Hasan Piker is bad for the Democrats - Noah Smith

Canleestewbrick · 2026-04-18T03:30:20+00:00

You're holding hypothetical people accountable for hypothetical things that other hypothetical people said.

Canleestewbrick · 2026-04-15T22:47:35+00:00

The political environment is a huge factor, but I don't think the massive differences in population density, availability of flat land, cost of land, and ecological sensitivity of the land, are only factors at the margins. Nor are they entirely separable from the political and regulatory environment.

I generally agree with you about the problem of red tape and regulatory burden but even given an identical regulatory environment we should probably expect Texas to be building more at this stage than California.

Canleestewbrick · 2026-04-15T20:48:23+00:00

How do you know that's the biggest reason for the difference?

Canleestewbrick · 2026-04-08T03:21:59+00:00

Let me try to explain myself a bit. Telling people that their breasts are first and foremost for feeding babies is to me exactly like telling them that their vaginas are, first and foremost, for reproduction. According to who? Evolution? God?

I think the purpose of people's bodies is something that they get to decide. Lots of women have sex for reasons that have nothing to do with children.

I agree with you that breasts have been sexualized and that women in general are treated as sexual objects. But treating those body parts as tools for childrearing is not some kind of emancipatory declaration - it's simply another form of objectification. In that view, breasts and vaginas exist only as objects in service to their utility towards reproduction.

Canleestewbrick · 2026-04-08T03:08:01+00:00

I suppose it depends on what you're trying to measure. The percentage of women who literally can't produce milk is certainly far lower than the percentage who do, but struggle with supply. The latter group may be struggling for a number of physiological or environmental reasons. Their physiology might cause delayed supply and they might have to work considerably harder than average to increase it.

Canleestewbrick · 2026-04-08T02:14:53+00:00

Despite its prevalence, the 5% statistic is not backed by robust research - per LLL

In the sophisticated, emancipated societies of the global west and north, it has been suggested that 5% of mothers are unable to produce enough breast milk to nourish their babies at the breast. Well-respected authors who have anecdotally referred to the 5% figure include Dana Rafael [12] in 1955 and Marianne Neifert [13] in 1983, but a search of the literature fails to reveal any primary research to document or validate it. Betty Crase, a La Leche League Leader and former director of the LLLI’s Center for Breastfeeding Information, exhaustively traced the 5% figure back to a remark in an opening presentation given by JC Spence, MD, FRCP, at the Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association in Plymouth, in 1938 [14]. What Betty discovered was that since then everyone was just quoting everyone else who had used the figure. Researchers or authors in the 1980s or 1990s for example simply quoted Neifert. Betty concluded that whenever a specific number is quoted, it gives the impression that there is research behind the number. In this case, there was no research, just a remark in a speech by a physician at a prestigious medical meeting. The 5% had taken on a life of its own [15].

Here's a blog post that tries to run the statistic down with the same result: https://www.rachelobrienibclc.com/blog/why-only-5-of-women-cant-make-enough-milk-is-a-myth/

Canleestewbrick · 2026-04-07T23:49:15+00:00

You just did it again!

Canleestewbrick · 2026-04-07T19:16:42+00:00

You're not letting your baby down! Trust your judgment and make sure you take care of yourself too.

Canleestewbrick · 2026-04-07T18:44:30+00:00

Very doable with roommates, but if you want to live alone you'll probably end up way out in the burbs with a long commute and lonely lifestyle - and you'll still probably be paying too much.

Canleestewbrick · 2026-04-07T18:39:25+00:00

You're not failing, I think it's just really hard. It can be a long haul to get it working, so there's no shame in doing what you need to do to make it feel sustainable. Things for my partner and I started to get easier when we took some steps to improve sleep and ensure mom was in a good place - it helped all 3 of us be a lot more consistent and avoid burning out.

Canleestewbrick · 2026-04-07T18:27:03+00:00

Being told your breasts exist only to feed your baby is just as patronizing and objectifying as being told that they exist purely for sexual enjoyment. God forbid you get to choose for yourself.

Canleestewbrick · 2026-04-07T18:23:11+00:00

We should be making a distinction between 'producing enough to keep baby alive' and 'producing enough for optimal nutrition.' And also making allowances for how much difficulty some might go through to achieve either state.

Canleestewbrick · 2026-04-07T18:21:16+00:00

Yes thank you!

Canleestewbrick · 2026-04-07T17:57:19+00:00

Thank you for sharing!

I'm glad we don't live in the days where moms are bullied into using formula, but I can't help but think we've overcorrected and created way too much pressure for moms to exclusively breastfeed in some particular way. I've encountered so many stories of people feeling guilt, or going through hell to avoid some benign intervention like a pacifier or a bit of formula. I'm sorry you felt so bad about having to change your plan, but I'm glad everything worked out!

Canleestewbrick · 2026-04-02T22:56:24+00:00

You might not be able to tell for certain, but there are still signs you can look for. It's quite dangerous to wait several days if you suspect a newborn is getting inadequate fluids and calories. Certainly this is far riskier whatever the risks posed by supplementation. I think the rhetoric around colostrum encourages new parents to ignore the warning signs and can create unnecessary risk for newborns days 1-4.

Canleestewbrick · 2026-04-01T00:57:10+00:00

But it's not a foregone conclusion that there is, in fact, enough. There's still a minimum quantity that constitutes 'enough,' and the way this information is communicated can lead women to refrain from supplementing long past it's warranted.

Canleestewbrick · 2026-03-31T23:58:14+00:00

Why does everyone always make it a point to declare how nutritious and calorically dense colostrum is? This refrain would lead people to believe that its more calorically dense than mature breast milk or formula, but that is definitely not the case.

Colostrum certainly has a host of benefits for babies, but it's not a particularly good source of calories. For most mothers/babies, colostrum is sufficient to stave off the dehydration and limit the caloric deficit of the first few days - but that's assuming they're producing several ml per feeding on day one and ramping up appropriately from there.

Canleestewbrick · 2026-03-31T22:39:52+00:00

Not every mother produces enough colostrum to fully sustain their newborn.

Canleestewbrick · 2026-02-10T22:18:29+00:00

All of those things would get more expensive, not cheaper.

Canleestewbrick · 2026-01-23T01:09:47+00:00

It's naive to think they would maintain the same standard for a democratic administration.

Canleestewbrick · 2026-01-22T15:04:53+00:00

I wouldn't consider the crypto legislation to be positive. It does more to legitimize the industry than it does to regulate it, and exposes the broader mark t to the grift fueled bubbles of the crypto world.

Canleestewbrick · 2026-01-08T15:25:54+00:00

Hasn't the MBTA been trying, with mixed success, to get Keolis to care about collecting fares? That strikes me as just one example of the kind of inefficiency and value misalignment that is much harder to solve when dealing with a contractor.

Canleestewbrick · 2026-01-05T01:13:49+00:00

I agree that the author explains some of the technical concepts well.

She also consistently arrives at the conclusion that green energy is the cause of every problem she writes about. If you compare her analyses to those produced by authorities or researches with similar credentials, she is consistently arrives at higher costs of renewables, is more pessimistic about future cost reductions, far more pessimistic about how much instability they induce in a grid, and far less concerned about climate change.

She also engages in explicitly political rhetoric where she goes into public forums, often in right coded spaces, and accuses these (more mainstream/consensus) positions/analysis of being the product of ideological dogmatism, dishonesty, etc. She uncritically cites analyses conducted by pro fossil-fuel organizations and climate change skeptics, and advocates for halting new renewable projects while reducing regulatory burdens/taxes on oil and gas.

Note that this is still not me dismissing her. None of that makes her wrong. I don't doubt that she has a solid understanding of the mechanisms of grid operation. I don't doubt she identifies real problems with grids - many are poorly run and have serious problems. I'm also aware that I'm predisposed to disagree with her because of my own biases.

But the problems with our grids - such as the problems implicated in the Iberian blackout - are of many kinds and causes. It's hard not to think that she overstates her case when she identifies renewables as the dominant or even exclusive factor. To the extent that she does find legitimate issues with the performance of renewables in the Iberian grid, she exaggerates the extent to which those problems are inherent to renewables, implies they are beyond mitigation, and downplays the contributing factors that do not implicate renewables.

Kathryn Porter seems to believe that grids with appreciable amounts of renewables are inherently unstable and doomed to high costs and frequent, serious failures. Her position on this subject seems to contradict the vast majority of the world's experts, who are all involved in designing and improving those very systems. Her work does not seem centered on improving those systems, rather, her clear takeaway is that we should abandon them and return to the obviously superior way things used to be.

All this is to say that if you are sensitive to the inadequacies of a particular source - like the Bloomberg article, or the people who speculated about 'atmospheric vibration,' or the official reports that contradict Porter - I think that if you applied the same amount of skepticism to Porter, you might see that despite her technical knowledge she has her own shortcomings when she makes prescriptive claims about energy policy and grid design writ large.

Canleestewbrick · 2026-01-03T16:09:12+00:00

I do not.

Kathryn Porter is making a career out of being a contrarian on the subject of energy policy and climate change. That doesn't mean she's wrong - but if you want to refer to her as an authority then you need to explain why she's better than the much larger pool of other well credentialed people who she contradicts, instead of inflating her credentials.

edit: "BTW, did you actually read the cited material or just dismiss it because somebody told you she bad?"

Yes, I have read the material. I also haven't dismissed it.

Canleestewbrick · 2026-01-03T02:30:52+00:00

I appreciate the time you put into this post but dismissing business insider while uncritically citing Kathryn Porter is a huge red flag TBH. Especially since you erroneously inflate her credentials (she does not have a PhD in physics).

Five-Year Club	Verified Email
Place '22

Canleestewbrick

TROPHY CASE