 Friends         | "The Knight in Shining Armor", is but one of many character suits in a gentleman's treasure(d) chest. I am just looking for friends. I like learning about things I don't know, or have a misconception with, and a lot more. Everything is usually fun. Nothing tends not to be.  A_Muse_Mint101: If anyone was curious if people and government can give and take away rights, today you should have no argument to the contrary. View all 8 posts  Stiritup in reply to Just a loaf: But murder is a physical act, not a moral statement. If you shoot someone in the street, it's murder even if they have a death wish; whether they value their life or not. From a biological standpoint, the growing child in a womb is natural, and would usually grow into a pleasant little old person who tells you stories about 75 years ago. The little vacuum wand and brain scrambler is invasive. Only meant to kill.  Adite: You have a common misconception. HIV is natural, brain cancer is natural. Natural does not mean good or desirable. If you want to found your logic in biology, perhaps you should use the correct biological term for an unborn offspring - fetus. Stiritup in reply to Adite: Yeah, I'm not a specialist in any field. I'd call HIV and brain cancer invasive, too, even though they're natural. I'm also uneducated about reproductive terminology. In my mind, a fetus(or most) becomes a baby unless acted upon by an outside force. I guess I group the terms together. I, don't want to found my logic in biology. I want to found it in time travel. I'm just not there yet. A_Muse_Mint101: An argument from a self-ascribed antinatalist. Procreated life cannot consent to exist. To nip the obvious refutation in the bud, nor can it refuse consent. A little simplified but, with anything that cannot be positively affirmed the absence or negative is reasonable. What can be positively affirmed, is the government is -forcing- a being to exist without knowing if they consent. Ergo, not government, you, nor I get to speak for them since that consent is not implied or explicit. Religious ideals of others do not have supremacy over individual rights in the US constitution. What we can positively affirm is the -choice- of the progenitors as to whether or not they want to create a life. "Unborn human life, fetus, etc." is not legally a person as defined [in the US] constitutionally; not explicitly defined. Therefore, it is not explicitly murder, except in the case where the progenitors -decide-, without extant foreseeable undue burden, that they will bear a human from pregnancy thru gestation and birth. In layspeak, it's murder if someone other than the progenitors, disease, maladies, etc.. cause its death without their -consent- prior to birth. The progenitors need not justify their -decision- to assumed greater authority; as it is my conviction they are the greatest authority on their creation prior to birth. When viability of existing without maternal gestation prior to birth can be established, and whether or not that is ethical itself, is a valid argument to address in regards to ethical dilemmas arising from abortion during gestation. One I won't be addressing here. I personally adhere and subscribe to a position, for me as an autonomous human being with legally protected life and liberty, that I will not -force- existence by my actions of procreation. I will not interfere, beyond solicited and/or public comment, and thru reasonable argument, with another autonomous human being with legally protected life and liberty on matters they shall -decide- upon in their -freedom- to procreate. There are a few obvious exceptions that I won't go deep or further into about the ethics of baby selling, slave production, etc.. in these regards. I've more to add, and feel free to comment with respect to the arguments, legality, logic of the statement and refrain from fallacious reasoning and attacks upon the persons who form other corresponding arguments and comments. This mostly for my own consideration, but as it is, I'm musing 'aloud'. A_Muse_Mint101: If respect is no longer being served at the table you are eating, you are not obliged to eat there. A_Muse_Mint101: Scanning for life signs. "Both the European Space Agency (ESA) and its North American counterpart NASA are currently developing satellite-based image spectrometers. These are intended to image the entire globe approximately every 16 days with a pixel size of about 30x30 meters. The study's results illustrate that these data should allow detecting ecosystem changes as they happen. "Our study will help to effectively and reliably determine changes in plant community composition via satellite in the foreseeable future. This will facilitate targeted field campaigns to assess the causes and consequences of ecosystem change allowing stakeholders to react in due time," says Anna Schweiger. According to Schweiger, global monitoring of biodiversity—almost in real time—is now within reach." https://phys.org/news/2022-05-satellite-biodiversity.html A_Muse_Mint101: https://robertedwardgrant.com/the-mystery-of-the-constants/ A bit over my head, curious if anyone with a greater inclination towards math could 'dumb it down'? Adite: I found the article rather confusing. He says things like "it is amazing to me how consciousness expands when we ask the deeper questions". What? The more I read it the less I get it. Take point 4: "Musical notes (including their associated polygons (2D) and polyhedra (3D) as well as those higher dimensional geometries) and are depicted in cycles per second (Hz), emerging from the conjunctions of intersection as a result of ‘overlapping’ waves." 1. What the hell is this about 2D or 3D notes? Does he mean chords? Is he taking about a Chladi plate? 2. Why is it relevant we define it in cycles per second? That is true of so many things... 3. What is "conjunctions of intersection"? Is he taking about interference? Why doesn't he state that? Basically a massive word salad. The Physics: So musical notes work on a octave scale. The ratio of frequencies of two notes an octave apart is 2:1. So you have C at 110 Hz, 220 Hz, 440 Hz, 880 Hz and so on. Nice detail: You can have other scales which follow other rules. But that's the best one for making music most humans like. Maybe I have missed the point, but what he is saying makes no sense to me.  A_Muse_Mint101: No it's all good; came across as a woo-inspired piece with some math jargon dressing to give it an air of credence. I didn't understand the math well enough to comprehend whether this was so or not. If it's coming across to you as such, then it just adds weight to my skepticism. A_Muse_Mint101: https://www.sciencealert.com/swarms-of-drones-are-being-trained-to-dodge-their-way-through-thick-forest A_Muse_Mint101: https://www.quantamagazine.org/elegant-six-page-proof-reveals-the-emergence-of-random-structure-20220425/ Adite: It's not yet published and peer-review, but it is astounding. One of my friend's has PhD in Maths and writes for IFLS, so I expect this will be her next topic. A_Muse_Mint101: Everyone ready for the 144-giraffes long asteroid to fly by tomorrow (that's 2000-ferrets for you metric people)? A_Muse_Mint101: Shopping Cart Theory-- “The shopping cart is the ultimate litmus test for whether a person is capable of self-governing." “To return the shopping cart is an easy, convenient task and one which we all recognize as the correct, appropriate thing to do. To return the shopping cart is objectively right. There are no situations other than dire emergencies in which a person is not able to return their cart. Simultaneously, it is not illegal to abandon your shopping cart.” "With no potential consequences for failing to do something and no exterior reward for doing so, returning the shopping cart to a place where it will not be in the way and is easily accessible to other shoppers and to store employees, this action becomes one of the simplest and best examples of moral choice." “You must return the shopping cart out of the goodness of your own heart. You must return the shipping cart because it is the right thing to do. Because it is correct." "The shopping cart is what determines whether a person is a good or bad member of society." There's an alignment meme that corresponds to this ranging from lawful good being one who returns the cart back to store's stall inside to chaotic evil who hurles it into a ditch. The neutral trio is rather funny. I'm unable to post more pictures, but you can search images for "shopping cart alignment". I do always return the carts to their stall, unless someone asks me for it or the cart collector employee is nearby collecting them; then I give them the cart. What do you do?  Just a loaf: I don't think it's a good litmus test. At least here there's a bit of stigma attached to not returning your shopping cart, so that creates social pressure to do so. And of course I always return my shopping cart out of the goodness of my heart. A_Muse_Mint101: Yeah, it has a predominantly US-lean on its measure. The convenience of our shopping ways can desensitize people to thoughtfulness and consideration of others over the self-centered catering to their wants. I think it has merit in a more general than specific context, here in the US. A_Muse_Mint101: If words alone incite one to violence, that person is exhibiting an uncivilized and small intellectual stature, period. If that person honestly apologizes, expresses contrition, and compensates for any loss or injury to those harmed, they ought be forgiven for their error. The latter is classy, that ought be recognized as honorable, not the former. A_Muse_Mint101: Google is so powerful that it "hides" other search systems from us. We just don't know the existence of most of them. Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information. Keep a list of sites you never heard of. www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines. www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need. https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols. www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries. http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science. www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed. www.pdfdrive.com is the largest website for free download of books in PDF format. Claiming over 225 million names. www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free. (SciHub is also useful.)  Sphered_Root: Quite helpful. There are a lot of things Google hides from its users. I stopped using it because its become just a bad search engine. They have changed their search system to such an extent that its almost impossible to find what you are looking for now. You also get bombarded with paid for results on almost every topic. They push their own agenda and politics with what you can find in the results too.  TheismIsUntenable: If I use google to search for other search engines it returns them. People like to use google as the boogeyman these days. And perhaps they are, but in this case it's not hiding anything. At least not from me. View all 5 posts A_Muse_Mint101 in reply to Sphered_Root: Not sure of your inquiry. JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) was launched on an Ariane 5 rocket from an ESA spaceport in French Guiana. JWST is the successor to Hubble. Except JWST will primarily focuses on the IR-spectrum rather than visible light of Hubble; meaning further back in time and through some denser clouds of gasses. A_Muse_Mint101: The morning star for Christmas Day will be an Ariane rocket adding another eye to our surveillance of the heavens. JWST is set for launch ~7:20am EST Christmas Day. I hope everyone has their Holidays filled with joy and rejuvenation as we prepare to usher in 2020 II. With <3 from me to you. A_Muse_Mint101: "Cut my life into pizzas. This is my plastic fork. Oven baking. Heavy breathing. Don't give a fuck If it's carbs that I'm eating." Not my original, but I like the slice of it. A_Muse_Mint101: Finding An Intended Lesson In Needed Growth. Failure isn't just an absence of success, it's one of the best stepping stones toward it. A_Muse_Mint101: Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram are all down as of 30 or so minutes ago. A_Muse_Mint101:   While not at the absolute/ultimate closest in any point of time, it is on average over larger time scales; including all other planets. |
"I don’t even have a joke. I’m screaming, this is a nightmare, fuck Susan Collins into the fucking Crab Nebula.
Today’s Moment of Science… fetal bullshit.
If you wander around the internet for a few hot minutes you’re gonna find a lot of opinions and very few facts about abortion. So we’re just gonna rapid fire sort through this, because I haven’t an iota of a fuck left to give.
Well, I have one left to give: fuck Susan Collins.
Anyway.
Myth: Most women regret abortions.
Reality: A 2018 study supported that the most typical emotional response to an abortion is relief. Only about 6% of patients had mainly negative emotions about the procedure. The vast majority of patients’ did not experience a change of heart about their choice five years out.
Myth: Didn’t Roe (of Roe v. Wade) regret her decision though?
Reality: Nope on two fronts- she didn't get an abortion and she never really became pro-life. A few years ago before her death in 2017, Jane Roe, aka Norma McCorvey, confessed that the pro-life movement threw a small pile of cash at her to publicly bat for their side.
Myth: The pro-life movement has always been a thing.
Reality: Ronald Reagan signed one of the most liberal abortion laws in the country as governor of California in 1967, six years before Roe. Republicans and religious organizations we most commonly think of as abortion opponents saw its legality as providing safe medical care for women. There are quotes in support of abortion from Baptist groups from that era will blow your goddamn mind.
Some Catholic anti-abortion groups had already formed in the sixties. Then through the seventies, the pro-life movement gained steam. The broad coalition of the ‘New Right’ started coming together in large part around propaganda about protecting fetuses.
Myth: Abortion causes breast cancer.
Reality: There is no science to back this up. This isn’t my conclusion, this is the conclusion of three major medical organizations: the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. An examination of more than thirty studies by the organizations supported this conclusion.
Myth: Most abortions happen after a baby is a whole viable human.
Reality: 91% of abortions happen in the first trimester when you’d be hard pressed to look at it and differentiate it from a fish fetus. The majority of clinics do not provide late term abortions, and the procedure has different limitations state by state at various points in pregnancy. Virtually without exception, late term abortions are due to the types of health issues that leave pregnant women devastated over a baby that was very much wanted.
Myth: IUDs cause abortions.
Reality: IUDs work by a few different mechanisms of action, one of which involves stopping a fertilized egg from implanting. Pregnancy begins after an egg implants. If you don’t believe me, ask all the people who have been through heartbreaking rounds of IVF and have had fertilized eggs deposited that didn’t implant. They were not pregnant for the few weeks between deposit and negative pregnancy test; they were simply never pregnant. Which is understandable because about half of fertilized eggs just naturally fail to implant.
If God exists, and this is the standard for abortion, God’s one hell of an abortionist.
Myth: The morning after pill causes an abortion.
Reality: The morning after pill is like a megadose of the birth control pill. It’s recommended to be taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex or birth control failure. Much like an IUD, it can prevent implantation. It can also prevent ovulation. It can’t be an abortifacient because nobody’s pregnant within three days of an “I meant to pull out but then I thought of Helen Mirren.”
Myth: Abortions have extremely high rates of complications.
Reality: Yeah, back alley ones with coat hangers and vacuums and giant doses of random herbs tend to be messy. But Americans from 1973 until, give or take, last week? One of those ‘safe and legal’ procedures gives less than a 0.3% risk of complications that require hospitalization.
The fatality rate of all abortions in the US from 1998 to 2010 is 0.0007%. By comparison, complications from pregnancy in the US have a 0.017% fatality rate.
It’s almost like they’re not pro-life.
Myth: Jesus and the Bible say abortion is a one-way ticket to hell.
Reality: The word abortion isn’t in the Bible, and it’s definitely not in the super-Jesusy chapters. The Bible is kinda ‘eh’ on children as a whole. Hosea 9:14 says “give them a miscarrying womb.” Isaiah 13:18 preaches ‘They shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eyes shall not spare children.” Numbers 31:17 espouses “Now therefore k!ll every m@le among the little ones.” Which I censored partially because, Jesus Christ, the bible is gonna get me put on a watch list.
There is a surefire strategy to reduce abortions if that’s a thing people actually care about: teach comprehensive sex ed and make access to birth control convenient and affordable. But somehow, almost every pro-life organization is against sex ed and against birth control.
So pardon me if I find this alleged deep concern for fetuses to be unadulterated bullshit.
This has been your Moment of Science, warning you that they’re coming for birth control and gay marriage next.
To get the MOS delivered right to your inbox and support all this fact checking because, let’s face it, someone has to do it, head to patreon.com/scibabe.
Sources for your next internet argument:
Women do not regret abortions: https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/12/health/women-abortion-emotion-study/index.html
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953619306999
Abortions don’t cause breast cancer:
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/uploads/filer_public/af/1a/af1ae95f-de81-43dd-91a3-470043b06dce/myths_about_abortion_and_breast_cancer.pdf
What the bible says about abortion: https://ffrf.org/component/k2/item/26087-abortion-nontract
Abortion fatality rate: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4554338/
Abortion hospitalization rate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270651008_Incidence_of_Emergency_Department_Visits_and_Complications_After_Abortion
Additional info on abortion complications: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/ss/ss6811a1.htm
Unsafe (i.e. illegal) abortion data: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2709326/
Preventing unsafe abortion: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/preventing-unsafe-abortion
Jane Roe was not pro-life/origins of pro-life movement: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/fx-s-jane-roe-deathbed-confession-reveals-abortion-lie-heart-ncna1214381
Reagan legalizes abortion: https://todayinclh.com/?event=governor-reagan-signs-liberal-california-abortion-law
Barry Goldwater’s pro-choice early career: https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/barry-morris-goldwater-1909-1998
Half of fertilized eggs don’t implant: https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2005/05/implications-defining-when-woman-pregnant#:~:text=Between%20one%2Dthird%20and%20one,only%20after%20implantation%20is%20complete.
Fatalities due to pregnancy: https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-brief-report/2020/dec/maternal-mortality-united-states-primer#:~:text=The%20most%20recent%20U.S.%20maternal,after%20the%20day%20of%20birth.
History of the pro-life movement: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_anti-abortion_movement "