Interesting Links for 26-5-2011

[andrewducker]

• San Francisco to Vote on Circumcision Ban
  (tags: circumcision usa law)
• It can never be as bad in fiction as it is in real life: Ken Kesey on One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
  (tags: writing inspiration theatre psychology)
• Italian seismologists to be tried for manslaughter for not predicting earthquake
  (tags: science law wtf earthquake)
• Bill Gates’ brilliantly accurate predictions for the Internet…from 1995
  (tags: microsoft billgates future history)
• Pork cooking temperatures lowered
  (tags: pork cooking temperature)
• Some stats about geeks
  (tags: geek)
• Large chunk of the universe's missing mass found
  (tags: astronomy physics)
• More details discovered on the different genes active in autistic brains
  (tags: autism brains psychology genetics)
• House Refuses To Vote On Abortion Coverage For Military Rape Victims
  (tags: usa law abortion military)
• There’s a Secret Patriot Act, Senator Says
  (tags: politics government privacy law)
• This is why the human race will die out.
  (tags: funny comic relationships technology)
• CyanogenMod Adds Support For Revoking And Faking App Permissions On Android
  (tags: android mobile_phones)
• Steady Decline in Major Crime Baffles Experts
  (tags: crime usa)
• Insane suggestion that Twitter vet every single tweet before publishing them...
  (tags: twitter EpicFail EpicStupidity)
• Britain is a picture of how politics should work (An American View)
  (tags: politics britain usa)

Comments

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank goodness. Finally pork can be legally cooked right - in the US at least.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

> San Francisco to Vote on Circumcision Ban

This is what I hate about simplistic politics (and news reporting thereof) :( I do, in fact, think that if we don't know if something is beneficial or not, NOT doing surgery, even minor surgery, is the better option. But the vote will presumably be "yes" or "no" with no option for "maybe, but NOT when it's massively religiously discriminatory"...

Military abortion insurance thingy...

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

Wh.... I... No. Can't put it into words. Visions of silverheaded conservative heads on spikes.

[andrewducker]

I'm not sure what that last one would mean, policy-wise. Which makes having it as an option tricky.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I agree it can't be perfect, but perhaps a start would be:

1. Recognise that the question of banning circumcision for other people, and banning circumcision for people who are commanded directly by God to do it are quite different, and vote on them _separately_.

2. Don't solve every problem by reflexively banning the symptoms, but try to get more specific guidelines for medical treatments on when they can be purely elective.

3. When you're drafting a law, spend more than thirty seconds thinking "if this law so catastrophically ambiguously and/or too-broadly worded and/or poorly-thought-out it will trample all over civil liberties and/or cause widespread calls for insurrection" and if so, consider tweaking it a bit... :)

[andrewducker]

Recognise that the question of banning circumcision for other people, and banning circumcision for people who are commanded directly by God to do it are quite different, and vote on them _separately_.

I disagree that they are different. If chopping bits off of children without their consent or medical need is wrong, then whether the chopper believe that the creator of the universe is in favour of it is entirely besides the point.

Don't solve every problem by reflexively banning the symptoms
They aren't banning the symptoms, they're banning the thing they want banned.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

What Andy said.

Why does being commanded by God make it any different?

This is part of the wider argument on religion in a secular society -- just because your magic friend said you have to wear a special hat / eat only a particular thing / do a certain thing at a certain time -- why should that get special treatment?

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

And on top of Andrew's reasons, you're massively biasing the case by saying "if we don't know if something is beneficial or not" - we *do* know. At *best* it reduces sensitivity of the penis (both because it removes a sensitive part and because it causes the glans to harden). At worst, a significant number (about 1% IIRC) of circumcisions lead to accidental amputation of the penis.

The claims for its benefits, on the other hand, have been reduced to making it less likely to get cancer of the penis (a vanishingly rare disease whose incidence is much less than the number of accidental amputations), less likely to contract HPV (a virus that is harmless to the person in question, though possibly harmful to potential sexual partners, but which can be prevented anyway by vaccination - though even there it's not considered reasonable or necessary to vaccinate males, just females), and less likely to contract HIV (a very, very dubious statistic - and 'less likely' in this case means a couple of percentage points, not immunity, so anyone wanting to be safe still needs to practice safe sex).

The only reason it's prevalent at all in the US is cultural inertia, from decades of it being advised that parents do it to prevent their child from masturbating. There's no reason *at all* to do it - it is actively harmful, not just of unknown benefit.

(If there were significant benefits, we would see uncircumcised men actively queueing to get circumcised. But strangely, very few people seem to want to have bits of their genitals cut off when they're old enough to make the choice for themselves, let alone without anaesthetic as it's usually practiced.)

[supergee.livejournal.com]

If we'd had a circumcision ban, that doctor wouldn't have been able to throw away the wrong piece of David Brooks.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

Also, that article from the American praising the British system is rather depressing, since all the things for which Cameron's getting praised are things the Lib Dems have forced him to do and get no credit for...

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

I disagree there. If someone wants to take a particular action *for themselves* for religious reasons then within all reasonable limits society should allow that. I have no problems with Muslim colleagues having an extra day off for Eid or whatever, or Jewish people wearing a yarmulke, or anything in that whole class of behaviours.

But if someone imposes their belief on others in such a way that it causes the others harm, whether by trying to impose laws against blasphemy or by performing unnecessary harmful operations on the genitals of small children, that is not something that should be tolerated any more than it would for non-religious reasons.

(That said, I'm not sure a ban on circumcision is necessarily the way to go - it would undoubtedly lead to Jewish and Muslim people doing it anyway, in less hygienic and controlled circumstances. Far better to try to reduce it by social, rather than legal, means, so long as those means don't tip over into religious persecution).

[mondyboy.livejournal.com]

Considering it's one of the core tenets of Judaism, anyone who thinks that the practice would stop by banning it is living in fairy land.

[mondyboy.livejournal.com]

Personally, I haven't missed my foreskin. That said Jewish curcumcision isn't done for medical reasons.

[fearmeforiampink]

The story seemed to suggest that it can be cooked right here; that there's no officially mandated temperatures here. If you're cooking it at low temperatures and then someone gets sick, they may well bring up the temperature, but that's not the same.

[mondyboy.livejournal.com]

Seriously, core tenet. Even the most irreligious of Jews get their kids circumcised. Any attempt for social change would ultimately end up being perceived as persecution whether it was intended to or not.

But more then that, it's so core to Judaism that you would be seen as banning the entire religion even if you placated people by telling them they could wear their yarmulkes or have Rosh Hashana off.

It's the same with Kosher killing - the other issue that often upsets people - is to integral to the faith for it to be removed without a complete undermining of the faith itself. And unless your intention is to destroy the faith, then you need to recognize this before you attempt social change.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. I'd miss mine were it to be removed, though, and so think if it's going to happen at all it should be the choice of the person to whom the foreskin belongs.

[fearmeforiampink]

But on the other hand, if you ban it with a religious 'get out' clause in the bill, then I'd strongly expect to see people suddenly claiming it was for religious reasons.

[mondyboy.livejournal.com]

Which is why I think bans of these sorts are a non starter to begin with.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Well people are going to have to get dragged kicking and screaming into rationality sooner or later, aren't they?

[mondyboy.livejournal.com]

But if you never had it to begin with, and if there's no way you an experience what you might be missing, then I'm not sure how you an be upset about it unless you see the whole thing as child abuse and feel youre parents willfully molested you as a child. And in front of a crowd. And had a catered event with devil eggs and salmon afterwards.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Actually, no, I disagree completely.

If an atheist goes to their boss and says 'Can I have this day off every year, because it's very important to me personally,' what do you think the result will be?

Why is the result different just because the 'very important' is shared by several million people and goes back a very long time?

[mondyboy.livejournal.com]

And kicking and screaming it will be. Fun for all the family I'm sure!

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

The benefits arguments are ludicrous -- there's plenty of parts of the body we could remove and get benefits.

For that matter, playing devil's advocate, I can say with absolute certainty that female circumcision would make cleaning my daughter's nappies a hell of a lot easier. Perhaps it would reduce chance of infection too.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

I don't know what the response would be, but I do know that, for example, when I wanted an extra day off to attend the funeral of a family member (one I didn't even like very much) I was given one with no problems, and I expect that is fairly commonplace.

I have no problem at all in accepting that Yom Kippur or Eid or Diwali might have more emotional importance to $randomreligiousbeliever than my family member's funeral did for me, so I have no problem at all with them having the same benefit I do.

[andrewducker]

Of course I can be upset about having bits chopped off me as a child, no matter what kind of food my parents served with it!