• 2 Posts
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Joined 4 months ago
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Cake day: May 28th, 2024

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  • Tbh I see this as a problem. For instance, I’ve been considering going into politics and one of my main concerns is the security of our government’s information. Right now the Americans could have a direct line of access to all of our doings simply because we use Windows. Not to mention there’s the matter of Recall which, while not implemented in Windows 10, will likely be included when the government switches from Windows 10. That itself is a huge security risk. So the only options are to implement an existing Linux distro or to fork and maintain one specifically for the government. And that would be all well and good if it didn’t require retraining every government employee to use Linux.


  • I’m not entirely certain about that. For instance, on Linux I always have to look up how to create symlinks even though I’ve been using the OS exclusively for three years. On Windows, it is: Right click -> Create shortcut. It’s easier for most people to remember a 2 action process than a console command with multiple options and specific syntax. But of course, this is only one example and doesn’t apply to everything. For instance, I have absolutely no trouble remembering mkdir, cp, or rm. I think it’s a bit of a mixed bag.


  • That creates a weird power dynamic where the state could potentially withhold subsidies if it doesn’t like what is published. Furthermore, it would provide an easy source of revenue to news and media corporations that are already established and entrenched since they already have the funds to easily handle all the paperwork that would be involved. Additionally, Postmedia accounts for at least 33% of the market by revenue. This is owned by a primarily American corporation. Subsidizing Postmedia would effectively be giving Canadian money to foreign corporations.

    What I think needs to happen on a policy-level is that foreign ownership of news media needs to be curtailed and protections must be put in place to prevent larger companies from buying local newspapers. The current players in the news industry need to be broken up. But this isn’t something I can change, nor is it even likely, so there’s no sense talking about it. I’d much rather focus on something I can do myself to incentivize people to buy a publication.




  • Okay, first of all: the DSM is used primarily in North America. The majority of the world uses ICDM.

    Secondly, the DSM has gone through many iterations and changes. For instance, DSM-I and -II contained psychopathy as a mental illness. It was replaced by ASPD in DSM-III. What we term today as “major depressive disorder” was also introduced in DSM-III. Did depression not exist prior to the third DSM? Did ASPD not exist? Does psychopathy not exist now that it has been replaced by ASPD?

    Thirdly, there’s so much bloody overlap in conditions listed in the DSM that you could present two psychiatrists with the same list of symptoms and they would diagnose two different disorders. And to my mind, this lends more credence to the first DSM’s principle classifications of psychotic, neurotic, and behavioural disorders.

    To summarize, the DSM is regional and therefore cannot be applied globally. It describes medical conditions and those medical conditions can be redefined at any time. And it is borderline unreliable due to diagnostic confusion and overspecification. In short, the presence or lack thereof of some cluster of symptoms in the DSM is not an indicator of the existence of a condition.