CharonY

These are also great points. The latter has already created the gap in the 2016 election, but obviously SCOTUS amplified it even more. It depends a bit on the poll but stratified by age, the gender gap is the largest for folks older than 50 years (>10%). It has to be noted that support is overall higher for Trump in the older segment. This is a bit different to the far-right in Europe, which, in many countries, is supported by young men. I suspect for older men, Trump can be inspirational and one day, they too hope to become a ripe orange.

Regarding economy, there are two factors. For whatever reasons, the GOP was better in branding themselves pro-economy, despite all the data suggesting otherwise. For Trump, the image is enhanced by his TV show, where he plays a successful businessman. The fact that folks get basic things wrong, is probably not very surprising. With regard to men, there is something worldwide going on, though the specifics vary especially on the age demographics demographics between countries. In many countries, men prefer a person that present themselves as an autocrat. Essentially, an insecure person's idea of a strong person. There is also a strong flavour of sexism among Trump voters, as studies have pointed out. Women, understandably are more likely to feel threatened by these sentiments (though apparently, racism can override these sentiments https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-018-9468-2)

That was actually a fairly unpopular move in Germany. Specifically, this was a move from the EU commission and it was controversial to say the least. The backers were mostly France, Hungary, Poland and Romania. I believe Austria has sued, but not sure what happened. In Germany, the pressure was largely from industry but also politics as they consider it necessary as a bridge technology. In the population, it was widely unpopular, so the opposite of a populist move. That being said, Germany has a long history of a anti-nuclear stance, but it is in many ways an ideological and deeply rooted in the cold war and largely predated carbon emission worries. There were also practical reasons, as NIMBYsm has prevented the creation of long-term solutions for nuclear waste.

Sooo, you are saying that there is no one left in Scotland? Also the German Foreign Office: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-rejects-trumps-energy-claim-mocks-him-over-pets/a-70190020

Oh I have heard that in multiple countries. Definitely not an US exclusive. More a time thingy.

And here I thought my days of getting accused of eating pets were over. Whelp, it looks I can stop pretending and start munching now! In all seriousness though, I am kind of glad that we went from believing this kind of things to ridiculing it.

I suggest you read up on at least two philosophical subjects before drawing a conclusion of a failed search. The first is the overarching subject of scientific realism. It is in itself a fairly complex subject but your assertion it is no-existent, does certainly not reflect anything near a consensus. There are certainly approaches that either dismiss or qualify it, such as social constructivism, and empiricism. Though often it is less a criticism on the existence of an objective reality, but rather the assertion that reality is, evenmin the best case, not accessible and can be seen as a critique on realism, rather than reality. However, many areas of antirealism were eventually abandoned (to my knowledge). In fact, you may want to refer the positivism dispute in the 60s-70s. My memory is somewhat hazy (and others might want to chime in), and I am not sure what the current thought on antirealism is, though the critical elements I was interested did not seem to have continued tractions. Rather another branch of realism became important. Here, I suggest that you read up at least on structural realism. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1746-8361.1989.tb00933.x

Yeah. Also, he had no problem to dance to Cheney's tune while he was president.

Her Father Dick, too.

Apparently AIs are getting dumber, because they there is so much of them that they start "learning" from each other. Oh my god, I just realized why student performance is dropping.

Also, the polarization is not just about the current election. It is a world-wide phenomenon and there are clearly multiple mechanisms at play here that apparently we are not consciously dealing with properly. I think we older folks are deluding ourselves in thinking that things will bounce back somehow. The new norm is already there and more likely to move faster than not.

She has the advantage of being less baggaged from a lengthy campaign and primary, where folks need to take often contradictory stances. While she is doing some more middle-oriented speeches, many have been squarely aimed at progressives and workers. As long as she is not boxed in yet, she can have appeal for both wings.

But just look at its cute little spidey-eyes!

I feel the anger of arachnologists rising.

I read the paper, which is interesting but the linked article is mostly fluff, unfortunately. I assumed that is what you are getting at, but reading the sentence compelled me to at least mention that, as it is the exact terminology (rather than a simplification of a term, if that makes sense).

Well, DNA proofreading basically just refers to 3'-5' exonuclease activity, where enzymes (usually polymerases) can excise mismatches during errors in elongation. This basically just reduces overall error rates. I am sure folks might misuse the term, though.

No, this sounds at best like a simplified them vs us narrative. They do have highly advanced health care systems and significantly higher life expectancy than the US for example. They clearly care very much about not dying. Edit: listen, if you really want a simplified, inaccurate narrative, how about this: In Western countries there is a bigger emphasize that health is something that can fixed by some cure or treatment. In at least some cultures in Asia, there are some schools of thoughts that are more holistic, focusing on wellness and maintenance of health (including more care for balanced diets). But again, this is very simplified and anecdotal.

Regardless of country, Universities are generally the main place of research and they are funding by governments. As percentage of GDP countries with the highest investment in research are Israel, South Korea and then the US (but it also has the largest economy). May I add that although I have been participating, I have absolutely no idea where this thread is going?

And it does not necessarily mean lobbying. Some agencies might see it as a good opportunity for investment, as companies obviously have a track record of putting things to the market. The whole pathway from pre-clinical research to product development is complex and gets more expensive every step. Countries with fewer pharmaceutical companies in the cancer market obviously will not invest in developing things. And many companies are multinationals. Roche, for example is a Swiss company, but invests a lot in the US market. There are far more University hospitals to work with, plus the aforementioned opportunities with funding. They would not be able to make that much money if all their research was limited to Switzerland. Edit: With regard to OP, I also wanted to add that at scale, new treatment options are not the only (or even the most important) thing to influence survival rates. More important are prevention, access to healthcare, early detection and affordability. Arguably, reducing tobacco smoking and air pollution will prevent more deaths than a lung cancer drug.

Also, the practical line between capitalism and communism has mostly eroded. Heck, folks nowadays are getting confused that Nazis had "socialist" in their name. The distinction is mostly to establish ideological lines, it seems to me, with very little practical impact. While xenophobia being an unsurprising aspect, it seems that gender roles plays a surprisingly high role of far-right pro Russia sentiments (and which also shows in the gender gap in voters). Just to getting back to OP: in Thuringia the AfD won 38% of the male voters, but only 27% of the female voters. This 11% gap is more than double of the next largest gap (4%, then 2%). It feels strange as intuitively it does not seem to be such a big thing, but it is something that starts to be persistent in multiple countries (we see similar trends with Trump voters). For the US it was assumed that overturning Roe v Wade was a critical point, but the trend was already there before, and it does not apply to Germany (and other countries).

Well, there are multiple reasons for it, and quite a few a very good. One being the recognition that folks are getting older, and more treatments are needed. Some of the initiatives, e.g. the Cancer Moonshot, were initiated by the White House and I think at that time it was one of the big initiatives of then Vice President Biden. I am sure he had advisors who might also have been lobbyists, but among researchers it is certainly a prime target (for a long time). Universities generally do not lobby such things they are very different from companies on the research front (initiatives are led by researchers, and, when you are lucky, your university might support you). That being said, some of the investment is to promote translating pre-clinical findings into clinicals. That is very expensive and companies do not like to do that unless they can see the money coming out of it. The US has been shouldering quite a bit of these burdens (as they had for COVID-19 vaccine development).

As I mentioned before, the USA has established a number of cancer research programs, which funneled quite a bit of money into this area, to some chagrin of other health researchers, who were looking at fundamental or non-cancer related health aspects. I don't have the exact split, however. But the claim I was most hung up on was South Korea has a higher proportion of R&D in health (0.21% 2016) compared to the average of high income countries (0.19%). But overall I think it is fair to say that the US is among the highest R&D spenders in the world, especially compared to e.g. their neighbor Canada. I am a bit surprised that the difference in cancer specifically is that high, suggesting that other countries spend more on other health research. There is a reason for that, though. I remember that there was a paper about 10 years back suggesting that the return of interest is dismal in cancer research for a number of reasons (including lack of consolidation and piecemeal approaches).

Well, they do not pretend to be communist anymore. It is now a happy authoritarian family.

I don't think that this is true. The US had some big initiatives on cancer, including trials which could skew results a bit, but especially if you talk about health research in general, China and Japan is certainly investing a fair bit into it. I am not sure why you would think that it is the case in the first place.

Nope, it glorifies European culture, is anti-Muslim but not explicitly Christian (other than claiming that Europeans, and Christians are suppressed). However, due to their past, East Europe is generally very atheist.