Headlines that signal that the story will be misleading and/or stupid

[Meadmaker]

I support trans rights 99%. The 1% I cannot support is biological men being able to compete against women at sport. It's stupid and misogynistic.

If there were a significant number of trans women competing at high levels, I think there might be a problem. But there isn't.

But that's a discussion for another time. That thread is the one that I run screaming from over at ISF.

When it comes to athletic participation, I only regularly participate in one sport. The number of people I am concerned about when it comes to fair play and following the rules is one - the one who is standing across the list field from me. And the fact that I'm at a low level doesn't make it less important. However, I am not affected by the specific issue of the article, because we almost never segregate by either sex or gender.


However, whether we agree or disagree on any given issue, I hope we can all recognize that there are idiots who agree with us, and sometimes those idiots write articles that you can tell, just from the headline, that what follows is going to be stupid.

In the case of this particular headline, I was pretty sure what was coming, and I was not disappointed. The author argued that men didn't have an advantage over women in athletics. It was just that our male dominated society emphasized those sports where men were at an advantage, and de-emphasized ones where women have an advantage. She cited ultra-long distance, open water, swimming. It turns out women hold certain records in that sport, such as crossing the English channel three times. Their higher fat content gives them an advantage. So apparently the patriarchy emphasizes sports that value strength and speed, but not so much buoyancy and insulation. That's sexist, apparently.

There was a similar article that got a lot of reading this weekend, and that I thought of including, but I'll do so now. It was from Forbes, and the headline was something like "Lia Thomas' body was not the problem". Reading the article, the argument was the same as above. The sport she cited as one which the patriarchy de-emphasized but where women have an advantage is balance beam. There's only two problems with that. 1. If men and women both competed on the balance beam using modern rules, men would almost certainly win. 2. Our society values women's gymnastics much more so than men's gymnastics. It is true that women generally have better balance than men, but it generally wouldn't be enough to overcome the extra height, and subsequently more twists, that men could achieve.

The author said we should segregate by ability, not sex, and we should emphasize and value those sports where women had an advantage over men.

The article was widely enough read that Martina Navratalova tweeted that Lia's body was in fact the "effing" (sic) problem.

[Meadmaker]

Dunno why one takes the time to read an online article that is bound to be irritating. Though I guess it's a viable alternative to reading about this or that brutal current event.

I can't say why I do it. Entertainment, of a sort, maybe.

It was the same thing that drew me to James Randi and, ultimately, the JREF forum. I'm fascinated by how people think, especially if they are on the extremes of thinking ability. However, if they are on the upper extreme, I can rarely understand them, which leaves me trying to figure out the thought processes of morons.

[sparks]

The irritating ones will clue one in on what our dumb world is up to.

You mean like "the Skeptical Community"?

I consider that entertainment.

No. Not irritating forums. Irritating articles that do not fall into line with one's own opinions.

[arthwollipot]

However, whether we agree or disagree on any given issue, I hope we can all recognize that there are idiots who agree with us, and sometimes those idiots write articles that you can tell, just from the headline, that what follows is going to be stupid.

Absolutely.

[Meadmaker]

Here's one with some stupid potential, from The Atlantic:

"Why are women freezing their eggs? Look to the men."

So, my take on that question would be that women want to have fun while they're young, and don't want to be tied down by child rearing until they're older and either wealthier or more boring. Let's see what the article says.

(Opens article in new tabs)

Ok. Let's take the quote from the second paragraph:

“Egg freezing was not about their careers. It was about being single or in very unstable relationships with men who were unwilling to commit to them.”

Here's a tip, girls. When it comes to relationships, what men want is to get laid. If they can do that, they're perfectly willing to sit around playing video games and not getting married, much less having kids. Your grandmother would have told you that if you had just asked.

At least according to the article, my guess was wrong. According to the article, the women are willing, possibly even eager, to get married and have babies, but they are stuck with a loser who either doesn't want to be a father, or would not, in the eyes of the women, be a suitable father, so they stick with him, but hedge their bets by freezing their eggs in case someone suitable comes along. The article phrased it differently.

ETA: Irritating line from the article:

in 2012, ... female college graduates outnumbered male graduates by 34 percent; today, she estimates, nearly 3 million more women than men hold college degrees among Americans ages 22 to 39.

[Meadmaker]

Hawaii court says 'spirit of Aloha' supersedes Constitution, Second Amendment

From Fox News.

I'll gp find out what they actuallly said.

ETA: I wish online news sources would include links to court opinions when writing articles about court opinions.

But based on other news links, it looks like the headline might not be all that inaccurate. It seems the Hawaii Supreme Court really did say that the earlier US Supreme Court ruling didn't apply in Hawaii, and the Spirit of Aloha was at the very least referenced in explaining why.


At some point I'll get to the actual opinion.

When I read the headline, I couldn't believe that a state Supreme Court would do that, but perhaps it's really so.

[President Bush]

Nice, state of Hawaii has told the SCOTUS decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen to go pound sand...

Hawaii’s Supreme Court refused to follow U.S. Supreme Court precedent on gun rights in an opinion released on Wednesday, declaring that “the spirit of Aloha clashes” with the Second Amendment, which guarantees Americans an individual right to bear arms.

The declaration was made in a decision ruling that a man charged with carrying a firearm without a permit in the state back in 2017 could still be held criminally for that infraction despite a recent Supreme Court decision, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, that ruled that New York’s concealed-carry application system was unconstitutional.

Its decision was based on the Court’s interpretation of Article I, Section 17 of Hawaii’s constitution, which “mirrors the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

“We read those words differently than the current United States Supreme Court. We hold that in Hawai’i there is no state constitutional right to carry a firearm in public,” began the Court at the top of its opinion before going on to assert that “the spirit of Aloha clashes with a federally-mandated lifestyle that lets citizens walk around with deadly weapons during day-to-day activities.”

https://www.mediaite.com/news/hawaii-su ... -of-aloha/

Probably not long before somebody sues on a Hawaii gun owner's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness being infringed.

ETA: here is the Hawaii Supreme Court ruling...

https://www.courts.state.hi.us/wp-conte ... 000561.pdf

[Meadmaker]

Fascinating ruling. I haven't read every single word of it. I just skimmed it. However, I've never seen such a blatant FU to the Supreme Court of the United States.

I have to wonder what they were thinking. In the end, it's destined to be overturned. It could just be plain old ego. They wanted to put their opinion in writing. I doubt that's it, though. Can the Supreme Court summarily dismiss a case with a directed verdict? I think, in this case, the appeal would go directly to the Supreme Court. If so, can the court just declare the ruling overturned without writing an opinion? I think maybe their motivation was to try and put forward a very common sense and accurate statement about what the 2nd amendment really means. (I think Hawaii got it right.) The hope would be that in doing so SCOTUS would have to address the arguments, and at least the dissenting opinions could reinforce them. i..e. Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson coule elaborate on why the Gun Club v. Bruen case was messed up. Dissenting opinions aren't all that important, but they can play a role in futuer attempts to overturn rulings.

Hard to say. It will be interesting to see what happens next. I think one thing that we can safely rule out is that the state of Hawaii is going to win this one. It's just a question of how they lose.

Meanwhile, what does it say about the headline that I assumed was stupid? Or that it foretold a stupid article?

I'd have to give it a mixed verdict. The case didn't rest on "the aloha spirit", so that was misleading. A more accurate headline might have been "Hawaiian Supreme Court rules that States' Rights can Override the Supreme Court in Gun Control Case." The Hawaii ruling basically said that Hawaii didn't recognize a right to carry weapons without a permit, and that, despite court proclamations, the US Constitution didn't really, either.

Certainly, the headline, and article, did not represent the Hawaiian ruling completely fairly. However, I wouldn't say that either the headline or article was completely misleading or stupid, either.

[Meadmaker]

Final proof that Trump's appeal was never about the economy. - The Intelligencer.


Most people who write about Trump's appeal do not understand Trump's appeal. This article (not read yet) may get it right, or might not. The fact that they are "proving" his appeal wasn't about the economy makes me think that it isn't likely they get it right. I don't know who thinks his appeal was about the economy, so it seems to be starting from a false premise, which rarely leads to an intelligent conclusion. Let's see.

After reading the article.

To the credit of the author, he did do a fine job of proving that Trump's appeal wasn't about the economy. At least, it isn't about Trump voters being poor. However, he only hinted in one sentence that social issues had more to do with the appeal than economic issues. Even that misses the mark, but it's closer. Reading the article, one still gets the feeling that, having proved that economic reality doesn't drive the Trump appeal, he is still completely baffled by what does drive that appeal. His final line (spoiler alert) is "Whatever alchemy produced the Trump cult, money alone will not dispel it."


I, myself, feel like I have a basic understanding of Trump's appeal, but I have a hard time explaining it to others. He certainly doesn't appeal to me, so it's hard to grasp exactly why he does appeal to others. However, I can observe, and I made one observation the other day that I think might help as an explanation. I saw some Donald Trump clip from a rally, with him saying, "We're going to....." I don't even remember what he said "we" were going to do, but it struck me how often he says it. When he says "We" will do something, he means him and his audience. Somehow, this real estate billionaire convinces people who work at the local Kroger that he is one of them.

By contrast, I hear over and over, other politicians, especially Democrats, saying "I will fight for you!"

Maybe it's as simple as that. Or at least, maybe that would be a starting point for people like the author of that article to get a grasp on his real appeal.

ETA: Obama's slogan was "Yes We Can". He won the elecion - twice.

[Admin]

I, myself, feel like I have a basic understanding of Trump's appeal, but I have a hard time explaining it to others. He certainly doesn't appeal to me, so it's hard to grasp exactly why he does appeal to others. However, I can observe, and I made one observation the other day that I think might help as an explanation. I saw some Donald Trump clip from a rally, with him saying, "We're going to....." I don't even remember what he said "we" were going to do, but it struck me how often he says it. When he says "We" will do something, he means him and his audience. Somehow, this real estate billionaire convinces people who work at the local Kroger that he is one of them.

The other thing is he stands against those his voters see as "the elites" which is ironic in the extreme, given the gilded childhood he had.

If you take Robert Mercer out of the equation, Trump would never have got near the White House.