Author: dhtmlkitchen

Dr. Joe Kort — An Example of Intellectual Dishonesty

Dr. Joe Kort censors to uphold his dogmatic and unreasonable positions. It’s all he can do, as his ideas don’t stand on their own.

Dogmatists rely on lies and censorship to try to “win” an argument. On YouTube, Dr. Kort pushes himself as something of an expert on a subject matter he is incapable of discussing. A user, Jane Anon misrepresented my position and then Dr. Kort prevented me from replying by blocking me. This is not a fair way to debate. Joe Kort followed up by blocking my further commenting on the video. Although Jane Anon made false claims about me, I made no retaliatory remarks.

This shows clearly that Dr Kort suffers from control issues and the need to silence, censor, and cancel rather then address any voices that challenge his narrative, discourage me from such endeavors by deleting all the careful and thoughtful reply I’d made, and discourage any dissent through censorship.

Dogmatism defies reality. Dogmatism is a failure of the mind to closure over falsehoods to eschew and “block” (literally) any new evidence and new arguments that might shatter the false illusion.

Dogamatism is harmful. Censorship is harmful. Both should be condemned ruthlessly.

Censorship of ideas is harmful. Shaming people into silence is, too, as I described in my response to user @Jane Anon.

I have encountered discrimination and censorship regarding this issue many times. The more censorship, the more unbiased investigation is warranted. The more that ideological discrimination is practiced, the more it should be questioned, resisted, and condemned.

The following paragraph is to everyone shamed. Most adults are too afraid to admit sexual attraction to minors under 18. Such attractions don’t need to denied, nor be self-consuming. Liking people under the age of 18 is not a mental illness, and if you’re attracted to teenagers, you’re probably very normal. It is ok to acknowledge the attraction. Suppression does not help.

The response I posted to @Jane Anon:—

Child marriage is legally sanctioned child abuse? Because you say so? Arrogant, baseless proclamations of social justice don’t constitute logical cogency.

Granted, few children nowadays seriously want marriage, but how is it that the odd 17 year old yearning to marry is suddenly a victim?

“The fact that you want the age of consent lowered shows that you are attempting to find a legal way to have sex with children.”

In all your bias, you read past all the glaring questions raised, read the number “12”, and reacted the way you did. This shows that you weren’t reading or comprehending what I carefully and clearly explained and ignored.

You read past all that was clearly explained to you to arrive at the same polarized, unwavering conclusion; that it’s all because I want to have sex with 12 year olds.

That itself raises a perplexing question: How does commenting on sociology videos on YouTube work as a strategy for having sex with twelve year olds? Are you OK?

My words stand on their own.

It would be a good idea to work on your reading comprehension. (You might want to take a deep breath and count to ten and see if it helps.)

“If you have ever had sex with a child under the legal age of consent, you have sexually abused that child, period. You have damaged that child, legality notwithstanding.”

(1) Sex and abuse are two different things.
(2) Children are not generally harmed by sex.
(3) Age gaps do not cause harm. That is, the age of one’s chosen partner does imply harm.
(4) People hide tabooed attractions out of social pressure and shame.

Any 12 year old who chooses to fondle, pet, or kiss is not harmed by the age of their chosen partner.

Harm is not caused by age difference. There is no evidence to show that age gaps cause harm. To assume otherwise is a common error. [Kilpatrick]

Most people across the globe have sex before age 18.

If you have been calling for laws to be changed so that you can freely abuse children, I can see why you’ve been banned from several social media platforms. That’s horrific.

I post science, coherence, logic, reason, insight. Dogamatists cancel. That’s what they do, by definition. That’s what you do.

I did not advocate for abuse and is incorrect for you to say that. To misrepresent me is not a good d

Sex itself does not cause harm.

What causes harm? Coercion, manipulation, and abuse cause harm. Shaming people — both adults and children — into silence causes harm. Punishing people for victimless crime causes harm. [Finkelhor][Larsson]

[Finkelhor] Finkelhor, D. & Browne, A. (1985). “The traumatic impact of child sexual abuse: A conceptualization,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 55 (4), 530-541.

[Larrson] Larsson, I. & Svedin, C. G. (2001). “Sexual experiences in childhood: young adult’s recollections,” Arch Sex Behav, 31(3):263-73

[Killpatrick] Kilpatrick, Allie C., Long Range Effects of Child and Adolescent Sexual Experiences: Myths, Mores, and Menaces. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1992.

Tech Censors — The Democrat Donors who Saved the 2020 Election

Politics are managed by media technology companies.

The discourse of the nation is predominantly controlled by large technology companies.

Executives of these companies donate to the Democrat party and, in some cases, held political positions as Democrats, either before or after their employment role, in a revolving door to have an influence that is favorable to their respective company and to the Democrat party.

Siobhan Oat-Judge, Global Content Policy Lead at YouTube, started with the DNC in 2004, then went to the U.S. Department of State from 2007 to 2019.

Here are donations from the various technology executives:
Vijaya Gadde
Siobhan Oat
Mark Zuckerberg
Susan Wojcicki
Sundar Pichai

Google itself funds the Democrat party establishment, to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign.

YouTube funded “Defending Democracy Together” among others.

“Defending Democracy Together” is an organization of conservatives against former president Donald Trump. These are possibly the Republicans referenced by the “well-funded cabal” mentioned in the Time magazine article, “The Secret Bipartisan Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election”.

Twitter supports and funds Democrat politicians with money and with what they publish or suppress on their website. When the New York Post published its article on the connection between Hunter Biden and China, Twitter Trust and Safety locked the NY Post’s Twitter account and prevented the sharing the Hunter Biden news article. This was done prior to the 2020 presidential election to influence the election in favor of Joe Biden.

Facebook, too, of course, but $16,710,000?

The media companies’ collusion with governments prevents democratic process. It does not save democracy, as Time magazine claimed in The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election. This unchecked power must be reigned in and regulated.

2021 — No Open Internet

It is year 2021, the internet has been in widespread use for over twenty years. There is still no public discussion forum.

It would be nice if there were open public discussion about a diverse range of topics from across the globe.

But what if people disagreed or said hurtful things? Would it be too much a burden to bear? Do we now thank Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Vijaya Gadde, Sundar Pinchai, and the tech oligarchy preventing us from the unpleasant feelings unmoderated public discussion can cause?

If the internet is taken over by social media platforms that censor and ban offensive users and content, is it really for the better?

Today’s pondering: How can I modify my UTK far infrared heating pad to stay on for more than five hours? I can ask that question here, on this blog, where the right person who has the answer surely won’t see it.

It would be nice if there were an open public discussion forum.

Open Letter to the CA Attorney General on CCPA

Hello.

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) provides a means by which consumers to obtain personal data from service providers.

I have issued formal CCPA data portability requests to several companies who have either refused or ignored my requests.

On Nov 26, 2020, I made a request to download my content from Nextdoor through the nextdoor.com website.

Nextdoor did not respond to the request and thus, I was unable to download my content.

On Nov 26, wrote a letter to support@nextdoor.com formally requesting my data and content under CCPA SECTION 1. Section 1798.100 of the Civil Code.

Nextdoor responded to tell me that the case is no longer active. I don’t know what that means.

I never got the link to download my data.

I followed up to that email several times.

I tried to log in to nextdoor.com to request my data again, but was unable to log in due to account restrictions.

I have had similar experiences with Reddit and Facebook.

Today, I called in to the AG at (916) 445-9555. I navigated about six different phone menus with long outgoing message until, nearly eight minutes, I was transferred to a representative.

I explained my problem to the man. The man told me that I was wrong. When I asked if he was familiar with “the law I’d mentioned”, he said “yeah, the California [pause] consumer Financial something or other”. (He literally said “something or other”.)

I politely told him that he was mistaken and asked his name. The man raised his voice and asked me my name. I told him clearly “Garrett Smith”.

The man told me to not call there again and hung up on me.

It is important to have such consumer safeguards, but they are only as effective as they can be enforced. It is very discouraging when the government does nothing to protect consumers from getting steamrolled by corporate technology companies. Please help me uphold my consumer rights.

Thank you.

http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?division=3.&part=4.&lawCode=CIV&title=1.81.5

COVID-19 Lockdowns — Are We Doing It Right?

If we don’t have lockdowns, what can we do to stop people from contracting and spreading COVID?

Are lockdowns helpful?

Lockdowns have been correlated with decreased case fatality rate.

Strict lockdown strategies together with a wide diagnostic PCR testing of the population were correlated with a relevant decline of the case fatality rate in different Countries.

Therefore, lockdowns might offer greater potential protection to at-risk populations, such as older people.

Lockdowns decrease deaths of COVID. They’re helpful.

How Helpful are Lockdowns?

It’s not entirely certain how helpful each city’s lockdown is in preventing COVID deaths. We can, however, look at who is the most at-risk from such deaths.

A study published in European Journal of Epidemiology, July 2020, Assessing the Age Specificity of Infection Fatality Rates for COVID-19: Systematic Review, Meta-Analysis, and Public Policy Implications, found:

IFR is very low for children and younger adults (e.g., 0.002% at age 10 and 0.01% at age 25) but increases progressively to 0.4% at age 55, 1.4% at age 65, 4.6% at age 75, and 15% at age 85.

Are lockdowns hurtful?

The current lockdowns are having a substantial impact on society. They impact mental health, social health, and the economy.

Regarding the economy, GDP is down and we are in a recession. According to the Brookings Institute, “if job growth continues to slow, it will take years to bring the economy back to its level of employment before the COVID recession”.
Payroll Employment

At the same time, government spending is up. This seems to lead to increased and perhaps unmanageable debt. (See: Coronavirus Slump Continues For GDP Growth).

Regarding personal health and well being, depression, substance abuse, and suicidal ideation have increased as a consequent of COVID lockdowns.

Medical News Today stated:

Before the pandemic, 8.5% of U.S. adults reported being depressed. That number has risen to 27.8% as the country struggles with COVID-19.

See also:

Risk of Death vs Freedom

If the fatality rate increases progressively from 0.002% at age 10 to 0.4% by age 55, to what degree can these people be allowed to take a measured risk? What about people outside of that age range? Whose interactions must be prevented? Whose may be allowed? How can we pragmatically minimize harm, both from infection and from loss of freedom and economic prosperity? How well do the current lockdowns meet those objectives when they only consider a single factor model of minimizing harm from the affects of COVID infection?

In the US, the number of reported deaths related to COVID-19 is 348,000. In contrast, 150,000 people die of lung cancer every year but smoking is legal. 650,000 die of heart disease, yet red meat and high sugar diets are legal. For smoking, red meat, and sugar, we value the right of personal choice and freedom. Yet when it comes to COVID-19, personal freedom is not considered. Personal freedom matters, too.

One downside to relaxing restrictions is that low-risk individuals might put higher risk individuals at unknown greater risk. Mitigating that risk is important.

Relaxing restrictions doesn’t alleviate the mental health impact to at-risk persons who must remain restricted, whether by choice or by order, and who cannot enjoy such freedoms.

Proposal

Preamble to Free Thought

What follows is a lockdown proposal that considers personal freedom, mental health, and economic prosperity. It is more nuanced than a simple yes/no regarding lockdowns.

Open Discussion

The decision to implement lockdowns is already done. I believe that nuanced rational discussion can improve the current situation.

Censorship of the discussion on Facebook, Twitter, and others has impacted free thought and hindered progressive discussion for better solutions.

Furthermore, at a time when we are isolated; at a time when we most need human connection and personal expression, such censorship is absolutely sickening. Censorship is a threat to personal liberty and happiness. Censoring someone could mean the difference between that person expressing their negative feelings online to others versus having more negative ideas and actions.

Likewise, fact check warnings overlaid atop messages on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media delegitimize and stigmatize unapproved ideas. This impacts their consideration and discussion.

That such discussion is cowed on social media platforms is censorious and unacceptable. It should not even need to be said that censorship is bad, as it is antithetical to freedom and progress of the western ideal we have fought so hard against in wars past (See also Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Such censorship deserves no respect and should not be tolerated.

Ideas that require censorship to be maintained do not stand on their own and deserve no respect.

So… without further ado, here is my proposal draft:

Proposal

Allow low-risk people to work, dine, socialize, etc.

Low-risk people could help us achieve herd immunity faster. The economy might recover.

Allowing low-risk people to work, dine, and socialize would not be a blanket edict for all.

If the fatality rate increases progressively from 0.002% at age 10 to 0.4% by age 55, the cost of risk of infection is not necessarily offset by the cost of the current blanket one-size-fits-all lockdowns. Individuals can be allowed to choose to go to work and businesses allowed to operate.

People who are considered generally low-risk would still be allowed to work from home, if possible. Employers should be required to accommodate for such options wherever possible.

Likewise, people considered higher risk would be allowed to work, provided they were already given an option to work from home and had signed under full voluntary consent to opt-out of it with no pressure to do so.

The government could encourage people to socialize safely, outside, by maintaining and promoting existing outdoor parks and recreation and helping businesses facilitate outdoor dining opportunities. This would improve mental health and well-being, which could translate to stronger community, less drug abuse, less domestic violence, less suicidal ideation. It would cost government very little to do this. It could also benefit some businesses who provide goods and services outdoors.

Take a strong stand to end censorship so that these things can be discussed unmoderated, in public.

That’s my proposal. What are your thoughts?

Puberty Blockers and Extended Childhood

More and more, teens across America express transgenderism and a desire to use puberty blockers. Why now? And is it bad, or are there some downsides?

Pubertal development affects the brain physically. Puberty blockers stop brain maturation and physically affect the brain and bone morphology (see: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5694455/).

There is some social support for children using puberty blockers among LGBT and also Youth Rights supporters. Youth Rights advocates say that minors are able to give proper consent. But why are kids now turning to them?

The want for puberty blockers might be, in some, but certainly not all cases, a side effect of extending childhood and denying personal sexual development into adulthood and further infantilize children by delaying adulthood.

There are individuals whose brain gender does not match their body gender. But where a young person wants to delay puberty, is it always the case that they were definitely, from very early ages, male-in-female body or vice-versa? Possible causes in the rapid increase in transgenderism are biological or sociological. If they are sociological, it may be due to increased desire to transition or less negative pressure than historically present.

If transgenderism is biologically influenced, it would have to be by some environmental factor, such as endocrine disruptors. A 2016 study “Gestational exposure to phthalates and gender-related play behaviors in 8-year-old children: an observational study” found that mothers with high pthalates resulted in children who at age 8, exhibited different gender play patterns. Thus, some chemicals may have epigenetic influence on gender identity.

This is important, because, play behaviors are “an accepted method to determine gender identity in children, are a critical factor in diagnosing Gender Dysphoria”.

Specifically, higher maternal diethyl phthalate (DEP) levels was associated with girls who exhibit more feminine play and higher mono-isobutyl phthalate (MiBP) was associated with with less masculine gender-related play behaviors in males:—

increased urinary MiBP concentrations were associated with less masculine gender-related play behaviors in males.

Increased transgenderism
Childhood has been extended into adulthood. In Western society, this is especially true. Children are isolated from adults and excluded from sexual interaction with them. They’re left in the dark.

Leaving kids on their own, in the dark, for sex and intimacy, can have different types of bad outcomes.

One of those outcomes can be not developing at all, and this can be out of fear of social transgression. Another is actual social transgression, including sexual harassment or sexual assault. That’s pretty common too. And although many of those “criminal” sexual offenses by youths are actually mutually wanted, and parent-unwanted, some of them are actually bad choice experiments by the kids (e.g. trying anal with their little brother, etc).

The social behavior required to be sexually successful is not taught to children. Instead, it’s eschewed.

The idea of individual sexual development for kids or of children learning to become sexually successful is a taboo manifest in so many things in our world from “age appropriate” behavior to PG-13 ratings to explicit condescension with “you’re not ready” and “you don’t understand what love is” (awful).

Sexual success is, like any success, individually defined. Like, if you’re eight, it might be getting a girl to kiss you or even let you touch her in places when nobody’s looking (wow!).

But if goals and dreams are delayed from age seven to eleven to fourteen to eighteen, what is learned is to ignore one’s desire and internal drive. What is learned? Stay in school, get good grades, go to college… Yeah, that’s alright, too, but it’s missing personal sexual development, a significant personal change.

Some people get to age twenty and beyond, graduate college, and their only reason for not being successful, for not being able to get a girlfriend or boyfriend, is lack of skill. Either they’re awkward, or shy, or don’t know what to do.

I have seen women in their 50’s in tech companies with the idea to try and find the right one to marry. Sorry lady, you are too old to have kids and you seem to have missed life!
Yet schools approach sexual education with the idea that it’s mostly biological and they ignore the social aspects of it.

I suspect some teens might want puberty blockers because their childhood has been extended, they have not had much chance for personal sexual development, and transgenderism is fantasy play. Before tinkering with the endocrine system, look closer at why you’re doing that; they affect the brain, bones, and neurological system.

Childhood is extended, personal sexual development is at best ignored, at worst somewhat discouraged, and — not for all, but for some — transgenderism seems to be, fantasy play.

Include children. Treat them as individuals, imperfect and developing, as we all are to some degree. Don’t discount their romantic or intimate inclinations. Don’t extend childhood into adulthood.