Posts made by faraday

@kk said in Pandemic Era Issues:

/Let them die/ and similar statements said by people who are educated and so forth to communities who are less educated is not going to do much to encourage others to take the vaccine, if anything that kind of lang encourages doubling down on the issues and enhances the fear.

This.

@arkandel said in Pandemic Era Issues:

Do you accept that woman's child to the same school yours goes to, knowing they may transfer Covid-19 and get your elderly relative killed?

There's a middle ground between accepting their behavior and throwing up your hands and saying "screw 'em, let 'em die".

The latter not only isn't a particularly moral stance (IMHO), it doesn't help stop them from endangering others, which is the main concern.

We need to reach these people, not sacrifice them.

@derp Anywhere from 1/3rd to 3/4ths of Americans now get their news from social media. These algorithms are intentionally designed to feed outrage and get engagement, not to promote good information. (Yes some have done some things like the little "fact check" alerts lately, but when your news feed is full of conspiracy theory junk, I don't think that really does much.)

About 40% trust Fox News as an accurate source of information, with 60% of Republicans saying it's their most trusted source. This network was a primary source of the original ivermectin and h-chloroquine hype.

Only 40% read past the headlines.

I can't find a source right this second, but I also remember reading that many folks get their news primarily from a single outlet.

You can blame people for not seeking out alternate sources of information, and I'm not trying to absolve them of their personal responsibility in the matter. But I think the core of the problem lies in the way that information is being allowed to be distributed and amplified. I support freedom of speech, but I feel that deliberately spreading life-threatening misinformation is akin to yelling "fire" in a crowded theater.

@ganymede said in Pandemic Era Issues:

but also “smart” enough to know that ivermectin is being studied closely

We've had prominent podcasts, politicians and even some doctors making headlines promoting it as a "miracle cure" despite all scientific evidence to the contrary. It's not like the average American is going to take the time to go check the New England Journal of Medicine to see what they have to say on the matter.

I'm not angry at the people being misled, I'm angry at those who are deliberately misleading them for financial or political gain, and the networks and apps that are enabling them.

@derp @silverfox Yes yes yes - so much yes.

And somehow deal with the media angle. Headlines like "Study shows chocolate cures everything!" Actually no, it didn't. A preliminary, non-peer-reviewed, pre-print study with a microscopic sample size showed a barely-interesting possible correlation that should maybe be looked at a little deeper.

@groth said in Autism and The MU* Community:

Who says you can't? I hate finding new clothes to wear so whenever I have to buy new clothes, I just buy lots of them in different colors and just switch color throughout the week.

:raises hand: Same. All my clothes are strikingly similar. Just different colors, slight variations.

I'm also a "loose clothes" person. Just thinking about wearing leggings or a turtleneck makes me squirm. Or anything scratchy. I always had to wear a t-shirt underneath my polyester uniform shirts for sports or medic shifts. Even in the summer in the south playing softball.

Random aside - I have a real obsession with numbers and patterns. Logic puzzles, die roll statistics, that kind of thing.

@ominous said in Pandemic Era Issues:

Not necessarily. A lot of these ninnies work around livestock, so they are familiar with ivermectin. They just have never injected a horse's dose into themselves before now.

Right. Also the ivermectin thing is more complicated than common narrative of "Haha look at the dummies taking horse medicine."

Even the FDA's "You are not a horse...Stop it." PSA notes (emphasis mine):

For humans, ivermectin tablets are approved at very specific doses to treat some parasitic worms, and there are topical (on the skin) formulations for head lice and skin conditions like rosacea.

There are actually various studies investigating ivermectin as a potential treatment for covid along with a variety of other anti-parasitics. Note again the language of the FDA (emphasis mine):

Currently available data do not show ivermectin is effective against COVID-19. Clinical trials assessing ivermectin tablets for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19 in people are ongoing.

They're not saying it absolutely doesn't work; they're saying that it's still being studied. Why is it still being studied? Because some researchers believe that there may be some benefit to treatment with anti-parasitics.

There were even some early pre-print (not-yet-peer-reviewed) studies showing that there might be something good there. The problem is - once those studies came under review, serious flaws were identified. So new studies were planned to look into it more. This is pretty much what happened with hydroxychloroquine too.

That's science in action, happening exactly as it's supposed to... only now it's live, evolving in real-time, on a world stage.

The problem is that we have a vicious perfect storm of echo chambers, half-baked media headlines, politicization, and science illiteracy (note: this is different than "intelligence"; lots of smart humans are not fluent in the scientific method) leading people to make really dumb decisions.

Then those dumb decisions get overblown to ludicrous heights by more bad journalism, echo chambers, politicization on the other side until we have a freaking culture war over an anti-parasitic drug.

Insane. Maddening. Heartbreaking. All the adjectives that make me so worked up at 3am I can't sleep and instead am here ranting.

@silverfox said in Autism and The MU* Community:

I wish I could say this to a particular parent because this is legit. Just this morning they were describing how sometimes their kiddo has to put on several pairs of socks before they find one that feels right (thus leading them to be late to school), plus a lot of other things you guys described.

Dunno if there's a way in your school to recommend them for evaluation; that process seems to vary from place to place.

Some resources in case you have an opportunity to share or want to read more:

Regarding the socks issue specifically - sensory processing can occur with autism or ADHD, possibly with other things:

https://www.understood.org/articles/en/understanding-sensory-processing-issues

https://www.understood.org/articles/en/what-is-autism

@greenflashlight said in Autism and The MU* Community:

Wait, what? Are there people who like clothes with tags, or at least people who don't cut the tags off as soon as they get home?

Sure. One of my kids couldn't care less about the tags in their clothes. The other acts like there's hot lava in their shirt if I don't immediately remove the tag. (Getting them to even TRY ON the clothes is a PITA for this reason.)

@silverfox Like GreenFlashlight said, the diagnostic criteria is a bit complex. Gets into how many behaviors, how severe, did it start in childhood, etc. But in general with any mental challenge, I think the border between personality quirk and disorder comes when the behavior starts having significant negative impacts on your life.

So a kid stimming, walking on tiptoes, or liking clothes without tags isn't in and of itself a problem. But if that same kid is ALSO having a lot of trouble communicating with others, or is so bothered by their shoes being too tight that they can't function... that's the time to maybe look into further evaluation.

@derp said in Pandemic Era Issues:

And people aren't supposed to refuse safe treatments to save their lives, either, but this is the world we live in now.

That's always been the world we lived in. You have medical autonomy to refuse any and all treatments for any and all reasons, no matter how idiotic. Can't count the number of times someone has signed a refusal form to avoid being taken to the hospital in our ambulance despite us pleading with them that they're at risk of death.

Believe me, I'm as frustrated as you are. And I'm all for using every weapon in the arsenal to persuade these people, from vaccine mandates to bribery to education... whatever it takes to end this nightmare.

But I'm not in favor of doctors deciding who lives and who dies based on their own moral judgment of someone's behavior. That is a horrific idea.

@derp said in Pandemic Era Issues:

This is actively endangering other people

That isn’t supposed to matter in medicine either. I’m a paramedic not a doctor so the whole Hippocratic oath thing doesn’t apply, but our medical ethics are to treat all patients the same devoid of moral judgment. The drunk driver gets the same standard of care as his victims, even if we have to grit our teeth while doing it.

Now when the system is overwhelmed and you have to triage who can be saved, there’s an argument to be made that maybe the vaccinated would have better outcomes, all else being equal. But that’s debatable and complicated (vaccinated old person with a laundry list of medical conditions vs a young otherwise healthy unvaccinated person for instance).

It just sucks that this has to be such a divisive issue

Yep.

@kk said in Autism and The MU* Community:

I don't think there is anything wrong with stiming, but I know it looks werid to people and I try to keep it inside my house or at least in my own yard.

Yeah, my hope is that this is something that education can combat over time, like how it's become more accepted for places like the zoo to offer sensory-friendly experiences.

FWIW I feel your pain on being embarrassed but also think we shouldn't have to be. So what if you rub your legs, or I rub my hands and bounce on my feet? It's not hurting anybody.

@too-old-for-this said in Autism and The MU* Community:

I couldn't get my shoes to feel right.

But this right here ^^ I think shows that it's not really all that different. We both get overloaded if our clothes don't feel right. We just have different preferences for what "right" is.

My daughter was sharing some of the youtube things she liked with an extended family member, including the Holderness Family ADHD video. Kid and I found it so relatable. Family member's immediate reaction was to make the "Loser" sign for Penn because he's "just making excuses for not doing what he needs to do".

While, yes, I get that having a challenge like ADHD doesn't absolve you of responsibilities, that attitude just makes me sad.

@il-volpe said in Autism and The MU* Community:

You might be amused by this barefoot running trend thing

Indeed! Now I mostly wear 'barefoot shoe' models (oxymoron non-withstanding) because they let me walk on my toes. I've always been uncomfortable wearing shoes, like I have straight-jackets on my feet. I never imagined that there was a strong correlation between toe-walking and autism. It seems so random.

I was also hyperlexic as a kid, so it's interesting how two so opposite symptoms (hyper and hypo) can be associated with the same condition.

Other random relatables:

@il-volpe said in Autism and The MU* Community:

MUSHing, where people's social-signals are right there in text, allows me to play at being far more socially adroit than I am.

This.

@kk said in Autism and The MU* Community:

One thing I will say is that autism often looks different in females than men.

I've read that due to social pressures, women tend to become better at masking than men do, so that tracks.

@grayson said in Autism and The MU* Community:

had to be corralled back into what was socially acceptable even though it made absolutely no sense (and still doesn't).

So so so many social things just have me being like; "But why...?"

@grayson said in Autism and The MU* Community:

It would been nice to have known a few decades ago,

Seriously, right?

@ell Yeah, I may have overstated. In some cases it's the default; in others it assumes private because if you're creating a scene off-grid the presumption is that you don't want to be on grid where others could crash the scene.

Regardless, though, it's just as easy to create a public scene as a private one. What I've observed is that a lot of people (myself included) just prefer smaller scenes with people that are either OOC friends or IC connections.

This is not a phenomenon caused by Ares' scene system. Ares just lets people more easily play according to their preferences. If there aren't any open public scenes, it's because the players don't want them. Some might think that makes it harder to find RP, but that's presuming (erroneously, I believe) that those people would be available for public RP otherwise. My experience across numerous games (Ares and non-Ares) tells me differently.

ETA: There are certainly games (TGG comes to mind) that have had no OOC room, no RP/TP rooms, and no private apartments for people to RP in, thus forcing every scene to be public. If that's the sort of game you want - great, build it. You could do it through Ares with a mandate "no private scenes" or you could use one of the other MU servers that supports such a thing more natively.

When I started doing research for my kids' ADHD (and realizing I had it too), I stumbled upon a crossover video about the differences between ADHD and Autism. It really changed my oversimplified/stereotypical/"Rain Man" view of what autism was.

Then I fell into a rabbit hole of other autism YouTubers like Yo Samdy Sam, and it was like everything in my life suddenly made sense. The obvious things (eye contact, sensory overload, hyper-focused interests, stimming), the weird things (oh so that's probably why I always walk on my tiptoes), and just the way that I've always seemed to think differently from everybody else.

Haven't felt like going through the whole diagnosis process, due to time and expense, but I've gone through umpteen screening tests and the DSM5 criteria and I'm sure.

Roleplaying has definitely helped my social skills. I was catastrophically bad at small talk before I started MUSHing. Now I've learned to fake it halfway decently by mirroring others.

The OOC stuff is hard, because I relate differently. I'm often blindsided by the things people get upset over, because it just doesn't compute for me.

@mr-johnson There's nothing WoD-specific available for Ares. A few games use the generic RPG plugin which allows hand-entered character sheets (some games use google drive and generate PDFs, or just enter things as plain text) and a generic die roller (e.g., dice 5d10)

@derp said in Attachment to old-school MU* clients:

I have not the first clue where that map is from but boy do I want it. Is that in Ares? Waaaaant.

It's from Sweetwater Crossing, which closed in 2014. Sorry