle with the “male dominated environment”."
Marc Jacobs: Backlash 'erodes freedom of speech' - ""It's gotten to the point that the more I express my opinion, the more problematic it becomes, but the hypocrisy feels absurd to me. The people who attack me in effect, are saying one thing but acting completely the opposite way. In other words, they are saying 'you can't say or do what you want, but we can.'"
80 Per Cent Of Swedish Police Consider Quitting Due To Danger - "Sweden may be descending into a crisis as a new report suggests 80 per cent of police officers are considering switching careers due to the danger they face in the field. The criminal situation in Sweden may be heading for an even worse turn as a new report has shown that the vast majority of the Swedish police force is so unhappy they are looking into other careers. Sweden has been rocked by increasing levels of criminality from sex attacks at music festivals, hand grenade attacks and violence toward the police in areas populated mostly by migrants. The report states that up to three Swedish police quit every day as they feel the government isn’t giving them the tools to tackle the epidemic of criminality"
Yip Pin Xiu should not get $1m (nor $2m) - "A good teacher once asked me whether it was uplifting or condescending to measure a disabled person by a different standard and not hold them to the standards required of able-bodied people. I still don’t have the answer to that question... If we’re all about equality, how about we cut Schooling’s prize money to match Yip’s? That would make it equal, wouldn’t it? And it would cost a heck of a lot less money, which can be used for talent development of other athletes. This should appease the agents of equality. But this kind of equality strikes us all as innately unfair. A Paralympic medal is not an Olympic medal. It is not less than an Olympic medal, but neither is it more. I mean that in the same way that a disabled person like Yip is not less than an able-bodied person, and she is also not more. And they are certainly not exactly equal. That’s why the Paralympics exist."
Yann LeCun - Berkeley will take down its freely available video... - "Berkeley will take down its freely available video courses because the Justice Department says they violate the American with Disabilities Act."
Comments: " As a result, the disabled still can't access the courses, but it's more "equal" now because no one can access. What a strange thing."
"Unfortunately, there are lawyers who make their living extorting people using the ADA."
"Let's ban books because some people can't read."
" Look, I love how Americans are always trying to find and put right all the world's injustices. It is a very noble goal. But often it turns into a Superman cartoon. I don't feel like it's an injustice that I don't see well, much the same way as I have long accepted that I am unlikely to become a famous ballerina, or the crown prince of Monaco. That's just how the cookie crumbles... And, by the way, ADA itself is discriminatory as it only applies to Americans. Personally, I'd prefer less grandstanding and superman'ing and more real sensible actions."
Ahh equality!
This is why we can't have nice things
This is like the SJWs who blockaded a staircase because it didn't have a wheelchair ramp, so no one could use it
Free Education Runs Afoul Of The Bureaucrats - "“If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy,” quipped World War II Navy Admiral Hyman Rickover. “God will forgive you, but the bureaucracy won’t.” The University of California-Berkeley might have considered this warning before it committed the heinous crime of uploading some YouTube videos... When regulations aimed at increasing access to a product instead force an entity to stop offering the product in question entirely, something has gone wrong. A rule intended to protect the disabled has made online educational content inaccessible for all virtual students – including disabled ones"
The dangers of Trudeau’s ‘postnational’ Canada - "a case can be made that the housing affordability crises in Metro Vancouver and Toronto is a result of a “postnational” mindset. Canada’s politicians are failing to put serious effort into protecting residents of Vancouver or Toronto from transnational financial forces... As G.K. Chesterton once said, condemning nationalism because it can lead to war is like condemning love because it can lead to murder... “Patriotism is what makes us behave unselfishly. It is why we pay taxes to support strangers, why we accept election results when we voted for the loser, why we obey laws with which we disagree,” writes Daniel Hannan, author of Inventing Freedom. “A functioning state requires broad consensus on what constitutes the first-person plural. Take that sense away, you get Syria or Iraq or Ukraine or – well, pretty much any war zone you can name.”... it’s not normally nationalism that foments catastrophic division – it’s religion, race or tribalism."
Silicon Valley sexism backlash: 'Boys will be boys' - ""Should Dave McClure pay for his mistakes? Most likely yes. Should he have to step down into the shadows of the company he made? Hell no," said Petraeus, founder of a digital technology company, Corpus Caeleste. "I don't understand why a guy, who is an otherwise great businessman who helped over a thousand companies around the world, should have his professional life erased simply because he likes to sleep around"... Under intense public pressure, Caldbeck resigned, bringing his venture capital firm, Binary Capital, to the brink of collapse, after six women detailed his sexual advances as they met with him to discuss funding, jobs and advice... One prominent venture capitalist, Vinod Khosla, said this week that he does not believe sexual harassment is that common in venture capital. “It’s a reality because it’s perceived as a reality”... Concern is also growing in some quarters that the punishments being meted out don't fit the crime. There's a "witch hunt mentality," says Heidi Dangelmaier, who runs an all-female innovation firm, GirlApproved, in New York. Tatyana Kanzaveli, CEO of health-care start-up Open Health Network in Los Altos, Calif., says she's worried about a broad indictment of men. The globe-trotting McClure, who favored sandals and T-shirts and colorful language, had a reputation as someone who helped women, people of color and entrepreneurs in developing countries, says Sarah Cone, managing partner with Social Impact Capital. He "lacked all professionalism," Cone said, "but that's also what he built his reputation on. You don't hang around Dave for his buttoned-up nature.""
Why Britain banned mobile apps - "Apps are “very expensive to produce, and they’re very very expensive to maintain because you have to keep updating them when there are software changes”... How did the UK reach an increasingly mobile population? Responsive websites, he replies. “For government services that we were providing, the web is a far far better way… and still works on mobile.” Sites can adapt to any screen size, work on all devices, and are open to everyone to use regardless of their device. “If you believe in the open internet that will always win,” he says. And they’re much cheaper to maintain, he adds, because when an upgrade is required, only one platform needs recoding... Key to the GDS’ approach is designing for user needs, not organizational requirements... Most Ministers might want there to be sharing options on websites so that citizens can easily promote government on Facebook and Twitter. But the GDS tested this, and found that only 0.1% of citizens ever clicked on them. These stats allowed officials to remove them from the design, making the site simpler, cleaner and quicker to load. Secondly, the GDS has an approach that “Google is the homepage”. They don’t assume that citizens will visit the main government site; instead, they design for them to have come to a page after looking for a search engine... A third rule is to strip out all unnecessary questions and steps in a process. For example, he says, every service asked citizens their marital status, but it was only a legal requirement for one application. This approach allowed them to remove half of the 500 steps it required to get an allowance to care for an elderly relative or disabled loved one. Fourth, the design team removes all unnecessary design. For example, the pages on Gov.UK – the central portal – don’t have any pictures on them. This is because they distract from the information on the page, and user research showed that they reduced the clarity... How does Britain measure digital success? It isn’t necessarily the popularity of a digital service, Terrett says. “It’d be nice if they like it, don’t get me wrong, but liking is not really a useful metric.” Instead his team looked to see if users have completed an online transaction, or stopped halfway through. Equally, did they find the information they needed and leave a webpage, or did they have to search for more information?"
I'm glad I'm not the only one against the app fetish
The North Korean Army is rusting away. So it's getting creative. - "Forced to make do without traditional weaponry, North Korea is expanding its "asymmetric" forces, including nuclear weapons, commandos, and hackers, the report concludes... Pyongyang is cultivating commando and cyber forces for isolated, coercive attacks meant to forcefully shape North Korea's external relations without resorting to full-blown war. For example, a pocket submarine like the one that sank the South Korean corvette Cheonan in 2010, enraging South Korea and underscoring the North's reputation for volatility, is more useful than a full-size conventional submarine that might survive a few hours during major combat."
Chinese, Korean, Japanese (genetic edition)
Chinese, Japanese and Koreans are genetically distinct
Unrequited Love…or Stalking? The Pitfalls of Dating in Korea - "In Korea, it is accepted practice for men to relentlessly pursue the objects of their heart’s desire, sometimes for many years, and despite if said objects clearly, repeatedly, and vehemently express their disinterest. Far from being viewed as stalking however, it is generally viewed as both a sweet and noble sign of one’s love and dedication. There’s even a proverb specifically for this: “열번찍어 안넘이 가는 나무 없다,” which roughly translates as “There is no tree that can withstand being chopped 10 times.”... many Korean women would surely exploit the practice, in a playing hard to get fashion (some more Korean that comes to mind is “희망고문하다,” literally to “hope-torture [someone],” or to repeatedly string someone along and then break their heart). But I think that the consensus of most Westerners is that if the woman says she’s not interested…then she’s not interested, and hence that the man’s behavior after being told is stalking, regardless of how sweet or noble his intentions"
Insider Perspective: Seven Reasons Why Korea Has the Worst Productivity in the OECD - "1. Rigid Structures and Hierarchy
2. Communication Issues
3. Mobile Phones and Online Communication
In a recent survey of 706 office workers by job search portal Career.co.kr, it found that over 61 percent of respondents said they have a resting place at work. Of these 61 percent, a quarter said that they would escape to the toilets, with just under 45 percent responding that they use their phone during this time for games, Internet, SMS, and phone calls. Go into any office building toilet in Seoul and you will hear mobile message tones or game sounds going off like firecrackers.
4. Hungover Workers Taking Excessive Breaks
5. Form Rules Over Substance
6. Poorly-equipped, Older Graduates
7. The Art of Looking Busy"
Are we too quick to cry 'bully'? - "Say the word in almost any school these days, and it will get a quick reaction. In many cases, advocates said, that's helpful. But sometimes, when it's not really bullying, kids miss out on a chance to learn to cope with minor conflicts on their own.
"The label 'bullying' is really incendiary," Englander said. "It ratchets everything up emotionally. It makes it hard to really address, rationally, what the best course of action is"... "Being deliberately isolated and laughed at cruelly every single day can be devastating socially and academically, because the target must both endure the present and constantly dread the future," Englander wrote in the book "Bullying and Cyberbulling," released this month. "It's this unrelenting cruelty and the callous nature of such an environment that is watered down when we include every social slight or quarrel under the bullying rubric." "If everyone's a victim," she wrote, "then no one's a victim"... Becki Cohn-Vargas, an educator for more than two decades, recalled how conflicts between students were never as black-and-white as they seemed at first. A child who bullied might express remorse, then relapse. A girl would complain of bullying by a child she'd once targeted. LGBT students in a school known for its kind atmosphere would quietly admit to daily torment. Religious students were targeted, and secular students, too. All over the playground and lunchroom, students might freeze out another child, demeaning him without saying a word. To identify a child as a bully or victim was difficult -- and dangerous."
Could Your Child Have Too Much Self-Esteem? - "We have long believed that low self-esteem is to blame for many of society’s ills, from academic failure to high-risk behaviors such as substance abuse and unprotected sex. But the past two decades of research suggest that low self-esteem many not be as destructive as we once thought, and high self-esteem can be equally problematic. In fact, our modern emphasis on praise may be contributing to a generation of self-obsessed, irresponsible and unmotivated kids. Roy Baumeister, a professor of social psychology at Florida State University, found that criminals and drug abusers actually have higher self-esteem than the general population"
Don't call students 'genius' because word is associated with men, Cambridge lecturers told - "Cambridge University examiners are told to avoid using words like “flair”, “brilliance” and “genius” when assessing students’ work because they are associated with men, an academic has revealed. Lucy Delap, a lecturer in British history at Cambridge University, said that History tutors are discouraged from using these terms because they “carry assumptions of gender inequality”... Dr Delap, who specialises in gender history, said that one of the reasons why men get more first class degrees at Oxford and Cambridge than women is because female students struggle with the “male dominated environment”."
Marc Jacobs: Backlash 'erodes freedom of speech' - ""It's gotten to the point that the more I express my opinion, the more problematic it becomes, but the hypocrisy feels absurd to me. The people who attack me in effect, are saying one thing but acting completely the opposite way. In other words, they are saying 'you can't say or do what you want, but we can.'"
80 Per Cent Of Swedish Police Consider Quitting Due To Danger - "Sweden may be descending into a crisis as a new report suggests 80 per cent of police officers are considering switching careers due to the danger they face in the field. The criminal situation in Sweden may be heading for an even worse turn as a new report has shown that the vast majority of the Swedish police force is so unhappy they are looking into other careers. Sweden has been rocked by increasing levels of criminality from sex attacks at music festivals, hand grenade attacks and violence toward the police in areas populated mostly by migrants. The report states that up to three Swedish police quit every day as they feel the government isn’t giving them the tools to tackle the epidemic of criminality"
Yip Pin Xiu should not get $1m (nor $2m) - "A good teacher once asked me whether it was uplifting or condescending to measure a disabled person by a different standard and not hold them to the standards required of able-bodied people. I still don’t have the answer to that question... If we’re all about equality, how about we cut Schooling’s prize money to match Yip’s? That would make it equal, wouldn’t it? And it would cost a heck of a lot less money, which can be used for talent development of other athletes. This should appease the agents of equality. But this kind of equality strikes us all as innately unfair. A Paralympic medal is not an Olympic medal. It is not less than an Olympic medal, but neither is it more. I mean that in the same way that a disabled person like Yip is not less than an able-bodied person, and she is also not more. And they are certainly not exactly equal. That’s why the Paralympics exist."
Yann LeCun - Berkeley will take down its freely available video... - "Berkeley will take down its freely available video courses because the Justice Department says they violate the American with Disabilities Act."
Comments: " As a result, the disabled still can't access the courses, but it's more "equal" now because no one can access. What a strange thing."
"Unfortunately, there are lawyers who make their living extorting people using the ADA."
"Let's ban books because some people can't read."
" Look, I love how Americans are always trying to find and put right all the world's injustices. It is a very noble goal. But often it turns into a Superman cartoon. I don't feel like it's an injustice that I don't see well, much the same way as I have long accepted that I am unlikely to become a famous ballerina, or the crown prince of Monaco. That's just how the cookie crumbles... And, by the way, ADA itself is discriminatory as it only applies to Americans. Personally, I'd prefer less grandstanding and superman'ing and more real sensible actions."
Ahh equality!
This is why we can't have nice things
This is like the SJWs who blockaded a staircase because it didn't have a wheelchair ramp, so no one could use it
Free Education Runs Afoul Of The Bureaucrats - "“If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy,” quipped World War II Navy Admiral Hyman Rickover. “God will forgive you, but the bureaucracy won’t.” The University of California-Berkeley might have considered this warning before it committed the heinous crime of uploading some YouTube videos... When regulations aimed at increasing access to a product instead force an entity to stop offering the product in question entirely, something has gone wrong. A rule intended to protect the disabled has made online educational content inaccessible for all virtual students – including disabled ones"
The dangers of Trudeau’s ‘postnational’ Canada - "a case can be made that the housing affordability crises in Metro Vancouver and Toronto is a result of a “postnational” mindset. Canada’s politicians are failing to put serious effort into protecting residents of Vancouver or Toronto from transnational financial forces... As G.K. Chesterton once said, condemning nationalism because it can lead to war is like condemning love because it can lead to murder... “Patriotism is what makes us behave unselfishly. It is why we pay taxes to support strangers, why we accept election results when we voted for the loser, why we obey laws with which we disagree,” writes Daniel Hannan, author of Inventing Freedom. “A functioning state requires broad consensus on what constitutes the first-person plural. Take that sense away, you get Syria or Iraq or Ukraine or – well, pretty much any war zone you can name.”... it’s not normally nationalism that foments catastrophic division – it’s religion, race or tribalism."
Post ID: 4656218015438798996
Where Are The Adults at Yale?
Where Are The Adults at Yale?
"Baraka’s assertions of Israeli complicity in the Sept. 11 attacks, which he reiterated after reading the poem with vague citations to Arab newspapers, were met with applause and a standing ovation from the assembled Yale students. When he noticed my skeptical expression from the back of the room, he diagnosed me as suffering from “constipation of the face” and being in need of “a brain enema,” to the uproarious laughter of my classmates.
I did not insist upon the establishment of a “safe space” to sulk in my humiliation. Instead, I retired to my dorm and wrote about the event, in my capacity as a budding columnist for the Yale Daily News. Baraka’s speech, and, more importantly, the rapturous response, I wrote, “was one of the most disturbing events in my entire life.” That this trial by fire was provoked not by the white skinheads or Muslim anti-Zionists I had naively assumed were the only purveyors of anti-Semitic hatred, but by blacks, who, because of our shared history of oppression, I had been brought up to believe, were supposed to be my allies, made it all the more distressing.
Today, I look back on the entire incident as a formative event in my evolution from teenager to adult. My experience at Yale of confronting painful ideas, emotionally vexing situations, and learning how to cope with them, informs my opinion about the events roiling the campus today... Free speech is all well and good, apparently, when the speaker is a bigoted lunatic from a “marginalized” group; not so good when the person in question is a Yale professor advocating for her students’ freedom to choose a Halloween costume...
A child developmental psychologist, Christakis shared her concern that a proscription on “objectionably ‘appropriative’ ” Halloween dress was not far removed from preventing “a blonde-haired child’s wanting to be Mulan for a day.”...
A student can be seen screaming at Christakis, calling him “disgusting” and asking, “Who the fuck hired you?” To the whoops and cheers of her peers, she decries his failure to create a “safe space” for students and informs him that he “should not sleep at night.”
With her bravura performance of both “victim and victor,” alternately denunciatory and self-pitying, this young woman is a sterling example of the “cry bully,” what British writer Julie Burchill classifies as one who “always explains to the point of demanding that one agrees with them and always complains to the point of insisting that one is persecuting them.” The following day, one of Christakis’ students published an op-ed in the Yale Herald stating that his stewardship of the college made her “feel that my home is being threatened” because he had failed to apologize for his wife’s email that “marginalized many students of color.”...
When I hear, in 2015, students complain about feeling “marginalized” at Yale due to their racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, or any other identity—and, on top of this, demanding institutional retribution against those who mildly express viewpoints they don’t agree with and sartorial injunctions on pagan bacchanal holiday garb—I can’t help but think of James Meredith. Meredith was the first black student to attend the segregated University of Mississippi and had to do so under the cover of heavily armed federal marshals...
50 years ago, young people manned barricades demanding the overthrow of the system; their watchword was personal freedom. Now they desperately appeal to the system, insisting that it exercise even more control over their already hyper-managed lives...
What we’re witnessing at Yale are the abysmal consequences of a decades-long inculcation of identity politics and grievance mongering, which hold that the relative virtue of an argument is directly proportional to the professed “marginalization” of its proponent, and it is destroying the ideal of a liberal education. Like the students who thought it entirely unobjectionable to hail an unhinged anti-Semite, (indeed, their joy at his defiance seemed inspired by an element of épater la bourgeoisie, precisely because he was unsettling their Jewish classmates), apparently no adults in these young peoples’ lives have informed them that shouting in the face of a professor, hurling imprecations at those who question their assumptions, and then demanding refuge from the tempestuous waves of intellectual discourse in the form of a “safe space” where their fatuous notions go unchallenged, is behavior befitting a toddler, not an undergraduate at one of America’s premier institutions of higher learning. No less a figure than President Barack Obama has assailed this rising tide of intolerance on university campuses, saying that “anybody who comes to speak to you and you disagree with, you should have an argument with them, but you shouldn’t silence them by saying you can’t come because I’m too sensitive to hear what you have to say.”
Unfortunately, Yale appears to be letting the inmates take over the asylum"
"Baraka’s assertions of Israeli complicity in the Sept. 11 attacks, which he reiterated after reading the poem with vague citations to Arab newspapers, were met with applause and a standing ovation from the assembled Yale students. When he noticed my skeptical expression from the back of the room, he diagnosed me as suffering from “constipation of the face” and being in need of “a brain enema,” to the uproarious laughter of my classmates.
I did not insist upon the establishment of a “safe space” to sulk in my humiliation. Instead, I retired to my dorm and wrote about the event, in my capacity as a budding columnist for the Yale Daily News. Baraka’s speech, and, more importantly, the rapturous response, I wrote, “was one of the most disturbing events in my entire life.” That this trial by fire was provoked not by the white skinheads or Muslim anti-Zionists I had naively assumed were the only purveyors of anti-Semitic hatred, but by blacks, who, because of our shared history of oppression, I had been brought up to believe, were supposed to be my allies, made it all the more distressing.
Today, I look back on the entire incident as a formative event in my evolution from teenager to adult. My experience at Yale of confronting painful ideas, emotionally vexing situations, and learning how to cope with them, informs my opinion about the events roiling the campus today... Free speech is all well and good, apparently, when the speaker is a bigoted lunatic from a “marginalized” group; not so good when the person in question is a Yale professor advocating for her students’ freedom to choose a Halloween costume...
A child developmental psychologist, Christakis shared her concern that a proscription on “objectionably ‘appropriative’ ” Halloween dress was not far removed from preventing “a blonde-haired child’s wanting to be Mulan for a day.”...
A student can be seen screaming at Christakis, calling him “disgusting” and asking, “Who the fuck hired you?” To the whoops and cheers of her peers, she decries his failure to create a “safe space” for students and informs him that he “should not sleep at night.”
With her bravura performance of both “victim and victor,” alternately denunciatory and self-pitying, this young woman is a sterling example of the “cry bully,” what British writer Julie Burchill classifies as one who “always explains to the point of demanding that one agrees with them and always complains to the point of insisting that one is persecuting them.” The following day, one of Christakis’ students published an op-ed in the Yale Herald stating that his stewardship of the college made her “feel that my home is being threatened” because he had failed to apologize for his wife’s email that “marginalized many students of color.”...
When I hear, in 2015, students complain about feeling “marginalized” at Yale due to their racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, or any other identity—and, on top of this, demanding institutional retribution against those who mildly express viewpoints they don’t agree with and sartorial injunctions on pagan bacchanal holiday garb—I can’t help but think of James Meredith. Meredith was the first black student to attend the segregated University of Mississippi and had to do so under the cover of heavily armed federal marshals...
50 years ago, young people manned barricades demanding the overthrow of the system; their watchword was personal freedom. Now they desperately appeal to the system, insisting that it exercise even more control over their already hyper-managed lives...
What we’re witnessing at Yale are the abysmal consequences of a decades-long inculcation of identity politics and grievance mongering, which hold that the relative virtue of an argument is directly proportional to the professed “marginalization” of its proponent, and it is destroying the ideal of a liberal education. Like the students who thought it entirely unobjectionable to hail an unhinged anti-Semite, (indeed, their joy at his defiance seemed inspired by an element of épater la bourgeoisie, precisely because he was unsettling their Jewish classmates), apparently no adults in these young peoples’ lives have informed them that shouting in the face of a professor, hurling imprecations at those who question their assumptions, and then demanding refuge from the tempestuous waves of intellectual discourse in the form of a “safe space” where their fatuous notions go unchallenged, is behavior befitting a toddler, not an undergraduate at one of America’s premier institutions of higher learning. No less a figure than President Barack Obama has assailed this rising tide of intolerance on university campuses, saying that “anybody who comes to speak to you and you disagree with, you should have an argument with them, but you shouldn’t silence them by saying you can’t come because I’m too sensitive to hear what you have to say.”
Unfortunately, Yale appears to be letting the inmates take over the asylum"
Post ID: 6799168951659253551
Links - 13th September 2017 (1)
'Fellatio cafe' where customers receive oral sex while they drink their coffee - "At the end of this year, a new coffee shop, Fellatio Café, will open up in Geneva, Switzerland, where you can get a hot cup of joe, with a side of blowjob. Seriously... And just how much will this sexual service set you back? 60 Swiss francs, or about $50. Plus five francs for the coffee, of course. This is a business after all"
Pole vaulter's penis gets in the way of his Olympic dreams - "Ogita was attempting to clear a height of 5.3 meters (17.3 feet) in group A of the first round of the pole vault, when his leg came in contact with the bar. As he began to drop back down toward the ground, his shin grazed the bar, causing it to wobble dangerously. But it was his penis that delivered the final blow"
NY Senator Gets Annihilated on Twitter After Praising Sharia Law Activist Linda Sarsour
It is appropriate that Linda Sarsour is a "suffragist", since Black Lives Matter is "The New Civil Righs Movement"
Fox's APB Is the Latest Show to Misunderstand Robocop - "RoboCop was intended to be a viciously hilarious attack on police brutality, union busting, mass-media brainwashing, and the exploitation of the working class by amoral corporate raiders. Alas, all too many people only noticed the viciousness, not the targets thereof... the movie is a spiritual sibling to Verhoeven’s other tragically misinterpreted masterwork, 1997’s antiwar satire Starship Troopers"
NY Times Hates 'Theocratic' Pool Hours for Women -- With One Exception, for Muslim 'Me Time' - "The Times can't stand Orthodox Jewish women having sex-segregated swimming hours in a public space....but lauded it for Muslim women in February."
Helicopter parenting is increasingly correlated with college-age depression and anxiety. - "One kid’s father threatened to divorce her mother if the daughter didn’t major in economics. It took this student seven years to finish instead of the usual four, and along the way the father micromanaged his daughter’s every move, including requiring her to study off campus at her uncle’s every weekend... students with helicopter parents were less open to new ideas and actions and more vulnerable, anxious, and self-conscious. “[S]tudents who were given responsibility and not constantly monitored by their parents—so-called ‘free rangers’—the effects were reversed”"
This could explain SJW antics
5 Weird Foods the French Consider Delicacies - "There’s an anecdote that places Napoleon’s chief advisor, Talleyrand, in a Burgundy restaurant with Czar Alexander I in 1814. They arrived late, the food was gone, and the chef spotted some snails in his garden. In a panic he added garlic to mask the taste, parsley to pretty them up and butter to make them easier to swallow. Apparently the Czar liked the dish so much, he demanded the recipe. Whenever he saw snails after that, he referred to them as “snails from Burgundy,” or escargots de Bourgogne."
Why one woman stole 50 million academic papers — and made them all free to read - "Alexandra Elbakyan has had enough. Elbakyan is a Russia-based neuroscientist turned academic Robin Hood. In 2011 she founded the website Sci-Hub, which has grown to host some 50 million academic papers — Elbakyan claims this is nearly all the paywalled scientific knowledge that exists in the world. These papers are free for anyone to view and download... In the United States, Sci-Hub users seem to be clustered around academic hot-spots, such as East Lansing, Michigan, where Michigan State University is located. This suggest students and researchers are using Sci-Hub despite having journal access. It's easy to understand why. University libraries have complicated (and sometimes multiple) catalog programs to deliver scientific papers to students and staff. Sci-Hub offers a singular, simple-to-use portal... "American research libraries spent 227% more for their journal collections in 2002 than in 1986. The CPI increased 57% during the same period." The frustrating irony is that universities have to pay these sky-high prices despite the fact they are the institutions funding the research in the journals. Similarly, taxpayers spend $140 billion every year supporting research they can't easily access... "If the process really were as complex, costly and value-added as the publishers protest that it is, 40 percent [profit] margins wouldn't be available""
I'm Done Pretending Men Are Safe (Even My Sons) - "My sons won’t rape unconscious women behind a dumpster, and neither will most of the progressive men I know. But what all of these men share in common, even my sons, is a relentless questioning and disbelief of the female experience. I do not want to prove my pain, or provide enough evidence to convince anyone that my trauma is merited. I’m through wasting my time on people who are more interested in ideas than feelings, and I’m through pretending these people, these men, are safe. I love my sons, and I love some individual men. It pains me to say that I don’t feel emotionally safe with them, and perhaps never have with a man, but it needs to be said because far too often we are afraid to say it. This is not a reflection of something broken or damaged in me; it is a reflection of the systems we build and our boys absorb. Those little boys grow into men who know the value of women, the value that’s been ascribed to us by a broken system, and it seeps out from them in a million tiny, toxic ways."
Comments: "this sounds a bit Borderline Personality Disorder; I hope she finds peace."
"The main objective of this muh feminist feelz propaganda piece is to taunt its readers with “all Whites are racist.”"
"Lady, you do not have a fucking clue what it is to be a man, how to be a man, therefore you should not even try to teach your boys how to be a man because you do not have a fucking clue."
"I find this article deeply disturbing. The author sounds preoccupied with misogyny to the extent it is negatively coloring her perception of her children. She almost sounds scared of them"
Sweden's gender-neutral preschools produce kids who are more likely to succeed - "children who attended one gender-neutral preschool were more likely to play with unfamiliar children of the opposite gender, and less likely to be influenced by culturally enforced gender stereotypes, compared to children enrolled at other pre-schools. Tests showed that the kids from the gender-neutral school were as likely as other children to group people by gender, but didn’t attach traditional associations to the concepts of “male” or “female” children to the same degree. During a matching task, for instance, they were less likely to make choices in line with cultural norms when shown images of boys or girls and jeans or dresses."
Anyone can be successful when you define them as successful
Shia LaBeouf Threatens to Kill Cop with Gun in Bodycam Footage - "Shia LaBeouf went on a racist, violent rant in the police car after being arrested early Saturday morning in Georgia. Shia screamed at the cop, "If I had my gun I'll blow your s*** up." And that wasn't all. He said, "You put your own kind in the f***ing pen." As we previously reported, Shia also ranted about being an American who pays his taxes"
"He will not divide us"
Catfights over handbags and tears in the toilets. With her women-only TV company this producer thought she'd kissed goodbye to conflict... - "The venomous women were supposedly the talented employees I had headhunted to achieve my utopian dream - a female- only company with happy, harmonious workers benefiting from an absence of men. It was an idealistic vision swiftly shattered by the nightmare reality: constant bitchiness, surging hormones, unchecked emotion, attention-seeking and fashion rivalry so fierce it tore my staff apart. When I read the other day that Sienna Miller had said there was no such thing as 'the Sisterhood', I knew what she meant... there was a time when I believed in the Sisterhood - but that was before women at war led to my emotional and financial ruin... Working in TV is notoriously difficult for women. There is a powerful old boys' network, robust glass ceiling and the majority of bosses are misogynistic males. Gradually, what had started out as a daydream - wouldn't it be great if there were no men where I worked? - turned into an exciting concept. I decided to create the first all-female production company where smart, intelligent, career-orientated women could work harmoniously, free from the bravado of the opposite sex... Hideously stereotypical and shallow as it sounds, clothes were a huge source of catty comments, from sly remarks about people looking over-dressed to the merits of their fake tan application. I always felt sorry for anyone who naively showed off a new purchase in the office, because everyone would coo appreciatively to their face - then harshly criticise them as soon as they were out of earshot. This happened without exception... The office was like a Milan catwalk, but with the competitiveness of a Miss World contest - and the low cunning of a mud-wrestling bout... Two of the skinny girls often snidely said about the largest girl: 'I'd kill myself if I got that fat.' One of the assistants got her own back on the food police for several weeks by pretending to buy them fat-free lattes. . . which were really full-fat. Employees considered it acceptable to take time off for beauty treatments - and not out of their holiday allowance... My idealism was my downfall because I tried to see the best in people - I was convinced they would behave as they were treated, so I treated everyone kindly. If I'd have been more cynical, I would have been more successful... The effect a lack of testosterone was having in our office was even more apparent when I temporarily hired two male directors to work on a series (camera operators are usually men because of the heavy equipment). The team suddenly became quieter, more hard-working and less bitchy - partly because they were too busy flirting... I hate how much that sounds like stereotyping, but I'm afraid it's what I found to be true. And while I stand by my initial reason for excluding male employees - because they have an easy ride in TV - if I were to do it again, I'd definitely employ men. In fact, I'd probably employ only men. Making close to half a million in our first year should have meant profit, but this was wiped out by high salaries and accounting errors by staff. Then, when we began having cash-flow problems, Sarah signed herself off sick with stress for a month. She also confessed she'd been dodging calls from people who were due payment, thus ruining my firm's reputation... To pump extra cash into the business, I sold both my cars, but it was too late and we went bankrupt in March 2007, less than two years after I'd formed the company."
SJWing has real consequences when you must spend your own money
Boys told to 'man up' by peers are 4 times more likely to bully others: Survey - "More than half of schoolboys here have hit, punched, shoved or spat on another boy while in secondary school. More than four-fifths have taunted another for being "girly" or not being "manly" enough. These were found in a survey of 809 teenagers aged 17 and 18 by women's rights group Aware. The results, said Aware researcher Chong Ning Qian, are alarming. She found that those who were teased are more likely to go on to bully other boys. Aware decided to survey boys after a campaign to end violence against women found that men, too, "were victims of violence because of gender stereotyping"... The boys were asked whether their peers told them to "man up", "stop being such a girl" or to not cry - a practice Aware calls gender policing -and whether they experienced or committed violence. A whopping 84 per cent admitted to verbally bullying another, by insulting a boy for being feminine or weak and calling him a "sissy" or "gay". A lower - but still significant- proportion resorted to physical bullying: 29 per cent gave a schoolmate a wedgie by yanking his underwear; 54 per cent hit, punched, shoved or spat on another; and 69 per cent took part in a practice called taupok where boys pile on a target... "Boys tend to be a bit more physical. To be violent you have to have the intention to harm someone"... it could be part of "an occasion where someone is celebrating something like a birthday", said Singapore Children's Society chief executive Alfred Tan. He said he would not classify a one-off incident as bullying. But for child psychologist Carol Balhetchet, the main factor is whether the person feels victimised and had asked for the act to stop but was ignored. "Children's sense of fun - especially for boys up to the age of 16 and some even older - is to see how far they can get away with what they see as poking fun at another," said Dr Balhetchet."
AWARE calling taupok violence/bullying just shows they've no clue about men. And the experts agree
Campaign promoting Chinese gets one of its slogan's Chinese words wrong - "Mandarin is hard. Organisers of a Speak Mandarin campaign in Singapore were red-faced after they debuted a banner with a slogan, to encourage people to use the Chinese language more in reading and communicating. However, instead of using the Chinese character for "read" (读), it instead chose one that meant "showing disrespect" (渎)"
Only 7 per cent of Britons consider themselves feminists - "More than two thirds of Britons support gender equality – but just seven per cent would call themselves feminists... men were more supportive generally of equality between the sexes - 86 per cent wanted it for the women in their lives - compared to 74 per cent of women. Younger women were more likely to call themselves feminist, with 19 per cent aged 18-24 using the word, but they were also most likely to oppose feminism... People were asked to say the first word that popped into their heads when they heard the word “feminist”. More than a quarter said “bitchy”"
Britons are even more averse to the label than Americans, even though American feminists seem to have more excesses
Is it sexist to say the men were more feminist than the women?
Racism and the Aladdin Casting Search - "the casting search for Disney’s live-action Aladdin, which has taken longer than initially expected. Production was expected to begin in July, but it’s been pushed back to August in order to accommodate the search for a male lead... “Finding a male lead in his 20s who can act and sing has proven difficult,” reads the article, “especially since the studio wants someone of Middle-Eastern or Indian descent (the animated film is set in the fictional Middle Eastern city of Agrabah)….[T]he search has dragged on, with Disney and Ritchie having to go back to the drawing board multiple times.” “Especially since the studio wants someone of Middle-Eastern or Indian descent”? Seriously? Seriously?... to suggest that it’s taking so long because the talent pool is limited to Middle-Eastern and Indian actors is racist as hell
When reality conflicts with your ideology, clearly reality is to blame
If I were a Middle Eastern/Indian actor and I knew the studio was looking for one and that there were few of my kind, I would ask for more money, which would delay casting
Comments: "This I what you get when you inherently think everything is racist and/or get paid to blog."
"Or... maybe searching exclusively for Arab/Indian men is difficult because it's another factor that narrows down an already very small pool?"
Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire - "Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers"
Pole vaulter's penis gets in the way of his Olympic dreams - "Ogita was attempting to clear a height of 5.3 meters (17.3 feet) in group A of the first round of the pole vault, when his leg came in contact with the bar. As he began to drop back down toward the ground, his shin grazed the bar, causing it to wobble dangerously. But it was his penis that delivered the final blow"
NY Senator Gets Annihilated on Twitter After Praising Sharia Law Activist Linda Sarsour
It is appropriate that Linda Sarsour is a "suffragist", since Black Lives Matter is "The New Civil Righs Movement"
Fox's APB Is the Latest Show to Misunderstand Robocop - "RoboCop was intended to be a viciously hilarious attack on police brutality, union busting, mass-media brainwashing, and the exploitation of the working class by amoral corporate raiders. Alas, all too many people only noticed the viciousness, not the targets thereof... the movie is a spiritual sibling to Verhoeven’s other tragically misinterpreted masterwork, 1997’s antiwar satire Starship Troopers"
NY Times Hates 'Theocratic' Pool Hours for Women -- With One Exception, for Muslim 'Me Time' - "The Times can't stand Orthodox Jewish women having sex-segregated swimming hours in a public space....but lauded it for Muslim women in February."
Helicopter parenting is increasingly correlated with college-age depression and anxiety. - "One kid’s father threatened to divorce her mother if the daughter didn’t major in economics. It took this student seven years to finish instead of the usual four, and along the way the father micromanaged his daughter’s every move, including requiring her to study off campus at her uncle’s every weekend... students with helicopter parents were less open to new ideas and actions and more vulnerable, anxious, and self-conscious. “[S]tudents who were given responsibility and not constantly monitored by their parents—so-called ‘free rangers’—the effects were reversed”"
This could explain SJW antics
5 Weird Foods the French Consider Delicacies - "There’s an anecdote that places Napoleon’s chief advisor, Talleyrand, in a Burgundy restaurant with Czar Alexander I in 1814. They arrived late, the food was gone, and the chef spotted some snails in his garden. In a panic he added garlic to mask the taste, parsley to pretty them up and butter to make them easier to swallow. Apparently the Czar liked the dish so much, he demanded the recipe. Whenever he saw snails after that, he referred to them as “snails from Burgundy,” or escargots de Bourgogne."
Why one woman stole 50 million academic papers — and made them all free to read - "Alexandra Elbakyan has had enough. Elbakyan is a Russia-based neuroscientist turned academic Robin Hood. In 2011 she founded the website Sci-Hub, which has grown to host some 50 million academic papers — Elbakyan claims this is nearly all the paywalled scientific knowledge that exists in the world. These papers are free for anyone to view and download... In the United States, Sci-Hub users seem to be clustered around academic hot-spots, such as East Lansing, Michigan, where Michigan State University is located. This suggest students and researchers are using Sci-Hub despite having journal access. It's easy to understand why. University libraries have complicated (and sometimes multiple) catalog programs to deliver scientific papers to students and staff. Sci-Hub offers a singular, simple-to-use portal... "American research libraries spent 227% more for their journal collections in 2002 than in 1986. The CPI increased 57% during the same period." The frustrating irony is that universities have to pay these sky-high prices despite the fact they are the institutions funding the research in the journals. Similarly, taxpayers spend $140 billion every year supporting research they can't easily access... "If the process really were as complex, costly and value-added as the publishers protest that it is, 40 percent [profit] margins wouldn't be available""
I'm Done Pretending Men Are Safe (Even My Sons) - "My sons won’t rape unconscious women behind a dumpster, and neither will most of the progressive men I know. But what all of these men share in common, even my sons, is a relentless questioning and disbelief of the female experience. I do not want to prove my pain, or provide enough evidence to convince anyone that my trauma is merited. I’m through wasting my time on people who are more interested in ideas than feelings, and I’m through pretending these people, these men, are safe. I love my sons, and I love some individual men. It pains me to say that I don’t feel emotionally safe with them, and perhaps never have with a man, but it needs to be said because far too often we are afraid to say it. This is not a reflection of something broken or damaged in me; it is a reflection of the systems we build and our boys absorb. Those little boys grow into men who know the value of women, the value that’s been ascribed to us by a broken system, and it seeps out from them in a million tiny, toxic ways."
Comments: "this sounds a bit Borderline Personality Disorder; I hope she finds peace."
"The main objective of this muh feminist feelz propaganda piece is to taunt its readers with “all Whites are racist.”"
"Lady, you do not have a fucking clue what it is to be a man, how to be a man, therefore you should not even try to teach your boys how to be a man because you do not have a fucking clue."
"I find this article deeply disturbing. The author sounds preoccupied with misogyny to the extent it is negatively coloring her perception of her children. She almost sounds scared of them"
Sweden's gender-neutral preschools produce kids who are more likely to succeed - "children who attended one gender-neutral preschool were more likely to play with unfamiliar children of the opposite gender, and less likely to be influenced by culturally enforced gender stereotypes, compared to children enrolled at other pre-schools. Tests showed that the kids from the gender-neutral school were as likely as other children to group people by gender, but didn’t attach traditional associations to the concepts of “male” or “female” children to the same degree. During a matching task, for instance, they were less likely to make choices in line with cultural norms when shown images of boys or girls and jeans or dresses."
Anyone can be successful when you define them as successful
Shia LaBeouf Threatens to Kill Cop with Gun in Bodycam Footage - "Shia LaBeouf went on a racist, violent rant in the police car after being arrested early Saturday morning in Georgia. Shia screamed at the cop, "If I had my gun I'll blow your s*** up." And that wasn't all. He said, "You put your own kind in the f***ing pen." As we previously reported, Shia also ranted about being an American who pays his taxes"
"He will not divide us"
Catfights over handbags and tears in the toilets. With her women-only TV company this producer thought she'd kissed goodbye to conflict... - "The venomous women were supposedly the talented employees I had headhunted to achieve my utopian dream - a female- only company with happy, harmonious workers benefiting from an absence of men. It was an idealistic vision swiftly shattered by the nightmare reality: constant bitchiness, surging hormones, unchecked emotion, attention-seeking and fashion rivalry so fierce it tore my staff apart. When I read the other day that Sienna Miller had said there was no such thing as 'the Sisterhood', I knew what she meant... there was a time when I believed in the Sisterhood - but that was before women at war led to my emotional and financial ruin... Working in TV is notoriously difficult for women. There is a powerful old boys' network, robust glass ceiling and the majority of bosses are misogynistic males. Gradually, what had started out as a daydream - wouldn't it be great if there were no men where I worked? - turned into an exciting concept. I decided to create the first all-female production company where smart, intelligent, career-orientated women could work harmoniously, free from the bravado of the opposite sex... Hideously stereotypical and shallow as it sounds, clothes were a huge source of catty comments, from sly remarks about people looking over-dressed to the merits of their fake tan application. I always felt sorry for anyone who naively showed off a new purchase in the office, because everyone would coo appreciatively to their face - then harshly criticise them as soon as they were out of earshot. This happened without exception... The office was like a Milan catwalk, but with the competitiveness of a Miss World contest - and the low cunning of a mud-wrestling bout... Two of the skinny girls often snidely said about the largest girl: 'I'd kill myself if I got that fat.' One of the assistants got her own back on the food police for several weeks by pretending to buy them fat-free lattes. . . which were really full-fat. Employees considered it acceptable to take time off for beauty treatments - and not out of their holiday allowance... My idealism was my downfall because I tried to see the best in people - I was convinced they would behave as they were treated, so I treated everyone kindly. If I'd have been more cynical, I would have been more successful... The effect a lack of testosterone was having in our office was even more apparent when I temporarily hired two male directors to work on a series (camera operators are usually men because of the heavy equipment). The team suddenly became quieter, more hard-working and less bitchy - partly because they were too busy flirting... I hate how much that sounds like stereotyping, but I'm afraid it's what I found to be true. And while I stand by my initial reason for excluding male employees - because they have an easy ride in TV - if I were to do it again, I'd definitely employ men. In fact, I'd probably employ only men. Making close to half a million in our first year should have meant profit, but this was wiped out by high salaries and accounting errors by staff. Then, when we began having cash-flow problems, Sarah signed herself off sick with stress for a month. She also confessed she'd been dodging calls from people who were due payment, thus ruining my firm's reputation... To pump extra cash into the business, I sold both my cars, but it was too late and we went bankrupt in March 2007, less than two years after I'd formed the company."
SJWing has real consequences when you must spend your own money
Boys told to 'man up' by peers are 4 times more likely to bully others: Survey - "More than half of schoolboys here have hit, punched, shoved or spat on another boy while in secondary school. More than four-fifths have taunted another for being "girly" or not being "manly" enough. These were found in a survey of 809 teenagers aged 17 and 18 by women's rights group Aware. The results, said Aware researcher Chong Ning Qian, are alarming. She found that those who were teased are more likely to go on to bully other boys. Aware decided to survey boys after a campaign to end violence against women found that men, too, "were victims of violence because of gender stereotyping"... The boys were asked whether their peers told them to "man up", "stop being such a girl" or to not cry - a practice Aware calls gender policing -and whether they experienced or committed violence. A whopping 84 per cent admitted to verbally bullying another, by insulting a boy for being feminine or weak and calling him a "sissy" or "gay". A lower - but still significant- proportion resorted to physical bullying: 29 per cent gave a schoolmate a wedgie by yanking his underwear; 54 per cent hit, punched, shoved or spat on another; and 69 per cent took part in a practice called taupok where boys pile on a target... "Boys tend to be a bit more physical. To be violent you have to have the intention to harm someone"... it could be part of "an occasion where someone is celebrating something like a birthday", said Singapore Children's Society chief executive Alfred Tan. He said he would not classify a one-off incident as bullying. But for child psychologist Carol Balhetchet, the main factor is whether the person feels victimised and had asked for the act to stop but was ignored. "Children's sense of fun - especially for boys up to the age of 16 and some even older - is to see how far they can get away with what they see as poking fun at another," said Dr Balhetchet."
AWARE calling taupok violence/bullying just shows they've no clue about men. And the experts agree
Campaign promoting Chinese gets one of its slogan's Chinese words wrong - "Mandarin is hard. Organisers of a Speak Mandarin campaign in Singapore were red-faced after they debuted a banner with a slogan, to encourage people to use the Chinese language more in reading and communicating. However, instead of using the Chinese character for "read" (读), it instead chose one that meant "showing disrespect" (渎)"
Only 7 per cent of Britons consider themselves feminists - "More than two thirds of Britons support gender equality – but just seven per cent would call themselves feminists... men were more supportive generally of equality between the sexes - 86 per cent wanted it for the women in their lives - compared to 74 per cent of women. Younger women were more likely to call themselves feminist, with 19 per cent aged 18-24 using the word, but they were also most likely to oppose feminism... People were asked to say the first word that popped into their heads when they heard the word “feminist”. More than a quarter said “bitchy”"
Britons are even more averse to the label than Americans, even though American feminists seem to have more excesses
Is it sexist to say the men were more feminist than the women?
Racism and the Aladdin Casting Search - "the casting search for Disney’s live-action Aladdin, which has taken longer than initially expected. Production was expected to begin in July, but it’s been pushed back to August in order to accommodate the search for a male lead... “Finding a male lead in his 20s who can act and sing has proven difficult,” reads the article, “especially since the studio wants someone of Middle-Eastern or Indian descent (the animated film is set in the fictional Middle Eastern city of Agrabah)….[T]he search has dragged on, with Disney and Ritchie having to go back to the drawing board multiple times.” “Especially since the studio wants someone of Middle-Eastern or Indian descent”? Seriously? Seriously?... to suggest that it’s taking so long because the talent pool is limited to Middle-Eastern and Indian actors is racist as hell
When reality conflicts with your ideology, clearly reality is to blame
If I were a Middle Eastern/Indian actor and I knew the studio was looking for one and that there were few of my kind, I would ask for more money, which would delay casting
Comments: "This I what you get when you inherently think everything is racist and/or get paid to blog."
"Or... maybe searching exclusively for Arab/Indian men is difficult because it's another factor that narrows down an already very small pool?"
Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire - "Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers"
Post ID: 5615006045804398307
Tuesday, September 12, 2017
Links - 12th September 2017 (3)
How to Treat Sex Workers, According to Sex Workers - "the overprotective client: They want to spend half an hour talking to you about your personal life first and ask you way too many personal questions, including whether you're really doing this voluntarily. And then there are the clients who like you so much that they want to save you from this "awful life" that they think you lead as a sex worker. These clients constantly say things like: "But you're so cute, and you're so smart. You don't need to do this kind of work," or "Shouldn't you try and get a real job?" It's super annoying because it means that you're not taking me seriously. I understand it's coming from a good place, but it is also very condescending. I am a professional, and I take my job seriously."
An artificial womb successfully grew baby sheep — and humans could be next
Playboy and the False Normalization of the Hijab - "Playboy magazine has just featured an article about a hijab-wearing Muslim-American, Noor Taguri, “making a forceful case for modesty.” Yes. You read that correctly. In its October “Renegades” issue, Playboy is showcasing a religious-conservative practice as emblematic of an independent woman... The assumption made by some liberals is that the “authentic” Muslim woman is the hijab-wearing one, while non-hijabis are seen as Westernized, inauthentic Muslims... from the ’80s onward, theocratic Islamism began replacing Arab socialism as the ideology of resistance against “the West.”... Do look up the late great Egyptian feminist Huda Sharawi who truly stepped out of her “comfort zone” when, in 1923, she shocked Muslims everywhere by removing her hijab publicly for the first time."
When even Playboy fetishises the hijab...
This is a reminder that, contrary to oft-circulated photos of women in Tehran and Kabul, the hijab was indeed not unknown before the late 1970s
Australia defends cat cull to Morrissey and Brigitte Bardot - "Morrissey has accused Australia of "taking idiocy just too far". Mr Andrews said cats endangered more than 120 species and their cull would protect native wildlife. "Our native species are simply not equipped to coexist with feral cats; they did not evolve alongside predators like the feral cat," he wrote in his open letter. He said the plan, which was first announced in July, will see two million cats killed over the next five years, and has the support of major environmental organisations. Morrissey has angrily attacked the scheme, calling the Australian government "essentially a committee of sheep-farmers who have zero concerns about animal welfare or animal respect". "The cats are, in fact, two million smaller versions of Cecil the lion," he said, referring to the famous big cat killed by a US dentist in Zimbabwe."
Some animals are more equal than others
Graffiti Removal Guy Comes Back to Discover Image of Himself in the Same Spot
A Graffiti Artist Tests The Patience Of Local Authorities With This Hilarious Experiment
On Knowing Your Enemy: Sam Harris - "The Israelis have had a spotless record of airline security since 1972. It is widely imagined that they would never be so stupid as to profile people on the basis of race, ethnicity, or nationality. But this is just a pious fantasy. The Israelis have well-trained screeners who use all the information they can possibly glean to mitigate the risk of terrorism. Racial and ethnic profiling appears to be central to their process. I agree with many of my critics that we should emulate the Israeli approach insofar as it is possible. That would require smart, well-trained screeners who are empowered to use their discretion (i.e., to profile). I have discovered that most secular liberals are quite unwilling to think in any detail about the threat we face in our “war on terror.” For instance, why should we be especially concerned about suicide bombing? Because it is much harder to prevent and tends to be much more destructive than ordinary bombing. People who want to get safely home after committing an act of terrorism are significantly restricted in what they can do, and they can be deterred in ways that aspiring martyrs cannot. Anyone determined to board an airplane and destroy it in flight is, by definition, a suicide bomber... What percentage of porn stars are also theoretical physicists?... It is possible to make educated guesses of this kind with a high degree of confidence. In the context of airport security, this is “profiling” by another name... If you believe that the creator of the universe wants you to wage jihad against infidels, I think you can be perfectly healthy in psychological terms while becoming a suicide bomber. Secularists who doubt this seem to be the ones devoid of empathy, in fact: They are unwilling or unable to see the world through the eyes of our enemies—even when our enemies tell us, ad nauseam, exactly how they see the world. The most dangerous failing of secularism (and of moderate religion) is that its adherents cannot seem to grasp that some people really believe martyrdom is a path to Paradise... On a website whose purpose is to bear witness to Muslim moderation, we learn that it is a matter of consensus that an apostate should be killed if he or she speaks publicly against the faith"
The challenge of translating Harry Potter into French
Why Are These 3 STEM Fields Dominated By Women? - "in other fields including medicine, research revealed that when talking to women in leadership positions like a health care provider, people tended to interrupt more, which reflects a greater sense of comfort, empowerment, and participation."
Looks like "mansplaining" is actually a good thing
The thing those fields have in common seem to be that women are more interested in them
Ibuprofen: Clarifying some myths | Royal Pharmaceutical Society blog - "Some types of ibuprofen, such as ibuprofen sodium or ibuprofen lysine, do begin to provide pain relief quicker than ibuprofen acid as they may be absorbed more quickly. The maximum blood concentration after taking a single dose of fast-acting ibuprofen lysine or ibuprofen sodium formulations is around 45 minutes compared with 90 minutes for standard ibuprofen acid formulations. In addition, fact-acting ibuprofen formulations or combination products can be more effective. A recent study has compared the effectiveness of different painkillers available without prescription (over the counter, OTC). The most effective OTC painkiller was a combination of ibuprofen plus paracetamol that worked for 7 out of 10 people; fast acting ibuprofen formulations or ibuprofen 200 mg plus caffeine 100 mg was effective for 5 out of 10 people, whereas ibuprofen acid worked for only 4 out of 10 people."
BBC World Service - The Food Chain, Fortification: Too Much of a Good thing? - "[On fortifying instant noodles to help people cook at home] Noodles is not the most homemade food as a scratched cooked meal, but it's a better alternative than a package of crisps or some other alternatives that people might have. Then we often encourage the addition of other vegetables to a noodle dish. This then we call home made...
If we look for example at iron, only about half the anemia in the world is actually caused by iron deficiency. There are lots of other reasons why people have anemia so if we're putting all our efforts into putting iron in a very few number of foods and we're not addressing all those other causes: sanitation, improving access to fruits and vegetables or all the other things that we know are important, we are not actually helping address the problem... people don't want to think about and address the underlying poverty and social determinants of health because it gets into politics. It gets into the complex, messy world of why people are poor...
The benefit:cost ratio are six to nine. You know that means for every dollar you spend on fortification you get between six and nine back in terms of reduced spending on health and improved economic productivity. Those benefit cost ratios are very competitive to other things that governments could spend their money on like bridges and roads... Ideally we want everybody in the world to be eating a healthy diet. We want everybody in the world to have enough income. We want all women in the world to be sufficiently empowered, to buy the right kind of food. We want that food to be available and affordable. But we're not there yet so what do you do? What's your choice? Is your choice to say sorry kids. The third of kids that die from malaria, sorry. Well we're working on the underlying determinants. You can die while we're doing that... [On conflicts of interest] Our view is that you have to work with the big companies if you want to change the way they behave. There is an African expression that says if you want to change somebody's head they've got to be in the room"
BBC World Service - The Food Chain, What Time is Dinner? - "In the north of England people are more likely to call the main meal of the evening tea. And they'll typically eat it earlier than in the south where people tend to call it Dinner. But dinner is also known as lunch in the north of England. Confused? The origins of all this lie in economics and historical variations in the working day. But for some the times we eat meals and what we cal them are still an indicator of social class. Take Noel Gallagher of the band Oasis. He told a UK newspaper in 2012: Me and my kids call it tea. My wife calls it dinner. She went to uni, I didn't. She's middle class, I'm not. People do seem to judge others on when they eat...
[On brunch] People will line up to sit crammed in small tables with people's knees knocking each other. Served by usually a hungover artist of some kind or creative person who resents their presence. And they'll eat food that's overpriced and because of the lineup, because of the performance of it all, would take three or four hours. In the middle of a Sunday. A precious Sunday... [The revival of brunch] coincides with the early two thousands when there was this rediscovery and celebration of urban areas and neighborhoods that might have fallen off the socioeconomic radar even though there are always people living there...
They don't have that much money and time to spare. People give the appearance of having all of that, but in reality people are often working, you know, contract jobs, no benefits, with a lot of insecurity - very precarious job holdings. And yet at the same time they are spending a lot of money for brunches, for the kind of meals that perhaps down the street at an old fashioned diner could be had for half the price. But it doesn't come with the same sort of cultural trappings as this new style of brunch eating... People were sort of brunching into oblivion"
You’ll never guess where Russian spies are hiding their control servers - "According to a report published Tuesday by researchers from antivirus provider Eset, a recently discovered backdoor Trojan used comments posted to Britney Spears's official Instagram account to locate the control server that sends instructions and offloads stolen data to and from infected computers. The innovation—by a so-called advanced persistent threat group known as Turla—makes the malware harder to detect because attacker-controlled servers are never directly referenced in either the malware or in the comment it accesses."
Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub
Comments: "Github is engaging in risky behaviour by reaching out to individuals (specifically activists) for hire explicitly on the basis of "diversity" and trying to incorporate those individuals in a highly merit-based environment. Secondly, Coraline seems to think that human relationships are a one way street: that she is entitled to be direct and even confrontational or insensitive, especially if she believes she is "right" or in a "mentor" role, and yet her peers are expected to walk on eggshells around her, lest they be accused of attacking her. One part that stood out as particularly odd was her insistence to stay at work while she was suffering with a mental health issue that was clearly affecting her job performance, in spite of her manager's request that she take mental health leave"
"employees like this have an bigger agenda they are focused on rather than doing work of the company. And the fact that she says she has bipolar depression (and she was on involuntarily mental commitment for 8-days!?!... and yet she can't imagine why somebody would say she is not doing well at work, is also ridiculous on the face of it."
"Isn't this the person who ran a code of conduct that has a website which includes things like "thoughtless use of pronouns" and mentions meritocracy as an evil, not a goal to strive for? Can't really say I'm expecting someone like that to be low friction."
Moral of the story - hiring SJWs is bad for an organisation
Govt to keep ability to amend Constitution without vote: Shanmugam - "With social spending set to increase to support a rapidly ageing population, the Government needs to preserve its ability to make the “necessary adjustments” to the Constitution to strengthen the revenue base and pay for the extra spending, said Law and Foreign Affairs Minister K Shanmugam. This is why the Government does not intend to bring into force Article 5(2A) of the Constitution, he said in response to a question raised by Nominated Member of Parliament Eugene Tan yesterday. The Article states that if Parliament wants to amend certain elements of the Constitution, including any provisions relating to the President’s powers, it must seek a national referendum and get the support of at least two-thirds of voters."
Shortage of eligible men has left women taking desperate steps to preserve their fertility, experts say - "A dearth of marriagable men has left an “oversupply” of educated women taking desperate steps to preserve their fertility, experts say. The first global study into egg freezing found that shortages of eligible men were the prime reason why women had attempted to take matters into their own hands. Experts said “terrifying” demographic shifts had created a “deficit” of educated men and a growing problem of “leftover” professional women, with female graduates vastly outnumbering males in in many countries... The anthropologist suggested some women might need to be prepared to compromise some of their standards in order to find love. But she suggested society should act to increase the number of men going into higher education. “It may be about rethinking the way we approach this,” she said. “Most women who are educated would like to have an educated partner. Traditionally women have also wanted to ‘marry up’ to go for someone more successful, financially well off”... Some women were paying a high price for feminism, she suggested. “As a feminist I think it’s great that women are doing so well but I think there has been a cost that has been paid,” she said, warning that many had been left in “sadness and isolation”... One in five women in the UK is now childless by the end of their fertile life - compared to one in 10 a generation before, he said... The gender gap for higher education is now as large as that between rich and poor people"
Or women could just marry down. This also suggests that some women might not think that female emancipation has been an entirely positive thing, and that the obsession about women suffering oppression because they earn fewer first class honours degrees than men is misplaced
Japan Welcomes "Power Rangers" Home with Rice Field Art - "Back in May, 500 volunteers gathered in Nanyo to plant a mix of heirloom rice plants in such a way that the resulting plants would create a picture of Hollywood's Red Ranger. Called tanbo art, the concept was first attempted in Inakadate, Aomori back in 1993 as a way to revitalize interest in the town. Since then, other villages have gone on to do similar, either for increased tourism or for special events."
A Comparison of Physical Therapy, Chiropractic Manipulation, and Provision of an Educational Booklet for the Treatment of Patients with Low Back Pain - "For patients with low back pain, we found that physical therapy and chiropractic manipulation had similar effects on symptoms, function, satisfaction with care, disability, recurrences of back pain, and subsequent visits for back pain. Although chiropractic treatment involved more visits than physical therapy, the total time spent with either a chiropractor or a physical therapist was similar (about 2.5 hours) as was the total cost of the treatments ($226.08 and $238.54, respectively). Among other rigorous studies comparing chiropractic and physical therapy, a British study concluded that chiropractic was more beneficial,11,12 whereas a Swedish study found no significant differences in outcomes or costs"
Shutdown Windows 8 and Windows 7 in a Single Click, Using Third-Party Apps -You may be aware of our small 147 KB portable freeware tool HotShut that lets you shutdown, restart, hibernate, lock or log off your Windows computer instantly from your taskbar notification area in a click."
Umbrella-sharing startup loses nearly all of its 300,000 umbrellas in a matter of weeks - "Only a few weeks after starting up operations in 11 cities across China, Sharing E Umbrella announced that it had lost almost all of its 300,000 umbrellas... Umbrella renting schemes aren't the only sharing businesses suffering from problems with theft in China. Last month, shared-bike startup Wukong Bicycles went out of business in Chongqing after nearly all of its bikes were stolen following just six months of operation. Shortly afterward, Beijing-based 3Vbike followed suit after their stock of bikes was reduced to just a few dozen."
So much for "stereotypes"
Vatican outlaws gluten-free bread for Holy Communion
How successful is Hong Kong’s MTR compared to S’pore’s MRT? Unbelievable. Out of this world. - "Hong Kong’s railway pricing is super efficient. The percentage of operational costs covered by fares, also known as farebox recovery ratio, is 187 percent between January and June 2015. This is the highest in the world. In comparison, Singapore’s stands at around 125 percent, while the London Tube and the New York subway come in at 90 and 51 percent respectively."
An artificial womb successfully grew baby sheep — and humans could be next
Playboy and the False Normalization of the Hijab - "Playboy magazine has just featured an article about a hijab-wearing Muslim-American, Noor Taguri, “making a forceful case for modesty.” Yes. You read that correctly. In its October “Renegades” issue, Playboy is showcasing a religious-conservative practice as emblematic of an independent woman... The assumption made by some liberals is that the “authentic” Muslim woman is the hijab-wearing one, while non-hijabis are seen as Westernized, inauthentic Muslims... from the ’80s onward, theocratic Islamism began replacing Arab socialism as the ideology of resistance against “the West.”... Do look up the late great Egyptian feminist Huda Sharawi who truly stepped out of her “comfort zone” when, in 1923, she shocked Muslims everywhere by removing her hijab publicly for the first time."
When even Playboy fetishises the hijab...
This is a reminder that, contrary to oft-circulated photos of women in Tehran and Kabul, the hijab was indeed not unknown before the late 1970s
Australia defends cat cull to Morrissey and Brigitte Bardot - "Morrissey has accused Australia of "taking idiocy just too far". Mr Andrews said cats endangered more than 120 species and their cull would protect native wildlife. "Our native species are simply not equipped to coexist with feral cats; they did not evolve alongside predators like the feral cat," he wrote in his open letter. He said the plan, which was first announced in July, will see two million cats killed over the next five years, and has the support of major environmental organisations. Morrissey has angrily attacked the scheme, calling the Australian government "essentially a committee of sheep-farmers who have zero concerns about animal welfare or animal respect". "The cats are, in fact, two million smaller versions of Cecil the lion," he said, referring to the famous big cat killed by a US dentist in Zimbabwe."
Some animals are more equal than others
Graffiti Removal Guy Comes Back to Discover Image of Himself in the Same Spot
A Graffiti Artist Tests The Patience Of Local Authorities With This Hilarious Experiment
On Knowing Your Enemy: Sam Harris - "The Israelis have had a spotless record of airline security since 1972. It is widely imagined that they would never be so stupid as to profile people on the basis of race, ethnicity, or nationality. But this is just a pious fantasy. The Israelis have well-trained screeners who use all the information they can possibly glean to mitigate the risk of terrorism. Racial and ethnic profiling appears to be central to their process. I agree with many of my critics that we should emulate the Israeli approach insofar as it is possible. That would require smart, well-trained screeners who are empowered to use their discretion (i.e., to profile). I have discovered that most secular liberals are quite unwilling to think in any detail about the threat we face in our “war on terror.” For instance, why should we be especially concerned about suicide bombing? Because it is much harder to prevent and tends to be much more destructive than ordinary bombing. People who want to get safely home after committing an act of terrorism are significantly restricted in what they can do, and they can be deterred in ways that aspiring martyrs cannot. Anyone determined to board an airplane and destroy it in flight is, by definition, a suicide bomber... What percentage of porn stars are also theoretical physicists?... It is possible to make educated guesses of this kind with a high degree of confidence. In the context of airport security, this is “profiling” by another name... If you believe that the creator of the universe wants you to wage jihad against infidels, I think you can be perfectly healthy in psychological terms while becoming a suicide bomber. Secularists who doubt this seem to be the ones devoid of empathy, in fact: They are unwilling or unable to see the world through the eyes of our enemies—even when our enemies tell us, ad nauseam, exactly how they see the world. The most dangerous failing of secularism (and of moderate religion) is that its adherents cannot seem to grasp that some people really believe martyrdom is a path to Paradise... On a website whose purpose is to bear witness to Muslim moderation, we learn that it is a matter of consensus that an apostate should be killed if he or she speaks publicly against the faith"
The challenge of translating Harry Potter into French
Why Are These 3 STEM Fields Dominated By Women? - "in other fields including medicine, research revealed that when talking to women in leadership positions like a health care provider, people tended to interrupt more, which reflects a greater sense of comfort, empowerment, and participation."
Looks like "mansplaining" is actually a good thing
The thing those fields have in common seem to be that women are more interested in them
Ibuprofen: Clarifying some myths | Royal Pharmaceutical Society blog - "Some types of ibuprofen, such as ibuprofen sodium or ibuprofen lysine, do begin to provide pain relief quicker than ibuprofen acid as they may be absorbed more quickly. The maximum blood concentration after taking a single dose of fast-acting ibuprofen lysine or ibuprofen sodium formulations is around 45 minutes compared with 90 minutes for standard ibuprofen acid formulations. In addition, fact-acting ibuprofen formulations or combination products can be more effective. A recent study has compared the effectiveness of different painkillers available without prescription (over the counter, OTC). The most effective OTC painkiller was a combination of ibuprofen plus paracetamol that worked for 7 out of 10 people; fast acting ibuprofen formulations or ibuprofen 200 mg plus caffeine 100 mg was effective for 5 out of 10 people, whereas ibuprofen acid worked for only 4 out of 10 people."
BBC World Service - The Food Chain, Fortification: Too Much of a Good thing? - "[On fortifying instant noodles to help people cook at home] Noodles is not the most homemade food as a scratched cooked meal, but it's a better alternative than a package of crisps or some other alternatives that people might have. Then we often encourage the addition of other vegetables to a noodle dish. This then we call home made...
If we look for example at iron, only about half the anemia in the world is actually caused by iron deficiency. There are lots of other reasons why people have anemia so if we're putting all our efforts into putting iron in a very few number of foods and we're not addressing all those other causes: sanitation, improving access to fruits and vegetables or all the other things that we know are important, we are not actually helping address the problem... people don't want to think about and address the underlying poverty and social determinants of health because it gets into politics. It gets into the complex, messy world of why people are poor...
The benefit:cost ratio are six to nine. You know that means for every dollar you spend on fortification you get between six and nine back in terms of reduced spending on health and improved economic productivity. Those benefit cost ratios are very competitive to other things that governments could spend their money on like bridges and roads... Ideally we want everybody in the world to be eating a healthy diet. We want everybody in the world to have enough income. We want all women in the world to be sufficiently empowered, to buy the right kind of food. We want that food to be available and affordable. But we're not there yet so what do you do? What's your choice? Is your choice to say sorry kids. The third of kids that die from malaria, sorry. Well we're working on the underlying determinants. You can die while we're doing that... [On conflicts of interest] Our view is that you have to work with the big companies if you want to change the way they behave. There is an African expression that says if you want to change somebody's head they've got to be in the room"
BBC World Service - The Food Chain, What Time is Dinner? - "In the north of England people are more likely to call the main meal of the evening tea. And they'll typically eat it earlier than in the south where people tend to call it Dinner. But dinner is also known as lunch in the north of England. Confused? The origins of all this lie in economics and historical variations in the working day. But for some the times we eat meals and what we cal them are still an indicator of social class. Take Noel Gallagher of the band Oasis. He told a UK newspaper in 2012: Me and my kids call it tea. My wife calls it dinner. She went to uni, I didn't. She's middle class, I'm not. People do seem to judge others on when they eat...
[On brunch] People will line up to sit crammed in small tables with people's knees knocking each other. Served by usually a hungover artist of some kind or creative person who resents their presence. And they'll eat food that's overpriced and because of the lineup, because of the performance of it all, would take three or four hours. In the middle of a Sunday. A precious Sunday... [The revival of brunch] coincides with the early two thousands when there was this rediscovery and celebration of urban areas and neighborhoods that might have fallen off the socioeconomic radar even though there are always people living there...
They don't have that much money and time to spare. People give the appearance of having all of that, but in reality people are often working, you know, contract jobs, no benefits, with a lot of insecurity - very precarious job holdings. And yet at the same time they are spending a lot of money for brunches, for the kind of meals that perhaps down the street at an old fashioned diner could be had for half the price. But it doesn't come with the same sort of cultural trappings as this new style of brunch eating... People were sort of brunching into oblivion"
You’ll never guess where Russian spies are hiding their control servers - "According to a report published Tuesday by researchers from antivirus provider Eset, a recently discovered backdoor Trojan used comments posted to Britney Spears's official Instagram account to locate the control server that sends instructions and offloads stolen data to and from infected computers. The innovation—by a so-called advanced persistent threat group known as Turla—makes the malware harder to detect because attacker-controlled servers are never directly referenced in either the malware or in the comment it accesses."
Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub
Comments: "Github is engaging in risky behaviour by reaching out to individuals (specifically activists) for hire explicitly on the basis of "diversity" and trying to incorporate those individuals in a highly merit-based environment. Secondly, Coraline seems to think that human relationships are a one way street: that she is entitled to be direct and even confrontational or insensitive, especially if she believes she is "right" or in a "mentor" role, and yet her peers are expected to walk on eggshells around her, lest they be accused of attacking her. One part that stood out as particularly odd was her insistence to stay at work while she was suffering with a mental health issue that was clearly affecting her job performance, in spite of her manager's request that she take mental health leave"
"employees like this have an bigger agenda they are focused on rather than doing work of the company. And the fact that she says she has bipolar depression (and she was on involuntarily mental commitment for 8-days!?!... and yet she can't imagine why somebody would say she is not doing well at work, is also ridiculous on the face of it."
"Isn't this the person who ran a code of conduct that has a website which includes things like "thoughtless use of pronouns" and mentions meritocracy as an evil, not a goal to strive for? Can't really say I'm expecting someone like that to be low friction."
Moral of the story - hiring SJWs is bad for an organisation
Govt to keep ability to amend Constitution without vote: Shanmugam - "With social spending set to increase to support a rapidly ageing population, the Government needs to preserve its ability to make the “necessary adjustments” to the Constitution to strengthen the revenue base and pay for the extra spending, said Law and Foreign Affairs Minister K Shanmugam. This is why the Government does not intend to bring into force Article 5(2A) of the Constitution, he said in response to a question raised by Nominated Member of Parliament Eugene Tan yesterday. The Article states that if Parliament wants to amend certain elements of the Constitution, including any provisions relating to the President’s powers, it must seek a national referendum and get the support of at least two-thirds of voters."
Shortage of eligible men has left women taking desperate steps to preserve their fertility, experts say - "A dearth of marriagable men has left an “oversupply” of educated women taking desperate steps to preserve their fertility, experts say. The first global study into egg freezing found that shortages of eligible men were the prime reason why women had attempted to take matters into their own hands. Experts said “terrifying” demographic shifts had created a “deficit” of educated men and a growing problem of “leftover” professional women, with female graduates vastly outnumbering males in in many countries... The anthropologist suggested some women might need to be prepared to compromise some of their standards in order to find love. But she suggested society should act to increase the number of men going into higher education. “It may be about rethinking the way we approach this,” she said. “Most women who are educated would like to have an educated partner. Traditionally women have also wanted to ‘marry up’ to go for someone more successful, financially well off”... Some women were paying a high price for feminism, she suggested. “As a feminist I think it’s great that women are doing so well but I think there has been a cost that has been paid,” she said, warning that many had been left in “sadness and isolation”... One in five women in the UK is now childless by the end of their fertile life - compared to one in 10 a generation before, he said... The gender gap for higher education is now as large as that between rich and poor people"
Or women could just marry down. This also suggests that some women might not think that female emancipation has been an entirely positive thing, and that the obsession about women suffering oppression because they earn fewer first class honours degrees than men is misplaced
Japan Welcomes "Power Rangers" Home with Rice Field Art - "Back in May, 500 volunteers gathered in Nanyo to plant a mix of heirloom rice plants in such a way that the resulting plants would create a picture of Hollywood's Red Ranger. Called tanbo art, the concept was first attempted in Inakadate, Aomori back in 1993 as a way to revitalize interest in the town. Since then, other villages have gone on to do similar, either for increased tourism or for special events."
A Comparison of Physical Therapy, Chiropractic Manipulation, and Provision of an Educational Booklet for the Treatment of Patients with Low Back Pain - "For patients with low back pain, we found that physical therapy and chiropractic manipulation had similar effects on symptoms, function, satisfaction with care, disability, recurrences of back pain, and subsequent visits for back pain. Although chiropractic treatment involved more visits than physical therapy, the total time spent with either a chiropractor or a physical therapist was similar (about 2.5 hours) as was the total cost of the treatments ($226.08 and $238.54, respectively). Among other rigorous studies comparing chiropractic and physical therapy, a British study concluded that chiropractic was more beneficial,11,12 whereas a Swedish study found no significant differences in outcomes or costs"
Shutdown Windows 8 and Windows 7 in a Single Click, Using Third-Party Apps -You may be aware of our small 147 KB portable freeware tool HotShut that lets you shutdown, restart, hibernate, lock or log off your Windows computer instantly from your taskbar notification area in a click."
Umbrella-sharing startup loses nearly all of its 300,000 umbrellas in a matter of weeks - "Only a few weeks after starting up operations in 11 cities across China, Sharing E Umbrella announced that it had lost almost all of its 300,000 umbrellas... Umbrella renting schemes aren't the only sharing businesses suffering from problems with theft in China. Last month, shared-bike startup Wukong Bicycles went out of business in Chongqing after nearly all of its bikes were stolen following just six months of operation. Shortly afterward, Beijing-based 3Vbike followed suit after their stock of bikes was reduced to just a few dozen."
So much for "stereotypes"
Vatican outlaws gluten-free bread for Holy Communion
How successful is Hong Kong’s MTR compared to S’pore’s MRT? Unbelievable. Out of this world. - "Hong Kong’s railway pricing is super efficient. The percentage of operational costs covered by fares, also known as farebox recovery ratio, is 187 percent between January and June 2015. This is the highest in the world. In comparison, Singapore’s stands at around 125 percent, while the London Tube and the New York subway come in at 90 and 51 percent respectively."
Post ID: 3338445206015440720
Tackling bioethical dilemmas
Rationally Speaking | Official Podcast of New York City Skeptics - Current Episodes - RS 160 - Live at NECSS -- Jacob Appel on "Tackling bioethical dilemmas"
"What bioethicists do -- we may do 2 things. One, in the hospital setting -- and I've done this in the past, I actually don't do this at the moment -- bioethicists help adjudicate or guide patients, clinicians, family members in coming to ethical choices about individual patients. I should add, much of that is not telling people what to do or even telling people what their options are. It's helping them have permission to do what they want to do anyway... A consultant in a way. I will add it's one of the few fields that gets easier and easier as you get older and older. You get more gravitas because you're about 80 and you have a long gray beard...
The other thing bioethicists do is they offer public guidance on challenging issues that the nexus of law, medicine and ethics to clinicians out in the field so they can follow some general rubric on what to do... you could say as a white Klansman, "I would like a white Christian doctor to treat me." That strikes most of us as fairly unreasonable. Or you could be an African-American criminal defendant who asked the court to appoint an African-American psychiatrist to do your forensic evaluation, because a white doctor just can't understand what I've been through. A lot of us would think that's more reasonable.
Yet designing a rule that applies in one circumstance and not the other is extraordinarily difficult... you might be a male out there who wants a male urologist because he doesn't want women touching his private parts. Something you might think reasonable. Or you could want a male urologist because we all know that “men cut straighter”... What the hospital does not want to do is to be in the position of figuring out which one you are. Yet, to me that's just in a meaningful way, that's exactly what we have to do.
Therefore, if you have a policy in advance, you can ensure some rough sense of justice but inevitably… Procrustes, the Greek innkeeper with one size bed. If you were too short, he stretched you. If you were too long, he'd cut off your feet? The hospital doesn't want to find itself doing that either... if we announce that as the policy, if you're an Orthodox Jew, you can request a male doctor but if you're a bigot, you can't. Lots of bigots are going to say they're Orthodox Jews and we're going to be right back where we started...
How strong will you have to have this belief? The patient who comes to the hospital and is 85 years old says, "You know, I have a new boyfriend. He's a Jehovah's Witness, so I am, too." The daughter comes forward and says, "My mother was a Methodist until last Thursday"...
Paula and Tom [Lichy], by the way, were a British high profile couple who were deaf. They would have had a deaf daughter. They wanted to go forward with this... To the British authorities, there wasn't very much difference between their choice and actually just deafening a hearing newborn...
There is this principle, which I didn't invent but I've been popularizing. It's called the Copenhagen interpretation of ethics. Essentially, it states that as soon as you interact in any way with a situation, you acquire some moral responsibility for it. If there's a drought in some geographical region, and you fly out there and you start selling bottles of water to people, a lot of people will look at you and say, "God. That's reprehensible. Why don't you give the water to these poor people who are going to die without it? Why are you demanding money for the water?" Yet of course, there's millions of other people who never even went to the country nor said anything about it, and no one is criticizing them for not giving bottles of water to people who need it. They're criticizing the people who interacted with the situation in some way...
The question of whether trace amounts of Lithium should be added to the drinking water. A number of psychiatrists have written about this. It turns out that a certain percentage of the drinking water in this country already has Lithium in it naturally. And the areas where it does seem to have a substantially lower suicide rate. This is the finding that is replicated in Greece, in Turkey, in Great Britain, in Japan. The science is pretty good.
Now the first question you should ask is, would it be ethical to divert water from those areas where it's in the water supply, the areas where it's not? If you embrace that theory, then why wouldn't it be just as ethical to actually add synthetic Lithium, in the same way we add fluoride to the drinking water? I will tell you, if you raise this question, even without offering a definitive answer, you will get more hate mail than you could possibly imagine...
Historically, the great questions from bioethics were scenarios where a patient or a patient's family wanted to stop care. Society, religious or cultural reasons wanted to enforce care upon them. You can think, Caroline Quinn, Nancy Rosanne, Terri Schiavo.
We have now turned that on its head. Now increasingly, the cases are those where the family is saying desperately, "We want more care." The hospital or society is saying, "You've exhausted your version of care. In the new priority system, nobody is worth $5- $10 million of health care in one shot. You're out of luck." It's easy by the way, relatively easy, when the patient is comatose or in a vegetative state. But you have patients like Slim Watson for example, who was a prison guard in North Carolina in 2000. Written up at length in the Wall Street Journal. He could walk around the hospital, bright and cheerful, entertaining the pediatric patients, and was in the prime of health. Except he needed a drug that caused roughly $5 million a month.
Is anybody worth $5 million a month? The answer is, "It is if you are the patient, and not if you're not"...
If you buy a house because it's close to the train station and it's a flat driveway, you won’t have to shovel, it and lots of other rational reasons… you're less likely to be happy with it in the long run than if you buy the house because you just liked it. I think that's somewhat translatable to many bioethics decisions...
The difference between bioethics as it applies in hospitals and many other areas of society is there are a lot of different right answers depending on who you are...
Lester Thurow. He explains why we got into the challenging situation with health care right now in this country. He says, "Because Americans are divided by 2 different principles. On the one hand, by nature, we're libertarian. We believe that if there's some treatment or intervention out there that is available, that anybody who has the resources for it should be able to buy it."
Some European countries don't let you do that, which is why those patients come here. Here, a high end treatment, Bill Gates can go out and get it. We don't feel comfortable saying no. But we're also egalitarian by nature. If we let one wealthy person have it, then we want to find a way to let everybody have it. A rising tide raises all boats even if the boats shouldn't rise.
Suddenly, everybody is buying this something that may not be societally cost effective. The result of that is we end up helping visible victims at the expense of invisible victims. Because people see Slim Watson and his $5 million and they say, "I don't want him to die." They don't see too many people who didn't get flu shots, or the 500,000 people who didn't get mammograms, because of Slim Watson’s $5 million worth of care...
In the 1920's, there were 2 treatments for an acute heart attack in New York City. Most people would prescribe 6 months of bed rest. This cardiologist… at the height of prohibition, prescribed beer, and would write beer prescriptions. Everybody laughs. But it turns out the people who got beer did a lot better. Not because beer cured heart disease. I'm not telling you that. Don't go home and have your elderly drink beer. But the people who got bed rest without anticoagulants died in large number of blood clots. The beer was utterly neutral...
Historically, many of the people in bioethics starting when there was the bioethics revolution of the 60's and 70's, were what we would call liberal Christian thinkers. Many of the underlying principles of bioethics… really do stem from people who thought that what doctors were doing may have been well intentioned but was blind to the larger picture of making the world a better place. I think many of those people, although religiously motivated, developed a set of principles that largely embrace secular values like autonomy...
I think I would be a fool to say that bioethicists, certainly in the hospital setting, don't have biases. I think it's important to be aware of these biases with yourself. And they can actually prove very helpful. You can say to the patient who is a fundamentalist Christian. "I can't speak to your tradition but I'm an Orthodox Jew and this is what I believe. This may help you to some degree." You can also just try to [speak to] them neutrally. But it would be a mistake I think to tell them, "I don't have any religious bias whatsoever, and this is the right answer."...
I'm a fat guy who lives in San Francisco with a trolley line literally outside my front living room. You're scaring the hell out of me...
Virtue ethics was basically all we practiced for many, many years, though we didn't call it that. We asked the senior doctor at the hospital what he thought the right thing to do was"
"What bioethicists do -- we may do 2 things. One, in the hospital setting -- and I've done this in the past, I actually don't do this at the moment -- bioethicists help adjudicate or guide patients, clinicians, family members in coming to ethical choices about individual patients. I should add, much of that is not telling people what to do or even telling people what their options are. It's helping them have permission to do what they want to do anyway... A consultant in a way. I will add it's one of the few fields that gets easier and easier as you get older and older. You get more gravitas because you're about 80 and you have a long gray beard...
The other thing bioethicists do is they offer public guidance on challenging issues that the nexus of law, medicine and ethics to clinicians out in the field so they can follow some general rubric on what to do... you could say as a white Klansman, "I would like a white Christian doctor to treat me." That strikes most of us as fairly unreasonable. Or you could be an African-American criminal defendant who asked the court to appoint an African-American psychiatrist to do your forensic evaluation, because a white doctor just can't understand what I've been through. A lot of us would think that's more reasonable.
Yet designing a rule that applies in one circumstance and not the other is extraordinarily difficult... you might be a male out there who wants a male urologist because he doesn't want women touching his private parts. Something you might think reasonable. Or you could want a male urologist because we all know that “men cut straighter”... What the hospital does not want to do is to be in the position of figuring out which one you are. Yet, to me that's just in a meaningful way, that's exactly what we have to do.
Therefore, if you have a policy in advance, you can ensure some rough sense of justice but inevitably… Procrustes, the Greek innkeeper with one size bed. If you were too short, he stretched you. If you were too long, he'd cut off your feet? The hospital doesn't want to find itself doing that either... if we announce that as the policy, if you're an Orthodox Jew, you can request a male doctor but if you're a bigot, you can't. Lots of bigots are going to say they're Orthodox Jews and we're going to be right back where we started...
How strong will you have to have this belief? The patient who comes to the hospital and is 85 years old says, "You know, I have a new boyfriend. He's a Jehovah's Witness, so I am, too." The daughter comes forward and says, "My mother was a Methodist until last Thursday"...
Paula and Tom [Lichy], by the way, were a British high profile couple who were deaf. They would have had a deaf daughter. They wanted to go forward with this... To the British authorities, there wasn't very much difference between their choice and actually just deafening a hearing newborn...
There is this principle, which I didn't invent but I've been popularizing. It's called the Copenhagen interpretation of ethics. Essentially, it states that as soon as you interact in any way with a situation, you acquire some moral responsibility for it. If there's a drought in some geographical region, and you fly out there and you start selling bottles of water to people, a lot of people will look at you and say, "God. That's reprehensible. Why don't you give the water to these poor people who are going to die without it? Why are you demanding money for the water?" Yet of course, there's millions of other people who never even went to the country nor said anything about it, and no one is criticizing them for not giving bottles of water to people who need it. They're criticizing the people who interacted with the situation in some way...
The question of whether trace amounts of Lithium should be added to the drinking water. A number of psychiatrists have written about this. It turns out that a certain percentage of the drinking water in this country already has Lithium in it naturally. And the areas where it does seem to have a substantially lower suicide rate. This is the finding that is replicated in Greece, in Turkey, in Great Britain, in Japan. The science is pretty good.
Now the first question you should ask is, would it be ethical to divert water from those areas where it's in the water supply, the areas where it's not? If you embrace that theory, then why wouldn't it be just as ethical to actually add synthetic Lithium, in the same way we add fluoride to the drinking water? I will tell you, if you raise this question, even without offering a definitive answer, you will get more hate mail than you could possibly imagine...
Historically, the great questions from bioethics were scenarios where a patient or a patient's family wanted to stop care. Society, religious or cultural reasons wanted to enforce care upon them. You can think, Caroline Quinn, Nancy Rosanne, Terri Schiavo.
We have now turned that on its head. Now increasingly, the cases are those where the family is saying desperately, "We want more care." The hospital or society is saying, "You've exhausted your version of care. In the new priority system, nobody is worth $5- $10 million of health care in one shot. You're out of luck." It's easy by the way, relatively easy, when the patient is comatose or in a vegetative state. But you have patients like Slim Watson for example, who was a prison guard in North Carolina in 2000. Written up at length in the Wall Street Journal. He could walk around the hospital, bright and cheerful, entertaining the pediatric patients, and was in the prime of health. Except he needed a drug that caused roughly $5 million a month.
Is anybody worth $5 million a month? The answer is, "It is if you are the patient, and not if you're not"...
If you buy a house because it's close to the train station and it's a flat driveway, you won’t have to shovel, it and lots of other rational reasons… you're less likely to be happy with it in the long run than if you buy the house because you just liked it. I think that's somewhat translatable to many bioethics decisions...
The difference between bioethics as it applies in hospitals and many other areas of society is there are a lot of different right answers depending on who you are...
Lester Thurow. He explains why we got into the challenging situation with health care right now in this country. He says, "Because Americans are divided by 2 different principles. On the one hand, by nature, we're libertarian. We believe that if there's some treatment or intervention out there that is available, that anybody who has the resources for it should be able to buy it."
Some European countries don't let you do that, which is why those patients come here. Here, a high end treatment, Bill Gates can go out and get it. We don't feel comfortable saying no. But we're also egalitarian by nature. If we let one wealthy person have it, then we want to find a way to let everybody have it. A rising tide raises all boats even if the boats shouldn't rise.
Suddenly, everybody is buying this something that may not be societally cost effective. The result of that is we end up helping visible victims at the expense of invisible victims. Because people see Slim Watson and his $5 million and they say, "I don't want him to die." They don't see too many people who didn't get flu shots, or the 500,000 people who didn't get mammograms, because of Slim Watson’s $5 million worth of care...
In the 1920's, there were 2 treatments for an acute heart attack in New York City. Most people would prescribe 6 months of bed rest. This cardiologist… at the height of prohibition, prescribed beer, and would write beer prescriptions. Everybody laughs. But it turns out the people who got beer did a lot better. Not because beer cured heart disease. I'm not telling you that. Don't go home and have your elderly drink beer. But the people who got bed rest without anticoagulants died in large number of blood clots. The beer was utterly neutral...
Historically, many of the people in bioethics starting when there was the bioethics revolution of the 60's and 70's, were what we would call liberal Christian thinkers. Many of the underlying principles of bioethics… really do stem from people who thought that what doctors were doing may have been well intentioned but was blind to the larger picture of making the world a better place. I think many of those people, although religiously motivated, developed a set of principles that largely embrace secular values like autonomy...
I think I would be a fool to say that bioethicists, certainly in the hospital setting, don't have biases. I think it's important to be aware of these biases with yourself. And they can actually prove very helpful. You can say to the patient who is a fundamentalist Christian. "I can't speak to your tradition but I'm an Orthodox Jew and this is what I believe. This may help you to some degree." You can also just try to [speak to] them neutrally. But it would be a mistake I think to tell them, "I don't have any religious bias whatsoever, and this is the right answer."...
I'm a fat guy who lives in San Francisco with a trolley line literally outside my front living room. You're scaring the hell out of me...
Virtue ethics was basically all we practiced for many, many years, though we didn't call it that. We asked the senior doctor at the hospital what he thought the right thing to do was"
Post ID: 288547123718660535
Links - 12th September 2017 (2)
Male model butchered by Iraqi militants for being too stylish - "Karar Nushi’s mutilated body was found on the streets of Baghdad on Monday with chain marks on his hands and neck and a bullet hole in his head — and friends believe he was murdered by Islamist extremists over his snug duds, long blond hair and good looks... ISIS militants threw a man from the top of a building in Kirkuk, Iraq, after he was accused of being gay."
The Man Who Has Eaten At Every Michelin 3-Star Restaurant In The World Tells Us His Favorite Meals
Migrant crisis: 'Hipster right’ group trying to stop rescue ships - "The vast majority are not refugees fleeing war, but are considered economic migrants and mainly come from sub-Saharan Africa and as far as the Indian sub-continent... "More than 90% of the immigrants coming here by boat are economic refugees," claims 20-year-old Viviana Randazzo, a newly-recruited member of the Identitarians, although official Italian statistics put the figure at 85%. "We Italians are also suffering from poverty. Yet we are not given the same treatment - our needs perhaps count even less than theirs"... The Identitarians point the finger of blame at aid agencies and NGOs (non-governmental organisations) operating close to the Libyan coastline, accusing them of essentially acting as a taxi service to Europe... Ambrogio Cartosio, the chief prosecutor in Trapani, said he felt that the NGOs were somehow encouraging the people smuggling trade. "It pushes the traffickers to load the migrants on ever more precarious vessels. They can be sure that after a few miles, they will be picked up by the ships," he told me."
Compulsive liar Elizabeth Jones who cried rape 11 times is jailed - "A woman who cried rape was jailed yesterday after a court heard it was her eleventh false claim. Compulsive liar Elizabeth Jones, 22, was exposed when CCTV footage disproved her allegation against a man she ‘did not like any more’. She had made her first false rape claim in 2004 when she was just 13... Between 2005 and 2007 she made another eight allegations which police investigated and dismissed, although she was not prosecuted."
You'd imagine after the first time she'd have been prosecuted; what would've happened without the CCTV footage?
Crazy Feminist gets butthurt about the moon landing being "mansplained" to her - "Shanley was going on one of her usually Twitter rants, suggesting that the moon landing was faked and anyone who believes it actually took place has daddy issues. A feminist accusing others of having daddy issues…. Projecting much?... Eventually, a former NASA employee stepped in to help clear her ignorance, using actual evidence, linking to Wikipedia and NASA’s official website. Bad idea"
Pro-open border Clooneys ‘leaving UK amid terror fears’ - "The celebrity power couple have used their fame and fortune to push for open borders and even sat down with Angela Merkel herself to express their support for her refugee policy. But now it would appear, like all luvvies, they don’t actually mean they want it for themselves, so will be moving back to LA because, according to a Clooney family insider, George doesn’t “feel like Amal and the twins are safe living in the English countryside,” following the attacks in London and Manchester – neither of which are in the countryside."
Feminist YouTuber Laci Green Exiled to Twitter's 'Block Bot' Gulag - "The popular YouTube feminist Laci Green has become persona non grata with her former cohort on the left. Renowned for her educational videos on sexuality, Green was declared an enemy of the left after she published a video announcing her decision to renounce social justice orthodoxy and reach out to people across the political spectrum. Later, she also revealed that she was dating anti-social justice YouTuber Chris Ray Gun. Today, the YouTube star was shocked to discover that she had been added to the “Block Bot,” a public blacklist started by social justice warriors to create a “safe space” on the social media platform"
5 Most Popular Secondary School Girl Uniforms As Voted By Singaporeans - "Voted #1 by guys, #2 by girls: CHIJ Secondary
Voted #2 by guys, #1 by girls: Raffles Girls’ School"
The Story Behind the World’s Most Famous Desktop Background - "Microsoft has an insect infestation to thank for its classic Windows XP desktop background—an image that has graced at least a billion computer screens since the system’s 2001 launch."
WATCH: Women’s March Organizer Linda Sarsour Calls For ‘Jihad’ Against Trump - "Sarsour, who was called a “Champion of Change” by the Obama White House, has a long history of speaking kindly of shariah law and terrorists. Sarsour stated that underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was a CIA agent; she supports attacks on the Israeli Defense Force; she stated that “the sacrifice the black Muslims slaves went through in this country is nothing compared to Islamophobia today”; she stated that Brigitte Gabriel and victim of Islamic genital mutilation Ayaan Hirsi Ali didn’t deserve to be called women, explaining, ‘I wish I could take their vaginas away – they don’t deserve to be women.”"
Barbara Kay: Canada’s new sexual assault law is a ‘catastrophic attack’ on the rights of the accused - "C-51 expands the “rape shield” protections for sexual assault complainants, by restricting the ability of the accused to use communications by a complainant or witness that are “of a sexual nature” or “for a sexual purpose” as part of his defence, particularly to establish the defence of “mistaken belief in consent” (remember Lucy DeCoutere’s email to Ghomeishi following an allegedly harrowing assault, “I love your hands!”?). An accused will be prohibited from introducing these kinds of sexually explicit texts or emails as evidence in court unless a judge first rules them to be admissible, after conducting a closed hearing with the Crown prosecutor, which the complainant may attend, accompanied by her own lawyer if she chooses (giving the phrase “lawyered up” new depth of meaning)."
Facebook Under Fire for Ruling Out ‘Christian Reaction Cross’ But Allowing LGBTQ Rainow Flag - "At the time of the release of the rainbow flag reaction, a Facebook spokesman said: “We believe in building a platform that supports all communities. So we’re celebrating love and diversity this Pride by giving you a special reaction.” Despite pleas from thousands of Christians demanding to add a religious symbol on the site, a Facebook spokesman confirmed it won’t be happening"
"All communities" doesn't mean all communities
In Chicago, July 4th weekend shootings: 100 wounded, 14 killed - "Most of violence took place in a 6-hour period Monday night and early Tuesday, predominantly on the South and West sides of the city, Estrada said. Detectives investigating the shootings "suspect several incidents were retaliatory in nature and alcohol was a factor in others," he said. The vast majority of the 762 murders and more than 4,000 shooting incidents in Chicago last year occurred in a few predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods on the city’s West and South Sides, and were driven by gang-related feuds and drug wars."
Black live m-
20-Year-Old Who Cleaned President Trump's Hollywood Star Targeted Online - "After a post featuring 20-year-old Makenna Greenwald cleaning President Donald Trump's Hollywood star went viral, enraged leftists targeted the young, pretty female online... The 20-year-old called for more respect on both sides of the aisle, saying, “I think we should have more respect from both sides of the aisle, and I was blown way by how much disrespect I got for a simple act of cleaning up our president, who is the highest office in the land. He should be respected, whether it’s his Hollywood star or talking about him in public.”"
The CNN Writer Behind Dox Threat Once Drove A Man To Suicide By Spreading Fake News - "CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski, the reporter currently under fire for threatening to dox the alleged creator of President Donald Trump’s infamous WWE video, once spread false information about a man being a terrorist, after which said man killed himself... According to The New York Times, Kaczynski subsequently “deleted his incriminating tweets” and carried on like normal, writing a post-mortem of the incident for BuzzFeed that contained no mention of his involvement in spreading the falsehood about Tripathi... Interestingly enough, Kaczynski – who now works for CNN – is currently going around accusing other people of sharing false information on Twitter and failing to provide corrections."
Macron falls back on old thinking - "This core of seasoned, well-connected professionals are set to see their power increased under Mr Macron -- not out of some conspiracy to empower elites, but because to an enarque most problems are solvable with the help of other enarques... as with any tight-knit group of people who have the same education, similar careers and often similar backgrounds, biases and group think can take over. Furthering the power of unelected bureaucrats over elected public servants may backfire among the many who feel disenfranchised already by the political elite."
Macron: king of the technocrats - "It’s a politics that attempts to cultivate a mood of anti-politics – embodied by the job-for-life corrupt French MPs Macron rails against – as a pretext to put power in the hands not just of the state, but of supranational bodies. That Macron intends to push ahead with More Europe, in the face of bubbling Euroscepticism at home, speaks to the casual disregard for democracy that continues to define Europhiles. But more immediately, Macron’s monarchical turn should remind us of the rank hypocrisy of today’s political elites, who are currently championing this not-so-liberal strongman. Even as they lament the rise of the Putin-esque autocrats – from Erdogan to Duterte, Modi to Trump – they are cheering on a leader set on consolidating power and undermining liberty. What they fear is not authoritarianism, but democracy. That’s why, for all the talk of defending ‘the free world’ against the revolting populists, they’re happily throwing in their lot with this would-be king"
Pressure to publish in journals drives too much cookie-cutter research - "While original findings can be very attractive to journals, they also risk rejection. A journal’s natural first choice for the referees, who advise on acceptance of a paper, are the current authorities on a topic. How might these treat findings at variance with their own? Offering journal referees familiar findings is the cautious strategy for getting work published."
The feminist mystique circa 2016 - "Licensed Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Seda Gragossian, PhD of the Talk Therapy Center tells us:
The workplace could be more stressful for women in general. Women are more likely to want to process feelings and interactions with coworkers.Men tend to move on more quickly and not take things to heart as much. Men might argue and even fight with each other and turn around and go to lunch right after. Women, on the other hand, may need sort their thoughts and feelings before they are able to move on. This can be partly attributed to a difference between male and female brains.
Maslar points to something similar, citing hormonal differences between men and women which may lead to them being naturally happier in different types of work environments. She says:
“There is a balance between stress and oxytocin levels. Cortisol (released under stress) and oxytocin (one of our happy chemicals) are inversely proportionate. When cortisol is high, oxytocin is low and visa versa. High stress which elicits high cortisol levels cause women to seek out social support, which then helps them to produce more oxytocin. Unfortunately, the average workplace doesn’t foster this type of activity. Co-workers are often segregated and in some cases placed in competition against one another”...
It is time to expand the conversation beyond any sort of mystique at all. We need to produce very honest and scientific research across a variety of factors impacting female wellbeing–biological, psychological and social. This also means approaching ideas and topics that those operating within a traditional feminist paradigm may not like or even find offensive. However, the risks of not speaking up for fear of offending modern feminists include another 40 years of declining happiness."
Swedish music festival to be female-only 'until all men learn how to behave themselves' - ""Sweden's first man-free rock festival will see the light next summer," its organiser has confirmed, following a string of sexual assault reports at other festivals in the country."
What if I identify as female? What about lesbian predators?
Comments: "This is homophobia. Why should gay men suffer?"
"The level of cognitive dissonance is astounding. Sweden used to be one of the safest countries in Europe. You could almost leave your doors unlocked and walk alone at all hours of the night in most places. Funny how MEN were not a problem then."
"Sweden does not record the race of criminals for ideological reasons. Political correctness is practically a religion in Sweden, and noting someone's race in such matters is considered racist, or potentially provoking racist reactions. But they don't seem to have any problem with broad-scale accusations against all men. The cognitive dissonance is astonishing."
The Truth About 'Shot on iPhone'-Style Ads - "Look closely at the “Shot on an iPhone” tagline to Apple’s adverts, and you’ll see “Additional equipment and software used” hiding at the bottom of the video."
Tanning Is a Young, White, Female Problem. And It's Deadly. - "What the tanning oil and tanning bed people want us to forget (or at least disregard for the moment) is that what they advertise as a “bronzed, sun-kissed look” right now will very likely become a “leathery, sun-shriveled look” later."
“We’re trusted to do a good job, then leave”: why the Danes finish work on time, every single day - "With a typical working day 8am-4pm and overtime frowned upon, Denmark has the best work-life balance in the world. The official working week is 37 hours but a recent OECD study showed that the average Dane only works 33 hours a week. Danes don’t do presenteeism and staying late is more likely to earn you a lecture on inefficiency and time management than a pat on the back... workers are 12% more productive when they’re in a positive state of mind. Denmark has one of the happiest workforces in the world and is the second most productive country in the EU as a result. By working less, Danes achieve more…and stay sane (mostly).
Helix conducts research as you write - "Helix uses machine learning to suggest citations and relevant research as you write. Helix scans a writer’s text as he or she types and automatically pulls in recommendations for relevant journal articles, news and Wikipedia pages"
Founding Fathers' dirty campaign - "Jefferson's camp accused President Adams of having a "hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman." In return, Adams' men called Vice President Jefferson "a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.""... editorials in the American newspapers read more like bathroom graffiti than political commentary. One paper reported that "General Jackson's mother was a common prostitute, brought to this country by the British soldiers! She afterward married a mulatto man, with whom she had several children, of which number General Jackson is one!" What got Americans so fired up? For one thing, many voters felt John Quincy Adams should never have been president in the first place. During the election of 1824, Jackson had won the popular vote but not the electoral vote, so the election was decided by the House of Representatives. Henry Clay, one of the other candidates running for president, threw his support behind Adams. To return the favor, Adams promptly made him secretary of state. Jackson's supporters labeled it "The Corrupt Bargain" and spent the next four years calling Adams a usurper"
A Psychologist Explains Why People Get Bad Tattoos - "We're constantly bombing other countries in order to preserve our "freedom," which presumably means individuality. But at the same time, our culture is intensely conformist. You have businesses constantly trying to imprint a brand on the public awareness. So, for example, if you're tattooing some nitwit cliché from a pop tune, like "I'll love you forever," or "Don't be an imitator" or something, in effect you're branding yourself with industrial entertainment, because rock groups, as we know, are basically money-making machines, fronted by models, funded by the entertainment industry."
The Man Who Has Eaten At Every Michelin 3-Star Restaurant In The World Tells Us His Favorite Meals
Migrant crisis: 'Hipster right’ group trying to stop rescue ships - "The vast majority are not refugees fleeing war, but are considered economic migrants and mainly come from sub-Saharan Africa and as far as the Indian sub-continent... "More than 90% of the immigrants coming here by boat are economic refugees," claims 20-year-old Viviana Randazzo, a newly-recruited member of the Identitarians, although official Italian statistics put the figure at 85%. "We Italians are also suffering from poverty. Yet we are not given the same treatment - our needs perhaps count even less than theirs"... The Identitarians point the finger of blame at aid agencies and NGOs (non-governmental organisations) operating close to the Libyan coastline, accusing them of essentially acting as a taxi service to Europe... Ambrogio Cartosio, the chief prosecutor in Trapani, said he felt that the NGOs were somehow encouraging the people smuggling trade. "It pushes the traffickers to load the migrants on ever more precarious vessels. They can be sure that after a few miles, they will be picked up by the ships," he told me."
Compulsive liar Elizabeth Jones who cried rape 11 times is jailed - "A woman who cried rape was jailed yesterday after a court heard it was her eleventh false claim. Compulsive liar Elizabeth Jones, 22, was exposed when CCTV footage disproved her allegation against a man she ‘did not like any more’. She had made her first false rape claim in 2004 when she was just 13... Between 2005 and 2007 she made another eight allegations which police investigated and dismissed, although she was not prosecuted."
You'd imagine after the first time she'd have been prosecuted; what would've happened without the CCTV footage?
Crazy Feminist gets butthurt about the moon landing being "mansplained" to her - "Shanley was going on one of her usually Twitter rants, suggesting that the moon landing was faked and anyone who believes it actually took place has daddy issues. A feminist accusing others of having daddy issues…. Projecting much?... Eventually, a former NASA employee stepped in to help clear her ignorance, using actual evidence, linking to Wikipedia and NASA’s official website. Bad idea"
Pro-open border Clooneys ‘leaving UK amid terror fears’ - "The celebrity power couple have used their fame and fortune to push for open borders and even sat down with Angela Merkel herself to express their support for her refugee policy. But now it would appear, like all luvvies, they don’t actually mean they want it for themselves, so will be moving back to LA because, according to a Clooney family insider, George doesn’t “feel like Amal and the twins are safe living in the English countryside,” following the attacks in London and Manchester – neither of which are in the countryside."
Feminist YouTuber Laci Green Exiled to Twitter's 'Block Bot' Gulag - "The popular YouTube feminist Laci Green has become persona non grata with her former cohort on the left. Renowned for her educational videos on sexuality, Green was declared an enemy of the left after she published a video announcing her decision to renounce social justice orthodoxy and reach out to people across the political spectrum. Later, she also revealed that she was dating anti-social justice YouTuber Chris Ray Gun. Today, the YouTube star was shocked to discover that she had been added to the “Block Bot,” a public blacklist started by social justice warriors to create a “safe space” on the social media platform"
5 Most Popular Secondary School Girl Uniforms As Voted By Singaporeans - "Voted #1 by guys, #2 by girls: CHIJ Secondary
Voted #2 by guys, #1 by girls: Raffles Girls’ School"
The Story Behind the World’s Most Famous Desktop Background - "Microsoft has an insect infestation to thank for its classic Windows XP desktop background—an image that has graced at least a billion computer screens since the system’s 2001 launch."
WATCH: Women’s March Organizer Linda Sarsour Calls For ‘Jihad’ Against Trump - "Sarsour, who was called a “Champion of Change” by the Obama White House, has a long history of speaking kindly of shariah law and terrorists. Sarsour stated that underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was a CIA agent; she supports attacks on the Israeli Defense Force; she stated that “the sacrifice the black Muslims slaves went through in this country is nothing compared to Islamophobia today”; she stated that Brigitte Gabriel and victim of Islamic genital mutilation Ayaan Hirsi Ali didn’t deserve to be called women, explaining, ‘I wish I could take their vaginas away – they don’t deserve to be women.”"
Barbara Kay: Canada’s new sexual assault law is a ‘catastrophic attack’ on the rights of the accused - "C-51 expands the “rape shield” protections for sexual assault complainants, by restricting the ability of the accused to use communications by a complainant or witness that are “of a sexual nature” or “for a sexual purpose” as part of his defence, particularly to establish the defence of “mistaken belief in consent” (remember Lucy DeCoutere’s email to Ghomeishi following an allegedly harrowing assault, “I love your hands!”?). An accused will be prohibited from introducing these kinds of sexually explicit texts or emails as evidence in court unless a judge first rules them to be admissible, after conducting a closed hearing with the Crown prosecutor, which the complainant may attend, accompanied by her own lawyer if she chooses (giving the phrase “lawyered up” new depth of meaning)."
Facebook Under Fire for Ruling Out ‘Christian Reaction Cross’ But Allowing LGBTQ Rainow Flag - "At the time of the release of the rainbow flag reaction, a Facebook spokesman said: “We believe in building a platform that supports all communities. So we’re celebrating love and diversity this Pride by giving you a special reaction.” Despite pleas from thousands of Christians demanding to add a religious symbol on the site, a Facebook spokesman confirmed it won’t be happening"
"All communities" doesn't mean all communities
In Chicago, July 4th weekend shootings: 100 wounded, 14 killed - "Most of violence took place in a 6-hour period Monday night and early Tuesday, predominantly on the South and West sides of the city, Estrada said. Detectives investigating the shootings "suspect several incidents were retaliatory in nature and alcohol was a factor in others," he said. The vast majority of the 762 murders and more than 4,000 shooting incidents in Chicago last year occurred in a few predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods on the city’s West and South Sides, and were driven by gang-related feuds and drug wars."
Black live m-
20-Year-Old Who Cleaned President Trump's Hollywood Star Targeted Online - "After a post featuring 20-year-old Makenna Greenwald cleaning President Donald Trump's Hollywood star went viral, enraged leftists targeted the young, pretty female online... The 20-year-old called for more respect on both sides of the aisle, saying, “I think we should have more respect from both sides of the aisle, and I was blown way by how much disrespect I got for a simple act of cleaning up our president, who is the highest office in the land. He should be respected, whether it’s his Hollywood star or talking about him in public.”"
The CNN Writer Behind Dox Threat Once Drove A Man To Suicide By Spreading Fake News - "CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski, the reporter currently under fire for threatening to dox the alleged creator of President Donald Trump’s infamous WWE video, once spread false information about a man being a terrorist, after which said man killed himself... According to The New York Times, Kaczynski subsequently “deleted his incriminating tweets” and carried on like normal, writing a post-mortem of the incident for BuzzFeed that contained no mention of his involvement in spreading the falsehood about Tripathi... Interestingly enough, Kaczynski – who now works for CNN – is currently going around accusing other people of sharing false information on Twitter and failing to provide corrections."
Macron falls back on old thinking - "This core of seasoned, well-connected professionals are set to see their power increased under Mr Macron -- not out of some conspiracy to empower elites, but because to an enarque most problems are solvable with the help of other enarques... as with any tight-knit group of people who have the same education, similar careers and often similar backgrounds, biases and group think can take over. Furthering the power of unelected bureaucrats over elected public servants may backfire among the many who feel disenfranchised already by the political elite."
Macron: king of the technocrats - "It’s a politics that attempts to cultivate a mood of anti-politics – embodied by the job-for-life corrupt French MPs Macron rails against – as a pretext to put power in the hands not just of the state, but of supranational bodies. That Macron intends to push ahead with More Europe, in the face of bubbling Euroscepticism at home, speaks to the casual disregard for democracy that continues to define Europhiles. But more immediately, Macron’s monarchical turn should remind us of the rank hypocrisy of today’s political elites, who are currently championing this not-so-liberal strongman. Even as they lament the rise of the Putin-esque autocrats – from Erdogan to Duterte, Modi to Trump – they are cheering on a leader set on consolidating power and undermining liberty. What they fear is not authoritarianism, but democracy. That’s why, for all the talk of defending ‘the free world’ against the revolting populists, they’re happily throwing in their lot with this would-be king"
Pressure to publish in journals drives too much cookie-cutter research - "While original findings can be very attractive to journals, they also risk rejection. A journal’s natural first choice for the referees, who advise on acceptance of a paper, are the current authorities on a topic. How might these treat findings at variance with their own? Offering journal referees familiar findings is the cautious strategy for getting work published."
The feminist mystique circa 2016 - "Licensed Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Seda Gragossian, PhD of the Talk Therapy Center tells us:
The workplace could be more stressful for women in general. Women are more likely to want to process feelings and interactions with coworkers.Men tend to move on more quickly and not take things to heart as much. Men might argue and even fight with each other and turn around and go to lunch right after. Women, on the other hand, may need sort their thoughts and feelings before they are able to move on. This can be partly attributed to a difference between male and female brains.
Maslar points to something similar, citing hormonal differences between men and women which may lead to them being naturally happier in different types of work environments. She says:
“There is a balance between stress and oxytocin levels. Cortisol (released under stress) and oxytocin (one of our happy chemicals) are inversely proportionate. When cortisol is high, oxytocin is low and visa versa. High stress which elicits high cortisol levels cause women to seek out social support, which then helps them to produce more oxytocin. Unfortunately, the average workplace doesn’t foster this type of activity. Co-workers are often segregated and in some cases placed in competition against one another”...
It is time to expand the conversation beyond any sort of mystique at all. We need to produce very honest and scientific research across a variety of factors impacting female wellbeing–biological, psychological and social. This also means approaching ideas and topics that those operating within a traditional feminist paradigm may not like or even find offensive. However, the risks of not speaking up for fear of offending modern feminists include another 40 years of declining happiness."
Swedish music festival to be female-only 'until all men learn how to behave themselves' - ""Sweden's first man-free rock festival will see the light next summer," its organiser has confirmed, following a string of sexual assault reports at other festivals in the country."
What if I identify as female? What about lesbian predators?
Comments: "This is homophobia. Why should gay men suffer?"
"The level of cognitive dissonance is astounding. Sweden used to be one of the safest countries in Europe. You could almost leave your doors unlocked and walk alone at all hours of the night in most places. Funny how MEN were not a problem then."
"Sweden does not record the race of criminals for ideological reasons. Political correctness is practically a religion in Sweden, and noting someone's race in such matters is considered racist, or potentially provoking racist reactions. But they don't seem to have any problem with broad-scale accusations against all men. The cognitive dissonance is astonishing."
The Truth About 'Shot on iPhone'-Style Ads - "Look closely at the “Shot on an iPhone” tagline to Apple’s adverts, and you’ll see “Additional equipment and software used” hiding at the bottom of the video."
Tanning Is a Young, White, Female Problem. And It's Deadly. - "What the tanning oil and tanning bed people want us to forget (or at least disregard for the moment) is that what they advertise as a “bronzed, sun-kissed look” right now will very likely become a “leathery, sun-shriveled look” later."
“We’re trusted to do a good job, then leave”: why the Danes finish work on time, every single day - "With a typical working day 8am-4pm and overtime frowned upon, Denmark has the best work-life balance in the world. The official working week is 37 hours but a recent OECD study showed that the average Dane only works 33 hours a week. Danes don’t do presenteeism and staying late is more likely to earn you a lecture on inefficiency and time management than a pat on the back... workers are 12% more productive when they’re in a positive state of mind. Denmark has one of the happiest workforces in the world and is the second most productive country in the EU as a result. By working less, Danes achieve more…and stay sane (mostly).
Helix conducts research as you write - "Helix uses machine learning to suggest citations and relevant research as you write. Helix scans a writer’s text as he or she types and automatically pulls in recommendations for relevant journal articles, news and Wikipedia pages"
Founding Fathers' dirty campaign - "Jefferson's camp accused President Adams of having a "hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman." In return, Adams' men called Vice President Jefferson "a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.""... editorials in the American newspapers read more like bathroom graffiti than political commentary. One paper reported that "General Jackson's mother was a common prostitute, brought to this country by the British soldiers! She afterward married a mulatto man, with whom she had several children, of which number General Jackson is one!" What got Americans so fired up? For one thing, many voters felt John Quincy Adams should never have been president in the first place. During the election of 1824, Jackson had won the popular vote but not the electoral vote, so the election was decided by the House of Representatives. Henry Clay, one of the other candidates running for president, threw his support behind Adams. To return the favor, Adams promptly made him secretary of state. Jackson's supporters labeled it "The Corrupt Bargain" and spent the next four years calling Adams a usurper"
A Psychologist Explains Why People Get Bad Tattoos - "We're constantly bombing other countries in order to preserve our "freedom," which presumably means individuality. But at the same time, our culture is intensely conformist. You have businesses constantly trying to imprint a brand on the public awareness. So, for example, if you're tattooing some nitwit cliché from a pop tune, like "I'll love you forever," or "Don't be an imitator" or something, in effect you're branding yourself with industrial entertainment, because rock groups, as we know, are basically money-making machines, fronted by models, funded by the entertainment industry."
Post ID: 1390403876769340625
These Shoes Are Killing Me!
These Shoes Are Killing Me! - Freakonomics Freakonomics
"SEMMELHACK: When I think about Chinese foot binding — which resulted in women’s feet being around three inches in size — it seems like such a profound body modification. But the fact of the matter is that all of us who have grown up wearing footwear have bound our feet to some extent. If we were able to meet our non-shod selves in a different dimension and look at what our feet would be like naturally, they would be much larger, much more splayed, rougher. In some ways the foot would become the shoe needed to make it through daily life because the body has the ability to build up calluses at the bottom of the foot...
DAVIS: One group stayed in a pair of cushioned shoes and the other group were given this five-dollar — in U.S. dollars — pair of shoes that were highly flexible. And what they found is, number one, their mechanics were more normal in the minimal shoe.
LIEBERMAN: In those barefoot populations, we find almost no incidents, for example, of people having flat feet. They just don’t exist.
DAVIS: But more importantly to these patients, they had significant reduction in their pain medication, and significant improvement in their functional outcomes. That’s just with a pair of minimal shoes.
LIEBERMAN: We look at incidence of musculoskeletal diseases. The evidence appears to be that they have really considerably lower rates of diseases like arthritis. It doesn’t mean that these people don’t have problems, of course they do. But they have fewer problems, it seems, in their feet, their knees, and possibly their hips...
When Osterman says that “getting over the fashion aspect” of shoes is hard for people, you may have thought he was referring to women’s high heels or men’s dress shoes, with their narrow toe boxes. He wasn’t. He was talking about his basketball patients...
OSTERMAN: When you’re in that higher heel, and anything really over an inch and a half, [it] throws your body forward enough that it puts a lot of stress on the front of the knees. The four muscles, the quadriceps — that come in the front of the knee that attach just beyond the knee, in the front of the shin — they have to fire constantly to give you some stability. Also, you will arch your back to try to keep you from not leaning forward. That combination puts stress on the knees and the low back. The short-term effect is overuse where the muscles are just not capable of handling it. The long-term is it affects the entire mechanics of how a foot works.
DUBNER: Have you ever had people come to you who want their foot surgically altered so that they will fit the fashionable shoes they want to wear better?
OSTERMAN: Once a week.
DUBNER: You’re kidding.
OSTERMAN: Most of them are just asking because when you tell them what’s really involved they really don’t want to have it done. You know, because once you start changing joints and re-aligning toes, then you really are throwing the foot into a whole different functional capacity."
"SEMMELHACK: When I think about Chinese foot binding — which resulted in women’s feet being around three inches in size — it seems like such a profound body modification. But the fact of the matter is that all of us who have grown up wearing footwear have bound our feet to some extent. If we were able to meet our non-shod selves in a different dimension and look at what our feet would be like naturally, they would be much larger, much more splayed, rougher. In some ways the foot would become the shoe needed to make it through daily life because the body has the ability to build up calluses at the bottom of the foot...
DAVIS: One group stayed in a pair of cushioned shoes and the other group were given this five-dollar — in U.S. dollars — pair of shoes that were highly flexible. And what they found is, number one, their mechanics were more normal in the minimal shoe.
LIEBERMAN: In those barefoot populations, we find almost no incidents, for example, of people having flat feet. They just don’t exist.
DAVIS: But more importantly to these patients, they had significant reduction in their pain medication, and significant improvement in their functional outcomes. That’s just with a pair of minimal shoes.
LIEBERMAN: We look at incidence of musculoskeletal diseases. The evidence appears to be that they have really considerably lower rates of diseases like arthritis. It doesn’t mean that these people don’t have problems, of course they do. But they have fewer problems, it seems, in their feet, their knees, and possibly their hips...
When Osterman says that “getting over the fashion aspect” of shoes is hard for people, you may have thought he was referring to women’s high heels or men’s dress shoes, with their narrow toe boxes. He wasn’t. He was talking about his basketball patients...
OSTERMAN: When you’re in that higher heel, and anything really over an inch and a half, [it] throws your body forward enough that it puts a lot of stress on the front of the knees. The four muscles, the quadriceps — that come in the front of the knee that attach just beyond the knee, in the front of the shin — they have to fire constantly to give you some stability. Also, you will arch your back to try to keep you from not leaning forward. That combination puts stress on the knees and the low back. The short-term effect is overuse where the muscles are just not capable of handling it. The long-term is it affects the entire mechanics of how a foot works.
DUBNER: Have you ever had people come to you who want their foot surgically altered so that they will fit the fashionable shoes they want to wear better?
OSTERMAN: Once a week.
DUBNER: You’re kidding.
OSTERMAN: Most of them are just asking because when you tell them what’s really involved they really don’t want to have it done. You know, because once you start changing joints and re-aligning toes, then you really are throwing the foot into a whole different functional capacity."
Post ID: 2285134654452086952
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