It says something about the level of thought from whoever conceived (ha!) this idea in the first place that they tried this shit on the frickin' CDC.
Incidentally, does this cover all species? Its not unusual for diseases to jump from animals to humans, are bird fetuses people now too?
Trump
Re: Trump
I would replace "evidence-based" with simply "factual".
And the scientific method is simply the methodology of systematically obtaining that evidence, so "science-based" also ultimately means "evidence-based" and, thus, "factual". Or, if you like, it means "in the process of becoming evidence-based", where science is that process.
Nullius in Verba. No witness is reliable, as they could - be it malicious or accidental - simply be wrong or lying. Therefore, we consult reality itself. See what the objective facts have got to say for themselves. Via the scientific method, a process designed to refine away our subjective biases and beliefs - our self-delusions - to uncover the actual pertinent evidence.
Really, the question should be why the phrases "evidence-based" or "science-based" ever need to be used in the first place, in that what other bases could we even be seriously considering here?
Tarot-based? Roll-of-the-dice-based? Astrology-based? Divine-Right-based? Personal-emotion-interpreted-through-the-lens-of-ancient-mythology-based? Blind-ideology-based?
Surely I don't need to go through each of these to point out how they just don't work as any basis of truth?
"Evidence-based" should be a fait accompli. Go without saying. Be the only possible basis on which a society bases its crucial decisions.
We're already living in a strange Orwellian version of reality where we bizarrely have to explicitly mention "this is based on actual facts" in our political documentation. As if this shit hadn't been long sorted out centuries ago in the Enlightenment.
These are already euphemisms. I mean, doesn't "vulnerable" actually mean "in danger" or "at risk", yes? "Vulnerable senior citizens" means old people in danger or at risk of coming to harm (or, at their age and increasing frailty, possibly even death, if we're talking of physical harm). When we say "vulnerable children", we usually mean at prey to violence, child molestation or deep inescapable poverty.
We've already been talking in riddles for decades now, that it has, indeed, become hard to even see what are and aren't the euphemisms anymore.
I would not say "diversity" either. Because what we're simply talking about is reality.
Women exist. Black people exist. Gay people exist. Body dismorphia is a real thing.
So, really, all we're actually saying here is "reality as it actually is". The various houses of government ought to be 50 / 50 men and women - give or take natural variance of interest at any given moment - because, simply, that's the reality here. And with the power and influence politics wields over all of us then the franchise ought to meet the reality and have a proportional number of voices to represent those perspectives.
Not simply to be nice to women - though there is that - but because the closer our decisions match the actual reality of the situation we find ourselves in, then the greater the chance of us actually coming up with the right answers.
If you're trying to sort out societal problems - such as, say, drugs - and your head is filled with fairy tales instead of facts, then the odds of you actually coming up with a strategy that actually meets the reality, so as to change it for the better, is somewhat unlikely.
E.g. "People take drugs because Satan makes them do it. Ergo, we should all go to church and pray a lot, then God will magically fix things". Well, yeah, exactly. That's just not going to work or do anything remotely usefully pragmatic about the problem. Even most religious believers can also see the flaw in that design and agree with me that this really isn't the sensible approach to societal organisation.
What are the other words?
"Fetus"? Well, fetus means fetus. If we meant "baby" then we'd say "baby". We use a different word there because it's not the same thing. The clue really is in the question, folks.
And I just don't get the double-think of a country where they can be so vocal about all life being sacrosanct, while happily endorsing the death penalty and arguing so fervently about their Second Amendment right to own murder weapons. A country so keen on perpetual war that its defence budget is larger than all the other nations on Earth combined and a nation that passionately prioritises building more bombs over providing healthcare to its citizens.
It's such a bizarre cognitive dissonance. As it really is much the same people who'll claim "life is sacrosanct" when it's a small tiny blob of cells, who'll then not hesitate to shout "from my cold dead hands", be overjoyed to repeal healthcare and cheer on the electric chair. As we all know to be the case.
Indeed, at the extreme fringes, some of those people will burn crosses and lynch people for having melanin, endorse the views of a mass-murder who attempted the systematic genocide of the Jews and so forth.
But... but... won't somebody think about the fetuses?!?
In fairness to Trump, we already live in a strange otherworld where our language has been twisted away from reality for political purpose. Yes, I condemn this. But we should have long since been condemning of it for decades previously. Because very little of the political discourse has any relation to actual reality anymore. Just blinded ideologues talking in their fairy tales of wishful thinking.
Return to reality. Go back to first principles.
Our first instinct ought to be asking "what does reality tell us?" before we embark on any grand misadventures of well-intentioned disaster.
It's the very least we could do.
And the scientific method is simply the methodology of systematically obtaining that evidence, so "science-based" also ultimately means "evidence-based" and, thus, "factual". Or, if you like, it means "in the process of becoming evidence-based", where science is that process.
Nullius in Verba. No witness is reliable, as they could - be it malicious or accidental - simply be wrong or lying. Therefore, we consult reality itself. See what the objective facts have got to say for themselves. Via the scientific method, a process designed to refine away our subjective biases and beliefs - our self-delusions - to uncover the actual pertinent evidence.
Really, the question should be why the phrases "evidence-based" or "science-based" ever need to be used in the first place, in that what other bases could we even be seriously considering here?
Tarot-based? Roll-of-the-dice-based? Astrology-based? Divine-Right-based? Personal-emotion-interpreted-through-the-lens-of-ancient-mythology-based? Blind-ideology-based?
Surely I don't need to go through each of these to point out how they just don't work as any basis of truth?
"Evidence-based" should be a fait accompli. Go without saying. Be the only possible basis on which a society bases its crucial decisions.
We're already living in a strange Orwellian version of reality where we bizarrely have to explicitly mention "this is based on actual facts" in our political documentation. As if this shit hadn't been long sorted out centuries ago in the Enlightenment.
These are already euphemisms. I mean, doesn't "vulnerable" actually mean "in danger" or "at risk", yes? "Vulnerable senior citizens" means old people in danger or at risk of coming to harm (or, at their age and increasing frailty, possibly even death, if we're talking of physical harm). When we say "vulnerable children", we usually mean at prey to violence, child molestation or deep inescapable poverty.
We've already been talking in riddles for decades now, that it has, indeed, become hard to even see what are and aren't the euphemisms anymore.
I would not say "diversity" either. Because what we're simply talking about is reality.
Women exist. Black people exist. Gay people exist. Body dismorphia is a real thing.
So, really, all we're actually saying here is "reality as it actually is". The various houses of government ought to be 50 / 50 men and women - give or take natural variance of interest at any given moment - because, simply, that's the reality here. And with the power and influence politics wields over all of us then the franchise ought to meet the reality and have a proportional number of voices to represent those perspectives.
Not simply to be nice to women - though there is that - but because the closer our decisions match the actual reality of the situation we find ourselves in, then the greater the chance of us actually coming up with the right answers.
If you're trying to sort out societal problems - such as, say, drugs - and your head is filled with fairy tales instead of facts, then the odds of you actually coming up with a strategy that actually meets the reality, so as to change it for the better, is somewhat unlikely.
E.g. "People take drugs because Satan makes them do it. Ergo, we should all go to church and pray a lot, then God will magically fix things". Well, yeah, exactly. That's just not going to work or do anything remotely usefully pragmatic about the problem. Even most religious believers can also see the flaw in that design and agree with me that this really isn't the sensible approach to societal organisation.
What are the other words?
"Fetus"? Well, fetus means fetus. If we meant "baby" then we'd say "baby". We use a different word there because it's not the same thing. The clue really is in the question, folks.
And I just don't get the double-think of a country where they can be so vocal about all life being sacrosanct, while happily endorsing the death penalty and arguing so fervently about their Second Amendment right to own murder weapons. A country so keen on perpetual war that its defence budget is larger than all the other nations on Earth combined and a nation that passionately prioritises building more bombs over providing healthcare to its citizens.
It's such a bizarre cognitive dissonance. As it really is much the same people who'll claim "life is sacrosanct" when it's a small tiny blob of cells, who'll then not hesitate to shout "from my cold dead hands", be overjoyed to repeal healthcare and cheer on the electric chair. As we all know to be the case.
Indeed, at the extreme fringes, some of those people will burn crosses and lynch people for having melanin, endorse the views of a mass-murder who attempted the systematic genocide of the Jews and so forth.
But... but... won't somebody think about the fetuses?!?
In fairness to Trump, we already live in a strange otherworld where our language has been twisted away from reality for political purpose. Yes, I condemn this. But we should have long since been condemning of it for decades previously. Because very little of the political discourse has any relation to actual reality anymore. Just blinded ideologues talking in their fairy tales of wishful thinking.
Return to reality. Go back to first principles.
Our first instinct ought to be asking "what does reality tell us?" before we embark on any grand misadventures of well-intentioned disaster.
It's the very least we could do.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
- John Maynard Keynes
Re: Trump
Those cards came up in sequence. That's an observable fact. How you interpret that fact is in question, but the same could be said for any observation, including scientific ones.Tarot-based?
10 sixes in a row. That's an observable fact, how you interpret …Roll-of-the-dice-based?
Uranus is in Saturn's house [ed : make sure this is astrological, please]. It's still a fact, of sorts, though, so …Astrology-based?
etc, etc.
</avocado>
"Fact based" doesn't cut it. It's a fact, after all, that the bible says - umm - pretty much anything you want it to say.
"massive retard™", "full of shit™", "tiny bitch™", "retarted™", "a bit of a one trick pony™", "petty™", "simple minded idealistic twat™", "miserable humourless fucker™"
Re: Trump
No, it does cut it. The crucial point is that you're not allowed to skip any steps here.
10 sixes in a row means that you got 10 sixes in a row. That's the fact.
What is not a fact is that getting 10 sixes in a row means that you should repeal Obamacare.
Uranus is in Saturn's House. This means that Uranus is in Saturn's House. That's the fact. What is not any relation whatsoever to that fact is that you should increase your defence spending by $3 billion.
You're not logically allowed to choose some random unrelated fact from over there and then declare, somehow, that it has anything to do with anything, unless you can provide the complete sequence of facts and reasoning that leads to that conclusion.
They, of course, have to be pertinent facts. Not just random pulled-out-of-your-arse facts that have nothing to do with anything.
Because I never actually said "fact based". I said that "science-based" - or just "scientific" as ordinary people would say - is a methodology that, strictly followed, leads you to "evidence-based" conclusions that would be synonymous with being "factual".
(All fathers are men but not all men are fathers. No-one said that the relationship here works both ways.)
"Science-based" doesn't cut it? Well, I call my witnesses for the defence:
Computers, the Internet, satellites, men on the Moon, refrigeration, tractors, central heating, plastics, solar panels, water filtration, fertilisers, supermarkets, trucks, planes, nuclear power stations, vaccines, toasters, TV and radio, phones, cars...
Actually, this list absurdly long. I can't feasibly list them all.
Just look around the room you're currently in and name me the object that doesn't in some way owe a debt to science, technology, engineering and / or maths (when I say "science", I include technology and engineering, as these are just "applied science", and science itself is really just "applied maths", where logic - both boolean and fuzzy - are just branches of mathematics).
Take your time and think it through. The overwhelming majority of your comfortable daily existence owes a debt to science.
Not only does science cut it, nothing else comes anywhere close to it.
It's, unfortunately, so remarkably good at what it does, folks quickly take it for granted and even stop seeing that it's even there, let alone its gargantuan influence.
Absurdities like "Boko Haram" - who literally name themselves "(Western) education is forbidden" - or Islamic State use the bloody Internet to recruit. Happily make use of programmable electronic devices in their activities, conveniently overlooking that it was a homosexual mathematician who made all that possible for them. Flat Earther websites with a "Google Maps" embed, overlooking the fact that those maps come from satellites that orbit the planet and locate things using GPS.
They're perfectly happy to use the fruits of science, the ungrateful bastards. Doubly ungrateful, really, because science offers its fruits to everyone, regardless of whether you believe in it or not.
But, hey, I appreciate you doing the "Devil's Advocate" thing. As I know you're much too sensible to actually think reading tarot cards or the Barnum statements of astrology is actually any real way to run a country. But, yes, "nullius in verba" - don't take anyone's word for it - and I must always be asked to provide the evidence and the chain of logic. We shall have no appeals to authority here.
10 sixes in a row means that you got 10 sixes in a row. That's the fact.
What is not a fact is that getting 10 sixes in a row means that you should repeal Obamacare.
Uranus is in Saturn's House. This means that Uranus is in Saturn's House. That's the fact. What is not any relation whatsoever to that fact is that you should increase your defence spending by $3 billion.
You're not logically allowed to choose some random unrelated fact from over there and then declare, somehow, that it has anything to do with anything, unless you can provide the complete sequence of facts and reasoning that leads to that conclusion.
They, of course, have to be pertinent facts. Not just random pulled-out-of-your-arse facts that have nothing to do with anything.
Because I never actually said "fact based". I said that "science-based" - or just "scientific" as ordinary people would say - is a methodology that, strictly followed, leads you to "evidence-based" conclusions that would be synonymous with being "factual".
(All fathers are men but not all men are fathers. No-one said that the relationship here works both ways.)
"Science-based" doesn't cut it? Well, I call my witnesses for the defence:
Computers, the Internet, satellites, men on the Moon, refrigeration, tractors, central heating, plastics, solar panels, water filtration, fertilisers, supermarkets, trucks, planes, nuclear power stations, vaccines, toasters, TV and radio, phones, cars...
Actually, this list absurdly long. I can't feasibly list them all.
Just look around the room you're currently in and name me the object that doesn't in some way owe a debt to science, technology, engineering and / or maths (when I say "science", I include technology and engineering, as these are just "applied science", and science itself is really just "applied maths", where logic - both boolean and fuzzy - are just branches of mathematics).
Take your time and think it through. The overwhelming majority of your comfortable daily existence owes a debt to science.
Not only does science cut it, nothing else comes anywhere close to it.
It's, unfortunately, so remarkably good at what it does, folks quickly take it for granted and even stop seeing that it's even there, let alone its gargantuan influence.
Absurdities like "Boko Haram" - who literally name themselves "(Western) education is forbidden" - or Islamic State use the bloody Internet to recruit. Happily make use of programmable electronic devices in their activities, conveniently overlooking that it was a homosexual mathematician who made all that possible for them. Flat Earther websites with a "Google Maps" embed, overlooking the fact that those maps come from satellites that orbit the planet and locate things using GPS.
They're perfectly happy to use the fruits of science, the ungrateful bastards. Doubly ungrateful, really, because science offers its fruits to everyone, regardless of whether you believe in it or not.
But, hey, I appreciate you doing the "Devil's Advocate" thing. As I know you're much too sensible to actually think reading tarot cards or the Barnum statements of astrology is actually any real way to run a country. But, yes, "nullius in verba" - don't take anyone's word for it - and I must always be asked to provide the evidence and the chain of logic. We shall have no appeals to authority here.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
- John Maynard Keynes
Re: Trump
Running a country based on verifiable fact would be great. But a lot of running a country is economics - if you want a hand-wavey pseudoscience that's utterly ungrounded in any kind of real scientific theory, there's a pretty good example right there.
Capitalist economic theory seems to ignore, for example, that the system mutates itself to move more money to the rich - to be crass, more money to a profit-based healthcare inevitably means more money to big pharma and, at least, no better care for patients, if not worse care, more need for care, more treatment, and thus even more profit for big pharma. That's not an excuse to say "fuck it all" and dump the baby out with the bathwater. Not that that's what Trump wants to do with Obamacare in any case, all he cares about is the "Obama" part of it.
Capitalist economic theory seems to ignore, for example, that the system mutates itself to move more money to the rich - to be crass, more money to a profit-based healthcare inevitably means more money to big pharma and, at least, no better care for patients, if not worse care, more need for care, more treatment, and thus even more profit for big pharma. That's not an excuse to say "fuck it all" and dump the baby out with the bathwater. Not that that's what Trump wants to do with Obamacare in any case, all he cares about is the "Obama" part of it.
"massive retard™", "full of shit™", "tiny bitch™", "retarted™", "a bit of a one trick pony™", "petty™", "simple minded idealistic twat™", "miserable humourless fucker™"
Re: Trump
One thing that always get me about this sort of move is... do the people behind them think that they're being clever? That its an act of Machiavellian genius that no-one will ever detect? Is someone proud of how smart they've been today?
The depressing thing is, I think I already know the answer, based on a court case concerning evolution that happened in the US a few years back:
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Kitzmille ... l_District
According to at least two separate accounts (admittedly from the "evolution" side), at least some of the people involved really did think they were being clever.
The depressing thing is, I think I already know the answer, based on a court case concerning evolution that happened in the US a few years back:
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Kitzmille ... l_District
According to at least two separate accounts (admittedly from the "evolution" side), at least some of the people involved really did think they were being clever.
"Stars don't twinkle in space." - Char Aznable.
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merman
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Re: Trump
In the 1980s the Reagan administration told the CDC not to use the word "blood" in materials about the spread of AIDS/HIV.F-ZeroOne wrote:It says something about the level of thought from whoever conceived (ha!) this idea in the first place that they tried this shit on the frickin' CDC.
Incidentally, does this cover all species? Its not unusual for diseases to jump from animals to humans, are bird fetuses people now too?
They had to use "bodily fluids" leading to years of misinformation and increasing the stigma of the condition.
Twitter, Xbox, Wii U and Steam - merman1974
ZZAP is back - https://www.patreon.com/zzapmagazine
ZZAP is back - https://www.patreon.com/zzapmagazine
Re: Trump
I wasn't previously aware of that.
Trumps first reaction to the tragic train accident Washington state? Promote his infrastructure plan:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-42401707
Trumps first reaction to the tragic train accident Washington state? Promote his infrastructure plan:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-42401707
"Stars don't twinkle in space." - Char Aznable.
Re: Trump
I was just reading that.
Point 1. as a President he should wait for the preliminary investigation to make a comment like that. We don't know for sure yet what caused it.
Of course everybody knows there is a lot of infrastructure in need of updating, restoring, and replacement. However at least when i was there (that's up to 10 years ago) the Republicans were the ones who opposed spending money on that in name of taxes savings. And it was mostly the Republicans who pushed for the US to get involved in Iraq causing agravating the problems with the Middle East.
Point 1. as a President he should wait for the preliminary investigation to make a comment like that. We don't know for sure yet what caused it.
Of course everybody knows there is a lot of infrastructure in need of updating, restoring, and replacement. However at least when i was there (that's up to 10 years ago) the Republicans were the ones who opposed spending money on that in name of taxes savings. And it was mostly the Republicans who pushed for the US to get involved in Iraq causing agravating the problems with the Middle East.
Re: Trump
Early, unverified reports, now possibly backed up by more recent reports suggest that the train may have been travelling too fast over a curve, which indicates possible human error. Granted, there has been a long-delayed plan to introduce what in the US is called "Positive Train Control" to prevent or at least reduce such incidents which could be classed as "infrastructure" (similar incidents in the UK led to the introduction of like-systems, though still not fully implemented in a the manner originally proposed).
Regards the medical term-censoring, how about the following instead of "fetus" - "developing organism". I'm sure that would please certain parties...
Regards the medical term-censoring, how about the following instead of "fetus" - "developing organism". I'm sure that would please certain parties...
"Stars don't twinkle in space." - Char Aznable.
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gilesgoat
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Re: Trump
A fetus is a fetus, a developing organism could be LOT MANY OTHER THINGS .. beware what a lawyer could make out of such a "small change" in wordingsF-ZeroOne wrote:Early, unverified reports, now possibly backed up by more recent reports suggest that the train may have been travelling too fast over a curve, which indicates possible human error. Granted, there has been a long-delayed plan to introduce what in the US is called "Positive Train Control" to prevent or at least reduce such incidents which could be classed as "infrastructure" (similar incidents in the UK led to the introduction of like-systems, though still not fully implemented in a the manner originally proposed).
Regards the medical term-censoring, how about the following instead of "fetus" - "developing organism". I'm sure that would please certain parties...
i.e. a larvae about to hatch from an egg IS a "developing organism" .. /me sees strange court cases coming out ...
[edit] I suppose this is "same technique" they use in contracts where you don't see "you" or "me" or "product" BUT "You" and "Me" and "Product" or "The Product" followed at some point by things like ".. with the term 'You' we mean .. .. " etc. etc. etc.
So "tecnique #4376 : replace a word or a set of words with something looking like an euphemism and of equivalent or near identical meaning but that in reality opens vast possibilities for many more interpretations for the lawyer but looks practically equivalent or equal to the non-law-knowledgeable common person"
Giles the billy goat
"Baa"
"Baa"
Re: Trump
That was kind of my point - "fetus" is not allowed because fetuses are, of course, always human babies (to the mindset that came up with this idea in the first place); no other animal counts. With "developing organism" its no longer a human baby, it could be anything - a developing hippo, a developing StarScream, a developing Donald Trump. After all, if we're reassigning acknowledged medical/scientific terms, we can always pick something else for "growing young animal" or "newly hatched insect"... 
Something that was a bit more insidious in the same announcement, by the way, is the bit about "community wishes" - in other words, abortion, birth control, female sexual health (because its always female sexual health), vaccinations...
Something that was a bit more insidious in the same announcement, by the way, is the bit about "community wishes" - in other words, abortion, birth control, female sexual health (because its always female sexual health), vaccinations...
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Little stoned kiwi
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Re: Trump
I prefer the term "unbaked baby". It's something the simplest of folk can understand and people of all opinions can be disgusted by equally.
If they think you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical, go crude. I'm a very technical boy.
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Little stoned kiwi
- Baaaaaa!
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Re: Trump
That includes the curry I had last night though.Harlequin wrote:Although I still prefer 'pre-birth lump'.
If they think you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical, go crude. I'm a very technical boy.