TheVat

Beer + t = wc

I would like to think Mac and I were introducing a bit of levity to the chat. I am certainly not advocating treating Windsors with Teutonic dysphoria before puberty and the normal acquisition of tea-sipping skills, and certainly not with radical treatments like shipping them off to Saxony or Coburg or Gotha or surgical removal of the Royal Wave. The worst cases of monarchy, of course, can only be remedied with trips in a tumbrel to a decephalization clinic.

I have seen gambling addiction work destructively on people's lives, and their families, on a par with heroin, meth,or oxycontin. And in a way, casinos are worse because they are built entirely on lies and false promises. They prey upon human stupidity and lack of math skills. And it may help that our cultural norms equate gambling with daring and clever risk-taking. Entrepreneurs are sometimes applauded for taking big gambles (often with other people's money). And there is always a human urge to make easy money. Paul Newman, in The Color of Money says "Money won is twice as sweet as money earned." If it's easier to gain, then most of us figure it's easier to spend. So won money feels like a vacation from responsibility.

The line gets tricky with prions, which can replicate misfolded proteins, but have no other traits associated with life. They seem to be naughty chemistry, rather than organisms.

In US we were taught zero is a rational number, which means it must have a nonzero denominator, i.e. it is 0/1. A rational number cannot have a zero denominator. I have have no idea what 0/0 is, but it cannot be a ratio.

But they have an energy level which corresponds to wavelength. Red would be around 660 nm. Our retina pigments and receptors and optic pathways interpret that wavelength as red. Healthy eyes do this in a consistent way so that ripe apples (that aren't Granny Smith or Golden Delicious varietals) appear red as they reflect light in that wavelength range to our eyes. So, while color is not intrinsic to the surface of an apple, it is real in the sense that our eyes and brain interpret specific wavelengths in a specific and consistent way. So it is not "random" as you were speculating. And my little story of "red" can be applied to a similar understanding of all sense perceptions that have a consistent correspondence to the physical events around us.

But they are former Saxe-Coburgs! Just because they decided one day that they were Windsors instead, why should we accept that? Clearly they are still Germans, who experience some sort of Teutonic dysphoria and imagine they are Brits. What about all these poor non-Germans who participate in beer drinking contests and then trans-Windsors come in pretending to be non-German? These former Saxe-Coburgs will kick everyone's ass!

Funny you call them Windsor, then, which is a name fabricated to allay anti-German sentiment. Really, you should call them Saxe-Coburgs, or in Phillip's line, Oldenburgs. Why would you, by your logic, keep calling them Windsors? Castles can't really father children!

If someone had said "Wot?" they would have given one possible answer.

Re: former men An odd approach to nomenclature, @mistermack. Do we define people by a former appearance that was always incorrect? Does anyone call cabinet secretary Pete Buttigieg a former straight male. I think we'd agree that is a dishonest description even if Pete, in his military days and growing up presented the appearance of straight maleness. By the same token, a woman who was born with external male genitalia but whose brain developed (due to prenatal hormonal effects, epigenetics and/or androgen insensitivity) as female or NB is not really a former man. As you yourself pointed out somewhere back there, you are your brain, it is the seat of mind and sense of selfhood.

ETA -guess I didn't need to hide that, seeing now Genadys post.

I have seen cases of BPD, borderline personality disorder, be misdiagnosed as bipolar disorder, also. Many mental illnesses will share some common features, and amateurs will attempt to self-diagnose or diagnose a friend, which creates many problems. Another overlap is along the autism spectrum and OCD, where high-functioning ASD and OCD can share some traits. A relative of mine feared that he had BPD, but had the sense to see a psychologist, and was greatly relieved to learn that he had a less serious condition that was more easily resolved. I had a neighbor that went around saying he had bipolar disorder, and yet it was pretty clear that he did not and had just adopted the label from absorbing the notion in a movie. I hope the easy access to web misinformation is not causing people to lose the ability to identify themselves as having moods and compulsions and neurotic concerns that are really in the range of normal. Sometimes a mood swing is just from food or caffeine or changes in weather or difficulties in your day. Or all of the above. 🙂🙃😒🤪

Thanks. And if the situation were reversed, then the sobaka would be sobaku. It is interesting that one syntax doesn't become preferred. This seems to allow shades of meaning that could be useful.

Just curious how, without a rule for order, Russian would handle dog bites man. Is the subject noun modified in some way so we know who bit who?

My scenario was really about making a decision in the moment where innocent lives (I was assuming theater with innocent civilians in it) are at stake. I can't get law enforcement there in time. Clonking the mass shooter on his noggin will make me unhappy, violate my principles of nonviolence, but maybe I decided innocent lives of many people are more important than my feeling good about myself so I whacked the guy. Later I may come to feel the satisfaction of doing the right thing. So my principle of no harm is really more about least harm. I believe possibly he was pulling your leg.

Yes, that further underscores what I was trying to say. Ethics is hard, life is messy, sometimes we need to look at principles of good will and apply them with the nuances that moment calls for. PS - thanks for mentioning the floating quote thing. My problem was I was on an old tablet this morning that made going back to previous page difficult.

Then again, I might think "rock" is your word for index finger. 😀

(edit box won't let me access previous post - I am responding to previous post before the page break) What if ignoring the rule about causing harm to others were applied to a mass shooter who was preparing to mow down the audience in a theater? If you were behind the shooter with a heavy object in your hands, would you refrain from harming the mass shooter? Just making the point that "do no harm" is simplistic. It's for this reason doctors have ethics boards and complex nuanced criteria for administering dangerous drugs. The drug might make you very ill or kill you, but the disease is ten times as likely to do so. For this reason, I think ethical principles are better than rules. It's like the different between common law and Napoleonic codes.

I am wondering how your thread experience has paralleled Dawkins's. You seem to be going strong, I can see no evidence you've been silenced. I'm not saying Dawkins, Rowling et al haven't experienced attempts to gag them, and I oppose using ideological correctness to stifle free discourse, but this is a biology thread so I would see the only restriction here as that one must show some fealty to facts regarding phenotypic expression. The fact I've gleaned, from the start, is that there are biological effects in the phenotypic expression of sex chromosomes, relating to pre-natal hormone levels in utero and epigenetics and androgen insensitivity, such that gender is not just a social artifact. IOW, feeling one is a woman inside a male body is a genuine and valid experience, not a social fad one has taken up. The Endocrine Society said, in a position statement that "Considerable scientific evidence has emerged demonstrating a durable biological element underlying gender identity. Individuals may make choices due to other factors in their lives, but there do not seem to be external forces that genuinely cause individuals to change gender identity." https://www.endocrine.org/advocacy/position-statements/transgender-health

Ahh. Drivers keep switching until the system reaches a Nash equilibrium, which is not optimal for flow. That helps, thanks.

There may be a Bayesian analysis that escapes me here. For one thing, if these are chronic high traffic roads then it may always be faster to use the 20 roads. If the t10 legs always take at least 30 minutes (with at least 300 cars at any time on road), for example, then you will always do better to take only the 20 legs. The problem is rather unreal, given there are no roads that "take only 20 minutes regardless of traffic," and no actual driver would believe such a thing. If everyone took the 20 roads, then they would by normal human expectations cease to be 20 roads.

I knew that! (looks smug, inspects fingernails) I stayed at a B&B long ago where a lunch was also served, and the proprietor grew rampion in the garden, and sliced the root into salad. Like radish, but I found it more flavorful. Tobacco use is another one. Decreases blood flow and oxygen to the follicle. Heavy smoking is linked with androgenetic alopecia.

Paging Dr. Wittgenstein, line two!

Indeed, and I guess the challenge for society is how to remove the stigma from a disorder without removing the help. It's unfortunate how people have historically tended to have different rules and levels of sympathy for physical and mental disorders.

Charlie Daniels weighs in on yesterday's news...