Removed by mod

“Being really well dressed and using style to win people over is in the fascist playbook as well. Therefore drag queens are fascist.”
That’s you. That’s you right now.

Thanks for saying so, I’m glad that the message came across.

The thing is you don’t align with the far right. At least I hope you don’t anyway. The far right either hate trans people, or they do not give a shit about them either way. They are using trans people as a political football to sow exactly this type of division. Yes, trans people in sport is an unresolved problem. No, I do not want the right wing to be the ones to resolve it. If you align superficially, you still don’t want to cede to them. Bear in mind “align” only goes as far as saying “we can agree about this one sentence”, not this whole issue.
Godwin’s law is fucked these days so let’s just use the third Reich as an analogy. You may agree that Germany has a legitimate territorial claim on Alsace-Lorraine. Does that mean you should let the Nazis take it? No, you fight them and then resolve it when someone more reasonable is asking. The reasons why should be obvious, and so should the analogy. It’s not about whether the extremely superficial claim is “correct”, it’s about why they are saying it and what they plan to do if they get enough people to agree with them.
In this case, where the war is one of ideas, you’re not a bigot if you agree in a very superficial way, but it’s completely redundant to be talking about trans women in sport when all trans people are being stripped of their rights and it looks like things are getting worse. A year ago we were hoping (again) for the first female president; long overdue. That’s not an issue anymore, as women are now being erased from history.

No.
If you fall back in front of the far right they will take that ground and demand more, as they always have done, and as they always will do. It’s how they win, it’s how they are winning, on trans rights, on immigration, on racial supremacy. Do not give them an inch. It’s not “all or nothing” it’s “give the bigots nothing”.

And you think by proving that technicality you’ll somehow win the argument and be correct about the rest? Give me a break.
Ok, your alliance’s border, then. Or the western world’s border. Or “the furthest east you can impose another fucking airstrip”. Whatever you prefer. Point still stands.

Your funds are being used so that Ukrainian soldiers can risk their lives defending your border with your biggest enemy.

Well, I can only explain it to you. I can’t understand it for you.

It seems like you are trying to use statistical trickery to diminish the perception of the wealth gap. Whether this is intentional or not, it will elicit an emotional reaction, because spreading awareness of the wealth gap is arguably the most important work our society has to do. And your core argument, that is easier to understand on a log scale, is flawed. That leaves people with a passion for communicating this issue suspicious of your motives in an anonymous forum where billionaires can easily send people or bots to muddy the waters. We do not need your bad take here. It is actively damaging the cause.
The true nature of the wealth gap is that it is linear. Billionaires don’t work a thousand times harder than the working class, yet they are paid a thousand times more. They can buy 5000 of your dream car. They can but the entire street containing the house you’re desperately saving for, just to keep you out. If I had worked every day since Julius Caesar was in power, earning my annual wage EVERY DAY, I still wouldn’t be as rich as Elon Musk. And I’m a better human being than him. Recording these things linearly exposes the obscenity of the problem, and it also makes sense logically. On top of that is the best way to show people they’re being had.

It’s really not hard to tell the difference between millions and billions. There are multitudinous ways in which that can be achieved, even if you’re explaining to a toddler. Anyone who can understand the concept of a log scales can understand the difference between a million and a billion linearly. How many threads in this carpet? Around a million? Cool. And a billion would be what, an entire city? Cool. Easy.

Yes, log scales are important if you put aside personal wealth, but why would you want to put aside personal wealth when it’s what we’re discussing?

Bernie doesn’t say “eat the rich”, you’re saying that. Bernie makes specific statements about who to tax, and when and how.
He does pay his fair share. If the richest in the US paid tax like he does, there wouldn’t be a problem.

The very fact that there’s an order of magnitude difference is the point of the comparison. There shouldn’t be five orders of magnitude between any two people’s wealth; it’s obscene. Maintaining a linear comparison shows the true nature of the wealth gap.

You haven’t given me a source other than Slate.
And look, if you can’t see how that argument generalises to antivax acceptance then you are part of the problem frankly.
I’m going to stop here because you’re dug in, and starting to project ad hominems.

No, because down that road of argument lies the validation of antivax views.

There is plenty of evidence for consensus. Medical institutions and departments national and international all claim that brain maturity is not reached until the mid to late twenties. Google “prefrontal cortex development age”. There very much is a consensus, unless we are using different meanings for the word “consensus”. Or perhaps we’re not talking about the same fact that there’s consensus over. If course there’s no consensus on the exact age, and that’s all the articles were saying, but that has no bearing on the fact that development doesn’t peak and fall until the twenties.

I choose to believe the consensus. It’s getting tiring saying the same thing.

You’re sources are junk, I’m afraid. They are magazine articles written to excite readers rather than get at the truth. I’m finding it hard to explain this to you without sounding patronising so maybe you should educate yourself on the veracity of source types.

So your claim is that there’s no “fully developed”? That then does not support your original assertion that we shouldn’t go easier on people who are younger for making bad decisions. They remain significantly less developed than their mature counterparts, whether or not someone in their 40s still has the potential for development (of course they do). Neural plasticity doesn’t suddenly 'switch off, but it does appear to peak and fall quite quickly in the late twenties (of course, this is not an iron rule: everyone is different). I can source this claim with any number of studies if you like.

I’m sorry I feel I picked on you a bit, really I just wanted a dialogue. I’ve seen this notion going round that “our brains not being fully developed until after 25 has been debunked” and I’ve been meaning to read into it for a while to see if it’s true. I’m going to keep looking at it, but I don’t see any evidence that scientific understanding of prefrontal development has changed. I’m a scientist by education so I am perfectly capable of charging my mind if I believe there is evidence to do so. In fact I find that process thrilling and it’s literally one of the reasons I get out of bed in the morning. I’m not stubborn or dogmatic in the slightest. But I am hard to convince. Sorry about that.

I did.
That Slate article argues that there’s nothing special about the age of 25, not that brains are still in development at that age.
If you can’t find a scholarly, reliable source for your claim that our brains are fully developed at 25, then I’m afraid you’re not going to convince me. The reason for that is this: I’m not hubristic enough to believe I know better than the field of neuroscience, and I’m not credulous enough to believe one person’s opinion that they do.
Nothing you have shown me contradicts the fact that the prefrontal cortex isn’t fully developed in people in their early twenties. In fact your latest source repeats the claim multiple times.

I did. But that link is just opinion. The studies are real science. The claim that all the research stems from it being the cutoff year is unsupported by the article in the link, which, again, is one person’s opinion. Weighted against the consensus of medical science, it’s just not very convincing to me.

So what kind of source would you accept?

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-021-01137-9

Although neurons of the PFC are generated before birth, the differentiation of its neurons and development of synaptic connections in humans extend to the 3rd decade of life.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3621648/#%3A~%3Atext=The+development+and+maturation+of+the+prefrontal+cortex+occurs+primarily%2Cthe+age+of+25+years.

The development and maturation of the prefrontal cortex occurs primarily during adolescence and is fully accomplished at the age of 25 years.

https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/the-teen-brain-7-things-to-know

The brain finishes developing and maturing in the mid-to-late 20s.

It seems to me that there is a scientific consensus on the subject.