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mostlysignssomeportents · 6 months

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Amazon's bestselling "bitter lemon" energy drink was bottled delivery driver piss

Today (Oct 20), I'm in Charleston, WV at Charleston's Taylor Books from 12h-14h.

For a brief time this year, the bestselling "bitter lemon drink" on Amazon was "Release Energy," which consisted of the harvested urine of Amazon delivery drivers, rebottled for sale by Catfish UK prankster Oobah Butler in a stunt for a new Channel 4 doc, "The Great Amazon Heist":

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-great-amazon-heist

Collecting driver piss is surprisingly easy. Amazon, you see, puts its drivers on a quota that makes it impossible for them to drive safely, park conscientiously, or, indeed, fulfill their basic human biological needs. Amazon has long waged war on its employees' kidneys, marking down warehouse workers for "time off task" when they visit the toilets.

As tales of drivers pissing – and shitting! – in their vans multiplied, Amazon took decisive action. The company enacted a strict zero tolerance policy for drivers returning to the depot with bottles of piss in their vans.

That's where Butler comes in: the roads leading to Amazon delivery depots are lined with bottles of piss thrown out of delivery vans by drivers who don't want to lose their jobs, which made harvesting the raw material for "Release Energy" a straightforward matter.

Butler was worried that he wouldn't be able to list his product on Amazon because he didn't have the requisite "food and drinks licensing" certificates, so he listed his drink in Amazon's refillable pump dispenser category. But Amazon's systems detected the mismatch and automatically shifted the product into the drinks section.

Butler enlisted some confederates to place orders for his drink, and it quickly rocketed to the top of Amazon's listings for the category, which led to Amazon's recommendation engine pushing the item on people who weren't in on the gag. When these orders came in, Butler pulled the plug, but not before an Amazon rep telephoned him to pitch him turning packaging, shipping and fulfillment over to Amazon:

https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-let-its-drivers-urine-be-sold-as-an-energy-drink/

The Release Energy prank was just one stunt Butler pulled for his doc; he also went undercover at an Amazon warehouse, during a period when Amazon hired an extra 1,000 workers for its warehouses in Coventry, UK, in a successful bid to dilute pro-union sentiment in his workforce in advance of a key union vote:

https://jacobin.com/2023/10/the-great-amazon-heist-oobah-butler-review

Butler's stint as an Amazon warehouse worker only lasted a couple of days, ending when Amazon recognized him and fired him.

The contrast between Amazon's ability to detect an undercover reporter and its inability to spot bottles of piss being marketed as bitter lemon energy drink says it all, really. Corporations like Amazon hire vast armies of "threat intelligence" creeps who LARP at being CIA superspies, subjecting employees and activists to intense and often illegal surveillance.

But while Amazon's defensive might is laser-focused on the threat of labor organizers and documentarians, the company can't figure out that one of its bestselling products is bottles of its tormented drivers' own urine.

In the USA, the FTC is suing Amazon for its monopolistic tactics, arguing that the company has found ways to raise prices and reduce quality by trapping manufacturers and sellers with its logistics operation, taking $0.45-$0.51 out of every dollar they earn and forcing them to raise prices at all retailers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

The Release Energy stunt shows where Amazon's priorities are. Not only did Release Energy get listed on Amazon without any quality checks, the company actually nudged it into a category where it was more likely to be consumed by a person. The only notice the company took of Release Energy was in its logistics and manufacturing department – the part of the business that extracts the monopoly rents at issue in the FTC case – which tracked Butler down in order to sell him these services.

The drivers whose piss Butler collected don't work directly for Amazon, they work for a Delivery Service Partner. These DSPs are victims of a pyramid scheme that Amazon set up. DSP operators lease vans and pay to have them skinned in Amazon livery and studded with Amazon sensors. They take out long-term leases on depots, and hire drivers who dress in Amazon uniforms. Their drivers are minutely monitored by Amazon, down to the movements of their eyeballs.

But none of this is "Amazon" – it's all run by an "entrepreneur," whom Amazon can cut loose without notice, leaving them with unfairly terminated employees, outstanding workers' comp claims, a fleet of Amazon-skinned vehicles and unbreakable facilities leases:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/17/revenge-of-the-chickenized-reverse-centaurs/

Speaking to Wired, Amazon denied that it forces its drivers to piss in bottles, but Butler clearly catches a DSP dispatcher telling drivers "If you pee in a bottle and leave it [in the vehicle], you will get a point for that" – that is, the part you get punished for isn't the peeing, it's the leaving.

Amazon's defense against the FTC is that it spares no effort to keep its marketplace safe. As Amazon spokesperson James Drummond says, they use "industry-leading tools to prevent genuinely unsafe products being listed." But the only industry-leading tools in evidence are tools to bust unions and screw suppliers.

In her landmark Yale Law Review paper, "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox," FTC Chair Lina Khan makes a brilliant argument that Amazon's alleged benefits to "consumers" are temporary at best, illusory at worst:

https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox

In Butler's documentary, Khan's hypothesis is thoroughly validated: here's a company extracting hundreds of billions from merchants who raise prices to compensate, and those monopoly rents are "invested" in union-busting and countermeasures against investigative journalists, while the tools to keep you from accidentally getting a bottle of piss in the mail are laughably primitive.

Truly, Amazon is the apex predator of the platform era:

https://pluralistic.net/ApexPredator

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/20/release-energy/#the-bitterest-lemon

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

#pluralistic #release energy #channel 4 #amazon #corporate intelligence #labor #unions #amazon labor union #the great Amazon heist #catfish uk #oobah butler #delivery service partner

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thesherrinfordfacility · 4 months

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timeline rundown

tbh this is mainly just for my reference and i will probably come back to it at a later date; a lot of other much cleverer people are spotting some scenes that appear to be out of order, and before deep-diving into scrutinising each scene and frame, i decided to (for the first run, anyway - im sure others have gotten much further ahead, but i personally like to do my own research) just go with a surface-level, basic approach of looking for time indicators.

edit 02/01: additions!!!✨

couple of notes:

this is initially going with the assumption that no fuckery is going on, and only highlights where things appear to be consistent or inconsistent

on the clockhands, and which way round to read them, this caused me no end of headache. for example, reading the ornate hand as the hour makes ep6 sensical, but then makes ep1 gibberish (and vice versa). so, im doing both! and colour coding them!

blue: ornate hand is the hour, other hand is the minute

orange: ornate hand is the minute, other hand is the hour

green: a timestamp that isn't shown by the clock, or has been surmised/hypothesised.

you can make your own conclusion as to which reads make the most sense, but i'll be adding commentary anyway!!!✨

episode 1:

aziraphale gets maggie's letter: the only thing we know is that the bookshop is closed which, given aziraphale's stunning opening hours policy, doesn't mean a whole lot but for the most part, he seems on average to open the shop between 9.30-10am, and close at 3.30pm

shostakovich: aziraphale gets the records and heads off to listen to them, saying that he will be doing so for the next 21 minutes. i know there have been theories out there stemming from mismatched serial number on the record - but for my money, the explanation is a bit more watsonian than that; that aziraphale has a certain amount of free time to chill out to some music before something else happens (ie., to me, before crowley arrives to the shop). therefore, i would say that it logically follows that the previous scene, and this one, is late afternoon after the shop closes.

crowley in st james' park: as the camera sweeps past buckingham palace, you can hear bell chimes in the background, likely posed as coming from big ben. it starts with the cambridge chimes melody, falls silent, and then rings the number of tolls for the hour. when the agent joins crowley on the bench, i can hear a count of five tolls, for 5pm. example of the 5pm toll here.

gabriel/jim arrives: when aziraphale pauses the record, it appears to be 4.20pm.

when jim is handed the hot chocolate, the main bookshop clock reads as 5.20pm, or 4.25pm. seems odd that there would be such a gap for the former, (albeit plausible given that aziraphale gets jim settled and fitted with a blanket etc.), but the latter is more likely.

- capture of the two preceding timestamps

shax and crowley again: crowley's phone reads as 10.35am which, needless to say, does not fit in the above and below timeline at all.

jim and aziraphale conversation continues: the main bookshop clock reads as 6.20pm, or 4.30pm. again, given that aziraphale immediately looks in the box after retrieving it from outside, makes the latter more likely. it also makes sense taking into account the following hypothesised timestamps.

aziraphale calls crowley: not time-stamped, but crowley notes that he is 'two minutes' away when aziraphale calls. jim doesn't appear to have moved, so presumably the call is made soon after the last scene, and when they are both in the café, it still seems to be fully open and running. if we accept that the start of ep1 is most likely around 4pm, and the aziraphale/jim conversation wraps up around 4.30pm-ish, this would make sense - that crowley arrives to the café around 4.40pm. they then obviously leave, and it cuts to:

maggie gives nina the record: same as the above; maggie remarks that she wants a little something "for the end of the day", and nina says she has to finish closing up. nina has cleared away the dishes from the boys' table, the café is has just emptied, and nina's colleague is getting ready to leave. if we treat this scene as concurrent with the "ah! gabriel!" scene, probably around 4.45pm.

crowley lightning strike: maggie is chucking away her tea bag, and nina is upending chairs. if we say that the "ah! gabriel!" and "so did i!" scenes together take maybe 5-10 minutes in-universe, could hazard that the lightning strike is around 4.50pm - 4.55pm.

interlude, where we then return to crowley getting back to his bentley, and it's nighttime. then gets abducted by beelzebub, before squealing off at 110mph+ back to the bookshop. there isn't a timestamp until:

from @katalina27ua (thank you!), crowley restores power: nina's phone reads as 9:02. this would suggest the morning, but i would suggest that given phones can be set to either the 12- or 24-hour clock, and coupled with darkness and emptiness outside, it's 9:02pm.

the dance: the main bookshop clock reads 1.45am, or 9.05pm.

episode 2:

"what comes after 'K'?": when aziraphale gets startled by jim, the main bookshop clock reads as around 6.53am, or 10.35am.

archangels arrive: the main bookshop clock reads as 09.55am, or 11.45am.

aziraphale starts playing the record: as has been pointed out by @canarybell, this scene is so clearly cut in half from the muriel-arrival scene* in ep3. possibly for timing issues, but still out of sequence of the above; im very tentatively putting the time of the main bookshop clock as somewhere around 11.40am or 8am... only the former could work in the ep2 timeline, but again, it is reasonably certain that this is cut from the beginning of ep3 where, in the context of that scene, it is most likely 8am*, and this scene's place in ep2 is just a continuity issue/post-filming to make up timings.

dirty donkey: no time-stamp, but going on face value of how packed the pub is, seems to be at least mid-late afternoon, or post-lunch weekend. im erring towards the former - that people have come in post-work, and it's somewhere around 3.30pm onwards.

jim remembers: the above makes sense with this scene in context, as the main bookshop clock reads 5.20pm or 4.28pm.

post-job flashback: when we return to aziraphale in modern day, and he calls for crowley, the main bookshop clock reads as 6.30pm.

crowley/nina conversation: the record store is still be open in this scene, which would be odd for 6.30pm onwards, albeit not impossible. the café is definitely closed (it's empty and you can see chairs on tables), and nina is only just leaving/finishing up the close. in which case, it makes sense that aziraphale dozed off for a couple of hours, crowley to have wandered off, and nina to have closed up (if her café closing time is, say, 6pm). so, im going with this being around 6.30pm also.

episode 3:

note: i miss out a fair few scenes in this episode and ep4, because a lot is so flimsy in the speculation. with scenes in the bookshop, we can help gauge time with the shops/crowds around it etc, but in ep3 - eg. when aziraphale is in the bentley - i don't think i have enough surrounding data to make a reliable estimate on when it is... so essentially, im just going on what timestamps we do have.

returning to *the muriel arrival scene from ep2: if we accept that this is meant to be joined with the ep2 scene, the main bookshop clock reads as, most likely, 8am (but reminder: could also be 11.40am) when he sits down to start going through the articles and drawn gabriel, which seems to take some time (given the next timestamp):

however, when muriel turns up at the door, and aziraphale pauses the record, the clock reads as what i think is 7.50am or 9.35am (quality is such that i can't quite tell which hand is which, but i think it's this way round). i think, however, given the continuation of the scene, the latter is the most likely:

cupperty: when aziraphale enters the main room with the teacups, the main bookshop clocks reads as 9.50am.

crowley enters: clock still reading as 9.50am.

- capture of all three preceding timestamps

a hefty jump forward to the gravity conversation: the main bookshop clock reads as 6.17pm, or 3.30pm.

another jump forward, when aziraphale gets to the graveyard, and borrows the phone: clock on the phone reads as 5.30pm.

crowley picks up the call: the main bookshop clock shows as around 5.25pm - 5.28pm - so a couple of minutes' difference, but still fairly reliable.

episode 4:

frankly this episode is anyone's guess, given that there's only two main scenes in modern day. but to start, aziraphale is obviously driving back during the night, so possibly late evening/very early morning. he says that he is late, and so presumably he was meant to get back to london before nightfall/at least, before its very late in the evening.

aziraphale parks up: nina's phone in the café reads as 6.47am. this is supported by the background crashing sounds; with lots of restaurants around, likely bin lorries emptying the bottlebanks/bins.

episode 5:

the opening, when aziraphale leaves to go invite the other shopkeepers, shows that the bookshop is closed but the café and marguerite's is open; the former doesn't really mean jack shit, but i reckon marguerite's is likely to be a lunch/dinner joint. so, with that in mind, likely to be sometime in the afternoon.

crowley has his 'oh' moment, and whistles aziraphale over: we obviously don't know how long crowley has been sat there, but long enough that the patrons have swapped over - so let's say maybe an hour, and again still likely afternoon.

crowley then leaves to go confront gabriel, and aziraphale presumably follows up behind him shortly after. when crowley returns downstairs, and aziraphale is sprucing up the shop: quality is once again dogshite so i can't be sure which way round the hands are, but fairly certain the main bookshop clock reads as 12.30pm or 6pm. the latter seems the most likely, given the following scenes/dialogue:

aziraphale sends out crowley to find nina and maggie, and make sure "they are on their way" - it indicates that the party, set to start at 6.30pm, is soon. rightly enough, crowley pops round to the record store and it's closed, but maggie is inside - and nina has closed up the café and set to leave also.

mrs sandwich and then mr brown arrive: the main bookshop clock reads as around 6.20pm - 6.30pm, but we then don't get a clear shot of the clock for the rest of the episode. we know it suddenly gets really dark as soon as nina flies into the bookshop, but given the demon raid going on outside it's not really a reliable indicator of time.

so up until now, ive been pretty certain that the orange timestamps are the more correct, as they seem to flow the most with the general in-universe happenings of the story, and correlate most with the external green timestamps of the eps. however, ep6 goes very screwy in this respect, and it seems that the blue timestamps suddenly become the more accurate.

episode 6:

demons enter, attack, and the bookcase falls/maggie and nina hold them off with fire extinguishers: the main bookshop clock reads as 2.30am or 6.12am.

crowley comes back from heaven, and the demons arrive: the main bookshop clock reads as 6.02am or 12.30am/pm.

just before the gabriel/beelzebub flashbacks: the clock still reads as just gone past 6am or 12.30am/pm.

gabriel returns: the main bookshop clock, over maggie's shoulder, is out of focus so i can't quite see which way round the hands are, but i think reads as either 7am or 8am, or 11.37am, just before they're ushered out by crowley. either one of the two blue timestamps seems the most likely.

crowley drops off nina and maggie: nina remarks that she should have been open "half an hour ago", which if she normally turns up to open up the shop anywhere between 6.30am - 7am (as per her phone from the end of ep4 - 6.47am), makes 8am more likely - that she turns up at around 6.45am, ready to open at 7.30am.

angels and demons arguing: the main bookshop clock reads, just behind dagon's head, as approximately 08.25am or 4.40am/pm.

michael threatens aziraphale, and metatron arrives: the main bookshop clocks reads as 8am (9am?) or 12.43pm.

"extremely alcoholic breakfast at the ritz": reliably informs, for the avoidance of any doubt, that this scene is in the morning. indeed, when crowley gets out of the armchair, the clock shows again that its around 09.02am, or 12.45pm.

crowley tidies up the bookshop: the main bookshop clocks reads as 09.23am, or 4.47am/pm.

"id better start talking": the main bookshop clock reads as 09.25am or 5.45am/pm. it remains this time for the whole first half of the feral domestic, right up until the kiss.

crowley leaves, and metatron returns: the main bookshop clock now reads as approximately 09.40am or 8.47am. we are shown the scene in pretty close, tight-knit order, with no conceivable gaps in the scene where 20 minutes could have gone missing.

aziraphale leaves the bookshop: the clock remains at 09.40am or 08.47am

again from @katalina27ua! crowley at the bentley: the time on his watch reads as, at least (from what i can tell at the quality i have), within the ninth hour. however, the linked promo shot shows clearer - if we accept this to be taken directly from live filming etc - that the clockface reads ~09:15am. edit 03/01: however, there is a different promo photo where it appears that the minute hand is pointing just between the 4-5, reading at 09:25am (i have hit the photo limit but will add to the rb!)

so. couple of things to talk about here.

for the most part between eps 1-5, the clock has been pretty consistent with not only keeping track of time as scenes have developed etc., but also matching up with other instances of where a timestamp is given to us outside of the bookshop. with that in mind, it is highly likely that the clock is a reliable source of marking the in-narrative time of the story. this, for me, is evident with the orange timestamps - where the ornate hand is the minute hand, and other marks minutes.

however, when we hit ep6, it goes to shit. the orange timestamps (providing that ive tracked this all correctly - but error on my part is a very high possibility, i couldn't be bothered to go get pen and paper) suddenly go screwy, and it's the blue ones that make more sense.

we'll revisit that second point in a minute, but returning to the first point - this tells me a crucial thing (imo). first, that the clock can be accepted as the constant in the equation upon which to compare the variables. therefore, for example, crowley's bell tolls in st james' park, and his phone clock, are immediately apparent as 'out of sequence'. the same goes for the part in ep2 where aziraphale starts drawing gabriel - this of course could just be down to a non/extra-diegetic we-need-to-cut-ep3-but-plump-out-ep2 reason (and i think that's probably the case), but crowley's phone is so purposefully and blatantly (and arguably needlessly - could have just answered straightaway and achieved the same result) displayed with the 'wrong' time, that it doesn't feel accidental.

so if the timeline more likely follows the orange, why does it go completely bonkers in ep6, and instead start to follow the blue? god knows, i really don't have much of an answer beyond the "freaky-deaky time shit is going on", and maybe "the demon incursion/crowley going to heaven/the angel and demon stand-off/unreliable narratorship all round might be something to do with it." but to my mind, it is the blue timeline that suddenly makes narrative sense - it's likely morning, crowley supports this with "breakfast at the ritz", etc.

similarly, what is interesting to note is that despite neil's answer that the 20-minute skip during the kiss was a continuity error (and i will say, full disclaimer - perfectly prepared to still accept this as the truth), the crew/team seem to have been fairly hot on keeping the clock otherwise within continuity for the whole show. for a scene of this magnitude, where they know it's going to be emotionally upheaving for fans, leaving them gasping for an Explanation for how it all went down, and therefore scrutinise it for every little detail? sorry, im personally not buying that it wasn't deliberate... will probably end up eating my words, but there we are.

my brain has melted out of my ears trying to wrap my head around this, but i'll probably come back to it at some point with, no doubt, some corrections - and some further thoughts✨

#good omens #honestly where there are errors just pls pretend you didnt see them. writing this has aged me by at least a decade

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starrystevie · 1 year

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i don't care how impractical it is... i want steve, eddie, robin and nancy to all live together in a massive house somewhere with land and trees, but still close enough to the city that they don't go stir crazy. i want newly-an-official-couple robin and nancy to be the ones to suggest it with linked hands and matching grins. i want nancy to pull out spreadsheets that prove how it'll be a good way to split rent and get away from the overbearing eyes of hawkins, so they all pack up and move to the outskirts of indianapolis.

i want steve and eddie to start with twin beds in the bedroom not occupied by the lovebirds and then merge those beds into one large one once they figure their shit out. i want early riser nancy to make their breakfasts and learned-to-fend-for-himself eddie to make their dinners. i want chaos when steve and robin go to the grocery store for the first time and come back with half the things they actually need and armfuls of pringles cans. i want them sitting around a beat up kitchen table with socked feet knocking into each other and mismatched wine glasses trying to feel like adults.

i want steve and nancy deciding to get married after they crunched the numbers, saw the tax breaks, thought about the insurance benefits, thought about much easier things would be for all of them in the future if the law was slightly on their side. i want eddie and robin to follow suit because they want an excuse for a bigger party. i want them all falling into their lumpy bumpy couch after their joint weddings before steve runs upstairs to grab his and eddie's suitcase to head out for a mini-honeymoon leaving nancy and robin for one of their own.

years down the line, when hairs are greying and the skin around their eyes start to crinkle, i want there to be kids somehow. i want them to move in to the new build down the road with a more room than they probably need but with enough for their love to grow. i want robin and nancy to move in to the in law suite out back because it's closer to nancy's garden anyway, and expand it to a house of it's own. i want them all to have an open door policy so their kids can grow up side by side with barking and music and kid giggles echoing through the halls.

i want steve in the backyard teaching their crew how to throw a baseball and pressing gentle kisses to their sweaty foreheads to show he's proud of them. i want robin and eddie teaching them how to read music, little legs swinging off their kitchen chairs as they curl their fingers over the neck of too big acoustic guitars. i want nancy taking them on scavenger hunts around the yard, cats weaving between her legs as they use mini-magnifying glasses to observe bugs and leaves.

i want them going to parent teacher conferences in a mass group because, of course, steve charmed the head of the pto to get the kids in all the same classes. i want them to watch as the kids grow up, as they turn into moody teenagers and eventually off to college. i want never-expected-to-grow-old-let-alone-together steve, eddie, nancy and robin to make it a point to have dinner together every night with socked feet knocking into each other but with matching wine glasses this time around.

it's impractical, i know, but man do i want it.

#CO PARENTS CO PARENTING TO A POINT WHERE NO ONE KNOWS WHO IS ON THE PAPERS FOR WHO #yes hello this is my mom and my mom and my dad and my dad #this is nothing that makes sense at all but i needed to get it out of my head somehow #steddie #ronance #my writing #steve harrington #eddie munson #nancy wheeler #robin buckley #steddie headcanon #ronance headcanon #fruity four

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cellarspider · 2 months

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Spider's Big Prometheus Thing: Index Post

Being a list of all the posts produced in the course of this inexplicable project of mine. This post will be updated as more entries are added, on days when I remember I made an index for these.

All entries will have at least a minimum level of citations for where to start looking for more facts on a subject. Be aware that there's also hidden rambling and bonus facts in the image alt text.

0. Introduction

Setting the scene, including my background, my intent, and where this movie is going.

1. Opening

Expectations, landscapes, and aliens.

Rambles: DNA, whether aliens would have it, and why it doesn't look like a pale bacon ladder.

Alt-text rambles: nano-bubbles.

2. Discovery

The Isle of Skye is gorgeous, the movie attempts to establish its themes, and why it had already got my hackles up. Rambles: how cool ancient and pre-modern peoples were, the implications of humanoid figures in European cave paintings, and misplaced lions. Alt-text rambles: seriously, Skye is just so cool. Erich von Däniken and modern publishing royalties are not.

3. David

We meet the loneliest android, and his fandom of choice. Rambles: I go nuts for a paragraph over Proto-Indo-European. Alt-text rambles: Help me remember a dude's name, that time Ron Perlman saw Sigourney Weaver do something so cool he forgot to act, and a Coronation Street conspiracy theory.

4. Humans (Derogatory)

We meet the human crew, and analyze why they're a mismatch to the movie's established expectations, and what subgenre they fit in most. It isn't the one the movie seems to be aiming for. Rambles: 50s B-movies and their Men Of Science, modern movies and their quietly suffering scientists. Alt-text rambles: inconsistently moist characters, Idris Elba's christmas tree decorations.

5. Pseudoarchaeology (Extremely Derogatory)

We meet Old Man Capitalism, poor logistics, and how the movie began to really lose me through dropping in some racist pseudoscience tropes. Rambles: more logistics (of alien bioengineering), historical art styles, what the world was getting up to in the 600s CE Alt-text rambles: Linguistics, more ranting, the life and extraordinarily ornate death of Kʼinich Janaabʼ Pakal. Rants: the existence of writing, people who don't look like you can still think, stargazing and how conspiracy theorists don't understand it.

6. Roads

Poor firearm safety with Chekhov's Gun, when movies move too fast, atmospheric chemistry, and the moment I began to yearn for blood. Rambles: First contact protocols, why 3% CO₂ won't kill you but it will make you weird, my personal experience digging up a Roman road. Alt-text rambles: the logistics of securing items in moving craft, linguistics, atmospheric science, colorblind-friendly diagram design, swearing about orology, and cursing the crew for their fictional crimes against archaeology. Rants: Why they should've stayed in orbit, and my impassioned defense of historically significant transportation infrastructure.

7. Masking

The bit that made most people realize these characters were idiots. Featuring an attempt at themes. Rambles: NASA's policies on biological contaminants Alt-text rambles: Benedict Wong having nothing to do, helmet design, driving on dusty track, the tiny overlap between archaeological horrors and Minecraft, the CDC's excellent captions on men sneezing. Rants: Nominating a man for the Heinrich Schliemann Archaeology Award, all these people are catching space covid

8. Ghosts

Comparing the Engineers to their series antecedents, and I develop a slight soft spot for the geologist. Rambles: Set design in Alien, how carbon dating works. Alt-text rambles: Adventure games, GET DOWN MISTER PRESIDENT, I get very excited for Dune: Part Two, the archival devotion of people with rare blorbos.

9. Dignity

Personal, professional, social, and media context for the treatment of people's remains. Rambles: Personal experiences around the archaeological discovery of human skeletons, professional codes of ethics, movies that handle dead bodies better by being more crass about it. Alt-text rambles: None, the main text gets full focus this time.

10. Atmosphere

How intertextual imagery is overused, how the one major character arc is developing, and a whole grab bag of miscellaneous shambolic events. Rambles: How tourist-breath can destroy artifacts, and a deleted scene Alt-text rambles: Whether explaining mysteries is always the wrong decision in fantasy, the usefulness of helmets, Mass Effect's loading screens, please someone give me more recommendations for things where Giger creatures aren't all bad, and how cultural variation in gestures can make you look like an asshole. Rants: they aren't done desecrating the dead oh boy it's just gonna get worse

11. Decontamination

How to present an audience with events that make no sense, how to do it eerily, and how Prometheus does this by accident. Rambles: NASA's Apollo 11 quarantine policies Alt-text rambles: How 2001: A Space Odyssey put on a cosmic lightshow, how traditions are faked for political and social power in Midsommar, confusing lab equipment, robot arm safety, the use of camper vans in space exploration, umarell behavior, and robot horror movies. Bonus text rambles: pressurized gas cylinder safety, and how the cargo of one truck apparently tried to join Roscosmos. Rants: Laboratory safety

12. Shocking

Mary Shelly would not be proud of them. Rambles: Which home electrical appliances their tomfoolery is equivalent to. Alt-text rambles: Semiotics and Alien, reuse of props and art department equipment, the cast's inability to look at things, how the first chestburster scene intelligently incorporated spontaneity, and I completely lose my mind over a single computer readout, finding out in the process that the Engineers are close cousins to the common house mouse. Rants: I didn't think that "don't stick electrical plugs in people's ears" would be something that needed to be said, but here we are.

13. Family Tree

A soothing ramble about some of the cool bits of my job. Rambles: How evolution has made some vertebrate blood white or green, how genomes are sequenced, and how to determine the relatedness of species. And more. A lot more. I love my job. It's so cool. Alt-text rambles: How Nickelodeon slime was made, how hecking tiny molecules are, why blue-tongued skinks have blue tongues, my review of Dune: Part Two, how hard I worked to not turn Gene Wilder into a jumpscare, lots of enthusiastic explanations of DNA sequencing techniques, the aesthetics of the machines wot do that for you, how "snip" no longer sounds like a verb to me, and how I started out as a computational scientist.

14. Cheers

David poisons a man, and how his character arc ties into christian-influenced existential dread. Rambles: series continuity, gnostic theology, Ridley Scott's beliefs. Alt-text rambles: How to ruin petri dishes, Vickers' questionably carbon-based existence, the game of Operation, hand doubles in filming, how the funniest possible misidentification of an early church figure is wandering around the internet, the cool genders of suit actors, gnostic Archons, and the Engineers as Sophia. Rants: Holloway seems unaware that archaeologists study dead people, Ridley Scott is his own biggest problem.

15. Unworthy

The movie does something I'm not going to joke about. Don't read this if you're having a bad day. Big content warning for Holocaust imagery.

16. Intimacy

Your asexual commentator grapples with Hollywood's terrible track record on romantic and sexual chemistry. Rambles: Why we don't say an archaic-looking species is "older" than another, how religious scientists do what they do Alt-text rambles: the human family tree, Abbott and Costello, pitcher plant cultivars, the creative possibilities of a Buddhist version of this movie, and Stephen Still's lack of accordions. Rants: I've never been a boyfriend but I'm pretty sure that's not how you do it

17. Threat

Prometheus takes a hard turn into old slasher movie tropes. Rambles: A movie trailer that gave Wee Spider the screaming heebies Alt-text rambles: The age rating of Prometheus, a spontaneous X-Files crossover AU, Pitch Black, how likely it may or may not be that the images in the post will get flagged, critter behavior, insufficient EVA suit design, and the content balancing I take into account when selecting screenshots. Rants: This movie does not seem to know what it is. Alt-text rants: Ditto, focusing on characterization.

18. Flames

"Mac wants the flamethrower!" Rambles: I wandered off in the middle to watch a 40k comedy video, does that count? Alt-text rambles: More content-balancing, what kind of very English critter David appears to be, dune buggy design, Star Wars: The Old Republic is worth your time, Dune: Part Two is worth your time, an extremely long ramble about integration of CG background elements, and Oblivion memes. Alt-text rants: Movie color grading and lighting, undercutting scares.

19. Stars

The movie shows how good it can be when no dialog is involved. Rambles: The movie Contact and how Prometheus could've learned from it. Alt-text rambles: How I estimate large numbers from a still image, a brief Baldur's Gate 3 appearance, the set design and staging of a room made for giants with squishy computers, the use of color to make a cohesive scene, facts about Uranus, visual intimation of threat, VFX wizardry, practical FX wizardry, Michael Fassbender's wordless acting.

20. Expectant

The movie shows how good it can be when character choice is removed from the horror. Rambles: the inspiration and place of chestbursting in Alien movies, the continuing religious symbolism in the movie, the clunky dialog, how to build or undermine tension, and the good blending of practical and CG effects, and how tiny creatures of the ocean manage to be more uncanny than horror critters. Alt-text rambles: reading details the prop department never meant for you to see. Alt-text Rants: the return of the head-exploder and the first sight of actual PPE, slowly mangling a plot point's name until it has been thoroughly folded, spindled, and mutilated.

21. Underdelivered

The movie shows how terrible it can be when horror doesn't build tension. Rambles: Contortionists in horror, hillbilly horror/hixploitation movies. Alt-text rambles: Resident Evil 7, Dead Space and "strategic dismemberment"

22. Hubris

The movie tries to do some themes again Rambles: my ineffable desire to genetically sequence ditch weeds, Left Behind Alt-text rambles: Brad Dourif's commitment to the bit in The Two Towers, nigh-invisible wheelchair product placement, the Fallout series in general and the upcoming show in particular, praise for an epic-length critique of Left Behind, Robert Zemeckis' bizarre quest to mocap everything Rants: This movie does a terrible job representing both religiosity and atheism

23. Informed

Exposition is delivered, and plot points try to knit together. Rambles: The Silent Hill movie, Pacific Rim Alt-text rambles: Pyramid Head's secret unclothed backside, demanding environmental enrichment for scientists, greebling, Tumblr's favorite shitty copper merchant Rants: What could've been done instead of an exposition dump and daddy issues Alt-text rants: these people and their interior design are tempting fate and testing my patience

24. Inscribed

I go rogue and ramble about constructed languages and cuneiform for an entire post. Guest appearances from Klingon pop music and a delightfully eccentric Assyriologist. Rambles: All of it. Alt-text rambles: the self-awareness of conlangers, fingernail length, Schleischer's Fable as a warm-up for the next section, my primary conlang derangement, speculation about whether cuneiform was legible for the blind, my beef with the cowards at Lucasfilm for refusing to use Star Wars' coolest letters, my love for Warframe's Grineer, going into far too much detail about redesigning Prometheus' Engineer script, and finally, the many crocodiles of ancient egyptian hieroglyphs. Rants: None/all of it

25. Judgement

We discuss some of what the movie doesn't. Rambles: Fiction and morality, Blade Runner, biblical allusions the story could've made and doesn't Alt-text rambles: Lance Henriksen's insane career, the paintings of John Martin and a surprise George Washington, Rutger Hauer's effect on Blade Runner, my tentative plans for the next essay series. Rants: Germs, old man makeup. Alt-text Rants: The characters are reading ahead in the script again, the half-assed Engineer writing system continues to hurt me

26. Awoken

I go bananas over PIE. Rambles: fix-it fic for this damned movie, PIE, how to avoid PIE, how to analyze PIE, and my personal alternative to PIE. Alt-text rambles: calculating how long the Engineer's overslept, their potential spiritual kinship to Moominpapa, behind the scenes photos of the suit actors, Prometheus rants in the days of LiveJournal, the game Hades, how hard it personally is to get PIE right, the linguistics nerdery of the Hittite empire, and watermarks. Rants: how the movie fails its premise and hurts my soul with linguistics

27. Shortcomings

The characters, and movie, fail to get their message across to someone bent on their destruction. Rambles: David's confused religious symbolism, Star Trek Alt-text rambles: My desire for fanfic, behind the scenes photos, what other critters the Engineer's suit actor has played, the naming of Australopithecines, crash-proofing a movie set, alien gender, Gandahar and how French animated SF in the 80s was awesome, Scorn and its expert consultation from a cenobite, and Doctor Strangelove. Rants: the assumptions of the human characters, I go from trying to be measured to actively spiting the writer for his take on thoughtful SF Alt-text Rants: Del Toro is the only one who gets me, the movie has forgotten its main character just had a major surgery, one last rant about how terribly unsafe the Prometheus was as a ship, before it becomes definitively not a ship.

28. Momentum

It's the bit where she doesn't turn. Rambles: How to fix the dumbest thing we've seen in a hot minute, Edge of Tomorrow and feeling Tom Cruise's fear, how the dead thing is never really dead in horror. Alt-text rambles: How hard it is to find the most catchy song in We Love Katamari, more behind the scenes pictures of my blorbos, Friday the 13th Part IV, bad braille, and trilobites. Rants: I mean how can you not when the movie forgets how space works? Like, the idea of 3D space as a concept? Also, a particular rock earns my ire, and my ranting about interior designs on ships finally pays off.

29. Dissonance

The ending of the movie, and its tonal incoherency. Rambles: Protagonist-centric morality and lack thereof Alt-text rambles: Star Trek TNG, green blood, caecilian teeth. Rants: shallow christian themes, sequels that could have been, Shaw's confusingly deployed robo-racism Alt-text rants: sequel disappointments, inadvisable post-caesarian activities, how the hell do you fit that much 'burster into one chest, biological plausibility in alien extend-o-mouths

30. Justification

A breakdown of a post-release interview with Ridley Scott, explaining some missing details. Rambles: Gnosticism again, Mesoamerican and European human sacrifice and the exoticization of shared cultural practices, and a hearty book recommendation. Alt-text rambles: Icelandic volcanoes, The Collector (2009), Stephen Speilberg's War of the Worlds and how scaring the shit out of someone isn't necessarily the job of a horror film, the Tollund Man, unique cultural practices, Hello Future Me, and my opinions on what we've seen of Alien: Romulus. Rants: Ancient peoples weren't stupid, an unexamined christian-centric worldview, an unexamined christian-centric worldview, I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGh

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xxnomadsxx · 3 months

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The Nomads Au! Those feral things i mentioned that one time!

(SORRY this is soooo cringe! in my opinion pls give it a shot and don’t unfollow😭)

I mentioned awhile back in the au summary about a distant distant cousin to the trolls who found Branch and I just…never explained them EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE A HUGE PART TO THE STORY….in a way.

Basically I was like what if I just made a species of feral trolls and yea that’s basically them. (They get alot of troll headcannon design Stuff like tails and claws while the trolls look like the movie versions )

They look sorta similar but not really to troll. They have huge fangs that will sometimes stick out there mouth, the teeth are a mismatch of sharp and pointy fangs while being crooked (huge carnivors! the only reason they let all these trolls stay is cause they help them hunt) their hair consist of some desaturated colors or a scale of hair colors from brown to black. There outfits look similar to branches style of clothing, plus random genre themed clothing from some of the trolls ( like a battered crop top from a rock troll a beat up bow tie from a classical troll, you get the gist) there hair is long and look like they could use it to cover there entire body it’s also a disheveled mess with leaves bugs and twigs in it(it’s there for camouflage), they have retractable claws, some random fur sticking off there elbows, no noses, pointy ears, tails, silted pupils that makes them look terrifying in the dark.

Personality wise they differ (cause free will and stuff) but it usually consists of anger, hunger, annoyed, absolutely batshit crazy, i don’t get it, lets eat it, a lot of paranoia, will run after you on all fours, will growl bite snarl and hiss at you. There like piranhas after food when they hunt. They would totally hunt bergans ( they’re like reverse trolls they eat huge things instead of vice versa) they will eat things a thousand times bigger than them. They act like feral animals.

The reason they exist in the AU is because I need a reason for Branch to be absolutely feral. One of them was totally going to eat Branch once got a good look at him and said “this is my brother now” continued to pick him up like a mama cat with her baby and scurryed home on all four cackling like a gremlin( no one cared they brought home a troll as long as he helps he’s fine, or else they will eat him) then more trolls came and the same policy was installed. They basically filled Branch with fear and aggression over the years (I also made them so branch could have at least one thing that would care about him for 20 years (who will be explained later) because he needs SOMETHING GOOD IN HIS LIFE!)

I’m calling them feral (trolls?) cause honestly no one knows what they are.

Any questions can be asked and answered in the comments or as a direct message.

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qdbs-writes · 1 year

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Hey, can I have Liu Kang, Hanzo, Bi-han reacting to there s/o crochet them an cat hat please

omfg this is so cute, i love it!

MK Guys x Reader who crocheted them a cat hat

Bi-Han

Despite what others may think, Bi-han loves everything you make for him and will wear the cat hat with pride.

It's a little too tight, but he wears it regardless, anyone who wants to be rude about you making nice things for him is gonna get their ass kicked.

He accidentally put it in the tumble dryer one day and it shrank to the size of his palm, now he keeps it tucked into his pocket so a piece of you is always with him.

Liu Kang

Kang is so grateful for this adorable gift and will wear it every day, or as often as he can.

He likes to wear it while studying in the library at the Shaolin Temple, despite the Shaolin policy against earthly possessions, no one would complain about Kang having such a sweet and practical item.

No matter how well he cared for it, he's still devastated when the thread starts to fray and unravel from being worn and loved so much.

Hanzo Hasashi

He's very grateful that you took the time to make him something from scratch, but he's a little embarrassed that you want him to wear it.

You were practicing using leftover yarn from other projects so the hat was kind of a mismatch of colours. Not that it was ugly, just that it looked a bit chaotic.

He will wear the hat to make you happy, but don't be surprised if he keeps finding excuses to leave it at home.

#mortal kombat #mortal kombat imagine #mortal kombat headcanons #mortal kombat x reader #bi han #bi han x reader #liu kang #liu kang x reader #scorpion #scorpion x reader #hanzo hasashi #hanzo hasashi x reader #qdbs writing #queuedbs

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jingerpi · 3 months

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Whenever condemnation of biden is met with "but trump!" it relies of an inherent assumption that trump will always be worse than anything biden could do. at what point would biden be worse? to people who say this, there has to be a genuine line, right? It cant just keep going forever? or is trump the incarnation of everything bad which can never be surpassed?

They always jump to an argument about voting tactics, which misses the underlying assumptions related to policy and actions. The tactics of voting are something we can talk about sure, but stop using it as cover to cut discussion on policy. when we try to decide if "vote blue no matter who" is a good tactic, its already assume that trump will be worse, but why? thats not something that is an inherent truth we're all agreeing to.

Most likely in my view, its a buy in to the liberal framework of duality which we're presented. in which the red people are the conservatives and the blue people are the progressives, and that those lines can never be crossed or mismatched. But we can't fall for this neoliberal propaganda, these lines are arbitrary and only signal vague allegiances to rhetoric, there is no rule of the universe, physics, or even sociology, that states democrats will always be better than republicans. Biden is a warmonger and you can't slip in the assumption that he's always going to be better than the alternative like you keep doing. you have to actually address why he provides tactical benefits if you want people to vote for him and consent to his genocidal policies.

and by actually address the tactical benefits, i mean actually you can't just say "trump hates queer people" that does not address it. Biden has repeatedly damaged minority rights domestically as well as abroad, the border crisis has been actively made significantly worse by him despite what he said he was going to do, womens & queer rights have been continually walked back as he stands by says how awful it is while doing nothing, and he's bypassed congress at least 3 times to provide aid to israel, which even several republicans have condemned. Trump is bad, but I'm not going to keep taking this assumption that he's the incarnate of evil and nobody can match the harm his policies could cause.

#electoralism #genocide joe #biden #im probably yelling into the wind but i cant even stop its so ridiculous it makes me infuriated

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derinthescarletpescatarian · 1 year

Note

I was wondering why the international language used in Curse Words is Ido, when Novial, which is an improvement on Ido, was made very shortly after? Or, in general why an Esperantido, when surely an international school would have enough people from outside of Europe to make a less Eurocentric language?

Ido is just my favourite.

Its limitations as a language for an international magic school come up several times in the story. Even the language teacher thinks it's a bad choice, and it only barely beat out Mandarin Chinese as the school's official language (proposed by people who just wanted to use the language spoken by the biggest proportion of prospective students). Refujeyo was built by politicians and committees, so it's full of little inconveniences and compromises at every level, from the language and curriculum, to the architecture and safety policies, to the laws and heirarchies. It was built by people trying to jury-rig an international university-style school and accompanying society out of thousand varied traditional systems of education from all over the world and the mismatch shows on every level, including the language selection.

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feminist-space · 1 year

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How Cigna Saves Millions by Having Its Doctors Reject Claims Without Reading Them

by Patrick Rucker, Maya Miller and David Armstrong for ProPublica

March 25, 5 a.m. EDT

Internal documents and former company executives reveal how Cigna doctors reject patients’ claims without opening their files. “We literally click and submit,” one former company doctor said.

When a stubborn pain in Nick van Terheyden’s bones would not subside, his doctor had a hunch what was wrong.

Without enough vitamin D in the blood, the body will pull that vital nutrient from the bones. Left untreated, a vitamin D deficiency can lead to osteoporosis.

A blood test in the fall of 2021 confirmed the doctor’s diagnosis, and van Terheyden expected his company’s insurance plan, managed by Cigna, to cover the cost of the bloodwork. Instead, Cigna sent van Terheyden a letter explaining that it would not pay for the $350 test because it was not “medically necessary.”

The letter was signed by one of Cigna’s medical directors, a doctor employed by the company to review insurance claims.

Something about the denial letter did not sit well with van Terheyden, a 58-year-old Maryland resident. “This was a clinical decision being second-guessed by someone with no knowledge of me,” said van Terheyden, a physician himself and a specialist who had worked in emergency care in the United Kingdom.

The vague wording made van Terheyden suspect that Dr. Cheryl Dopke, the medical director who signed it, had not taken much care with his case.

Van Terheyden was right to be suspicious. His claim was just one of roughly 60,000 that Dopke denied in a single month last year, according to internal Cigna records reviewed by ProPublica and The Capitol Forum.

The rejection of van Terheyden’s claim was typical for Cigna, one of the country’s largest insurers. The company has built a system that allows its doctors to instantly reject a claim on medical grounds without opening the patient file, leaving people with unexpected bills, according to corporate documents and interviews with former Cigna officials. Over a period of two months last year, Cigna doctors denied over 300,000 requests for payments using this method, spending an average of 1.2 seconds on each case, the documents show. The company has reported it covers or administers health care plans for 18 million people.

Before health insurers reject claims for medical reasons, company doctors must review them, according to insurance laws and regulations in many states. Medical directors are expected to examine patient records, review coverage policies and use their expertise to decide whether to approve or deny claims, regulators said. This process helps avoid unfair denials.

But the Cigna review system that blocked van Terheyden’s claim bypasses those steps. Medical directors do not see any patient records or put their medical judgment to use, said former company employees familiar with the system. Instead, a computer does the work. A Cigna algorithm flags mismatches between diagnoses and what the company considers acceptable tests and procedures for those ailments. Company doctors then sign off on the denials in batches, according to interviews with former employees who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“We literally click and submit,” one former Cigna doctor said. “It takes all of 10 seconds to do 50 at a time.”

Not all claims are processed through this review system. For those that are, it is unclear how many are approved and how many are funneled to doctors for automatic denial.

Insurance experts questioned Cigna’s review system.

Patients expect insurers to treat them fairly and meaningfully review each claim, said Dave Jones, California’s former insurance commissioner. Under California regulations, insurers must consider patient claims using a “thorough, fair and objective investigation.”

“It’s hard to imagine that spending only seconds to review medical records complies with the California law,” said Jones. “At a minimum, I believe it warrants an investigation.”

Within Cigna, some executives questioned whether rendering such speedy denials satisfied the law, according to one former executive who spoke on condition of anonymity because he still works with insurers.

“We thought it might fall into a legal gray zone,” said the former Cigna official, who helped conceive the program. “We sent the idea to legal, and they sent it back saying it was OK.”

Cigna adopted its review system more than a decade ago, but insurance executives say similar systems have existed in various forms throughout the industry.

In a written response, Cigna said the reporting by ProPublica and The Capitol Forum was “biased and incomplete.”

Cigna said its review system was created to “accelerate payment of claims for certain routine screenings,” Cigna wrote. “This allows us to automatically approve claims when they are submitted with correct diagnosis codes.”

When asked if its review process, known as PXDX, lets Cigna doctors reject claims without examining them, the company said that description was “incorrect.” It repeatedly declined to answer further questions or provide additional details. (ProPublica employees’ health insurance is provided by Cigna.)

Former Cigna doctors confirmed that the review system was used to quickly reject claims. An internal corporate spreadsheet, viewed by the news organizations, lists names of Cigna’s medical directors and the number of cases each handled in a column headlined “PxDx.” The former doctors said the figures represent total denials. Cigna did not respond to detailed questions about the numbers.

Cigna's explanation that its review system was designed to approve claims didn’t make sense to one former company executive. “They were paying all these claims before. Then they weren’t,” said Ron Howrigon, who now runs a company that helps private doctors in disputes with insurance companies. “You’re talking about a system built to deny claims.”

Cigna emphasized that its system does not prevent a patient from receiving care — it only decides when the insurer won’t pay. “Reviews occur after the service has been provided to the patient and does not result in any denials of care,” the statement said.

"Our company is committed to improving health outcomes, driving value for our clients and customers, and supporting our team of highly-skilled Medical Directors,” the company said.

PXDX

Cigna’s review system was developed more than a decade ago by a former pediatrician.

After leaving his practice, Dr. Alan Muney spent the next several decades advising insurers and private equity firms on how to wring savings out of health plans.

In 2010, Muney was managing health insurance for companies owned by Blackstone, the private equity firm, when Cigna tapped him to help spot savings in its operation, he said.

Insurers have wide authority to reject claims for care, but processing those denials can cost a few hundred dollars each, former executives said. Typically, claims are entered into the insurance system, screened by a nurse and reviewed by a medical director.

For lower-dollar claims, it was cheaper for Cigna to simply pay the bill, Muney said.

“They don’t want to spend money to review a whole bunch of stuff that costs more to review than it does to just pay for it,” Muney said.

Muney and his team had solved the problem once before. At UnitedHealthcare, where Muney was an executive, he said his group built a similar system to let its doctors quickly deny claims in bulk.

In response to questions, UnitedHealthcare said it uses technology that allows it to make “fast, efficient and streamlined coverage decisions based on members benefit plans and clinical criteria in compliance with state and federal laws.” The company did not directly address whether it uses a system similar to Cigna.

At Cigna, Muney and his team created a list of tests and procedures approved for use with certain illnesses. The system would automatically turn down payment for a treatment that didn’t match one of the conditions on the list. Denials were then sent to medical directors, who would reject these claims with no review of the patient file.

Cigna eventually designated the list “PXDX” — corporate shorthand for procedure-to-diagnosis. The list saved money in two ways. It allowed Cigna to begin turning down claims that it had once paid. And it made it cheaper to turn down claims, because the company’s doctors never had to open a file or conduct any in-depth review. They simply denied the claims in bulk with an electronic signature.

“The PXDX stuff is not reviewed by a doc or nurse or anything like that,” Muney said.

The review system was designed to prevent claims for care that Cigna considered unneeded or even harmful to the patient, Muney said. The policy simply allowed Cigna to cheaply identify claims that it had a right to deny.

Muney said that it would be an “administrative hassle” to require company doctors to manually review each claim rejection. And it would mean hiring many more medical directors.

“That adds administrative expense to medicine,” he said. “It’s not efficient.”

But two former Cigna doctors, who did not want to be identified by name for fear of breaking confidentiality agreements with Cigna, said the system was unfair to patients. They said the claims automatically routed for denial lacked such basic information as race and gender.

“It was very frustrating,” one doctor said.

Some state regulators questioned Cigna’s PXDX system.

In Maryland, where van Terheyden lives, state insurance officials said the PXDX system as described by a reporter raises “some red flags.”

The state’s law regulating group health plans purchased by employers requires that insurance company doctors be objective and flexible when they sit down to evaluate each case.

If Cigna medical directors are “truly rubber-stamping the output of the matching software without any additional review, it would be difficult for the medical director to comply with these requirements,” the Maryland Insurance Administration wrote in response to questions.

Medicare and Medicaid have a system that automatically prevents improper payment of claims that are wrongly coded. It does not reject payment on medical grounds.

Within the world of private insurance, Muney is certain that the PXDX formula has boosted the corporate bottom line. “It has undoubtedly saved billions of dollars,” he said.

Insurers benefit from the savings, but everyone stands to gain when health care costs are lowered and unneeded care is denied, he said.

Speedy Reviews

Cigna carefully tracks how many patient claims its medical directors handle each month. Twelve times a year, medical directors receive a scorecard in the form of a spreadsheet that shows just how fast they have cleared PXDX cases.

Dopke, the doctor who turned down van Terheyden, rejected 121,000 claims in the first two months of 2022, according to the scorecard.

Dr. Richard Capek, another Cigna medical director, handled more than 80,000 instant denials in the same time span, the spreadsheet showed.

Dr. Paul Rossi has been a medical director at Cigna for over 30 years. Early last year, the physician denied more than 63,000 PXDX claims in two months.

Rossi, Dopke and Capek did not respond to attempts to contact them.

Howrigon, the former Cigna executive, said that although he was not involved in developing PXDX, he can understand the economics behind it.

“Put yourself in the shoes of the insurer,” Howrigon said. “Why not just deny them all and see which ones come back on appeal? From a cost perspective, it makes sense.”

Cigna knows that many patients will pay such bills rather than deal with the hassle of appealing a rejection, according to Howrigon and other former employees of the company. The PXDX list is focused on tests and treatments that typically cost a few hundred dollars each, said former Cigna employees.

“Insurers are very good at knowing when they can deny a claim and patients will grumble but still write a check,” Howrigon said.

Muney and other former Cigna executives emphasized that the PXDX system does leave room for the patient and their doctor to appeal a medical director’s decision to deny a claim.

But Cigna does not expect many appeals. In one corporate document, Cigna estimated that only 5% of people would appeal a denial resulting from a PXDX review.

“A Negative Customer Experience”

In 2014, Cigna considered adding a new procedure to the PXDX list to be flagged for automatic denials.

Autonomic nervous system testing can help tell if an ailing patient is suffering from nerve damage caused by diabetes or a variety of autoimmune diseases. It’s not a very involved procedure — taking about an hour — and it costs a few hundred dollars per test.

The test is versatile and noninvasive, requiring no needles. The patient goes through a handful of checks of heart rate, sweat response, equilibrium and other basic body functions.

At the time, Cigna was paying for every claim for the nerve test without bothering to look at the patient file, according to a corporate presentation. Cigna officials were weighing the cost and benefits of adding the procedure to the list. “What is happening now?” the presentation asked. “Pay for all conditions without review.”

By adding the nerve test to the PXDX list, Cigna officials estimated, the insurer would turn down more than 17,800 claims a year that it had once covered. It would pay for the test for certain conditions, but deny payment for others.

These denials would “create a negative customer experience” and a “potential for increased out of pocket costs," the company presentation acknowledged.

But they would save roughly $2.4 million a year in medical costs, the presentation said.

Cigna added the test to the list.

“It’s Not Good Medicine”

By the time van Terheyden received his first denial notice from Cigna early last year, he had some answers about his diagnosis. The blood test that Cigna had deemed “not medically necessary” had confirmed a vitamin D deficiency. His doctor had been right, and recommended supplements to boost van Terheyden’s vitamin level.

Still, van Terheyden kept pushing his appeal with Cigna in a process that grew more baffling. First, a different Cigna doctor reviewed the case and stood by the original denial. The blood test was unnecessary, Cigna insisted, because van Terheyden had never before been found to lack sufficient vitamin D.

“Records did not show you had a previously documented Vitamin D deficiency,” stated a denial letter issued by Cigna in April. How was van Terheyden supposed to document a vitamin D deficiency without a test? The letter was signed by a Cigna medical director named Barry Brenner.

Brenner did not respond to requests for comment.

Then, as allowed by his plan, van Terheyden took Cigna’s rejection to an external review by an independent reviewer.

In late June — seven months after the blood test — an outside doctor not working for Cigna reviewed van Terheyden’s medical record and determined the test was justified.

The blood test in question “confirms the diagnosis of Vit-D deficiency,” read the report from MCMC, a company that provides independent medical reviews. Cigna eventually paid van Terheyden’s bill. “This patient is at risk of bone fracture without proper supplementations,” MCMC’s reviewer wrote. “Testing was medically necessary and appropriate.”

Van Terheyden had known nothing about the vagaries of the PXDX denial system before he received the $350 bill. But he did sense that very few patients pushed as hard as he had done in his appeals.

As a physician, van Terheyden said, he’s dumbfounded by the company’s policies.

“It’s not good medicine. It’s not caring for patients. You end up asking yourself: Why would they do this if their ultimate goal is to care for the patient?” he said.

“Intellectually, I can understand it. As a physician, I can’t. To me, it feels wrong.”

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sweatandwoe · 1 year

Note

Some Ghost hc’s you say…

Copia definitely have a stuffed animal that he sleeps with and has owned since he was a child

Terzo acts all cocky and like a playboy, but he truly would love whoever he’s with and would never use anybody just for sex

Copia can secretly play the piano and has a fondness for Ludovico Einaudi’s pieces

Primo acts all stern and grumpy but loves his brothers (but would rather die before admitting it)

Terzo has a love for painting and drawing

Oh god I love these, and might come back to do some more lil pieces but the Primo one got me in my feels, and also had me doing some headcanons of my own

tags: gen fic, Primo, Copia, Primo realizing things, personal headcanons

Primo has always been a stern, quiet man. An older man now, and that is why everyone comes to him for advice. An old man's wisdom, though Primo has never felt particularly wise. Everyone that drops by into his garden seems to think so though. He is not the head of the clergy any longer, yet siblings of sin still come to him for advice.

Even the new Papa does.

He is a little surprised, he'll admit, when the cardinal is waiting for him in the greenhouse. The other man sits at one of the gardening tables, in a black tailored suit instead of the red cassock. In his hands is a thick book, one that Primo recognizes.

"Papa." He greets, and the newest Papa jumps in his seat. It has him glad his face paint is usually so messy, it hides his smile a little better.

"P-papa." Copia stutters out, turning in his chair to face him. His fingers drum on the back of the chair, tapping one after the other in the rhythm of a song Primo has not experienced yet. Mismatched eyes flick over to the open book, recognizing new notes that hadn't been in there when he had last held it. "I heard your greenhouse had a walk-in policy."

"Did Terzo tell you that?" Primo lets his shoes slip off, slipping on the sandals he keeps by the door. "He was in here just a few days ago."

"Yes. He said he went to you for advice after he," there's a pause, enough for the older man to see the bob of Copia's adam's apple while he swallows, "ascended."

"That he did. Secondo too." He remembers both his brothers fondly. Primo was the oldest, born during his father's early twenties. He and his brothers all shared different mothers, but that had never stopped their brotherhood. Bound together in being their father's progeny, Primo had always taken a watchful eye on his two younger blood brothers.

Copia is around the same age as his brothers, he realizes. From what he can remember, the cardinal has always been a loner. An orphan raised by the clergy.

An outsider.

"What advice can I offer you, Copia?" And he stares into the mismatched gaze, one that matches his own. One that the Cardinal wears almost too naturally, despite his nerves. "Unless you'd like me to start rambling on about proper plant care."

"Just some words, about how to be a good Papa."

And Primo chuckles, walking over. He pulls a screen, that separates them like it's an actual confessional booth but it's just so he can check on the daisies he's looking after there. "I was not Papa for very long."

"No, but you were always meant to be." Ah, there it is. The source of the frustration. "Papa, I was not meant for this. I am not part of your line."

Primo hums. "My mother was not from the church, you know." He tilts the blooming flower into his fingers, running the edge of his thumb over the tip of a petal. "I was born outside of it. When Nihil went on his first country-wide tour, I was dropped off at this very abbey. I was ten years old." Even fifty-odd years later, he can still feel the sting of his mother's final gaze. He would not hear from her for another thirty years when she sent word that she was sick.

He did not visit her.

The older Papa slides his gaze onto the younger one. "At first they did not know if I was truly Nihil's son. They made us run tests, and they scoured old pictures of Nihil to try and find resemblances or lack thereof. No one knew for sure until his dark eminence came to Nihil in a dream. That was five years later, and then I was made the heir to his line, with my brothers beside me."

They had been five years old, squirming nervously beside him. He had held their hands tightly, silently promising that they would never have to go through the pains he had.

But they went through their own pains anyway, and Primo realized he could only stand back and watch, to care for them and to offer comfort when the time was right. He could pretend to not care for his brothers, but in reality, it was simply not something he ever needed to be voiced. His brothers came to him with their bruised minds and hearts now, instead of scrapped knees.

"Satan has a path for each of us, Papa Copia." He adds on, turning back to him. It's odd, staring at him. He almost see licks of Terzo or Secondo there, in the shape of his jaw but almost matching entirely in the eyes. "He has chosen this path for you. You must follow him."

The cardinal's fingers stop tapping, moving to curl instead. "But it was the clergy, Papa. Not him. Nihil did not receive a vision about me."

Primo nods, slowly and moves to stand by the screen. Resting his elbows on it, laying his arms over the small wooden ledge. "I don't think he received one about me either."

Copia's eyes shoot up at him, and Primo stares. The shock in them looks so similar to-

"He didn't?"

"No, I don't think he did. But I think he knew I was probably his son. Or at least would hold the place until Secondo or Terzo were ready." His fingers twist. "I don't think either of them wanted it though."

"Did you want it?"

"Yes and no." He pauses, feeling something twist in his stomach the longer he stares at the other man. Recognition but from where? "Do you want it?"

Copia chuckles, a dry noise edged with the nervousness of his fingers tapping once more. "I think every clergyman is always, eh, envious of the rank of Papa. Something we aren't meant to achieve."

"Yet you have."

"I have," Copia takes in a breath, turning back to the book. "And I want to be the best I can be."

"Trying is the first step," Primo says, easily. "And they clearly want you to lead us through this. Already they had gifted you the eye."

The black-suited man shifts in his seat, pink tongue darting out to wet his upper lip. "I... I did not go through the ceremony. I was born like this." Leather-covered fingers raise up, to gently touch underneath the white eye, pressing into the skin. "The sisters who raised me said it was a blessing from Satan himself. But maybe it was destiny?"

Primo stares.

He knows where he recognizes him from now.

Slowly he moves the screen, pulling it back and just staring at the other man. Copia offers a weak chuckle, his brow creasing, "Is that so shocking, papa? You look like you've seen a ghost."

In a way he had.

Primo was old, he knew many things he did not think about. He knew secrets that were only meant to be whispered about, including one that he had never even told his brothers. Nihil had taken Imperator as his prime mover, everyone knew that. Their union had never taken fruit, and it was assumed she was barren since Nihil's seed had taken in others.

But she had left the church for a time, and when she returned, it was shortly after Nihil had named him an heir. And he remembers her doting on only one person, never himself or his brothers.

Copia.

Copia had been left at the abbey. Copia was born with the eye of Emeritus. Copia who is the same age as his brothers. Copia who all this time had been alone, isolated-

"Just some thoughts of my own." He manages to say, feeling a smile pull on his lips. His own hand comes on the other man's shoulder. "I think you will be a good Papa, Copia. You care a great deal for everyone in the abbey, and so long as you try, not even Satan can fault you."

Copia nods, sweat shining on his forehead. He stands after a moment, gathering his book and tucking it under one arm. "Thank you, Papa." But before he can escape from the greenhouse, Primo catches his elbow.

"In celebration of your ascension, please, you must join my brothers and I for dinner. This Saturday."

Copia stutters, his eyes are huge, wide enough to resemble a dinner plate. "P-Papa I would not wish to impose-"

"You would not be imposing. You are a Papa now like we were." His grip tightens, squeezing just for a moment before he lets him go altogether. "I will expect you there, Papa."

The former Cardinal scurries off with a quick nod after that. Primo watches him go, feeling something bubble in his stomach, leading up into his heart.

Primo loves his brothers, it is something that never has to be said. It's something that has never once had to be voiced between them. He is the oldest, and he has always vowed to protect and comfort them. And they had comforted him in return.

So there is a rage inside of him, knowing that there is one brother, he had never protected. Could never have been protected, simply because of scorn.

Primo knows he'll need to tell his brothers, and in turn, they'll tell Copia together. That he won't be alone anymore, that he will have them.

He hopes it is not too late. And he hopes it will be enough.

#cardinal copia #primo #papa emeritus iv #papa emeritus i #did not betaread this #the band ghost #ghost #ghost the band

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 11 months

Text

By: Colin Wright and Samuel Stagg

Published: May 22, 2023

Gender ideology rests upon two main pillars. The first proposes that the two sexes are not distinct and immutable categories, but rather correspond to a collection of many traits that one can plot along a spectrum. Male and female, in this view, exist only in a statistical sense. The second asserts that every human brain contains an unchangeable “gender identity” that is knowable from a very young age, physically detectable, and may conflict with one’s biological sex. The practical aspirations of gender ideologues depend on the truth of both claims: if male and female are not arbitrary or mutable, then there would be no basis for allowing males in female sports, prisons, or female-only spaces; if sex is binary, and no innate and fixed gender identity exists, then one cannot be “mismatched” from one’s sex—and “gender affirming” treatment is unjustified. Put another way, the belief in the sex spectrum provides the assurance of the ability to materially change one’s sex, while the belief in an innate and fixed gender identity that can be “mismatched” from one’s sex (i.e., a person can be “born in the wrong body”) provides the ethical justification or even obligation for hormonal or surgical intervention.

These gender-ideology pillars lack empirical support and are buttressed entirely by politically motivated wishful thinking. Consider a recent Washington Post article by English professor Jennifer Finney Boylan, which tried to establish the validity of both. Boylan does not seem to understand the well-established universal property that defines all males and females in nature, displays confusion about the difference between how sex is defined versus how it is determined, and demonstrates a tenuous grasp of the research of so-called “brain sex” that purports to ground “gender identity.”

We agree with Boylan that policy must ultimately be rooted in material reality. A scientist’s job is to describe the natural world as clearly and accurately as possible; society can collectively decide what, if anything, to do with those facts. But scientists also have a duty to combat falsehoods on topics they know well, especially when such falsehoods have real-world consequences. Misleading and incorrect claims about gender identity are being used to justify invasive, permanent medical procedures on minors and adults and to eliminate sex-based distinctions in law. Boylan’s claims, representative of progressive defenses of gender ideology, deserve serious scrutiny.

Boylan begins by outlining some general questions about biology. “So what, then, is a biological male, or female? What determines this supposedly simple truth? It’s about chromosomes, right?” Boylan then purports to debunk the chromosomal notion of sex by highlighting exceptions to the general rule that males have XY chromosomes and females are XX, noting that “not every person with a Y chromosome is male, and not every person with a double X is female,” and that “the world is full of people with other combinations: XXY (or Klinefelter Syndrome), XXX (or Trisomy X), XXXY and so on.”

The notion that males and females are defined by their chromosomes, with males always being XY and females always XX, is a frustratingly common misconception that occurs on both sides of the political divide. Gender activists use this misconception to provide exceptions that they believe refute the notion that there are only two sexes. Conversely, some opponents of the erasure of biological sex tout the XY and XX concept of males and females as proof that sex is binary and etched into our DNA.

Neither depiction is accurate. The central error, not obvious to those unfamiliar with biology, is made explicit in Boylan’s second question: What “determines” whether an individual is male or female? For what determines an individual’s sex is different from what defines it. “Sex determination” refers to the processes that set an embryo on the developmental pathway of becoming male or female. But the mechanisms responsible for triggering male and female development do not define the male and female sexes themselves. Humans and other mammals use genes located on chromosomes to trigger sex development; some animals, like many reptiles, use temperature. Just as chromosomes do not define an individual mammal’s sex, temperature does not define an individual alligator’s sex. Rather, one’s sex is defined by his or her primary reproductive anatomy, indicating the type of gamete (sperm or ova) he or she can or would produce.

The different chromosomal combinations Boylan highlights, such as XXY, XXX, and XXXY, are not examples of new sexes beyond male or female. Instead, they represent chromosomal variation within the two sexes. Assuming a properly functioning SRY gene (the gene that triggers male development) on the Y chromosomes, the hypothetical XXY and XXXY individuals would be unambiguously male, and the XXX individual unambiguously female.

Moving on, Boylan mentions complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS), describing it as “a condition that keeps the brains of people with a Y [chromosome] from absorbing the information in that chromosome.” This description is not even remotely correct. CAIS is a condition in which a person’s cells are completely unresponsive to androgens, such as testosterone. This prevents the genitals in a developing male fetus from masculinizing, and further prevents the development of male secondary sexual characteristics during puberty, despite the presence of functioning internal testes.

Boylan then displays confusion regarding the distinction between primary sex organs (gonads) and secondary sex characteristics (traits that differentiate between males and females during puberty). Boylan questions whether women who have had mastectomies or men with “enlarged breasts” are still female and male, respectively. Breasts are called “secondary sex characteristics” for a reason: they are related to sex, but do not define it. Just as painting stripes on a lion does not turn it into a tiger, augmenting a man’s breasts does not make him a woman.

After concluding that the basis for being male or female cannot be reduced to anatomy or genetics, Boylan turns to the brain, writing: “It might be that what’s in your pants is less important than what’s between your ears.” The concept of “brain sex” has been of special interest to gender activists and medical professionals who seek to root “gender identity” in something immutable and innate. That would allow them to draw upon existing legal precedents and civil rights laws, as Leor Sapir, an expert in this domain, observes:

Another reason for the medical professionals’ insistence is that “brain sex” resonates with a legal culture shaped by the civil rights movement. The Supreme Court has long recognized that a trait’s immutability is relevant to its eligibility for constitutional protection. In the final stages of the Gloucester litigation, the Fourth Circuit based its equal protection analysis on the claim that gender identity is, like race, an “immutable characteristic.”

Boylan does not claim that the brains of transgender “women” (in other words, natal males) resemble those of natal females. Instead, Boylan claims that they are “something distinct,” citing a recent study. The study in question recruited 72 participants (24 males, 24 females, and 24 transgender women) who all underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The images were then subjected to a multivariate machine-learning algorithm designed to predict sex, which it did reasonably accurately. From the machine-learning data, a “brain sex index” (BSI) was created, with a BSI of zero being standardized to represent a totally female brain and a BSI of one representing a totally male brain. When applied to the transgender women, the BSI indicated a shift of 25 percent toward the female end (though still remaining much closer to typical male brains).

A closer examination casts doubt on the utility of the study for Boylan’s claim. Six out of the 24 transgender participants were attracted to members of the same sex. Why would this be important? As it turns out, several lines of evidence suggest that homosexual individuals have less sexually dimorphic brains than heterosexuals (or even a tendency for a reversed sex pattern, on average). Whether these differences are causal to homosexuality or not is irrelevant. What is important is that sex-atypicality within the brain is associated with sexual orientation.

In an effort to show exactly how sexual orientation can affect research on gender dysphoria, one study scanned the brains of 24 heterosexual male-to-female transsexuals (i.e., males, identifying as women, who are attracted to females; also known as “gynephilic”) and compared them with male and female heterosexuals. When it came to the former group, the authors found no signs of brain “feminization,” but instead found (in relation to both males and females) larger gray matter volume in the temporo-parietal junction, an area involved in body perception and recognition and out-of-body experiences.

In fact, studies claiming that the brains of transgender-identifying individuals are shifted toward the opposite sex routinely do not control for homosexuality. And when they do, they fail to demonstrate any such shift. Consider two studies that assess regional gray matter differences between transsexuals and controls. The first, by Simon and colleagues, concluded that transsexuals have brains resembling that of the opposite sex. However, the second, by Luders et al., found no difference between male-to-female transsexuals and control males.

What caused these dramatically different findings? The transsexual participants in Simon et al. were all homosexual, whereas only one-quarter of the transsexual participants from the Luders study were homosexual. Across all studies, the percentage of homosexuality in the transgender cohort appears to correlate with the degree of sex-atypicality within the brain. The study Boylan cites is consistent with this trend, as the BSI cross-sex shift and the percentage of homosexuality match perfectly (25 percent).

Next, Boylan references a Scientific American blog post to explain a 2014 functional MRI (fMRI) study on the effects of smelling androstenedione (AND)—a precursor in the biosynthesis of testosterone and estrogen that increases throughout puberty and acts as a pheromone in human sweat—in a group of prepubescent children and adolescents with and without gender dysphoria. In both pre-pubertal and adolescent controls, males showed a desensitizing effect to smelling AND (in technical terms, their hypothalamic activational response decreased significantly over time), while females demonstrated increased hypothalamic activation over time. In contrast, adolescent girls and boys with gender dysphoria exhibited responses to AND that more resembled those of the opposite sex. No sex-atypical response was found in the pre-pubertal children.

Once again, it might appear on its face that dysphoric adolescents show atypical responses in the brain, which could explain a feeling of being “trapped in the wrong body.” However, as with the BSI study, the vast majority of the adolescent cohort—the only cohort to find an atypical result—were homosexual. (When asked “Have you ever been in love?” and, if so, “Was this person a boy or a girl?” all girls with gender dysphoria and 70 percent of boys with gender dysphoria answered with a person of the same natal sex.) Why would sexuality be important? An atypical response to smelling AND has been reported in both homosexual men and lesbian women within the hypothalamus. Since the sexual orientation of the prepubescent children was considerably more varied (and perhaps why the results were, according to Boylan, less clear), it seems far more likely that this atypical reaction was not a result of gender dysphoria but rather the participants’ sexuality.

Finally, Boylan briefly discusses a study on click-evoked otoacoustic emissions (CEOAEs)—echo-like sound waves produced by the inner ear in response to transient clicking stimuli. The study focused on children and young adolescents who all met the DSM-IV criteria for gender identity disorder (GID) and were of the “early onset” typology (typically homosexual). CEOAEs, a byproduct of the cochlear amplification mechanism, exhibit sexual dimorphism—females tend to show a higher amplitude compared with males from birth, suggesting a role for the pre-natal hormonal environment. In GID subjects, boys showed an atypical response (i.e., increased mean amplitude CEOAE) in the right ear, whereas GID girls did not. The authors suggest their findings support the “hypo-masculinization” of GID boys through decreased exposure to androgens during early development, but do not support the hypothesis of an increased exposure to androgens in girls with GID. However, research has shown that bisexual and homosexual females exhibit a partial “masculinization” of their CEOAE amplitude, implicating pre-natal androgens in modulating female-atypical responses. Thus, the atypical CEOAEs may indeed relate to the pre-natal environment, however, this is intertwined with the subjects sexual orientation (early on-set type). Further, the adolescent GID participants in the study had a wide age range, which could have affected the results since many were at different pubertal stages and thus differentially affected by circulating pubertal hormones. Indeed, trans-identifying adolescent females who received puberty blockers and cross-sex hormone treatment showed significantly weaker mean CEOAE amplitudes in the right ear compared to control girls. This could partly explain the differences observed in the GID adolescent cohort.

Boylan misinterprets science throughout the piece, which culminates to the following statement:

What does it mean, to respond to the world in this way? For me, it has meant having a sense of myself as a woman, a sense that no matter how comfortable I was with the fact of being feminine, I was never at ease with not being female. When I was young, I tried to talk myself out of it, telling myself, in short, to “get over it.”

Boylan had previously claimed that transgender brains are neither male- nor female-typical, but rather “something distinct,” and provided several lines of evidence for sex-atypical responses in transgender individuals. Nonetheless, Boylan makes the common mistake of assuming that having a brain resembling that of the opposite sex is a causal mechanism of gender-dysphoric feelings, without considering confounding variables such as sexual orientation.

“All the science tells us,” Boylan writes, “is that a biological male—or female—is not any one thing, but a collection of possibilities.” No: an individual’s sex is based on the type of gamete (sperm or ova) his or her primary sex organs are organized around, through development, to produce. Males have primary sex organs organized around the production of sperm, and females, ova. Brains do not define an individual’s sex. Brains, like any other part of one’s body, exhibit average differences between males and females. A brain, like any other organ, does not have its own sex, separate from the body. The terms “male brain” and “female brain” simply refer to the brains residing in the bodies of males and females, respectively. It is not possible to be “born in the wrong body.”

If Boylan’s essay demonstrates anything, it’s how it is far easier to make a mess of the truth than to clarify it.

Boylan is an English professor pretending to set us right on "science" and "biology."

I miss the creationists.

#Colin Wright #Samuel Stagg #Sammy Stagg #gender ideology #queer theory #science denial #sex denialism #brain sex #gender pseudoscience #gender woo #gender identity #gay conversion therapy #conversion therapy #medicalization #religion is a mental illness

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hummussexual · 2 days

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Bangladesh’s first mosque specifically for hijra Muslims has officially opened its doors, as members of the legally recognized “third gender” community seek refuge from abuse and discrimination.

Named the Dakshin Char Kalibari Masjid for the Third Gender, the mosque opened in March, providing worship services for hijra people who are frequently turned away from other mosques due to prejudice, according to a report from the Agence France-Presse.

The mosque consists of a single-room building with a tin roof, paid for and built by hijras near the city of Mymensingh on government-donated land after hijra worshippers were expelled from the local community. The land already contains a graveyard and one plot, belonging to a hijra woman who was denied burial at a local mosque last year, AFP reported.

“From now on, no one can deny a hijra from praying in our mosque,” community leader Joyita Tonu, 28, reportedly told the congregation upon the mosque’s opening last month. “No one can mock us.”

The terms “hijra” and “transgender” are often used interchangeably in English media, but the two identities are separate in Bangladesh and other South Asian countries, though there is some overlap between them. The Bangladeshi government declared hijras a “third gender” distinct from men and women in 2014, but there is no formal path to be legally recognized as hijra. No standard policy for changing one’s legal gender marker to “hijra” exists, and various types of identification cards carry mismatched gender markers, according to the international LGBTQ+ rights group ILGA. Even vague recognition has come with drawbacks, such as the association of hijra identity with disfigurement and complex disability politics. In the decade since winning formal recognition, hijras have also experienced a dramatic rise in violence, medical abuse, and ostracization as religious fundamentalism surges across the region. (Same-sex intercourse itself is illegal in Bangladesh, but that law is not evenly enforced.)

Sonia, 42, told AFP reporters that despite being a devout Muslim all her life, she was abruptly kicked out of her mosque after coming out as hijra. “I never dreamt I could pray at a mosque again in my lifetime,” she recalled. “People would tell us: ‘Why are you hijra people here at the mosques? You should pray at home. Don't come to the mosques.’

“It was shameful for us, so we didn't go,” she added. “Now, this is our mosque. Now, no one can say no.”

Hijra communities have slowly reestablished dedicated spaces of safety in recent years, despite frequent backlash from conservative leaders. In 2020, the first Muslim school (or madrasa) for hijra students opened in Bangladesh, combating the community’s lack of access to educational and religious resources. Designed for safety, community, and healing, spaces like the madrasa and mosque have also begun shifting public opinion of hijras in the country.

“When they started to live with us, many people said many things,” area resident Tofazzal Hossain told AFP last month; after praying alongside them, he says his own “misconceptions” of hijras, in general, have changed. “[W]e've realized what people say isn't right. They live righteously like other Muslims,” Hossain said.

#religion and gender identity #islam #hijra #bangladesh #third gender #Dakshin Char Kalibari Masjid for the Third Gender

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astriiformes · 1 year

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Navigating a slightly awkward fandom etiquette situation that I'd be interested in other folks' input on

I was a part of a really neat little gift exchange where my own prompt ended up having to be filled by a pinch-hitter, which may be one reason for the mismatch. The TL;DR is I had requested a genfic (unsurprisingly to you all, I am sure) and the gift I ended up getting was... not, and felt a bit like it veered from the prompt to additionally focus on a character I don't care as much for.

(Ultimately I am not horribly put-out because this was for a small fandom and there were a number of other works people did for the exchange that I got excited about, and also the vibes of the whole event have been lovely and kind which is why I don't want to kill that!)

My dilemma is I feel like I still ought to leave a comment on the fic -- it doesn't seem right not to on an exchange gift, especially when someone stepped up to write something last minute and I think just genuinely didn't understand my preferences. However I am still feeling a tiny bit of aromantic weariness about the situation, and feel a bit uncomfortable with that. My usual "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" fic policy is failing me here, and there are at least a few bits of it I still liked and could bring up in a comment. But it all feels a little disingenuous.

Just contemplating the best sort of comment to leave that won't hurt the writer's feelings and even expresses some gratitude for stepping up at the last minute (since I'm sure there are other folks getting excited about the story, and I like that thought) but also doesn't totally misrepresent what I am About in fandom, you know?

#i'm truly not too bothered since this event about doubled the amount of fic/art in the Ao3 tag which is lovely #and there were several other people's gifts i love #also being honest i enter events largely as motivation for myself to create & love the gift-giving part even more #but like i do feel a tiny bit weird about people seeing the gift/a comment by me and misunderstanding what i actually prefer!#i suppose that's the only thing i'm really having an issue with #especially since i'd love to do another exchange like this in the future and couls see someone looking at it for inspiration #which would very much give them the wrong idea #sighs. i like putting in the work to make fandom a warm and welcoming place but it does get a bit awkward sometimes

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saura101 · 23 days

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Unemployment in Morocco: A Comprehensive Analysis

Introduction

Unemployment in Morocco remains a significant challenge, impacting individuals, families, and the broader society. This article aims to delve deep into the various facets of unemployment in Morocco, exploring its causes, consequences, and potential solutions.

Understanding Unemployment in Morocco

Definition and Types

Unemployment refers to the situation where individuals who are willing and able to work are unable to find suitable employment opportunities. In Morocco, unemployment manifests in various forms, including structural, cyclical, and frictional unemployment.

Factors Contributing to Unemployment

Economic, Social, and Political Factors

Unemployment in Morocco is influenced by a combination of economic, social, and political factors. Economic instability, lack of foreign investment, inadequate infrastructure, and bureaucratic hurdles hinder job creation. Social challenges such as poverty, inequality, and insufficient access to education exacerbate the issue. Additionally, political instability and governance issues further impede efforts to address unemployment effectively.

Impact of Unemployment on Society

Economic, Social, and Psychological Effects

The repercussions of unemployment extend beyond economic hardship. High unemployment rates strain government resources, lead to increased poverty levels, and hamper economic growth. Socially, unemployment can fuel social unrest, crime rates, and urban migration. Moreover, the psychological toll of unemployment, including stress, depression, and low self-esteem, cannot be understated.

Government Initiatives and Policies

Job Creation Programs and Economic Reforms

The Moroccan government has implemented various initiatives to combat unemployment, including job creation programs, vocational training schemes, and economic reforms aimed at stimulating growth and attracting investment. However, the effectiveness of these policies remains a subject of debate, with critics pointing to persistent challenges such as bureaucratic inefficiencies and corruption.

Education and Unemployment

Role of Education in Tackling Unemployment

Education plays a crucial role in addressing unemployment by equipping individuals with the skills and knowledge needed to thrive in the labor market. However, the education system in Morocco faces challenges such as outdated curricula, high dropout rates, and a mismatch between graduates' skills and employers' needs. Reforming the education sector to align with the demands of the labor market is essential for reducing unemployment rates.

Youth Unemployment

Challenges and Solutions for Young Jobseekers

Youth unemployment is a pressing issue in Morocco, with young people facing significant barriers to entering the workforce. Limited job opportunities, lack of work experience, and educational deficiencies contribute to youth unemployment. Addressing this issue requires targeted interventions such as vocational training programs, apprenticeships, and support for entrepreneurship.

Regional Disparities

Urban-Rural Divide and Its Implications

Unemployment rates vary significantly between urban and rural areas in Morocco, with urban centers generally experiencing lower unemployment rates than rural regions. Addressing regional disparities in employment opportunities requires targeted investments in infrastructure, education, and economic development projects in rural areas.

Informal Sector Employment

Opportunities and Challenges

The informal sector plays a significant role in Morocco's economy, providing livelihoods for a large segment of the population. However, informal employment often lacks job security, social protections, and access to formal financial services. Formalizing the informal sector while preserving its entrepreneurial spirit is essential for reducing unemployment and improving living standards.

Gender Disparities in Employment

Women in the Workforce and Gender Equality

Gender disparities persist in Morocco's labor market, with women facing unequal access to employment opportunities, wage discrimination, and cultural barriers to workforce participation. Promoting gender equality in the workplace through legislative reforms, educational initiatives, and awareness campaigns is essential for harnessing the full potential of Morocco's workforce.

Vocational Training Programs

Skill Development and Employability

Vocational training programs play a vital role in addressing skills gaps and enhancing employability in Morocco. These programs provide practical training in various trades and industries, equipping participants with the skills needed to secure sustainable employment. However, efforts to expand and improve vocational training programs require increased investment, collaboration with employers, and alignment with industry needs.

Entrepreneurship as a Solution

Encouraging Startups and Small Businesses

Entrepreneurship offers a pathway to employment and economic growth in Morocco. By fostering an environment conducive to entrepreneurship, including access to financing, mentorship, and regulatory support, the government can empower aspiring entrepreneurs to create their own employment opportunities and contribute to economic development.

International Perspectives

Comparisons with Global Unemployment Trends

Morocco's unemployment challenges are not unique and are part of broader global trends. By comparing Morocco's unemployment situation with that of other countries, policymakers can gain valuable insights into effective strategies and best practices for addressing unemployment. International cooperation and knowledge sharing can play a crucial role in tackling this complex issue.

Future Outlook and Recommendations

Strategies for Reducing Unemployment Rates

In conclusion, addressing unemployment in Morocco requires a multifaceted approach that addresses the underlying economic, social, and political factors driving unemployment. Key recommendations include investing in education and vocational training, promoting entrepreneurship and innovation, fostering regional development, and strengthening social safety nets to support vulnerable populations.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

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