imaqtpie

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[–] imaqtpie 29 points 1 month ago (3 children)

It's not an entertaining meme

[–] imaqtpie 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] imaqtpie 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Nobody got time for that. But yeah this map seems to be more or less randomly generated, it messes with a lot of borders that are already geographically defined. Seems like they just made everything into an irregular shape and assumed people wouldn't look too closely.

US states were in large part created to reflect natural geographic divisions already. They were frequently drawn up on maps before having any significant population centers, so geographical boundaries were the primary focus. A secondary focus being equality, so not making any state too big or small relative to its neighbors.

[–] imaqtpie 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Do we have yous/youse? According to my understanding that's technically not a real word yet, it's slang.

2nd person singular used to be thou/thee back in the middle ages, but it all eventually melded into you.

I feel like y'all is the newer American version of 2nd person plural, while yous/youse/yinz are the non-American English counterparts.

I have always used you guys in a gender neutral manner historically, but people occasionally got offended by that. So I started using y'all several years ago and it's been going pretty good. Although I did initially spell it like ya'll until someone corrected me on reddit 😅

[–] imaqtpie 3 points 1 month ago

My point is that technically you are still making decisions about what to do with some odors body parts without consent, as they can no longer consent. Is there really a difference?

That's a good point, you're right.

That's interesting about the eyes, I'm honestly not sure what to say about that.

[–] imaqtpie 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Yeah most of the ones in the second list at least had a couple of notable things about them that kept them off the first list. I was hoping people with local experience would chime in if they had reason to dispute my rankings; I'm sure there's some cool aspects of these cities that I might not be aware of.

Carson City is nearby Lake Tahoe which is pretty awesome. Lansing is actually a decent sized city and has Michigan State University. Topeka is reasonably close to KC, and presumably has some other notable features 😅

Montgomery and Jackson are pretty dire but there's not really any better cities/options in Alabama or Mississippi, so I gave them an A for effort.

[–] imaqtpie 18 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Wow, good source. 82% donor rate for the opt-out group versus 79% for the forced-choice is a smaller difference than I would have guessed.

[–] imaqtpie 6 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I'm pretty sure people do make their wishes clear regarding their funeral preparations. You can put that kind of stuff in your last will and I would assume it holds some legal weight.

I actually agree that organ donation should be opt-out, but there is an unavoidable argument against that. Namely, the fact that people have the right to opt-out at all implies that you have a responsibility to verify their informed consent before enrolling them in the procedure. At least, that would be the conventional wisdom according to the field of medical ethics.

[–] imaqtpie 7 points 1 month ago (3 children)

There's honestly a lot of lame state capitals in the US, Europeans might be surprised. In Europe the national capital of each country is typically the biggest and most cosmopolitan city. This is not the case when it comes to state capitals in the US. Several of the most boring ones (Montpelier, Augusta, Pierre) have already been mentioned, so I'll just add a few others.

Indubitably Boring

  • Frankfort, Kentucky
  • Jefferson City, Missouri
  • Helena, Montana
  • Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Slightly Less Boring (honorable mentions)

  • Carson City, Nevada
  • Jackson, Mississippi
  • Topeka, Kansas
  • Olympia, Washington
  • Lansing, Michigan
  • Salem, Oregon
  • Trenton, New Jersey
  • Montgomery, Alabama
  • Springfield, Illinois
  • Tallahassee, Florida
  • Concord, New Hampshire
[–] imaqtpie 5 points 1 month ago

That sounds promising, I think you're right that it would be a significant improvement in donor rates over the opt-in system.

[–] imaqtpie 2 points 1 month ago

For context

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_impact_structures_on_Earth

About 1/5 of the size of the Chicxulub crater

[–] imaqtpie 15 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

I agree, but it raises an interesting argument regarding the definition of consent. I don't necessarily believe in free will so I like to mention it in situations where you can easily see that people are more accurately described as reacting to their environment than making any kind of conscious choice.

Simply by changing from opt-in to opt-out, you mostly reverse the observed behavior of a population. Lots of applications for this sort of thinking, like voting for instance.

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