CharonY

How about bad news? Siena/Times poll finds Trump leading by 5 points with 10% not responding. They report that 10% of Biden voters swing to Trump. Interestingly, although the US has one of the best recoveries, folks indicate economic woes.

That is your interpretation. Here a couple of quotes in addition to the one provided above: But on its face it does seem to want to demand payments. Of course one could argue (and it has been done a lot, much to the detriment to public discourse) that of course he meant things differently than what he said. In isolation one might want give someone the benefit of doubt, but this guy has been freaking president of a country and all the stuff he said is on record. Together with shining UV light into your arse, it is not really that far off to believe that yes, he would like to see a billion dollar cheque.

The fall of the Roman empire is therefore a rather ambiguous term as you and MigL have pointed out. As a whole, the fall was a (very) slow decline first of the Western parts of the Roman empire but over a period of centuries. And even while the central power in the Western Roman empire waned, there was still cultural and structural influence over the region. It just never reclaimed anything approaching the influence it had. In these long periods of time there was a space for many, many things to happen and trying find a singular or even dominant cause is going to be mostly futile. There are a confluence of economic woes, cost and effective maintenance of military power, internal struggles and unrest, disease, and so on.

It is basically the "eat your salad" approach to infectious diseases.

The issue here is the the left-right axis assumption. As you rightly indicated, Putin clearly adores the authoritarian history of communism, yet not the ideologically defining part of collectivism and economic system. And this is essentially what folks criticize regarding the horseshoe model. If you simplify anything enough, it becomes easy to draw parallels between almost arbitrary points.

It has always been a mix, and there is indeed a bit of a clash with elitism. I.e. ordinary people in opposition to an elite establishment, as you mentioned. The issue is that there always has been a school of thought that governance needs to be based informed decisions (ideally evidence-based). Thus in a perfect world, the population would be mostly rational, well-informed and fight for their rights, which is a "good" form of populism. The other side, however, which arguably is more common, is that elites are directing populist sentiments, i.e. fostering fear regarding crime, economic woes, cultural changes etc. I understand that this is not easily resolved, but in my mind the fundamental difference is the presence of evidence or at least some level of analysis on given claims. While that might sound elitist (and to some degree it is), I will also note that populism thrives in a fact-free space and historically has led to rather problematic outcomes. It is not an issue of being corrupted, but an inherent weakness in the system. I am a bit skeptical regarding the horseshoe theory of politics. Mostly because of the simplification, I suppose. They are probably only similar for some traits, but rather heterogeneous in others. I.e. you can split extremists in many camps and trying to find a singular trait that organizes all of the in a particular way is difficult. And looking at sentiments, these will also be very different depending on the population. I would probably add that US cultural influence is dripping across the border and politicians are taking lessons. Not the good ones, unfortunately. It seems more like probing, but some provincial governments are or are enacting laws regarding transgender persons. Some of them are posturing (e.g. legislating procedures that are not done in the first place), or pandering to the parental rights movement that (AFAIK) has US origins. Then there were the US style convoy protests which some conservatives tried to leverage to gain points and so on. Crazy is contagious, I tell you (but then we now know that we cannot handle contagions).

Slogans over analysis has always been a problem in politics. It may have been supercharged by the way social media short-circuits memory, but it is interesting (and somewhat frightening) to see how superficial discussions go. Also it is weird that folks think that slogans are universal creating a very weird globalized perception of politics. I do think that to some degree that is strategic, as it helps populist sentiments by creating simple paths to become afraid.

A couple of thoughts here. There is vigorous debate regarding the power system in the world, and while the US is still a super power, but it is not clear whether we are still in a unipolar world. Many scholars have argued that we are either moving or already are in a multipolar world where international power is far more fractured. I understand that this is not the gist of your question, but I think is relevant context. It is also relevant to note that not only military is relevant, but increasingly access to critical resources, economic power and economic connections. Strong economic interdependency can be a powerful weapon, too, for example. A big issue in the statement is the level-headed democracy aspect. While the US has a special outspoken brand of crazy, Europe for example has similar questions, all connected to populism and mostly right-wing populism right now. In general, populistic streaks have always been a danger to democracies, as they promise easy and quick fixes to real or perceived grievances. However, as part of their anti-establishment appeal, they often popularize circumvention of procedure, frequently scapegoat vulnerable (especially non-voting) groups and are at least friendly with authoritarian ideas. We have seen how vulnerable populations are whenever something happens leading to arguably self-destructive behaviour (e.g. Brexit). Even worse, it does not really seem that negative consequences borne out of this sentiments are necessarily penalized. Even after the rather egregious attempt by the far right to dismantle democracy, the party still obtained the plurality of votes (but lost the majority). Some called it a win for democracy, but really it is more a near miss. Likewise, in Germany the far right party is likely to become second-strongest party and even after the meeting of some of their leadership with (other) self-confessed nazis, regarding the deportation of immigrants and other desirables (Wannsee, anyone), they are only dropping a little bit in polls (which should be unthinkable, given Germany's past). Anyway, the gist of it is that it is difficult to find an strong coalition of enough level-headed democracies, level-headedness goes out of the window the moment folks feel somewhat threatened (and I am almost certain that during uncertain economic times, folks will feel more threatened by e.g. immigrants than, say, Russia). But maybe I am just getting increasingly disillusioned.

No. Such a discovery would be contingent on vague definitions. And in Biology we do not prove things in the first place.

Well, you can and you would deservedly be mocked for having an idiotic idea. Either that or a career in politics.

Yeah and only adjusted for similar positions. In some of the lawsuits specifically the lack of advancement was criticized, so there is a bit of an open question that is not clearly addressed in that snippet. But yeah it is a perception isn't it? If if the balance is in favour of the dominant group, others have just to work harder to catch up. But if the balance does not do a hard break at parity, then the world is collapsing.

Even if not, a swing of 0.3-0.7 % looks like random noise to me. The only outrage here seems to be that the swing is not consistently toward the white male segment.

So the difference now is down to less than one percent, which is horrible why?

I fear the issue is that the norms have shifted so much, that removal of that particular guy might not change future trajectories.

I think it is in direct comparison to the more common brick houses in Europe. In comparison, the wood frames in North America do appear quite flimsy.

If you mean US politicians they are off the charts. But folks like Smith and Moe are trying to get there.

The issue is really that it does not seem to be really protected other than certain political realities. There was an understanding in the US that Roe vs Wade was settled law, for example. But it was built on somewhat uncertain legal grounds and you can see what happens with political maneuvering. While it might be political suicide in Canada right now, sentiments and political landscapes could change. I think there is a consensus that decisions should be kept out of courts and remain an issue of health care. That may make sense assuming that folks are sensible. However, in recent times, politics is starting to creep into health care. The issue is on many levels, including the replacement of provincial health care leadership with political figures who have implemented regulations and procedures which the actual providers call bonkers, to put it mildly. As the world seems to be infatuated with being stupid, I would therefore not take prior precedent as a given.

And not even that. The same folks are also against affordable pregnancy care. Pregnancy-related mortality is especially high in black women (but also generally in low income groups). If I am honest, I suspect that an exception will be carved out for IVF, as it generally a service for folks who can afford it.

Well, you are right that a few people will care. Some enough to make random posts on social media.

That is true. But some folks think it adds validity to their argument if they invoke science (in a poorly understood way) similarly as they would invoke god. You do not even need to go that far. Even overturning Roe v Wade, women were subject related to pregnancy loss. Many states have fetal harm laws, which presumably were intended to protect pregnant women. Studies found about 400 cases between the 70s and 2005 which increased to about 1400 just before the Dobbs ruling. Often times, these convictions were linked to substance abuse by the pregnant mother, though in cases that were investigated, there was often insufficient evidence to clearly link the abuse to loss of pregnancy. Perhaps unsurprisingly, low income folks who are generally at higher risk of miscarriages or other adverse health events anyway, were disproportionately affected, whereas healthy rich folks probably can enjoy their occasional Chianti without risking jail. Now, the mask is starting to fall off and women are charged even without the pretense of bad behavior. Just recently a woman was charged with abusing a corpse, because she miscarried the toilet. Heck, probably about half of pregnancies are unsuccessful, including cases where after fertilization the ovum is just lost without the person knowing they were pregnant. I.e. the only protection against prosecution based on such interpretation of law is really just obfuscation (i.e. having no evidence and knowledge of pregnancy). The first time they are tested positive, their options going forward narrows significantly. The way these laws are enforced make it very, very, very clear that protection of unborn children is not really on top of the agenda. Or middle. Or somewhere near.

Issue is that science as such does not play a big role. Or at least, it cannot solve the fundamental question underpinning the issue. We (humans) want to define things with clear delineation. Nature does not care much for that. And this opens up things for interpretation. Nature (and therefore science) does not define what people are so it is on society to decide on things. And as we see here, this particular interpretation is clearly morally and religiously motivated, with severe implications.

Well, considering the crises that he is managing (border to Mexico, Gaza, Ukraine etc) I think a gaffe is understandable. Not noticing it is a tad worse, but ar least in isolation, I wouldn't be particularly concerned. At least not in the current state if the world.

I think the main difference is that according to Trump, Biden should have called SEAL Team Six for assassination. None of this jail bullshit.

Generally, a normal peer review is prepared by an expert in the field. If one is not qualified to evaluate and improve the manuscript, the review should be ignored by the editor and they will need to look for a new reviewer and give them time to write a review. As many reviewers are very busy this adds to delays. In your shoes I would not like to waste my or anyone else's time.

If a subpar review is provided, it is mostly a waste of time and the authors need to wait longer for a decision, which can impact their careers.