#found this article equal parts interesting and immensely depressing

[zombiesun]

Taylor found these bag bans did what they were supposed to: People in the cities with the bans used fewer plastic bags, which led to about 40 million fewer pounds of plastic trash per year.

But people who used to reuse their shopping bags for other purposes, like picking up dog poop or lining trash bins, still needed bags. "What I found was that sales of garbage bags actually skyrocketed after plastic grocery bags were banned," she says. This was particularly the case for small, 4-gallon bags, which saw a 120 percent increase in sales after bans went into effect.

Plastic haters, it's time to brace yourselves. A bunch of studies find that paper bags are actually worse for the environment. They require cutting down and processing trees, which involves lots of water, toxic chemicals, fuel and heavy machinery. While paper is biodegradable and avoids some of the problems of plastic, Taylor says, the huge increase of paper, together with the uptick in plastic trash bags, means banning plastic shopping bags increases greenhouse gas emissions. That said, these bans do reduce nonbiodegradable litter. […] A 2011 study by the U.K. government found a person would have to reuse a cotton tote bag 131 times before it was better for climate change than using a plastic grocery bag once. The Danish government recently did a study that took into account environmental impacts beyond simply greenhouse gas emissions, including water use, damage to ecosystems and air pollution. These factors make cloth bags even worse. They estimate you would have to use an organic cotton bag 20,000 times more than a plastic grocery bag to make using it better for the environment.

#articles #upload #npr #environmentalism #plastic bag ban #found this article equal parts interesting and immensely depressing #this is good information to know though because it’s easy for things like this distract us from bigger more reasonable change #its all about gaining realistic perspective #I use a tote bag and try not to buy plastic #maybe we should all just carry our groceries

[goldhatted-highbouncing-blog]

Hippies in 2018: A Summer of Tattoos, Communism, and Way Too Much Tofu

This is part One of Many! While I have an official, very Formal “article” to be sent to my university newspaper, this is a more narrative-style creative non-fiction piece, exploring more than the first article could. Nearly all of the official article is incorporated into this piece, this one just expands on it. Enjoy! 

may 18th, 2018.

“Five more minutes. If you really wanna run, I’d say do it now.”

Standing in the pouring rain, beside a busy road, I listened as my travel companion hung up the phone and turned to me. “I’d say stick it out.”

I looked around at my surroundings. A squat station building. A single train track, overgrown with weeds. A large Amtrak sign, which said, in glistening letters, “Charlottesville”. A hill, a bridge, buses. Cute coffee shops and street lanterns. Massive puddles were forming in the divets in the road. Behind me sat a single Northface backpack and a rolling suitcase. If I decided to make a break for it, I could hack it.  

How did I make it here? Was I going to give up on the dream I had waxed on about for the last three months? Was I going to run out of fear of what came next? Or out of fear of my own disappointment?

……………………………….

march 2018.

I was midway through my second semester of college. I was an athlete, participating in two sports, and captaining one. I was performing in a show, attending multiple clubs, and attempting to balance a massive workload.

My first semester had been revelatory and filled with happy moments, achievements, and new friendships. My second semester, however, was a Sisyphean march towards an eventual burnout. I rarely saw my friends, I was struggling to run races that would have been a cakewalk 6 months ago. My commitments began drowning me.

“Did I really come to Sarah Lawrence for this?”, I thought often. Sarah Lawrence is a place to radically reconstruct our norms of education and activism. The classes and extracurriculars that once excited me and made me actually want to write 20 page papers were now just another hurdle towards the ultimate sign of achievement: The Degree. Instead of joining clubs because of a true interest, I was simply thinking of padding my resume.

And, like my peers, I was suddenly swept into the immense wave of Summer Plans. At the apex of this discussion lay the most prized of the summer positions: The Internship. To both appease my anxious mind and fit in with my other high achieving peers, I applied for probably fifteen internships, in various unrelated fields, simply because it seemed like I should. And while I received some yes’s, the overwhelming response was “nope, try again next year!”

The thought of something greater had been rolling around in my mind for the last few years. In high school, a friend mentioned going on a tour of a commune in Virginia that made tofu. At 16, it wasn’t feasible to travel 6 hours away from home, alone, to live in the woods for three weeks. But now, at 19, with a job and independence, it seemed like I could make it work.

I opened an application to a visitor period at Twin Oaks, an intentional community in rural Virginia. Based around the principles of feminism, income equality, and environmentalism, it seemed almost too good to be true.

At Sarah Lawrence, I was taught radical new ideas that reshaped the way I understood the world. I can wax poetic on Chaucer, analyze American political trends, and evaluate carbon sinks in Yonkers. Through my education, I have passionately written for 25 pages on the merits of composting or how to construct an artificial language. We are taught to learn not for the sake of a grade, but in order to better ourselves and the society we will eventually enter upon graduation.

And yet, for all this passion and love of understanding the world, we still live unethical lives. We overuse plastics and never recycle; we buy clothes made in sweatshops; we use words like bitch or slut to degrade our peers. Though we may espouse ideals that, in theory, aim to make the world better, we don’t always live up to these expectations.

At Twin Oaks, however, “communards” have chosen to devote themselves entirely to the principles many of us simply choose to ruminate on. Founded in 1967 out of the hippie revolution, Twin Oaks has existed as a safe haven from the capitalistic pressure cooker of the mainstream world. Within its old growth forests and ramshackle buildings live 100 individuals, all working under the common goal of supporting each other.

On “the farm”, individuals work forty-two hours a week in communally owned businesses, dometic labor, food production, or on a myriad of other tasks, in order to provide food, shelter, healthcare, and friendship to one another. No one earns a paycheck, but no one pays a cent in order to live there.

It all seemed like a dream, to me anyways. My adolescence was spent in a world where to be successful was to be considered worthy. The Boston suburbs, where I was raised, produce doctors, lawyers, and more Ivy students than anywhere else in the country. From birth on, children are raised with the singular goal of “success”. Flute lessons, Russian math, soccer club, summer school- we were fed a strict diet of intense education and little rest, with our senses of normality crushed when we leave for college. When you grow up believing that earning less than $100,000 a year is a marker of poverty, you come out the other side with a warped sense of both the world, and yourself. I spent my nights petrified of the future, wondering if I was smart enough, strong enough, brave enough to make it in “the real world”.

In high school, this cutthroat environment collided with my own personal neurosis. My terror of being unsuccessful was compounded with my low self esteem, which resulted in years of depression, anxiety, and multiple relapses of an eating disorder. And I wasn’t a unique case: by senior year my entire circle of friends was in therapy or taking some sort of medication.

I came to Sarah Lawrence for a fresh start, believing like so many other first years do that it was a space devoid of the competitive nature of the outside world. I imagined myself free from the prison of my own creation, and for the first time in my life, seeing education not for the result at the end, but for the betterment of humanity.

It wasn’t meant to be. Though I made friendships to last a lifetime and my mental health has improved leaps and bounds, it wasn’t the life-changing reset I thought it would be. And I ended up right back where I started: in a pressure cooker environment, surrounded by people who fed into my selfish and harmful behaviors.

And here, I suppose, is where Twin Oaks came in. 

After my application, I began to dream of a life so different from my own- hard farm work, a lack of stress, a world of new friendships and relationships. A place where my activism isn’t for nothing, where my actions speak louder than my words. A place where, for all my faults and neuroses and vices, I could belong. 

When I was accepted to a visitor program in May, I was over the moon. I alerted my friends and family with glee, most of them curious and none of them eager for my departure. But it didn’t matter- for I, Plain Jane, was off on the adventure of a lifetime! On a commune! 

……………………………………………..

may 18th, 2018.

So how did I end up here? Running from what would become the most transformative experience of my life?

Two words: Jim Jones. 

part two and more coming soon!

#narrative #creative nonfiction

[harrypotterfirsttime]

JK Rowling’s essay about why she’s a TERF: Full Overview

Be forewarned, this is going to be LONG. I started reading the Goblet of Fire today and saw that JK Rowling has written and posted an ESSAY about why she’s speaking out about her blatant transphobia. I never intended for this blog to be about her, but since this is happening while I am attempting to read the series for the first time, I feel compelled to address it.

“This isn’t an easy piece to write, for reasons that will shortly become clear, but I know it’s time to explain myself on an issue surrounded by toxicity. I write this without any desire to add to that toxicity.”

I cannot fathom how she believed this would be a good idea and not add to the toxicity surrounding this issue. During pride month. When Black Lives Matter is protesting for equal rights. How is this necessary?

“For people who don’t know: last December I tweeted my support for Maya Forstater, a tax specialist who’d lost her job for what were deemed ‘transphobic’ tweets. She took her case to an employment tribunal, asking the judge to rule on whether a philosophical belief that sex is determined by biology is protected in law. Judge Tayler ruled that it wasn’t.”

First of all, Maya didn’t lose her job. Her contract was simply not renewed by her workplace, something that she was not entitled to under any law. JK Rowling also continues to falsely assert that Maya’s belief was that ‘sex is determined biology’, when she actually asserted that under no circumstances is a trans woman a woman nor a trans man a man, and the judge ruled that it did not fit all five necessary limbs to be a philosophical belief (it actually only failed the last one). The judge ruled that the ‘under no circumstances’ part of her assertion was absolutist, and that is what ultimately failed the fifth limb. [source]

“My interest in trans issues pre-dated Maya’s case by almost two years, during which I followed the debate around the concept of gender identity closely. I’ve met trans people, and read sundry books, blogs and articles by trans people, gender specialists, intersex people, psychologists, safeguarding experts, social workers and doctors, and followed the discourse online and in traditional media. On one level, my interest in this issue has been professional, because I’m writing a crime series, set in the present day, and my fictional female detective is of an age to be interested in, and affected by, these issues herself, but on another, it’s intensely personal, as I’m about to explain.”

Not much to say here, except that this paragraph is meant to tell us that she’s considered including this debate in a fictional book she’s writing for some reason, and that she has allegedly had time to talk to all of these extremely knowledgeable people who all failed to inform her that trans people don’t actually hurt her or take anything from her.

“All the time I’ve been researching and learning, accusations and threats from trans activists have been bubbling in my Twitter timeline. This was initially triggered by a ‘like’. When I started taking an interest in gender identity and transgender matters, I began screenshotting comments that interested me, as a way of reminding myself what I might want to research later. On one occasion, I absent-mindedly ‘liked’ instead of screenshotting. That single ‘like’ was deemed evidence of wrongthink, and a persistent low level of harassment began.”

First off, this goes against the statement a spokesperson made for her when this happened, stating that she had a ‘clumsy middle-aged moment’ and liked the tweet by ‘holding her phone incorrectly’. The tweet she liked also had no content that she could research, it was a baseless claim that men in dresses get more solidarity than cis women (which I won’t even dive into, we have so much more to cover). [source] I also won’t dive into the use of ‘wrongthink’ as if we are all characters in George Orwell’s 1984, simply because nobody is controlling her speech, she is simply facing consequences for the shit she chooses to fling at the wall.

“Months later, I compounded my accidental ‘like’ crime by following Magdalen Burns on Twitter. Magdalen was an immensely brave young feminist and lesbian who was dying of an aggressive brain tumour. I followed her because I wanted to contact her directly, which I succeeded in doing. However, as Magdalen was a great believer in the importance of biological sex, and didn’t believe lesbians should be called bigots for not dating trans women with penises, dots were joined in the heads of twitter trans activists, and the level of social media abuse increased.”

Just take a moment to laugh at the fact that she misspelled Magdalen Berns’ last name. But to clear things up, yes, Magdalen was suffering from a fatal aggressive brain tumour, but no, she was not a brave young feminist, she was an extremely outspoken transphobe, who regularly made videos misgendering, slandering, and twisting the words of trans people and trans activists in order to victimize herself. The vast majority of trans people will agree that you shouldn’t date anybody that you don’t want to date, or have any kind of sex with anyone that you don’t like. But Magdalen took it a step further, and said that NO lesbian could have sex with somebody with a penis and still be a lesbian, and NO lesbian could have a penis, despite trans lesbians continuing to exist to this very day. [for sources, Magdalen’s twitter and youtube channel remain active]

“I mention all this only to explain that I knew perfectly well what was going to happen when I supported Maya. I must have been on my fourth or fifth cancellation by then. I expected the threats of violence, to be told I was literally killing trans people with my hate, to be called cunt and bitch and, of course, for my books to be burned, although one particularly abusive man told me he’d composted them.”

Can we salute the man who decided to tell JK Rowling that he composted her books, because that’s absolutely hilarious. But really, I just want to point out that no matter how many threats of violence JK Rowling thinks she is getting, transgender people are subjected to much more abuse both online and in real life, and it affects their wellbeing much more directly than simply being called a cunt or a bitch on twitter. [source] While JK Rowling thankfully isn’t killing trans people, she’s disappointing so many of her LGBT+ fans who looked up to her and found comfort during their childhood in her books that encouraged people to be brave and be themselves.

“What I didn’t expect in the aftermath of my cancellation was the avalanche of emails and letters that came showering down upon me, the overwhelming majority of which were positive, grateful and supportive. They came from a cross-section of kind, empathetic and intelligent people, some of them working in fields dealing with gender dysphoria and trans people, who’re all deeply concerned about the way a socio-political concept is influencing politics, medical practice and safeguarding. They’re worried about the dangers to young people, gay people and about the erosion of women’s and girl’s rights. Above all, they’re worried about a climate of fear that serves nobody – least of all trans youth – well.”

I’ll tackle this paragraph from top to bottom. Firstly, the reason you believe the overwhemling majority of people supported you is because many of those who don’t (myself included, until now) simply rolled their eyes and ignored you, because you are not worth our time. We have lives to live that are unconcerned with your bigotry. Second, I hope those people who were working in fields dealing with gender dysphoria and trans people have since left their jobs, because they have no business serving a community who they secretly harbour unsupportive ideologies about. And finally, the idea of supporting and helping trans people (specifically trans youth) is DANGEROUS to young people, gay people, and women’s and girls’ rights is simply false. No women’s rights have been repealed in favour of trans people’s rights (mainly because trans women continue to shockingly be women). In fact, trans youth with parents who are very supportive and affirming show a statistically significantly lower rate of both depressive symptoms and suicide attempts. [source] [specific graph]

“I’d stepped back from Twitter for many months both before and after tweeting support for Maya, because I knew it was doing nothing good for my mental health. I only returned because I wanted to share a free children’s book during the pandemic. Immediately, activists who clearly believe themselves to be good, kind and progressive people swarmed back into my timeline, assuming a right to police my speech, accuse me of hatred, call me misogynistic slurs and, above all – as every woman involved in this debate will know – TERF.”

I can completely understand taking a step back from Twitter for mental health reasons (perhaps we all would have been better off if this had been an indefinite hiatus). To be clear, no activists are claiming the right to police your speech. People are speaking up against your speech because it is hateful and contradictory to current research about transgender people and the best way to treat and support us effectively. Some people maybe using misogynistic slurs, which I don’t condone, but let us be clear that TERF is not one of them.

“If you didn’t already know – and why should you? – ‘TERF’ is an acronym coined by trans activists, which stands for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist. In practice, a huge and diverse cross-section of women are currently being called TERFs and the vast majority have never been radical feminists. Examples of so-called TERFs range from the mother of a gay child who was afraid their child wanted to transition to escape homophobic bullying, to a hitherto totally unfeminist older lady who’s vowed never to visit Marks & Spencer again because they’re allowing any man who says they identify as a woman into the women’s changing rooms. Ironically, radical feminists aren’t even trans-exclusionary – they include trans men in their feminism, because they were born women.”

The first two sentences in this paragraph are true. Viv Smythe, a trans inclusive cis radfem, is credited with coining the term TERF to describe her fellow radical feminists who are ‘unwilling to recognize trans women as sisters’. It has also become widely used to describe feminists who exclude trans women from their feminism, even if they are not radfems. [source] I don’t care about who has been called a TERF, all I need to know is that they are transphobes, which they should feel equally disgusted at the fact their behaviour warrants the label. Trans men do not want to be included in radical feminism because we were ‘born women’, and JK Rowling including this as if it is an excuse is appalling. Trans men are not women, therefore we do not appreciate radfems claiming to support us based on their obsession with what genitals we were born with.

“But accusations of TERFery have been sufficient to intimidate many people, institutions and organisations I once admired, who’re cowering before the tactics of the playground. ‘They’ll call us transphobic!’ ‘They’ll say I hate trans people!’ What next, they’ll say you’ve got fleas? Speaking as a biological woman, a lot of people in positions of power really need to grow a pair (which is doubtless literally possible, according to the kind of people who argue that clownfish prove humans aren’t a dimorphic species).”

I cringed hard at ‘speaking as a biological woman’, because that’s just the kind of language that TERFs consistently use to make it clear that they are NOT under any circumstances to be mistaken for trans. The notion that these people, institutions and organizations are ‘cowering’ out of fear of being transphobic as opposed to wanting to openly support and welcome trans people as they would any other person is extremely biased. And as a last note, people using clownfish are trying to show that sex is noy cut and dry binary, it varies between species, and there is so much more to it than ‘XX vs XY’ and ‘penis vs vagina’ like JK Rowling and company seem to think.

“So why am I doing this? Why speak up? Why not quietly do my research and keep my head down?

Well, I’ve got five reasons for being worried about the new trans activism, and deciding I need to speak up.

Firstly, I have a charitable trust that focuses on alleviating social deprivation in Scotland, with a particular emphasis on women and children. Among other things, my trust supports projects for female prisoners and for survivors of domestic and sexual abuse. I also fund medical research into MS, a disease that behaves very differently in men and women. It’s been clear to me for a while that the new trans activism is having (or is likely to have, if all its demands are met) a significant impact on many of the causes I support, because it’s pushing to erode the legal definition of sex and replace it with gender.”

I don’t think anyone will argue that JK Rowling’s charitable trusts and funds are a bad thing. But her need to specify that these have an ‘emphasis on women and children’, imply that survivors of domestic and sexual abuse cannot be men or trans people, and for some reason pointing out that MS can present differently in men and women, are all red flags that these are issues she’s injecting into her charitable efforts, as opposed to actual threats to the causes she supports. The fear that transphobes have over people being classified by the gender they experience and walk through life presenting with instead of the genitals they have underneath a few layers of clothes is ridiculous, especially when you strip it down like this.

“The second reason is that I’m an ex-teacher and the founder of a children’s charity, which gives me an interest in both education and safeguarding. Like many others, I have deep concerns about the effect the trans rights movement is having on both.

The third is that, as a much-banned author, I’m interested in freedom of speech and have publicly defended it, even unto Donald Trump.”

The movement to secure equal rights and protection under the law for transgender people will not have a negative effect on children or education, other than allowing kids to learn more about the diversity among people they’ll interact with throughout their lives. And once again, nobody is trying to tell you that you cannot say these things, only that you will face consequences for saying them, like Donald Trump does daily. Trans people and activists don’t even have the power to affect the right to freedom of speech, so this is a moot point.

“The fourth is where things start to get truly personal. I’m concerned about the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning (returning to their original sex), because they regret taking steps that have, in some cases, altered their bodies irrevocably, and taken away their fertility. Some say they decided to transition after realising they were same-sex attracted, and that transitioning was partly driven by homophobia, either in society or in their families.”

There is a lot to unpack in this paragraph. And I don’t have the room in this already much too long post to dive into detransitioning, so I’ll say this: it sucks that some people transition only to realize they shouldn’t have. But these people are a staggering minority of people who do transition, and there is no external person they can blame for believing them when they relay their symptoms (as doctors are supposed to do) and acting accordingly, with the patient’s consent. The issues I have here are the language JK Rowling uses to say young women are transitioning, purposefully misgendering trans masculine people. And implying that people are transitioning because they are gay, because their families or society push them to not be gay and instead transition, is absolutely laughable. Studies have already shown that society as a whole is much less accepting of transgender people than they are of gay people and lesbians. [source]

“Most people probably aren’t aware – I certainly wasn’t, until I started researching this issue properly – that ten years ago, the majority of people wanting to transition to the opposite sex were male. That ratio has now reversed. The UK has experienced a 4400% increase in girls being referred for transitioning treatment. Autistic girls are hugely overrepresented in their numbers.”

There are a number of factors that could have led to such an increase in referrals, and no studies have a definitive answer, though most speculate that the increase in acceptance and visibility of trans people is likely a major contributor. [source] Additionally, I personally believe that more trans women seeked transition years ago because it was impossible to be accepted as a trans woman without fully medically transitioning, whereas trans men could get by without transitioning and simply presenting as their gender. Now that transition is more acceptable and available, trans men do not need to hold themselves back from transitioning, but unfortunately, with more visibility has come more vitriol that is specifically aimed at trans women, and this could discourage them from transitioning or coming out at all. I won’t dignify the statement about autism in afab trans people being prevalent other than saying that cis people can be autistic, trans people can be autistic, and implying that neuro-atypical people cannot make informed decisions about their bodies and healthcare is abhorrent.

“The same phenomenon has been seen in the US. In 2018,  American physician and researcher Lisa Littman set out to explore it. In an interview, she said:

‘Parents online were describing a very unusual pattern of transgender-identification where multiple friends and even entire friend groups became transgender-identified at the same time. I would have been remiss had I not considered social contagion and peer influences as potential factors.’

Littman mentioned Tumblr, Reddit, Instagram and YouTube as contributing factors to Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, where she believes that in the realm of transgender identification ‘youth have created particularly insular echo chambers.’”

Lisa Littman’s study can be read here. There are a multitude of issues with this study, and many big names in psychology and gender studies have spoken up about the issues in her conclusions and in the methods to begin with, which are unscientific and deeply flawed. [source] The biggest flaw, in my opinion, is that the study interviews parents of trans youth as opposed to the trans youth themselves, and takes the parents’ limited knowledge of their child’s inner thoughts and experience as fact without consulting the trans person at all. Additionally, recruitment for the study was mainly done through anti-trans organizations. All of this information is available in the original study and in the rebuttal. Because of this, I cannot take anybody who cites Lisa Littman or her study seriously, because it is not credible whatsoever.

“Her paper caused a furore. She was accused of bias and of spreading misinformation about transgender people, subjected to a tsunami of abuse and a concerted campaign to discredit both her and her work. The journal took the paper offline and re-reviewed it before republishing it. However, her career took a similar hit to that suffered by Maya Forstater. Lisa Littman had dared challenge one of the central tenets of trans activism, which is that a person’s gender identity is innate, like sexual orientation. Nobody, the activists insisted, could ever be persuaded into being trans.”

There are reasons clearly stated above why Lisa Littman and her work should be discredited for publishing this work and claiming it to be a study (especially because it was not published in any journal and was therefore not subjected to peer-review). Also, for argument’s sake, why do people like JK Rowling take people’s word for it when they report their sexual orientation, but not their gender? Why should one be recognized as innate, but not the other? Both can only be determined by the individual and their internal thoughts and feelings and urges and sense of self. Nobody can be persuaded to be trans any more than anyone can be persuaded to be gay, or lesbian, or bisexual.

“The argument of many current trans activists is that if you don’t let a gender dysphoric teenager transition, they will kill themselves. In an article explaining why he resigned from the Tavistock (an NHS gender clinic in England) psychiatrist Marcus Evans stated that claims that children will kill themselves if not permitted to transition do not ‘align substantially with any robust data or studies in this area. Nor do they align with the cases I have encountered over decades as a psychotherapist.’”

I didn’t think it needed to be said, but a single psychiatrist’s experience is not representative of the entire reality. Many people misquote studies in order to make them work for their agenda. Studies show that trans people have higher suicide attempt rates, not higher rates of actually killing themselves. To insert personal experience like Marcus Evans did, I attempted suicide multiple times, and experienced high levels of depression and anxiety directly tied to my gender dysphoria, all of which has been alleviated since being allowed to medically and socially transition. There are hundreds if not thousands of other trans people who will report similar struggles to myself.

“The writings of young trans men reveal a group of notably sensitive and clever people.  The more of their accounts of gender dysphoria I’ve read, with their insightful descriptions of anxiety, dissociation, eating disorders, self-harm and self-hatred, the more I’ve wondered whether, if I’d been born 30 years later, I too might have tried to transition. The allure of escaping womanhood would have been huge. I struggled with severe OCD as a teenager. If I’d found community and sympathy online that I couldn’t find in my immediate environment, I believe I could have been persuaded to turn myself into the son my father had openly said he’d have preferred.”

Comparing having OCD to suffering with gender dysphoria and all the side effects it can have (many of which she listed here) is offensive. So is saying that she, too, may have transitioned, because she clearly is very comfortable as a cis woman. Trans men do not transition to escape womanhood, we transition because at our core we know we are not women and this causes us deep turmoil, on top of all the sexism and misogyny we face as a result of moving through the world being perceived as women while in the closet. Comparing the admittedly terrible experience of growing into a world riddled with sexism and misogyny to that same experience topped with multiple deeper levels of emotional turmoil is just not a comparison any cis person can make or attempt to understand, which is difficult to hear and accept for JK Rowling I’m sure. If there were online communities when JK Rowling was struggling with severe OCD, she likely would have found sympathy in other people who have OCD. The following implication (out of nowhere) that there are trans people online luring in teenagers with unrelated mental health struggles trying to ‘persuade’ them to transition is just ridiculous and I cannot believe she attempted to make this comparison.

“When I read about the theory of gender identity, I remember how mentally sexless I felt in youth. I remember Colette’s description of herself as a ‘mental hermaphrodite’ and Simone de Beauvoir’s words: ‘It is perfectly natural for the future woman to feel indignant at the limitations posed upon her by her sex. The real question is not why she should reject them: the problem is rather to understand why she accepts them.’”

More people than JK Rowling is probably aware of feel ‘mentally sexless’ in youth, because they have no crippling discomfort regarding their gender identity, and either do not feel pressure to prescribe to gender stereotypical behaviours or actively rebel against it. According to brain studies, everyone is technically a ‘mental hermaphrodite’ because there remains to be no such thing as a male brain or female brain. [source]

“As I didn’t have a realistic possibility of becoming a man back in the 1980s, it had to be books and music that got me through both my mental health issues and the sexualised scrutiny and judgement that sets so many girls to war against their bodies in their teens. Fortunately for me, I found my own sense of otherness, and my ambivalence about being a woman, reflected in the work of female writers and musicians who reassured me that, in spite of everything a sexist world tries to throw at the female-bodied, it’s fine not to feel pink, frilly and compliant inside your own head; it’s OK to feel confused, dark, both sexual and non-sexual, unsure of what or who you are.”

Just to clarify for JK Rowling, trans men and trans women both existed in the 1980s, and long before that. If she had been a trans man, she would have been able to pursue a social or medical transition. Those trans people in the 80s also turned to books and music to get through their struggles. It has been long documented that women and girls have negative feelings towards their bodies that are mainly rooted in the misogynistic society we all have to grow up in, and it’s a battle that trans people fight to end alongside cis women. I think JK Rowling will also find that trans people are at the forefront of making it known that gender roles and stereotypes are not necessary and should not be the standard for being a man or woman; women do not need to like pink, frilly things and men do not need to like monochrome, masculine things. Trans people are also huge advocates for finding yourself and living your life in the way that is most authentic to you, without focusing on whether your body is ‘male’ or ‘female’ and fighting against stigmas surrounding that obsession.

“I want to be very clear here: I know transition will be a solution for some gender dysphoric people, although I’m also aware through extensive research that studies have consistently shown that between 60-90% of gender dysphoric teens will grow out of their dysphoria. Again and again I’ve been told to ‘just meet some trans people.’ I have: in addition to a few younger people, who were all adorable, I happen to know a self-described transsexual woman who’s older than I am and wonderful. Although she’s open about her past as a gay man, I’ve always found it hard to think of her as anything other than a woman, and I believe (and certainly hope) she’s completely happy to have transitioned. Being older, though, she went through a long and rigorous process of evaluation, psychotherapy and staged transformation. The current explosion of trans activism is urging a removal of almost all the robust systems through which candidates for sex reassignment were once required to pass. A man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law. Many people aren’t aware of this.”

First of all, the number of kids who “desist” from their gender dysphoria are not reliable. Mainly because the methods in these studies are not robust (ie one study defined gender dysphoria as exhibiting any behaviour that was not typical of their gender, such as boys playing with barbies and girls playing with monster trucks; another study classified subjects that did not return to the clinic and did not follow up as desisters without confirming). [source] Additionally, studying children who do exhibit true gender dysphoria, the main factor determining whether it will persist or desist seems to be the intensity, and not at all related to peer relations. [source] Trans people wishing to transition medically may no longer need to subject themselves to extensive and unnecessary therapy to convince medical professionals that they are who they say they are, but they still need to wait on very long lists for our turn to access hormone replacement therapy and surgeries, and can spend all of that time being sure that we are indeed trans and want these medical treatments. JK Rowling is also purposefully misreporting facts in regard to Gender Recognition Certificates. In order to get one, one must be over 18, have lived as their true gender for at least 2 full years, and provide two medical reports (one from a gender specialist and another from a general practitioner) citing that they have gender dysphoria. If they have not had any medical transitional treatments, the medical reports must state whether they are waiting for them or why they are not pursuing any, in direct contradiction of JK Rowling’s assertion that any man can get this certificate. [source]

“We’re living through the most misogynistic period I’ve experienced. Back in the 80s, I imagined that my future daughters, should I have any, would have it far better than I ever did, but between the backlash against feminism and a porn-saturated online culture, I believe things have got significantly worse for girls. Never have I seen women denigrated and dehumanised to the extent they are now. From the leader of the free world’s long history of sexual assault accusations and his proud boast of ‘grabbing them by the pussy’, to the incel (‘involuntarily celibate’) movement that rages against women who won’t give them sex, to the trans activists who declare that TERFs need punching and re-educating, men across the political spectrum seem to agree: women are asking for trouble. Everywhere, women are being told to shut up and sit down, or else.”

I find it hilarious that JK Rowling believes that 2020 is more riddled with misogyny than the 80s, and even the 90s. There is only backlash against feminism that isn’t intersectional and purposefully excludes groups of people for reasons rooted in ignorance and bigotry, like TERFs. Her personal belief that things are worse for girls are not reflected in society as a whole for a multitude of reasons. Although I’ll give that Donald Trump being president is a failure of the American people and highlights the bigotry of Americans, it is completely unrelated to trans people, and I’m not sure why it is relevant. I’d even argue the existence of incels is due to the fact that women are no longer forced into relationships and marriages the way they used to, no longer have to find a husband because they can work and live without leaning a man for financial stability, and can say no to sex with less repercussions (except a very small minority of men throwing tantrums about it). Comparing trans people fighting against TERFs and wanting to re-educate them to incels, Donald Trump, and misogynistic men is just a blatant attempt to derail the conversation. JK Rowling refuses to see that she is not being told to shut up because she’s a woman, she’s being told to shut up because there’s a transphobe. (On a lighter note, this reminds me of the post of a comic where homophobes were told to hit a beehive like its a pinata, and Christians got upset for being targetted, without Christianity ever being mentioned....seems relatable here)

“I’ve read all the arguments about femaleness not residing in the sexed body, and the assertions that biological women don’t have common experiences, and I find them, too, deeply misogynistic and regressive. It’s also clear that one of the objectives of denying the importance of sex is to erode what some seem to see as the cruelly segregationist idea of women having their own biological realities or – just as threatening – unifying realities that make them a cohesive political class. The hundreds of emails I’ve received in the last few days prove this erosion concerns many others just as much.  It isn’t enough for women to be trans allies. Women must accept and admit that there is no material difference between trans women and themselves.”

I think all trans people will admit that people with vaginas have shared experiences because, well, they have the same body part, the same way all people with arms can relate to having arms. What we are arguing though, is that womanhood is not tied to having a vagina, or the struggles that come with having one, even though those experiences may be shared by many women. Many women may also share the experience of playing with barbies or being part of a soccer league as a child, neither of which have to do with being ‘biological women’. Pushing the absurd accusations of segregation and some weird political plan, trans people don’t pretend that we’re the same as cis people. There are material differences between trans women and cis women, and between trans men and cis men. There are also material differences among cis women and cis men. Our argument is that these material differences are not a valid excuse to exclude us from being women and men.

“But, as many women have said before me, ‘woman’ is not a costume. ‘Woman’ is not an idea in a man’s head. ‘Woman’ is not a pink brain, a liking for Jimmy Choos or any of the other sexist ideas now somehow touted as progressive. Moreover, the ‘inclusive’ language that calls female people ‘menstruators’ and ‘people with vulvas’ strikes many women as dehumanising and demeaning. I understand why trans activists consider this language to be appropriate and kind, but for those of us who’ve had degrading slurs spat at us by violent men, it’s not neutral, it’s hostile and alienating.”

Trans people are not claiming that being a woman is a costume, or an idea in anyone’s head, or a pink brain or any gender stereotype. Men do not know what it is like to be a woman. I have absolutely no idea what it feels like to be a woman, because even when presenting as one, I did not feel womanhood or any kinship with other women, because I knew that on a deep level I was not a woman. But on to less personal experiences. Inclusive language shouldn’t have quotation marks around it. Those you call female people (which I call afab, or assigned female at birth) do not all identify as women, and do not all like the label female. Therefore, using inclusive language such as ‘people who menstruate’ and ‘people with vulvas’ includes all the women who have vulvas and menstruate (because not all cis women do), and also includes the people who do not identify as women or associate the word female with themselves, despite menstruating or having a vulva. This is not an attack on women, this is not the same as misogynists using these facts to degrade women. It is simply language being used in a more encompassing way that in no way harms cis women, no matter how much JK Rowling or any other transphobe tries to play victim.

“Which brings me to the fifth reason I’m deeply concerned about the consequences of the current trans activism.

I’ve been in the public eye now for over twenty years and have never talked publicly about being a domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor. This isn’t because I’m ashamed those things happened to me, but because they’re traumatic to revisit and remember. I also feel protective of my daughter from my first marriage. I didn’t want to claim sole ownership of a story that belongs to her, too. However, a short while ago, I asked her how she’d feel if I were publicly honest about that part of my life, and she encouraged me to go ahead.

I’m mentioning these things now not in an attempt to garner sympathy, but out of solidarity with the huge numbers of women who have histories like mine, who’ve been slurred as bigots for having concerns around single-sex spaces.”

It goes without saying but obviously I am sad to learn that JK Rowling is a survivor of domestic abuse and sexual assault. It pains me to know she went through something so traumatic and that her daughter also either witnessed or experienced similar horrors. I do however have a problem with weaponizing these experiences as a reason to continue being a transphobe.

“I managed to escape my first violent marriage with some difficulty, but I’m now married to a truly good and principled man, safe and secure in ways I never in a million years expected to be. However, the scars left by violence and sexual assault don’t disappear, no matter how loved you are, and no matter how much money you’ve made. My perennial jumpiness is a family joke – and even I know it’s funny – but I pray my daughters never have the same reasons I do for hating sudden loud noises, or finding people behind me when I haven’t heard them approaching.

If you could come inside my head and understand what I feel when I read about a trans woman dying at the hands of a violent man, you’d find solidarity and kinship. I have a visceral sense of the terror in which those trans women will have spent their last seconds on earth, because I too have known moments of blind fear when I realised that the only thing keeping me alive was the shaky self-restraint of my attacker.”

Again, I am deeply saddened knowing that JK Rowling had experiences that caused lifelong struggles for her at the hands of someone she gave her trust to and had to endure throughout her first marriage. It is interesting that she feels she is able to sympathize with trans women who suffer similar abuses, despite her blatant disregard for trans people’s struggles on display throughout this essay.

“I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined. Trans people need and deserve protection. Like women, they’re most likely to be killed by sexual partners. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk. Like every other domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor I know, I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women who’ve been abused by men.

So I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.”

‘Natal girls and women’ is another transphobic dog whistle. There is a non-offensive way to say this, which I am sure if JK Rowling has done all the reading she has claimed to do, she must have stumbled upon the word ‘cisgender’ at some point. It effectively communicates the same information without alienating trans people and implying they are less than cis women. Trans women are not ‘men who believe or feel like women’, and this long standing myth that cis men will use the guise of being a trans woman to gain access to public bathrooms and changerooms has been thoroughly debunked, because trans women have been using women’s bathrooms and changerooms for years with no issues. [source] And scroll up for the claim that Gender Confirmation Certificates are given out to any man who decides to be a woman for a day above, this is just more misinformation, no ‘simple truth’.

“On Saturday morning, I read that the Scottish government is proceeding with its controversial gender recognition plans, which will in effect mean that all a man needs to ‘become a woman’ is to say he’s one. To use a very contemporary word, I was ‘triggered’. Ground down by the relentless attacks from trans activists on social media, when I was only there to give children feedback about pictures they’d drawn for my book under lockdown, I spent much of Saturday in a very dark place inside my head, as memories of a serious sexual assault I suffered in my twenties recurred on a loop. That assault happened at a time and in a space where I was vulnerable, and a man capitalised on an opportunity.  I couldn’t shut out those memories and I was finding it hard to contain my anger and disappointment about the way I believe my government is playing fast and loose with womens and girls’ safety.”

First of all, JK Rowling is blatantly lying. The Gender Recognition Act Reform has been completely shelved by the Scottish government in light if the more pressing need to fight the coronavirus on April 1st, and I cannot find any updates on this being considered by the government. [source] The only trans related news out of Scotland I can find is that on June 5th, the Scottish government included trans women in the definition of women in guidance for school boards, which will have none of the effects that JK Rowling is fear mongering about. [source] Again, I am upset to know that JK Rowling is a survivor, but she is using this revelation as a weapon to make people fear that it will happen to others as a result of trans people gaining access to the same public spaces as their cis counterparts. Women’s and girls’ safety is NOT being put at risk by trans people using a bathroom or changeroom.

“Late on Saturday evening, scrolling through children’s pictures before I went to bed, I forgot the first rule of Twitter – never, ever expect a nuanced conversation – and reacted to what I felt was degrading language about women. I spoke up about the importance of sex and have been paying the price ever since. I was transphobic, I was a cunt, a bitch, a TERF, I deserved cancelling, punching and death. You are Voldemort said one person, clearly feeling this was the only language I’d understand.

It would be so much easier to tweet the approved hashtags – because of course trans rights are human rights and of course trans lives matter – scoop up the woke cookies and bask in a virtue-signalling afterglow. There’s joy, relief and safety in conformity. As Simone de Beauvoir also wrote, “… without a doubt it is more comfortable to endure blind bondage than to work for one’s liberation; the dead, too, are better suited to the earth than the living.””

This is misinformation. On Saturday evening, JK Rowling took issue with inclusive language being used in an informational and medical piece about coronavirus, which is in the best interest of getting the information out to the necessary people. I would stop reading an article that said it was concerning the health of women or females, because I do not consider myself a member of either category. I have, however, menstruated in the past, and continue to have a vulva, and if an article used that language, I would continue reading, because it would concern me. She then went on to strangely imply that trans people were removing the right of gay people and lesbians to be attracted to the same sex, which has never been true, and I don’t have time to get into the same-sex vs same-gender attraction debate, nor is it relevant to her original tweet. It’s ironic that Simone de Beauvoir’s quote relates more strongly to trans people and activists fighting for liberation instead of continuing to be bound by a transphobic society.

“Huge numbers of women are justifiably terrified by the trans activists; I know this because so many have got in touch with me to tell their stories. They’re afraid of doxxing, of losing their jobs or their livelihoods, and of violence.

But endlessly unpleasant as its constant targeting of me has been, I refuse to bow down to a movement that I believe is doing demonstrable harm in seeking to erode ‘woman’ as a political and biological class and offering cover to predators like few before it. I stand alongside the brave women and men, gay, straight and trans, who’re standing up for freedom of speech and thought, and for the rights and safety of some of the most vulnerable in our society: young gay kids, fragile teenagers, and women who’re reliant on and wish to retain their single sex spaces. Polls show those women are in the vast majority, and exclude only those privileged or lucky enough never to have come up against male violence or sexual assault, and who’ve never troubled to educate themselves on how prevalent it is.”

The only people who have any reason to feel any negative way about what a trans activist might say to or about them is a transphobe, so I can only assume the people JK Rowling is talking about are transphobes. The following sentence is just more fear mongering about ‘woman’ being redefined to include trans women, as if that somehow invalidates cis women or puts them in any more danger than they were in before. Predators are predators regardless of the existence of trans people existing. Trans people are not, nor do we have the power to, infringe on any right to free speech or thought, but transphobes will continue to face consequences for their speech, in way of trans people and activists exercising our own freedom of speech. The assumptions made about people who are okay with trans people in single sex spaces are baseless and completely unfounded, only biased assumptions that serve JK Rowling’s personal agenda. Even if these polls are true (she offered no sources), just because public majority agree with something does not mean it is right. History has multiple examples of this.

“The one thing that gives me hope is that the women who can protest and organise, are doing so, and they have some truly decent men and trans people alongside them. Political parties seeking to appease the loudest voices in this debate are ignoring women’s concerns at their peril. In the UK, women are reaching out to each other across party lines, concerned about the erosion of their hard-won rights and widespread intimidation. None of the gender critical women I’ve talked to hates trans people; on the contrary. Many of them became interested in this issue in the first place out of concern for trans youth, and they’re hugely sympathetic towards trans adults who simply want to live their lives, but who’re facing a backlash for a brand of activism they don’t endorse. The supreme irony is that the attempt to silence women with the word ‘TERF’ may have pushed more young women towards radical feminism than the movement’s seen in decades.”

Again, more fear mongering, because women’s rights are not being repealed or altered by granting similar rights to trans men and trans women. I find it entertaining that JK Rowling ironically fails to see that trans people are not the loudest voice, when she has clearly been the loudest voice internationally and has gained huge amounts of attention from her words, much more than any trans person has about this subject. Gender critical people feigning concern for trans youth aren’t excusing the harm their ideology does to trans youth (one example is the idea that trans youth must wait until 18 or even 25 to transition to be sure, and not ruin their fertility or body). Then comes the idea that the ‘good trans people’ who agree with JK Rowling and gender critical feminists and TERFs are getting a bad name from the trans people who just want to be allowed to change for the gym and pee in the right changeroom or bathroom. If more cis women are becoming transphobic, it has much more to do with loud voices like JK Rowling than it does with trans people, again, just fighting for equal rights and protections under the law.

“The last thing I want to say is this. I haven’t written this essay in the hope that anybody will get out a violin for me, not even a teeny-weeny one. I’m extraordinarily fortunate; I’m a survivor, certainly not a victim. I’ve only mentioned my past because, like every other human being on this planet, I have a complex backstory, which shapes my fears, my interests and my opinions. I never forget that inner complexity when I’m creating a fictional character and I certainly never forget it when it comes to trans people.

All I’m asking – all I want – is for similar empathy, similar understanding, to be extended to the many millions of women whose sole crime is wanting their concerns to be heard without receiving threats and abuse.”

I find it deeply troubling that JK Rowling chose this moment to come out as a survivor. It is extremely manipulative, claiming not to want sympathy, when she knows all decent people will feel hurt for her going through such experiences, and weaponizing it for her transphobic agenda. JK Rowling cannot expect empathy and understanding from any trans people or activists until she stops actively advocating and spreading ideology that directly works against the fight for equal rights and protections for trans people, that in no way infringes on the rights and protections for women. Until she stops trying to twist everything about trans rights into her own victimization, she will be stuck in the classification of transphobe, and TERF is she continues to align her views with radical feminism.

#jk rowling #transphobia #terf #important #long post #not hp

[savvyherb]

A Big Study on Weed and Mental Health Reveals Just How Little We Know

In April of 2019, more people searched online for CBD than for acupuncture, apple cider vinegar, meditation, exercise, veganism, or vaccination (and that was during a measles outbreak).

CBD, a chemical found in the cannabis plant, is having its moment, after being seized on by the wellness empire for its rumored ability to help with a whole host of conditions, from anxiety to insomnia to depression. The CBD industry is estimated to grow to almost $2 billion by 2022, and cannabis use overall has increased 43 percent between 2007 and 2015; it's now medicinally legal in 33 states. But despite how ubiquitous CBD lattes may be, they are not matched by an equal amount of research on their benefits for the mind.

A new review and meta-analysis published this week in The Lancet Psychiatry looked for the effects of cannabinoids on mental health in nearly 40 years of research and their findings sounded grim: They wrote there was “scarce evidence” to support that cannabis improves mental health symptoms, leading publications like The Guardian to publish an article titled "Risks of cannabis use for mental health treatment outweigh benefits," and writing that "the use of cannabis medicines to treat people with depression, anxiety, psychosis or other mental health issues cannot be justified because there is little evidence that they work or are safe." Time similarly concluded that "There's 'Scarce Evidence' That Cannabis Helps Mental Health Issues."

This review reveals something many clinicians already knew: We don’t have enough evidence to say that cannabis can treat mental health disorders. That doesn’t necessarily mean weed doesn’t help at all—it means we just don't know. (And since risks of long-term cannabis use have been well-documented, of course they would outweigh benefits we are unaware of.)

“The old adage that absence of evidence doesn’t necessarily mean absence of effectiveness is true here,” said Harry Sumnall, a professor of substance use at Liverpool John Moores Public Health Institute in the U.K., who was not involved in the review.

Finding a lack of evidence isn't a reason to throw in the towel. It should be motivation to conduct more rigorous studies, especially given the rise in use of cannabis and cannabis-derived products specifically for mental health, and the large swaths of the public deciding on their own that cannabis does treat these symptoms.

People are widely using cannabis—both THC and CBD—for their mental health. In 2017, a study found that people perceive cannabis to be an effective way to treat many conditions, and that some substituted cannabis for prescription medications like benzodiazepines (often given for anxiety) or antidepressants. In a 2018 study of over 2,400 CBD users, 62 percent said they used CBD for a medical condition—the top three being pain, anxiety, and depression.

Just because your friend or your favorite Instagram influencer took CBD and it improved their anxiety better isn’t enough to determine whether cannabis is effective for that purpose. This kind of evidence is called anecdotal and it can feel immensely powerful, especially if the experience happened to you. But that’s not the way we decide that treatments are safe and effective. Even results from single studies might not be enough, especially when it comes to difficult areas like mental health. Consider the fact that researchers are still having debates about whether or not SSRIs are more effective than placebos for depression— and those medications have been around for decades and have no issues surrounding legality that result in limits on research. This is one of the reasons scientists write reviews and meta-analyses, to try and combine findings from many studies.

The authors of the new review searched for studies published between 1980 and 2018, including unpublished or ongoing studies, where medicinal cannabinoids were given to adults to treat depression, anxiety, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, Tourette's syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder, or psychosis. In the end, they included 83 studies, 30 of which were randomized controlled trials—considered the gold standard of study design.

The results were mixed. "Our analyses and conclusions are limited by the small amount of available data, small study sizes, and heterogeneity of findings across studies," the authors wrote.

They found that pharmaceutical-grade THC made anxiety symptoms better, but only in people who had other medical conditions like chronic pain. This is an important caveat. If, for example, the primary outcome of a study was seeing if cannabis could help with chronic pain and a person’s depression also improved, it’s hard to say whether the cannabis treated the depression, or if their pain got better and made them feel less depressed.

In one study the review looked at, pharmaceutical cannabis made psychotic symptoms worse, while in others, pharmaceutical cannabis didn’t show any significant effect on mental disorders, but was linked to increased side effects. The authors noted that there were very few randomized controlled trials for them to review that tested pharmaceutical CBD or medicinal cannabis. Another issue is that many people don't take pharmaceutical or medicinal cannabis, they buy it recreationally—the studies can't account for that variability either.

“To make more confident conclusions we need more evidence; but at the moment there is not a lot that can support, guide or inform use of cannabinoids for mental disorders," said Louisa Degenhardt, the deputy director at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at The University of New South Wales in Sydney, and senior author on the review.

Kevin Hill, an addiction psychiatrist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, said that any clinician who treats patients who regularly use cannabis, either recreationally or medicinally, won't be surprised at the mixed and sparse evidence the authors had to muddle through.

“There is much more that we don’t know about cannabis and CBD than we do know,” Hill said. “With such an intense interest in cannabis and CBD as treatments for medical conditions including psychiatric disorders, it is disappointing that the rate and scale [of research] has not kept pace with the interest.”

Cannabis is a Schedule 1 drug, which is a barrier to research, but funding is a bigger one, Hill said. He thinks that states and companies profiting from cannabis and CBD should contribute to the science. “For the most part, they have not," Hill said. "A portion of profits from the sale of cannabis or CBD should be put toward finding the answers to important questions about efficacy and safety." It's a process we know can work, even for something like CBD: Large-scale trials were how we found that CBD could be helpful for pediatric epilepsy conditions, and it's now FDA-approved for that use.

The reason why this all matters is because with mental health disorders, taking something that’s not helping could eventually end up doing harm. If someone with depression takes CBD or medical cannabis daily and it doesn't work (or makes it worse), they won't improve. This could affect their overall quality of life, and their ability to work or be social.

Without more study, we could also be missing some of the basic biology around cannabis use. Earlier this year, a small study looked at the medical records of 25 people who used cannabis and found that they needed more anesthesia to remain sedated during certain medical procedures. When the authors tried to look at existing research to see if other clinicians had found the same thing, they discovered that their study was the first on that topic. “We did these huge literature searches and found nothing,” Mark Twardowski, a doctor of osteopathic medicine, told VICE in April. “Really?”

And many CBD products continue to be notoriously under regulated: In 2017, a study in JAMA found that only 30 percent of CBD products sold online were accurately labeled, and last year, a study in Forensic Science International found synthetic marijuana and dextromethorphan, an ingredient in cough syrup, in CBD vape liquid.

"With millions of Americans using cannabis and CBD for myriad medical conditions, we should be conducting rigorously designed trials to see if cannabis and CBD actually are effective treatments for these conditions," Hill said. The United States has the potential to lead the way in this work and we have not yet done so.”

Until more research is done, we should be wary of overblown claims around cannabis on both sides: that it does nothing, or that it's a panacea—our gap in knowledge is too great for either.

Follow Shayla Love on Twitter.

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source https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xwepad/lancet-study-on-weed-and-mental-health-reveals-just-how-little-we-know

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#cannabis #marijuana #thc #cbd

[goldeagleprice]

A ghost town worth visiting

Entering Brownsville’s abandoned center on Market Street, the forlorn Second National Bank is the first building on the left; to the right is the Flatiron Building that houses exhibits on Brownsville’s history.

By Mark Hotz

For quite some time, I have wanted to visit Brownsville, Pa., located about 40 miles south of Pittsburgh along the Monongahela River. I had been told about this place and had seen a few photos. At one time, Brownsville had been a teeming place, with a population of 10,000 and three huge national banks. But the region had fallen on hard times and the downtown area reduced to ghost town status.

I had the opportunity to fulfill this bucket list item this past September, when I traveled to Monroeville, Pa., for a convention of Military and Royal Orders and Decorations, another area of collecting interest for me. I was able to be in and out in a few hours, having purchased some lovely items brought especially for me from Canada. I had the time to go to Brownsville and was determined to do so. I was not disappointed with what I found.

First, some history. Entrepreneur Thomas Brown acquired the western lands in what became Fayette County, Pa., around the end of the American Revolution. He realized the opening of the pass through the Cumberland Narrows, and war’s end, made the land at the western tip of Fayette County a natural springboard for settlers traveling to points west, such as Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio. Many travelers used the Ohio River and its tributary, the Monongahela. Eventually, the settlement became known as “Brownsville” after him.

A little further down Market Street, past abandoned storefronts, the colonnaded Monongahela National Bank of Brownsville sits abandoned. In the distance, atop the little hill, is the National Deposit Bank.

In the 1780s, Jacob Bowman bought the land on which he built Nemacolin Castle; he had a trading post and provided services and supplies to emigrant settlers. Brownsville was positioned at the western end of the primitive road network (Braddock’s Road to Burd’s Road via the Cumberland Narrows pass) that eventually became chartered as the Cumberland toll road and later, after the Federal Government appropriated funds for its first-ever road project, known as the National Pike. Well after tolls were removed, it became the present-day U.S. Route 40, one of the original federal highways.

The interior of the Monongahela National Bank is completed trashed. This massive vault on the main level once housed the bank’s riches, including loads of cash in national currency.

Brownsville developed as an early center of the steamboat-building industry in the 19th century. The Monongahela converges with the Ohio River at Pittsburgh and allowed for quick traveling to the western frontier. From 1811 to 1888, boatyards produced more than 3,000 steamboats. Steamboats were gradually supplanted in the passenger-carrying trade after the American Civil War as the construction of railroad networks surged but concurrently grew important locally on the Ohio River and tributaries as tugs delivering barge loads of minerals to the burgeoning steel industries growing up along the watershed from the 1850s. Steamboat propulsion would not be replaced by diesel-powered commercial tugs until the technology matured in the mid 20th century. The first all-cast iron arch bridge constructed in the United States was built in Brownsville to carry the National Pike (at the time a wagon road) across Dunlap’s Creek. The bridge is still in use in 2018.

Brownsville’s now abandoned but enormous Union Station handled immense rail traffic up and down the Monongahela River Valley for decades. Now derelict, it is typical of the grandeur Brownsville once had.

Yet the rise of the steel industry in the Pittsburgh area led Brownsville to develop as a railroad yard and coking center, generally integrated into other towns within the valley, so Brownsville and West Brownsville were tied to regional operations, and while no one yard had space enough to be large, each township along the river shared resources and functioned as an elongated yard system. With its new role as Railroad center and coking center together with the decline of outfitting, the town gradually lost its diverse mix of businesses but nonetheless generally prospered during the early 20th century through the 1960s. Brownsville tightened its belt during the Great Depression, but the local economy resumed growth with the increased demand for steel during and after World War II, when many infrastructure projects hatched the improved and rerouted U.S. Route 40 over the new high level bridge, clearing up a perennial traffic congestion problem.

This row of abandoned but classic storefronts sits across Market Street from the Monongahela National Bank, whose wall is at right. The parking area in foreground once was filled with similar commercial structures.

In 1940, 8,015 people lived in Brownsville. In the mid-1970s, after the OPEC Oil Embargo of 1973–74 triggered a recession with the restructuring of the steel industry and loss of industrial jobs, Brownsville suffered a severe decline, along with much of the Rust Belt. Generally, the region has declined in population and vitality ever since. By 2010, the population was 2,331, as younger people had moved away to areas with more jobs.

The multi-story National Deposit Bank of Brownsville sits abandoned across from the equally derelict Antique Grill on Market Street.

The downtown area is Market Street, which is reached off of US 40, which snakes around the town. During its heyday, it supported three large national banks. These were the Second National Bank, charter #2673, which succeeded the First National Bank when it was liquidated in 1882; the Monongahela National Bank, charter #648, which was chartered in 1864 and closed by the receiver in 1931; and the National Deposit Bank, charter #2457, chartered in 1880. These were all very large banks, with the two former issuing over $2,000,000 each in circulation, and the latter with $1.3 million. Though just one note is known from the First National Bank, large and small notes are known from the large three, though not as readily seen on the marketplace. The popularity of these banks, due to the ghostly nature of Brownsville, keeps them mostly the large notes in tight hands.

This nice grade Series of 1902 $20 note from the Second National Bank of Brownsville is from the author’s collection. It was really intriguing to see the now derelict bank from whence this note emanated.

Entering Brownsville on Market Street from US 40 is quite the experience. One is immediately amazed by the number of large and abandoned buildings lining both sides of the street. In the center of the downtown area is a large parking area where other large buildings once stood. I parked my car and wandered around the abandoned street. The Flatiron Building at the head of Market Street is owned by the Brownsville Area Revitalization Corporation (BARC) and was open. It has a lot of information about the town and many relics on display. It sits directly across Market Street from the abandoned Second National Bank building, which is part of a string of abandoned buildings culminating in the columned Monongahela National Bank building, also abandoned, which sits next to the parking lot.

This Series of 1902 $5 note, also from the author’s collection, hails from the Monongahela National Bank. Note the signatures of L.R. O’Donnell, assistant cashier, and C.L. Snowdon, president.

Just behind the Flatiron Building and across from the Second National Bank is Brownsville’s huge and once very proud Union Station, a seven-story red brick structure reminiscent of some of the finest railroad stations in the country. Behind the station and along the river run the railroad tracks that once brought business and customers to Brownsville from Pittsburgh. The station is abandoned and the tracks derelict. A couple rusty parking meters sat in front of the station, and I wondered how long it had been since anyone had paid for parking in the abandoned downtown.

Here is a similar $10 large note from the National Deposit Bank of Brownsville. (Photo courtesy Heritage Auctions)

Walking south along Market Street, I saw many abandoned and boarded up stores leading uphill to the National Deposit Bank building, which sat atop a hill at the other edge of downtown. The only operating businesses were a pharmacy (a project supported by BARC) and a diner named the Fiddler. It was something to gaze back on the entire row of abandoned blocks from in front of the National Deposit Bank (also abandoned).

I have included a series of photos I took of various parts of downtown Brownsville. It is one of the best ghost downtowns I have seen anywhere, mainly due to the plethora of large buildings. I also included a photo of the huge vault inside the ruined main floor of the Monongahela National Bank.

I was able to add two very nice large notes from two of Brownsville’s banks to my collection; I have included photos of these and a large note from the National Deposit Bank. All of these banks issued small notes as well.

Although Brownsville is off the beaten path, it is well worth the visit. There are many small old coal and steel towns nearby that are also worth visiting, though Brownsville is the queen of the Monongahela ghosts.

Readers may address questions or comments about this article or national bank notes in general to Mark Hotz directly by email at [email protected].

  This article was originally printed in Bank Note Reporter. >> Subscribe today.

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#Precious Metals

[cryptochurp]

Op Ed: Tulip Myths and Modern Cryptocurrency Skepticism

“Ever heard of tulips?” It’s a question anyone who is publically involved in the cryptocurrency space has been asked multiple times. With the enormous gains in value the industry has seen, many observers come to the same conclusion. It’s a bubble.

The take is not a terrible one and many experienced cryptocurrency traders agree with the sentiment. Bubbles have come to be an expected occurrence in the space. The difference in opinion comes when deciding whether the “pop” will be a minor setback or the final conclusion in an exciting but short-lived ride.

On one side are the supporters of cryptocurrency. Their motivations can be boiled down to two points: desire for profits and a belief that the technology will benefit humanity. They believe that bubbles are a natural phenomenon in price discovery and an inevitable part of the long-term upward trend in value that will occur as cryptocurrencies become more utilized. They also understand that, while bubbles can hurt some traders in the short term, they are a necessary evil in the development of a technology which stands to dramatically increase human financial freedom. Sometimes these motivations can seem at odds, but in general they coexist within the community.

Get rich making the world a better place. It’s an attractive pitch.

On the other side are the skeptics. Doubt in cryptocurrency has made strange bedfellows of a band of commentators as diverse as it is vocal. Nobel prize economists, billionaire bankers, goldbugs and central banks have all weighed in to signal their prediction of the industry’s inevitable demise. And with the spotlight of increasing coin valuations has come even more doubters. In the age of Twitter, it’s almost essential that you have an opinion on the matter and that you let the world know it. For detractors, the tulip meme often comes into play:

OG Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/qQSMJYhLR7

— Tommy Vietor (@TVietor08) January 6, 2018

For skeptics as much as believers, there is a personal economic motivation. While they may not have cashed in on the extraordinary rise of cryptocurrencies, they think the game is rigged from the start. By keeping their hard earned cash out of the market, they are saving themselves from an “inevitable” crash to zero.

But under this current of self-preservation is an ethical play opposite to that of cryptocurrency supporters. Many detractors believe that this technology is not just ridiculous but actually harmful to society. What drives this outlook? The true history of the tulip bubble can give us an interesting view of the motivations driving their sentiment.

An Early Mania

Tulip Mania is the go-to story whenever someone wants to talk about humanity’s penchant for irrational exuberance in financial markets. It’s the catchy name for the extraordinary rise in value, and subsequent crash, of Dutch tulip bulb valuations over a four month span from November 1636 to February 1637. This phenomenon had devastating effects on the Dutch economy and left many people in financial ruin.

At least that’s how the story is told.

But according to Anne Goldgar, Professor of Early Modern History at King’s College London and author of Tulipmania: Money, Honor, and Knowledge in the Dutch Golden Age, the popular story is mostly an exaggeration.

The description of her book reads like this:

“We have heard how these bulbs changed hands hundreds of times in a single day, and how some bulbs, sold and resold for thousands of guilders, never even existed. Tulipmania is seen as an example of the gullibility of crowds and the dangers of financial speculation. But it wasn’t like that … not one of these stories is true.”

Goldgar uses extensive research to expose that, while there was a rise and crash of tulip prices, much of what we believe about the period is the product of historical exaggeration from a small number of writers.

What drove this? According to Goldgar, it was a product of societal anxieties triggered by the immense riches of the Dutch Golden Age. As Lorraine Boissoneault writes in Smithsonian Magazine’s recent piece on the book, “All the outlandish stories of economic ruin, of an innocent sailor thrown in prison for eating a tulip bulb, of chimney sweeps wading into the market in hopes of striking it rich — those come from propaganda pamphlets published by Dutch Calvinists worried that the tulip-propelled consumerism boom would lead to societal decay.”

English historian Simon Schama also writes of the period: “The prodigious quality of their [the Dutch] success went to their heads, but it also made them a bit queasy. Even their most uninhibited documents of self-congratulation are haunted by the threat of overvloed (abundance) ... a word heavy with warning as well as euphoria.”

When looked at through the lens of this historic research, the legend of the tulip bubble becomes less about financial mania and more about the way that an economic memory can reflect a society’s collective mindset. The Dutch Golden Age represents a period during the 17th century when “Dutch trade, science, military, and art were among the most acclaimed in the world.”

This transformation was termed the “Dutch Miracle” by historian K.W. Swart. But, while it is easy to look back now and realize this era was a huge stepping stone to the modern prosperity the Dutch people enjoy today, at the time the progress was not as apparent. Many of the Dutch found a hard time adjusting to a society where fortunes were being created overnight. Schama compares the mindset to one which was found by de Tocqueville in 19th century America: “that strange melancholy which often haunts the inhabitants of democratic countries in the midst of their abundance, and the disgust at life which sometimes seizes upon them in the midst of calm and easy circumstances.”

While there was undoubtedly a run on Dutch Tulip prices, it seems there was an equal run on seizing the opportunity to find a negative aspect to extraordinary societal progress. Today, we are seeing the same mindset from cryptocurrency skeptics.

Modern Anxieties

Cryptocurrency has arrived at an uncomfortable moment in history. There is a wide debate surrounding whether or not technology is hurting human progress. Many argue that smartphones are making kids depressed and robots are taking our jobs. The thought is that technology which was supposed to make life better is instead causing us to become stupid, antisocial and unhealthy. On top of this, the freedom of speech made possible by the internet is being questioned for the alleged harm it can cause to democracy.

It is in this atmosphere of negativity that critics have found their “tulip moment” in cryptocurrency. It is being latched onto as an lightning rod for these growing worries about a society that is becoming radically shaped by the digital age. Detractors consistently ignore any possible justification for cryptocurrency to be considered useful and instead focus on its most distasteful features:

Haha, I feel sorry for all you losers who missed out on the Bitcoin train. You should've bought in years ago, like me: A perfectly normal man who coincidentally hoarded a virtual currency during a time when it's only use was for sex trafficking and purchasing organs.

— Shane (@Shanehasabeard) December 8, 2017

Many cannot push their analysis past observations of price movements. Warren Buffett partner Charlie Munger has described the cryptocurrency scene as “total insanity” and recently told an audience at University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, “I think it is perfectly asinine to even pause to think about them. It’s bad people, crazy bubble, bad idea, luring people into the concept of easy wealth without much insight or work.”

Others, echoing popular sentiment questioning unbridled freedom of speech, are worried about a lack of governmental oversight. Back in 2013 author Charlie Stross wrote in Why I Want Bitcoin to Die in a Fire that “Bitcoin looks like it was designed as a weapon intended to damage central banking and money-issuing banks, with a Libertarian political agenda in mind — to damage states’ ability to collect tax and monitor their citizens’ financial transactions … late-period capitalism may suck, but replacing it with Bitcoin would be like swapping out a hangnail for Fournier's gangrene.”

Economist Paul Krugman cited the article in his piece Bitcoin Is Evil, adding “Stross doesn’t like that agenda, and neither do I.” While Krugman did admit he was open to conversation on the topic, fellow economist, Joseph Stiglitz, has been less forgiving. Recently he told Bloomberg “Bitcoin is successful only because of its potential for circumvention, lack of oversight...So it seems to me it ought to be outlawed … It doesn’t serve any socially useful function.”

The Progress Paradox

Are these arguments baseless? Not at all. Cryptocurrencies do in fact make many unsavory things possible. But, much like supporters believe bubbles are a necessary evil for price growth, they also believe that some illicit activities are a worthwhile trade-off for the ability to have a censorship-resistant, value-transfer system. They believe the win for personal freedom trumps all else.

It looks as if this idea is spreading. Bitcoin alone has grown from roughly 6,000 transactions per day in January of 2011 to 240,000 transactions on January 1, 2018. With 1000+ other cryptocurrencies, each growing their own communities, this desire for this financial independence appears contagious.

To the critics, these statistics do not matter. They will continue to focus on perceived faults. As the myth of the Tulip Bubble illustrates, this is rooted in human psychology. Some people are set on ignoring the progress around them.

De Tocqueville observed: “In America I saw the freest and most enlightened men placed in the happiest circumstances that the world affords; it seemed to me as if a cloud habitually hung upon their brow, and I thought them serious and almost sad, even in their pleasures.” Over the last few centuries, technology has made our lives less nasty, brutish and short. But, for some of us, the natural reaction has been to question whether it was really worth it.

Cryptocurrency now finds itself at the center of this larger debate over the morality of technology in a developing society. If supporters have their way, it holds the power to usher in a new era of human economic freedom. If critics have their way it will be regulated to death.

Let’s hope one side ends up as forgotten as Calvinist pamphlet writers.

This is a guest post by Kenny Spotz. Views expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Bitcoin Magazine or BTC Media.

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

from WordPress https://ift.tt/2HnIjpp via IFTTT

#BTC #HODL #ETH #CryptoChurp.com

[ellahmacdermott]

Op Ed: Tulip Myths and Modern Cryptocurrency Skepticism

“Ever heard of tulips?” It’s a question anyone who is publically involved in the cryptocurrency space has been asked multiple times. With the enormous gains in value the industry has seen, many observers come to the same conclusion. It’s a bubble.

The take is not a terrible one and many experienced cryptocurrency traders agree with the sentiment. Bubbles have come to be an expected occurrence in the space. The difference in opinion comes when deciding whether the “pop” will be a minor setback or the final conclusion in an exciting but short-lived ride.

On one side are the supporters of cryptocurrency. Their motivations can be boiled down to two points: desire for profits and a belief that the technology will benefit humanity. They believe that bubbles are a natural phenomenon in price discovery and an inevitable part of the long-term upward trend in value that will occur as cryptocurrencies become more utilized. They also understand that, while bubbles can hurt some traders in the short term, they are a necessary evil in the development of a technology which stands to dramatically increase human financial freedom. Sometimes these motivations can seem at odds, but in general they coexist within the community.

Get rich making the world a better place. It’s an attractive pitch.

On the other side are the skeptics. Doubt in cryptocurrency has made strange bedfellows of a band of commentators as diverse as it is vocal. Nobel prize economists, billionaire bankers, goldbugs and central banks have all weighed in to signal their prediction of the industry’s inevitable demise. And with the spotlight of increasing coin valuations has come even more doubters. In the age of Twitter, it’s almost essential that you have an opinion on the matter and that you let the world know it. For detractors, the tulip meme often comes into play:

OG Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/qQSMJYhLR7

— Tommy Vietor (@TVietor08) January 6, 2018

For skeptics as much as believers, there is a personal economic motivation. While they may not have cashed in on the extraordinary rise of cryptocurrencies, they think the game is rigged from the start. By keeping their hard earned cash out of the market, they are saving themselves from an “inevitable” crash to zero.

But under this current of self-preservation is an ethical play opposite to that of cryptocurrency supporters. Many detractors believe that this technology is not just ridiculous but actually harmful to society. What drives this outlook? The true history of the tulip bubble can give us an interesting view of the motivations driving their sentiment.

An Early Mania

Tulip Mania is the go-to story whenever someone wants to talk about humanity’s penchant for irrational exuberance in financial markets. It’s the catchy name for the extraordinary rise in value, and subsequent crash, of Dutch tulip bulb valuations over a four month span from November 1636 to February 1637. This phenomenon had devastating effects on the Dutch economy and left many people in financial ruin.

At least that’s how the story is told.

But according to Anne Goldgar, Professor of Early Modern History at King’s College London and author of Tulipmania: Money, Honor, and Knowledge in the Dutch Golden Age, the popular story is mostly an exaggeration.

The description of her book reads like this:

“We have heard how these bulbs changed hands hundreds of times in a single day, and how some bulbs, sold and resold for thousands of guilders, never even existed. Tulipmania is seen as an example of the gullibility of crowds and the dangers of financial speculation. But it wasn’t like that … not one of these stories is true.”

Goldgar uses extensive research to expose that, while there was a rise and crash of tulip prices, much of what we believe about the period is the product of historical exaggeration from a small number of writers.

What drove this? According to Goldgar, it was a product of societal anxieties triggered by the immense riches of the Dutch Golden Age. As Lorraine Boissoneault writes in Smithsonian Magazine’s recent piece on the book, “All the outlandish stories of economic ruin, of an innocent sailor thrown in prison for eating a tulip bulb, of chimney sweeps wading into the market in hopes of striking it rich — those come from propaganda pamphlets published by Dutch Calvinists worried that the tulip-propelled consumerism boom would lead to societal decay.”

English historian Simon Schama also writes of the period: “The prodigious quality of their [the Dutch] success went to their heads, but it also made them a bit queasy. Even their most uninhibited documents of self-congratulation are haunted by the threat of overvloed (abundance) ... a word heavy with warning as well as euphoria.”

When looked at through the lens of this historic research, the legend of the tulip bubble becomes less about financial mania and more about the way that an economic memory can reflect a society’s collective mindset. The Dutch Golden Age represents a period during the 17th century when “Dutch trade, science, military, and art were among the most acclaimed in the world.”

This transformation was termed the “Dutch Miracle” by historian K.W. Swart. But, while it is easy to look back now and realize this era was a huge stepping stone to the modern prosperity the Dutch people enjoy today, at the time the progress was not as apparent. Many of the Dutch found a hard time adjusting to a society where fortunes were being created overnight. Schama compares the mindset to one which was found by de Tocqueville in 19th century America: “that strange melancholy which often haunts the inhabitants of democratic countries in the midst of their abundance, and the disgust at life which sometimes seizes upon them in the midst of calm and easy circumstances.”

While there was undoubtedly a run on Dutch Tulip prices, it seems there was an equal run on seizing the opportunity to find a negative aspect to extraordinary societal progress. Today, we are seeing the same mindset from cryptocurrency skeptics.

Modern Anxieties

Cryptocurrency has arrived at an uncomfortable moment in history. There is a wide debate surrounding whether or not technology is hurting human progress. Many argue that smartphones are making kids depressed and robots are taking our jobs. The thought is that technology which was supposed to make life better is instead causing us to become stupid, antisocial and unhealthy. On top of this, the freedom of speech made possible by the internet is being questioned for the alleged harm it can cause to democracy.

It is in this atmosphere of negativity that critics have found their “tulip moment” in cryptocurrency. It is being latched onto as an lightning rod for these growing worries about a society that is becoming radically shaped by the digital age. Detractors consistently ignore any possible justification for cryptocurrency to be considered useful and instead focus on its most distasteful features:

Haha, I feel sorry for all you losers who missed out on the Bitcoin train. You should've bought in years ago, like me: A perfectly normal man who coincidentally hoarded a virtual currency during a time when it's only use was for sex trafficking and purchasing organs.

— Shane (@Shanehasabeard) December 8, 2017

Many cannot push their analysis past observations of price movements. Warren Buffett partner Charlie Munger has described the cryptocurrency scene as “total insanity” and recently told an audience at University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, “I think it is perfectly asinine to even pause to think about them. It’s bad people, crazy bubble, bad idea, luring people into the concept of easy wealth without much insight or work.”

Others, echoing popular sentiment questioning unbridled freedom of speech, are worried about a lack of governmental oversight. Back in 2013 author Charlie Stross wrote in Why I Want Bitcoin to Die in a Fire that “Bitcoin looks like it was designed as a weapon intended to damage central banking and money-issuing banks, with a Libertarian political agenda in mind — to damage states’ ability to collect tax and monitor their citizens’ financial transactions … late-period capitalism may suck, but replacing it with Bitcoin would be like swapping out a hangnail for Fournier's gangrene.”

Economist Paul Krugman cited the article in his piece Bitcoin Is Evil, adding “Stross doesn’t like that agenda, and neither do I.” While Krugman did admit he was open to conversation on the topic, fellow economist, Joseph Stiglitz, has been less forgiving. Recently he told Bloomberg “Bitcoin is successful only because of its potential for circumvention, lack of oversight...So it seems to me it ought to be outlawed … It doesn’t serve any socially useful function.”

The Progress Paradox

Are these arguments baseless? Not at all. Cryptocurrencies do in fact make many unsavory things possible. But, much like supporters believe bubbles are a necessary evil for price growth, they also believe that some illicit activities are a worthwhile trade-off for the ability to have a censorship-resistant, value-transfer system. They believe the win for personal freedom trumps all else.

It looks as if this idea is spreading. Bitcoin alone has grown from roughly 6,000 transactions per day in January of 2011 to 240,000 transactions on January 1, 2018. With 1000+ other cryptocurrencies, each growing their own communities, this desire for this financial independence appears contagious.

To the critics, these statistics do not matter. They will continue to focus on perceived faults. As the myth of the Tulip Bubble illustrates, this is rooted in human psychology. Some people are set on ignoring the progress around them.

De Tocqueville observed: “In America I saw the freest and most enlightened men placed in the happiest circumstances that the world affords; it seemed to me as if a cloud habitually hung upon their brow, and I thought them serious and almost sad, even in their pleasures.” Over the last few centuries, technology has made our lives less nasty, brutish and short. But, for some of us, the natural reaction has been to question whether it was really worth it.

Cryptocurrency now finds itself at the center of this larger debate over the morality of technology in a developing society. If supporters have their way, it holds the power to usher in a new era of human economic freedom. If critics have their way it will be regulated to death.

Let’s hope one side ends up as forgotten as Calvinist pamphlet writers.

This is a guest post by Kenny Spotz. Views expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Bitcoin Magazine or BTC Media.

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

from InvestmentOpportunityInCryptocurrencies via Ella Macdermott on Inoreader https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/op-ed-tulip-myths-and-modern-cryptocurrency-skepticism/

[goldeagleprice]

A ghost town worth visiting

Entering Brownsville’s abandoned center on Market Street, the forlorn Second National Bank is the first building on the left; to the right is the Flatiron Building that houses exhibits on Brownsville’s history.

By Mark Hotz

For quite some time, I have wanted to visit Brownsville, Pa., located about 40 miles south of Pittsburgh along the Monongahela River. I had been told about this place and had seen a few photos. At one time, Brownsville had been a teeming place, with a population of 10,000 and three huge national banks. But the region had fallen on hard times and the downtown area reduced to ghost town status.

I had the opportunity to fulfill this bucket list item this past September, when I traveled to Monroeville, Pa., for a convention of Military and Royal Orders and Decorations, another area of collecting interest for me. I was able to be in and out in a few hours, having purchased some lovely items brought especially for me from Canada. I had the time to go to Brownsville and was determined to do so. I was not disappointed with what I found.

First, some history. Entrepreneur Thomas Brown acquired the western lands in what became Fayette County, Pa., around the end of the American Revolution. He realized the opening of the pass through the Cumberland Narrows, and war’s end, made the land at the western tip of Fayette County a natural springboard for settlers traveling to points west, such as Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio. Many travelers used the Ohio River and its tributary, the Monongahela. Eventually, the settlement became known as “Brownsville” after him.

A little further down Market Street, past abandoned storefronts, the colonnaded Monongahela National Bank of Brownsville sits abandoned. In the distance, atop the little hill, is the National Deposit Bank.

In the 1780s, Jacob Bowman bought the land on which he built Nemacolin Castle; he had a trading post and provided services and supplies to emigrant settlers. Brownsville was positioned at the western end of the primitive road network (Braddock’s Road to Burd’s Road via the Cumberland Narrows pass) that eventually became chartered as the Cumberland toll road and later, after the Federal Government appropriated funds for its first-ever road project, known as the National Pike. Well after tolls were removed, it became the present-day U.S. Route 40, one of the original federal highways.

The interior of the Monongahela National Bank is completed trashed. This massive vault on the main level once housed the bank’s riches, including loads of cash in national currency.

Brownsville developed as an early center of the steamboat-building industry in the 19th century. The Monongahela converges with the Ohio River at Pittsburgh and allowed for quick traveling to the western frontier. From 1811 to 1888, boatyards produced more than 3,000 steamboats. Steamboats were gradually supplanted in the passenger-carrying trade after the American Civil War as the construction of railroad networks surged but concurrently grew important locally on the Ohio River and tributaries as tugs delivering barge loads of minerals to the burgeoning steel industries growing up along the watershed from the 1850s. Steamboat propulsion would not be replaced by diesel-powered commercial tugs until the technology matured in the mid 20th century. The first all-cast iron arch bridge constructed in the United States was built in Brownsville to carry the National Pike (at the time a wagon road) across Dunlap’s Creek. The bridge is still in use in 2018.

Brownsville’s now abandoned but enormous Union Station handled immense rail traffic up and down the Monongahela River Valley for decades. Now derelict, it is typical of the grandeur Brownsville once had.

Yet the rise of the steel industry in the Pittsburgh area led Brownsville to develop as a railroad yard and coking center, generally integrated into other towns within the valley, so Brownsville and West Brownsville were tied to regional operations, and while no one yard had space enough to be large, each township along the river shared resources and functioned as an elongated yard system. With its new role as Railroad center and coking center together with the decline of outfitting, the town gradually lost its diverse mix of businesses but nonetheless generally prospered during the early 20th century through the 1960s. Brownsville tightened its belt during the Great Depression, but the local economy resumed growth with the increased demand for steel during and after World War II, when many infrastructure projects hatched the improved and rerouted U.S. Route 40 over the new high level bridge, clearing up a perennial traffic congestion problem.

This row of abandoned but classic storefronts sits across Market Street from the Monongahela National Bank, whose wall is at right. The parking area in foreground once was filled with similar commercial structures.

In 1940, 8,015 people lived in Brownsville. In the mid-1970s, after the OPEC Oil Embargo of 1973–74 triggered a recession with the restructuring of the steel industry and loss of industrial jobs, Brownsville suffered a severe decline, along with much of the Rust Belt. Generally, the region has declined in population and vitality ever since. By 2010, the population was 2,331, as younger people had moved away to areas with more jobs.

The multi-story National Deposit Bank of Brownsville sits abandoned across from the equally derelict Antique Grill on Market Street.

The downtown area is Market Street, which is reached off of US 40, which snakes around the town. During its heyday, it supported three large national banks. These were the Second National Bank, charter #2673, which succeeded the First National Bank when it was liquidated in 1882; the Monongahela National Bank, charter #648, which was chartered in 1864 and closed by the receiver in 1931; and the National Deposit Bank, charter #2457, chartered in 1880. These were all very large banks, with the two former issuing over $2,000,000 each in circulation, and the latter with $1.3 million. Though just one note is known from the First National Bank, large and small notes are known from the large three, though not as readily seen on the marketplace. The popularity of these banks, due to the ghostly nature of Brownsville, keeps them mostly the large notes in tight hands.

This nice grade Series of 1902 $20 note from the Second National Bank of Brownsville is from the author’s collection. It was really intriguing to see the now derelict bank from whence this note emanated.

Entering Brownsville on Market Street from US 40 is quite the experience. One is immediately amazed by the number of large and abandoned buildings lining both sides of the street. In the center of the downtown area is a large parking area where other large buildings once stood. I parked my car and wandered around the abandoned street. The Flatiron Building at the head of Market Street is owned by the Brownsville Area Revitalization Corporation (BARC) and was open. It has a lot of information about the town and many relics on display. It sits directly across Market Street from the abandoned Second National Bank building, which is part of a string of abandoned buildings culminating in the columned Monongahela National Bank building, also abandoned, which sits next to the parking lot.

This Series of 1902 $5 note, also from the author’s collection, hails from the Monongahela National Bank. Note the signatures of L.R. O’Donnell, assistant cashier, and C.L. Snowdon, president.

Just behind the Flatiron Building and across from the Second National Bank is Brownsville’s huge and once very proud Union Station, a seven-story red brick structure reminiscent of some of the finest railroad stations in the country. Behind the station and along the river run the railroad tracks that once brought business and customers to Brownsville from Pittsburgh. The station is abandoned and the tracks derelict. A couple rusty parking meters sat in front of the station, and I wondered how long it had been since anyone had paid for parking in the abandoned downtown.

Here is a similar $10 large note from the National Deposit Bank of Brownsville. (Photo courtesy Heritage Auctions)

Walking south along Market Street, I saw many abandoned and boarded up stores leading uphill to the National Deposit Bank building, which sat atop a hill at the other edge of downtown. The only operating businesses were a pharmacy (a project supported by BARC) and a diner named the Fiddler. It was something to gaze back on the entire row of abandoned blocks from in front of the National Deposit Bank (also abandoned).

I have included a series of photos I took of various parts of downtown Brownsville. It is one of the best ghost downtowns I have seen anywhere, mainly due to the plethora of large buildings. I also included a photo of the huge vault inside the ruined main floor of the Monongahela National Bank.

I was able to add two very nice large notes from two of Brownsville’s banks to my collection; I have included photos of these and a large note from the National Deposit Bank. All of these banks issued small notes as well.

Although Brownsville is off the beaten path, it is well worth the visit. There are many small old coal and steel towns nearby that are also worth visiting, though Brownsville is the queen of the Monongahela ghosts.

Readers may address questions or comments about this article or national bank notes in general to Mark Hotz directly by email at [email protected].

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