Re eclipses: does it add to the conspiratorial coincidence that we happen to be around at the point in the solar system's lifetime where the moon is in just the right orbit? Another half a billion a years or so and the moon will be far enough away that total eclipses will no longer happen. One for those silicon valley immortalists to look forward to.
I finally found some time today to catch up with the rest of your BBC podcasts on messaging apps. Really enjoyed it but am so thinking WTF regarding episode 5 about the guy that shared intelligence info.
It feels like the virtual equivalent of blokes squaring up in the car park of a flat roofed pub shouting “Come on if you think you’re hard enough”.
My scalding take is that writing songs is actually pretty easy and has already become loads easier with the advent of synthesizers and GarageBand etc. Adam Schlesinger RIP, who to be fair, was a genius, and Rachel Bloom and other collaborators wrote 157 original songs for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend over four seasons which amount to 2 1/2 per episode - so, a lot. Like the Suno songs they are all parodies but also fun songs to listen to in their own right. (Including the very catchy, very silly 'Let's Generalize About Men https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa_QtMf6alU&ab !)
This article about the history of welding automation feels relevant: https://www.construction-physics.com/p/welding-and-the-automation-frontier tl;dr the number of human welders has collapsed since a peak in the 1970s, but most of the lost jobs were low-skilled operation of spot-welding machines; that kind of work was relatively easy to completely automate. The number of high-skilled welders has also dropped by about 50% since the peak, but skilled human welders still command decent wages because they're much more flexible than robots and can do jobs that robots can't. The question, of course, is how long that will continue to be the case...
Helen I would very much like to read your article on the Cass report as I have long had respect for your stance on this. Are you able to include a link on your next Substack, as The Atlantic is behind a paywall? Thanks. Also, re total eclipse we had one in London in 1999 which felt weirdly apocalyptic as we approached the millennium.
Fascinating as usual. I listened to the podcast on 'Facilitated Communication' and although I haven't watched the documentary yet the woman declaring that she's done nothing wrong, then her ex husband saying that she's a narcissistic psychopath makes it look interesting.
Really enjoying the R4 series. One type of WA group you didn’t cover was new mum groups, formed through NCT (or similar) groups or migrating from Mumsnet message boards. At their best they can be essential support when you’re breastfeeding at 2am and no one you know IRL is awake, but at their worst they can also be pretty judgy places.
Impossible to measure just how ginormous the apology that is owed by the American left to JK Rowling and British feminists
It was a perfect storm of Americanism, assuming every other country’s politics was like their politics, taking no interest AT ALL in the policy that first triggered Rowlings comments, assuming that the critics must be right wing (again, totally oblivious to the fact that other country’s exist with their own politics) ignorance bordering on an aggressive refusal to take in information about the actual specifics of what was being debated in the UK and particularly Scotland to begin with, slamming others for their supposed ignorance when being the dictionary definition of the word ignorant themselves and now when we have this report, despite leaping over the pond uninvited when they thought the debate was in their favour now just remembering that they don’t care about other countries after all, was just so depressing to see people I had previously respected humiliate themselves in this manner over this issue and then when caught in a hole to see them keep digging until they lost interest
Love your work Helen & love it even more when I hear you being interviewed. Have been going back listening to your interviews with Sarah Wilson on Wild - fantastic. Also love that she’s one of the only (of what is considered) “lefties” in Aus who has dared to ask the question of why so many kids (particularly girls) have said they’re trans because the moment you question it, you’re a transphobe. I have 4 girls including 14 yo twins - one of whom came out a couple of years ago saying she liked girls but was non binary. We rode the wave & after more research, we have realised she’s just a lesbian who likes to shop in the Uniqlo men’s section! We also just use the word lesbian a lot to make it just a normal part of her our conversation. We’re also very body positive & we talk about the benefits of being a strong woman. Also she’s ADHD with Dyslexia & I’ve no doubt that if we’d lived in Aus we could have been caught up in other medicalised/affirming stuff. Thankfully we live in an SE Asian country where that doesn’t happen.
I looked it up during the week with all the eclipse news and found out in 4 years an eclipse with full totality goes right over Sydney, already counting down the days
Interesting links, and, trivia corner, I like the word 'gotten' but there are a whole bunch of other expressions which are presumably in style guides on one side of the Atlantic but not the other. How does a writer navigate this ocean?
- re B&R: 'last' as in 'you're done'? (say it ain't so!)... or just 'most recent'?
- re AI music - there's gonna be a tsunami of lawsuits - if your model can make anything that sounds anything like modern k-pop, better be able to show you didn't train it off copyrightable music....
For anyone wondering, here is the link (gifted, so no paywall) to my piece on the Cass Report.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/cass-report-youth-gender-medicine/678031/?gift=SKtFP-7gCBnFn1bNJdqPMuoc7s_VBhNwXt-eL8OdNXw&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
I'm loving the podcast. It was lovely to hear Katie Hertzog on an episode.
Re eclipses: does it add to the conspiratorial coincidence that we happen to be around at the point in the solar system's lifetime where the moon is in just the right orbit? Another half a billion a years or so and the moon will be far enough away that total eclipses will no longer happen. One for those silicon valley immortalists to look forward to.
https://www.sciencefocus.com/space/why-is-the-moon-moving-away-from-us
I just flat out refuse to believe The Guardian would have published this article as it is written 4-6 years ago
Helen, you and the other UK feminists who bravely stood up have genuinely changed the world for the better
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/12/this-isnt-how-good-scientific-debate-happens-academics-on-culture-of-fear-in-gender-medicine-research
I finally found some time today to catch up with the rest of your BBC podcasts on messaging apps. Really enjoyed it but am so thinking WTF regarding episode 5 about the guy that shared intelligence info.
It feels like the virtual equivalent of blokes squaring up in the car park of a flat roofed pub shouting “Come on if you think you’re hard enough”.
Just really tragic.
My scalding take is that writing songs is actually pretty easy and has already become loads easier with the advent of synthesizers and GarageBand etc. Adam Schlesinger RIP, who to be fair, was a genius, and Rachel Bloom and other collaborators wrote 157 original songs for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend over four seasons which amount to 2 1/2 per episode - so, a lot. Like the Suno songs they are all parodies but also fun songs to listen to in their own right. (Including the very catchy, very silly 'Let's Generalize About Men https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa_QtMf6alU&ab !)
This article about the history of welding automation feels relevant: https://www.construction-physics.com/p/welding-and-the-automation-frontier tl;dr the number of human welders has collapsed since a peak in the 1970s, but most of the lost jobs were low-skilled operation of spot-welding machines; that kind of work was relatively easy to completely automate. The number of high-skilled welders has also dropped by about 50% since the peak, but skilled human welders still command decent wages because they're much more flexible than robots and can do jobs that robots can't. The question, of course, is how long that will continue to be the case...
Helen I would very much like to read your article on the Cass report as I have long had respect for your stance on this. Are you able to include a link on your next Substack, as The Atlantic is behind a paywall? Thanks. Also, re total eclipse we had one in London in 1999 which felt weirdly apocalyptic as we approached the millennium.
Fascinating as usual. I listened to the podcast on 'Facilitated Communication' and although I haven't watched the documentary yet the woman declaring that she's done nothing wrong, then her ex husband saying that she's a narcissistic psychopath makes it look interesting.
Really enjoying the R4 series. One type of WA group you didn’t cover was new mum groups, formed through NCT (or similar) groups or migrating from Mumsnet message boards. At their best they can be essential support when you’re breastfeeding at 2am and no one you know IRL is awake, but at their worst they can also be pretty judgy places.
Impossible to measure just how ginormous the apology that is owed by the American left to JK Rowling and British feminists
It was a perfect storm of Americanism, assuming every other country’s politics was like their politics, taking no interest AT ALL in the policy that first triggered Rowlings comments, assuming that the critics must be right wing (again, totally oblivious to the fact that other country’s exist with their own politics) ignorance bordering on an aggressive refusal to take in information about the actual specifics of what was being debated in the UK and particularly Scotland to begin with, slamming others for their supposed ignorance when being the dictionary definition of the word ignorant themselves and now when we have this report, despite leaping over the pond uninvited when they thought the debate was in their favour now just remembering that they don’t care about other countries after all, was just so depressing to see people I had previously respected humiliate themselves in this manner over this issue and then when caught in a hole to see them keep digging until they lost interest
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/14/hilary-cass-review-gender-trans-young-people-children-nhs-evidence
It seems like Europe has this ability to soberly deliberate on something like gender medicine that we just don't in the US. What gives?
Love your work Helen & love it even more when I hear you being interviewed. Have been going back listening to your interviews with Sarah Wilson on Wild - fantastic. Also love that she’s one of the only (of what is considered) “lefties” in Aus who has dared to ask the question of why so many kids (particularly girls) have said they’re trans because the moment you question it, you’re a transphobe. I have 4 girls including 14 yo twins - one of whom came out a couple of years ago saying she liked girls but was non binary. We rode the wave & after more research, we have realised she’s just a lesbian who likes to shop in the Uniqlo men’s section! We also just use the word lesbian a lot to make it just a normal part of her our conversation. We’re also very body positive & we talk about the benefits of being a strong woman. Also she’s ADHD with Dyslexia & I’ve no doubt that if we’d lived in Aus we could have been caught up in other medicalised/affirming stuff. Thankfully we live in an SE Asian country where that doesn’t happen.
I looked it up during the week with all the eclipse news and found out in 4 years an eclipse with full totality goes right over Sydney, already counting down the days
Interesting links, and, trivia corner, I like the word 'gotten' but there are a whole bunch of other expressions which are presumably in style guides on one side of the Atlantic but not the other. How does a writer navigate this ocean?
- re B&R: 'last' as in 'you're done'? (say it ain't so!)... or just 'most recent'?
- re AI music - there's gonna be a tsunami of lawsuits - if your model can make anything that sounds anything like modern k-pop, better be able to show you didn't train it off copyrightable music....