Maarten

This is interesting to me because my girlfriend is always talking about how she thinks in pictures. I sometimes have pictures running through my mind but that is usually when I am distracted. I think when I am focusing on something I also have an internal dialogue running where I am basically talking to myself in my head. One other thing that reminds me of is that I have a fairly hard time forming mental images from descriptions For example when Annelise tells me about how she wants to make something, and describes how all the parts would look, it's almost impossible for me to mentally form an image of it to see what that'd look like without actually having to see it (or something so similar that I can just change the color/shapes a little in my head and that'd substitute). She can do that extremely easily, it seems. I am usually telling her that I really would have to see first before I can tell whether I'd like it or not. At the same time, pretty much anything explained as an idea or concept is much, much easier for me to understand, and I am usually the first one to grasp the implications of a new concept. It is mostly in constructing mental images that my mind is not as proficient, but I wonder if that is simply due to lack of practice. I know I haven;'t really done that many things where I really needed to do that, and I think you can probably train this skill (at least to the point where it's pretty average). Does anyone else recognize that at all?

Yeah, it'll still drastically reduce the availability of them, though, and likely make them less affordable.

My girlfriend was really upset about this earlier because it also applies to handmade toys produced by individuals in the US (among others). It is obviously impossible for someone who makes a series of 5 wooden toys to pay for all the required testing and still manage to sell it profitably to others.... It would basically destroy any small scale such operation, and it's a terrible shame and outrage. She said that the tests would amount to about 300-400 dollars per line of products, which wouldn't be prohibitively expensive for a huge company, but it certainly would kill any small-scale operation.

The stupid thing is that down here, for example, there are lots of areas that have more very poor white people than black people. By what standard can you possibly say that they are more privileged than their black counterparts? It's just utterly ridiculous.

I don't think that's true. For one thing, sex is much more than just traditional intercourse, and I would argue that having more, and more sensitive, areas to stimulate is a good thing for anyone. The fact that sex is also an emotional and spiritual act doesn't have anything to do with that; we're just looking at the physical side of it, and I think that physically speaking it's a good thing for your genitals to be more sensitive (i.e. to have more nerve endings you can stimulate) As for during sex: without wanting to get too graphic here, it is my experience that the foreskin is continually moving because of the friction, and that adds considerably to the pleasure. It does not just stay pulled backwards in most cases, as far as I can tell, and I think it adds another dimension to the physical experience of that act that you simply wouldn't have otherwise. I think the foreskin also helps trap a woman's fluids inside her so it helps keep everything more lubricated, which I think can also make sex better (I read that somewhere, but I don't have a reference, sorries) And yeah, as for those hygienic reasons: It basically comes down to being able to wash yourself. It really is not that difficult to keep it clean, and even when you temporarily don't have access to washing facilities or whatever for a few days it doesn't spontaneously fall off. It may once have made sense to circumcise boys when our ancestors lived in the desert (I can imagine that sand under your foreskin is very, very painful =P), but I just don't see why anyone would find that a compelling reason nowadays. It basically just comes down to lazy parenting in my opinion, where they just don't want to bother reminding the child to wash it (or wash it for them when they're younger). But yes, maybe for some people sex is more enjoyable if there's somewhat less sensation (because it can be easier to control orgasms and such things), but it should definitely be up to them. I personally think there are enough ways to circumvent that issue that it's really not a very good reason to alter my privates, but yeah =P It's not right to make that decision for someone else.

It didn't allow me to edit it, so can someone remove the earlier post? Thanks! I did find a published study about this where they measured how sensitive various parts of the penis were in circumcised vs uncircumcised males, and there was a pretty major difference. For one thing, the foreskin (and other areas that are not present in people who are circumcised) were the most sensitive part of the penis for people who still had it. Furthermore, all other parts of the penis were less sensitive in circumcised people. They measured this with small electric shocks (I believe, it was a while ago that I read it), and looked at the threshold of what was required before a person felt the shock. I will see if I can find the article, because I am not sure whether I can assess if the methodology was good or not. It is very difficult to measure something like this objectively, but it was by far the most convincing study I've seen about it. Asking people about whether or not it feels different when they're having sex is much less accurate in my view. Let me try and find it and I will link to it later. *edit* Abstract of Circumcision paper If anyone can access the journal, please go through it and see for yourself if it is convincing or not. There are a lot of contradicting studies on this, so it all comes down to methods. I do think they make a good case for it, though. Full Paper pdf But to quote the abstract: They had 68 non-circumcised people and 91 circumcised people in the study, and their p values are pretty good, so as far as I can tell it's a sound study. Anyway, enjoy if you want to look further into this

Well, for one thing, the fact that some people prefer being circumcised means nothing by itself. There are probably also some people who prefer to be blind, but that is not an argument in favor of making people blind. Arguably, being blind is a more serious handicap than being circumcised, but the point remains that it is still a non-trivial modification of someone's body. It DOES affect their ability to receive pleasure from sexual acts. If that doesn't matter to you, so be it. But you cannot make that decision for anyone else. Besides, I seriously doubt any child is going to hate their parents for not circumcising them when they were young. I can definitely see how the reverse can negatively impact a relationship later on, because it IS a pretty major violation of your body and I would be mad as hell at someone who did that to me before I was cognitive of it. Another fun argument you sometimes hear is that if you don't circumcise a baby, then later on it'll hurt more so they can't do it (or it'd be more difficult). As if that's a justification for anything. Sure, sometimes circumcision is necessary; my little brother's foreskin was so small that it would have caused problems for him at a later age, so they got rid of it when he was 2 or something. But I am pretty sure in most cases it is not done for a serious medical reason. (The worst thing is that in some places they don't even ask you; they just assume you want the child circumcised. I'd toss that doctor out of a window =P)

For one thing, all it takes is one person with funds in the billions of dollars to get such a program off the ground. That is a lot of money, but it's not completely out of the question. There seem to be plenty of really rich people willing to waste their fortunes on Africa or whatever. Colonizing space seems like a much better use for that money, and you really only need a few people who see it like that. It would be a long term investment, to be sure, but you can actually make money off of it in the long run (say 30-50 years). Timescales like that aren't completely unheard of, even though the Earth's political climate isn't very conducive towards that. For one thing, think of how much money you can potentially raise with advertising and stuff like that? I bet companies would pay millions for their products to be featured on the first Mars missions, and there's all sorts of other things you can imagine to raise capital once you get it started. I think I would enjoy writing about the earlier colonization aspects the most, myself.

I would like to try my hand at this. =) I love Mars. Heh.

Another issue is that the so-called unnecessary pay the rich people get that doesn't serve as an incentive, still gets put back into the economy in the form of investments. When you tax it and give it to others, that generally turns the money into direct consumption. That's why it IS harmful, even if the person in question may not work any less hard. He WILL invest less, and that is where the real danger comes in; they're leaching away investment funds and turning it into "food", so to speak, that serves much less economic value.

bp are basepairs, the basic units of DNA. Humans have about 3*10^9 basepairs of DNA, so this would be a fairly large difference (3% or so of the total). Sophia, was that number for the basepairs that can possibly be different between individuals, or is it the average number of bp that is different per person? (i.e. did they identify potential polymorphism sites or is it an actual difference?)

That is the most disgusting thing I have ever had the mispleasure of seeing.

I detect a slight amount of sarcasm

I actually kinda like the idea of living somewhere where I'd be more self-sufficient, but that's also just because I really enjoy a lot of the activities that come with that. I will probably get a house somewhere in the country later on and have a fairly large amount of land, and maybe have a small farm or something that provides me with a lot of stuff I need on an everyday basis. I dunno if I'd want to live on an island somewhere, though, unless there was a real chance that it'd pay off immensely in a few years. Heh. I like the idea of migrating to Mars better, just because if you get a permanent base there, labor will be really valuable and there's actually economic incentives to move there (i.e. you'd make a ton more than here) if you provide a valuable service.

I think a lot of people use the equivocation of rational meanings of "faith" with the irrational form of it to try and win arguments. There are a lot of instances where the word faith or belief is used where the person involved is NOT making an unreasoned choice. But then those instances are used to justify the use of faith in other situations where believing certain things IS bad. Many ordinary people confuse rational beliefs and faith in everyday language, I think, and it adds greatly to the confusion of discussions such as this.

I don't think Rand said that, myself. But I think it still holds (perhaps as a derivative axiom or something). It's completely circular to attempt to justify reason through using reason, because you have to assume it before you can use it to prove it. That seems very similar in concept to how reality and identity and consciousness are axioms. Would it be fair to say that reason is a derivative axiom of consciousness? In other words, it's the axiom of consciousness applied to man?

True axioms are perceptually evident, but they can also be validated. I don't know how you propose to validate faith as a tool of cognition. It certainly can and has been done for reason: we've proven countless times that it IS man's means of cognition, of survival. How do you want to do that for faith? How does faith (defined as belief in the absence of evidence, or belief contradicted by evidence) allow a man to do that?

Yeah, I don't know of one either. There's a libertarian group here (sort of organized by my roommate, funny coincidence =P) but they're a little strange. At least my roommate is a very rational individual. I certainly don't agree with him on everything, and he has some problems that many libertarians have, but overall it's really nice to talk to someone once every now and then who is also very much in favor of free markets and rights =) I will most likely leave this area at the end of the academic year so I don't know how much use there is in trying to start an Objectivist club. Several of the other people in the area I know who are Objectivists aren't here right now, so it's kinda empty.

This is disgusting. Some CEO is predicting that all financial companies will be nationalized within the next year, and not only does he think that's a necessary thing to happen, but he says that he thinks shareholders shouldn't be compensated in any way when the government takes over the company. Awesome! Disgusting manager person

I got 29 correct. Not bad for someone who never took US government classes =) Yeah, I agree that 33 was weird. For one thing, there can easily be less taxpayers than government spending recipients, so I don't think their answer is really correct. I also got 6, 7 and some other one wrong.

It's pretty interesting. My girlfriend's family (and she herself) are pretty liberal, but they're all squarely against any form of bailout on the grounds that it's wrong to take other people's money to support these things. They were also talking about how it just seems to be an exercise in evasion on a massive scale =)

I was pretty leftist when I read Ayn Rand. But it was very much something I accepted at the time on reasoned arguments, so it was easy to drop it when I realized it really did not make sense. So I don't know if you can easily make such a distinction.

I think the GOP needs to petition congress for an ideological bailout! Surely the American taxpayers cannot let such an ancient party that is so rich in tradition go under! Think of the children!

So basically, something like the clause that allows congress to regulate interstate commerce would have to be amended constitutionally? Do you think it would be wrong in that case for a Justice to disregard that clause in a decision because it is against individual rights, or would such a Justice be wrong because he is clearly contradicting the constitution? It seems to me that at some point you have to say that you must actually follow the constitution as it is written, because otherwise if people started to ignore it (for however good a reason) you'd still set the precedent that the government can ignore certain clauses in the constitution. I believe that in that case it would be better to be consistent with the constitution in judicial verdicts and work on amending it, rather than disregarding the literal meaning of the constitution because it is wrong.

I see what you're saying about both sides there. I guess that leads me to a different question. What is exactly the purpose of the judicial branch of government in an ideal society, and specifically that of the Supreme Court(s)? Isn't the Supreme Court's purpose to be the final authority on the interpretation of the Constitution? If a Justice does not actually base his verdict on the Constitution but on some other rationale, doesn't that contradict the very nature of his position? How is it a good thing if they can do that and get away with it?