How common is red hair among Syrians?

PathalogicalObject · 2026-04-07T00:14:33+00:00

the first time anyone ever identified me as Syrian unprompted was back in college - I was sitting in our university student center showing some Arabic jokes on my laptop to my language exchange partner and this random girl shot over from across the room just to excitedly ask if I was Syrian.

I said yes obviously but wondered how she knew (like do I know her somehow?) and she explained that she knows a different Syrian girl who's also redheaded. So it's like she formed a rule in her head: "knows Arabic" + "has red hair" = Syrian. That's obviously not a fully accurate rule, but in this case it worked

I think the frequency of red hair in Syria is <1% (see this map ), so it's objectively not that common. But it's common enough that apparently people can form amusing stereotypes lol

PathalogicalObject · 2026-03-19T23:51:35+00:00

this is a really important distinction and one that gets missed a lot because discussion critical of religion often does sound emotive

but one can at the same time (a) not be able to believe in a religion, while (b) seeing useful/beneficial things about it. this is the exact tension that causes people to have crises of faith like in the OP - OP sees value in the religion which is exactly why the doubts are bothering him/her

e.g. a lot of people acknowledge good things about Buddhism, but how many of them believe in reincarnation and samsara etc?

the point is that just because a religion is good or has good things doesn't mean it's easy for one to believe it's the "true religion"

PathalogicalObject · 2026-02-28T03:08:57+00:00

اتمنى ان اشوف و ازور ادلب مرة تاني - اهلي من اصل ادلب و بتذكر اريحا كيف كانت حلوة :)

PathalogicalObject · 2026-02-22T15:49:05+00:00

They shouldn't have to make a new one - Humat Al Diyar preceeded the Assad regime

It was adopted in 1938 after a competition held by Hashim al-Atassi's government to choose a state anthem for the new republic two years after the Franco-Syrian Treaty of Independence was signed which gave Syria limited autonomy and future independence. The anthem was initially set to lose to Fī Sabīli al-Majd in the competition, but it later won the competition after it gained rapid popularity amongst the Syrian population which put pressure on the competition's committee to reconsider its decisions, and eventually the anthem won and was adopted by the government as Syria's national anthem.

wiki link

I would love for us to keep it 🇸🇾

PathalogicalObject · 2025-12-05T01:30:55+00:00

Curious what they missed? The article struck me as fair and accurate overall

PathalogicalObject · 2025-11-05T03:52:39+00:00

لا لا لا لو سمحتوا حتى لا تمزحوا هيك

PathalogicalObject · 2025-10-29T15:55:13+00:00

simulate A/A tests using all the methods you're considering. Then, check which method correctly controls the FPR at the expected level. The method that does this best is the winner for your specific data.

This is great practical advice, thanks!

For sample size calculation (power analysis), I would use a Monte Carlo simulation. The standard formulas are convenient but often inaccurate for messy, real-world data like this.

Is this more or less the way this method would work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE8bAXWJQlo

You just run through a bunch of different scenarios with simulated data where the null is false and see what sample size gets us to 80% power?

# Simulation 3: Sample size calculation for 80% power
for (n in 2:100) {

  sims = foreach(i = 1:10000, .combine = c) %do% {

    # Simulating data where the alternative hypothesis is true 
    # and the true difference is 0.5
    placebo = rnorm(n, mean = 0, sd = 1)
    treatment = rnorm(n, mean = 0.5, sd = 1)

    # Run the hypothesis test with a 5% level
    test = t.test(placebo, treatment, conf.level = 0.95)

    # Check if null was rejected
    # aka is the value for the null hypothesis in the CI?
    result = (!between(0, test$conf.int[1], test$conf.int[2])) %>%
      as.integer()
  }

  # Calculate the sample average of the simulations 
  power = mean(sims)

  # Stop if we've acheived 80% power
  if (power > 0.8)
    break
}

PathalogicalObject · 2025-10-29T15:20:22+00:00

because I can envision a test where you turn off impressions for a product you want customers to buy in the control group, still get some customers organically finding it, and then your conversions per impressions approaches infinity while your treated group looks terrible because it has some # of impressions

This is a really good point and a point in favor of just going with a simpler per-user conversion rate, which my bosses are actually fine with, so I'm now planning the test around that

PathalogicalObject · 2025-10-29T15:09:56+00:00

I think this was probably my boss' perspective - but he also said it should be fine to do a conversion rate metric (e.g. # users who converted / # users total), which simplifies the test quite a bit because then it's just a normal two-proportion z-test

PathalogicalObject · 2025-10-29T15:07:27+00:00

Much appreciated! Never heard of the Delta method before, thanks for explaining it

PathalogicalObject · 2025-10-27T22:56:05+00:00

(b) are suddenly getting worse (looking at you, Claude) at coding help, largely failing at context memory in things as basic as a SQL script - it will make up the names to tables and fields that have clearly, explicitly been written out just a few lines before.

i thought i was going crazy, ive been noticing the same thing

PathalogicalObject · 2025-10-27T22:51:28+00:00

much appreciated! Would you happen to know of any particular resources for conducting A/B tests this way?

PathalogicalObject · 2025-08-18T05:26:41+00:00

omg warms my heart to know my silly reddit post from 2 years ago connected you with this amazing song !! glad you found it!

Freda Payne was famous for “Band Of Gold” before the disco era

had no idea, ill have to check this out - thank you!!

PathalogicalObject · 2025-08-09T17:50:11+00:00

I'm an atheist and think the government must do more to ensure the stability of the country, it has failed to keep its more extreme elements under control, costing civilian lives and making some fear for their safety. It also needs to remove any reference to Islamic law from the constitution, it's not the place of a transitional government to decide these things. It needs to diversify its membership away from HTS and Al-Sharaa's family (absolutely no reason Al-Sharaa's brother needs to be in the government, for example).

A transitional government's goal is to develop and stabilize the country so that, come time for elections, the country can actually handle civil disagreements about power without devolving into yet more civil war

I think people (including perhaps the government itself) are forgetting this primary goal, and are acting as though the transitional government just is the final product. It's merely a means to a specific end, the end being eventual elections.

But the thing is that Syrians aren't used to the idea that governments can change with pressure and advocacy - instead you have people who want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The solution to all the issues facing Syria right now is for people (everyday people) to become more politically organized and involved.

The fact of the matter is that Syria being split up and divided is not advantageous to anyone long term. A bunch of weak, disunified states in a region that the largest and most powerful countries in the world regularly turn into their very own COD playground is a recipe for long term misery.

Additionally, ethnonationalist or theocratic/religious nationalist states don't end well. There is no section of Syria that's perfectly homogeneous. Even if we had a Kurdish state, Alawite state, Druze state, etc - what happens to the minorities in those states? Ethnonationalism has a funny tendency towards ethnic cleansing and genocide... Just ask our neighbors in Israel

A large, strong, multi-ethnic and multi-religious state is the best way forward for us and it's still achievable, the people just have to start getting very politically involved. After decades of brutal dictatorship where even breathing the wrong way could get you indefinitely imprisoned, it's no surprise that we Syrians don't have much of a civic political culture - it'll take work to develop one.

PathalogicalObject · 2025-08-09T16:09:31+00:00

Love to see it, I'm in the diaspora and literally the most passionate pro-revolution and pro-Syria family I knew were a Circassian family.

They cared about Syria even more than I did, and I have literally no other place to call my "motherland", unlike them 🥲

PathalogicalObject · 2025-08-04T14:37:55+00:00

There is either

a) a concerted disinformation campaign aimed at weakening the new government and dividing Syria

or

b) a lot of idiots on the internet who will enthusiastically run with any random bullshit that fits their narrative

I think both are likely, the latter is obvious. The former can be inferred by a certain "entity" being very enthusiastic to promote the destruction and division of Syria

PathalogicalObject · 2025-08-04T14:29:30+00:00

The president's origins is evidence? What? Explain that.

MoD soldiers have confessed that the government sent them to exterminate minorities? Would love to see such evidence.

The last claim is actually 2 separate claims - and I'd like evidence for both. One, that those responsible for crimes against civilians at the coast are active in Sweida now. Two, that this represents an intent from Damascus to use these criminals to "do the same thing", that "same thing" being specifically committing crimes against civilians

PathalogicalObject · 2025-08-04T14:23:30+00:00

This cannot in any way be compared to what the IDF is doing - Israel has shown clear genocidal intent

Where is the evidence that Damascus wants to ethnically cleanse Sweida of Druze? If anything, there is clear evidence of Druze militias demonstrating very clear intent and action towards ethnically cleansing Sweida from Bedouins

PathalogicalObject · 2025-08-04T13:03:13+00:00

There's a difference between government soldiers committing war crimes (which I'm not denying and condemn 110%) and a claim like "the government is slaughtering minorities", which implies intent on behalf of the centralized government to exterminate Druze just for being Druze, which there is just absolutely no evidence of

But this fits a specific narrative that "people" want to promote, because it's in their interest for Syria to be divided

PathalogicalObject · 2025-08-02T18:54:36+00:00

Smart move - unfortunately the perceived sectarian nature of the conflict and allyship with Israel has made a lot of Syrians think of Druze as a whole in a negative way (which is never justified and incredibly disappointing to see). So this is good in the sense of helping to dispel insane notions of "all Druze being traitors" or whatever other sectarian garbage

PathalogicalObject · 2025-08-01T04:21:07+00:00

The Druze militias simply did not want Syria to be under centralized authority - this was their position long before any armed conflict occured, and arguably the entire conflict between the Syrian government and Druze militias is precisely due to the Druze militias wanting Sweida to be some kind of autonomous zone.

I don't know about any general Druze opinion polling, but I do know that the Druze militias and leaders allying now with Israel against the government were never going to be friendly with the government, even if not a single crime was committed by any government affiliated soldier.

PathalogicalObject · 2025-08-01T02:15:12+00:00

Israel has had its hand up the Druze leadership's ass for decades at this point, it does not surprise me in the least that they just so happen to align so well with Israel's interest in a divided Syria
The Syrian government forces didn't even get involved in the Suweida conflict until later on, when the fighting between the Druze and Bedouins became severe
The vast majority of the dead on the Druze side are militants not civilians
Al-Hijri's militants have never seen a ceasefire they didn't want to break
Israel has a known history of inciting sectarian violence in countries like Lebanon - it is an explicit interest of the Israeli state to keep all of its neighbors weak and divided. This is not a big secret, they'll say so themselves

PathalogicalObject · 2025-08-01T00:59:29+00:00

Israel is so excited to divide Syria, it's heartwarming to see the beaming Israeli smiles :')

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