It's not too terribly unreasonable. It's largely the Linux Foundation trying to wrest control over chromium from Google before the FTC antitrusts them or before Google does more manipulative market controlling BS.
In more polite terms they are framing themselves as an ideal long term steward for the chromium project given that courts have already ruled that Google isn't a suitable steward anymore. Chromium wouldn't be so problematic if it wasn't run by such an anticompetitive organisation. If the Linux Foundation ran chromium and orgs like Igalia (who already do a near majority of the dev work for chromiumm) took over the brunt of senior development and leadership control then it'd be a pretty solid technology stack (albeit with some weaknesses).
I personally prefer Firefox and it's associated technologies but I also acknowledge the appeal of Chromium distributions like Vanadium.
Ah yep. I'm mistaken there. I had read somewhere at one point that they were the second largest contributor to Chromium and made assumptions I shouldn't have. My apologies.
Last autumn we finally fell to third behind Microsoft, in fairness.. But we're also the second biggest contributors to WebKit (really significant there) and Gecko too, as well as the #1 contributors to Servo, and more - if you're interested: https://bkardell.com/blog/2024-Midseason.html
> We're not collectively paying for flat-chested women to get breast implants, or ugly men to get nose jobs
Uh insurance actually does cover them, particularly for reconstructive surgeries. It should be noted that the conditions under which insurance would cover a trans person's gender affirming surgery is going to be essentially under the same conditions they would for a cis person. Now it's worth noting that Medicaid does generally cover gender affirming surgeries in certain states however Medicaid is required to be primarily paid for by the state rather than the federal government. Medicare only covers them under specific circumstances with a large pile of supporting documentation attached. And then with private insurance providers it is highly dependent on the company and policy whether they cover them or not.
> We're also not labeling it as "life-saving."
Gender affirming surgeries are almost always the very last step for trans people and it's far quicker, easier, and more common to get them as a cis person than it is as a trans person.
Gender affirming care however is generally what is referred to as life-saving more than anything else. This is primarily access to medication in the form of Hormone Replacement Therapy and additionally in the form of access to counseling and therapy to support the transition and to mitigate gender dysphoria among other issues.
And the thing I think most people don't really understand is how disgustingly cheap the primary form of care, Hormone Replacement Therapy, is.
For trans women the main medication is estradiol. This medication is extremely cheap and most pharmacies won't take insurance for it due to how cheap it is. A month's dose in the cheapest form at one of the higher doses is going to be at most 15-20 USD per month. More expensive forms of estradiol that don't have to be taken as rigorously and/or have less risk of side effects cost around 1.5-3x that depending on the form. For the first few months to a year they'll also generally take a testosterone suppressor until the estradiol suppresses testosterone by itself and those medications only cost around 10 USD per month or less.
For trans men the main medication is testosterone. It's controlled so it's more annoying to get due to it's abuse as a "performance enhancing drug" but even at the higher doses it costs more or less the same amount or less than the equivalent doses of HRT for trans women (coming in at well under 20 USD/month, more often less than 5 USD/month).
This puts the cost of the bulk of treatment for transgender people at well under the cost of most other medications.
Just because a street is one way does not mean it is so narrow that only one vehicle can fit through.
Streets may be one way because it discourages unnecessary automotive traffic and it allows the rest of the space to be dedicated to bicyclist or use for residential and commercial purposes (outdoor seating, space for games, etc).
So even if the streets are one way, there will often be space for the ambulance to maneuver around blocked vehicles. And if there's not, the ambulance can take another street or road. If it's the only route that can access that location, then with any sane amount of urban planning then the ambulance will be within a short walking distance to the location (and more often than not within eyesight).
Not really? The title is a reference to the article's topic of systematically manipulating time standards (which results in the time for the entire company getting slowly sent "into the past") for the purpose of avoiding complexities like leap seconds, etc.
> there is no way you would be censored (banned) for calling a woman a woman or a man a man. Now, speaking biological and factual truths can get you censored
You can claim this and reach to the transphobic dog whistle but these "biological truths" aren't actually true and the only world in which they are is a grossly oversimplified version of reality that ignores all of the messy complexity of how biology actually works.
This isn't a matter of "truths being insulting or discriminating". It's a matter of stopping people from using their complete misunderstanding of biology as an excuse to try and harass, other, or discriminate against groups out of prejudice.
to bring up the extremely rare occurrences of intersex people as some sort of justification for saying "male and female, and thus men and women are hopelessly useless/simplistic concepts in our world" is not a compelling argument. Biological reality exists, it defines us. No amount of socialization or education will convince a banana to write a symphony.
In much the same vein, men and women exist. We can fool ourselves into thinking a person can completely cross the divide between them, but it simply is something we tell ourselves/friends, an idea its not currently polite to deny. It is not objective reality itself.
The prevalence of being intersex/having a disorder of sex development is just as high as the prevalence of being trans. Both of them sit at around 1-2% of the population. That number may be surprising but in the majority of cases these people "pass" without the average person being able to identity them on the street.
And my point isn't to try and claim that just because intersex people exist that the terms are useless. My point is that the definitions people try to ascribe to those terms are statistically more likely to exclude other groups of people (who the definitions are not intended to exclude) than they are to exclude trans people.
Definitions that don't work:
- Defined by "passing"/looking like what society expects a given sex to look iike: Refuted extremely commonly by queer people of all kinds. Also just wildly subjective and impractical.
- Defined by chromosomes/karyotype: Rule broken by prevalence of intersex people. Additionally from a biological perspective so much more goes into sex determination during gestation and afterwards than just the karyotype.
- Defined by presence of breasts: Indistinguishable at birth and defined by hormone levels. Rule broken by numerous medical conditions. A woman is not less of a woman for getting a masectomy or double masectomy. A man is not less of a man because medication or hormone levels cause them to grow breasts.
- Defined by the presence of primary sex organs (testes/ovaries): Rule broken by numerous medical conditions. A woman is not less of a woman for getting an oophorectomy and a man is not less of a man for getting an orchirectomy. Likewise a woman who has lived her entire life as a woman who finds out that her ovaries differentiated as testes is not any less of a woman nor the reverse for a man. And both of the aforementioned surgeries are very common.
- Defined by presence of secondary sex organs: Rule broken by numerous medical conditions. Bottom surgeries for trans people arguably make up less of the share of genitoplasties performed than the numerous other reasons (recovery from trauma or disfigurement, recovery from cancer, etc). And surgeries like hysterectomies occur in up to 20% of women depending on the region. Having or not having one or more secondary sex organs isn't a reliable differentiating factor and unless you are storing photographs of genitalia from birth and sharing them with every person or organisation that want's to know your sex then this isn't a reliable method either. It's unnecessarily complex and/or it's unnecessary exclusive.
- Defined by hormone levels: Rule broken commonly by intersex people. Commonly broken by people with various medical conditions and/or medical interventions. A woman with low estrogen levels isn't less of a woman. A woman with high testosterone (such as due to PCOS which occurs in as high as 20% of women) doesn't make a woman any less of a woman. The reverse goes for men (such as men taking testosterone suppressors or blockers for diseases like prostate cancer which occurs in around 12% of men).
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At the end of the day you only really have one appraoch and that's to just be more precise, use better terminology, and use the necessary information where it's needed.
- Government and social documents (drivers licenses, passports, ID cards, etc) should just use gender. There's no reason to use anything else and it doesn't actually benefit anyone otherwise.
- Medical records should indicate known presence/absence of organs and hormone levels. Awareness of which organs are or aren't present is only important due to care relevant to those organs and their interaction with the rest of the body. And hormone levels should be documented because the majority of medical distinctions for healthcare purposes (risks, dosage changes, interactions, effects on the body, etc) are tied to hormone levels. If someone is manually controlling or augmenting/manipulating their hormone levels that's relevant for care and it serves the patient better to be explicit about these types of things than to attempt to tie them to a single binary differentiator and make assumptions.
- Access to bathrooms, changing rooms, etc: Just let people use the bathrooms they feel most comfortable with? It's not hard, it's not complicated. If a lady or a lad is being a creep then someone can do something about it but that has nothing to do with any indicators other than "they are being a creep".
- Sports, etc: Either just divide it by gender or drop gender/sex based division entirely and divide it by skill. This is such an exceptionally small non-issue and protections against this perceived incursion have only contributed to discrimination. There is no reason why women's sports restricts competitors on their natural and/or nominal testosterone levels but men's sports do not. In competitive women's sports abnormally high natural testosterone is disqualifying but in men's sports it's a permitted competitive advantage. Additionally with regards to sports records, gendered performance differences have been rapidly closing in on a pace where they may disappear entirely within a century or less. And in particular, with non-professional sports there is absolutely zero reason for exclusionary restrictions. In those environments this is a complete and total non-issue.
> So let's test this approach out. In your view, is this man a woman?
She is a trans woman. She is a woman. Within the context of medical access, from what I can gather she has a penis, she has testes, and she doesn't take hormones currently (she might but a comment she made suggests she doesn't). That gender-non-conformance doesn't make her any less of a woman.
I'm not sure what your hangup is with respect to her? She very clearly present herself as a woman. And women with beards, sharper facial features, or deep voices aren't terribly uncommon nor do those aspects make them any less of a woman. Women like Harnaam Kaur exist and they are just as woman as any other woman.
> Should he be allowed to whip his dick out in women's bathrooms?
Should she.
Should she be allowed to use a woman's bathroom as intended? Yes. No questions asked.
Now if someone was doing something problematic in the bathroom (flashing/exposing genitalia or breasts) and/or harassing other women in the women's bathroom then they'd need to be removed. Not because of their gender or because of their features but for the behavior. It's a very simple and straightforward concept.
> If actual women complained about his presence in, say, a support group for mothers, what would you say to them?
Her presence.
If she is a mother she should be permitted. If she isn't a mother/doesn't have children then there is an argument to be made for denying her presence there. If she has children but it was a support group exclusive to birthing parents then again there may be an argument. But more often than not those support groups aren't exclusive to birthing parents and they aren't even exclusive to women.
> Should he be allowed to join a women's boxing club and punch women in the face?
Should she.
And the answer is that it depends.
If it's at a competitive or professional level then she is subject to the rules of the club and if they require certain hormone levels to participate then that's the nature of the beast. I personally don't see it as necessary but if it's the requirements for participation then that's what they are and the best you can do is fight to change them.
Now if the club is a hobbyist or non-varsity/school club then absolutely they should be permitted to participate.
Either way whether they are technically permitted, I think they should be allowed to participate regardless of testosterone levels or anything else. Boxing is divided into weight class anyways so there's little flexibility for testosterone influencing being "bigger".
> And so on. I'm sure you get the idea.
I understand what you are saying but I just outright disagree. Trans women are women. Intersex women are women. Non-gender-conforming women (regardless of whether they are cis or not) are women.
> No, he's a man who calls himself a woman. Anyone with eyes can see that, he is very clearly male.
That's just not true. What even makes you think that? Facial hair is not uncommon in women, deep voices are not uncommon in women, and sharper facial features are not uncommon in women. I'm not sure what you think is so "clearly male" about her but those were the only traditionally masculine features I could think of.
> What do you mean? Is your view of women really so shallow and sexist that you when you see a man wearing a skirt, you truly believe that he's a woman?
There's no reason to be impolite. Wearing feminine clothing is not a requirement to be a woman. Nothing about being a woman requires wearing feminine clothing. Even if she was wearing purely masculine clothing she'd still be a woman.
> Well he can't possibly be a mother, due to being a man
She could absolutely be a mother, she just may not be the birthing parent. In the exact same way a cis woman can be a mother to a child even if they weren't the one to give birth to them. And likewise a father can be the birthing parent. You see this commonly with trans men for example.
> and if you said that to women who complained about his presence they'd assume you were taking the piss.
People can complain about a person's presence all they want. It doesn't make them any less of a mother and it doesn't make it any less acceptable for them to be present. If they have a valid complaint then there can be a discussion but "they look wrong" or "I don't believe they are who they say they are" aren't valid complaints.
And I'm not sure how you think these types of discriminatory complaints are acceptable? Discrimination being acceptable against trans women doesn't just hurt them, it hurts cis women as well. Especially gender non-conforming women.
How do you think a new mother feels when people try to falsely accuse her of being a man when she's just trying to discuss her experiences and learn how to be a new parent? Who does that benefit?
My stance here is not complicated. You treat people with respect, you limit your assumptions, and if something isn't clear you politely ask. And for the love of god you don't needlessly exclude people. If the fear is that a group or minority will commit some crime or transgression, then you punish people for committing the crime or transgression. You don't punish people for being suspected of being part of a group/minority you are afraid might commit a transgression.
> That's just not true. What even makes you think that?
Well, apart from the fact that he very obviously has a male body, the video title itself indicates this.
> There's no reason to be impolite. Wearing feminine clothing is not a requirement to be a woman.
Then why did you say that he "very clearly presents" himself "as a woman"? What exactly were you basing that on?
It's very clear that he presents himself as a man who calls himself a woman.
> And for the love of god you don't needlessly exclude people.
Agreed. Excluding men like this from women's and girls' spaces is absolutely needed to ensure that they still remain women's and girls' spaces.
The problem is that far too many of these men have no respect for boundaries, and will turn up to venues like support groups for mothers and demand entry.
It's not though? It's a music video for a 100% safe for work video game where small sprites of witches and yokai (supernatural entities/spirits) play what is in effect a much more complicated version of space invaders.
There is nothing even remotely close to sexual or NSFW in it.
I'm not sure if that's necessarily a fair assessment as Ford's laid out plan to get from the current 40% loss to 8% profit is pretty reasonable.
Of that 40 percentage points, 20 of them are directly attributable to economies of scale. As they sell additional units those costs will amortize out. i.e. the more they sell the less they lose.
They expect to pick up another 15 points via engineering changes that will unify a lot of parts between the different product lines. They apparently initially just focused on shipping the vehicles so each model has a lot of bespoke parts that could semi-trivially be reworked to de-duplicate them between product lines.
That gets you down to 5% losses. The bulk of the remaining 13 points they expect to pick up via battery design improvements and cost reductions in their supply chain.
And their stated deadline for this is the end of 2026 so it's not exactly like they intend this to take ages. Rather they expect to achieve this within a handful of model revisions.
IDK how this applies to Bluesky. The underlying infrastructure is only loosely tethered to Bluesky the company. If you want to pull all your shit and run it separate from the bluesky stuff you can and there's really nothing they can do to try and stop you or ban you.
They can limit your reach on their stuff but if you don't want to use their stuff it doesn't actually matter and you can continue to exist completely independent of them if you want.
> The highest density countries like Korea and Japan have some of the lowest fertility rates.
I'm going to doubt that's because of density. That's entirely because of toxic aspects of the cultures (especially work and education culture) that make it near impossible to have and raise a child for the first few years of their life.
Generally speaking, birth rate declines happen because people have more things to do than have children. That's why all rich countries experience them and noone has been able to reverse them. (Japan actually has slightly reversed theirs. Korea hasn't because Korean men are awful misogynists no women want to associate with.)
There are high density countries with high birth rates though; they're either very religious (Israel) or very poor (Africa).
You are kind of missing the point. You can have a small rural town where the people in the town generally all live in/around the town but between that town and the next town over might be 1-2 hours.
In that type of small town you still have quick access to your necessities and you can walk to your neighbors' houses but once you get out of the bounds of your small town it might be 30 minutes before you see the next building, an hour to the next small town, and 4-6 hours to the nearest city or large town.
You are kind of missing the point. You can live in a small town that might be 1-2 hours separated by the next town and still not be "rural". You're still living an urban life, not a rural life. It's not like you need your town to be >1M people for it to be "urban". There's small town urban, there's a big city urban, and there's rural.
Do you actually live in a place statistically considered urban or rural? If you have multiple chain restaurants in your town, you're almost assuredly not "rural". If you can see your neighbor's front door, you're probably not rural. If you feel the need to erect a privacy fence so your neighbors can't see you, you're probably not rural.
You're being needlessly pedantic. The top-level comment is saying that they could only live in a big city for {reasons}—it's very very clear that a small town of 5000 doesn't count for them. In that context, the commenter that started this subthread is clearly using "rural" to describe everything that isn't in a big city—places where there are hour-sized gaps between small towns count as rural when it's used to distinguish from "big city".
Trying to insist on a different dividing line between categories is not useful in this context where OP was already clear that they believe a small town doesn't work for them.
> In that context, the commenter that started this subthread is clearly using "rural" to describe everything that isn't in a big city
That's not the term for rural though. That's small towns and villages, not "rural". These are real words with real meanings. If I started saying the furry 30lb animal in my house that goes "bark" is an elephant it's not the right term to use and I'd welcome you calling out my improper usage.
Most Americans have never really experienced "rural" living.
But I guess you'd prefer for people to just continue to ignorantly use improper terms. Better get off the computer tonight and fly my elephant around the galaxy. Or walk my dog around the block. Words have no meanings anymore, it's all pedantic.
NCHS codes, RUCC codes, census designated places, ZIP code designations, take your pick. All of those are generally OK by me. Something other than just "small towns and villages exist", as both easily get classified as urban or suburban.
I've got loads of data backing up my assertion tons people think they live in a rural area don't live in a statistically classified rural area. People overly misuse the term rural and don't really understand a truly rural area.
> Something other than just "small towns and villages exist", as both easily get classified as urban or suburban.
Even if you're being pedantic (which, as noted, is pointless and silly), small towns aren't necessarily urban or suburban. For the census, 2000 housing units or a population of 5000 are required to count, and my town is the only one that made it onto the census list within an hour of me. 20+ small towns, 6 county seats, only 1 urban area. And that urban area has only 10% of the total population of those six counties! In other words: 90% of the people within an hour of me live in rural areas even according to the census.
And, again, as noted, I think it's silly to insist on a term of art in colloquial usage. Most people, on hearing what I just said, would agree that my town is a rural town in the middle of rural counties. But even if we do use pedantic definitions, you're objectively wrong.
So instead of all this complaining of me being a pedant you could have replied to this question with just a "yes" and far fewer ink would have been spilled. Who was really being pointless and silly in this exchange?
> Yeah but on the census is your area rural or urban?
> And, again, as noted, I think it's silly to insist on a term of art in colloquial usage
I disagree. If you ever call the furry creature in my home an elephant I'll correct your usage regardless of if you somehow feel it's the proper colloquial usage. Using the term incorrectly is using the term incorrectly. If we just make up whatever "rural" means to you personally then it'll be hard to actually use real statistics to understand our populations and cities.
If we're just going to go by vibes for our definition of rural, tons of places can be rural. I live a short walk from a fishing hole, there's a big wooded area near me, loads of big pickups driving around, people in cowboy boots and cowboy hats everywhere, I drive past farms every day, and I'm constantly next to a large horse stable. I guess I'm in a rural area! If I get a few friends to agree and use the term I guess it's right. What's that? It's a city of a population of 120k and a density of >4,000/sq mi and is deep in one of the largest US metros? Hmm, doesn't sound very rural, but it's vibing right, so must be.
It's absurd 30% of people who live in suburbs think they live in a rural area, and it does affect their lives.
> So instead of all this complaining of me being a pedant you could have replied to this question with just a "yes" and far fewer ink would have been spilled.
While we're being pedantic, no ink was spilled on this conversation. Let's not invent a definition of ink that includes pixels on a screen.
The pedantry is the problem. That you were wrong even in your pedantry is entirely unsurprising because people who are being pedantic almost invariably are—people who actually are experts on a topic generally recognize it to be complicated enough that it's not worth trying to be perfectly precise in casual speech.
So in my first comment I didn't feel the need to waste time address the merits of your claims—that would only validate the invalid approach to discourse—but when you doubled down (twice!) I decided to humor you and sure enough, you were wrong.
> If we just make up whatever "rural" means to you personally then it'll be hard to actually use real statistics to understand our populations and cities.
Agreed. So let's not invent a definition of rural that says that small towns and villages "easily get classified as urban or suburban" and then try to use that as a hammer to tell people they're wrong about what type of environment they live in. :)
Edit: you added a whole paragraph after I replied, but it doesn't change anything. The environment you describe would not be called a small town or a village by anyone, even those who apparently misuse the word "rural" in conversation with you.
I'm sorry, where was I wrong? Where did I ever actually accuse any particular person of living in one place or the other? And in the end you do live in an urban area by your acknowledgement. I've only been asking for people to ensure they're really using the right terms.
> Agreed. So let's not invent a definition of rural that says that small towns and villages "easily get classified as urban or suburban"
Yes, let's not invent one. We'll just encourage the improper usage.
> The environment you describe would not be called a small town or a village by anyone
A surprising percentage of people living in areas like that do. I personally know some.
I've definitely visited places which are rural which are East of the Mississippi. I have family who actually live in forests and on large farms who don't live anywhere near chain restaurants. Places where you can't even see the neighbor's fence line from your front porch. But the vast majority of places I know and have visited are urban. If there's multiple chain hotels, once again probably not rural.
Over 80% of the US population lives in an urban area. And yet so many think they live "rural" because their town isn't NYC or SF.
31% of people who live in NCHS defined suburban areas think they live in rural areas. They LARP as cowboys living in urban areas. I'm surrounded by them.
In more polite terms they are framing themselves as an ideal long term steward for the chromium project given that courts have already ruled that Google isn't a suitable steward anymore. Chromium wouldn't be so problematic if it wasn't run by such an anticompetitive organisation. If the Linux Foundation ran chromium and orgs like Igalia (who already do a near majority of the dev work for chromiumm) took over the brunt of senior development and leadership control then it'd be a pretty solid technology stack (albeit with some weaknesses).
I personally prefer Firefox and it's associated technologies but I also acknowledge the appeal of Chromium distributions like Vanadium.