There is a general understanding among ETH investors that the enhancements from ETH 2.0, EIP-1559 and L2 solutions will result in a sustainable monetary policy with near 0% issuance and the potential for Ether to become a deflationary asset. What is even more interesting is that the net return of ETH as a SoV becomes superior to BTC the moment that issuance is lower than the staking yield. In other words, even if BTC had already ceased issuance, it offers no mechanism to provide yield to long term holders with a negligible risk exposure as ETH does. There is an execution risk that Ethereum will not deliver on what is currently planned, but if it does then what I have explained will become a reality.
You cannot separate BTC/ETH's payment rails from their respective monetary policies. As you are probably aware, issuance is just a subsidy, and without it the network will need to operate as a profitable business with a cash-flow that is entirely dependent on network fees. We are observing a situation that is causing a degradation of the utility of the Bitcoin network. What I mean by that is that the incentive for users to transact directly on the network is being diminished because of the tokenization into ETH and by the introduction of custodians (like Paypal) and traditional banking services who will soon be entering this space. If these trends continue, I suspect that the only activity that will end-up happening on-chain will be done by whales sporadically transacting to hodle and the occasional settlement from institutions. Bitcoin seems fast and frictionless, but that is because you are comparing it to something in the physical world. In digital terms Bitcoin emulates the friction of operation that is found with gold: it is difficult and expensive to move it, securing it yourself is not trivial, and it does not make for a great medium of exchange. I don't think this will be a good dynamic to generate enough transaction fees. That is of course my subjective interpretation of it, but regarding this particular situation it is nearly impossible to make objective assertions at this point. It is possible to assert that, in the digital world, the expectation of frictionless money would entail near instant transactions with negligible cost and without the relative risk/paranoia of dealing with nuclear waste and having a hacker watching your every move waiting for you to make a mistake to snatch it away. Digital money would also need to interact with other digital assets, preferably defined and operated within the same ecosystem. Ethereum is steaming ahead on all ends.
Ethereum is fostering a digital economy (this is a very important part of understanding the value of Ethereum, but I will not be exploring it in this post) with DeFi at its center. It is currently generating about three times as much trx fee revenue as Bitcoin. L2 solutions are going live as we speak, and it appears that they will be much more practical and provide better UX when compared to the Lightning Network. This will help to amplify L1 block space value and push revenue even higher. That will be followed by EIP-1559, which will burn transaction fees. Mining is currently excessively profitable and the hash rate cannot keep up. This means the financial incentive can be reduced and by burning trx fees we achieve the equivalent of an issuance reduction, while stabilizing mining revenue. Eventually the transition to PoS will dramatically cut the operational cost of the network. That means that Ethereum as a business will become more profitable and less reliant on the issuance subsidy. Finally, we will see the introduction of sharding which will scale L1 by up to 1,000 times, compounding the effect of L2 solutions and making it feasible for the network to operate as a platform for new use cases. A solution to the hackenuclear waste security situation is being explored via social recovery wallets. It is still in the early stages of research and design, but it is important to realize that the Ethereum community recognizes it as a problem and is working on a solution.
There is a lot more that can be said about the BTC vs ETH debate and I am working on a full write up that explores each individual element in more detail. Regardless, it is important to pay attention to this trend: the smartest people in this space are shifting their point of view and realizing Ethereum's potential. Raoul Pal is a seasoned investor, extremely bright and open minded. He started with Bitcoin, but it did not take him long to understand the value proposition of Ethereum. Lyn Alden is a brilliant investor and mental powerhouse who initially did not think investing in Ethereum could be justified, but she is also starting to shift her view and now understands that it has a justifiable risk/reward ratio to be included in a portfolio (although she is not personally invested in Ethereum). She has plenty of negative things to say about it, however it appears that she recognizes this is not a black and white situation. I have a feeling she will be revising her analysis on Ethereum again in the future with a more optimist view, but maybe that is just wishful thinking.
The crypto space has a few analogies that have been used to describe technical/economic mechanisms that are somewhat tricky to understand: mining, Ethereum's gas, and the analogy between ether and oil. Crypto "mining" is not like real world mining. It's purpose is not to extract resources, but it is rather a decentralized mechanism to process transactions. Newly minted BTC tokens are not "mined", they are minted by the protocol and awarded to operators. Furthermore, it is impossible to change the total mining output of the network... adding/removing miners does not affect the mining output. If you are new to crypto, you can read a more detailed explanation of mining here. ETH's "gas" is not like fuel (it cannot even be stored). It is just a computational metric that is more akin to the distance a car must travel, but not what actually makes it move. The fuel is electricity and it must be paid for with ether. When you transact you are also paying for the "car" which is the use of all active mining hardware/validators for a fraction of a second. And ether is just money.
If you put too much weight on these simplified analogies, you will not understand the economic actuality behind them. This is a source confusion in the crypto space, and it is used to support false narratives. From an economic perspective, ether is money. Once you understand this, you will know that the narrative that BTC and ETH are not competing because they are different things is analogous to saying fax machines do not compete with the internet.
The beautiful thing about ether is that it is actually not "just money". It is a mixture of a scarce monetized commodity, money, bond and tech stock.

Monetized Commodity: Ether is becoming more scarce and will continue to do so with the transition to proof-of-stake and EIP-1559. Ethereum does not have a supply cap, but it does have a roadmap for a sustainable security model and if it achieves a positive cashflow then it will not only eliminate issuance, it can become deflationary. An argument can be made about potential issues with Bitcoin's sustainability in the long run.
Currency: Ether is used as a unit of account and medium of exchange to pay for every activity in Ethereum. It is also used in the same way for venture capital related to ICOs, and Ether is also used as collateral in the DEFI space and new monetary uses will continue to emerge. It is an immature form of money, just like Bitcoin is an immature form of gold. Some people prefer to say that Ether is just a utility token. However, a utility token is just a narrowly scoped form of money. Not only is Ether's scope within its digital economy growing, by next year users will be able to pay millions of merchants with Ether through Paypal. We have never seen the adoption of a new form of money grow organically. New forms of money have always been imposed by authorities. What would the organic growth of money look like? It would look like Ether.
Ethereum's digital economy: Ethereum has limitless use cases and it is already generating economic activity with real world usefulness. Ether's value will benefit from acting as the native monetary asset for Ethereum. As Ethereum's economic activity grows, the velocity and/or value of ether must also increase.
Bond: With proof-of-stake you need to lock up Ether to receive a yield in return. It is similar to how bonds work.
Tech Stock: Ethereum provides a service. That service is paid with ether. The network is controlled by holding ether that is staked. The more valuable the service provided by Ethereum becomes, the more users will be willing to pay for transactions and the more valuable the protocol and the Ether token become. Cloud based services is the entire business model of many companies. The network will be entirely operated by stakers who happen to be the recipients of transaction fees. It is not exactly the same as holding a stock, but there are a lot of parallels.
Full reserve banking model: This is a bit of a stretch, but it is a potential end-game for Ethereum. It can serve as the base infrastructure and reserve asset for a full reserve banking system. In a nutshell: a consortium of banking companies can be formed to standardize a framework to hold and stake Ether under custody in exchange for wrapped Ether. Customers deposit Ether, banks exchange it for wETH and stake the original ETH. Resting balances of wEther on customer accounts can receive a cut of the staking rewards. Banks get their profit model, customers get to spend wrapped Ether with traditional banking services and potentially receive a share of the staking yield. Customers could also have access to a yield curve based on variable reserve requirements. This would allow banks to create money (which is actually good for the economy when it is done with moderation), but for the first time ever customers would have the choice of how much risk exposure they are comfortable with. This dynamic could help to establish a form of democratic check and balances system that discourages moral hazard. Ether could become a godsend to banks in the land of negative yields. It's a pipe dream, but not entirely impossible. Don't forget that the US OCC has essentially given banks the green light to take the first steps in this direction (US banks have been approved to use the Ethereum blockchain for their operations AND they can become validators... yup this happened).

EDIT 1: Adding an analogy to explain why ether is money:
Let’s say I have a car with a 14-gallon fuel tank and I want to take it on a road trip. The car is not aware of the price of gasoline, and it would not travel any farther if the price of gas would double the next day. That’s because the intrinsic utility of oil has nothing to do with its monetary value. The car needs gas because of its particular physical properties and how the ICE is designed to utilize it. If I want to drive from point A to point B and it takes a full tank to get there, it will take that full tank no matter what happens to the monetary properties of gas/oil. This is fundamentally different from how Ethereum uses ether.
Ethereum (the network) is not trying to be money, but it utilizes ether exclusively for its monetary properties and not because it can be magically burned by an imaginary engine of sorts. It costs money to participate in the network as a miner, and their engagement is financially incentivized with ether. Block space is a scarce resource, therefore participants who wish to transact use ether to bid for it. These interactions are utilizing ether as a monetary medium of exchange. In the long run, as the price of ether goes up, the ether denomination of gas prices goes down. That happens because no one is using ether as gas/oil, and it is actually being used as money. In the short run you may see the opposite occurring because of the dynamic between the portion of block space demand that is inelastic and the demand for ether.
EDIT 2: Revisiting key concepts to explain how they will become price catalysts.

Wide adoption of L2 solutions: these will amplify the base layer block space value while encouraging further network adoption by a significant reduction of fees. A successful integration with DeFi protocols will dismiss the "Ethereum killers" theory and consolidate market confidence.
EIP-1559: reduce excessive financial incentives to miners by burning transaction fees. This will also discourage miners from attempting to artificially raise fees via spam.
Sharding: scale L1 bandwidth, compounding the effect of L2 solutions, further consolidating Ethereum's dominance in the DeFi space, making it feasible to introduce new use cases and eventually increase trx fee revenue.
The switch from PoW to PoS: discontinuing PoW will eliminate the operating costs related to mining and will allow for a reduction of issuance. Money that was previously allocated to buying mining equipment will be redirected to the acquisition of Ether. Staking Ether will remove it from circulation for extended periods of time. Operating cost will be negligible, allowing validators to withhold most of the Ether revenue. This will be the greatest bull market catalyst in the history of cryptocurrencies and it will eclipse the effect of BTC halvenings.

Bitcoin maximalists will be nay-saying all the way through and past a market cap flip. Do not get caught up in their narrative. If you are not sure, then it is better to rebalance your portfolio proportionally to market caps. If none of these things happen and Ethereum turns out to be a failure, then you would only have reduced your gains by 20%. Otherwise, ETH will be making you mountains of money.
EDIT 3: Ethereum killers
Ethereum killers remind me a lot of Tesla killers, but a lot worse. People need to understand that cryptocurrency platforms targeting financial Dapps are fighting the equivalent force of a black-hole when it comes to Ethereum’s network effect and user retention in this space.
Bigger players, with bigger money, are entering this market and they will not settle for anything other than the top dog. This pattern reinforces Ethereum's position as the premium financial system, which ends up attracting even bigger players and resulting in the black-hole effect. To make matters even more complicated, financial apps are more valuable when they are surrounded by a rich and diverse variety of digital assets and other natively defined Dapps. There is not much you can do with your money in a ghost town.
It is VERY difficult to build this type of environment up because the platform and dapps must also have established full trust from their user base. This is not to say there is no space for other networks to grow, but just don’t get your hopes high that they will be taking Ethereum’s stronghold as a financial system. There are other use cases that do not require the amount of decentralization and security offered by Ethereum, and the networks that can focus on these are the ones who will be able to coexist with in the long-run. Gaming, ERP interoperability and supply chain are good examples of such use cases. Remember that alternatives with cheap transactions have existed for a while and they have barely touched ETH's dominance (EOS, NEO, VET, QTUM, IOTA, LSK, STRAT, ARK and dare I say... TRON).
EDIT 4: Refuting critiques about dynamic monetary policy
If an argument can be made that the financial incentives to operators (miners/stakers) are excessive or insufficient then an argument can be for the implementation and execution of a dynamic monetary policy.
I don't think an arbitrarily picked issuance schedule determined during the genesis of a new highly complex system is likely to be efficient through its lifecycle. Bitcoin's monetary policy provides the certainty of stability and protection from abuse, but it sacrifices the possibility of efficiency and jeopardizes longevity. It would be like if a captain of a ship would point it in the direction of its final destination, set the throttle, then fall back to his cabin for a nice bottle of chianti and hope that the ship would arrive safely. There would be no one at the helm to navigate the seas, no one to make sure it stayed on route, no one to avoid the storms or to take advantage of currents. In my opinion it is a pretty bad approach to something as critical as monetary policy.
With respect to Ethereum's dynamic monetary policy: I don't see any evidence to suggest developers have been enriching their pockets by keeping issuance at the levels they are. Developers are stakeholders and the Ethereum fund holds a lot of ether - debasing ether is against their self interest. There is a great misunderstanding that the one's who are adjusting issuance are the recipients of the new tokens. Is there any documented case of this happening?
EDIT 5: Addressing Bitcoin's immutable monetary policy
The idea that Bitcoin's monetary policy cannot be changed is a myth. It is a false narrative that takes for granted that the issuance subsidy will no longer be necessary at some point, but there is no way to objectively assert this. There is no divine power preventing the monetary policy from being changed. If the security model for Bitcoin was jeopardized because of insufficient cash flow to miners, then Bitcoin's monetary policy would be the first thing on the chop board to go in order to remedy the situation.
EDIT 6: Five years ago naysayers were screaming about how everything that is being done TODAY in the Ethereum network would never work. Now they are calling Ethereum a scam, or that is is a platform for degenerate gamblers, or that the fees are too high and therefore it is useless, or that it can't scale, or that something else better is just around the corner to take its place.... you know... basically all the things that traditional bankers have to say about Bitcoin, maxis are saying about Ethereum.
EDIT 7: The greater the impact a new technology can have on society, the more difficult it is to comprehend its potential. Ethereum has the potential to have a dramatic impact on human civilization. It could take decades for it to be fully realized, but it would change the world in ways that we cannot possibly imagine today. If it happens, the moon will be just a pit-stop.
EDIT 8: Thank you so much for all the awards! Ethereans understand this stuff, and I could feel the frustration in the air every time someone said that Ethereum is not money, or that ETH and BTC are completely different things, or all the other bs attacks that are in great part founded on a lack of understanding of how BTC and ETH actually work. I would love to hear what guys like Raoul Pal, Pomp, Michael Saylor and Fernando Ulrich (for my Brazilian friends) would have to say about some of the things that have been written here. If you know a way to get their attention, then please do it.
EDIT 9: Clarification about Lyn Alden's opinion of Ethereum
EDIT 10: I am still working on a much more ambitious write up. It is focused on economic aspects of money, monetary systems and global asset markets. I still have not incorporated any of the information written here, but I eventually will merge it together. One of the main new ideas that I am exploring is challenging the notion that money has no intrinsic value and that scarcity is the most important attribute of money. I think I make a compelling argument to demonstrate that facilitating economic activity is more important, and how Ethereum has a big edge over Bitcoin in this regard. Here is the link to the WIP doc.
TLDR: Ethereum is not stopping at the moon... it is not stopping on Mars... it is going straight out of the Milky Way galaxy in search for alien life... but you should own some BTC just in case the spaceship malfunctions during launch.

Some common gender myths and their rebuttals

It seems like the same discussions come up around Reddit a lot, so I figured I'd gather up some common topics, and their rebuttals.
Many of these arguments can be expanded with more points and sources but I'm trying to keep this as compact and to the point as possible.

Myth 1: "Sexism against men is never institutional or systematic"

Many forms of sexism and discrimination against men are explicitly institutionalized or systemic in society.
Examples include police violence, court biases, incarceration, child custody discrimination, military service, educational biases, health research and spending, insurance, housing discrimination, reproductive rights, bodily autonomy rights, and many others.
The widespread ignorance and denialism around these issues can itself be interpreted as a form of systemic discrimination against men as well.
Note that some of these are institutional because they boil down to statutory legal rights which exist in the realm of government policy and administration. And the government is obviously an institution.

Myth 2: "Most politicians and CEOs are men, and this has led to a society that privileges men and disenfranchises women"

The fact that many positions of formal power are occupied by men does not translate into measurable privileges for the average man.
The assumption this is based on is the idea that men have an in-group bias and prefer other men over women.
Which is an idea that has been debunked over and over again in the academic literature. The gender bias among men is almost zero, and sometimes manifests as an out-group bias sightly in favor of women, not other men.
In-group bisses do exist among women though. In fact some research has found evidence for very strong gender biases among women. Including when it comes to educators, bosses, and hiring managers. Women in formal positions of power do actually seem to prefer other women over men, in much the same way that men are accused of behaving. So maybe this is just projection: people who themselves have gender biases assume that everyone else does as well.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15491274
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103101915112
https://link.springer.com/chapte10.1007/978-3-030-04384-1_9

Myth 3: "Women were uniquely oppressed in history compared to men"

Much like today, sexism in history was often two sides of the same coin. If it was unfair that women had to stay home and take care of their children then it was also unfair that men had to work long hours outside the comfort of their homes. Many people try to equate sexism to the history of racism, as if men were unilaterally oppressing women for their own benefit. And that's simply not an accurate view of history (nor is it a very healthy belief to have).
Gender norms were often unfair to women. But for most of history, women could own property, get divorced (where they usually took most of their husband's money), run businesses, and even be heads of state. Many large empires were ran by women, for example.
The reality of the situation though is that pregnancy (and breastfeeding) often dictated the need for women to have men supporting them. Birth control and baby formula didn't exist. So your options were basically abstinence, or marriage. Which was the same choice that men also had.
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Privileged_Sex.html?id=4szznAEACAAJ&source=kp_book_description
https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:2e88e3f6-b270-4228-b930-9237c00e739f/download_file?file_format=application/pdf&safe_filename=Item.pdf&type_of_work=Journal%20article
https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199582174.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199582174-e-036
https://archive.org/details/legalsubjection00baxgoog/
https://www.marxists.org/archive/beard/woman-force/index.htm
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1855/f217b082603d0ab37ea80c4741fceb8a4a23.pdf
"What about voting rights?"
Voting rights were historically tied to military service and the draft. It was never something that men got "for free" just for being men.
In England, most men couldn't vote until 1918, and that was only because they instituted a draft for all men during WWI.
Women aged 30 and older were also given the right to vote in 1918, and this came without the same obligation to serve in the military that men had. Women over 21 were given voting rights just 10 years later in 1928, which was the same age that men could vote. And that temporary age difference had a practical purposes: so many men died in WW1 that there was a need to even out the gender ratio.
So men have been allowed to vote for a whopping 10 years longer than women, at most. And that was only because of the mass, involuntary slaughter that they experienced around the world during WW1.
Other obligations that men had were paying taxes, attending caucuses, and signing up for bucket bridges to fight fires.
It took a few decades in some parts of the world for people to decide that it was fair for women to be able to vote without giving anything back to the state, but I think it's important to understand the context here. It wasn't misogyny or oppression but political theory. Specifically the question of whether or not it was fair to give women voting rights without equivalent responsibilities that were required from men (something known as a moral hazard, and that can be contextualized as "female privilege also sometimes harming women").
https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/parliamentary-collections/collections-the-vote-and-afterepresentation-of-the-people-act-1918/
http://www.familyofmen.com/when-did-men-and-women-have-the-right-to-vote-in-canada/
See also:
https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/iu2ebj/women_could_and_did_own_property_and_have_rights/
https://www.reddit.com/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/l1byes/suffrage_was_primarily_a_class_issue_not_a_gende

Myth 4: "Domestic violence and sexual assault are primarily women's issues"

Domestic violence and sexual assault affects everyone, and at nearly identical rates between men and women.
In the US, roughly 37.3% of women have been victims of domestic violence, stalking, sexual harassment, and sexual abuse. Including 1.4 million women who experience sexual assault annually.
For men that same figure is 30.9%. Including 1.7 million men who experience sexually assault annually (defined as "made to penetrate"). The vast majority of these men are also victimized by women, not by "other men" (which is another myth).
This pattern is similar across the world, including in poor and underdeveloped nations (see here for a collection of studies), and is consistent with a wide range of research demonstrating "gender parity" between men and women for this topic.
https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/NISVS-StateReportBook.pdf
http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Faculty/bibs/stemple/Stemple-SexualVictimizationPerpetratedFinal.pdf
https://1in6.org
It's also not true that there's a significant difference in severity between male and female victims. Around 66% of intimate partner homicides do have women as victims (which is hardly a staggering majority), but when you include intimate partner related suicide deaths (including assisted suicides), a greater number of men are killed because of domestic violence than women. These statistic also ignore the fact that lesbian relationships are more violent than heterosexual and gay male relationships. Which inflates these numbers and doesn't necessarily back up the idea that women are being uniquely victimized by men.
We should obviously work to fight against abuse in any form, but our current, gendered approach to this doesn't seem to be helping very much. It is also commonly used as an excuse for misandry. Many people who discuss abuse against women do not actually care about female victims. All they care about is advancing a culture of hatred and sexism against men.
https://web.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.5042/jacpr.2010.0141/full/html
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01506/full
See also:
https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/f4rvop/some_sources_on_the_severity_of_domestic_violence/
https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/koinom/some_sources_on_the_sexual_abuse_of_men_and_boys/
https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/f5tes5/gender_parity_for_sexual_assault_academic_studies/
"But women are afraid to walk down dark alleyways at night!"
As they should. And as do men. Most violent crime targets men. And fear is subjective. This is hardly evidence of some kind of unique oppression against women (at least one that doesn't also affect men), and it ignores the fact that men are usually afraid of finding themselves in those same situations as well.
Men are stronger and more capable of defending themselves so I wouldn't blame someone for having gendered views or assumptions here. But let's try not to minimize male victimization or blame it on things like "male oppression".

Myth 5: "False allegations are extremely rare"

Multiple studies have found alarmingly high rates of false allegations in society.
As many as 1 in 7 men have been falsely accused at some point in their life, and they often have to live with those allegations even after proving their innocence.
In addition, around 1 in 20 women have also been falsely accused at some point during their life.
False allegations are particularly common when it comes to child custody and divorce, where well over half of all allegations have been estimated to be false. There is also a common racial element that targets minority men. Especially in history during the era of lynchings in the US.
http://www.saveservices.org/dv/falsely-accused/survey/
http://www.prosecutorintegrity.org/psurvey-over-20-million-have-been-falsely-accused-of-abuse/
https://quillette.com/2019/04/16/divorce-and-the-silver-bullet/
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/14977/14977-h/14977-h.htm
See also:
https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/e6w4yc/i_call_bullshit_on_the_false_rape_accusation/

Myth 6: "Men commit suicide more often than women, but women still attempt suicide more often than men"

This idea has its origins with faulty hospital reporting which lumps suicide attempts in with self-harm (which is something that's more common among women). Women are also more likely to report their suicide attempts than men. And even if this statistic were accurate, it ignores the obvious fact that a suicide survivor can attempt again, thus artificially inflating this statistic.
The fact is, most suicid deaths are men, and most evidence points to there being more unique attempts by men. Any evidence that men are "better" at it than women has been interpreted as evidence for greater motivation of success, due to the very same factors that lead them to attempt suicide to begin with. Not as evidence that women are somehow attempting suicide at rates similar to men in the background.
https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-017-1398-8
See also:
https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/cvpyve/comment/ey5xeda

Myth 7: "Men make more money because of their gender, and this is evidence of male privilege"

Existing gender norms encourage men to earn money in order to meet the financial demands that are placed on them by women.
This causes them to work harder and sacrifice more for their careers than women. Which they do in part because their income is tied to how successful they are with women, and whether or not they qualify as "marriage material".
The wage gap is therefore an example of a gender norm that harms men just as much as it does women.
92% of workplace deaths are men. Men work on average an extra 4 to 10 hours a week (depending on your source) than women. They start working at a younger age (often skirting child labor laws). They retire later (which is also during their peak earning years). And they die sooner than women. Men have worse health outcomes than women and that's largely because of the pressures that society puts on them to be successful and earn money to spend on women.
This is the other side of the wage gap that is equally as important, and that is equally as harmfully to men as it is to women. And it's really just the tip of the iceberg.
In many ways the wage gap is just a reflection of the financial exploitation of men in society. Which is facilitated by things like hypergamy and unfair marriage and divorce practices.
See also:
https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/kzvfcg/about_the_wage_gap/
https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/dxaimc/the_wage_gap_is_created_by_women_and_reflects/

Myth 8: "Men don't go to the doctor because of toxic masculinity"

The main reason that men sometimes don't seek help is a lack of time to see a doctor.
Men work longer hours than women at jobs that are less flexible, and more stressful, than jobs that women usually work at. Men overall engage in an extra hour of paid and unpaid labor per day compared to women, and an extra 45 minutes commuting to jobs that are further away. Meaning men on average have quite a bit less free time to go see a doctor than women do.
This is also something that changes during retirement: retired men are just as likely to go to the doctor as retired women.
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/3/8/e003320
A general lack of help and support, especially financial support, for men who need medical help also contributes to this. There is a myth that men are better taken care of than women which has resulted in gendered policies that help women, but exclude men. Even though it's men who often need that help more.

Myth 9: "Men don't speak up about sexism as much as women, so it's obviously not as big of an issue"

This is because people are less likely to care or listen to them. In part because many men who do speak up are silenced and accused of being misogynistic. A situation known as testimonial injustice or epistemic oppression.
Men are told to keep quiet and many end up internalizing the idea that only women can be discriminated against, since this is what society tells us to believe. Instead, men often adopt different terminology when they discuss gender issues. Like referring to differences in treatment between men and women as "double standards" instead of sexism or discrimination.

Myth 10: "Most men's issues are caused by men themselves"

Most men's issues are caused by gender norms and those gender norms are enforced by women just as much as they are by men.
Men's issues are often just one side of the coin, and usually reflect disadvantages that women face as well.
One of the biggest gender norms in society is hypergamy, or the tendency for women to try to marry up, and for men to marry down. And this gender norm is mostly enforced by women, not by men.
Two other gender norm that are enforced by women is the providership gender norm, and the childcare gender norm. Which also causes women to perform more unpaid work and earn less money than men in the labor market.
A fourth gender norm that is enforced by women more than men is the "boys don't cry bias". Which is mainly instilled in young boys by their mothers and by female school teachers. In fact, fathers and male school teachers actually fight against this gender norm.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053535711000321
https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/04/messages-of-shame-are-organized-around-gende275322/
https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/09/24/chapter-1-public-views-on-marria
https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/akillewald/files/money_work_and_marital_stability.pdf
https://www.fatherhood.org/fatherhood/maternal-gatekeeping-why-it-matters-for-children
https://news.uoguelph.ca/2019/11/mothers-push-gender-stereotypes-more-than-fathers-study-reveals/
See also:
https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/gjtj10/most_people_regardless_of_gender_prefer_to_stay/

Myth 11: "Toxic masculinity is harming men and their mental health"

The concept of toxic masculinity has never been empirically tested, and some research questions the validity of it in the context of psychology and mental health.
Even if you do think it is valid though, it is still commonly used in a way that is sexist and hateful torwards men.
In recent years it has become associated with female supremacy, feminist hostility towards men, and misandry in general. And as a result, the vast majority of men find the term to be sexist and offensive.
Men who identify with traditional masculine values have greater self-esteem, better mental health, better relationships with women, and are usually better educated than men who are opposed to masculinity or who accept feminist views about the patriarchy and toxic masculinity.
The key to better mental health for men might therefore be an embracement of masculinity, not a shunning of it. Instead of trying to redefine masculinity, we should work to understand it better, and offer men better services based on an honest acknowledgement that men's and women's mental health might require different approaches.
Men are not "defective women", and treating men's mental health in that context does not seem to be working very well.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/opinion/apa-guidelines-men-boys.html
https://zenodo.org/record/3871217#.X-p1ji2l2J_
https://link.springer.com/chapte10.1007/978-3-030-04384-1_5

Myth 12: "Most men's activists just hate women or are opposed to feminism. They don't really care about men."

This rhetoric is normally used to silence the voices of men (and women) who support men's rights and prevent them from expressing themselves. Which makes it another example of testimonial injustice or epistemic oppression.
The fact is that many people do care about men's issues, and that's why they become MRAs. Feminism does get discussed in the men's movement, but there are a couple reasons for that:

Many feminists, "radical" or otherwise, have advocated against men and have even pushed for public policy in ways that are harmful to men or discriminates against men. Feminists themselves tend to not fight against this, meaning it's often up to MRAs to address it.
Many MRAs are themselves current or ex-feminists who were ostracized for daring to take the feminist rhetoric about "also caring about men" a little too seriously.

Warren Farrell is a great example of this. He used to be on the board of directors for NOW, the world's largest feminist organization.
And then he said that we need to work on child custody equality and reproductive rights for men. Topics that he assumed should fall under the umbrella of feminism since they are issues pertaining to gender equality. Instead of agreeing with him though, he ended up being excommunicated from the feminist movement. And now he's often regarded as the "father of the modern men's movement" for carrying on his advocacy outside of feminism.
The problem that many MRAs have with feminism is that it usually stops half way when advocating for gender equality.
So sometimes what MRAs are doing is just taking it the rest of the way towards actual gender equality. Our frustration with feminists comes from the fact that they refuse to see this as valid (or do it themselves to begin with).
See also:
https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/ihmb2p/by_denying_that_the_feminist_establishment_is/
https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/9v6tqj/a_list_about_feminism_misandry_for_anyone_who/

Myth 13: "Men don't receive custody of their children because they're bad fathers and don't bother requesting custody"

Academic research simply does not back this up. The only study that ever found something like this was discovered to be purposefully fraudulent, although that hasn't stopped people from trying to repeat this. The fact is that men are widely discriminated against on numerous different fronts when it comes to child custody and other areas involving family court law.
Note also how hateful this rhetoric is. This is the kind of stuff that you find repeated by feminists, and it simply doesn't treat this topic in a fair and honest manner. Fathers love their children and many fight tooth and nail just to get a few hours a week to spend with them. The system is broken and it represents a grave social injustice that is deeply unfair to fathers and their children.
https://www.sharedparenting.org/2019-shared-parenting-report
See also:
https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/ilzceq/cmv_equal_child_custody_for_mothers_and_fathers/

Myth 14: "Most child abusers are men"

A majority of child abuse is actually committed by women, and especially by mothers. This is even more true when you include emotional abuse and neglect instead of just physical abuse.
By some metrics, the biological father is the safest person for a child to be with. This is because when men do abuse children, it often happens while under the custody of the mother. Who is sometimes complicit in the abuse or even encourages it.
Close to half of child abductors and traffickers are also women, not men. And many of their victims are boys. Boys face sexual abuse and are also used for forced labor and organ harvesting. They are less likely to survive or escape, are less likely to be reported on or identified, and they suffer from higher rates of abuse than girls who are trafficked.
And yet very little attention is given to this. Missing boys, and especially missing minority boys, are often ignored by society and the media. To the point that people often assume that most of the victims are girls. Something which is known as the missing white woman syndrome (although in Canada there is a lot of attention given to missing indigenous women, even though 71% of missing indigenous people are men and boys).
Note that I'm not saying these things to attack women, imply that they shouldn't receive custody, or to downplay the plight of girls. Which is a lot more than you can say about people who try to paint men as the villains in this picture. We should however be fair about what the facts are, and give male victimization, including victimization by women, the attention that it deserves.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16165212
https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/childmaltreatment-facts-at-a-glance.pdf
http://www.breakingthescience.org/SimplifiedDataFromDHHS.php
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0145213416302599
https://www.savethechildren.org/us/charity-stories/child-trafficking-myths-vs-facts
Fair is fair and equal is equal. Gender equality will never be fixed if we refuse to look at both sides of the coin. We need to be honest about what the problems are, and stop ignoring them when they involve men, fathers, and boys.

I've Found 929 Discs Over 4 Years - Here's Some Data!

Over the last 4 years I’ve collected data on the discs I’ve found, broken it down into chunks and trends I thought were interesting, and shared it with the community. Previous year’s posts can be found 2019 Post and 2020 Post.
This post deals with averages for the entire data set collected over the years. There are some comparisons from the previous years’ averages just for giggles here and there but if you’re looking for trends by comparing old posts you’ll need to remember that all of the data keeps getting rolled over into a larger and larger aggregate. I do plan on breaking finds down by year as well as location in future posts. Lots of neat data so may as well play with it, right?
I’ve explained my data collection a bit more near the end of this post. If you notice some math and number discrepancies, it’s likely due to rounding or an incomplete data set. Or maybe it’s just me.
As is tradition, I’d like you to ask yourself some questions about found discs. Take a guess, maybe ask your buddies what they think, and see how close you get to the actual data. Put a couple of bucks on it if that’s your thing. I’ll give you a little location context so you know what you’re working with.

Where were these discs found?
Basket - 2
Brush - 9
Fairway - 43
Marsh/Mud - 17
Woods - 91
On Ice - 7
Roof - 2
Water - 429
SCUBA - 323

Summarized into some cleaner percentages:
Water - 81%
Land - 19%

I’ll talk about some thoughts on the locations a bit later. I split Water and SCUBA in the table even though there’s some overlap. If a disc was listed as found in the water, it was recovered either using a retriever or wading. SCUBA is self explanatory. While there are no doubt some SCUBA discs that were found close enough to shore for wading, these were generally deeper and more inaccessible for somebody out just playing.

Here are your questions.
1. How many discs were marked with a name and number?
2. What’s my disc return rate?
3. What brand/manufacturer was lost most frequently?
4. What speed of disc was lost most frequently?
5. What color of disc was lost most frequently?
6. What type of plastic was lost most frequently?
7. What molds were most commonly lost?

I don’t recommend scrolling down much more prior to taking your guesses.

1. How many discs were marked with a name and number?
This, along with return rate, was actually one of the pieces of information I wanted to know about when I first started thinking about the discs we were finding. It’s certainly a populacontroversial topic on discgolf.

Discs marked with number: 47%
Unmarked discs: 51%
Marked, but no number: 2%

So basically half of the discs I find are uninked. That number has fluctuated a bit over the years by a % or two but has really been consistent. The marked but no number discs usually have a PDGA #, but sometimes it’s just a name. In retrospect, I wish I kept track of how many times a bad number was present on the disc but oh well, that ship has sailed.

2. What is my disc return rate?

Total Return Rate (All Discs): 30%
Total Return Rate (Marked Discs Only): 65%
Total Return Rate (Unmarked Discs): 9%

We text the numbers on the discs we find. Ideally we get it done immediately when we find it as it makes meet-ups easier, but sometimes they’re too dirty and need a good scrubbing before we can read the number. If the text doesn’t work, they get a call. We also scan the local league page, which has a running lost disc thread, and see if we recognize anything. From there we either meet up at a course, arrange a drop-off location like under a trash can, or give it to a league person that can run the disc to its owner. We increased our efforts quite a bit to run “iffy” discs back this year. Last year we only bothered with numbered discs. This year we tried to run back pretty much everything. There’s a story behind it but figured I wouldn’t clutter up a data post too much.
There’s actually a lot to unpack with these numbers. For example, 65% of marked discs are returned. Seems kind of low, right? But many of those owners tell us to keep the disc. My numbers on this data isn’t great as I only kept track of it this last year, but I have records of being told to keep a found disc 49 times - that’s 12% of marked discs. If we consider those discs “returned”, our rate goes up to 77%. Those numbers are low - I’m guessing if I had kept better records of “keep its” it would bring us closer to 80% but that’s speculation.
Additionally, my buddy has a duffle bag of marked discs waiting to be returned sitting in his car. There’s 35 of them in there that have had positive contacts and are pending being returned. That’s another 9% if they ever get around to trying to get their stuff back (I know, it’s COVID, we’re trying to be understanding - most of these discs have been in there for months though). Anyway, moral of the story? 86% of marked discs are “accounted” for per their owners wishes and a good chunk of the 14% that’s left just had bad numbers. Others never get back to us and a few drop off the face of the earth after replying once or twice. A couple of times the owner had passed. It’s an unusual feeling when you find one of their discs.
That still leaves us with a lot of unmarked discs. This year we got a small chunk (9% of all unmarked discs, 4% of total discs found) of them returned. Part of it was coordination with the local league. Part of it was just conversation with other players on the course. My buddy is a talker and likes meeting people. One of the first things he asks is if they’ve played a given course before and if they’ve lost anything. Surprisingly, we’ve returned quite a few discs from these conversations.
What do we do with all the unreturned discs? After a few weeks I suppose we take ownership of them and do what we want. Usually we end up giving them away. We adore giving families and groups that are just starting piles of discs. One of the new things we picked up doing this year is making people whole when they’ve lost a disc. Sometimes we haven’t found the specific disc somebody lost but have an identical(ish) unmarked, unwanted, or unclaimed mold that we found that we can give them as a replacement. Sometimes we’ll sell a batch off if we’re getting ridiculous on storage. Helps pay for gear and gas and keeps the clutter down. It’s pretty rare we need to do that though - we’d rather give them to new players but that becomes a tricky proposition with the high speed stuff. A few we’ll keep and bag ourselves, but it’s pretty rare beyond maybe just trying a new mold out for a round or three.

3. What brand/manufacturer was lost most frequently?

Innova - 46%
Discraft - 23%
Dynamic - 6%
MVP - 6%
Westside - 4%
Latitude 64 - 4%
Axiom - 3%
Prodigy - 2%
DGA - 2%
Discmania - 1%
Streamline <1%
Gateway <1%
Legacy <1%
Vibram <1%
Unknown <1%
Millenium <1%
ESP <1%
Essential <1%
Lightning <1%
Plastic Addicts <1%
Wham-O <1%
Yikun <1%

Innova holds a commanding lead with Discraft being the only other significant contender. Merging companies like Trilogy and the MVP/Axiom/Streamline narrows things a bit, but not much. Last year I chunked the companies together based on who was manufacturing what, but with Discmania shopping around their sourcing I’m no longer certain who’s making what nowadays.

4. What speed of disc was lost most frequently?

2 - 3%
3 - 3%
4 - 4%
5 - 9%
6 - 5%
7 - 5%
8 - 3%
9 - 13%
10 - 7%
11 - 7%
12 - 15%
13 - 20%
14 - 5%
15 <1%

Data was taken from Infinitediscs’s flight information for each disc. I know there’s occasionally discrepancies between them and the manufacturers but I figured it would be best to pull information from one source.

Top 5 lost speeds:
Speed 13 - 20%
Speed 12 - 15%
Speed 9 - 13 %
Speed 5 - 9%
Speed 10 and Speed 11 - 7%

Loss % By Type:
High Speed Drivers (11-14) – 47%
Fairway/Control Drivers (7-10) – 28%
Mids (4-6) – 18%
Putters (1-3) – 6%

As is tradition, the high speed drivers dominate the lost disc category. I’m looking forward to breaking the land and water data apart as nearly all of the water holes I find discs on are under 300’ from tee to basket but hey, people are going to throw what they’re going to throw. It’s also a bit of a nuisance that putters and mids are the least frequently lost but the most useful disc to give to new players. If y’all could start trying to emulate Lizotte with some unmarked putters on water hazards I’d appreciate it. If he can clear nearly 500’ of water, surely you can manage 250’, right? Go for it... cough

5. What color of disc was lost most frequently?

Blue - 18%
Red - 14%
Yellow - 13%
Orange - 12%
Pink - 11%
White - 10%
Black - 9%
Green - 8%
Tye Dye - 4%
Purple - 3%
Gray - 2%
Violet - 2%
Brown, Clear, Copper, Gold, and Peach each represented less than 1% of found discs.

From year to year, the color averages seem to change the most with the exception of blue being on top. One thing I noticed, however, is that I lump all blue discs together regardless of shade while most of the other colors have a “lighter” and “darker” version so that is likely bloating its numbers a bit. I’m not certain why I recorded them that way. Lord knows I got creative with plenty of other shades. For the purpose of simplicity, all discs marked “burgundy, wine, chartreuse, seafoam, turquoise” or any other oddball description got shoved into an arbitrarily “close enough” color category. Apparently some days I must feel poetic while recording these things.

6. What type of plastic was lost most frequently?

Premium Grippy "Star, ESP, Neutron, etc" - 40%
Premium Translucent "Champ, Opto, Z, etc" - 34%
Base - 14%
Pro - 5%
Flexible - 4%
Glow - 2%
Light - 2%

I lumped all the different plastic brands into “close enough” varieties. Flexy, glow, and lightweight discs all got dumped together regardless of what plastic variety they were built into.
I’m guessing a lot of folks thought base plastic would be the most common, but turns out it’s fairly rare in comparison to the premium plastics. I wonder if a lot of it gets retired into peoples’ garages and basements when they decide they like the game and upgrade. Those starter kits have to end up somewhere….

7. What molds were most commonly lost?
As is tradition, I’ll be listing these according to the total number found instead of %. Unfortunately there wasn’t a clean “break” point so I’ll just arbitrarily pick...double digits I guess.

Destroyer - 63
Boss - 26
Katana - 25
Valkyrie - 23
Beast - 20
Wraith - 20
Shryke - 19
Nuke SS - 18
Buzzz - 17
Nuke - 17
Teebird - 16
Firebird - 15
Sidewinder - 15
Leopard - 13
Tern - 13
Vulcan - 13
Sheriff - 12
Avenger SS - 11
Thrasher - 10
Crank - 10
Colossus - 10

Ah, Destroyers - I knew you were the disc we were finding the most of, and every year you prove me right by preposterous ratios. Actually, I’m a bit surprised to see so many Innovas firmly entrenched in the top 10. The list has definitely shifted through the years. Heck, the first year Drones (of all discs) made the top 5. I don’t think I’ve found one since….
Anecdotally, the Kong/Zeus/McBeth Driver just barely missed the list - it’s definitely trying hard to catch up. I have a sneaking suspicion it may actually have made the double digit list but I think two “Prototypes” got marked as Hades due to what the owners indicated they thought they were, but I’m not so sure they weren’t Zeuses. Eh, who knows - we’ll see it on the list next year I’m betting.
For the morbidly curious - there were 118 “Unicorn” discs, of which only one example of that given mold was found. Definitely not bitter about having to look up the flight numbers for every single stinking one of them….
A grand total of 271 different molds were found. 4 discs I was unable to identify - two oddball Innovas that had no markings and I just couldn’t figure out and 2 generic ones that probably came out of a Costco “Frolf” set or something.

And some stats for funsies….
Total discs I’ve found courses on: 23 out of 43 played - or 53% of courses played I’ve found a disc on.
Disc finding rate: 606 discs found over 503 rounds played = 1.2 discs a round
Note: I’ve removed the SCUBA discs from this but there were instances we went out just to wade instead of playing a course so this number is inflated a bit. We do find a lot of discs while playing - 2 or 3 isn’t all that weird. More if we have to go into the water to get one we lose ourselves. Also, this is not accounting for rounds played prior to U-Disc, but I wasn’t finding them at nearly the rate I do now. It’s accurate enough for a hipfire statistic. Most discs found in one day: 73 - SCUBA diving, two tanks of air

Average Discs Found on 1 Tank of Air - 25

u/mechanickzilla made a comment in a recent thread about lugging out a bunch of gear to a pond and searching for hours for 30 discs. It amused me because it sounded right. Turns out to be a pretty darn close estimate! A tank of air lasts roughly an hour. If I average out all SCUBA time it works out to be 25 discs per tank/hour in the water. I did refine my technique from early days and upped my efficiency quite a bit this year - turns out if I bring a salvage bag and don’t rise to toss discs to shore every time my hands were full I get a LOT more search time out of a tank and my average rises to 32 discs per tank, or about a disc every 2 minutes. There is some prep and cleanup time involved so I suppose strictly speaking the rate is lower if I want to account for the entire process instead of just time in the water.

Where discs are being found - 34% on one course, 48% on another, so 82% of discs were found on only two courses.

Most discs returned to one person - I’ve honestly lost count. I know he’s up to 12 or 15 and that’s a conservative estimate.

Most frequently found disc - A blue teebird we’ve returned 4 times. Haven’t seen the previous champion blue Rogue for quite some time. I’ll have to ask the owner what happened to it.

Find anything else interesting?
A half dozen vape pens, a jar of marijuana, 8 golf clubs, hundreds of golf balls, 4 golden retrievers (the disc retriever, not the dog), 3 sunglasses, a couple of cell phones, 3 unopened beers, a couple of rakes, untold millions of towels, a bluetooth speaker, 3 sets of car keys, 1 pair of kid-sized glasses, 5 bicycles, and a rifle case.

About Location
Location turned out to be a bit trickier to classify than I thought and I’ve changed and reclassified things several times now. For a while it was just woods and water, but that really didn’t do a good job of describing finding something on shore or in a basket. Here’s what I ended up with:
Brush - anything not mowed without trees. Includes briars, bushes, and long grass. You’ll notice there are not a lot of these - that’s because I HATE walking through these areas and avoid them. A lot of the ones we found in this condition were there because we were looking for one of our own or we were cleaning up the course and happened to stumble across one while brushwhacking or something. Seriously, long grass is the WORST to look through. I feel for those of you that fight with it and really, really appreciate the courses that cut search paths through it.
Marsh - the swampy, mucky crap that disc golf courses love to get built on because what else are you going to do with the land? Not quite enough to be able to submerge your disc, but plenty soggy enough that you’ll ruin a pair of shoes trying to walk through it. A lot of shore finds were reclassified to this.
Fairway - anything mowed. I’m always surprised at how many discs we find on the fairway. I suspect some of them are blown down from being stuck in trees. Others are no doubt forgotten. A few are probably bad throws that rolled to someplace ridiculous. A lot of times we get these back to groups actively on the course, but a surprising amount of times we don’t.
I think the rest are pretty self-explanatory.

Why? Just...why?
Nearly 1000 entries is a lot to monkey with (believe me, I entered every damned one of them - many of them two or three times as I revised and improved my organization). The data collection started more or less by accident. My buddy and I were playing nearly daily and we were stumbling across a steady stream of discs. We speculated about what disc we were finding the most of (there were three or four reasonable contenders) but really didn’t have firm answers, just hazy recollections and some finger counting.
In an attempt to answer our whimsically discussed question, I dug through my storage bin and counted. That left me with some numbers, but not the whole picture. I realized that there were quite a few discs that we’d returned, given away, or sold over the year prior. Fortunately, I had been in the habit of texting numbers to try and return discs and we both tended to take pictures if we found something on the course to show our friends. I had also started a disc golf journal I was keeping on Google Calendar and, for whatever reason, had been noting when we found a disc on the course. Between that documentation and memory (there were less than a hundred or so discs at the time, so it was easy to remember where I had found a given disc) I was able to put together a fairly decent, but somewhat incomplete, starting point for data. Sometimes data was missing, like color or plastic, but it was something to work with.
I did what I could to keep the data “true” and no doubt neglected to account for some discs simply because I didn’t have documentation for them. I guarantee, for example, some discs were found on the course that were left by the group ahead of us and returned nearly immediately that did not get recorded. I also didn’t record discs lost and found from my own party. When in doubt, I left it out. It means some of my numbers are a bit different from one category to another as well. For example, I may have had documentation on the mold found, but not its color. As I collected the data and put them into an actual spreadsheet (Let me assure you, tracking data in Google Calendar is...not recommended) I realized there was certain data I wanted and began making a concentrated effort to keep track of it. There’s still mistakes and omissions, no doubt, but it should be pretty darn solid.
Is the data good for anything? Hard to say. It’s a significant data pool, but the questions that can be asked of it are not always clear. The reason we find so many Innova discs, for example, is probably not because they are more prone to being lost than other brands, but rather that they are more popular and more thrown, and thus more likely to be lost and found.
Color becomes more tricky - am I finding a lot of blue discs because they are more popular or are they easier to see and thus be found? Discs found with SCUBA are usually felt rather than seen, is there a difference between colors found on land and water?
Finding trends may also be possible. It’s possible to isolate discs found by park per year they were found (heck, down to the date if need be) so perhaps we can find changes from year to year in a given location. It’s something I plan to dig into and post about from time to time.
One area I could use some advice on is classifying discs by stability. The spreadsheet currently includes Speed, Turn, and Fade numbers along with quantity. For each mold of disc. I had planned on identifying discs on stable/neutral/understable but those definitions are not particularly clear. If anybody has thoughts on how this could be organized I’d love to hear them. Right now I’m looking at maybe displacement from 0 or something but I have a hard time calling a -2/2 disc like a Valk “Neutral”. I suppose I could break them down strictly by the listed fade/turn numbers. Shouldn’t be more than a dozen combinations.
Anyway, I suppose there is no “why” other than curiosity and a desire to contribute to the community. I think it’s interesting so I’m posting it. Not going to lie, I like seeing if it’s enough to earn a “Quality Post” tag as well. As bad as a kid with a sticker chart, I swear.
Feel free to ask questions - I do plan on breaking down data by year, location, and stability (once I figure out how to organize it) so there will likely be a few extra posts this year.

Uranus Review

[Q] Relationship between Confidence Intervals and P-values

Drive Syndicate Complete guide (ongoing)

Brobot	Level	Cooldown (seconds)
Uranus	S1	12.4
Uranus	S100	7.3
Uranus	SS100	7.1
Uranus	SS140	7.0
Mercury	XX280	14.9

Brobot	Level	OD Ratio
Uranus	SS140	3.2
Uranus	S1	2.8
Mercury	XX280	1.0

(Probably) FINAL UPDATE 1/3 I have hit my wall, and so have others. This event IS. NOT. BEATABLE. Details in Updates.
I will still answer questions throughout the event if anyone still needs help!

Table of Contents (To easily find what you want)

Updates
Introduction
Important Points and major differences
What Hazard level to go for? (With in-depth details)
Should I buy SC in the relay packs?
About Pinned Missions
Tricks for getting more Syndicate Coins
Desert Disaster
Lightspeed Chase
Among Skyscrapers
Twilight Getaway

Spreadsheet mentioned

1. Updates

(1/3 final update)

If you have set your sights on getting the LVN, look no more! Cause... it won't happen. Literally. Here is a vid of a guy downing 400,000 SC on BP packs to star up the LVN for Burning Pursuit VII. Notice there aren't individual BP even for sale. Honestly, it is painful to watch.
I have updated the Spreadsheet all the way through Burning Pursuit VI. I have yet to see anyone get any further. Use the spreadsheet to get the best ratio of SC you can, and upgrade the cars you like, because the LVN is out of range. Sorry guys :/
Updated the last parts in Burning Pursuit.
I will still answer any questions I can! Feel free to comment if you have any questions about anything! :)

(12/29)

Updated some of the spreadsheet, thanks to u/brorius.
Gotta be honest, I have worked so much on the pinned missions on Burning Pursuit, frequently getting zero. I don't have much left I can get, so I personally will be at a wall soon.

(12/26)

Added SC given in each of the pinned missions, to help you decide if you want to keep going (thanks to u/Thr0w_away_20!)
About increased cost to Epics: I can't figure out a pattern to the cost of epics. Epics do cost more each time, ~~but as for the rate, I am a bit lost... For example the first Apex epic costs 69,444 SC, and~~ u/Didelididelidoo ~~confirmed that the next one is about 79,000 SC, a 13% increase.~~ . Then u/Eddles999 mentioned that the 4th is 90,276 SC and the 5th is 97,220, ~~a 7.7% increase.~~ So, as a general rule, think ~~roughly~~ 10% ~~give or take~~. Think of that as you want to think what you want to upgrade. (Update 12/27) u/HuzzahA9 confirmed that the cost each time for the Apex increased 6944 SC each time. Thanks to you guys!
I have been trying to reply to all comments asking for help, and there have been quite a few, so if you didn't get an answer, comment again cause I might have missed it!

(12/24)

CONFIRMED! A ridiculous 216,000 SC is needed to upgrade the Bugatti LVN in order to finish Twilight Getaway. This requires 12,000 SC each for all four parts, a total of 48,000 SC. This also needs three import parts EACH, which are 18,000 SC each, equaling 216,000. A TOTAL OF 26400 SC, just to move on to the next stage. That is a HUGE jump, so keep this in mind. In all honesty, if I wasn't making this guide, I would stop here, and buy the epics for the APEX, and get that sucker golden.
IMPORTANT STRATEGY I HIGHLY recommend using the spreadsheet to do the races with better ratios, even intentionally losing the races with bad ratios. Especially if you don't have previous cars fully starred. SC requirements are a b****.
Big point about LVN requirements, decision making. The end of Twilight Getaway requires 3 import parts in addition to meet the required rank. In this screenshot you can see the requirements. See updates for more details.
Twilight Getaway completed.
Added/Started Burning Pursuit
I really hope I don't get stopped here...
Spreadsheet updated

(12/22)

Removed strong suggestion to have fully starred cars
Added Twilight Getaway (~~ongoing)~~ complete
Added Required Rank for each part of each stage, starting from Twilight Getaway (sorry, I don't remember before that point)
Added a shortcut to the spreadsheet in Table of Contents
Added more races/ratios to the spreadsheet. Will do every stage.
GOT TO STRESS: The upgrades are EXPENSIVE! Keep doing the daily credit event in daily events for credits! This will be my biggest barrier moving forward in completing the guide.
Helpful hint for "Hunted" races: In parts where you have to go through barriers, using touchdrive made is significantly easier, though you have to swipe quickly sometimes.

2. Introduction

Once again, I am making this guide from my own experience. I will do my best to post as much as I can, but I can't promise everything. I will update as much as possible. I will ~~put a strike through~~ anything that I originally say but turns out to be different. I will post an update and when in bold. That said, I will do my best.
If you are looking for the Rimac DS event on Switch, I made a guide for it last year, and it should be the same. Here is the link IMPORTANT POINT: According to other players on Switch, the event is NOT the same as my previous guide. It appears to be more P2W. So, use it more as a guideline rather than completely accurate. Sorry :/

3. First off, key differences and other key points (Important)(Updated 12/22)!

Unlike DS2, there is only one option at a time until Lightspeed Chase II. From there, you should always go for the higher level.
The Legend Pass is NOT needed! (at least it doesn't seem like it will be needed)
(Update 12/22) ~~FOUR STAR CARS ARE REQUIRED~~ ~~unlike last year. Keep this in mind.~~ Not true!
(Update 12/22) In order to get the best ratio of Syndicate Coins (SC) to Syndicate Points (SP), you should ALWAYS do the level three runs. ~~I am not even going to mention level one and two, because the reward is not worth it.~~ We have found that in the long run, it is better not to fully upgrade the car, just 2* below the max level. For this reason, I will be mentioning at some points.
It looks like there are cars that have been used before (Arrinera Hussarya 33, Apex Ap-0, and Porche 911GT3 RS), so there may not be a need to strategize as much. Update: still strategy is needed, but it will be easier if you already have these unlocked/starred.
THE PRICE OF INDIVIDUAL BP GOES UP AFTER EACH PURCHASE! For example, the first buyable BP for the BMW I8 Roadster is 1000 SC, the next being 1100, then 1200, 1300, 1400, etc.
The reward BP are only once, so you don't have to worry about planning rewarded BP.
The recharge time for Hazard Level is 15min for 1 slot
DON'T FORGET ABOUT DAILY CREDIT (YELLOW COIN) EVENTS (The ones that are in daily events)! This special event will need a lot of cars to be upgraded, which takes a LOT of credits. Make sure you do these every day to keep up with the upgrades.
There doesn't seem to be a limit in number of ads you can watch to refill the Hazard Level bar. I did over 50 the first night to write this walkthrough. Update: This is confirmed on Android for me, but Windows does seem to have a limit. (Thanks to u/RON8579!)

4. Should I always aim for Hazard Level 3? Or is level 2/1 okay?

Easy tl;dr: For cars you don't already have, keeping it two stars BELOW MAX is the most effecient! ALWAYS do the level 3 races if you already have it pretty high. (At least for cars so far). THIS IS ASSUMING THESE CARS WON'T NEED TO BE FULLY STARRED LATER ON.
Slightly more detailed tl;dr: Depends on your end goal/what you have. If you already have a lot of BP for many cars, do the level 3 races only. And if you get lucky on the rolls. If you don't think you can fully staupgrade your car, you can do the lower ones, but will get significantly less SC. If you already have the car fully starred, or close to fully starred, definitely do the level 3 ones. Otherwise, star it to two stars below max.
Now the math. Basically, the ratio for level 3 is roughly 2:1. For level 2, about 5-6:1. For level 1, about 6-7:1. So if you double the number of races at level 2 rather than level 3, reaching the same amount of SP, you will still have less SC.
Here is a spreadsheet of all the details
One extra thing, u/LordMadPunt made a decent point: "You can eke out a few extra SPs with this rule (also from the previous DS): Always use the highest hazard level that does not complete the mission. If completing the mission is unavoidable, use the highest hazard level for that." This is a good point to get just a little extra from the missions. However, if the SP will be the same (as seen in the last line of my spreadsheet), level 3 is still best.

But what if you don't want to/can't upgrade your car all the way?

I did the math on that for in both Lightspeed Chase and Among Skyscrapers. Whatever you do, you will need BMW I8 Roadster at at least 2*, fully upgraded. To get to 4*, you will need 75 BP. The drop rate for the packs is 20%. Using just this, lets say it would take about 32 rolls, or 160,000 SC, then buy all 10 of the individual BP (much cheaper), for 14,500 SC. Total, 174,500.
But that is a pretty crappy situation, because it doesn't take into account the guaranteed drops. I found that I got on average about 2.7 per roll. 75 BP - 10 individual BP = 65 BP / 2.7 = about 24 rolls. 24x5000 = 120,000 + 14,500 for the individual BP, 134,500 SC. Still a lot. But again, it depends on your luck.
What do you get by fully starring? For 3*, 10000 SC in pinned missions, and for 4* 20000 SC. Then take into mind the losses in not doing the hazard level 3 and then 2. I didn't calculate this when I originally did it, but from my own guesses from my other calculations. Let's say even liberally, (can someone confirm?) another 20000 SC lost.
In total, this is 50,000 SC you can get from having a fully starred.
This is no where close to the amount spent. Even from my more realistic, better chance roll, that is still 134,500 - 50,000 = 84,500 extra you will have to pay.
In short, you will get to keep more SC by only starring up BMW I8 Roadster to 2\. Even if my math is off a bit, still a much better deal! I 4\ it all the way, and I personally really like it, but it seems like it is not needed.
What about the Arrinera Hussarya 33? Whatever you do, you will need Arrinera Hussarya 33 at at least 3*, fully upgraded. To get to 5*, you will need 63 BP.
Using the above rate, you will need to roll 20 times for 53 BP, (150,000 SC) plus all 10 individual BP (22,000ish?), which is 172,000. What do you miss? 50,000 in pinned missions, and to my calculations, about another 50,000 in Hazard 3 missions. 172,000 - 100,000 = 72,000 extra needed to fully star.
Key point! This is assuming you have no BP of the Arrinera Hussarya 33 at the beginning of the event. Fewer BP are needed obviously, so it costs less to fully star. I had the Arrinera Hussarya 33 already fully starred, so it makes sense to fully star and do the level 3 races if you have it already or are close.
Conclusion? If you don't start with the car fully starred or close to it, don't spend the SC to do it unless you get lucky with a higher drop rate or luck with jackpots. Unless of course you like that car and want to fully star it :P
Even if my estimations for SC earned from level 3 races is way off, it still isn't worth it if you start from zero on that car*.*

5. Should I buy SC with tokens in the shop?

Easy answer, yes, at least the first 2 or 3. I personally bought the first two (totaling 50,000SC) at the beginning, as that was what I needed last year. Once I needed to star up the I8 Roadster, I didn't quite have enough SC to star it up without buying any. You might get lucky, but it is Gameloft. Then, when I got to Lightspeed Chase III, I needed more, so the first purchase was definitely needed. When I started Lightspeed IV, I had no choice but to buy the third pack (50,000)

6. About "PINNED MISSIONS" for extra SC

These are very easy to pass. They are all Money Run, and the only to know is if you get fewer coins, you will need to run them more. But because they are easy to beat, this is the only place I will mention them.
The police are actually good to have here! Each knockdown is +125. And if you get another within a couple seconds, it is +325.
The goal is NOT to win. Drift, slow down, get chances to knock down the other races.
Jumping through the air and Shockwaving stops your SC from decreasing.
Update: It is actually easier to get more SC when your car matches the recommended (required) rank. When your car is much faster than the others, they fall behind easily, and therefor can't knock them down to get more SC. This doesn't affect the total you will get, but saves grinding/sanity time.
Update 12/26 added Pinned Missions amounts to each race.

7. Tricks for getting more Syndicate coins

There are a few little tricks to get the most Syndicate coins as possible. u/dragom7 made a great page with details you can find here. I have tested it myself, and it works! Especially the intentional losing of a match (thanks also u/neverchurningbutter!). Go for the lowest ratio in this spreadsheet, and thanks to u/dragom7's suggestion, I highlighted the races with the best and worse ratios (starting from Twilight Getaway). Just be careful, the way I wrote ratios and the way he did are different!
Also, as mentioned in other areas, if Syndicate Coins is a priority, be sure to NOT upgrade your cars all the way.
(Update 12/24) Also also, some level 2 hazard races have a ratio worse than some level 1s, so check out this spreadsheet to find out what has the best ratios are.
(Update 12/24) If you are REALLY pushing to get the most SC (and you have the time to watch extra ads), intentionally lose frequently if the ratio isn't good. In theory, you could get a lot more if you only played the ones with good ratios. It would just take a long time....

8. Desert Disaster

This one is very straight forward. It does not take any Hazard Level during the whole thing, most (all?) are just "Finish the race" goals. You get to used a maxed Rimac for free, and all the races are on the new Nevada track. It is pretty easy to get first if you are used to the track from A8 back in the day. New players may have a little trouble because THIS CAR IS FAAAASST. So heads up. But all in all, all four of these are pretty easy (including a special little surprise for the story at the end...)
*30 BP for the I8 Roadster is given as a reward at the end, unlocking it.*
You can get 10,000 SC from pinned missions.

9. Lightspeed Chase

The main races are done in San Francisco.
For the BMW I8 Roadster:
2* 23BP
3* 33BP
4* 42BP (Yes, 4* is needed this time around in order to get the Hazard Level 3 races as well as the pinned missions)
Total Credit cost was more than 1,500,000. A lot. Do the Daily credit events. I will try to record exactly how much for other cars.
One pack is 500 SC, (10-pack 5000 SC). Individual BP are available starting at 1000 SC, then 1100 SC, 1200 BP, etc., up to 10 BP.
Epic Card for BMW I8 Roadster: 27,778 SC ~~(one also available from Milestones from MP 12/18-12/24)~~ (Update, event over). Each additional epic costs 10% more (2778(?) more) each time you buy one.
In general, the courses aren't too bad. Unlike the previous event, you can't restart the game to change the options. Once you get to Lightspeed Chase II, two levels appear. At Lightspeed Chase III, three levels appear. ~~DO NOT DO THE LOWER LEVEL ONES. ONLY THE LEVEL 3 ONES~~ ~~if you are trying to go all the way, as these give the best SC ratio~~. See #2 above for why this is no longer true.
As stated above, if your goal is to fully upgrade the BMW I8 Roadster, do so before unlocking Among Skyscrapers, as the purchasable BP and the Epic Parts will no longer be available. This means not finishing Lightspeed Chase V.
In Lightspeed Chase V, you will use the Bugatti La Voiture Noire, which will require upgrades to stage 1 (Yes, just stage one). HOWEVER this requires 4,600 SC for each of all four parts, a total of 17,400 SC. Keep this in mind while you play Lightspeed Chase.
The last stage also is a 1v1 race with a time of 1:49 to beat. Note that this is the first race with a time goal. You won't be able to beat the other racer, as the Green Lizard is supposed to have a superior ride at this point. The time itself, without any big mistakes, is not a big challange.
*30 BP for the Arrinera Hussarya 33 is given as a reward at the end.* It takes 35 BP (according to the wiki page) to unlock. You can get the remainder from the shop when Lightspeed V is completed.
At the end of Lightspeed Chase, I had about 55,000 SC (including the 150,000 SC bought with tokens) to get going on Among Skyscrapers.
Pinned Missions SC given:
Lightspeed Chase I: 10,000.Lightspeed Chase II: 10,000.Lightspeed Chase III: 10,000.Lightspeed Chase IV: 20,000

10. Among Skyscrapers

The main races are done in New York.
For the Arrinera Hussarya 33 (the wiki page):
1* 35BP (Yes, you will need 5 more BP than what is given as a reward)
2* 15BP
3* 21BP
4* 28BP
5* 35BP (Fully upgraded, but epic parts not needed)

One pack is 750 SC, (10-pack 7500 SC). Individual BP are available starting at 1500 SC. I don't know how much is goes up nor how many are available, as I already had this fully starred. If it is the same as the BMW, it will go up 10% after each one bought. *Someone hit me up and I will add it!
Epic Card for Arrinera Hussaryar 33: 41,667 SC. Each additional epic costs 10% more (4167 more) each time you buy one.
In general, the courses aren't too bad. Unlike the previous event, you can't restart the game to change the options. Once you get to Among Skyscrapers II, two levels appear. At Among Skyscrapers III, three levels appear. DO NOT DO THE LOWER LEVEL ONES if you have it at a high level already. ONLY THE LEVEL 3 ONES if you are trying to go all the way, as these give the best SC ratio. See 2.Should I always aim for hazard level 3? Or are level 1/2 okay? above for details as to why.
As stated above, if your goal is to fully upgrade the Arrinera Hussaryar 33, do so before finishing Among Skyscrapers VI, as the purchasable BP and the Epic Parts will no longer be available.
In Among Skyscrapers VI, you will use the Bugatti La Voiture Noire, which will require upgrades to stage 2 . This requires 7,500 SC each for all four parts, a total of 30,000 SC.
The last stage also is a 1v1 race with a time of 1:47 to beat. You won't be able to beat the other racer (I freakin 360 spinned him and he crashed at82% of the course, and he still won!), as the Green Lizard is supposed to have a superior ride at this point.
*30 BP for the Apex AP-0 is given as a reward at the end.* It takes 45 BP (according to the wiki page) to unlock. You can get the remainder from the shop when Among Skyscrapers VI is completed.
On a bit of a strange note, I had the absolute worse luck on the pinned missions in Among Skyscrapers III. The starting amount was always low and it took me FOREVER to get it maxed.
~~At the end of Among Skyscrapers, I had about 55,000 SC (including the 150,000 SC bought with tokens), to get going on Among Skyscrapers. But, I already had the Hussarya 33 fully starred.~~ This seems pointless to point out since everyone will be at a different points/SC amounts depending on what cars they already have unlocked as well as what path they choose.
Pinned Missions SC given:
Among Skyscrapers I: 10,000.Among Skyscrapers II: 10,000.Among Skyscrapers III: 10,000.Among Skyscrapers IV: 20,000.Among Skyscrapers V: 30,000.

11. Twilight Getaway

The main races are done in Rome.
For the Apex AP-0 (the wiki page):
1* 45BP 2* 17BP 3* 23BP 4* 32BP 5* 45BP
Twilight Getaway I: Hazard 3 2626 (1*) Pinned Missions: 15,000 SC
Twilight Getaway II: Hazard 3 2926 (2*) Hazard 2 2626(1*) Pinned Missions: 15,000 SC
Twilight Getaway III: Hazard 3 3189 (3*) Hazard 2 2926 (2*) Hazard 1 2626(1*) Pinned Missions: 15,000 SC
Twilight Getaway IV: Hazard 3 3547 (4*) Hazard 2 3189 (3*) Hazard 1 2926(2*) Pinned Missions: 30,000 SC
Twilight Getaway V: Hazard 3 3810 (5*) Hazard 2 3547 (4*) Hazard 1 3189(3*) Pinned Missions: 45,000 SC
Twilight Getaway VI: Hazard 3 3980 (1*) LVN (INCLUDING IMPORT PARTS!)
One pack is 1250 SC, (10-pack 12500 SC). Individual BP are available starting at 2500 SC. I don't know how much is goes up nor how many are available, as I already had this fully starred. If it is the same as the BMW, it will go up 10% after each one bought. *Someone hit me up and I will add it!
Epic Card for Apex Ap-0 : 69,444 SC Each additional epic costs 10% more (6944 more) each time you buy one.
The difficulty has stepped up in this set, at least for me it felt that way. Be sure to play only Hazard level 3 missions through Twilight Getaway III if you can, as 3* Apex is REQUIRED to move on.
As stated above, if your goal is to fully upgrade the Apex AP-0, do so before finishing Twilight Getaway VI, as the purchasable BP and the Epic Parts will no longer be available.
In Twilight Getaway VI, you will use the Bugatti La Voiture Noire, which will require upgrades to stage 3 . This requires 12,000 SC each for all four parts, a total of 48,000 SC. This needs three import parts EACH, which are 18,000 SC each, for a total of 216,000!! (CONFIRMED 12/24)
The last stage also is a 1v1 race with a time of 1:46 to beat. You (probably) won't be able to beat the other racer, as the Green Lizard is supposed to have a superior ride at this point.
*30 BP for the Porsche 911 GT RS is given as a reward at the end.* It takes 55 BP (according to the wiki page) to unlock. You can get the remainder from the shop when Twilight Getaway VI is completed.

12. Burning Pursuit

The main races are done in Cairo.
*NOTE: This is the first section of the event that needs a 4* car to advance. Also, thanks a bunch to broius for info of parts beyond what I could get! Proof
For the Porsche 911 GT3 RS (the wiki page):
1* 55BP 2* 18BP 3* 24BP 4* 32BP 5* 47BP 6* 47BP
Burning Pursuit I: Hazard 3 2109 (1*) Pinned Missions: 20,000 SC
Burning Pursuit II: Hazard 3 2458 (2*) Hazard 2 2109(1*) Pinned Missions: 20,000 SC
Burning Pursuit III: Hazard 3 2806 (3*) Hazard 2 2458 (2*) Hazard 1 2109 (1*) Pinned Missions: 20,000 SC
Burning Pursuit IV: Hazard 3 3285 (4*) Hazard 2 2806 (3*) Hazard 1 2458 (2*) Pinned Missions: 20,000 SC
Burning Pursuit V: Hazard 3 3677 (5*) Hazard 2 3285 (4*) Hazard 1 2806 (3*) Pinned Missions: 60,000 SC
Burning Pursuit VI: Hazard 3 3893 (6*) Hazard 2 3677 (5*) Hazard 1 3285 (4*) Pinned Missions: 100,000 SC
Burning Pursuit VII: Hazard 3 ~~UNKNOWN~~. 4007 (2*) YUP YOU READ THAT RIGHT! YOU GOTTA STAR UP THIS THING! 45,000 SC for 10-pack, so probably around 900,000+ SC if you are lucky! Not to mention the upgrades themselves. I have yet to see a single person actually do it.
Here is a vid of a dude with 400,000 SC spending on the packs. Spoiler, he didn't get it.
One pack is 2000 SC, (10-pack 20000 SC). Individual BP are available starting at 4000 SC.
Epic Card for Porsche 911 GT3 RS : 111,111 SC Each additional epic costs 10% more (11,111 more) each time you buy one.
~~As stated above,~~ ~~if your goal is to fully upgrade the Porsche 911 GT3 RS, do so before finishing Burning Pursuit VII, as the purchasable BP and the Epic Parts will no longer be available~~ (Update 1/3)If you are reading this, you won't be able to progress further, so take your time getting the epics if that is your goal.
(to be continued [edited] ~~as I clear more/more becomes available~~ if someone can actually get farther)
~~I really hope I can get all the way through the DS even :/~~ Won't happen, sadly...

Confidence Intervals, P-values, and Statistical Significance

TL;DR: Vegan Gains is incorrect. All cause mortality risks relative to regular meat eaters for low meat eaters, fish eaters, and vegetarians/vegans aren't different. The authors didn't contradict themselves or get the data wrong (shocking), it's just that Destiny and Vegan Gains didn't clearly state and understand the null hypothesis in question.
Context: Vegan Gains was debating Destiny and cited Mortality in vegetarians and comparable nonvegetarians in the United Kingdom to demonstrate that simply reducing meat intake isn't enough - to significantly reduce all cause mortality, you have to be vegan. Destiny noted that the following sentence that seemed to contradict Vegan Gains:

When we excluded data for participants known to have changed diet group at least once during follow-up, leaving data for 4270 deaths before age 90, there was no significant difference in risk between diet groups for all causes of death combined, as follows: low meat eaters, HR: 0.93 (95% CI: 0.85, 1.02); fish eaters, HR: 0.91 (95% CI: 0.81, 1.02); and vegetarians and vegans, HR: 0.92 (95% CI: 0.84, 0.99) compared with regular meat eaters; P-heterogeneity = 0.13

Vegan Gains stated he doesn't care what the authors said in the paper - what matters are the numbers. And the numbers clearly show that the confidence intervals for the hazard ratio of the vegetarian/vegan group don't cross the null (i.e. don't contain 1, as it ranges from 0.84 to 0.99); thus, there is a significant difference. So who is right here?
Definitions: skip if you already know
Hazard Ratio: basically rate of death in one group as compared to another group. In this study, reported hazard ratios are rate of death of one of the 3 diet groups as compared to regular meat eaters. For example, if I have a hazard ratio of 5 for fish eaters, that means they die at a rate 5 times that of regular meat eaters (which would be bad for fish eaters). A hazard ratio of 1 or close to 1 would mean similar rates (i.e. not much of a difference in death rates). An HR beneath 1 would be good for that diet (they die less).
P-value: the probability that (assuming the null hypothesis is correct) you'd see results at least as extreme as the ones you observed if you performed the same analysis again. For example, if I do an analysis to see what the correlation is between basketball players and height, we could say my null hypothesis is r=0 (there's no correlation). Let's say I find an 85% correlation, and the p-value is 0.0000001%. That means that, if the null hypothesis is true (there's no correlation), there'd be a 0.0000001% chance of observing results at least as extreme as an 85% correlation. In other words, that's super unlikely so we can reject the null (we reject the idea that there's no correlation). In this example, we're talking about p-values for correlation. We can also make p-values for hazard ratios.
95% Confidence Interval: basic idea is to think of it as a range of values that hopefully captures our parameter that we care about. I.E. let's say I am about to calculate a 95% confidence interval for the average weight of women. That interval will have a 95% chance of including the true average weight of women (and if we calculate it, it might come out to be like 160-180 pounds for example). In this example, we're talking about confidence intervals for average weight. We can make confidence intervals for hazard ratios as well.
Can confidence intervals tell you significance by "crossing the null"? Yes:
There's another interpretation of confidence intervals that allows you to determine statistical significance, since the p-value and the confidence interval are actually mathematically linked to one another (don't need to know how, just know they are). If the confidence interval includes your null hypothesis value, you cannot reject the null hypothesis. If it doesn't include your null hypothesis value, you can reject the null hypothesis. Further, your p-value should agree with the result from the confidence interval (i.e. a confidence interval that crosses the null means we should have a non-significant p-value). Likewise, if your p-value is significant, you will necessarily see that your confidence interval doesn't include the null. I don't know why the people Destiny brought on were saying you can't use confidence intervals to assess significance. Regardless, in this case, Vegan Gains is claiming that the null hypothesis is a hazard ratio of 1 (i.e. vegetarians/vegans have the same rate of death as regular meat eaters). If the confidence interval encompasses that (e.g. 0.8-1.2), we see no significant difference. Finally, that leads us to this ...
Explaining the discrepancy: Is VG right? No.
So isn't Vegan Gains right? After all, 0.82-0.99 doesn't include 1. Well, there's a problem. They actually calculated a p-value for us in the part I quoted. A p-value of 0.13. That p-value isn't significant at the 0.05 significance threshold (which is what we're using given 95% confidence intervals). How can this be? I just said that the confidence interval and p-value need to agree when it comes to determining significance. There's only one solution: the null hypothesis isn't that the HR = 1.
The discrepancy is that the authors wanted to know how the hazard ratios relative to regular meat eaters of each of the diet groups compared to each other (low meat, fish eaters, and vegetarians/vegans). When you do that statistical test, you find none of them are significantly different (P=0.13). Basically, the hazard ratio for low meat eaters isn't significantly different from the hazard ratio of vegan/vegetarians. The null hypothesis in this case would be that the HR for low meat = HR for fish eaters = HR for vegetarians/vegans. Since we fail to reject, we have failed to detect a statistically significant difference of the death rates (relative to regular meat eating) across the three diets.
Vegan Gains is looking at which of the 3 diets are significantly different from regular meat eaters by looking at their confidence intervals. The null hypothesis in this case would be 3 separate ones for each diet (e.g. HR for vegans/vegetarians = 1; HR for fish eaters = 1; HR for low meat eaters = 1). I think the problem here is that a proper analysis would require a correction for multiple tests, since you're doing 3 separate tests, and VG hasn't done this, so to claim that this data shows that only being vegan/vegetarian is sufficient to reduce all-cause mortality isn't the case.
What if we separate vegetarians and vegans? Maybe those cheese-breathers are dragging us down.
The authors did this. Results for vegans were: HR: 1.14 (95% CI: 0.97, 1.35). Not significantly different from any of the other diet groups. Confidence interval crosses 1. The analysis goes in detail about various causes of death and how vegans compare to regular meat eaters. I didn't read the whole study. Just thought it was worth pointing out.
If I got anything wrong, please correct me, and I'll update the post accordingly.

All the Fresh DnB for your New Year celebrations! Check out the reviews and support the artists! [+weekly updated Spotify playlist] | New Music Monday! (Week 52)


Weekly updated Spotify Playlist	H2L: New Drum & Bass
Soundcloud Playlist	H2L: New Drum & Bass Soundcloud
Youtube Playlist	H2L: New Drum & Bass Youtube
Retroactive Spotify Playlist	**H2L: Retroactive New DnB
Last Week's list	http://reddit.com/khfgph

Picks Of The Week (by u/lefuniname)

1. Used - Where I Belong [usedmusic]

Recommended if you like: Andromedik, Murdock, Subsonic
Welcome to the last releases thread of this year! It has been a year of ups and downs. Well, mostly downs. But there was one major up for me: becoming a part of the weekly releases crew and writing these release reviews. I am still utterly overwhelmed by all the supportive comments and messages the team and I have received for these threads. I would write these even if I didn't have an audience, but seeing that people actually read and sometimes even enjoy wasting their time reading it makes it all so much more worth it for me. Big ups to every single one of you!
Fittingly, the first release I'm covering talks a lot about what happened this year. There has been a sharp increase in DnB tracks with lyrics that are obviously inspired about the various shitty things that happened this year, from Millbrook - Echoes to Andromedik - Break Away. However, there's not many tracks that are as direct about their feelings towards 2020 as this one is.
I'm of course talking about Used's newest single Where I Belong. Even though Used is in many ways still a newcomer, including that he has only been around as a producer since around 2016 and that he has only released a handful of songs, he is also in many ways more established than some other producers that have been around for longer. The belgian prodigy's first big hit, Mistakes, has recently hit 2 million streams on Spotify and has over the years become a straight-up anthem that the whole of Belgium can sing along to.
Used isn't just any old, or in this case young I guess, producer though. He not only writes and sings his own vocals, he also plays multiple instruments, including the violin and the piano. Oh yeah, by the way, he's also mainly a Jump Up producer. I'm sure I've lost a few of you already, but I assure you that Used is certainly one of the more interesting ones out there and definitely worth your time.
Not only is he quite the multi-talent musically, he is also the producer with the highest hit-to-release ratio I've seen in the last few years. Since Mistakes, every single track he released is an instant anthem that a majority of people at a rave could sing along to. After the trilogy of personal tracks about one of his own breakups that were Mistakes, Come Back Home and Better On My Own, Used strayed off the beaten path and decided to change the subject for this next single while still remaining personal. This time the topic is something we can all relate to: a longing for a return to normal. A longing for a rave, just any rave.
While his biggest hits so far were very personal, they still had a certain distance to the artist himself. This is not the case for his newest single Where I Belong. In it, he speaks his heart out about how much the lockdown and the cancellation of all the shows and festivals have affected him. "No therapist can do, what the live show's done." - Biggest mood of the year. Right below that on the "big mood top 10" you can find the previous line: "I can't even remember a single thing that happened between March and December". As mentioned earlier, I've heard quite a few lockdown inspired tunes lately, but none have felt quite as deeply personal as this one.
These relatable af lyrics are of course performed by himself, alternating between rapped and sung verses. The shortest description for the instrumental I could come up with is Andromedik meets Fox Stevenson. A fun Jump Up inspired Liquicity type beat, with violins and pianos, all played and produced by himself. In the second drop the jumpy beat is stripped back a lot and the violins take centre stage, further driving home the melancholy of it all. I like songs that make me feel things and this is one of them.
Big recommendation for my fellow vocal dnb fans out there.

2. Various Artists - Various single releases [All kinds of labels]

Recommended if you like: Drums, Basses
Due to Christmas, we sadly don't have much time for more deep dives (except for the Hidden Gem section below). Luckily, not a whole lot of people released something this week anyway. Loads of yearly compilations once again, but mostly just repackaging of older tunes. But there are still quite a few tracks and EPs I want to quickly mention at least, just to give you a quick overview over the neat stuff that did get released.
On the Dancefloor side of things we've got Protostar's remix of the Darren Styles classic Us Against The World, as part of the Monstercat Christmas remix saga. If you ever wondered how Happy Hardcore DnB would sound like, this is for you. If you like something more laid back and maybe more asian (who knows), I've got just the thing for you. Japanese Electro Rock Band The Game Shop, who from time to time do dabble in DnB, released a remix EP of one of their earliest hits Everything Is OK. My favorite remix of the bunch by far is the one by Osaka-based producer Mountain. I will never get enough of his Miami Vice funk type of drum and bass.
From the chill side of dancefloor we take it down another notch to Liquid. One of the most underrated czech producer duos out there, Ripple, released a really neat free download Words that is sure to calm you down if the festivities stressed you out. Watch out for that album they've got coming up! If you need even more c h i l l, there's also the lovely Emotions single by my fellow german countryman and multi-genre producer PLTX. Big up the Dresden gang.
Let's take it down even further. To the Deep side of things. My favorite release on that side is probably Rift's Can't Stop EP on Differential Recordings. Especially Never Last and the Phobetor Rift & Petroll VIP did it for me. Great stuff as always from Rift and Differential. Need For Mirrors also released a very interesting track this week: Patience, a collab with vocalist Fusion. In true Need For Mirrors fashion it's one of those tracks that you cannot really compare to anything else. Definitely one of the more uplifting NFM tunes though.
This week was also great for Deep DnB compilations. First off we've got the The Frontliners Vol. 1 compilation on Propaganda011, which I only found because it features a DnB track by a Bass House producer I fell in love with the last few months: Kage. I'm very glad I did find this though, my favorites were the tunes by Mew Zu, Point 4, Sub Mortal and, of course, Kage. Next up we got V Recordings's yearly compilation Planet V Vol. 4. Not a whole lot of new tracks, but the few new ones Bryan Gee blessed us with are well worth your time. L-Side and Command Strange, Makoto and Paul T & Edward Oberon, Alibi, Beat Merchants, all these are featured and deliver the good stuff, as expected.
Lastly (in the deep section), I want to mention the Christmas present that is the SANTA FIGHTS SOME MONSTERS LP on my newcomer label SIN.FULL Maze. And the incredible LP name isn't even the best part of it! 16 free tracks with some of the freshest productions around, by some of the most unknown names around too. I can't even recommend specific tunes, it's all so interesting. Just listen to it all If you only care about streaming (guilty as charged), I was assured that this one will also come to Spotify, probably next month. Which is good, because I need all of these in my playlists, like now.
Hey, nice, we have arrived at the Neuro section! A clear highlight this week was the release of the album that puts the funk back in Neurofunk: Mean Teeth's Bring Back The Funk LP. If you have closely followed their excellent album preview EPs over the years since the Estonian and Lithuanian duo started this project, you won't find that many new tracks on this finished album, but it's still very much worth your time. Great remasters of their biggest tunes to date and collaborations with NickBee and Volatily Cycle for those who are up-to-date, for everyone else a whole 20 amazing tracks of the funkiest of the funk Neurofunk awaits you. For those who like their dnb even harder, there was also Hallucinator's new Rejects LP on PRSPCT.
One last thing and then I swear to God I'll shut up about this forever. Until next week that is. This week also saw the releases of DJ Hazard's When The Dreams Are Over EP and the long awaited Bou and Mefjus collaboration Wormhole. Not for me personally, but I can't not mention them at least.

3. Particular Shades - Fault Input / String [Watchout Music]

Recommended if you like: Amoss, Notequal, Synergy
You better Watchout, you better not cry, better not pout, I'm telling you why: Hidden Gem Of The Week™ is coming to town!
Rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it? I've got one last present for you guys. This week's pick is Particular Shades - Fault Input / String on Watchout Music. Lots of new names in there. Let's start with the label and work our way to the artist.
Watchout Music is a very very new label. They were founded earlier this year and this is just their second overall release so far. They are a Slovakia-based label focused on showing off the vast amount of talent that can be found in Eastern Europe, more specifically Slovakia and the Czech Republic. If you were active in that specific scene (no judgement if you weren't) in the last 3 years you might remember there being another project with very similar ambitions: dnb.zone. In fact, dnb.zone and Watchout are working very closely together to not just showcase releases by Slovakian producers, but now also release the best ones themselves. Watchout is also collaborating with the czech label SIN.FULL MAZE that I've mentioned earlier and covered for the Notequal EP a few weeks back. If you recognize any of these names, you know that can only mean one thing: Very high quality music. Watchout for this label in the future.
Not convinced yet? Alright alright, let's talk about their newest release then. It comes from the newly established Slovakian producer duo Particular Shades. Previously known in the local scene as the DJs Abbre and Deepthonic, they have now joined forces, expanding their repertoire from "just" DJing to also producing their own tracks. As they are still very new and only have one single other release, it's hard to judge their production too much. But if that one release and this new double single is anything to go by, this certainly won't be the last time we will have heard of them.
This newest release by them is a double single that combines the best of the techy and deep worlds of drum and bass. The first track, Fault Input, is a collaboration with fellow Slovakian trio Notequal. It's a great blend of rolling and shuffling drums, seriously hard-hitting snares and basses that go crazy all over. But my favorite part has got to be the way they worked a old timey computer tutorial sample into the mix. I love documentary or computer generated voice samples. Techy, deep goodness. If this is the faulty input, I don't even want the correct input.
Continuing with the IT-based naming schemes, String is the second half of the double single. This one takes us a bit further away from the techyness, but doubles down on the deep part of it all. A loudly growling bass so deep I can barely hear it in my headphones, a string of equally aggressive but slightly less deep bellows and roars and lots and lots of different sections keep you on your toes as you listen to it.
Can only recommend following both Watchout and Particular Shades in the future!
Other Hidden Gems of this week: - Various Artists - VA AW20 [Sub:Edit Records] - DEZPOT - CORRIDORS OF DEATH PART 13 - Anizo - ANEP01 (what an EP name lol) - MYLK - Chocolate Parfait (KONKAI Remix) - Ci-Energy - Qualia (sadly missed this one on release, definitely worth a belated shout-out imo)

Extra Reviews (by u/jandogearmy)

War – Rebirth / Crofters

War hasn’t been too active in terms of releasing originals in 2020. If you look back at his discography, he never really puts out a lot of solo stuff. War shines in collabs and as a fantastic engineer, having done a lot on the technical side together with Hydro, like their album „Lateral Thinking“ for Utopia Music in 2019. But every now and then, War graces us with some new solo work. After having released the VIPs for Heat and Come Cross in June, the end of the year brings Rebirth/Crofters on Doc Scott’s 31 Recordings. Music on 31 is usually not everyone’s favourite, but if an artist lands there you can usually expect it to be something special.
Rebirth has a rather unusual sounding, noticeably clipped kickdrum. To me, this sound carries the track as it stands out so much from the clean samples often used in a lot of tracks. The bassline in this tune has a fair bit of midrange, which is also something special for War’s music, because he has mastered the game of sub basses and used a lot of deeper basslines over the last couple of years. The top layer of percussion is built by some clanky percussion, and some space filled with a quite monotone pad. At no point does the tune slow down, there are only eight bars without percussion.
Crofters is a bit more subtle, but by no means less efficient on the dancefloor. Strong metallic sounding percussion and a deeper bassline and get this tune going, while it has a lot more atmosphere than Rebirth. Two different, heavily processed vocal samples dance around a bunch of constantly evolving pads, adding for a sometimes sparse, sometimes dense sounding atmosphere. The occasional dub alarm adds sparkle on top.
This one isn't my favourite War release, since a lot of the past output felt a lot deeper and these two tracks feel more like DJ tools to me, but they also got their place and are good in their that role.

Crypticz – Between Dust & Time LP (Western Lore)

Crypticz is an artist very little people pay attention to, despite him being immensely good at doing what he does: subtle, special and super strong tracks, not so much aimed at the dancefloor, but rewarding the patient and mindful listener. The first entry on his discogs page dates back to 2013, and on his way through music he put out releases with 31 Recordings, Different Music and Cosmic Bridge, to name a few. His contribution for Om Unit’s Cosmology: Dark Matter compilation, a track named Chrysalis featuring Any Kisnorbo on the vocals, was one of my favourite tunes I discovered in 2019, and I listened to it countless times.
Between Dust & Time is not a drum and bass album. It’s barely even a jungle album in the sense of what most people expect when hearing the word jungle. This body of work to me feels more like an ambient or dub album that loosely fits into a jungle context, but takes the term "jungle" to a very abstract meaning. There won’t be any significant DJ tools in this one, its purpose is away from the dancefloor. If you value music beyond its meaning in a set, this album is for you.
Broadcast Feeling, the opening tune, sets the general sound for the following 48 minutes very well. The track opens with an intricate soundscape of pads, ambient drums, field recordings, and a bass hinting at what will come later on. This soundscape takes its time to develop, and at around four minutes, a sudden short amen burst darkens the mood and foreshadows what’s next to come. At 04:36, the main section of this piece starts, if one can even call it that, as the long intro is just as much of a highlight as the part with drums and a deep 808 sub bass.
Ocean Blue features Amy Kisnorbo, who also did the vocals for Crypticz‘ 2019 track „Chrysalis“. Her ethereal voice is not so much a foreground lead element, but gets treated like an instrument that is part of the atmosphere built by the pads in this track. The beautiful soundscape might as well stand on its own as an ambient work, but it gets underlaid by a drum break that I don’t know the name of.
Lakutala (Version) sits at around 160 bpm, but feels slower due to the drum pattern being half as quick as in the average jungle tune. The drums feel quite lo-fi, and this effect gets reinforced by some noise getting layered underneath.
The Guided starts with a sample recorded in a forest, and some tribal percussion with spring reverb on it, an effect commonly used in dub music. After about one minute a vocal joins the percussions and ambient forest noises, with a sub bass already announcing itself, only for the percussion to get filtered out again at around 01:40, the vocal sample ending, and the track leading into a snareless halftime soundscape, carried by a delay effect messing with the vocal sample and occasional pads. The sub bass carries the rhythm most noticeably in this one. Later on a sparsely used middle eastern string instrument delivers extra ear candy.
Journey Through The Rings Of Saturn doesn’t contain any driving percussion. No kicks and snares in this one. Hats and some tribal drums are the only impact sounds, the shining star of this track are its pads. They start out ever so quiet and become louder and more expressive, developing and forming a soundscape over the four minutes of the tune. The bass seems far away in this tune, until it turns into a reverbed and filtered reese in the second half. The tune closes with some quiet bells.
Nightshifter’s Groove features the usual long intro we’ve come to expect after the previous tunes on the album, most of them having the intro take half of the track. But this time it isn’t just forming a soundscape, but leads into a rhythm driven by a lowpassed kick with lots of space for the tribal drums to keep on coming with more layers and details, and even adding an oldschool break on top. The drum layers are the shining star of this track.
Lakutala (the non-version of it) is exactly a minute longer, and features a „full-time“ jungle pattern instead of the stripped back halftime pattern of its version. The atmosphere remains the same, and with the 808 bass underneath, this one might even work as a tune on the dancefloor – a rare exception for this album. Despite having a more traditional jungle arrangement, it still manages to stand out by paying close attention to making the drum programming and effects as unique as possible and having separate spaces for the pads to breathe on their own, without fighting with the drums. Pads also deserve appreciation on their own.
Memories Fade As I Drift Away, the closing track, once again doesn’t use any major drums, only some heavily reverbed hats and foley samples along with some pads and a field recording of someone walking next to a road, gently bringing this absolute journey of an album to an end.

New Releases

Anizo - ANEP01 , [Bandcamp]
Archaea – Urghh / Get Down [Beatport]
Black Barrel & Nami - Hit Me More EP , [Bandcamp]
Blade (Dnb) - O7s 003 [Beatport], [Spotify]
Bladerunner - The Crazy Dragon (Vip) [Beatport]
Bowsar - The Rift , [Bandcamp]
Cryfelt - Ammunition EP , [Bandcamp]
Current Value - CV Set Stormers (Neuro) , [Bandcamp]
Dan Guidance, Fishy - The Mind State EP [Beatport], [Bandcamp], [Spotify]
Darren Styles - Us Against The World (Protostar Remix) [Beatport], [Bandcamp], [Spotify]
Dezpot - Corridors Of Death Part 13 [Beatport], [Spotify]
DJ Hazard - When The Dreams Are Over EP [Beatport], [Label Store], [Spotify]
Dorian - Radiation [Beatport], [Spotify]
dreadmaul - Dark Incantation , [Bandcamp]
dreadmaul & Bereneces - Curandeiro EP , [Bandcamp]
Erritate, Able, Pluvio, Fullstep Phil, Max Baker - Monk Audio Various Artists 2020 EP [Beatport], [Spotify]
Fanatics, Licid, Maze – Trooper / Cloudless [Beatport], [Spotify]
Filthy Habits - Turn Back The Clock [Beatport], [Label Store], [Spotify]
Furney, Lady Emz - Urban Blue LP [Beatport], [Spotify]
Fusion, Need For Mirrors - Patience [Beatport], [Spotify]
Godderz - Wake Up / Protocol [Beatport], [Spotify]
Graysound, Elipsa, Medium - Shapes & Colours [Beatport], [Spotify]
Hallucinator, Coppa, Julia Marks, Maztek, Kiara - Rejects LP [Beatport], [Bandcamp], [Spotify]
Henry - Dystopia / Deeper We Go [Beatport], [Spotify]
Higher Sector - Covid-19 [Beatport], [Spotify]
Imran Graffiti - Prisoner Of Identity EP [Beatport], [Spotify]
Ivy Lab, Frank Carter Iii – Soul Sista [Beatport], [Bandcamp], [Label Store]
Kalum - How You Like EP [Beatport], [Spotify]
Kelle - Revolution In You LP [Beatport], [Spotify]
Law & Wheeler - Survivalist , [Bandcamp]
Mark Dinimal – Surplus EP [Beatport], [Spotify]
Master Error, Natrix - Connected Part 3 EP [Beatport], [Spotify]
Mean Teeth - Bring Back The Funk LP [Beatport], [Spotify]
Mefjus, Bou - Wormhole [Beatport], [Bandcamp], [Label Store], [Spotify]
Motiv, Zar, Diligent Fingers, Sahala, Duskee - Your Power / Lost In Space [Beatport], [Bandcamp], [Spotify]
Msdos - Red Yellow Green LP [Beatport], [Spotify]
Notequal, Particular Shades - Fault Input / String [Beatport], [Spotify]
Pitch Black - Did You Get The Message EP , [Bandcamp]
Pltx – Emotions [Beatport], [Bandcamp], [Spotify]
Profile, Sub Killaz - Sirens [Beatport], [Spotify]
Rido - Breaking Rules [Beatport], [Spotify]
Rift, Petroll, Cluda - Can't Stop EP [Beatport], [Spotify]
Ripple - Words [Beatport], [Spotify]
Sully - Up , [Bandcamp]
Sydney, Bert H, Hiraeth – Particles [Beatport], [Bandcamp], [Label Store], [Spotify]
Teej, Mtek, Jappa – Hooligan / Rebellion [Beatport], [Spotify]
Terrence & Phillip - Just A Feeling [Beatport], [Spotify]
The House Crew, S.E.S. - Superhero (My Knight) Remix EP [Beatport], [Spotify]
Trakker - Curiosity / Angel [Beatport], [Spotify]
Treba - Inner [Beatport]
Various Artists - 4 Years Of Hoofbeats Music LP [Beatport], [Spotify]
Various Artists - Bad Taste Drum & Bass 2020 [Beatport], [Label Store], [Spotify]
Various Artists - Best Of DTR 2019-2020 [Beatport], [Spotify]
Various Artists – BNC Express, Dnb Music Delivery IX LP [Beatport], [Spotify]
Various Artists – Camo Tribe, Yeah Man: The Remixes LP [Beatport], [Spotify]
Various Artists - Celsius Best Of 2020 LP [Beatport], [Spotify]
Various Artists - Deep In The Jungle Anthems 7 - Lp Sampler [Beatport], [Spotify]
Various Artists – DNB Vibes [Beatport], [Spotify]
Various Artists - Drift EP , [Bandcamp]
Various Artists – Ghetto Dub, Dubz: Rerubbed LP [Beatport], [Bandcamp], [Spotify]
Various Artists - Headsbass Volume 5 LP [Beatport], [Spotify]
Various Artists – Incursion Recordings Unsolicited Dubs, Vol. 2 [Beatport], [Spotify]
Various Artists - Jango Music Most Rated 2020 [Beatport], [Spotify]
Various Artists - Korsakov Music, The Story So Far LP [Beatport], [Spotify]
Various Artists – Midnight Bass, Scotland LP [Beatport], [Spotify]
Various Artists – Nu Venture, Drum & Bass Anthology: 2021 [Beatport], [Spotify]
Various Artists – Propaganda011 The Frontliners Vol. 1 [Beatport], [Spotify]
Various Artists – Sub Edit AW20 [Beatport], [Spotify]
Various Artists - Subhive Essentials 2020 [Beatport], [Label Store], [Spotify]
Various Artists – Subway Sounds, Back To The Future Part 2 LP [Beatport], [Label Store], [Spotify]
Various Artists – The Dreamers, Dreamcatcher Vol.5 LP [Beatport], [Spotify]
Various Artists – V Recordings, Planet V Drum & Bass Vol. 4 LP [Beatport], [Label Store], [Spotify]
Various Artists - We Are Crucast 3 [Beatport], [Spotify]

The Vegan Gains "stats" debate.

How to profit off Global Warming: HVAC Market Research with Due Dilligence on 5 Air-Conditioner brands.

If you find this interesting please follow my account for more DD.

I'm also working on an Excel file which will provide all fundamental data about a stock, more info about that on my account. TLDR at bottom!

Introduction
With the change and progressing to extremer climates, global warming is coming our way. It has been shown world governments are incapable of properly taking action against this threat. Since it seems like global warming won’t be stopped, we will have to start adapting to the new extreme climates. One way of ensuring a comfortable living/working space in this grim future is by making use of HVAC (Heating Ventilation & Air Conditioning). And that’s what got me thinking. My family has been hell bent on NOT getting air-conditioning. But with the summer temperatures ever more frequently reaching +40c with a humidity of +70%(Hup Holland Hup) it’s becoming unbearable. Sleepless nights, overheated pets, fainting, old people dying and just losing your will to live. These are all issues more people around the world are starting to face. Every place on earth is getting more extreme. Every place on earth is getting more need for Climate control. And every company is looking to profit of that! This is why my next play is in the HVAC industry.
Finding our compatible companies.
I only want to invest in the best companies. Living in The Netherlands I personally don’t know the best brands, luckily, I’ve got great internet. So, after spitting through some review sites these are the 5 public companies that came out best when looking for “Best HVAC/Air-conditioning companies/brands”. (Not ranked)

Carrier (Day&Night, Bryant, Toshiba & 15 more)
Trane (American Standard, Thermo King & 7 more).
Daikin (Goodman, Amana).
Lennox (Service Experts, Allies Air Enterprises).
Johnson Controls (Hitachi, York)

Understanding the HVAC market.
Before we continue to further analyze the companies, we first need to understand the HVAC market.
Some facts:

The HVAC business has been valued at $91.30B in 2020 and is expected to reach $173B by 2024 and $367B by 2030. That’s a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of +/-15%.
The most popular countries for Air Conditioning (AC) per household are: Japan 91%, USA 90%, Korea 86%, Saudi Arabia 53%, China 60%.
Global stock of AC is expected to grow to 5.6B by 2050, up from 1.6B in 2018. (This is 1 AC sold every second for the next 30 years).
Less than a third of the global households own an AC.
8% of the 2.8B people living in the hottest parts of the world own an AC (Brazil, Indonesia, India, African countries).
AC demand is increasing every year going from 97,60M in 2012, up 111M in 2018.

As can been seen in the above statements the HVAC business is very well integrated in some large countries. But the most exciting prospects are those of the developing countries. In Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa and India only 16%, 16%, 9%, 6% and 5% respectively of the households have AC. This is a MASSIVE market just waiting to be exploited.
- The Indian AC market stood at $4,3B in 2017 and is expected to surpass 11B by 2023, that’s a CAGR of over 17%. This rising growth is led by rising infrastructure development, growing demand for housing and the constantly rising temperatures and consumers purchasing power.
- The Middle Eastern and African market is expected to have an CAGR of 4,9% during 2019-2024.
- The Indonesian market is currently experiencing a 2% CAGR in AC demand over 2012 till 2018.
- The US is expected to have a CAGR of 3.1% from 2020 to 2030.
- Europe is expected to have a CAGR of 6% from 2019 to 2025.
- The global HVAC market is expected to grow with a CAGR of 5.5% from 2018 till 2024.
Market share.
This was actually really really difficult to find free sources on and I can’t really make a clear picture out of it so here are the numbers:
- 2013 North America market: Carrier 17%, Daikin 15%, Trane 10%, Johnson 9%, Lennox 6%, LG 5%.
- 2013 Global AC market: Daikin 13%, Carrier 10%, Johnson 8%, Trane/LG 4%.
- 2018 Indian market share: LG 17,7%, Hitachi 7,9%, Daikin 7,4%.
- HVAC Used by construction firms in USA: Carrier 29%, Lennox 17,3%, Daikin 8,2%, Trane7,3%, LG 1,8% Johnson 1,8%.
- 2020 global “Wall-Mounted Fan Coil Units” market: Daikin 29%, Trane 26%, Carrier 12%, Johnson 7,5%
My conclusion from this and other information found online is that globally Daikin is the biggest followed by Carrier, Johnson, Trane, LG and Lennox. I accounted for all known acquisitions since 2013 in the market share.
An introduction to the Companies
Carrier
Carrier products and related services include HVAC and refrigeration systems, building controls and automation, fire and special hazard suppression systems and equipment, security monitoring and rapid response systems, provided to a diversified international customer base principally in the industrial, commercial and residential property and commercial transportation sectors.
Employees: 53,000+
Countries active: 160+
Market Cap: 25,959B
Key points:
- 85% of sales are in the USA or Europe, they are however planning to expand globally.
- 51% HVAC, 29% Fire and Security, 20% Refrigeration.
- Since April 2020 carrier has split off from Raytheon Technologies, allowing them to focus fully on the HVACR market.
- Carrier is planning on cutting 600million in costs by 2022 (4% of current COGS)
- Carrier has recently launched its “BlueEdge” platform, providing aftermarket service to customers and minimizing machinery downtime & costs. The platform will offer 3 different plans of service to customers. Currently 82% of all Carrier’s revenue comes from products, this is a clear move to increase its services revenue.
- As stated above, Carrier is planning to move more towards (digital) services.
Strengths:
- Well established brand within USA and Europe.
- Leader of the HVAC market.
- Very efficient products.
- Diversified
- 500+ patents and 115y of experience.
- Owns cheaper sub-brands.
- #1 HVAC brand for 10 consecutive years according to Builder Magazine
- Increased focus on smart systems and apps.
Weaknesses:
- Trying to enter markets with well established competitors (Johnson Controls, Daikin)
- Excessive dependence on the American market.
- No lifetime warranties
- No concrete plans for taking over the Asian market.
Trane
Trane Technologies Public Limited Company manufactures industrial equipment. The Company offers central heaters, air conditioners, electric vehicles, air cleaners, and fluid handling products. Trane Technologies serves customers worldwide.
Employees: 50,000+
Countries active: 100+
Market Cap: 28,189B
Key Points:
- Since February 2020 Trane has split from Ingersoll Rand allowing it to fully focus on its HVAC business.
- Revenue: 73% Americas, 12% Asia/Pacific, 15% EMEA.
- Revenue: 79% Climate, 21% Industrial
Strengths:
- 120y of experience.
- Known as reliable, efficient and silent.
- Major investments in reducing carbon emissions for its systems.
- Opportunity for expanding to Asia and the Middle East.
- Reduced product emissions by more than 50%
Weaknesses:
- Heavy dependency on the American market.
- No concrete plans on expansion in the Asian/Middle Eastern market.
- No strong focus on apps/smart systems.
Daikin
DAIKIN INDUSTRIES, LTD. manufactures air conditioning equipment for household and commercial use. The Company also operates chemical, oil hydraulics, defense system, and electronics businesses.
Employees: 76,000+
Countries active: 150+
Market Cap: 53,273B
Key points:
- Japan sales rose 7% YoY
- Americas sales rose 13% YoY
- EMEA sales rose 7% YoY
- Asia/Oceania sales rose 10% YoY
- Revenue: 89,6% HVAC, 8,1% Chemicals, 1,7% Oil Hydraulics, 0,6% Defense
- Daikin creates Semiconductor-etching products. Making them well positioned for the “new” tech boom. With the sales of chemicals almost increasing 10% YoY.
- Daikin provides warheads for the Japanese military.
- Owns Goodman.
Strengths:
- Leader of the Indian AC market, creating products that can withstand the extreme conditions in the country. Being able to operate at temperatures as high as 54c, creating AC’s that do not corrode due to sulfuric acid. and also, being able to be dropped from 1m height, to withstand the rough roads.
- Grew its profit in FY2020 while all others decreased in revenue.
- Produces products used for Semiconductors.
- Has a clear plan to expand it’s influence in emerging markets such as India and the Middle East.
- Creates the full supply line for HVAC products, from refrigerants to AC-units.
- Heavy R&D expenses.
Weaknesses:
- China-Us frictions.
- Slowdown of the Japanese economy.
- Does not have trailer refrigeration.
- Outdated apps.
Lennox International
Lennox International Inc. provides climate control solutions. The Company designs, manufactures, and markets heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration equipment. Lennox markets its products worldwide.
Employees: 11,000+
Countries Active: 70+
Market Cap: 10,617B
Key Points:
- Revenue: 60% Residential, 25% Commercial, 15% Refrigeration.
- Mainly present in America.
- Increasing net profit margin.
Strengths:
- Currently has the most efficient split system.
- Launching the Better Air initiative, focused on increasing indoor air quality, a Covid play.
Weaknesses:
- No concrete plans for expanding into emerging markets.
- Not known for the best reliability.
- Stagnating revenue and negative shareholders equity.
- Unreliable apps.
Johnson Controls
Johnson Controls International plc operates as a diversified technology and multi industrial company worldwide. The company operates through Building Solutions North America, Building Solutions EMEA/LA, Building Solutions EMEA/LA, and Global Products segments. The company designs, sells, installs, and services heating, ventilating, and air conditioning systems, controls systems, integrated electronic security systems, and integrated fire detection and suppression systems for commercial, industrial, retail, small business, institutional, and governmental customers
Employees: 105,000+
Countries Active: 150+
Market Cap 32,898B
Key Points:
- Launch of its open blue system. Giving customers total control over their building, temperatures, facial recognition ventilation, security, contact tracing and more all in the palm of your hand. (Seriously check the videos, really impressive). This is a clear Covid play and very well timed.
- Owner of York and a joint venture with Hitachi.
- Strong plans for Asian expansion.
Strengths:
- Very good smart systems and mobile apps.
- Launch of it’s OpenBlue system. A digital platform to connect every part of your building.
- Using Covid to their advantage in launching products and services.
- Well aware of the need to expand in China/Asia
- Build a state of the art headquarters in China.
Weaknesses:
- Many negative reviews on its Hitachi brand
Comparing the companies their financials.
TTM DATA

Million $	Carrier	Daikin	Trane	Johnson	Lennox
Share Price	34,93	18,85	129,22	44,40	288,09
Div Yield	0,94%	0,79	1,64%	2,34%	1,07%
R&D Expenses	402	652,8	237	319	69,60
Revenue	18,173	23,526	15,957	22,637	3,605
Net Income	1,812	1,351	965	802	358
Cash	2,704	3,559	1,303	2,805	37
Debt	12,029	5,316	5,573	7,219	1,354
FCF	1,982	1,877	1,182	1,459	633

TTM	Carrier	Daikin	Trane	Johnson	Lennox
P/E	26,70	30,32	25,32	42,33	31,05
EPS	2,09	4,62	4,05	1,05	9,28
Payout Ratio	15%	3,25%	52%	99%	33%
Debt/Equity	0,55	0,82	1,80	1,03	1,03
Term Cash/Debt	-	2,39	2	5,49	5,49
Current Ratio	1,33	1,88	1,28	1,36	1,36
ROE	12,5%	9,6%	13%	3,8%	3,8%
Net Margin	9,97%	5,74%	6,05%	8,39%	8,39%
R&D/Revenue	22,12%	27,74%	14,85%	14,09%	14,09%
Interest Coverage Ratio	28	23,63	7,09	2,64	2,64

Revenue	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	TTM	CAGR
Carrier	16,709	16,853	17,814	18,914	18,608		18,173	2%
Daikin	18,384	19,619	19,622	21,989	23,818	24,482	23.526	5%
Trane	13,300	13,508	14,197	15,668	16,589		15.957	2%
Johnson	17,100	20,837	22,835	23,400	23,968		22.637	7%
Lennox	3,467	3,641	3,839	3,883	3,907		3.605	5%

Net Profit	2017	2018	2019	2020	TTM
Carrier	1,227	2,734	2,116		1,812
Daikin	1,447	1,814	1,814	1,639	1,351
Trane	1,302	1,337	1,410		964
Johnson	1,611	1,128	1,076		802
Lennox	305	360	408		341

NPM	2017	2018	2019	2020	TTM
Carrier	7%	14%	11%		10%
Daikin	8%	8%	8%	7%	6%
Trane	9%	9%	9%		6%
Johnson	7%	5%	4%		4%
Lennox	8%	9%	11%		9%

Conclusion
First of all, I should start with saying that Lennox really shouldn’t have been included, they are on a completely different level than these 4 other companies. Also, Johnson had some fuckery going on in all their 10k’s so these numbers might not add up, let me know if you found something.
Looking at the company’s financials and numbers it’s a tough decision to make, all companies a pretty close to each other. There are however some things that stand out:
- Carrier has a significantly higher NPM then the competitors.
- Lennox might be in financial trouble.
- Daikin spends the most on R&D relative to its revenue, I see this as a big plus.
- Johnson their revenue is growing the fastest on a 5Y CAGR.
- Johnson their P/E is much higher than the competition.
- Johnson their Dividend is the higher % wise
- Daikin has increased sales in 2020 while other companies have seen a drop.
- Daikin’s NPM is stable at around 8% while Carrier’s NPM has grown explosively.
- Trane has a high debt/equity ratio
- Both Carrier and Daikin have a very strong Interest coverage ratio.
- Johnson's TTM would be better without an irregular expense of 602M
Now on to the less financial aspect of the data.
I really like the way Daikin presents their annual report, they have clear strategies on how to better engage the Indian market. They are also showing that they know where their market growth protentional lays and are willing to act on it. Furthermore, what really strikes me as interesting is that Daikin produces materials for semiconductor testing, this might be a goldmine in the upcoming tech revolution and Daikin has shown to be well aware of this upcoming trend. Carrier on the other hand has not properly breached the Asian/Middle eastern market yet, they have stated to expand their geographical presence but I have found no conclusive strategies in how to do so. What is impressive about carrier is their high net profit margin and willingness to act on a more digital environment, an area where Daikin is currently lacking.
To conclude this research properly, if I had to choose a company right now, I’d being going for Daikin. Their well-presented data and goals for emerging markets, combined with their semiconductor products make me believe they are most suited for rapid growth. Their geographical location also puts them in a better position for Asian dominance. And their Goodman sub brand is well known in America and a direct competitor to Carrier. Carrier is a close second, with impressive brand recognition and attractive financials. One thing carrier does well that Daikin does not is transport refrigeration. In my opinion trucking is going to play a much larger role when self-driving trucks start to appear.

what is a significant hazard ratio video

The Hazard ratio (HR) is one of the measures that in clinical research are most often difficult to interpret for students and researchers. In this post we will try to explain this measure in terms of its practical use. You should know what the Hazard Ratio is, but we will repeat it again. Let’s take […] The hazard ratio can be regarded as a measure of relative risk. If the hazard ratio is less than 1, the new treatment is superior. If the hazard ratio is greater than 1, then the standard treatment is superior. Because hazards are always positive, the hazard ratio must also be positive. Hazard ratio (HR) is a measure of an effect of an intervention on an outcome of interest over time. Hazard ratio is reported most commonly in time-to-event analysis or survival analysis (i.e. when we are interested in knowing how long it takes for a particular event/outcome to occur). WHAT IS A HAZARD RATIO? Hazard ratios are frequently used to estimate the treatment effect for time-to-event end points, such as overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS), in oncology randomized clinical trials (RCTs). A time-to-event analysis (also and from this point on called a survival analysis) analyzes the time from the start of a study (e.g., randomization) to an event (e.g., death for OS). Before discussing hazard ratios (HRs), key concepts related to For instance, a disease free survival was longer for an anastrozole group compared to a tamoxifen group; and the statistic given was “hazard ratio 0.83 (95% CI 0.71-0.96, p value=0.013) from this statistic I understand it is statistically significant, with a p value below 0.05. Die Hazard Ratio (oder Hazard Rate) entspricht dem Verhältnis der Hazard Raten zweier Gruppen. Die Hazard Ratio (HR) wird häufig bei klinischen Studien verwendet. Sie gibt das Risikoverhältnis zwischen verschiedenen Behandlungsgruppen an. Dabei wird das Risiko einer Behandlungsgruppe zum Risiko einer 2. Gruppe in Relation gesetzt. Als Beispiel: Bei einer klinischen Studie werden die Abheilungsraten einer Erkrankung erfasst. Während in der Kontrollgruppe II 50% der Patienten abheilen Hazard ratio. Hazard ratio is a measure of relative risk over time in circumstances where we are interested not only in the total number of events, but in their timing as well. The event of interest may be death or it may be a non-fatal event such as readmission or symptom change. Hazard ratio is the ratio of hazards and equals to the hazard rate in the treatment group ÷ the hazard rate in the control group. Hazard rate represents the instantaneous event rate, which means the probability that an individual would experience an event at a particular given point in time after the intervention. The hazard ratio is the ratio of (chance of an event occurring in the treatment arm)/ (chance of an event occurring in the control arm) (20 ). The HR has also been defined as, the ratio of (risk of outcome in one group)/ (risk of outcome in another group), occurring at a given interval of time ( 21 ). hazard rate is the ratio of # of events within the group to total # within the group, over a given time period; hazard ratio is the ratio of hazard rates for group1 to group2 (it's a pure number), over the same time period, and with the same risks except for hormone. Hazard Ratio Significance. Hazard Ratio = 1.0 is equal risk rates.

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Interpreting Hazard Ratios - YouTube

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Interpreting Hazard Ratio: Can we say "percent reduction

what is a significant hazard ratio

what is a significant hazard ratio - win

How do studies determine an appropriate relative risk reduction?

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