🎓 Doc Freemo 🇳🇱 @freemo@qoto.org

@kd0bpv I make it a point to do everything i can in america in metric. Even my tech scuba diving that pissed off my teacher back when i was training a few years back.

Will do, np

@ayy @nerthos @dantheclamman

It is a bit like saying "the average life expectancy is 75"... sure that may be true but it doesnt mean YOUR average live expectancy is 75. If you smoke and do heroin it might be 40, if your a marathon runner it might be 90.

Same here, the AVERAGE american might be worse off with a gun. That doesnt mean a **responsible** gun owner is worse off if they are well trained and follow good practices.

General population averages do NOT apply to individuals who do not represent the mean. Not sure how many times I can repeat that.

@dantheclamman
@ayy @nerthos

@dantheclamman
No I do think that you had genuine concern, im not questioning that. But it is driven by bias of a concern that doesnt apply. So much so that you seem either unwilling or unable to understand why a professional statistician is telling you that it doesnt apply.

@ayy @nerthos

@dantheclamman
Again broad statistics that tell you about the general population does NOT apply to individuals that do not embody the mean of such a population. Come on man your taught that first year in any statistics class.

@ayy @nerthos

@dantheclamman
I am not claiming it is a bad analysis of what the general population might do. It is a bad analysis (and thus does not apply and is cherry picked) for anyone who is well trained and responsible.

Thats the important distinction here. Just because a study is well done and the facts in their own right is valid does not mean it applies to the argument or situation being discussed. thus why we need to get past our biases and understand the context when making these sort of arguments.

I am a professional statistician, i have tried to explain to you why it is not remotely applicable to trained professionals when the stat includes all people even untrained people. I even cited a very clear example WRT scuba diving to show you why. what part of the explanation did you not understand, perhaps i can explain it better.

@ayy @nerthos

this is an open letter to "Steingard & Testa Medical Associates" located in south philly. Please everyone **reshare** this so it reaches as many as possible. This doctor was my doctor of 5 years and was so cruel and self serving they pushed me to severe risk and trauma because they refused to help me when I needed medical attention most...

While i am very sympathetic to the opiate epidemic and do agree we need to solve it, the problem is the current approach makes it much much worse, let me relay my own expiernce to tell you why.

I recently had a very severe disc herniation. Much of the time i cant make it even one step away from my bed. I needed some sort of pain killer to help until it could be resolved, i also tried all the alternatives first, NSAID, steroids, ice, etc. NSAID did almost nothing for the extreme pain and steroids helped a lot but I wasnt allowed to stay on them for more than a week and the second i was off them I was worse then when I started. I needed some sort of pain medications or else my life felt like constant and literal physical torture.

So I approached my doctor of 5 years, he knew well that I have never asked for any scheduled drug of any kind. In fact the few times he offered Adderall i refused (for my ADHD). He flat out refused me any pain medications because he said i had to pass a drug test to get them, well i live in Holland and only stopped by america to pick something up and got stuck there. I told him "I would pass on all drugs but marijuana, but it was legal where i smoked it". Hearing that he refused me any medication and told me he could not since i couldn't pass a drug test.

Later in dire pain i called the office and begged and pleaded in tears. On the spot he dropped me as a patient all together and told me i could not be seen by him again (in the middle of a major injury). I then went on to call at least 20 doctors to get help and they all said under no circumstances would a new patient be prescribed a controlled substance. Now keep in mind i had an MRI and an X-ray to confirm the severity of my condition.

Now all i really needed or wanted was Tylenol II (basically Acetaminophen + codeine). While it is an opiate it is the absolute weakest form of opiate you can get. Since I was refused, and since i will not accept others abusing me or telling me what i can or cant do with my own body, my only solution was to scavenge drugs. I called every drug addict and family member i knew to try to get some pain killers to help. I finally got a nice collection together but since all drug users want are the strong things like morphine, oxycodon and hydrocodone all i had was a pile of stuff 10x - 100x stronger and more addictive than i needed. I did manage to get 4 codeine pills but they only last 4 hours each so that only held me over for a day.

In the end due to a pathetic attempt to address the drug epidemic they forced a non-addicted suffering patient to take drugs far riskier and more addictive than needed and drastically increased my risk of addiction, all in the ironically vain attempt to prevent my addiction.

Luckily as of yesterday I managed to reduce my swelling through use of a ketogenic diet enough that the pain is lessened and I stopped taking morphine. 2 days in with no morphine and I am not addicted, but I am one of the lucky few who isn't very easily addicted.

Long story short it NEVER pays to dictate what people can do with their own body, even drugs. Provide advice and support and leave the power with the individual.

@bowner1012 I know plenty of addicts who got there through recreational dosing. But I have no doubt a huge portion just needed help and had to self medicate. It is disgusting.

But i can relate, when you are in so much pain you are a hair away from passing out death is the least of your concerns, youd rather just be out of pain and any risk of death is worth that for even a short period.

Thankfully i have managed to reduce my swelling enough with a keto diet that the pain is manageable off of pain killers again. I stopped taking them yesterday and am not very susceptible to addiction so ill likely be fine.

But with that said the risk was very real and had i needed it for longer than I did chances are I would be struggling through a much more severe withdraw.

@y6nH why wont they "let" you? i mean i would think if you are willing to pay for the cost they shouldnt really care either way.

@bowner1012 While i am very sympathetic to the opiate epidemic and do agree we need to solve it, the problem is the current approach makes it much much worse, let me relay my own expiernce to tell you why.

I recently had a very severe disc herniation. Much of the time i cant make it even one step away from my bed. I needed some sort of pain killer to help until it could be resolved, i also tried all the alternatives first, NSAID, steroids, etc. NSAID did almost nothing for the extreme pain and steroids helped a lot but the second i was off them I was worse then when I tarted. I needed some sort of pain meds or else my life felt like constant and literal physical torture.

So I approached my doctor of 5 years, he knew well that I have never asked for any scheduled drug of any kind. In fact the few times he offered adderall i refused (for my ADHD). He flat out refused me any pain meds because he said i had to pass a drug test to get them, well i live in holland and only stopped by america to pick something up and got stuck there. I told him "I would pass on all drugs but marijuana, but it was legal where i smoked it". Hearing that he refused me any medication and told me he could not since i couldn't pass a drug test.

Later in dire pain i called the office and begged and pleaded in tears. On the stop he dropped me as a patient all together and told me i could not be seen by him again (in the middle of a major injury). I then went on to call at least 20 doctors to get help and they all said under no circumstances would a new patient be prescribed a controlled substance. Now keep in mind i had an MRI and an X-ray to confirm the severity of my condition.

Now all i really needed or wanted was Tylenol II (basically Acetaminophen _ codeine). While it is an opiate it is the absolute weakest form of opiate you can get. Since I was refused, and since i will not accept others abusing me or telling me what i can or cant do with my own body, my only solution was to scavenge drugs. I called every drug addict and family member i knew to try to get some pain killers to help. I finally got a nice collection together but since all drug users want are the strong things like morphine, oxycodon and hydrocodone all i had was a pile of stuff 10x - 100x stronger and more addictive than i needed. I did manage to get 4 codeine pills but they only last 4 hours each so that only held me over for a day.

In the end due to a pathetic attempt to address the drug epidemic they forced a non-addicted suffering patient to take drugs far riskier and more addictive than he needed and drastically increased my risk of addiction, all in the ironically vain attempt to prevent my addiction.

Long story short it NEVER pays to dictate what people can do with their own body, even drugs. Provide advice and support and leave the power with the individual.

@ayy @nerthos @dantheclamman

So considering how this particular statistic is not the least bit relevant to the conversation, and actually deceptively cherry-picked to prove a point (rather than using data to draw a conclusion as people SHOULD do), I have given some thought to how the statistic could be measured to actually be meaningful.

Since i am both trained and take significant precautions, my gun is locked up if anyone else is staying in my home with me, finger never on the trigger, I practice my aim, etc, well we need stats to represent that if we want to be fair about MY gun. For that matter to make any assertion about ANY gun when owned by a **responsible** gun owner.

So the real question becomes. What is the percentage chance of a random person who has no gun dying or being injured in a home break in. Then as your sample randomly select individuals who are highly trained and are aware of and practice all the proper safety procedures and recommendations both during an encounter and outside of it. Of that sample group what is the percentage of people in that group who die in a home invasion or are injured.

Finally normalize the results against the two groups such that if the percentage is lower among the trained gun users than it is a strong indication guns are a responsible safety measure for break-ins. If the percentage is higher then it is not.

Anything short of this is just cherry picked propaganda to try to win an argument rather than the search of the truth. I myself have never seen a study such as that, so I use my expiernce to make the call. But if and when someone can provide one then I will use that data to adjust my opinion on the matter.

I have to wonder however if, now that dan was made aware of his error if he will continue to share the statistic or if he will add these considerations and seek out stats so he can be more factually accurate in his assertions in the future. My guess would be the goal is to convince people of something, not to reach the truth, just as it is for most people with an agenda (no offense Dan, everyone does it).

@arteteco @absolutus @Surasanji @hashtaggrammar

I was thinking about our 1000 character limit rule regarding required CW.

I want to propose an exception to this rule. It should only apply to original posts. Replies should be exempt of this rule (or at least have a much higher limit like 3,000).

The reason for this is replies do not show in federated timeline, local timeline, or even home for anyone except the person specifically being replied to. Therefore the consequence of "blowing up" the timeline of bystanders no longer applies and thus the exception should be reasonable.

Thoughts?

@y6nH I havent tried, but im sure there must be a way. There data is surely there to make it possible. The question isnt if it is possible the question is just how much hacking you'd have to do in order to make it happen.

@Gargron

BUG I just noticed...

I went to view my own profile by clicking on it while logged in. It showed my posts but only two pinned toots were shown out of the 4 i had set (though all the other posts that arent pinned showed after it as normal).

I hit the refresh button and when it refreshed all toots displayed as usual. this is the first time i ever saw this happen.

Technically we still have a chief of staff, he doesn't step down until jan 1st, at which point he may already have a replacement lined up. Also we most absolutely have an attorney general, Jeff sessions stepped down and was replaced by Matt Whitaker.

With that said despite the misleading and inaccurate statements in this meme it does convey a very valid point, that being, trump is a terrible leader and does not take the advice of others. He thinks he knows it all while knowing nothing and this arrogance combined with stupidity is the disease and everyone resigning is the symptom

Seriously lets do this...

Go home medicine bottle, you're drunk.

(also titled: a representation of the incompetency of american doctors, cant wait to get back to the Netherlands, I should have never stopped back here).

@dantheclamman
Again the odds of some random person, including the vast majority of idiots, picked from the population and thuis having a high chance of negative effects almost never applies to individuals outside of the mean in terms of intelligence, behaviors, training, etc.

You simply cant take a population wide average and think it holds any relevance to someone who does not have qualities that would cause them to fall within the mean.

@ayy @nerthos

@ayy
They were refering to the statistics. Obviously the scenario described by the statistics include the situation described since it is ALL homicides.

@nerthos @dantheclamman

@ayy
**I** never said a risk of an accident either. Your risk of being the victim of a homicide obviously depends on how you handle the situation, thats the point. Just because some random schmuck from the population may use a gun in such a way as to increase their risk of an accident does not mean that I would.

The only way the statistics would apply to **my** odds is if the statistics were drawn from people who specifically would react and behave as I would.

@dantheclamman