(PS - I am aware that this is kinda a terrible idea. I promise I am not about to personally do anything as stupid as the thing I'm describing.)

... has anyone looked into whether the neurochemistry of that mental state is, like, pharmacologically reproducible in a useful way?

Stimulants have overlap but are not quite the same. Do we know what the missing ingredient is and whether there's a way to productively administer it? 2/2

("More sophisticated" was a low, low bar.)

Also OMFGess the color thing! I remember that. Because clearly there is one universally ordained set of basic color categories. Such unserious people.

The main point was exactly that they have forgotten the lessons of their field in exactly the same way that anthropologists and philosophers forget the lessons of theirs.

Sorry to be totally clear the "and they do seem to be more sophisticated" was my knee-jerk professional politeness, in the same spirit as "reviewer #2 makes many good points, HOWEVER..." The part about it still being not good was the main point.

Likewise, there are prominent transphobes with real biology training (e.g. Emma Hilton, Colin Wright, recently Richard Dawkins), and they do seem to be more sophisticated about this stuff but it's still, uh, disappointing.

Something about theorizing gender and especially doing transphobia causes you to forget the most basic rules and insights of whatever field they're working in. Transphobic philosophers and anthropologists also forget key insights about how to philosophy and anthropology.

When I ran an ND ERG, non-autistic parents would tell stories about their autistic kids, like a story of a meltdown. They would tell the story like the meltdown came out of nowhere. But the autistic listeners could see the meltdown coming a mile away, hidden in details the parent skimmed over.

The majority of trans people are queer, bisexual, or pansexual. Less than 15% report being straight after transition. If people being trans was a way to make them "straight" it is horribly ineffective.

The Telegraph moved onto other products that DO NOT HAVE CHRISTMAS in their name!

It blows my mind that they used to call US snowflakes!🤣🤷🏼‍♀️

9/

Call me old fashioned, but I remember when armed agents of the state barking, "where are your papers!?" was a thing that Americans associated with other, less free, less enlightened countries.

(Online dating was still fringe, but in 1988 *online* was still fringe.)

...and Wikipedia reports that computer matchmaking services were a thing going back to the 1960s.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating#...

Wait sorry was there not already some form of computer dating in 1988? I remember seeing it referenced in a 1971 film,* so I assumed it had some cultural presence from earlier...

*Obviously this did not depict internet dating or anything involving a personal computer.