It doesn't though. The red/white thing is a good example: Wine is an amazing thing, which such variation possible. There are very strong whites and very mild reds. Depending on what you think it is, the words you use to describe it may change, but that does not mean you are wrong. What's the difference between a taste that is citrus-y and tart being described as 'orange zest' or just plain 'oranges'? That's the difference we are talking about here. My dad used to do descriptor tastings to teach people (industry people) how to taste and describe wine. He had a list of various words used to describe different notes. Paired side by side were words for red and white wines that usually meant the exact same thing, but were predominantly used for one or the other.
The truth is you get the same effect even in food tasting.
It's an entirely subjective experience, but just as in food, there's still a difference between good wine and bad wine. It's more a science than an art, as anyone who has seen a wine maker's office can tell you (it looks a bit like a mad scientist's lab in a movie).
Yes, that's all true. But that doesn't mean it's all bullshit, especially inside the industry. It's not uncommon to do blind tastings of like 20 bottles of a single type of wine (I've been to one on Syrah/Shiraz). Almost everyone at it was involved in the wine industry, and some were far better at others at identifying various aspects (like how old it was, or whether it was Australian or Californian).
A lot of what the public hears is bullshit. Or, as my dad calls it, marketing. People generally want the mystique and the ritual. Wine snobs especially. I'd never trust a wine snob's opinion on wine; they generally are so obsessed with the ritual of look of things they actually don't know very much about anything.
Everyone can find cheap wine under $4 in the US:heck, what else is the infamous two buck chuck?
In the Napa Valley (etc), though, yes, people in the wine business drink a lot more wine and are passionate about it without it being some mysterious, mystical thing. But mostly? They're not going to waste their time drinking $4, since they'll have cases of really good wine stashed in odd corners. A perk of working in the industry. (And they'll especially be avoiding the cheaper wine, because most of it's grown down in the Inland Empire).
There's a huge difference between a wine that's 20 years old and one that's two or three years old.Hell, just the tannins alone...
In fact, that's a good reason to purchase a better wine; when it's young, it's likely to be about as good as a more ordinary bottle, but it'll age so much better. With some of the best wines, you never see them at their best until they're ten or twenty or thirty years old.
It's probably the same thing, but in reverse. The people in the ridiculous SUVs don't really need them, and don't have the experience or sense to know better. In winter conditions, they drive like maniacs because they don't really have any idea of the limits to what they can and can't (or should and shouldn't) do.
Here in the mountains, a lot of the people driving the crossovers (usually Lexus or BMW) and the suburus are coming up from either the Bay Area or the Reno/Carson area. They brave the hills when those who'd have to put chains on wouldn't, because they know they've got AWD and traction control without any real idea of what the limits are, and don't have the experience to know better. The car compensates for their idiocy so well that they never realize how close to the edge they're getting until their car has crashed epically into the mountain side.
do you remember where the documentary was made/where it focused on?
Because I can completely see that being the case in places that don't get a lot of regular fog, or that when they do, get dense but patchy fog that starts as suddenly as it stops. (E.g., Reno, where they turn foggy conditions into a game of stop-and-go traffic at 70mph.), but not so much in places where the fog is regular and inescapable, like the San Francisco Bay Area.
I live in the Sierras, and have to commute down a narrow, steep, and windy road every day. Pretty much everyone has 4WD or AWD, because putting on chains is a PITA. It's rarely the actual SUVS and pickup trucks that freak me out; it's the little cars and crossovers with AWD and traction control that are the menaces, because the system compensates for their idiocy, so they never feel how close they are to a spin out until they actually finally take a turn too quickly and slide out/flip. And they're over confident, as if AWD and traction control makes them immune.
If this sort of thing actually became common, I think I'd want to move, just because I can't imagine how much more idiotic the drivers would get. And currently? They're pretty idiotic. This is something I see extremely regularly:
The road is covered in an inch of snow/ice (e.g. it melted a bit and then refroze) and is slippery as hell. It's snowing hard, the wind is blowing, and there's occasional white-outs. I need the 4WD on just to make it up the hill. The good conditions speed limit is 45mph; they've got chains/4WD controls in effect, so the speed limit is now 30mph. From up behind me comes a some shiny brand new car with all the extras. They not only sit on my back bumper and flash their lights, they mock-ram my car. I am approximately 200 yards from the next turn out. But that is too long for them, they decide to pass me on a blind turn. Which would be bad enough even if the turn wasn't currently occupied by another car coming down the other way. Shiny new little car from behind me suddenly cuts out into the center of the road, forcing the other car into the turn-out lane it fortuitously had access to, accelerates, and disappears.
You talk about values being instilled, but completely deny the ability of society to instill anything?
It's not about adults saying, "Actually, you suck at math, so don't even try." Hell, I wish it were because that would be easy to fix.
But how do you fix all the billion and one subtle cues we pick up every single day of our lives? These things are deeper than mere bigotry. It's how we see the world and treat each other.
We are practically programmed to use the subtle messages sent by all the people around us to define ourselves, our role in our society, and our relationships to others. That's just how we work- and none of this is at a conscious level.
You've got it backwards; girls are usually equally interested in (and skilled at) things like technology and math...until they hit adolescence, when the message from society is loud and clear: girls are not supposed to be good at that stuff, or like that stuff. Bam! Surprise surprise, girls' interest in those things drop like a rock. Now I wonder why that is?
Wanting to address that is not a matter of trying to force an interest on girls that was not previously there.
Those kind of tactics don't work very well when it's more passive-aggressive bullying, like the shit middle school girls pull (you'd not believe me if I told you.) Simply lashing out puts the victim in an even weaker position- they might as well tattoo "even more vulnerable" on their foreheads because it is proof that the bullying is successful.
And in those kind of circumstances, the victims aren't even necessarily the outcast, the weirdo, the new kid. It's extremely political but also seemingly random (though my theory is that it tends to be directed at whoever isn't showing the insecurity of the week.)
And what if you said "sure, fine" to facebook's privacy statement years previously? They're constantly changing the damn thing, and rarely for the better. And they never give you an opportunity to opt out- no "we're changing our privacy statement, you now have ten days to remove anything you don't want to be subject to this policy, including your entire account." It just changes, and IIRC (but I might be thinking of a different site), the policy states / has stated something about keeping anything you ever put up in perpetuity. So basically, you're screwed either way.
And to be pedantic, 'inalienable rights' carries certain connotations of being inherent and nontransferable. Anything that must be provided by someone else (free food, housing, healthcare) would seem to not apply. Rights, by definition, are something that exist naturally and therefore cannot be provided; they can only be surpressed. Free speech exists in a vacuum. A social net does not.
Why should any religion get tax status? They aren't a charity, the money is primarily there to support their own organisation. They are selling a product called "salvation" and people are paying money in the belief they are getting something back.
Socrates wasn't the biggest fan of religion either... question everything.
It depends on the organization, but I imagine you'll find that that is true for any non-profit organization, more or less. In any case, you can step away from the religious argument entirely and make a pretty good case that scientology's status as a nonprofit is suspect.
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It doesn't though. The red/white thing is a good example: Wine is an amazing thing, which such variation possible. There are very strong whites and very mild reds. Depending on what you think it is, the words you use to describe it may change, but that does not mean you are wrong. What's the difference between a taste that is citrus-y and tart being described as 'orange zest' or just plain 'oranges'? That's the difference we are talking about here. My dad used to do descriptor tastings to teach people (industry people) how to taste and describe wine. He had a list of various words used to describe different notes. Paired side by side were words for red and white wines that usually meant the exact same thing, but were predominantly used for one or the other. The truth is you get the same effect even in food tasting. It's an entirely subjective experience, but just as in food, there's still a difference between good wine and bad wine. It's more a science than an art, as anyone who has seen a wine maker's office can tell you (it looks a bit like a mad scientist's lab in a movie).
Yes, that's all true. But that doesn't mean it's all bullshit, especially inside the industry. It's not uncommon to do blind tastings of like 20 bottles of a single type of wine (I've been to one on Syrah/Shiraz). Almost everyone at it was involved in the wine industry, and some were far better at others at identifying various aspects (like how old it was, or whether it was Australian or Californian). A lot of what the public hears is bullshit. Or, as my dad calls it, marketing. People generally want the mystique and the ritual. Wine snobs especially. I'd never trust a wine snob's opinion on wine; they generally are so obsessed with the ritual of look of things they actually don't know very much about anything.
Everyone can find cheap wine under $4 in the US:heck, what else is the infamous two buck chuck? In the Napa Valley (etc), though, yes, people in the wine business drink a lot more wine and are passionate about it without it being some mysterious, mystical thing. But mostly? They're not going to waste their time drinking $4, since they'll have cases of really good wine stashed in odd corners. A perk of working in the industry. (And they'll especially be avoiding the cheaper wine, because most of it's grown down in the Inland Empire).
There's a huge difference between a wine that's 20 years old and one that's two or three years old.Hell, just the tannins alone... In fact, that's a good reason to purchase a better wine; when it's young, it's likely to be about as good as a more ordinary bottle, but it'll age so much better. With some of the best wines, you never see them at their best until they're ten or twenty or thirty years old.
It's probably the same thing, but in reverse. The people in the ridiculous SUVs don't really need them, and don't have the experience or sense to know better. In winter conditions, they drive like maniacs because they don't really have any idea of the limits to what they can and can't (or should and shouldn't) do. Here in the mountains, a lot of the people driving the crossovers (usually Lexus or BMW) and the suburus are coming up from either the Bay Area or the Reno/Carson area. They brave the hills when those who'd have to put chains on wouldn't, because they know they've got AWD and traction control without any real idea of what the limits are, and don't have the experience to know better. The car compensates for their idiocy so well that they never realize how close to the edge they're getting until their car has crashed epically into the mountain side.
do you remember where the documentary was made/where it focused on? Because I can completely see that being the case in places that don't get a lot of regular fog, or that when they do, get dense but patchy fog that starts as suddenly as it stops. (E.g., Reno, where they turn foggy conditions into a game of stop-and-go traffic at 70mph.), but not so much in places where the fog is regular and inescapable, like the San Francisco Bay Area.
I live in the Sierras, and have to commute down a narrow, steep, and windy road every day. Pretty much everyone has 4WD or AWD, because putting on chains is a PITA. It's rarely the actual SUVS and pickup trucks that freak me out; it's the little cars and crossovers with AWD and traction control that are the menaces, because the system compensates for their idiocy, so they never feel how close they are to a spin out until they actually finally take a turn too quickly and slide out/flip. And they're over confident, as if AWD and traction control makes them immune. If this sort of thing actually became common, I think I'd want to move, just because I can't imagine how much more idiotic the drivers would get. And currently? They're pretty idiotic. This is something I see extremely regularly: The road is covered in an inch of snow/ice (e.g. it melted a bit and then refroze) and is slippery as hell. It's snowing hard, the wind is blowing, and there's occasional white-outs. I need the 4WD on just to make it up the hill. The good conditions speed limit is 45mph; they've got chains/4WD controls in effect, so the speed limit is now 30mph. From up behind me comes a some shiny brand new car with all the extras. They not only sit on my back bumper and flash their lights, they mock-ram my car. I am approximately 200 yards from the next turn out. But that is too long for them, they decide to pass me on a blind turn. Which would be bad enough even if the turn wasn't currently occupied by another car coming down the other way. Shiny new little car from behind me suddenly cuts out into the center of the road, forcing the other car into the turn-out lane it fortuitously had access to, accelerates, and disappears.
Linear B is Ancient Greek. /end random pedantry.
But Linear A would be cool.
You talk about values being instilled, but completely deny the ability of society to instill anything? It's not about adults saying, "Actually, you suck at math, so don't even try." Hell, I wish it were because that would be easy to fix. But how do you fix all the billion and one subtle cues we pick up every single day of our lives? These things are deeper than mere bigotry. It's how we see the world and treat each other. We are practically programmed to use the subtle messages sent by all the people around us to define ourselves, our role in our society, and our relationships to others. That's just how we work- and none of this is at a conscious level.
You've got it backwards; girls are usually equally interested in (and skilled at) things like technology and math...until they hit adolescence, when the message from society is loud and clear: girls are not supposed to be good at that stuff, or like that stuff. Bam! Surprise surprise, girls' interest in those things drop like a rock. Now I wonder why that is? Wanting to address that is not a matter of trying to force an interest on girls that was not previously there.
Those kind of tactics don't work very well when it's more passive-aggressive bullying, like the shit middle school girls pull (you'd not believe me if I told you.) Simply lashing out puts the victim in an even weaker position- they might as well tattoo "even more vulnerable" on their foreheads because it is proof that the bullying is successful. And in those kind of circumstances, the victims aren't even necessarily the outcast, the weirdo, the new kid. It's extremely political but also seemingly random (though my theory is that it tends to be directed at whoever isn't showing the insecurity of the week.)
And what if you said "sure, fine" to facebook's privacy statement years previously? They're constantly changing the damn thing, and rarely for the better. And they never give you an opportunity to opt out- no "we're changing our privacy statement, you now have ten days to remove anything you don't want to be subject to this policy, including your entire account." It just changes, and IIRC (but I might be thinking of a different site), the policy states / has stated something about keeping anything you ever put up in perpetuity. So basically, you're screwed either way.
And to be pedantic, 'inalienable rights' carries certain connotations of being inherent and nontransferable. Anything that must be provided by someone else (free food, housing, healthcare) would seem to not apply. Rights, by definition, are something that exist naturally and therefore cannot be provided; they can only be surpressed. Free speech exists in a vacuum. A social net does not.
Why should any religion get tax status? They aren't a charity, the money is primarily there to support their own organisation. They are selling a product called "salvation" and people are paying money in the belief they are getting something back.
Socrates wasn't the biggest fan of religion either... question everything.
It depends on the organization, but I imagine you'll find that that is true for any non-profit organization, more or less. In any case, you can step away from the religious argument entirely and make a pretty good case that scientology's status as a nonprofit is suspect.