Looking at this graph, I could see where concerns about AIDS spreading from things other than men having sex with men would be high in the early 90's, though obviously men having sex with men would still be the main concern.
Between the slope on that graph at the time and the fact that this would be pre-HAART (which led to a dramatic decline in the death rate from AIDS) I think it was likely out of genuine, if perhaps out of proportion to the risks, concern.
jericho
1yr ago
Thank you for elaborating, that makes more sense.
Maybe I'm being overly critical because it runs counter to my own views on justice. Not sure, to be honest.
Fair, even I have a point where I say "to hell with the utilitarian calculus, this must be punished harshly" (i.e even if somehow just making murder legal provided a drastic reduction in what we would currently call murders I still wouldn't be able to stomach such a state of affairs).
My only pushback would be that I do not consider this particular point arbitrary, because while for the rest
As far as I can see, a child rapist may as well escalate to child murder in order to eliminate a witness that may lead to his lifelong imprisonment. Or to his less long imprisonment. Or to his public flogging. Or to his being fined.
there is still possibility of a downside to committing another crime to reduce the chances of being caught for the first- yes, maybe they'll opt to take their chances with the death penalty to reduce their chances of life imprisonment or any imprisonment etc, but once the punishments are equal it is ALWAYS "correct" to commit any additional crimes that reduce the chance of being caught by any amount.
Please elaborate. It seems to be limited to only the expansion of using the most severe allowable punishment (so would also be the case if the punishment for both murder and child rape were life without parole, but would not apply if the punishment for child rape were death but the punishment for murder was torture then death) for things less than murder.
One of the reasons why ancient legal codes where execution was a common punishment allowed for various different methods of execution, allowed for punishments beyond execution (such as also killing one's family, seizing lands and titles) etc.
Edit: To carry on the Qin example, if the penalty for being late was death but the penalty for treason was death and seizure of all your family's assets, there would still be incentive to not commit treason.
jericho
1yr ago
When I see people arguing for expansion of the death penalty to (child) rapists, this is often my main concern- if the penalty is already death, it increases incentives to go ahead and kill the victim before they become a witness.
jericho
2yr ago
When being strangled to death, continued flailing is more a sign of not being dead/unconscious yet than of still being a threat.
jericho
2yr ago
As a high-cost signal of tribal allegiance, it's not quite at the level as a Confederate flag or a neck tattoo, but it's quite impressive how so many people in the U.S. still wear the mask despite everything.
Interesting, I think the last time I saw someone out and about with a mask in the US (not counting on airplanes/in airports) was... October? Definitely last year. What % are you seeing around you?
Is this concentrated to big blue cities? I've done a fair amount of travel around the country since then, but admittedly not to LA/NYC/SF
jericho
2yr ago
Also @Eetan, absolutely fair, I had originally put "regard the Ukraine War as, at best,..." but waffled on it. Absolutely also pro-Russia sentiment there (I think due to both aesthetic preferences for Russia for obvious reasons and equating anti-US with anti-imperialist). Main point is that I think OP was right when he categorized American support for Ukraine as "left-Democratic" coded rather than just "left-wing" coded- the left-left tends to be somewhere between neutral and pro-Russia, it's the center-left and progressive left supporting Ukraine (along with a variety of different groups on the US right, though I won't try to suss out how much of that is pro-Ukraine vs anti-Russia).
jericho
2yr ago
My far-right friends see the Ukraine war as the Globohomo Lefitst Elite spitting in the eye of a Trad Warrior State.
FWIW, and I do realize in the US they are basically a rounding error compared to the progressive left, most of the far-left capital-C communists I've seen regard the Ukraine War as two capitalist imperialist powers duking it out.
Commensurably more are killed in the extra vegetable production required for a vegan diet, so there could be some inflection point where killing animals directly provides enough calories that it means fewer dead animals in total compared to the sheer volume of rodents killed. This assumes that vegans treat all animals as morally equivalent (1 cow=1 mouse).
Isn't one of the vegan arguments about the amount of crops grown purely to feed animals and that the same land could be used to just directly grow more calories than are produced by the feed crops once converted into meat?
Main issues I could see with this:
-
Marginal land used for grazing not suitable for crops / feed crops more resilient + able to grow where the human consumption equivalents cannot (know this is to some extent true in terms of pastures, though not for all pastures, do not know enough about soil and climate preferences for different crops for that bit)
-
Harvesting feed crops somehow kills less birds / rodents etc (have absolutely no idea, obviously combine harvesters and pesticides would kill regardless, but don't know if feed crops are less attractive to those animals to begin with so less wind up dead)
I would absolutely dare argue that other than crisis care, we were much healthier a century ago when the fattest man alive was 300 something pounds and this was rare enough that he was in a circus.
How narrowly/broadly are you defining "crisis care" here, before I take you up on that offer of arguing?
Edit: Also on the subject of crime, 1923 is not exactly a year I would choose for "crime was well controlled" in cities in the US.
jericho
2yr ago
Agreed on broad strokes, hence keeping the order of likelihood if not the %s, mostly felt the need to bring it up because my %s would've looked more like yours if this had happened 2015-2019 (prior to that up the feds and lower the leftists) and only differ now due to personal experiences in Florida over the last couple years.
jericho
2yr ago
Growing up I only ever heard the standard stereotype stuff (but that also applied to every race), plus maybe some conspiracy stuff that was at least ostensibly not actually about Jews even if there happened to be a lot of overlap.
Honestly surprised you didn't hear any in New York City, pre-2020 basically all the antisemitism I heard was from New Yorkers lol (though then it was almost entirely directed at Orthodox Jews).
Frankly most of the stuff I'm used to is anti-black or anti-mexican (obviously also lots of stuff about muslims in the 2001-2011 stretch) the anti-jewish stuff seems to be newer.
jericho
2yr ago
Not to dox myself, but as someone who has lived in Florida (including but not only Tampa) for a good chunk of my life, I would lower the fed slightly, lower the leftist radicals a decent chunk and up the trolls and hateful idiots. Maybe like 40% / 25%/ 20% / 15%.
Unless the radicals are dedicated enough to LARPing that they also go out to bars dressed normally and talk about this stuff to really sell the act (though I guess those could also be feds trying to infiltrate? I just know a lot of drunk dudes at the bars here start getting into politics and the Jews do come up). I will add that I would not take it turning out that these folks were actually recent moves from New York or California as meaning they were actually disguised leftists. The people (well, young people, not retirees) who have moved to Florida from New York and California in past couple years seem both more outspoken in their politics and more right wing than the average pre-covid Floridian (once again, ruling out truly dedicated LARPing that extends to work and bars).
Guessing a lot of them are kind of "cutting loose" after being in cities where being vocally conservative was asking to be a pariah.
jericho
2yr ago
I think the balance is also likely impacted by how organized the factions of the civil war are and how clear the lines are. I can't imagine the American Civil War, for instance, being worse as a woman than as a man. But when you get into stuff like competing warlords and ethnic cleansing with no separation between the frontlines and the homefront I could see it being worse for women, especially in cases where resources are scarce (food requisitioned for soldiers so anyone not seen as fit to fight is left to starve).
Who do you mean by "we"? My understanding is that the rate of abortions after testing for Down Syndrome vary pretty heavily from country to country (googling around, seeing USA around 67%, France around 77% and Denmark around 98%, though that's from 2011).
Though I guess the real issue here is referring to "society" tolerating something when of course what "society" tolerates varies a great deal from one part of the world to the other (for now, at least).
jericho
2yr ago
Won't help when you're out and about, but I got a one liter glass bottle with a stopper attached (one of the ones you'll often find at restaurants) which I fill up with tap water and chill during the day, then drink at night. Obviously could do filtered water as well.
I've found that just swigging it straight from a glass bottle makes me drink significantly more than I would otherwise (compared to pouring a glass, drinking from a plastic water bottle or jug, etc). YMMV on this one, I'll admit this might just be a weird quirk of my brain.
jericho
2yr ago
Started reading The Coming of the Terror in the French Revolution as a result of johnfabian's review here. Only made it about a quarter in but very interesting so far.
jericho
2yr ago
Worth noting that out of the 4 legal states, Hawaii, Washington and Alaska also had a requirement of at least 30 days residency in state first. Only New York would have been a "road trip" option (though I suppose Hawaii was already ruled out of that regardless of the law).
Wikipedia so grain of salt etc, but legal in 4, illegal with exceptions for rape, incest, mother's health or nonviable fetus in 13, illegal with exceptions for risk to mother's health in 2, illegal with exception for rape in 1, illegal with exception for risk to mother's life in 29, illegal no exceptions in 1.
I know in the past people writing book reviews here have felt discouraged due to lack of direct engagement - I unfortunately don't have any commentary to offer except that this review has sold me on the book and I'm downloading it now.
Based on what you have written here, I would also like to recommend to you the book "Spies and Commissars: The Early Years of the Russian Revolution" - there are some very obvious echoes of the French Revolution in the Russian ones and the book's focus on the personal level helps play up the drama.
jericho
2yr ago
Fair, also additional factors of my high school trending nerdier than average and this being in the earlier days of both social media and smart phones.
Still, my experience was definitely that the teenaged girls were reading a lot more in their free time (both books and fanfiction) than the guys. Perhaps more importantly, the teenagers writing in their free time at my school were almost entirely girls.
If teenage girls were reading YA novels for 4 hours a day
Are they not? They absolutely were when I was in high school, including problems of girls reading Twilight and Harry Potter during class time.
Edit: I guess I can't say for certain the hrs/day, but it was very common to see girls reading the YA craze du jour during lunch, free periods, or basically any other time they could.
Sounds like Cube format might be the way to go?
You can find lists online for "budget" old border cubes in the range of $500 - $1500 range that you can then cube draft to get plenty of decks and games.
Less old school, but still keeping to the spirit and avoiding planeswalkers, the Ravnica Guild Kits are premade decks not adhering to any particular format made specifically for fun kitchen table play, with one themed for each Ravnica (2 color pairing) guild. I have a set and they are my go-to for truly casual magic that's still got enough juice for fun plays.
10 decks for all the kits, were $20 a piece for $200 total when they originally came out, looks like it is closer to $500 for the full set now. Obviously can also just get a couple of individual ones, value of cards in each deck has varied so some individual ones are as cheap as $30, while others are up by $60.
Wrote below on some factors in the early 90s, but for my experience in the early 2000s your story sounds more plausible. We didn't linger especially on HIV/AIDS, other than still treating it as a death sentence, but we did also go over the worst case scenarios for every single STD as well as worst case scenarios for birth.
For the birth part, I do wonder if they really thought that part through? It certainly made the girls in my class not want to get teen pregnant, but it wasn't like the worst case scenarios they highlighted applied only to teens and I'm sure it turned at least a few off having children altogether, which I very much doubt was the goal of most abstinence-only groups.
Edit: I'm sure there's a longer post that could be made on how much of the propaganda spread to bring down teen pregnancy rates was too broad and actually served to make pregnancy and childrearing appear unappealing in a general sense.
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