They're making wild assumptions about the genders of the backers and trying to drawn conclusions about that
No, they have a hypothesis that may one day be tested on the entire population in question, they formed their hypothesis on the basis of laboratory tests, Extrapolation is a perfectly valid method of making a prediction (and quite possibly the only useful method), corporations and political organisations all over the planet spend gazillions on the results of such "focus group" tests.
Of course nature is what it is and "the future" always reserves the right to to ignore our most confident predictions. In other words science is in the business of disproving its best answers by replacing them with better ones, it can never prove anything no matter how high you stack the data. If nobody has bothered with the question before then obviously the answer these people have is currently the best answer anyone has.
I was a teenager in the 70's, the social and behavioural sciences have come along way since Feynman pointed out their fundamental problem, the findings from the "Stanford prison experiments" during the same decade is an important, uncomfortable, and sadly underrated example of an early "law of human behaviour".
Actually, if properly (perfectly?) played, doesn't White win?
It's an open maths question, nobody has ever number crunched the perfect game.
equipping all of their officers with riot shields/assault rifles, body armor, & armored vehicles they've ceased to be "peace officers".
Indeed, one of the first acts in the Irish/UK peace process in N Ireland was a military order for all UK soldiers to remove their helmets while on street patrol as a gesture of trust. The simple act of removing a helmet requires a hell of a lot more courage than shooting into a crowd with rubber bullets from atop of armored vehicles. Sure, the macho swat stuff must remain an option for serious incidents, but calling in a swat team with riot gear and snipers for a routine suburban drug bust is the hallmark of a coward.
To be honest, I was expecting something a smaller, affordable Midwest town or something
Rural people have much more need for a car than city people. Back in the early 80's I lived here, the town has been a ghost town since the mill closed down in the mid-80's, it's not even marked on google maps anymore. Sure I could walk out the front door and be at work, but as the AC/DC song goes, "it's a long way to the shop, if you wanna sausage roll"
With properly configured IM systems the employer doesn't see it unless the employee shows the content to them.
Don't kid yourself, it is their equipment, everything on it belongs to them. My employer monitors everything that happens on my desktop, email, IM, RDC, the lot. They have been doing so for the last 13yrs I have worked for them. I really couldn't care less, I have never known them to use it against any of their 180,000 employees although I'm sure browsing stats would be used if they had to cut back on staff for some reason. Stuff we want to keep for future reference is CC'd to the project's mailing list by the sender. Without email and vpn's I doubt I would be working from home 3 days a week, but I also doubt our PHB's are stupid enough to dump all that juicy email onto their competitors network.
His skepticism of this supposed new diagnostic method is spot on. This is pseudo-science used to rationalize drugging people that don't fit the model, employ vast numbers of highly paid specialists and sink wealth into "health care."
This is just Chomsky style conspiratorial nonsense. What model? Who came up with the plan to employ these specialist, and to what end?
Western family structures have not been as diverse as they are now for a very long time. You are as much an enabler of modern society as you are a victim of it. Human nature is what it is, you cannot escape it at best you can be aware of it. A major theme in human nature with an unbroken trail leading back to a time before we were anatomically human is that every generation believes they are special and have all the answers, they don't really change their tune until their own kids start disagreeing with that stance. This is the way "nature intended", if nothing else it ensures a stable society and explains why the vast majority of our leaders have always been "elders" with adult children.
Having said all that, I do think the GP fraternity has a lot of explaining to do and ignorance to heal among themselves wrt the over prescribing of such drugs.
We have an excuse for our bad behaviour!.
What's your excuse for that post, "delusions of grandeur"?
"If I do not want others to quote me, I do not speak." -- Phil Wayne