Interesting findings. I think it’s interesting that the decline in religiosity seems to be more lack of trust in religious institutions, rather than just non-belief. I’m curious how this will affect organized religions. It seems religion is becoming more personal, with less of a social aspect, for better or worse.

I think the core of this is the hurtful aspects of gender roles men and boys face about how to handle and express emotions creates the situation of increased suicidality. Yeah firearms access is going to enable suicidal people to act upon their ideation, but taking it away just leaves you with a depressed/anxious guy, who doesn’t have the knowledge or resources to overcome his negative emotions. I’m not saying this in a “it’s a mental health issue not a gun issue” way, but society really normalizes the ignorance of mens’ emotions and for men to not build support for managing their emotions, be it intimate friendships, healthcare resources, healthy expression of emotions.

I think it’s good topic to bring up, because there’s a lot of things leading to men not doing too well, and I think it’d be dumb to ignore it, given the rise of acts of violence we’ve seen in the past decade from men who really feel disconnected or disillusioned with society. Finding out what we can do to help men cope with hardship in a more productive way, and ultimately address the root causes of the issues they face can improve things for men, as well as everyone in society.

I’ve worked in healthcare for 7 years and have not had any sort of assistive technology that hasn’t doubled my work.

It’s really another instance of legal gun owners getting shafted because it sounds better to just ban concealed carry than to address the causes of gun violence in the city. That would require more effort and ultimately the political benefit looks better because democrats will die with goal of disarming the citizenry, and the republicans and conservatives don’t care about the suffering and root causes that lead to cultures of violence (gang crime, road rage, shooting people turning around in your driveway or who knock on your door), heck in some cases they benefit from it.

While I’m not sold on the idea on mandatory training (I don’t trust governments enough make it accessible and useful), i’d be ignorant to think that training shouldn’t be made an expectation of ownership if not legally, than socially. There’s lot’s of people I just dread the fact they carry a gun. Reddit’s CCW subreddit has way too many posts that are essentially “Can I kill this guy?” Luckily there’s people there who do their best to educate and share resources and try to encourage a defensive mindset, away from the aggressive, “if you mess with me i’ll kill you” mindset.

I’m in medicine, and one of the biggest issues I see in my field, as well as science in general, is a lack of ethics and cultural understanding. The humanities give context for scientific findings, and guide us in the research process. Without it, we wind up with the Tuskegee trials or Nazi medicine. The same sort of things can happen in tech (privacy, security, wellbeing) and engineering (safety, integrity).

Humanities aren’t a waste of money. They broaden your knowledge of our world and the people in it. Maybe you don’t have interest in art or history, but law, ethics (or other areas of philosophy), and sociology all can help a person be more well-rounded.

I think a big part of it is the mindset that college education should train you to do a job, rather than provide a knowledge based on which job-specific training can be built upon. I think this is dually precipitated by employers not investing in training/educating their employees anymore, and outsourcing that cost to the employee, but also the issue of students who throw a fit about taking class X because they’re going for a degree in Y (I see this a lot with science/engineering majors when having to take classes in the humanities).

Well the EFF defends internet expression and communications interests for users, even when it’s a shitty cause. Kinda like how the ACLU has defended Klansmen and similar groups. They generally believe the right to freedom of speech and expression is absolute, and if speech isthreatened for one group, it sets a precedent for other groups to be threatened too.

I found an old table sitting by the dumpster so I went and bought some stain and paint and i’m going to clean it up and refinish it for an extra table in my office. I’m excited, It’s been a while since i’ve built/rebuilt a piece of furniture.