FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
User ID: 1175
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
3hr ago
Yeah. I wish Howe had gotten it right the first time, but the cat's out of the bag now. Strategically, I think anti-immigration activists would be better off emphasising that there were thousands of victims and that the police knew about it but sat on their hands, but avoid mentioning the specific number of victims the report claims if they can help it.
You've been fed cherry-picked information about sex reassignment surgery. Many people are, in fact, happy about their surgeries. See /r/Transgender_Surgeries.
Firstly, I think it's profoundly condescending to tell someone they've been "fed" cherry-picked stories, dumb sheeple that they are. Secondly, @Shakes wasn't passing a value judgement on the efficacy of bottom surgery: the part of his comment that you quoted is literally just an (accurate) description of what a vaginoplasty entails. Thirdly, it's rather hypocritical of you to accuse someone of having fallen for cherry-picked stories that portray bottom surgery negatively, then link to a subreddit that selects for people who are happy with their surgeries while excluding detransitioners (or, more sadly, people who took their own lives after undergoing bottom surgery). Fight cherry-picking with studies and meta-analyses, not cherry-picking in the opposite direction.
What objective metric do you propose to measure whether or not someone is better off other than asking them if they feel better?
This proves too much. Heroin addicts claim to feel better when they use heroin. (I don't even disbelieve them – I'm sure they do feel happier in the short-term.) The fact that gender reassignment surgeries open their recipients up to a host of health problems they would not otherwise have had seems as good an "objective" metric as any other. As you more or less concede in the top-level comment, the question of whether surgical transition actually improves trans people's mental flourishing certainly seems to be an open one, and the point of medical studies is to give us hard data which will inform our decisions on whether it's a good idea for individual patients. If 90% of people diagnosed with gender dysphoria saw a durable uplift to their subjective well-being after undergoing surgical transition, it would be a no-brainer. 70%? Sure. 50%? Hmm – you might need to have a bit of a think about that one. 30%? Probably not until you've already tried several years of talk therapy. 10%? Only as a matter of last resort for those in such severe psychic distress that it's this or suicide.
If a person is considering undergoing a major elective medical procedure which will render it impossible for them to have children and opens them up to a host of medical problems they would not otherwise have had, we need robust data on the efficacy of that procedure in improving its recipients' subjective sense of well-being. Shrugging your shoulders and saying "well, some people feel better afterwards" is not good enough. (All of this goes double if you're expecting the taxpayer to foot the bill, as some trans activists demand.)
Personally, I support bodily autonomy for adults – but if one of my loved ones was considering surgically transitioning, I would do everything in my power to try to dissuade them. (In much the same way that I support the right of adults to practise polyamory or pursue careers in pornography or the entertainment industries, even though I know that the overwhelming majority of people who do so will see their subjective well-being take a hit as a result. If a close female friend of mine was considering starting an OnlyFans, I would support her right to do so, but I would also tell her that this is a decision she will almost certainly regret.)
and not some kind of new woke perversion to be fought
When convicted male rapists with intact genitalia are demanding to serve their sentences in the female estate and these demands are being granted – then yes, this is a woke perversion to be fought. It's pure historical revisionism to claim that gender-critical people started this fight and that "trans people just want to live their lives in peace".
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
4hr ago
13,000 victims over the course of several decades is a national outrage, and revolutions have started over less. But it's important to get our facts straight. If there was no good reason to believe the 250k figure was accurate, Howe should not have included it in his report.
On the one hand, it's true that people who enshrined differential treatment in law based on sex and ethnicity did not understand the genetic basis for the differences between groups, as legislation of this kind predated our modern understanding of genetics. On the other hand, they obviously had some kind of intuitive understanding of the psychological differences between men and women, or white people and black people, even if they didn't understand the mechanisms underpinning said differences. This results in a situation like that described by Joseph Henrich, where a proposed explanation for a phenomenon is factually wrong but nonetheless produces accurate and useful predictions. "Women tend to take a close interest in children for reasons of genetics and evolutionary psychology" is factually true; "women tend to take a close interest in children because God created them as a helpmeet for men" is factually false, and yet the latter explanation still produces useful predictions. If you were to ask a gender studies professor and an uneducated Catholic living in the sixteenth century which kinds of careers women would tend to pursue if there were no obstacles in their way, I'd hazard a guess that the latter would give you more accurate answers. Consider the "paradox" that more liberal and economically free nations tend to have more stratified sex ratios in STEM, childcare etc.: it's only a "paradox" if you accept the false premise that men and women are psychologically the same and want the same things, on average.
I don't buy the stock woke narrative that white males historically conspired to oppress women and people of colour out of sheer bloody-mindedness. People in the past didn't need Gregor Mendel to tell them that men and women tend to have innately different interests, temperaments and priorities: up untill about ten minutes ago, this was seen as so obvious as to hardly even be worth mentioning. (That's why I think woke efforts to bury journal articles which produce politically incorrect findings are both infuriating and futile: so many of these articles are just telling us what we already know. "Newsflash: across cultures, female children like playing with dolls while male children like playing with fire trucks, suggesting that sex differences are innate." Get out of town. Next you'll be telling me water is wet.) I don't think denying women the franchise was a morally good idea, but it was obviously a decision made on the back of lawmakers' intuitive understanding of the psychological differences between men and women, even if they didn't understand the mechanism that caused these differences. They didn't just do it out of spite.
It's-a mea culpa.
Last week there was some discussion of Rupert Lowe's report on Pakistani grooming gangs in the UK. I accepted the already infamous estimate of 250k victims uncritically, assuming that this number included all victims in the period 1970-2018. But according to this article, the report actually claims that the figure of 250k victims only includes those in the period 2000-18. The linked article tries to come up with a more accurate estimate of the total number of victims.
I was wrong to accept that specific claim at face value, and wrong to disagree with people who were suspicious of it. I think the real figure might be an order of magnitude lower – still a national outrage, mind you, and a far greater scandal than the clerical abuse scandals of the 2000s.
She was Indian. To the best of my knowledge she never had an eating disorder, nor was particularly sporty.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
12hr ago
The original note was worded more clearly. I specifically mean a journal article which refused to use anatomical terms like "penis" and "vulva" and instead substituted childish euphemisms therefor.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
12hr ago
I've seen it claimed -- in complete seriousness -- that men are only stronger/better at sports due to training and nutrition from an early age.
I dated a girl who believed this.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
12hr ago
I saw a note on Substack that compared it to a medical journal publishing an article about sexually transmitted diseases but only referring to them as "diseases affecting the naughty bits". It's fundamentally unserious behaviour.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
12hr ago
Changing consumer habits could be here.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
18hr ago
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that the UK held an election for local authorities, in which Labour were soundly trounced, losing a whopping 1,375 seats. Almost immediately, Labour back-benchers began clamouring for incumbent prime minister Keir Starmer (he of "two-tier" fame) to resign.
This morning, he followed that recommendation.
Starmer is expected to be succeeded in the role by Andy Burnham, former minister for health under Gordon Brown. I was unfamiliar with him before this morning, but those more familiar with his political career are generally unimpressed:
As health minister, he was liked by officials but known to be indecisive and incurious about policy detail. He made party-pleasing noises about being anti-privatisation but essentially passed through without touching the sides. Once he became mayor of Manchester, he no longer had to even bother with that onerous stuff. On national issues he could make gestures in the politically expedient direction without having to square them with his record or his plans.
The result is that he can sound startlingly vacuous. We all know the remark about not wanting to be “in hock” to the bond markets, without seeming to understand what bond markets are or why we are in hock to them, but it was hardly an anomaly. He mouths the phrase “fiscal rules” without ever giving the impression that he knows what they are or why they matter. Here’s how he answered a question about the EU, during Labour’s conference last September:
Journalist: “Rejoin the EU or stay out?”
Andy Burnham: “I want to rejoin. I hope in my lifetime, I want to rejoin the European Union. I believe in the unions of all kinds. The union of the UK. The EU benefitted this country. Trade unions. People prosper more when they’re part of unions.”
I’m sorry to break the flow of my Flaubertian prose, but - fuck me. I believe in the unions of all kinds. It’s like something from an essay by a primary school pupil. That’s the extent of his thinking, on one of the most important geopolitical questions of the age?
Similarly, Spiked characterises him as "just Keir Starmer in jeans".
Get ready for the UK's sixth prime minister in a decade. I wonder if he'll stick around until the next general election. At least he'll last longer than Liz "Lettuce" Truss.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1d ago
About four-fifths of the way through Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
4d ago
Awful for his circadian rhythm and hence for his respiratory system.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
4d ago
Likewise "hundreds of thousands of Gazan children are going to starve to death in the next 48 hours!"
Bear in mind that the 250k figure includes victims from the 1970s up to the present. I'd be a lot more suspicious if it was e.g. 250k victims in the space of a year.
UPDATE: A closer reading suggests I was mistaken. Mea culpa.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
5d ago
New Year's resolution check-in:
- Went to the gym three times last week and again yesterday evening. Can deadlift 1.84x my bodyweight for 3 reps, squat 1.25x for 6 reps and bench press .87x for 6 reps.
- Have not consumed any pornography since waking up on January 1st.
How goes it @self_made_human, @thejdizzler, @birb_cromble, @ThomasdelVasto and @falling-star?
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
6d ago
Where I am at right now is israel is the single biggest external threat to the USA and my day to day life
How so?
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
6d ago
- Kvetching: complaining about something not because you want to change it but simply because you enjoy the act of complaining.
- Complaining on social media about bad behaviour in public. For every ten people complaining on Reddit about e.g. people playing music on Bluetooth speakers in public, there must be only one who actually confronts the person and asks them to turn their music off. When asked why they don't just ask the person to turn their music off, they will inevitably say something like "I shouldn't have to" or "I don't want to get stabbed" when the real answer is "I'm a coward who fears confrontation". Either ask the person to change their behaviour, or try to ignore it. Refusing to confront the offender but moaning about their behaviour on social media is pure seethe.
Definitely a big selection effect on both ends: it's humiliating to have been cheated on, and shameful to have cheated. I've never cheated in a serious adult relationship, nor (to the best of my knowledge) been cheated on in one. After racking my brains trying to think of people I know who've been through this, I came up with a few examples:
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A few years ago, I dated a woman for a couple of months. After initially giving vague explanations for how her previous relationship ended, she eventually confided in me that she'd moved in with her boyfriend of four years, only to wake up one morning to find him lying next to her having phone sex with another woman. This turned out to be the tip of the iceberg, and he'd essentially been unfaithful to her with various women for the entirety of the relationship. She admitted that, in retrospect, she ought to have trusted her gut.
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Several years ago, my cousin got cheated on by his girlfriend at the time, although I don't know any details beyond that.
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It seems it runs in the family: a couple of years ago, his mother (my aunt) discovered that her husband was having an "emotional affair" with another woman, whom he left her for. Sadly, this is my aunt's second divorce – she sure can pick em.
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A few years ago I had a friend who was an immigrant. He invited me on his stag party to a foreign country (not his home country) along with some friends from his home country, none of whom I'd ever met before. One of these friends was married, and he had sex with another woman during the stag. Admittedly, I know essentially nothing about this man: for all I know he has some kind of "arrangement" with his wife.
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About ten years ago I had sex with a woman who was working as an au pair, and whom I knew had a boyfriend in her home country. I know the fault isn't strictly with me, and I was far from the only person with whom she was unfaithful to him, though I'm still not proud of it. Do unto others and all that.
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I believe my uncle once mentioned having been unfaithful to an ex-boyfriend, although I can't remember the details (and, frankly, I get the impression these sorts of things are taken much less seriously in the gay community compared to the straight).
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I had a friend (who I'll call James) who was engaged to a woman (who I'll call Roberta). A significant period of time into their engagement (at least a year), I met up with James and he confided in me that he and Roberta had decided to open up their erstwhile exclusive monogamous relationship, at her suggestion. I asked him how he felt about this, and he said he was fine with it. I met him again less than a month later and he told me they'd called off the engagement. This is a marginal example: Roberta did ask him for permission before fucking someone else. It seems like an excellent example of what @cjet79 was talking about, that infidelity is the coward's way of initiating a breakup.
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A colleague of mine told me that his first marriage collapsed very shortly after it began when he discovered his wife had been unfaithful to him with multiple men. It was more than twenty years ago, and yet I can tell he's still bitter about it. I don't blame him.
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I had a close female friend who was in a relationship with a friend of my girlfriend at the time. But while she was never physically intimate with him, she had sex with multiple men behind his back. In retrospect the entire "relationship" was a bit of a joke.
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My sister was in a lengthy relationship with a man who left her for another woman, although I don't know if he was unfaithful to her before the relationship ended.
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A friend of mine has been in a relationship for many years, and one of his girlfriend's friends is a girl I knew from college. That girl's boyfriend has been unfaithful to her at least once, but she forgave him.
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My fiancée has a close female friend who is bi. She is still legally wed to a wife who, several years ago, was unfaithful to her with another woman.
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A few years ago, I dated a woman for about six weeks. She told me two-thirds of her ex-boyfriends had been unfaithful to her.
I'm sure there are others I've forgotten.
There must be at least two hundred people I've known in my life that I could plausibly imagine them confiding in me that they'd cheated or been cheated on. I can't imagine the combined rate of infidelity (cheating and being cheated on) is a mere 6.5%. I suspect some people aren't being entirely forthcoming.
I was amused today to learn that even Karl Marx's father thought Karl was a spoilt, entitled, ungrateful little shit:
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