I'm not a psychologist but from what I understand some people who have urges for young people just like some people have urges for people of the same gender. Obviously I have no problem if someone acts upon their urges towards people of their gender, but do have problems with people who act upon urges to young people. I would assume that in such case some form of voluntery conversion therapy would be useful. Similarly if someone has urges towards their gender but would prefer for whatever reason (to be more normal, to follow their religion, to have kids, ...) they would like to have urges towards the opposite gender, I see no problem with voluntery conversion therapy.
One big pet peeves of mine with a lot of left leaning people is that they are pro gay because "it is their choice and doesn't effect me" yet they are against voluntery conversion even though the same logic holds. And before anyone says "they aren't proven to work", maybe we should allow scientists to work on that. After all, if armies have been able to convince POWs to fight for them patriotically against their country, I don't think it should be that hard to get people to love certain people
The assertion that opposite-sex attraction is "normal" and that same-sex attraction is abnormal is not supported by science. Homosexuality was removed from the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) in 1973.
The American Psychological Association advises against conversion therapy because it is ineffective and potentially harmful:
> The American Psychological Association Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation conducted a systematic review of the peer-reviewed journal literature on sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE) and concluded that efforts to change sexual orientation are unlikely to be successful and involve some risk of harm, contrary to the claims of SOCE practitioners and advocates. Even though the research and clinical literature demonstrate that same-sex sexual and romantic attractions, feelings, and behaviors are normal and positive variations of human sexuality regardless of sexual orientation identity, the task force concluded that the population that undergoes SOCE tends to have strongly conservative religious views that lead them to seek to change their sexual orientation. Thus, the appropriate application of affirmative therapeutic interventions for those who seek SOCE involves therapist acceptance, support, and understanding of clients and the facilitation of clients’ active coping, social support, and identity exploration and development, without imposing a specific sexual orientation identity outcome.
> The assertion that opposite-sex attraction is "normal" and that same-sex attraction is abnormal is not supported by science.
I don't know what "science" you are referencing but according to the NY times [0] 0.003% of marriage in the US are homosexual. To put that into context 0.006% of the population has 2 different colored eyes [1]. I would call someone with the same color in both eyes to be more "normal" than someone with different colors.
Now to the point. It may be true that there is no scientifically proven conversion therapy, but that is the case with many psychological characteristics. Many people have mental "things" (I won't call it a mental issue because it is not inherently bad, but you get my point) that science has no proven way to treat. But scientists continue to try to find a treatment. Of course there are limits to what they can try. Shocking genitalia is not allowed for any therapy and as such is not allowed for conversion therapy. But there are many other effective methods that psychologists use to help people who want to change.
> I don't know what "science" you are referencing but according to the NY times [0] 0.003% of marriage in the US are homosexual.
That is an absolutely terrible argument, and your numbers are also incorrect. The NYT article said, "In 2014 there were 183,280 same-sex marriages in America, roughly a third of 1 percent of all marriages," which is 0.33%, not 0.003%.
More importantly, same-sex marriage was not recognized nationwide in 2014, and the Supreme Court only later declared same-sex marriage a fundamental right in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015). Finally, the number of gay marriages is not an accurate indicator of the number of gay people. Prior to Obergefell v. Hodges, only 7.9% of LGBT Americans were married to their same-sex partner.
About 4.5% of Americans identify as LGBT in a 2017 Gallup poll, and the current percentage is likely to be higher due to social stigma, which is stronger for older generations who lived during periods of lower LGBT acceptance. Only 1.4% of traditionalists (born 1913-1945) identify as LGBT, while 8.2% of millennials (born 1980-1999) do the same.
The APA makes it very clear that homosexuality is normal.
> The longstanding consensus of the behavioral and social sciences and the health and mental health professions is that homosexuality per se is a normal and positive variation of human sexual orientation (Bell, Weinberg, & Hammersmith, 1981; Bullough, 1976; Ford & Beach 1951; Kinsey, Pomeroy, & Martin, 1948; Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin, & Gebhard, 1953). Homosexuality per se is not a mental disorder (APA, 1975).
> APA is concerned about ongoing efforts to mischaracterize homosexuality and promote the notion that sexual orientation can be changed and about the resurgence of sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE).
It's the same but it's a different switch to turn it on and off.
Having separate syntax is also very useful because it's much easier to see through my usual spaghetti to find what the code is actually supposed to do in the abstract (i.e. if the string should be a valid email, check it in the in {} clause rather than in the middle of the function)
The problem with UBI trials is that they cost a lot of money to be remotely effective. That is because for it to be somewhat meaningful the amount has to be high, it has to involve a lot of people, and it has to last a long time. I was wondering, what if researchers try it in a very poor country where $10 a month is meaningful. Many countries won't want to do it presumably because money will be leaving their country. However, it will be a relatively cheap way of seeing how UBI would effect inflation, self choice unemployment, and creative inventions.
Because you don't know what to expect from people with certain mental issues. If I see someone pacing outside my office while screaming to the devil and hitting his head, I will try to avoid him. Sure, maybe he will continue to have a mental breakdown without getting me involved, but I don't know. Now, I don't mind calling some authority other than the police, but I would prefer that if the person with the mental breakdown gets violent it will be directed at a professional who knows how to respond
tl;dr he was in prison several times before for other crimes
> Bryant, 62, received the life sentence under Louisiana’s habitual offender law, which allows a person’s sentence to increase based on their criminal history.
One of the problems with wireless charging is that I typically get a cheap $5 "rugged" case from eBay that lets me drop my phone with harm only potentially happening to my disposable case. unfortunately, those cases block wireless charging
the feds provided large quantities of ventilators and are funding multiple vaccine research. What else should they do? Every state has enough power to mandate mask wearing, quarantine, school closings without federal intervention
> the feds provided large quantities of ventilators
The feds, early on, initially declined to provide PPE from stockpiles, and then obstructed states who located their own PPE supplies (and other resources) and commandeered them, directing both originally federal stocks and commandeered stocks that were secured according to political affiliation rather than need, oversupplying (even compared to state requests) states with governors that were politically allied with the President and denying supplies to hard hit states whose governor's were members of the opposite major party. The federal government also directly I referred with virus control effort by using the Defense Production Act tomorrow to meat plant closures as large outbreaks were occurring in such facilities.
And, that's not the extent of the political game playing involved.
On top of that the biggest failing is the failure of federal aid to states; states largely have constitutional and practical limits that make borrowing for even extraordinary operating costs impractical or impossible, relying on the federal government (which is much less limited, both legally and because of its low cost of borrowing, which is kept down by being the currency issuer) for emergency deficit spending. Among other things, that's amounted to economic coercion for reopening, and that's been fairly overtly the reasoning Republican officials in both political branches of the federal government have given for not including such aid in emergency spending packages.
The debt black hole pushing everyone to reopen is a direct product of the Federal Reserve. A real shut down would involve a moratorium on rent denominated in USD.
(Never mind all of the little bits of discouragement the federal government has been feeding down to states, eg threatening to withhold school funding)
1. I'm pretty sure that states can decide to not evict tenants (thereby severely hurting landlords who possibly have multiple mortgages to cover the rentals.
2. Did any other country uniformly cancel all rent?
Suspending evictions means the debt is still piling up, so the threat of needing to eventually pay or becoming homeless does not go away. As for landlords, mortgage payments (another form of economic rent) would then be suspended. The freeze needs to actually travel up the debt chain, rather than it suffering some small hiccup while being generally expected to continue.
Other countries have more of a safety net, and less of an inflationary treadmill. A better safety net (eg continuing direct subsidies for the unemployed, and expanding them to cover small business rent) is another option, and probably the more practical one. But there is this American tendency to characterize such things as deliberate meddling with some default state of affairs. So I am mainly pointing out that this needing to feed the debt black hole is itself a result of explicit federal policy.
Some like Germany safeguarded salaries instead by ensuring that workers remained employed. That's to say that they recompensed firms for salaries on condition workers remained employed during the lockdowns.
The US should have more leeway because it has the world's reserve currency.
I haven't worked it out but I'd like to hear why the Fed or Treasury (let's just say federal govt) couldn't simply replace lost real estate loan payments by adding to banks' balance sheets.
how is Germany's solution any different than giving unemployment benefits for furloughed employees? Regarding the Fed, they _could_ just print gobs of money, and probably nothing bad will happen in the near future. But if you want examples of why printing gobs of money is bad, just looks at the many other countries that tried that. Also, I would think that if the fed decides to print gobs of money, it would be bad for them to allocate all of it to repaying bank mortgages. I would much prefer the money gets distributed to the people (eg. $1,200 per person) or as loans to keep small businesses afloat until after the pandemic
It doesn't hurt mortgaged landlords much if they don't have to pay the mortgage while rent is stopped.
Non-mortgage landlords might hurt if they depend on the income. But that's not much different from other businesses whose income stream stopped, and the same rescue packages could be applied, e.g. furlough etc.
In the UK, rent was not stopped, but landlords were allowed to stop paying their mortgages. That seems unfair to me.
You may not be able to convince someone who is interested in philosophy to study engineering (although I personally know several people, myself included, who are interested in both philosophy and engineering) but if they lack the funding to support themselves during the bachelor's degree them I doubt tht they have enough funding to support themselves after the degree. They should be encouraged to pursue a professional that can support them financially first. That can be engineering, as you quoted, but also most of STEM and most technical subjects (plumber, electrician).
What really bothers me about the quote is that it sounds like "someone who is interested in going on cruises won't like studying anything practical so the taxpayers should subsidize a 4 year around the world cruise for them"
You're equating philosophy with "going on cruises?"
Unfortunate. How strange that in this very thread we are engaging in a dialogue fashioned in the method of someone who "liked going on cruises" 2400 years ago.
One big pet peeves of mine with a lot of left leaning people is that they are pro gay because "it is their choice and doesn't effect me" yet they are against voluntery conversion even though the same logic holds. And before anyone says "they aren't proven to work", maybe we should allow scientists to work on that. After all, if armies have been able to convince POWs to fight for them patriotically against their country, I don't think it should be that hard to get people to love certain people