Trolling case study: HCQ (2020/08/09)
There is a fascinating thing which I noticed recently in online discourse, and I have found what is, at least until they notice it, possibly a reliable way to distinguish between people who hold a perhaps surprising position, and people who are trying to spread misinformation.
The context of this particular thing was discussions of hydroxychloroquine, henceforth “HCQ”, an anti-malarial drug which some people thought might be an effective treatment of some sort related to COVID-19.
[read more...]RMS, Minsky, and the Search for Truth (2019/09/21)
Richard Stallman stepped down from the FSF recently. I don’t think it was necessarily 100% voluntary. This came about in part because of a highly critical article about his behavior, pointing out ways in which he has behaved poorly.
One of the complaints people have had persistently about his behavior is a tendency to offer what seem to be defenses of extremely bad behavior. In recognition of his influential leadership in the field of self-referential acronyms (e.g., “GNU’s Not Unix”), I’m going to write a perhaps self-referential piece in which I argue that the actual behavior he engaged in is not necessarily the same as the behavior he is accused of. But because I have studied and considered human emotions and behavior, I’m also going to try to do a better job of clarifying what I am defending, and also what I am not defending.
[read more...]Things to do if you think someone has been or may be outed: (2014/08/06)
(CAVEAT: This is a draft. It may get updated. Feel free to suggest improvements.)
[read more...]Failing to understand the word "disability" (2014/07/08)
I know a number of people who have disabilities, ranging from fairly mild to fairly severe. Most of them have some amount of interaction with social services of one sort or another, whether in the US or elsewhere. And everywhere, there is a single constant theme:
[read more...]Why universal health coverage might be cheaper than it looks... (2013/10/22)
Been thinking about this for a long time. Medical costs in the US are unreasonably high, for unusually poor results, and that’s been true for a while. But it seems pretty reasonable, at first glance, to assert that providing health coverage for all the people who don’t have it will be pretty expensive.
[read more...]The hate that dare not speak its name (2013/06/28)
Used to be, people were pretty shy about being gay, because it could get you in lots of trouble. Crazy, crazy, trouble. Not just being beaten or killed, but stuff like attempts to use mandatory hormone therapy to “treat” it. And this was a horrible situation. Thing is, this didn’t mean gay people didn’t want relationships, it just meant they had to find subtle ways to indicate that they might be interested in such things. (People who read a lot of Pratchett may recognize a similarity to his dwarves, who do not distinguish between male and female in most contexts, considering it a rather personal thing, making their courtships rather more complicated.)
[read more...]Critical theory in a nutshell (2013/05/27)
I once encountered someone who asserted that all men, without exceptions, were rapists. Not as hyperbole, but as a flatly literal claim. And when I pointed out that this was pretty sexist, she explained that, according to “critical theory”, there was no such thing as sexism against men, because men are a privileged group.
[read more...]Dear Ms. Scott: I believe you misunderstand the term "heart-breaking". (2013/05/13)
Peggy Scott’s heart breaks for the state of Minnesota.
[read more...]Sympathy for the devil (2013/04/21)
A poster on tumblr recently expressed some unpopular views; to wit, the hope that Dzokhar Tsarnaev would escape and never be captured or killed. Lots of people have expressed the hope that he’d be captured alive, and some have hoped that he might one day be rehabilitated. Not so many have thought to show off their empathy by hoping a killer escapes to kill again.
[read more...]Theme and variations (2013/04/02)
Music tends to rely heavily on the use of recognizable themes; little bits and pieces of melody and/or rhythm which are repeated to create consistency in structure. In the simplest form, a theme may simply be repeated. The “rounds” often used in early music classes add the complexity that each part may be at a different point in the theme than the others, but all the parts are still the same. The famous example is “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”, a piece of music which still has the power to enthrall children up through the age of seven or so, but tends to pale a little after that.
[read more...]