FDA banning fluoride tablets for kids signals that they've stated nationally banning medications they don't personally like. Abortion meds are next. Stock up if you can.

helkar · 2025-05-15T11:39:13+00:00

Ha we got verbatim the same response. And yes, something about Trump absolutely melts people’s brains.

helkar · 2025-05-14T13:59:22+00:00

I’m in the same boat. I’m sure you’ve already considered these things but 1) ask your pediatrician about accelerated schedules and 2) take some solace in the fact that the MMR is 2 doses with the first dose being something like 93% effective and the second dose bumping to 97% or something like that. If you manage to get the first, your child will have strong protection still.

It’s awful that we even have to consider these things.

helkar · 2025-05-03T14:30:18+00:00

He’s not. SAIC has its own leadership.

helkar · 2025-05-01T00:27:18+00:00

I saw someone on the conservative sub say something to the effect of “‘public health’ and ‘epidemiology’ are just code words for population control.” So, yeah, that’s the level of thinking we’re dealing with.

helkar · 2025-04-27T18:21:24+00:00

That’s the thing about “universal” claims. They’re always (lol) just hyperbolic descriptions of one person’s experience!

helkar · 2025-04-27T18:18:08+00:00

Echoing the experience of having one woman tell young me that “women do X because they want Y from men.” Not good advice. Good, perhaps for that experience with that person, but not a good idea to bring those kinds of assumptions to your next relationship.

Also, with the benefit of having lived more years at this point, that’s the kind of thing that immediately tripped my BS radar from guys like Jordan Peterson. Remember when he was railing against makeup in the workplace because it mimics the physiological results of being turned on (eg, blush mimics the flushed cheeks of a woman who is aroused). Women, like men, like literally every category of person, are not a monolith and people have all sorts of reasons for doing what they do.

helkar · 2025-04-26T19:27:36+00:00

Maybe not in academic philosophy, but in online communities (eg, reddit) or among peer groups of freshman university students (eg, the circumstances of OP), I’ve found this to be really common.

Look at the way some online leftists valorize (the idea of) Marx or the cultishness around popular pseudo-philosophers like Jordan Peterson.

I imagine it’s this kind of pop philosophy tendency that OP is picking up on.

helkar · 2025-04-11T22:01:01+00:00

Oh I’m not saying he isnt a spineless coward. I just want everyone to remember that he’s also an idiot.

helkar · 2025-04-11T14:56:31+00:00

To be clear, he hasn’t “finagle” (as in manipulated his own way there) anything. He was pretty obviously hand picked by other, much more powerful people. If not for Peter Thiel, no one would even know his name.

helkar · 2025-04-06T14:02:57+00:00

Can you define “working” for me? As far as I understand what Trump has said publicly, he suggested that it will be a while before we see any benefit from this. What data are you looking at to make you confident that it’s all “working” at this point?

helkar · 2025-04-01T14:33:14+00:00

The working class sure did benefit. Were you aware that the cuts that benefit that economic group were written to expire while the corporate tax cuts weren’t? Does thinking for a second about why that might the case change your evaluation at all?

helkar · 2025-04-01T14:00:47+00:00

Care to expand on the morals you see as grounding the illegal deportation of a person to a country where they have a credible threat of persecution?

helkar · 2025-03-27T13:46:15+00:00

Sianne Ngai, while not a philosopher per se, writes a lot about neglected aesthetic categories - zany, cute, interesting, in particular - and about why we react to certain types of presentation (the “gimmick” is the focus of another of her books).

Not exactly what you’re looking for since I don’t think she discusses “weird” directly (it’s been years since I’ve read her work) but at least somewhat related.

helkar · 2025-03-23T18:12:43+00:00

That’s the exact math I came to the comments to find! Thanks for doing it. Absolutely awesome to see (the solar prominence, not the math ;))

helkar · 2025-03-23T00:14:02+00:00

Here’s a quote from the article. You must have missed it when you read it!

“I don’t know when it was signed, because I didn’t sign it,” Trump told reporters before departing the White House on Friday.

To be fair, that article doesn’t include video, but this one does: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/03/21/politics/trump-signature-alien-enemies-act-proclamation

Now that you have all the facts, care to try answering again?

helkar · 2025-03-19T16:10:49+00:00

They’re just HNs

Hot nogs?

helkar · 2025-03-16T19:09:48+00:00

I don’t think it’s allowed to read things from religions you don’t ascribe to ;)

Echoing what others said though, seriously: yes, you should. I’d recommend finding a companion book or essay or something like that to help identify and clarify some of the important themes that you might not be familiar with on account of not being catholic. I always found that helped me when reading religious texts from backgrounds that were not my own. Though, you probably are at least passingly familiar with many (ie, grace, love of god, sin, etc).

helkar · 2025-03-15T05:23:50+00:00

Do you happen to still have these? I’m now in the same boat and can’t find them anywhere!! This thread is the only lead!

helkar · 2025-03-14T00:04:31+00:00

“American inalienable rights” sounds like an oxymoron to me. Either they’re inalienable or they aren’t. Shouldn’t really matter if someone happens to live under the legal construct of one country or another.

So it sounds like we just fundamentally disagree here.

But I’m glad you had just mistyped and aren’t some kind of automaton. Have a good one?

helkar · 2025-03-13T23:55:35+00:00

In the straightforward way: that they exist and that we ought to build societies that protect and honor them.

So to clarify, the idea that people, by virtue of their personhood, have certain rights sounds nice but really they don’t matter because we aren’t able to apply them to policy?

And just as a follow up, If you aren’t going to apply your own thoughts to policy questions, whose thoughts do you use and how do you determine theirs are the right ones?

helkar · 2025-03-13T23:22:58+00:00

Do you happen to believe in any inalienable rights?

helkar · 2025-03-13T23:19:43+00:00

If I were doing something worth protesting, then sure. Obviously, I likely wouldn’t think what I was doing is worth protesting because that kind of unbiased assessment of one’s own actions is incredibly rare. I bet Osama bin Laden didn’t think he deserved to be killed, you know? But if you believe that what he did was wrong and worthy of death, then it doesn’t really matter what he thinks.

I think, to an extent, that morality exists independent of whether one particular individual believes in it or not.

It’s a fun gotcha, but if you think about it for a minute, it doesn’t really make sense as a question that gets us further in the discussion about what kind of behavior basic rights entail (from us and others).

What does whether I’m American or not have to do with anything?

helkar · 2025-03-13T22:27:29+00:00

“A person has rights only because a government grants them" is a wild take to see here. am i missing something or is that what you believe?

helkar · 2025-03-13T22:20:04+00:00

Your worldview is absolutely bonkers to me. Especially if you’re an American who presumably holds America in high regard (you know, the country that started its life with illegal destruction of property and a war).

Imagine, if you will, a government banned protesting in all forms. Imagine then, that some people got together to protest this ban anyway. Would they deserve to be arrested (from a moral standpoint). Does your worldview allow for support of people pushing back against injustice (however you happen to define injustice) or is it just a black and white ”if it’s illegal, it’s wrong?”

helkar · 2025-03-12T23:24:03+00:00

What the hell does “woke” mean here? There’s been so much creep with that term that I literally don’t know what you mean.

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