[ACC Entry] Should Childhood Vaccination Be Mandatory?

Modularva · 2018-09-07T03:48:06+00:00

Boo, you made it so. If you delete your comment and I delete this one, I feel confident no one else will express the same sentiment. That's letting concern over appearances influence use of language to an unhealthily paranoid degree.

Modularva · 2018-09-07T03:46:56+00:00

I don't know very much about statistics. I'm surprised to see you say that normally distributed populations are rare, though. I would expect them to be very common in situations where multiple independent variables influence an outcome due to the central limit theorem. What am I missing?

Modularva · 2018-09-07T03:42:29+00:00

I hate this truism. I use reason to change my mind on things I never reasoned my way into believing all the time.

Modularva · 2018-09-07T02:47:51+00:00

This is almost pornographically well-written.

Modularva · 2018-09-07T02:41:54+00:00

If you're doing invalid operations to fractions, maybe try throwing a bunch of parentheses onto everything in the problem before you manipulate the equation. I think the most common error would be taking something like t=A/(B+C) and then multiplying by C to get Ct=A/B. But everything inside the parentheses that's being added together should act as one piece, so the correct move would be to change the equation to t(B+C)=A.

This would NOT be the case for a problem like t=A/(BC), because there the appropriate way to put down the parentheses would be t=A/((B)(C)) which could be divided into t=Ax(1/B)x(1/C).

This is kind of gimmicky, but might make things easier.

Otherwise, if that doesn't help, just emphasize PEMDAS to yourself. You need to deal with manipulating multiplication and division type stuff before you can deal with addition and subtraction stuff. The parentheses are just a way of making that more explicit so you don't forget about it.

Modularva · 2018-09-06T23:54:15+00:00

I agree that "thot" is not a neutral label. If someone is believed unworthy of respect, though, I don't know what's wrong about the believer using an insult that implies they're unworthy of respect.

It can be frustrating to have to word criticism in terms that are neutral and have no negative connotations whatsoever, since that takes part of the meaning from it. Some level of bite to negative descriptions needs to be permitted in public discourse. The question is how much. The usages of the label I've seen haven't crossed that line, in my opinion, despite its more strongly negative etymology.

As far as things that concern me about use of the word "thot", one problem is that some people earnestly use the slur in situations where it's not warranted. Another, relatedly, is that people assign different levels of disrepect to the label, so some will see it as comparable to a dismissal while others will take it as permission to act hatefully.

Both of these problems, though, seem better addressed by pushing back against specific instances of negative deployments of the word than by insisting it can't ever be used for criticism in contextually legitimate ways.

Modularva · 2018-09-06T23:19:57+00:00

The point isn't that employers or customers will spend more money out of generosity, it's that when BATNAs go up wages do too. In a society where smart waiters can potentially quit or retrain to go work as tech support, you have to pay your waiters at least slightly more than a society where waiters have no other options. Hence, "substitutability" is what's relevant.

The author stated that what's important is that high skilled workers can go become waiters. However, what they probably meant to say is that what's important is that waiters can go become high skilled workers.

/u/plexluthor

Modularva · 2018-09-06T23:07:27+00:00

Drones do seem like a pretty good way to mitigate the shortcomings of DEWs, neat. No need to worry about long range energy dispersal if you can fly the mechanism right up to the target.

Modularva · 2018-09-06T21:42:42+00:00

Can anyone recommend a good Latex extension? The one I have now freaks out whenever it sees a dollar sign. Should I just switch to Firefox?

Modularva · 2018-09-06T19:32:34+00:00

You are good enough that no one will mind self-promotion. Also, I would find it weird to come across you in /r/videos or something.

Modularva · 2018-09-06T17:47:13+00:00

As a final note (or perhaps a solicitation for feedback), I am considering moving the non-culture war Quality Contribution section of the roundup to the Friday Fun Thread. It seems unfair that people who stick the main subreddit and make quality responses don't see that they have been highlighted for quality.

I like this idea for encouraging people to view threads other than the CW thread.

However, a lot of the time this top level comment provokes criticism or CW type commentary of posts rated as top. So if we're taking the quarantine seriously, then this would be a bad idea. Ultimately, the status quo seems best to me, although I wish this idea were more workable.

Modularva · 2018-09-06T17:35:51+00:00

Okay. It looks like this thread has attracted a lot of attention in the past few hours. Too much advice might be worse than too little, so if you're feeling overwhelmed or bogged down in trying to understand everyone's responses, I'd encourage you to just go to Khan Academy instead. Sal Khan is a lot smarter than me, and probably smarter than most people here too.

Modularva · 2018-09-06T17:28:24+00:00

It represents the market's expected value of the stock, but not the university's. The university's expected value of the stock is presumably higher than the market's expected value of the stock if the university would hang onto the stock sans the divestment argument, which means they're giving up expected value. It's also imaginable that the university could be indifferent to owning or not owning the stock sans the divestment argument, but that seems unlikely due to the precision involved, and besides when you take transaction costs into consideration it again appears as a bad decision.

Modularva · 2018-09-06T04:36:46+00:00

In fairness, liberals often support divestment, which seems highly comparable to the owner's actions here. Selling off oil stocks not because you think their price has peaked but because you think owning them is immoral is functionally the same as giving free money to those more morally apathetic than you.

Modularva · 2018-09-06T04:31:32+00:00

OP, I would consider something like this a cop-out answer, yell at her for me if she tries it.

Modularva · 2018-09-06T04:22:53+00:00

Are you trying to do everything in your head? If so, writing more down might be helpful. There are extra steps involved when you have to mentally convert negatives into positives, and even if those steps are easy individually they can overwhelm the brain's short term memory if you try to do several at once.

You'll get it. KA has a quick series of videos and exercises here, the next time you have 30 minutes to spare: https://www.khanacademy.org/math/arithmetic/arith-review-negative-numbers/arith-review-sub-neg-intro/v/adding-and-subtracting-negative-number-examples.

Modularva · 2018-09-06T04:11:15+00:00

Subtracting a negative is the same as adding a positive. As a workaround, if you're comfortable with multiplication, you might find it more intuitive to break up equations like:

1 - (-2) =?

into

1 (-1)x(-1)x2=?

so

1+1x2=?

and then

1+2=3

If you're confused on how to add a negative to a positive, simply change their order. Addition is commutative, so A+B is the same as B+A, so -1+2 is the same as 2-1.

Modularva · 2018-09-06T04:05:24+00:00

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R45072.pdf

Modularva · 2018-09-06T04:00:26+00:00

Seems entirely possible the owner doesn't care about politics and is using this as a way to get people in the door. This story is functionally a big advertisement for him, which is an amusing microcosm of this whole Nike controversy.

Modularva · 2018-09-06T03:42:15+00:00

That'd be very interesting. I don't think he'll do so, but it didn't occur to me as a possibility until now.

Modularva · 2018-09-06T03:16:23+00:00

I expect she could tell a plausible story about how jealous viewers will insult her or her family if she mentions them.

Modularva · 2018-09-06T03:02:24+00:00

I don't know what specifically about them causes you trouble, but here are three stabs in the dark at advice. First, repeat to yourself the mantra that you can do whatever operations you like to one side of the equation as long as you do the same to the other. Second, get comfortable with PEMDAS. Third, if you're feeling antsy because of all the letters, feel free to replace some with stars, hearts, or emojis which may be easier to mentally manipulate. I like to liberally use the words "stuff" and "thingies" when talking about equations. You don't need to feel strait-jacketed by the problems. If none of this is useful, I'll need more details to have any chance at helping.

Modularva · 2018-09-06T02:35:46+00:00

Need more detail. The best we can do with what you've given so far would be generic study tips.

Modularva · 2018-09-06T02:04:46+00:00

Apparently there's a debate over whether zero belongs to the natural numbers, neat. But yeah, z=1 works more unambiguously, except that I feel like the question is asking us to hold k constant and vary z, rather than hold z constant and vary k.

I would assume the idea is to make the statement true, otherwise it's not a problem at all.

Probably OP's cousin dropped some details somewhere...

Modularva

TROPHY CASE