CharonY

Well, I guess some folks would weaponize anything and individual evens especially of teenagers acting out or doing stupid things seems to be a gold mine for that. That being said, I also suspect that folks are getting numb a bit, and it requires something more shocking to rouse more than the facebook groups.

If we move away from the notion of addressing past wrongs a bit and more towards addressing existing consequences of existing inequalities, we could look at issues surrounding college admissions. As a degree is a multiplier of wealth, but has wealth-based gatekeeping (especially in countries with high tuition fees, such as USA, Canada, UK, etc.), access does have financial consequences down the road. That being said, universities are generally more interested in maintaining a diverse student body (which benefits them in several ways, ranging from international recruiting, to teaching environment). In the US, abolishing affirmative action in a number of states have resulted in a significant drop in especially Hispanic and black students. Since then, admission folks have tried to figure out how to bolster diversity without using race. Other factors, e.g. grades, wealth, activities etc. have always been on the books, but just using those has not been very successful. I.e. bolstering low income students, mostly elevated Asian and white students but kept disadvantaging black and Hispanic students. What folks seem to arrive at this point (which is also mentioned in the ruling) is that universities might encourage students to write how their upbringing and background has affected their lives as part of the essay element. In a way, this avoids a potential blanket bonus (such as with wealth), but requires a narrative of sorts. The issue there, is then one of support, as both affluential folks but also less affluent white and potentially Asian folks might get more support in drafting these assays (as they generally have access to better high-schools). Realistically speaking though, if one wants to level the playing field and provide equal chances to everyone, the groundwork has to be done. Which means providing infrastructure and support in underserviced areas (better school, better healthcare) and you can do that by zip code. Realistically it would be pretty much the same as targeting black and Hispanic neighborhoods but it would avoid talking about race. It is a bit like doing a tap dancing around the issue and despite the fact that I hate the term, it sounds a bit like virtue signaling (we can only address the issue by not naming it). Like treating cancer but not call it that. But if it helps, it sure is better than nothing.

Yes, that is an issue with using specific target or hard quotas. Institutions with more experience on that matter have implemented a softer form of affirmative action (i.e. using same brackets rather than holding specific folks back). There was a bit on it in an Atlantic article that is interesting:

In other words, it might be a good idea to revamp categories and rules so that folks can compete according to ability rather than based on genitals they were born with?

I suspect the reason is more that folks somehow think of trans-women to be somehow more predatory as most discussions seem not to involve homosexual folks (which technically are invisible). While trans-men are also targeted, they do not seem to be much considered, either. Which has all the hallmark of fear and culture-war policy vs actual policy.

One corollary from that is that some folks focus on specific and individual damages, but overlook systemic challenges (such as long term impact of getting removed from economic and other benefits, invisible but baked in racialized policies, where color-blind application would perpetuate those harms, confinement in underdeveloped areas and so on). A second is that often these issues are seen as a weird zero-sum game. I.e. it seems that the argument is that systematically excluding one group from economic and societal gains is somehow the same as bringing them up to the same level. I.e. as long as the factor that did the division is brought up to remove the suppression, it is equivalent to suppression. Without removing all context, I just fail to see it as a symmetric proposition. I will also say that it is a bit dangerous to generalize these racialized policies based on the case of reparations. That one is something that can and should be more targeted, as there are ways to trace issues in an individualized way. However, general racialized policies cannot be tracked down to individuals (that is just not what policies are) and it is critical identify demarcation lines. For example, universities strive to create a diverse learning environment, but the question is how to recruit them. If we ignore race, the student body tends to be largely income based, resulting in a composition that represents well-off part of the population mostly. Providing stipends for low-income students bolsters that part of the composition, but looking at racial composition, we see that often low-income minorities do not benefit from it much. There are various reasons, starting at which schools they are, and what kind (if any) counseling they get, for example. So targeting those students and schools specifically can bolster the recruitment of minority students and to create the desired teaching environment. What has been shown in the US is that a color-blind application of stipends and benefits, the enrolment of minorities drop (and just to be clear, race would be just one of many factors used for admissions). Thus, the application of a color-blind policy results in racial inequity. And considering the impact of college on future income, it has knock-on effects of future trajectories. In other words, (and as the other articles I have posted) being color-blind can result in racial inequality, the very thing that color-blindness supposedly should end, but which in reality it just promotes (under the current system). I do agree that if we magically resolved every form of racism and racialized policies and dismantled all the systems that create inequality, then we may be able to switch to a color-blind perspective. However, starting with the latter is hitching the cart before the horse and is not getting us anywhere.

Talking about fantasy, historians discuss the Versailles treaty as one of many contributing factors, rather than drawing a direct line (the Nazis used it for their propaganda, though, which is in part where some of the myths came about). There have been proponents of this thesis, including contemporaries such as John Maynard Keynes. But some key facts weaken that argument. One is that before the NSDAP came to power the payments were effectively dead in the water, the sum was re-negotiated several times and payments were deferred (and basically cancelled in the Lausanne Conference). The actual payment provided were much less than Germany could have afforded after economic recovery in the interim period. And yes, it was a potent propaganda tool inasmuch as the felt impact was way higher than the actual one. However, in terms of economic destabilization the Great Depression had a much higher impact. So in that light, the "fact" is a bit iffy and trying to draw a line to the reparations under discussion requires a fair bit of mental gymnastics. What is rather similar are probably perception vs impact.

Not sure, I think it is a cultural thing to some degree. Saunas (and of course FKK) often have mixed nudity and quite some lockers are semi-shared. I.e. you have a private cubicle to change but they can be in a mixed room, rather than entirely separate.

From what I understand some folks would still like him to use the women's bathroom? (I do not understand folk's obsession with bathrooms, in the first place, though).

It depends, a couple of studies have shown that especially in the lower income brackets, cash injections especially coupled with counseling has some of the biggest immediate impacts. Another thing that is relevant for things like foundational support is proper representation. I.e. direct knowledge of affected communities and active engagement. The issue with setting up a good system is that folks deciding on them tend to solve problems that they are familiar with. Typically these approaches resulted in either benefitting the majority (especially if the initiatives are not minority focused) or even result in direct harm (i.e. the paternalistic approach you mentioned). There is a delicate balance, especially for systematically disenfranchised communities, who might often be wary to these kinds of approaches. There are increasingly initiatives that rely on community participation, which might be a way to go forward.

I think your misunderstanding is in the first sentence the abstract. The authors say that an earlier report showed superconductivity at near-ambient pressures and temperatures but there apparently were disagreements whether the results were valid. So the authors are doing a more systematic analysis to resolve this controversy. In their own work they then describe resistance measurements in dependence on pressure at RT. Without reading the paper itself it suggest that they get similar resistance measurements as reported earlier, but likely only at high pressure.

Seems similar to what was reported previously, in terms of conclusion. But with more context.

It is a huge issue in the medical field, and especially in medical research. There was basically a 180 in terms of having minorities in a cohort. Initially often such cohorts were deemed non-representative. Now in most applications you need to at least write a bit about inclusiveness in patient cohorts, to make sure that you do not selectively exclude folks. Medical algorithms are getting a hard look for the same reasons, though folks are often unsure how it should be tweaked. For the most part it is really that research shows that we have inequity here and there is some mechanism leading to it. But often it is difficult to pinpoint a clear mechanism, as quite a few of those can be part of a long pipeline. E.g. folks not living close to good medical facilities and being diagnosed later, or MDs having preconceptions and treating certain folks just a bit worse (or sometimes way worse, something that pops up a fair bit especially when it comes to indigenous folks), leading to delayed or sub-optimal treatment and so on. The issue is then that these data are then used to train algorithms than often perpetuate these inequalities. I will add that while specifics are different, systemic (not systematic) minority exclusion is not uncommon. It tends to be a bit invisible, unless you conduct some level of research into it. In Germany, for example, there are about 1 million black folks, and in recent census it appears that certain false assumptions e.g. regarding pain tolerance in POC is still very prevalent. In contrast to the US that perception is not targeted exclusively against black folks, but also against minorities (especially Turkish folks, but also folks from the Mediterranean in general). There, whiteness is probably even more narrowly defined. It is so bad that among the medical community a term was coined (Morbus Bosporus sometimes also Morbus mediterraneus or "Anatolian pain" further back in the past it was coined on Italian immigrants, where it was called "Mamma-mia" syndrome). This "diagnosis" basically assumes that folks from that area are more likely to exaggerate their pain. This, of course, without actual evidence. This has resulted in differential pain treatment and some issues for immigrants to properly contextualize their pain to German MDs (at which point, the diversity issue raises its head again).

I don't think that there was fundamentally new information (or at least I recall that one or two years ago it was reported that there were some folks working at the institute getting ill around the early times of the outbreak. It was a tick towards a potential leak, but nothing conclusive as far as I can tell, even assuming that they got COVID-19 (and not something else). Transparency is certainly something to critique them for, but so far no smoking gun. One problem that I am still seeing is that the earliest timelines are a bit hazy. Now that we know a bit more about the transmissibility of the early variant plus the associated severe disease rate, there is a bit more uncertainty regarding the earliest transmission. This could push the timelines a bit further back, especially in a younger population. But this is purely speculative at this point, of course. It would be interesting to follow up on some of the sample found early in Europe to see whether one can get a bit more precise data (or if available, blood samples in Wuhan). Also, if I recall correctly, at least one of the infected researchers was working in BSL4? If so, that makes it even less likely as they are way better protected there than outside. If there was a leak, I would think that BSL2 conditions are (way) more conducive to escape.

There are a couple of reports regarding the impact of minimum wage increases in the UK. For example : https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/minimum-wage-rates-for-2023/low-pay-commission-summary-of-findings-2022 It should also be noted that minimum wage is a particular part of the wage range and folks receiving it are particularly vulnerable to inflation, for example.

Generally speaking, a collaboration requires a certain alignment of interest and trust. Especially as an undergraduate, it might be difficult to get hold of a Prof as we generally are overcomitted, anyway. The best bet is to talk to folks you have interned with. If they are not interested, at least they make introductions to folks. If you have funding, you could try to set up a contract, but chances are that it might be too expensive.

This discussion tends to focus on bits and pieces, sometimes out of context. To make an analogy (yet again), some folks argue that we need more accessibility ramps for wheelchairs (reparations to account for past inadequacies). Others (or the same) might also argue that we need accessibility rules baked into building codes and city design, so that we do not systematically exclude folks who are unable to walk (systemic change). Yet others argue that we should not focus on those, but the ultimate issue is that folks get injured or have developmental issues resulting in their inability to walk, so we should fix that, so that there is no need for the other two approaches.

No, you are right, the volume is generally adjusted for the expected application and provided in a range that is generally convenient to apply. However, some drugs might have a narrower safe range than others. So the impact of e.g. not having enough time between treatments or accidental misdosing can have different effects. That being said, I am not sure where fentanyl sits in terms of relative safety. I think I have read somewhere that switch of medication has to be done more carefully as the effects can be initially stronger than anticipated (at equivalent dosages).

I think there are different stages where the system influences addiction rates and generally speaking, a centralized and well-maintained system makes it easier to track and crack down on abuse. What you might refer to is if folks already are addicted. It depends on use, often patches are used with rather precise delivery parameters. If used via injection (i.e. manual dosing) human error is going to be a factor, for sure.

Though I think it is less about the patient's wishes, but rather financial incentives for the MD.

I think a great quote is: And a nice article to go with it How the ‘Color-Blind Constitution’ Got Weaponized - The Atlantic. In Europe folks take pride in color-blindness and quite a bit of discrimination gets ignored because of that (for a long time the official line in Germany is that there is no racism).

The opposite is also true. Folks have historically assumed ethnic differences and many things in practice turned out to be harmful. Some of them are clear biases (such as assumption that black folks are more pain resistant), others are more insidious. What it boils down to in medical sciences is that many minorities are underrepresented in research and the treatment is therefore biased towards where the data is. And this happens to be white and male. One way trying to address this is to encourage researchers to specifically seek out minority cohorts, as opposed to the past (meaning perhaps 10 years ago) where white men were considered the gold standard. It also points to structural issues, as many cohorts are recruited in universities, in which few ethnicity make up most of the student body. Again, a blind approach only works if the system in which it works does not lead to a sorting of outcomes (which it still does). There is also a feedback issue here. Folks treat certain minorities (especially First Nations, Pacific Islanders and black folks) sub-optimally, so they have worse health outcomes. But then biomarkers from the unhealthier groups are used to establish the "healthy" baseline, so that folks thought that e.g. kidneys from black folks have more effective function that those from white folks. These has then resulted in delayed kidney transplantation for black folks, which is only been addressed somewhat recently. There was the hope that algorithms that are considered unbiased (i.e. no racism) could address that. But again, the systemic issues counteract that. For example, algorithms widely used in healthcare provide risk scores to patients. Original paper https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aax2342 The tricky bit is that it is not always obvious, as machine learning (or AI) is often a bit of a black box and you do not necessarily know how they weigh things. So in a colorblind approach, where the outcomes are not investigated along racial lines, these effects would have been missed (and currently keep being missed, though in the last few years racial biases in algorithms are widely discussed). Going away from the medical field, I believe there is a growing consensus that colorblind policies as a whole perpetuate racism (as even the dissenter in the Supreme court decision Plessy v. Ferguson assumed) that are inbaked into the system (something that has been mentioned plenty of times already).

Funnily the right did that and then made folks afraid of the vaccine. And only one that was deliberate false information.

The obvious thing is that there is always a mix. There are well-informed voters who do somewhat rational decisions, but they are likely a smaller segment and a bit more concentrated in the more educated segment. But ultimately, they too are not really unbiased. On the other end, there is a solid proportion of grievance voters (perhaps around 20%?). The advantage of tapping into those is that you can do that independent of actual policies, as it is mostly perception-based. And apparently angry people do turn up to vote. I will also say that the angry segment is getting supercharged by social media and the increasing distrust of mainstream media, politicians and often just facts. It has never been easier to make folks afraid of something.

In my mind it actually shows thar the system is so broken that even (or perhaps especially) an inept person could create that mess. It was always ready to break out, but establishment had a tempering effect. But just find someone who does not give a darn (National Rally in France, AfD, PiS, and so on) and they have a path to power, regardless of their political abilities. I mean, this neither unique for the US, nor history. Find a more capable and temperate, things may improve for a while,but come inflation, or recession or pandemic and folks start looking for a strongman again and the jackpots come out again.