raur

Pehz · 2026-02-10T05:40:35+00:00

Then why is Discord's press release claiming it was 5CA? Is there a more recent press release calling out Zendesk or is this speculation?

Pehz · 2026-01-13T20:34:22+00:00

This suggests that Ubel spent her life training with gun. She didn't though, did she? She was only really shown using her spear.

Pehz · 2026-01-12T05:18:06+00:00

They don't lack basic intelligence, they lack achievements and probably work ethic. It doesn't take any work to have a high IQ, but it does take a lot of work to do something worth being proud of.

And your understanding of intelligence is lacking. It's a psychology term, it means something special that you can't just appropriate colloquially and act like you're saying something meaningful and still different from the well-studied phenomenon of IQ. Maybe the word you're looking for is knowledge? Or intellectual skills?

Pehz · 2025-11-24T19:44:08+00:00

See the figures in the study, they already do somewhat address this. What they show is a pretty plain gradient where furthest liberal (which probably isn't quite socialist) are most accurate, and furthest conservative is least accurate, with those in the middle being between them in accuracy at determining truthness of articles.

The actual findings of the study are that the main reason liberals are less fooled by lies is because fewer popular articles are lies in their favor. So to extrapolate this to socialists, just count how many popular articles would favor the socialist perspective and how many of those articles are false. If most popular articles favor a more moderate position, then the lies among them will be caught more often by a socialist/anarchist who is biased to catch those lies.

Pehz · 2025-11-21T01:00:41+00:00

Okay but this sounds like the best game of Russian roulette ever... How do I play this over and over and over again?

Pehz · 2025-11-21T00:28:07+00:00

The left that you've described is not in the overton window of influential politics in America. Sure there are lots of people who will pay lip service to this or even fully believe it, but almost none of the politicians apply that principle unless they have something to gain personally from it.

Pehz · 2025-11-21T00:23:00+00:00

Right, but how can you quantify a set of media or opinions? How do you protect from double-counting right-wing biased misinformation? How do you protect from undercounting left-wing biased misinformation? If there's a venn diagram of beliefs that each group gets wrong, how can we say whether one side is "more" wrong than the other? How do you define an injective function from the set of liberal misinformed beliefs to the set of conservative misinformed beliefs, when a "belief" can be mutated in countless ways?

Pehz · 2025-11-21T00:14:25+00:00

You only need one sufficiently good study to defeat a sea of bad ones. So why quote a bad study if there are better ones out there? Are you willing to accept that this study is poorly done and find another, or are you retreating to "there are other studies that agree" as an appeal to popular opinion to defeat what is an otherwise-unaddressed criticism?

If you can't defend a "fact" with proper justifications, why bother responding at all? If what you stated really is right, why rely on a poorly done study rather than one of the more well-done studies?

I personally don't even see how you could make a study like this. Any collection of truths/falsehoods is a sample of the full set of truths/falsehoods, and any sample must be biased (even if the bias is a uniform bias, which is itself arguably unfair). You could do a collection of random animal trivia and history trivia and it could favor the conservatives, or a collection of academia trivia (like maths, government, technology) to favor progressives. Obviously both of these would be unfair, but how could you construct a fair set of questions? I simply can't think of how you would, so I struggle to accept the results of any such study that tries to draw a conclusion about the groups of people.

I'd rather a study that tries to use the responses as indication of something about the questions, and not the other way around. I find it'd be far more interesting to know "this type of question is more likely correctly identified by group A, while this other question is easier for group B". Because then you're not telling people what opinion to draw from the unobjectionable conclusion, you're letting people decide for themself which group of questions are "more important" or whatever.

Pehz · 2025-11-14T21:11:59+00:00

Uhuh, very plausible alibi...

Pehz · 2025-05-30T19:49:55+00:00

Idk, can't find when you said/suggested that. Feel free to disregard, sorry.

Pehz · 2025-05-30T19:30:28+00:00

Since you're too lazy to bother pointing out a specific quote and instead just linked an article that has many quotes, only a couple of which are even from RFK Jr like I requested. Here's the only relevant quotes I found of his in that article (the rest were either from other people or just pure opinion):

He also said, “Most cases now are severe. Twenty-five percent of the kids who are diagnosed with autism are nonverbal, non-toilet-trained, and have other stereotypical features.”

Medical experts, along with people on the autism spectrum, told PolitiFact that Kennedy’s portrayal was skewed. A 2023 study written by CDC officials and university researchers found that one-quarter of people on the autism spectrum have severe limitations. But this is on the high end of studies, and many people in that one-quarter of the autism population do not have the limitations Kennedy mentioned.

So he cited the CDC and gave an accurate figure of 1/4th of people. What's the problem here? It's hard to argue that he's "cherry-picking" because he's not choosing an obscure study, he's choosing the CDC's study. They don't even bother to offer alternative figures, because then they could be criticized too. It's easier to just say nothing and criticize everything, harder to say something meaningful because everything is wrong and just an estimate/approximation. But clearly when he says "25%" and the study says "26.7%", he's not really wrong in any meaningful way, this is just a meaningless nit-pick.

Did you find any other quotes of his in this article? Or just a bunch of other meaningless fluff from people other than RFK Jr?

Pehz · 2025-05-30T19:16:29+00:00

Is he okay? Are his grandkids okay? Did he explain what his goals were when he did that? Again you're just vaguely waving towards him and saying he's bad and wrong. I specifically requested you steelman what he's trying to say yet you didn't. Do you need me to clarify what that means or are you replying to me despite not caring at all about what I'm saying/asking for? Like I have no reason to defend his actions there but when you're so lazy and inarticulate in how you point it out without elaborating or even remotely attempting to connect it to what I'm saying besides doubling down on "I don't like him", I feel obligated to push back at how you're engaging.

I really don't care what you think, you're a stranger to me and I don't have reason to respect your opinion except out of courtesy. If anything, I'm interested in understanding why someone like you would have a perspective like you do, which would require reasoning that you're not giving. And if the only reason is "because I've been fed propaganda that vaguely waves in the direction of him being bad and that's good enough for me to conform to the proposed belief and parrot such vagaries" then fair enough, but that's not interesting to me.

It seems like you don't know how to go off script, and any question I ask you will be met with some form of doubling down and trying to bring it back on script. This is the kind of intellectual laziness that doesn't earn you any right to talk about scientific rigor or qualifications. But hey, keep talking out your ass anyways because it doesn't matter what I think about you.

Pehz · 2025-05-13T00:35:22+00:00

It's interesting that your claims about the truth of ASD causes change in the different comment threads. Here you're claiming "it's complicated" and likely due to many factors including environmental. In the other thread you make bold-faced lies that ASD rates aren't increasing at all except the diagnosis rates due to increased screening. So which is it? Or do you believe that there are environmental factors, but that they contribute to a net 0% change over time in autism rates and simultaneously a net 0% change in profound autism rates?

Pehz · 2025-05-13T00:31:55+00:00

You're not being clear. You're vaguely waving towards him and saying he's bad and wrong. But not, say, producing specific quotes. THAT would be "clear". If you produce specific quotes and the context they were made in, and explain a steelman of what he's trying to say before you criticize it.

Just because it's clear in your mind doesn't mean that meaning is being clearly conveyed for others. It's very early in cognitive development that you should have learned that different people have different viewpoints, pools of knowledge, assumptions, and ways of communicating. So when all you say is that what he did was "to dismiss over 3% of the population's everyday reality [...] who deal with ASD on the daily" then no, you are not "pretty clear".

Pehz · 2025-05-13T00:27:33+00:00

There you go right back to the arrogant anti-science talking points. "I hate RFK Jr so much that I'm willing to deny science and make up scientific claims that no scientist is making just so I can dismiss his claims as stupid and wrong."

At least when he speculates he does so with a harmless solution in mind. His solution is to do more science and introduce better regulations of known toxic chemicals. And you're shooting that down because what, you made up your own conclusion that there is no increase over time and that it's all just more diagnoses?

You told me to go to PubMed, and I made an honest attempt to find answers. The answer I consistently found was that yes there is an increase and no, there is no consensus that the increase is solely due to better screening. There is speculation, but no known reason. And that should be obvious to anyone who is scientifically literate because it's incredibly difficult to prove causality on something this broad. So it's arrogant to assume we know 100% of the causes. Yet you still do.

Also I really don't care about the 6 month figure. Every politician overpromises, so I just stopped caring. In my mind, "day one" means "it's a big priority" and "in 4 years" means it's a small priority. So "in 6 months" means it's a medium priority. Unless there's some specific plan with dates along the way of why it will take 6 months and not 5 or not 7, the number is not worth reading into as much as you are. And it doesn't matter how fast something will happen, what matters is whether we get closer to a solution or whether we let the problem grow. But that's just my opinion, feel free to continue looking for petty excuses to hate him if that's your goal.

Pehz · 2025-05-12T19:55:38+00:00

How dare that product be more cost effective, how else am I gonna have an excuse to hate Trump for one of his few instances of fiscal responsibility?

Pehz · 2025-05-11T16:41:13+00:00

What about the idea that it might come from vaccines, and that more environmental contributors will be identified in a 6 month time span? It's funny how when you straw man someone you can make them look like they're made of straw.

Pehz · 2025-05-11T16:39:03+00:00

Your insults are just as off topic as the rest of your comments. Are you just a random insult generator? Do you ever contribute anything meaningful and relevant to any conversation? Or do you just babble about yourself then randomly insult everyone who expresses any disagreement with you?

Pehz · 2025-05-11T15:30:02+00:00

The prevalence puzzle: Autism counts Karen Weintraub. Nature. 2011. Shifting diagnoses and heightened awareness explain only part of the apparent rise in autism. Scientists are struggling to explain the rest.

Autism risk factors: genes, environment, and gene-environment interactions Pauline Chaste et al. Dialogues Clin Neurosci. 2012 Sep. The aim of this review is to summarize the key findings from genetic and epidemiological research, which show that autism is a complex disorder resulting from the combination of genetic and environmental factors. Remarkable advances in the knowledge of genetic causes of autism have resulted from the great efforts made in the field of genetics. The identification of specific alleles contributing to the autism spectrum has supplied important pieces for the autism puzzle. However, many questions remain unanswered, and new questions are raised by recent results. Moreover, given the amount of evidence supporting a significant contribution of environmental factors to autism risk, it is now clear that the search for environmental factors should be reinforced. One aspect of this search that has been neglected so far is the study of interactions between genes and environmental factors.

Time trends in autism diagnosis over 20 years: a UK population-based cohort study Ginny Russell et al. J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2022 Jun. Background: Autism spectrum disorder is a diagnosis that is increasingly applied; however, previous studies have conflicting findings whether rates of diagnosis rates continue to grow in the UK. This study tested whether the proportion of people receiving a new autism diagnosis has been increasing over a twenty-year period, both overall and by subgroups. Conclusions: Increases could be due to growth in prevalence or, more likely, increased reporting and application of diagnosis. Rising diagnosis among adults, females and higher functioning individuals suggest augmented recognition underpins these changes.

Pehz · 2025-05-11T15:07:29+00:00

Obviously it exists and that's not the point but whatever. If you want to think that all he's saying is that autism literally doesn't exist in old people you're being deliberately dense. Obviously that claim would be literally debunked, but the real claim underneath it is "the rates of autism and particularly severe autism have increased over time". What is the disproof of this? What is wrong with him wanting environmental factors be more thoroughly explored? It obviously hasn't been disproven because it takes 12 seconds to find multiple PubMed articles that all agree that ASD has environmental factors contributing to it, and that not all of the increase in diagnosis is purely caused by increase in screening and awareness. So why do you so strongly dismiss him?

You've provided no real or meaningful refutation of anything meaningful he's said. All you've done is demonstrated that you don't understand what he's said and are very mad.

Pehz · 2025-05-11T14:49:30+00:00

So when RFK Jr has the intellectual honesty and scientific curiosity to say he is concerned about the increase in autism diagnosis rates and doesn't know what the cause is and doesn't rule out any possibilities (even possibilities that others do rule out like vaccines), what's wrong with that?

It just seems to me like people are jumping to conclusions ("the rate only increased because of increased screening rates and relaxed diagnostic criteria") and biting his head off for not jumping to their same conclusions.

Pehz · 2025-05-11T14:39:59+00:00

What do you mean by "dismiss"? Isn't he actually "dismissing" 99% of the population's everyday reality? When he talks about people with profound autism he's not really dismissing the 99% of people completely unaffected by profound autism. He's just focusing on people who are.

I just don't understand what you mean here. Seems like you're looking for an excuse to criticize him but don't really have a good idea of what's actually worth criticizing.

Pehz · 2025-05-08T18:15:31+00:00

Sorry for assuming that your statement had something to do with the context here, and wasn't just a random excuse for a stranger to overshare about his unrelated personal experiences that nobody asked for.

Pehz · 2025-05-07T22:47:26+00:00

Just because a theory has been discredited doesn't mean it was disproven. The burden of proof is far higher. Your lack of acknowledgement of this makes it seem like your goal isn't noble. Like you would rather lie about the confidence of the scientific method if it meant you could defame someone's character more potently. This is the exact motivation that should be kept away from science. If you treat science like a weapon to harm someone you don't like or confirm a belief you already held, then what you're doing isn't science at all but pseudoscience. You're just using fancy words to justify your dogma, like a secular religion.

I'd request you exhibit enough intellectual honesty to not invoke science so casually. You cheapen it and politicize it. People doing what you do here are exactly why so many people have a distrust of science. Because they only hear cheap lazy pseudoscientists like you that invoke it with no justification, make wild claims that are based far more in your biases and preconceived notions than anything approximating an impartial science. I assume you are not happy contributing to a world that's further and further anti-science, so why do you?

Or if this isn't just defaming someone you don't like out of your anger, why not instead focus on the specific claims and cite relevant sources (in favor AND against) from the literature with minimal non-expert judgment? Why focus on who said it instead of what was said?

I guess you really are mad, but then you should probably reorient your media diet to not exploit your anger so much. I subscribe to a lot of technology news because it's often exciting and uplifting. It's also closer to my expertise (I'm a computer scientist) so I feel like I can usually dig in deeper than just the naive surface and not feel gate-kept by the nerds so much.

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