Soapbox is developed by a massive TERF, boyfriend/husband to the founder, and co-founder of the transphobic, radical "feminist" hate-platform spinster.xyz. This is where all the TERFs migrated after the reddit ban of /r/gendercritical, /r/LGBdroptheT, ...
I think in this case, it's really hard to separate the product from the person, since it's all over the place; he's at the core of organized transphobia, harassment and hate.
In the age of J.K. Rowling being called TERF could probably majority of population be called TERFs, I see such labels no longer useful. And unless you subscribe to notions such as guilt by association, ancestral sin and similar I don't know how is conduct of developer's spouse relevant.
I feel like the case you're trying to make that JK is a "normal" person and therefore her views are common. This isn't an instance where someone who happens to hold an unorthodox opinion is caught by people trying to apply labels to her. She isn't getting caught up in the fight between feminists and the broader cultural push for trans acceptance. She's been on the front lines of this fight for years and years. It just happens that one, people are starting to actually care about trans people and two, JK decided to start venting more publicly on the largest outrage machine on the internet.
Very few people are TERFs. It's a relatively uncommon set of beliefs which are separate from the kinds of views that might get you called transphobic.
Unlike J.K. Rowling (I only know about a few dramas, maybe there were some that I missed) this person is an actual TERF. He basically says that because a trans person once molested a girl then all transgender people are bad, along with all the other usual TERF arguments. See https://blog.alexgleason.me/trans/ for his opinions.
Although I personally do not think that the authors personality/opinions/etc should be considered when selecting software so I denounce 488643689's post. I would understand boycotting a paid product if the company producing it was engaged in unethical behaviour (such as abusing their employees, etc) but this is not close to what is happening here.
I actually checked out r/GenderCritical just before it got banned -- and it's nothing like what you describe it as. I only found mature, good faith discussions regarding the trans issue.
Let's share some more information, then. Alex is also an atheist and the kind of annoying vegan advocate. I am a Christian Orthodox and I roll my eyes every time I see him talking about any of his soybean-dirt-based meals or the typical shallow sophomore religion-bashing post. Should I just interact with those that are exactly like me?
> Is this the cancel culture apocalypse the right is talking about?
Asking people to not separate the product from the person, and think that the guy does not deserve any praise for his work because of some association with people that disagree with you? Yes, that's cancel culture that (not just) the right is talking about.
Trying to label everyone that holds an opposing view as "hateful" without absolutely no room for dialog? Yes, that's cancel culture that (not just) the right is talking about.
> it's not ethics anymore?
Does Soapbox come with some kind of clause that says you need to share their views to use their code? Is the product itself exclusionary in any way? Then no, ethics have nothing to do with it.
> Asking people to not separate the product from the person
Sorry, but why should i separate the product from the person?
I'm not boycotting lactalys because their product are bad, they are quite good in fact, but he way the brand owner used to treat his employees, and the way they still treat milk producers irks me. I don't want to contribute to a person fortune if i don't like him or his way of treating people.
Should i buy some Nestlé product for convenience when i know that people gaining the most of the deal are not even apologetic about the contaminated water scandals? When they knew about African water and still sold mothers powder milk?
I quite like some of their other product, i just don't want to give them my money.
It is the same for this soapbox product, no?
I don't care if it is cancelled tbh, i just don't want the people behind the product to get my money, is this bad? Also there is room for dialog, i've talk quite extensively with a sodastream ambassador. Still won't ever buy their products, but we did talk.
I’m going to be downvoted to oblivion, but I couldn’t care less.
From my point of view (Western Europe) this whole “cancel culture” thing is demented and stupid, and I’m probably as liberal as they come.
Why? Well, let me provide an illustration: what was Carl Benz’s opinion on, oh I don’t know... homosexuality or transexuality? I’m guessing blindly that it was probably very restrictive and ‘unenlightened’ by our own “modern standards”. He’s the inventor of the internal combustion engine... how many people are willing to give up their cars because their inventor’s views were ideologically impure? Louis Pasteur was probably also a bigot by modern standards too: are we going to wipe the slate of hygiene theory clean because of this?
People are imperfect. In the eyes of those who will come later we too will be imperfect. Let’s be charitable towards those who despite different political views and values nonetheless collaborate in this great technological and cultural enterprise that is the sum total of human knowledge and capabilities.
None of us have are the golden standard. Koan-like, those who might think they are the final word in morality aren’t, because they lack humility and also empathy with the circumstances that inform others’ views.
This really have nothing to do with this. My father is boycotting products since the 80s (being born in jerusalem in 68 and having links with orphanage sisters living the Israeli/palestine war from the "poor" side probably have something to do with it).
In his case not about cancelling israel, its about not engaging with them economically.
But this is not only that. This is a generation thing. You (and i say "you" as in: older generations) told us that if we don't agree, we have to vote with our wallet.
Not happy about climate change? Vote with your wallet then, are you still using cars and planes hypocrites?
You're not happy about how we treat pigs and cows? How about you stop eating meat and vote with your wallet? (this one was delightful. Never heard this again since 2010).
Younger people probably had it harder than i did, and i did start to boycott things early in my life when the inconvenience was not to high. Just to piss you off. I did never coordinate though or ask people to boycott something with me. I'm not the social kind of guy. But i understand why people my generation would do that. You told us to vote with our wallet, that this is the only power we have. Don't be astonished when we use it.
OK, I’ll happily grant you that you’ve made a compelling case. I still think there’s a significant difference between “cancel culture” (which I deplore) and boycotting/“voting with your wallet” (which I support), but I can’t quite put my finger on it so it’s entirely possible that I’m holding an untenable position. Thanks for your input, I appreciate it.
Absolutely not the same. His work was not achieved due to exploitation of anyone. His personal views do not change the usage of the product and do not mandate any kind of compliance or agreement to any of his values. You want to put someone who simply expresses a contrarian view on the same stand as someone who actively exploits their employees?
> I don't care if it is cancelled tbh, i just don't want the people behind the product to get my money, is this bad?
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist...
Yes, pretty bad. This is the seed of totalitarianism that is planted in most progressives minds and speeches. You just don't think is bad because you are not in the out-group yet.
An open source project is different then like a chair or something. Part of the value of open source is the community around it. You can contribute to the code and ask around for support, but that requires associating or at least potentially associating with the creator.
If that creator is someone you don't want to associate with then why not just find a different project to use?
(This is already getting tiring, so forgive me for the flippant answer)
I don't want to associate with Richard Stallman (even before his stupid comments regarding pedophilia), yet I use Emacs every single day of my life. If you tell me that Emacs itself only came to existence due to any of Stallman's ridiculous statements or if you tell me that my usage of Emacs enables Stallman in any way to be the asswipe that he is, then I would seriously consider dropping it.
> but it's not something that anyone takes seriously
I do, and so do a lot of other people. His arguments were tolerant and made perfectly fine sense.
> Stallman's views on people who use platforms like Facebook or tools like Photoshop, namely that they deserve whatever abuse they receive for being too stupid or lazy to become programmers and sysadmins so they can use FSF products instead
More importantly, I agree with parent that expressing views is something else than actively exploiting someone or using violence. Words != violence. Tolerance is being able to co-exist, work with and even be friends with people we disagree with. And, yes, that include people we think are intolerant (or that will be the excuse not to do the hard thing and engage in debate).
Open debate is a good thing, and it was hard won. Let's not throw it away so quickly.
Spinster.xyz is build on Soapbox and _run by Alex Gleason. It's hosting a community, which was banned from reddit for actively harassing and willfully hurting trans people. That's actions not words. Maybe people underestimate how organized and funded these hate groups are, how coordinated and planned the gaslighting of the public is. It's also not just "feminism" but more and more intersection with ultra right and "christian" conservative thinktanks.
Just because you are not directly affected doesn't mean it's all just opinions and words, and nobody gets hurt.
Are you saying they're beating people up? Or stalking them? Because, if not, it absolutely is "just" words! And if they do, that's illegal. I'm not in the US, but it seems to me like your laws, for the most part, strike good balance in these types of scenarios. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm guessing you would disagree?
I'm not saying it's nice, or good, or that they're moral. I'm saying that the "fix" many people (maybe not you) are advocating usually leads to much darker things than people having their feelings hurt by words[1]. We know this because many societies have gone down that path before us.
1: OK, that sounds flippant, I know. But I think many people underestimate the horribly things people have done, and still do, to each other..
Open debate is certainly nice but sadly both Alex and the spinster.xyz administration and users prefer offer troll responses and insult people behind their backs rather than engage in discussion.
> First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist...
Thank you for this. I understand your view better like this.
This is my point of view:
I use my money and my time however i want. No one should feel entitled enough tell me if i am allowed to boycott a product.
This is why i don't think it is cancelling and that you are doing the term a disservice:
Neither i nor 488643689 did say "don't use and/or participate with this product, he is transphobe". 488643689 just informed me, and others, of the product owner views on trans people, and that he cofounded spinster.xyz (which is a TERF platform).
Our society and economy is build on the myth of homo economicus. That people will take the best decision for them with the right informations. Having this information without haviong to dig in makes everyone stronger and able to make better decision.
Preventing someone to do business with perfectly informed economic actor is totalitarism. But informing people about the personnal deed of a product owner, not shaming them if they still engage with him, is something you should absolutely do if you believe in liberal capitalism.
Invoking the ghost of Martin Niemoller to complain about people not wanting to do business with somebody who publicly espouses views they find abhorrent is a hell of a swerve.
An annoying diet is a bit different from "hey this segment of people should just not exist", isn't it?
(If that's what TERFs ~actually~ want I don't have the time or nerve to debate, but wherever you draw the line, it's still a very different category of belief)
> An annoying diet is a bit different from "hey this segment of people should just not exist", isn't it?
It is this constant mis-representation of opposing views that make these kind of discussions so unbearable. I've wasted already, what?, an hour and a half arguing about something that has nothing to do with the original topic. No wonder things are so polarized. Instead of trying to reach for common ground, the default behavior is to distort the argument, dehumanize the other and to try to "beat" the opponent into submission.
> wherever you draw the line, it's still a very different category of belief
You only mentioned the part about being Vegan, but I trust that you are smart enough to look at the part where I mentioned religious differences and figure out where I would draw the line? Hint: atheists can deny my beliefs all they want; what they think of me or my religion makes absolutely zero difference in my life.
That, and the age structure of the infected changed: the older people are doing what they can to avoid the infection, if they are able to do that.
Also, across the world, different measures are still in place, changing the dynamics of the spread, compared to the start of the pandemic when the spread was practically unconstrained. The dynamics of the spreading is also different in different settings.
There's no any scientific reason to believe that "the virus" changed in any way biologically. It's the world that does its best to adapt. Also, the schools and the universities are not opened for students at the moment in many countries, also slowing down the spreading.
Edit: answer to: "Viruses don’t mutate?"
The coronaviruses have additional mechanisms to correct the copying, slowing down the mutations, compared to e.g. flu viruses.
Edit2: answering: "The main reason for why Coronaviruses don't mutate much is because they don't have to": I wouldn't call that "the main reason", but it's a part of their success. Coronaviruses have longer genome than many other viruses, and having uncontrolled mutations in that longer genome would make them degrade too fast, so there is that molecular mechanism they have, correcting the copying errors. Additionally, they have other mechanisms to recombine their genetic material, something like "sex between (corona)viruses" where even more than two parents could be possible. But that's different from mutations and happens under different conditions. Knowing all that, and all that what est31 mentions, it is indeed true, the coronaviruses really simply don't need to "mutate fast."
Edit3: "There different strains" is not true. They are different isolates, where the completely minor differences exist, but for all it is known, until somebody proves otherwise, and nobody has, there is still just a single "strain" of SARS-CoV-2.
Edit4: Thanks to Gibbon1, yes, comparing with influenza is tricky, but maybe it's good to give readers the idea once again that this is surely not flu and that the viruses aren't the same and don't behave the same.
> Edit3: "There different strains" is not true. They are different isolates, where the completely minor differences exist, but for all it is known, until somebody proves otherwise, and nobody has, there is still just a single "strain" of SARS-CoV-2.
A month or so ago, there was a research paper (admittedly an unreviewed preprint) that suggested there are different strains circulating in the US - the part I remember is that the New York City and Chicago strains did indeed act slightly but measurably differently. I think there was a third as well.
> a research paper (admittedly an unreviewed preprint)
As Dr. Fauci would say, it doesn't matter, even if it were a peer reviewed it can still be bad. (1)
There are a lot of bad studies, especially on the "preprint servers" that in more quiet times would not appear at all, or which nobody would take a bit serious. Now there is a lot of wishful thinking or bias involved even in their perception.
The scientific process doesn't protect anybody from some studies simply being bad, the process is there that eventually the bad ones are going to not be reconfirmed, and the really good ones are those that have many confirmations and have even the power to make new predictions, that remain true.
There are known issues with these studies claiming different "strains" too easily.
Would it not be possible that through quarantine of infected people we "outbreed" the dangerous strains of covid19? People with symptoms going to be isolated, so their strain of the virus can not infect as much people as a hypothetical other strain which don´t produce symptoms... just an idea.
The problem is in as much as 50% of the cases, the same deadly virus causes no symptoms in some, so you really don't know if you are asymptomatic because of the strain or your immune system.
Viruses have mutations all the time in random places in their genome, in fact in the course of an infection you have a "quasispecies" of viruses in your body with a diversity of different genomes, but most of those mutations don't do anything relevant. Think of someone modifying a // comment in your code or adding/removing an empty if clause somewhere. In some viruses, mutation is very relevant to fighting the disease, e.g. for HIV it's immensely large. But for the Coronavirus the mutation rate is rather low, and even though it does mutate, no variant has been discovered yet that's functionally different to already existing variants.
The main reason for why Coronaviruses don't mutate much is because they don't have to. While influenza constantly comes up with mutations so that it can come back seasonally, it seems that Coronaviruses take a different approach by evading adaptive immunity instead. E.g. feline Coronaviruses can infect cats over and over again, without large increases in ability for cats to fight it. That's also the case a bit for SARS-Cov-2, there are reports of humans getting infected a second time, but they are rather rare reports, we'd have far more of them if humans had no good adaptive immunity.
One thing to be careful about is using a influenza as reference. Influenza is a segmented virus. The viral genome is composed of 8 separate segments. In the wild new strains occur due to reassortment where the RNA sequences from two separate strains are shuffled to produce a third. That makes influenza annoying because it's regularly swapping in RNA segments from bird and swine influenza viruses. Makes developing an universal vaccine impossible and occasionally you get nasty novel strains like in 1918.
Most countries got their shit together and infection rates decreased. That means the same test capacity is now testing less severe cases, more preemptively across the population.
I also think it's unlikely to have the virus pathology synchronized across the world with current travel restrictions.
Last time I checked the virus actually seem to feature some "dual gene pool" mechanics, which should make it more robust and adaptable to "fading out".
Lol. Reads a little bit like cells accumulating mutations, becoming increasingly unchecked. Cancer analogy would be complete, if they end up training other idiots.
For me the straps were tearing after about 6-7 years (bought it 2009, might be less plastizer used). Became shower watch for some more years. Sometimes you even forget the stopwatch running for month, but the battery still lasts longer then anything else.
Could be testable by turning the stopwatch on and then change the time. I have no idea how these clocks work; if they have a Unix time style counter as internal reference, then this test won't work. Would need a 36 bit memory to run for 20 years continuous counting; 30 billion times bit flipping on the lowest bit. Probably done differently.
Worth noting an MRT is of low value for prevention. Small lesions would be invisible and you could very well progress from nothing visible to seriously sick in 6 month. We really need some marker for before we get unhindered growth.
Even if we had 100% precise AI assisted image analysis, once a year fullbody MRI... the MRI resolution would still not catch the "before things escalate quickly" pre stage of cancer. With imagery catching _most cancers early is inherently a thing of mostly luck.
The problem is with breast cancer screening the next step probably isn't a full body CT. If you detect cancer in the blood, next step would be actually finding it. A full body CT would actually increase your cancer risk and add the chances for another false positive which might involve more invasive diagnosis. The real risk/benefit calculations quickly become tricky.
All that said, I'd rather risk dying while propofol'ed, than from say colon cancer. I mean all this is about how we die, not if we have to die.
Coming from the field of cognitive neuroscience, where MRI scans are commonplace (because you can get an estimate of brain activity by doing a continuous, "functional" MRI scan), CT feels like ancient technology to me. There are highly specific case where it has benefits, so it has a place. But if I went into the hospital and they sent me in for CT rather than MRI to get an anatomical scan, they better have a damn good reason for it.
Well, you better be willing to wait a couple days for a non-emergent MRI.
Because MRIs take longer, they are a more scarce resource. If you are in the hospital and need a scan, presumably its because the doctors are trying to diagnose something somewhat urgently. If not, they should discharge you and let you get the scan scheduled as an outpatient. So, CT it is for almost all common conditions in the hospital as first line. (even stroke usually gets CT head first to rule out a bleed, where the sensitivity is still pretty good)
CT and MRI are simply different imaging modalities that provide different information, usually used to answer different questions. There are tradeoffs for each.
By the way, they were both invented around the same time (CT is only older by like ~5 years).
CT is simply more practical for full body scans, since an MRT would take forever. Imagine laying completely still for 2 hours... CT does it in 5 minutes.
They also differ in diagnostic value for different types of use cases. But I am lacking any expertise there.
Either way, CT plus constrast agent is the standard in cancer diagnostics/staging.
Excuse my ignorance, but I've always been told that CTs are significantly cheaper and faster to administer. According to the famous XKCD radiation graph, a full CT head scan is about 50% of the normal natural yearly background radiation you'll get. Not something to cheer over, but nothing to lose sleep over either. If a CT scan would suffice, why tie up the MRI machine?
The problem is when you are screening lots of people, most of whom don't actually have cancer. The individual risk is low, but the population risk is high. And when we talk about cancer screening we have to think at the population level.
From what I know, the risk is not high enough to leave a strong signal. The problem is the overall high cancer rate for humans. As far as I know, we still don't have a model for predicting cancer rates after low exposure to ionizing radiation.
OK, but you'd be delaying scans by having to wait for the MRI, which takes significantly longer to setup and administer as well as being much more expensive (which would further reduce access).
Also (and this is according to the XKCD chart) you'd need 50 CT head scans before you'd hit the clear statistical cancer risk.
But it's not like the whole population gets a CT scan every year, or even during their entire life. If you need one anyways, there's probably a more pressing issue that 1/50th the clearly statistical risk level.
The dosage is in a shorter amount of time (within seconds instead of months). I don’t think the radiation averaged over half a year is comparable to the head CT.
My understanding is that the dosage within those few seconds is the equivalent to absorbing half a year's worth of radiation. That's explicitly what Sieverts are designed to measure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sievert
It's disputed, if the linear, no threshold model is adequate. The problem is, 1:5 people die of cancer anyway and the people getting fullbody CTs tend to be either old and die rather soon, or are people who had cancer at some point to begin with. Really hard to find a signal there. The best data is still from the nuclear accidents/bombings.
Cells can repair (maybe faulty) a certain amount of damage, but may suicide when too much is broken (double-strand breaks). The amount and type of ROS generated by ionizing radiation also depends on your antioxidant state and how well tissue is saturated with oxygen (more ROS if you exercised before exposure). Generated ROS are a significant factor in cell damage, it's not just direct DNA hits. Some ROS can last for weeks and travel across cells to fuck things up.
I think we can confidently say, lowish radiation exposure is: not great, not terrible ;)
This causes me pain. I really, really want an AMD Thinkpad, but NONE of them has a 2k or 4k display. I tested the FHD ones and I just can't bare it/feel alright dropping 1.3k€ on FHD in 2020. No sure what to do now :(
Yeah, but IdeaPad is not ThinkPad... I would only do education offers and the non ThinkPads don't come with 3 years of onsite premium support. The IdeaPad does come edu discounted tho.
On this note, I got the 500nit e-privacy display and it's "fine". I don't love it, it's not quite as good as it sounds, but it's "fine". Viewing angle with the "privacy" part off is still pretty terrible.
But you sit closer to it so it needs to be sharper. The issue with 1080p at 14 inch is that 150% scaling has blurriness issues with bitmap graphics and 100% scaling is a bit too small and 200% scaling is a little bit too big for most people. Linux is also terrible at 150% scaling across the board. 1440p is the perfect trade-off at 200% between crispness and battery life and well-supported in linux, and while 4k at 300% is very crisp it is a massive power drain.
Apple and microsoft consistently ship displays between 200 and 250 dpi, the sweet spot for 200% scaling. It is frustrating that nobody else does this. I’m on the fence between replacing my 1080p thinkpad with another thinkpad or a macbook pro, and this is a major advantage for the mbp.
Aww c'mon. You guessed it was fake, because it's an article about computer generated articles. Who would read that and not question the content in front? You are not analysing everything you read for oddities in writing style.
> You are not analysing everything you read for oddities in writing style.
I certainly do, don't you? When I read a blog post and it's full of poorly-integrated buzzwords that make it seem like it was churned out by a non-English speaker being paid very poorly per word, I stop reading and move on.
I recently read a few pages of a book someone had recommended to me and stopped reading because of the writing style.
Heck, you can read a few pages of, say, a Dan Brown novel, and based on the writing style might choose not to read it, since the style tells you a lot about the kind of book it is.
Soapbox is developed by a massive TERF, boyfriend/husband to the founder, and co-founder of the transphobic, radical "feminist" hate-platform spinster.xyz. This is where all the TERFs migrated after the reddit ban of /r/gendercritical, /r/LGBdroptheT, ...
I think in this case, it's really hard to separate the product from the person, since it's all over the place; he's at the core of organized transphobia, harassment and hate.