Staccato
Rodents might not be a great model. We know from a variety of sources that humans can’t really sense excess nitrogen or hypoxic air: industrial accidents, diving experiments, even astronauts.
However, rodents may be able to sense hypoxia a bit better than we do: experiments found that rodents presented a choice would avoid a hypoxic chamber. Guinea pigs may not be the humane animal model here.
A hypoxic chamber does sound like one of the less painful ways to go. I’m not in favor of governments killing people, but a relatively quick loss of consciousness seems far better than getting poked with needles, electrocuted in the brain, shot with bullets, or hanged on a rope. Although I’m still expecting Alabama to screw this up somehow.
I bet they could get the Democrats’ help! All they have to do is nominate a Democrat for Speaker. What a beautiful opportunity for bipartisanship!
…wait that’s not what they meant?
LOCK HIM UP
The article was a fun read, but for readers who don’t have time, I believe Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language” describes the same problem with marginally fewer words. My favorite excerpt, though, really nails exactly the BS your article mentioned:
Now that I have made this catalogue of swindles and perversions, let me give another example of the kind of writing that they lead to. This time it must of its nature be an imaginary one. I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:
I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
Here it is in modern English:
Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.
This is a parody, but not a very gross one.
Peterson’s writings are worse than Orwell’s own parodies.