It's only unethical if it 1) doesn't work or 2) is carried out involuntarily or without appropriate counseling, or without an actual diagnosis. Around here, that isn't the case (or at least it didn't use to be, things may have changed). People undergoing the procedure know full well what they are getting into, they are rigorously screened and diagnosed, and offered options (for some, counseling is enough, for others, hormone treatments without surgery). And given the low incidence of regret, and the generally improved quality of life following surgery, the conclusion must be that both the treatment and the screening work.

Other than the things I mentioned, how do you imagine that gender dysphoria is treated? It's no longer considered to be a mental disorder either, but something akin to being gay: it's all in the head, but it is innate to the person and not something that can be treated or "prayed away".

That was already done and dusted last year, remember?

I'm not sure I agree. I've seen lots of people in museums, the vast majority of them walk around, look at a work of art for 10 seconds and move on. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but my point is that they're appreciating it. They look and decide if they like it or not, move to the next one. The kind of deeper questioning you describe is rare I think (and to your credit). It doesn't require an education, but that does make it easier.

Incidentally, the average person today has been exposed to more art than most people in history, simply through television and architecture. Moreover, the innovations from the masters have been assimilated in later works until they are now commonplace. That makes it difficult for most people to recognize the novelty in masterworks. They just don't look as impressive when viewed from the future.

"It is worth noting that it is at least almost always comorbid with depression and anxiety, and transitioning does not alleviate those symptoms." Actually, it does, to varying degrees. And yes, surgical intervention for a mental disorder seems weird, but it's the best "cure" we have. People with gender dysphoria do not "grow out of it", and the incidence of regret for sex reassignment surgery is low. Very low. 0.1% or so, and to put that into perspective, that is 1/10th of the incidence of regret for knee surgery. At least it was before they started offering the surgery to people not diagnosed with gender dysphoria (and that is a condition almost impossible to accurately diagnose in children and adolescents, for instance)

The depression and anxiety often remain not because of disappointment after the transition, nor other internal issues, but by the acceptance (or lack of it) of transgenders by society. Thankfully that has improved by leaps and bounds: 30 years ago it was unheard of, 20 years ago it was awkward, 10 years ago something to be curious about. These days people hardly bat an eyelid.

It just means they've killed Chromebooks and moved their devs onto a new project. Somebody update the page already!

You young'uns have it easy with your intuitive UI shit! In my day, we had intuitive WIMP shit! It constantly activated and moved the cursor when you were just trying to finger peck into a DOS terminal but your elbow touched the rolling box.

Point and Grunt interface, we called it, 'cause you pointed your finger at the number 0 on the numeric keypad, and your funny bone hit the box. And then you grunted.

When the turkey dies, do you wait until Christmas to eat it? Or do you eat it while it's fresh?

It's true y'Honour! I tooks the company private! But it was only because Elon wanted to takes the company private, and I couldn't lets that happen!

But your copy and pasting [...]

I don't cut and paste, but I do quote.

Don't let any of the art or art history profs at the local college hear you say that, they'll probably turn violent!

I've talked to quite a few, I'm still in one piece ;-)

Yes, I agree that voluntary attendees are more likely to actively engage. If they've been lucky enough to learn the process at school or elsewhere, they will know how to proceed.

But Bones, it's AI. Just not as we know IT.

Sitting and Looking at Art as a form of appreciation is not really a form of engagement. Engagement means using your brain and actively performing tasks with a goal. That's not true if you're merely enjoying an image, a natural environment or even a movie, passively. It is true if you're an art critic preparing an essay in your head without using an LLM.

There are things that seem like appreciation but are actually engagement. For example, meditation. It isn't sitting still, it is concentrating for the purpose of total awareness and control of one's body and its automatic functions. It's quite stressful when you're a beginner.

Not at all. When it's rigged, it's not gambling,and the law agrees with me.

And that's why OP was not allowed to drive taxis at the time. Can you say the same for AIs?

The high US insurance prices aren't funding a lot of medical research. The research is done around the world in universities and research institutes at a steady rate.

The US pharmaceuticals want a lot of money from Americans so they can *develop* the existing research into products and corner the market. That is not cheap, because the bar to entry is high. The bar to entry is high because when private corporations rush to market, they make mistakes. And they rush to market only so that they can beat their competitors.

Other countries don't mind waiting a little longer to see if the rushed drugs have side effects. This lowers their price. Because once the pharmaceuticals have served the impatient clients first, their marginal costs are almost zero and the added revenue is effectively free.