Interesting Links for 24-07-2022

[andrewducker]

1. Two decades of Alzheimer's research may be based on deliberate fraud that has cost millions of lives

(tags:fraud research alzheimers OhForFucksSake )

2. Want to vote for the UK's next Prime Minister? Not a UK citizen (or resident)? No problem!

(tags:conservatives OhForFucksSake )

3. Tiktok fastest growing UK news source

(tags:news UK Doom )

4. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nadhim Zahawi, has been sending threatening letters to people investigating his tax affairs

(tags:UK politics tax libel OhForFucksSake conservatives )

5. 54 cases of Monkeypox in Scotland

(tags:Scotland disease )

6. The methods that fraudulent Chinese sellers use to game Amazon rankings

(tags:fraud Amazon China )

7. Massive queues at Dover: a story in 5 parts

(tags:migration UK Europe trade Doom )

8. The Sandman Trailer looks pretty awesome

(tags:Sandman TV trailer video )

9. The audacious PR plot that seeded doubt about climate change

(tags:globalwarming lies propaganda )

Comments

[dewline]

1. This news leaves me ready for a stone-cold rage aimed at any and all people who'd willingly, knowingly participate in such things. Especially now.

2. What the Hell?

(Leaves me wondering about Canadian Conservative Party rules, seeing as they're now also in the process of selecting their next leader!)

4. Disturbing. Deeply so.

[haggis]

2. Andrew Hickey has a good thread on why allowing international membership of political parties is actually a good and important thing. As he notes, immigrants and non-citizens are incredibly disenfranchised already.

https://mobile.twitter.com/HickeyWriter/status/1550844617154756608

[andrewducker]

Saw it yesterday. Didn't feel convinced.

[channelpenguin]

8. Nope, I really don't fancy that at all. How odd. It's been nearly 30 years since I read Sandman, so I can't say if this "nope" is because the trailer isn't like the comics or because it IS. I recall I write quite liked Sandman then, but I liked a lot of things then that I don't now.

But watching that trailer does not make me want to watch the series.

[mellowtigger]

1. How utterly disappointing that we're no closer to understanding Alzheimer's. :( On the plus side, though, it does make me slightly less concerned about the apparent amyloid-producing qualities of the S1 spike protein (in either whole virus or rna vaccine-delivered form). It's good to have something less worrying these days.

[dewline]

I suppose so.

Definitely not happy with the way this research thread's turned out, though.

[qilora]

"1. Two decades of Alzheimer's research may be based on deliberate fraud that has cost millions of lives"

have you ever read: "Science Fiction: How fraud, bias, negligence, and hype undermine the search for truth"

the book is a bit disturbing, but having spent decades working/studying with scientists from several fields (and being forced to look the other way, OFTEN) i am glad that someone wrote this book. <3 bs"d

[andrewducker]

I'm glad too. There's far too much fraud in science.

[anna_wing]

Non-citizens in a country have no right to be involved in its politics.

[fub]

Non-citizens might have built their lives there, acquired a house, had children who grew up in their adoptive country. They might not have the right to be involved in the politics of their home country, but at the same time those politics can affect them very, very deeply indeed.

[anna_wing]

That is true. But ultimately they are still only sojourners.

[fub]

22 years of living in a country, building a career and raising a family, paying into the social security and healthcare systems -- and still a sojourner? How long would an immigrant have to live in their adoptive country before you would consider them settled? What prerequisites are needed?

[dewline]

Once you get past the five-year mark, I suspect we can make a case that non-citizens have committed to setting down serious roots in the new-to-them country. After twenty? They should get citizenship, if not by application, then by award for deep emotional and other investment.

[anna_wing]

Citizenship.

[channelpenguin]

So me, who has lived and worked in Germany for 7 years, should have no say in German politics (which affect me day and daily)? That's actually true - if seemingly unfair.

Minimum time to become a citizen here is 8 years.(other EU countries have longer). Joint citizenship not allowed. You must never have taken any state support of any sort in that 8 years. Some exams to pass, but thankfully it's not the extreme expense it is in the UK.

I am not sure I can vote in the UK at all either. But I'm still a UK subject (I believe we still aren't actually citizens? )

[andrewducker]

I'd say that people who are resident, particularly resident long-term should be able to be involved.

And you became a citizen in 1983 :-)

[anna_wing]

Being a citizen of an EU country is something of a unique case, since the EU is a supranational entity, rather than an international organisation. Elsewhere, however, we are in the world of nation-states, and a long-term resident foreigner remains a foreigner.

[channelpenguin]

1. Next up, though NOT active fraud ... https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-find-no-evidence-that-depression-is-caused-by-chemical-imbalance-or-low-serotonin-levels/

[andrewducker]

This was so frustrating, because (as many other people have pointed out) we know that SSRIs are effective. We don't know the mechanism, but we did already know that it wasn't as simple as "raise serotonin levels, depression goes away". So this meta-analysis seems to be attacking a position that nobody in the field had, while putting people off from taking medication that we know works for a lot of people.

[channelpenguin]

My take is (at least) twofold

1. Placebo effect - good for something like 40% effectiveness. Just the fact that someone seems to be trying to help as well as that. Oh and THEY sincerely believe this medicine really helps.

2. Same levels != same effect. People be different. See ... oh ... just about any hormone at all. Trivially, it's not the level of the testosterone byproduct that makes you go bald, but your own personal sensitivity to it.

I agree with you - empirically it seems to work. Even if not how we thought. We need to investigate how it DOES work.

[andrewducker]

I assure you, many people have been investigating how it does work. Turns out brains are complex!

[channelpenguin]

Who wrote that brain spec anyway? Just looks like trying random shit for a long time until something works! Where's the test plan and results? :-). Lol.