CharonY

OK so perhaps one should look at broad picture and at the justice system rather than using individual anecdotes to extrapolate cases. We can address the rate of false accusations. Studies on college students have shown that in this group roughly 5% were false allegations. Or conversely 95% of allegations brought to police were not found to be false. Moreover, only about 10% of all rapes get reported to authorities to begin with. So from the get go we have a situation were we have 0.5% of wrongful allegations vs about 99.5% actual cases. The conviction rate is incredibly low, though. Even among the 10% reported cases only a fraction (again, about 10%) are actually resulting in conviction. So the likelihood of conviction in an actual rape is very low (~1%) and the likelihood of wrongful conviction much lower than that. So again, we are not talking about a symmetric situation here. There are a couple of issues, of course, especially in the absence of evidence convictions are unlikely and then of course victims (especially male victims) are very unlikely to come forward as they see no point in doing so and want to avoid social consequences. The other issue on the justice level side is that often rape allegations, even when reported, were simply not pursued. There are many reports, articles and internal investigations throughout at least UK, US and Australia which have shown that allegations from certain folks, especially indigenous folks, drug addicts, younger victims, victims from what are classified as problematic households, homeless and so on, were often routinely dismissed. In the US rape kits were often not submitted for analyses and so on. This is all because in those cases police deemed the victims unreliable from the get-go and decided not to even start investigating. It is also possible that due to low likelihood of success police focuses on the more winnable cases which might improve their statistics. Some of the campaigns, such as believe the victim slogans and alternative hotlines for rape reporting are attempts to address this systemic issue. Edit: crossposted with iNow, but same idea.

That still does not seem to address the issue of undetected infection. The rate gives you a good idea to die from COVID-19 if you are tested positive. Obviously, the more folks are tested, the more these two values converge. But you are right, it is an estimate for death by being diagnosed with the disease at a given point in a given area.

Sorry, brainfart; case-control are retrospective studies. I meant controlled prospective studies (or similar) where the treatment is controlled.

My take on these retrospective studies is that a single one at best points to something to look out for, but one needs either big studies and /or case-control studies to really establish a link. As larger studies so far have failed to reproduce these effects I would not consider the initial findings critical. I would not entirely dismiss the study, either but would take it as a piece of the big view. If it was the only study finding the effect I would assume a spurious correlation, but there have been a few, but most showed rather weak effects IIRC. The key would really be to find whether there are any mechanistic links, and for that the evidence level is very weak.

Yes, but not everyone that dies will have a test performed (potentially for COVID-19 but certainly not for all diseases). Some folks may die from pneumonia, for example but it is not clear whether it was caused by an influenza infection, or not (folks are more wary of COVID-19 and may test more now, but it was not the case early last year). Similarly you may have a lot of folks that had the disease but were not tested (which is a big issue with COVID-19). So the death rate is typically just the fraction of diagnosed cases who eventually die. Yet many think of it as the fraction of deaths as a fraction of total infections. For example, if there were much more asymptomatic cases than current diagnostics indicate (i.e. the true total infection rate was higher than measured), then the COVID-19 death rate might drop as low as 0.1%, yet it clearly would underestimate the health burden it poses. And conversely, deaths that were not properly coded (because they were not tested) or missing infections could increase it. Also, the case fatality rate also changes depending on condition (it was way as high as 31% in Italy). So again, one needs to use the metric in the proper context. At best, it is a very crude measure of how bad a disease is.

Oh, we do have estimates following a range of different assumptions and models. But they can lead to significantly different estimates in terms of death rates. I.e. the death rate always has a certain range of uncertainty which makes it only a moderately useful metric in many instances.

One should add that one has to be carful with comparison (raw) death rates. A big issue with influenza, COVID-19 and other diseases that can have mild outcomes is that only a part of infected people actually get tested. While there are estimates, it can influence the the final death rate quite a bit. Also, as we have seen, overtaxing the health system can skyrocket the death rate. But as a whole, you are absolutely correct that as a whole (including the strain on the health care system, which can cause additional death) is far more dangerous as the "regular" flue season, which all by itself is pretty bad as it is. Yes, that is a measure that some folks focus a bit more to indicate the compound effect of the pandemic. And it has clearly a spike in 2020 compared to previous years. Especially in the disease has shown to affect even big composite measures such as life expectancy. On top of all that I probably should add that there is now more work looking at post-acute COVID-19 syndrome, as there is more and more data that folks, even those with mild symptoms, may suffer long-term issues which get worse long after the infection has passed. I think at this point there is really no arguing about how bad the disease is. It is really bad.

A) there is no immunity for COVID-19. For Influenza we have endemic immunity plus vaccinations. Still thousands die each year from influenza, more have died from COVID-19. If we let it fully sweep through the population, far more will die. B) Many of the infections you mention are chronic infections. I.e. many live for years with the disease and the deaths in any year are often the cumulation of many years of infections. The death of COVID-19 is the consequence of infections in a single year. C) Specific to lower respiratory tract infections, they are also often connected to things like allergies, air pollution and a whole range of different diseases. If COVID-19 would be added we would see about a 50% increase from a single virus. This is enormous.

I don't think that is universally true. Especially in the Americas specific programs might be limited, but as a whole the limiting factor seems to be money, rather than space. Not sure what you try to say here, but income is one factor that determines certain eligibility paths in admission. E.g. scholarships. But they can also be part of the evaluation. E.g. a student from a poor neighborhood but with high scores might be perceived as a better candidate than someone from another school in which the average score is much higher than the other school (which, again is often determined by socioeconomic factors). If you are talking about college admissions, they are not based on identities (at least not the way you describe it) but rather but those various factors, i.e. scores, background, compelling CV/life story/essay equivalent and so on.

It would make sense. However I think the hypothesis from the authors that certain developments (such as the bow) may have caused increasing job specialization. It does seem to make sense that pregnant women are out of the hunting game, too. Conversely, it is likely that folks would do whatever is most beneficial given the circumstances. E.g. if foraging provides most of the nutrition in a given area, hunting may not be seen as a top priority.

Fundamentally the presented evidence in this studies suggest that hunting gear seemed to be some what equally distributed between genders. I.e. whatever it means does not seem to be gender-specific.

I wonder whether specific antitrust rules could be applied to companies that provide services related to news or other forms of information dissemination. A big issue there is, of course that with larger variety folks might just create their own bubble (such as parler). Still not certain what a good solution would be. Fundamentally it is an issue of trust. Do we trust companies? Random folks on the internet? Governments?

He was/is plenty bloodthirsty. He demanded the death penalty for the central park five even after they were acquitted. There is an underlying theme about the folks he thinks should die, though (not necessarily related to death penalties, they seemed also politically motivated to various degrees.

I am actually not sure whether these things are really that valuable. Based from what I read about hunters in various San peoples the hunters create their tools based on their own preferences, sometimes even on the fly. I am not sure whether there were dedicated craftsmen involved at these old burial sites.

I did, actually and it was not even mine (but admittedly, a mild mannered one). Also from a cat, once (I still got scars from that one). I should stop stealing from pets is what I am saying.

I think the most parsimonious explanation is that they are buried with their possession rather than something indirectly associated with them. For example, if it was theirs it makes them to bury them with it. But if it something they produced for someone else, why would they waste it?

The obvious conclusion is to switch to dogs, then.

I think I tried to see what the criteria are for identifying someone as a hunter, but I think most evidence is based on archeological finds. There is unlikely to be a way to look at the body themselves. Moreover, many are not in a shape to figure out much about the lifestyle. One aspect I think is the presence of specific work kits (e.g. cutting tools, weapons etc. that are buried together with the body indicating that it may be personal belongings. It would be a bit strange to add these specific tools just randomly because someone died (but not e.g. tools associated with food processing toolmaking or other specializations).

From what I have read it appears the going hypothesis is that simply put it is a matter of necessity. Early societies did not have the luxury to split folks according to perceived suitability. Rather they needed all the protein they could get. So if hunters were needed whoever was available (and perhaps somewhat able) joined in. I.e. it is possible that they did not have the luxury to discriminate. On speculation was that potentially it was related to the use of a spear throwing device, the atlatl, which can be mastered at a fairly young age. I.e. women could have become proficient in this hunting method before they start having children. Later, bows became the dominant hunting tools, which take longer to master and may have resulted in the job discrimination that we still see in current hunter-gatherer societies. I would also highlight that the evidence level for male hunters is also mostly based on buried hunting material. The assumption that they were all male is based on a) speculation (or inductive reasoning) and b) projection of current populations, which may or may not have held true in former times (in the Americas). In fact it is the archaeological find that oppose these assumptions. They identified female hunters a number of burial sites of the late Pleistocene and early Holocene, indicating that it is not a unique finding. The authors argue that it is more likely that it was fairly common in the Americas.

! Moderator Note As per rule 7 advertising in the text body is prohibited.

Well that is always assuming that one expects a singular target. As far as I can tell it is unclear what kind of assay it was in the first place.

Fundamentally I do not think that there is a much wrong with your gel (for most purposes that is). The left pocket might have been damaged a bit. You have a bit of a frowning effect going but nothing too worrisome (though I would add ladder at the last lane to address that a bit.

True enough. On top they obviously have massive influence over lawmakers, so they can make things easier for them either way.

Yes and I think it is one of the few things were empirical studies have consistently shown that trickle down just does not happen. I mean, it is one of those things folks might have really believed in, it has been tried to various degrees for a few decades and the verdict is pretty clear at this point.

So, how about not negotiating with terrorists now?