Gender
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Dec 13, 2017
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This Facebook post from a biology teacher about gender identity and gender expression is quite enlightening: I just commented this on a transphobic post that was all like, "In a sexual species, females have two X chromosomes and males have an X and a Y, I'm not a bigot it's just science." I'm a science teacher so I responded with this.
First of all, in a sexual species, you can have females be XX and males be X (insects), you can have females be ZW and males be ZZ (birds), you can have females be females because they developed in a warm environment and males be males because they developed in a cool environment (reptiles), you can have females be females because they lost a penis sword fighting contest (some flatworms), you can have males be males because they were born female, but changed sexes because the only male in their group died (parrotfish and clownfish), you can have males look and act like females because they are trying to get close enough to actual females to mate with them (cuttlefish, bluegills, others), or you can be one of thousands of sexes (slime mold, some mushrooms.) Oh, did you mean humans? Oh ok then. You can be male because you were born female, but you have 5-alphareductase deficiency and so you grew a penis at age 12. You can be female because you have an X and a Y chromosome but you are insensitive to androgens, and so you have a female body. You can be female because you have an X and a Y chromosome but your Y is missing the SRY gene, and so you have a female body. You can be male because you have two X chromosomes, but one of your X's HAS an SRY gene, and so you have a male body. You can be male because you have two X chromosomes- but also a Y. You can be female because you have only one X chromosome at all. And you can be male because you have two X chromosomes, but your heart and brain are male. And vice - effing - versa. Don't use science to justify your bigotry. The world is way too weird for that shit. I've sent it to a few people who've asserted that gender is simply what's written on your birth certificate. I don't claim to understand all this, but I'm at least open to the idea that it's not as simple as it seems. #science
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Paying for labor
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Dec 1, 2017
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I just paid for some routine maintenance on my car yesterday. More than I had planned, but oh well. I could've probably done some of the work myself (definitely the cabin air filter), but it would've required me to (a) figure out the exact part to buy, (b) actually buy the part, (c) figure out how to replace the part, and (d) take time out of my life to do the work. Most projects I attempt end up taking more time than I anticipate and more aggravation than I desire. Last weekend I replaced a kitchen faucet. It took 4 hours: 3:58 to uninstall the old rusted faucet, and 0:02 to install the new one. That's how things go for me. I guess if I did that type of work on a regular basis, I would get more efficient at it. But still, I find myself paying for labor more often these days, especially when that labor is even slightly skilled. I do my own lawn work because it requires almost no skill. It just requires equipment and time. I do some of my own plumbing, but generally not if soldering is involved. Car work requires equipment, time, and knowledge, which I'm ok with paying someone else for. #business
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NFL kneelers
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Nov 14, 2017
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This is old news at this point, but the National Football League has a kneeling problem. Or rather, people have a problem with football players who kneel in protest during the playing of the national anthem before games. Or more accurately, Supreme Commander Donald Trump has a problem with NFL players kneeling, he presidentially Tweeted about it, and it caused an ongoing shitstorm including loss of viewership for NFL games, loss of revenue for sponsors, and yet another topic that divides people.
The kneeling has been going on for over a year know, since back when Colin Kaepernick initially kneeled to protest racial inequality and police brutality. He said about Trump at the time, "He always says, 'Make America great again.' Well, America has never been great for people of color and that's something that needs to be addressed. Let's make America great for the first time." Broncos linebacker Brandon Marshall said, "I'm not against the military. I'm not against the police or America. I'm against social injustice."
I find these ideas to be pretty simple and reasonable. They're not revolutionary, or anti-American, or even anti-Trump. They're honestly pretty tame ideas. "Things aren't so great for everybody; let's make them better." How are we honestly arguing about this?
But I find it odd how quickly people attacked the players as whiney, entitled millionaires. It's the definition of an ad hominem argument -- attacking the person instead of the message. It's the same thing people said about Al Gore and his message about climate change. It's astounding to me that people can't see past their own prejudices and pre-conceived notions and actually look at an issue honestly.
A worrying trend I've noticed is journalists and reporters keeping track of which individual players kneel in protest at each game. ESPN publishes a story (like this one) literally every week. I don't fully understand what's going on here, but it feels very Nazis-vs-Jews and I don't like it.
Colin Kaepernick, to his credit, played in a Super Bowl and is a somewhat decent quarterback. Yet he's routinely passed over by teams looking for a second- or third-string option on their roster, even late in the season when starters are often injured. People say it's because he's not good, but teams sign and re-sign extremely subpar quarterbacks all the time. Kaepernick thinks it's collusion at a high level. I think it's simply that even if a team desperately needs his talent, they just don't want to deal with the added media attention and locker room drama of his notoriety at this point. I can't entirely blame them, but it's sad that we can't have an honest discussion about something without people burning their season tickets and jerseys. #sports
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Paris trip
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Oct 11, 2017
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The wife and I just spent 6 days in Paris. First time in France. We did a bunch of sightseeing and touristy things. It was largely good. Day 1 - Arrived in the early morning after an overnight flight where we didn't really sleep. Walked around in a mild sleep-deprived daze. Checked out the Eiffel Tower, which has the names of famous French mathematicians and scientists inscribed near the top, several of which I recognized. Got acquainted with the subway system, which is actually quite good once you understand how it works (there's a very simple map of the line you're on, both in the station and inside the train).
Day 2 - Walked around the Orsay Museum, which has a bunch of impressionist stuff. Headed to Montmartre, the hilly section of town where the "adult" stores are located for some reason. Climbed to the top of the Sacred Heart Church, which in French has a bunch of accents and weird symbols so I'm English-izing it.
Day 3 - Checked out the Louvre, which had some famous art and a bunch of pushy tourists. Toured Les Caves du Louvre, a local wine cellar/seller. Headed to the Arc de Triomphe and climbed to the top for excellent views of the Champs-Élysées. Throughout the day we did one of those hop-on/hop-off bus tours and saw a whole bunch of sights. Finished the day with a boat ride down the Seine River, which really wasn't that great, or it was too much to fit into one day.
Day 4 - Took a train to Normandy and went on a guided tour of several D-Day beaches. Stopped at the Normandy Cemetery.
Day 5 - Casually strolled around Paris and stopped at the Notre Dame Cathedral, the Sorbonne, and the Pantheon. Looked for a wine store near our hotel and accidentally found the Porte Saint-Denis, an arc similar to the Arc de Triomphe.
Day 6 - Flew home. The Eiffel Tower was big and cool, but I couldn't help but think that it's simply a big metal structure built for the sole purpose of proving that humans can build stuff like that. And that's literally what it is. It doesn't serve a purpose, like housing or office space. It doesn't store anything. It's a skeleton structure. That's a little weird.
I'm really not into art, but there were a few paintings in the Orsay Museum that I literally couldn't tell weren't photographs. And the Louvre's art was cool and all, but honestly I was way more impressed by the opulence of the building itself. It was a former palace, and it shows.
Normandy gave me an intense feeling of American pride, even more so than living in America does. The ideas of "the greatest generation" and "their finest hour" were very prevalent everywhere we looked and went. The cemetery was full of intense symbolism and memorials, and it was interesting to learn that the American government pays for its continued upkeep.
I found the language barrier to be pretty difficult. I don't know French, and I found it to be pretty difficult to learn. Italian, on the other hand, seemed to follow a pretty straightforward pronunciation system, with the addition of rolled R's. French has a lot of symbols and accents and silent letters, plus nasally sounds that just don't exist in English. It was interesting to be in a place where you didn't know the language being spoken around you, and you couldn't read the signs or menus or anything. It was very alienating, and it was still a Romantic language so it shouldn't have been that difficult for me.
That said, French people were very accommodating. I didn't interact with a single French person that didn't also speak fluent English. But I like to at least make an attempt at speaking the language of the country I'm in. Also on the topic of French people, they were awesome. Literally every single French person I spoke to was kind, friendly, and helpful. I can't even fathom how they got a bad reputation.
Tipping is complicated. Or it's not. It depends who you ask. I really don't care what the policy is, I just wish it was more uniform. And let me put it on the check at a restaurant. Why is that not a thing?
The food was so-so. I'm admittedly not a foodie, but honestly I've had better croissants in America, and French bread was bland and hard and flaky. The wine was good, and we found a few varieties that will be added to our rotation.
The streets were very narrow and circuitous, and the sidewalks more so. That meant we had a lot of "interactions" with fellow pedestrians. This might be where French people get a reputation, because I can't even count the number of people who literally tried to walk right through me. I found it best not to make eye contact, so then other people got out of my way. Side note: Most of the people walking around Paris are probably tourists. So tourists are the real assholes people encounter in Paris.
All in all a good trip. "Six days in Paris" was actually more like "four days in Paris, a day in Normandy, and travel days". Trying to fit all that touristy stuff in that amount of time was pretty exhausting, but I can't imagine doing it a different way. There's just too much to see and experience, and not enough time. Easily the highlight of the trip was sitting leisurely at a streetside cafe, sipping coffee and eating a croissant, watching the people walk by, with the Notre Dame Cathedral in the backdrop. Magnifique! #travel
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Tipping part 2
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Oct 10, 2017
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I wrote about tipping a while ago (ok that was 12 years ago, whatever), but some things have changed. I'm somewhat ok with tipping. It took me a while to accept, but I've come around to the idea. Well, not exactly. I see tipping as just a mandatory tax. I tip 20% at restaurants regardless of the level of service I receive. I found that it's easier to just accept it and move on. And that's exactly where I'm at.
However, on a recent trip overseas where the tipping rules are different and sometimes nonexistent, I was having some trouble. A tourist guide book recommended a whole bunch of different things depending on the type of restaurant and whether or not there was a little abbreviation on the check indicating that the tip was included. This coupled with the language barrier just made things confusing. And I came to the conclusion that, quite honestly, I don't care what I'm supposed to tip. JUST TELL ME. Don't make me have to figure out your weird customs and intricate symbology. Just tell me what to do. I'll pay; I really don't care. Worrying about a tip detracts from the experience at a restaurant. #business
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On the Vegas shooting
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Oct 10, 2017
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Some guy shot a bunch of people in Las Vegas recently. Here are a few of my thoughts on the situation: - Are we not calling this a terrorist attack? If the shooter had been even slightly Middle Eastern, CNN's headline would be "Terrorists Hit the U.S.".
- Saying this had something to do with mental health is an insult to people with actual mental health issues. It takes a certain amount of mental acuity to plan out an attack of this magnitude, and saying the guy was "crazy" is a total misrepresentation of the word and the idea.
- This brings up the issue of motive: Was he angry at those people? Was he getting revenge for something? Did he just want to make a name for himself? This is the most troubling thing for me; if we can't identify something to fear, we're left fearing everything. Hence, terrorism.
- Personally I'm in favor of extremely strict gun laws, background checks, magazine size restrictions, the whole gamut. Guns are tools that have the potential to be dangerous, and they should be regulated as such. That said, none of the proposed gun law changes would've had any effect on the outcome of this situation. Banning assault weapons means he would've used a hunting rifle or several. Restricting magazine size means he would've had to swap out magazines, which isn't difficult. Background checks would've found nothing because he was fairly normal.
- The idea that the second amendment allows the populace to bear arms to support an armed insurrection against a tyrannical government has always seemed laughably naive to me. The government has tanks and fighter jets. End of story.
At this point in time, it seems like this was just a guy who wanted to murder a bunch of people, like a terrorist. Apparently there was nothing we could've done to prevent it. Even if there were no guns, this guy would've found a way to carry out this attack. And that sucks.
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On insurance
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Sep 22, 2017
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This Twitter saga about a young conservative who didn't want to be forced to pay for insurance under Obamacare but then got in a car accident and needed insurance, is a good illustration of two important points: - Insurance exists because of this. It's a redistribution of wealth, or a collectivization of the cost of care for health or injury or accident or other large unpredictable expense. The young pay for it, the old pay for it. That's how it works. All young people feel like they shouldn't be paying for it; all old people are thankful for the young people who do. We need this. So suck it up and get over it.
- Many ideas and issues only become relevant when they happen to you. Like that conservative politician who changed his tune on gay marriage after his son came out as gay. Or the people who are anti-abortion until they unexpectedly get pregnant. Or the people who say all drug users should be imprisoned until one of their family members gets hooked on painkillers and goes to rehab. It's fascinating to me how entrenched people can become in their beliefs, only to quickly and drastically change their minds when faced with the proper experience.
#psychology
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Heritable tribalism
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Sep 20, 2017
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Tribalism, or the tendency for humans to break off into groups to which they're extremely loyal, makes sense and has been shown to be evolutionarily beneficial. Tribalism tends to lead to pride in one's tribe. I think it's weird when the tribe you're a part of was an accident of your birth, like race or ethnicity. White pride? Why are you proud of something you literally had no control over? Proud to be an American? Why, when you had no choice in the matter? You haven't done anything to be proud of, aside from being born to parents of a certain race and in a specific location. That's just genetics and geography.
I think this matter extends a little further to religion. Religious affiliation is largely dependent on the religious affiliation of your parents and/or your community. Claiming pride in one's religion, or espousing its virtues above other religions, is ignoring the coincidental nature of essentially being assigned a religion at birth.
Finally there's the topic of sports fandom. This is almost entirely dependent on geography, and it's even memorialized in a song with the words "Root, root, root for the home team". It's morbidly fascinating to watch people get into physical fights because they believe the team from their geographical area is superior to a team from a different geographical area. #sociology
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Legalize all drugs
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Sep 12, 2017
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I think all drugs should be legal. I'm kind of surprised people are opposed to this idea. I mean I get that drugs are sometimes dangerous and addictive and tend to ruin people's lives. But here's the deal: - Making something illegal doesn't reduce consumption or usage. The fact that our country is in the midst of an opioid epidemic proves that people use drugs regardless of their legality.
- Legalizing drugs wouldn't cause everyone to use them. If heroin was legal, would you use it? If you haven't already, you probably wouldn't start. Drugs can maintain their level of dangerousness regardless of their legality.
- The war on drugs is widely regarded as a failure, both in terms of usage reduction and crime prevention. It has cost an inordinate amount of money and imprisoned countless people needlessly with mandatory minimum sentencing. America has the largest prison population per capita in the world, and taxpayers pay for that, both economically and sociologically.
- We already have legal drugs: caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol. Smoking cigarettes is a near-certain death sentence, and alcohol causes all kinds of health and societal problems. Drawing the legal line after these drugs is arbitrary at best, racist at worst.
- Drugs can be dangerous, and we should treat them the same way we treat alcohol: use it responsibly, don't drink and drive. The same guidelines can and should apply to all drugs.
- Illegalizing a product that people desire creates a de facto black market. Removing those restrictions should essentially remove the black market.
- Black markets thrive on secrecy, secrecy breeds misinformation, and misinformation is harmful, especially when it involves putting foreign substances into one's body. A legal open market would provide consumers with information necessary to make an informed decision. Plus the federally regulated sale of drugs would ensure ingredient purity and dosage. These things are all sorely lacking on the black market.
- Drugs could cause an economic boom. There's money to be made in farming, chemical manufacturing, taxing, and shipping.
Maybe we could change the name of the Drug Enforcement Agency to the Drug Enjoyment Agency. #health
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Male expectations
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Aug 31, 2017
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An extended family member was complaining about her husband and how he doesn't have a steady job, doesn't cook or clean up after himself, doesn't show up to family functions, and has a history of infidelity. Just by doing something as simple as having a job or cooking a meal, I'm already way ahead of the competition. It occurred to me that expectations for males in general are quite low. #sociology
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