• 7 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 5th, 2023

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  • The “old idea” is actually baked into one of the parameters of the new model. It’s why I said the old hypothesis “was not in line with observation” rather than being “wrong”. It predicted some trends correctly, but failed to predict many others. Like all science, it needed to update as we gathered more info.

    The “new” hypothesis also isn’t perfectly predictive of viral evolution, but it’s more accurate with the observed spread of other diseases. Like all models, it’ll get replaced eventually by something more powerful. Likely sooner rather than later specifically because COVID put a spotlight on a lot of holes in the idea.















  • Look, I’m all for reforestation efforts, and if Rs are willing to start a large environmental project like that, great. But, it’s really not a solution for climate change on a global scale. At best it’s a repair effort for the damage already done.

    Even if they get the scale right, and somehow manage to plant and cultivate a trillion trees successfully, trees are more of a short-term carbon sink when you’re talking about a geological time scale. They die, they burn, they get chopped down. When that happens, the carbon is liberated again. Sure, you can plant more trees, but all you’re doing is changing the equilibrium point for atmospheric CO2. With each gallon of gas burned, more CO2 enters the cycle that would have otherwise remained in the ground long term. Trying to solve climate change by reforestation is like trying to fill a leaky bucket with water. No matter how much you pour in there, at some point you’ll have to stop the leak.

    The answer to climate change is the same, yesterday, today, and forever: long term carbon sinks (fossil fuels and chemical weathering) cannot liberate CO2 at the rate we’re currently running. Reduction is the only real answer.


  • Not to nitpick but to me the title of this post is implying that XXY individuals are born female. Generally they’re born male.

    What the comment is referring to is likely Swyer Syndrome, where the individual has an XY configuration but a dysfunctional gene in the sex-determining region of the Y chromosome. This means the embryo develops female anatomy and the resulting children tend to identify female, but they lack functional gonadal tissue. It’s estimated to occur at a rate of about 1 in a 100,000 females.

    By the by, treatment for these individuals usually involves removing the dysfunctional gonadal tissue as it often becomes cancerous (which often gets misunderstood as “gender reassignment surgery”) and supplemental hormone replacement therapy. They would be affected too by any bans on hormone administration to kids often connected with trans people. One of the reasons why blanket bans should be a no-go regardless of how you feel about any other trans issue.