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Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 5, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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It's interesting that certain professions are seen as intrinsically high-status. Doctors are presumptively taken to be morally upstanding individuals, to the point that "he's a doctor, but he treats everyone like shit" is seen as such a surprising twist it can power an entire TV series for eight seasons. More darkly, I wonder if this presupposition might be the root of the Lucy Letby truther movement: perhaps these people just cannot believe that a trained nurse could be this spectacularly vicious. I was once speaking to a former veterinarian who complained that, whenever she reads a novel in which a character is a veterinarian, it's always used a shorthand for that character being of good moral character: "aww, look at him, he cares about teh animals!!" But in her experience, most vets are dickheads.