TheVat

In English, a slang term for this is "pecking order"(which comes from avian species). These develop when there is competition for resources and mating opportunities. Based on my own learning in animal behavior, I would suggest doing a search on a particular species -- baboons are good -- and dominance hierarchy. Wolves are another species where a lot of study has been done. Mammalian dominance hierarchies share many general features in common.

Many prisons have cruel and dehumanizing and demeaning conditions without it rising to the level of torture. Those conditions should be fixed, too. Norwegians always seem so enlightened. Scandinavian societies, in ancient times, had a strong tradition of sexual equality and sharing of power, which probably got them off to a good start. Still think the answer to the OP is two words: Absolutely not!

FtR, somewhere near the border of Wyoming and South Dakota, it got a belly laugh. (lots of smoke drifting in here, so the laughing dislodges some of the PM 2.5 lining our respiratory tracts) What’s Michael Jackson’s favourite thing to do on guitar? Fingering A minor.

Todak, I think @dimreepr means that when AI shows desires and motivations, as living creatures do, then we would more likely infer some type of conscious agency. I myself am unsure. A self-preservation algorithm can be completely programmed, and implemented without any actual awareness or desire to keep living. The steam heat system in my aunt's house works to maintain a certain equilibrium so that it doesn't break, but few believe it's conscious. I am more likely to infer consciousness when an entity, to survive, reveals an ability to improvise novel methods of protection. Perhaps that makes me an intelligence chauvinist. With some theories, like Tononi's, it's all a gradual continuum of awareness, with even single ants and flatworms having a dim awareness, and qualia. Epistemically, I believe we are forever blocked from knowing what it's like to be an ant. Consciousness is a process that is only known, experientially, from the inside. That's just how it is. To say that is almost tautological.

Thanks for defining your term - my joy at that too-often skipped part of discourse is a little dampened, though, at what seems like some pretty unkind implications. Not sure a discussion is well served by choosing a term that's so entirely pejorative. I know people who fight for social justice, and do have conviction, sound arguments, and often take on some personal risk... so I'm not too concerned if they pick up some personal validation along the march. If SJW is to become so utterly ironic, then maybe "humanitarian reformer" is better.

Seems at least two misunderstood my post, so let me clarify I was not conflating discourse here with the great works aforementioned. I was simply pushing back (bit of a digression, perhaps) on the pejorative usage of SJW. It was a point about language, not about this debate here.

Yep. Have to say, it's odd to me that fighting for social justice would somehow be the basis of a pejorative. So, um, Thomas Paine, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Fredrick Douglass, Rosa Parks, Margaret Sanger, Jane Addams, Bertrand Russell and countless others... we should dismiss their legacies because they advocated for societal reforms and helping the disadvantaged and oppressed? Seems like a tough case to make. Have to re-change a lot of street names, too...

Venodilation relaxes the smooth muscle in venous walls, which makes them enlarge and act as larger reservoirs. It's not a matter of reduced resistance, it's that the volume of blood now returning to the heart is LESS, because more blood is being held in "reserve" in veins. When venodilation decreases, it essentially means that the smooth muscles in vein walls are tightening and engaging as secondary pumps -- which steps up venous return. You may be interested to know (or already know) that an extra liter of blood is in the veins, which means that rapid venoconstriction can add that extra blood to the circulation in the case of an emergency, i. e. sudden blood loss and bp drop.

I really hope we can get a fairly objective, and agreed upon, definition of torture before we start calling conscientious parents torturers! LoL! I fear that equating hand slaps, or maybe large servings of Brussels Sprouts, with torture, might somewhat erode the actual meaning of the word in the context of criminal law and penology.

Transgender seems to be something that can be honored, not disparaged, as something unusual and having unique attributes. Trans-women and cis-women are not the same. They do share something, in terms of a culturally-mediated femaleness, but I see no reason they couldn't recognize and respect each other's differences while still having solidarity on some matters. It's odd to live in a society that spends so much time declaring the virtues of diversity, yet at the same time wants to stuff everyone into two simplistic categories. Of course, few people really want true diversity. They want a world where everyone is conservative or liberal, Dem or Repub, gay or straight, elite or common, etc. Saves time and brain-strain. Humans have a positive fetish for dichotomies and saying faux-pearls of wisdom that start with "there are two kinds of people in the world." I suspect that is why some people go for the SA surgery, because they know being a chick with a dick will be too weird for their peer group. If we were really open to diverse forms of sexuality, then being a chick with dick would be cool and identity wouldn't have to be so firmly attached to particular anatomy. Gender dysphoria can be addressed, but it shouldn't be addressed with physical alterations until the person is grown. Before you all jump on that: 1. Just my opinion. I'm not declaring any final or scientific insight here. What I do know is that decisions made during the turbulence of adolescence are not always great decisions. 2. Also the opinion of mental health professionals I've known and respected in my work, and I will add quite progressive in their views on other matters. So, no, being opposed to 14 year olds getting a sex change is in no way being opposed to sex change or thinking it's ungodly. Disclaimer: this is, for me, a very rough and off-the-cuff post, so take this as coming from someone still trying out all the concepts and having reached no solid answers on the sports league/division questions. (I doubt there are enough trans people at most high schools to form a separate league, though...)

Torture dehumanizes both torturer and torturee. What kind of society do we become if we ask people to perform such a brutalizing (and likely psychologically damaging) occupation on our supposed behalf? This is aside from the obvious hypocrisy -- hello, we're going to teach the wrongness of harming others by, um, harming someone. The idea is cruel, sadistic, and I know of no evidence that it would actually deter those most likely to commit crimes of serious harm.

Seems to be another potential for positive feedback from recent thaws in Siberia.... https://www.pnas.org/content/118/32/e2107632118 The Washington Post has summarized the findings here.... https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/08/02/climate-change-heat-wave-unleashes-methane-from-prehistoric-siberian-rock/ This really needs watching because of methane being such a potent GHG compared to others.

If I don't have dependents who are still placing trust in me to give care and protection, and I feel that I'm at the end of my life and no further interventions can give any quality of life or respite from pain, then it's no one's business what measures I take so long as they are not hazardous to others (nothing that starts a fire, or exposes other tenants to gas fumes, etc.). As Zapatos (haven't figured out how to tag names here, yet) noted, there are incurable conditions that ravage any quality of life and are definitely not temporary. For those whose spiritual practice is set against suicide, I think that's cool and I have no problem with their choice to take what they see as a spiritual path of suffering. However, to impose that spiritual practice on others is something that would tend to lead towards totalitarian authority and theocracy, which is contrary to principles of freedom that I hold dear. One small dent in freedom I would suggest: if you plan to self-euthanize, be responsible and make sure someone knows in a timely fashion. Years ago, we had a neighbor who did so, and they didn't have a lot of connections of the type who would check in on you. (we were a couple houses down, and didn't know her well, and wished later we had reached out more) So it was almost a week post mortem before the police showed up, when the adjacent neighbor noticed both the absence and a smell coming from the house. There is diminished dignity in such a situation, and it is pretty horrific for those who have to deal with the remains. (there was another case, not local, where someone did that, but let their dog out first, apparently knowing she would raise a ruckus pretty quickly. In that incident, the decedent was found right away)

Yes, most research I've seen points more to differences between party members and how they respond to strangers, or to new ideas and situations. There does seem to be a correlation between being Republican, for example, and having a larger amydala and a stronger reaction (pupillary dilation, BP, respiration, adrenaline) to unfamiliar faces and situations. (not going to dig it up, but googling "amygdala republican" or similar should get it) As a common sense observation, I think many of us notice that personalities that value status quo and traditional approaches tend to register more anxiety about change and innovative ideas. An official who steps up and says "Let's make things more like 1953" often gets a warmer reception from that personality. Unless, of course, the person was in a group that had to ride in the back of the bus and stay out of certain neighborhoods in 1953. I would say, as a personal observation, that it seems to me that empathy and social IQ do positively correlate. And I do have my own opinion as to where the main locus of empathy is found on the political spectrum, but will keep that out of this chat.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/first-time-crystal-built-using-googles-quantum-computer-20210730/ Getting around the second law of thermo is pretty cool.

If I put each member of a pair of gloves in boxes, and mail them to opposite sides of the earth, I should not be surprised that by looking inside one box I can determine (in the sense of know) the handedness of the glove in the other. Nothing is being determined, in any sense of causal action or superluminal data transfer, it's just a matter of our knowledge at that moment. It's more as if the way I open the one box will be a method that gives me handedness, and sort of brings that property into reality. Once I know one member of the pair is left-hand then I instantly know the other is right-hand. If this is wrong or simplistic, someone LMK.

Great song. A friend of mine had a major role for many years in the off-Broadway production of The Fantasticks. It was the perfect intro song, in the musical.

I believe you're stupid and ugly. Share that with the neighbor, y/n? So, point is, no need to overshare opinions of a subjective nature, which offer nothing constructive. Broadly speaking, however, human relationships thrive on trust, and lying can destroy trust. If the ugly neighbor has been tossing cigarette butts on your driveway, then it's worth saying you don't like it. This establishes an honest relationship where you aren't holding secret resentment and you are defining real boundaries. Another way to look at harsher truths, and if they should be shared, is to consider if they describe something fixable and if that fix would be of mutual benefit and not impose a terrible burden on the person. And there's also diplomacy. I. e. delivering honest comments in a form that somewhat softens their abrasive exterior.

Carl Jung was Swiss, so there's that. And the watches are topnotch. I think Belgium would provide some challenge to your chocolatey hegemony, however, M. Neu. And I have to question putting holes in cheese. Two considerations on that - one, you get slightly less cheese in a given volume - two, generally when food has holes in it (the doughnut excepted), there is cause for concern as to what might have created those cavities. In any case, following M. Neu's example of scientific sampling, I shall base all my judgments of Switzerland on the cross-section I found when I spent a day (more like an afternoon, really) in Geneva and the five Swiss I met there.

Fun (and a bit Darwinian) ! We call them soap box cars in the States.

https://youtu.be/FebgVrBTaPw Johnny English: Dear god let me not die at the hands of the Swiss!

https://www.theonion.com/fun-toy-banned-because-of-three-stupid-dead-kids-1819565691

It's hard for me to picture how that conversation would happen. So, Ted, I notice you've never cheated on Carol. Was that because you jerked off? Anyway, thanks for making this thread which was already amusing even more so! Well put. And my guess would be that "counter proposal" is closer to the reality of what happens when relationships fade.