professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
No bio...
User ID: 1157
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
5d ago
The entire comment is incoherent, which could easily be from a weak writer, but feels suspiciously like copypasta from ai here.
Yeah, it's got the elements of a comment that could make sense, but doesn't really cohere and has a few significant signals. I'm not opposed to someone touching up with AI or using it for a bit of analytical assistance, but this particular one doesn't really pass muster.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
5d ago
Privilege, in the woke sense?
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
5d ago
Americans have a tendency to be provincial at the best of times, but drawing a meaningful distinction on topics like speech and social media? And there are times the UK is still beholden to various agreements like the ECHR- it's not like the UK is radically disconnected from the EU, especially to an outsider, regardless of their "traditions."
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
5d ago
For example, did you know that neither Scotland nor the UK are actually in the EU?
If anything the UK is considerably worse on speech than the EU, though yes in ways distinct from OP's conversation-starter with the EU-levied fine. The UK is still under the ECHR and probably another half-dozen or so overlapping agreements besides.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
5d ago
The reactions aren't principled—they’re distasteful.
Hmm.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
6d ago
who wants to wax their chest
That does sound quite unpleasant!
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
6d ago
They'll ask "How did you discover all this"
One assumes something obvious like an interview question along the lines of "what's with this ten-year gap in your resume" or "oh, you were an actress, did you star in anything popular?"
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
6d ago
Our culture is extremely sexually immoral
Bonnie is in the UK, where the particular forms of extreme sexual immorality take quite a different form, as does the prudishness. Do you think the government would take her side if she tried to become a nurse or teacher and a customer or parent complained?
There's probably any number of roughly-anonymous, behind-the-scenes type jobs she could take if need be, but I am skeptical she would have much success finding a public-facing, non-porn-adjacent job.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
12d ago
I'm not really sure it is.
Ehh... it's hard to avoid that conclusion, I think, given the options and statistics in other countries. Having a kid with Downs, and especially making it "a thing" on social media, is a statement.
Like, yeah, pro-choice people aren't going to Hitler-rant about final solutions or anything, but they might offer termination 15 times or make some... less than carefully worded comments about just how late you can abort a kid with deformities.
Or at least I think the pro-choice advocacy position here is that they too wish they could push a button to make them all better.
I'm not entirely sure they do, given certain progressive opinions regarding disability (the Deaf community and people being opposed to cures for autism come to mind), but that's a weird side effect of big-tent progressivism.
Alternatively, they do have a button they can push, but that's an Anakin/Padme meme.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
12d ago
This seems to be a pretty good review paper on the topic, and the average is somewhere upwards of 2/3 of prenatal Down's diagnoses end in abortion, but the range varies by location and time.
One interesting tidbit is that the rate was going down pre-Dobbs:
This hospital-based study from the University of South Carolina found that termination rates decreased from 78.6% (22 of 28) in 1972–1996 to 33.3% (3 of 9) in 1997–2000. Many of the remaining studies had overlapping study periods and clinical and geographic heterogeneity that precluded evaluation of temporal trends. However, the three population-based California studies, which presented data on mutually exclusive populations from different time periods, demonstrated a statistically significant decrease in termination rates over time, from 88.3% (1989–1991) to 72.2% (1995–2000) to 61.4% (2005–2007) (χ2 test for trend = 37.196, df = 2, p < 0.0001).
I'm curious about the causality there and any complicating factors to the analysis.
Iceland's rate is famously close to 100%, and The Beeb suggests the British rate is around 90%.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
12d ago
The study is at best extremely poorly designed, but generated a convenient image that feels true regarding the actual nature of liberal emotivism rather than what liberals claim about their cares.
where the participants were simply asked to click on the rung that includes everything they care about.
Not just rung! Despite being, in theory, cohesive layers, people only clicked near the numbers.
Why is there no circle numbered 0 and labeled "myself only"?
The people that designed the study were idiots.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
12d ago
the Post's reporting is that the order was to kill everybody
The Post's reporting is that an unnamed source claims the order was to kill everybody. If we're going to nitpick, do it right.
On one hand, Hegseth was picked because he looks like a made for TV movie secdef, not for competence. On the other I trust the average journalist less far than I could throw them. I find it believable that he said something that stupid but I'm not going out of my way to trust unnamed sources in a biased context, either.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
18d ago
Not really, and IMO the old-guard movement is a shell of itself. I certainly wouldn't count any of Scott's other commentariat-zones as 'rationalist,' either.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
18d ago
stated reason is that the state failed to prove that defendant actually drove the vehicle.
It's kind of amazing police don't go postal on judges more often.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
18d ago
I was able to get at the judge’s order by following these instructions.
Irritating. When they said the attorney reviewed it for them I assumed it wasn't a (complicated but possible to obtain) public document.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
18d ago
Except a 55 page order that outlines the facts of the case in excruciating detail, accompanied by the relevant analysis.
Local news sites tend to be better about actually linking useful stuff but it's such a pain in the bahonkus to get to the actual case, maybe that's why they chose laziness instead.
The brother was managing the business and hired a consultant who produced documents that were submitted to Medicaid showing inflated hours for legitimate clients as well as hours billed to fictitious clients.
Having a sibling or two is a great way to avoid court, if you're a little bit clever.
I'm familiar with a case of identical triplets that, when one was called to court, a different one would go, be all "no that was my brother you've got the wrong guy," then the case would be dismissed/delayed/etc. IIRC they got to the point of doing fingerprint verifications as they entered the court to ensure they actually had the correct brother.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
19d ago
Yes, his texts would have gotten him banned on the Motte.
I should probably be glad we have higher standards than the Virginia electorate, but mostly it makes me disappointed in humanity.
Well, you can say you hate him
A nice consolation prize.
no, you can't openly wish death on him
Cheering after the fact should tragedy occur to such an innocent and praiseworthy individual, a la Kirk and approximately every internet forum to the left of The Motte?
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
19d ago
On the "judges get to do what they want, actual justice gets to suck it" front and related to the thread you dislike below, a Hennepin County judge overturned a jury's verdict in one of the Somali fraud cases. The judge doesn't seem to have released any information beyond the overturn and acquittal, here's news agency commentary:
Defense attorney Joe Tamburino, who is not affiliated with the case, reviewed the decision and analyzed it for KARE 11 News. He says Judge West ruled that the state's case "relied heavily on circumstantial evidence," and that she believed the state didn't rule out other "reasonable inferences."
To my non-lawyery ear this sounds a lot like "vibes" and the jury should've known better nudge nudge wink wink.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
20d ago
crocodile tears
I was aware this term existed but I've seen it several times the last couple days. Frequency illusion or did a software update go out about how to discuss these things?
at least unless you're willing to have an equal amount of concern when rich white people do it.
Okay, I'll bite that bullet and say all fraud is bad, and everyone involved should have the book thrown at them.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
20d ago
deal with this flavor of criticism
Would that flavor be "doesn't trust the NY Post" (fair, ish) or "thinks all immigrants are fully above reproach" (the Tim Walz special)?
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
20d ago
The surprising thing, looking into it, is that this seems to have been a bit of an open secret?
This article doesn't bring it up specifically, but it's been speculated the incredible increase in autism centers, and support costs is also related to Somali-organized fraud.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
25d ago
Isn't the point of disparate impact that it's an end-run around needing evidence of explicit discrimination?
"we'll charge him more because he's white" is explicit discrimination.
"We'll charge him more because he has good insurance, which is statistically correlated with whiteness" is disparate impact.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
1mo ago
Everyone here (minus the lizardman constant) thinks vaccines work.
I find OP somewhat frustrating for those motte/bailey/tea leaf reasons, but the CDC had to change their definition of vaccine because the COVID vaccine turned out so mediocre.
I think this was more due to the arrogance of the average public health agent combined with a heaping serving of sunk cost fallacy than some planned maliciousness, but it wasn't exactly encouraging as a development.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
1mo ago
In the real world, the mental health services do not work like that
Trans issues are a strange exception to all sorts of the usual bureaucracy/hangups/etc. One visit, 45 minutes-hour max, possibly even a virtual consult to get HRT through planned parenthood. Then there's the whole sports debacle, bathrooms, pronouns have kind of faded but they were fireable offense for many years, 'cotton ceiling' discourse... et cetera.
Most mental health services do not work like that. Western societies made an exception for one subset and nobody seems to know why.
edit
redhead
good taste
I got tired of his nonsense making the rounds and muted his account on twitter, but I suspect that even if he's sincere, he seemed pretty good at toeing the line of not kicking the wrong way. Which is kind of... darkly amusing that bestiality is acceptable edgelordism in a way that, say, crime stats aren't, but so goes culture!
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