sophus | The Semi-Regular Tumblr Roundup (Part 2 of 3)

[cw: nuclear disaster, antivaxxers, sex work, murder of sex workers, the concept of death in the vacuum of space, AIDS crisis, foot fetish mention, revenge porn mention]

My Content

A study found a 17 percent decrease in homicides with female victims after Craigslist erotic services were introduced. There's some further discussion of its statistical methods, which you may find interesting.
However:

I took a look and good grief: In the study they’re citing, “While the exact number of sex workers in the United States is difficult to establish, the number of yearly full-time female prostitutes is estimated to be 23 per 100,000 (Potterat et al., 1990). Potterat et al. (2004) estimate that the workplace homicide rate for female prostitutes is 204 per 100,000.”

“Is that really that bad?” you might ask.

Well, for reference, for Dodge City during the height of the Wild West, the homicide rate was 165 per 100,000 adults per year.

Apparently, being a sex worker in the US today is worse than living in the Wild West.

--

I had the following conversation, in this thread about an AIDS awareness poster. [Wayback] (In one of the versions, the bottom text read "Corporate greed, government inaction, and public indifference make AIDS a political crisis.")

Ok is this just “list people and things we don’t like” or is there actually some sense in which “corporate greed” exacerbated the AIDS crisis?

Off the top of my head, they’re probably referring to how Bayer knowingly continued to sell HIV-contaminated blood-derived medicines to hemophiliacs in Asia and Latin America.

Not Mine

A discussion of the Elephant's Foot, a reactor core lava formation in the the basement of the Chernobyl nuclear plant. [Wayback]

Antivaxxers continue to be bad, news at 7. [cw: preventable child death, scammers, cancer, numerous other horrible medical things]

eRROR MissingNO [cw: pokemon suffering, implied death, existential horror] [Wayback]

Someone asked, "What experiment would you like done on the International Space Station." The answer was, "Drill a little hole in it."
As it turns out, that experiment had already been run!
Accidentally.

"Deaths per petawatt hour is still one hell of a unit." (A discussion of energy sources, and their costs.) [Wayback]

Malicious parties tried to spread falsified nudes they claimed were of Rep. Ocasio-Cortez taking a bath. Unfortunately for their plans, the foot fetishists of reddit stepped in to save the day.
Said one of the heroes of the hour, "I’ve sucked enough toes in my life to recognize when something doesn’t look right."

A particularly good monologue about how if the state does not have to afford criminals rights, everyone will find themselves a criminal.