• 3 Posts
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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: May 17th, 2024

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  • I am not a communist, and fear communism, but this person has a valid and logical point. Democrats are mostly unelectable because of their anti-gun agenda and when they occasionally win elections they don’t really change anything. Most of the Democrats in office are rich.

    AOC and Bernie are still promoting this party of malaise and promises.

    That being said, we’ve never seen AOC rule the country. I don’t vote for anti-gun politiicans but gosh, she sure is likable. And genuine.










  • I would argue that defining mental illness by the DSM-6 is a really bad way of defining mental illness.

    The same DSM previously said homosexuality and female hysteria were illnesses, and still causes black people to be diagnosed more frequently as anti-social because black children get labeled with conduct disorders more often that white children (quite likely due to racism), and still categories people as narcissistic based on a Greek myth. The DSM is so malleable and fluid because it was never based on science to begin with. Yes, these writers are oracles and soothsayers with Ph.D’s, but anyone with enough time and money can buy credits for such an unrigorous “scientific” discipline.

    It’s really mostly only useful as an insurance billing tool, and one day there will be universal health care and hopefully the whole glossary of tripe can be forgotten, stored in the rare books section next to the textbooks about phrenology.


  • In defense of insurance companies, medical costs are astronomical because doctor professional associations protect doctor wages. Why do I need a 400 an hour doctor to prescribe an antibiotic for a bladder infection? Many people want to doctors and don’t get admitted into medical school. Instead of delegating less difficult responsibilities to this interested group of people by creating a more tiered system of expertise, the AMA hoards all the decisions for the doctors, fleeces and extorts the public, then scapegoats the insurance industry which is trying to reduce unfair costs while taking a slice of the parasite pie. The gullible public eats the slop right up, blaming insurance companies, never batting an eye at the exploitation of the public by doctors.




  • If you give your ID to a 3rd party company in the US, it’s impossible to know if they will delete you ID or whether you’ll be added secretly to a facial recognition system.

    The US is allowed to issue secret orders to companies demanding they do things in the interest of “security.” They can also issue gag orders forcing companies to not talk about the secret orders. Therefore, any US company may be secretly forced to violate it’s supposed terms. A company that collects biometric information seems like it would be especially likely to be targeted.

    Facebook, Instagram, and other social media such as Linked In are likely the largest source of law enforcement information being fed to facial recognition systems. Given the dystopian “ideals” of some politicians, I consider it a risk and wouldn’t do it. Your country may not be sharing that information with the US already.

    Additionally, some of these companies have become the main way people get employed, rent things, or buy things. Because these companies serve a public function but are officially private, they can de-platform people for any reason, with no meaningful appeal, creating havoc and misery for an affected person. If you have been flagged to be banned, by giving them your ID, you will let them ban you based on a government document forever. Their system may have flagged you for verification, but it could have also flagged you to be banned forever based on TOS violations.

    If you abandon your account, you can always create a new account, then later claim a hacker got you or your forgot your email password. If you provide an ID, you may be linking a government record to biometric information to something they can ban.

    A company may also be claiming that they get rid of an ID but still keep a hash of some combination of biometric information.

    In theory, anyone in Facebook in California should be able to submit a CCPA request to delete all information, including ban information, and then go on Facebook again, even after a lifetime ban. Anyone in the EU should be able to do this too through GDPR. But this doesn’t happen, because Facebook lies and is also just a rebranding of Lifelog.


  • I would say this would make the DSM of mental illnesses arbitrary, but the DSM also contains at least 1 mental illness based on a Greek mythological character.

    Much of the mental health industry is an intersection of religion, new age mumbo gumbo, a dash of science, capitalism, and what society finds socially acceptable. It was only in recent decades that homosexuality and female hysteria (which required clitoral stimulation as the cure) were removed from the hocus pocus DSM, which pretends to have scientific rigor and never has and likely never will.