You’re begging the question. If fluoridation decreases IQ through developmental neurotoxicity, is the lost cognitive capacity in the general population justified by the protection of children with irresponsible parents (who do not enforce eg the brushing of teeth) from the consequences of caries? This is a real moral problem we ought to contend with.
I believe society suffers from lower IQs, and that targeted interventions against childhood caries can be applied effectively without dosing the whole population. Why don’t schools teach toothbrushing? Why not have the school nurse check children’s teeth, or have a dentist come to school periodically?
The point of this article is that the evidence of what you are saying is unconvincing.
Even if it _were_ real science [Note: actual science engages with criticism and can withstand critique], the effect size being claimed is smaller than the margin of error on the tests.
Being a programmer, I know plenty of miserable, incompetent and outright criminal people with high IQs: the idea that IQ alone is something to maximize is just weird eugenics.
The impact of fluoride on actual social outcomes, measured by a double-blind study? That would be interesting. Maybe then we could talk about the ethics of inflicting life-long pain and suffering on children in favor of reducing their risk of unemployment by some small percentage.
What is being put forward right now, though, offers chem trail levels of rigor: it isn't going to be convincing to anyone who doesn't really, REALLY want to believe.
Creative labor is not entitled to the work parent comment is describing. We employ labor because it is beneficial to us, not merely because it exists as an option. Creative labor’s responsibility is to adapt to a changing world and find roles where their labor is not simply produced / exceeded by a computer system.
Practically speaking, the work described would most likely never have been done, rather than been done by an artist if that were the only option - it’s uncommon to employ artists to help with incidental tasks relative to side projects, etc.
Social Security only applies to the first ~$176k of your income (inflation adjusted annually). What percentage of young people are at that income level? This is not young vs old, but the median vs the very wealthy.
Intentional or not, this is a bad misdirection. Young people do not have enough income to tax. Those making half a million or more can bear a sharp increase in their tax burden.
Article 2 says “the executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” That means the power to “enforce laws, manage national affairs, and oversee government agencies.”
It’s Congress’s role to allocate funds to certain purposes, and the President’s to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” including overseeing the bureaucracy that implements them.
The President already has dictatorial power over the bureaucracy, as per the Constitution.
Not over spending, which Elon's seizure of payments infrastructure has made.
Unless you extend it to that, in which case why have courts? Its not like they have enforcement power and the president can stretch discretion to the limit.
* switch from microfiber to e.g bamboo sheets
* donate blood periodically to reduce your body’s load https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2790905
* add a filter to your washing machine to divert microplastics from the wastewater e.g. https://planetcare.org/
There is a real FDA approved therapy called "Total Plasma Exchange" that removes and replaces nearly all of a patient's plasma. It is used to treat autoimmune disorders, certain cancers, and other conditions. Off label, it is gaining popularity in "executive health" and longevity circles as it seems to improve age-related biomarkers and may help slow cognitive decline.
The explanation is that you're throwing away all the hormones, inflammatory factors, toxins, etc floating in the blood and giving you body a chance to "reset" with what it actually wants/needs.
planetcare.org - what a shitty website. Immediately a full screen popup came up to claim a 10% discount or "Nah, rather pay full price" and while I was looking for a closing "x" the next popup asked me to "Wait! ... blah ...". Luckily I found the x for my tab faster and left to never come back.
That Politics of Smell thesis is actually pretty great, I'm sorry you couldn't get past the title. Frankly, dragging Dr. Louks, who's already explained her thesis and how it was written after it blew up in certain online circles, tells me you didn't actually think that deeply on what she was trying to say. Probably means that the Architecture of Whiteness paper is worth a look, though, so thanks for the unintentional recommendation.
You're the one claiming no value - what about those theses makes you think they have no value?
What rebuttal to the works do you have?
Many seemingly useless theses turn out to be prescient and valuable decades or even centuries later. What evidence exists to suggest these won't have long term value?
Services subject to natural monopolies are good candidates for being run cooperatively, by / on behalf of the market participants, so that there is not the incentive to extract rents via market power. Government-run may be practical from e.g. a fundraising perspective, but these services could be run wholly privately as co-ops.
In theory having the government run it should have the same effect. In practice what happens is that voters don't separately elect the utility's board and then the mayor gets elected on the basis of some school or tax issues and allows the government-run utility to become wasteful or corrupt.
What could be interesting is to have the local government found a co-op, i.e. they issue a bond to do the build-out and then hand the network to a co-op in exchange for a contract to pay the debt, essentially giving the co-op the backing of the government's credit rating for the initial build-out. Then the co-op board gets separately elected by its customers so they're directly accountable to the customers for any shenanigans.
Easier said than done these days. We had a coop managing out drinking water with local government support. Being a coop excluded them from grants and eventually the board burnt out and gave up. Local government now operates the thing - you'd think they'd be accountable to voters but they can only get grant money with strings attached. They can repair a few pipes only if they install chlorination that no one wants and will add more maintenance costs because of pressure from health and safety - the provider must guarantee water is safe at the end point so boiling water, which everyone does here, is no longer acceptable apparently. There isn't a big enough population that increasing the cost of water would make a difference.
All that to say, voters here do care about utilities, and the coop solution worked for about 25 years iirc but it can't work in today's "one solution fits all" regulatory context anymore, at least where i live. Things are far from that simple in practice.
So you still believe government-funded research is equivalent to facts in 2025? What about the replication crisis? The political control of research finance e.g. in Alzheimer’s research?
It takes either an extreme amount of naïveté or motivated reasoning to maintain that perspective, IMO.
I believe society suffers from lower IQs, and that targeted interventions against childhood caries can be applied effectively without dosing the whole population. Why don’t schools teach toothbrushing? Why not have the school nurse check children’s teeth, or have a dentist come to school periodically?