Do you ever wonder thread

[barracuda]

Why was 2009 so stinking rotten for me and so many others?

Your presence on this board would indicate that you are well aware of the actual mechanics of the rotteness of the year: a complicit government lead by a figurehead of false hope continues to enable a fraudulent banking system perpetrating a Ponzi scheme on an apathetic and avaricious population, and an unnecessary war draining further monies from the needs of the domestic economy has lead to the worst unemployment levels in thirty years; predictably, an undercurrent of irritable desperation and gnawing fear holds sway throughout the land.

But what you really want is commiseration rather than this pat recitation, and that, fortunately, is in no small supply. So I say to you, yeah, it's been a shitty year for most people. Everybody's broke. But buck up! Considering that you live in Malibu, California, one of the most beautiful places on earth, and are caucasian and healthy and happily married with two loving children, your fate is, at present, better off than 96% of the planet's estimated six billion individuals by a hearty measure, and your odds of surmounting your present difficulties are great. Finish that screenplay you have in your head - it is a work of genius, or close enough.

And merry Christmas, dude. The new year is only days away.

[Nordic]

Nice. I wished I live in Malibu. I don't, I live in West LA. For years I lived in Santa Monica.

Okay, here's one. Tonight my 7 year old son asked me "who made god?"

[§ê¢rꆧ]

Your presence on this board would indicate that you are well aware of the actual mechanics of the rotteness of the year: a complicit government lead by a figurehead of false hope continues to enable a fraudulent banking system perpetrating a Ponzi scheme on an apathetic and avaricious population, and an unnecessary war draining further monies from the needs of the domestic economy has lead to the worst unemployment levels in thirty years; predictably, an undercurrent of irritable desperation and gnawing fear holds sway throughout the land.

...

And merry Christmas, dude. The new year is only days away.

That's a great summary, I'm going to steal that barracuda.

And stop saying the new year is just days away!

I am so buried in work I haven't been able to get my RI fix, at all. Or any number of other online dalliances and indulgences. It seems everybody wants their pet project done by the new year, even when they have been strangely quiet for the last two months of reminding them... *sigh*

The best thing is I have my nephew here for the holidays. That's taking time away too, but it's nice to hang with some family. I miss my tiny, scattered familial tribe.

[barracuda]

Nice. I wished I live in Malibu. I don't, I live in West LA. For years I lived in Santa Monica.

Okay, sorry about that error. My fact-checkers are gonna get a good thrashing. Let's just call it "coastal California", or "California".

Okay, here's one. Tonight my 7 year old son asked me "who made god?"

That one's easy. Either you did or god did.

[DoYouEverWonder]

Nice. I wished I live in Malibu. I don't, I live in West LA. For years I lived in Santa Monica.

Okay, sorry about that error. My fact-checkers are gonna get a good thrashing. Let's just call it "coastal California", or "California".

Okay, here's one. Tonight my 7 year old son asked me "who made god?"

That one's easy. Either you did or god did.

I remember trying to explain Easter to my kid. When I got to the part about Jesus on the cross, he told me to just forget about it. He was already confused enough.

[beeline]

Why was 2009 so stinking rotten for me and so many others?

Not to be a Debbie Downer, but I had one friend get murdered execution-style last Christmas Eve, and another one OD on Xanex and alcohol 6 weeks later. So 2009 got off to a rough start, I am happy it is going to be over soon.

[stefano]

Why is 12 noon 12pm, followed by 1pm? Surely 11am should be followed by 12am, and 11pm by 12pm? 12 midnight is after all the 12th hour after noon.

[barracuda]

Why is 12 noon 12pm, followed by 1pm?

Like so many aspects of our language when dealing with concepts of time and duration, it is a convention, necessitated by the fact that at the noon hour, the sun is neither in front of (ante-) or after (post-) the actual position of the meridian, but rather, directly above it. To compound the confusion, the true position of the sun vis-a-vis the meridian is only really sensical in terms of solar time, as opposed to the civil time shown on standard timekeeping devices.

Don't you guys have internet access?

[monster]

Why is 12 noon 12pm, followed by 1pm? Surely 11am should be followed by 12am, and 11pm by 12pm? 12 midnight is after all the 12th hour after noon.

YES damn I'm glad I'm not the only one

[nathan28]

All embryonic mammals are female before the sexual cellular distinction sets in. Femaleness results from the absence of any masculinizing genetic factor.

I disagree--embryos need to undergo differentiation to become fully-functioning females, i.e., able to give birth, as well. I.e., that recent hubabaloo over the runner who was a hermaphrodite--she has something like a vagina, but her gonads produce larger quantities of testosterone and she's sterile. It is true that male differentiation is more dramatic--i.e. the organs that would be the clitoris and vagina have to descend and grow skin etc.--but a fetus isn't "female" by default in early stages--it's a hermaphrodite that would appear female if you didn't dissect it.

You could probably add some evolutionary crap about production of males being more calorie-intensive, though I really expect it to be marginal considering how small they are.

See, though, all the little nastiness involved in that? Dissection?

[nathan28]

Why is marijuana illegal?

[barracuda]

All embryonic mammals are female before the sexual cellular distinction sets in. Femaleness results from the absence of any masculinizing genetic factor.

I disagree

Fair enough, but the question was about why men have nipples, not about the sexual cell differentiation of females. My answer was a bit of an oversimplification fo the sake of clarity:

From conception until sexual, all mammalian fetuses within the same species look the same, regardless of sex. In humans this lasts for around 14 weeks, after which genetically-male fetuses begin producing male hormones such as testosterone. Usually, males' nipples do not change much past this point. However, some males develop a condition known as gynecomastia, in which the fatty tissue around and under the nipple develops into something similar to a female breast. This may happen whenever the testosterone level drops.

Thus, because the "female template" is the default for humans, the question is not why evolution has not selected against male nipples, but why it would be advantageous to select against male nipples in the first place. This is best said by:

The uncoupling of male and female traits occurs if there is selection for it: if the trait is important to the reproductive success of both males and females but the best or "optimal" trait is different for a male and a female. We would not expect such an uncoupling if the attribute is important in both sexes and the "optimal" value is similar in both sexes, nor would we expect uncoupling to evolve if the attribute is important to one sex but unimportant in the other. The latter is the case for nipples. Their advantage in females, in terms of reproductive success, is clear. But because the genetic "default" is for males and females to share characters, the presence of nipples in males is probably best explained as a genetic correlation that persists through lack of selection against them, rather than selection for them. Interestingly, though, it could be argued that the occurrence of problems associated with the male nipple, such as carcinoma, constitutes contemporary selection against them. In a sense, male nipples are analogous to vestigial structures such as the remnants of useless pelvic bones in whales: if they did much harm, they would have disappeared.

[barracuda]

Why is marijuana illegal?

The laws against marihuana benefit everyone who is in a position to decide whether or not they exist: police departments, correctional corporations, drug manufacturers, illegal drug cartels, and politicians. Persons using or growing marihuana for private use or personal benefit have no legislative or judicial power to speak of, and the benefit to them by changing these laws would be negligible anyway.

But I sort of assume your question was largely rhetorical.

[lightningBugout]

Well, the answer is, I think, pretty obvious. Yes: how do we emancipate people from the foolishness of the drug war? How do we, as a community, as a point of view, how do we gain legitimacy? This is a really important question. I mean, if you look around yourself tonight, you don’t see the uneducated, the unhealthy, the demented or the deluded; and yet this is the stereotype of our subculture. Instead, what you see are well-dressed, creative people holding down positions in society, the parents of children, the heads of departments, the authors of books, the painters of paintings… you may not have noticed, but in this society they’re not handing out rights. Ask black people! Ask the members of any sexual minority! They don’t hand out rights in this society. And we – meaning we psychedelic people, by and large, this isn’t always true but by and large we tend to be white and middle-class. A translation of those two terms into “gutless” would not be inappropriate. We have the most to lose; and so we’re not given to hurling ourselves into the breach or building barricades in the street to hurl our bodies against the machine. Nevertheless, if you don’t claim your political birthright, it will never be given to you; and black people and gay people and American Indians, Native Americans – all of these people have learned that you don’t go on bended knee to petition the official culture for your rights. You have to take them.

And people ask me, you know, how can you stand up and say the things you do? Why don’t they take you away? They don’t take me away because they’re more chicken-shit than you think! They’re more off balance than you think! They’re more uncertain of themselves than you think! The legitimacy of this point of view is established in their minds. The reason drugs are illegal and suppressed, and bla bla, is because you can make a shitload of money off them in that context. It’s a money issue. Do you think a loving government is trying to keep you from jumping out of third-floor windows and that’s why LSD is illegal?! – I mean, give me a break! – for crying out loud, if this government felt strongly enough about certain issues, all of us between 18 and 26 would be sent off to die for that policy decision; so the government is not interested in your health. The government is artificially interested in inflating the prices of certain substances in order to create a focus for clandestine money that is used then to destabilise unfriendly governments, murder labour union leaders, kill and blackmail the editors of left-wing newspapers, so forth and so on.

Drugs are enormous big business. But not the psychedelic drugs. Psychedelic drugs – the only one that ever amounted to anything as a financial enterprise was cannabis. And cannabis is many things besides psychedelic. The deep, dramatic psychedelics, which are all Schedule 1, the most repressed Schedule – don’t produce great amounts of money at all. What they do produce is questioning minds. They cause people to ask questions. They cause people to ask for clarification. They cause people to challenge cultural values, because they decondition you. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Hasid, a communist apparatchik, a rainforest shaman, if you take psychedelics you will question your first premises; and that is a business that all governments – right, left, middle – are in the business of repressing. They don’t want to have to explain why things are done as they are. But if we don’t begin asking for that explanation, they’re going to run this planet right into ruin.

And we are the generation responsible. You are the generation that is responsible. You can’t claim that you grew up in a village in Nigeria and you didn’t know. You can’t claim that you are the child of poor Bangladeshi parents and you had no opportunity. The responsibility rests upon the educated and the financially capable of doing something about it; and by that measure, you and I are probably in the upper 3% of people on this planet, and if we don’t take responsibility then that responsibility will devolve to others – beady-eyed others, with an agenda that would stand your hair on end.

http://www.matrixmasters.net/podcasts/T ... eings.html

[nathan28]

Persons using or growing marihuana for private use or personal benefit have no legislative or judicial power to speak of, and the benefit to them by changing these laws would be negligible anyway.

But I sort of assume your question was largely rhetorical.

So, uh, what's "personal use," like five kilos, right?