#not misinformation

[crab-misinformation]

He has a shell, strong as fuck

But he hides himself, under the rock

And when you're near

And he smells your fear

He comes out to eat you, like a big ham hock

[bag-full-of-bricks]

im so sad snake's best friend harry the cab driver never made it into the games. he was so funny and i really think he could have brought something unique to metal gear.

[blatentmisinformation]

Uh oh! Looks like the bots are coming for my job!

[aleppothemushroom]

YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[skarifikator]

jeff the killer source image found

[adhdisgay]

Friendly reminder to listen VERY VERY CRITICALLY if someone tries to convince you not to register for federal disaster assistance following a declared disaster. Helene is still moving north and I see the usual rants picking up steam already.

That person trying to win social commentary points online is not your friend. That person can’t give you funds for house repair or to restock on food and meds. And if they say they can - that is a scammer and not someone you can trust.

Scammers and developers trying to take advantage after a disaster intentionally spread rumors/misinformation to convince survivors not to apply for federal disaster assistance. Many well meaning people pick this misinformation up and spread it further without understanding how the assistance process works. It’s happened more and more over the years and it will happen with Helene.

If you do not apply for assistance, you lose the chance to receive federal funds. APPLY APPLY APPLY. This doesn’t guarantee you will meet eligibility requirements, but you definitely can’t meet them if you don’t apply. The application process isn’t perfect but it continues to be updated - and was updated in 2024!! - to try and make it easier for survivors. If you have damages or lost power for an extended time, APPLY.

You can check on FEMA.gov or with local news to see when disaster recovery centers will open, how long the application period will last, and what information you’ll need when applying.

[blatentmisinformation]

Now that nfts are apparently making a comeback this is relevant again

[blatentmisinformation]

I would post more about politics, but man, lately I feel like nothing I say can Trump irl...

[thatluckybear]

"Chat" isn't folks or y'all or any such word English has used. It's referring to a non-existent audience that presumably can respond to statements or questions.

While yes it's literally a noun it's being used figuratively. It's not just as a reference to the noun 'chat' but instead being addressed directly. I can't think of another word used in this way. Nobody turns away from their friend who hasn't heard of frozen custard and says "she doesn't know folks" noone would get it. Instead they say "she doesn't know chat" and not only is that intuitively understood it heavily implies they're being made fun of and that's understood as well.

Chat is a noun. It doesn't stop being one when we use it this way but it /is/ something new. We don't have to pretend it fits into the old boxes we have just because it kind of does if you turn it just right. We can invent a new meaning not only for chat but the concept of 4th person pronoun. Sure it might not be "correct" as argued but also as argued that's not how language works. If we say that's what it means then that's what it means.

This entire thread started with "I've noticed this chat thing coming up often and it's wrong" but the fact that it's been adopted and assimilated and is so easily understood in its usage... Well that's kind of the smell test for 'thats what it means now.'

Amirite chat?

I keep seeing the "chat is a fourth person pronoun" post and it's getting increasingly hard to avoid starting discourse in the notes of it. chat I don't think they know what these linguistics terms they're using mean

[fattyopossum]

a puppy is a kind of dog that you can do things to

[wiki-but-made-them-up]

[gizmotemusic]

You know how the word "feline" refers to cats, and "canine" refers to dogs? There are a whole bunch more animal adjectives, and here are some of them:

equine -> horses

bovine -> cows

murine -> mice/rats

porcupine -> porcupines

wolverine -> wolves

marine -> marmosets

saline -> salmonella

cosine -> cosmonauts

citrine -> citrus

combine -> combs

famine -> your fam

bromine -> your bros

palpatine -> your pals

alpine -> alps

christine -> christ

asinine -> asses

machine -> the speed of sound

landmine -> explosions

migraine -> migrants

trampoline -> tramps

dopamine -> dopes

medicine -> the Medici family

praline -> prey

masculine -> mascara

feminine -> femurs

latrine -> latissimus dorsi

fettuccine -> fetuses

poutine -> sadness

turbine -> turbans

engine -> england

supine -> soup

valentine -> valence electrons

Follow for more nature facts!

[blatentmisinformation]

Together we can make AI tools ever so slightly shittier! Old foes become new allies in this new war front!

I hope the AI scrapers like pornbots cause there’s no way those are opting out

[curlicuecal]

playing science telephone

Hi folks. Let's play a fun game today called "unravelling bad science communication back to its source."

Journey with me.

Saw a comment going around on a tumblr thread that "sometimes the life expectancy of autism is cited in the 30s"

That number seemed..... strange. The commenter DID go on to say that that was "situational on people being awful and not… anything autism actually does", but you know what? Still a strange number. I feel compelled to fact check.

Quick Google "autism life expectancy" pulls up quite a few websites bandying around the number 39. Which is ~technically~ within the 30s, but already higher than the tumblr factoid would suggest. But, guess what. This number still sounds strange to me.

Most of the websites presenting this factoid present themselves as official autism resources and organizations (for parents, etc), and most of them vaguely wave towards "studies."

Ex: "Above And Beyond Therapy" has a whole article on "Does Autism Affect Life Expectancy" and states:

The link implies that it will take you to the "research studies" being referenced, but it in fact takes you to another random autism resource group called.... Songbird Care?

And on that website we find the factoid again:

Ooh, look. Now they've added the word "some". The average lifespan for SOME autistic people. Which the next group erased from the fact. The message shifts further.

And we have slightly more information about the study! (Which has also shifted from "studies" to a singular "study"). And we have another link!

Wonderfully, this link actually takes us to the actual peer-reviewed 2020 study being discussed. [x]

And here, just by reading the abstract, we find the most important information of all.

This study followed a cohort of adolescent and adult autistic people across a 20 year time period. Within that time period, 6.4% of the cohort died. Within that 6.4%, the average age of death was 39 years.

So this number is VERY MUCH not the average age of death for autistic people, or even the average age of death for the cohort of autistic people in that study. It is the average age of death IF you died young and within the 20 year period of the study (n=26), and also we don't even know the average starting age of participants without digging into earlier papers, except that it was 10 or older. (If you're curious, the researchers in the study suggested reduced self-sufficiency to be among the biggest risk factors for the early mortality group.)

But the number in the study has been removed from it's context, gradually modified and spread around the web, and modified some more, until it is pretty much a nonsense number that everyone is citing from everyone else.

There ARE two other numbers that pop up semi-frequently:

One cites the life expectancy at 58. I will leave finding the context for that number as an exercise for the audience, since none of the places I saw it gave a direct citation for where they were getting it.

And then, probably the best and most relevant number floating around out there (and the least frequently cited) draws from a 2023 study of over 17,000 UK people with an autism diagnosis, across 30 years. [x] This study estimated life expectancies between 70 and 77 years, varying with sex and presence/absence of a learning disability. (As compared to the UK 80-83 average for the population as a whole.)

This is a set of numbers that makes way more sense and is backed by way better data, but isn't quite as snappy a soundbite to pass around the internet. I'm gonna pass it around anyway, because I feel bad about how many scared internet people I stumbled across while doing this search.

People on quora like "I'm autistic, can I live past 38"-- honey, YES. omg.

---

tl;dr, when someone gives you a number out of context, consider that the context is probably important

also, make an amateur fact checker's life easier and CITE YOUR SOURCES