Those are high performance mountain bikes with carbon fiber frames, top of the line components, carbon wheels. This is an aluminum city commuter and 4.5k is at the high end of that class of ebike.
With all due respect, observing a lack of consistency usually means that a "hidden variable" remains to be discovered. Perhaps if we take a holistic view of recent SCOTUS decisions, we could apprehend a hidden variable or two.
I conjecture that conservative culture war topics are the hidden variable(s) and that the Roberts Court is forcing a conservative view on all these issues, whether there's a constitutional, logical, or precedent reason or not.
what!? conversion therapy does not work. if you, your child, and your doctor all agree that the best thing for them is a lobotomy, should that be allowed?
is there evidence that puberty blockers work? IIRC the original report is the only one that reported an effect and subsequent studies done more carefully show no net effect more than potential selection bias and plenty of physiological repercussions
anecdotally, my trans friends who took puberty blockers and eventually started hormones are happier for it, and my trans friend who was sent to conversion therapy jumped in front of a train (and lived, and is well now).
the literature is relatively sparse on puberty blockers, though. i found a review [0] which is inconclusive, but points to better psychosocial outcomes at the expensive of factors such as bone density and emotional stability.
i do think it's crucial to point out that the dichotomy is not "puberty blockers vs. nothing", but "puberty blockers vs. gender dysphoria". i recently read a piece about the extremely poor treatment of an SRS patient, who reflected 10 years later and claimed she'd still go through the treatment to have had the surgery, as she would likely not be here otherwise. the description of the surgery frankly made me dizzy with unease (and i work in the surgical OR). it's a sensation i imagine is not at all unfamiliar to trans people. as i understand it, they are born with this unwanted operation performed in advance, and live through this, and eventually an unwanted puberty.
the issue is then, how do we alleviate this? conversion therapy is conclusively, not an answer. puberty blockers are inconclusive, from what i understand, but the research which has been performed points to lower suicide attempt rates among trans kids.
Oh the better take is “my medically trained and board certified doctor says my kid needs a medical procedure but some 80 year old state congressman who needs his grandkids to unlock is iPhone says I shouldn’t, so I won’t”
No medically trained and board certified doctor that isn’t driven more by their hypocritical convictions than their Hypocratic oath has ever said a kid should be forced to engage in heterosexual activity against their will.
If you have found a non-trained and never certified or licensed effectively voodoo practitioner willing to make that sort of utterly immoral and malign recommendation, then you’ve sought them out because you’re just as or more delusional than they are.
> Oh the better take is “my medically trained and board certified doctor says my kid needs a medical procedure but some 80 year old state congressman who needs his grandkids to unlock is iPhone says I shouldn’t, so I won’t”
I was specifically addressing the “medically trained and board certified doctor”, and you’re coming back at me with an LPC… an LPC is many things, but three things they almost never are are a) medically trained, b) certified by any medical board, or c) a medical doctor. Except in the most lunatic of states they are neither qualified to, nor legally allowed to, prescribe any medical treatment or intervention, they can only provide (in this case, bad and entirely unhelpful) psychotherapy.
Lastly, if you, your child, and your “doctor” all agree that “pray the gay away” is a good idea, you and your “doctor” are both completely delusional and guilty of child abuse, while your child is absolutely a victim of that abuse.
You’re getting very confused about this thread. That medically trained comment was in reference to a hypothetical situation laid out by some other commenter in which a doctor recommends a lobotomy.
If in this hypothetical world where a trained and certified doctor recommends a lobotomy, then it should be your right as a human to take that medical advice and apply it as you see fit. Some legislator with nearly zero medical training and a political agenda should not decide what is or is not medically acceptable.
Bringing it back to the real world: the same legal framework that blocks conversion therapy is the same legal framework that blocks hormone treatment. Whether I like it or not, I don’t think the government should decide what treatments we are allowed to have. I should be able to choose my doctor (even if you think they’re a shitty doctor) and take their medical advice. You should be able to choose your doctor (even if I think they’re a shitty doctor) and take their medical advice.
Feel free to replace the word “doctor” with “counselor” or with “priest” or with “accountant”; then replace “medical advice” with “therapeutic treatment” or with “religious guidance” or with “financial advice”.
All these professions (except priest) have some credential requirement with a bar roughly equivalent to the amount of damage they can do. If we as a society have agreed to their credential, we should be free to take their advice.
Hold yourself in the top of the push up position then as slowly as you can drop into the lower position with your chest on the floor. The slower the better. When you’re on the floor, reset and go again.
Do 10 in the morning and 10 at night for 2 weeks and I guarantee you will be able to do at least one real push up.
Budget resolutions require 60 votes to pass, so they really can’t. But they know that and their refusal to negotiate is blocking it. Dems are doing what’s best for their constituents by not voting for a budget that would skyrocket healthcare costs for millions of Americans. Meanwhile the GOP is spreading misinformation that Dems want to fund healthcare for illegal immigrants, who have NEVER been eligible for it.
Budget resolutions for quite some time have used the reconciliation process, which only requires a simple majority (but imposes some restrictions). The problem is that they shoved through the “OBBBA” using the process intended for the budget, and now it’s no longer available. You can only use the process once per year per subject (spending, revenue, debt limit), and the OBBBA used up all three.
They need 50 + Vance. They can change the rules for the funding vote to only require a simple majority, they've elected not to. If they did this, the shutdown would be over. Alternatively, since they're just 5 Democratic votes away they could have offered some compromise to sway a few more Democrats than they got (they only got two so far). They don't need to win the entire party over, just enough.
not true, they do not have a super majority in the Senate and need a handful of Democrats to vote with them to achieve the 60 votes they need.
that said, somehow the Democrats always find Republicans to compromise with them when they have a simple majority, so I do not know why it is so hard for the Republicans to soften their demands enough to peel off some moderates to vote with them
Because they’re in a cult. I mean this as an actual functional explanation. Compromise in the modern GOP is seen as disloyalty and you will immediately come into the crosshairs of literally the biggest bully on the planet and his hordes of enablers.
Isn’t promoting/removing opinions you care about a form of speech?
If I choose to put a Kamala sign in my yard and not a Trump sign, that’s an expression of free speech.
If the marketing company I own decides to not work for causes I don’t personally support, that’s free speech.
If the video hosting platform I’m CEO of doesn’t host unfounded anti-vax content because I think it’s a bad business move, is that not also free speech?
The crux of this is a shift in context (φρόνησις) where-in entities like marketing companies or video hosting platforms are treated like moral agents which act in the same manner as individuals. We can overcome this dilemma by clarifying that generally, "individuals with the power to direct or control the speech of others run the risk of gross oppression by being more liberal with a right to control or stifle rather than erring on the side of propagating a culture of free expression whether this power is derived from legitimate political ascension or the concentration of capital."
In short-- no. Your right is to positively assert, "Trump sign" not, "excludes all other signs as a comparative right" even though this is a practical consequence of supporting one candidate and not others. "Owning a marketing company" means that you most hold to industrial and businesss ethics in order to do business in a common economic space. Being the CEO of any company that serves the democratic public means that one's ethical obligations must reflect the democratic sentiment of the public. It used to be that, "capitalism" or, "economic liberalism" meant that the dollars and eyeballs would go elsewhere as a basic bottom line for the realization of the ethical sentiment of the nation-state. This becomes less likely under conditions of monopoly and autocracy. The truth is that Section 230 created a nightmare. If internet platforms are now ubiquitous and well-developed aren't the protections realized under S230 now obsolete?
It would be neat if somebody did, "you can put any sign in my yard to promote any political cause unless it is specifically X/Trump/whatever." That would constitute a unique form of exclusionary free speech.
> Being the CEO of any company that serves the democratic public means that one's ethical obligations must reflect the democratic sentiment of the public.
How does one determine the democratic sentiment of the public, especially a public that is pretty evenly ideologically split? Seems fraught with personal interpretation (which is arguably another form of free speech.)
Let's think pragmatically and think of, "democracy" as a way of living which seeks to maximize human felicity and minimize human cruelty. In a fair society there would be/is a consensus that at a basic level our social contract is legitimized by these commitments to that. The issue stems from splitting hairs about what human felicity constitutes. This can be resolved as recognizing that some dignified splitting of these hairs is a necessary component of that felicity. This presents in our society as the public discourse and the contingent but distinct values of communities in their efforts to realize themselves.
I'm reminded of that old line by Tolstoy-- something like, "happy families are all happy for precisely the same reasons; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." The point from an Adam Smith perspective is that healthy societies might all end up tending toward the same end by widely different means: Chinese communists might achieve superior cooperation and the realization of their values as, "the good life" by means dissimilar to the Quaker or the African tribesperson. The trick is seeing that the plurality of living forms and their competing values is not a hinderance to cooperation and mutual well-being but an opportunity for extended and renewed discourses about, "what we would like to be as creatures."
Maybe it’s ok if it was an independent business decision but I’m not saying Youtube’s was or wasn’t.
It’s a problem especially if there is a direct or implied threat to use the powers of the government to impact a business if the government is acting counter to the first amendment. This is essentially the government causing the outcome, not a business using its free speech after an independent business decision.
One could argue a business might come to a decision to pull content the government doesn’t like independently without coercion if they had an antitrust case pending with the DOJ. There’s probably a line here where the government needs to act in a specific way to threaten to make it coercion. Maybe the line was crossed in YT’s case?
On all of these cases I come to the conclusion there needs to be separation of powers on some of these executive branch actions. I’m not sure how to do it something is needed to protect individual rights from executive overreach (regardless of which party is in power).
Have you seen the emails the Biden Administration sent to Youtube? Here is a quote verbatim that they sent to Youtube:
> we want to be sure that you have a handle on vaccine hesitancy generally and are working toward making the problem better. This is a concern that is shared at the highest (and I mean highest) levels of the White House
Saying you want to make sure they will censor these videos is a threat, and then they said that Biden was behind this to add legitimacy to the threat.
If it was just a friendly greeting why would they threaten youtube with Bidens name? If youtube did this willingly there would be no need to write such a threatening message saying they want to make sure Youtube censors these.
And if you don't see that as a threat, imagine someone in the trump administration sent that, do you still think its not a threat? Of course its a threat, it makes no sense to write that way otherwise, you would just say you wanted to hear how it goes not say you wanna make sure they do this specific thing and threaten them with the presidents powers.
>And if you don't see that as a threat, imagine someone in the trump administration sent that, do you still think its not a threat?
We don't need to imagine anything. The chair of the FCC publicly threatened ABC over Kimmel. This morning Trump posted a direct threat of government reprisals if they didn't fire a comedian over a joke he doesnt like.
Nothing vague or implied about it. Just the government of the United States directly threatening free speech
Thank you for providing this report that had a conclusion before the investigation even started.
Fortunately, the Trump administration has given us an example of what a threat and coercion actually looks like. They declared exactly the action they would take if they did not get their preferred outcome and it’s clearly politically motivated.
That’s quite a bit different than we’re concerned about this misinformation and would like you to do something about it.
I think a reasonable and nuanced debate can be had on whether or not that was appropriate, but there is a difference.
> I think a reasonable and nuanced debate can be had on whether or not that was appropriate, but there is a difference.
I very much agree. It's reasonable to ask if the Biden admin overstepped their boundaries by politely asking if Youtube would help them stop people from murdering each other with disinformation and trying to overthrow the government.
I think the current situation is much less debatable. The government is now issuing ultimatums and very publicly threatening corporations to stifle free speech.
I hope to see the anti-government hosts before they're let go. The channels I've tried so far only seem to have boring old anti-corruption, anti-abuse of power and anti-treating groups of people as less than human hosts.
You use terms (other as well) like, "own, is the CEO of, and the owner of" and this speaks to the ironically illiberal shift we've seen in contemporary politics. Historically one needed to justify, "why" some person is put into a position of authority or power-- now as a result of the Randroid Neoliberal Assault™ it's taken for granted that if, "John Galt assumed a position of power that he has a right to exercise his personal will even at the behest of who he serves or at the behest of ethics" as an extension of, "the rights of the individual."
I want to recapitulate this sentiment as often and as widely as possible-- Rand and her cronies know as much about virtue, freedom, and Aristotle as they do about fornicating; not much.
It'd be a good zinger, except isn't it commonly known that Rand had an affair with her lead follower, and basically announced to her husband and her lover's wife that they were in open marriages from then on? It seems like fornicating was one thing she did know about.
I appreciate your appreciation here. I live in place where they recently named a local private school, "Anthem School for Excellence" and usually when I'm talking Rand it's out of sheer terror. Thanks for lightening the mood!
My trick lately has been to allow myself to do nothing.
If I don’t want to do the task, that’s fine. I’m allowed to sit at my desk and do exactly nothing for as long as I want. No hackernews, no snack breaks, no bill paying, no online shopping, etc. I just sit there and do nothing.
Eventually the thing I need to do becomes the most interesting thing in my orbit and I do it. Sometimes I sit there for 15 minutes doing nothing before the task I don’t want to do becomes interesting enough.
That sounds like a great way to limit the procrastination for many things while at the same time include a bit of mindfulness (i.e. sitting still with your thoughts).
This sounds very much like the first steps towards a mindfulness practice. Which will probably be good for many aspects of your life, but not necessarily procrastination, as doing (and thinking) nothing becomes a goal in itself.
It doesn’t matter how capable, efficient, affordable, powerful, etc. the truck is. That’s not the point.
The point of a truck for 90% of American pickup truck drivers is that it signals to the world around them what team they’re on. This truck is a signal for the wrong team.
This is a good illustration of what's wrong with American not politics, but, I'd say, psyche. Every little (an not so little, like a truck) thing is used to signal allegiance to one of the two irreconcilable warring factions. No union, no values, no common cause, just us vs them, doubtless virtue vs doubtless vice.
It's really, really disheartening to see; not in the parent comment, but generally in life.
I wish an electric truck could alleviate even a small bit of that.
“A company that makes normal bikes for normal people in normal clothes who want to enjoy the outdoors in a completely normal way”
I sorta disagree. The new geometry, the new clothing, the new suspension and drivetrain tec is what has allowed “normal” people to get into the very difficult and dangerous sport of mountain biking.
The people mountain biking on old school geo rigid frames in the 90s were extreme sport thrill seekers. The new tec has lowered the skill bar of entry (although not the price bar) so many more “normal” people can enjoy the sport.
