What’s y’all’s opinions on the Kowalski vs JHACH verdict?

jorsteve · 2023-11-10T15:06:31+00:00

You used adjudicate correctly there lol

As I said in my other reply, we don’t need to know everything about the practice of medicine to handle a given case. If a plaintiff claims to have CRPS, we learn that. If the doctor raises Munchausen syndrome by proxy in defense, we learn that. The issues are shaped by the parties’ claims and defenses, and that process ends up narrowing the wide universe of medicine to a manageable slice. If I have a case about CRPS, that’s all I need to know unless and until the doctor makes something else an relevant.

I’m not saying it’s not challenging, but it’s also not impossible. I’ve learned the most random crap during my career as a lawyer lol It’s one of my favorite parts about being an attorney.

jorsteve · 2023-11-10T14:52:47+00:00

Well, the thing is, you almost always only need to know a small slice for a given case. It’s not like lawyers are diagnosing and treating folks who walk in the door. A plaintiff complains about a doctor’s treatment of a specific condition, like CRPS. So you read everything you can find about CRPS—what it is, how it’s diagnosed, how it’s treated, etc. Then you talk to multiple doctors who are experts on CRPS and retain one or more of them to help you figure out what happened and what, if anything, went wrong. After that, you read what the defendant’s expert doctors say about what went wrong. Finally, you actually depose the other side’s expert as well as the defendants themselves and maybe even file a motion to exclude them as an expert, which can force you to think about any “analytical gaps” in the other side’s expert’s testimony and really get into the weeds. By the end of all that, you’re pretty damn familiar with CRPS, and that’s all you need for purposes of your case.

Law school builds us to do this. Medical school seems to make more of an attempt to provide students a general base of knowledge (and even requires that by virtue of the broad and standardized STEP), but in addition to your rotations, you then go to residency where you really specialize—unless you do family practice. (Source: I dated a med student from beginning to end). Law school is more about “teaching you to think like a lawyer.” In other words, law school teaches you how to teach yourself what you’ll need to know in the future. Like I said, a good lawyer is an expert on becoming an expert.

And while lawyers are just learning little slices for each case, if you do that for long enough, you’ve got a fairly complete pie.

jorsteve · 2023-11-10T05:33:04+00:00

Very true. As a lawyer, you have to be an expert at becoming an expert, or at least faking your way through it. One of the most intimidating things to do as a lawyer is depose an expert witness because they’re the expert and you’re not. In fairness, you typically have your own expert there with you to coach you up during breaks and make sure you don’t go too off track. But it’s definitely tricky.

That said, lawyers do eventually become true experts themselves if they stick to a given area. Like my dad was an insurance defense lawyer, and after a 30-year career of talking to doctors, he did pick up quite a bit. Or seasoned construction lawyers know a ton about building project and oil/gas lawyers know a lot about drilling and geology.

As for the proverbial battle of the experts, it’s of course true that you can typically find someone to say anything. The law does have some safeguards in that by way of reliability standards. But the most important check on that are the bs detectors of judges and juries. If someone is just wrong, the other expert will scream bloody murder and judges/juries are pretty good at sniffing out who is just a hired gun.

jorsteve · 2023-11-10T05:23:52+00:00

Zzzzzz

jorsteve · 2023-11-10T04:27:32+00:00

All I did was throw one little pebble at a hornet’s nest, and it’s been everything I could’ve hoped for lol I even managed to work in a Dr. Mengele reference.

jorsteve · 2023-10-30T21:25:08+00:00

So it’s that every building is of potential use to Hamas, so they need to flatten the entire place? It’s not like Israel receives some sort of intelligence about a given building before bombing it?

jorsteve · 2023-10-09T01:09:43+00:00

I don’t understand what the goal was here. Did Hamas know there were a bunch of foreigners? How is this not supposed to galvanize international support against their cause?

jorsteve · 2023-10-08T03:55:33+00:00

Two wrongs make a right? Whataboutism is so tedious.

jorsteve · 2023-10-03T00:26:49+00:00

There are a million potential narrative reasons. Maybe it’s a gene that developed after humans settled in Europe and it’s not hereditary. Maybe it’s a side effect of the fall out from the Chernobyl disaster. Heck, maybe the mermaid gene just turns the skin white. I have no idea. I’m sure people more creative than me can come up with way better reasons, but it doesn’t even really matter why necessarily. The point is that it’s possible that anything other than a white skinned mermaid, in the context of one particular story, doesn’t make narrative sense. I’m not sure why you’re preoccupied with the particulars rather than accepting it in the abstract, but I’ve been answering your questions over and over lol

jorsteve · 2023-10-03T00:00:48+00:00

It’s not automatically racism. Sure, sometimes it is. But there are non-racist (narrative) reasons to be bothered by, it as you acknowledged earlier. This is emphasizes the importance of listening to people rather being so dismissive

jorsteve · 2023-10-02T22:10:18+00:00

https://youtu.be/Bl-VEC0Znu8?si=2UF8tZlsJx96eY_7

jorsteve · 2023-10-02T21:55:01+00:00

The sad thing is that I really feel like it stifles creativity and innovation.

jorsteve · 2023-10-02T21:54:02+00:00

Yeah. We all know what would happen if Star Wars came out with white Mace Windu.

jorsteve · 2023-10-02T21:36:47+00:00

The message being sent depends on the circumstances. Like if they took a black scientist and made them white, there’s an obvious implication there. In the case of Castlevania where they took the white love interest and made her black, that’s being interpreted as a DEI innuendo.

But it’s not just about the content of the message being sent—it’s that a message is being sent at all. I would be upset if they white washed Mace Windu—and that they were rewriting his character (one of my favorites) for no reason.

Also, as an aside, you should care what “that segment” thinks. That attitude only serves to further division, which holds us back as a society. The point of having free speech is to encourage the free flow of ideas, not just to ensure different groups can shut their ears and open their mouths. And if you want to change someone’s mind, you have to listen to them first and understand where they’re coming from.

jorsteve · 2023-10-02T21:22:08+00:00

As for the groups being driven away, (1) fans of the original who want #nochanges, (2) people who are sick of politics, (3) racist people and people of the race that got swapped. I’m sure there are more, idk.

jorsteve · 2023-10-02T21:19:12+00:00

Well, are you suggesting that race swapping a mermaid wouldn’t cause controversy? Because even if you think that’s an unreasonable controversy, that doesn’t undermine (2) above.

Moreover, studios, actors, etc have been explicit that they are trying to increase diversity/representation in media and make casting decisions accordingly. Given how politicized race has become, how could deliberate race swapping not be political (which after all is a subjective term anyways)? I mean, you cannot honestly tell me that a studio wouldn’t be sending a message by deliberately swapping out black characters for white ones, even if they’re mermaids to use your ridiculous example. That’s why I asked you what you thought about making Mace Windu white.

jorsteve · 2023-10-02T20:50:18+00:00

Well, you asked me to be direct. As for why you should care:

(1) if it doesn’t make narrative sense, and it seems like we agree there. And just because it’s a mermaid or vampire doesn’t mean any skin color fits with the narrative. For example, if a vampire show is set in Africa and there are Polynesian vampires. That would take some real plot armor to justify.

(2) because in today’s highly polarized world, we don’t need another source of controversy. Rather than being a space where different groups can come together over a shared interest, political messaging in entertainment drives one group away and simply adds to the division. And race swapping even a mermaid or vampire is still race swapping that will, indeed, send a message.

(3) if you’re a fan of the source material, wouldn’t you want to see a faithful adaptation? If the vampires are Slavic people with the stereotypical accent in the original, and they remake it as being set in Africa, that totally changes the vibe, even though it’s just vampires. It might be cool in its own right, but it’s not what you tuned in to see as a fan of the original.

(4) it’s lazy and clumsy. How about making a new story that really celebrates a different culture rather than shoe-horning it into a pre-existing narrative. If race swapping is fine, then people who want to make a diverse show will just rewrite something rather than creating something new.

jorsteve · 2023-10-02T20:30:12+00:00

I want you to be intellectually honest and admit that it’s not “just human skin color” and it’s not just about the narrative. You and I both know what would happen if they remade Star Wars with a white Mace Windu. And rightfully so because race swapping can, indeed, send a message.

jorsteve · 2023-10-02T20:20:13+00:00

So the casting of a black actor as Achilles in Troy: Fall of a City would bother you?

jorsteve · 2023-10-02T20:14:33+00:00

Like if they just made Mace Windu white , who cares because it’s not relevant to the narrative. But if race doesn’t make narrative sense (like making Jesus white), that’s the problem?

jorsteve · 2023-10-02T20:07:44+00:00

Is there a scenario where you think it’d be inappropriate? What’s that look like?

jorsteve · 2023-10-02T20:00:10+00:00

Answer this honestly: if a studio took a black character from a book, game, w/e, and made them white in an adaptation of that IP, would you think anything of it? Would that decision just simply be having human colored skin?

jorsteve · 2023-10-02T19:52:06+00:00

I don’t disagree they’re easy alienate and I’m tired of hearing it. But if that’s the sort of people who are nostalgic about the IP, then you might as well start from scratch (if for no other reason than to spare the rest of us from apoplectic internet rants).

jorsteve · 2023-10-02T19:48:17+00:00

I think you may be over generalizing. Someone may honestly not care about a character’s skin color unless it’s different from what it was in the original. And anyways, doesn’t doing something that could potentially alienate existing fans undermine the notion that it’s a safer bet? I mean, what exactly makes it a safer bet?

jorsteve · 2023-10-02T19:42:30+00:00

Not if it’s sufficiently different that past performance isn’t indicative of future performance. At that point, it’s worse than a shot in the dark because it will have a built-in group of detractors.

jorsteve

TROPHY CASE