The other day when I went to check my mail… the real stuff, not the electronic variety, I heard the radio and the voices were discussing a comment that someone male had made to Violet someone-or-other, who happens to be the only female referee in the NBA. As it turns out, this fellow told her to, or said that she should, “go back to/into the kitchen and make me some bacon and eggs.” Naturally the voices on the radio are in the public sector, and thus must toe the public sector party line. That means supporting politically correct speech and ALL sensitivities including feminist ones. Of course, I actually thought the comment was funny, and even a bit extra funny because the fellow who made it had the nickname “Cornbread.”
At any rate, you might think that supporting a comment like this makes me a cad, and you’d be right, but not because I support this comment, and here’s why:
The statement made is an insult. Insults are important to our society, and we use them to communicate, often in regards to jostling our social rankings. Between men, this means we can figure out who’s got the bigger cojones without dragging our pants down and can figure out who is top dog without fighting to the death or splattering blood on the office walls. In case you still don’t agree with me that insults are important, watch some movies… and I mean watch them carefully. In movies, you will see scenes such as, the “some backstabber gets what’s coming to him, and then the “backstabee” gets a good burn on the backstabber to rub it in” scenario, which we all silently cheer to. We all like justice, or in this case, justice plus. Another scenario is one where jostling on the office hierarchical ladder is communicated through carefully placed and veiled snide comments. Naturally this prompts our insulted hero to avenge him/herself by retaliating, which is often either accompanied or synonymous with elevating him/herself above the snide commenter on the social ladder through extreme measures.
At any rate, insults are an important communication mechanism, and to deny this mechanism with women, simply because they are women, are to simply funnel confrontation into other pathways, many of which could perhaps be more harmful. Furthermore, what is called “Affirmative Action” in the US, and “Reverse Discrimination” in the UK, means that women should be protected from being insulted, according to some ways of thinking. However I object to this as bizarre and irrational: if women are not allowed to be insulted, that there is an implicit statement that women are too weak to defend themselves, or even to survive! This is clearly unacceptable because even a hard-core chauvinist, such as myself, will agree that women are fully capable of surviving insults and giving “what-for” verbally. If anything, I would say that men are less capable than women to defend themselves verbally from insults.
Clearly, feminists have to stand up for the right for women to be insulted, less they suffer prejudice and discrimination in having an implicit statement broadcasted through public sector media.
March 06, 2007
February 13, 2007
Be a Good Dictator
"My research for the past 30 years or so was devoted to examine whether cells have such signal integration and control center(s). The results suggest that mammalian cells, indeed, possess intelligence. "
Guenter Albrecht-Buehler, Ph.D. Fellow, European Academy of Sciences, Brussels Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies, Berlin Robert Laughlin Rea Professor of Cell Biology Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago
The intelligence of individual cells is fascinating. I haven't read the above doctor's website, but I have heard of interesting experiments. For example, a living heart cell will beat, as can be seen with a microscope. Furthermore, two living heart cells in a petri dish will beat out of rythm with one another, but place them beside each other, and they quickly beat as one. Consider the fact that we are told as early as high school that when you step on a nail, it is not your brain that tells your foot to lift, but your spine. It is explained to us that our spine acts as a mini-brain or mid-body brain for "lesser" functions. Perhaps one of the weirdest anecdotes I've been told is that bacteria placed into a perfect environment, not a perfect growing environment, will actually die because they do not need to struggle to survive. How bizarre.
Suppose for a minute, though, that individual cells are intelligent. That would imply that each of our bodies is an excellent example of a perfect society. Our cells do not rebel, do not mutiny. They each do their task in perfect socialist obedience, like little smurfs.
Of course, if they are indeed intelligent, then perhaps they feel pain, and suffer, or perhaps they have a desire to survive. As a sentient moral agent, are we not responsible for the lives of these cells, devoted to us, subject to our will?
Do the rest of the philosophy on your own....
Be a Good Dictator!
Guenter Albrecht-Buehler, Ph.D. Fellow, European Academy of Sciences, Brussels Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies, Berlin Robert Laughlin Rea Professor of Cell Biology Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago
The intelligence of individual cells is fascinating. I haven't read the above doctor's website, but I have heard of interesting experiments. For example, a living heart cell will beat, as can be seen with a microscope. Furthermore, two living heart cells in a petri dish will beat out of rythm with one another, but place them beside each other, and they quickly beat as one. Consider the fact that we are told as early as high school that when you step on a nail, it is not your brain that tells your foot to lift, but your spine. It is explained to us that our spine acts as a mini-brain or mid-body brain for "lesser" functions. Perhaps one of the weirdest anecdotes I've been told is that bacteria placed into a perfect environment, not a perfect growing environment, will actually die because they do not need to struggle to survive. How bizarre.
Suppose for a minute, though, that individual cells are intelligent. That would imply that each of our bodies is an excellent example of a perfect society. Our cells do not rebel, do not mutiny. They each do their task in perfect socialist obedience, like little smurfs.
Of course, if they are indeed intelligent, then perhaps they feel pain, and suffer, or perhaps they have a desire to survive. As a sentient moral agent, are we not responsible for the lives of these cells, devoted to us, subject to our will?
Do the rest of the philosophy on your own....
Be a Good Dictator!
How Old are Humans?
Someone recently told me that when humans are kept in isolation from a cyclic light pattern, they develop a 25 hour day pattern on their own. In other words, if they are kept indoors and away from natural light patterns, they still keep a 25 hour day cycle.
So, this causes me to propose a question, or perhaps a thought experiment. First, some additional data: The earth is slowing down in its spin. Surprise, there's a wee bit o' friction in all that space up there. Also, there are three different kinds of "day," the civic, solar, and sidereal day. The civic day is 86,400 SI seconds, or 24 hours exactly. The solar day is the time a planet takes to rotate once with respect to its star. For the Earth, that varies depending on the time of year, and the average is our fabulous 24 hour day. The sidereal day, however, is the amount of time a planet takes to rotate with respect to distant stars. For Earth, this is about 3 minutes and 56 seconds shorter than our normal 24 hour period.
So, let's do a little math, figure out how fast the Earth is slowing down, and then "calculate backwards" to figure out how long it took to slow down from 25 hours per day to our current time of 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds.
Of course, I'm not actually going to do all that math in my blog. Especially seeing as I'm ill right now. Instead, I'll ask my physics Professor to explain it to me. Perhaps he will also be interested to see the order of time in which our "day" has changed from what our bodies "expect" a day to be.
So, this causes me to propose a question, or perhaps a thought experiment. First, some additional data: The earth is slowing down in its spin. Surprise, there's a wee bit o' friction in all that space up there. Also, there are three different kinds of "day," the civic, solar, and sidereal day. The civic day is 86,400 SI seconds, or 24 hours exactly. The solar day is the time a planet takes to rotate once with respect to its star. For the Earth, that varies depending on the time of year, and the average is our fabulous 24 hour day. The sidereal day, however, is the amount of time a planet takes to rotate with respect to distant stars. For Earth, this is about 3 minutes and 56 seconds shorter than our normal 24 hour period.
So, let's do a little math, figure out how fast the Earth is slowing down, and then "calculate backwards" to figure out how long it took to slow down from 25 hours per day to our current time of 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds.
Of course, I'm not actually going to do all that math in my blog. Especially seeing as I'm ill right now. Instead, I'll ask my physics Professor to explain it to me. Perhaps he will also be interested to see the order of time in which our "day" has changed from what our bodies "expect" a day to be.