I'm pretty sure this take is incorrect on multiple accounts. Trans demographics tend to skew towards trans women by about a third, not trans men - at least in all the research I've come across.
And regardless, increased acceptance and awareness of different gender identities can very plausibily explain increased numbers, not "social contagion". Calling it a contagion is pretty indicative of your underlying beliefs here.
> "Social contagion" is social science terminology. It's meant as an analogy not a pejorative.
Some social scientists say the analogy is misleading, the term is poorly defined, and contagion has a pejorative connotation irrespective of intent. They are correct.
Well documented should imply multiple papers across multiple countries and across multiple time periods.
If that's the one and only paper you have, then it's a single UK paper that covers seven years of GIDS referrals from numbers that are near zero in 2009 to 1800 referrals in 2016.
Statistically, looking at the last graphic in the paper, it's less a case of "becoming so heavily skewed" and likely more a case of "taking several years to reveal the pattern and weights".
There's scarce numbers to begin with to make a strong claim as to the "natural balance" of referrals being evident at the start and this "being skewed toward" the later clearer pattern.
There are other papers showing the same sort of pattern elsewhere. For example, you can see one cited in that paper within the introductory paragraphs.
As the commenter upthread noted, the adult demographic is more weighted towards men who want to be women. Why would childhood referrals have become shifted in the opposite direction, much more towards girls who want to be boys?
> There's not really any plausible explanation as to [..] other than social contagion.
is a leap.
> Why would childhood referrals have become shifted
\1 Have they really shifted, or have the stats on a relatively new thing in a few countries firmed up from nothing, to bugger all, to enough to see a pattern?
\2 As to the pattern now seen - a few boys question whether they like being boys at an earlier age than a few more girls then question whether they like being girls ..
there are other factors, eg: I heard there's a "big change" in the lives of young girls at an age that coincides with a 'surge' (small numbers in a country the size of the UK) in girls exploring whether they want to be girls after all.
Social patterns, depth of communication about places existing where gender question can be asked, word of mouth, etc are factors that play a role - but they are not the sole factors at play in these very low incident observations.
My suggestion to yourself, looking at the questions you've raised and how you've framed them, is to perhaps study some epidemiology and find a mentor with first hand real world experience with low frequency data that gradually comes to light as social norms about reporting evolve - eg: SIDS data in the 1970s / 1980s.
You seem to be making a great many mistakes based on preconceptions and "feels".
If only the Dutch hadn't destroyed quite so many records in "their" East Indies .. there might be other gender frequency records to draw on <shrug>.
A Sam Altman project which seemingly popped up out of nowhere, and offered people free money in exchange for biometric registration on the network, in a lot of countries all over the world. It seemed to be an attempt to set up some sort of global electronic ID system and currency all in one.
That silver sphere is an iris scanner, IIRC.
Got shut down pretty hard in a bunch of places as a potentially illegal invasion of privacy.
It was 'worldcoin'. And yes I used the term 'money' very loosely there.
Apparently the token was only offered in some countries, and in some places where it was offered, that was considered enough of a bribe to render void the informed consent to collect and process private data.
> but apparently were behind how Iris scanners look these days
Not necessarily - they look whatever you want them to look. In this case sama wanted to create a feeling of futurism - the story being he is leading a global AGI revolution and you can be a part of it by staring in a metal ball.
Just another step closer to the creepy desires of building an AI "replica" human. Gotta get the look right (with Sora), the fingerprints and iris (with Worldcoin), the personality (ChatGPT erotic mode)...
A worldcoin gizmo which is basically a digital camera and I think has some face scanner stuff like an iphone. Once they've scanned and checked you are someone who hasn't been done already they give you basically a crypto wallet with some 'worldcoin' shitcoin in. And there's an app.
You only get a scan at the start, after that it's basically a usual crypto wallet + private key. They don't ask for your name or id or anything at the start. Although they are now offering me like $25 if I'll scan my passport and do kyc stuff. I think they are trying to make it into a payment/investment network.
If by "reality" you mean "the universe", then the way the universe is depends on a cause, as the existence of the universe is not explained by the universe itself (even an "eternal" universe). Its existence is contingent on some other cause that ultimately cannot be contingent and thus does not require explanation.
So the cause or dare I say reason for the universe being the way it is will depend on its cause.
I feel like the language of this argument is self-undermining. The existence of the universe being dependent on a cause that is itself not contingent on anything else… As easily the existence of the universe could be not contingent with anything else.
And you have an implied axiomatic assertion that everything must have a cause, even though that necessarily results in an infinite recursion of cause-finding.
Nowhere did I say or imply everything needs a cause. That's your baggage. In fact, it is the exact opposite: that because an infinite regress is incoherent and impossible, there must be some necessary uncaused cause where the buck stops.
"The universe" cannot be that cause, as the universe and everything in it is contingent.
The cause of the universe must itself be uncaused, or else it is only an intermediate cause that must itself refer ultimately to an uncaused cause. An infinite regress is impossible with respect to existence. Unlike causes per accidens which can in principle be infinite in length, a cause `per se` cannot; without a terminus, there would be nowhere from which the latter causes would derive their force, so to speak, like an arm pushing a stick that is pushing a rock that is pushing a leaf. Meaning, the cause is not some distant one in time, but one always acting; otherwise, everything would vanish. The only cause that could have this property is self-subsisting being.
From there, you can know quite a bit about what else must be true of self-subsisting being.
There doesn’t need to be a why the world exists. It does that’s all there is to know. There doesn’t have to be purpose just an explanation of how not why
Sure but that's somewhat tautological and not very helpful if you seek an empirical or predictive understanding of it. The question really is what complexity of the system (meaning: all of it) is irreducible and what can at least be approximated with simplified models.
You may balk at this as being ultimately futile but our entire existence is built on trying to break apart and simplify the world we exist in, starting with the first cut between self/inside and other/outside (i.e. "this is me" vs "this is where I am" - a distinction that becomes immensely relevant after the moment of birth). Language itself only functions because we can create categories it can operate on - regardless of whether those categories consistenly map to reality itself.
This is the most maddening topic I've experienced in recent times. My guess is it's the ghost of ww2. Anything that looks or smells like a definitive reduction of a human being to numbers is to be opposed, regardless of utility.
What you are choosing, instead, is the management of the phenomenon you're trying to avoid by corporations—more or less emergent feudalism.
Consider the options: a corporation knows everything about you vs. no entity knows any information about you except for whether you're eligible for the service being provided, and that you exist. The former is the current state of affairs. The latter, I think, is a better state of affairs.
Why would ChatGPT replace google search when search also has AI? At best they'd steal some of Google's market share, which I'd imagine would decline with embedded ads.
1) Google Search is now 99% crap that nobody wants, and even the AI answers are largely crap,
2) I believe somebody is going to eventually realize that search engines are stupid and improve on them. The whole idea of a single text box where you type some words and the search engine reads your mind to figure out the one thing you wanted, and then gives you one generic answer, is crap. We've just been blind to this because we don't see any other answer to realize we've been getting crap.
If I type in "when did MMS come out", Google will tell me when the candy product M&M's came out. But I wanted to know when the Multimedia Messaging Service was released. At some point somebody is going to realize that you can't actually tell what the hell the person wants from these simple queries alone. The computer needs to ask you questions to narrow down the field. That's sometimes what happens in ChatGPT, but it can be greatly improved with simple buttons/drop-downs/filters/etc. I think it'll also be improved by more dynamic and continuous voice input for context. (I notice Google Search now has audio input; I wonder if that came in after ChatGPT? Wayback Machine shows it starting in mid-2024) When they eventually implement all this, and people realize it's a million times better than what Google has, then Google will be playing catch-up.
I'll have to get back to you. I had to go through the process three or four times to get it to stick across reboots and not leave me with a useless TV just showing a black screen (I had a panic moment when that happened).
I should also mention: This may render some of the TV remote shortcut buttons useless. There's an app that's meant to help with this, but I've found it unreliable.
Not the GP, but I have a TCL 65C845. I've removed all the crap from it and installed a third-party launcher. I LOVE the result, both in terms of picture quality and usability. The UI is clean, snappy, functional and there's zero crap on the screen that I didn't deliberately put there.
Here are my notes:
Enable Android developer options.
Work through various settings (developer and normal).
Connect wired Ethernet (I use a USB dongle), enable RDNIS in USB port dev options. Disable WiFi.
Turn on Google TV. Log in.
Disable auto-updates, work through permissions etc.
Install ADB TV (PRO licence)
Disable the following apps in ADB TV:
AirPlayLaunchService
AirplayAPK (two different APKs)
BrowseHere
Electronic card 5.0
Gallery
GameBar
Google (com.google.android.katniss)
Logkit
MagiConnect
Media Player
Message Box
Overseaeva
Prime Video
Rakuten TV
Reminder
T-Solo
TCL Channel (two different APKs)
TCL Home
TCL Home Passive
TCSCore
T_IME
User Center
Works with Alexa
com.tcl.iptv.App
DO NOT DISABLE or you might have to start from scratch:
TV (com.tcl.tv)
TvInputService
Install FLauncher. Configure apps/panels/wallpaper.
Using ADB TV (under “install”):
Install a screen saver (Aerial Views), TV streaming apps, Plex, SmartTubeNext, f-droid, Mullvad etc.
That's pretty much it. A bit fiddly but a one-time thing (I did this two years ago and have been using the TV daily). I keep auto-updates turned off and basically nothing ever breaks and there are no random regressions.
I previously did the same on an older TCL TV. The panel was not as nice and the CPU was slower but the result was also quite good (it was what convinced me to get the 65C845 with its larger screen, better panel and faster CPU).
I used to run a similar FLauncher-based setup on a NVidia Shield Pro, but the new setup is so nice that I don't use the Shield for TV anymore.
Another experiment I did was replicating this exact setup on a Chromecast (I think GA01919). That also worked well, though having a second device was a bit inconvenient in terms of remote controls and such.
P.S. Where I live I have FTTH; TV is delivered as MPEG transport streams over multicast. I don't have OTA broadcast TV or a cable box and so couldn't vouch for the ergonomics there.
There was a study where they tested the effects of ADHD meds on test performance and perceived performance. It found that stimulants increased perceived performance for everyone, but actual test scores were only improved for people with ADHD.
And how many out-of-box variables have they had patients control for? If it's less than 25 I think medicine has been hijacked by the consumer wanting to not participate in the medical-inquiry process.
I could solve the issue with perhaps 1000-5000 serious patient-subjects, a small amount of funding and a friggen smart phone app.
Also a non-corrupt government should seem to want to lower healthcare costs. But just because politicians say that doesn't mean much because the incentives of government too are poisoned. They don't in practice (and in sum) want to lower healthcare costs. Why would you think that?
It's self-sacrifice that is needed. Most medicine will collapse in my lifetime, and the professionals, politicians and lobbyists brought this upon themselves (and unfortunately us).
Except I can read much faster than a video can convey information to me, almost always - I suspect the popularity of video to deliver information at least in some part stems from declining literacy. Whenever I have to watch a poor reader read something, I am honestly amazed they can function at all.
I frequently give up on reading a thread midway down the page because it's requiring *too much focus*, and, get this, I might even interrupt my break and just go back to work early instead!
I don't think that would ever happen on a neverending infinite scroll of hyperengaging video.
And regardless, increased acceptance and awareness of different gender identities can very plausibily explain increased numbers, not "social contagion". Calling it a contagion is pretty indicative of your underlying beliefs here.
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