Sample of critique in nursing article

DataIsBeautiful

2012.02.15 00:45 zanycaswell DataIsBeautiful

DataIsBeautiful is for visualizations that effectively convey information. Aesthetics are an important part of information visualization, but pretty pictures are not the sole aim of this subreddit.

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2009.08.12 00:59 ElXGaspeth Secure, Contain, Protect Official subreddit of the scpwiki.com collaborative fiction project

Secure, Contain, Protect Official subreddit of the SCP Wiki collaborative-fiction project scpwiki.com

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2010.05.09 04:10 chromaticburst This is the Music Makers' Music!

We are the music makers and this is our music. This subreddit is dedicated to the musical artists that inhabit reddit. It is used to showcase new, in progress, or old pieces of music. It can also allow for the critique of your full song's work in progress. We are not genre specific and welcome all styles of music. We have a VERY STRICT spam policy. PLEASE READ THE RULES BEFORE POSTING.

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2024.05.19 18:09 Meh_thoughts123 Just published in Nature: big study that links autism to Neanderthal DNA.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-024-02593-7
This is really interesting!
Abstract: Homo sapiens and Neanderthals underwent hybridization during the Middle/Upper Paleolithic age, culminating in retention of small amounts of Neanderthal-derived DNA in the modern human genome. In the current study, we address the potential roles Neanderthal single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) may be playing in autism susceptibility in samples of black non-Hispanic, white Hispanic, and white non-Hispanic people using data from the Simons Foundation Powering Autism Research (SPARK), Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx), and 1000 Genomes (1000G) databases. We have discovered that rare variants are significantly enriched in autistic probands compared to race-matched controls. In addition, we have identified 25 rare and common SNPs that are significantly enriched in autism on different ethnic backgrounds, some of which show significant clinical associations. We have also identified other SNPs that share more specific genotype-phenotype correlations but which are not necessarily enriched in autism and yet may nevertheless play roles in comorbid phenotype expression (e.g., intellectual disability, epilepsy, and language regression). These results strongly suggest Neanderthal-derived DNA is playing a significant role in autism susceptibility across major populations in the United States.

submitted by Meh_thoughts123 to aspergers [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 17:37 Unique-kitten Debate Pervert list suggestion: The Selective Responder (using Big Joel and I/P as an example)

The Selective Responder is someone who only responds to the most idiotic and obviously illogical arguments that are opposite their own positions, so as to easily look correct and to ignore the legitimate arguments on the opposing side.
As an example, I will use the very video that inspired this suggestion in the first place. YouTuber Big Joel made this video about the pro-Palestine Colombia protests (on his Little Joel account): https://youtu.be/CmY8NsWxf38?si=AN444TBLs7eKbwUT. The video responds to this article by Colombia Professor John McWhorter, that is critical of the protests: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/opinion/columbia-protests-israel.html.
In his video, Big Joel makes the following legitimate criticisms of the article:

McWhorter complains that the protests are too loud. In fact, he says they are so loud to the point of being "abuse." Big Joel rightly points out how ridiculous a take this is. Protests are supposed to be loud, as the entire point is to grab people's attention. In addition, the validity of the cause being protested for is not dependent on how loud and annoying the protestors are. Even if the protestors were being abusively loud (whatever that means), that does not inherently make their cause unjust.
McWhorter equates opposing not just the war but Israel's very right to exist to being anti-Black. Big Joel rightfully points out that he just assumes the two positions to be equal levels of racist and terrible. Big Joel rightfully notes that if you are going to make such a statement, you should explain why this is the case instead of just assuming it to be so. Big Joel then goes on to say that in assuming this position as fact, McWhorter does not have to attend to the merits of the pro-Palestine arguments
McWhorter points out the following things indicating that the Colombia protests have turned violent ("It’s an odd kind of peace when a local rabbi urges Jewish students to go home as soon as possible, when an Israeli Arab activist is roughed up on Broadway, when the angry chanting becomes so constant that you almost start not to hear it and it starts to feel normal to see posters and clothing portraying members of Hamas as heroes"). Big Joel then goes on to rightfully dismantle each argument (except one). He says just because the rabbi says there might be violence, does not mean violence is already occurring. He says that one instance of violence (the Arab Israeli getting roughed up) does not indicate a systemic culture of violence amongst the protestors, especially since this assault occurred off-campus. Repeating his earlier point, he says that constant loudness does not equate to violence. Curiously, he never addresses the comment about pro-Hamas posters and clothing at the protests. I will address this more later on.
McWhorter praises the anti-apartheid protests against South Africa in the 1980s, while condemning the anti-Israel protestors of today. Despite both protest groups similarly disrupting campus life, McWhorter only calls the latter abusive, obviously because he disagrees with the latter while agreeing with the former. Big Joel rightfully points out that, for someone who has previously claimed to be so pro-free speech, McWhorter is a hypocrite. You cannot judge the violence or lack thereof of a protest based solely on whether or not you disagree with the cause

So it seems all fine and good, right? Big Joel is making logical criticisms of McWhorter's mostly dumb arguments. However, the problem is this: there are legitimate criticisms of the protests, Big Joel just does not address any of them. In fact, he does not address a logical criticism of the protests that is within the very article to which he is responding. Let's take this point by point.

Big Joel clearly rejects the idea that the protestors denying Israel's right to exist is a racist endeavour. In this video and in other videos, he has accused Israel of genocide, colonialism, apartheid, etc. In order to critique someone who believes the protestors denying Israel's right to exist is a racist endeavour, he does not find someone who lays out logical arguments for why this is the case (for example, someone who might say stuff like "dismantling Israel could lead to huge amounts of violence against the Israeli Jews" or "Jews, as a persecuted minority, should have the right to self-determination"). Instead, he finds someone who merely assumes this to be the case, so as to not have to address any of the actual more logical arguments for why denying Israel's right to exist is racist. I am not saying that these pro-Israel arguments are flawless, nor am I saying that denying Israel's right to exist is inherently racist. I am simply pointing out that there are more logical reasons to come to that conclusion than "denying Israel's right to exist is racist because I said so," reasons which Big Joel ignores.
Most people criticizing the protestors are not doing so on the basis of their loudness. Rather they are doing so on the basis of the antisemitic and pro-Hamas rhetoric being espoused at the protests (I am sure you have all seen the videos). They are also doing so on the basis of their inaccurate understanding of the conflict (examples include them using extreme words like "genocide" or blaming Israel for literally everything that has gone wrong since the conflict began). Rather than focus on an article that contains these perfectly legitimate criticisms of the protests, Big Joel instead focuses on one that incessantly and stupidly tries to degrade the protests on the basis of their loudness. He has picked the worst possible criticisms of the protests so as to not address the best criticisms of the protests. And when the article does contain one legitimate criticism of the protests ("it starts to feel normal to see posters and clothing portraying members of Hamas as heroes"), Big Joel reads out the line but does not address it any further.
Big Joel rightfully points out McWhorter's hypocrisy when it comes to the South Africa and I/P protests. However, what would he say to someone like Destiny, who supports the rights of both groups to protest yet still politically disagrees with the pro-Palestine protests? What would he say to someone who is legitimately pro-free speech, but nonetheless takes issue with the political values of the pro-Palestine protests? I guess we will never know, because rather than address someone who is ideologically consistent, he instead chose to address a hypocrite. Rather than address the most logical and consistent people who disagree with the protestors, he has chosen to address the most braindead disagreers, so as to not have to confront any legitimate and non-hypocritical arguments.

Put simply, the article is trash and a lot of Big Joel's criticisms of its logic are very valid. However, just because the article's criticisms of the protests are stupid, does not mean that all criticisms of the protests are stupid. In choosing to only address the stupid criticisms while ignoring the legitimate ones, Big Joel never has to question his political views. In this example, Big Joel selectively chose the worst possible representation of the pro-Israel (or at the very least, not as anti-Israel as the Colombia protestors) side, so as to easily look correct and to ignore the legitimate positions on said side. He can simply talk about how assuming controversial statements to be true without providing evidence is a bad debate tactic, how loudness does not equal violence, how hypocrisy is bad, and ignore the higher-quality criticisms of the protests.

submitted by Unique-kitten to Destiny [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 17:01 thatotherchicka April 2021 - Question #37

“37. The drawback entry is to be filed through a CBP-authorized electronic system and must include all of the following EXCEPT:
A. Claimant identification number
B. Port code for the drawback office where the claim is being filed
C. Drawback entry number and provision(s) under which drawback is claimed
D. The 8-digit HTSUS classification, of each item being exported
E. Amount of refund claimed for each of relevant duties, taxes, and fees”
Let’s go to our table of contents for modernized drawback and see if we can find information on how to submit the drawback claim:
https://preview.redd.it/3bj1ydicd3uc1.png?width=747&format=png&auto=webp&s=be992d8496d3fef069eb6bcbfa5946eb4c54071c
Let’s go to 190.51:
§ 190.51 Completion of drawback claims.
(a) General —
(1) Complete claim. Unless otherwise specified, a complete drawback claim under this part will consist of the successful electronic transmission to CBP of the drawback entry (as described in paragraph (a)(2) of this section), applicable Notice(s) of Intent to Export, Destroy, or Return Merchandise for Purposes of Drawback on CBP Form 7553, applicable import entry data, and evidence of exportation or destruction as provided for under subpart G of this part.
(2) Drawback entry. The drawback entry is to be filed through a CBP-authorized electronic system and must include the following:
(i) Claimant identification number;
(ii) Broker identification number (if applicable);
(iii) If requesting accelerated payment under § 190.92, surety code and bond type (and, for single transaction bonds, also the bond number and amount of bond);
(iv) Port code for the drawback office where the claim is being filed;
(v) Drawback entry number and provision(s) under which drawback is claimed;
(vi) Statement of eligibility for applicable privileges (as provided for in subpart I of this part);
(vii) Amount of refund claimed for each of relevant duties, taxes, and fees (calculated to two decimal places);
(viii) For each designated import entry line item, the entry number and the line item number designating the merchandise, a description of the merchandise, a unique import tracing identification number(s) (ITIN) (used to associate the imported merchandise and any substituted merchandise with any intermediate products (if applicable) and the drawback-eligible exported or destroyed merchandise or finished article(s)), as well as the following information for the merchandise designated as the basis for the drawback claim: The 10-digit HTSUS classification, amount of duties paid, applicable entered value (see 19 CFR 190.11(a)), quantity, and unit of measure (using the unit(s) of measure required under the HTSUS for substitution manufacturing and substitution unused merchandise drawback claims), as well as the types and amounts of any other duties, taxes, or fees for which a refund is requested;
(ix) For manufacturing claims under 19 U.S.C. 1313(a) or (b), each associated ruling number, along with the following information: Corresponding information for the factory location, the basis of the claim (as provided for in § 190.23), the date(s) of use of the imported and/or substituted merchandise in manufacturing or processing (or drawback product containing the imported or substituted merchandise), a description of and the 10-digit HTSUS classification for the drawback product or finished article that is manufactured or produced, the quantity and unit of measure for the drawback product or finished article that is manufactured or produced, the disposition of the drawback product or finished article that is manufactured or produced (transferred, exported, or destroyed), unique manufacture tracing identification number(s) (MTIN) (used to associate the manufactured merchandise, including any intermediate products, with the drawback-eligible exported or destroyed finished article(s)), and a certification from the claimant that provides as follows: “The article(s) described above were manufactured or produced and disposed of as stated herein in accordance with the drawback ruling on file with CBP and in compliance with applicable laws and regulations.”;
(x) Indicate whether the designated imported merchandise, other substituted merchandise, or finished article (for manufacturing claims) was transferred to the drawback claimant prior to the exportation or destruction of the eligible merchandise, and for unused merchandise drawback claims under 19 U.S.C. 1313(j), provide a certification from the client that provides as follows: “The undersigned hereby certifies that the exported or destroyed merchandise herein described is unused in the United States and further certifies that this merchandise was not subjected to any process of manufacture or other operation except the allowable operations as provided for by regulation.”;
(xi) Indicate whether the eligible merchandise was exported or destroyed and provide the applicable 10-digit HTSUS or Department of Commerce Schedule B classification, quantity, and unit of measure (the unit of measure specified must be the same as that which was required under the HTSUS for the designated imported merchandise in paragraph (viii) for substitution unused merchandise drawback claims) and, for claims under 19 U.S.C. 1313(c), specify the basis as one of the following:
(A) Merchandise does not conform to sample or specifications;
(B) Merchandise was defective at time of importation;
(C) Merchandise was shipped without consent of the consignee; or
(D) Merchandise sold at retail and returned to the importer or the person who received the merchandise from the importer;
(xii) For eligible merchandise that was exported, the unique export identifier (the number used to associate the export transaction with the appropriate documentary evidence of exportation), export destination, name of exporter, the applicable comparative value pursuant to § 190.11(b) (see § 190.22(a)(1)(ii), § 190.22(a)(2)(ii), or § 190.32(b)) for substitution claims, and a certification from the claimant that provides as follows: “I declare, to the best of my knowledge and belief, that all of the statements in this document are correct and that the exported article is not to be relanded in the United States or any of its possessions without paying duty.”;
(xiii) For eligible merchandise that was destroyed, the name of the destroyer and, if substituted, the applicable comparative value pursuant to § 190.11(c) (see § 190.22(a)(1)(ii), § 190.22(a)(2)(ii), or § 190.32(b)), and a certification from the claimant, if applicable, that provides as follows: “The undersigned hereby certifies that, for the destroyed merchandise herein described, the value of recovered materials (including the value of any tax benefit or royalty payment) that accrues to the drawback claimant has been deducted from the value of the imported (or substituted) merchandise designated by the claimant, in accordance with 19 U.S.C. 1313(x).”;
(xiv) For substitution unused merchandise drawback claims under 19 U.S.C. 1313(j)(2), a certification from the claimant that provides as follows: “The undersigned hereby certifies that the substituted merchandise is unused in the United States and that the substituted merchandise was in our possession prior to exportation or destruction.”;
(xv) For NAFTA and USMCA drawback claims provided for in subpart E of parts 181 and 182, the foreign entry number and date of entry, the HTSUS classification for the foreign entry, the amount of duties paid for the foreign entry and the applicable exchange rate, and, if applicable, a certification from the claimant that provides as follows: “Same condition—The undersigned certifies that the merchandise herein described is in the same condition as when it was imported under the above import entry(s) and further certifies that this merchandise was not subjected to any process of manufacture or other operation except the allowable operations as provided for by regulation.”; and
(xvi) All certifications required in this part and as otherwise deemed necessary by CBP to establish compliance with the applicable laws and regulations, as well as the following declaration: “The undersigned acknowledges statutory requirements that all records supporting the information on this document are to be retained by the issuing party for a period of 3 years from the date of liquidation of the drawback claim. All required documentation that must be uploaded in accordance with 19 CFR 190.51 will be provided to CBP within 24 hours of the filing of the drawback claim. The undersigned acknowledges that a false certification of the foregoing renders the drawback claim incomplete and subject to denial. The undersigned is fully aware of the sanctions provided in 18 U.S.C. 1001, and 18 U.S.C. 550, and 19 U.S.C. 1593a.”
(3) Election of line item designation for imported merchandise. Merchandise on a specific line on an entry summary may be designated for either direct identification or substitution claims but a single line on an entry summary may not be split for purposes of claiming drawback under both direct identification and substitution claims. The first complete drawback claim accepted by CBP which designates merchandise on a line on an entry summary establishes this designation for any remaining merchandise on that same line.
(4) Limitation on line item eligibility for imported merchandise. Claimants filing substitution drawback claims under part 190 for imported merchandise associated with a line item on an entry summary if any other merchandise covered on that entry summary has been designated as the basis of a claim under part 191 must provide additional information enabling CBP to verify the availability of drawback for the indicated merchandise and associated line item within 30 days of claim submission. The information to be provided will include, but is not limited to: summary document specifying the lines used and unused on the import entry; the import entry summary, corresponding commercial invoices, and copies of all drawback claims that previously designated the import entry summary; and post summary/liquidation changes (for imports or drawback claims, if applicable).
No where in there does it say you need to provide the 8 digit HTS code. The answer is D.

submitted by thatotherchicka to CBLE [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 16:37 Hey_86thatnow Story-what one dBPD father is like and how I survive

Thank goodness for this community. Reading such common experiences helps me immensely, so I wanted to share mine and see if it resonates with you all.
Dad was diagnosed about 20 years ago by a marriage counselor. She then “fired” him from her practice, saying his marriage was beyond help because of it. Apparently, this rejection is common among BPD patients…implying it's unfixable, Since then, the ICD-11 has added a category called “difficult personalities disorder” probably to umbrella in the people who don’t fit neatly into the “5 of 9 traits” required for complete BPD diagnosis. Interestingly, he’s not unfaithful or suicidal, he kept the same job for decades, he can be fun and loving. But he rants, he overeats, he splits and denies, he isolates, he ruminates and fears, he blames and attacks and projects his self-esteem issues onto others...mostly me.
First, he was a very loving father when we were kids, attentive and supportive. And then a fantastic grandfather to my sons-loving, etc.. keeping his worst traits in check most of the time with all of us when we were young. (Not with Mom, however.) It’s as if because his childhood was tough, he sees all children as underdogs who need special care. I will always be thankful for my childhood, for it laid the ground work for my self-esteem. However, he was rougher on my brother as a kid than on me, pushing, verbally abusing, etc.. This swapped as we both reached puberty. I realize this has something to do with his view of women, his wife and his own mother.
As I became a woman, I became threatening, which appears common among BPD fathers. He then let my brother off the hook, where I got the laser focused judgment and anger. This is not to say he never loses his temper with my brother, he just tends to wait until the situation is severe (like brother getting arrested for DUI.) whereas I got attacked because I had 4 framed pictures of one son and 5 of our other son displayed in my den. Dad went on a level ten verbal attack. “What kind of a mother…rantrantrant” jamming the extra picture in my face. Walking around counting them sounds irrational doesn’t it? I met a visiting high school friend at Chili’s for dinner, and asked Mom to babysit, and I hear, “What kind of a mother goes to a bar and leaves her kids, rantrantrant.” Chili’s? Meanwhile, my brother can brag about sexual conquests, even when married. I have three college degrees—Dad never says a word. My brother flunked out of college, but Dad lies to everyone bro won a free ride to a prestigious university in our state. He paints my brother with all the best traits of my mother, but projects all his worst traits onto me. The irony is, I am very like my mother; my brother is not. But I am the scapegoat now, and brother is the golden child.
This behavior and thinking is called splitting, or black and white thinking. It is so bad, that my father bought my brother a house when bro struggled financially. He has not had rent or a mortgage or land tax for over ten years. Me? Different story; everything I have, I earned and paid for. Mom kept a list of money they gave my brother over the years for cars or lawyers, etc. Not counting the free house, his column equals $64k. My column? Zero. (And I’m the “good” kid, responsible, there for my parents.) It’s taken a very long time for me to grasp that no matter how illogical or unfair it is, it won’t change—it is part of the disorder. I tell myself to be proud that I can make my own way without help.
Dad’s impulsive, hair trigger temper over things that wouldn’t bother anyone else is profound. I’m exhausted from walking on eggshells, though avoiding conflict is so much better than entering it. He never hit us, but throws things, breaks our valuables (like Mom’s great-great grandmother’s rocker), curses, yells, screams. As a kid, I watched him fracture his wrist punching the wall when angry at Mom. He has had security remove him 3 times from my hospital room (two surgeries, one illness.) once because I told my mother about Christmas present ideas for my brother (and apparently should have been discussing my niece instead.) Who cares I had just had an 8 level spinal surgery the day before; Dad jumped out of his chair, livid, “You are forgetting someone aren’t you! Aren’t you.” He lost his cool the time I’d had surgery after a bike wreck, screaming he’d never let me see my mother again, and he’d write me out of the will. All I had done was interrupt him while he was talking. Security escorted him out. It was so ugly, one son refused to talk to him for months, shocked after witnessing it. My father told him that it was no big deal—that was just how he and I related, it was just our dynamic. My son said, "My mother never behaves that way and did nothing wrong," and hung up on him.
Dad begged me to call my son and take some of the blame. IOW Dad cannot see his part in things. He sees reactions as proof that his anger is justified. Who cares how he causes these reactions. (Who cares that I was lying disabled in a hospital bed.) He is angered by the oddest things, the most innocuous things.
He once followed a woman around at a party and purposefully interrupted her everytime she opened her mouth, then bragged later that he did this. He felt she was always cutting him off at past functions. Being interrupted is his hottest button. He wants everyone to listen to every last detail of whatever he has to say. And if you listen, but look like you aren’t, that’s as bad as interrupting him. But does he interrupt you? Of course he does, all the time, bored with what you want to say.
He loves to get people’s goats, saying or doing very calculated things that he knows will annoy Mom or me or whomever. He has never physically hurt anyone, but mock something embarrassing from your past? He’s all over that. You can watch his face when he says provocative things on purpose—he’s just hoping you will ignite. When I wrecked my bike, instead of helping me up, he literally took pictures of me on the ground. Then showed the pictures to my brother, saying “What kind of an idiot rides a bike when she’s had spinal surgery” (8 years before). BPDs triangulate, and often lack compassion.
When it comes to me and Mom, his favorite hostile line is “What kind of a___________does__________”
When I went to take my mother to see my aunt and uncle, Dad tried to tag along, and my relatives said, "Please, if he wants to come, we'll have to disinvite you. We can't take anymore." he had been so hostile the last time they say him and made my aunt cry. He has no idea his behavior has this effect on people.
He talks all about himself, and if he asks you a rare question about you, it is so he can then talk about himself. It’s like he thinks the type of lunch the kid ate (whom he sat next to in the third grade) is talk-show-worthy chitchat. But will cut you off in a second if you have something more pressing or recent to discuss. He’s very emotional and affectionate verbally and physically, but if you try to share your deeper thoughts or concerns, he gets very awkward and uncomfortable, and dismissive. BPDs struggle with intimacy and bonds.
His narcissism is so bad, that when Mom died last year, he wrote her obituary, but 60% of it was about himself. When the newspaper edited out all the stuff about Dad, Dad called me fuming, accusing me of calling the paper to edit it. He still believes that. He also refused to let anyone have a memorial service/funeral-her ashes are still in the box from the crematory-- but later that summer, he started telling me what he wants me to do for his funeral. (We did a small family dinner in honor of Mom without him.)
He is mistrustful and suspicious. He tends to take the other person’s side in regards to me, never trusting my perspective. If someone is offensive to me (like a boss who was angry when I refused to work from home while I was taking FMLA/disability pay after childbirth, or my ex who wasn’t paying child support) Dad took their side. I had to be the problem. When my husband was sent to a job site out of town, Dad thinks he asked to be assigned there to get away from me. (But says, “I just worry, and want you to be happy.”) When I get a text sent by a male friend to both me and my hubby’s phone inviting us both to dinner, he thinks there’s something fishy going on there with me and the man (and funny enough, I am certain Dad never cheated on Mom.)
He throws cash around as presents, especially to the grandchildren, but even to people the rest of us wouldn’t include (ie. my husband’s brother-in-law’s niece-whom we barely know, my mother’s distant relatives whom no one has met, or my ex who hasn’t talked to him in decades, etc) It seems like a way to get their admiration or attention. He is always writing me in and out of the will, as if he’s the czar of millions. People with personality disorders are very manipulative or odd with gifts.
He has zero friends, but talks all the time about people he knew as a kid. Where are they now? I’ve never met anyone from his childhood other than family- no cards, no messages, nothing. And no one from his life as an adult is close to him. My parents’ friendships came through Mom. I can sadly say, in a crisis, if Dad really needed to call someone and talk, only family is there (and that is only because we are compassionate, forgiving people). But funny enough, when he is in a social setting, he is not shy but wants to talk and entertain and be the center of the party.
He loves to take people to task, often loudly and cruelly. Waitresses, nurses, cashiers all get dressed down and confronted for any perceived mistake. More than one doctor or service provider has hung up on him or yelled back at him. I witnessed this again in just the past two weeks, for Dad had a minor heart procedure. He wanted to tell each doctor and nurse the most irrelevant stuff, starting from the beginning of time…and would get mad if they didn’t let him. His cardiologist snapped at one point, “I need you to just give me quick answers!” so Dad yelled, and the guy walked out.
Interestingly, I found an article, advice for doctors and nurses on how to handle illnesses when the patient also suffers from BPD. The descriptions were my father, to a T. One of piece of advice said something like beware of compliments and ignore criticism. Dad has been tossing the compliments around like confetti, “OH, Nurse, so and so, YOU are my number one.” But when his demands are not met immediately, he acts like a baby. And he keeps insulting me infront of doctors or nurses, applying his faults to me; “She’s stubborn, she has nasty temper.” I can be just standing there silently, and he says this.
He said, to one doctor, “Don’t mind her, she’s very overbearing and headstrong…but in a good way.” I’d had enough, so I said, “There’s no reason to insult me, Dad.” He argued, “Oh, you didn’t hear my compliment. That was a compliment!” The doctor said, “If that was a compliment, it was a backhanded compliment." I could have hugged her.
The worst part of being raised by a BPD? If I report any of this back to him, he will swear none of it is true. Gaslighting is their favorite manipulation, suggesting my perceptions are wrong. Either that, or he is in some sort of fugue when he acts so badly.
How do I deal with all this? Often I don’t. Mom used to be a good buffer, til she developed ALZ and then Dad forced me to go through him, never allowing me to be alone with her. This hurt. Mom and I were very close, and before she lost her mind, we had many discussions about whether she should live with me instead. But BPD men get fixated on their mates, and he saw her as only his, not important to me or my brother or her grandchildren. (He even resented their dogs, because Mom "loved them more.")
Even much younger, if I called to talk to Mom, Dad would rush the phone so I would have to talk to him first. So often I’d wait til she called me first. And now that he is all alone and his son mostly ignores him, My husband and our sons are the only ones really watching out for him. I use as much compassionate thinking as I can and remember that he got this way because he had a rough childhood (and I think the disorder runs in families—I really do.) His father died when Dad was 7. His immigrant mother could not read or write and she was raising 4 young kids by herself. Neglect, food insecurity and possible social rejection made a deep scar. I know that at the bottom of all this, Dad cannot, because of BPS, really ever trust that anyone loves him. So I do what I can, take long breaks, bite my tongue as much as possible, set boundaries, and leave when need to. To help, I come here and read very similar experiences in order to remember, IT’s NOT ME.
But still, with this hospitalizing where he's milking the attention for all it's worth, I want to explode. I'm going to have a stroke if I have to spend this much time with him for much longer. During his surgery I was totally torn, hoping he would die, but very sad that he might. That’s some sucky head space. It was easier when Mom was alive and sane...
Right now, I’m finding him assisted living, but he keeps threatening to rip out his IVs and go home. He can’t. He used to say, whoever took him in when he was old, would get all the money, and I’d say, “Have fun living with my brother.” But of course, none of that is true. I’m so resentful that I’m the one solving his health crisis. But also, in honor of Mom and my childhood, I love him and won’t dump him. I won't let him live with me, but I won't dump him.
Thank you all, for totally understanding this dichotomy. Can you relate? What would you do?
https://preview.redd.it/5b7pb27vbe1d1.jpg?width=4128&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=134bd4bbdf57fb8f83e139b42feb6459b3af79aa

submitted by Hey_86thatnow to raisedbyborderlines [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 16:35 TheNathanNS [Talk]38% of webpages that existed in 2013 are no longer accessible a decade later

So I saw this article on Twitter about how nearly 40% of webpages around in 2013 aren't accessible anymore and my first thought was about how much of this now counts as lost media.
Snippit below:
FULL LINK: https://www.pewresearch.org/data-labs/2024/05/17/when-online-content-disappears/

The internet is an unimaginably vast repository of modern life, with hundreds of billions of indexed webpages. But even as users across the world rely on the web to access books, images, news articles and other resources, this content sometimes disappears from view.
A new Pew Research Center analysis shows just how fleeting online content actually is:
A quarter of all webpages that existed at one point between 2013 and 2023 are no longer accessible, as of October 2023. In most cases, this is because an individual page was deleted or removed on an otherwise functional website. A line chart showing that 38% of webpages from 2013 are no longer accessible For older content, this trend is even starker. Some 38% of webpages that existed in 2013 are not available today, compared with 8% of pages that existed in 2023. This “digital decay” occurs in many different online spaces. We examined the links that appear on government and news websites, as well as in the “References” section of Wikipedia pages as of spring 2023. This analysis found that:
23% of news webpages contain at least one broken link, as do 21% of webpages from government sites. News sites with a high level of site traffic and those with less are about equally likely to contain broken links. Local-level government webpages (those belonging to city governments) are especially likely to have broken links. 54% of Wikipedia pages contain at least one link in their “References” section that points to a page that no longer exists. To see how digital decay plays out on social media, we also collected a real-time sample of tweets during spring 2023 on the social media platform X (then known as Twitter) and followed them for three months. We found that:
Nearly one-in-five tweets are no longer publicly visible on the site just months after being posted. In 60% of these cases, the account that originally posted the tweet was made private, suspended or deleted entirely. In the other 40%, the account holder deleted the individual tweet, but the account itself still existed. Certain types of tweets tend to go away more often than others. More than 40% of tweets written in Turkish or Arabic are no longer visible on the site within three months of being posted. And tweets from accounts with the default profile settings are especially likely to disappear from public view.

(More in link)

This number is definitely higher the further back you go, but what do you think about this and how concerning it is for online preservation?
Of course not every site is going to be unique, but I have no doubts that a good chunk of them probably have some kind of lost media in some way.

submitted by TheNathanNS to lostmedia [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 16:09 adulting4kids Literary Devices Thesis Topics

Thesis: The Power of Epistrophe in Shakespearean Tragedy

Example: Explore how William Shakespeare utilizes epistrophe for emotional impact in Hamlet's soliloquies, emphasizing the protagonist's internal conflicts and contributing to the overall tragic tone.

Thesis: Anadiplosis as a Tool for Moral Reflection in Victorian Literature

Example: Analyze Charles Dickens' use of anadiplosis in "Great Expectations" to underscore moral lessons and societal critique, examining its role in shaping the narrative's ethical framework.

Thesis: Aposiopesis in Gothic Fiction: Unveiling the Unspeakable

Example: Investigate the presence of aposiopesis in Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein," exploring how the device enhances the suspense and horror elements by leaving critical details unsaid.

Thesis: The Rhetorical Force of Epizeuxis in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address

Example: Examine Abraham Lincoln's use of epizeuxis in the Gettysburg Address, dissecting how repetitive emphasis contributes to the speech's enduring impact on the American psyche.

Thesis: Chiasmus in F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby": Symmetry and Disillusionment

Example: Investigate the thematic significance of chiasmus in key passages of "The Great Gatsby," unraveling how Fitzgerald employs symmetrical language structures to convey the novel's themes of illusion and disillusionment.

Thesis: Enjambment and Modernist Experimentation in T.S. Eliot's Poetry

Example: Analyze T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" to understand the role of enjambment in his modernist exploration of fragmented consciousness, societal collapse, and spiritual desolation.

Thesis: Paraprosdokian in Oscar Wilde's Satirical Wit

Example: Explore how Oscar Wilde uses paraprosdokian in "The Importance of Being Earnest" to satirize societal norms and conventions, adding a layer of unexpected humor to his comedic masterpiece.

Thesis: Anaphora in Langston Hughes' Poetry: Giving Voice to the Harlem Renaissance

Example: Examine the use of anaphora in Langston Hughes' poems, such as "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," to analyze how repetition becomes a powerful tool for expressing the collective voice and identity of the Harlem Renaissance.

Thesis: Hendiadys in Jane Austen's Social Commentary

Example: Investigate Jane Austen's use of hendiadys in "Pride and Prejudice," exploring how this device adds nuanced layers to character relationships and societal critique in her Regency-era novels.

Thesis: Litotes in George Orwell's "1984": The Art of Understatement in Dystopian Discourse

Example: Analyze George Orwell's use of litotes in "1984," considering how the device contributes to the bleak atmosphere of the novel and emphasizes the oppressive nature of the dystopian regime.

Note: These examples are for illustrative purposes and provide a starting point for further exploration in literary analysis. It's essential to consult the actual texts and relevant scholarly articles for in-depth research.

submitted by adulting4kids to writingthruit [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 14:38 qiumo_talk 「苦难诗社：灰熊2024赛季总结」Grizzlies 2023-24 Season Summary: The Tortured Poets Department

写在最前：这是我在2024年4月19日写的文章。那天我最爱的艺术家霉霉发表了专辑TTPD，其中文译名为”苦难诗社“，我认为非常契合灰熊本赛季的主题。
Written first: This is an article I wrote on April 19, 2024. That day, my favorite artist Taylor Swift released the album TTPD. I think it fits the Grizzlies' theme of this season very well.
考虑到原文篇幅较长，所以我只会在这里发布英文版。如果你感兴趣，可以去我的微博看中文版：
Considering the length of the original article, I will only post the English version here. If you are interested, you can go to my Weibo to see the Chinese version.
-
Remember the names of these 33 warriors.

https://preview.redd.it/05zsptapld1d1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=5c9193aa7b5e49cee95cd2727c30aa4a5b4f9b79
After three hard-fought quarters against the Nuggets, the Grizzlies eventually lost.
Much like most of the season’s games, they displayed convincing moments. Whenever the opponent attempted to push the game into a decisive depth, TJ would call a timely timeout to catch a breath and then immediately launch a counterattack. If you were an unfamiliar fan tuning in during the final moments of many games, you’d be puzzled: who are these guys? How are they tying the score against Joker, JT, Bron, and AD? But most of the time, effort couldn’t beat talent.
No worries, I was just as surprised as you. But after watching the Grizzlies' final game of the season in the early morning, I took a deep breath as the fleeting memories of the past six months flashed before my eyes like a slideshow, and I understood them.
This is the Grizzlies' second-lowest win rate season in the past 15 years. They had 33 players wear the jersey, missed 578 games due to injury, and used 51 different starting lineups (all NBA records). Even one of the league’s loudest home courts, FedEx Forum, often had many empty seats for most of the season.
"For just $2, you can see Timmy Allen, Jack White, and Zavier Simpson play live!"
This isn’t a joke. On April 9, facing the Spurs at home, all three played at least 25 minutes. They limited Rookie of the Year Wemby to 18 points on 19 shots but were still dominated on the boards by Sandro Mamukelashvili and lost the game.
Despite several key players coming and going, last season the Grizzlies boasted the league's best home record (35-6), but this season they only won nine games at home. After back-to-back home losses to the Blazers (who finished last in the West with 21 wins but beat the Grizzlies three times) on March 2, GG Jackson admitted postgame:
"You see your fans leaving with like 8 minutes left in the game, that really sticks us as players. They want to come see us play. And that's kind of like them slapping us in our faces like, 'We don't want to see you play.' We've got to change that."
I understand these people. This has been a season full of hardship for players, coaches, management, the team, fans, and the city. From before the season, we were devastated by unprecedented injuries. Anyone still paying attention to this team is a true Grizzlies fan. Special credit to the players and coaching staff—by January, the season had already lost its meaning. The basketball gods didn’t favor them despite Ja’s season-ending injury but instead brought more injuries. Yet, even so, they fought on and never gave up. I don’t recall any game being "surrendered"—no matter how few players were left, they gave it their all on the floor.
https://preview.redd.it/godn2cysld1d1.png?width=1024&format=png&auto=webp&s=88a5a76c9627381d1ec46d31f5875dfa10b2957c
My favorite artist Taylor Swift released her 11th album, "The Tortured Poets Department," today, and I’m willing to call the 2024 Grizzlies "The Tortured Players Department"—injured, pained, struggling, liberated, relieved, and then filled with hope.
I don’t know how fans will remember and evaluate this most painful season in NBA history ten years from now—but while the memories are still fresh, I’ll do it now.

Two Black Swans

If we set the start of a season as the day after playoff elimination, then as early as last May, shadows had already enveloped the team. Like me, Morant wasn’t good at live streaming, and for the second time, he brandished a gun in a car. When I got the news, I was packing for a trip to Guangzhou the next day and nearly tore a basketball sock in half.
Opinions on the Smart trade were generally positive, and Raymon and I were full of praise for GG and Slaw Dawg’s Summer League performances on the Chinese Grizzlies podcast. Missing Morant for 25 games meant we couldn’t secure home-court advantage like the past two years, but securing a play-in spot seemed reasonable. In an open Western Conference, all it took was a lucky playoff matchup, and a full-strength team could still achieve something.
Then Stevo was out for the season.
Unlike Morant's short-term impact on the record, this was a heavy blow to all remaining hope. I dejectedly said:
"No matter what, they can’t play like last year or even the year before, and they can’t find another Adams through trade or signing. The Grizzlies’ new season hasn’t even started, but it might already be over."
At this point, it was just three days before the season opener. The appearance of two black swans cast a shadow over the season before it even began.

Finding Joy in Suffering

The Grizzlies' first 25 games were like me trying to stand on a balance ball in the gym for the first time—standing seemed not too difficult, but whenever I tried to squat, my legs started shaking uncontrollably, and most of the time, I fell off.
After five straight losses, the Grizzlies quickly signed the overlooked Biyombo and then played some decent games, but the injury wave followed one after another. At the most extreme, the Grizzlies had to use their paper-thin fourth point guard—Jacob Gilyard, who should have shined in the G League—a player about my height and weight because Ja, Smart, and Rose were all injured.
https://preview.redd.it/zmk62bq3md1d1.png?width=1600&format=png&auto=webp&s=4ee1bbd1eda0ba13c4715fcf15391b5fdc67de32
To be fair, the Grizzlies showed resilience at that time. Facing the "BIG4 Clippers," the Grizzlies won their second game of the season on the road. Gilyard (6+5+3+3) held his own against Harden (11+4+3); against a full-strength Celtics, Aldama put up 28+12+6 and almost pulled off an upset; Bane dropped 49 points to lead a comeback win over the Pistons, scoring in the fourth quarter as much as Cunningham, Bojan, Duren, and Ivey combined.
The Grizzlies could keep up with most paper-strong teams and even come back from 15-20 points down but usually lost in the final moments. Bane took on an overwhelming offensive load, being the only consistent scorer, three-point shooter, and transition player, but he mostly held up; JJJ was often forced to play the five, which he disliked, making both offense and defense awkward and inefficient. As for the untested young players, they rarely held the ball securely in the fourth quarter.
With a 6-19 record, second-to-last in the West, trailing the play-in zone by more than five games; Bane’s performance was the team’s lone standout, determining both the floor and ceiling; aside from JJJ, Aldama, and Roddy, almost no one was healthy. The Grizzlies’ net rating still ranked higher than their record, their defensive efficiency remained in the top ten, but they couldn’t score.

A Brief Spring

December 20—just an ordinary game day, but Grizzlies fans had been waiting almost four months. The Pelicans, with their formidable build, weren’t an ideal opponent after a long layoff, but Morant loved such games. He probed in the first two quarters and then started showcasing his signature gliding layups and near-basket floaters in the third. He almost blew past every defender, gesturing "too small" to Alvarado, laying it up over defensive player Herbert Jones. On the final play, he drove from the backcourt, bypassed the screen, and floated a shot over Jones, Murphy, and Daniels—off the backboard, into the basket, buzzer beater.
This was Morant’s first career buzzer-beater. Interestingly, after the shot, even the Grizzlies players on the court paused for a second before realizing they had won, with Bane even freezing at the three-point line.
I understand Bane. In the first 25 games, the Grizzlies didn’t have such clutch play; this was a moment where a superstar wielded his superpower.
https://preview.redd.it/ivoxez05md1d1.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=88313b44ea6967be3578b9d99f8eadcbd450a207
Morant posted the highest points for a player returning after missing more than 25 games in history, but more thrilling for fans was that the Grizzlies truly became competitive. They quickly won four in a row, beating the hot Haliburton, Trae, and Wemby, and winning twice against the Pelicans on the road. Bane and JJJ were in great form, and Smart’s fourth-quarter lockdown on Ingram was impressive.
With the return of injured players, we began to calculate and discuss the Grizzlies' playoff prospects. Morant caught the flu and missed one game, played poorly in the next two—nothing to say as I was also down with the flu—recovered, and then convincingly defeated Bron and AD’s Lakers on the road. Smart scored 29 points (including a ton of threes), Morant’s scattered scoring and assists, JJJ turned into Curry, and Bane turned the arena into a library with a series of off-the-dribble threes in the fourth quarter. After the game, Nemo and JJJ sat on the scorer’s table for an ESPN interview: "You’re making a playoff push, what’s your plan?"
https://preview.redd.it/mddc8fv8md1d1.png?width=2182&format=png&auto=webp&s=865924dab3881c277783c53a5f40acf1a53504b3
Jaren smiled lightly, and Nemo said, "Keep playing like this, 48 minutes of relentless effort every night, execute our signature defense, move the ball, and everyone being on point. Tonight, we had many guys scoring 20+, like Z. Keep this up, and we’ll be dangerous."
We didn’t see Nemo play again; a few days later, he was diagnosed with a torn labrum and was out for the season; two games later, Smart dislocated his finger and was out for the season; another two games, Bane went down, and the season was over.

The Dawn

Just two weeks after hope reignited, it was extinguished. What was left to see this season? I believe every Grizzlies fan asked themselves this question. At this point, you have to appreciate the basketball gods; when they close one door, they really do open another.
——Back on December 1, with no one available, TJ put Vince Williams into the rotation. As last year’s 47th pick, his rookie year saw no meaningful time, mainly playing in the G League. In the limited effective game sample, we considered him a wing “shooter” who couldn’t handle the ball or defend well—he hadn’t even shot well in Summer League.
In his first effective NBA game, Vince scored 15 points on 6-of-9 shooting, adding nine rebounds. He stayed on in the fourth quarter, impressively defending Irving. The Grizzlies secured their fifth win of the season.
Ten days later, facing the Mavericks again, this time he had to guard Luka, averaging 34 points. No one expected him to complete the task, nor should he, but he did great—the Grizzlies almost erased a 17-point deficit, forcing Luka to 4-of-12 shooting in the second half. They even exchanged trash talk during the game, but after the game, Luka said:
"I think he’s a great defender."
When Luka Doncic calls you a "great" defender, you must be a "very, very, very great" defender.
https://preview.redd.it/6jn2grnbmd1d1.png?width=1919&format=png&auto=webp&s=566c59c5549e34a61c450230a88500215b38de49
Vince started the next game. Although he had some ups and downs briefly after Morant’s return, he quickly adjusted. He scored 19+9 against the Suns’ big three, limiting Durant; next time facing Luka, he won again (Luka 9-of-21); he scored 24+7 against the Warriors, winning, and in the win over the Heat, he outperformed Butler (25 points, JB 15 points).
Just as we were marveling at his offensive and defensive performances, his pre-All-Star break streak showed us even more potential.
Starting from February 8 against the Bulls, he averaged 14+7+8+2 steals over five consecutive games, including an 18+12+7 performance against Lillard/Giannis’ Bucks. He limited Lillard to 7-of-21 shooting and helped disrupt Lillard’s three-point attempt in the final moments.
What, Vince can also moonlight as a point guard?
The Grizzlies converted his contract in January to a three-year, $7.9 million deal with an option. Considering his versatility and level of play, this contract is so low it’s almost insulting. But if you think that’s exaggerated, wait, there’s more.
https://preview.redd.it/wjpaxgqcmd1d1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=0352543f4be22abad934a7d796e6968d91e40156
——When GG Jackson was drafted, few Grizzlies fans who knew about him were optimistic. Their reasons were solid: GG wasn’t even 19 when drafted, too young; he skipped a grade to play a dismal season at South Carolina, shooting 38%, looking like a chucker; he had publicly criticized teammates, posing a locker room cancer risk.
These might be true, but I only learned about him after he was drafted—watching him tearfully talk to ZK on a call, watching his college highlight reels showcasing his versatile offensive skills and confidence, his enviable physique, these on-court aspects captivated me. I followed his performance throughout Summer League, and his smooth catch-and-shoot and diligent defensive footwork made me even more optimistic about his future.
At the time, I was probably the only one publicly praising him. I voiced my support in every platform I had—podcasts, Weibo, even the comment section of the pay raise public account: Check out GG! He has a chance to enter the rotation!
For the first half of the season, he barely played, putting up numbers in the G League. On January 13, 2024, with Nemo, Bane, and Smart all out, TJ had no choice but to put GG into the rotation, giving him 27 minutes.
In his first effective NBA game, GG scored 20 points on 9-of-14 shooting; the next game against the Warriors, 23 points. He became the second-youngest in history to score 20+ in consecutive games, only behind Bron—TNT’s crew warmly greeted him on national television:
Shaq: "I have nothing to say; I just want to congratulate you: now people know who you are."
https://preview.redd.it/a22gjp4emd1d1.png?width=2248&format=png&auto=webp&s=1a59bc946a230ddb2108716ff9253ecc05c6592f
GG looked both excited and nervous, reminding me of my freshman year. This is the genuine reaction of a kid this age when they’ve done something remarkable and are publicly praised for it.
This wasn’t the last time. With Vince injured, GG became my sole motivation to watch the last third of the season. In 42 effective games, he averaged 16.4 points and 4.5 rebounds, hitting 36% of his shots, averaging 2.4 three-pointers per game. He scored 20+ in 12 games, 30+ in three, and posted 44+12 against a full-strength Nuggets in the final game.
If GG had entered the rotation earlier, could he have made the All-Rookie First Team? Quite possibly, as he’s a natural scorer who excels in big moments and national broadcasts (how rare is this for the youngest player in the league?). His other contributions in games were limited, but considering the Grizzlies’ environment, their league-worst offense, the pressure he faced, and the difficulty of his scoring might have been greatly underestimated.
GG dropped 31 points against a full-strength Lakers, almost the only player able to initiate scoring, making a top-five play dunk over Rui Hachimura. How many All-Rookie votes will he get?
https://preview.redd.it/7obss9rfmd1d1.png?width=1600&format=png&auto=webp&s=dbe5d862cf5b5ca1ace44b70eabd533933563b5d
Two experts stood with me: ESPN’s Bobby Marks placed GG in his All-Rookie Second Team a week ago, and The Ringer’s Bill Simmons said he would vote GG for Rookie of the Year in a podcast two days ago. Regardless, GG has earned respect.
And for Grizzlies fans, even better news is that the team converted his contract to a four-year, $8.5 million deal with a fourth-year team option in February. As a Reddit Grizzlies fan put it, "This is Pippen contract level theft."
Vince and GG, two second-round picks, played convincingly in ways no one expected. The Grizzlies have locked them in on affordable long-term contracts for at least three years, and they will undoubtedly be key rotation or even starting players for the Grizzlies next season—what did the Grizzlies trade to acquire them? Zero.

Praying to the Basketball Gods

Though Grizzlies fans' moods might be 1,000 times better than three months ago, this remains a completely wasted season. For a young team that matched up against the champions two years ago, this isn’t good. The Grizzlies still have plenty of draft picks, but their salary cap is tight. Their core 3 is still young and talented, but two other young core teams—at least the Timberwolves and Thunder—are ready. The Grizzlies are nowhere near their position two years ago.
But this "wasted" season allowed them to eliminate many wrong options and secure several key players. Even if the offseason only brings an average starting center, their roster strength is very, very solid (I don’t think any current team could consistently beat a healthy 2024 Grizzlies). They maintained high defensive levels, forced turnovers, and blocks with many non-NBA players, and they possess better three-point shooting than the past two years. They can replicate the 2022 season's performance, and that’s a conservative estimate.
https://preview.redd.it/xxiop63hmd1d1.png?width=1440&format=png&auto=webp&s=951528875c8ab351023e1f588ad3837f4c0d6661
But can they stay healthy? In 2022, Dillon played only 32 games and was out of sorts in the playoffs, with Morant also injured midway; in 2023, key players were in and out, losing inside reserves to the Lakers in a seven-game upset; this year, the entire team suffered the worst injury wave in NBA history. Like the Clippers in recent years, injuries are the easiest topic to discuss without being wrong because no one can control them, and they always happen.
So, I can only pray to the basketball gods: it can’t get worse than this. I desperately want to see a fully healthy Morant-Bane-Jaren Grizzlies team play a playoff series, even if they are easily beaten by a better team. I don’t want to look back years later and be left with a pile of "what ifs."

submitted by qiumo_talk to memphisgrizzlies [link] [comments]

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submitted by Icy-Link-4536 to homeworkhelpNY [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 13:23 Soft-Flan-5426 Freelance Academic and Article Writer

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submitted by Soft-Flan-5426 to writing_gigs [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 12:52 AlarmedIllustrator26 Colostomy reversal surgery

Hello all, I’m writing here full of anxiety and it seems I just can’t stop crying.
In December 15th, my mom got a huge spike of fever, every time she ate, her body temperature went under the roof. She finally agreed to call an ambulance. After 16hs at the hospital we heard a diagnosis - perforated diverticulitis in several places, emergency surgery and colostomy needed. She went through it, spend 5 days not knowing she will live or die. She spend two weeks in a hospital. Seeing my mom this way, scared, hopeless, weak, was the hardest thing I had to witness. My heart shattered in million pieces, but I’m so so glad she was alive.
Once we got home, after rehabilitation, things started to go back to normal step by step. Still taking antibiotics, but she was up and about. One hell of a strong woman my mom is!. But to our surprise - temperature rise again - her incision wound got infected. Another round of antibiotics - no success. As we live in a small town, healthcare system could not do as many tests as she needed - I brought her back to my place to the capital of the country and brought her to the er - 10 cm capsule of infected puss under her surgical incision. They cut it out and took a sample - three different gut bacteria’s were living under her skin. Three different antibiotics to fight it off- for 40 fucking days. I seen my mom cry, I see her face and the words “I’m so tired of being sick” was hurting the most. But finally, April 3rd - mom crp levels were back to normal.
We found a best doctor in an area, and went to meet him. His empathy hypnotised us - mom got scheduled for a reversal surgery May 17th. As she said - it was easier the first time - all the anxiety and waiting for the surgery, thinking about complications, dreaming of shitting herself in front of the class ( she is a biology teacher) everything seemed like too much. As mom and i are best friends, we are a team, I could feel her anxiety, but not imagine what she went through and still had to go through.
She got her colostomy reversal surgery 48 hours ago. As she said, she cannot compare it with the first time, it’s much easier. Also, she passes gas every time she moves (today was the first time she stood up and went to the bathroom and passed some mucous!). Her temperature is a bit elevated, but nurses said it’s fine and expected after such surgery. but I’m so scared we have to go through the same path again - long and painful reabilitation, shitloads of antibiotics, mom losing all her hope and I’m unable to help :(
My mom is in her 60s. No illnesses apart from this situation, all her blood work is better than mine (I’m 28) 😅 she is so strong and I’m so proud of her, but also so soooo scared.
Maybe someone been in similar situation regarding this journey? How can I help my mom? Is it as hard to recover form reversal as it is from original surgery? What she can expect? I need some insights I’m so lost and want to be the best for my mom and her recovery journey.

submitted by AlarmedIllustrator26 to ostomy [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 10:01 AutoModerator Exploring the Intersection of Health and Words - Join the r/HealthcareWriting Community!

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submitted by AutoModerator to HealthcareWriting [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 08:26 AnthroTechie Ashkenazi DNA in Sephardic Jews -- legitimate or genetic similarity?

Me and u/AsfAtl were debating whether the Spanish results on 23&me in Sephardic Jews reflect genuine Iberian DNA (he took this stance) or strands of Sephardic DNA that were assimilated into Spanish and Portuguese populations (this was my stance). During this conversation, we discussed Ashkenazi showing up in Sephardic Jews on commercial tests, and I thought it would generate an interesting dialogue here.
The question was brought up--although there is known Ashkenazi ancestry in Bulgarian Sephardic Jews, are the amounts of Ashkenazi DNA in other Sephardic groups simply due to genetic similarity, or legitimate Ashkenazi? I personally believe you can make a case for both.
Argument 1 - Genetic Similarity:
23&me undeniably is very accurate with Ashkenazi Jewish DNA, but at the trace level, sometimes it's very weird. I have seen phased results of a child who scored trace Ashkenazi (up to 0.7%) while neither of their parents did.
https://www.reddit.com/23andme/comments/11xdymz/how_can_i_test_more_north_africa_and_jewish_than/
https://www.reddit.com/23andme/comments/xpw4zq/bahia_brazil_updated_results_phased_with_parents/
Even up to the few percentage points, I have experimented with GEDMatch kits of individuals who have scored 1-3% Ashkenazi (although to be fair, sample size of 2). One of them was a half Mexican and half Lebanese individual with 1.3% Ashkenazi, and the other was a half Moroccan Jewish woman with 3% Ashkenazi. Even going down to the 7 centimorgan level, there were no valid triangulated segments with Ashkenazim. So we can assume that this Ashkenazi DNA is a false positive.
Sephardim and Ashkenazim are genetically close to one another (especially western Ashkenazi Jews), and this can be proven with any study. For instance, the Erfurt Ashkenazi Jews could be modeled on qpADM (and with Global25 as well) as 96-97% Turkish and 3-4% German. Pretty similar!
Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867422013782 (underneath the section "Quantitative ancestry modeling"). You can also run the Erfurt (ME) sample on Vahaduo in the "Target" section and use Sephardic_Jew_Turkey and German as reference populations, for replication purposes.
Argument 2 - This is actual Ashkenazi admixture
I talked to a genealogist who told me that 90% of Sephardic Jews have some Ashkenazi DNA in them. He didn't provide the source, but I have heard that claim from other people and he is someone who has a lot of ethos in the life sciences (unlike a certain genealogist with the initials ECH that is often cited), so I don't have any reason to doubt this. If anyone can find the specific link, I would totally appreciate it!
Historically, this makes sense. We now know that the bottleneck of Ashkenazi Jews occurred centuries before initially assumed. This was proven with the Norwich study (source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982222013550 ), so we know that Ashkenazi DNA has been around since the 12th century, if not earlier.
Map of medieval Jewish expulsions: https://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/gallery/expuls.HTM
A lot of Sephardim have roots from Catalonia, due to the 1391 pogroms. Catalonia was home to many expelled French and German Jews who ended up assimilating into the larger Sephardic community. This could explain why many Latino individuals score Ashkenazi in lieu of Sephardic--DNA is not necessarily reflective of one's culture. So some of the conversos who fled to Latin America could have been mostly Ashkenazi by DNA but culturally Sephardic. This also explains why many North African Jews have some percentage of Ashkenazi DNA.
https://jguideeurope.org/en/region/spain/catalonia/
(For those who might be a bit confused as to why someone who is genetically Ashkenazi would practice the Sephardic rite, consider the Greek diaspora--there are Greek individuals who lived in modern day Turkey and score 0% Greek & Balkan on DNA tests, but spoke Greek, were devoutly Orthodox, had Greek names, and were targeted in the 1915 genocides. This also applies to Greek Cypriots, Antioch Greeks, etc. To tell any of these groups that they are not Greek is pretty ignorant.)
Conclusion
This is why in most cases, you will see Ashkenazi in a Sephardic Jew's DNA profile. While some people may disagree with me, I do not believe that a lack of Ashkenazi DNA negates Sephardic (or Romaniote, Italki, or Syrian Jewish) ancestry. You just won't see them as frequently on the subreddits, but I do know for a fact that they exist.
If anyone has other insights or sources to provide, please provide them in the comments! I believe that open discussion and disagreements are essential for scientific research. :)

submitted by AnthroTechie to JewishDNA [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 08:10 nomorelandfills California rescuers clamoring for adoption of AB 2265, Animal Shelter Transparency Act cheerfully agree to remove the bit about mandatory spay/neuter before a dog or cat is released to foster. Also, the law is another gateway for release of dangerous dogs.

https://preview.redd.it/8wd5vanfrb1d1.png?width=536&format=png&auto=webp&s=4348ee55b7aa2fd3a7d70737d11ffd1979b19f61
To be honest, I didn't read the dangerous dog part as thoroughly as I should. I think I may be somewhat burnt out on the recklessness and coldness shown by rescuers to others in their willingness to prioritize dangerous or marginal ownerless dogs over beloved pets and over people.
The spay/neuter part, that just galls me. It should gall anyone. This crisis, this hellscape of pit bull overpopulation that exists clearly calls for sterilization of any shelter dog in California. Shrugging off that as a lesser priority than rehoming existing dogs blows the whole deal. Any animal rescue plan that removes, downgrades or fails to prioritize spay/neuter for pit bulls is worthless. It's just a smokescreen, a way to play with puppies and posture as saviors without doing anything to improve the situation. Status quo, nothing to see here, #adoptdontshop.
https://preview.redd.it/if3jg07kpb1d1.png?width=873&format=png&auto=webp&s=bde9e6f11f3311da914d8c76a66d3907e0118374
SUMMARY: Under existing law, it is the policy of the state that no adoptable animal should be euthanized if it can be adopted into a suitable home, as provided.
This bill declares it the policy of the state that no animal be euthanized by a public animal control agency, shelter, or a private entity that contracts with a public animal control agency or shelter for animal care and control services (collectively, “eligible agency”). This bill requires an eligible agency to post, 24 to 72 hours before a scheduled euthanasia of a dog or cat, a daily list of any cat or dog scheduled for euthanasia on its public website or social media page and to post a physical notice on the kennel of a dog or cat scheduled to be euthanized.
This bill requires a public animal control agency or shelter that seeks to adopt a policy, practice, or protocol that may conflict with Hayden’s Law to give notice regarding the policy, practice, or protocol, as specified, and requires the city or county to schedule a public hearing regarding the policy, practice, or protocol.
https://preview.redd.it/r6ett982nb1d1.png?width=701&format=png&auto=webp&s=5a4b03df0544234fd1c1a32dc1ad2396314d7a75
And the sheer chutzpah of this
https://preview.redd.it/6jzq88epob1d1.png?width=588&format=png&auto=webp&s=01830f3ea95e94084d4bd927d96ba33fc7732b24
Rescuers - we will advocate for violent dogs and fund their owners' fights to keep them from being designated dangerous and harass communities into being extremely afraid of even starting a dangerous dog investigation.
Also rescuers - our new legislation to require more marketing of unadoptable dogs won't include dangerous dogs! Silly! There's no risk to the public!
Although I will say I had no idea that rescuers knew of the existence of the word 'transparency' so good for them. Perhaps this knowledge could be turned inward sometimes?
The CityWatch article
ANIMAL WATCH - An increasing number of reported vicious and fatal dog attacks across California, as reported by the L.A. Times—and worldwide—are ignored by AB 2265 (2024) authored by Assembly Member Kevin McCarthy and introduced in the CA Assembly—and, instead, it prohibits euthanasia of any dangerous animals, including dogs impounded in shelters for violent behavior.
AB 2265, (which has so far been amended twice, the latest change being when it was introduced in the Assembly on 3/18/2024) wants California legislators to assure that NO dog (or other aggressive animal) in a shelter can be euthanized, other than if it is irremediably suffering, regardless of its violent or even deadly behavioral history. However, it is the goal and purpose of shelters to place as many animals as possible directly into homes with families.
This bill went far beyond the purpose of the 1998 Hayden bill which had the intent to restrict euthanasia of healthy and adoptable animals.
No one with knowledge of the devastating outcome of attacks by currently popular Pit Bulls, XL and XXL Bullys, now banned in the UK, Wales, Scotland and India, along with other aggressive breeds, nor anyone who has been the victim of any vicious dog attack, could plausibly agree that this risk should be encouraged or can be afforded by the State of California or any governmental jurisdiction.
So far, it appears other legislators are skeptical of this bill. The only positive change with which some CA animal control agencies and legislators have expressed mutual agreement is the increase in spay/neuter deposits for dogs and cats being raised to $200 to match the much higher rates for surgical sterilization in today’s economy.
A CLOSER LOOK AT AB 2265
In the past few weeks we have seen countries such as England, Wales, Scotland and India joining those which ban Pit Bull, XL and XXL Bullys and other dangerous dogs in order to stop the trafficking of dangerous breeds, provide safety for communities and stop the horrific attacks and deaths of innocent children and adults whose lives are ended by other people’s “protection dogs” or “rescued” pets with a known history of violent behavior.
AB 2265 – A RISK CALIFORNIA CANNOT TAKE
There is value in telling the truth about dog behavior and the greatest is in public and personal safety. What weird whim—other than personal aggrandizement or a strong campaign supporter—would cause Senator McCarthy to encourage ignoring violent past history and risk human and animal lives on a gamble that a dog with a known history of unprovoked aggression will suddenly act differently?
If we want canines to continue to be known as man’s (or woman’s) best friends, we need—just as we do with humans—to assure they have earned that trust by not misusing their innate strength and survival skills to harm those who trust and love them.
CHANGING THE STATE’S EUTHANASIA GOAL
This bill, AB 2265, introduced on February 8, 2024, drastically changes the State’s animal shelter euthanasia goal—from ending euthanasia of adoptable animals to ending euthanasia of any animal. That includes vicious dogs, wild and/or dangerous animals, prohibited animals and regulated animals.
This would create chaotic danger for adopters and pet owners and innocent residents/neighbors throughout California, while ALSO negatively and disastrously affecting the insurance and veterinary industries, according to experts.
The only exceptions in the bill that allow a dangerous animal to be euthanized are very narrow categories for medical and behavior issues:
1) those that are irremediably suffering, which is defined as those for which “severe, unremitting physical pain” cannot be relieved by any medical means without regard to cost or local availability of that level of care; and
2) Those that have been declared “vicious” under the State’s regulatory scheme, which few agencies use, and which assumes that a hearing was held after an owner contested that declaration.
According to Fast Track Democracy, “Existing law prohibits animals that are irremediably suffering from a serious illness or severe injury from being held for owner redemption or adoption. This bill would instead declare it the policy of the state that no animal be euthanized by a public animal control agency or shelter or a private entity that contracts with a public animal control agency or shelter for animal care and control services, except as provided.”
“Existing law prohibits a stray dog or cat impounded by a public or private shelter from being euthanized before 6 business days after the stray dog or cat is impounded, not including the day of impoundment, and requires that the stray dog or cat, except those irremediably suffering, be released to a nonprofit animal rescue or adoption organization before the scheduled euthanasia of the stray dog or cat if requested by the organization, as specified.” The analysis summarizes the Bill (see Fast Track Democracy).
Existing law prohibits a stray dog or cat impounded by a public or private shelter from being euthanized before 6 business days after the stray dog or cat is impounded, not including the day of impoundment, and requires that the stray dog or cat, except those irremediably suffering, be released to a nonprofit animal rescue or adoption organization before the scheduled euthanasia of the stray dog or cat if requested by the organization, as specified.
WARNINGS ABOUT THIS ‘NO KILL’ PLAN FOR DANGEROUS DOGS
A California animal-control specialist offered the following thoughts based on his personal and professional experience.
(The following is not to be taken as legal advice, but merely as guidance in further considering some issues that appear to not have been considered in pursuing these severe changes to animal sheltering under existing California laws and practices.)
“This Bill would absolutely eviscerate Food and Agricultural Code Section 31683, which allows counties and cities to have their own regulatory process for dangerous dogs, and it would force everyone to use the very-flawed State process.”
AND he summarized that:

This bill eliminates the limitation by the 1998 Hayden-Bill mandate and requires shelters to advertise for release even those dogs that have mauled or killed a person, and forces animal control agencies (government and humane societies with animal control contracts) to announce the pending euthanasia of any of these dogs to “rescues,” so they can take them, often placing them in unsuspecting homes.
Even if the bill does not require that owner-relinquished dogs that are too vicious for placement even with a rescue be released to anyone who asks for it, the mere requirement that they be advertised creates unnecessary conflict and invites protest and even litigation over the decision not to release them.
What is a “qualified” nonprofit animal rescue or adoption organization? The term “qualified” is not defined in the bill. In light of an appellate court interpretation of the Hayden mandate to release stray dogs facing euthanasia to a “qualified” rescue, it is vital to have that defined. If “qualified” means any corporation that has obtained its 501(c)(3) tax exempt status—which is what many will assume—then animal control will have no way to ensure that the most vicious dogs are not placed in “foster” in unsuspecting neighborhoods by people who have no idea how dangerous they are.
Why must it be a nonprofit organization? This bill defines an animal rescue organization to include for-profit corporations. So why are they excluded from this Bill? A nonprofit organization can pay a high number of “employees” very exorbitant salaries. A nonprofit business model is no guarantee that more of the organization’s budget will go to help animals than other business models.
This Bill targets only municipal shelters and humane societies that have government contracts to provide animal control services. Those are the only organizations that cannot fully control their intake, and on which there are mandates to admit animals. They are the very organizations that most need the ability to engage in euthanasia for legitimate health and safety reasons, and for which the greatest levels of leniency and understanding are justified. Yet, any other organization can euthanize healthy, adoptable animals with impunity.

Although there are many other factors considered in the analysis, this article is intended merely to present some of the dangers of creating laws and policies at any legislative level without having a thorough analysis and discussion with leaders in the field of animal control and sheltering. There is information at the end of this article if anyone wishes to read more of this analysis.
FUNDRAISING – THE POWER OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR
There is no better way to reach the wallets of animal lovers than through their heart strings, and sadly millions of dollars are going into pockets of executives in organizations that do not directly care for or protect animals and, of course, nothing speaks louder than donations at the lobbying and legislative level.
But, the needs of homeless animals should not be creating slush funds for campaigns nor playing on the emotions of those who are continually confronted by TV commercials and mailers, saying that just a few more dollars will save them all.
There are also human lives and safety to be considered and this is a primary responsibility of animal shelters and humane societies. It is important that they are asked what will help them do this thankless and seemingly hopeless job.
Pets are too often obtained as a short-term experience with little commitment and then abandoned within or outside these facilities that do not benefit from the money that is raised by large organizations or politicians ostensibly to help them.
Instead, these promises set unreachable goals and promote “feel-good” programs that overburden their staffing and emotions, without asking what they need to do this very difficult job from a realistic perspective.
THE BEST INDICATOR OF AN ANIMAL’S FUTURE BEHAVIOR IS ITS PAST
Not all animals are adoptable, nor should they be placed in homes where they are likely to harm, or be harmed because certain behavior is endemic to the breed. The AKC thrives on the fact that bloodlines of dogs determine or influence their predictable behavior.
Why is it this is so clear that it causes millions of people to buy purebreds for certain reasons; yet, animal shelters are expected to take in dogs with documented histories of anti-social behavior and attacks and rehome them with promises they will be “good family members” just to keep them alive?
LISTEN BEFORE VOTING, SACRAMENTO
Legislators need to listen to experts in animal control—not self-appointed voices for animals—many of whom have never worked in a shelter, before even considering new legislation.
They also need to ask their own community, “Do you feel safe from dog attacks? And/or “have you been a victim of an attack or live in fear of neighborhood animals?” They may be surprised at the number of injuries that have been suffered but didn’t make the press and how many victims may have permanent, life-limiting, disabilities for which they were never compensated.
Assembly Member McCarthy needs to walk through animal shelters in his district and ask those who work there or have been long-term volunteers, and those who take the responsibility for determining policies and the endless, sad challenges of management, “what will help you help them?”
DON’T WAIT FOR AN IRREVERSIBLE TRAGEDY
California has been very liberal (or very foolish) in allowing dogs known to have a history of aggression to be removed from shelters for adoption, but lawsuits and tragic, injuries or deaths of innocent victims have imposed limitations as to what can be tolerated philosophically and financially.
The safety of the dog itself must also be a consideration. People understandably react violently to dog attacks, using any weapon to inflict sufficient injury to stop the dog and save their own or another’s life.
Euthanasia can be the most humane option when it is indicated or determined that the animal poses a consistent threat to humans or animals in general, or poses a recurrent uncontrollable risk to the public’s and its own safety.
(Author’s note: If anyone would like to see more of the informal critique of the proposed CA law AB 2265, quoted in part in this article, you can contact me through the editor of CityWatchLA: ([jim@citywatchla.com](mailto:jim@citywatchla.com).)
(Phyllis M. Daugherty is a former Los Angeles City employee, an animal activist and a contributor to CityWatch.

submitted by nomorelandfills to PetRescueExposed [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 08:00 EmpireDynasty Studies show that porn has a negative effect on men's attitudes toward women

Pornography has a negative effect on men's attitudes toward women, as many studies have shown.
Here are some examples:
Men’s Objectifying Media Consumption, Objectification of Women, and Attitudes Supportive of Violence Against Women: This study found that men who are frequently exposed to pornography are more likely to view women as sex objects and to endorse violence against women.
The Association Between Exposure to Violent Pornography and Teen Dating Violence in Grade 10 High School Students: This study found that exposure to violent pornography was a significant predictor of teen dating violence.
Less Than Human? Media Use, Objectification of Women, and Men’s Acceptance of Sexual Aggression: In this study consumption of pornography was associated with greater acceptance of objectification of women, which in turn was associated with greater rape myth acceptance and more frequent acts of sexual deception.
Pornography Use, Two Forms of Dehumanization, and Sexual Aggression: Attitudes vs. Behaviors: In this study, researchers found that pornography consumption is associated with both animalistic and mechanistic dehumanization, which predict sexually aggressive attitudes and behaviors.
Male Peer Support and Sexual Assault: The Relation Between High-Profile, High School Sports Participation and Sexually Predatory Behavior: This study indicates that frequency of pornography consumption is a significant predictor of committing acts of sexual violence.
Pornography, Individual Differences in Risk and Men’s Acceptance of Violence Against Women in a Representative Sample: This study found an overall positive association between pornography consumption acceptance of violence against women.
Pornography and Attitudes Supporting Violence Against Women: Revisiting the Relationship in Nonexperimental Studies: This meta-analysis study showed an overall significant positive association between pornography use and attitudes supporting violence against women in nonexperimental studies.
Pornography and Sexist Attitudes Among Heterosexuals: This study found a link between exposure to pornography and increased sexist attitudes against women.
Masculine Norms, Peer Group, Pornography, Facebook, and Men’s Sexual Objectification of Women: This study found that pornography use emerged as a unique predictor of greater objectification of women and making unwanted sexual advances toward women.
Fore more studies on porn check out these websites.

submitted by EmpireDynasty to antisexwork [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 07:53 scidsg Principles of a Tip Line Platform: A research-based way to evaluate whistleblower systems

Article Cover Showing List of Principles and Names of Researchers
Thanks to the good work of academic researchers across the globe, we have a data-driven way to evaluate the quality of whistleblower software. The papers we’ve looked to for this article include:

Anonymous Javasript Cryptography and Cover Traffic in Whistleblowing Applications by Joakim Uddholm from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology
A Simple and Robust End-to-End Encryption Architecture for Anonymous and Secure Whistleblowing published by Hariharan Jayakrishnan and Murali Ritwik from the Amrita School of Engineering
CoverDrop: Blowing the Whistle Through A News App, Mansoor Ahmed-Rengers, Diana A. Vasile, Daniel Hugenroth, Alastair R. Beresford, and Ross Anderson

The authors lists the characteristics of a whistleblower submission system. They include:

Usability of the Software
Authenticity of the Receiver
Plausible Deniability of the Whistleblower
Availability of the System
Anonymity of the Whistleblower
Confidentiality and Integrity of the Disclosures

1. Usability of the Software

Managed Service
Usability is the linchpin of any good software system. No matter what your value proposition is — the most private, secure, or whatever — if your targeted audience cannot use the software, no amount of engineering genius will make a difference. As researcher Joakim Uddholm puts it:
“The system must be usable for both whistleblowers and journalists. Whistleblowers must be able to use the system without the protection features getting too much in the way, and journalists must be able to use the system without it interfering too much with their work routines.”
A key differentiator for Hush Line is that we’re a managed service, meaning you don’t have to host core infrastructure, operate dedicated networks, or hire specialists to start using the service. All a user needs to do to have an anonymous tip line is register an account.
UI for Hush Line Registration page
By providing a centralized service, we significantly reduce the risk of user error, making the service more consistent, predictable, and trustworthy.

Email Delivery

Hush Line can deliver messages directly to your email inbox. Users may enter their preferred SMTP information from Gmail or Riseup, for example, and any message submitted to their tip line will be delivered to their email account. Enabling users to set it and forget it makes using Hush Line effortless and integrates into the systems they’re already using.
SMTP Hush Line Settings

Clearnet and Tor Addresses

Hush Line is also available on both Clearnet and Tor Onion addresses. This approach is critical for users where Tor might be blocked or having anonymizing software on their device could be incriminating, like in the case of Ola Bini in Ecuador.
Screenshot of Ola Bini’s tweet about his conviction.
Since Hush Line can be accessed over a Clearnet address with the default browser already on your phone, your fingerprint will be the same as everyone else who just bought a new phone.

Making PGP Easy

Before, using PGP meant adopting cumbersome workflows that even stumped journalists at the heart of the Snowden disclosures. Journalist Glenn Greenwald didn’t have PGP set up, and didn’t have the time to learn how to do it, resulting in Snowden not being able to securely contact him. Even Snowden forgot to send his PGP key to journalists when initially contacting them.
Inbox view with Mailvelope browser extension.
Hush Line attempts to solve this problem through our integration of Mailvelope, a powerful open-source browser extension for Chrome and Firefox that enables users to create keys, decrypt and encrypt message directly in their browser, and export their public PGP key. For tip line owners, once adding their PGP key to Hush Line, all messages are end-to-end encrypted by default and when a tip comes in, they can read it within the Hush Line app. For whistleblowers, this means they don’t need to do anything to send a secure, anonymous message.

2. Authenticity of the Receiver

Verification System

Hush Line has a verification system for journalists, organizations, activists, or other public figures. Verified accounts receive a special badge on their message submission page so that people submitting messages know they’re contacting the right person. To be verified, users must submit proper information to prove their identity or approval to represent a company.
Submit Message page with a “Verified Account” badge.

Opt-In User Directory

Users may opt-in to a public directory where others can find their address. The default tab is prioritized to make it easy to find verified users. The directory is searchable, and a whistleblower can have confidence of the validity of an address.
Hush Line User Directory page

Account Reporting

The verification system and user directories are two ways to help ensure the authenticity of the receiver, but to help ensure the platform’s health, we enable users who have logged in to report spam or abuse accounts. We will address reported accounts immediately to determine the best next steps, whether deleting the account, sending a warning message, or other appropriate methods.

3. Plausible Deniability of the Whistleblower

No Downloads

Hush Line is accessible over a Clearnet address, so a user doesn’t have to download any new software to send an anonymous message. If someone wants to use a Tor-only tip line service on their mobile device, they must sign in to the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. To download Tor Browser, you need to provide a valid email address or phone number and possibly payment information, all considered personally identifiable information. Now that you’ve downloaded new software on your phone, your “fingerprint” has become unique to who you are. If you only have Robinhood, Tor Browser, Mastodon, Chrome, and Slack on your phone, the likelihood of someone else having only those same apps becomes less likely. If you have even 50 apps, your fingerprint will be more associated with you, possibly entirely unique. The more unique your fingerprint is, the less realistic a plausible deniability claim is.

One-Way Messaging

Most people fail to report information because they fear retaliation and the significant risks of whistleblowing. Hush Line is a one-way messenger explicitly designed to protect the individual submitting the message. If the person submitting a message feels comfortable enough to leave a contact method, they may or can submit a message without any further involvement.

Account-Free for Whistleblowers

Someone submitting a message does not need to create an account to use the app. This crucial feature allows a whistleblower to reduce the trail of information they leave behind. No credentials can be found if you have no username or password to save. And since Hush Line requires no special software, a message can be submitted from any phone or computer, from a pubic library or internet cafe, for example.
Success message after sending a message without an account.

4. Availability of the System

Centralized Services

By providing a centralized service, Hush Line is more reliably available by only requiring a single system to be maintained and secured. Centralizing our services protects users by removing the responsibility of managing specialized infrastructure and following complex workflows, which, if done incorrectly, could have real-world implications.
Decentralized systems help with censorship resistance (and Hush Line can also be self-hosted), but when there are tens, hundreds, or thousands of separate instances all disconnected from each other, there is no way to ensure the quality of those systems. What other software is on the server? Is it updated? Are any ports open? Who currently has or has had access? What hardware are they using? It’s impossible and foolhardy to assume that everyone will follow best practices consistently.
An analogous example of the inherent risks of decentralization is from the Mastodon network — a decentralized version of Twitter where anyone can run an instance. The database for Kolektiva.social, a service tailored to anarchist users, was compromised. In 2023, the home of its admin was raided for an unrelated event, and the FBI seized an unencrypted database backup.
Snippet from the Kolektiva admin account’s post after the raid.

5. Anonymity of the Whistleblower

Leaking IP Addresses

To make Hush Line accessible to as many people as possible, the app is available on a publicly accessible URL, which is what you might expect from any web service. However, when using a Clearnet URL, leaking a user’s IP address is a real possibility.
To help defend against this, we scrub IP addresses from our access logs to minimize the risk of this happening when you use our app. To remove the possibility of IP leaks in high-threat scenarios, we deploy Hush Line as a Tor Onion service.

Tor Support

Tor is a network that anonymizes your internet browsing activity. It acts as a proxy by randomly routing your request through its network of relays, hiding who is making the request. Tor also has a feature called Onion Services. An Onion service makes a website or application accessible through a special .onion address that is only available through the Tor Browser.
Message submission onion site.
When using a regular browser like Chrome or Firefox, when you enter an address like hushline.app the browser needs to know the server address for that URL. A long chain of services helps make it possible, from your ISP to DNS services, the server running the app, and more to make it possible to type something memorable like hushline.app instead of remembering and entering 64.23.155.36. Just as the browser needs to know the IP address of the target web server, your IP address is also necessary to know where to send the information.
Your IP address is essentially your customer ID for your internet service provider. All someone with the necessary authority needs to do is request the information of the owner of that IP, and your real identity is exposed.
Onion services defeat this kind of threat because they don’t operate using the same DNS and IP protocols. Tor Browser is connected to the Tor anonymizing network, and so are the Onion services that exist within it. When someone uses a .onion address, the request from the browser to the server and back never leaves the Tor network, completely sidestepping IP leakage.
To access Hush Line’s information site using our Onion address, enter `http://w25rxxn62dgix7qdbw4ot37m2y4ty7kxfrinspw4ce7jzse7pb6rhaqd.onion/\`, or to access the app’s Onion site, enter `http://ghj4vviaoccj4tj2r3ss52arbnchkfvs7uft4sgtrkuvdha5zjgo6yqd.onion\` in Tor Browser.

Timing Correlation

To know that two people are talking to each other, you don’t need to know the contents of their messages if you have enough metadata about the conversation. One such way to reveal important context about who might be talking to each other is to learn when the messages were sent. If there’s a flurry of activity from two accounts — one after the other, repeatedly, pausing at similar times, being active at similar times— someone analyzing the logs might assume those accounts are talking to each other.
To address this, we do not timestamp messages or relate accounts in any way. An attacker with access to the server cannot relate two messages on the platform, which is largely irrelevant as Hush Line is designed as a one-way messenger.

6. Confidentiality and Integrity of the Disclosures

Message Encryption

Hush Line uses PGP for message encryption, making the key owner the only one technically able to read the decrypted messages. Messages are end-to-end encrypted using OpenPGP.js, meaning our server will never see the decrypted contents.
Hush Line Inbox with an encrypted message.
We’re proactive about communicating with senders and receivers about the importance of the tip line owner adding their public PGP key, and we discourage sharing sensitive information if the receiver doesn’t encrypt their messages.
Unencrypted warning on a message submission page.

HTTPS

We use Let’s Encrypt for HTTPS certificates. When a site uses HTTPS, requests use the TLS protocol to encrypt data in transit from the browser to the server and back. This protects your activity from being monitored or tampered with while using the app.
For an attacker who can monitor network connections, instead of seeing which page you’re on or who you’re submitting a message to, the primary URL is only visible. So if a message submitter is on https://hushline.app/submit_message/artvandelay the recipient remains unobservable, and the only thing visible to a network snoop is https://hushline.app/.

Conclusion

There are many tip-line solutions on the market, and it can be intimidating to choose the right one for you. We hope this article gives you a data-driven way to evaluate the software that fits your needs.

Additional Research

A Secure Submission System for Online Whistleblowing Platforms. Volker Roth, Benjamin Gu ̈ldenring, Eleanor Rieffel, Sven Dietrich, Lars Ries Freie Universit at Berlin, FX Palo Alto Laboratory, Stevens Institute of Technology
Anonymous Whistleblowing over Authenticated Channels. Thomas Agrikola, Geoffroy Couteau, and Sven Maier. CNRS, IRIF, Université de Paris, France, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany
Artifice: A Deniable Steganographic File System. Austen Barker Staunton Sample Yash Gupta Anastasia McTaggart Ethan L. Miller Darrell D. E. Long*,* University of California, Santa Cruz
Anatomy of a whistleblowing system, SecureDrop

Do you have any questions, comments, or feedback? Follow us on Mastodon at @scidsg@fosstodon.org.
Originally posted on Medium: https://medium.com/p/51beb8b05eb1

submitted by scidsg to HushLine [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 06:59 AdInteresting2401 Don't let that bougie doctor get you down mama bear!💪 "Candida / SIFO"

"As a gastroenterologist, I frequently meet with patients who are adamant that a Candida infection is the cause of their ailments. Patients experiencing a range of symptoms, including digestive problems, sometimes believe they have an overgrowth of Candida in their gastrointestinal (GI) tract and want to know what to do about it. Their insistence is perhaps not surprising, given how many many websites and social media ‘gurus’ share lists of symptoms supposedly tied to Candida infections. Even cookbooks exist with recipes specifically tailored to “cure” someone of Candida infection through dietary changes. Some articles aim to counter the hype – for example, an article titled “Is gut Candida overgrowth actually real, and do Candida diets work?” Yet patients are too often confused about the evidence on Candida and other fungi in the GI tract. In a 2021 ISAPP presentation on the gut mycobiome, I provided a clinical perspective on fungal infections and the related evidence base.
Fungal infections do occur
Much of the misinformation I encounter on Candida infections focuses on selling a story that encourages people to blame Candida overgrowth as the cause of their symptoms and undertake expensive or complicated dietary and supplement regimens to “cure” the infection. This is not to say that fungal infections do not take place in the body. Fungal infections, from Candida or other fungi, frequently occur on the nails or skin. Patients taking oral or inhaled steroids may develop Candida infections in the oropharynx and esophagus. Immunocompromised patients also face a greater risk of Candidiasis and Candidemia—these include HIV patients; patients undergoing chemotherapy; transplant patients; and patients suffering from malnutrition.
Fungal infections are rare in the GI tract
Regardless, instances of documented Candida infection in the GI tract remain few in number. One study published in the 90s reported 10 patients hospitalized with severe diarrhea¹. These patients suffered from chronic illness, underwent intense antimicrobial treatment or chemotherapy, and faced severe outcomes such as dehydration—and clinicians consistently identified the growth of Candida albicans in the patient fecal samples. Other studies on the matter lack the clinical evidence to conclude that fungal infections drive GI disease. A study examining small intestinal fungal overgrowth identified instances of fungal overgrowth among 150 patients with unexplained symptoms². However, the lack of documentation of response to an antifungal treatment protocol makes it difficult to attribute the observed symptoms to the presence of fungal organisms."
https://isappscience.org/the-gut-mycobiome-and-misinformation-about-candida/
.
"According to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, the concept of Candida overgrowth syndrome should be regarded as “speculative and unproven” unless supported by competent research.
And from the current evidence, there is no proof that – if it is a real condition – it is directly responsible for other health issues or disease.
It makes sense then that no specific candida diet or antifungal medicine can help treat it. In fact, no treatment has been shown to consistently eliminate symptoms, which makes me even more skeptical.
If you’ve experienced long-term symptoms associated with Candida overgrowth, talk to your doctor first. There are many potential causes of such symptoms, and more serious issues must be ruled out."

submitted by AdInteresting2401 to MCAS_ [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 05:20 shellof_a_man my first review: Atavista - Childish Gambino Album Review, I would love any tips you guys have!

I just wrote my first album review and I know it needs work. Please offer tips of any kind!
I will post it for free here, but if you have medium please read it here:
https://medium.com/@benbrotmanb/secrets-heartbeat-atavista-by-childish-gambino-an-album-review-fce8f38ee5a0
But here's the full article:

“Secrets, Heartbeat” Atavista by Childish Gambino : an Album Review

Atavista released on May 13, 2024, a yearned-for date for fans of Childish Gambino’s former records like his most recent efforts Kauai (2014) and “Awaken, My Love!” (2016). It’s no secret that Donald Glover has carved into and entrenched himself in the inventive R&B and Hip-hop scene of the last 20-plus years, an extension of his creative and successful efforts as an actor. The following he’s amassed have waited a long seven years for the release of any project, unsure for much of that time if he even would.
Childish Gambino’s musical projects have improved with each release since 2011’s Camp. In those earlier years, his messages were met with overwhelmingly corny delivery and style, but his endeavors remained steady and he eventually found more profound and artistic ways to speak to his audience and the world. Gambino’s music includes but is not limited to addressing and critiquing American society and pop culture (see his smash hit “This is America”), while also pondering what life means and who he really is behind the fame.
The anticipation for this record was high for many having found enjoyment in his discography, including, most recently, the psychedelic, groovy, passionate, and emotional “Awaken, My Love!”.
The album art to represent this record seems to differ completely from all his previous. The jarringly blank white background with “ATAVISTA” pasted across the center to me indicated a significant change in his approach these many years later, but his style changes so drastically with each release that it was up in the air.
The introduction and title track “Atavista” fed us a short reflection on the word and it’s context — it meaning some sort of return to something ancestral or left behind, but this track didn’t reveal too much about how the rest would unfold.
By the third song “Time” with Ariana Grande, it was clear that Childish Gambino was taking another more pop-based approach to his regular variation on R&B — dappled with messages about his unique journey with self-love (see “To Be Hunted”) and the faults within social media(in “Algorhythm” and more).
A suprising first feature on the record, Ariana steps up to the plate. Her verse ends about as quickly as it begins, leaving something to be desired of her talent. The experience thus far felt lacking, but it was hard to put a finger on it.
What gave the album some kick after a slightly underwhelming beginning were two stand-out catchy and trademarked Gambino groove tracks: “Sweet Thang” with Summer Walker and “Little Foot Big Foot” with Young Nudy. The former is a sugary, southern, and soulful track that speaks on the ups and downs of relationships, neutrally expressing negative traits about his lover, but that they are a “sweet thang” regardless. “Little Foot Big Foot” showboats an earworm flow paired with a masterfully-utilized Nudy verse — a testament purely by his presence to the track’s message about the connection between absent fathers and drug dealing.
The album’s progression then begins to experience a falling action. Ther final few songs contributed little to the more passionate essence of what Gambino laid out just before. The production and overall sound of the the record (and especially the second half) was bland, monotonous, and drawn out — not something expected to hear after expecting the building momentum to continue. The wait was overall not worth the results of Childish Gambino’s efforts this time around, only creating a greater hole to fill for fans of his who feel the same.

5.5/10.

submitted by shellof_a_man to Music [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 05:08 wizardmum ascension day 11 check in

guys, are we ok?
i can’t explain how miserable things are in my lab right now. i’m here minimum 14 hours overnight. we were already short staffed & now everything is manual. i’m running around all night long, programming samples 1 by 1, making copies, getting yelled at by nurses etc.
i heard a rumor they’re expecting 4-24 weeks before restoration & i just know there’s absolutely no way in the world i could possibly do 6 months of this.
i’ve been here for several years and am one of the few remaining after the labcorp merger and generally like my job a lot and don’t want to leave but there’s no way i can sustain this for that long. i’m already limping out to my car every morning.
just want to check in on everyone else

submitted by wizardmum to medlabprofessionals [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 05:06 stel1234 [Resource] You never know who will play your mashup: Why we give production feedback especially on album projects + common issues

I know a lot of producers have talked about unsolicited feedback in the past but this post isn't about that. It's about feedback for various projects and feedback that gets requested and given. This also applies equally to original production in many cases.
A good number of mashup producers do not tend to master or don't apply limiters on tracks, or just make them softer compared to commercial levels. When albums get mastered, loudness will usually be adjusted through various plugins (EQ, multiband compressors, limiters, clippers, etc.) to shape masters so that one track is not significantly louder or softer than another especially back-to-back and groups of tracks follow a certain sound.
What this means is that once your softer mashup of -14 or -15 LUFS or softer is amplified to commercial levels in the -7 to -11 LUFS range or more depending on genre and how the overall track should sound given peaks and valleys with softer and louder parts (LUFS stands for loudness units full scale, look that up), small issues may stand out like thorns when amplified. Bottom line: Don't take the small or big issues personally; we're all human, we all miss things, and we can all improve. You may learn something new!
Think of it like how you ask to proofread writing to check for spelling or grammar and have it work for the audience.
All this to say, feedback I give or others give based on small details may come across as nit-picks at first. Don't completely discount them. You never know who will want to play your tracks, and this could range from personal playlists all the way up to DJ gigs and big festival stages.
In the case of a club DJ or performances on festival stages, volumes will be significantly louder than what you may have worked with when you created the track. I've given the restaurant food analogy before but I'll give it again: If something clearly doesn't taste good, people won't usually know why. But an experienced chef who knows how the ingredients interact sure will.
Just something to think about as you improve on mashup production and production in general.
Here are some issues below that experienced mashup producers could point out. Note that a lot of the "don't do this" stuff is really code for "don't do this unless you really know you're doing and it sounds good":

Big issues

Out of key (OOK): This refers to wrong key signature (e.g. mixing A Minor with B Minor), not blue notes from modes or short moments of modulation. Key rule of thumb: If you're going to use key databases, verify by ear. Tunebat is the least accurate. If you must do so, use a reliable key database like the ones in this post. DJ software can work, but some automatic key detection performs better than others and are far from perfect. Above all, databases are not perfect and some will be far from it, so ears will be the final judge of whether a pairing sounds good.
Out of tempo/time (OOT): this usually refers to wrong tempo (e.g. mixing a 116 BPM track with a 118 BPM track) or not constant tempo and going out of time. Key rule of thumb: Sync your tracks and if you need to use any form of warping (see Ableton), be prepared to do so.
Too much going on (a.k.a. playing both songs at the same time): This happens when playing multiple main elements at the same time to the point where multiple elements or entire songs played together clash in key, progression, or other things to make the combination sound unpleasant and hard to listen to. Sometimes this can sound really good if the progressions are compatible, but generally, less is more.
Incorrect/bad beat alignment: This is more for when a vocal or element is offbeat enough that it really sticks out as a trainwreck when mixed together
Wrong beat/out of structure/off structure/bad phrasing: This is when a vocal or other element is placed on a beat that doesn't make sense for what it's combined with (e.g. placing the first word of a vocal over an instrumental on beat 2 when it was meant for beat 1). Mileage will vary, sometimes the vocal beat placement only makes sense for the original song and makes less sense on others.
Distortion from going in the red: This is when the overall mix or elements sound distorted because the volume of each track channel is too loud and either alone or combined goes well above 0 dBFS (a.k.a. into the red). Key rule of thumb: Start your track volumes at -6 dB (not 0 dB) and then adjust to taste. Don't go into the red unless you absolutely know what you're doing.
Elements way too soft or loud: This is more along the lines of not being able to hear the added vocals or elements at all or they're too loud that you can't hear the other elements in the mix.
Big mood mismatch: This tends to be less egregious, but if sources don't cooperate at all to a point of completely ruining the vibe, the mashup could stick out like a sore thumb from the start. Mileage will vary, and sometimes your audience would appreciate this especially with genre clashes even to the point of creating memes. But it depends on what you're going for, and sometimes you want consistency for certain albums and groups of tracks.

Smaller issues

Fifth traps/not picking the right keys to use: This is a specific version of another problem I'll touch on, but this happens when you mix keys fifths or fourths away (e.g. F Major and C Major) and the chord progressions don't cooperate. What makes this a trap is that the pairing might appear to sound good at first glance, but when you look back at what you made, you probably could have made a better sounding pairing if you had just picked sources in key, relative key (e.g. A Minor and C Major), or parallel to the mode type (i.e. A Minor with A Dorian since Dorian is a minor mode). This Berklee Online article is a really good starting point to modes. With modes, mileage will vary.
Out of progression/blue notes: This can happen when there are short moments where the element clashes on top of other elements (e.g. modes or short moments of different modulation). Sometimes the tracks may not be compatible, but other times it's just a part with notes outside the scale. This can be fixed by doing small note changes, but be careful not to make it too obvious, otherwise it might sound like you're forcing the pairing to work. It may also follow the same theme as fifth traps, where you could have made a better sounding pairing if you had just picked sources in key, relative key (e.g. A Minor and C Major), or parallel to the mode type (i.e. A Minor with A Dorian since Dorian is a minor mode). This Berklee Online article is a really good starting point to modes. With modes, mileage will vary.
Low quality sources: This happens with YouTube or other rips where the elements are lower quality due to a lower frequency cutoff (YouTube is usually 15.5 kHz for AAC, other platforms may be 15-16 kHz for 128 kbps MP3, etc.). Bottom line: Get the highest quality sources you can, and use Spek or another spectrum analysis software to check rips or record pool sources. Your ears and processing algorithms will thank you. Again, you never know who will listen to or play out your track, could even be a big sound system.
Stem separation artifacts: This can take several different forms, but can happen when either the invert or stem separation algorithm being used adds noise or other unwanted high end artifacts like high hats that once amplified, will absolutely stand out in a mix. This also includes artifacts from stem separation algorithms like Utagoe which make vocals sound like they're underwater at default settings. Key rule of thumb: Remember that the instrumental and original could be mixed and mastered differently depending on the production environment and how masters spread. If an invert makes a vocal stand out more but just needs extra cleaning, don't be afraid to combine the invert technique (original + instrumental) with stem separation. When using multiple stem separation techniques or using different sources (like remix + remix instrumental), think about how they sound on parts of the instrumental and consider picking the best extraction for a given part; remember that this includes using the original song (this is called comping in the production world). If there are parts of vocals intended to be silent and there are artifacts, don't be afraid to replace the reverb + delay with your own. Keep up to date with stem separation algorithms by keeping up with developments on the Audio Separation Discord server: https://discord.gg/wY3AAaTvHT
A little too much going on: This happens in many cases when looking at megamashups, megamixes, and even simpler overlap of vocals where too many elements are competing for space at some point (e.g. two vocals at the same time competing for mono or midrange). Key rule of thumb: In production just as in life, leave elbow room! With vocals, this can be done by overlapping a lead source that's more mono (e.g. lead vocal) with a background source that's more stereo (e.g. background vocals or vocal pad). When transitioning, it's also really useful to slightly pan or automate pan and volume of the vocal you're trying to brief in, which can include repeating the first word or few words of a phrase. Volume and EQ may also be useful here to properly convey space.
Weird time-stretch and pitch-shift artifacts: This can happen when using a lower quality time-stretch or a time-stretch that can destroy transients/drum hits (Audacity or Elastique Efficient on vocals, older Elastique Pro on full instrumentals) or pitching too much and/or with too much/little formant preserve. The best way to reduce these effects on instrumental is to think about combining stem separation with ways to improve quality (pitch everything BUT the drums unless tonal, experiment with different time stretch methods on different elements, etc.). For too much pitch or formant preserve, either pick sources that are closer in key (+/- 2 semitones is a good rule of thumb) and try to control the amount of formant preservation and/or envelope (in Ableton) to make the vocals sound more natural. Formant preserve is usually a good idea for pitched vocals, but can sound bad for pitched instrumentals especially drums depending on the track.
Pops or clicks while editing: This tends to happen when elements like vocals are cut off when not at zero volume. Key rule of thumb: Edit to zero crossing and/or use fades to cut off regions or when combining different regions together.
Flanging, phasing, or flamming while editing: Sometimes these effects are on purpose, but oftentimes when crossfading between different parts of an instrumental, both parts of the edit don't align on beat. Flanging and phasing applies for sample level edits (ms or more), flamming for tenths or hundredths of seconds (e.g. 0.05 sec or 0.1 sec). Flamming is a drumming term for when the same part of the drum kit (usually the snare drum) is hit twice with different sticks at close to but not exactly the same time.
Starting the first part of the mix you can hear too early or too late: This basically falls into starting immediately at 0:00 (0 seconds) or starting two seconds in, so you end up starting the mix you can hear in the overall track too early that it's hard to correctly rewind in a media player or starts way too suddenly, or too late that it feels like an eternity for the track to start. Basic rule of thumb: Always start your track with a little bit of silence (think about 0.2 seconds minimum but all depends on source material).
Incorrect end of loop region/end of track marker too early or too late: This falls into one of two categories. One category is forgetting to listen for the reverb tail or tail end of one of the tracks and setting the end of track marker too early to the point of hearing the mix completely cut off. The other category is when you forget to set the end of track marker, so it defaults to the end of the project, which leaves a lot of silence (think tens of seconds instead of a few to fade out) at the end due to the end of track marker being far too late.
Vocals or other elements end too suddenly in an edit: You may want to get different vocals to interact with each other or edit out of artifacts from vocal stem separation, but the other vocal (or elements) sound like they were cut off. Key rule of thumb: Have a reverb effect handy, and if you're working in a DAW, take advantage of wet/dry automation and combine the reverb with delay afterwards in the effect chain for vocals and other elements so when you crank up the wet the decay helps fade out the element gracefully.
Vocals or other elements start too suddenly or out of place when connecting them or transitioning: This also considers getting different vocals or other elements to work together or going to a new part, but refers to a new part using vocals or other elements sounding out of place at the beginning of a region in a transition. Key rule of thumb: Watch your crossfades and when you're in a pinch and want to start the next part gracefully, don't be afraid to use reverse reverb or other effect like a riser to introduce a completely new element or different part in a pinch. Reverse reverb is exactly what it sounds: Adding reverb to a short snippet of an element like a cymbal, vocal note, or pad, and then applying reverse on it. Often this is done by choosing a tonal center to transition into, choosing a small snippet to add reverb to, choosing reverb with a long decay time and big space (usually I do a Cathedral reverb), reversing it, and then carefully aligning the reverse reverb so the end of it hits the beginning of the next region. Whew that was a lot! Tutorials will do this much more justice but this is the general idea.
Vocals too dry or too wet for the instrumental: Usually this depends on the instrumental's genre. For genres like pop or EDM, vocals tend to have some reverb applied to make them shine. For others like alternative and some classic hip-hop, the reverb might be less or no wet or a completely different type. This issue usually refers to too little reverb (too dry) or too much reverb (too wet). Key rule of thumb: Don't forget to have reverb handy. You might need it. Keep your wet low in the middle of a vocal depending on what you're trying to do (think 3-5% wet or - on the low side
Vocals or other elements slightly too loud or soft: Self-explanatory, this is usually an issue where elements should be the right volume for elements to work well together.
Vocals or other elements drowned out/don't gel due to hypercompression: This usually happens when using a vocal not from an EDM, hyperpop, hard rock, or other genre where there is hypercompression but no matter how much volume amount you try elements like vocals don't gel and compete for space in the mid range. Two common techniques take the form of adding more compression to a vocal to stand up to an hypercompressed instrumental and/or reducing mid band EQ of the other source (which could come from sidechaining). For the added compression, it tends to be done with either multiple compressors in series (e.g. two compressors using low threshold + high ratio and high threshold + low ratio) or through various guitar distortion plugins on settings meant for vocals (e.g. Camelcrusher with British Clean or certain presets of OTT). Don't be afraid to experiment.
Master too loud or soft for the genre: This usually takes the form of using limiters and other effects to make certain tracks too loud for the genre intended, or not using anything at all and the track is too soft for the genre/commercial sound. This can come down to taste, but how a track was produced can affect how loud you master. Mileage will vary; listen to how loud tracks are made and emulate your favorites assuming nothing too egregious.
Stereo issues: This can happen if there are elements out of phase when trying to combine mono and stereo or applying other effects. It's a bit more difficult to diagnose, but one rule of thumb is to test your overall track on different playback systems (from headphones to big speakers and even your phone or small bluetooth speaker which will effectively test mono depending on the device).

Wow that was a lot and I know it's very overwhelming who don't produce a ton. There might be more issues I didn't mention here, so let me know if there's anything else that could be useful.
Update 1: Added "bad phrasing" under the off structure issue, this is the DJing term for it
Update 2: Added two variations of "too much going on" to the bigger and smaller issues
Update 3: Added "Starting the first part of the mix you can hear too early or too late" and "Incorrect end of loop region/end of track marker too late" as two additional small issues.
Update 4: Changed one bullet to "Incorrect end of loop region/end of track marker too early or too late"

submitted by stel1234 to mashups [link] [comments]

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2024.05.19 02:18 Sashcracker Stop the political frame-up of Ukrainian socialist Bogdan Syrotiuk!

By David North
On April 25, 2024, Bogdan Syrotiuk, the 25-year-old leader of the Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists (the YGBL), a socialist-Trotskyist organization active in Ukraine, Russia and throughout the former USSR, was arrested by the notorious state security service of the fascistic Zelensky regime, the SBU. Bogdan is being held in atrocious conditions in a high security prison in the city of Nikolaev (Mykolaiv), which is located in southern Ukraine.
The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), the world Trotskyist movement with which the YGBL is politically affiliated, has finally obtained the actual documents in which the SBU presents its charges against Bogdan Syrotiuk. These documents, which form the basis of his detention, make absolutely clear that Bogdan is the victim of a monstrous state frame-up. The allegations concocted by the SBU are a crude combination of lies, obvious fabrications, and political absurdities.
Moreover, the documents submitted by the SBU are directed not only against Bogdan. They are nothing less than a declaration of war against all left-wing and socialist opposition to the Zelensky regime and, specifically, the International Committee of the Fourth International and its public organ, the World Socialist Web Site.
The central allegation leveled against Bogdan Syrotiuk is that he is guilty of high treason. The basis of this charge is that Bogdan has been for the past two years “engaged in the preparation of publications commissioned by representatives of a Russian propaganda and information agency, the World Socialist Web Site” [emphasis added.]
The World Socialist Web Site is denounced as an instrument of “an active information war against Ukraine” being waged by Russia, which

uses the so-called “left-wing” propagandists and their information platforms (websites, media and social platforms) to discredit the support of Ukraine by international partners, justify Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine, accusing Western countries of creating conditions under which Russia was forced to launch the so-called special military operation, fomenting wars in Ukraine by providing it with weapons, etc. As a result, they are used by Russia to systematically convey pro-Kremlin narratives to the population of Ukraine and Ukraine’s allied countries…
Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the World Socialist Web Site “WSWS” has regularly published articles in various languages aimed at discrediting Ukraine and representatives of governments around the world for assisting Ukraine in its fight against the aggressor state.

The ICFI’s opposition to the US-NATO war in Ukraine is an essential element of its political program, deeply rooted in the socialist and internationalist principles of the Trotskyist movement. The attempt of the Ukrainian regime to portray this opposition as an instrument of Putin’s propaganda network is as viciously mendacious as it is politically absurd. The intransigent opposition of the International Committee of the Fourth International to the Putin regime—which emerged as a consequence of the Stalinist bureaucracy’s final betrayal of socialism and the restoration of capitalism in the former USSR—is a fundamental political fact that is substantiated not only in written texts numbering in the hundreds, but also in the exhaustively documented activity of the Trotskyist movement spanning decades.
True to its fascist character, the Ukrainian regime is operating on the basis of the well-known precept of Hitler and his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels: “The bigger the lie, the more readily it will be believed.”
In this particular case, the Zelensky regime seems to believe that the scale of the SBU lies are of such a magnitude that they will simply overwhelm the thinking public. It thus expects that public opinion will accept that the Putin regime is directing the work of the WSWS, which the SBU indictment describes as

an online publication of the world Trotskyist movement, the International Committee of the Fourth International and its affiliated sections in the Socialist Equality Parties around the world, which covers the main socio-political problems around the world from the position of revolutionary opposition to the capitalist market system, with the aim of establishing world socialism through socialist revolution.

At no point does the SBU attempt to explain the contradiction that wrecks its case against Bogdan, i.e., that the political principles that he upholds as a socialist and internationalist opponent of wars waged by the capitalist ruling class are irreconcilably hostile to the policies of the Putin regime, including its invasion of Ukraine.
It attempts to evade the contradiction by simply lying. The indictment claims that Bogdan’s activities, “acting on the instructions of a representative of the World Socialist Web Site,” consisted of “supporting and justifying the conduct of the Russian aggressive war on the territory of Ukraine…”
Every word is a lie. The opposition of the ICFI, its affiliated organizations, and the WSWS to the Russian invasion, in line with its hostility to the Putin regime, is a political fact that is documented in hundreds of articles that have been posted since the first day of the invasion.
On February 24, 2022, the day of the Russian invasion, the ICFI posted a statement on the WSWS titled: “Oppose the Putin government’s invasion of Ukraine and US-NATO warmongering! For the unity of Russian and Ukrainian workers!” It began:

The International Committee of the Fourth International and the World Socialist Web Site denounce the Russian military intervention in Ukraine. Despite the provocations and threats by the US and NATO powers, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine must be opposed by socialists and class-conscious workers. The catastrophe that was set in motion by the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 cannot be averted on the basis of Russian nationalism, a thoroughly reactionary ideology that serves the interests of the capitalist ruling class represented by Vladimir Putin.
What is required is not a return to the pre-1917 foreign policy of tsarism, but, rather, a revival, in Russia and throughout the world, of the socialist internationalism that inspired the October Revolution of 1917 and led to the creation of the Soviet Union as a workers state. The invasion of Ukraine, whatever the justifications given by the Putin regime, will serve only to divide the Russian and Ukrainian working class and, moreover, serve the interests of US and European imperialism.
In the two major statements that he has made during the past week, Putin has justified his actions by enumerating the provocations and crimes of the United States. There is, no question, much that is factually true in his denunciation of Washington’s hypocrisy. But the viciously anti-communist and xenophobic ideology that he invokes and the interests that he claims to be defending are thoroughly reactionary and incapable of appealing to the broad mass of the working class in Russia, let alone in Ukraine and throughout the world. A substantial section of the working class in Russia and Ukraine will be repelled by the cynicism of Putin’s glorification of the heroic struggle waged by the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany in World War II while denouncing the October Revolution and the existence of the USSR as a multi-national state.

The ICFI insisted that the socialist opposition to imperialism was incompatible with any form of national chauvinism, and, therefore, rejected all the justifications given by the Putin regime and its apologists for the invasion. Their invocation of “national defense” could not be accepted by socialists. The defeat of imperialism and its overthrow was possible only through the revolutionary struggle of the international working class. The ICFI statement cited the words of Trotsky: “Not to bind itself to the national state in time of war, to follow not the war map but the map of the class struggle, is possible only for that party that has already declared irreconcilable war on the national state in time of peace.”
The ICFI called “for an immediate end to the war,” and explained: “In opposing the invasion of Ukraine, we denounce the policies of US/NATO imperialism, whose claims to be defending democracy and human rights are blood-drenched with hypocrisy.”
This political declaration elaborated the principles and policy that have guided the work of the ICFI and WSWS since the war began.
On February 26, 2022 the International Committee held an international webinar, in which its opposition to the war was emphatically advanced. Among the speakers, in addition to myself, were Nick Beams, a longtime leader of the International Committee’s Australian section, Johannes Stern, a leader of the ICFI in Germany, Thomas Scripps, a leading member of the ICFI’s section in Britain, Joseph Kishore, the national secretary of the Socialist Equality Party in the United States, and Evan Blake, another leading member of the SEP (US).
The ICFI has never wavered from the principled opposition to the policies of NATO and Russia that it advanced in the first days of the war.
The relationship between the ICFI and the comrades of the YGBL coincided almost exactly with the outbreak of the war. They were attracted to the ICFI precisely because of its opposition to both the war and the national chauvinism of the Russian and Ukrainian regimes.
The SBU indictment charges that the World Socialist Web Site assigned to Bogdan “the task of preparing, writing, editing and publishing … both on the WSWS website and other communist-oriented media, articles, publications, comments, etc. aimed at spreading pro-Russian narratives related to the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022, to which [Bogdan Syrotiuk] gave his voluntary consent.”
In support of this claim, the SBU references a YGBL statement titled, “For the organization of an international movement of workers and young people against war!” It claims that this document, posted on the World Socialist Web Site on October 12, 2022, includes “fragments, statements, sentences and phrases… which contain justification of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation, which began in 2014…”
The actual document clearly exposes this claim to be a lie. There is not a single sentence in the YGBL declaration that indicates support for the invasion of Ukraine. The SBU cites selectively from the document, including passages only from numbered paragraphs 4, 7, 8, 10 and 13. Paragraphs 4 through 8—the SBU interrupts the continuity of the YGBL’s analysis by leaving out paragraphs 5 and 6—provide a concise Marxist explanation of the objective capitalist crisis and political aims that underlay the instigation of the war by the United States and its NATO allies. They state:

The new world order that the United States wants to establish looks like this very possible picture: Russia and China are to be subordinated to imperialism and divided, if that is necessary to maintain direct control over their natural, industrial-technological and human resources.

The European imperialist powers support the United States for their own place in the new redivision of the world. At the same time, European imperialism, while placed on rations by the United States, sees a way out of its economic and geopolitical predicament only in a redivision of the world in which it can regain its former greatness.

Japan, South Korea and Australia support the US only as much as it suits their interests in the struggle against China in the Pacific region. These countries will support the US as long as it allows them to compete with China. The process of dividing spheres of influence will revive the contradictions between the Pacific capitalist powers, which are as much in limbo as Europe.

The crisis of 2008 revived class struggles around the world. The Arab Spring of the early 2010s is vivid evidence of this revival. It forced US and European imperialism to take more decisive measures. In 2014, they supported a coup d'état in Ukraine. Through this coup, the US was able to create all the conditions to build a bridgehead in a future war against Russia.

The Covid-19 pandemic that erupted in 2020 exacerbated the contradictions of capitalism and was the trigger for a more rapid expansion of US imperialism in preparation for war against Russia and China. The US embarked on a more provocative path of abandoning the “one-China” policy, and increasing its support for Ukraine, as expressed in the NATO summit in August 2021, which supported Zelensky’s “Crimean platform.”

Significantly, the SBU leaves out paragraph 9 of the YGBL declaration, which presents a scathing indictment of the Putin regime. That paragraph reads:

The reactionary regime of Vladimir Putin emerged from the treacherous dissolution of the Soviet Union by the Stalinist bureaucracy and the restoration of capitalism. The policies of Putin, in the final analysis, are aimed at safeguarding the wealth of the post-Soviet oligarchy against the pressure of Western imperialism from above and, even more critically, against the movement of the Russian working class from below.

The SBU does cite paragraph 10, which continues the critique of the Putin regime, stating:

Within this geopolitical and social context, Putin’s adventurist invasion of Ukraine on February 24 was the Russian oligarchy’s response to NATO’s relentless expansion to the east. The Putin regime’s main objective was to achieve through the pressure of its “Special Operation” a new round of talks with the US-NATO, since the last round ended up crossing “red lines” on the part of the US-NATO, which caused Putin’s invasion [emphasis added].

The characterization of Putin’s invasion as “adventurist” is in no way compatible with what the SBU claims to be a “pro-Russian narrative.” Obviously recognizing the fragility of its attempt to portray the YGBL statement as pro-Putin propaganda, the SBU decided against further citations from the document, leaving out the YGBL’s development of its denunciation of Putin’s policies in paragraphs 11 and 12, which assert:

The Russian bourgeoisie’s desire for an “equal partnership” with the West was one of the most utopian delusions. This delusion, historically derived from Stalin’s policy of “Popular Fronts” and then “peaceful coexistence,” developed among the fledgling class of Russian capitalists in the 1990s.

The Putin regime has not gotten rid of this utopian delusion. Its whole policy has been to maneuver and seek compromise with the West, with whom the Russian oligarchy wanted to be “on equal footing.” Except that Western imperialism, with its conquering ambitions for Russia, did not care about these conciliatory tones of Putin’s regime.

The SBU also chose not to cite paragraph 17 of the YGBL statement, which declares:

The course of the war after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine increasingly emphasizes the reactionary nature of this invasion. While claiming to be fighting for the independence of the Russian people from the threat of Western imperialism, Putin is in fact only defending the independence of the Russian oligarchy to exploit the Russian working class and the country’s raw material wealth.

Paragraph 18, which is also left uncited, further demolishes the SBU’s indictment of Bogdan, the YGBL and the WSWS as instruments of Russian propaganda. The paragraph asserts that

the Putin regime has no way out of the current crisis for Russian society. It will not have such a way out in the future. All of the military and political activities of the Putin regime will only contribute to the escalation of Western imperialism and the deterioration of conditions for the Russian, Ukrainian and international working class.

The SBU also failed to cite paragraphs 19 and 20, which presciently warned of the catastrophe to which the war could lead.

The prospects for the present war, when thought within the framework of the capitalist system, are very bleak. First, this war will take on a long-term character and will not only be fought between Ukraine and Russia. It is the first step in inflaming the world situation to the point that the threat of a third world war is simply inevitable. All countries of the world will take part in the future war.

Secondly, the nature of the war will be determined by the policies of the ruling classes, which now stand on a blatantly anti-human position. The ruling classes are recklessly moving toward the use of nuclear weapons in the conflict, thereby creating the real possibility of a nuclear Armageddon. The specter of planetary destruction arises from the insane policies of imperialist and capitalist governments. The recklessness of the ruling capitalist elite compels young people to ask whether they will be allowed any future at all.

The SBU specifically cites this document as proof of Bogdan Syrotiuk’s treasonable activity. But the text of this document conclusively refutes the charge that Bogdan and the YGBL are advancing a pro-Putin narrative.
Moreover, and most decisive, the Ukrainian regime does not present a scintilla of evidence to substantiate its absurd and lying claim that the World Socialist Web Site is a “Russian propaganda and information agency.” With this filthy slander, the Zelensky regime betrays—notwithstanding the ongoing war with Russia—the lingering influence of Stalinism’s rabid hatred of Trotskyism. As in Russia, the transfer of power in Ukraine from Stalinist bureaucrats to capitalist oligarchs has not required any change in the methodology of the political police. The same techniques of fabrication and slander, utilized by the Stalinist regime against Trotskyists in the era of the Moscow Trials and the terror of 1936-39, remain operative in Kiev.
Bogdan Syrotiuk stands accused of treason and faces the threat of a life-long prison term that is the equivalent of a death sentence. But the allegations against Bogdan are based entirely on articles and speeches he has posted on the World Socialist Web Site, in which he has declared his opposition, as a socialist internationalist, to the capitalist regimes of Zelensky and Putin and the ongoing war that has cost hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian lives.
The SBU indicts Bogdan for advancing in his speeches and writings posted on the World Socialist Web Site “which are accessible to everyone in the world, including citizens of Ukraine” information that exposes the reactionary character of the Ukrainian regime and the war.
The SBU declares that Bogdan’s “criminal actions were stopped only with the intervention of a law enforcement agency.” What a devastating self-exposure of the claims that the US-NATO proxy war is being waged to defend democracy in Ukraine.
The reality is that Ukraine is a fascistic dictatorship, which applies police methods to stop the expression of popular opposition to the policies that have brought untold suffering and death to the people.
The arrest of Bogdan Syrotiuk comes precisely at a point of mounting popular opposition to the Zelensky regime. On May 18, a new and vastly unpopular mobilization law that will vastly expand the recruitment dragnet of Ukrainian military goes into effect. Even the New York Times has expressed doubts about Zelensky’s ability “to find new troops to relieve a weary, often demoralized force.”
In an article posted on the World Socialist Web Site on April 30, Maxim Goldarb, a Ukrainian socialist who has been persecuted by the Zelensky regime, reported: “More and more Ukrainian men are desperately trying to flee the country, unwilling to die for someone else’s selfish purposes.”
He added:

It is not the rich minority, but the poor majority—the unemployed, workers, peasants, teachers, doctors, office workers—that will be sent into the bloody meat grinder. Now, with the adoption of the new law, the number of men deprived of basic human rights, who will be captured and hunted down like animals and sent to the front, will increase many times over.
The profits of those who benefit from this war will also increase many times over … These huge profits will be divided up between the military-industrial complex, its lobbyists in the American and European establishment, and the Ukrainian oligarchic top brass.

Bogdan Syrotiuk’s life is in danger. In the environment of terror that exists within Ukraine, he is deprived of all means to defend himself. Efforts to obtain competent legal representation have been undermined by government threats against defense lawyers. No less than five attorneys have declined to represent Bogdan because to do so would expose them to significant physical danger.
The significance of the fight to defend Bogdan and secure his freedom extends beyond Ukraine. His incarceration is yet another example of the growing international assault on democratic rights as imperialism escalates its military operations throughout the world. The political conspiracy to destroy Julian Assange set into motion a process that is replicated throughout the world.
Those who oppose and expose the crimes of the imperialist regimes are targeted for persecution by the state. The assault on basic democratic rights—first and foremost, freedom of thought and speech—is always justified on the basis of lies.
The opponents of Israel’s genocidal war against Gazans are denounced as anti-Semites, even when the protesters are Jewish. In the denunciation of Bogdan Syrotiuk as an agent of Russia for opposing the proxy war in Ukraine, the same lying method is at work.
The real reason for the arrest and persecution of Bogdan Syrotiuk is that he is fighting for the unity of the Ukrainian, Russian and international working class against the ruling capitalist elites of all countries. As Comrade Andrei Ritsky of the Russian branch of the Young Guard of Bolshevik Leninists explained so eloquently in a speech delivered at the May Day 2024 celebration held by the International Committee:

The only “crime” that Bogdan committed was his conviction that Ukraine can become truly free only through the independent struggle of the Ukrainian working class, acting together with the international working class against imperialism and war. He advanced a principled political position based on a Marxist understanding of the war, opposed to the fanatical worship of Ukrainian nationalism as well as the reactionary Russian nationalism of the Putin regime. Like our entire movement, he has fought for the unification of workers in Russia and Ukraine with the workers in the imperialist countries, to put an end to a fratricidal war that has claimed the lives of at least half a million Ukrainians and tens of thousands of Russians.

He concluded his remarks with a declaration of the fundamental perspective that underlies the work of the Fourth International:

No bourgeois regime is capable of resolving the crisis other than through war and destruction, because any other way would be contrary to its fundamental capitalist interests. The contradictions of capitalism cannot be resolved within national borders and on the basis of a defense of private property. Only the international working class armed with the program of world socialist revolution will be able to put an end to the wars and resolve the fundamental crisis. To do so, however, it must fight for its unity with its brothers and sisters around the world.

The International Committee of the Fourth International calls for a global campaign to demand the immediate release of Bogdan Syrotiuk from prison. The fight for Bogdan’s freedom must be taken up by workers, students and all those who are committed to the defense of democratic rights and opposed to the escalation of imperialist wars that, unless stopped, threaten humanity with a nuclear catastrophe.
Join the fight to Free Bogdan. Circulate this statement as widely as possible on social media. Bring this case to the attention of co-workers, fellow students, and friends. To sign a petition demanding Bogdan’s release, contribute funds toward the defense campaign, and become personally active in the fight for his freedom, go to wsws.org/freebogdan.

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2024.05.19 00:57 honeypuppy Are Some Rationalists Dangerously Overconfident About AI?

AI has long been discussed in rationalist circles. There’s been a lot of focus on risks from artificial intelligence (particularly the idea that it might cause human extinction), but also the idea that artificial general intelligence might happen quite soon and subsequently transform society (e.g. supercharging economic growth in a technological singularity).
I’ve long found these arguments intriguing, and probably underrated by the public as a whole. I definitely don’t align myself with people like Steven Pinker who dismiss AI concerns entirely.
Nonetheless, I’ve noticed increasingly high confidence in beliefs of near-term transformative AI among rationalists. To be fair, it’s reasonable to update somewhat given recent advances like GPT-4. But among many, there is a belief that AI advances are the single most important thing happening right now. And among a minority, there are people with very extreme beliefs - such as quite high confidence that transformative AI is just a few years away, and/or that AI is very likely to kill us all.
My core arguments in this post are that firstly, from an “epistemic humility” or “outside view” perspective, we should be suspicious of confident views that the world is soon going to end (or change radically).
Secondly, the implications of the most radical views could cause people who hold them to inflict significant harm on themselves or others.

Who Believes In “AI Imminence”?

The single person I am most specifically critiquing is Eliezer Yudkowsky. Yudkowsky appears unwilling to give specific probabilities but writings like “Death With Dignity” has caused many including Scott Alexander to characterise him as believing that AI has a >90% chance of causing human extinction)
As a very prominent and very “doomy” rationalist, I worry that he may have convinced a fair number of people to share similar views, views which if taken seriously could hold its holders to feel depressed and/or make costly irrevocable decisions.
But though I think Yudkowsky deserves the most scrutiny, I don’t want to focus entirely on him.
Take Scott Alexander - he frames himself in the aforementioned link as “not as much of a doomer as some people”, yet gave a 33% probability (later adjusted downwards as a result of outside view considerations like those I raise in here) to “only” ~20%. While this leaves enough room for hope that it’s not as potentially dangerous a view as Yudkowsky’s, I agree with how the top Reddit comment in the original post said:

Is AI risk the only field where someone can write an article about how they’re not (much) of a doomer when they think that the risk of catastrophe/disasteextinction is 33%?

Beyond merely AI risk, claims about “transformative AI” date back to ideas about the “intelligent explosion” or “singularity” that are most popularly associated with Ray Kurzweil. A modern representation of this is Tom Davidson of Open Philanthropy, who wrote a report on takeoff speeds.
Other examples can be seen in (pseudo-)prediction markets popular with rationalists, such as Metaculus putting the median date of AGI at 2032, and Manifold Markets having a 17% chance of AI doom by 2100 (down from its peak of around 50% (!) in mid-2023).

Why Am I Sceptical?

My primary case for (moderate) scepticism is not about the object-level arguments around AI, but appealing to the “outside view”. My main arguments are:

Superforecasters and financial markets are not giving high credence to transformative AI. Both groups have good track records, so we should strongly consider deferring to their views.
The transformative AI argument is "fishy" (to borrow Will MacAskill’s argument against “The Most Important Century”). It implies that not only we are at an unusually pivotal time in history (perhaps the most important decade, let alone century), but that consequently, rationalists are perhaps the most important prophets in history. When your claims are that extraordinary, it seems much more likely that they're mistaken.
The “inside view” arguments do not seem very robust to me. That is, they are highly speculative arguments that are primarily discussed among an insular group of people in usually relatively informal settings. I think you should be wary of any argument that emerges via this process, even if you can’t point to any specific way in which they are wrong.

Why I’m Against Highly Immodest Epistemology

However, maybe appealing to the “outside view” is incorrect? Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote a book, Inadequate Equiibria, which in large part argued against what he saw as excessive use of the “outside view”. He advises:

Try to spend most of your time thinking about the object level. If you’re spending more of your time thinking about your own reasoning ability and competence than you spend thinking about Japan’s interest rates and NGDP, or competing omega-6 vs. omega-3 metabolic pathways, you’re taking your eye off the ball.

I think Yudkowsky makes a fair point about being excessively modest. If you are forever doubting your own reasoning to the extent that you think you should defer to the majority of Americans who are creationists, you’ve gone too far.
But I think his case is increasingly weak the more radically immodest your views here. I’ll explain with the following analogy:
Suppose you were talking to someone who was highly confident in their new business idea. What is an appropriate use of a “modesty” argument cautioning against overconfidence?
A strong-form modesty argument would go something like “No new business idea could work, because if it could, someone would already have done it”. This is refuted by countless real-world examples, and I don’t think anyone actually believes in strong-form modesty.
A moderate-form modesty argument would go something like “Some new business ideas work, but most fail, even when their founders were quite confident in them. As an aspiring entrepreneur, you should think your chances of success in your new venture are similar to those of the reference class of aspiring entrepreneurs”.
The arguments against epistemic modesty in Inadequate Equilibria are mainly targeted against reasoning like this. And I think here there’s a case where we can have reasonable disagreement about the appropriate level of modesty. You may have some good reasons to believe that your idea is unusually good or that you are unusually likely to succeed as an entrepreneur. (Though a caveat: with too many degrees of freedom, I think you run the risk of leading yourself to whatever conclusion you like).
For the weak-form modesty argument, let’s further specify that your aspiring entrepreneur’s claim was “I’m over 90% confident that my business will make me the richest person in the world”.
To such a person, I would say: “Your claim is so incredibly unlikely a priori and so self-aggrandising that I feel comfortable in saying you’re overconfident without even needing to consider your arguments”.
That is basically what I feel about Eliezer Yudkowsky and AI.
Let’s take a minute to consider what the implications are if Yudkowsky is correctly calibrated about his beliefs in AI. For a long time, he was one of the few people in the world to be seriously concerned about it, and even now, with many more people concerned about AI risk, he stands out as having some of the highest confidence in doom.
If he’s right, then he’s arguably the most important prophet in history. Countless people throughout history have tried forecasting boon or bust (and almost always been wrong). But on arguably the most important question in human history - when we will go extinct and why - Yudkowsky was among the very few people to see it and easily the most forceful.
Indeed, I’d say this is a much more immodest claim than claiming your business idea will make you the richest person in the world. The title of the richest person in the world has been shared by numerous people throughout history, but “the most accurate prophet of human extinction” is a title that can only ever be held by one person.
I think Scott Alexander’s essay Epistemic Learned Helplessness teaches a good lesson here. Argument convincingness isn’t necessarily strongly correlated with the truth of a claim. If someone gives you what appears to be a strong argument for something that appears crazy, you should nonetheless remain highly sceptical.
Yet I feel like Yudkowsky wants to appeal to “argument convincingness” because that’s what he’s good at. He has spent decades honing his skills arguing on the internet, and much less at acquiring traditional credentials and prestige. “Thinking on the object level” sounds like it’s about being serious and truth-seeking, but I think in practice it’s about privileging convincing-sounding arguments and being a good internet debater above all other evidence.
A further concern I have about “argument convincingness” for AI is that there’s almost certainly a large “motivation gap” in favour of the production of pro-AI-risk arguments compared to anti-AI-risk arguments, with the worriers spending considerably more time and effort than the detractors. As Philip Trammel points out in his post “But Have They Engaged with The Arguments?, this is true of almost any relatively fringe position. This can make the apparent balance of “argumentative evidence” misleading in those cases, with AI no exception.
Finally, Yudkowsky’s case for immodesty depends partly on alleging he has a good track record of applying immodesty to “beat the experts”. But his main examples (a lightbox experiment and the monetary policy of the Bank of Japan) I don’t find that impressive given he could cherry-pick. Here’s an article alleging that Yudkowsky’s predictions have frequently between egregiously wrong and here’s another arguing that his Bank of Japan position in particular didn’t ultimately pan out.

Why I’m Also Sceptical of Moderately Immodest Epistemology

I think high-confidence predictions of doom (or utopia) are much more problematic than relatively moderate views - they are more likely to be wrong, and if taken seriously, more strongly imply that the believer should consider making radical, probably harmful life changes.
But I do still worry that the ability to contrast with super confident people like Yudkowsky lets the “not a total doomer” people off the hook a little too easily. I think it’s admirable that Scott Alexander seriously grappled with the fact that superforecasters disagreed with him and updated downwards based on that observation.
Still, let’s revisit the “aspiring entrepreneur” analogy - imagine they had instead said: “You know what, I’ve listened to your claims about modesty and agree that I’ve been overconfident. I now think there’s only a 20% chance that my business idea will make me the richest person in the world”.
Sure - they’ve moved in the right direction, but it’s easy to see that they’re still not doing modesty very well.
An anti-anti-AI risk argument Scott made (in MR Tries the Safe Uncertainly Fallacy) is that appealing to base rates leaves you vulnerable to “reference class tennis” where both sides can appeal to different reference classes, and the “only winning move is not to play”.
Yet in the case of our aspiring entrepreneur, I think the base rate argument of “extremely few people can become the richest person in the world” is very robust. If the entrepreneur tried to counter with “But I can come up with all sorts of other reference classes in which I come out more favourably! Reference class tennis! Engage with my object-level arguments!”, it would not be reasonable to throw up your hands and say “Well, I can’t come up with good counterarguments, so I guess you probably do have a 20% chance of becoming the richest person in the world then”.
I contend that “many people have predicted the end of the world and they’ve all been wrong” is another highly robust reference class. Yes, you can protest about “anthropic effects” or reasons why “this time is different”. And maybe the reasons why “this time is different” are indeed a lot better than usual. Still, I contend that you should start from a prior of overwhelming skepticism and only make small updates based on arguments you read. You should not go “I read these essays with convincing arguments about how we’re all going to die, I guess I just believe that now”.

What Should We Make Of Surveys Of AI Experts?

Surveys done of AI experts, as well as opinions of well-regarded experts like Geoffrey Hinton and Stewart Russell, have shown significant concerns about AI risk (example).
I think this is good evidence for taking AI risk seriously. One important thing it does is raise AI risk out of the reference class of garden-variety doomsday predictions/crazy-sounding theories that have no expert backing.
However, I think it’s still only moderately good evidence.
Firstly, I think we should not consider it as an “expert consensus” nearly as strong as say, the expert consensus on climate change. There is nothing like an IPCC for AI, for example. This is not a mature, academically rigorous field. I don’t think we should update too strongly from AI experts spending a few minutes filling in a survey. (See for instance this comment about the survey, showing how non-robust the answers given are, indicating the responders aren’t thinking super hard about the questions).
Secondly, I believe forecasting AI risk is a multi-disciplinary skill. Consider for instance asking physicists to predict the chances of human extinction due to nuclear war in the 1930s. They would have an advantage in predicting nuclear capabilities, but after nuclear weapons were developed, the reasons we haven’t had a nuclear war yet have much more to do with international relations than nuclear physics.
And maybe AGI is so radically different from the AI that exists today that perhaps asking AI researchers now about AI risk might have been like asking 19th-century musket manufacturers about the risk from a hypothetical future “super weapon”.
I think an instructive analogy were the failed neo-Malthusian predictions of the 1960s and 1970s, such as The Population Bomb or The Limits to Growth. Although I’m unable to find clear evidence of this, my impression is that these beliefs were quite mainstream among the most “obvious” expert class of biologists (The Population Bomb author Paul Ehlrich had a PhD in biology), and the primary critics tended to be in other fields like economics (most notably Julian Simon). Biologists had insights, but they also had blind spots. Any “expert survey” that only interviewed biologists would have missed crucial insights from other disciplines.

What Are The Potential Consequences Of Overconfidence?

People have overconfident beliefs all the time. Some people erroneously thought Hillary Clinton was ~99% likely to win the 2016 Presidential election. Does it matter that much if they’re overconfident about AI?
Well, suppose you were overconfident about Clinton. You probably didn’t do anything differently in your life, and the only real cost of your overconfidence was being unusually surprised on election day 2016. Even one of the people who was that confident in Clinton didn’t suffer any worse consequences than eating a bug on national television.
But take someone who is ~90% confident that AI will radically transform or destroy society (“singularity or extinction by 2040") and seriously acts like it.
Given that, it seems apparently reasonable to be much more short-term focused. You might choose to stop saving for retirement. You might forgo education on the basis that it will be obsolete soon. These are actions that some people have previously taken, are considering taking or are actually taking because of expectations of AI progress.
At a societal level, high confidence in short-term transformative AI implies that almost all non-AI related long-term planning that humanity does is probably a waste. The most notable example would be climate change. If AI either kills us or radically speeds up scientific and economic growth by the middle of the century, then it seems pretty stupid to be worrying about climate change. Indeed, we’re probably underconsuming fossil fuels that could be used to improve the lives of people right now.
At its worst, there is the possibility of AI-risk-motivated terrorism. Here’s a twitter thread from Emil Torres talking about this, noticeably this tweet in particular about minutes from an AI safety workshop “sending bombs” to OpenAI and DeepMind.
To be fair, I think it’s highly likely the people writing that were trolling. Still - if you’re a cold-blooded utilitarian bullet-biter with short timelines and high p(doom), I could easily see you rationalising such actions.
I want to be super careful about this - I don’t want to come across as claiming that terrorism is a particularly likely consequence of “AI dooming”, nor do I want to risk raising the probability of it by discussing it too much and planting the seed of it in someone’s head. But a community that takes small risks seriously should be cognizant of the possibility. This is a concern that I think anyone with a large audience and relatively extreme views (about AI or anything) should take into account.

Conclusion

This post has been kicking around in draft form since around the release of GPT-4 a year ago. At that time, there were a lot of breathless takes on Twitter about how AGI was just around the corner, Yudkowsky was appearing on a lot of podcasts saying we were all going to die, and I started to feel like lots of people had gone a bit far off on the deep end.
Since then I feel there’s a little bit of a vibe shift away from the most extreme scenarios (as exhibited in the Manifold extinction markets), as well as me personally probably overestimating how many people ever believed in them. I’ve found it hard to try to properly articulate the message: “You’re probably directionally correct relative to society as a whole, but some unspecified number of you have probably gone too far”.
Nonetheless, my main takeaways are:

Eliezer Yudkowsky (these days) is probably causing harm, and people with moderate concerns about AI should distance themselves from him. Espousing views that we are all likely to die from AI should not be tolerated as a merely strong opinion, but as something that can cause meaningful harm to people who believe it. I feel this might actually be happening to some degree (I think it’s notable that e.g. the 80,000 Hours podcast has never interviewed him, despite interviewing plenty of other AI-risk-concerned people). But I would like to see more of a “Sister Souljah moment” where e.g. a prominent EA thought leader explicitly disavows him.
Yudkowsky being the worst offender doesn't let everyone else off the hook. For instance, I think Scott Alexander is much better at taking modesty seriously, yet I don't think he takes it seriously enough.
We should be generally suspicious of arguments for crazy-sounding things. I have not only become more suspicious of arguments about AI, but also other arguments relatively popular in rationalist or EA circles, but not so much outside it (think certain types of utilitarian arguments that imply that e.g. maybe insect welfare or the long-term future outweighs everything else). I appreciate that they might say something worth considering, and perhaps weak-form versions of them could be reasonable. But the heuristic of “You probably haven’t found the single most important thing ever” is something I think should be given more weight.

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