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[palsch]

Didn't circumcision (in America) start off with Kellogg convincing people to do it so their kids couldn't masturbate?

He advocated it but was hardly the first and was more following certain medical practitioners of the time. At least one fairly biased history (biased anti-circumcision) traces the surge in American circumcision to the wars, where soldiers and sailors were circumcised for the perceived health and hygiene reasons. They then decided it would be better for their sons to be circumcised as infants rather than go through a potential adult circumcision, and so rates reached ~50% by WWII. This carried forwards into the 50's and was backed up by the always trendy (and potentially lethal) advice of Benjamin Spock.

For some reason I had thought that there were state laws requiring circumcision in some places (and I've certainly heard that from family, friends and online sources in the past) but can't find any articles about it online now.

Also, if you want a look at the muddied waters of the health benefits/issues with circumcision, that first link isn't a bad place to start. You have pretty much conflicting claims right down the board, from the late 1800's to this year.

[GavJ]

conflicting claims right down the board, from the late 1800's to this year.

1) The study in question from modern times primarily claims serious health benefits for reduction of rates of STDs (and female partners' STDs!? Wat). Which is really dumb, because infants aren't sexually active. Thus, this is clearly not an ethical justification for performing an irreversible amputation on an infant without consent, when you could instead just wait until they're teenagers and can understand the procedure and CONSENT to it before you go irreversibly cutting off organs.

2) However, they are also keen to take advantage of the more impressive sounding numerical statistics that much more minor UTI's provide, but noting "over their lifetime, half of uncircumcised males will require treatment for a medical condition associated with retention of the foreskin." Specifically, the numbers from their study claim:
age 0-1: 1.3% UTIs
age 1-16: 2.7% UTIs
age >16: 28% UTIs
Notice anything? If you said "it's pretty much all in adults, and they could and should just wait to obtain consent from the adult, even if this is true" then ding ding ding, you are tonight's winner. And I hope you're noticing a trend.

3) By the way, in general, who the fuck suggests, in response to seeing data suggesting a higher rate of UTIs, cutting off the entire organ preemptively? Versus, oh I don't know... just a crazy shot in the dark here, but maybe... using some damn soap? (not mentioned once that I saw, even in passing)

This is the equivalent logic of finding out that >50% of girls in Minnesota break their arms during childhood (true fact, actually!) And rather than suggesting they, I dunno, drink milk or stop jumping off of roofs, instead suggesting amputating all infant girls' arms at birth so that they can't break them later.

4) In the study's HIV section, in addition to citing the usual ridiculous research on adult Africans in undeveloped countries where that taught them about condoms during the study (and then applying that to American infant boys...?), I found an especially amusing gem, where the authors cited a U.S. paper as evidence of circumcision protecting against HIV. When I looked it up, it turned out that that paper didn't actually measure anything, but merely assumed as a thought experiment "what might it mean if American boys did indeed enjoy a 60% reduction in HIV from circumcision?"  Lol? Do they not even read abstracts of things they cite? *Facepalm*






Particularly ridiculous is that both the "meta-study" people and all the African researchers from 10 years ago, despite heralding the wonders of circumcision STD prevention all still tell you to use condoms anyway, which by themselves are almost completely protective when used correctly. So basically, if you want complete protection, your options are:

A) Use a condom, or
B) Cut off part of your dick, which contains the majority of its nerve endings. Then use a condom anyway.

Hmmm  that's a tough one.

[palsch]

A complete issue of the BMJ's Journal of Medical Ethics dedicated to the topic last year. Much of it's behind a pay wall but as with nearly any academic article free mirrors can usually be found with relative ease.

Positions that are ethically open-and-shut except for financial interests don't get full issue debates in significant medical ethics journals.

Particularly ridiculous is that both the "meta-study" people and all the African researchers from 10 years ago, despite heralding the wonders of circumcision STD prevention all still tell you to use condoms anyway, which by themselves are almost completely protective when used correctly. So basically, if you want complete protection, your options are:

A) Use a condom, or
B) Cut off part of your dick, which contains the majority of its nerve endings. Then use a condom anyway.

Hmmm  that's a tough one.

I remember the original studies. The effect was hugely significant, regardless of condom use (reported as similar between the two groups). At least one early study was abandoned after the original effect size was so significant that it was deemed unethical not to expand the treatment (circumcision) to the control group as well.

Now the actual effect/effect size has been called into question and there has never been a satisfying mechanism for prevention (which I have seen at least), which suggests it shouldn't be trusted and certainly never could be considered a replacement for condoms even if it works. But pretending that it wasn't honest research or an actual measured effect because they recommended use of condoms doesn't make sense.

Ridicule is not a substitute for understanding.

[GavJ]

I'm not suggesting it wasn't honest.

I'm suggesting it was
* poorly controlled
   -contact with control and experimental groups very unequal, including therefore also educational exposure.
   -Terrible retention of participants, leading to post-hoc selection biases.
   -They all were ended early, which will skew the results toward an artificially higher effect, since people who just received penile surgery are obviously less likely to go out and have sex than the control subjects
* misguided and extremely likely to backfire within Africa even if the effect is real (since large scale implementation would not remotely resemble the study's well funded, clean medical facilities and educational supplements and other conditions, and overconfidence in the procedure would likely reduce condom usage)
* almost completely irrelevant outside of Africa whether or not the effect is real, due to the massive differences in age, culture, healthcare facilities, HIV rates and understanding, and general education between adults in the study's location and first world developed country infant boys.

[lemon10]

Particularly ridiculous is that both the "meta-study" people and all the African researchers from 10 years ago, despite heralding the wonders of circumcision STD prevention all still tell you to use condoms anyway, which by themselves are almost completely protective when used correctly. So basically, if you want complete protection, your options are:

A) Use a condom, or
B) Cut off part of your dick, which contains the majority of its nerve endings. Then use a condom anyway.

Hmmm  that's a tough one.

If something has a beneficial effect in reducing disease they should do it, even if it isn't 100% effective (or even 10% effective) and another treatment is optimal doesn't mean that you shouldn't use the less effective treatment as well.

Now, I'm not saying that it is beneficial, or that the benefits of outweigh the costs, but if it is helpful, then the fact that you should a condom is irrelevant.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

That the marginal medical benefits outweigh the social and ethical costs is literally the primary metric of why something shouldn't be done.

Just unbelievable. This is in the same class of people who parrot "Well, shouldn't you be allowed to have all of your money?" when opposing taxation.

[10ebbor10]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaymcgregor/2014/07/30/12-of-gamers-still-hear-explosions-hours-after-playing/

[ChairmanPoo]

I wonder why noone has suggested asking for a second opinion if you don't trust the criteria of a determinate physician. I think it's a reasonable option.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaymcgregor/2014/07/30/12-of-gamers-still-hear-explosions-hours-after-playing/

One gamer even reported hearing someone constantly whispering ‘death’ for a few days.

I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE!! Woah!


Seriously, I just wasted 5mins of my life reading that.

[Loud Whispers]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaymcgregor/2014/07/30/12-of-gamers-still-hear-explosions-hours-after-playing/

M-m-m-m-m-ake the m-m-m-m-m-ulti kills stop!

[Vector]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaymcgregor/2014/07/30/12-of-gamers-still-hear-explosions-hours-after-playing/

12% of gamers game so hard they give themselves PTSD

[freeformschooler]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaymcgregor/2014/07/30/12-of-gamers-still-hear-explosions-hours-after-playing/

my first thought

[GlyphGryph]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaymcgregor/2014/07/30/12-of-gamers-still-hear-explosions-hours-after-playing/

They didn't even seem to bother if these 12% have had this happen to them with anything else... Because as a person who suffers from this, it happens with any extended stimulus situation, not just games, but it's most noticeable with games since that's the environment most likely to have extended and repetitive stimulus in my daily life.

[GavJ]

I don't think they're intending to claim that video games are the only thing that you remember or repeat in your head.

I think they're merely pointing out that a generation of people constantly hearing explosions is probably not a good thing.

[Baffler]

Sounds included vehicles, lasers, bullets, beeping, explosions, screams and even breathing from the game

This is what I'd be most concerned about. That said, I have serious concerns about their methods. The article makes it sound like they were just looking around on gaming forums and noticed some people saying this, as though people on gaming forums aren't prone to hyperbole, fish-tales, and so forth.