Science news of the day thread.

[Sean Hayden]

—facts!

[pErvinalia]

Which Country Is Most Narcissistic? Global Study Finds Surprises — Germany Tops List, U.S. Does Not

Accusations of rampant narcissism are common today, and some worry the word is losing its meaning. But a large cross-cultural study suggests narcissistic traits—characterized by low empathy, inflated self-regard, attention-seeking, and competitiveness—are widespread and follow consistent demographic patterns around the world.

Large-Scale, Cross-Cultural Analysis

A team of researchers analyzed responses from more than 45,000 participants across 53 countries to measure grandiose narcissism, the form marked by self-promotion, status-seeking, and interpersonal dominance. Their results were published in the journal Self and Identity and challenged several common assumptions about where narcissism is most prevalent.

https://www.crbcnews.com/articles/6946a ... b8f453e054

Isn't Trump of German heritage?

[Svartalf]

—meh, you can throw a stone and hit three other countries. Even with my superior ‘merican throwing arm I’d just barely hit Baton Rouge…

Is that because bayou folk can't think of other ways than theirs, or because your stone is so big it could not even reach Fla?

[Svartalf]

Which Country Is Most Narcissistic? Global Study Finds Surprises — Germany Tops List, U.S. Does Not

Accusations of rampant narcissism are common today, and some worry the word is losing its meaning. But a large cross-cultural study suggests narcissistic traits—characterized by low empathy, inflated self-regard, attention-seeking, and competitiveness—are widespread and follow consistent demographic patterns around the world.

Large-Scale, Cross-Cultural Analysis

A team of researchers analyzed responses from more than 45,000 participants across 53 countries to measure grandiose narcissism, the form marked by self-promotion, status-seeking, and interpersonal dominance. Their results were published in the journal Self and Identity and challenged several common assumptions about where narcissism is most prevalent.

https://www.crbcnews.com/articles/6946a ... b8f453e054

Most Americans are nice people. Pity about the other 49%

[Svartalf]

Which Country Is Most Narcissistic? Global Study Finds Surprises — Germany Tops List, U.S. Does Not

Accusations of rampant narcissism are common today, and some worry the word is losing its meaning. But a large cross-cultural study suggests narcissistic traits—characterized by low empathy, inflated self-regard, attention-seeking, and competitiveness—are widespread and follow consistent demographic patterns around the world.

Large-Scale, Cross-Cultural Analysis

A team of researchers analyzed responses from more than 45,000 participants across 53 countries to measure grandiose narcissism, the form marked by self-promotion, status-seeking, and interpersonal dominance. Their results were published in the journal Self and Identity and challenged several common assumptions about where narcissism is most prevalent.

https://www.crbcnews.com/articles/6946a ... b8f453e054

Isn't Trump of German heritage?

That's a low blow, odds are his ancestors were cast out of Europe because they were so dishonest and stupid they broke every standard and the local powers that be thought that executing them would have the corpse rotting the whole land along with itself.

[L'Emmerdeur]

While there are plenty of reasons a tipple might prove salutary (I think that Joyce has the grandfather in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man say as much) the fact is that alcohol is a mild poison. Just to be clear I'm in no way opposed to drinking per se and enjoy a taste or few myself. I think it's better to be well informed regarding the effects. The current administration in the US--lying, greedy fucks that they are--aren't interested in that sort of thing though. Not when there's an industry that has a stake in the game.

'Dr. Oz claims there’s no data to support reducing alcohol consumption. That’s not true.'

How much alcohol should you drink? The US government now vaguely, in effect, says just don’t drink too much. And what qualifies as too much? Well, that’s up to you.

As part of the new federal dietary guidelines released this week, the Trump administration eliminated the previous specific recommended limits on alcohol consumption — two drinks or less per day for men and one drink for women. Now, the new guidelines say “consume less alcohol for better health. (It maintained the prior guidance discouraging a few certain groups — pregnant women and people who have a history of alcohol abuse — from drinking at all.) It’s a major change that defies a growing public health consensus that people should drink as little alcohol as possible, because no amount of drinking is actually safe.

To justify the change, Dr. Mehmet Oz, who oversees the Medicare and Medicaid programs, argued that there was no scientific evidence to justify specific limits on drinking alcohol. “So there is alcohol in these dietary guidelines, but the implication is, don’t have it for breakfast,” he said during the announcement of the new guidelines.

“The general move away from two glasses for men, one glass for women — there was never really good data to support that quantity of alcohol consumption,” he added.

That’s not true.

There is such data — evidence commissioned by the federal government that the Trump administration itself tried to bury ahead of the dietary guidelines’ release, as Vox reported a few months ago. But instead, Oz and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have handed the alcohol industry a long-sought win in its battle against public health critics.

[Svartalf]

is dr oz a frumpian appointee? what does the AMA think of a member in a position of responsibility saying such things?

and gosh, yeah, I like a drink from time to time, used to be I drank more often, and there was a time I was actively trying to dig my grave a glass at a time (granted, that was when I worked, and I absolutely needed to be sloshed to even be able to enter the office) but I've gotten better since, and greatly thank the liver's regenerative ability.
but denying that alcohol has bad side effects and can be dangerous to health in the long run, or even a shorter one if you drink really too much, that's lying, and doctors should never lie about such things.

[Brian Peacock]

Insobriety is almost a religion here. Because of the general acceptability of alcohol -- which I'm not opposed to per se -- and as a handy taxable revenue stream, govts rarely talk about it as a highly addictive substance. If that isn't mentioned then any public debate about the potential health consequences of alcohol is at best incomplete, and at worse misleading.

The issue with alcohol, along with quite a few other psychoactive compounds, is not that they intoxicate the user very shortly after consumption (which is why we take them, duur!), but that frequency and level of use quickly combine to massively increases the risk of addiction. Imagine if we applied Dr Oz's approach to other psychoactive compounds, talking about ketamine or crack-cocaine in terms of consumption and ignoring their addictiveness. Now imagine if the govt framed the public debate around those kind of compounds in Dr Oz's terms: "There's no good data on to support the current health advice on ketamine and crack-cocaine. Just don't have them for breakfast."

This administration needs to seek medical treatment for its almost anaphylactic aversion to facts.

[JimC]

I'll consider how to respond after another G & T...