Saying "God guided the process" or otherwise suggesting that evolution can work in a deterministic fashion is utterly wrongheaded and unscientific, and it gives people the false impression that evolution, as a process, is in some way goal-oriented. But it isn't, and it never has been.
That simply begs the question. Those who believe in a creation guiding God could point out that Evolution only appears non-teleological (evolution must be deterministic or else a whale could give birth to an ape) to you because of your restricted frame of reference. Your knowledge of all simultaneous events throughout the universe is, to say the least, limited. God on the other hand willed the physical laws into existence in full knowledge of the determined outcomes right from the point of creation (ie. the big bang). My writing this post to you would already have been in Her mind at the point of singularity.
You'd be surprised how many people believe evolution is about... making the next generation "better" in some objective way than the current one.
Yes, Darwin was one of them. He posited survival of the fittest.
The apocalypse isn't "because of humans", it was a part of the plan from the beginning.
[Citation Required] and please not from Revelations, which as we now know is not a prophetic vision, but a contemporary political cartoon.;)
One problem with your interpretation is that the next sentence --And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done --is phrased independently of humans. More importantly putting this quote in context, what was "because of humans," of course, was the flood. It would be overly legalistic to imagine that the author intended by this to qualify Yahweh's promise not (actively) to destroy the earth in future. We should also note that in the next chapter, by contrast, Elohim merely promises not to flood the earth again.
Now that I have seen the true OP (modded to zero), I will have to concede that in the context of a wide-eyed inerrantist congressman too close to power and too far from professional help, it is a little churlish of me to complain about an overly legalistic (and ahistorical) reading of the text. And moreover, he is hardly likely to defer to an historically grounded understanding of Revelations, is he?
Funny thing is, if you actually read the Bible, God does not actually promise not to destroy the Earth.
Maybe God doesn't, but the LORD comes pretty close:
The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done."
-- Gen 8:22
OTOH, as the very next verse implies "[a]s long as the earth endures...," He doesn't promise to save it from destruction either.
the part about secred deals being against public interest is simple logic
Mate, if you consider that logic simple I suggest you seek professional help (and not from a logician)!
Let's challenge the assumption that the minister is concerned about "look[ing] as good as possible" in front of a largely unattentive voting public and is instead concerned about how good he looks in front of the interested (in both senses) parties with whom he is in direct negotiation. Will a leak prove beneficial?
You give the impression of someone who has no familiarity of what they are talking about. I'd hazard a guess that you've never been in a meeting with a minister of the crown.:)
Thus, as long as the deal remains unknown, we know for certain that the people who know it consider it worse than whatever speculation we engage in here.
I'd prefer to play the ball, but that my friend is diseased thinking. You are systematically sending yourself into cuckoo land if you persist with this reality defying "logic." As far as "whatever speculation we engage in here," maybe we just need to wait till Conroy reads your comment here on slashdot...ya reckon it'll cause him to leak? I mean, if the truth isn't as bad as your paranoia.
Neatly proves GP's point though.
That secret deals make a mockery of democracy is also worth considering. How can we hold our leaders accountable, if we don't know what they're up to?
Now here you have a really good point! The problem is this:
It has been deemed in the public interest to have successful private commercial undertakings to provide Australians with goods and services, as well as employment. Consequently the concept of commercial confidence is also held to be in the public interest.
In the 1980s Australian governments (of both complexions) largely abandoned the use of Government Business Enterprises deciding that private commercial / government partnerships (which were ultimately to be completely privatised eg NBN) would better serve the interests of the nation. This naturally brought into conflict, even more than before, the public interest in commercial confidence and the public interest in transparency of government.
Life sometimes involves compromise between conflicting principles. Just how and where such compromised is to be reached remains a matter of opinion.
So let's use another word that has a common definition and hasn't been polluted by self-serving redefinition by the State:... "Wrongfully." Yes, the State has once again re-defined this word in a self-serving manner, to exempt themselves from its coverage
Own goal?
And I'm not sure Webster is the state. These definitions merely reflect the fact that one cannot sensibly ascribe outright criminality to the practice of taxation. Arguing the ethics of taxation, it turns out, requires a more intelligence approach than mere name calling.
It is wrong to take something from someone without their consent
Well I'm certain it's wrong wrongfully to take something from someone without their consent;), but your statement without further reduction to some basic ethical axioms is the very definition of question begging. To rephrase what you wrote: If we assume that it is always wrong non-consensually to deprive an individual of their property, we can conclude that depriving an individual of their property non-consensually is wrong.
Very few philosophies or religions accept exceptions to this concept, except for some theistic belief systems which contain a god who can do no wrong by definition.
Are you sure about that? I would have thought very few religions, at least as practised today, contain a god who can possibly do wrong. Be that as it may I can think of several non-theistic philosophies which would not accept as a moral absolute the statement: It is wrong to take something from someone without their consent
So, is the State a god to you?
You misunderstand. I was not here arguing against your stance on taxation (though I could if you want). I was taking exception to the cheap propagandistic trick of trying to manipulate people by employing boo-words instead of respecting their autonomy and putting ones position honestly. Psychological manipulation, I contend, is itself inimical to liberty.
However, short of civil inssurection, how the hell do you get rid of them? The people can't call an election and they have taken away our guns.
You wait until the next federal election when we all get to vote. That's how we like do it round here.
I thought the conservatives really overreached when they banned almost all guns (even though 85% of my fellow Australians supported Howard on this issue). When I read posts like yours, however, I wonder whether my loss at having my piddly 22 taken away isn't, after all, outweighed by my gain from having any firearm kept out of the hands of folks like yourself.
If you take something from someone without their permission, it's theft. This is a rather simple concept. Calling yourself "the State" doesn't change the simple meanings of simple words.
With all due respect, it is you who are attempting to change the meaning of the word 'theft'.
The word 'theft' in English has from it's very inception ('eofðe' and 'ðiefðe' being first recorded in the Laws of Ine and in the Laws of Wihtraed at the end of the C7th) been bound to its legal usage. Throughout the intervening 1,300 years, taxation has never been understood as falling within the legal definition of 'theft.'
Were you to be honest with yourself, you would admit that your use of the word 'theft' in relation to taxation is a deliberately unusual and provocative move aimed at educating your interlocutor to re-examine their familiar assumptions. The very fact that, outside the circle of true believers, you are so often called, as here, to defend this perverse useage shows that it runs counter, not only to accepted legal, but also popular use.
Behind your application of this "simple" meaning lies what can only be called a propagandistic attempt to contaminate what is, almost by definition, a non-criminal activity of state with the connotations of the crime. The most generous interpretation of this misuse of 'theft' is as shorthand for a question along the lines of "if one individual takes property from another non-consensually we call it a crime, why is it alright for the state, which is really only a collection of individuals, to do the same and indeed to predicate its very existence on the practice?" I put it to you that it is much more respectful to the individual honestly to put this kind of question, than to attempt psychological manipulation through emotive misuse of language.
I mean, are you a friend of liberty, or are you not?
I have a great deal of respect for her as a journalist, but the election results speak for themselves.
In all fairness Bennelong is a natural Tory seat. You are right that her election was largely a protest vote. But I think her loss was neither unexpected, nor particularly any reflection on her personally.
Yes, Peter Garrett... hmm.
....Assange couldn't be worse (I hope).
As a parliamentarian he runs the risk of resembling that unguided missile from Denison. But I don't think the point of voting for him (which I am seriously considering btw), would be to ensure good governance. Rather it would be to put the US administration in the uncomfortable position of potentially imprisoning|executing a member of parliament of an allied nation, thus hopefully safeguarding Assange and his invaluable work.
Would have saved a whole lotta lives had Nietzsche never been published. There are certain things that should never be discussed.
People who thought "certain things that should never be discussed" were far more responsible for the "whole lotta lives" than anything Nietzsche ever wrote. And Nietzsche seems a particularly ironic choice since the Nazis and, after the fall of Berlin, the Soviets (into whose hands his unpublished writings fell), had suppressed their publication. It was only after the fall of the Soviet Union that much of his writing became available.
The notion that Nietzschean philosophy, which I wouldn't want to defend philosophically btw, was influential in the rise of Nazism is a nonsense, revealing a lack of understanding of either Nietzsche or Nazism or Fascism in general. Nazism's post-hoc adoption of Nietzsche was an attempt to clad the movement in some sort of intellectual respectability. And it was an attempt which could only succeed by hiding much of what the philosopher actually wrote.
That being said, even Mein Kampf, which I think we can agree was thoroughly Nazistic, ought not be committed to the bonfire. You will recall Heinrich Heine's famously prophetic pronouncement: Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen. We ought be more afraid of those who stifle discussion, than of discussion itself.
I think the definition of ethics is being stretched way too far.
That's the point. Ethics, as an enterprise of rational speculative philosophy is compelled to seek out the corner cases. The task of theoretical medical ethics.is to follow where systems of ethics wherever they logically lead. It is related but distinguishable from that practical medical ethics which examines how difficult cases fall within accepted guidelines. Following the path of reason will throw up radical propositions which will upset GP, but really how many of these make their way into practical application? Do you really think that because ethicists question at what stage a human becomes a conscious and self-aware human being that we are about to legislate in favour of infanticide?
Shouldn't a journal on ethics at least know the definition of the word, and consider it before allowing such a paper to be published?
Yes. And clearly the editors of these journals have. OK, this one is a bit weird, but how could any thinking person possibly object to the Giubilini & Minerva (the After Birth Abortion paper) being published?! Disagree with the conclusions, sure (that's why these papers get published), but object to these issues even being discussed?
People don't have to be experts, nor do they have to right all the time for representational democracy to function.
I've been pointing out for some time that in fact most of us, myself included, lack the expertise to elect a government based on their proposed policy platform (even assuming the candour of the politicians). But as you say that does not mean that representative democracy cannot function.
To me the telling statement in TFA (not by D-K) was that the "advantage over dictatorships or other forms of government is merely that they "effectively prevent lower-than-average candidates from becoming leaders."" That is exactly wrong!
The advantage of a representative democracy is not the right to elect a government of our choice to office --since as stated above almost all of us are ill qualified to make this judgement --the advantage is the right to dismiss from office a government which is under-performing, and that, as the recipients of the effects of poor performance, We The People are in the best situation to judge.
Capsaicin works mainly through substance P receptors, histamine, bradykinin, and prostaglandins have their own receptors.
How Capsaicin works wasn't the question, but rather how the body "transfer[s] pain-information," and in particular whether Capsaicin is the endogenous transmitter.
That being said, my understanding is that Capsaicin affects vanilloid receptors and is not mediated via the same receptors as substance P. A citation might prove me wrong.
I put sambal on my bread in the morning, i so love that stuff, and I have black hair. I have yet to see any of my red friends try that.
Yeah it's great on toast and I love it on peanut butter too. But sambals tend not to be that hot. Cominex' Sambal Olek, the most common one around, is fairly mild, you can eat it by the spoonful (tastes good anyway). And yes, I'm a redhead, but capsaicin tolerance is primarly mediated my exposure. My kid was eating pickled habaneros out of the jar at age 7 and he's snow-blonde (we built up via milder chillies like Jalapenos).
You need to look at a sample of people large enough to average out differences in exposure to make any meaningful statement regarding some other attribute (eg hair colour) and Capsaicin tolerance. I doubt your circle is sufficient.
Capsaicin is the exact chemical body uses to transfer pain-information.
Not so. I don't occur naturally in the human body. Instead there are a number of substances, including histamine, bradykinin, and prostaglandins which "transfer pain-information." Then there's the nervous system.
This isn't saying it doesn't hurt. It's saying that for people without your hair genes, it hurts even more.
Well it's saying that for people with our genes as a population it hurts less. Of course I (and OP) would have to borrow a blonde body for a while to be sure on an individual level, but it's apparent to me that I deal with pain better most people I know. I'd always put it down to stoicism though, but perhaps I am actually feeling less pain.
Slashdot Mirror
it wasn't just you
Which just goes to show the detrimental effect that majorana can have on your cognitive abilitittties.
Then for the book, give him "Teach yourself Urdu".
I understand you are joking, but if he is learning Python then surely Dutch would be much more useful!
I'm thinking more like there might not be any native born muslims in norway.
How do you spell Wooooosh?
Are you seriously asking us to believe there are no native-born homosexuals in Norway?!
Saying "God guided the process" or otherwise suggesting that evolution can work in a deterministic fashion is utterly wrongheaded and unscientific, and it gives people the false impression that evolution, as a process, is in some way goal-oriented. But it isn't, and it never has been.
That simply begs the question. Those who believe in a creation guiding God could point out that Evolution only appears non-teleological (evolution must be deterministic or else a whale could give birth to an ape) to you because of your restricted frame of reference. Your knowledge of all simultaneous events throughout the universe is, to say the least, limited. God on the other hand willed the physical laws into existence in full knowledge of the determined outcomes right from the point of creation (ie. the big bang). My writing this post to you would already have been in Her mind at the point of singularity.
You'd be surprised how many people believe evolution is about ... making the next generation "better" in some objective way than the current one.
Yes, Darwin was one of them. He posited survival of the fittest.
The apocalypse isn't "because of humans", it was a part of the plan from the beginning.
[Citation Required] and please not from Revelations, which as we now know is not a prophetic vision, but a contemporary political cartoon. ;)
One problem with your interpretation is that the next sentence --And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done --is phrased independently of humans. More importantly putting this quote in context, what was "because of humans," of course, was the flood. It would be overly legalistic to imagine that the author intended by this to qualify Yahweh's promise not (actively) to destroy the earth in future. We should also note that in the next chapter, by contrast, Elohim merely promises not to flood the earth again.
Now that I have seen the true OP (modded to zero), I will have to concede that in the context of a wide-eyed inerrantist congressman too close to power and too far from professional help, it is a little churlish of me to complain about an overly legalistic (and ahistorical) reading of the text. And moreover, he is hardly likely to defer to an historically grounded understanding of Revelations, is he?
That would be Gen 8:21, of course
Funny thing is, if you actually read the Bible, God does not actually promise not to destroy the Earth.
Maybe God doesn't, but the LORD comes pretty close:
The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done." -- Gen 8:22
OTOH, as the very next verse implies "[a]s long as the earth endures ...," He doesn't promise to save it from destruction either.
Agreed. This is just introducing data mining over a larger and more easily accessible data set to historical linguistics.
I hope that 'Culturomics' (the word that is) dies a quick death itself. And why did this remind me of Avatar ... oh yeah, Unobtanium.
then you have to go and break out examples of actual grammatical errors...
And there was I, thinking a "grammatical error" was a failure of a grammar to account for observed usage. ;)
the part about secred deals being against public interest is simple logic
Mate, if you consider that logic simple I suggest you seek professional help (and not from a logician)!
Let's challenge the assumption that the minister is concerned about "look[ing] as good as possible" in front of a largely unattentive voting public and is instead concerned about how good he looks in front of the interested (in both senses) parties with whom he is in direct negotiation. Will a leak prove beneficial?
You give the impression of someone who has no familiarity of what they are talking about. I'd hazard a guess that you've never been in a meeting with a minister of the crown. :)
Thus, as long as the deal remains unknown, we know for certain that the people who know it consider it worse than whatever speculation we engage in here.
I'd prefer to play the ball, but that my friend is diseased thinking. You are systematically sending yourself into cuckoo land if you persist with this reality defying "logic." As far as "whatever speculation we engage in here," maybe we just need to wait till Conroy reads your comment here on slashdot ...ya reckon it'll cause him to leak? I mean, if the truth isn't as bad as your paranoia.
Neatly proves GP's point though.
That secret deals make a mockery of democracy is also worth considering. How can we hold our leaders accountable, if we don't know what they're up to?
Now here you have a really good point! The problem is this:
It has been deemed in the public interest to have successful private commercial undertakings to provide Australians with goods and services, as well as employment. Consequently the concept of commercial confidence is also held to be in the public interest.
In the 1980s Australian governments (of both complexions) largely abandoned the use of Government Business Enterprises deciding that private commercial / government partnerships (which were ultimately to be completely privatised eg NBN) would better serve the interests of the nation. This naturally brought into conflict, even more than before, the public interest in commercial confidence and the public interest in transparency of government.
Life sometimes involves compromise between conflicting principles. Just how and where such compromised is to be reached remains a matter of opinion.
So let's use another word that has a common definition and hasn't been polluted by self-serving redefinition by the State: ... "Wrongfully." Yes, the State has once again re-defined this word in a self-serving manner, to exempt themselves from its coverage
Own goal?
And I'm not sure Webster is the state. These definitions merely reflect the fact that one cannot sensibly ascribe outright criminality to the practice of taxation. Arguing the ethics of taxation, it turns out, requires a more intelligence approach than mere name calling.
It is wrong to take something from someone without their consent
Well I'm certain it's wrong wrongfully to take something from someone without their consent ;), but your statement without further reduction to some basic ethical axioms is the very definition of question begging. To rephrase what you wrote: If we assume that it is always wrong non-consensually to deprive an individual of their property, we can conclude that depriving an individual of their property non-consensually is wrong.
Very few philosophies or religions accept exceptions to this concept, except for some theistic belief systems which contain a god who can do no wrong by definition.
Are you sure about that? I would have thought very few religions, at least as practised today, contain a god who can possibly do wrong. Be that as it may I can think of several non-theistic philosophies which would not accept as a moral absolute the statement: It is wrong to take something from someone without their consent
So, is the State a god to you?
You misunderstand. I was not here arguing against your stance on taxation (though I could if you want). I was taking exception to the cheap propagandistic trick of trying to manipulate people by employing boo-words instead of respecting their autonomy and putting ones position honestly. Psychological manipulation, I contend, is itself inimical to liberty.
However, short of civil inssurection, how the hell do you get rid of them? The people can't call an election and they have taken away our guns.
You wait until the next federal election when we all get to vote. That's how we like do it round here.
I thought the conservatives really overreached when they banned almost all guns (even though 85% of my fellow Australians supported Howard on this issue). When I read posts like yours, however, I wonder whether my loss at having my piddly 22 taken away isn't, after all, outweighed by my gain from having any firearm kept out of the hands of folks like yourself.
If you take something from someone without their permission, it's theft. This is a rather simple concept. Calling yourself "the State" doesn't change the simple meanings of simple words.
With all due respect, it is you who are attempting to change the meaning of the word 'theft'.
The word 'theft' in English has from it's very inception ('eofðe' and 'ðiefðe' being first recorded in the Laws of Ine and in the Laws of Wihtraed at the end of the C7th) been bound to its legal usage. Throughout the intervening 1,300 years, taxation has never been understood as falling within the legal definition of 'theft.'
Were you to be honest with yourself, you would admit that your use of the word 'theft' in relation to taxation is a deliberately unusual and provocative move aimed at educating your interlocutor to re-examine their familiar assumptions. The very fact that, outside the circle of true believers, you are so often called, as here, to defend this perverse useage shows that it runs counter, not only to accepted legal, but also popular use.
Behind your application of this "simple" meaning lies what can only be called a propagandistic attempt to contaminate what is, almost by definition, a non-criminal activity of state with the connotations of the crime. The most generous interpretation of this misuse of 'theft' is as shorthand for a question along the lines of "if one individual takes property from another non-consensually we call it a crime, why is it alright for the state, which is really only a collection of individuals, to do the same and indeed to predicate its very existence on the practice?" I put it to you that it is much more respectful to the individual honestly to put this kind of question, than to attempt psychological manipulation through emotive misuse of language.
I mean, are you a friend of liberty, or are you not?
I have a great deal of respect for her as a journalist, but the election results speak for themselves.
In all fairness Bennelong is a natural Tory seat. You are right that her election was largely a protest vote. But I think her loss was neither unexpected, nor particularly any reflection on her personally.
Yes, Peter Garrett ... hmm.
As a parliamentarian he runs the risk of resembling that unguided missile from Denison. But I don't think the point of voting for him (which I am seriously considering btw), would be to ensure good governance. Rather it would be to put the US administration in the uncomfortable position of potentially imprisoning|executing a member of parliament of an allied nation, thus hopefully safeguarding Assange and his invaluable work.
Would have saved a whole lotta lives had Nietzsche never been published. There are certain things that should never be discussed.
People who thought "certain things that should never be discussed" were far more responsible for the "whole lotta lives" than anything Nietzsche ever wrote. And Nietzsche seems a particularly ironic choice since the Nazis and, after the fall of Berlin, the Soviets (into whose hands his unpublished writings fell), had suppressed their publication. It was only after the fall of the Soviet Union that much of his writing became available.
The notion that Nietzschean philosophy, which I wouldn't want to defend philosophically btw, was influential in the rise of Nazism is a nonsense, revealing a lack of understanding of either Nietzsche or Nazism or Fascism in general. Nazism's post-hoc adoption of Nietzsche was an attempt to clad the movement in some sort of intellectual respectability. And it was an attempt which could only succeed by hiding much of what the philosopher actually wrote.
That being said, even Mein Kampf, which I think we can agree was thoroughly Nazistic, ought not be committed to the bonfire. You will recall Heinrich Heine's famously prophetic pronouncement: Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen. We ought be more afraid of those who stifle discussion, than of discussion itself.
I think the definition of ethics is being stretched way too far.
That's the point. Ethics, as an enterprise of rational speculative philosophy is compelled to seek out the corner cases. The task of theoretical medical ethics.is to follow where systems of ethics wherever they logically lead. It is related but distinguishable from that practical medical ethics which examines how difficult cases fall within accepted guidelines. Following the path of reason will throw up radical propositions which will upset GP, but really how many of these make their way into practical application? Do you really think that because ethicists question at what stage a human becomes a conscious and self-aware human being that we are about to legislate in favour of infanticide?
Shouldn't a journal on ethics at least know the definition of the word, and consider it before allowing such a paper to be published?
Yes. And clearly the editors of these journals have. OK, this one is a bit weird, but how could any thinking person possibly object to the Giubilini & Minerva (the After Birth Abortion paper) being published?! Disagree with the conclusions, sure (that's why these papers get published), but object to these issues even being discussed?
People don't have to be experts, nor do they have to right all the time for representational democracy to function.
I've been pointing out for some time that in fact most of us, myself included, lack the expertise to elect a government based on their proposed policy platform (even assuming the candour of the politicians). But as you say that does not mean that representative democracy cannot function.
To me the telling statement in TFA (not by D-K) was that the "advantage over dictatorships or other forms of government is merely that they "effectively prevent lower-than-average candidates from becoming leaders."" That is exactly wrong!
The advantage of a representative democracy is not the right to elect a government of our choice to office --since as stated above almost all of us are ill qualified to make this judgement --the advantage is the right to dismiss from office a government which is under-performing, and that, as the recipients of the effects of poor performance, We The People are in the best situation to judge.
Capsaicin works mainly through substance P receptors, histamine, bradykinin, and prostaglandins have their own receptors.
How Capsaicin works wasn't the question, but rather how the body "transfer[s] pain-information," and in particular whether Capsaicin is the endogenous transmitter.
That being said, my understanding is that Capsaicin affects vanilloid receptors and is not mediated via the same receptors as substance P. A citation might prove me wrong.
How long have you been waiting to do this?!
Well you know as a redhead pharmacology major with this moniker ... yeah these opportunities arise every other day. ;)
Ignore it.
Look I agree, only 1 in 625?! That hardly seems like a threat at all. Anyway, gotta run, I'm off to by a lottery ticket.
I put sambal on my bread in the morning, i so love that stuff, and I have black hair. I have yet to see any of my red friends try that.
Yeah it's great on toast and I love it on peanut butter too. But sambals tend not to be that hot. Cominex' Sambal Olek, the most common one around, is fairly mild, you can eat it by the spoonful (tastes good anyway). And yes, I'm a redhead, but capsaicin tolerance is primarly mediated my exposure. My kid was eating pickled habaneros out of the jar at age 7 and he's snow-blonde (we built up via milder chillies like Jalapenos).
You need to look at a sample of people large enough to average out differences in exposure to make any meaningful statement regarding some other attribute (eg hair colour) and Capsaicin tolerance. I doubt your circle is sufficient.
Red-haired women ... have a resistance to capsaicin.
Oh that's terrible news. :(
Capsaicin is the exact chemical body uses to transfer pain-information.
Not so. I don't occur naturally in the human body. Instead there are a number of substances, including histamine, bradykinin, and prostaglandins which "transfer pain-information." Then there's the nervous system.
This isn't saying it doesn't hurt. It's saying that for people without your hair genes, it hurts even more.
Well it's saying that for people with our genes as a population it hurts less. Of course I (and OP) would have to borrow a blonde body for a while to be sure on an individual level, but it's apparent to me that I deal with pain better most people I know. I'd always put it down to stoicism though, but perhaps I am actually feeling less pain.