Again, from the top: if there was some experiment done in the twentieth century which forms the basis of lefty beliefs there is a high chance it was faked.
At the very least, the methodology is wrong and the data improperly collected. But actually, at least judging from the Mouse Utopia and the Stanford Prison Experiment?
It’s made up from whole cloth.
The Stanford Prison Experiment was supposed to explain how the horrors of Nazi Germany happened in the (at the time) most civilized place on Earth.
It studied this by having students divided into prisoners and guards. And supposedly it proved that, driven by peer pressure, these arbitrarily chosen prisoners and guards fell into their roles. Right?
It’s been quoted everywhere, over and over again.
Or did it?
Well, apparently not. This article admits that:
data collected from a thorough investigation of the SPE archives and
interviews with 15 of the participants in the experiment further
question the study’s scientific merit. These data are not only
supportive of previous criticisms of the SPE, such as the presence of
demand characteristics, but provide new criticisms of the SPE based on
heretofore unknown information. These new criticisms include the biased
and incomplete collection of data, the extent to which the SPE drew on a
prison experiment devised and conducted by students in one of
Zimbardo’s classes 3 months earlier, the fact that the guards received
precise instructions regarding the treatment of the prisoners, the fact
that the guards were not told they were subjects, and the fact that
participants were almost never completely immersed by the situation.
This one is a little more candid.
The Stanford Prison Experiment — the infamous 1971 exercise in which regular college students placed in a mock prison suddenly transformed into aggressive guards and hysterical prisoners — was deeply flawed, a new investigation reveals.
The participants in the experiment, who were male college students, didn’t just organically become abusive guards, reporter Ben Blum wrote in Medium. Rather, Philip Zimbardo, who led the experiment and is now a professor emeritus of psychology at Stanford University, encouraged the guards to act “tough,” according to newfound audio from the Stanford archive.
Moreover, some of the outbursts from the so-called prisoners weren’t triggered by the trauma of prison, Blum found. One student prisoner, Douglas Korpi, told Blum that he faked a breakdown so that he could get out of the experiment early to study for a graduate school exam. [7 Absolutely Evil Medical Experiments]
However, again, this is used everywhere, including by people on the right to prove that humans are sheep, completely influentiable and easy to convince to commit atrocities.
And for the left? For the left it creates their fear of any traditional role of authority. Because, you know, conformity is natural blind and inevitable and given a chance we’ll all become abusers and horrible torturers.
Part of their hysteria about what they thing we’re going to do to them is from this ridiculously fake “experiment.”
And their shameless behavior, the horrific things they do are also justified by this experiment. After all, if all humans are so terribly hapless and easily led, then not only can’t they help themselves and have a blank check to do whatever they want, but also they presume because all humans are so weak, and of course we must be weaker than they are, then we must be committing all sorts of atrocities just keeping them secret.
Again, if you hear of a “scientific experiment” which confirms that humans are horrible; there are too many humans; humans are the most horrible creatures in the world or perhaps the universe, chances are it’s not only flawed, but it’s complete bullshit.
Some humans are indeed terrible creatures. But not all. And big, powerful governments that try to re-engineer humanity are not proof against attrocities.
They are in fact the greatest predictors of atrocities.
BLOG FUNDRAISER 2025
The old song and dance! It’s been fairly lousy, so let’s see if the bats can do it!
Four more days.
Yes, I know it’s a nuisance. And I’m not going to claim that if I don’t get enough money I’ll shutter the blog because we all know I won’t. It will on the other hand make it harder to do this on weekends and holidays when my husband objects to my sitting up late or getting up early to put up the post. Which is fine. I’ve survived it for near on 20 years. I’m not going to wilt.
I’m just going to say every blogger to the right of Lenin has paid the price in career, in wealth, in prospects. And that keeping us poor and meek is a great way to serve as a warning to others who would speak out. If you want to nullify the “warning,” consider donating.
And thank you to everyone who donated.
For this year, I’ll (merely) give you ways to donate.
The Give Send Go is still active. (And to the person who compared me to Jerry Pournelle, G-d bless you.)
There is also paypal. Yes, I removed the button from the side (though I’ll return it) a couple years ago because they were threatening to fine people for badthink. Whether that was entirely organic or part of the Autopen administration it’s open to debate. They were being very enthusiastic about forcing everything from social media to everything else including debanking. At any rate, I think it is safe to use a paypal link for the next four years. Give or take. (Look none of these services are pure. We use what we can and seems safe at the time.)
While on that, yes, the address in Las Vegas is still available:
Sarah A. Hoyt
Goldport Press
304 S Jones Blvd #6771
Las Vegas, NV 89107
(Note this is a drop box. Please don’t send perishables that will be damaged by heat. If you want to send something out of the ordinary, contact me first. I’ll figure out antoher place to send it where things won’t be damaged and I can retrieve it. And if you want to give me physical stuff, it might be best to catch me at a con. (Younger DIL says I have do do more cons. Sigh.)
And please, please, please do not send either a multitool of any kind of learning center for Indy. The cat with hand-paws and the engineer mind who yes indeed does understand English is already enough trouble as is.
And I’m THIS close to having the first third of NML ready for an earc. THIS close.
Bear with me. Yesterday was a serious problem with lots of asthma, which apparently is because of too much Canada in the air again… e-arc tomorrow.
According To Hoyt 
Heh. Those bats seem to have, er, intermittent hearing problems. :-)
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Not to mention the innumerable TV episodes based on the Stanford Prison Experiment, demonstrating that, in science these days, it’s all about the story, not about the science, proving that writers make the most influential scientists. :)
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I think the takeaway should be to put the professor into incarceration. Replace “it” with someone who can intelligently explain the value of the zero aggression principle.
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AI Bats? Actual bats don’t have separate arms; their wings ARE their arms! So it seems related to the 6 and 7 fingered hands.
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They were Uplifted, and some things were “improved” along the way.
Just be glad she didn’t post the Uplifted house-cats. They really need language filters. Although some of their invective is quite creative.
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I have always thought that my cats use a plethora of expletives in their body language (as well as some of the vocalizations). There is one distinctive cat body language statement where the upright tail is flicked forward in a rapid jerking motion. As far as I can tell this is the feline equivalent of being given the finger…
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Well, as Dr. Neil Cloud and his friends discovered, Vegians use their tails for a lot of social signaling.
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Developmental mistakes or genetic engineering. Actually, it’s fairly frequent to get a duplication of limbs, a lot harder to get them actually functional. Can you imagine what Sleipnir’s skeleton looks like?
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Considering the etymology of sleigh and Sleipnir, I have this image of an ancient Norse guy trying to ride a horse on an ice-covered lake or river, and the poor thing’s legs are going a mile a minute slipping all over the place such that someone looking at it would think it had eight legs.
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The account I’ve seen is that the eight-legged horse is a kenning for a dead man’s coffin being carried by four men—Odin being among other things a god of the slain.
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…. They are cartoons. :D
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I have respected your instructions re: multitools for Indy.
You should be receiving an email shortly from the Neuralink team to schedule his appointment.
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Evil…
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I WISH I were sure you’re joking. I really do.
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I chose not to ‘sign up’ for the Medium article, but it was clear where it was going.
The comments were pretty instructional, as well. People will draw their desired conclusions even when flaws are pointed out, and, of course, it is all Trump’s fault!
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“Humans are terrible”.
“Yep”.
“You want Big Government to run everybody’s lives.”
“Yep”.
“Big Government is made up of humans and humans are terrible, thus Big Government is terrible.”
“Not if the Right People are in charge.”.
“Are the Right People human?”
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Good questions.
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There you go, trying to use reason and logic with these people. Usually takes years in a gulag, and ‘liberal’ use of a 2×4 to get these useful idiots to realize there’s something fundamentally wrong with their world view. And if I remember correctly, Solzhenitsyn mentioned that some people still rabidly defend the State even after being betrayed by it.
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Their dying words being “If only Stalin knew!”
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“If all Men were Angels, governments would not be needed,” to paraphrase Alexander Hamilton. “If Angels ruled over Men, limits on government would not be needed, but…” (Federalist 51). I think we can be pretty sure that neither of those conditions apply to the people who believe that 1) the Right People will fix things and that 2) “we’ll get it right this time!”
But I might be a touch biased in my understanding of such matters.
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I don’t know about bias, but you do seem to have a reasonable amount of common sense and a functional brain; either of which is something these progressive feelers seem to be lacking.
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Which angels? It matters, you know, even if Hamilton didn’t specify.
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I assumed that James Madison was referring to non-Fallen Angels. Normally, people call “Fallen Angels” Demons/Devils. [Wink]
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People do normally call fallen angels demons. However, I would expect fallen angels to exploit every loophole and run with it.
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IIRC Saint Paul said that the Devil can pretend to be an Angel Of Light. 🪽
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“Humans are terrible”.
And it’s so hard to find the right barbecue sauce. Er… never mind.
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The prison experiment was hardly a real world example … in the real world if you refused to follow orders they took you out back and shot you … none of the brave “guards” in the experiment made a life and death decision …
Its just like the whole debate around torture … everyone claims it doesn’t work … yet every dictatorship for centuries has used it and EVERY single rebel group opposing them tried to keep information in a small group of people because they knew if you got caught you were going to tell them everything …
Simple example … you are my prisoner, I want the pin code to your bank account … without laying a hand on you I will get it … mix in a little sleep deprivation, loud music and little or no food … and you will LIE to me and give me the wrong code … (the excuse used to claim torture doesn’t work) … well there you go I’ve failed … oh wait, I didn’t let you go and I go try the pin code … then I come back and start ther process all over again … you will give it up …
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Worse, you give me the wrong information and that locks me out.
I have no reason to stop the torture.
(Tom Kratman had the Bad Guy tell the victim that and the victim then gave the correct codes.) [Twisted Evil Grin]
(Oh, the victim was fool enough to ask what would happen if he gave the wrong code (for a nuke) where the wrong code would lock the nuke.)
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If you find yourself in the unfortunate situation of being a torture victim, you have no reason to trust a claim that they’ll stop for any reason ( or that stopping involves a bullet). Compare the ‘Burglars aren’t often violent’ claim: maybe, but I don’t know you, and you’ve already broken a lot of norms.
Similar to the low $ value ‘mugger’s wallet’, a duress code can be useful to buy time. It needs to look like it worked for long enough for a recovery team to get you, or otherwise defuse the situation.
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“No rational reason to believe the torturer.”
True.
However, people aren’t always rational in the best of times and while being tortured isn’t the best of times.
Going more serious, Tom Kratman hates the idea of torture but has made good arguments on why it works and how to make it work.
One aspect of his discussions is that if the torturer knows something that the victim knows but does not think the torturer knows, the torturer has the advantage.
Note, in Kratman’s stories, the captors have good reasons to believe that the captives are terrorists and thus have information that the captors want.
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If torture genuinely did not reliably work, few would bother. The fact that so very many folks -do- use it, and systematically, implies strongly that it -does- work, in most cases.
“En Extrimis” most folks find they will cross a great many “never” lines.
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In real life, giving them the information does not stop the torture.
It just means they don’t care so much if it kills you, so they get more creative.
See also: do not cooperate, do not go with them quietly, that’s called the secondary crime scene.
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Seconded. The kind of people who use torture aren’t doing it to get information. They’re doing it to demonstrate to others, “this is what’s going to happen if you don’t give us what we want”.
In which case a dead body is an example, too.
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I remember that one, from ‘The Untouchables’. :-o
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Pour encourager les autres….
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Yep, the classic, “Take two [terrorists, communists, rapists, whatever] who have information you need up in the helicopter. Land with one, who’s talking quite fast.”😈
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In cryptography, your PIN code example is known as an ‘oracle’ – something that will tell you if you got the right answer. This is a valid threat model if you’re visibly rich in a place with kidnapping cartels.
In dictatorships, there’s no oracle to tell you, ‘You got it, that guy is one of the rebels’, so it’s harder to know if your torture victim is telling the truth. This doesn’t matter as much as you may want, though: a side benefit of widespread torture is terrorizing the populace, which works just as well or better if it’s arbitrary. At least in the short term, which in game theory is where the action happens.
I most often encountered the argument that torture doesn’t work in the context of the war on terror, where its proponents assumed that the US wanted valid intelligence and not to cow a foreign populace.
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They tend to confuse the “tortured confessions aren’t reliable” with “tortured intelligence isn’t reliable.” In the first case, they’re right: you’ll say anything to stop the pain, and if you can tell that what they want you to say is that you robbed the bank and shot the teller, you will.
In the second case, though, what your interrogators want is the truth—and you don’t know how much of it they already know. Attempts at lies could possibly buy you time—or you could be trying to lie about something your buddy Achmed already gave up last week, leading to more pain.
It’s not nearly so simple as, “Give me ten minutes, and I’ll beat the truth out of him,” but torture absolutely can work. That’s what makes it so frightening.
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The Japanese tortured out of an American pilot that they had dozens of atomic bombs and their plans included Kyoto and Toyko.
He had truthfully told them he knew nothing first.
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At the other extreme was a con artist. After he had sold the Eiffel Tower twice (Yes, he did!), he was returning to the US for reasons of “health”. New York police were awaiting to arrest him when the ship docked. A day out he sent a radio telegram to the Treasury Department that he had important information (that meant either counterfeiting or danger to the President). The T-Men snatched him away from the cops and questioned him for 24 hours straight. He was polite, helpful, talked freely, and didn’t have any useful information. Finally, one weary Fed told him he could go, completely forgetting about the NY state arrest warrant.
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and this is the type of character I’d like to write.
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The get out of trouble, not the moral dubiousness.
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Dear Hostess you were correct that is umm disturbing. It is clear whatever AI that is needs FAR more bat related content to dig its way into the uncanny valley. Right now it is resideing somewhere between the ridiculous valley and the ludicrous valley. At least on the bat front Skynet has a ways to go…
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Yep. I told you.
Weirdly, it’s working…. Same as it ever does when I put up bats. What on Earth? You people are batty.
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I thought this belfry looked familiar.
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When I was a kid, one of my favorite cassette tapes was a Sesame Street Sing-Along tape. One of the songs in there was the Count singing,
One bat hanging in the steeple,
One bat flies through the door,
Now there’s two bats
In my belfry.
Wonderful! But wait; there’s more…
Two bats hanging in the steeple,
One bat flies through the door,
Now there’s three bats
In my belfry,
Wonderful! But wait; there’s more…
Three bats hanging in the steeple,
Etc., etc., etc.
I think he gets to “five bats hanging in the steeple” before the rest of the Sesame Street cast get tired of it and make him stop singing. (Though they’re already making comments about the song by the third verse, as I recall).
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AXPnH0C9UA&ab_channel=mrmagoo312
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I have no idea why it works, I just observed that bats had a congenial effect previously. I don’t mind pictures of bats (sans the AI generated nightmares) but in person they are less appealing. One time we were getting ready to head off to vacation. Night before our younger daughter woke us up saying she thought there was a bat in her room. We looked but saw nothing. Come morning, we spotted said bat in her room way up out of reach (our upstairs where the bedrooms are has high cathedral ceilings). It managed to come down and go downstairs. This did not improve the situation as Mack our 20lb+ cat was vigorously trying to catch said bat and his sibling Tyger was coaching. This monster of a cat was jumping to shoulder height (about 5′ or so) trying to get this flying mouse. Nothing says chaos like two cats making war cries and the chitting “kill kill kill” noise and attacking athletically while a terrified light stunned bat flits about trying to stay alive. We finally chased the bat out our back french doors with the help of a broom and the encouragement of the Feline security team. To this day, 15 years later, we have no idea how said bat got into the house. Honestly I prefer your animated bats.
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If humans were as Eeevul as they say, the world would be a Hell on Earth such as you could never imagine. And nobody would care. Because we’re Eeevul, don’t’cha know.
In truth, the overwhelming majority of humans are Not-Eeevul. They can be selfish, short-sighted, greedy and impulsive, but most don’t want to cause suffering and hardship for others, or to live in a society where such conditions are common. Most folks support the laws against causing harm to others, are willing to work for their pay, even to help out their neighbors in hardship. We see it all the time in disasters, regular folks helping out, even though the government tries to stop them.
Humans wrote all those laws against murder, rape, kidnapping, assault, robbery, embezzlement and so on. At least 95% of people support those laws as right and good. Hell, even most violent criminals, upon hearing that somebody wants to legalize robbery and murder, would say “You’re batshit crazy!”
There are a few, though. They make up a tiny minority, less than 5%. They don’t feel that the laws should apply to them. Some of them do actively enjoy hurting and killing others. They are sociopaths and psychopaths, and we need to separate them from society in self-defense. That is what the laws, and the government, are for.
Leftroids don’t get that. They are the ones that wail, “Why are there so many people in prison, when crime is so low?”
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Most criminals compartmentalize: what they do, and where morality applies. Not all of them are sociopaths.
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I don’t find your rattling the cup to be a nuisance. Mostly I just skip over it, or read the last few lines which sometimes change from day to day.
Of course, my conscience is clear because I sent alms last week… :-D
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They often change. Not today, because I was out of it due to asthma.
Better today.
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“Again, from the top: if there was some experiment done in the twentieth century which forms the basis of lefty beliefs there is a high chance it was faked.”
Stanford Prison Experiment, 100% bogus. Dissemination of this debunking? Minimal. Lefties still treat it as gospel.
Milgram Shock Experiment, 100% BOGUS! Dissemination of this debunking? I saw the Milgram experiment used to “prove” some claim about humans being bad at a -Conservative- blog the other day. People still think its true. But it is not.
Mouse Utopia? Bogus.
Gun control? Bogus! (This one even I can prove is bogus, based on the literature alone. 100% bullschlitz of the lowest grade.)
Global warming? Uh huh, you guessed it, bogus. It’s a scam to sell windmills and solar panels, and carbon taxes.
Covid? Yes, we ALL know that one was bogus, but I still see people driving alone in their car with the dentist mask on. Like this week, July 2025.
If you listen to Sabine Hossenfelder, who I must admit does have quite the axe to grind (and she’s a Good German Lefty!), most if not all the hard particle physics being done now and for the last 40 years is, if not in fact bogus, still pointless mathematical bullpucky made to sell governments on ever-larger particle colliders. I can’t say she’s wrong, as I still do not have my flying car.
AI? All those frantic claims that Artificial General Intelligence is Right Around The Corner, and we’re going to have Skynet running everything by 2030 at the latest? Oh yeah, it’s bogus.
Sarah’s favorite, the Population Bomb! Remember the 10 billion by Year 2000! claims, we were all gonna die? Remember that? Turns out China has maybe half the people they claimed, at best. India has more. Bogus.
The thing I love the most about all this is if you dare question anything on that list, there are a horde of little minions out there that will reeeee like there’s no tomorrow. You’re questioning the catechism of their religion. They neeeeeeed all that to be Real so they can justify their virtue. I mean, if Glowball Warmening isn’t real, they look pretty stupid paying all that money for their battery powered car.
REEEEEEE!
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There’s recent press on surveys showing lefties still believe the Russia Hoax stuff is true, where those evuul capitalist rooskies – not the old times saintly commie rooskies who didn’t try REAL socialism – made the Dowager Empress lose, and all those people in her victory rally cry, because… well, I got nothing, really, but ”because ORANGE MAN BAD REEEE” seems to be the actual answer.
Pure tribalism. The next tribe over that hill is all evil, they hog all the resources, make it rain at the wrong time, and they eat people, you know – yeah, we eat people, but it’s just in defense against that next tribe.
So of course the left still believes anything else that’s been debunked as fake that fits their worldview.
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Like a self-licking ice cream cone. It’s true because its true, and that makes it true! REEEE!
Mockery doesn’t pierce their armor, but it is still fun. >:D
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We don’t eat people, because we are the true people, and those creatures over the hill are just two-legged animals who can talk.
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My “says he’s a centrist” leftwing brother still believes the Russian Hoax. One of the many points of contention exchanged the last time politics came up between us.
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I can rant for pages about the corruption in the sciences. Most of it isn’t even “fraud” on the level of the Stanford Prison, Mouse Utopia, or Milgram experiments. It’s just the combination of the facts that (a) you have to get publications from your funding, or you won’t get any more funding, (b) negative results do not get you publications, (c) if you torture the data long enough, it will eventually confess to something, and that something is about as reliable as tortured confessions usually are (see my post above).
Oh, and (d) there’s no incentive for anyone to check your work, because repeated experiments also don’t get publications, and don’t lead to funding.
There’s also (e) scientists, like all humans, are social creatures and don’t want to rock the boat too hard and risk being shunned. The number of genes in the human genome is one of the prime examples of that. Before the human genome project started, the speculation was that there were somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 genes. When the project started, the scientists in charge said that thought it would be on the lower end of that. Then they speculated that it might be as little as 80,000…then 75,000…then 60,000…then 50,000…. It wasn’t until their final publication that they admitted what their numbers had been saying all along: 20,000. The official excuse was that the scientists assumed that they were working on a particularly sparse part of the genome and they’d find more as they went on, and maybe that works if you’re 10% done and have only found 2,000, but it’s a lot less plausible when they got to the later numbers, they’re 90% done, and they’re still insisting that they’ll find more genes in that last 10% than they have in the rest of the genome put together. It’s obvious they were putting out those numbers because they didn’t want to shock anyone too much. It’s the opposite of the “here’s what I found, and damn the consequences attitude” scientists are supposed to have.
And that was in a subject where all previous ideas were just speculation, and there are no political implications to the answer. Imagine how much worse it is when reputations and funding are on the line.
TL;DR version: “scientific knowledge” is a lot less robust than most people think. We’ll be lucky if the whole house of cards doesn’t come crashing down at some point.
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It seems to me a certain… more flexible ethics type of scientist is drawn to the sciences where anything is a lot harder to reproduce. If someone who wanted to fake results was in something like chemistry, and nobody else who mixed A and B in a jar with wires sticking out could get magic fusion electricity out, they’d be done.
But in the social “sciences” there’d be a lot more freedom for a flexibly ethic-ed researcher to influence and creatively interpret “experiments” to get the results that would encourage future grants, with little fear anyone else would even bother to try and replicate things.
So there’s a researcher-selection-bias in the entire field.
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They still do it in hard sciences. Cold fusion, anyone? There are plenty of papers published every week that get withdrawn later, I saw a Nature article that 10,000 were withdrawn in 2023.
Lying liars lie, I guess. :(
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One of the favorite tricks folks started noticing during COVID was forcing people to withdraw a study.
Nothing like “not only will you all not have a job anymore, but we’ll sue you to poverty and put you in jail” to motivate enough individuals to pull a study.
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“It’s the opposite of the “here’s what I found, and damn the consequences attitude” scientists are supposed to have.”
That’s my actual attitude, generally. “This is how it is. That you don’t like it won’t change it.”
Self employment has been good to me. ~:D Working for others, or even near others? Not so much. I like to do a thing that nobody else wants to do, and that way they don’t have to like me. “Yeah, you want your house painted? This is how much.”
Science, I saw the handwriting on the wall when I was a kid in university. The people getting ahead were the ones doing the schmoozing and pursuing the Popular Thing of the Moment, which I invariably dismissed out of hand as nonsense. Usually because it was one of the things on that list. >:(
I’ve been kicking the corners of that house of cards since the 1970s. It is pretty tough, I must say.
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Yeah.
So one of IEEE’s strategic goals for the next five years is pushing science and engineering as a source of knowledge.
One of my reactions is “No, we are frustrated, and doomed to more frustration, because there is necessarily a cultural gap (1), and pushing ‘you will respect muh authoriteh’ harder is just gonna cause more pushback”.
(1) communists versus Christians, with the former’s investment in the current scientific consensus
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“…science and engineering as a source of knowledge.”
IEEE, I give thee… COVID!
Yes, actual science and actual engineering are a fine source of knowledge. But when the “Science!!!” disagrees with my lyin’ eyes, and it often does and certainly did in that case, then we have a problem.
IMHO, IEEE would do well to focus on keeping engineering as honest and free of corruption as they possibly can, and skip the “but muh Science!!” crap for the next ten years.
Dear Lefties, if you want to know how full of schlitz engineering in N. America is, look no further than the nearest windmill attached to the main power grid. You want to know why Spain went dark a little while ago? That’s why. It’s called “ringing.” Go look it up, you appalling idiots.
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cough cough I May cough cough have some cough opinions cough cough in agreement. cough cough
The thing about public trust for engineering professional entities, if the entities are run by psychopathic dishonest morons, it is right for the public to discount them, lower their trust, and put a lower value on what they will pay associated engineers.
To extent I have actual measurements of senior IEEE leaders, may be positive. I certainly don’t know about serious problems beyond the cosmetic and possibly superficial.
I see two paths. One, groups focus on minding their own business, and making sure that their own work is ethical enough to reflect well on the profession. Two, idjits ride the thing down in flames. (Reality will probably be some mix.) Even if option two were one that personally screwed me, if I were the only ethical sane man in some occupation, then I probably deserve the distrust that others have earned.
But, I am ninety percent sure that my analysis is a result of massively catastrophizing on my part.
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I’ve walked away from two professional organizations in my areas of specialty because they deliberately and unapologetically prioritized activism over good engineering practice, and stated that perceptions of safety were more important than actual measured safety.
The term “evidence-based” is thrown about, but oftentimes the studies are designed from the outset to yield the specific desired conclusion. And bringing it up in peer review results in not getting those types of manuscripts in future cycles.
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Similarly, in politics and government, I believe it was the UK “So What You’re Saying Is” podcast where I heard the wonderful phrase “policy-based evidence-making”. :D
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Yep. In medicine “evidence based” is a warning of “it’s been played with”
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It can be taken that way by the consumer, for sure.
But to a -doctor-, “evidence based” is a warning to sit down, shut up, and follow the guidelines laid out for you by your betters.
Because it’s “Science!!!” right? You can’t argue with “Science!!!” because that would be preposterous!
“You, with your measly 20 years of clinical experience don’t agree with ME, the peer reviewed, journal published “Expert!” because of your clinical judgement? How DARE you?! Flog him!”
Ever wonder why more docs didn’t act up during #Covid? This is one reason.
Another reason is that a very large number of docs said “Oh, so we’re going to be like this, are we?” and quit. They didn’t say anything either. Tossed the nametag on the desk and walked.
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That was why some scientific genius more clever than I observed that science in any particular field of research progresses one funeral at a time. The scientist-researchers who have battened onto one rationale or other hold to it against all subsequent findings to the contrary, because they have made their whole career and their elevated standing in their field on it.
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“Hey! That’s Real Science, done by Real Researchers, at Real Universities! You can’t question that. Well, you can, but then we’d have to point at you and make hooting noises. [cough, cough] Conspiracy theorists…”
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“You can’t question that.”
Yeah, that one goes right along with “Are you a biologist?!” Because they think you have to be a PhD in veterinary medicine to know what a dog is. Or more like they never think at all, someone told them to say that.
I never tire of explaining Relative Risk to these English majors. [sigh]
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AI has produced some kind of useful tools, like being able to generate a book cover a lot more easily (and if you have ethical qualms about using AI for your book covers, it can still be used to generate a concept to send to an artist and say “What I had in mind is something more or less like this, but with the human figure a little more prominent and the spaceship more in the background”, and I don’t think there’s any ethical problems with that). But the people claiming that AGI is right around the corner are also the ones trying to sell you their own solution. Funny, that.
Oh, and I’ve also seen AI used to improve typing suggestions for programmers. Generating whole chunks of code at a time? Not a great idea most of the time, and a recent study proved that it lost productivity while making you think you’d gained it, because you have to spend so much time going over the AI-generated code looking for bugs that you would actually have finished sooner if you hadn’t used AI at all. BUT… typing the first few letters of a function call and having the AI-boosted autocomplete fill in not just the function call, but also the parameters you were about to type in as well? Does save time, because you can check it in half a second (you know what you were about to type, so if that’s exactly what you were about to type then you know it’s right and hit Tab, otherwise you know it’s wrong and ignore it and just keep typing) but it saves you about five seconds of typing. Do that a hundred times and that’s about 450 seconds, or 6-7 minutes, saved. Small savings, but they add up over the course of a day.
But again, those are small things. AI for big things? Yeah, not so much. And when ALL the people telling you it’s great are the ones who will profit if you believe it, well…
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Grrr. I posted a middling-long comment before that one, and it has been condemned to WPDE Purgatory.
The way you can tell, is if your comment does not appear but other, later comments do. Always wait until WPDE updates and shows some new comments before accusing it.
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On my comment currently stuck in mod it shows it, and tells me – likely because I am logged in on WP:
FM says:Your comment is awaiting moderation. m
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You don’t have to be logged in to get that comment. Since I don’t have a WP(DE) account to log into, I can claim 100% assurance of this.
OTOH, if WP acts as Shug-Internet, you’re hosed.
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It’s been doing it for two days now. Sarah must be getting tired of releasing things trapped in moderation.
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It does it RANDOMLY. Has nothing to do with what you type. It’s a pain.
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I think they’re changing something. Every few comments I see a little green thing at the bottom of the text window that says “Message sent” or similar. But not every time, so probably they’re trying to change out a piston while the engine is still running.
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I worked at a tech startup back in 2008 where the “testing and release plan” was to push new code to one of the ten web servers that traffic was randomly distributed to, monitor that server and see if anything broke, and then push the code to the rest of them if it didn’t break in the first few hours. o_O
I very strongly suspect that telling the CIO that said plan was crazy was one reason I got fired.
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Yeah, it’s funny how guys like that don’t like it when you tell them their plan is crazy. Especially when you’re right. They really hate that.
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There is but one sin greater than to be right when those in power are wrong — proving it. :-P
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Gamma Test: Send it out to the customers and let them find the bugs.
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That is exactly what the last company I worked for did. Every single change.
Client A requested change. Make change. Brief test, send it to Client A.
Client B request change to same program, make change, brief test, send it to Client B, who also gets Client A’s last change.
Rinse and repeat.
Heck if a complaint came in, check to see if they have the current program. No? Send current program to see if problem solved.
Once in awhile (maybe once a year), send out required “upgrade”, which 90% of the time was just bringing every client to the same code base of changes. The other 10% of the required upgrades involved library interface changes. OMG that was a PIA. Because once that notification went out, until that “upgrade” was installed, nothing else could be sent to that client, no matter the request, or problem.
Testing department? You are kidding? Right?
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Heh, one reason I went Linux was the following. I used MondoRescue to backup my computer then, it would crash with a particular set of options.
I found the mailing list, described the problem, and gave the error received. One hour later, I got a email from the primary developer; try this alpha and see if it works now. When a Microsoft program crashes, the lead developer rarely contacts you personally.
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Yes. Definite advantage. Clients rarely had to wait for formal upgrades. Not even the annual “official” requests that came from the client conferences (two, every year, one in Washington and one in California, States. Oregon, all 3 of them, went to California conference). Okay. It depended on what the annual requests were. (Been almost 10 years since retirement, so don’t know if spreading out to new *states under current corporate overseer. And my spies are gone.)
I mean when a client complains about the “new reports” (major rearrangement on how they could filter, and sort) and the whole concept had been in every “annual conference upgrade request” forever (before I started, so 10+ years). Or the preview of custom forms before printing (also 10+ years, and PDF “control” wasn’t going to work, although I have no clue why, not my call). There are other minor ones that went on the list that sat there for years. It is called depth of programming staff, or rather lack of. But if a client called with a problem, minor request, or wanted it bad enough to pay beyond the annual maintenance fee, then stop what you are doing, get client approval, get it done, create a bill and give it to boss. Otherwise, never lacked for work, once ticket system went in and your assigned list was completed. Latter rarely happened.
(*) Actually, it would be the perfect auditable sub cost & revenue tracking system for various federal entities that then feed the larger systems. A number of counties already to this: one or more departments get system, feed county system. System has three annual years built in: Fiscal (July – June), Calendar, and Federal (October – September, Federal Tribal Districts, at least one uses it). Note, originally written with CA state auditors. By all accounts direct from clients and auditors, it is much appreciated. Why? When auditors show up, they get what they want fast, and leave. Only saw two clients quit the system. Both because of financial cost of yearly maintenance fees. One came back under threat of huge state and federal fines because the county system wasn’t up to the task. The other one had a **”free” option (their state county association has a system for critical state and federal funds but not near as extensive, but “works” and “free”. Or why not more Oregon clients since company is based in Oregon?)
(**) Current developers for that one were aging out of the profession as I was retiring. Know that the manager that took over when the company was sold wanted to get control of that software. IDK what has happened.
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Well, it may not care about the words in these instances, but in some comments if you use some terms, that will put a comment straight to mod, the most recent I discovered being the two word term c.i.v.i.l d.e.f.e.n.s.e (remove dots).
Apparently, however, the list of bad terms is classified ultra double seekrit.
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Show me the words and I’ll find you the reason for moderation.
— WordPress Beria
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WR: (joker laugh)
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For the longest time I could not understand where the NPC thing came from. Then I felt with people who legitimately valued their conformity with the Over Culture more than they valued anything else.
And it doesn’t seem to matter what the Over Culture says, they will do it, because that is their pole star.
It makes my skin crawl to deal with them.
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I like El Gato Malo’s thake that those people don’t have opinions, they identify with their (the group’s) opinions. They perceive a criticism/comment on the opinion as an attack on their very selves. Which is why they lash out in vicious overreactions.
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I suppose. But the few I’ve actually gotten an answer out of have directly said that truth does not matter, only making the group happy and I should be happy to lie if that’s what the group wants.
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“They perceive a criticism/comment on the opinion as an attack on their very selves.”
Accurate. I see this constantly, one word out of place and they’re going at you. As one might imagine, I don’t offer my opinion in what passes for “polite company” anymore.
If the event is social and/or family, weddings, funerals etc. Uncle Phantom is pleasant, affable, and likes to talk about his lawnmower. I can talk about that thing for a couple hours without repeating myself. Most NPCs don’t survive more than a couple minutes without needing to freshen their drink.
Otherwise, in public I wear my Lancaster bomber hat and don’t give a f- what happens. “Oh, you were offended? Goody. Now get off my lawn.”
I can only imagine what WorldCon must have been like for Larry Correia the year he went in person. Holy mother of Fructose. ~:D
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You use your lawnmower as the be-boring topic, I use the weather.
I think Sarah once said she used to use Shakespeare.
It’s good to have something you can bore people to tears with on demand.
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In truth I’m quite pleased to ramble on about it, it has so many things that have to be fixed I get to show off my black belt in McGuyvering. I’m not being -deliberately- boring, but I am only relating those little enthusiasms which do not lead to people shreiking REEEEEEEE!!!!! in the middle of the funeral reception, or whatever.
I could talk about my books instead, but that would mean explaining why there were giant spiders chasing the cops around on the front lawn of Parliament, and then explaining why a giant spider has a railgun, and then oops I said gun REEEEEEE!!!!!!
Lawnmowers. The minutiae of replacing bearings on idler wheels, and pictures of said replacements, and so forth and so on, et cetera. Forever.
Weather is also nice, and in a pinch it might suffice. ~:D
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Home renovations.
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Obscure history topics. Or in wetter climates, hydrology. Enthusing about flow curves and energy balances seems to inspire people to need something from the bar or to get more canapés.
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Random thought: I wonder what the overlap is between people who only identify with their group’s opinions and people who don’t have an inner monologue.
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wait. THERE ARE PEOPLE WITHOUT INNER MONOLOGUE? Are we sure they’re not lying.
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How would we know?
There are anecdotes that seem to imply this – a type of person is helped by a therapist telling them that they don’t have to have those particular thoughts in their head. This apparently had not previously occurred to them.
Often goes by the name cognitive behavior therapy.
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William Shatner says this is him – everything, in acting or real life, is for him sua sponte, so he never got all the acting advice that talked about dealing with that inner voice.
This explains his delivery, with everything original in the moment when he says it.
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“How would we know?”
PET scans and EEG? If the speech centers of the brain are not firing except when the patient speaks, there is no inner monologue. That’s how I would do it. There might be better instrumentality developed lately, I’m old and its been a minute since I was practicing.
I haven’t bothered to look, but I expect the evidence to be thin and the condition rare indeed. Chauvinism on my part perhaps. ~:D
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I met one guy who insisted he didn’t have the “little voice” of inner monologue. (That’s the one that says “what little voice?” when you mention it to stupid people who have no introspection.)
At the time I thought he was either lying or too dumb to understand the concept. Possibly both, he didn’t seem all that reliable, honestly. One of those dipsticks who never stop smiling, even if you punch them in the face.
I have (vaguely) heard that there might be such people, but I don’t see how they could be sentient.
Maybe Lefties? ~:D
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Let me just say here that people, ahem, who have an entire Screen Actors Guild in their heads might have trouble comprehending people without any voices at all…
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Okay, valid point. ~:D
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Are you calling us schizophrenic?
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Nooooo ? :)
But seriously, people (aka “authors”) who talk about how their characters talk to them in their heads and refuse to go along with the words the author has been writing down are not a little dissociative. But also, that’s not a bad thing as long as the author can tell the difference between fictional characters and exterior observable reality.
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yeah. That.
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My life is an MST3k style monolouge of events as they happen. It amuses me greatly and keeps me sane.
I have, however, learned to keep it to myself except for certain rare exceptional people who are also sane.
Everyone else seems to be prone to triple masking on demand and is terrified of the weather, people walking against the arrows on the floor and thinking that it is somehow virtuous to hate large groups of people who disagree on something as ridiculous as politics.
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I have decided to try and damp this inner sarcastic quip module down given what I have seen in more senior seniors (Than me. Get off my lawn.), where, in some, one of the first things to go is the self-moderator, so all that inner quip starts coming out. All the time.
I want the caregivers to like me when I am old and decrepit (Decrepiter. Get off my lawn.).
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Three of the four voices in my head told me to stay home and clean my guns today.
(Old joke; I don’t need their advice to do that.)
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THIS.
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“All hands. Radio silence until further notice. That is all.”
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I have a problem NOT going against the arrows (except on the roadway), to the point that people have asked “Why are you going with the arrows? ” Because sometimes you need to take a different path? Mix it up? Make it so you can’t always tell what I’ll do? It actually makes sense for minimizing issues with all these people around? The dyslexia kicked in and I thought I was?
Moi? Stubborn “Your not the boss of me” American? No, can’t be
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Same same. We probably could be friends in RL.
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It is hard to believe. How would anyone even verify that?
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Presumably by asking them:
“Do you imagine, or ‘hear’, yourself speaking to yourself without actually vocalizing sounds? When you think about something, is it in the form of virtual words, or in moods and feelings? If someone says something clever, do you say to yourself in virtual speech ‘ooh, clever’, or do you just feel impressed without thoughts in the form of words?” etc.
And to separate internal monologue from hallucinations: “If you experience virtual speech, is it voluntary or intrusive? Is the virtual speaker ‘you’ or another entity?” etc.
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Do I have to refrain from talking to myself? It’s one of the advantages of living in the far rural areas of the country. The squirrels and birds don’t mind, unless Kat-the-dog is along and chasing them.
Kat doesn’t mind, period. Border collies can be rather feline in that respect. “Order? You want me to do something I don’t want to do? Surely you jest!” The trick is to make her want to do $THING.
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If I’m talking to myself I’m making a list for the ADD idiot that lives in my brain. “Now put on shoes. Take purse. Take purse. Take purse. Do you even listen to me?”
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Oh, I mutter/talk to my ADD self out loud all the time. “Okay, let’s go get the saw. … Wait, why did I come down here again? Oh, right, saw.” and so on. I try to remember not to do it when other people are around, but in that case I’m virtual-talking to myself.
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“I picked up the book…saw the glove, remembered the other one was in the livingroom…. went to put that away, picked up my coffee cup– the book is by the coffee machine!“
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There is a voice behind my ears.
Then there are a lot of voices that aren’t mine.
Pratchett said — ooh boy was he right — you must always remember which voice is you.
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:nods:
Like, I don’t have words— I have the things-that-have-to-be-turned-into-words.
Is that an inner monolog?
I’ve had folks look at me like I’m crazy when I talk about needing to turn the thoughts into words, not just pick the words to rephrase the ones already there.
Are they just that good with words?
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Dan swears he has a running math and images show. So does younger son.
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Number-Three-Son also visualizes oral input. He explained it one time as watching everything (spelling words, math problems) as if a movie was running in his head. Which explained why he could learn 9 spelling words but the 10th one made him lose them all: he ran out of bandwidth for the movie. It took a long time for him to realize the problem, and longer to explain it to us.
Curiously, some years later, I discovered another young man (grandson of a friend) with the same kind of problem.
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Does he manipulate it with physical actions?
Like, my daughter “writes” math problems in the air if she’s struggling with them.
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I used to do that!
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I think in TYPED words. Sigh.
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Slight digression—the quality of aphantasia, the inability to imagine things, comes on a scale. At one end, you have someone able to envision complete color, accuracy, and all senses, and at the other end, you have nothing. In between, you get some sketchy concepts. People who have been diagnosed with complete aphantasia report that they always thought that descriptive comments like “imagine a beach” were some weird allegory, and were surprised to discover that some people have movies behind their eyes.
I’m sure that there’s a similar scale for thoughts-to-monologue. Some people think in four-part harmony, and some folk think in abstract.
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you know, I thought I couldn’t imagine images and then I realized the reason I can’t write action is not because I don’t see it, but because it’s all around in sound and fury and … who can write ALL THAT? At the same time.
So instead of and and and and then he ran past holding someone’s spleen, I write as if I were writing notes to myself to remember, because it’s all so overwhelming.
So I see someone dueling someone, knives flying and I write “He put down his teacup first.” SIGH.
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I don’t have an inner monologue. I can deliberately talk to myself silently, but I would rather do it out loud.
I can’t visualize stuff, either.
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“It makes my skin crawl to deal with them.”
It can be disturbing to meet someone who seems okay at first but then you find out it’s one of Them.
Before Covid I used to engage Them and try to get along. Now? Nope. No more engagement, no more getting along. Get off my lawn, NPCs.
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Money sent through PayPal.
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Thank you.
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Every word we’ve been told about everything since Lenin has been a lie, including and and the. It’s all so tiresome
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Exhausting, really.
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A selection of Granite Grok midweek memes.
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Good question. The ICE-protestors are far more violent than the J6ers, and the cops aren’t holding doors open for them either.
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I am relieved, a little bit, to report that arrests of some of the anti-ICE rioters have begun. I hope prosecution, conviction, and incarceration will follow in due course.
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The “ICE Protesters” are being arrested during the protests.
Arrested, charged, etc. Federal charges, too, so you don’t need the city’s cooperation.
You usually don’t hear about it because the news would much rather talk about anything else, including “woman drives through protest [with video of them smashing in her windows first that we won’t show you, just someone hitting the ground]”.
There’s also folks like Rep. Dan Ugaste (Illinois state rep) proposing felony charges for blocking the road for more than five minutes when it’s an unscheduled protest.
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Most of them seem to be immediately released without bail by the local most-liberal-available federal judge. It remains to be seen if they are actually indicted and tried.
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Seem, by going off of whom?
The folks screaming that MAGA is doomed because Epstein, or the talking news heads?
Going and looking for it showed me that the Seattle protests– where yes, they arrested people– had indictments filed this week, and also brought up this related story:
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2025/jul/15/spokane-ice-protesters-including-stuckart-arrested/
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Cool. Glad to see it.
Every single X post from Andy Ngo about someone arrested in Seattle, Portland, or California ends with words to the effect of “[name] was released without bail by federal judge [name]”.
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You may want to go look again, I’ve been linking him for years because he’s one of the few folks who actually points out when they’re charged, tried, and found guilty.
Just went to look, and one of the top tweets:
https://x.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1945664023736856814
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https://x.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1945651305617526993
On the manhunt for the anti-ICE attackers guy.
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https://x.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1945620630247710848
Identified from video, and arrested.
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Arrests of anti-ICS rioters.
Anyone remember “Riot Control” from Soylent Green? (Garbage trucks combined with front-end-loader scoops)
Just saying it is often quite thrifty to leverage existing systems to solve current problems. (grin)
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If we implemented a “Wave their flag, get sent there” rule, would we suddenly see hoards of protesters waving the flags of Monaco, Lichtenstein, Tahiti and Vatican City?
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Of course, one of the questions is whether Maxwell’s contact list is the same list that Durbin blocked. Thing is, just because I’m a supervillain, and your name is on a card in my rolodex (I’m a very old-fashioned supervillain), doesn’t mean you’re also a criminal or one of my henchmen. Or maybe it’s a mutually assured destruction insurance policy so that I can take even the good guys down with me. What I really want to know is if Maxwell had the numbers to her 5 favorite fast food delivery businesses in that book too.
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There was a meme recently, I don’t remember if it was here, saying it was a shame Epstein killed himself so close to being acquitted for lack of any evidence whatsoever.
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/laugh
I remember seeing that one too.
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Obligatory “no relation” comment.
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Cool. But even if you were related, no big deal. We don’t get to choose who we are related to, except for our children. And even then, in spite of our best efforts, they can go sideways.
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There’s a “conservative” columnist who shares my last name. I’m thrilled we have no relatives in common. (Fairly common surname. With a moderately common first name, much hilarity was had over misdirected phone calls and emails over the years.)
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Hasn’t happened recently, but hubby also has a name twin here in town, that mail and phone calls get misdirected. Also no relation (that we know of). Then too other than his immediate family, he has no known west coast local relatives. He’s never met any of the east coast cousins, in his memory. His siblings, all older, met them once, either before he was born, or when he was an infant.
I have a number of name twins too, with my married name. Might be with maiden name, my first name is really *common, but few locally or on the west coast (if only because maiden name is rare locally). OTOH down in the south, it is really common (per searches).
(* Happens frequently. Medical appointment. First name called, more than me stands up. “Which one?” Is echoed. There are multiple spellings, but all pronounced the same.)
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Also “good eats,” “people to show how good I am so they shield me,” and “whoof, yeah, bad idea, this guy has an axe to grind on my skull.”
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–
–
From someone they tried to frame as being on the list and proved he wasn’t …
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Trump,is now saying the current Epstrin thing is a “hoax,” developed by the Democrats. A lot of online, “Why is he burning all his goodwill and credibility on this? going on.
The response that is the most, “Say what?” I’ve seen was so eone who should better suggesting Trump is on the list…but was added recently. Ah, guy? How long has Epstein been dead? Is he reaching out from beyond the grave?
Sigh.
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Fairly certain Trump was on the Maxwell list of contacts. Trump AND FAMILY used the Epstein aircraft once, before Trump found out what a sleazebag he was and cut all contact. Like I said, just because he was on ‘a’ list doesn’t mean he’s guilty of anything. And not even the Democrats were able to turn that into a legal issue.
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Yes. Pretty much.
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also used one after but it was no longer really his plane. iirc After arrest, before “suicide” Trump’s had a maintenance issue needing attention, and the lease company gave him a plane owned by the Epstein co. They tried to tie Trump to them with that, but it is akin to an airline plane swap and instead of the Airbus you were due to be on, you got a Boeing, because that was what was available, and the Boeing was leased, not owned.
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Was talking to my next door neighbor who’s an airline pilot. Not sure I’d want either an Airbus OR a Boeing. with the increased mechanical failures they’ve been having lately.
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Canadair or Embraer, for me please. I like the little regional jets, otherwise an older 737-700
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If someone was suggesting that Trump was “added recently” to the Epstein list, they’re saying that the list has been edited, i.e. tampered with, and is no longer reliable evidence. Now, depending on whether this person is sane and rational or not, they may or may not understand the implications of what they are saying. But those are the inescapable implications of claiming that anyone was added “recently” to the list.
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He seemed to be saying, “That’s why they’re holding it back,” which makes 100% no sense.
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It’s basically what I said. “The list has been tampered with.”
Look, the type of furore out of nowhere on Epstein is typical USAID financed stuff abroad. it makes you wonder what those laid off people are up to, no?
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I haven’t done enough research to know whether true or false, but I recall hearing that the old free company mercenaries would at times just switch to the enemy of their prior employer when a better offer was made, or payroll was late.
I don’t think Russia has a lot of spare funds, but the PRC’s MSS may well have a lot to burn.
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Not a lot. But probably enough.
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“But we Just Know he had to be there, so he belongs on the list!”
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He isn’t saying that. They’re getting this from the bit I screen capped in the last post.
He’s not being the MOST clear, no. BUT what he said is that the list he has is an hoax. basically what I put in the post about it.
They had it for four years. The current list probably omits many culprits and includes a lot of innocent.
So yeah it is “an hoax.”
And yeah, the demand for it is being pushed by the democrats, which you’d think our people would be wise to.
Instead they running with the stupidest interpretation of his words possible.
It’s like they WANT to commit political suicide.
And Trump is exasperated, which makes his communication even worse.
I really wish he had the facility with words of Reagan. but he sure doesn’t.
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I could write an Epstein list, but the most available to me source is pretty much purely invention.
(IE, I probably could just make stuff up, but I would probably tell people if I was doing that. (It is actually a more serious problem when I am fooling myself, becuase I am very upset or unsettled, because then I may actually think I am correct, and am not aware that I might need to warn anyone.))
Anyway, in matters of criminal law, or The Science, when it comes to stuff not disclosed chain of custody can matter, and also what the people do with the stuff in their custody.
The patterns with this round of Trump include some charming naivete, about such things as documentation on Epstein, JFK, etc.
Though, I think my prior position on Epstein was that even if he did kill himself, the irregularities merited greater alarm and investigation than obviously followed. Not being able to keep him alive, and not being able to use him is really suggestive of issues.
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His definining flaw is that he finds it (almost?) impossible to say, “I was wrong.”
At least some of this crap would go away if he said, “I was wrong. I thought we’d be able to get clean evidence once our people went in, but it’s all been worked over by the previous Administration. It’s not reliable and I’m not wrecking innocent people’s lives if I can’t be sure of getting the guilty ones.”
OTOH, I can believe he’s so ticked off by this kerfuffle overshadowing the good stuff that he just wants it to go away.
Also note that the usual suspects among the Rs are floating the, “Now that the number of border crossings has dropped, it’s time to roll out our Bipartisan Bill on Immigration Control, the one that amnesties as many “law-abiding immigrants,” as possible, while this hoo-raw gets all the attention.”
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I think that is a strategy and a tactic, not a flaw.
I think it is the combination of the vocabulary and the not admitting fault that distinguished him from the mainstream of Republican leadership in public eyes, and what they responded positively towards for the most part.
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I’m actually not sure it’s a flaw. He’s, like us, extremely on line, and if you ever admit you were wrong on line, they CRUCIFY you.
So, I forgive that.
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The problem is there are no working “law-abiding” illegal crossing immigrants, except those issued their own SS on birth, and the ones issued SS numbers because of DACA. All other working illegal immigrants should be highly suspected of identity theft. Anyone thinking identity theft is a victimless crime has either never experienced it or known anyone who has. It is a huge PIA just straightening out the problem even if it didn’t come to light because you were denied something because gee you are “working” in two different states, at the same time, from where you reside, neither are within commuting distance, nor are they jobs that can be done online. (Read about the latter. Have a relative who regularly deals with the first.)
Lock down your credit bureau, and gov ID SS, accounts. (PIA when need to take out a loan, but sooooooo worth it).
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Wow, that may be a personal best (worst) for typos in a post.
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Don’t be limited by success! You can do better (worse)!!!!
Go Dorothy go!
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Well, it seems that Sarah has her finger on the pulse of discontent just now. Sabine Hossenfelder released this video today, CREAMING the particle physics establishment for talking schlitz abut Eric Weinstein.
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The comments for this one were interesting. Usually, her comments are full of people reveling in her diatribes against the stranglehold of string theorists and other Theory of Everything proponents, but this one was much more a fifty-fifty.
Which, to a degree, I understand; she stood up for Weinstein. But her point wasn’t that Weinstein was right; her point was that Weinstein wasn’t provably any more wrong than any number of well-funded string theorists. As much as scientists tend to see Galileo as a hero, maybe they would have more fruitful conversations if they didn’t turn to immediate jeers and mockery if someone dares to disagree.
sidenote: Can we expect an essay built around the Milford experiment later this week? It seems the obvious conclusion to the trilogy unfolding.
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They care far less about The Science! than they do about the government grants they all squabble over. Which really are a fixed pie, so everybody jealously guards their slice from any threat.
Politics perverts science.
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(simplified) Galileo was prosecuted for being an insulting ass (some) and refusing to show his work (the big thing). All too many of the String folks (and other theories) are much the same. Doc Travis made some jokes about that in his and Ringo’s works
Personal experience, the less able to do “everyday” things, the more obnoxious about others ignorance they are.
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I certainly know that my own level of uselessness seems to contribute to also choosing to be an overly proud asshole.
The petty stakes of academia?
That I swell up like a frog so much about that stuff is maybe a pretty serious indictment of me.
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My reformulation of what she said was that too much of physics was piling on like vicious bitches.
Civility, and protection of innocents, might be fairly important to a wrong thinker.
I think that a lot of academia is feeling insecure about funding right now, and trying to cut isolated wrong thinkers out of the herd might seem to lunatics to be a good marketing ploy. “At least we are better than this guy.”
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Ironically, questioning authority was “leftist” last century but now these are the same people threatening us not to question their authority. The Stanford experiment was clearly unscientific but it would be a mistake to say that we should uphold obedience and conformity as good right wing virtues. What will you do when you’re in prison for a crime against the left?
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Er…. WHAT.
Where have I said I uphold obedience and conformity as good right wing virtues?
Unless someone else wrote that article, I certainly DIDN’T. I don’t uphold conformity and obedience as any kind of virtue. I think individuals should think for themselves.
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Did you omit several transition sentences?
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it seems like nearly every “scientific fact” that the left tries to use as a cudgel against the populace is highly flawed if not outright lies. The Kitty Genovese murder and the “bystander effect” is also right up at the top of the list. Though, at least that one had positive in pushing for the 9-1-1 system.
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