Gaywallet's recent activity
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Comment on What is a non-professional situation, area or activity in which you are uniquely experienced or skilled? in ~talk
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Comment on What is a non-professional situation, area or activity in which you are uniquely experienced or skilled? in ~talk
Gaywallet Link ParentAs confident as I am in my memory, all available evidence shows that eyewitness lineups are simply not very accurate. Even if I thought I was correct, I'd never enter that into court as evidence...If you're ever witness to a small non violent crime you'd be really good at remembering and pointing out the bad guys! You could be that guy in a courtroom shouting "it was this man and this woman!" pointing at them!
As confident as I am in my memory, all available evidence shows that eyewitness lineups are simply not very accurate. Even if I thought I was correct, I'd never enter that into court as evidence out of fear from accusing an innocent individual. Just because I can remember a face very well does not mean that other people with similar faces do not exist, that the time between the crime and the testimony wouldn't degrade my memory, that the pressure of being in a court room and the anxiety of providing evidence towards an innocent individual would affect my ability to make use of my memory, that the stress of the crime itself didn't cause me to remember incorrectly, or that the circumstantial situations of the crime wouldn't reduce my ability to accurately see a person (bad lighting, large distance between perpetrator and myself, etc). In short, on principle I would likely refuse to participate as an eyewitness because I do not trust in it as reliable evidence.
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Comment on Buying facemasks in the hope of avoiding becoming permanently disabled due to long COVID in ~health
Gaywallet LinkI want to be clear that I'm not here to provide a voice counter to your concern. I think masking and doing what you can to stop the spread of any illness, especially COVID, is an altruistic and...I want to be clear that I'm not here to provide a voice counter to your concern. I think masking and doing what you can to stop the spread of any illness, especially COVID, is an altruistic and morally good thing to do, even if it comes from a place of self-concern. With that being said, however, I did want to address the AMA article you linked and the research it references (from Washington) about reinfection and long COVID risks.
The most glaring issue with this paper, and one which unfortunately is not addressed by the authors in the conclusion, is there is no attempt to adjust for patient complexity. People who are less healthy are more likely to get infections, and those with multiple reinfections of COVID may simply be patients who are less healthy. If these patients are less healthy, they're also more likely to suffer from more complex conditions as well as to suffer for a longer period of time after any infection. In general, there's poor control of many factors in this study, which is to be expected of a retrospective done on a large data set. Of note it's mostly elderly men in the data set (~10% female which the authors do note), only includes information from the US Department of Veterans Affairs (does not capture non-VA sources of healthcare, such as urgent care clinics).
All of this is to say that long COVID is still something we don't understand super well and being reinfected with COVID likely does contribute to the overall risk factors of long COVID but may not be a particularly strong contributor. Most studies I've seen on long COVID seem to suggest that other risk factors are likely much more important (pre-existing conditions, such as COPD). But it's hard to classify something we struggle diagnosing in the first place, because without a mechanism of action it's hard to say what might contribute to the creation of this disease state. I say this because I'd like to address this statement you made:
the mainstream scientific community for the prevalence and seriousoness "long COVID" is not reflected in official COVID-19 guidelines
I disagree in that I think the mainstream scientific community has been pushing an appropriate level of risk/caution/warning with regards to the risks of COVID and long COVID. The feeling of a mismatch between their guidelines and your feelings could come from a state of assessing it as a higher risk than the scientists can currently determine, or having a lower risk tolerance than the average person for this particular issue.
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Comment on What is a non-professional situation, area or activity in which you are uniquely experienced or skilled? in ~talk
Gaywallet LinkA few things in no particular order: As far as I know, I never forget a face and in general my memory is superb. My brain is excellent at keeping high level information about people. I'm regularly...A few things in no particular order:
- As far as I know, I never forget a face and in general my memory is superb.
- My brain is excellent at keeping high level information about people. I'm regularly told that I'm great at connecting people which would otherwise not get connected if not for my intervention.
- I'm a bit of a social butterfly or chameleon, finding it easy to drift between social circles and find a place in nearly any circle if I so desire.
- I have an excellent reaction time and outside of writing (never bothered to practice writing with more than one hand) I'm ambidextrous. I was a switch-pitcher in college.
- I've been top ranked in the world in more than a few major video games and generally pick up games quickly. I guess technically speaking this is a professional skill, as I did professionally video game at one point in time.
- I can read people very quickly and accurately in person (note: this is a trauma response).
- I spend a lot of time reading medical and scientific journals across a variety of fields, so I've got a wide breadth of medical and scientific knowledge.
- A lot of folks remark that I'm an excellent cook, but I know close to zero "recipes". My brain vibes a lot more with organizing information like the flavor bible, and I tend to be a very off the cuff kind of chef.
- I have been told that I have an uncanny ability to see both the 10,000 and the 10 ft views - that I can task switch between vision and execution easily.
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Comment on A summer Covid-19 wave in ~health
Gaywallet Link ParentThanks for continuing to engage with and be respectful with your point. I've also been victimized with violence for simply existing. I also don't think we should be advocating for people to die...Thanks for continuing to engage with and be respectful with your point. I've also been victimized with violence for simply existing. I also don't think we should be advocating for people to die because of who they are. I think it's completely reasonable, however, to make a distinction between violence born of hate and violence out of self defense. We make this distinction all the time and we make this distinction across different kinds of violence and other crimes. I think, however, we owe it to everyone to call out this distinction every time if we are to voice an opinion advocating for less or no violence. We must acknowledge that there is fundamentally something especially heinous about hateful violence and we should call it out anytime we are talking about violence and living in a world we want to see.
I'm not a violent person at all. I'm the kind of person who doesn't even kill bugs, I catch and release them. When faced with violence like I have in the past, I don't respond with physical violence. I absolutely abhor hate based violence and I just do not want to be the cause of violence so strongly that I would probably just die rather than violently resist, should the unfortunate occur. But I hate the collapsing of nuance that happens when we advocate against violence- not all violence is equal and we need to acknowledge that when we speak up against violence. There are certain kinds of violence which we are speaking more loudly against and we need to express that. I also worry about how much time gets wasted on discussions like this, when efforts could be better spent speaking out against the much more tangible and real violence being inflicted by the hateful in our daily lives.
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Comment on A summer Covid-19 wave in ~health
Gaywallet (edited )Link ParentI really don't think it's fair to compare the two. Is killing in self defense the same as killing in malice? Is stealing bread because you're hungry the same as stealing bread just for fun? I...I don't want to take away your feelings from you, but I will say that when we adopt their worst elements, even with the best of intentions, I think we normalize them a way that's ultimately harmful.
I really don't think it's fair to compare the two. Is killing in self defense the same as killing in malice? Is stealing bread because you're hungry the same as stealing bread just for fun?
I don't like how quickly the moral purity tests come out on the left whenever anyone holds a different viewpoint. If it's not a moral purity test, it's that someone else isn't interpreting the objective facts well enough, or that their opinion is actually harmful to others. We keep fighting amongst ourselves, when there's a clear much more hostile and problematic group that we're conveniently ignoring when we do this.
Attacking someone for wishing death on the people who are not just wishing, but actively attempting to eliminate people like me seems at best a trivial act, and at worse an act of sabotage. I know you well enough to know your intentions are aligned with mine and therefore not an act of sabotage, but I think we need to recognize that derailing a conversation to conduct a moral purity test on someone for wishing there to be less evil in the world seems really counterproductive.
You talk about violence being normalized, in a country where children can watch movies where people are torn apart. In a country where school shootings are so much the norm that children have to protest about them. In a country where we have, in recent history, had a president who has outright said extremely violent things on stage and was cheered for them. In a country where the president regularly participates in genocide of some group of people. We need to stop acting like someone advocating for violence against violent people is somehow going to normalize violence. Violence is absolutely normal in the US.
As a final note I'd like to point back at the paradox of intolerance. This paradox does not draw a distinction between violent and non-violent acts. We can do our best to avoid escalating the conflict, but I think it's unfair to act like the conflict hasn't already escalated to violent acts - minorities are regularly murdered in the United States for hateful reasons, and those hateful reasons are publicly aired and integrated into the strategic plan of one of the two major parties in the United States. Advocating for violence is already something that is a regular occurrence in US politics; there is no escalation here. More importantly, the voice being shared here is not advocating for violence out of hate, but out of self defense (and arguably it was just sharing a violent thought, not advocating for it). Out of a recognition for the lives that are currently being ended at the hands of hateful individuals. Violence born of hate and violence of self-defense are not the same thing and being defensive is not "taking their horrors and laundering them".
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Six distinct types of depression identified in Stanford Medicine-led study
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Comment on Microsoft laid off a DEI team, and its lead wrote an internal email blasting how DEI is 'no longer business critical' in ~tech
Gaywallet Link ParentOh, absolutely, but DEI is not the only kind of program or team which can exist without being effective. It's not an issue that is specific to DEI. It is fair to point out that DEI is still a new...Oh, absolutely, but DEI is not the only kind of program or team which can exist without being effective. It's not an issue that is specific to DEI. It is fair to point out that DEI is still a new field and many companies just didn't want to be left out of the potential gold rush of opportunities that diversity can bring to a company and don't understand themselves how DEI can be effective let alone increase diversity or employee engagement. I think the authors of that article make a good point, as well, that DEI programs haven't been around long enough to have fine tuned which ideas and executions have the most effect in a company, but unfortunately I'm not sure that research will be able to figure this one out because I suspect a lot of it has to do with how willing the company is to invest in these policies, to remove red tape for these teams, to allow them to advise on internal policies such as hiring practices and to advocate for employees which are currently being suppressed by the system.
In short the entire problem comes down to a combination of culture and buy-in. If you create some DEI positions and hire people into them because you don't want to be left out, but you are still effectively only paying attention to what simple/direct metrics improve your bottom line in the short term and are skeptical of whether DEI is going to do something, chances are your DEI initiative isn't going to work and it may have been a waste of money. Certainly it will seem a waste of money to you because you're likely not capturing second order metrics which affect employee output. Even if you are paying attention to the most commonly observed second order metric of employee engagement, you're likely unable to think outside the lines of what a large firm like Gallup or Workday can easily serve to you and you likely don't have a plan to tailor those programs to make their insights actionable and are likely just instructing your managers to improve their scores which will serve to do nothing but pad your scores and obscure your workforce's actual decreased engagement.
I think the biggest issue with DEI, as it currently exists, is not a reflection of inefficiencies or unknowns about DEI itself so much as it is a reflection of how DEI itself exists as a second order mechanism. That is to say, the difference between an effective DEI program and an ineffective one has less to do with the people and the levers they act on, and more to do with the culture and engagement of the company itself. If your intention is to actually make your workforce more diverse and to respect the wishes and the needs of the employees, DEI will be successful in exactly the same way that having these intentions will just naturally create systems similar to DEI which serve to accomplish the same goals - elevating the voices and concerns of the workers and giving them actual weight (we can see this issue is clear in sentiment polling when you ask workers what they are searching for in a company, in addition to desires to work at a diverse workplace and other issues DEI often focuses on). Other notable and important work of DEI is to recruit and engage cultural groups in the use-case of your business. For example DEI may advocate for community managers who directly interface with communities which your business serves and through listening and prioritizing this communities needs can increase engagement which leads to referrals through word of mouth and existing community organizations. In short, DEI is just a handy way to systematize what naturally flows from an engaged company that cares about the humans involved in the system. It's not necessary for the engagement, but the engagement is necessary for it to be effective.
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Comment on Microsoft laid off a DEI team, and its lead wrote an internal email blasting how DEI is 'no longer business critical' in ~tech
Gaywallet Link ParentBasically all research shows that diverse companies are more profitable, innovate more, make better decisions, are more likely to grow market share, more likely to capture new markets, and attract...as long as that friendship is profitable to them
Basically all research shows that diverse companies are more profitable, innovate more, make better decisions, are more likely to grow market share, more likely to capture new markets, and attract better and more talent. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 It's a bit of an irk of mine when people talk about DEI as not being profitable or justifying something being cut because an executive decided it wasn't making them money because those are objectively incorrect statements, it's just that most business isn't run by purely objective individuals. They cut DEI because they didn't like DEI, not because it was costing them money.
Being profitable is an important part of it, but it also requires leadership who knows how to actually calculate ROI or factor in the ways in which it is profitable. It's not easy quantify soft metrics like "more likely to grow market share" and it's also really easy to write off bad profits as a bad quarter without figuring out why that quarter was worse than other quarters, especially when it's a reflection of worker engagement and sentiment driving productivity (engagement and sentiment are directly influenced by worker diversity and disparities between demographic groups).
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Comment on LGBT and marginalized voices are not welcome on Threads in ~lgbt
Gaywallet Link ParentI don't really have much to add here other than to thank you for spending the time expanding upon your thoughts and make clear your intention. I agree that better measurement would be great, but...I don't really have much to add here other than to thank you for spending the time expanding upon your thoughts and make clear your intention. I agree that better measurement would be great, but it's also really hard to measure on a private platform and especially so when you're a group of queers who likely don't have the kind of resources to do this measurement. I think it would be great to see more researchers focus in on this issue, but unfortunately I think the fact that we see so little of this is a reflection of the incentives in research for them to focus on other issues.
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Comment on LGBT and marginalized voices are not welcome on Threads in ~lgbt
Gaywallet Link ParentI don't think this was your intent, but all you did was question the article with this response and it made me initially wonder if you had simply entered the LGBT community to provide a negative...I don't think this was your intent, but all you did was question the article with this response and it made me initially wonder if you had simply entered the LGBT community to provide a negative opinion. I want to be clear that I'm not attacking you, but as a queer person who has spent a reasonable amount of time in these different spaces, anecdotally I could tell you the author is sharing information on a real problem and anecdotally nearly every queer and minority I know would agree.
This is not an objective measurement, obviously, but to comment only on the lack of objectivity here without providing any additional input or sharing your stance on LGBT folks could be seen as an attack by some, and I think it's important to point out because I believe a lot of what the author is getting at comes from the similar place - that questioning queer folks under the guise of just asking questions or voicing discomfort is generally allowed on many large platforms. Where that line of what's hate speech and what's allowed gets pushed further right generally speaking with bigger platforms (and notably called out here as particularly malicious by meta because they are likely profiting off it), and it's why queer folks have fled many of these larger platforms.
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LGBT and marginalized voices are not welcome on Threads
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Meet Anita Velveeta, the ‘Big Sister’ of the Twin Cities trans music scene
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Comment on u/RNG investigates bitcoin town in ~health
Gaywallet Link ParentJust FYI, most microphones do not record below 20 Hz. I tried digging for more information on the 3 microphones included in a pixel 6 and couldn't find a single document with specs on the...Just FYI, most microphones do not record below 20 Hz. I tried digging for more information on the 3 microphones included in a pixel 6 and couldn't find a single document with specs on the microphone itself. I'd trust anything ~90 Hz+ as that's around where human fundamental frequencies start.
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Comment on Boeing agrees to plead guilty to felony in deal with US Justice Department in ~transport
Gaywallet Link ParentIt only means that they did a more serious crime than a misdemeanor. Generally speaking there are no additional consequences. Some branches of the government will not contract with companies which...It only means that they did a more serious crime than a misdemeanor. Generally speaking there are no additional consequences. Some branches of the government will not contract with companies which have been convicted of a felony within the last x months (HHS, for example, uses 24 months). Convicted companies might lose regulation status from third party regulators or federal regulators, but it's not guaranteed disenfranchisement of particular rights like we see with regards to individuals who are felons.
As with any conviction, the court may impose restrictions as it wishes such as via the use of court-appointed monitors or probationary terms. In this case those terms are to spend a certain amount of money to 'strengthen its compliance and safety programs'. It's possible the detailed terms of this also include a court-appointed monitor or some kind of metric, or simply that they must spend a certain amount of money and the effectiveness of said spending is not assessed.
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Comment on What can be done about the Supreme Court of the United States? in ~misc
Gaywallet Link ParentOption 4- people return to work because they need to eat or pay for housing. In general I agree with your premise and I understand that option 4 could theoretically fit under the way you worded...But ultimately there are basically three ways things would resolve.
Option 4- people return to work because they need to eat or pay for housing.
In general I agree with your premise and I understand that option 4 could theoretically fit under the way you worded option 3, but I think it deserves calling out because the reality is that most folks do not have the luxury to just stop participating in society even if just for a short period of time. Most people do not have this privilege.
The reality is that to get a widespread protest on this level to work is that things need to be so bad that there is no normal to return to. People will tolerate a lot, so long as they have food and shelter. Deprive humans of those and violence is bound to happen.
As an aside I like to regularly participate in direct action on a much more local level and I sit in enough of a place of privilege that I am happy to protest or sit out or otherwise show solidarity in larger scale protests so that they have some kind of teeth. In general I'm disillusioned of the idea of non-violent protests which don't have some kind of teeth - occupying space does nothing, we must deprive those in power of some resource in order to get them to listen.
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The yeses that surprise you: Organizing across the lines of cis and trans
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Comment on "Radical, in a different vein": The "Abundants" and supply-side progressives in ~misc
Gaywallet LinkI think this article captures the sentiment in the US much better than I could have stated. It was clear to me in 2016 that it was an establishment/anti-establishment election. People have been...I think this article captures the sentiment in the US much better than I could have stated. It was clear to me in 2016 that it was an establishment/anti-establishment election. People have been upset at the status quo for a long time - you merely need to look at approval ratings for congress and contrast them to approval ratings for other things like traffic jams or cockroaches. It's clear that people want something different, and I think that's a reflection of the near total gridlock that's existed practically everywhere and the lack of follow-through widely spread throughout government. Framing it as broken government and in particular, broken abundance I think is a smart way to rebrand progressiveness in a way that isn't necessarily left leaning, because political polarization is at an all-time high and single party issues aren't going to fly in the current government.
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Comment on What can be done about the Supreme Court of the United States? in ~misc
Gaywallet Link ParentNot hypothesizing on why they didn't, just pointing out it was obviously more beneficial to not try. I'm not convinced that even if they had the political will that they would have tried - mostly...Not hypothesizing on why they didn't, just pointing out it was obviously more beneficial to not try. I'm not convinced that even if they had the political will that they would have tried - mostly just pointing out that it was and perhaps still is (although that tide may slowly be turning the more cases the SC decides) largely in their favor to maintain the status quo. The SC is a convenient boogeyman right now, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
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Comment on What can be done about the Supreme Court of the United States? in ~misc
Gaywallet Link ParentThey didn't even try. It is clear it is more beneficial to them to leave the state of things how it is for now. Certainly the longer this goes on, the more they can point to it as an issue that...They didn't even try. It is clear it is more beneficial to them to leave the state of things how it is for now. Certainly the longer this goes on, the more they can point to it as an issue that needs solving. The two party system has stronger incentives to maintain the status quo than to actually solve problems.
I'm not sure I understand the hypothetical anymore. Picking someone out of a lineup to be like "they did it" doesn't seem compatible with providing an alibi for someone's innocence without simultaneously accusing someone else.