free chewy

yea fair enough

I mean, yeah? Are things so bad this isn’t obvious?

That’s not even worth addressing or bringing up, because they don’t understand science. It’s better to just call them racist, for being racist, because that’s what is happening here… racism

From another article on the same issue:

Buried within the list of issues is a reference to a display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The display, the executive order complains, “claims that ‘sculpture has been a powerful tool in promoting scientific racism’ and promotes the view that race is not a biological reality but a social construct.”

I’m brought to mind of the concept that any movement must have a peaceful branch for the system to acknowledge and meet demands for change as well as a “violent” branch to drive the opponents to the bargaining table. And within both of those is a need to take care of the community to enable them to continue to protest for change.

Completely agreed with this concept. I’ve been a big fan of multiple voices advocating for different things. It helps others understand where the center is or where the most agreement is likely to be. You need some people asking for everything in order to push in the direction of change, otherwise the people in charge will think what they have given up is satisfactory (or perhaps even too much).

I think where these protests will succeed or fail is community coming together to take care of each other, with a safety net so many more people will be able to participate and make their voices heard.

Yes I think general principles of anarchy apply here in that the more people you can get mobilized around a single issue and the more engagement you can get the more successful it will be. Entirely peaceful protests can drive huge change, but only when the government is a peaceful one who actively wishes to represent the people. The more corrupt and out of touch they get the less they will care about the constituency and the massive prevalence of voter disenfranchisement and a system of corruption which is increasingly run on money in the United States seems to suggest that it falls more closely in that latter bucket.

Yeah, I’ll have to check the book out to understand more.

Looking at hundreds of campaigns over the last century, Chenoweth found that nonviolent campaigns are twice as likely to achieve their goals as violent campaigns. And although the exact dynamics will depend on many factors, she has shown it takes around 3.5% of the population actively participating in the protests to ensure serious political change.

I really wish this was in a proper paper, as I wonder how much selection bias is at play here. How is “achieving their goals” measured? What kind of governments are we talking about? What is “serious political change”? I have a lot of serious doubt that nonviolent protests do much against hostile governments. They are absolutely important, and true research has revealed they are much more effective at mobilizing people who agree with the protestors, but the research also shows that violent protests have a larger affect on folks who do not agree with the protestors because they cause actual harm and more forcibly bring people to the table to negotiate. But what exactly is considered violent is a difficult one to quantify and direct physical violence (injuring and killing others) is much less effective than non-human directed violence which is difficult to quantify and to define. Destruction of property, for example, is often considered a form of non-human directed violence which likely has a larger affect on change than human-directed physical violence because no one is directly injured and it creates a direct economic incentive for change to happen.

This is how you make them listen.

“embrace of right-wing politics…” my dude he did a literal nazi salute multiple times, stating it this way is minimizing

There’s a lot of generalizations going on here. I’m going to leave space for you to vent, but please keep in mind we have one rule on this instance and it is to be(e) nice.

In complete agreement here, but also I understand the need for folks to be able to vent about a fucked up situation 😔

This has been reported on account of the source. I’m not sure it’s worth removing necessarily, and would direct people to look at @spit_evil_olive_tips@beehaw.org comment for another source and an excellent summary.

At what point does indirectly become directly? I think what’s most important here is intent - this man was clearly knowledgeable enough to know he was causing harm and still chose to do so in order to increase shareholder profit. There is malice here no matter how you slice it.

Relief and happiness are similar but distinct. You can be relieved at the fact that a terrible person can no longer systematically disenfranchise so many and cause pain and suffering for others.

It didn’t surprise me that these passed, given the recent passage of a sweeping justice reform where cop oversight was removed and they were authorized to use drones and received a bunch of funding. But I am quite sad that it finally did get overturned - I saw it on nearly every ballot for the last several years; the Republicans were desperate to overturn it. I really hated that every time they wanted to tie the removal of theft and the removal of drug charges at the same time. Now we’re back to a state where many decriminalized drugs are criminal again, calling into question weird conflicts such as the sale of certain mushrooms in Oakland being legal but possession no longer.

Marking NSFW or placing CW: in the title are both perfectly acceptable. We’re likely not going to remove anything if you forget to do either, this is mostly a post about being nice and accommodating where we can 💜

And thank you for engaging in good faith! Appreciate you 💜

As an aside I have a degree in neurobiology and work in health care and would be happy to discuss things with you if you ever have questions.

Yes, antidepressants are not considered addictive by the same big pharma companies who told us that Oxycodone was not totally fine.

No, I’m talking about how researchers, who do not have conflicts of interest, have to say about these drugs.

What is the difference between a physical dependence and addiction?

Googling this will give you plenty of pages drawing the distinction between the two. For example, here’s a webmd article on the difference. In short, it’s meaningful to draw clear distinctions and definitions around where an urge is coming from. Withdrawing from a substance does not necessarily mean you desire the substance. Taking the substance to avoid withdrawal symptoms might happen because you wish to avoid the negative symptoms, and treating the symptoms could be enough to get someone off the substance causing problems. Addiction, on the other hand, is characterized by a strong desire to continue drug use despite the ways in which it is negatively affecting one’s life. It is possible for addiction and physical dependence to have overlap (and for many drugs this is common) but they are mutually exclusive - one does not necessarily imply the other and the presence of one does not mean there is the presence of the other.

If they aren’t addictive, but cause the same withdrawal symptoms which result from addiction, in some cases severely, then what should we call them?

While withdrawal symptoms can vary with the nature of addiction, one does not need to be addicted to experience withdrawal symptoms. Many common, non-addictive chemicals have withdrawal symptoms. Nearly every drug has some kind of withdrawal symptoms. Withdrawal symptoms are the direct biological consequences of a human changing their equilibrium with the addition of or removal of an exogenous substance or the regular use of said substance and the long-term biological changes it can have on one’s body.

At a high level, I would highly suggest you educating yourself on drug dependence and recovery as well as the psychology of addiction. These are high level basic concepts which are taught to you in any human-centered biology and psychology coursework.

Antidepressants are highly addictive and it doesn’t get talked about

SSRIs are not addictive and almost no antidepressants have addictive qualities. Many can cause withdrawal symptoms, which is very different from addiction, and a few select agents have been misused in contexts where access to drugs are low and quality of life are low, such as prison, but this kind of use needs to be considered in context, as these individuals are desperate for escape.

Please do not spread misinformation.