Non-Tribalist Politics Megathread

I did some back when you first (to my knowledge) wrote about them. I should revisit tree diagrams. I appreciate the tip.

itā€™s interesting how gender swapping (well enough to actually fool people) gives insight into gender biases. (plus modern social media gives more people a voice to share stories outside their friend group)

it reminds me a little of the multiple stories of the king (or other royalty) who dressed as a commoner and went out into the city. people treated him differently, including according to different biases

I didnā€™t know about this and itā€™s relevant to the ongoing political debates about cops. Well, it depends how widespread this sort of policy is. But at least in one area they arenā€™t letting anyone over ~115 IQ be a cop, or around the top 15% of the population, which is a lot of people, including I imagine most people reading this post. A court upheld this which seems kinda ridiculous.

For high level leadership positions in the police force, do they get promoted from within (so they have to be low IQ in this area?) or do they use people who donā€™t have experience as a cop? Both ways are problematic.

I imagine a lot of areas with no formal policy also discriminate against high IQ people in police hiring.

Hereā€™s an example of what I take to be a low IQ cop (or really, a bunch of low IQ cops with a far-more-guilty low IQ leader who pushed for this repeatedly over time):

https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinsane/comments/1fy6sbe/cop_arrests_fire_fighter_in_the_middle_of_tending/

EDIT: on second thought, i think arresting the firefighter is compatible with everyone involved being high IQ. there are plenty of smart people who will follow bad orders and just protect their job and try not to stand up to authority. i donā€™t really know if low or high IQ ppl are more willing to stand up to authority overall. and as for the leader, he could be dumb or he could be a smart bastard. there may be some way that doing this will help him get a promotion. being smart may be important to him coming up with rationalizations for this and help enable it, whereas a dumb person might think itā€™s wrong and be unable to come up with effective excuses for it.

Also, disclaimer, I do not agree with a lot of common beliefs about IQ. I do think it can be discussed as a loose approximation though; itā€™s not meaningless.

There are reports of both the left and right trying to bribe/hire social media creators to create propaganda while pretending itā€™s organic, unpaid, unsponsored real content.

According to TikTok - Make Your Day Pendleton was lying and it was some other leftwing group, not the Democrat party itself, that offered Pendleton money to post undisclosed propaganda.

Reddit post: Youā€™re being targeted by disinformation networks that are vastly more effective than you realize. And theyā€™re making you more hateful and depressed.

1 Like

https://www.tiktok.com/@nowthisimpact/photo/7447260140648303918

Iā€™m still near the beginning but itā€™s talking about shortages of crucial medicines, in France, in the present, because big pharma refuses to manufacture them. These are drugs that were plentiful in the past. This is resulting in rationing where you get points for meeting criteria like has ā€œ8 or more tumorsā€ and ā€œhas tumors larger than 3cmā€ and people with more points are prioritized for treatment. Other people get 3 surgeries before getting a drug that I think costs far less to produce than the cost of 3 surgeries.

EDIT: I watched more and they gave an example about an epi pen factory in spain that wonā€™t sell to spain. Then they let a pharma exec from that company talk. He said:

When they launched epi pen product in 2011 in Spain, they got ā‚¬34 per unit. Then after multiple price decreases (set by the Spanish government) it was ā‚¬27. They kept making it but then in 2018 the Spanish govt lowered it under ā‚¬24 and they gave up and stopped providing to spain. He says ā‚¬24 would be by far the lowest price in Europe.

The problem is partly governments, partly pharma companies, and partly other companies like health insurers. Itā€™s hard to sort out. Whatā€™s clear is that the situation is broken in a lot of ways.

For every video like this, there are a lot more stories in the comments.

2020 happened- best friend had been on anti-rejection meds for 5 years. lost his job. pandemic, ya know. took 2 months for emergency Medicaid to kick in- but the rejection had begun. :skull: a year later.

my dad had a kidney transplant and was in dialysis prior to that with a woman who lost her new kidney due to not being able to afford the anti rejection meds. it was sad

I needed a kidney transplant. My sister was a match. But unfortunately, she didnā€™t have health insurance because her job didnā€™t offer it and it was too expensive to go through the marketplaceā€¦

my insurance dropped me the day they filled my 700$ adhd meds. there wasnā€™t a reason to deny the meds. so they just got rid of me. :unamused::roll_eyes:

United decided to refuse my anti-rejection meds for a couple weeks last January. Even though I got back on, rejection still happened.

My dad was in kidney failure for months. The Dr said he had to wait until he was at 10% kidney function before they would do dialysis. He passed Jan 5th 2024 at 12% kidney function from kidney failure

There are currently 2568 comments on this one video. I think I read under 4% of them (not a random sample). And I didnā€™t repost all the awful stories I found.