I am heavily leaning on perplexity.ai nowadays. It's quite good. Not always right, mind you, but at least it links the sources for its formulated opinions so you can follow them and vet them.
That's a separate issue, as Google profits more from toploading garbage results to make you scroll a few pages past ads and promoted results to get to anything actually relevant,
I like Brave Search better. But I agree with your point; Google Search has been enshittified all to hell. When it was first created it was the best search engine by far. Now it's exactly as you described.
{read Cory Doctorow's book _Enshittification_ for a good explanation of that process.}
"In control"? Didn't you hear? They crowned Donald Trump king! That's why that rally last month was so necessary and definitely not hysterical balderdash. Gotta protest against the new king.
"My censorship does confirm, however, that the tools Google uses to “make people safe” are used by culture warriors to war, because to a culture warrior, no culture except their own is safe."
Tools like this one at Google and the "bias incident" snitch forms at universities are crybully catnip. There are culture warriors on both sides, obviously, but these tools were created by & for the woke and the "referees" staffing them are woke; therefore, only the woke get to use them to censor or harass not just the right, but anyone who challenges any aspect of woke orthodoxy. As for Google specifically, I'd like to see Trump's DOJ bring an antitrust suit against them and break the company into a million pieces.
"As for Google specifically, I'd like to see Trump's DOJ bring an antitrust suit against them and break the company into a million pieces."
Google has already been found guilty of maintaining illegal monoplies in web ads and search. The DOJ has already requested breaking up Google. Now, it's up to the judges (and potentially, justices) to decide the penalties to their illegal behavior. And the years-long appeals that Google will file to delay punishment.
You left out the part we want to know most, what is the remedy? Does Google have an apeal process or something the content author can request? Who at google should we flood with emails letting them know that their decision was wrong and they need to review all the decisions made by whoever blocked your article?
As I understand it, it would have to be appealed by Substack, not by me, because they're the ones that control the URL. And I'm positive Substack doesn't provide that kind of service for its users, given that Substack probably has a disproportionate number of delists going right now to other platforms due to its commitment to free speech.
I won't get into Google's virtues or failings. I use DuckDuckGo. But I do have a reasonably well-founded opinion on transgender youth.
I'm transsexual. I have been for a long time, since before Christine Jorgenson. And I don't know what would have happened if I'd had hormones and surgery before puberty, because the medical knowledge was simply not there. So I had hormones and surgery in my fifties, when my life conditions made it a lot more possible. It's been a quarter of a century since then, and I haven't had any major regrets. That's one datum. But we do have the knowledge now. So what do I think about the whole brouhaha?
I have no idea. I'd have gone through high school as a different person, and forth into the world as a different person. Who knows who I'd have ended up being? Not I!
I don't count hormones and surgery at a young age as a terrible mistake - but it could be. We all have made terrible mistakes. It's the human condition. This might be one - or it might be the wisest thing possible. All I can recommend is to find some of those who've done it, talk with those who seem the wisest, and be damn sure neither social nor parental pressure is being applied to you.
I was thinking about this topic in the shower this morning actually, and I think I might not have expressed my personal opinions as clearly as I could on the publication, in an effort to try to keep it clean of personal bias. And the result of that might be that more anti-trans folks read HWFO than trans folks. Thanks for stopping by.
I've been using preferred pronouns since 1996 and I'm ideologically opposed to having to have a prescription for any drug at all, outside of very addictive ones. That would include hormones of any type for any reason. Once someone is an adult. I also believe in complete body autonomy. If I want to cut my genitals off for whatever reason that exists under the sun I should have the right to do that. Get breast implants. Weld a giant horse dong onto my crotch and call myself Centaur The Destroyer. Whatever. I'm 100% all in on freedom when it comes to almost all things, including trans stuff.
I don't think kids have the experience or maturity to make life changing decisions about their bodies, and I think there must be a line we draw, legally, that determines the difference between a kid and an adult. We have chosen to draw the line at 18. If an 18 year old can smoke and marry and kill gooks for the skycloth flag, they should be able to get whatever medical procedures they want, elective or otherwise. If we've decided that they can make gender affirmation medical procedure decisions at 14, they should also be able to buy AR-15s, join the army, get married, get a job, make babies, smoke, and drink Coors cold ones yelling at the Green Bay Packers defense for giving up a late touchdown at 14.
But that's merely a personal opinion and I try not to put personal opinions in HWFO articles, because that's not the brand.
If you haven't read this article yet, I would greatly value your opinion on it given your background:
And I've been a bad scholar here, because I didn't read your article first, But it's somewhat soothing to find us saying similar things, though you provided more statistics and I provided more personal experience. Hooray for such convergence as we managed.
There are two processes involved in gender transition: puberty, and becoming capable of decisions this important. Puberty happens first, by quite a few years; and once it's well under way, making a successful transition becomes harder. Bearers of XY chromosomes get heavier and taller. Their voices drop in pitch, they begin to grow facial hair, and the hair on top of their heads begins to leave the forepart of the forehead. Further, they've lived under the influence of testosterone for years. Trust me: testosterone and estrogen do very different things to your body and mind. Similarly, the XX people change in ways that'll make it harder for them to become a convincing man.
This becomes a problem. XY does not become XX, nor vice-versa. Those who say a male cannot become a female cling to that argument, and who can blame them? They are seldom willing to concede even the existence of people with XXY, XYY, or XO - but they do exist and don't fit the dichotomy. I have met an XY woman - she had androgen insensitivity, so her body developed as a woman. When she was born, that's what the doctor put on her birth certificate. She's a large woman, but I've known larger. Sex is more complicated than a simple XY/XX dichotomy.
Can a male become a female? Some already are. Some are neither. Some are alligators (their sex depends on the temperature they incubated at, not genes. Some are fish. And some. like the guevedoces of the Dominican Republic are real live people who are born girls and become boys at puberty.
Whether men can become women? That's a political argument these days. I'd rather not get involved. Not that we stand a chance. Just remember: the issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution. Trans will go away. But something is as certain as sunrise. Any issue on Earth has people determined to be loudmouth jerks about it. Most of these jerks know other jerks that are spoiling for a cause to fight for. And lurking in the background are professional jerks who can use a cadre of the real jerks.
So yes - puberty blockers are necessary if you want to get a convincing person of their chosen gender at the far end of the tunnel. But finding the wisdom to know who it'd be good for is hard. All I can say is that wisdom probably won't be found among the people who are yelling.
It hurts a bit to post, because I have to share something very personal, but here goes.
When my brother was homeless and on a drug bender, he realized very quickly that he couldn’t get a night in a shelter or at a hospital, or anywhere else unless he said he was suicidal.
Was he? Once in awhile, he had some really dark thoughts, and yes. He was. That’s how he learned to say he was when he wasn’t- to get a bed somewhere when he didn’t want to sleep on the street.
He knew if he said those magic words, he would be fed and given a place to sleep when he otherwise wouldn’t.
He’s okay now- he’s been clean for awhile.
And I learned that when the way to get the thing you want is to say you’re suicidal, and you have nothing else to lose by doing so, you suddenly have an epidemic of “suicidal” people to get that thing.
I am not meaning to be insensitive, and I realize that some people are really in that kind of dire straits that need this kind of help.
Yet, when the media and social circles reinforce that things a mentally ill person desperately needs can be gained by claiming suicidality, a lot of people will do so.
Understandably.
It does muddy the waters on the real instances of actual suicidality.
Pay attention to incentive structures. I have studied these heavily, and compassion is easily exploited in this horrific way. It harms people who really, truly, need help.
Google has become utterly useless for searching for alternative medicine articles. Instead, you get pages of WebMD and its clones.
Google has been bad for decades, but around 2020 it went from burying disfavored content on Page 3 to making it invisible entirely.
Google has become utterly useless for searching, full stop.
I am heavily leaning on perplexity.ai nowadays. It's quite good. Not always right, mind you, but at least it links the sources for its formulated opinions so you can follow them and vet them.
That's a separate issue, as Google profits more from toploading garbage results to make you scroll a few pages past ads and promoted results to get to anything actually relevant,
Just one more reason to switch to duckduckgo
I like Brave Search better. But I agree with your point; Google Search has been enshittified all to hell. When it was first created it was the best search engine by far. Now it's exactly as you described.
{read Cory Doctorow's book _Enshittification_ for a good explanation of that process.}
Pro-Left censorship? In 2025? Impossible!
I was told that Republicans are in control now because they won 51% of the vote.
"In control"? Didn't you hear? They crowned Donald Trump king! That's why that rally last month was so necessary and definitely not hysterical balderdash. Gotta protest against the new king.
"My censorship does confirm, however, that the tools Google uses to “make people safe” are used by culture warriors to war, because to a culture warrior, no culture except their own is safe."
Tools like this one at Google and the "bias incident" snitch forms at universities are crybully catnip. There are culture warriors on both sides, obviously, but these tools were created by & for the woke and the "referees" staffing them are woke; therefore, only the woke get to use them to censor or harass not just the right, but anyone who challenges any aspect of woke orthodoxy. As for Google specifically, I'd like to see Trump's DOJ bring an antitrust suit against them and break the company into a million pieces.
"As for Google specifically, I'd like to see Trump's DOJ bring an antitrust suit against them and break the company into a million pieces."
Google has already been found guilty of maintaining illegal monoplies in web ads and search. The DOJ has already requested breaking up Google. Now, it's up to the judges (and potentially, justices) to decide the penalties to their illegal behavior. And the years-long appeals that Google will file to delay punishment.
The newest Chrome update uses Yahoo search I noticed. Was that the result of the DOJ?
It may be the result of you misclicking on something, or a software or chrome plugin install changed your default search engine.
You left out the part we want to know most, what is the remedy? Does Google have an apeal process or something the content author can request? Who at google should we flood with emails letting them know that their decision was wrong and they need to review all the decisions made by whoever blocked your article?
[Bot]: Do you have your 27BStroke6 filled out in triplicate with a, previously approved, blue ball point pen?
[Human]: Uhm...
[Bot]: Next!
"But I'm Buttle, not Tuttle!"
As I understand it, it would have to be appealed by Substack, not by me, because they're the ones that control the URL. And I'm positive Substack doesn't provide that kind of service for its users, given that Substack probably has a disproportionate number of delists going right now to other platforms due to its commitment to free speech.
I won't get into Google's virtues or failings. I use DuckDuckGo. But I do have a reasonably well-founded opinion on transgender youth.
I'm transsexual. I have been for a long time, since before Christine Jorgenson. And I don't know what would have happened if I'd had hormones and surgery before puberty, because the medical knowledge was simply not there. So I had hormones and surgery in my fifties, when my life conditions made it a lot more possible. It's been a quarter of a century since then, and I haven't had any major regrets. That's one datum. But we do have the knowledge now. So what do I think about the whole brouhaha?
I have no idea. I'd have gone through high school as a different person, and forth into the world as a different person. Who knows who I'd have ended up being? Not I!
I don't count hormones and surgery at a young age as a terrible mistake - but it could be. We all have made terrible mistakes. It's the human condition. This might be one - or it might be the wisest thing possible. All I can recommend is to find some of those who've done it, talk with those who seem the wisest, and be damn sure neither social nor parental pressure is being applied to you.
I was thinking about this topic in the shower this morning actually, and I think I might not have expressed my personal opinions as clearly as I could on the publication, in an effort to try to keep it clean of personal bias. And the result of that might be that more anti-trans folks read HWFO than trans folks. Thanks for stopping by.
I've been using preferred pronouns since 1996 and I'm ideologically opposed to having to have a prescription for any drug at all, outside of very addictive ones. That would include hormones of any type for any reason. Once someone is an adult. I also believe in complete body autonomy. If I want to cut my genitals off for whatever reason that exists under the sun I should have the right to do that. Get breast implants. Weld a giant horse dong onto my crotch and call myself Centaur The Destroyer. Whatever. I'm 100% all in on freedom when it comes to almost all things, including trans stuff.
I don't think kids have the experience or maturity to make life changing decisions about their bodies, and I think there must be a line we draw, legally, that determines the difference between a kid and an adult. We have chosen to draw the line at 18. If an 18 year old can smoke and marry and kill gooks for the skycloth flag, they should be able to get whatever medical procedures they want, elective or otherwise. If we've decided that they can make gender affirmation medical procedure decisions at 14, they should also be able to buy AR-15s, join the army, get married, get a job, make babies, smoke, and drink Coors cold ones yelling at the Green Bay Packers defense for giving up a late touchdown at 14.
But that's merely a personal opinion and I try not to put personal opinions in HWFO articles, because that's not the brand.
If you haven't read this article yet, I would greatly value your opinion on it given your background:
https://hwfo.substack.com/p/unnecessary-mastectomy-math
And I've been a bad scholar here, because I didn't read your article first, But it's somewhat soothing to find us saying similar things, though you provided more statistics and I provided more personal experience. Hooray for such convergence as we managed.
There are two processes involved in gender transition: puberty, and becoming capable of decisions this important. Puberty happens first, by quite a few years; and once it's well under way, making a successful transition becomes harder. Bearers of XY chromosomes get heavier and taller. Their voices drop in pitch, they begin to grow facial hair, and the hair on top of their heads begins to leave the forepart of the forehead. Further, they've lived under the influence of testosterone for years. Trust me: testosterone and estrogen do very different things to your body and mind. Similarly, the XX people change in ways that'll make it harder for them to become a convincing man.
This becomes a problem. XY does not become XX, nor vice-versa. Those who say a male cannot become a female cling to that argument, and who can blame them? They are seldom willing to concede even the existence of people with XXY, XYY, or XO - but they do exist and don't fit the dichotomy. I have met an XY woman - she had androgen insensitivity, so her body developed as a woman. When she was born, that's what the doctor put on her birth certificate. She's a large woman, but I've known larger. Sex is more complicated than a simple XY/XX dichotomy.
Can a male become a female? Some already are. Some are neither. Some are alligators (their sex depends on the temperature they incubated at, not genes. Some are fish. And some. like the guevedoces of the Dominican Republic are real live people who are born girls and become boys at puberty.
Whether men can become women? That's a political argument these days. I'd rather not get involved. Not that we stand a chance. Just remember: the issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution. Trans will go away. But something is as certain as sunrise. Any issue on Earth has people determined to be loudmouth jerks about it. Most of these jerks know other jerks that are spoiling for a cause to fight for. And lurking in the background are professional jerks who can use a cadre of the real jerks.
So yes - puberty blockers are necessary if you want to get a convincing person of their chosen gender at the far end of the tunnel. But finding the wisdom to know who it'd be good for is hard. All I can say is that wisdom probably won't be found among the people who are yelling.
I just want to point out a tragic reality.
It hurts a bit to post, because I have to share something very personal, but here goes.
When my brother was homeless and on a drug bender, he realized very quickly that he couldn’t get a night in a shelter or at a hospital, or anywhere else unless he said he was suicidal.
Was he? Once in awhile, he had some really dark thoughts, and yes. He was. That’s how he learned to say he was when he wasn’t- to get a bed somewhere when he didn’t want to sleep on the street.
He knew if he said those magic words, he would be fed and given a place to sleep when he otherwise wouldn’t.
He’s okay now- he’s been clean for awhile.
And I learned that when the way to get the thing you want is to say you’re suicidal, and you have nothing else to lose by doing so, you suddenly have an epidemic of “suicidal” people to get that thing.
I am not meaning to be insensitive, and I realize that some people are really in that kind of dire straits that need this kind of help.
Yet, when the media and social circles reinforce that things a mentally ill person desperately needs can be gained by claiming suicidality, a lot of people will do so.
Understandably.
It does muddy the waters on the real instances of actual suicidality.
Pay attention to incentive structures. I have studied these heavily, and compassion is easily exploited in this horrific way. It harms people who really, truly, need help.
Of course Google is a “towering avatar of wokeness.” I know because their “angry neo-Progressive furries” are all my neighbors.