Regarding Personal Risk

Hi, lovelies. Let's talk about a statistical shorthand that I find very useful in my life for assessing personal risk.

An American's chances of dying in a car accident is about 1/10,000. This is a statistic on a human scale. It's a kind of death I can visualize, and while it's unlikely, it's likely enough that I moderate my driving behaviour to mitigate my risk. So I don't text and drive, and I drive defensively, but I don't consider driving to be a high enough risk to justify not ever driving anywhere. It's a risk I accept as a part of my life

Relatively speaking, I'm much more likely (<100x) to die of heart disease, and much less likely (<.001x) to die in a mass shooting. Heart disease is a big risk, and I change my behaviour every day to avoid it: diet, exercise, lifestyle. A terror shooting is a negligible risk, so I live my life exactly as I otherwise would.

I'm already a very risk-tolerant person, so I can tolerate much, much greater risks than driving, but basically every person in the US has accepted the risk of driving as a part of their life.

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So, let's apply this. You, person reading this, have accepted a risk of death of about 1/10,000 so that you can go to work, or the grocery store, or to hang out with people.

Now, think of something you're afraid of. Is your risk from that thing less than your risk of death while driving your car?

If it's lower, how much lower? Is it worth changing your routines? Is it worth changing laws? It is worth worrying about at all?

And here's one of the most crucial questions: If the risk can be mitigated to reduce your RELATIVE risk (i.e. how risky the thing was with the initial condition versus how risky it is with the new condition), does the ABSOLUTE risk change significantly when the mitigating conditions are implemented?

IF NOT, is it worth trying to mitigate the risk?

We have finite time and resources. If we cal allocate those resources to risks we CAN mitigate and set aside things we can't, we'll be both safer and more effective.

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HANDY EXAMPLES:

- The relative risk of being killed by a refugee is obviously smaller when there's no refugees, but your ABSOLUTE risk barely changes (it's pointless to calculate, because in the US your current absolute known risk is essentially zero, since no one's been killed by a refugee in a long-ass time).

- Getting a yearly mammogram in your thirties with no family history of cancer might lower your relative risk of death by cancer (by a couple percentage points), but barely touches your absolute risk (.03% chance of death versus .04% or so, given my very rough ballparks). So getting a mammogram every year when you're thirty is essentially useless in increasing your chance of survival but does increase risks of false positives/ unnecessary biopsies and treatment, which are actually MORE likely to be dangerous in this age range.

- Current models suggest the ocean levels will be around 2-3 m higher in 2100. If we cut all emissions to 0, this will drop to a 10% chance. Obviously we will NOT be able to do that, so we got a coin flip as to whether or not we'll be able to either knock emissions fast enough or find some other magic pill (with currently unknown or unplanned technology) to keep this from happening. So the absolute risk of most of our costal cities being destroyed by the end of the century (and droughts, and massive displacement, and resource wars, and destruction of cropland, and large parts of the world rendered uninhabitable) is about 100%, but relatively speaking, if we can prevent that by any means necessary we can drop the absolute risk to ANYTHING LESS THAN 100% ARE YOU PEOPLE EVEN PAYING ATTENTION THIS IS FUCKING CALAMITOUS AND YOU ARE DOING NOTHING THIS WILL AND ALREADY DOES AFFECT EVERY LIVING HUMAN ON THE PLANET INCLUDING YOU, PERSON READING THIS, YOU WILL PERSONALLY SUFFER AND MAYBE DIE BECAUSE OF THIS AND SO WILL EVERYONE YOU LOVE

- Walking around for a few minutes every hour and working out a little every week is basically the best thing you can do for your health; it can reduce your relative risk of dying of BASICALLY ANYTHING by about 30%, which, for our big killers like heart disease, can mean up to a 20% ABSOLUTE reduction.

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TL;DR read my whole post, mofo, it's got a really useful risk benchmark and some analysis, go read it and stop being lazy

Regarding the Making of a Mass Shooter

It was just over a year ago I wrote about Pulse and some subsequent but unrelated shootings, and it's that time again, I guess.

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I've read about thousands of terrorist attacks, lone wolf attacks, attacks against former/current partners, and revenge attacks over the last 15 years of my life, and they all run together. We know the shape of this thing. We argue about WHY, but a lot of times I think we lose that question under the deluge of factors involved in WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, HOW.

A lot of attacks have come from a lot of disparate ideologies in the last few months, and that's because while ideology is relevant to the way a killer chooses their victims, and sometimes to the method by which they choose to kill, it is fundamentally irrelevant to the act of violence itself.

Looking up news articles this morning I found an unrelated shooting from 2009 which apparently happened just up the street from my current office. From the article: "He had written about contemplating carrying out a shooting, which he referred to as the "exit plan", while also revealing that he "chickened out" of carrying out such a shooting earlier in the year."

The dude in question was lonely and blamed women for his plight, but that's not why he shot people.

Self-radicalization, we call it. Isolation plus fringe ideas fed to us by groups we admire plus a sense of shame, humiliation, or resentment against a group that has stolen something you think is yours.

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The process goes like this:

You are lonely and deeply unhappy. You are almost certainly a man, but maybe a boy, and you have few or no close friends (other than perhaps a partner or former partner)

A group tells you, or you hear, directly or indirectly, that someone else is to blame for your misery

They tell you that some else stole something that was rightfully yours: work, opportunities, happiness, love, pride, wealth, power

They tell you that someone else has humiliated you by doing so

You listen

You isolate yourself further

You create your own mental or physical manifesto to consolidate your problems into chains of of causal relationships

Your views become fringe enough that you fear sharing them with others. If there are groups that shares your views, this drives you closer to them. If not, you withdraw further into yourself

You become even lonelier

You toy with the idea of fighting back. You make plans, vague or concrete

Sometimes something happens that makes you decide you have nothing else worth living for. Sometimes the isolation and misery is enough to lead you to that conclusion

You seek out the people who are, in your eyes, the source of the problem

You need to restore your pride by taking something from them, by showing them you're powerful. You won't accept their insult any longer

You have nothing left to lose, anyway

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The people shot this morning were almost incidental targets, selected based on the killers' specific ideologies and situations, which are broadly relevant. But while Pulse was Homophobic Radical Islam, Portland was White Supremacy/Islamophobia, this morning was Anti-Trump and GOP, Collier Township guy was Misogyny, etc., that's only WHO gets targeted, not WHY.

The same kinda thing goes with method of attack and existing societal archetypes: gun laws, security, access to weapons, historical precedent for weapons used, etc. That addresses the HOW and WHERE and WHEN.

Don't get me wrong: these are ALL vital questions, and need to be answered in order to create a path to prevention or deterrence.

If there's a lot of rising White Supremacy, expect an uptick in violence against POC, and expect reciprocal acts of violence that target White Supremacists. Track hate groups. Find where extremists hang out online.

In places without guns, expect people to use knives or trucks or bombs, and plan accordingly. In places with guns, find better ways to get them out of the hands of those with prior histories of violence.

Resist the tropes that glorify murder, the tropes that force men into stereotypical roles, the tropes that increase our tribalism.

Keep in mind other factors that correlate with violence and help mitigate those conditions: poverty and deprivation, race/class/gender/etc. inequality, longstanding social/tribal/sectarian tension, physical and mental health access, media consumption, political climate, prevalence of lead in the environment, etc.

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All of these are incredibly important. But this pattern listed above is generally the difference between the people who DO kill people and the ones who DON'T.

Regarding the Transactional Sex of Poverty

Some thoughts about sex, poverty, and birth control:

I've heard people say, "well, if you can't afford birth control, don't have sex" (which is its own kettle of value-judgement fish but whatev, I'll deal with that later), but it's not that simple, especially for poor women.

A lot of sex is transactional in nature. It's not used in those words very much, and usually only to refer to prostitution, but it also means the millions of shades of transaction, reciprocity, and coercion that we all have in our lives and relationships.

What if you're a single parent, and your new partner is willing to help you pay for your kids, but doesn't want a non-sexual relationship? Sex might be the currency you use to procure stability for your kids.

What if your partner is abusive? Sex might be a way to keep them appeased for your own physical of mental safety.

What if you're facing probable sexual assault? It's often much safer to not fight back so as not to risk escalating the situation and putting yourself at greater risk.

What if you have a loving, caring partner, and you don't have a lot of money or free time but you want to show appreciation and share intimacy? This kind of sex is also transactional. Transactional isn't always bad; it can simply mean there's a give and take, and all relationships have this on some level.
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The transactional nature of sex means that sex often is a tool that poor and less-powerful women without access to birth control have to use to try and reach physical and psychological goals.

Poverty is the biggest factor in a population's unplanned pregnancy rate, followed by education and access to affordable birth control. Reducing poverty gives women more options and lets women choose whether or not to have sex. Better access to birth control and better education means that both those who choose to have sex and those who resort to sex as a tool are able to be safer, and are less likely to suffer negative outcomes.

Regarding laws that force women to get partner's consent for abortion

"I believe one of the breakdowns in our society is that we have excluded the man out of all of these types of decisions,” he said. “I understand that they feel like that is their body,” he said of women. “I feel like it is a separate — what I call them is, is you’re a ‘host.’ And you know when you enter into a relationship you’re going to be that host and so, you know, if you pre-know that then take all precautions and don’t get pregnant,” he explained. “So that’s where I’m at. I’m like, hey, your body is your body and be responsible with it. But after you’re irresponsible then don’t claim, well, I can just go and do this with another body, when you’re the host and you invited that in.”

TURNS OUT IT'S STILL MY BODY, EVEN IF SOMETHING ELSE IS ATTACHED TO IT.

This is always couched in terms of a woman's choice because a fetus is literally inside her body, taking nutrients, squishin' organs. The man in this scenario is taking no risks with pregnancy. He won't be missing work. He won't suffer hemorrhaging if something goes wrong. His kidneys are fine. His arches don't fall. His legs don't swell. He doesn't have to either push a baby out of his vagina or have it cut from his womb.

We don't even take organs from a dead person if they haven't consented to it, because bodily autonomy is that integral to the concept of human rights.

Let's say my best friend is hurt and, to save their life, I offer to graft myself to their body. I give my nutrients, my tissues, my energy to my friend through an umbilical. I'm weaker, hungrier, at higher risk for a few medical conditions, but I've chosen to take this on for my friend.

Now let's say I don't want to do it anymore, for any reason at all. I CANNOT be forced to continue using my body as a lifeline, even if cutting that umbilical will instantly end my friend's life.

Whether or not it's ethical for me to separate myself from my friend, it's my right as a person with a body. It would be morally wrong to force me to give up my bodily autonomy, even to save another's life, even to sustain another's life that already depends on me. Even more obvious would be a case in which I did not want this graft, but it was done either against my will or despite my efforts to prevent it.

And this is my right, even if it ends the life of my hypothetical dying friend, who is an adult human with adult human rights.

And now you're telling me I have to give up those same rights for the sake of a cell-blob that I didn't ask for because a man says so?

No.

I will not.

LETTER - Religious Freedom Amendment to the Defense Budget

I urge you not to include this amendment in the National Defense Authorization Act.

While I understand the rights of any American to conscientiously object, the language used - "any religious corporation, religious 5 association, religious educational institution, or religious 6 society that is a recipient of or offeror for a Federal Government contract, subcontract, grant, purchase order, or 8 cooperative agreement" - is very broad, and not limited to the Defense Department, allowing the possibility of considerable misuse.

I'm an American citizen, raised by a hard-working Evangelical family in Wisconsin. I am a former missionary and religious advocate and I understand the complexities of working within and around religious spaces. But I am also a gay woman, and, as such, I would be vulnerable to discrimination by any Federally-funded group that can claim some religious affiliation. I'm an average working American, and I could not afford to dispute the loss of a contract for which I was otherwise perfectly qualified. I would argue that the effect I would feel, as a employee denied work, is disproportionate to the discomfort of a Federally-funded employer who is morally opposed to homosexuality on religious grounds.

Certainly there should be and must be religious exceptions to discrimination laws, such as a military chaplain seeking religious supplies, and there must be the option, wherever it is appropriate and not harmful to others, of religious objection. But I argue that this would be harmful to many hardworking Americans, who might find themselves ineligible for work through an employer's subjective and often arbitrary beliefs about the immutable characteristic of those workers' bodies, a religion those workers follow (as fervently as their objectors), or a lifestyle decision those workers have the legal right to pursue (such as the gender of their spouse or the medications they choose to take).

As with many common-sense laws, the laws' weakness is that, while perhaps effective when exercised in the way it was intended, it has long-range unintended consequences that could potentially harm the employment of thousands of Americans in ways that are potentially very hard for an individual to contest. While the federal government has resources available to argue that they should, in a particular instance, be allowed to disregard certain discrimination laws (as in the case of the hypothetical chaplain), those discriminated against generally have little recourse.

Please do not include this amendment, which is potentially broad and damaging, and instead find a way to argue cases where and when they are needed without giving carte blanche to anyone claiming religious affiliation to discriminate against potential employees.

Regarding Crisis Pregnancy Centers

GOP and pro-life friends: let's talk about Planned Parenthood and Christian crisis pregnancy centers/women's clinics.

CW: Rape aftermath

"Just replace PP with pro-life women's clinics."

That's the #1 alternative I hear whenever defunding PP is on the table, which is every waking second of every day. First, please see my post on what "defunding PP" actually means, then read along with my story about how a pro-life women's clinic could have helped ruin my life.

When I was a kid, I used to do administrative busywork for the Pro-life office that's now called CareNet. Maggot and I would file papers and glue paper hearts together, so the abstinence educators could show how premarital sex damages people. It seems a little surreal now, but thankfully my family wasn't out waving around signs with dismembered fetuses on, screaming at the baby-killers. Office work was pretty innocuous, comparatively.

Fast forward twenty years, and I'm huddled at the police station late on a Monday morning, shivering in my work jeans and huge flannel shirt. I knew my rapist, we'd been good friends in the past, I wasn't sure if I wanted cops to go pick him up in a cop car. It had only been about 40 minute, and I was still reeling. The officer was kind, but dismissive. He told me if I didn't let them go pick this kid up now, I had no legal action I could pursue (which was, it turns out, TOTALLY FALSE). He only mentioned the SANE nurse obliquely, as an offhand that I couldn't get a rape kit done unless I filed a report right then (also false), and sent me to get STI testing at a women's clinic nearby, instead.

So I didn't know what to do. I was in shock, I had no idea what my options were, I didn't even know what a rape kit was, so what could I do? I drove myself to the clinic.

I got there, in tears, and babbled my story to the women there. But the women's long hair and denim skirts should have tipped me off: this wasn't a women's health clinic at all, despite the name on the building. It was just...I dunno? A center? They directed me to CareNet. One of them handed me a tract.

"No thank you," I said, as politely as possible. A tract? That was the last thing I needed: a tangible reminder of how useless this journey had been so far.

So I drove to CareNet, and I was calm, by then. I'd never been in the new building, but I knew these people once. Maybe they would help me. I was pretty sure they had actual health services.

The ladies were nice, and totally at a loss. They gave me water, and then made me sit through their entire abstinence presentation, including the tired, debunked correlation =/= causation relationships between, say, abortion and breast cancer or depression. They warned me about AIDS. They showed me big graphic printouts of STIs.

Let me remind you.

I was in the clothes I'd been raped in.

I hadn't changed or showered; I knew that much of the post-rape process.

It had now been about 3 hours and I'd just been raped by someone I thought I knew and I was waiting for STI testing and I was BEING SHOWN PICTURES OF STIs. How...How fucking tone-deaf can you be? How thoughtless? Yes, tell me how sex is bad, I was just RAPED, I think I fucking KNOW.

At one point, the woman stopped the presentation. "If you got pregnant from this, what would you do?"

"I'm on the pill, so I hope it's not an issue. If it were my boyfriend's? I dunno. I'm not in a position to make that call right now. But if it was from my rapist? I'd get an abortion in a heartbeat."

She looked horrified. "It's not the baby's fault," she said, angrily.

"It's not my fucking fault, either," I shot back. "He's already ruined enough."

And I sat there, shivering, because I didn't know what else to do, and because I thought these ladies had some way of helping me. They told me they had to do this presentation, and so I let them do the presentation, and finally, an hour and a half after I got there, it was finally over.

I asked about the STI testing.

"Well, we have a nurse-practitioner who comes in once a week, but she's not in for a few days. I guess we could collect a sample? She could test it when she's in this week?"

And that was it. THAT was the service they offered me. That's what they made me wait hours for. I wanted to scream, to cry, to die. Instead I gave them the sample (urine only; they couldn't do a blood test) and they sent me home. I threw my clothes in the trash. I left class early Tuesday and didn't go back all week. My boyfriend/roomate dumped me. I drank and drank and drank.

It was four days before I told anyone else.

That's when I found out about the SANE nurse. That's when I found out the piss test I'd done had done NOTHING for me, and of course it wouldn't have: 3 hours isn't enough time for anything to show in up a sample.

Here's what was supposed to happen:

Go to the SANE nurse, get a rape kit done, turn over my clothes to evidence. They'd give me prophylaxis for anything I might have been exposed to. They'd file a report themselves.

By the time I got to the hospital it had been 4 days, and I had obviously showered. The injuries had healed. The prophylaxis should have been administered; by Friday it was too late for most of the preventative meds to even be effective. I just had to hope that my rapist hadn't transmitted anything nasty.

My sister, bless her, took my keys, went to my house, and dug my clothes out of the trash. They're still in evidence somewhere. I remember when I was desperately poor I considered taking them back, because I needed work pants. That's a fun memory.

But the failure of the pro-life clinics was the icing on the betrayal cake. They had failed me in every conceivable way. They gave me no information. They gave me no care. They gave me no prophylaxis. They gave me one test that was worthless, anyway. They made me suffer the indignity of a fearmongering, scientifically-inaccurate presentation designed to make me feel shame for sex and fear for its consequences when I was in no position to defend myself against them. They didn't even have the capability to provide care, and this is the biggest pro-life clinic in Madison, which is presumably better staffed and equipped than most elsewhere in the state.

I trusted these people to help me. They did not, and their misinformation was worse than if I'd just gone home and googled "sti testing Madison."

"Why didn't you go to Planed Parenthood?" my sister asked me. "You go there for birth control anyway. They even have rape counselors. They'd have sent you straight to the SANE nurse or the RCC."

"I don't know; I panicked, I thought the cop knew what he was talking about, I trusted them, I thought they could help me."

3 months later, I went to a local non-profit and got my first HIV test. Clean. 6 months later, I went to PP and got a full round of STI testing. Their sliding pay scale (reimbursed with tax money! This is what that "funding PP is for!) meant I could get tested for free: urine and blood tests. I was clean.

I was lucky.

If I'd caught something dangerous from my rapist or been more damaged than I was, I'd be screwed. The incompetence of the pro-life clinics would have led to serious illness or complications.

So when people say "Pro-life clinics can provide the same services as PP," I'm here to tell you they absolutely cannot. They are NOT medical providers. Most of them are equipped with, at most, a single ultrasound machine. They are not staffed by medical personnel. They don't offer medical services. They can't give referrals. They provide no actual medical information for pregnant women. They use coercive tactics and inaccurate information to try and bully desperate women into making the choice that the clinic wants them to make. They can't do jack shit to help in an actual medical emergency.

Planned Parenthood is a MEDICAL PROVIDER, which is currently able, thanks to reimbursement, to provide low-or-no-cost medical care (NOT ABORTIONS THAT'S ILLEGAL SHUT UP IN ADVANCE) to low-income women like I was back then. I've been going to Planned Parenthood for about a decade: first for birth control and pelvic exams, then, after my rape, for periodic STI testing, now as a volunteer.

They staff is medically-trained. They're incredibly helpful and professional. They have a ton of information. They are an equipped and staffed medical facility. They provide comprehensive prenatal care and checkups for women who are or want to become pregnant. They give referrals. They do cancer screenings. They do all this despite threats to their life, political pressure, budget cuts.

And if you let that be taken away, there is nothing to take its place.

Three pleas pre-election: part 3

Final plea: Pro-life voters.

Yeah, this is a tough one. I don't envy y'all your choice; I truly don't. Any good and loving Christian is going to be very conflicted about Trump right now: on the one hand, Clinton will pick one and maybe two Supreme Court justices. On the other hand, Trump is a probably a child rapist and cruel and hateful and selfish and shortsighted and petty and thin-skinned and a pathological liar and monstrous in every definable way, but he claims he'll nominate pro-life judges.

Ok. Look. He's a LIAR, to the point where he flatly denies saying things he's just finished saying. He's consistently been pro-choice, up to "partial birth abortion" (which doesn't exist, by the way. No abortion provider in the country will perform that procedure on a live fetus. You can ask them!), and why not? Abortion on demand is convenient for a man who only cares about women inasmuch as he can use them as sexual playthings and brags about being an absent father. He was asked in the third debate if he was pro-life himself, and he waffled, saying he'd nominate pro-life judges.

But he won't. He has no reason whatsoever to keep his promises. He lies about everything else; why do you think he'll tell the truth about this? The Republican elite haven't been able to keep him in line so far, and once he's the Executive branch he'll have no reason to pretend to care about Christian morality, and he clearly doesn't share those morals, or any morals. Everything we've learned about his personality and business dealings is that he will exploit anyone for his own gain. Right now, he's exploiting your views to get your vote.

Let's talk about abortion, as it stands right now. Right now, at the end of Obama term #2, the US is currently at its lowest abortion rate since Roe v Wade. Not only that, but there are fewer unplanned pregnancies than there were in the Bush administration. This is partly because of access to contraceptives and partly because we've almost recovered from the recession, but also partly because teens are having sex later and having fewer partners than they were a decade ago. A lot of good trends are coming together.

Abortion is a symptom of other things: poor education, poor access to health care, and poverty are causal factors in unplanned pregnancy and abortion rates. Women with more options, more education, and health care access make better, healthier choices for themselves and their families. They have fewer unplanned pregnancies and fewer abortions. They have fewer partners. They have more stable families.

I understand that for you any abortion is one too many. But the disaster of a Trump presidency, which, assuming he follows through with anything he's promised, is liable to cause MORE economic hardship while also removing access to healthcare for many low-income Americans, is the kind of mess that INCREASES the unplanned pregnancy rate, and by extension the abortion rate. Banning abortion does reduce its frequency but not by as much as you would hope, and illegal abortions are widespread and dangerous.

And realize that a guy who wants to murder the families of terrorists is NOT pro-life. A guy who wants to use nukes on our enemies and spark a nuclear war is NOT pro-life. If you vote for him in the off-chance he'll pretend to be pro-life when it comes time to nominate a judge, you're trading a lot of other lives in exchange. He wants to turn away refugees, break apart immigrant families. He wants to kill the families of terrorists. He encourages people to shoot his opponent (4 American presidents have been assassinated) and threatens to jail her for crimes she has not, according to thorough investigations, committed. He wants people to beat protesters. He wants to commit war crimes. He wants to nuke countries. He wants to do these things EXPLICITLY. He says it out loud with his horrible mouth. He is telling you exactly what he is.

R v Wade is unlikely to be overturned, with or without his judge appointees. The fact is that most people in the US think there should be at least some access to legal abortion. You are not going to win it this way, with this man. Things are changing. Abortion rates are dropping. The culture is slowly shifting in ways that should give you hope.

This man is not your hope.

I know most of you cannot vote for Clinton, who is firmly pro-choice, and I understand that. My advice has been to write in John Kasich. Pro-life as the day is long and a nice guy. Clinton will probably win, but you won't have voted for the worst possible man who could be running for office, and you can try again next time around with a candidate who's NOT a fascist lunatic demagogue trying to actively undermine American democracy.