As a person who's had so many Sunburns in my lifetime, I've lost count.
From childhood up to immature adulthood.
Does that mean I'm immune to Cancer??

OK, if you KNOW there's no good reason for it and do it to your child anyway, that's more barbaric. If you believe, because of misinformation, it's a good thing for the child and is safe, to me it's much less barbaric. People do harmful things all the time trying to do the right thing, intent and level of understanding should be considered when judging others, that's all I'm saying.
and in your analogy, I would be semi OK with that (if there's a male equivalent so it's not just sexist mutilation) because the social issues of not being accepted are far worse than having only one nipple, totally OK with it if it's by choice at the accepted age of choice or 'adulthood' (even if the other choice is leave the tribe).

EDIT: same hypothetical, is it OK if it's explained that they have to remove the nipple because otherwise they can't use the tools available needed to hunt without constant, often deadly bloody and infected hardcore nipple chafing, and so they would either likely starve or would likely be killed at birth because the tribe couldn't support them?

I'm 100% OK with the rituals of the 'alligator people' in Africa that cut themselves to look like they have alligator skin, done in adolescence or later by choice as I understand it, and that's certainly 'barbaric' by most standards.

From http://banbossy.com/

When a little boy asserts himself, he's called a “leader.” Yet when a little girl does the same, she risks being branded “bossy.” Words like bossy send a message: don't raise your hand or speak up. By middle school, girls are less interested in leading than boys—a trend that continues into adulthood. Together we can encourage girls to lead.

The confidence
gap starts early.
Between elementary and high school, girls’
self–esteem drops 3.5 times more than boys’.

Bossy holds
girls back.
Girls are twice as likely as boys to worry that
leadership roles will make them seem “bossy.”

Girls get less
airtime in class.
They are called on less
and interrupted more.

Imagine what he'll be like when his fingers grow into adulthood. Add range to the accuracy and he'll be playing at Carnegie Hall multiple times in his life!

Love the energy!

i do not understand your rebuttal to my artist comment.
is that even a rebuttal?
because it appears to me you used my comment to seque into something entirely different.

is it your position that a CMO of a company is an artist?
or,
that data and statistics are beautiful and therefore art?

and i dont see how you came to the conclusion that i was speaking of artists as a refusal to grow up.
unless our definitions of adulthood are so drastically different as to warrant an explanation.

please clarify.

"Here" my whistle blow?? All right, this shits' downright retarded.
NOT SAFE FOR CHILDREN (whom you'd want reaching adulthood without brain damage)

Interesting. I've got a semi-relevant story, but I get long winded so feel free to skip to the next comments if you like.

My wife (Thai) and I (American) had our first daughter this year. When she first got pregnant, one of the doc's first priorities was to get us both tested for "Thalassemia", which I had never heard of before. Apparently it is a blood disorder that affects hemoglobin production and therefore red blood cells -- if both parents carry the (rather rare) recessive gene, it can be a pretty bad deal.

It turned out that my wife is in the 1% or so of Thais that carry the gene (but she doesn't express / suffer from it, it is recessive and she has the dominant gene also). I had to get tested as well, but they said it would be incredibly unlikely that I'd be positive and I wasn't. So, our daughter has a 25% chance of being a carrier like my wife but zero chance of suffering from the effects of it.

Anyway, I was curious about the disease and asked the doc why it is a big deal here (every pregnant couple MUST get screened for it here when getting hospital/prenatal care) but I'd never even heard of it in the US. It turns out that the disease / genetic mutation arose only in places with high rates of malaria. As it happens, the genetic effect on your blood cells that the mutation has makes you more resistant to malaria -- full-on exhibitors of it (two recessive genes) are far less likely to die of malaria than people that don't have the gene. That is, assuming that you don't have the extreme variants of it that make it very unlikely to survive early childhood. Basically, if you have the disease and yet are healthy enough to survive to adulthood, you're close to malaria immune (that's overstating it, but ballpark). The malaria parasite can't survive and reproduce properly on your funky Thalassemia-affected red blood cells.

I thought that was a pretty interesting evolutionary response that must have arisen from some populations being pretty much decimated by malaria back in pre-recorded history. Current carriers like my wife are probably the descendants of lucky folks that survived a deadly outbreak in history by virtue of having a disease/mutation that is, under normal circumstances, slightly or even extremely bad in species survival / reproductive fitness terms. I thought that was kinda cool -- but I'm glad that neither my wife nor my daughter are/can be full-on expressors of the gene.

I don't actually find this video depressing at all. Babies are born desperate to join in to their parent's group and to "fit in". As babies we need to do this for our early development, but when passing into adulthood we tend to question EVERYTHING and drive our parents mental.

A related study on how we make choices in general is "The art of Choosing" by Sheena Iyengar.

As for the doll study that trancecoach linked, it is pretty sad and depressing. I wonder whether you can take it at face value though, or whether it's really showing that kids will choose the answer that they think the old, white, male, authority figure in charge of the study wants to hear. The newer studies always spend a lot of time trying to work out ways to avoid problems like that, but I saw no evidence that that one did.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Sheena-Iyengar-The-art-of-choosing-TED-talks

1.Yes you are.

2. Choosing to continue smoking and choosing to not take steps to get your weight under control and or stop overeating are well paralleled as demonstrated above. Feel free to argue it.

3. Being overweight in the playground DOES make them more likely to die of heart disease in later life.
Here's a quote for you.
“This is incredibly important,” said Jennifer L. Baker of the Institute of Preventive Medicine in Copenhagen, who led the research, being published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. “This is the first study to convincingly show that excess childhood weight is associated with heart disease in adulthood, or with any significant health problem in adulthood.”

To you point about it being his business etc... You know what, you're right. It isn't his business.
Does that matter? Not a whole lot. In fact he IS doing her a favor.
Hurting her feelings however unkind may be an important catalyst in getting her to change her habits.
Vanity is an INCREDIBLY powerful driving force for people.

In my view, someone who knows there is a problem and chooses to ignore it is a bigger (although perhaps socially nicer) coward.

Oh and people get away with comments like that in public all the time. I don't know what fantasy world you live in where no one chastises anyone, must be nice.

>> ^Jinx:


Oh, I'm making hyperbolic conclusions and then you equate smoking to being overweight? Being fat in a playground doesn't make the kids more at risk of heart disease.

so I guess you're right then. I dont get it. I don't get why her weight is your business if its not some wrong headed belief that she is a poor role model (that at least seemed to be the point of the email no?)
There is no easy solution. I'm not suggesting we ignore obesity or its health risks but there are right ways of tackling problems and there are the futile ways. If it was as fucking easy and emailing fat people to point out that they are fat and oh, here are the health risks then, err, why are people still overweight? So stop pretending that this email is in any way helpful. At best its tactless, at worst its cruel. Now, if I had a family member with weight problems I would consider it my place and indeed my duty to not just confront them about it, but also help them maintain a healthier lifestyle. I'd hope they'd do the same for me, but a stranger who is unwilling to invest any assistance to me beyond their critique? Fuck that. Mind your business.

In reply to this comment by Krupo:
LOL *quality *nsfw *drugs tied into *sexuality ;

Thank you so much for quality!!!

As an aside, I'm super excited about the inevitable outcome of this discussion, where we all hold hands and proudly proclaim that "We Solved Abortion!" It's gonna be so cool, guys. So cool.

@oritteropo
That's a very reasoned approach to the issue. (To me, it seems "mean" even earlier in development, but that's an individual value judgement.) Obviously "avoidance of meanness" isn't your entire justification, but setting the mark at "theoretical biological independence" hints at the underlying logic. On its face, it sounds like an extension of the "it's her body" argument, i.e. "It's her body...until the fetus doesn't need her anymore".

@packo @acidSpine
"I refuse to discuss this issue because Republicans\Christians are hypocrites" is a misdirection, and it's a dead-end. The argument is just as easily flipped: "Those liberals cry foul every time we drop a bomb on a terrorist, but they don't blink an eye killing unborn babies here at home," and it's just as fallacious that way.
BUT, it gives us both a common enemy: moral relativism. Moral relativism is why we need legislation, standards, and guidelines. Moral relativism is also where we dive into the "increase happiness/decrease suffering" balance that's frequently referenced in these debates.
Is it OK to kill an innocent person if that's what it takes to kill the terrorist mastermind who will kill (or incite the killing of) dozens later? What if it's five innocents? A dozen? What if we're only fairly certain he's a terrorist?
Is it OK to terminate a pregnancy (developing human, "kill a baby", etc) if it avoids the theoretical suffering of the mother and child later? Or if it avoids compounding the poverty crisis, or the healthcare crisis?
acidSpine, you claim this is "a moral issue, not a legislative one," but many moral issues get legislated because morals are obviously not enough by themselves, because perspectives and emotions cloud our judgement on moral issues. @VoodooV is right, we kill sometimes. Sometimes we feel it is necessary, and sometimes we feel it is the best, or at least most expedient course of action. Killing is a moral issue as well, but we legislate it because morals aren't adequate.
"Your honor, as you can see, the young Mr Jones was a dick. We have shown evidence of his abuse of animals and callous disregard for the emotions of others. These traits have been shown reliability to lead to sociopathic tendencies, child and spousal abuse, and criminal behavior in adulthood, so his death will lead to an overall decrease in suffering in the world. I have done us all a favor. You're welcome. The defense rests."

Tags for this video have been changed from 'parenting, adulthood' to 'parenting, adulthood, chewed up' - edited by xxovercastxx

^Thanks, @ChaosEngine, for having an open and inquiring mind. I do appreciate it.

Now the question is -- does language shape our thinking? "What if" women were always called women in circumstances similar to when men are always called men? (Context, context, yes?)

I remember where I was the first time I called myself a "woman." It was forty years ago, and I remember everything about that moment. It felt weird as heck. A responsibility was being assumed by me, it felt like. It was my nineteenth birthday, and I was lounging poolside at a UCLA frat house in the middle of the day.

In traditional societies, there were rites of passage, weren't there? Often brutal, but still. A marking of the transition from childhood to adulthood. The closest thing I have to that in my conscious life is that moment I chose to call myself a woman for the first time.

Do you remember the first time you called yourself a man, assuming that mantle of responsibility?

I suspect it is different for men, because the word is used so much sooner for you guys. "Look at the little man!" when you are three years old. I never heard "look at the little woman." Still, that moment of truly being called a man -- or choosing that word for yourself -- does it resonate?

Thanks for taking this seriously, chaos.

And I still would be interested in your wife's take on this. She married well, I can tell. You rock.

Seems like some conservatives think he's cool, not cold.

Looks more to me like they're making fun of the fact that other people THINK he's cool. It's a good ad though. I really do think a lot of people out there - particularly in the left-coast media - literally get twitterpated when they think about Obama. You can see it in how they talk to him and act around him. It's pathetic. The same guys who rightfully and eagerly went after Bush2 like Pit Bulls just bend over and sigh, "Am I clenching too hard for you, Mr. Preezy?" like Chris "Tingles" Matthews.

There's no shortage of stuff to hammer Obama about. The problem is that any time Mr. Preezy gets any sort of challenge of any kind to his rigid worldview you can just SEE him tighten up and become angry, bitter, and resentful. Then his standard modus operandi is to say, "The experts all agree with me..." (even though they don't) and stonewall with a bunch of jibber-jabber. Then when it is over good luck on that guy ever getting any sort of interview again. Obama's admin is notorious for dictating to the media what questions they're allowed to ask, how they ask them, and what to talk about. Obama isn't cool. He's a narcacisst and arrogant to a level rarely seen.

It would really amuse me if from now on every single person in the media, government, and everyone else stopped calling him "Mr. President" and just called him "The Preezy". To be honest, that's about what he deserves.

"Value of a 4 year degree"

To be blunt, there is very little an undergrad degree offers anyone nowadays except if they do a Science degree. I know a lot of liberals say, "Well - you get LIFE experience of being 'exposed' to new ideas and concepts and people..!" I'll just go ahead and say it. Bullcrap. Unless you're in engineering, computer science, math, pre-med, or some other technical degree there is nothing in college worth $50,000 in debt. The standard 4-year college 'experience' today is very little more than an adult play-pen where you fritter away a few years bridging between high school and adulthood. Increasingly, more people are ending up with nothing to show for it except a hammered liver and $50,000 in debt.