Interesting Links for 17-08-2016

[andrewducker]

Women Athletes Gave Up Gonads And More To Continue Olympic Competition (tags: women testosterone mutilation OhForFucksSake olympics sports ) Nice breakdown of costs and profits on a Kickstarter novel (tags: kickstarter business publishing CrowdFunding viaTheFerrett ) My favourite commentary on No Man's Sky (tags: games funny video ) How to lie

Comments

[bart_calendar]

As a former crime reporter, here's my take on the declining black incarceration thing.

A generation ago crack was the cheap urban drug of choice. And crack gets you amped up so you do crazy shit that the cops notice so you are likely to get busted.

Today, heroin is the cheap urban drug of choice. Heroin makes you sleepy so you are far less likely to do shit to get yourself noticed by the cops and get busted.

On a side note. A generation ago when crack was the cheap drug of choice was when the CIA was doing stuff in South America - where cocaine is born. During this generation the CIA is doing stuff in Afghanistan, where heroin is born.

Coincidence?

[octopoid_horror]

I've not seen anything concrete linking the CIA to the heroin industry, but since it's pretty widely known the CIA was heavily involved in the coke industry a generation ago, it's certainly an intriguing coincidence.

[bart_calendar]

Yeah, no proof - but really sort of convenient, you know?

[octopoid_horror]

Also, the CIA has possibly been involved in the heroin trade before, in Laos, if I remember rightly.

[bart_calendar]

Also, obligatory AirBnB comment - "If you are a decent human being do not use AirBnB ever. It fucking destroys communities, puts people out of work and is incredibly evil in not giving a fuck about the terrible terrible economic consequences of their business model."

[lilchiva]

EXPLAIN!

(Fam has an extra house and a ski cottage. We were considering our options.)

[bart_calendar]

Well for starters they completely disrupt rental prices in urban areas making it much, much harder for working class people to find housing. Why would a landlord rent out an apartment for $600 a month if he or she can get $125 a night from AirBnB people? This means that rents are rising at historic rates and landlords are doing everything they can to evict long term tenants. That bodes really poorly for people during a time when wages are pretty much stagnant

[lilchiva]

Well for starters they completely disrupt rental prices in urban areas making it much, much harder for working class people to find housing. Why would a landlord rent out an apartment for $600 a month if he or she can get $125 a night from AirBnB people?

This isn't really happening here. If I could have reliably gotten more than $600 per month from my condo, I wouldn't have sold it. As it stood, $600 was the max rent and the local $125 air bnb places would have easily rented monthly for $1500-2000. But, then again, at the time, I lived in a ghetto. I had friends who owned multiple units and basically used them for storage. Also, there are similar apartments (without crack houses tho) near where I live now and none of them are going for more than $800, for a two bedroom.

I could see turning a downtown loft into an air bnb, instead of renting it. But, downtown lofts cost as much as someone's mortgage payment. I'm not going to cry because some yuppie/hipster got sent to cheaper and yet more lux digs.
"It's also putting a lot of

[steer]

Hmm... in general I'd say "if you identify as a woman you're a woman" is perfectly fine with me. But for athletics surely it's problematic?

Would the IAAF ask a man to give up his gonads and remove half of his penis to be allowed to competeWell, presumably if he wanted to become female and compete in the female event then they'd ask her to remove all his gonads and penis and ensure her testosterone was below a certain level to compete? (Wow it was confusing to work out what gender pronouns to use there.) Imagine a situation where someone identified as male to female transsexual and had no hormone treatment or operation. I'm happy enough to call that person a woman but it doesn't quite seem fair that she should compete in the female event at the Olympics. I don't know... does that seem prejudiced? It's hard to imagine someone actually being mischievous and identifying as a woman simply to win a medal. (I think that's the same fictitious bugbear as the imaginary republican nightmare of a man saying he's a woman to ogle naked

[lilchiva]

Right now, we just don't know how to do that very well

[steer]

We have this delusion that you can take an average person, train the shit out of them, and turn them into a Pro-level beast.

Definitely not under this delusion myself.

The idea that someone is going to intentionally misgender themselves in order to become competitive

Sure -- I was trying to say similar myself but didn't phrase it as succinctly.

So, where and how do you draw that line? We really just don't know.

Yes. I think it's going to be more important. Estimates are that something like 0.3% of the population of the US is transsexual. That's likely to be an underestimate given that it is really something people are extremely prejudiced about. Even if it is 0.3% (and many of those being very reluctant to appear in public "out") then as prejudice (hopefully) lessens we will see this become more important.

there's been a ton of controversy over her eligibility to fight other women in MMA.Sure -- I can understand. No idea what I think about that. But MMA is really quite a minority sport compared with most track and

[lilchiva]

Hey, I hope my comment didn't come off as "arguing with you". That' wasn't my intention. I was going more for 'opening up more discussion" than dissent. :)

MMA is actually a multi-billion dollar sport. There's far more money on the table than in track and field. But, if you take track and field, specifically marathons, this picture gets even sillier. The average man runs a marathon in around 4hrs. The top 200 female runners all average under 2:30. If the numbers are correct, then the top ten women are all in the top 300 of all runners. Basically, all your potential "gender cheaters" exist in a very small band of Kenyan and Ethiopian men. (See here too)

There must be very few Olympic events where the gold medal winning woman would have got a medal in the men's event. Yep. But, women do significantly better in all archery and marksmanship sports. They do better or are equal in all Equestrian sports. And, if gymnastics were co-ed, all the top athletes would be women. The same goes with singles figure skating. Supposedly, diving is the

[80hz]

Hi, long-time reader, first-time commenter. (Actually made this account just to comment

[newandrewhickey]

"Bigotry is essentially the opposite of the belief that rational, intelligent people can disagree about all kinds of things."
No it isn't. In many cases, bigotry *is* the belief that rational, intelligent people can disagree about things -- like for example the humanity of people of different races.

"Don't you think, for example, that a rational, intelligent person could, without any malice, argue cogently in favor of capping testosterone levels in female athletes?"
s/capping testosterone levels/forcing people to choose between genital mutilation and infertility or giving up their career. And no, anyone who forces women to make that choice is utterly, utterly, obscenely, evil.

It's not bigotry, and your opinion that Andrew "come[s] off as a bigot" is not one that anyone who *isn't* an anon using a throwaway account has ever expressed, because it's an utterly absurd one.

[80hz]

I didn't come here to start a fight. I'm trying to explain how something comes across to me in the hopes that a small piece of our universe can be made more civil and less divided.

Bigotry is all about refusal to hear and give thoughtful consideration to the other side of an argument. Most dictionaries characterize this as a stubborn and intolerant dedication to one's own opinion. Bigotry is NOT "whatever you find objectionable."

Instead of making an inverted "no true Scotsman" argument about who I am and why I might comment here, please consider the possibility that another person might perceive some of what Andrew says differently than you do.

[snarlish]

'As if you're standing arms crossed and tapping your feet impatiently, waiting for the world to catch up to your enlightened state of moral superiority.'

I generally read the tag as an immediate reaction to some sort of news/statement/study. As in one can in the first instance only state 'Oh for fuck's sake!'. The handy thing about Ducker's links is that some of them are just for the pretty pictures/interesting thing, while others are to think about, and--perhaps--engage others in conversation about them. Often an expert or at least a somewhat informed layman will help set the record straight when the content of a link is wrong or misrepresented, and this sometimes happens with the OFFS tag

[kalimac]

One thing I entirely agree with: "Being able to repeat what others have said, practically word-for-word" does not constitute good listening. In fact it's bad listening, in that all it conveys is that you can recite the words back like a parrot with no indication that you understood them. I've had it done to me and it's extremely irritating.

The good listening version of this requires an understanding of the underlying point that the speaker is making, or their unexpressed but clear feelings. Say that back to them and they'll know you've really listened and understood.

[naath]

A thing I disagree with "uh-huh" noises. I always read that as "it is my turn to speak now, shut up" not "please, this is interesting, do continue"...