token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
No bio...
User ID: 1737
token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
4mo ago
That's the study I was referencing that shows that telling people to wear masks doesn't seem to do a lot. It's really hard to do a study on whether consistent mask use works because virtually everyone falls into one of two groups:
- Won't mask consistently.
- Will mask consistently anyway.
And furthermore, there's social desirability bias on telling a researcher studying masking that you're in group (2) if they are having you wear masks for a study.
token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
4mo ago
Interesting. That's definitely different from my observations. I rarely see paper masks outside of medical offices (some of which still give them away and require masking) where they are definitely the most common type of mask. But elsewhere, I think KN95s are, although N95s aren't far behind. The rest are ones I just can't identify, which may be useless cloth masks, or the occasional paper mask. I'm occasionally tempted to straight-up walk up to those people and ask them (while I'm wearing my N95) why they are wearing an uncomfortable ineffective mask when there's no mandate, but I've never done so. (I don't think I've ever seen an airgami or P100 in the wild, although I've seen friends use them.)
(Of course, the vast majority of people I encounter in public outside of masks-required situations aren't wearing any mask at all; I'm not trying to imply mask wearing is at all common.)
token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
6mo ago
What's the number of kids who are put on puberty blocking or cross-sex hormones?
Those numbers were also in the article I linked: about 3.5 in 10 000 or 0.035% which is also about a tenth of the diagnoses of gender dysphoria. Looking more closely, according to that data, hormones are about four times more common than puberty blockers, which surprised me as I'd expect the relative prevalence to be reversed. Which I think shows that I'm not very familiar with medical interventions for gender dysphoria.
Do these surgeries prevent the child from ever becoming a breast-feeding mother?
A quick web search found articles like this one suggesting breast reduction very frequently (the author quoted their surgeon as giving them 50/50 odds; in my quick search I haven't found better numbers) prevents breastfeeding. The article I linked explicitly says "mastectomies" under the top surgery section although I know trans adults who have chosen breast reduction instead of mastectomy for their top surgery specifically with the goal of being able to breastfeed. (The internet also suggests breast augmentation rarely impacts breastfeeding, but usually only a short-term impact, so probably not relevant here.) In other words, around 10 times as many cis children as trans children will find themselves unable to breastfeed later in life due to gender affirming surgeries... but both numbers are pretty small.
token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
6mo ago
Do you mean after filling out a VBM ballot before it's been counted? It goes into a county-maintained ballot box. Or I could hand it off directly to a county elections official if I wanted to go out of my way (I think the closest place to do that is out of walking distance). I guess in rural areas, getting to a ballot box might be not worth the effort, so it would go to the mailman instead, so not in the hands of an election official. But that's why there's a notification when your ballot is received; then you can submit it sufficiently ahead of time to try again in the unlikely event it failed to reach the elections office.
token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
9mo ago
This is enough of a problem that GitHub Codespaces exists, advertised as solving exactly this problem, so it's not just you.
Some of this is just experience / familiarity with the tooling. While I agree with other comments in the thread that for professional development, I'm usually working on the same codebase for a while (and when I do spin up on a new codebase, they're sufficiently used to getting new hires set up that they have written instructions), for working in random open source repos, getting set up is usually a few quick rounds of installing whatever packages it complains are missing at most. And while not universal, a lot of GitHub repos do have instructions in how to get started working in the repo.
For a Python project, it's surprising you need anything more than the latest Python and pointing virtualenv at the requirements.txt file. I assume there were some dependencies that couldn't be installed that way for some reason.
(You mention in another comment that you're on Mac... which I've never used for development but I've fairly frequently heard of Linux devs switching to Mac saying the dev support is close enough to Linux and they like the rest of the OS better... so I assume it's plenty usable as a dev platform.)
token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
10mo ago
"So this is our wet market, it's like a farmer's market except there are live animals and bits of dead animals everywhere, all crammed in together and all of it is wet, perpetually wet."
I think you're missing my point. According to that Wikipedia article, "wet market" doesn't mean anything different from "farmer's market"; it's just the term used for the concept in that region. So you get the message of "the stupid foreigners have this weird exotic type of market that's a bad idea" instead of "China has laxer health and safety regulations on their farmers markets; they should enforce regulations more like the ones in the US/Australia." (and, related, a reminder that those regulations in the US/etc. are doing something useful).
token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
11mo ago
I don't see why.
Then I recommend following up on the sources I linked. I am not a scientist with expertise in this area; I am just doing my best to link to them and summarize their arguments.
token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
2mo ago
Sorry, being sick sucks. Having to work while sick really sucks. I definitely see people blame forcing people to work while sick on US-specific idiocy so it's interesting to hear the same from another country.
I thought doing flu/RSV PCR along with any COVID PCR was standard? Maybe just in the US?
I guess he hasn't mentioned it in a bit, but for a while Daniel Griffin in the TWiV clinical updates was harping on the fact that COVID+flu happened enough and had a sufficiently different treatment plan that flu tests should always be done for COVID patients (I'm guessing he meant hospitalized ones?).
token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
3mo ago
My understanding of the problem with banning "gain of function" research is that the term is that any research on real viruses* is either (1) intentional bio-weapons research which we already have policies around (which generally read "Don't.") or (2) something that could reasonably be called "gain of function" because you can't do anything with viruses without allowing them to propagate and therefore evolve. And for (2) we already have rules about what experiments require what level BSL. Scientists tend to not approve of the proposal of "don't study real viruses".
*As opposed to pseudovirus models of some kind where you've ripped out most of the virus so you're pretty sure it's not dangerous. But, oh, yeah, to do that, you've changed the function of the virus. Has it gained function? Who's defining "gain" here? Truly not trying to play semantics games here: if only some experiments are "gain" of function, what's your process for deciding which ones those are? What happens if they're wrong? How is this any different from the current system?
token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
4mo ago
I literally had to read your comment twice because after the first time reading it, I remembered that straight poly people exist and that might change my interpretation of your comment. I suspect this is selection effects of my friend group and straight poly people are in reality more common than queer poly people given there's a lot more straight people. In retrospect, it occurs to me that I do know some, and all of the straight poly people I can think of are either married or in relationships where I'd be surprised if they didn't get married. I can think of one couple that went monogamous when they got married. Of course, if they're not in a relationship, I probably wouldn't know if they are poly, so definite selection effects there.
But my point in highlighting that I think of poly as a mainly queer phenomenon, is that poly people may not have the same metrics for success in their dating life that you do (which from your post, I'm getting is to build a stable life-partner relationship?).
token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
4mo ago
Thanks for writing that out. The ACA part particularly is what I see most often.
token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
4mo ago
why do you also believe N95 masks are better than surgical masks when there is either no or very weak evidence it makes a difference?
I have not carefully reviewed the literature myself. I'm following what expert science communicators claim the literature says, as I expect them to be better identifying the flaws in studies and understanding what they actually say.
I agree that study result you linked is surprising. I guess it implies that either the masks are equivalent in quality in this setting or that masking had no measurable effect, most likely due to transmission at work being a rounding error compared to community transmission. Or something else is going on that I don't know to look for.
token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
6mo ago
Stay away from nonsense like band work (there are applications for this, but not general fitness).
"band work" = resistance bands?
What's wrong with them? They seem like a minimal equipment way to do strength training. Maybe they just are only functional at weights too low to be useful? Or is there some deeper issue?
token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
10mo ago
I don't think that in American society and American public discourse the question of "whether we need better regulation of live animal markets" even exists, let alone has any prominent placement.
Not markets specifically. But I do certainly hear people talk about the disease potential of cramming animals too close together and overusing antibiotics. Which was in the news recently due to the avian flu outbreak spiking egg prices, which has the potential to lead to an avian flu pandemic. To be fair, part of why egg prices went up is because the US was aggressive about culling birds suspected to be infected.
I'm not proposing some active conspiracy, just the natural tendency (along the lines of fundamental attribution error) to think of problems as only able to happen to other people.
If drawing attention to China or Chinese wet markets as source of infection were declared racist, then it'd be racist regardless of any statistical justification you could provide.
I think you're agreeing with me.
token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
11mo ago
I'm just asking you to actually make an argument. I can think of plenty of (not mutually exclusive) steelmans for the lab leak theory:
-
Strong priors for lab leak, so evidence for market hypothesis not updating you very far in that direction. I'm guessing this is the one you mean by calling me "outright stupid"?
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The scientists saying the evidence points towards the market hypothesis are intentionally misrepresenting the data, presumably because the concept of lab leaks make scientists as a whole look bad, although maybe also the specific scientists are under pressure from various governments or institutions to help cover up a lab leak.
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The scientists saying the evidence points towards the market hypothesis are being misled and credulous. e.g., China's cover-up included releasing data that points in that direction and omitting the data that doesn't.
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Some form of "both": i.e., lab leak via the market, either by animals or humans infected at the lab spreading via the market, so the market spread science is all true, but not indicative of spread from a wild animal.
token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
11mo ago
The actual policy changes after the 2020 protests have been pretty much entirely in the "tough-on-crime" direction. I understand there's serious disagreement over how or if to reform law enforcement, but most of BLM's recommendations haven't been implemented anywhere---and certainly not the recommendations of the prison abolition movement---so I don't see how you could possibly blame the murder rate on them.
token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
11mo ago
I think we're talking past each other. For instance, I could just as easily describe "tough-on-crime" as a "luxury belief" because a common talking point of the pro-reform point of view is that doing so increases crime by unnecessarily putting people in prison so they build connections to criminals and pushing them away from the non-criminal economy, and therefore the rich isolated from crime can afford to revel in punishing criminals but the less isolated people in cities can't afford such beliefs. This would be an absurd way of structuring a political argument that is using the term "luxury beliefs" to sneak in an assumption that pro-reform view is correct. But I don't see any difference between that and any other uses of "luxury beliefs" in this thread.
token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
11mo ago
I don't follow sci-fi cons all that closely but I do follow some authors on Twitter Mastodon that care, and I recall them being pretty upset at the idea of Worldcon in China with Cixin Liu as a guest of honor (given his public positions on the Uyghurs). And I didn't remember the details mentioned below of accusations that an organization within China rigged the vote (by purchasing lots of voting memberships), suggesting the general Worldcon community wasn't a fan of holding Worldcon in China.
I was pretty surprised by your comments in this thread about the left giving China a pass... but I think there's a difference between business/media and individuals here. Left-leaning business and media rely on China's business enough that they don't they want to say much. But left-leaning individuals on social media have plenty negative to say about China's government in my experience. Some of it complaining about Disney appeasing China.
token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
4mo ago
That is more recent than any chart I could find. The Wikipedia page I linked has that data going up to 2021 and I had also found it on Statista going up to 2022. Statista does mention a methodology change in March 2020, although it doesn't sound like it should affect that number.
But that's counting encounters at the southern border, which is very different from the count of illegal immigrants (which, admittedly, is a hard thing to count). Is the idea that you expect that number to be proportional to the number who make it across that border unnoticed? I'd worry about changes in enforcement over time adding a lot of noise there, especially if there's any policy changes encouraging repeat encounters for the same person. Also, this is ignoring illegal immigrants that enter through other methods; are you particularly more worried about the ones crossing the border illegally as opposed to overstaying visas?
token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
4mo ago
My understanding was that no one really thought smoking marijuana was better for you than smoking tobacco, possibly even worse, if you smoked the same amount. But tobacco smokers smoke way, way more than marijuana smokers, so in practice marijuana is a lot less dangerous. And edibles exist.
token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
4mo ago
That’s putting aside that birth control per se is pretty shitty for women but also relatively cheap and affordable.
You're probably thinking of birth control pills. Long-lasting birth control is both more effective and less shitty. And possibly actually cheaper, but the cost has to be paid up-front. An IUD is about $1000+ (but can last 7+ years), which isn't huge but can be a large expense for a young woman.
token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
4mo ago
Sorry, yes, I understand that. I'm saying I really have no idea what the other side to that story is.
token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
4mo ago
Yes, that's the "immune debt" hypothesis. It's a completely reasonable internally consistent hypothesis; it's not at all obvious that it's better to avoid infection entirely as opposed to hopefully getting minor infections that train the immune system while not being severe enough to do any lasting damage.
... but as far as I can tell, every vaguely reputable scientist with knowledge of the immune system or epidemiology thinks it is wrong and the odds don't work out that way.
To be clear, I'm merely claiming less exposure to pathogens is healthier. There are obviously costs to going out of your way to reduce your exposure to pathogens and the trade-off may not be worth it.
token_progressive
maybe not the only progressive here
5mo ago
Couldn't it just mean that Candidate X is already more popular, and therefore raises more money?
My understanding of the political science consensus is basically that: funds raised is just another way to measure popularity like polling numbers (with the obvious skew of people with more money and more willing to give it to candidates getting weighted heavier); the actual things the money is spent on doesn't seem to make a huge impact on election results.
As the other commenters mention, this might not be true in narrow situations like early on in a primary to a non-well-known candidate.
I'm honestly not even sure what you're talking about. The story on /r/politics is that Obama's primary failure was working with Republicans too much.
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