domain:thezvi.wordpress.com
Supah_Schmendrick
10m ago
People do not universally experience the same relations in the same valence.
JulianRota
11m ago
Finished reading And The Band Played On. It didn't really change my views about anything, but it revealed a few aspects that I find interesting.
When I got to the last quarter or so of the book, it started to feel to me like it was an excessively negative or doomer take on the situation. Like, okay, things were pretty bad early on, but we're finally making some real progress, can't we acknowledge that? But nope, it's just negative takes, so we'll just blow by the actual progress and find some new negative aspect to focus on.
Were they correct to slow-walk the response at first? If you look at the actual death toll over the first few years after it was recognized that AIDS exists and is a communicable disease caused by a pathogen, it's pretty low. Only 618 deaths in 1982. 5596 in 1984. It wasn't until 1983 that somebody first calculated that the mean incubation period was likely to be in the neighborhood of 5.5 years, which would infact imply a tremendously increasing death toll over the next decade, which did in fact come to pass. And that of course is just one statician's opinion. How long for that to be accepted to be true by the whole scientific community? How many times has a single or small handful of scientists claimed that something they were working on would be super terrible in the future, so we should invest a ton in it now, which would incidentally be very good for them personally, but turned out to be overblown? I bet it's more than a few. Note that Covid-19, which we responded to far more vigorously, blew right by those early-1980s AIDS death counts in a matter of weeks. The fact that homosexuality was so broadly disliked didn't exactly help, but it doesn't seem super unreasonable that society as a whole didn't jump instantly to fight a disease that doesn't seem to hit all that many people.
It seems likely that a lot of the spreading took place long before there was any recognition that AIDS existed at all. This makes it pretty tough to construct an even vaguely plausibe counter-factual where AIDS is stopped from spreading.
The book seems to poo-poo the idea that it isn't necessary for the Federal Government to allocate extra money to AIDS research, these Federal medical institutes already have plenty of money and are already free to allocate as much of it as they want to anything their scientists find interesting. I think this idea seems pretty reasonable. If AIDS is so important and so dangerous, why can't they infact reallocate money away from other things and into AIDS research? Why does everything need even more of our tax dollars thrown at it? Yeah some scientists will bitch and moan that their pet projects are no longer high enough priority to get funded, but so what. As far as I know, the corporate world cuts off lines of research that aren't sufficiently promising all the time and tells the affected scientists to suck it up. I don't think it's all that terrible for the Government to do the same.
Another aspect that seemed interesting was just how wildly promiscuous at least some members of the gay community are and how opposed many of them are to any suggestion or attempt to cut down on that lifestyle. There was tremendous pushback against things like closing down bathhouses and discouraging gay orgies. It's interesting how all of the poor arguments we complain about today about how doing anything at all mildly negative for any "oppressed group" for any reason, including to try to prevent those people from spreading and dying of an actually lethal disease, is obviously a step on the road to genocide against them. I guess the internet isn't actually that special and there's nothing new under the sun.
Lizzardspawn
11m ago
Honestly I just want to see in what kind of circular firing squad Bluesky will eventually turn out to be. I do hope that X will have some competition, but not exactly bullish on that.
Zephyr
18m ago
I don't know where you can read more on it, but I can provide more evidence in that direction.
From my experiences, the Cluster B disorders tend to fall out (roughly) in this fashion.
Antisocial - male dominated (used to be called sociopathy). Tends towards anger as it's primary emotion. Borderline - female dominated (I've heard it called, derogatorily, "crazy bitch disease"). Tends towards fear of abandonment. Histrionic - slightly female biased. Doesn't get a lot of media attention (think of like, the mothers of child stars). Tends towards performative actions (my mother, who fell into this bucket, would run away from home every Christmas and make the whole family persuade her to return). Narcissistic - male biased. Extreme selfishness which is expressed as unending need.
Gaashk
20m ago
That does seem like an issue. In my own family, it seems like grandparents are getting too old to safely lift babies and toddlers right when I have them. We've had kids in late 20s/early 30s.
I find it useful to look into the actual laws and regulations when media sources seem vague like this. From what I could find, the relevant law is 20 U.S. Code § 9621, which establishes the National Assessment Governing Board. You might have better luck finding the documents you want on the the NAGB website.
Here is a PDF which gives a broad outline of NAGB policy. Here is a longer PDF with more detail (the "procedures manual").
RedRegard
25m ago
As the capitalist system develops it alters in character. Some of the current capitalist institutions suppressing birthrates I mean to refer to include: office labor being the norm, extremely high levels of consumerism and luxury being available, various cultural diminishments in the role of community and family in peoples' lives owing in part to automobiles, suburbanization, etc., obesity caused by processed foods and cheap low-nutrient foods, environmental contaminants, etc., government and corporate propaganda systems increasing the prestige of educational and economic attainment while denigrating 'traditional' lifestyle choices. All of these flow in some way from the role of capital both as a general incentive and as a recursive shaper of policy.
lecupra
26m ago
Here's the website for the PSSA which is a set of standardized tests used in Pennsylvania
When I was in school I recall taking them once in elementary school and once in middle school (I think, not 100% sure)? It looks like they've been expanded to be grades 3-8 now. If you scroll down to the "Resource Materials" section there's "Scoring Sampler" document that has testing procedures, grading methodology, sample questions. The "Technical Reports" include sections for the criteria in developing the test questions (which references other publications that were used to decide on the content) and the statistical analysis that was performed. The "Results" section goes back ten years if you're looking for trends.
gattsuru
28m ago
Noel Canning's punt will come back to haunt us: Congress must be in a recess of 'sufficient length' to be a real delay, not just the three-day break of Noel Canning... but while booting the conservative-lead requirement that such appointments be to fill a space that became vacant during the recess. So Congress has since gotten into the habit of pro-forma 'sessions' that did nothing but reset the clock, hence why October and August look like this.
In theory, the President has some powers to force Congress to adjourn, in Article II, Section 3:
"... he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper;... "
But afaik this has never been used, a strict read of the text would only allow it to apply where Congress was actively unable to agree on a date of end of session, and because there are no requirements for how Congress can choose to assemble (being having to meet on the first Monday in December) I don't think it would actually work otherwise.
In practice, if Trump tries for force recess appointments, it's extremely likely that the Senate fight further on everything else, so it's a costly decision to make to even try.
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
31m ago
That seems a broad question. There are CEOs who are merely occupying a chair and collecting the salary. It happens in just about any position. There are also people who work their butts off innovating and improving life for the whole country who are taking risks to do so. I wouldn’t begrudge the second set a thing, and furthermore I think being keen to confiscate wealth on the theory that the first type is more common than the second ends up doing great harm as it prevents the second group from working effectively.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
36m ago
So, what are you reading?
Still on Future Shock, Galactic Patrol, Crystallizing Public Opinion and 12 Commandments.
RedRegard
36m ago
No we wouldn't expect that to necessarily be the case, since it's possible for more than one economic system to suppress birthrates, and also Western capitalism was suppressed historically through greater levels of unionization and government regulation. But in any case, fertility rates in the Soviet period were in fact higher than the post-Soviet period. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia#Historical_fertility_rates
Crowstep
54m ago
The article makes it sound like that statistic clearly refutes the perception of the men, when in reality, it does nothing of that sort. Perhaps men are less likely to see themselves as victims of sex discrimination. Or perhaps the cases of discrimination men experience are more severe.
My understanding of Korean youth politics is that these men are probably referring mostly to the draft, which, let's remember, involves them being legally enslaved by the state for a couple of years. I can see why it might chafe for them to see young Korean women complaining about discrimination while the young men have to deal with a form of sex discrimination which is universal, legal and long-lasting.
Bartender_Venator
57m ago
Gossip on the Hill is that Republican Senators feel they can push back on one of Gaetz or RFK and get away with it (but not both). I suspect it'll be Gaetz.
Crowstep
58m ago
In Africa if you try to withhold sex from men in general, or especially your husband, you’ll just get raped
And yet looking online, Africa seems to be the only place where sex strikes have ever actually worked. I realise of course that their effects are probably overhyped by activists, but it seems to me like a sex strike is more likely to work in a sexually conservative culture without high speed internet.
Most men actually like their wives, and don't enjoy using violence against them. And it's not as if activists invented 'not having sex with your husband if you're upset with him'. I'm pretty sure women (and to a lesser extent, men) have been doing that since forever. The silent treatment or storming off in a huff are variations of this too.
Of course, 4B is obviously a cope, and I predict that approximately 0 women will actually act in a different way than they would have acted anyway.
AlexanderTurok
59m ago
I'd say he'll lose maybe 1/100. The people who were bothered by stuff like that left the Trump train long ago and numerically there are not many of them.
Gaashk
1hr ago
How are proficiency standards determined for K-12 education?
I've tried looking it up a couple of times, after seeing a lot of angst about how less than half of students are proficient in reading or math, and have only found super vague verbiage like "The achievement levels are based on collective judgments about what students should know and be able to do relative to the body of content reflected in each subject-area assessment." That is not helpful at all. I can look at grade level standards to see what they are, and practice tests to see what the state expects that to look like, but it kind of just sounds like some board of people (Department of Ed? State Level? NCLB Commission?) got together and thought about what they wanted, and now every child is measured about that, and every state is panicking all the time about how the actual children aren't living up to it.
But maybe the kids are actually doing very badly? My neighborhood school has less than 50% proficiency, and they're above median for the state. Should I be worried? Did kids do better at some point in the past? When? Are there non BS sources of information about it?
grognard
Intel Pentium III 450 / Nvidia Riva TNT2 Ultra / Corsair 128MB PC133 / ABIT BH6
1hr ago
I want to know if he can feasibly be forced in. Senate Republicans don’t seem keen on confirming him, and I hear there are some constitutional powers (should have written this down) Trump can leverage to force recess appointments - will he do it? Why didn’t he do it last time?
grognard
Intel Pentium III 450 / Nvidia Riva TNT2 Ultra / Corsair 128MB PC133 / ABIT BH6
1hr ago
I know the subversive ending to Conclave, so I will not watch it. How bad is Borgia (2011) on this CW front?
ABigGuy4U
1hr ago
The 90s and the 2000s were when the manufacturing started going overseas and the industrial Midwest began turning into the Rust Belt. It wasn’t quite the opioid ravaged hellscape you see now, but it was beginning to get creaky.
Crowstep
1hr ago
I don't think 'capitalism' is a particularly useful label here. We've had 'capitalism' since either the 1500s (the breakdown of manorialism) or the 1700s (the industrial revolution) but global birth rates only really started to decline in the 1900s, and even that was reversed temporarily by the baby boom in the 1950s and 60s.
The Amish are extremely 'capitalist' (in the sense of being extremely engaged with the market, owning businesses etc) and yet they manage to maintain high birth rates. You can see Russian birth rates collapse after the communist revolution. 'Capitalist' America has long had higher birth rates than comparatively less 'capitalist' Europe.
Now I'd certainly agree that global culture is antinatal, but referring to that culture as 'capitalist' obscures more than it hides.
Rosencrantz2
1hr ago
I would never say that a type of joke is "always" unfunny but if a joke has no twist or self-flatters the teller without much seeming awareness of the vanity involved (e.g. Maga thinking of itself as Gondor), it comes across as flat footed too me and lacks the element of unexpectedness I would need to enjoy it. It's not fake learned behaviour to no longer enjoy in general jokes about women being ugly, any more than it is fake learned behaviour to grow out of all kinds of one dimensional humour (mother in law jokes, dumb Irish jokes, etc). With exceptions for actually inventive jokes in those categories.
I think you can even switch those odds, it can be a hail marry, a 30% chance she turns it around. If you're a high end exec you're going to want to be heavily compensated for the risk that you're going to get fired and that possibly ending your career. "I'll try to patch up the Titanic but you're going to pay me enough that when it goes down I'm sitting on the life boat with a smile on my face."
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
1hr ago
I didn't read it as "inner peace", but neither did I take it as a call for violence. She's impotently wishing that bad things will happen to the ones she hates, not encouraging someone to go out and make those bad things happen.
There is a leftist school of thought that boils down to it being okay to harass SCOTUS judges and Trump officials while they're ordering burritos because they made "bad" decisions but I took this more as just general ranting too.
If one side hadn't equated speech with violence and thus demanded employers (like Disney) take action, maybe we wouldn't have to be so autistic about this stuff. If we want to include "context" then her comments are damning.
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