CharonY

I think the issue here is that it is a fairly one-dimensional view. There are many different reasons why folks are against abortion, and conversely, there are plenty of folks who acknowledge but disagree these notions and do not simply break it down to misogyny. Saying that all pro-choice folks think about it in terms of misogyny is a clear oversimplification and at best. I am not sure what that means, though. You oppose folks that oppose abortion because they oppose stem cell research? Wouldn't it better to be for or against these ethical problems not because what certain folks think about it or whether they are hypocritical about it, but rather think about the issue based on, well the issues themselves? Like in case of abortion the right of the unborn vs that of the mother? Doesn't basing ones own value system based on whether you like what or how someone thinks about something seem a bit backwards?

Well, they have to take it into account for sure. But it is unclear to me whether weighing folks would help their business model. OldChemE has mentioned some aspects. Also if folks universally are getting heavier and obese folks are become the norm, then it might be that everyone just gets charged more. Or if there a niche developing, some airlines might cater specifically to the heavy/light segment, but only if the market is worth it.

I think one can summarize a lot of these things with a few quotes the first couple of pages. Essentially we need to understand the biology of transitioning better and find a more nuanced view on sex vs performance. There may be some disciplines where advantages are maintained, in which case transgender athletes are better suited to perform in the high performance class, which will be dominated by folks born male, in others that won't be the case. Chris Mosier, a transgender men won national championships in race walking, for example. There are different solutions and scaling for that. Golf was mentioned were handicaps can be introduced. This does not mean that easy solutions exist nor that it is unnecessary to figure out a system where biological women are not (further) disadvantage in earning potential, for example.

They likely introduced it because so many folks were overweight. But it also does show that no one really looked at it and considered it to be worthwhile to pursue.

Actually I think I read of a small airline had tried it out, but I am not sure if they are still doing that. Edit: Found it: it was Samoa Air who did it in 2013 but it went out of business 2015. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samoa_Air

Marxism at its core is not a ruling system, but philosophy encompassing social, political and economic thoughts. There are also theories of histories embedded in it, which are mostly discarded in the more postmodernist intellectual system, where folks became highly skeptical of grand narratives of modernism (which includes for example Marx' historic view or simplification of class struggles and his predictions- something that seems to confuse Peterson as he likes to conflate those things). In its modern form it is has become more of a framework to look at social aspects, typically in a capitalist society. Neo-Marxism for example clearly state that the freedom of the individual is a a paramount political value and also acknowledges that capitalism provides these liberties of multiple levels. However, it also explores where limits of autonomy might arise e.g. due to inequalities. As such it does not tend more to totalitarianism as, say capitalism. That seems to disparage a whole swath of scholars without really any argument. Of course there are idiots in each profession including in humanities (take Peterson for example...https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/03/the-intellectual-we-deserve), but using those to disparage the whole discipline is a bit silly. It depends on precisely what you are mean. In terms of impact on health? If so, these two are not interchangeable while being somewhat connected. First in capitalist societies we will always have wealth disparity. It is just how the system works. Associated with that, we have found in pretty much any country, including those with socialized health system that there those with lower education and lower income are disadvantaged in terms of health measures including life expectancy. In Canada, Statscan has for example data that shows that this gap has increased over time (1996-2011). So this definitely has an impact. However, when we intersect it with race, things are complicated. There are several levels where it impacts the outcome. On the highest, we can simply talk about bad medical science. Here, there are racial assumptions (e.g. assumptions that there are racial differences in creatinine levels, which eventually resulted in specifically black folks being undertreated for renal issues). These are not necessarily malevolent, but because minorities are considered different, limited studies (or even without studies) the medical community is more ready to believe and treat folks differently and even ineffectively. A very prominent example of medical make-believe is sodium glutamate, which got an incredibly bad rep without any medical data. It was enough that it was a staple in Asian, but not in Western cooking. Then there are biases on the treatment level- medical professionals at least used to treat foreigners often pretty badly. In part because of communication issues, but in part also because of personal biases. Some example of such mistreatments could be forced or coerced sterilization, but there are also many other examples (even from my family). Moving on from there, there are also structural issues. Often folks of a given race live in similar regions, and there you might simply not have access to good care, even if it was free. Then there are issues with access to affordable and healthy food, transportation and so on. Another factor that has been identified is that of environmental racism- areas inhabited by low income minorities are more likely to be close to environmental hazards (in the US these include superfund sites) and poor access to clean water and similar issues. There are overlaps with certain under-serviced communities, but minorities are typically overrepresented. Then, we have the issue of lived experiences. Many minorities face some level of societal discrimination. It is similar to what e.g. a white person of low status might encounter, when predominantly interaction with folks of higher status. The difference is that this discrimination also happens among social peers. This is not only theoretical, but can actually be measured. Studies looking at health biomarkers of stress show that e.g. black folks with the same status as white folks have higher stress markers which are associated with a range of long-term health issues. Conversely at least theoretically (as studies in that regard are still lacking) minorities who grew up in a privileged environment and have control over where they go to (e.g. ex-pats vs working class immigrants) are likely to be better off. This complexity has resulted in more efforts to look into intersectionality of these parameters, but these are relatively new efforts (as historically such work was underfunded) and require quite a bit of effort to in order to get the data from sufficiently large cohorts. So on the question whether racial disparity can be fixed entirely by giving everyone money (which, is kind of funny, because fixing wealth inequality is some original Marxist thinking...) is a bit tricky. It will alleviate some aspects of it, certainly. But studies still show that many minorities (especially black and Hispanic folks) are still disadvantaged at equal wealth (and with African Americans specifically the difference is really big) so the other factors mentioned above (plus potentially more yet undiscovered ones) are likely going to factor in. And this is only when considering health outcomes (and not e.g. why there are racial wealth inequalities). Many things we only start to understand now. The historic (one could potentially say "modernist") way to look at it was to blame the minorities. There is something wrong with them, that is why their outcome is different. This has been a pervasive narrative for a long time. In the 90s for example maybe a few dozen articles were published looking at racial inequality and quite a few of those were either historic studies or argued that racial inequalities are tied to cognitive capabilities. Since maybe 2010 the number of studies have increased and diversified, providing counter-narratives. Only after that, funding became more accessible for this area of research, though quite a few reviewers were still disinterested examining cohorts who are not considered to be representative (aka white). Given the recency of this information, it is not very surprising that society is struggling to catch up with these new narratives and also that most folks might (on either side of the issue) do not fully understand it yet. We have ignored the issue and now we are just barely intellectually catching up.

The Second Amendment is has also not been clear on whether it actually protects the right of citizens to bear arms. While it has been upheld as such, the decisions were split:

Yes obviously the athletes should be part of the conversation, no doubt about that. That does include transgender athletes. And rather unfortunately quite a few of the laws and rulings do not include consultations with said athletes which, as you said, is patronizing. Note that discussions on this board are purely speculative as AFAIK no one here has ruling power for any sports. It should also add that there is also the issue that sometimes a women's league is desired as women have less support in certain sports due to certain performance assumptions (which we discussed in context of jockeys). That is not what was proposed, from what I can see. I think that (or some variation of it) seems to be what most advocating to integrate transgender athletes are basically proposing. I should add that the differences should not be sexual, but performance traits relevant for a given sports that are likely to be sex-associated.

Ok, that confirms that you indeed do not get follow the gist of the argument. I am trying one more time and then I suggest that we give up on that as it does not seem to go anywhere. The argument of segregation is based on the fact that boys at some point become stronger than girls. Agreed? From there it follows that there is a physiological difference, and let us just call it strength to make it simple. After all if there is a difference, we should be able to measure by whatever means (otherwise there would be no difference). So let's say at girls have an average strength of 5 going up to 7, whereas boys have an average of 8 going up to 10. So let's say individuals with a strength of 8 or above are too dangerous to put together with folks with, say, more than two levels of difference. So let's say then that we put a threshold of 8 for the higher league. As no woman might reach it, it will be only men. However, men who do not reach that threshold (and therefore would be at similar risk of injury as women), would also not qualify. Conversely, transgender and potentially some other rare women who cross that threshold would then compete in that league, which would minimize risk of injury.

In other words, if we split the league according to the factors you describe we will automatically segregate folks which will, for the most part, follow sex lines. So what is the issue with that then?

The CDC has published a report in which they estimated the prevalence of long-COVID. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7121e1.htm?s_cid=mm7121e1_w I know students that got diabetic and/or had complications after getting infected with SARS-CoV-2. It really does some nasty things with the immune system.

I think you are missing the core idea behind the suggestions. If we put in a set of metrics (just a random and likely bad example: lift strength at a given body mass) and use that to define leagues, then likely we will create a group that will almost entirely male. However, it would give an in for transgender athletes to be sorted due to their physiology (e.g. if after transition they maintain a stronger physique, they would qualify for that league, if their physique is much closer the the female average, they would qualify for the other). Again, it is not about finding criteria that would equalize female and male performance but about checking whether we can find criteria that correlate with performance and not entirely based on genitals. Moreover, if we can define those criteria specific to a sports, we may have also a better idea where mixed competition makes the most sense, rather than our gut feeling at what women are better at and what men are better at.

And the CDC is not allowed to study or track gun violence. I always found that defenders of the second amendment use arguments of fear to justify having guns on coffee tables within easy reach (including for toddlers and dogs). In fact, I found it astonishing how fearful in general the US population seems to be and how violent the response to perceived threats are, compared to many other countries (including Canada) When radical religious fanatics killed folks, trillions of dollars were spent to curb their influence (whether successful or not). But kids getting randomly murdered is apparently just the price folks have to pay (for what?).

I'd say there is a reason why he did not go beyond the point of a PhD candidate.

First of all you would need to define what you refer to. Peterson use it as a catch-all phrase of things he dislikes socially, so it is not particularly helpful. Marxism in the modern academic sense (I believe, it is not my field so I might get it wrong) incorporate some of thoughts of Marx, especially the issues of capitalism and its impact on society. It still rather influential and is one of the reasons why there are no purely capitalist systems without social components. I doubt that Peterson means that thought. If you refer to what many folks using that term mean is research and investigation of things we believe to be true without much evidence and potentially undermining deep-held beliefs. You know, science. Unless you refer to what students are doing. This is called being young.

Peterson is a weasel and has cast himself in many, often opposing roles. And his understanding Nazism or Marxism is, let's say not necessarily mainstream. For example, he often uses the term cultural Marxism, which is actually an anti-semitic conspiracy theory. Wiki puts its root in the 90s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_theory#Origins), but some academics have argued that it is just an updated version of the Judeobolshevik myth, which is at least 100 years old. But of course it is always impossible to ascertain whether Peterson just doesn't know something or knowingly pretends not to know. One of the few areas where he kind of makes a stance is subscribing to the idea that of a patriarchal world social order as the natural state of thing (where men bring and determine the order of things). Where the borders are blurry is because a lot of modern racist and fascist ideologies also have this strong man at the center of things type of ideology. So while there is not direct overlap, there is some adjacency that makes it quite appealing to the fringe. I think there is also some discussion to be had in terms of asking (or claiming) that some one is racist, sexist or any other short-hand label. It is quite possible to have ideological stances that would promote things like racial disparities without subscribing to any overtly specific racial theories. I think society is used to shut down the outliers (or hammering down the nail that sticks out, comes to mind). Historically this could be folks of with a given sexual orientation, non-mainstream ideologies, but also minorities who do not know their place. I therefore think we has society have never been good with dealing this types of nuances, but in the past it was easier to walk away or just to keep your mouth shut and no one will know. Or folks just accept it (e.g. they are one of the good guys) as positive personal interaction can override ideological issues. With interactions being much wider and increasingly impersonal that is no longer an option. The big issue that I see is that we then fail to educate each other of these nuances and discuss why certain things may or may not be harmful. In short, we do not have a pathway of change (or redemption). Going to Peterson, he might not be racist or at least from what little I have seen he does not openly promote clearly racist ideologies. However, he often rages against the idea of structural or systemic racism (without being specific enough to really nail down what he means with it, which is kind of his modus operandi). This leads (fake) academic credence to certain folks to discredit the quite well established understanding that there are structural elements in society that can lead to racialized outcomes. He then retreats to right-wing talking points that by talking about racism one only pits groups against each other. Implicitly the idea is that if we do not acknowledge the issue it somehow will vanish, which it clearly does not. Again, not saying that the ideology is racist, but it is valuable fuel for racists.

I would need to go through all of them again, but most of the time income as a measure is used. That being said, there are a few studies looking at wealth separate from income and overall it seems that income had a higher effect on improving health outcomes rather than incorporating wealth. An older study showed that African Americans had a 67% higher likelihood of dying than White Americans when accounting for age sex and marital status. Including wealth reduced it to 54% and introducing income (without wealth) the difference was "only" 43%. So while wealth and income attenuate issues, it clearly does not come close to closing it. The other observation in other studies is that whenever there is an economic downturn, black folks are more vulnerable to these effects. That is an interesting question, and there is no clear answer, mostly as universal health care system differ quite a lot. In Canada provincial differences are huge and depending on racial composition it could be difficult to compare national data. However, I do expect that with improved access much of the bigger issues we see in the US to be attenuated. A lot will also depend on the characteristics of the non-white population. In the US native black Americans fare much worse than recent black immigrants, for example. And in the UK and Canada, recent immigration of highly educated folks with high income would need to be separated out from these issues. That being said, there are still erroneous assumption and mistreatments in happening in universal health care system even fairly recently (forced or coerced sterilization, for example), but I would need to see what is out there in literature. I should also add that for about the last 10 years the medical community has become more aware of racial inequities and also has allowed more research in that area to happen. As such, practices are (slowly) changing relevant to racial disparities and I know that these conversations are also happening in Canada. I would need to take some time to find numbers but I will say that in order to uncover issues, it would be necessary to conduct research that actually tries to quantify inequities. As an anecdote, when I was doing more research looking at biomarkers of health, several of my proposals were shot down because the area I had collaborations with serviced more black folks. The reviewers contended that those were not representative of the majority white population and were therefore not of interest. I am moderately sure that today I had a much better show to have this cohort included. It depends on the definition of racism, and I think you might think of something else. Racism in this context is refers to a system that does something that somehow results in different outcomes, depending on your race. It may or may not have roots in some racists ideology and it really does not matter for this. Often, it is a mix. As I mentioned, wealth or income affect the outcome, but do not explain it sufficiently. Others include things like living in an area with little to know medical services or with underfunded schools or any of the dozen positive factors that even poor white folks have access to. The way to think about it is that we have a black box (the complete system that affects health) and if we put a white person in and a black person with same income wealth and so on, we get different outcomes. This is the issue with systemic racism. It is not about someone being shitty to someone or even someone thinks badly about a race. It is a system (such as a medical algorithm) that somehow and even inadvertently creates inequity, even if it was not designed to so. As such race-blind measures require at minimum non-race blind analyses to figure out whether they do create equity. Historically, we have been really bad at it. Of course, not political party in pretty much any country is free from blame. I am not sure why it seems to be a kind of revelation to you. The main difference I would say is that at least in recent times Dems try to say they are better than that whereas the GOP has weaponized racism to rally their base. So I think the way to look at it is that there is a weak hope that the Dems are willing to undo some of the harm they have done and the GOP is hellbent not to, as it seems to be their new identity fetish. Not sure, but the GOP has shown how powerful identity politics is. You can do whatever you want and lie the heck out of it and still escape repercussions. Meanwhile, Dems have to acknowledge that black folks exist lest they lose their elections.

In part this is brought up as some of the organizers of the recent trukcer or convoy protests (which involved rather few truckers) are white nationalists who have promoted the "anglo-saxon replacement" theory. So yes, we are in a territory where certain words are co-opted by racists. Now, it is entirely possible that Poilievre, who condemned the the replacement theory after the Buffalo attack, was not aware of these usages, which would that he is surprisingly badly informed about current happenings in Canada (I mean the convoy and its instigators were quite prominently in the news (and in the streets).

Which also means that inequalities that specifically target folks because of their skin colour or gender have to be identified and addressed. Many attempts to develop systems that create fairness but do not adequately incorporate existing inequalities and inequities can, despite being race or gender blind, exacerbate said inequalities. Medical algorithms are such an example. They are widely used for diagnosis, assign care and things like prioritizing patients for certain treatments. One of the assumed benefits is that it could remove biases from said assignments (something minorities were often victim of and still suffer disproportionate effects from). But the issue is that at some point folks realized that the algorithm was systematically biased against black patients in a range of issues. For example they would assign black individuals to a lower need of care than white patients (for an example see https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.aax2342) or put them lower (or not at all) on organ recipient list. This is not necessarily caused by racial bias in the design of the algorithms (though sometimes they are) but also by simple facts that at given sickness less money is spent on black folks (even adjusted for income) which makes the algorithm think they need less money to maintain health. Conversely outcome in black organ recipients are often worse, because they cannot afford the best aftercare (even adjusted for income), so they are automatically put at a lower priority on the list, even if they physically are equivalent to their white counterpart. Race and gender blind measures have therefore a history of not working out well, if the existing biases are not considered.

That was the point quite early on in this thread (i.e. more studies are needed). So far we only know that transition does change the physiology and but some data suggests that certain proxy measures (such as testosterone levels) might not be enough to ascertain whether certain transgender athletes maintain categorical advantages. Thus, the idea that was circulated in this thread is whether one could try to devise a panel of physiological parameters (in addition or instead of testosterone) that could be used to separate athletes in different competition groups. After all, the argument is that men have a different physiology that affects certain athletic performances, therefore physiological parameters should be measurable. After all, chromosomes and genitals are also also just used as proxies (like testosterone levels) for certain physiological and performance differences. Another, likely easier method is to measure performance. Again, the base argument is that men and women have different base performance. Hence, an athlete that is closer to a given distribution might be sorted into the one or the other group. Finally, there is also the notion of fairness. The example of horse riding is a case where sex or gender has not shown to have a clear advantage in terms of performance, yet the system clearly favours one.

I think the pandemic has shown that personal sacrifice is now considered an extreme ideology. Obviously we still demand it from vulnerable folks, but that is about it.

Perhaps worse, it has become a part of the identity of quite some folks. Any attempts to change will be seen as an attack on their belief system.

Kendal Principles of Neuroscience was pretty good back in the days (good overview and easy to understand).

Obviously the more appropriate way to approach these things is first to establish the level of evidence for these kind of assumptions. While it has been mentioned already, I think it is important to emphasize again that assumptions of "natural" often conflate physiological (biological) effects learned behaviour. Those are often difficult to discern from low resolution data and in many cases we are only starting to gather necessary information or trying out experimental approaches. It is one of the situations where narratives are much stronger than the available data. Edit: not wanting to move things too astray, but there is also a big push now to remove race/ethnicity- adjusted factors for medical diagnosis, mostly because assumptions of race-based medical factors were often based on limited data and overlaid with a lot of conventional wisdom assumptions (again, imbalance between strength of data and strength of narratives). As a result, especially for black folks misdiagnosis and -treatment has been a huge issue (compared to their white counterparts).

But not a single current German beer on the list. You are really old if you remember when the Heineken family or the founders of the Tsingtao brewery were German (I guess you like Pilsner?)