jlc

I think that we are not going to convince others to think the way we do - and probably should not. There is genuine variability in the span of human character and I think that is a reality that politics tries to deny. I think that about half of humanity would be happy in an affluent socialist environment - one that had a totalitarian ruler who assigned them their work and made sure that they never did without. I think about 30% more would probably enjoy living in a high-tax re-distributive democracy, where they elected their leaders but had a daddy-state as a safety net.

If you look at the history of the world, you will see that populations that did not compete for favored environment remained Paleo, Meso, Neolithic up to modern times. It is an error of perception to think that people inherently want to advance; they want 'their lives' to be like the ones before; they want their children to be like them.

There is a skeleton of a young boy found in Southern Siberia. His genes are ancestral to the Proto Indo Europeans (who traveled west) and to the American Indians (who traveled east). I think that there was a mutation that said "move" and that this low-incidence genetic trigger produced two major peoples who were unlike everyone else in that they wanted to see over the next hill.

The world does not need 'a lot' of us. They only need a few. In a beehive, 98% of the bees are workers; some fraction of the remaining 2% are scouts. We are the scouts.

The role of communication is not to try to convert the worker bees, it is to be sure that the other scouts hear a philosophy that matched their character, so that they do not blindly accept a life that is not meaningful to them.

So continue to communicate. We are all people who have been the recipient of someone reaching out and saying, "Try this philosophy - it's different from what you have heard before." But do not expect the population to convert. They should not. This is genuinely not what they want.

Jan

You are referring to the Sumerian myth of Innana in the underworld, which was written down in around 2,500 BC. (Proto-writing in that area dates to about 3KBC but the earliest examples are bookkeeping and tallies.) Opinion seems to be divided whether she was visiting the underworld to try to take it over from her sister (the then-ruler) or if she was actually trying to go to the funeral ceremonies for her brother-in-law (the Bull of Heaven, whose death she had caused). The Sumerian myths were adopted by the Babylonians - in whose tales it was Gilgamesh who killed the Bull.

I would expect to see some indication that these finds were linked to the myth in order to consider that we were dealing with more than a modern association between the two.

Jan

A friend of mine had something similar happen at his college: the victim turned out to also be the perp.

Jan

Ha! I am quite focused on the present with respect to the entry above. I am aware that historical literature is full of sad stories: Have you tried to find a 'happy story' in the Icelandic Sagas? At least some of these tales exist to keep bad things from happening.

In one saga, a man strikes his newlywed bride the day after they are married. She says, "Someday, you will regret that." Years pass and he is now very in love with her, and she with him. Enemies attack their home; he is an excellent bowman and can keep them all at bay. His bowstring breaks. He turns to his beloved wife and asks her for some strands of her beautiful knee-length hair to use as a bowstring. She says, "No. You struck me. I will not give you my hair." (In this culture, pride is more important than love.) He will not lower himself to take her hair by force, and he fights with a sword until his enemies kill him. Moral: Don't beat your wife.

I study the sagas for the info they contain, but I avoid reading them as stories...because they are almost all mega-downers. I accept, philosophically, that stories about the bad times that other people have can lead to empathy that crosses lines of class and race and religion. I accept that these stories are good things to have for this reason.

I do not accept that our culture should magnify and glorify the negative side of our present civilization in order to make us feel as if we were subject to a modern version of 'Original Sin'. We are not born guilty of inherited blame for slavery and prejudice and genocide just because we now live in a flourishing high tech culture. This is what the negative media is trying to push on us psychologically, and I reject that meme.

Jan

I think that the rise of the antihero and dystopias, especially in fiction, is dangerous because people do not just magically 'become' socialist or depressed: they are trained to these world-views. This has been very successful in the last 30 years.

Young people are methodically trained in socialist doctrine and in the inevitable immediate collapse of Western Civilization. This is reinforced by movies and books. When these world views are noted by the press, it is as if they had sprung up of their own accord (news article today on Millennials overturning capitalism). Depression is on the rise in Millennials...what a surprise.

Jan

Not yet.

Someday in the future, a statute of limitation will be reasonable, but not now.

In the field of anthropology, about 3 years ago, a prominent anthropologist addressed a major conference. She did not talk about the digs she had recently been on (paleo anth.) but told about how the female grads and post grads doing field work were pressured into providing sex for their mentors as a prerequisite for good evaluations and advancement. The scalpel provided by this presentation lanced a boil of activity that went back generations. Lots of examples of this abuse subsequently came to light.

The women could not report 'within 7 years' because the system was set up to annihilate the reputations of anyone who did. It took a major change in social climate for even an established authority to make this the topic of her presentation at a conference. Had she done this a decade ago, the the character assassination we see in climate science would have destroyed her.

A similar thing is happening in Hollywood...only worse. We know that you have to bed the producer/director/lead in order for your acting abilities to even matter. Finally, this 'topic of Industry jokes' is being exposed to the light. Everyone who has been abused - and this again goes back generations - should be able to name their tormentors.

Even in less 'departmentalized' situations, women have been blamed for being victims of rape or assault - and it takes a long time for them to report it. This is getting better, now, but we still need to tackle the institutionalized variations

Give it another decade or two, preimert, then we can enact a statute of limitation and be on the side of good.

Jan

Excellent idea: Everyone who listens to him and agrees with his philosophy should not have children.

End problem.

Jan

Grrrrr.

Jan

There are two topics here:
1. Ancient precision stone cutting techniques.
2. Technological level of ancient societies.

1. I think that we know enough about (and can replicate experimentally) ancient stone working techniques to explain the fascinating architecture that remains without having to postulate aliens.

2 Babylonian batteries and Antikythera devices need to be included in our image of the past. Otzi had a copper axe 5K years ago; Thera (and maybe Knossos) had indoor plumbing and running hot and cold water. A subset of our ancestors were civilized and sophisticated scholars (the rest were howling cannibals - lots more variation in the past).

Jan

As I said, the conclusion that the article makes - and which you have concisely restated - is likely to be correct. The article itself does seem to be deliberately manipulative in that it presents a conclusion as if it were evidence.

During WWII, my father went from Lt to Lt Col in 9 months because of the upward mobility caused by peacetime officers dying when they contacted enemy action. Once WWII was over, he remained a Col until he retired. I think that it may be inescapable that the talents needed to secure rank and advancement in a peacetime military differ from those when war is declared.

Jan

There is no magic, nickursis, there is no mystery. Time after time we have had 'mystery' products from the past, such as real Damascus swords (not pattern welded!) and inevitably these turn out to have different versions of the same answer: Our ancestors were competent people.

Experimental archeology can and has reproduced these things: Damascus swords (ore has to come from a specific mine in India and be forged in a certain manner), moving huge blocks of stone (many re-enactments), hand spinning and/or weaving finer thread than most modern products.

Repeatedly, we have discovered that our ancestors were more advanced longer ago than we imagined. Occam's Razor says that this is the simplest answer.

Jan

I read it - and reread it at your urging (it was a busy week and it has taken me long to answer). What I was referring to, and did not see, was a space where one of the ranking officers said, "Half of the crew are the trash and troublemakers from the other units and the other half is snowflakes who expect to be treated like celebrities. We are doing the best we can with what we have."

Now, this may not be the objective truth, but it probably represents what the captain and officers think and if there is no place in the article for 'the other side of the story' then I think it is manipulative. Take another look at the structure of the article: it is an officer sandwich. The first half and the last paragraphs are all 'crew', then there comes a bit on the officers, the the summation is all crew.

I kinda think that the article is more accurate than otherwise, but I also think that it intends to be manipulative and make sure that the 'stupid little people' who read it come to the correct conclusion.

My spidy sense is tingling.

Jan

I agree with blarman: Ancient peoples were as smart as we are. They had tools and techniques we have not recovered, because they were made of wood or because they were knowledge based or because they were rare - such as the vicegrips in the Norse Mastermyr toolkit from about 1000AD.

No need for aliens; we have brains.

Jan

This is a one-sided article that does not cite specifics - we need to get the other half of the story and specific complaints.

In order to understand this situation, I need to know what the actual dangerous situations on board were; I would need a statistic on those people who made traceable legitimate complaints about dangerous conditions and whether they were restricted to ship; I would need to know what tools and options the officers had to remedy any dangerous situations.

Just going from this article, I can come to no valid conclusions.

Jan

Here is an article that shows the criminal status in each state for HIV covert sex status. There is a pretty wide spread of legal repercussions, and the states that regard it as misdemeanor are not particularly aligned politically.

https://www.verywell.com/hiv-criminal...

Jan

AJ -

Do you recall the video clip of the 'magic table'. This clip, while humorous, was a big AHA! to me. Please be aware that by disposing of the neighbor's trash, you are being a 'magic table'; you are essentially enabling the behavior.

You are far from the only person to have had this trouble. If you Search for the keywords, you will find many people who have had this problem; you will find many recourses and suggestions as well.

Jan

Also, statistically, there are more liberals and more liberal activity online than conservative. If you rank sites by clicks, then you end up with liberal sites preferred. No need for conspiracy.

Jan, uses DuckDuckGo
(I use this because it does not recall my preferences. I want to read views that do not just reinforce my own opinions.)

I like that Thoirtsu and others made game-and-parenting knowledgeable responses. As a non-parent, non-team-player, I ask: How much do you want him to internalize 'playing with a team'?

While I respect the people who advised that learning how to use your skills to play a less-flashy-social-feedback defensive position is essentially good, I will point out that being able to tell someone, "Don't like you; don't like your face; leaving Kansas; taking the dog." is also an important social skill.

The Gulch represents a group of people who are not normative. Most of us have learned to 'pass' in order to get along in the world. If your son has learned to 'pass' in the last 7 years, then it might be time for the lesson: Vote with your feet.

Jan

This is filed under Humor, but when a (male) friend sent it to me a few months ago, it was one of those AHA! moments of my life. I had not had an external image to fix upon with my observations about the ineffectual people I often observed, and too often interacted with. After this video, not only did I have a lively metaphor, but a humorous way of addressing the points at which this type of lifestyle assumption touched my life personally.

eg "Looks like the 'magic trashcan' in the bathroom is full - better take it out and empty it." or "Nope, no 'magic food' has appeared on your shelf in the fridge; I think the taco truck is just down the road..."

Jan

I fear that my tolerance for horror approaches the Disney limit. We are in a fashion now when even entertainment not explicitly labeled as horror has a gritty and bloody quality to it that I fail to appreciate.

I do appreciate the reality of 'someone crawling through the desert' not having rosy well-hydrated cheeks, with just an aesthetic dab of dirt on forehead. But in modern media, the person is always dragging their entrails behind them...Yuk.

Jan

The wind and the actual terrain seem to be different than known reality - they did not find out about the water content until after the book was written.

What was wrong with the explosion? (And are we talking the "I blew myself up cause...O2" or "I blew up the hab because...Murphy"?

I am hugely attracted to competence porn, and both the book and the movie hit that right on the nosecone.

Jan

I did not know that. I will be on the sidelines, waving pom-poms and cheering!

Jan

In the context of 'plastic in the oceans': How do landfills have a bearing?

Jan

OK. I tried to watch Hated in the Nation this weekend. I got as far as the setup for the 3rd death at the so-called safe house when I realized that this was far too dark a show for me. So I did the usual: read the Wiki article for a synopsis of the rest of the plot.

It was an impressive show; the best example of 'casual tech' and current culture that I have seen on the screen. Too much 'horror' element for me, though.

What did you think of The Martian?

Jan

Thank you. I did not know this.

Jan