CharonY

Well, it is not just trolling, it is just a repetition and expansion of his racist actions during his first presidency. There were many stories of how ICE targeted POC and disrupted communities which was not limited to undocumented folks. There was a wave of outrage and apparently everyone forgot again. So now they do it, but even more uninhibited. Hospitals again are targeted which is going to be huge problem for public health and just a few days in, there is already a report that they detained a Puerto Rican veteran. And we are not even a week in. Meanwhile the racists and fascists will bank on the fact that most folks are tired of it and just let them reign freely.

The only form of intelligence they like, it seems. Pedantically I would add that even with female traits, at this point gametes are not formed (oogenesis starts around week 7, IIRC), hence the sexless comment. But obviously that is not really the point and I suspect we are doing that because we do not want to think too hard about of the ramifications of the order. I wonder what some of my US colleagues who regrettably are Trump voters think now. (I know what the others think).

I don't think that is happening. The whole movement has cult-like aspects and they happily adjust reality (remember in 1984 where they switched which faction they were forever at war with?) to fit their narrative. Recently, a Jan 6 convict tried to decline the Presidential pardon said: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/22/us/politics/pamela-hemphill-trump-jan-6-pardon-rejection.html?smid=url-share While it is great that some folks regained their perspective, for many more it will remain out of reach. Critical thinking skills are on a massive decline (for a variety of reason) and it just help perpetuating fantasy parallel to reality. Regarding the pet story a poll (https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/documents/Reactions_to_Harris_Trump_Debate_poll_results.pdf#page=6) showed that among folks intending to vote for Trump 52% (22; 30) said that Haitian are definitely or probably eating their dogs. 20% think it is probably false, only 5% state it is definitely false. Interestingly, support for this statement is highest in the mid-income brackets (50-100k- 30% def/prob true) but it seems it is because in the lower brackets (24%) there are more non-white folks (white folks are more likely to think it is true). In the higher income brackets (21%) the rate might be related to educational levels, but they have not asked that, I think.

JohnDBarrow has been asked to leave for consistent use of bad faith arguments.

A very short answer is this: DEI split the American community because it challenged a system that heavily favoured white men.

Excuse me, kid? Are you purposefully obtuse? He was 50 when he assaulted Carroll, and around 60 when he confessed that he would randomly assault women. So as long as he hasn't been convicted to assault women in the, oh last 4-8 years, he clearly is not a misogynist? We expect discussions to be had in good faith, and this is pretty strong evidence that this is not happening here.

Well, various agencies also urge federal workers to snitch on co-workers if they try to evade the DEI (and other language) crackdown. Free speech indeed. Folks who got into a hissy fit by false assuming that accidentally misgendering folks could lead to termination or even prison, now want to punish people who are not misgendering folks the way they want to. Shows that all of it was just projection.

He does not care for Hispanic people, even if they vote for him. Remember how he tried to deny help to Puerto Rico following a hurricane or his insults before the election.

Look, if at this point you do not know that he has sexually assaulted folks (with one civil conviction verifying that) and his loooong history of misconduct and other issues you have some serious reading to do (or listening, in case of the bus tape). To be able to ask meaningful questions one needs at least a minimum of a baseline to formulate questions from. If none of the mentioned things rings any bells, consider yourself lucky and you might as well stop your inquiry as apparently you live in a magical place where media does not reach you.

One probably should add "male" in there somewhere (despite the fact that by executive order they don't exist anymore, either).

And that is why there were "past seasons".

I should add that among some colleagues there is a bit light-hearted discussion whether my reasoning (i.e. we are sexless) is more accurate or whether we are actually all female because we are all following the female gonadal build until week 6-ish. The more worrying discussion is what the health agencies (research and medical) are going to do now. And folks in the particular vulnerable space are afraid, as even they did not expect such an aggressive move early on.

Or, we have algorithms neatly dividing us up so that we can never gain critical mass. I should also have added in OP that this is yet another attempt to abuse science to get to a predefined conclusion. It is just blatantly obvious due to how haphazard it is. Like written by a first year computer science student hearing about gametes the first time (and potentially "female") but failing to recall how it is spelled. Like me, typing on a tablet.

What if the problem turns out that we are just too dumb?

I wonder what the consequences would be. In a reasonable world, the courts should block much of these effects, but given the current situation I would not be too certain (but also have no real insights).

I can sympathize. Fundamentally, a proper court procedure is not bad in principle. After all, there is quite some time dedicated to establish definitions and facts. Given the nature of public discourse, courts may be one of the few places where at least mechanistically facts still matter. I remember the lawsuits involving Behe, and while I am still bristling at the involvement of courts to establish scientific facts, it was actually helpful for public discourse to have put claims to the test.

I hope so. Generally speaking, I found that parts of the Europe are doing better than the US on the university level, though there is a slide, for many reasons, but one of them is social media. The interesting bit is that surveys are showing that about half of GenZ do think that social media are detrimental for them, at the same time they have a hard time giving them up. In that regard your son is clearly far more insightful than a big segment of his peers. And somewhat incidentally, I found that students who had strict limitations on electronics and social media use, significantly outperform their peers. I suppose we'll see where things go eventually.

We already had some discussions on this topic, but now the White House has decided to put their own definition of sex (they basically abolished gender- no, really). This is a feeble attempt to provide themselves with some pseudo-scientific credentials. The definition are as follows: Now, there is a biological definition that defines the different sexes as producing large or small gametes in anisogamous species. However (and as discussed earlier), that in various species the assignment can change. I.e. some fish start off by producing large gametes and produce small ones later in life. In other cases individuals do not produce either at some point in their life. There are also rare instances where individuals can produce both, despite the fact that vast majority of the species doesn't. I thin the authors are at least somewhat cognizant of the issue and decided to put the "at conception" part in to arrive at the desired binary classification. Yet, that itself leads to a circular argument as at conception obviously there is no production of gametes and only later in life can you see what actually is being produced (if at all). I will also just quickly touch on an argument that folks have made in previous discussions (and I hope my memory is not too off). The argument is essentially based on a distinction between normal and abnormal. I.e. the assumption that there is a rule in biology resulting always in two sexes and therefore any exception to this are abnormal. The issue here is of course that nature has not concept of normalcy, what exists exist. They may or may not contribute to the next generation, but it does not erase their existence and their biological activities. Also it simply classifies the majority as the norm, which is a very democratic way of thinking about things, but not one rooted in natural concepts or laws. After all, nature has a lot of different reproductive strategies and when new ones arose they were "abnormal" for a time. Such is the nature of mutations. So to sum up a bit the biological side: you can make a binary definition based on gamete size, which ultimately would result in a small-ish group falling in these categories. Which is fine for a definition, but not in a policy that is supposed to include the whole population and highlights the difference of biological classification schemes on the species level, vs fine classification of the whole population. That all being said, while it seems like a bit superfluous, the executive order forces all agencies to use their definition, which would likely include the NIH. If one would take it literally, it could result in an impossible task (i.e. figuring gamete size at conception). And would certainly make policy unworkable. In the most precise way we would all be sexless as we produce no gametes at conception, for example. My guess is that this is likely going to be challenged in court, but considering the state of the American judiciary, it is utterly unclear what the ramification could be. One the one hand it looks a bit like a culture war thing that is a distraction. At the same time, I can imagine that the actual consequences could be rather dire for individuals. Any thoughts on that matter?

I am not sure. I deal with a lot of young, theoretically well-educated people. Of course there is a mix, but overall the trend I am seeing doesn't make me feel very optimistic. I suspect there will be an equilibrium of sorts at some point and we might have a better idea about what is going on. But right now things are not moving where I thought (and would have liked) them to. I think, I am getting somewhat disillusioned about the powers of education, as we clearly see mechanisms diminishing them. Ultimately, it will be responsibility of parents to control the media diet of their kids and foster things like curiosity and build a foundation for critical thinking that we can fortify and expand in university. But again, right now it seems were are implementing all the mechanisms to prevent just that.

There is a win-win-win for the techbros here. They essentially make money from all the outrage and radicalization, they make folks dependent on a service that is not actually critical, but now people cannot live without them and they get to use their tools to manipulate the masses. That is why I am very skeptical of narratives painting social media as a tool of progress. The idea that Americans are a bit ignorant even of their own history (and with no recognition of countries beyond those they invaded) is a bit of a narrative that has been circulating in Europe for quite a while. But I think it was not seen as some malicious but more of a mix of arrogance and lack of certain types of education (you know, the "uncultured" American trope). However, I think technology has facilitated revisionism on a grand scale. The AfD is such an example in Germany, in the US they are actively dismantling progress made over the last decades and are trying to push and mandate alternative realities. It is a bit like techbro version of 1984 meets consumerism of brave new world, met with lethargy of Wall-E (just without the empathy).

There is no space for satire in this world anymore. https://www.reuters.com/technology/trumps-new-crypto-token-jumps-ahead-his-inauguration-2025-01-20/

I don't think so. From what I have read, it is more likely that folks did not like an dopamine echo chamber that is not somehow under US control (or at least under control from allies). Meta, Twitter etc. doing pretty much the same things is mighty fine. Plus TFG has proposed to reverse the ban. There is also the same rabbithole of radicalization within TikTok, perhaps even faster due to nature of the platform. Unlearning the past, perhaps?

Why do you come here to spread misinformation? Do yo think we'll forget what we see with our own eyes just because enough dum dums are repeating that? Next you are going to say that leaving the WHO is great because that way no one ever died in the US during the COVID-19 as well as all future pandemics.

My point is that kids are being educated how Nazis came to power, the dangers of fascism and highlighting that safeguards are necessary. Plus Germany had demonstrated that otherwise reasonable people (or at least not less reasonable than folks elsewhere), can communally cause something like the holocaust. And despite all that, the lessons have been erased in big swaths of the population as if these lessons never existed. It wasn't a huge concerted effort required to erase multiple generations of learning. And all they needed was twitter and some stupid memes.

Honestly, I thought that the US was always a bit vulnerable in that regard. There is a sense of always being on the right side of history (despite potential evidence to the contrary) and talking to folks on the topic I frequently got the sense that many consider Nazis and fascism a bit of moral failure of folks with little consideration why they got into power. But since they fought it, they are automatically immune. Contrast that with what school kids in Germany learned about the grandparents and great-grandparents. It tells a much more nuanced story about about the dangers of fascism and that it can literally rise everywhere. As such, I am much more disturbed by the fact that a Nazi-allied party is on the rise in Germany, which suggests that contrary to what I believed for a long while, education is insufficient protection.