Categories
Backstage Right Angle

Right Angle: Backstage (07-19-2022)

Things are starting to come into focus for the men of Right Angle…

Right Angle: Backstage (07-19-2022)

Things are starting to come into focus for the men of Right Angle…especially Scott’s camera, if not his ability to communicate effectively.

27 replies on “Right Angle: Backstage (07-19-2022)”

I just noticed in looking at the photos in the index of episodes of Backstage that Scott is wearing the same shirt. Each time. Shall I set up a GoFundMe for Scott so we can get him a few new shirts, LOL?

Bill’s question/point about how they’re replacing all the equipment in playgrounds because of “safety” actually mirrors a long conversation I had with some classmates after dinner one night the end of my junior year of college (so… 2007 if I’m doing the math right)–I have no idea how we got onto the topic, but our conclusion was that the generations coming after us were going to be majorly screwed up by their parents’ and teachers’ obsession with safety, and given my dad’s experience as a college professor over the past decade or so, with increasingly self-destructive/emotionally-fragile students, we were absolutely correct. Children need to be allowed to place themselves in (hopefully minor) physical jeopardy, and fully participate in playground social dynamics in order to grow up into fully functional adults. It might seem like a contradiction, but if you truly love your kids, you need to let them be moderately unsafe.

I’ve found the opposite to be true. Aftereffects of alcohol get worse and longer lasting the older I get … on the other hand … re: you can get used to it (the taste) … I think you CAN get used to alcohol and if you work up to it you can negate much of the “hangover” effect. If you’ve done that I have found it’s probably not a good idea. You can kill your pancreas. Had that happen to a friend. You can also inflame your lung lining if you do it right. Or so I’ve heard … 😉 Probably healthier to cut back to where you get hangovers again. Means you’re consuming less and you regain a tangible disincentive.
 
From my experience (I work in IT in higher Ed) that’s exactly how research grants work. People want to do some research and they apply for grants. Someone at Bill Gates Foundation said “ok, that sounds worthwhile” and grants the funds.
 
You guys need Scott. Great question … “Who could fund a study that you WOULD believe?” That’s the hard question that, if we truly think about it … we’re going to have to face some hard questions about flaws in human nature that exist within us. If we want to be honest with the world, (and we do) we need to be honest with ourselves. Sounds like a good topic for a Virtue Signal.

Regarding alcohol, remember that homemade beer was practically the only safe thing to drink in the Middle Ages in Europe, with whole families surviving on beer, bread, and cabbage. Look at Titian’s paintings of women. Plump, red cheeks, …there’s a reason. (The “protestant work ethic” was actually a result of abandonment of alcohol and their fondness for coffee houses.)

Can you imagine unbiased studies funded to do a research study regarding climate change? Fewer people die from heat than cold. More available farm land if temperatures rise. Historically, higher temperatures have coincided with flourishing societies, cold with contractions.
Or unbiased research comparing the benefits of green energy policies vs. an “all of the above” nuclear, fossil fuel, etc.?

1) Dr. Roland Pryer researched police bias against blacks with the specific goal of proving that police are racists. His findings knocked him on his tail, and the resulting paper he published got him thrown out of his job.
2) Re: the consumption of yeast manure- even drinkers often refer to their plans to consume yeast manure as, “I’m going to kill a few brain cells Friday night.” Thus, even the more honest drinkers admit the detrimental health effects.
3) Bill is precisely correct. Jesus was only harsh with the people who had no clue that they were sinners. The perverts & reprobates are today’s Pharisees because they control the culture and have no clue that they’re sinners.
4) Scot’s observations about SA- Prov 22:3, 27:12.

Regarding “karen” Johnson — I agree completely with Bill. She should pay. Here’s why: She did it out of malice. She intended to cause problems (she bragged about it, thereby showing her true motivation). IF she had phoned the restaurant to be helpful to the restaurant owner or to the Moms to alert them to possible dangers, then she would have had a very different motive — she would have been helpful. Will she pay? Nope. The Judge will say that neither the Moms nor the restaurant suffered any damages and therefore “karen” is “not guilty.”
A similar situation arose recently in Pennsylvania. A conservative group rented an IMAX Theatre to have a big premiere of their new movie. Someone cowed the theatre owner into cancelling the event and the movie had to be shown elsewhere.

Scott hit the nail on the head, and probably doesn’t even realize how profoundly so. Scientific studies are done by humans with biases. Over 150 years ago, Christian Creationists had control over academia…then godless Atheists took it over. They do studies that will lead them to their preconceptions, and even twist their findings to support those preconceptions. Trusting scientific studies because they are done by scientists is idolatry, and a fool’s game. Don’t be a fool.

I went to down-vote this comment for being overly negative … and then realized that the man himself had posted it. 😛

So self-deprecation humor is your shtick? Don’t underestimate yourself…even a blind squirrel finds a nut occasionally. LOL JK

Bill, I am surprised you have not mentioned that on 20-July-1969, Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin became the second person to set foot on the moon.
NEAL BEFORE HIM!
I will let myself out.

It is also important to remember that the studies that are published are the ones that support the outcomes desired by those footing the bills.
The ones that don’t support the desired outcomes never see the light of day unless the opposing point of view finances their own study and gets similar results to the study that has been buried.

I’m not hard to find! If you want to join our little group of sci-fi and fantasy writers, just ask! Or, if you just want to be part of the process as beta readers, we’d love to have you, too!
Thanks for promoting us, Scott! I should be posting the first few chapters of my silly little urban fantasy about two half-human, half-faerie detectives who solve weird crimes in NOLA within the next month. 🙂
— G.K.

If my car broke down after a long day of work, and I had a recently wealthy friend who won a $10 million lottery, my mind would start turning in that direction. I’d have the epiphany that I work harder than that guy. Why did he get so lucky? I give him rides to work all the time; at least I used to…

Why was fate so kind to him? He’ll just waste it. I need it more. I deserve it more. All those zeroes after the dollar sign–he can spare a bit.

Tolkien went through this inner dialogue brilliantly when Boromir talked himself into asking Frodo for the Ring.

The same thing happened when Jerry Seinfeld stole that marble rye.

Unlike Scott Ott, I suspect that many scientists are not so comfortable in their lives as to be resistant to these inclinations. If a very rich man is funding your research, you’ll be pulled in the direction of what you think he wants.

I’m asking the question “How can any research be trusted if the funders are humans with their own preferences and biases?”
I never overestimate human nature as being above temptation. After all, I live with Scott Ott — a sinner saved by grace, and in need of daily correction.
I’m amazed at how ineffective I can be at communication. Your comment illustrates that I have much work to do in that area. Thank you.

I meant that you are comfortable in your life, not easily swayed by dollar signs.

When I entered graduate school for engineering at a major science and engineering school, our orientation included an ethics seminar from our department head who stated that most published research is false and talked about the reproducibility crisis in science. He cited several different published, peer reviewed papers discussing how most peer reviewed research is false, such great irony there. The medical field was some of the worst with like less than 10% of cancer studies being reproducible and a lot of drug discovery studies having similarly low levels of reproducibility. One group had completely fabricated a bunch of research papers and sent them out to see if they’d be accepted and only 33% of them were rejected by peer review. That means 67% of completely fabricated research papers were approved and set to be published. The whole point of this seminar was to encourage us to be skeptical and not just trust everything we read because a lot of research is not true. In the engineering field though where I am is definitely one of the better fields as far as reproducibility goes but its something we definitely still need to be wary of. Any medical studies I am highly suspect of.

I think a lot of people who haven’t conducted research don’t realize quite how easy it is to make some research fit what you want it to, even without being highly unethical. For example, what I have experienced and I am sure almost anyone who has conducted research has also, is you sometimes get data that is questionable. You think it might be good but not completely sure, or it might just be you get two data sets that contradict each other a little. Sometimes this questionable data may fit what your hypothesis or goal is, and sometimes it won’t. It is very easy to just say well this piece of data fits what I expected to happen so it is good and this other piece of questionable data seems not what we would have expected so that must have been a bad sensor or something. That of course is kind of picking and choosing data to fit your goal but it feels ethical because you legitimately think that one data set is good and the other is bad. But if you don’t have a solid reason for that besides base intuition then it certainly should not be done but most certainly is done all the time. Its something I make a conscious effort to try and not just pick and choose. There are many other choices researches make during the entire process of designing an experiment, collecting results, and processing the data which can change the outcome and there’s not always a clear 1 correct way to do it so its very easy for researchers to make decisions that they think could lead to their desired outcome, and desired outcome of their funders, all while thinking they are ethically in the clear. It isn’t necessarily malicious actions to alter research, just making choices that benefit them when there isn’t a clear correct way to do it. So you should always take research with a grain of salt and look into the methods in good detail to determine how much you can trust the results. Any medical research you should be extra highly skeptical of.

My son-in-law is a doctor and once lectured me on ‘not understanding science’. I can’t remember what specific studies we were discussing, but my point was that I always take studies with a massive grain of salt. My reasons were (and are) much of what you cite, and also others have commented here, namely that there’s always the human factor which opens up chances for influence, error, corruption and skewed results depending on who is paying the bills. My dear (and I do mean he is truly dear to me) son-in-law said I obviously don’t know how science works. He believed that there are so many safeguards against all those things built into the scientific process that a ‘truly’ scientific study is very nearly beyond any doubt a pure product that we can rely on for sure. I wasn’t persuaded, and I found it amazing that someone who is so very highly educated and intelligent is also so very naive.

I mean I get what the study is saying. At the same time I want to have fun. I’m not going to live forever and don’t really want to try. Jumping ramps on my bike when I was 12 could have broken my neck. In fact my grandmother told me that I would. But I did it anyways because it was fun.
I enjoy a bourbon and a cigar because they are delicious. I don’t want to eat tofu and drink only triple distilled water. Hamburger and Coke is yummy. So I guess I’ll just die at 96 like my grandparents with a smile, instead of 106 regretting never having eaten a hot dog.

Weren’t the founding fathers basically buzzed the whole time because they only drank whiskey and ale because you couldn’t drink the water?

HA! And they did it pretty well.
And got to blow stuff up along with it!!

Leave a Reply