Riskable

Sure!

Disclaimer: This LitRPG comedy about a shapeshifter is a work of fiction. 😇👍

Possibly interesting: The following placebo-controlled clinical trials were for drugs that inhibited the microglial pathways (via p38 MAPK inhibitors and minocycline). They all failed:

• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21576029/
• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23239139/
• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25751578/
• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25569640/

There’s a problem with all of them: They failed to disaggregate results based on sex, which is exactly the problem I was talking about when I said “(we) need to account for (sex in medical studies)” earlier. This leads me to believe that these pain medications could have been useful for men, but probably not for women if the mouse studies indicating different pain pathways for each sex apply to humans.

There’s a whole article about this: https://doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2025.1730291

Historically, research has assumed a largely “sex-neutral” model of pain. Yet mounting evidence demonstrates that men and women differ substantially in pain perception, processing, and response to treatment (7–9). These differences span the entire biopsychosocial spectrum, including neural circuitry, immune function, hormonal regulation, genetics, and social context (10). Understanding these distinctions is critical, as failure to account for sex as a biological variable risks overlooking mechanisms unique to half of the population and may lead to suboptimal or even harmful therapeutic approaches.

Almost forgot: I posted my sources in this comment: https://programming.dev/post/57533861/26373477

For my sources, see this comment: https://programming.dev/post/57533861/26373477

If your genetics plays an important factor in pain, consider that your sex is “your genetics”, TubularTittyFrog.

It’ll be a while. I’m going to use it as the poster child for a new web novel publishing site I’m building.

I’ve already got much of the code written for the site, but I had to stop because I was thinking, “I should really write a story using all these features first so I know what works and what doesn’t.”

…and that’s the phase I’m currently at.

I have a draft written for the first two acts, so it won’t be forever but probably at least six months out.

Doh! You’re right. I had to dig deep into my old notes about this and here’s the papers:

• https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.4053 (the most cited one, foundational for the sex differences in pain pathways)
• https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.69056 (follow up study that looked at how T cells modulate the dimorphism)
• https://doi.org/10.1097/j.pain.0000000000002215 (most recent study I could find)
• https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms19010281 (more of an “also relevant” paper)

Edit: Almost forgot the studies showing female (mammals) switch to the male pathway during pregnancy:

• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28877966/

…and this study indicates that humans have the same genes associated with this sexual dimorphism:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10169414/?hl=en-US

Since it’s highly unethical to test pain pathways in humans, we have to rely on the mouse studies and extrapolate from there. The RNA testing shows we have the exact same genes as mice for pain expression, so the evidence lines up that men and women are using these different pathways for pain.

I didn’t just use “magical thinking” like I’ve of the other commenters suggested 🤷

Oh geeze, I’m not an expert in this stuff. I’m writing a novel about a PhD-level biologist (who becomes a shapeshifter) and ended up doing loads of research about biology… stuff in order to make the way he modifies people a bit more believable (so many stories are so full of hand waving these days it drives me nuts!).

One of the things I ended up researching was sexual dimorphism in various species including humans and wow what a rabbit hole that is! I have in my notes all sorts of things (differences) that most people have no clue about:

• Women have different livers. Specifically, estrogen/testosterone turns on/off epigenetic pathways that make their livers behave a bit differently. So if a woman receives a liver transplant from a man or vice versa, it’ll be a while before it starts behaving “on brand” haha.
• Women’s hearts are bigger/stronger/thicker but most people know that (necessary for pumping blood for more than one!)
• Women’s internal organs can move around a lot more than men’s. They’re not fixed in place like with men. Along these lines, women’s tailbones can move a little bit (men’s might as well be hard stone). This was important research because my shapeshifter character gets requests to give people tails and I needed to know if that was even possible and, come to find out, much simpler to give women tails than men! Haha
• The tendency for women’s brains to form more cross-hemisphere connections VS men’s tendency to form front-to-back connections is actually a very funny part of the story (it’s a comedy). Anyone that reads that part (and doesn’t understand what it means yet) is going to be thinking, “holy shit that makes so much sense!” Hahaha
• Women can perceive textures men cannot. The reasons why aren’t complicated: Thinner skin, smaller fingers means greater nerve density and sensitivity. This was the research that had me looking into nerve pathways and why women are just generally more sensitive than men. Besides what I already mentioned, women store fat completely differently than men. Essentially, men and women have completely different flesh. Men cross-link fat cells making them much more “solid” whereas women stack their fat cells on top of each other like little pillows… This is why they’re softer than men.
• Now combine the flesh knowledge with the T-cell nervous response and the fact that stacked fat cells (and the vasculature that goes with that) together and you end up with this: Women bruise much easier than men. Bruising results in a cytokine (swelling) response… Which amplifies pain in the affected region. Having more lifelong exposure to cytokine in various joints that are constantly being used/bumped, it makes sense to me that women would be more susceptible to inflammation-related pain disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis. Which impacts women at two to three times the rate of men!

Hopefully that explains what I think I understand about the differences that lead up to women experiencing pain differently/more intensely.

…and that’s just scratching the surface of all the differences! People think men and women “are basically the same, just with a few physical differences” but it’s more like this: Men and women experience the world completely differently from each other.

Women physically see things differently than men (they see colors in greater resolution), they feel the world differently from men, and they have 50% more olfactory bulb neurons than men which means they have much more sensitive noses (especially to certain compounds like sulfur and scents like lavender have a vastly enhanced effect!).

Women live in a different world than men. We need to stop pretending we’re the same and start accounting for it in medical studies!

Well, yeah: Women use T cells to communicate pain through the neuro-immune pathways while men use microglia-to-BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor). The women’s version of pain completely bypasses all of that, jumping straight to pro-inflammatory cytokines that increase sensitivity.

Unless the woman is pregnant. Then she’ll use the same exact pain pathways as men. Presumably, to make the pain of childbirth not-as-bad.

It’s everyone’s right to save what they find on the Internet!

In case you don’t understand how the Internet works, here:

1. Your computer: “I would like that file, please.”
2. Their computer: “OK, here you go!”

YouTube is literally sending your computer the stuff you asked it to send. Content that was uploaded by the copyright holder specifically for that purpose. How is this piracy‽

Wait: He suddenly wants to fund mental health treatment?

Republicans, how can you stand for this? There’s a socialist in your midst!

What’s funny is that—upon being abducted at gunpoint and forced into a mental hospital—trans patients would be given HRT and the usual treatments that conservatives hate. Because that’s what the science says to do and hospitals are legally required to treat their patients using actual, FDA-approved medical practices/procedures.

Woah! Nobody said anything about this being illegal! Not even the article.

Zero laws are broken in “distillation attacks” aka “see what their product does when we give it this prompt.”

This post has triggered my outrage!

…because this is totally normal database stuff. Like, where’s the meat? My phone could handle 500 million rows of data. Is that supposed to be a lot?

I’m not exaggerating about the phone part: A modern smartphone can handle an SQLite DB with billions of records (aka “ROWS”, LOL).

I’m not sure the media should be encouraging people to give her a shot. Especially after she stuck her neck out for an inherently misogynistic organization.

Yes but so is powdered wood pulp. You gotta add that plastic, yeasty flavoring!

Everyone’s talking about this like it’s impractical. This is just the beginning! Scientific advancements often start as completely impractical processes!

I’m positive that over time, this waste-to-cookie process will be refined and refined until it includes not only plastic waste, but human waste as well.

The potential is there! We just need to collect the billionaires and get started!

At least they’re being honest about it. 99% of the companies training AI or selling people’s data to AI companies are doing so without telling anyone.

Having said that, Twitch streams are public almost all of the time so complaining that they’re being used in ways the creator never intended is a bit like complaining that someone caught you picking your nose in public.

We learned this lesson in the 90s: Once something goes public on the Internet, it is no longer under the creator’s/publisher’s control. People can and will do whatever TF they want with it. As long as they’re not redistributing it without permission, that is legal.

It’s everyone’s right to do whatever TF they want with the stuff that’s literally sent to their computer on purpose. That includes using that thing to train AI.

Massive overkill!

That’s a great Home Theater PC. Hook it up to your TV and install KDE Plasma (distro of your choice 👍) then just crank up the global desktop zoom to like 225% and get:

• A real wireless mouse that has a long range (e.g. $10 TEKNET cheapo deal with 10% off coupon today, LOL! https://a.co/d/02qG1oHO )
• A wireless keyboard/trackpad combo that’s made for that kind of thing (they’re all terrible keyboards—it’s only purpose is to get you through the boot menu/rescue process if something horrible goes wrong). Use SSH for doing any real work on the thing.

Now install Docker and all the containers/servers you want!

I have a ~14yo HTPC with a mostly modern GPU (8GB) that only has 8GB of RAM and four cores on some old AMD CPU. It’s running four separate servers for my self-host purposes and it doesn’t break a sweat.

Yes. Women have the biological means to perform just about any activity a man can do (two arms, two legs, a sapient brain, etc) , but there’s something only women can do.

Following this to its logical conclusion: If a woman can do it, it’s not masculine.

Hence my statement: Feminine things do exist (not because they’re a particular color, LOL). There’s a whole aisle of literal feminine products in every grocery store but there’s no “masculine products” section.

Unpopular opinion: Masculinity doesn’t exist. There’s feminine things and then there’s everything else.

Is a hammer masculine? What about a monster truck? What if you paint them pink?

See what I mean? The modern concept of masculinity—and certainly conservatives stance on it—is an invented thing that only serves to make feeble men feel special.

If you accept that nothing is masculine, then a whole lot of advertising, conservative takes, and weird, supposedly “manly” activities start to appear absurd. Because they are.