Tarnstellung
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User ID: 553
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Lastly (as I have no interest in belabouring the subject) those graphic photographs showing a slimy-black cancerous lung, labelled ‘smoker’s lung’, and a shiny-pink healthy lung, labelled ‘non-smoker’s lung’, are nothing but propaganda: the slimy-black lung should read ‘cancerous lung’ (and could very well be a non-smoker’s lung) and the shiny-pink lung should read ‘healthy lung’ (and could very well be a smoker’s lung) as it is impossible for a pathologist to determine, from both gross and microscopic examination of lung tissue, whether a person who died from other causes (such as a vehicular accident) is a smoker or a non-smoker.
Do particles from tobacco smoke not accumulate in the lungs? Is it not possible to examine the concentration of these particles and determine with reasonable certainty whether or not the person was a smoker?
P.S. Before dropping another scorching hot take, it would be wise to address the replies the first hot take received. Otherwise, everyone will assume you're just here to troll. That's certainly the conclusion I'm leaning towards.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
I hope this is the appropriate place for meta discussion unrelated to the crowd-sourced moderation system.
Now that we're no longer on Reddit, can we increase the character limit? I assume there are no technical limitations, given that it's a silly, arbitrary number like 10,000 characters instead of something sensible like 65,536.
The longest multi-comment I've seen was three comments long, so 30k should be enough, but maybe make it higher just in case? 50k? 100k? It's not like it can be abused.
The original comment could have been phrased better, and perhaps criticism along those lines would have been more acceptable to the admin above. However, it seems your objection is not to the comment's tone but to its content. I agree that the near-total dismissal of female writers is based on ignorance, but the correct response is a counterargument, not finger-wagging and pearl-clutching.
The comment's author has now received many suggestions of writers whose works may change his mind. Surely you agree that this is a good thing. But this is only possible because he posted his comment. The alternative is him not posting anything, and hence not getting any recommendations, and hence remaining ignorant. Surely you agree that this would be a bad thing. Therefore, it makes no sense to scold him for posting the comment. Your comment, even if well-intended, was counterproductive.
This forum's rules are the way they are because its purpose is to facilitate free discussion, and we want free discussion because it is the only path to progress. Self-censorship cannot eliminate incorrect or disagreeable beliefs: at best, it will hide them; at worst, it will cement them.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Expressing "a feeling of strong distaste for the bigotry of [a] comment" is taboo here because it doesn't actually add anything to the discussion. This is an anonymous forum; none of your friends will be outraged that you tried to engage a neo-Nazi/incel/paedo-fascist constructively instead of dismissing them without a second thought.
Realistically, a large proportion of the users and comments here are bigoted by the standards of Reddit. If you're going to post something that amounts to "yikes, sweaty" under one in every 3 or 4 comments, then you should leave, for your sake and ours. But I believe a constructive and mutually beneficial discussion can be had as long as everyone sincerely tries to "be no more antagonistic than is absolutely necessary". If you can do that, I urge you to stay. We could use more ideological diversity.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Besides the consensus building (already pointed out) and the highly partisan and inflammatory tone (without corresponding evidence), I take issue with your use of phrases like "genetic injections". Are you implying that mRNA vaccines can modify someone's genome?
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
proprietary eponym
Is this the same as a genericized trademark? I've never encountered "proprietary eponym" and I think "genericized trademark" would be more easily understood.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Yes, the Waldorf style of education wherein there is a lot of walking in parks and very little actual education is fine for a five-year-old who basically just needs babysitting, but becomes more problematic for older kids who are actually capable of non-trivial learning.
Because of the risk of stunting children's intellectual development, I wouldn't recommend either for children old enough to attend primary school, but if you must, choose Montessori over Waldorf. Montessori is basically Waldorf without the bizarre pseudoscientific religion and occult agriculture.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Is jokes ruining the tone a common problem with the MCU? The only MCU movie I've seen is Doctor Strange and I had that exact complaint.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Came here to bring up this exact problem. I've had modhat (or rather, admin-hat) comments show up multiple times already. Presumably people angry they got told off and using the report button as a super-downvote. I think it would be best if they were just excluded entirely.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
You seem to have missed the first sentence in your quotation. For any of these actions to constitute genocide, they must be done "with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such".
The "people and groups trying to reduce birthrates around the world" are not trying to destroy any national, ethnic, racial or religious group; they are trying to improve the groups' standards of living. And yes, having half the population reduced to the status of illiterate baby-making machines does tend to decrease a country's standard of living.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Predicted by Pelevin in 2010, «Anti-Air Complexes of Al-Efesbi».
There's a summary on Wikipedia. Fascinating.
The U.S. military is trying to influence Skotenkov psychologically by scattering leaflets over the desert, reminding him of the collapse of the USSR and the hated realities of modern Russia. These leaflets soon appear in Russia in the form of heroin packages, because the leaflets are picked up in the desert by Afghan producers of the drug. Russian authorities decide that the Americans want to make a color revolution at the hands of drug addicts.
This Pelevin guy is something else.
His latest novel, titled KGBT+, doesn't have a Wikipedia page in English, which is very unfortunate because the title has definitely piqued my interest.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
I personally believe the US election was rigged. It's already been admitted by the media, they only use the word 'fortified' instead of rigged. I'm sure everyone is aware of that article.
I am not aware of that article. Could you link it, please?
What exactly were these people doing, if not projecting influence and power such that Biden would be elected? Is that not rigging?
Groups "projecting influence and power" to get someone elected is called an election campaign. It's part of every election. What is the dividing line between legitimate campaigning and "election rigging"?
If you can quietly threaten that there'll be riots, suppression, endless legal warfare, against officials who don't use their leeway to come to the correct procedural/administrative conclusions, is that not rigging?
I doubt many people were going to vote for Trump but ended up voting for Biden because they were afraid of riots.
I'm not sure what you mean by "suppression".
Trump, having lost the election, is now the one engaging in "endless legal warfare".
What "career implications" would there be, for which officials, and for what kind of "procedural/administrative" decisions?
Rigging involves everything from stuffing votes, ballot harvesting, procedural manipulation to media manipulation.
My understanding of the word "rigging" only includes ballot stuffing and similar practices such as destroying or just not counting certain ballots. I believe this is the common understanding of the word, and broadening it as you do is a motte-and-bailey.
I hadn't heard of "ballot harvesting" before. Having looked up an explanation, it doesn't seem to be inherently fraudulent, but it probably does make certain kinds of "rigging" as described above easier. Do you have any reason to believe ballot harvesting had a significant effect on the outcome of the 2020 election?
I'm not sure what you mean by "procedural manipulation".
If by "media manipulation", you mean biased media coverage, then yes, that clearly did happen, but I don't think many people would classify it as "rigging". If biased media coverage is a form rigging, has there ever been an election that wasn't rigged?
A more expansive definition would include education and demographic policies, which do not favor the right.
Wouldn't that encompass literally all of politics, given that obtaining votes is ultimately a politician's biggest concern and any policy they implement or support is designed to increase their chance of re-election?
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
How would you "verify every ballot has a unique corresponding voter" without getting rid of the secret ballot?
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Recently, there was a series of studies demonstrating that ADHD medications are both much less helpful than previously thought (boost lasts for only two years or so) and with much worse side effects, including heightened risks of dementia later in life.
The first study linked, which concludes that ADHD treatment isn't very effective (after skimming the article, "boost lasts for only two years or so" seems to be an oversimplification), is from 2009. The second and third, which find a correlation between amphetamine use and Parkinson's disease, are from 2011 and 2006, respectively.
I understand that some fields move more slowly than others, and that a clinical trial by its nature must take several years (plus the time to prepare the trial before it starts, to collect enough participants, etc., and the time needed to analyse the data after the trial is done and to write up the results, and the delays related to publishing). Nevertheless, I think describing a study published 17 years ago as "recent" is a bit of a stretch.
(It could be that you just didn't see when they were published, and assumed they were recent, for some reasonable definition of "recent". This is known to happen. I've read on Snopes that stories sometimes reappear randomly: someone stumbles upon an article from years ago, assumes it's recent and shares it, other people see it and share it, and suddenly thousands of people believe something new and important has happened, when in fact it happened years ago and was unimportant and quickly forgotten. It's why The Guardian added a big bright yellow warning above older articles saying "this article is x years old".)
When I first read the quoted sentence, before any links to the actual studies were present, my interpretation was that a series of related studies (I think it's not unusual for one clinical trial to result in multiple publications) examining in detail all the long-term effects of ADHD medication had been published within, say, the past few months. In fact, the first study reports the findings from a clinical trial on the effectiveness of a certain kind of treatment for a certain subtype of ADHD, and makes no mention of dementia; the other two investigate a hypothesized correlation between amphetamine use for any reason, apparently including recreational use (the third even counts methamphetamine as a relevant type of amphetamine), and make no mention of ADHD treatment.
Meth is a known neurotoxin, not much to say there. Recreational use of amphetamine, at doses significantly higher than those used to treat ADHD, is likewise already known to cause neuropsychiatric problems, including psychosis. Your post, however, implies that treatment of ADHD with amphetamine was recently found to be dangerous, a claim not supported by the studies linked. If it had been discovered in 2006, or even in 2011, that treating ADHD with amphetamine increased the risk of dementia, this would have become widespread knowledge by now. As I noted in another comment, however, looking up "ADHD medication dementia" only returns results of ADHD medication being used to treat dementia.
In conclusion, the central premise upon which your entire post is based is false. This does not mean that "privilege theory" is correct, just that this particular argument against it is invalid.
P.S. Anyone who was treated for ADHD and became concerned after reading the original post should now relax. (Maybe with some benzos?)
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
I don't think printing books in colour is particularly expensive nowadays.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
"Defection game" implies that it's zero-sum, but from what you're saying, it seems like the world would be greatly improved if all low-conscientiousness people used amphetamine. Unless there are some serious side effects that would outweigh the improvements in conscientiousness, of course.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Recently, there was a series of studies demonstrating that ADHD medications are both much less helpful than previously thought (boost lasts for only two years or so) and with much worse side effects, including heightened risks of dementia later in life.
Where are these studies? Googling "ADHD medication dementia" just gives me articles about ADHD medication being used to treat dementia.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
This one?
A unattractive person whose defining characteristic of their personality is their egotism. Most often used to describe typically one-dimensional preps, chauches, or the like. A particularly mean insult; it should not be taken nor thrown around lightly.
Interesting. I checked Wiktionary before asking.* It has two (relevant) definitions:
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(US, slang) A gross, physically unappealing person.
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(chiefly US, Internet slang, sometimes derogatory) A person on the political right, and/or who holds socio-political views seen as regressive or bigoted.
The Urban Dictionary definition does say "unattractive", but your usage seemed to be more about personality, so neither of Wiktionary's definitions seems to fit. I guess this is a third meaning.
* "Normal" dictionaries aren't very good when it comes to obscure slang, and Urban Dictionary is sometimes helpful but is often full of completely unrelated nonsense; see e.g. the two entries that define "chud" as, respectively, a kind of poo and a piece of chewing gum. Both of those are on the first page, and there are 30 pages of definitions for "chud".
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
The nature of mass media means that one person who spends all day every day writing about politics online will end up creating 100 times more political content online than the average person. As a result, the Internet in particular very highly over-represents such people relative to the general population, which can lead other highly online people to sometimes have a skewed idea of what the average American is actually like.
See also: Most of What You Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Did you mean "Chad" instead of "CHUD"?
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Describing Qatar as just "LGBTQii++-unfriendly" is disingenuous. You are implying that it's just some silly wokeists concerned about trivial matters. Qatar is a totalitarian absolute monarchy where dissidents are regularly imprisoned, migrant workers are abused and prevented from returning home, women are legally subservient to men, and yes, homosexuality is a crime punishable by imprisonment. It is perfectly reasonable to not want to have anything to do with Qatar's government.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Yes, informing people about it is probably not a good idea. It would be weird even if she wasn't staying with him, if they were just meeting in an office or something.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
After that leader arranged for her to be flown to the U.K. for a job interview, she recalls being surprised to discover that she was expected to stay in his home, not a hotel. When she arrived, she says, “he told me he needed to masturbate before seeing me.”
I can understand how hearing that may seem creepy in that context, given that she just found out she would be staying with him, but in general, masturbating in a situation like this is a great idea. I have long though that men should masturbate before doing something important that involves women, sex, etc., to prevent their brain being overpowered by their penis.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
In North Africa many speak French, English and Arabic.
And their native variety of Arabic is about as different from Standard Arabic (which they are also expected to speak) as Luxembourgish is from German.
What do you think was selected for or against?
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