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CharonY

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Everything posted by CharonY

  1. Assuming that is an issue and what is supposed to be discussed in this thread I feel that it would be necessary to talk about differences in their policies or other profiles after all. I do think, for example, that the historic stance of e.g. Booker and Harris to criminal justice and the way they think about it now is relevant.
  2. And this goes to the crux of the morality issue. It changes the moral system from the evaluation of individual actions to that of the nation/state. By doing such, it removes moral evaluation from the actors except for an agreed set of actions (i.e. war crimes). And from several perspectives that in itself is problematic as it creates a sphere where otherwise immoral actions are sanctioned.
  3. Typically the justification of war follows the opposite argumentation. It is not a derivative of the nature or actions of the individual but is based on the construct of nations that initiate war. The individual and its nature plays virtually no role. Obviously war is an organized venture that is far remote from the urge to kill. Once the fighting starts it may be different, but then the combatants are put in the situation by the system and not due to their own destructive urges.
  4. That goes toward the just war aspect of morality which partially argues that the end justify the means. That in itself is obviously a topic that intense debate. There are various frameworks that explore these questions and I doubt that one can make simple blanket statement either way. However, I do find the history of the just war doctrine quite interesting. The modern form is for the most part based on a consensus formed after WWII and is codified in part by the UN Charter and the Geneva Convention which cover both, justification for war and conduct in war as guiding principles. One key element, that can be traced back to the 17th century or so are switching the viewpoint or morality of actions from the individual to the states (or equivalent sovereign entities) with soldiers merely being instruments. However, there are challenges to this principle in modern times. One, is that the nature of war has changed. More and more there are not formal challenges between countries, but e.g. between regular and guerilla forces. So the traditional state centric justification suddenly falls apart. Some would argue that individual actions (e.g. of terrorists) are those who kill and are killed and that they should receive the blame for their participation. But as you can see, it would change moral responsibility also for regular armies quite a bit. There is also the issue between moral absolutism and relativism (i.e. what can be considered a greater good?). And what the limits are (e.g. is it alright to kill everyone in opposition in exchange for peace?).
  5. There are. This is a simplified illustration to show where the lightbeams converge (or don't).
  6. There are a lot of elements to it. One is that the responsibility and accountability for murdering someone is removed from the actors. Individually, killing is usually considered a taboo and a moral failure on some level. However, war creates a situation the morality is removed from the taboo. Creating a system that removes accountability and morality from an immoral act could be considered immoral in itself.
  7. One quick tip for these assays, often you can save a bit of time if you multiplex at the beginning to pick out suitable candidates. May not work if the compounds have cross-reactivity, though.
  8. Well, most of these assays are reporter-based.
  9. Not sure what you are asking. Are do you want a way to measure inhibition or one that allows you to identify the inhibiting compound from a mixture. The latter is difficult and I guess not what you are asking. For the former typically a luminescence (or fluorescence) reporter is often used coupled to a Notch pathway responsive reporter. Though technically you could also just conduct qPCR on responsive genes, but for the number of compounds it may not be the most efficient approach.
  10. A couple of other points, urine itself is fairly low in bacteria (in the absence of an infection). For a while it was assumed to be sterile, as it was not possible to cultivate bacteria from urine samples. However, it turns out that it does have a low uncultivable bacterial population. But as others said, routine hygiene is more than enough and excessive can be harmful. It is probably more important to wash hands when touching objects that are handled by many people during flu season.
  11. Switching gears a bit, there is an interesting article outlining an analysis of proposed anti-poverty measures by Democratic candidates. From there, it seems that policies targeting housing assistance are some of the most effective means.
  12. That in itself is an interesting question. The two most common abused substances in vulnerable populations are alcohol and cannabis and it is more common in men than in women. There are a variety of hypotheses, but in the case of self-medication it appears that for folks suffering from depressive symptoms cannabis offers a short-term relief effect via the dopaminergic system. The issue is that long-term it leads to more issues.
  13. It is quite unclear. The issue is that folks with psychological issues also have the tendency to consume drugs. So it is a bit of the chicken or egg problem. With regard to alcohol, there does not seem to be good correlation between genetic markers and overall morbidity (i.e. it is unclear whether there are folks more resistant to adverse health effects). There may be a genetic component to addiction (but they are only based on association studies and need more work). But even there, behavioural markers (e.g. how much alcohol is consumed) seemed to be more predictive than the genetic ones.
  14. Fair enough. The way you phrased seemed to make a strong distinction between cannabis and alcohol. There is actually an interesting body of research looking into the interface between alcohol, cannabis, psychoses and suicide risk. The data is tricky as there is strong correlation between these elements (i.e. folks suffering from psychoses often also drink and/or consume weed) and it is unclear whether there is a mechanistic link. However generally weed and alcohol seem to either correlate rather strongly with psychotic bouts or they may a factor increasing its risk. That being said, it does sound like an accidental overdose, although it is more common with oral consumption or in combination with other drugs (such as alcohol). The good think is that for the most part recovery is fairly swift and does not carry the risk as e.g. passing out from alcohol (unless, of course both were consumed).
  15. Yes, though the schizophrenia link is a bit uncertain, there is probably a better correlation with psychoses. That being said, all the negatives are also applicable to alcohol. It is also a psychoactive substance, has more dangerous intoxication effects, is more addictive and there is a stronger association with long-term alcohol consume with morbidity than with cannabis. This is not to say that the latter is entirely harmless. However, it does mean that you underestimate the dangers of alcohol (most likely due to familiarity) if you do not consider it a drug. Forgot to add (and perhaps it is a bit nitpicky, but...), cannabis is not considered a hallucinogen. Under controlled settings only purified THC at high concentration were able to elicit something that was similar to hallucinations, but brain activity was different from what one would normally consider hallucinogens (such as the mentioned LSD). I.e. under regular doses hallucinations are not typical and whatever happens at higher dosages is quite different from the effects of psychodelic drugs.
  16. Which is interesting as alcohol is generally speaking a more dangerous drug, in terms of adverse effects.
  17. Specifically regarding the tax cut, what you would like to see is not a continuation of growth but a bump due to the stimulus. Using various measures there seems to be a only a very short-lived effect if at all, as mentioned above. Taking of averages of GDP growth over long periods is problematic as they fluctuate a lot. The economic downturn at the beginning of Obama's presidency, for example. Trump's office has used quarterly gains (the highest reported ones being 4.2 in the second quarter 2018), but under Obama there were higher gains (up to 5.1) throughout his presidency. Toward 2015 there was a bit of decline, especially during the election year but under Trump it still has not reached the highest levels of the years under Obama. One interesting measure, especially for fiscal conservatives is the ratio between GDP and deficit. The highest levels were obviously during the recession, where the stimulus was passed (9.9%), which was reduced to ~2.1 in 2015. Since then it has been climbing up to ~3.9, which indicates that while the economy is doing well, folks are outspending the benefits. Or put it differently, the tax cut and other measures did not improve the economy more than they cost and thus yielding no net benefits. The rest is not really worth responding to, as it is far in the "not even wrong category".
  18. I think one of the more concise descriptions is that it is essentially a stimulus at the wrong time. Since the economy was already going strong, beneficial effects would mostly evaporate in the growing economy with little to no sustained effects. Meanwhile I have not seen a good case for it being worth the increased debt. Some of the negative aspects as outlined by the Brookings institute include raised health care premiums and reduced insurance coverage.
  19. (Mostly) regardless of intelligence, behavioral changes can predate genetic ones. Of course, some may be overspecialized, and fail to adapt, but other would switch to other available resources.
  20. Equilibrium is also highly dependent on resource flow. The question really is how the situation looks like in a changing ecosystem as well as the size of it, for example. Filling niches does not necessary balance the resource allocation. It can also lead to accelerated loss instead. While that is not my field, I would imagine that to be the more common effect as most systems are not in perfect equilibrium to begin with.
  21. That would depend a lot on what you would consider to be intelligent. However, adapting to a changing ecosystem does not inherently stabilize it. Alternative resource use could very well accelerate destabilizing, for example. Also it is not necessary intelligence that allows a species to adapt, it depends on a lot of factors including how specialized they are in resource use.
  22. Well, simply put the common antigens recognized in bacteria as well as viruses have a high variation, no doubt to some extent due to the selective pressure exerted by immune responses. As for reading, some textbooks on bacterial cell hulls are probably a good start. I would recommend looking at the diversity of LPS structure and specifically the O-antigen as a model for what you are thinking about (and why it is unlikely to work).
  23. CharonY

    Gluten

    In addition to what others mentioned regarding polyQ diseases are, issues with gluten involve inflammation responses. Those are not universal as only a subpopulation has issues with it as John said. I.e. there is no compelling evidence that gluten are harmful to most, but we got evidence why it is a bad idea to get health info from random sources.
  24. CharonY

    Gluten

    I really hope that the intention of this post is to show how easily you get wrong information in random internet boards.
  25. I do think you are right. While external interference may had an additive effect, it really just played the already existing sentiment. While there is a margin now preferring to stay, even after all the chaos there is no true reversal. Sure, considering that the referendum was so close it may have tipped the scales, but it is not that they brought a wholesale conversion of folks.
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