#measure of correlation

[reijndeers]

ballertober day 18!!

[afriendofmara]

At what point can I fine my psychologist as a No Show. Say its been 10 minutes since our appt was supposed to start. How do I sue for time loss

[musings-from-mars]

You don't need a reason to not like something. Or rather, you don't need to make some sort of objective judgement on the thing's supposed quality, nor do you need to make some moral arbitration to justify you not liking it. You are allowed to dislike things just because it doesn't suit your tastes or squicks you out.

I say this because I find it a common theme, on this website at least, where when people choose to express their dislike of a show or movie or what have you, they make comment on, say, the poor pacing, or the weird art style, or the dreaded bad writing—the vaguest, most meaningless, most damning critique known to us all (/sarcasm). And granted, some of these can be valid criticisms and can absolutely turn viewers away, but I just don't buy into the idea that the majority of viewers are these selective media analysis buffs who are spurned by substandard production values and derivative storytelling. We're on the weird fandom website. We like things because they make our hearts happy and our brains buzzy, and we dislike things because they make our heads hurt and our nerves feel shot.

It is okay to just not like a thing. You don't need to try to dress up your personal tastes and sensibilities as some sort of objective literary critique when the only real feelings you have regarding the thing is "I'm not enjoying this, it's annoying and I hate it." I know this is the case because to really do a good, deep analysis of a thing, even critically, you have to have at least some sort of affinity for it. You know when in school you were expected to write a report on the most godawful boring book ever? An impossible, meaningless task. Like, nobody who studies Shakespeare hates Shakespeare, even if some may act like it. You have to love something to bear the breadth of its flaws.

It is alright to dislike a thing, but you do not need to therefore go on a crusade against it. The fans of that thing have already unpacked and studied all those flaws and weird bullshit bits in a kind of fond detail you cannot fathom. You won't be able to add anything new or of substance to the general discourse around the thing, but you sure could make yourself and a lot of people upset for no reason.

[mangled-by-disuse]

I have such mixed feelings about the love languages thing specifically, because, like, gary chapman fucking sucks and there's no scientific validity to his work BUT

at the same time, i do think there's some value in recognising and discussing the fact that different people need different expressions of love in different amounts? Especially in relationships.

Like, I have just recently been having a discussion with my partner about how he really doesn't tend to express his affection through gifts, whereas (as someone who is mega-bad at expressing sincere feeling) I do rely heavily on giving gifts and doing things for people as a less scary way to express love. Joe doesn't like giving gifts, because he's scared he'll do it wrong, and is only so-so on receiving them. He prefers to express love through physical contact and saying nice things. I hate having nice things said to me unless I am allowed to immediately rebut them with a joke or sarcastic comment that makes them less scarily close to emotional honesty. too many words of affirmation and i will genuinely just start avoiding you because it is painfully awkward to me.

and none of that means we are fundamentally different categories of people, which is where the 5 Love Languages stuff falls into being absolute bollocks. but I have seen, and done, enough throwing the baby out with the bathwater on that to be a little defensive - I think reasonable applications of the concept are actually really quite valuable. and for me, the taxonomy Chapman suggests (words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, acts of service, physical touch) while not at all exhaustive or thorough, is a useful framework to hang those conversations on. bc, like, no, the way people communicate and receive affection is not universal, and from personal experience, assuming that it is can have really significant problems for a relationship.

...you could argue that this is parallel to BMI in terms of "tools being used in totally not the way they should be used" though, tbf.

I can't keep having the same conversations about love languages, mbti, iq, bmi, "brain fully formed at 25" and shit over and over again...

[iliketohavesexwithrobots]

tf is it with health problem search results. i've been looking up my symptoms for years and now suddenly some new shit like "orthostatic hypotension" gets invented and acts like it's been there the whole time

[sodomit]

I'm really tired of the trend of using one's desire (or lack of) to put their mouth anywhere as a measure of sexual orientation.

Some people don't do oral or open mouth kissing, and it doesn't mean they're incapable of attraction. It has no correlation with attraction at all. You can love someone and want to have sex with them without it including any oral activities on either side.

Y'all are fucking obsessed with trying to performatively out-queer each other, and it only hurts the whole community in the end.

Bonus unsurprising aphobia

Do better.

[nicholasr]

[eggs-love-loki]

Me when I realize a recipe is written with grams instead of cup measurements: aw man I’m too stupid to make this

[hinekoakahi]

[ID in alt]

I feel the need to point out that. People did. Like. Find Snape real hot. Like, I'm with Red, I don't get it either, but that was. Very much a thing. There's a whole subculture about it.

In tears about that first ask assuming you’re a dude. Bestie, do you know who runs this blog 🤣 I can their clown shoes all the way down the hall.

I haven't been misgendered like this since that one time the twitter reylos saw my nebulous "is this villain actually complicated or are they just hot" cold take and felt personally attacked enough to start manifesting snakes in my home

[scientia-rex]

as someone in clinical psych, it drives me up the wall that everyone accepts as a goddamn fact that stress is directly linked to weight gain, and yet every single study on diet and exercise just… ignores this as a confounding factor? it’s gotten to the point where if i open a study on weight and don’t see a stress measure anywhere i just close it again because EVERY TIME the behavior they’re saying causes weight gain is… surprise… a behavior people do when they’re stressed. so either the behavior itself is a spurious correlation to the already established causal relationship between stress and weight gain, OR the behavior does contribute some unique amount to variability in health outcomes, but we’re ignoring why people are doing that behavior. like ok maybe eating nothing but spaghetti-o’s causes you to gain weight. why is no one ringing alarm bells going WHY IS THIS PERSON SO STRESSED THEY CAN EAT NOTHING BUT SPAGHETTI-O’S? the intervention is always “eat less spaghetti-o’s” not “holy fuck what can we address in your life so you aren’t forced into the miserable existence of eating nothing but spaghetti-o’s.” setting aside “why is weight loss even your outcome variable,” if weight loss IS your target why the FUCK are you ignoring this piece! i am grabbing my fellow scientists by the shoulders and shaking them vigorously!!

HELL! FUCKING! YES!!!!!!!! You, YOU keep talking!

[david-talks-sw]

When did the Jedi lose their way?

A notion put forward by Tales of the Jedi and The Acolyte is the idea that the Jedi were losing their way, as an Order, by letting themselves become more institutionalized and mired in bureaucracy.

Is that the intended narrative? Nope!

Because here's the thing, Lucas acknowledges the fact that the Jedi start to be corrupted, at some point. But if you ask him, that happens as a consequences of being used as generals during the Clone Wars.

(note the keywords "used" and "forced"... aka they didn't willingly join the war, they were drafted by the Senate to fight in it, see here for more research & quotes)

But during The Phantom Menace? The Jedi are in their heyday.

"You see the heyday of the Jedi, when they are the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy, sort of like the old marshals out West. And there's thousands of them." - Vanity Fair, 1999

Their only fault is that:

the Senate is their boss and the Senate is corrupted af which limits their mandate greatly (so not really the Jedi's fault, but it does make their hands tied)

they're oblivious to the Sith's scheme.

This notion that "they were so institutionalized/detached from the regular Joes of the galaxy that they became dispassionate and lost their way, forgot about the little guy" is absolute headcanon from fans and current authors. Lucas never brings it up once.

On the contrary, during development, he and concept artists took measures to make them look less institutionalized and heartless.

The Jedi temple isn't meant to signify an ivory tower, it represents a place of warmth/worship that contrasts with the coldness dispassion of the Senate building.

The Jedi used to wear uniforms, it was softened to a humble tunic.

Because the intended narrative is that the Republic (including the Jedi) and Anakin's downfall are paralleled with Palpatine's rise to power. There is a direct correlation, both in-universe and thematically.

As Palpatine becomes Emperor, the Republic dies under thunderous applause while the Jedi get slaughtered, and Anakin becomes Darth Vader.

As Palpatine gets emergency powers, the Republic weakens because of the war, the Jedi's values are foregone and Anakin is put in situations where he fails to uphold the Jedi teachings, over and over.

And it all starts when Palpatine becomes Chancellor after pushing out Finis Valorum, marking the end of an age of value.

(Get it? Finis Valorum? "Finis", latin for "end", "Valorem", latin for "value" puns are fun!)

[theprettynosferatu]

Cover: @snootieenoot as Mia West

Breast Size and Cognitive Ability: A Rebuttal

Prof. Mia West

Overview and Project Objectives

This work originates from the publication of Prof. Lawson’s paper Breast Size and Cognitive Ability last month (Lawson, Breast Size and Cognitive Ability, Northwestern Journal of Science, 2025) and the ensuing discourse it has elicited both in the scientific community and society at large. Not only do we find it socially and politically harmful, but either intellectually dishonest or frankly substandard in both reasoning and the basic principles of experimental science.

Prof. Lawson posits that breast size in females is negatively correlated with academic ability and general I.Q. As this work will show, not only is Lawson’s methodology ruefully unsound, but his conclusions are so implausible one can only assume that, by his own logic, Professor Lawson must himself possess an impressive set of mammaries to believe such scholarship deserves serious consideration.

It is the objective of this paper to, entertaining such ludicrous premises, empirically disprove Prof. Lawson’s thesis on its own terms and hopefully set the matter to rest permanently.

Methodology

A research team comprised of four highly accomplished female experts (see Appendix A: Team Background and Initial Cognitive Tests), including the author, will take it upon ourselves to test Dr. Lawson’s hypothesis in a controlled, verifiable and reproducible basis. Having established a baseline for cognitive ability, we must consider the second element of Dr. Lawson’s proposed correlation; as we’re sure he’ll lament (given his manifest interests) all members of the team possess what can commonly be referred to as a modest chest size (see Fig.1: Team’s Initial Measurements).

In order to modify this factor gradually, we will be using Dr. Joanna’s Marsh experimental Focused Hormone Enhancement System, or FHES, which has shown remarkable results, even in its early stages of development (see Marsh, FHES Preliminary Observations, Oberlin, 2024).

Weekly breast measurements, as well as tests on cognitive ability, will be performed to track any changes in the research team, or most likely, lack thereof (at least in the intellectual side of Lawson’s correlation). Additionally, this author will provide any observations and comments that might be relevant to the purview of this paper. 

Observations: One Week Under the Effects of FHES

Initial results show that the effectiveness of Dr. Marsh’s compound not only meets the expectations established in her paper but, in the present use case, surpasses them (see Fig.2: Team’s Measurements, Week 1). All four team members have been forced to acquire new brassieres to work comfortably. 

A common reported side effect among the team is a degree of difficulty maintaining focus on complex tasks for even moderate periods of time- what is referred to as “brain fog” in common parlance. While not debilitating, this phenomenon has increased the difficulty inherent in writing a clear, concise overview. It does not, however, seem to be accompanied by physical exhaustion- activities which require movement have not been reported by the team as feeling more taxing.

We attribute this “brain fog” to the adaptation to the new hormonal load, and we expect it to subside soon. This also explains the slight decrease in the result of the team’s cognitive tests (see Appendix B: Cognitive Tests, Week 1).

Of additional note is that the team has experienced a slight but constant emission of clear, vaginal fluid. Testing shows it to be harmless and indeed to be the kind of fluid generated for lubrication normally during intercourse or arousal in general. We believe this to also be merely a temporary hormonal adjustment, but will keep monitoring it in the following weeks.

   Observations: Two Weeks Under the Effects of FHES

The effectiveness of FHES continues to astho asst surprise the team. Our tits breasts have expanded massively (See Fig 2: Team Measurements, Week 2), to the point that our standard lab uniforms no longer fit our curvy bodies and feel too tight and not in a cute way. To remedy this, the team was forced to go out and purchase new, more fitting and fashionable clothes (See Fig 3: Team Dressing Room Selfies). Obviously, new make-up was also necessary to match the vibe of the new fits, especially the goth-style gram garnm clothes chosen by April which just called out for some striking black eyeliner and a lighter shade of base. We collectively observed that the combination of her new clothes and make-up work really, really well on her: it’s giving bratty sub, as can be confirmed (See Fig. 4: April’s Selfies and Cute Pics Taken By Mia).

The Brain Fog is still there, probably because of the hormones and all other stuff, but the team reports it to be a pleasant sensation. While it makes writing these reports hard, it’s not really bad- more like floating in a pink, fluffy cloud. Prof. Lawson’s idea that tit size makes women dumber is still unproven, as the Pink (that’s what we have taken to calling the Brain Fog) is for sure the result of the treatment, not an effect of increased chest size. There are plenty of smart women with big boobs, after all, and I know for a fact Dr. Lawson has watched their videos on several adult sites. These women’s success in such a competitive industry is surely proof of their intelligence.

The constant most moiz wetness appears to have caused a few incidents among the team, since it now also involves an increased sensitivity and level of arousal. The distraction of feeling one’s pussy so needy all the time explains the lower test results this week (See Appendix C: Cognitive Tests, Week 2), as well as some notable events that took place this week.

It would be unprofessional to omit those events in this observation, so I’ll recount them as accurately as I possibly can. On Tuesday, before we went shopping, I walked into the Substance Storage Unit and encountered April and Sophia looking at a tablet. While I couldn’t see the screen, the video playing was at full volume, and I could make out the sound of a slut woman gurgling and choking on what, I can only assume, was a truly large cock penis. My teammates had both removed their (ugly) uniform pants, and unbuttoned their shirts (as mentioned, they had by this point become very uncomfortable, so that’s understandable). They were engaging in mutual masd mutul mmmmm fingering each other, drooling and moaning like stupid cunts in a way that showed their excitement. They shouted encouragement at the performer on the screen, which I feel demonstrates a high capacity to focus on engaging tasks; their choice of phrases (“take it deep you stupid bitch”, “fucking choke in it you dumb cow”, “use her fucking throat as a fleshlight!”) also proves their creativity. Witnessing this event produced a very strong effect on myself, but I managed to sneak into the bathroom before shoving my fingers inside my soaked pussy thus obtaining temporary relief.

Fuck. Okay, rubbing break over. Time to go back to writing.

A second incident took place on Friday. By then we had acquired new wardrobes, and the act of dancing, strutting and showing each other our new looks might have affected some team members in an unexpected manner. While we all identify as heterosexual, seeing our colleagues’ tight fucking bodies and huge, firm funbags aesthetic choices proved to be a stimulating experience. My recollection of events remains fuzzy, but I’m pretty sure I made out with April and at some point Hannah poured beer over April’s tits and I lapped it up and then sucked on her nipples while I rubbed myself silly and Sophia was filming on her phone so we both put on a show and I’m pretty sure she sent the video so someone but i don’t care encounters of an erotic nature may have taken place.

As each team member has clearly settled on a particular preference regarding their appearance, we have ordered more clothes and toys for the experiment.

We are confident that once our amazing bodies have adapted to the hormone treatment, such incidents will not reoccur. 

NOTE TO SELF: MIA, REMEMBER TO ERASE THE STRICKEN PARTS BEFORE UPLOADING UPDATE!!!

 Observations: Two Weeks Three Weeeks Under the Effects of FHES

So I have to write this to keep you updated because it’s my job and I’m a professional and stuff so ehre it goes. We had like massive tits before but now they are so huge and sensitibe and spectacular and they feel kind of like giant clits so I guess the copm compoud the thing we take to make them grow is also making them feel super good! We tried to take measurements but the tape rubbing against out funbags feels too good and we get distracted and we have to take care of that so we figured we’d just send you some nudes so you can see how much our stupid bimbo tits have expanded (see sexy pics attached) because we are not dumb and pics are better than illustrated numbers anyway. We got a bit carried away with the pics but I hope you’ll enjoy them! In like, a scientific way. Duh.

Reading back I guess I was keeping track of the Pink? I think? It’s hard to understand what I wrote before. So like, the Pink. It’s kinda hard to explain but it feels so fucking good, like we’re all so happy and floating and horny all the time and nothing feels super important anymore except doing whatever feels good at the moment, with whoever or whatever is around. We stopped storing the toys because having them all over the lab is super useful to play with one another or to just bounce on a big dildo looking at the tasty porn on the screens.

Oh shit I forgot to explain the porn thing! So like, we noticed that we can focus on porn a lot better than on boring lab stuff and we’re trying to demn demos prove big boobs don’t make sluts dumb so having porn blasting in every screen means we have something to keep us concentrated and so we’re not dumb because we can keep our attention on stuff. And we can like, really really watch porn. It’s like… we’re not just watching it with our eyes, we’re taking it in with our entire bodies and the Pink makes it so much better because it’s like the porn gets inside us and makes us better and we feel so, so good!

And another thing that proves we may be stupid cunts but we’re not dumb is that we learn really, really fast. We just left the pron running and the site kept showing us video after video after video and we all learned different things and we could put it in practice instantly! Like, April has gotten really into her new goth mommy thing and we saw a video and a girl in it was spanking another girl with a leather paddle and it was super hot but we didn’t have paddles (we ordered them, they should arrive today! Yay!) so April took a clipboard and made Sophia put her hands on the wall and April went to town on her cute bubble butt and it got so red and the rest of us watched and rubbed and drooled and Sophia came from being spanked! She’s becoming such a good slut. She really likes putting her hair in pigtails and wearing like, a sort of schoolgirl uniform with a microskirt and chewing gum and acting like a dumb whore around the lab and it kinda makes all of us want to do bad things to her. We saw a few videos where the cunt was sort of taken by force and Sophia loved them so now she keeps calling herself “good rapebait” and teasing us so we’ll be mean to her and fuck her with a toy or a strap. She cums so fast and screams what a rapedoll she is and begs to be used and abused forever! It’s super hot, so we are almost constantly shoving toys and fingers in her like, really hard.

Also, we have amazing stamina now! I can’t remember when I last slept. My desperate pussy needs me to take care of it all the time.

We’re using the computer labs to show off online, because the porn showed us that all good girls expose their slutty bodies. We’re sad that the webcams don’t look as good as the porn but we’ve ordered new cameras and like, some lights to make every inch of us look amazing. And the people we talk to on random sites are so helpful! They have ideas we never could imagine, and it’s so much easier to just do what they tell us to do and we learn so much doing it! Last night me and Emily spent like an hour just drooling and making out and rubbing each other’s tits in front of the camera because a nice Man told us to and it felt amazing to know he was jerking off his fat cock to us! We didn’t know just obeying Men made cunts feel useful but some Men told us and we did it and they were right! I think it was when April and I were going ass to ass with a double dildo because a Man told us to that I realized how amazing it is not having to choose and just drift in the Pink and be good sluts.

Sometimes they tell us to do hard things, like writing on each other’s bodies. Because our tits are so huge we have a lot of room to put tasty words in, but figuring out the spelling while we rub and lick each other is very, very hard! I can still spell kinda good, but Sophia couldn’t even spell “cumslave” right, so I had to write on Emily even though Sophia was supposed to and I got too excited and fuzzy and maybe some of the videos put thoughts in my head because I ended writing stuff like “mindless fuckdoll” and “brains are for boys” and “bitch in heat” on her instead of just “cumslave”, but the Men online liked that and told me to make myself cum as a reward and I didn’t know Men could just tell girls to cum but when they told me to cum I barely had to rub my cunt before I had like, the best orgasm. Maybe getting permission to cum always feels better? We should do a study on that after this one is done.

It’s funny how much Emily loves to have filthy words written on her body. She always was super shy and she’s so slutty now but she sstill gets all red and flustered and some men like that because it’s clear she likes to be a silly cunt but also she tries not to show it and so having someone writing on her lets her pretend she’s not thinking all those words even though like, we all totally know she’s thinking them and also when she wears a cute little mask she is shameless and so fucking desperate it’s like the mask lets her be her true self. That’s another thign we could study!

Speaking of studies, we kinda didn’t have time to take the test this week but I’m sure we would have aced it for sure. I have to send something in that section of this stupid form so I’m attaching a video of all of us training our throats with dildos, because it shows we can still do tasks so we aren’t dumb. 

Ugh, writing is so boring and I can hear Sophia being fucked behind me and I really want to make her eat me out while another girl makes her ass gape. 

We ordered more clothes and toys because Men deserve choices and we want to be able to be any kind of slut a Man could want. I guess I’ll write more next week.

   

obdertations weak for

i have to write i dont want to write this is so boring my head is to fuzzy and fuuuuck april is licking my pussy under the desk but i dont want to cum because good girls dont cum without permission and no Man told me i could cum but i want to cum so badly but also i dont want to cum because being edged makes me better makes me wetter makes me obey i want to obey i want to be a stupid cumrag forever and ever and get tasty cummies and my tits need to be covered so i can be super pretty

My stupid cow udders are so huge now one load cant cover them i need to be surrounded by cocks and make all of them cum just so i can feel that warm jizz all over them and i know because we tried it we gave the nice Men online the address to the lab and they came hihihi came and came came all over us and inside us and even three cocks cumming on my boobs isnt enough and also sometimes they aim to high and it lands on my face and that feels so amazing and tastes so fucking good but i like it on my sensitive bimbo tits better because theyre like my pussy and they always need more and more and more and there are never enough cocks around to share and we try to be good girls and serve together but we get greedy and end up fighting for the honor of wrosph worp woshi whoreshiping cocks but the Men help us and tell us what to do and whos turn it is and they even gave us a fun way to fight for cock and we have rubbing competitions where we dance and rub and tease and say so many filthy things anf the one that proves shes the more depraved slut gets the cum and i wish i was better because i want to win every time but sometimes another fucking cunt wins and i have to wait

pffff last night sophia did her hole pretending to be innocent thing and called the men daddy and said she would be the bestest girl for them and smiled and flirted and made it seem like she didnt know her skirt was riding up and she had no panties and they used her so much i only got like three loads on my tits and i had to get more Men to come into the lab because its sooo not fair that she got used in all her holes by like, ten guys and i only got three cocks in my tight asshole but in the end more Men came and i really slutted it up and called myself a piece of worthless fuckmeat and a mindless obedient set of holes with huge tits and explained to the Men why girls need to obey and be happy and how fenminism is boring and maybe us girls would be better off without rights and they liked that and they really liked it when they found out i have a PHD an stuff so in the end i got used lots so I was useful and it was a good night

Clothes are all over the floor and the desks but we need more because there are so many ways to be a cute slut and we want to please everyone and become anything they want us to be and do anything they want us to do and i tried ordering more clothes but i got confused but a Man ordered for us so they should be arriving soon and fuck we cant stop rubbing and licking each other imagining all the sexy stuff we’ll get to wear and also the new camera is so good and we look just like the girls in porn and i guess we are pron now because we keep filming or letting Men film us and they upload everything and people like it lots and i think about everyone jerking off to us and its the best feeling in the world knowing i dont have to be there to make a cock cum, i can be useful forever because the videos will always be around fuuuuuck i almost came April got sooo good at eating pussy but i don’t want to cum i really want to cum i 

I dont remeber how to ttach stuff but ill get a Man to put the best videos on the file so yall can see what good girls we are now and maybe you can cum to us please cum to us please rub your pussies and play with your cocks looking at us we want to make you happy and horny like we are i wish everyone could feel the Pink its so good and fuzzy and warm and makes people giggle and fuck nd be so happy maybe everyone should take what we take and grow big boobs and sink into the Pink I wonder if men get huge cocks from it that woud be amazing like giant cocks that cum buckets fuccccccc i dont wanna{p´.k

Fuck i came so hard but im still so fucking horny it’s never enough i need more i need to please i exist to please obeying makes me feel so good an cum makes me so pretty and i dont remember how i lived before because this feels like its who ive always been like its just right and natural and good but i started writin for a reason and i can’t figure out what it was i have to tell April to stop eating me out and find out what im supposed to rite 

Oh, duh! A Man said big boobs make girls dumb. And that’s a dumb thing to believe. But I have massive tits and I’m dumb so I guess I believe him because dumb feels good so I’ll believe any dumb thing a Man tells me!

EDITOR’S NOTE: This document is being published without edits or corrections at the request of Prof. Lawson. Given that the express intent of this “paper” is to disprove his theories, we felt it fair to show the resulting work unaltered.

Prof. Mia West has retired from Academia. She and her team seem determined to continue in the adult industry. The Northwestern Journal of Science has reached out to Prof. West, who requested readers to “log into the sites and cum yourselves silly to our stupid bimbo bodies”.

As far as we can ascertain, every one of the mentioned videos is available for free. It is unknown who obtains the ad revenue or funds the team; however, given the noticeable increase in production value in newer installments, as well as the establishment of what has been christened the “Slut House” to film, we must assume someone is managing the team’s career.

On an unrelated note, we’re delighted to announce Prof. Lawson’s new seminar, “Video Production, Marketing and Monetization in the Digital Age”, to take place this Fall.  

Did you enjoy this story? You can support my work at patreon.com/prettynosferatu

[wulfhalls]

someone said having alys be this weird girl witch instead of über seductress is so good and they're so right and maybe it's also a commentary on how history written by men flattens and reduces complicated unconventional women trying to navigate the patriarchal system to attain a measure of power for themselves (so all women) strips them of personhood and puts them in boxes and categories that correlate with their narrow world view and idea of what women can and cannot be

[tanadrin]

Can you explain in what what you think eugenics doesn't work? Does this basically boil down to skepticism about the accuracy of GWAS studies? My understanding is that academic consensus is "G probably exists, disentangling direct genetic inheritance vs genetic cultural inheritance is complicated but possible, we can identify a number of alleles which we're reasonably confident are directly causally involved in having a higher G factor"

when it comes to intelligence, its heritability, and its variation at the population level, my understanding of the science is:

highly adaptive traits don't, in fact, vary much at the genetic level between populations of a species because they are strongly selected for. in an environment where a trait is being strongly selected for, a population that failed to express that trait strongly will be rapidly outcompeted.

intelligence is probably the quintessential such trait for humans. we have sacrificed a great deal of other kinds of specialization in favor of our big brains. we spend an enormous amount of calories supporting those brains. tool use, the ability to plan for the future, the ability to navigate complex social situations and hierarchies in order to secure status, the ability to model the minds of others for the purposes of cooperation and deception means that we should expect intelligence to be strongly selected for for as long as our lineage has been social and tool-using, which is at least the last three million years or so.

so, at least as a matter of a priori assumptions, we should expect human populations not to vary greatly in their genetic predisposition to intelligence. it may nonetheless, but we'd need pretty strong evidence. i think i read this argument on PZ Myers' blog a million years ago, so credit where that's due.

complicating the picture is that we just don't have good evidence for how IQ does vary across populations, even before we get into the question of "how much of this variation is genetic and how much of it is not." the cross-national data on which a lot of IQ arguments have been based is really bad. and that would be assuming IQ tests are in fact good at capturing a notion of IQ that is independent of cultural context, which historically they're pretty bad at

this screed by nassim nicholas taleb (not a diss; AFAICT the guy only writes in screeds) makes a number of arguments, but one argument I find persuasive is that IQ is really only predictive of achievement in the sense that it does usefully discriminate between people with obvious intellectual disabilities and those without--but you do not actually need an IQ test for that sort of thing, any more than you need to use a height chart to figure out who is missing both their legs. in that sense, sure, IQ is predictive of a lot of things. but once you remove this group, the much-vaunted correlations between IQ and stuff like wealth just straight-up vanishes

heritability studies are a useful tool, but a tool which must be wielded carefully; they were developed for studying traits which were relatively easy to isolate in very specific populations, like a crop under study at an agricultural research site, and are more precarious when applied to, e.g., human populations

my understanding based on jonathan kaplan articles like this one is that twin studies are not actually that good at distinguishing heritable factors from environmental ones--they have serious limitations compared to heritability studies where you actually can rigorously control for environmental effects, like you can with plants or livestock.

as this post also points out, heritability studies also only examine heritability within groups, and are not really suited to examining large-scale population differences, *especially* in the realm of intelligence where there is a huge raft of confounding factors, and a lack of a really robust measurement tool.

(if we are worried about intelligence at the population level, it seems to me there are interventions we know are going to be effective and do not rely on deeply dubious scientific speculation, e.g., around nutrition and healthcare and serious wealth inequality and ofc education; and if what people actually want is to raise the average intelligence of the population rather than justify discrimination against minorities, then they might focus on those much more empirically grounded interventions. even if population differences in IQ are real and significant and point to big differences in intelligence, we know those things are worth a fair few IQ points. but most people who are or historically have been the biggest advocates for eugenics are, in my estimation, mostly interested in justifying discrimination.)

i think the claims/application of eugenics extend well beyond just intelligence, ftr. eugenics as an ideology is complex and historically pretty interesting, and many eugenicists have made much broader claims than just "population-level differences in intelligence exist due to genetic factors, and we should try to influence them with policy," but that is a useful point for them to fall back onto when pressed on those other claims. but i don't think even that claim is at all well-supported.

[mindblowingscience]

The United States on Friday approved the first blood test for Alzheimer's, a move that could help patients begin treatment earlier with newly approved drugs that slow the progression of the devastating neurological disease. The test, developed by Fujirebio Diagnostics, measures the ratio of two proteins in the blood. The rato is correlated with amyloid plaques in the brain – a hallmark of Alzheimer's that, until now, has been detected only through brain scans or spinal fluid analysis.

Continue Reading.

[foldingfittedsheets]

The house we rent is older, and the heating is a mystic art that my betrothed cannot master. There’s 3 dials total to control the temperature of the downstairs and each room upstairs. I think of them more like tuning forks than dials, though.

There’s technically numbers on them, but they don’t correlate to any known measurement of temperature. The smallest tweak of even a millimeter can mean up to ten degrees change in temperature.

Additionally, the three rooms are a delicate ecosystem as the heat travels around the house. If one room is too cold it’s not as easy as just turning up that rooms dial, all three need minute adjustments to regulate the overall temperature.

Each spring I turn all the dials off as the weather warms up, and each fall I synchronize the finicky things into a cohesive livable temperature.

At no point in the year can I trust my betrothed to touch the dials. This arcane magic is baffling to them and their turns are always too far one way or another and require time consuming fixes. They try to listen for the system clicking on or off and get confused.

A couple weeks ago they asked me to turn it down because their room was too warm, and I’ve been finagling the balance between the two upstairs rooms since, with my room being slightly too chilly even with incremental adjustments.

Then tonight they mentioned that their room is a bit cold. The weather has dipped down after some warmth. They offered to adjust it but I just kissed them and got up. I am the master of the heaters. They do not obey my betrotheds attempts to meddle and they suffer me with contempt, but I will wrangle a habitable temperature from them yet.