Interesting Links for 03-12-2015

[andrewducker]

• Genes for a longer, healthier life found (in nemotodes. We have the gene though)
  • genetics age health
• Turns out women trust gay men more about relationship advice. For obvious reasons
  • advice LGBT women friendship relationships
• New comprehensive model of depression opens the way to better understanding/treatment
  • psychology depression
• The Star Wars

Comments

[bart_calendar]

What I find really interesting in that study is the implication that a lot of women think that their female friends are trying to undermine them.

[andrewducker]

Do you think they're wrong?

[bart_calendar]

Well hard for me to really know since I've never been a woman with a female friend.

I do know that the point of most of Margaret Atwood's books are that women do more damage to each other than men do to women and that the patriarchy is really strongly supported by women undermining other women.

However, lots of women I know think that Atwood is full of shit and anti-feminist for making those arguments.

I guess if I had to choose one point of view or another I'd pick Atwood's, just because as far as I can tell she's the smartest human on the planet.

But it's hard to say for sure.

[andrewducker]

Hopefully we'll get some useful commentary :-)

[gonzo21]

Good lord. So the Government really are pushing forward with their 'If you're not with us then you're a terrorist' program.

We live in terrifying times.

[octopoid_horror]

Ironically this presumably means that opposing arms sales to known sponsor of terrorism Saudi Arabia would be terrorism!

[gonzo21]

You know, I dont think this is just me. But it really feels like the world has just gone really really insane in the last decade?

[octopoid_horror]

Hard to say. You could probably argue that the rise of deliberately non mainstream or otherwise skewed journalism (whether you're talking about bloggers, Vice's own angles and other sites not hindered by concerns about advertisers and government pressure on their rich owners), the ease of sharing/leaking information on the internet has just made things that were always happening a lot more open and people aware of them.

Also that events happening currently are partly happening because of social media. Not, I hasten to add, that I'm blaming social media for the world's ills, more that people can have their views reinforced pretty easily, and also find an audience. On the other hand, it's also pretty easy to share and share in more pleasant things, so yeah.

[octopoid_horror]

I find it sad that people I know are afraid of travelling in the UK due to IS/ISIL/Daesh ~terrorism~ but are happy to go for a long weekend to New York.

This country has supposedly had seven foiled terrorist plots in the last year (note: at least one of these was a moron who publicly tweeted to ask for a target, and I'd put all my money on most of the other plots being people bullshitting in a cafe or online like people do and then finding the law at their door because they're Muslims and SCARY), while in America there's been a shooting every day, and if you're non-white, you're at risk even from the police.

[fub]

Love those folding screens. Reminds me of those video game characters done in ukiyo-e style (one of which is hanging on our living room wall, done in actual woodprint!).