ponsin

> The assertion that opposite-sex attraction is "normal" and that same-sex attraction is abnormal is not supported by science.

I don't know what "science" you are referencing but according to the NY times [0] 0.003% of marriage in the US are homosexual. To put that into context 0.006% of the population has 2 different colored eyes [1]. I would call someone with the same color in both eyes to be more "normal" than someone with different colors.

Now to the point. It may be true that there is no scientifically proven conversion therapy, but that is the case with many psychological characteristics. Many people have mental "things" (I won't call it a mental issue because it is not inherently bad, but you get my point) that science has no proven way to treat. But scientists continue to try to find a treatment. Of course there are limits to what they can try. Shocking genitalia is not allowed for any therapy and as such is not allowed for conversion therapy. But there are many other effective methods that psychologists use to help people who want to change.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/upshot/the-most-detailed-... [1] https://www.medicinenet.com/heterochromia_iridis/article.htm...

I'm not a psychologist but from what I understand some people who have urges for young people just like some people have urges for people of the same gender. Obviously I have no problem if someone acts upon their urges towards people of their gender, but do have problems with people who act upon urges to young people. I would assume that in such case some form of voluntery conversion therapy would be useful. Similarly if someone has urges towards their gender but would prefer for whatever reason (to be more normal, to follow their religion, to have kids, ...) they would like to have urges towards the opposite gender, I see no problem with voluntery conversion therapy.

One big pet peeves of mine with a lot of left leaning people is that they are pro gay because "it is their choice and doesn't effect me" yet they are against voluntery conversion even though the same logic holds. And before anyone says "they aren't proven to work", maybe we should allow scientists to work on that. After all, if armies have been able to convince POWs to fight for them patriotically against their country, I don't think it should be that hard to get people to love certain people

When I read "defund the police" I assume that they mean what they are saying. What do you think is meant by the phrase "defund planned Parenthood"?

how is that different than in c/c++ simply adding asserts at the start and end of functions?

The problem with UBI trials is that they cost a lot of money to be remotely effective. That is because for it to be somewhat meaningful the amount has to be high, it has to involve a lot of people, and it has to last a long time. I was wondering, what if researchers try it in a very poor country where $10 a month is meaningful. Many countries won't want to do it presumably because money will be leaving their country. However, it will be a relatively cheap way of seeing how UBI would effect inflation, self choice unemployment, and creative inventions.

Because you don't know what to expect from people with certain mental issues. If I see someone pacing outside my office while screaming to the devil and hitting his head, I will try to avoid him. Sure, maybe he will continue to have a mental breakdown without getting me involved, but I don't know. Now, I don't mind calling some authority other than the police, but I would prefer that if the person with the mental breakdown gets violent it will be directed at a professional who knows how to respond

tl;dr he was in prison several times before for other crimes

> Bryant, 62, received the life sentence under Louisiana’s habitual offender law, which allows a person’s sentence to increase based on their criminal history.

correct. society considers (IMO correctly) violent crimes much worse than non-violent crimes.

One of the problems with wireless charging is that I typically get a cheap $5 "rugged" case from eBay that lets me drop my phone with harm only potentially happening to my disposable case. unfortunately, those cases block wireless charging

how is Germany's solution any different than giving unemployment benefits for furloughed employees? Regarding the Fed, they _could_ just print gobs of money, and probably nothing bad will happen in the near future. But if you want examples of why printing gobs of money is bad, just looks at the many other countries that tried that. Also, I would think that if the fed decides to print gobs of money, it would be bad for them to allocate all of it to repaying bank mortgages. I would much prefer the money gets distributed to the people (eg. $1,200 per person) or as loans to keep small businesses afloat until after the pandemic

1. I'm pretty sure that states can decide to not evict tenants (thereby severely hurting landlords who possibly have multiple mortgages to cover the rentals.

2. Did any other country uniformly cancel all rent?

the feds provided large quantities of ventilators and are funding multiple vaccine research. What else should they do? Every state has enough power to mandate mask wearing, quarantine, school closings without federal intervention

You may not be able to convince someone who is interested in philosophy to study engineering (although I personally know several people, myself included, who are interested in both philosophy and engineering) but if they lack the funding to support themselves during the bachelor's degree them I doubt tht they have enough funding to support themselves after the degree. They should be encouraged to pursue a professional that can support them financially first. That can be engineering, as you quoted, but also most of STEM and most technical subjects (plumber, electrician).

What really bothers me about the quote is that it sounds like "someone who is interested in going on cruises won't like studying anything practical so the taxpayers should subsidize a 4 year around the world cruise for them"

> By continuing, you [...] affirm you're at least 16 years old

what is on that website, porn?

> And you believe we should not treat minors different than Adults?

Yes

Added source of the case to the OP. And yes, retribution is designed to prevent vigilantism. As that is psychology I can't really give a better source than [0]. Obviously retribution is not meant to go by itself, but along with rehabilitation.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retributive_justice#Purposes

Retribution is needed to prevent vigilante justice and to cause fear to potential criminals. Remember the story of the drunk driver who killed several people in a crash [0]? He was "punished" by going to a club med like rehab facility where he was taught about the wrongs of his actions by horse back riding. Imagine if all drunk drivers were punished that way?

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethan_Couch

source https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_c-E_i8Q5G0 . The video is just as horrifying as the George Floyd video

Jews don't define themselves based on how antisemites defined them.

sure, in cities with a large non-religious population like Tel Aviv or a large Arab population like Haifa

As an improvement I would recommend simply showing a graph of, say, the past 5 years death rate, adjusted for population. I'm not sure how to understand expected deaths (who expected it?). What I want to know is how this year's death count compares to a bad year. With a new virus on the loose it makes sense that more people would die than last year's relatively calm fly season. I recall seeing a graph of death rate for the past 5 years for NYC in particular, but not a general one.

That gives me an idea. A privacy oriented NGO could create an address and agree to publicly upload all letters received and allow the users to read the mail anonymously.

> Firstly, the biggest by far has been from a certain large games company that has consistently blocked us from being able to trademark Riot or even Riot.im

Using that logic would leave us to believe that they are changing the name "matrix" as well. After all, more than just "a big game company" will try to block you from trademarking it

That sounds sort of like the reverse-halo effect fallacy. Believe it or not terrible people don't necessarily do terrible things every time they do somethings. For example, Fidel Castro caused Cuba to have one of the highest literacy rates in the world. That is true no matter how many people he imprisoned, tortured or killed. Similarly people can peacefully protest even if they are white supremacy, fascism, or _neo_ nazis (pet peeve of mine, but I wouldn't call someone a literal nazi unless they were literally a member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party between 1920 and 1945).

Using that logic a similarly valid headline would be "iPhone (and Samsung and Sony phone) owners using Uighur Muslim forced labour in factories", which while probably true, isn't that surprising.

> During the violence that began around City Hall following peaceful protests, Blumenthal allegedly set fire to both vehicles.

I love how the msm feels the need to specify that the protests that resulted in Police cars bring burned, stores bring looted and cops being shot were "peaceful protests" up until the incident. Imagine if they talked about the Charlottesville rally as largely peaceful until the deadly car attack.

I don't know how old you are but when it happened I was more interested in watching the cool explosions on TV. In fact, there are some people here who probably weren't even alive when it happened. I'm not saying that it is surprising how people reacted, but rather it gives me a glimpse into how people felt.

Similarly I would be interested in how the public opinion of Hitler changed. There are quotes from some German Jewish leaders in the 30s saying that Hitler should get more power. I too would be interested in understanding how the opinions changed.

While this is nothing "secret" or new (originally released on 2010) it is interesting to see how some people reacted at first. Some of the messages right after the first attack talk about a plane crash or fire at the Pentagon rather than a terror attack. Although I did get excited, I was hoping for more information about flight 93.

They said/say not to wear facemask meant for health care workers [0] presumably so that there are more for the healthcare workers.

0 https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-si...

That sounds like the "Hitler liked dogs" argument. Just because that police chief sounds like a bad person from the quote doesn't mean that everything he said was bad. In fact, I think many Americans would be fine with the use of violent force to stop violent criminals