I think this is true and until we have easily accessible and free mental health services it is the next best option and far more likely to do good than harm.
I keep seeing commentary saying that we shouldn't use the ADF for disaster relief.
We have an organisation full of people with exactly the skills and organisation required that we maintain at great expense and barely use. Can someone give me a sensible explanation why it's not a good idea to use them for disaster response.
On a second note I know for a fact that small scale politics and wasteful spending are endemic in volunteer emergency services. I'm not sure what reform is needed but something certainly is. I'm about to re-enter a volunteer fire brigade for the first time in years so I'm sure I'll be full of opinions in a few months.
Modern guns a extremely precisely engineered devices that are incredibly easy to use, for better or worse. I know modern sporting bows are also but it's no contest in my opinion.
I've shot both, bows as a complete amateur and relatively competent with a rifle. There is no question that a modern gun is way easier to pick up as an amateur and hit what you want to hit and I cannot possibly believe there are anything other than extremely niche uses where a bow is superior.
The first and most important is that most people who have tried to edit Wikipedia have their first edit reverted, usually with good reason, because they don't understand the procedures and policies. Unfortunately these procedures and policies are what maintains high quality.
Related is news articles and blogs about edit wars and less frequently that an article or group of articles is genuinely captured by one volunteer who will protect their own little fiefdoms and not allow anyone else to edit them. This happens but it's pretty uncommon and the structure of Wikipedia means that it only really stands on fairly obscure articles.
It's also true that Wikipedia does have an inherent western liberal bias. It's subtle but it is there and results from the fact that for the majority of Wikipedia editors western liberalism is the water they swim in. Any claim that is counter to this ideology needs to be cited up the wazoo whereas claims that are confidant with it will often slide without citation. Those with a strong attachment to an alternative ideology often find it infuriating.
Finally there are individuals who would rather have the arbiter of truth be the powerful rather than a relatively democratic institution.
All that said Wikipedia is a remarkable achievement and an invaluable part of the internet.
It obviously depends a lot on your relationship with them but what people usually need at times like this is to know you care, that they aren't alone, and that you are there to help if needed.
It's also important to give them the option to opt out of anything you offer and allow them space.
Something like 'I know this must be a really hard time for you, you've been in my thoughts. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help you out or even just talk' then leave it at that unless they want to talk or need help. It acknowledges their grief, offers help, but crucially doesn't make an obligation for them.
First off, I'm a huge housing first advocate and it is completely uncontroversial that for a wide range of outcomes housing first policies are vastly superior not to mention just that it is morally correct.
Whether unsuitable housing/homelessness is directly implicated in suicidality is an interesting question so I did a little bit of digging.
One study from Taiwan showed a relationship between housing affordability and suicidality but the effect is only present when using one measure of affordability and disappears when measuring affordability in other ways suggesting it may not be a real effect.
Another, older, study from the EU found that lack of affordable housing had no impact on suicidality but the driving factor in the increase in suicide during the great recession was job loss.
You could interpret this evidence as mixed but IMO unless more convincing evidence comes out I would have to say that at a societal level it isn't a big factor.
The findings revealed that higher housing rental index values were associated with increased suicide rates in young and middle-aged adults compared to the elderly population, regardless of sex. However, this association was not observed with the other two housing-price-related indexes (i.e. housing price index and housing price to income ratio).
BACKGROUND During the 2007-11 recessions in Europe, suicide increases were concentrated in men. Substantial differences across countries and over time remain unexplained. We investigated whether increases in unaffordable housing, household indebtedness or job loss can account for these population differences, as well as potential mitigating effects of alternative forms of social protection.
And
RESULTS Changes in levels of unaffordable housing had no effect on suicide rates (P = 0.32); in contrast, male suicide increases were significantly associated with each percentage point rise in male unemployment, by 0.94% (95% CI: 0.51-1.36%), and indebtedness, by 0.54% (95% CI: 0.02-1.06%).
Compared to baseline, there was an overall trend of decreased past-month suicidal ideation (estimate = –.57, SE = .05, P < 0.001), with no effect of treatment group (i.e., HF vs. TAU; estimate = –.04, SE = .06, P = 0.51). Furthermore, there was no effect of treatment status (estimate = –.10, SE = .16, P = 0.52) on prevalence of suicide attempts (HF = 11.9%, TAU = 10.5%) during the 2-year follow-up period.
Okay, so the first thing to recognise is that terminology in left wing theory can be super confusing and the same words can be used to mean different things at different times or in different places, or sometimes in the same place at the same time.
Communism however in modern usage is fairly straightforward as it is used almost exclusively as it is defined in conventional Marxist doctrine(and yes there are many branches of Marxism).
That said big C Communism means a state of being that is achieved as the end point of societal evolution where there is no state, the means of production is controlled by the community and the needs of all are met.
In conventional Marxist thought the way of achieving this is through a transitional stage of socialism where the means of production is controlled by a "Vanguard" state. Many states in history have claimed to be communist in ideology(they are working towards this stateless utopia) but none have claimed to have achieved communism, only to be in the process of transitioning to it.
To all the leftist theory heads out there, don't at me, I know this is a huge oversimplification, it is deliberate for someone who is obviously new to this.
Not the question asked, but relevant: When each individual enterprise considers its own transport needs, road transport is usually cheaper. However, when looking at the collective needs of an entire economy, rail is usually a way more efficient and cost-effective option.
Private rail companies will only invest where there are epic amounts of cargo or passengers to move, which when left to the private sector leads to massive under investment and over-reliance on road transport. There is no coherent argument against having extensive government investment in rail.
I'm not aware of any that are acid, usually they're strong alkaline, NaOH or KOH which is extremely corrosive, but there are some that are enzymatic that are supposed to break down organic material, not very well in my experience.
The Socratic method is used extensively in medical training to the point that I think most doctors wouldn't think of it as the Socratic method but rather just as the way you speak to students and trainees.
I can't imagine how it could work in a lecture hall, it's best used one on one or at most small groups.
Someone told this to workers at a cafe I go to occasionally. They don't usually have a particularly long wait which makes it seem insincere and a little ridiculous.
This should be printed and mailed to every registered voter. Thankyou