The Rains, They Are Dropping

[The Rains, They Are Dropping]

iltalehti.fi

Jopa yli sata laitonta salakuuntelua - kahdelle poliisille syytteet

Ahton sanoin:

> Poliisi kiistattomasti rikkoi puhelinkuuntelua koskevia säännöksiä. Teosta epäilty ylikomisario oli juuri saanut ylennyksen poliisihallitukseen. Tämän jälkeen juttu mystisesti unohtui syyttäjän pöytälaatikkoon ja syyteoikeus ehti vanhentua.

> Seuraavaksi epäiltiin sitten ylennetyn tilalle tullutta komisariota. Syyttäjä teki tietenkin syyttämättäjättämispäätöksen. Nyt asianomistaja on itse ruvennut ajamaan syytettä, kun syyttäjät eivät siihen suostu.

> Tämä on niin ilmeinen tapaus kuin olla voi. Poliisi on selkeästi rikkonut lakia ja poliisit ja syyttäjät yhteistyössä tekevät kaikkensa, ettei kukaan joutuisi rikkomuksista vastuuseen. Erityisen törkeällä tavalla suojattiin tullista poliisihallitukseen ylennettyä henkilöä. Kuinkahan korkea taho hänelle on luvannut “immuniteetin”?

> Ja näille veijareille pitäisi antaa lisää tiedusteluoikeuksia… Se, että syyttäjätkin ovat mukana tällaisissa kuvioissa, heikentää hieman pakkokeinojen käytön valvonnan uskottavuutta.

[The Rains, They Are Dropping]

quora.com

What is problematic about the concept of 'Toxic Masculinity'?

So after I shared that “what do we mean by toxic masculinity” comic, several people expressed criticism of the term. While I felt that some of the criticism was a little excessive - I don’t think that all use of the term is inherently man-hating, for example - people did raise good points about why it’s a problematic one. Then someone linked me to this Quora answer summarizing the problems with the term; upon consideration, I think that I agree with this summary and recommend that people avoid the term from now on (and will also avoid it myself):

> The underlying problems that the term refers to are genuine problems, and worth both pointing out and making an effort to solve. But the term as such is problematic in several different ways, enough ways that I think it’s better to choose other terms.

> Problems with “toxic masculinity” includes:

> * The word “toxic” is loaded, and applies poorly to quite a few examples of negative male gender-roles.
> * It’s tribal language. In practice pretty much only people who are already fairly well-read in feminism will understand what the term is supposed to mean.
> * It focuses solely on masculinity when reality is that restrictive and harmful gender-roles are a thing for both genders.
> * It makes it sound as if it’s an exclusively male problem when reality is that negative and/or restrictive gender roles for men are upheld and propagated by both women and men. […]

> When there’s something wrong with male gender-roles, we call it “toxic masculinity” a term which makes it sound as if the ones with primary responsibility for it are generally men.

> When there’s something wrong with female gender-roles, we call it “internalized misogyny” which makes it sound as if misogyny is a problem arising elsewhere (i.e. with men), but that some women have, unfortunately, as more or less passive victims, accidentally internalized.

> At the very least, anyone who wants to use balanced and fair language needs to use the same terms regardless of which gender they’re talking about. So if they use “toxic masculinity” a lot, then they should also be comfortable with “toxic femininity”, and if they use “internalized misogyny” a lot, they should be equally happy with “internalized misandry”. That doesn’t seem to be the case in practice though. […] Instead of these terms, I think it’s usually preferable to talk about harmful, restrictive or prejudiced gender-roles or gender-norms.

[The Rains, They Are Dropping]

ribbonfarm.com

The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millennial

Everyone seems to be sharing this article. I’ll have to admit it was tl;dr for me, but I liked the opening where it coins the core concept:

> A few months ago, while dining at Veggie Grill (one of the new breed of Chipotle-class fast-casual restaurants), a phrase popped unbidden into my head: premium mediocre. The food, I opined to my wife, was premium mediocre. She instantly got what I meant, though she didn’t quite agree that Veggie Grill qualified. In the weeks that followed, premium mediocre turned into a term of art for us, and we gleefully went around labeling various things with the term, sometimes disagreeing, but mostly agreeing. […]

> Premium mediocre is the finest bottle of wine at Olive Garden. Premium mediocre is cupcakes and froyo. Premium mediocre is “truffle” oil on anything (no actual truffles are harmed in the making of “truffle” oil), and extra-leg-room seats in Economy. […]

> Premium mediocre is Starbucks’ Italian names for drink sizes, and its original pumpkin spice lattes featuring a staggering absence of pumpkin in the preparation. Actually all the coffee at Starbucks is premium mediocre. I like it anyway. […]

> Premium mediocre is international. My buddy Visakan Veerasamy (a name Indian-origin people will recognize as a fantastic premium mediocre name, suitable for a Tamil movie star, unlike mine which is merely mediocre, and suitable for a side character) reports that Singaporeans can enjoy the fine premium mediocre experience of the McDonald’s Signature Collection.

> Anything branded as “signature” is premium mediocre of course.

[The Rains, They Are Dropping]

journals.sagepub.com

journals.sagepub.com

Whoa, definitely wouldn’t have expected this, given how common the “the intensity of new love inevitably fades over time” narrative seems to be:

> Some individuals in long-term marriages report intensities of romantic love comparable to individuals newly in love. How common is this? Are correlates of long-term romantic love consistent with theoretical models of love? In a random sample of 274 U.S. married individuals, 40% of those married over 10 years reported being “Very intensely in love.”

[The Rains, They Are Dropping]

ellenpost.wordpress.com

How Do I Decide Which Political Pundits to Read?

Julia Galef’s summary of this post:

> My mom Ellen Post wrote a thoughtful exploration of how she decides which pundits to read. Some key criteria:

> - Do they acknowledge areas of uncertainty?
> - Do they criticize their own “side”?
> - Do they seem to be respected by other pundits she respects?

> And for the purpose of challenging her own beliefs:
> - Are their views *moderately,* but not totally, different from my own?

> You may disagree with particular examples of pundits she’s settled on. But I think this general exercise – asking yourself “What selection criteria do I endorse?” is a really good one.

[The Rains, They Are Dropping]

thenib.com

What Do We Mean When We Say “Toxic Masculinity?”

This was good.

[The Rains, They Are Dropping]

en.wikipedia.org

Living root bridges - Wikipedia

Bridges grown out of living tree roots.

> The pliable tree roots are made to grow through betel tree trunks[4] which have been placed across rivers and streams until the figs’ roots attach themselves to the other side. Sticks, stones, and other objects are used to stabilize the growing bridge[1] This process can take up to 15 years to complete.[5] The useful lifespan of any given living root bridge is variable, but it is thought that, under ideal conditions, they can in principle last for many hundreds of years. As long as the tree they are formed from remains healthy, they naturally self-renew and self-strengthen as their component roots grow thicker

[The Rains, They Are Dropping]

slatestarcodex.com

Contra Askell On Moral Offsets

> Offsetting is where you compensate for a bad thing by doing a good thing, then consider yourself even. For example, an environmentalist takes a carbon-belching plane flight, then pays to clean up the same amount of carbon she released. […] Askell is uncomfortable with this concept for the same reasons I was when I first heard about it. Can we kill an enemy, then offset it with enough money to save somebody else’s life? […]

> I think Askell gets the right answer here – you can offset carbon emissions but not city-nuking. And I think her reasoning sort of touches on some of the important considerations. But I also think there’s a much more elegant theory that gives clear answers to these kinds of questions, and which relieves some of my previous doubts about the offsetting idea. […]

> Axiology is the study of what’s good. If you want to get all reductive, think of it as comparing the values of world-states. A world-state where everybody is happy seems better than a world-state where everybody is sad. […] Morality is the study of what the right thing to do is. […] Law is – oh, come on, you know this one. […]

> With this framework, we can propose a clearer answer to the moral offsetting problem: you can offset axiology, but not morality […] Emitting carbon doesn’t violate any moral law at all (in the stricter sense of morality used above). It does make the world a worse place. But there’s no unspoken social agreement not to do it, it doesn’t violate any codes, nobody’s going to lose trust in you because of it, you’re not making the community any less cohesive. […] Murdering someone does violate a moral law.

[The Rains, They Are Dropping]

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Early opposition to obstetric anaesthesia - FARR - 2007 - Anaesthesia - Wiley Online Library

In Victorian England, obstetric anaesthesia was opposed on the grounds that it might give rise to sexual thoughts and dreams:

> Another medical writer with strong views upon the moral proprieties was Dr G.T. Gream, of Queen Charlotte’s hospital in London. […] It was concerning the incidence of ‘improper’ and ‘lascivious’ dreams during the anaesthetised state that Gream waxed most eloquent, however. Like Tyler Smith, Gream believed that:

> > ‘it may be observed that a person under the partial influence of ether or chloroform-vapour, will dream of any part of the body that at the moment is irritated… thus, if the sexual organs are the parts operated upon, this will be a cause of sexual dreams, as will also the presence of the foetal head in the pelvis.

> Gream then considered the view that:-

> > ‘these dreams only occur in prostitutes; a fact not at all true, but, if it were so, it would, I think, be a stronger reason still for abstaining from the use of ether in less depraved women; for if a prostitute, who may be supposed to be callous to sexual excitement, becomes thus influenced by ether inhalation, how much more likely are those to be so, whose desires have not been deadened by prostitution; and how revolting to contemplate is the idea-that any young and chaste woman should be so influenced, as to bring her to a condition debauched even to the extent of a prostitute!’

> Having already stated that the premise was ‘not at all true,’ Gream’s development of this argument appears to have had no purpose, unless it was to fan further the flames of emotion against obstetric anaesthesia […] A rather dry retort to this aspect of the argument was that of De Quincey, that ‘Mr. Gream forgets that the women of this country are virtuous, are pure minded and are by no means to be compared to Parisian courtesans.’

[The Rains, They Are Dropping]

dare.ubvu.vu.nl

dare.ubvu.vu.nl

It’s official: according to science, bad is stronger than good.

> The greater power of bad events over good ones is found in everyday events, major life events (e.g., trauma), close relationship outcomes, social network patterns, interpersonal interactions, and learning processes. Bad emotions, bad parents, and bad feedback have more impact than good ones, and bad information is processed more thoroughly than good. The self is more motivated to avoid bad self-definitions than to pursue good ones. Bad impressions and bad stereotypes are quicker to form and more resistant to disconfirmation than good ones. Various explanations such as diagnosticity and salience help explain some findings, but the greater power of bad events is still found when such variables are controlled. Hardly any exceptions (indicating greater power of good) can be found. Taken together, these findings suggest that bad is stronger than good, as a general principle across a broad range of psychological phenomena.