however I must say I hold it in the greatest of contempt and have little hope for it as a whole, and although it will continue getting stupider, ironically, it will survive. — Merkwurdichliebe

That's a heavy load to carry.

I'm not disgusted by all fatbodies, forgive me for speaking so generally. But, for the ones that do disgust me, it gives me something interesting to draw. — Merkwurdichliebe

In some situations you have to look at the person within the body and hold off on judgement. Then the body just becomes part of the human potential, and what you think of it reflects how you see humanity in general.

This is another video about a de-transitioned youth. She expresses some of the same concerns that a former forum member spoke about, regarding the trans community. She makes a very wise point: "heal your mental health first, and if you still feel gender dysphoria, then consider transitioning."

Unless a person can't find any beauty at all in masculinity. Then we have a pathological bias.

Oh. :chin:

Has Russia ever had an actual coup? I can't think of one.

Happy as a clam, friend. — NOS4A2

Well, this:

Your chuckling is exactly what I wanted to see. I’ll let you know if your opinion ever means anything. For now, I’m happy you’re so risible. — NOS4A2

is not happiness. It's bitterness.

You're sounding kind of bitter of late. Cheer the fuck up.

Plant consciousness is where the current edge and debate is the most interesting. — Bylaw

Unless you just ate a salad.

The studies show a low rate of transitioning regret at less than 1%. — Hanover

I wouldn't call that low. That means for every 100 surgeries, one person regretted doing it. I would tend to avoid any research that announces a political bias at the outset, as this one did, but since this survey basically affirmed a study from 1993, I don't doubt their results.

But anyway, the person in that video is an example of a woman, both biologically and in terms of self perception. As she stated, her presentation is always going to be androgenous.

I see. It's just all really strange.

I always try to give the benefit of the doubt. — Jabberwock

Me too.

Boethius and Tzeentch haven't made much sense to the rest of us since the war began. We're not really expecting that to change.

For all that's already been known, the degree of dysfunction in the power structure and the society that this episode has brought to the surface is pretty amazing. — SophistiCat

I don't understand why their military was pitted against itself to begin with. Was that on purpose to keep the military from taking over? Or what?

I have a friend who is going through the Hugo winners one by one till he's read them all. When he gets done with that, he plans to go through the Nebula winners not included on the Hugo list. — T Clark

:grin: :up:

:up: See if they have an anthology of Hugo winners. That's good stuff.

I saw the English version, which was ok. I've been thinking I should read it — T Clark

It's cool to compare the American version to the Russian one. There's a very different tone in each. The American one pays closer attention to making sense. The plot is sketchy to begin with.

The philosophical merit of the thread would go beyond the novel itself. — Noble Dust

Interesting. :up:

By "old school" are you referring to the truly old school like Wells? — Noble Dust

I was thinking more about the 1960s I guess? Like Jack Vance, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, etc

Maybe his short stories were just a way to make money. Now that you mention the mysticism, I remember something about someone showing up to PKD's door with Christian fish necklace and it caused some epiphany in Dick? Was he struggling with mental health issues?

His later novels are anything but old school Sci-Fi. — Noble Dust

Really? That's weird that they'd diverge significantly from his short stories. How would you characterize them?

I enjoyed reading the book. I haven’t read much Dick and I’m not a big fan. — T Clark

I haven't read that, but I've read pretty much all of Philip K. Dick's short stories. He's old school science fiction. The vibe was always like you're being invited to consider something completely bizarre, but based in science somehow. PKD is known for images that stick with you. For me it's an image of this guy sitting in his living room and when he looks up at the window, there's a giant eye staring back at him. I don't remember the rest of the story, I just remember that image.

If you've ever seen the Russian version of Solaris, it captures that old school vibe pretty well.

They just fooled the whole world into seeing them as weak cowards! — Jabberwock

Plans within plans, man. It's like Dune over there.

Deal with inflation? (1) raise wages (2) raise interest rates.

(1) simply ignores inflation by feeding the wage-inflation spiral. (2) was pretty effective when Volker took the reins. But, admittedly, the country is in unexplored financial territory now. — jgill

Powell seems pretty confident that raising rates with "break the back" of inflation again. He wants it down to 2%.

Putin is weakened but what he needed most was time. Now he's got that, I presume he'll try to shore things up and pretend whatever deal he signed never happened. — Baden

That was some crazy shit, though, right?

turned out to be weaker than expected, — Jabberwock

They say he struck some sort of deal with Putin. Moscow was close to defenseless, so Prigozhin appears to be in charge now.

Perhaps that's acceptable since ageism is thriving" — jgill

I don't think the liberal response to rate hikes is ageism. It's just an impotent gesture.

I guess he was just blowing smoke

Reddit says part of the Russian national guard sent to defend Moscow defected to Prigozhin

Holy shit! Is this good or bad?

Do you mean Prigozhin is going to make it all the way to Moscow and take over?

Well I think the point was that there's a difference between a biological woman and a trans woman. If a community decides to use that distinction for whatever they will, it's certainly not a logical problem, however might assess the motive behind it.

Once we plug our brains back in, that's obvious. :up:

Wasn't the reliance on a private army a telling sign? Isn't arresting anti-war and dissident activists/protestors and then sending them to the front to gain leadership experience and a chance to b radicalize your army almost always a bad idea? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think there may have been an impression that Ukraine wouldn't fight back, and that the US might ignore the event as Obama ignored their seizure of the Crimea. Maybe he just wasn't expecting Biden's resolve.

Also, Putin has historically been able to shore up his power by military ventures. He benefits from a quagmire as much as he would a victory, just in terms of eliminating any hint of democracy in Russia.

What the heck?

Well, perhaps the article has sown a seed, — Banno

I think it sowed a smackdown. :razz:

Yes. Even if we don't understand why they want to transition, we understand that we need to help them.

There's a high suicide risk for trans kids so it's about trying to mitigate potential mental health problems in the least invasive way possible. I'm no expert on that. Maybe e. g. frank knows more (at least I think he's in the health industry). — Baden

"Data indicate that 82% of transgender individuals have considered killing themselves and 40% have attempted suicide, with suicidality highest among transgender youth... Interpersonal microaggressions, made a unique, statistically significant contribution to lifetime suicide attempts and emotional neglect by family approached significance. School belonging, emotional neglect by family, and internalized self-stigma made a unique, statistically significant contribution to past 6-month suicidality." NIH, pubmed

Is it really a huge deal for a trans woman to use the men's room? Why?

History is full of inconsistencies, contradictions, great and shabby compromises, falsehoods, truth, and more. A lot of pieces in the American Experience were/are not democratic success stories. Maybe, possibly, perhaps the greatest success in the American Experience is the story that we are the very model of the perfect democracy. Everything about slavery flew in the face of our ideals, but democratic processes allowed for the formal institutionalization of slavery. — BC

That's true. The ideals are still beautiful though, don't you think?

I haven't seen that, but I'm not doubting what you say. It's always been true that gays and lesbians have to be psychologically robust to navigate the world. With trans, I'd say it's more so. I would tell any trans person living in America to learn self defense techniques, avoid going anywhere alone where you could be jumped, and always stay on the lookout for weirdos. Sad, but true. It's a tough world.