Why do we have an appendix?

To help raise awareness, I think I'll start telling people they're a pain in the appendix from now on.

"Following an appeal by the Spanish Triathlon Federation to disqualify Jonathan Brownlee for accepting assistance from Alistair Brownlee to finish the 2016 ITU World Triathlon Grand Final Cozumel, during which Jonathan struggled with heat exhaustion in the final portion of the run, the ITU competition jury unanimously ruled against disqualifying Jonathan. The ITU Competition Jury made this decision in accordance to Appendix K, Rule 7, which states that athletes can receive help from another athlete, Technical Official or Race Official."
http://wts.triathlon.org/news/article/mola_named_the_2016_world_champion

The Silmarillion reads very differently than Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, or any novel really... It has a sort of scripture / Biblical feel about it, even beyond the creation story that starts the book being a Tolkien-style Genesis.

But even beyond that, there is a lot of great material in there if you can get around the denseness of it. The story of the war that finishes off the first age is really, really good.

But before you give the book a shot, know that 1 page of Silmarillion takes longer to digest than 1 page of most texts. Very helpful to get the footnote annotated edition that has an appendix to refer to to help remind you when characters pop up that haven't been mentioned for a LONG time, etc.

It's interesting how everything is dumped right there on top of the appendix in that hole. No wonder it has so many problems. (I think that is the appendix at the bottom of the beginning)

We mostly agree then, just differ on our level of distaste. Not being a parent, I'll even concede that my opinion is less important on this issue than most other people.

As an aside, the appendix is not actually useless or vestigial as previously thought. It's been found to be like a small pocket off your intestine where beneficial bacteria can be preserved when something happens to the rest of the intestinal floura, to 're-seed' your intestine after (if) the issue is resolved.

Yep, but as the video says, all of those potential risks (urinary tract, stds, etc) are better managed by simple hygiene or the use of a condom.

If there are legitimate medical reasons for a particular individual to be circumcised, then of course you should do it. But that's the rub for me. It is a surgical procedure that involves removing part of your body. It shouldn't be done just because some puritanical flake merchant hated sex.

Put it this way. We're all born with an appendix. It's utterly useless and every now and then, just straight kills you for no good reason. Surely every child should have this dangerous organ removed? Well, it turns out that's really not a good idea, because that would ultimately do more harm than good.

We don't go around doing random medical procedures for anything else, and the vast majority of the world gets along just fine with their dicks intact.

My last word on this is that I will continue to call it barbaric, because I'm trying (in my own tiny way) to change attitudes on this. Using milquetoast terms doesn't help that. I'm not going to change this myself, but hopefully I'm contributing to a gradual shift in attitudes where infant boys are not mutilated (even "harmlessly") on the whims of their parents.

edit: really really last word. Kudos to all involved for a thought provoking discussion. You can have a rational argument on the internet!

"males have this appendix between their legs" Now I'm no doctor CreamK but I am pretty sure that is not where my appendix is located!

He does have a bigger point thou that isn't mentioned: "The Splashback".. You know, the moment when that toilet water shoots up your ass when you drop the deuce... But in fact, Butters gonna have hemorrhoids and possible even worse conditions (never google rectal prolapse...). By facing in, you're back is straight up, thighs are close to 90 degrees to your back.. It's good for offices, typing on your desktop. That is not how humans defecation works. We are squatters, closer you are to fetal position, the better. That leads to straight ejection where as straight up sitting pushes it out in an angle.. Pretty logical but totally opposite to the way we are going. The low seats are rising up all the time.. You may have to use a shallow stool to prop your feet up.

Also, toilet seat designers, if you see this: males have this appendix between their legs. When you sit down it points downwards in approx 45 degree angle. It does not point straight down nor does in simply vanish. Mine is perfectly average size and the toilet seat i have is very conventional, regular unit. Why does my dong has to touch the inside of the rim everytime i poop? And when are you gonna do something about that splashback? never? Thought so, you are pretty much just morons copy pasting 150 year old design that was a hole in a plane and no water beneath. Note, russians made an effort but that is even more horrible than anything we have now; it's basically a flat plane with the water on the front.. Everything fine except that the flat part is so close to your butt that you have to slowly rise, the water does not flush the dookie but you have to move yourself.. The worst toilet seat i've even encountered outside Polish trains.

Man, there's a lot of semi-accidental puns.. Poop is a funny thing, it seems..

@Trancecoach: We're not going to agree, and that's fine. This'll be my last reply.

Retailer strong-arming: Imagine Apple makes up 95% of Best Buy's tablet sales. Off-brand-X wants to sell tablets at Best Buy. Apple says: If you sell Off-brand-X tablets, we will not let you sell our tablets. Off-brand-X is likely to only provide a tiny profit to Best Buy, compared to Apple, so they comply. (This actually happened, in a different form, with Intel paying computer manufacturers to not use AMD processors. See here). Also see price-fixing.

Widget-distribution-prevention: This is just an extension of the previous point.

Buying up all of the competitors: Ma Bell. Old AT&T. That should be enough said. But, if that's not enough, now Ma Bell is nearly entirely re-formed. The US was one government approval away from having cell carriers limited to Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T. That's been spoiled, now, but I don't think it's hard to imagine that future continuing on to two carriers colluding and price-fixing (as Verizon and AT&T pretty much have freedom to do anyway). This is another quasi-natural-monopoly situation (or at least a tragedy of the commons situation), in that the radio spectrum is not infinite. To keep the spectrum usable at all, blocks of frequencies are doled out to radio/TV/cellular/military/etc. etc. with stiff penalties for interference.

Patents: Patents present a litany of problems, but the world without them is even worse. You have two things happen, both of which are bad:
1) New technology remains veiled in secrecy indefinitely; no one else can riff on it even after patents would normally have expired
2) My previous point. The marginal utility of R&D decreases drastically based on the likelihood of a competitor being able to get hold of your secrets before you can profit on them sufficiently.
This is exactly why patents were created. It's a temporary monopoly granted by the government in exchange for the promise that the knowledge will be released to the universe after X years.

Predatory pricing: If excessive, it's illegal. That's why it doesn't happen very often. In a country with anti-trust laws, you just want to hurt your competitor, you don't want to drive them out of the market.

Natural monopolies: Since you brought this one up, you can choose your energy service because the government forces the utility to lease its lines and to decouple distribution from production. That is to say, you have a free market in production because the distribution is not free. See here. My state is the same way.

Misinformation: Who vets marketing claims in a free market? My competitor says that their food is organic. Well--hell, so is mine! They're environmentally conscientious? So am I! Their drug cures cancer? Mine cures it even better!

Oh, shit. Someone caught me in a lie! Well, I'll just force the media to ignore it and ramp up my disinformation campaign.

>> ^grubert:

From Wikipedia:
"Despite local laws prohibiting trade in slow lorises and slow loris products, as well as protection from international commercial trade under Appendix I, slow lorises are openly sold in animal markets in Southeast Asia and smuggled to other countries, such as Japan. They have also been popularized as pets in viral videos on YouTube. Slow lorises have their teeth cut or pulled out for the pet trade, and often die from infection, blood loss, poor handling, or poor nutrition."
That's why this thing eats rice instead of insects.

From Wikipedia:

"Despite local laws prohibiting trade in slow lorises and slow loris products, as well as protection from international commercial trade under Appendix I, slow lorises are openly sold in animal markets in Southeast Asia and smuggled to other countries, such as Japan. They have also been popularized as pets in viral videos on YouTube. Slow lorises have their teeth cut or pulled out for the pet trade, and often die from infection, blood loss, poor handling, or poor nutrition."

Even more important to chew thoroughly when your throat is sore or irritated.

I know someone who choked to death from eating chips too soon after being intubated for appendix removal. If it hurts to swallow, don't eat hard foods that will irritate it further and potentially kill you. They are hard to dislodge too since the swollen passage will tend to hold it and swell up more.

@NetRunner

I second longde's reply above. I haven't seen anything from Reverend Wright that sounds racist to me. On the contrary, when I listen to Rev. Wright speak, he seems to be someone deeply interested in bridging racial divides.

Some criticism of "Black Liberation Theology"


I certainly don't think Obama is a racist, which is what you're trying to say as well.

>>> Well, aren't you claiming Dr. Paul is a racist? The man is not a fool, and knows that the libmedia is against him. Yet he continues to run for office and suffer what is assuredly unfair scrutiny.

>>> What's truly in Obama's heart no one knows. I see either a closet racist--more concerned with accruing power than skin color--or a crafty politician--more concerned with accruing power than anything else.

As for my problem really being with libertarianism, it's both. One can be libertarian without being racist, and one can be racist without being libertarian, but the self-identified American white supremacists really adore libertarianism and Ron Paul.

>>> You may very well be making a fair statement about a majority of "self-identified American white supremacists", to which I reply, "So what?" Don't those people have a right to vote for whomever they wish? It's obvious they are not a large or serious base. Those people wear shoes, right? If they favor Keds, is everyone who wears Keds a racist?

Why? Because instituting libertarianism would legalize racial discrimination, religious discrimination, sexual discrimination (both gender and orientation). Depending on the type of libertarianism, they might even get slavery back via indentured servitude.

>>> Rather far-fetched. I can't seriously believe you're worried about this. You think the only thing holding the system together--guiding the economic, religious and moral decisions of 300 million people--are a few recent laws on the books?

So smart racists get really, really solidly behind libertarianism. Even smarter racists pretend not to be racist, they're just libertarians...who just happen to believe the Civil Rights Act is an unconscionable exercise of state power, and oh yeah, used to have this newsletter they published saying all kinds of racist crap.

Ooops.

It's actually Ron Paul who helped me realize that the true lineage of libertarianism can be traced right back to the South's self-serving claims that fighting for slavery was actually a fight for freedom. Basically everything having to do with State's Rights, property rights, right to contract, all that crap was used to justify slavery.

It was used again to defend Jim Crow, separate but equal, opposition to the Civil Rights Act, etc.

IMO, any legal or moral framework which can justify that rogue's gallery of policies should just be discarded, not whitewashed, spun, and resold to people as some bright vision of the future.

>>> The Civil War was far more complex than "slavery". For at least the first 18 months of the war, slavery was not THE issue, and the South had every right to secede.

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and to form one that suits them better. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may make their own of such territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority intermingling with or near them who oppose their movement.

Lincoln on the floor of Congress, 13 January 1848
Congressional Globe, Appendix
1st Session 30th Congress, page 94

>>> Lincoln made the war primarily about slavery, but slavery was already on the way out before the War even began. Slavery had been abolished in most of Europe. Only wealthy Southerners owned slaves, and industrialization made plantations less and less able to compete with the North.

>>> I have to take this moment to remind that it was Republicans who ended slavery, and Democrats who donned the white sheets.

>>> The alternative to a proper balance of power between States' Rights and the feds is what we have now: an all-powerful federal mafia, ruling without the rule of law, made all the more dangerous when Democrats are in power due to their mainstream media media lackeys.

>>> There's plenty of valid criticism of Dr. Paul out there without the non-issue of some 20-year-old newsletters. Because our time and interests are finite, I assume this charge of racism is just an easy way for the left to refute the libertarian message, though it be simple, neat and wrong.


>> ^NetRunner:

I second longde's reply above. I haven't seen anything from Reverend Wright that sounds racist to me. On the contrary, when I listen to Rev. Wright speak, he seems to be someone deeply interested in bridging racial divides.
I certainly don't think Obama is a racist, which is what you're trying to say as well.
As for my problem really being with libertarianism, it's both. One can be libertarian without being racist, and one can be racist without being libertarian, but the self-identified American white supremacists really adore libertarianism and Ron Paul.
Why? Because instituting libertarianism would legalize racial discrimination, religious discrimination, sexual discrimination (both gender and orientation). Depending on the type of libertarianism, they might even get slavery back via indentured servitude.
So smart racists get really, really solidly behind libertarianism. Even smarter racists pretend not to be racist, they're just libertarians...who just happen to believe the Civil Rights Act is an unconscionable exercise of state power, and oh yeah, used to have this newsletter they published saying all kinds of racist crap.
Ooops.
It's actually Ron Paul who helped me realize that the true lineage of libertarianism can be traced right back to the South's self-serving claims that fighting for slavery was actually a fight for freedom. Basically everything having to do with State's Rights, property rights, right to contract, all that crap was used to justify slavery.
It was used again to defend Jim Crow, separate but equal, opposition to the Civil Rights Act, etc.
IMO, any legal or moral framework which can justify that rogue's gallery of policies should just be discarded, not whitewashed, spun, and resold to people as some bright vision of the future.
>> ^quantumushroom:


@NetRunner and others, I question your collective "concern" over this non-issue, which is comical considering Dr. Paul has no chance of wining the nomination (or does he)?
I don't know if you voted for Chicago Jesus, but if the facts that he spent 20 years in the Church of Hate Whitey under the tutelage of the deranged Jeremiah Wright, got married in said church and also gave it 20Gs doesn't bother you, then your problem with Dr. Paul isn't "racism", it's libertarianism.

Well, it is partly biological, not solely biological, of course. We agree.

I think we are on the same page. If you go to my profile page and read the conversation between ChaosEngine and me, you can see that I also have concerns about the children and see that I believe strongly in keeping religion out of the laws.

I don't think the indoctrination of children IS a separate issue -- I think it is part and parcel of the passionate energy that some atheists bring to the conversation and I believe strongly it needs to be dealt with -- short of removing the kids from the home or going ahead and sterilizing fundies. You are 100% correct, I think -- education, education, education.

The thing about a perfect world also applies to our conversation.

Fundamentalist religious folks think they have the answer. Fundamentalist atheists think they have the answer. I'm just saying -- carve out your territories and stop trying to invade people's minds. Both of these groups need to stop that. It is a losing game. Create a game where you can win -- [edit] religious fundies stay out of the laws and [edit] rational atheists need to put up the billboards. And the internet! Ah, the lovely internet. Saving grace for many an isolated person.

In reply to this comment by Skeeve:
I think you have dug to the heart of our disagreement.

First, you repeatedly state that religion is biological. I think that is partly accurate, but it's not that simple. I think religion itself is memetic, but the need to believe in something is biological. Religion is a symptom of our evolutionary need to believe/explain what we don't understand.

As for not being able to force evolution, we've been doing that - consciously or unconsciously - for thousands of years. While sterilizing the religious and only allowing atheists to breed might be one solution, I think the proper course is education combined with laws separating religion from the government.

While education doesn't work 100% of the time (as your example points out), it is pretty clear that those with more education have less religion. Nations with better education systems have less religious adherence and individuals with higher educations tend to have less religion. And the key words in those sentences are "less religion"; it doesn't mean less belief, it just re-aims that belief from religion to rational thought/science/etc.

Education is to religion as the scalpel is to the appendix - it removes the evolved, no longer useful, but still dangerous, problem.

With regards to it not being right to tell someone not to take comfort in that which comforts them, I partly agree. If it isn't harming anyone else, then I don't care what someone believes and I'm not going to get in their face about it (if they try to convert me though, they have opened the door and are fair game). But the line is drawn when someone's beliefs harm or pose a threat to the well-being of others. In that case, anyone who opposes equal rights (whether for homosexuals, women, non-religious) are fair game.

The issue I struggle with personally is the indoctrination of children. Having experienced that personally, knowing how that limited me (and harmed me, in some ways) I have difficulty allowing the indoctrination of children to go uncontested. But that's a different problem for another discussion ;


>> ^bareboards2:

We'll have to agree to disagree.
I don't think you can force evolution. It isn't a choice. Not unless you start breeding programs.
Want the biological need for the divine to go away? Sterilize all religious folks. I don't think you can talk folks out of it.
I speak from experience. My brother is a retired Air Force pilot with a Master's degree in aerospace engineering. Grew up in a secular household. His need for structure and the divine led him to the Mormon Church. Talk about goofy beliefs!! Good lord! And he voluntarily turned off his reasoning brain to accept all their nonsense as true. You say religion has "served its purpose." So why did he go there, when he wasn't indoctrinated into it growing up?
Not for me to tell him not to take comfort where he takes comfort.
However, it is for me to tell him to back off on gay marriage and not impose his church's beliefs on others. (And to tell him that when the church's membership starts falling, I guarantee his Prophet will suddenly hear from God that it is okay to be gay now.)

>> ^Skeeve:
I think most atheists would agree with you, that religion has served an evolutionary purpose. I don't have "The God Delusion" with me at the moment, but I'm pretty sure Dawkins acknowledges that as well.
But whether or not it serves an evolutionary purpose or not is irrelevant. The appendix served an evolutionary purpose - then we evolved to do without it. The same goes for the wisdom teeth; most people have them removed because they can cause huge problems, but in a world without dental care they are incredibly important.
Most of us atheists believe it is time, at least in the west, to "evolve" beyond the need for an invisible sky-daddy. We have the opportunity to do with religion what evolution did for the appendix.
Belief in a god is irrational. That's not to say it didn't serve a purpose, as evolution is not bound by the rational, only by phenotypic fitness. But, religion has served its purpose and, like the appendix or the wisdom teeth, it's time it was removed from our lives.
>>