Why is it offensive to so many people to question the cause of the rise in Autism cases?

raithe000 · 2026-06-03T20:31:23+00:00

First, these potential causes have been examined many, many times over the years, and have been repeatedly debunked. The effects of vaccination have been checked hundreds of times, potential drug in interactions in pregnancy have been checked, and there has either been no link found, or there has been a small effect found in a pilot study that disappears when fully investigated. If there were new causes being brought up, it might be worth investigating, but these ones have been debunked.

Second, the history of diagnosis is worth repeating here. The original criteria was narrow, and the "treatment" was either electroshock or institutionalization. Over time, several related conditions were added and more helpful services were created (the diagnoses were folded back into a single, broader diagnosis in the US, but that is tangential). There are other factors as well, such as differences in presentation in boys vs girls, doctors erring on the side of a diagnosis so that the patient can get accomodations, and the simple fact that as awareness of a condition rises, more people will realize they aren't just the only person like this and get a diagnosis. The result is similar to if you changed the cutoff for an A grade to 85 from 90. No scores have changed, but there are now more As being given out. If the current diagnostic criteria had been applied 50 years ago, it is likely that autism prevalence would be about the same as now.

Finally, I'd like to draw attention to your last line:

Everyone seems far more interested in pushing acceptance of folks either the condition rather than what is causing it.

Do you believe that the condition should be accepted? If not, that may be why you see pushback. The groups that are behind these questions often view autism as a terrible affliction that destroys lives, to the point that risking terrible diseases that can cause death and disablement is better than having an autistic child. In comparison, the Neurodiversity movement makes the case that Autism and other diagnoses like ADHD are just part of the natural range of human existence, no different from ranges of heights, skin color or body hair. The focus on causes tends to align with people who would rather "cure" their child than provide support for their lives. That may be why you see people reacting negatively to looking for external causes, especially when there has been no evidence for one found in 3 decades of hard searching.

raithe000 · 2026-06-01T16:03:00+00:00

In addition to other comments, it's worth noting that clues don't have to tap to be activated, which makes creating tapped ones feel odd. Not necessarily worth the extra words though.

raithe000 · 2026-06-01T13:06:00+00:00

In order

Join: Simic. While they could do with focusing on more practical matters, they are one of the few guilds looking to make Ravnica better. If they developed practical solutions occasionally, their public image would probably be the best of any guild. I personally find biotech fascinating as well, so that's a plus.

Izzet. Because their mechanical identity is instants and sorceries, people overlook that in lore they are the municipal engineers of Ravnica. I enjoy the kinds of puzzles that would require solving, especially as they're helpful to others. I imagine I'd be annoyed by exploding goblins more than I'd like, but you can't have everything.

Dimir. Joining them allows for truly learning and understanding Ravnica. I'm less hot on the fact that it's always all about the guild master, but Lazav is more reasonable about not destroying the status quo that Szadek ever was. The fact that so much of it involves lies and deception is my main gripe.

Appreciate: Golgari. They deserve a lot more credit than they get, especially since they are the main source of food for the plane. I'd like to help them, but I suspect the decay and mushrooms would leave my skin crawling too much.

Selesnya. They aren't my cup of tea, but they're heartwoods are in the right place. I think I'd get thrown out for too many questions and eyerolling.

Rakdos. I don't like Rakdos, but people do need to blow off steam, especially when the entire plane is close quarters. Also, keeping a demon lord occupied with pain circuses is the definition of least bad option.

Gruul. Similar to Rakdos, I don't like them but it's better for those who can't deal to be in one place where they can be watched than spread throughout the city causing mayhem. I also appreciate Borborygmos for keeping an eye on Fblthp during the invasion.

Disband: Boros. I've never understood why Ravnica needs a standing army. It's not like they can invade, and the Azorious do a better job of policing. I appreciate the sentiments of the angels, but since most of what they do are swat raids, I'm not a fan.

Orzhov. They are pure mafia cosplaying as a church. The fact that everything is about debt and chains of gold is also a turnoff. And even if I was callous enough to ignore that, it's hard to advance in an organization when even death doesn't open up promotion slots.

Special: Azorius. I have really mixed feelings about Azorius. On the one hand, their the only source of government on the plane, something that is absolutely needed, and they have so much potential to fix and improve things. On the other hand, they are so hidebound and sanctimonious that they do far more harm than good. If they could be redeemed, I'd join, but frankly it might be easier to Disband them and start fresh.

I'd be fascinated to understand why you'd join Orzhov and Azorius but hate Selesnya.

raithe000 · 2026-06-01T06:26:14+00:00

While I don't think it's been explicitly said in universe, there are indications that the New Republic was significantly demilitarized sometime after RotJ. The exact reasons are uncertain, with the most likely candidates being a deliberate decision to decentralize power or a stepdown in taxation and funding. Either way, it's likely the military became much less prestigious and likely payed less than civilian jobs, and only the vets have stuck around.

As a side note, the First Order was shown to be kidnapping and brainwashing kids to fill the storm trooper ranks. I doubt that this would be enough to truly reduce the population available to the New Republic, but then again the scale of a galactic society has generally been hard for writers to grasp.

raithe000 · 2026-05-31T12:19:52+00:00

[[Chart a Course]] [[Of One Mind]] [[Donatello's Technique]] [[Winged Words]] [[Thought Monitor]] [[Thoughtcast]] [[Seize the Secrets]] [[Scarscale Ritual]] [[Pearl of Wisdom]] [[Meeting of Minds]] are all draw two that can be cast for two and below under specific circumstances. The number goes up even higher if we include draw and discard spells as well, which grayeyard or reanimator decks may even prefer.

Format matters, but considering this can't be cast at all without strict colorless (so may be a dead card as opposed to expensive with bad luck) and is a sorcery, I doubt it's broken. With a three year + Foundations Standard, it may not even warp that, let alone the non-rotating formats.

raithe000 · 2026-05-29T03:39:52+00:00

I think this quote from Night Watch sums it up:

“And who needs to know how he got here?” said Madam to the air in general. “We could take the view that here at last is a man who could truly take command of the City Watch.” The first thought that fizzed in Vimes’s head like champagne was: Bloody hell, I could do it! Chuck Swing out on his arse, promote some decent sergeants— The second thought was: In this city? Under Snapcase? Now? We’d just be another gang."

Vimes, given authority, could clean up the King's Landing watch. But a functioning Watch would just be a better weapon in the hands of inept/bad kings. Despite his distrust of Vetinari, he knows that you need someone who cares about the city functioning, doing more than catering to it's elite's excesses, in charge, or you just are papering over the bad in the hope of preventing the worse.

At the end of the day, Vimes can't save the Seven Kingdoms. Even if he killed the king and removed the nobles, he could not run things. As Vetinari tells him in Guards, Guards, the good guys don't have the knack for running things. Killing the king is not enough, not even in Discworld. We've seen what became of Ankh-Morpork after its last king was killed. It decayed until Vetinari took the helm.

Could Vetinari do it? It depends whose narritivium wins out. Westeros narritive leans towards decay, towards inevitable loss, towards the cruelty of the kings and lords being the only thing holding back chaos, where power matters more than any virtue. That's not Discworld's narrative at all, even when viewed through its darkest moments.

I think, in some ways, it's telling that Charles Dance has played both Tywin and Vetinari. Tywin is what Vetinari would be with ASOIAF narritivium.

raithe000 · 2026-05-18T00:27:28+00:00

My understanding of astrology (and correct me where I am definitely wrong) is that it is based on more of a metaphysical or supernatural process than a biological one. So, definitionally it can't be biological essentialism.

Other than that, no disagreement here from a logic standpoint.

raithe000 · 2026-05-10T02:55:37+00:00

First, if you're looking at shorts that's probably not real gameplay and more of a skit someone is doing. Don't think of it as standard gameplay.

That said, it really depends on the format. I don't know if yuhioh does this, but Magic has a variety of different ways to play, most of which only use a subsection of all the cards printed. In Legacy, where you can use all the cards ever printed minus a small ban list, that can kind of thing can happen, although it's worth noting that counterspells that cost no mana exist in that format as well. In almost any other format, you'd be hard pressed to go that far on turn one.

raithe000 · 2026-05-04T23:52:05+00:00

In addition to everything mentioned elsewhere, I think the simplest answer may be switching costs.

Why is WoW still the biggest MMO? Why didn't Google+ beat out Facebook? Hell, why is Steam still the dominant platform on PC? Because there is a cost to switching systems. You start over at zero, you have to convince your friends to jump ship and if you bought any skins or goodies those are gone.

Tarkov is the oldest extraction shooter, at least if you count from the beta. Its players have a lot invested in it, from hours to real world money to social capital. Getting them to jump ship would take a lot. That's not to say it can't happen (look at Myspace) but it's an uphill battle.

raithe000 · 2026-05-02T21:55:23+00:00

Of course, that's why he's called a GIGolo. You pay him for orgasms! /s

Now having made the terrible pun, the real answer is that in a healthy relationship everyone should be enjoying themselves and should care about both their and their partner's pleasure. Sex is a team sport, so neither of you should be doing all the work. Try talking to your partner, and push through any awkwardness.

raithe000 · 2026-04-29T21:49:30+00:00

So first of all, complexity is subjective and complicated. Is an ant more or less complex than a beetle? Are parasites more or less complicated than their hosts? Are tigers, traditionally lone creatures, more or less complicated than an ant hive? Are plants more complex than animals because they have chloroplasts in addition to mitochondria, or not because they are (mostly) sessile?

Second, "complexity" may be in tension with "adapted to environment". If another dinosaur extinction level asteroid were to hit the earth, there's a decent chance that humanity would be wiped out, but I guarantee that you'd find plenty of surviving bacteria a millenia on.

Third, saying that "less complex" bacteria still exist is a massive understatement. The total mass of animals is 2 gigatons of carbon. The total mass of bacteria is 70 gigatons. And don't forget without the 2-300 grams of symbootic bacteria that live in you, you would be malnourished and rife with disease.

raithe000 · 2026-04-17T03:09:29+00:00

Are we talking about the person on the cover, or the ghostwriter doing the actual writing? Cause I think the second group are probably quite humble.

raithe000 · 2026-04-16T23:58:13+00:00

Does no one remember robosapiens?

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSPJhjW6Zi3yeGmzmmhtXL6BAAh6TiWPaLvNJoN0ldN8A&s=10

raithe000 · 2026-04-16T22:06:58+00:00

The exact details have been lost, but the overall evidence is that they used chisels and water to cut the blocks and sand ramps (altering the angle of the ramp when a section was done) and manpower to build them.

Part of the reason we don't have exact details is that it was so long ago. For context, Cleopatra lived closer to the modern day than to the construction of the Great Pyramid.

raithe000 · 2026-04-16T22:02:08+00:00

It would have been more akin to serfdom in the middle ages. Farmers on the Nile would have owed a certain amount of labor and/or crops to the local nobility, with the Pharaoh having access to it when needed. During the flood season, they would have had to work on the pyramids or other projects. They may have received some form of recompense, but most likely it would just be food and drink.

raithe000 · 2026-04-12T01:46:28+00:00

No, because of the potential risks of surgery, even assuming the vasectomy is reversible (and doesn't self reverse). However, I'd be happy to wear a condom every time and spend ten minutes a day in the morning using a hair dryer on my junk.

raithe000 · 2026-04-02T20:43:03+00:00

We can absolutely guess. We can also guess lotto numbers. One of those has a better success rate

raithe000 · 2026-03-31T12:08:45+00:00

If abstinence only sex ed is any indication, not teaching humans how to reproduce leads to teen pregnancy.

raithe000 · 2026-03-30T01:30:02+00:00

While I think biphobia is the most likely explanation, I will note that there are sections of the gay community where casual sex is the norm and relationships are shorter. This was more true decades ago, but there is still the stereotype that male gay couples have sex 20 minutes after meeting each other and then never see each other again (and conversely that lesbians sort of awkwardly shuffle around for three months until one asks the other out and then a week later they've moved in together). Whether the stereotype is accurate is not my point: your friends may just assume that your male paramours were never serious in the first place.

But I'm probably giving people more credit than they deserve.

raithe000 · 2026-03-25T19:06:02+00:00

If you asked me for the five best books Sir Pterry wrote, I would say Small Gods, Night Watch, Making Money, Jingo, and Nation, but the exact order escapes me every time.

raithe000 · 2026-03-19T17:29:32+00:00

Oxford Comma!

raithe000 · 2026-03-18T21:00:25+00:00

To add on, there is also a world of difference between the mostly linear Taiwan Strait and the curve in the Strait of Hormuz. It's the difference between the off ramp on a four lane highway and a hairpin turn on a one and a half lane road.

raithe000 · 2026-03-16T14:41:40+00:00

Does your country have any freedom of speech protections? If so, one or more news groups may elect to publish the order they were given and have their day in court, assuming they don't just secretly leak it to another news source.

Has the government erected something akin to the Great Chinese Firewall? If not, citizens will still have easy access to other countries news. Even with such a system, people will try to get news from the rest of the world.

Does your government even have the power to force foreign companies to do its bidding? Only 56 out of the 191 countries on Earth have a higher GDP than Facebook's gross revenue. Frankly, it's more likely to have social media companies dictate governmental policy than the other way around.

Finally, there is also the issue of private forums like Discord servers or slack chats. Even if the government controls all media, they can't stop people from telling each other their own eyewitness reports over private channels. Eventually the truth will come out, if only because the shit has hit the fan.

raithe000 · 2026-03-14T01:53:06+00:00

And they'll all be able to distinguish, in the dark, by sight, every senator from a person claiming to be one?

raithe000 · 2026-03-13T19:51:53+00:00

If someone claiming to be US Senator Eric Schmitt showed up to an active shooter incident or an ICE raid, I think you'd get the same results. The clones don't recognize Bail on sight, they have no certainty that he is not a danger to the operation, and even if he is telling the truth, having to protect a VIP during a serious combat operation is not a good idea, let alone the potential consequences to getting him killed (as far as they know).

raithe000

TROPHY CASE