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[GlyphGryph]

If a parent has control over whether their child has leukaemia or not, something's really really fucked up with parental rights vs child rights.

I don't think the benefit of the few lives avoiding leukaemia (if any) is worth the government gaining the right to to dictate which children parents are and are not allowed to have, at least.

That equation changes once the child is born, of course... but I do think we need caution, here. There is value to variety, after all. I would not like to see the government dictate "every" problem be cured, so we must be careful of where we draw the line.

[palsch]

Well the whole 'nudge' (I'm never sure if that's a better or worse term than libertarian paternalism) concept is about the government making a determination of the best choice to make then non-coercively influencing people into taking it. The problem is when it stops being non-coercive, or when it is used in the place of open persuasion and debate.

For example, when it comes to advocating healthy eating you put in place gentle policies that make healthier lifestyle choices easier. Simple things like rearranging the layout of supermarkets and cafeteria can adjust eating habits and encourage the 'right' choices. Adding clear and obvious nutritional labelling to food makes people more aware of their diet and makes it easier for them to keep track. But these things need to be discussed and understood, alongside public education and debate over their value and intent.

Once you start losing those factors and are used to the government determining and unilaterally implementing programs to modify peoples behaviour for their own good, nudges probably won't stay nudges for long.

It's always best to think about these things in areas you don't want to be restricted in yourself, or where you disagree with majority (or at least strongly influential and likely to be shared by future leaders) views. A nudge towards healthy eating we can all agree with; we can probably justify a shove in that area from time to time. But when it's something more marginal I think we need to be extremely careful. It's easy to justify government action when you start off non-coercive and gentle, but once you have made that first determination that action is justified it's all the easier to keep pushing till you start seeing results.


The stretch to Stalinism is somewhat misplaced I think, and it's not really a valid comparison between the two. But knowing the authors I'd say this is more lazy shorthand than a genuine political comparison. Knowing their views I can put money on both supporting Obama over whoever in the next election. At least so long as the American Communist Party or Pirate Party don't have valid candidates.

[Max White]

Well this might be old news to some, but first I have heard of it...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womyn
Really? Instead of seeking equity with men, feminist extremists are seeking to separate themselves from men in all possible ways? While I agree that sexism is still a problem, I don't think this is exactly the cause...

[Descan]

Why don't we bring back Werman for males, and Wifman for females. Or something less confusing and less ... Well, WIFE is right there in the word, so heh.

And Man for gender-neutral!

We'd still need pronouns, though. Unless we want to stick with "They" and it's derivatives.

[Truean]

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-joins-assailing-limbaugh-slur-student-201834452.html

More in the Rush Limbaugh personal attack on a third-year Georgetown University law student, Sandra Fluke.... Seems he didn't just call her a slut and a prostitute but far worse:

From the above article:

On Wednesday, Limbaugh unleashed a lengthy and often savage verbal assault on Fluke.

"What does it say about the college coed ... who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex?" Limbaugh said. "It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex."

He went on to suggest that Fluke distribute sex tapes of herself.

"If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it," he said. "We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch."

On Thursday, aware of the firestorm he had ignited, Limbaugh was unapologetic.

"I think this is hilarious. Absolutely hilarious" he said on his show. "The left has been thrown into an outright conniption fit!"

I'm sorry, what? Wait wait, didn't Don Imas get thrown off the air for a bit and seriously risk losing his career over a certain comment a while back? Wait a minute, they (The FCC) try to censor and often succeed at censoring the crap out of TV shows like South Park and Family Guy, but he's allowed to broadcast detailed defamation about an innocent person and say it's funny? He's completely unrepentant about it, reveling in the fact that he caused it (thinks it's "hilarious"), and it doesn't appear he's going to really get so much as a slap on the wrist.

This woman testified in Congress (after the mockery of an all male panel testifying about women's health issues) that her friend had to have an ovary removed because the school health plan didn't cover birth control medication needed to prevent ovarian cysts from growing (which can easily become cancerous). This man is setting civil discourse back at least 50 years in this country. So basically any female testifying before congress about gender issues, is fair game to call a slut, prostitute, and to demand a tape of her having sex on the internet from...? Wow.

[Sirus]

Limbaugh is like a solitary WBC member: a troll with no real purpose. I wish someone would sue him, but he's got 1st Amendment rights too. My take on it is that just as Ms Fluke is allowed to go before Congress and testify, so is Mr Limbaugh allowed to criticize her for it. It's just that Limbaugh is far more mean-spirited.

[Reelya]

Isn't using "coed" for a female student a bit patriarchal too? Like assuming men belong there and having females is an "add-on". Especially now when if you check enrolment figures females actually outnumber males quite a bit in Europe and North America, from stuff i've read.

Maybe i've got this wrong and it's a commonly used term there, but this is something i notice since it's not a term which gets used where i live, it's a particularly american term. "female student" would be the term here.

A "coed school" just means females and males together (in my local dialect), not specifically a female.

ps. googling "coed" the most common usage seems to be "hot coeds on camera" type stuff :/ but that may be just the internet.

[Capntastic]

No, you're right, co-ed is typically assumed in common parlance to mean a female.   It's bad in an exceedingly minor way.

[Pnx]

Let me tell you something about Rush Limaugh. My hardcore conservative bus driver used to listen to him endlessly, which annoyed me a lot, more because of the high pitched keening the radio made when it was tuned to him for some reason than anything else (the bus driver couldn't hear it, I'm pretty sure there's a metaphor in the there).

This thing used to happen a lot. Sometimes a caller would come on the air and disagree with him, an oddly frequent amount of times it would go something like this.
Caller: "Well actually, I feel differently because when you look at X you-"
Rush: "Let me tell you about X..." *goes on an angry rant about how X is deceptive and they are completely wrong*
Rush: "What do you have to say about that?"
*silence*
Rush: "Huh... I guess they hung up. Moving on."

Seriously, the amount of times people "hung up" was ridiculous.

[Capntastic]

(the bus driver couldn't hear it, I'm pretty sure there's a metaphor in the there).

Is this a crack at Rush's hearing loss caused by drug abuse?

[Max White]

No, you're right, co-ed is typically assumed in common parlance to mean a female.   It's bad in an exceedingly minor way.

Really? That is a thing that is a thing?
Over here co-ed means mixed gender. 'Co' being a prefix for 'joint' and 'ed' being shorthand for education, so it means joint education, as in joining the female and male classes. In the same way, cooperation means 'joint operation' as in an operation carried out by more than one person. I don't see how co-ed came to mean female...

[Capntastic]

Common parlance and technical, literal meaning aren't always hand in hand.   Which is why we're bringing it up, because it's specifically biased towards men in its usage, by assuming that the significance of 'co-ed' (in dorms, or similar) is that there's women.

[Max White]

Hmm, must just be a cultural thing. If somebody told me that a class wasn't co-ed, I would most likely assume from context that they mean it is female only and are telling me this as a way of saying I'm not allowed in, otherwise if such context did not apply, I would have to ask for what gender is the class designed...

[Pnx]

(the bus driver couldn't hear it, I'm pretty sure there's a metaphor in the there).

Is this a crack at Rush's hearing loss caused by drug abuse?

Allow me to try this again.

The radio, when tuned to Rush Limaugh, made a high pitched screeching sound. The driver was rather old, and since high pitches are the first frequencies to go when you start to lose your hearing, he could not hear that frequency of noise. In fact, he thought I was just making it up because I didn't want to listen to Rush.

This just strikes me as the kind of thing you'd see in a novel you read as part of your high school English class.

[Capntastic]

I was making a joke that your statement about hearing loss could be interpreted as a joke at Rush Limbaugh specifically.  I work on multiple levels at once.