I think Fox News is just more honest about their bias than most; its certainly not true that CBC, CNN, etc. are unbiased lol. There is a distinct bias in wikipedia that is unavoidable if you happen to disagree with the NYT on a controversial social issue.
I don't think CBC, CNN, the NYT, etc are unbiased at all — I don't think any news source even can be unbiased, and I think the notion of neutrality that many news sources attempt to apply, most especially the NYT, actually acts as its own sort of bias; but I think you are engaging in a bit of a fallacy here: the fact that no source is precisely unbiased does not mean that all sources are equal, nor that all sources' biases manifest in the same way.
(Nor would the absence of bias automatically mean that every point of view would be treated with equal respect and giving equal time in which to air its ideas, because that in itself, if there is an inequality in the quality of the argumentation or facts of the relevant sides, would in fact be a bias in favor of the worst, least correct side.)
The bias of centrist liberal news sources tends to manifest more in the language they use to describe issues (excessive passive voice, waffling on things) or in what they choose to cover (focusing excessively on detransitioners when they make up a tiny minority compared to the vast majority of trans people who are happy with transitioning), not in a gross manipulation of and distortion of actual facts as is the case with Fox News. Speaking of which, I don't know what you could possibly mean about Fox News being more honest about their bias then cnn. They regularly claim that they are the only clear-headed, unbiased news source, that they are the only ones willing to tell you the real unvarnished truth compared to everyone else, but they are the only sane ones in this clown world, etc, and they present things in an exceedingly misleading way to the point of lying far more often than any news source which I don't think you could count as being honest about one's bias in any way unless you intend being honest to just mean being brazen.
There's some crazy stat, that 98% of kids put on puberty blockers continue to cross-sex hormones. Which clearly tell you, whatever the puberty blockers are for, its not temporary and its not 'time to think'...
According to the Cass Review, even social transition isn't a neutral act but should be considered an active intervention, which could lock in what may be a temporary phase of identity development, and make it more difficult for the patient to accept their body as it is.
The Cass Review has also said that children should have easier access to cross sex hormones - they're considering removing the requirement for children to have spent time on puberty blockers before moving onto CSH.
The alternative explanation is that it was almost impossible for trans children to access healthcare in the UK and the only people making their way through the pipeline of GP to GIC to hormone centre were those who were undeniably trans.
Agreed. When I was a kid, I would look for the award winners as a shortcut to find new books to read, but lately its been disappointment after disappointment. I don't feel like the winners reflect what I consider quality (e.g. I loved A Deepness in the Sky, Cryptonomicon, in addition to the books you've listed (minus Three Body Problem)).
With the death of physical stores, I no longer have a way of discovering new science fiction. I wish there was an award or recommendation engine that could find these gems among all of the trash.
Interestingly, I did find one book that was quite enjoyable, from a John Carmack tweet of all places, The Powers of the Earth.
> When two people enter a trade freely, they both come out richer. How is that at the expense of other people?
Firstly, there's the myth of a "free trade" - that requires both parties to have sufficient knowledge about the deal/product and to have equal bargaining power. That's a very rare thing with Capitalism as the richer party will have much better access to information (and also the influence to bury certain information) and will have a much better bargaining position in any negotiation.
Secondly - even though two parties trading with each other can both obtain an advantage from the deal, that's often at the expense of parties not involved with the deal e.g. I can go and buy cheap groceries at a discount supermarket, and would consider that both the supermarket and I benefit, but that will often be at the expense (or due to the exploitation) of the food producers and workers.
> You sound like a communist.
Thank you, but maybe "socialist" is a more acceptable political term
That’s the thing, though, labor isn’t entering into an agreement “freely”, they are entering into an agreement under economic duress.
You can’t freely consent if someone has power over you, and in a Capitalist system Capital has power over labor. Capitalism is therefore abusive and exploitative, by design.
For the record, I am not, nor have I ever been, a Communist.
Do you think coal and lard should be included, like they were pre-1956? Or do you think the CPI should try to model reality?
> CPI is structurally biased to report lower inflation.
Quite the opposite. In the 1990s the Boskin Commission found that CPI was too high:
> The Boskin Commission, formally called the "Advisory Commission to Study the Consumer Price Index", was appointed by the United States Senate in 1995 to study possible bias in the computation of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which is used to measure inflation in the United States. Its final report, titled "Toward A More Accurate Measure Of The Cost Of Living" and issued on December 4, 1996, concluded that the CPI overstated inflation by about 1.1 percentage points per year in 1996 and about 1.3 percentage points prior to 1996.
I don't think the calculation/definition makes sense to capture inflation though. The idea seems to be to measure the quality-of-life-impacting inflation and not just inflation. Which can make sense.
So if people can elude inflation of certain goods by buying differents and if that happens, inflation exists but doesn't actually impact quality of life. That seems to be the theory and foundation of the calculation logic.
The problem is that it's not necessarily true. If people completely stop buying product A (which's price increased 100x) and switch to product B (with the same price as before) then by the above calculation there is no inflation at all. However it could be that B is actually an inferior solution to their problem and while it works, they would prefer A over B when they cost the same.
So for the above calculation to be meaningful, the loss of quality-of-life would have to be measured in the case where one product is replaced by another one. And that is of course extremely difficult to do.
Therefore I would say that the above calcuation generally underestimates inflation.
It would probably be more honest to project inflation by defining a static consumer's basket and following it's price into the future. When done so, it will overestimate inflation the more time passes. So it can be combined with the method above. And the real inflation is somewhere in between.
> If people completely stop buying product A (which's price increased 100x) and switch to product B (with the same price as before) then by the above calculation there is no inflation at all.
If people completely stop buying product A and switch to product B then the model should do that as well because the model should try to match reality.
The CPI is about measuring prices of what consumers buy: the P and C in CPI.
> It would probably be more honest to project inflation by defining a static consumer's basket and following it's price into the future.
But that is not the purpose of the Consumer Price Index. There are other statistics available that may be useful:
The CPI was setup for a particular purpose and it is good at that purpose. If you want to measure something else don't try to shoehorn it in, setup a metric for what you to measure rather rather than wreck what works.
Ok, but inflation is not cost-of-living and the CPI doesn't measure either of those directly.
Its often convenient for government to conflate the two; cost-of-living is a very flexible concept and so there are lots of way to get an answer you like, but they are distinct concepts.
Surely you can understand why a changing basket of goods makes for deceptive year-to-year comparisons.
> If people completely stop buying product A and switch to product B then the model should do that as well because the model should try to match reality.
Yeah, but it doesn't and it cannot. Because it's hard to measure if people reallt "switch" and if so, why and what it means to them.
Are you Canadian? Even asking the question feels ridiculous: yes, absolutely.
He shredded the Charter to fabricate a wedge (interior vaccine passports, firing civil servants) to win a few votes in the last election. This is absolutely in character.. good governance means nothing to Trudeau compared to being re-elected.
Hugo awards used to be a great way to source new, high-quality books, now it's just more activist slop.