No taboos exist naturally. All taboos are cultural. Therefore all taboos must be arbitrary. This is not true. Some taboos are cultural, such as not eating pigs, or dogs, or cats. Some taboos are universal, such as not having sex with a sibling, or not pooping in public.
You don't shit? You don't piss? You don't fuck? I encounter all three of these things in everyday life. A taboo doesn't mean these things don't exist; it means you don't bring them into the public sphere.
Have the seen the prevelance of potty humor? In all levels of entertainment. Children's cartoons make shit and piss jokes all the time. The message is the same regardless of what words are used. Why is ok to use one word in telling these jokes but not another? That's the definition of arbitrary. A joke is one way to handle a taboo subject. A medical discussion is another. However, there are other contexts in which taboo subjects are inappropriate.
I guess I have to say I don't think it's irrational. To me, it would be ridiculous if neutral or good things were verbally taboo, like ice cream and rainbows. If it's only bad things, things that are physically taboo. that are kept in language taboo, that seems rational to me. I don't want to see poop, I don't want to smell it, I don't want to hear it, I don't want to hear *about* it, I don't even want to think about it, more than I already have to.
Words can't hurt you.. even five year olds repeat that mantra. You'd think by adulthood people would have enough awareness to understand that it's true. Worry about sticks and stones. You have to repeat that mantra because it contradicts reality. Words *can* hurt you. Emotional and verbal abuse is real. If you have someone close to you, like a parent or spouse, telling you every day that you suck, you're worthless, you're no good, you start to believe that. Most of our ideas and beliefs about the world come from what other people tell us, so for the most part words create our reality. Even if your a scientist doing experiments, most of what you know about the laws of physics, for example, come from what you read in a textbook written by someone else, or a lecture from a professor. It takes a lot of hard work to come up with an original though or a new idea, and most people don't have enough time in their lifetimes for very many.
I don't know about you, but I think a lot of people do deal with these things everyday. I may not deal a whole lot with deities, but I sure do with sex/genitals and bodily functions. Of course, I also find it hard to find anything offensive in these tasks anyway, including those 'dirty' bodily functions, but I realize I may be fairly unique in that regard. I've never understood why in our culture basic bodily functions and desires are so taboo. We speak in circuitous ways about these things like "I payed a visit to the bathroom" or "I spent some time with my girlfriend last night." We can be fairly sure you weren't just admiring the decorations in the restroom and weren't with your girlfriend for the conversation (I kid, I kid!). That's true -- the deal with taboo subjects are that they are kept hidden. We don't use the bathroom in public; we do it in a tiny little private room or behind a tree. We don't walk around with our genitals showing; we cover our loins with fig leaves or fruit of the loom. We dont' have sex in public ( most of the time, anyway), we do it in private.
Likewise, talking about any thing that would be taboo is also taboo. I don't know why, but that seems to be the rule. Perhaps some people have uncontrolled mental imagery; I know I do. When someone says "fuck off" I see a guy masturbating. When someone says "bullshit" I see a cowpie. I don't like those mental images, but it's something you learn to deal with I guess.
You can make an argument that keeping sex and bodily functions taboo is good for health and hygiene. As far as Gods, I don't know what the deal is.
And taboo subjects, likewise, are only taboo because people have decided it was so. No, that's not true. What you are claiming is that taboo subjects are arbitrary. The fact is, taboo subjects are taboo because they refer to things that we wouldn't encounter in everyday life.
You're saying that poop isn't dirty or will not make you sick. It's just that we all got together one day 10,000 years ago and decided, "Hey, let's get all uptight and disgusted when we see poop." We could get rid of toilets, plumbing, and the whole sewer system if we just got over our arbitrary hang-up over poop, and just started pooping anywhere and everywhere. No more underwear, no more wiping. We'd save millions of dollars.
Certainly you see the ridiculousness of this thinking. The fact is that taboo subjects are taboo for a reason. They aren't arbitrary or circular definitions. There is reason and system behind them. It's about bodily functions and sex, and Deities, well, those I can't explain.
There is a very big difference between peeing in the street and talking about peeing in the street. There is no reason why talking about it should be "bad". Many people act like that is true, but there is no reason why it must be true on its own. I don't want to see you peeing on the street, and I don't want to hear you talking about it. I don't need to hear you describe your bowel movements or having sex with your partner, no matter how clinical or objective such descriptions are. I don't need those mental images in my head. It's gross, and it puts an ill feeling in my stomach.
If the phrase "fuck off" sets off a pornographic fantasy in your head, then you're totally missing the point. That's the problem -- a lot of people *do* see it that way. They think you are talking about sex. That's why they are more offended by 'fuck off' than by 'go away'.
1. "Bad" words are only bad becaus they are bad. The idea that there are "bad" words follows the most innane circular logic since "The Bible is true because it was inspired by God and I know that because the Bible says so". The moral police use the most bizaar circular logic and this is it again. If noone cared and noone was offended then noone would use the word to be offensive eh? That's not true. All of the 'bad' words or swear words refer to taboo subjects -- stuff we don't physically deal with in every day life.
Swear words are always one of these subjects:
Deities, either evil or good: "Jesus Christ" in English, "Perkele" or Devil in Finnish.
Sex or genitals: "Voi vittu" or "Oh, cunt" in Finnish, or Fuck in English.
'Dirty' bodily functions, such as farting, defecating, and urinating. 'Merde' in French or 'Shit' in English. Now these are not dirty because they are dirty. Poop isn't dirty just because we say it's dirty; it's dirty because it smells bad and makes you sick.
So, the swear words refer to stuff you would never deal with in everyday life. You can't walk around naked or have sex in public, you can pull your pants down and pee in the street, you never see God or the Devil. Likewise, we it's impolite to bring these up in conversation.
There is no meaning of 'fuck off' other than what people take it to mean. It doesn't matter what you think it means; if you tell this to certain people, that's what it means to them.
I guess I'm on the side that certain words are bad in their own right. You can express your dissatisfaction with someone without referencing sex, feces, or Deities. Swear words don't carry any meeting; all they do is make it more stronger by the fact that they are taboo subjects.
Indecency laws for broadcasting is one thing, but a kid making references to genitals or masturbation to a teacher is way out of line in my book. In school, it's okay to ask someone to go away, if not rude. It's not at all appropriate to just throw around genitals, masturbation, etc. between a teacher and a student, unless when talking about sex ed.
There's no difference between your seven year old telling to the teacher to 'fuck off' and the seven year old telling the teacher rudely to 'go away'. Yeah, sure. There's no difference between telling someone to 'go away' and 'go stick your finger in your vagina'. Absolutely none.
That's a good guess. But supposedly the genetic research points to an origin in Africa, because of the diversity. Also, there are other "apes", or homonids, such as Neanderthal and Cro-magnon, running around outside of Africa, but so are modern humans. So modern humans are found in Africa before any ape ancestors migrated out, IIRC. The wikipedia article is pretty informative.
Actually, it is simpler than that. Movement out of Africa would occur as small groups leave, to go to other places. Those groups will only carry a subset of the alleles from the larger population. That is pretty simple, but the trick is convincing someone that this was the case, rather than 'Out-of-Asia' or 'Out-of-Middle-East' or emerge of modern humans from African, Asian, and European hominids.
So all the data we have is the current population around the world. We don't know if they arose from 'everywhere' or, if they arose from a single point, where that point it.
We can't really rely on fossil data because it's extremely spotty. So if you can show that modern Africans have more diversity than any other group of humans, then you can conclude whatever have shown about subpopulations with greater diversity.
Unless we were arguing the same point. In which case it's nice to argue anthropology on slashdot!;)
/disagree.
Notice the "time of War or public danger;" I don't think you're parsing this correctly. The "time of War or public danger;" belongs only to the first part; you can tell by the semi-colon. They seem to have written several sentences into a single sentence. Semi-colons appear where we would put periods today. Here's how we might write it today:
"1. No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger.
2. No person shall be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.
3. Private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation."
Can more variation in Africa really prove anything beyond... more variation in Africa? I have a degree in anthropology. I recall some mathematical work in populations and genetics that shows that the place with the most diversity is the origin of the species. That because the species has been in that location so long, they've had more time to mutate and spread those genes a lot. I didn't really understand it, but it was highly mathematical.
Anyways, some anthropologist took this population/genetics research and applied it to human populations. First off, they had to show that there was more diversity in Africa. They did this with genetics. So then if Africa has the most human diversity, and the above postulate about populations and diversity is true, then humans must have originated in Africa.
To me it seems very unlikely that life hasn't occurred in more than one place and more than one time. So how is it possible that all life, on a chemical level, is more or less the same? Maybe because there's only one chemical formula for life to exist, so that no matter where it arises, it's always the same chemical formula.
I do believe they use numbers generated by atomic decay. The site claims that
The randomness comes from atmospheric noise... I wonder, how could you know that their numbers are truly random, as they claim?
Except the leaders of left wing movements are almost never working or middle class...Teddy Kennedy, John Edwards, John Kerry. You're claiming that John Edwards isn't middle class? He's from a solid working class childhood. Wikipedia says:
Edwards was born on June 10, 1953 to Wallace Reid Edwards and Catharine Juanita "Bobbie" Wade in Seneca, South Carolina. The family moved several times during Edwards' childhood, eventually settling in Robbins, North Carolina, where his father worked as a textile mill floor worker, eventually promoted to supervisor; his mother worked as a postal letter carrier when his father left his job.[2] Edwards was the first person in his family to attend college. He first attended Clemson University and later transferred to North Carolina State University. Edwards graduated with a bachelor's degree in textile technology in 1974 from North Carolina State University, and later earned his law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), both with honors. Anyways, the democrat politicians you mention aren't leaders in the sense you are talking about. Left-wingers don't go and do whatever they say. They are more like public servants.
If you check the political opinions of the working and middle class you usually find that they tend to be more conservative.
That's not true. There is a broad spectrum of political opinion in the working and middle class. Working and middle class people might be more socially conservative, but they are often more economically liberal. This is called populism.
For many Americans it conjured up an image of yet another left wing media project... Uh, isn't that exactly what this project is? Don't get me wrong, I'm a lefty. If you have something small scale and open to anyone, then by definition there is going to be more working and middle class voices on it. The traditional media that requires a lot of capital to produce and distribute, such as newspapers, television, and radio, will, by definition, be the voice of its wealthy owners.
I'm sorry, I'm very busy and I don't have time to answer your silly, uninformed posts. As I said, I'm a major research scientist. If you want the information, look it up your self.
You can claim you are a doctor all you want. You can spout off whatever knowledge about legal death, clinical death, heart arrhythmias, etc. It doesn't matter. I've talked to Lords, Space Aliens, and Kung Fu blackbelts online. You know what? I don't believe a single thing about them. Want to know one thing they all had in common? They expected me to trust everything they said, simply because THEY said it -- and who am I to question them? -- and they didn't have time to do silly things like provide links or references.
So these English Lords, Space Aliens, Kung Fu blackbelts *AND* doctors who are super-busy have no time to look up links when I ask for one, yet they have all the time in the world to talk to me.
You sir, are a troll and a bullshitter. It doesn't matter that you are a doctor. You can still be wrong, misinformed, or a liar. You have given me no reason to believe anything you say, other than the fact that *you* said it. When you called me on my claims, I provided several links. I asked you several times for links, and you gripingly provided one.
But that's not consistent with what people report in NDEs. You make a good point.
I don't know, maybe the NDE is what happens before the true black out, which might include ego death? Sort of the difference between REM dreaming and deep, dreamless sleep? I'm just guessing here.
It's not up to me to spend an hour or two digging through my old texts to give you a page reference. Yes, it is up to you to provide some kind of reference. Otherwise, anybody on the internet could claim they were a doctor and knew what they were talking about, and I would have to believe them, just like I would have to believe you.
Why should I give you any more benefit of the doubt than you gave me. Or, as you so poignantly put it, 'Why the FUCK should we believe you'? Just because you say you're a doctor? Well, guess what, I'm a senior research scientist at a major American University resarch hospital, and that means I know more than you, so you're wrong!
Do you see any problem with that way of convincing someone?
Here's a document, since you insist: Thank you. You have made your point. You win.
Ealier you said:
If the heart stops, it means you're dead. In both a medical and scientific sense. So you said that the medical and scientific definition of death is the stoppage of the heart.
Now you say
Death is lack of TISSUE PERFUSION, not movement of the heart. So you contradict what you said earlier, that death is lack of tissue perfusion, and not 'movement of the heart.'
So you have said contradictory things, claiming to be a medical doctor, yet unable to provide references or links.
Now I ask you, what is the medical and scientific definition of death? I accept that there can be two definitions. Also, I have no reason to believe you, without supporting links.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, I mean that it's things we don't deal with in the public sphere, things that are kept private.
You don't shit? You don't piss? You don't fuck? I encounter all three of these things in everyday life. A taboo doesn't mean these things don't exist; it means you don't bring them into the public sphere. Have the seen the prevelance of potty humor? In all levels of entertainment. Children's cartoons make shit and piss jokes all the time. The message is the same regardless of what words are used. Why is ok to use one word in telling these jokes but not another? That's the definition of arbitrary. A joke is one way to handle a taboo subject. A medical discussion is another. However, there are other contexts in which taboo subjects are inappropriate.
Likewise, talking about any thing that would be taboo is also taboo. I don't know why, but that seems to be the rule. Perhaps some people have uncontrolled mental imagery; I know I do. When someone says "fuck off" I see a guy masturbating. When someone says "bullshit" I see a cowpie. I don't like those mental images, but it's something you learn to deal with I guess.
You can make an argument that keeping sex and bodily functions taboo is good for health and hygiene. As far as Gods, I don't know what the deal is.
You're saying that poop isn't dirty or will not make you sick. It's just that we all got together one day 10,000 years ago and decided, "Hey, let's get all uptight and disgusted when we see poop." We could get rid of toilets, plumbing, and the whole sewer system if we just got over our arbitrary hang-up over poop, and just started pooping anywhere and everywhere. No more underwear, no more wiping. We'd save millions of dollars.
Certainly you see the ridiculousness of this thinking. The fact is that taboo subjects are taboo for a reason. They aren't arbitrary or circular definitions. There is reason and system behind them. It's about bodily functions and sex, and Deities, well, those I can't explain. There is a very big difference between peeing in the street and talking about peeing in the street. There is no reason why talking about it should be "bad". Many people act like that is true, but there is no reason why it must be true on its own. I don't want to see you peeing on the street, and I don't want to hear you talking about it. I don't need to hear you describe your bowel movements or having sex with your partner, no matter how clinical or objective such descriptions are. I don't need those mental images in my head. It's gross, and it puts an ill feeling in my stomach.
Swear words are always one of these subjects:
- Deities, either evil or good: "Jesus Christ" in English, "Perkele" or Devil in Finnish.
- Sex or genitals: "Voi vittu" or "Oh, cunt" in Finnish, or Fuck in English.
- 'Dirty' bodily functions, such as farting, defecating, and urinating. 'Merde' in French or 'Shit' in English. Now these are not dirty because they are dirty. Poop isn't dirty just because we say it's dirty; it's dirty because it smells bad and makes you sick.
So, the swear words refer to stuff you would never deal with in everyday life. You can't walk around naked or have sex in public, you can pull your pants down and pee in the street, you never see God or the Devil. Likewise, we it's impolite to bring these up in conversation.There is no meaning of 'fuck off' other than what people take it to mean. It doesn't matter what you think it means; if you tell this to certain people, that's what it means to them.
I guess I'm on the side that certain words are bad in their own right. You can express your dissatisfaction with someone without referencing sex, feces, or Deities. Swear words don't carry any meeting; all they do is make it more stronger by the fact that they are taboo subjects.
Indecency laws for broadcasting is one thing, but a kid making references to genitals or masturbation to a teacher is way out of line in my book. In school, it's okay to ask someone to go away, if not rude. It's not at all appropriate to just throw around genitals, masturbation, etc. between a teacher and a student, unless when talking about sex ed.
That's a good guess. But supposedly the genetic research points to an origin in Africa, because of the diversity. Also, there are other "apes", or homonids, such as Neanderthal and Cro-magnon, running around outside of Africa, but so are modern humans. So modern humans are found in Africa before any ape ancestors migrated out, IIRC. The wikipedia article is pretty informative.
So all the data we have is the current population around the world. We don't know if they arose from 'everywhere' or, if they arose from a single point, where that point it. We can't really rely on fossil data because it's extremely spotty. So if you can show that modern Africans have more diversity than any other group of humans, then you can conclude whatever have shown about subpopulations with greater diversity.
Unless we were arguing the same point. In which case it's nice to argue anthropology on slashdot!
"1. No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger.
2. No person shall be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.
3. Private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation."
Anyways, some anthropologist took this population/genetics research and applied it to human populations. First off, they had to show that there was more diversity in Africa. They did this with genetics. So then if Africa has the most human diversity, and the above postulate about populations and diversity is true, then humans must have originated in Africa.
I just tried pronouncing these myself:
Lose sounds like 'Luuze' while
Loose sounds like 'Luce'.
Weird.
Won't my measurement of the randomness of their numbers depend on the randomness of my guesses?
And it kind of sounds like 'Mirror' in English. A perfect name for a community based video player -- a mirror for the community to see itself.
If you check the political opinions of the working and middle class you usually find that they tend to be more conservative.
That's not true. There is a broad spectrum of political opinion in the working and middle class. Working and middle class people might be more socially conservative, but they are often more economically liberal. This is called populism.
I'm sorry, I'm very busy and I don't have time to answer your silly, uninformed posts. As I said, I'm a major research scientist. If you want the information, look it up your self.
You just don't get it, do you?
You can claim you are a doctor all you want. You can spout off whatever knowledge about legal death, clinical death, heart arrhythmias, etc. It doesn't matter. I've talked to Lords, Space Aliens, and Kung Fu blackbelts online. You know what? I don't believe a single thing about them. Want to know one thing they all had in common? They expected me to trust everything they said, simply because THEY said it -- and who am I to question them? -- and they didn't have time to do silly things like provide links or references.
So these English Lords, Space Aliens, Kung Fu blackbelts *AND* doctors who are super-busy have no time to look up links when I ask for one, yet they have all the time in the world to talk to me.
You sir, are a troll and a bullshitter. It doesn't matter that you are a doctor. You can still be wrong, misinformed, or a liar. You have given me no reason to believe anything you say, other than the fact that *you* said it. When you called me on my claims, I provided several links. I asked you several times for links, and you gripingly provided one.
I don't know, maybe the NDE is what happens before the true black out, which might include ego death? Sort of the difference between REM dreaming and deep, dreamless sleep? I'm just guessing here.
Do you see any problem with that way of convincing someone? Here's a document, since you insist: Thank you. You have made your point. You win.
Now you say Death is lack of TISSUE PERFUSION, not movement of the heart. So you contradict what you said earlier, that death is lack of tissue perfusion, and not 'movement of the heart.'
So you have said contradictory things, claiming to be a medical doctor, yet unable to provide references or links.
Now I ask you, what is the medical and scientific definition of death? I accept that there can be two definitions. Also, I have no reason to believe you, without supporting links.