Bamboodpanda

This is my life. Plus 2 cats.

I made this comment to my wife recently. I have a total of 2600 photos on my Google account going back 18 years. 1/2 of those are of my cats. I've only had cats for 4 years.

UC Davis has a video on how to build one.

Egg Drop Soup.

Egg Drop is a cute name.

Calling out hypocrisy can be valid but it must further discussion, not shut it down. In your example, if country A is committing genocide while condemning country B for genocide, the problem isn't just country B’s actions. It's that country A is deflecting from its own crimes instead of addressing them.

Saying 'what about your genocide' only matters if it leads to accountability for both. If it's just used to avoid taking responsibility, then it's whataboutism. It shifts the focus without solving anything.

To reiterate, whataboutism is deflection meant to shut down further discussion.

"Whataboutism" is one of the most prevalent logical fallacies. It never makes any sense.

I was raised to love my neighbor, to respond to hate with compassion, to tell the truth even when it hurt. I was taught that these were Christian values and by extension, American ones. We were the country that believed in freedom of thought, the integrity of history, and moral courage.

But now I see many of the same people who taught me those values embracing a movement built on denial, grievance, and revisionist history. They’ve tied themselves to a man who mocks truth, glorifies cruelty, and demands loyalty over integrity.

And the saddest part? We used to look at other nations and say, “That could never happen here.” But it is happening here. And it’s not being forced on us, we’re choosing it.

The cost of that betrayal isn’t some distant consequence we’ll face down the road. It’s already here. The values they abandoned didn’t slowly fade, they were cast aside, willingly, and replaced with something hollow. This isn’t a detour. It’s the destination. And the people who once preached righteousness have no intention of turning back.

What I love most about this is he works in health care insurance. His boss tells him he's not denying enough claims. Very American indeed.

https://youtu.be/QhfFoM1FfYc

... what?

Yeah, that's a totally fair concern and is one of the points the episode addresses. Researchers acknowledged that the definition has broadened, but they also emphasized that it reflects a better understanding of autism as a spectrum. It does make the label less specific, but it's also helped a lot of people. Especially women and people of color. It helped them get more accurate diagnoses instead of being misdiagnosed or ignored.

Overall, it's a stat worth celebrating as it means more people are getting the support they needed all along.

The Science Vs. podcast just did an episode on this.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2eKgmLJZrEKTbVzCVYzp0u

Spoiler: It's exactly as the meme describes. Autism rates are rising not because more people are becoming autistic, but because we’ve expanded the definition and improved how we recognize and diagnose it.

I read the WSJ article and she is absolutely infuriating. Her reasoning contains several fallacies:

False Cause:

"It was absolute fearmongering at its worst"

She blames political messaging instead of considering that vague legal language created legitimate professional uncertainty.

Straw Man:

"There will be some comments like, 'Well, thank God we have abortion services,' even though what I went through wasn't an abortion"

This is particularly frustrating. Advocates aren't celebrating her needing an "abortion", they're pointing out her experience is exactly what they predicted: doctors hesitating due to legal uncertainty. She had to argue with staff, pull up laws on her phone, and call the governor's office during a medical emergency. That's the system breakdown advocates warned about, not a misunderstanding of medical definitions.

False Dilemma:

"We have turned the conversation about women's healthcare into two camps: pink hats and pink ribbons. It's either breast cancer or abortion."

This drastically oversimplifies complex healthcare policy into just two opposing sides and the irony is staggering. It's like a company ignoring safety advocates' warnings about a confusing manual, then when accidents happen, blaming those advocates for 'scaring' workers instead of fixing the manual.

She lived the very scenario abortion rights advocates had been warning about all along, yet somehow, in her mind, the problem isn’t the law, it’s the people who tried to stop it from hurting her in the first place.