I share your hopeful optimism, but here's the reality of the mass-email campaigns targeting congress:
[email received 6/18/26 from the office of Steve Scalise, majority leader in the house, who is one of my representatives. I have trimmed for brevity.]
>>
Due to advancements in technology, many third-party organizations use their mailing lists to send advocacy letters like this on your behalf. With the increased volume of third-party letters being sent to my office, I want to be sure that I am able to more appropriately address your thoughts and concerns.
I will be sure to consider the views you have sent me, but if you have any additional thoughts on this issue, or need other assistance with a federal agency, please contact my office directly through my website scalise.house.gov or by calling (202) 225-3015
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In case it is not clear to anyone reading, this is kosher political speak for "I am ignoring automated emails. Consider this your notice."
Honestly, I am surprised it took this long, although I'm quite certain it has been going on for a lot longer and generally they simply do not provide the courtesy of telling you they are ignoring you.
As others have pointed out, too many clicks per word. I am a sucker for a 'how many words do you know' quiz so I finished anyway. Overall I'm skeptical of the classifications. In broad strokes, the early words are easier and the latter words are more challenging, but the middle is pretty muddied.
Some of the words chosen are rather absurd/inappropriate: breviary (which I got wrong but felt like a vaguely religious word) was characterized as intermediate but I think it's much more obscure and less obvious than that; Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia was used as a word (I got that wrong as well) - any type of 'phobia' word is really the sort of thing a fourth grader opens up a page in the dictionary and points out, not a word that is used... ever; metamorphosis and kinetic were labeled expert, which I don't agree with (what elementary schooler doesn't learn about the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly? what high schooler doesn't learn about kinetic energy?).
Most words were reasonably well defined in a way that most people would understand or recognize. A few words had poor definitions: lethargy ("the state of being lethargic" - obvious); complacent ("smug satisfaction with oneself" - I disagree that complacency is intrinsically smug); magnanimous ("generous toward a rival" - I disagree that a rival must be involved); gauche ("socially awkward" - this is sort of close but the given definition completely misses the idea of being tactless).
They call it scientific and give a hand-wavey formula, but they don't explain how words are stratified in the first place. If stratified sampling is a formally recognized method of doing this, it would be nice to have a link to a real reference. I think I know a lot of words, but I am skeptical of the estimate this app provided (north of 75k).
This is a very un-nuanced and combative take on a lot of people's lives. It reminds me of it being socially acceptable for the extrovert to say to the introvert, "Why don't you talk more?" while it is not acceptable for the introvert to say to the extrovert, "Why don't you talk less?"
OP did not say anything about skilled workers who make things with their hands. You are describing an artisan or craftsman, or at the very least a tradesman.
The quote is talking about manufacturing labor. This is the guy on the assembly line who lowers the press, makes his thousandth widget for a day, and then lifts it up. Rinse and repeat.
Ha, grew up in Harahan. When I left the LA for college, people were shocked to find out where I was from based on how I talked. I would hear areas of New England, 'no discernible accent,' and also Canadian. Apparently the Canadian comes out when I say words like out, about, and house. I can't hear it but my friends all swore up and down they could.
There are so many unique dialects hyperlocal to New Orleans, it's amazing.
I have to say I appreciate your aplomb in these responses. The whole thread is littered with shocking (and unsurprising?) tech-bro overconfidence that they can manage a situation they literally know nothing about better than someone who's already done it. Cheers to you and have a good weekend.
>>the advent of chemical non-sugar sweeteners, which in recent decades are turning out to be just as harmful as sugar, only differently.
requires citations. People lump sugar substitutes together as one class of drugs, but they very much are not. Some are sugar alcohols, some are glycosides, others are different molecules. Different molecules have different mechanisms of action and paths of metabolism.
Much like one might take a "blood pressure" medication, it is a large umbrella consisting of chemically distinct ACE-inhibitors, ARBs, thiazide diuretics, loop diuretics, calcium channel blockers (dihydropyridine and non-dihydropyridine distinctly), and more. These drugs generally do have class effects, but the class effects from an ACE inhibitor (bradykinin cough, angioedema, etc) are quite different from diuretics (hyponatremia, frequent urination, etc). One person's 'blood pressure medicine' is not the same as the next.
I agree that the prevalence of sugar substitutes in the western diet demands scrutiny, and I am concerned about their effects, however any current research lumping them all together without strict attention to pharmacological mechanisms supported by translational research is worse than useless - it is misleading.
In the sense of what we 'know' about modern medicine, we 'know' almost nothing about sugar substitutes. The body of evidence is vanishingly thin. I want more research into this topic, but right now, it's just not there.
[email received 6/18/26 from the office of Steve Scalise, majority leader in the house, who is one of my representatives. I have trimmed for brevity.]
>> Due to advancements in technology, many third-party organizations use their mailing lists to send advocacy letters like this on your behalf. With the increased volume of third-party letters being sent to my office, I want to be sure that I am able to more appropriately address your thoughts and concerns.
I will be sure to consider the views you have sent me, but if you have any additional thoughts on this issue, or need other assistance with a federal agency, please contact my office directly through my website scalise.house.gov or by calling (202) 225-3015
-----------
In case it is not clear to anyone reading, this is kosher political speak for "I am ignoring automated emails. Consider this your notice."
Honestly, I am surprised it took this long, although I'm quite certain it has been going on for a lot longer and generally they simply do not provide the courtesy of telling you they are ignoring you.