by Doctor Science
A few months ago, I read Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, by Richard Wrangham. Wrangham marshals many lines of very good evidence to argue that humans are physically adapted to cooked food. One unexplored prediction of his theory is that, when proto-humans starting eating cooked food, they must have experienced a true "obesity epidemic".
I’m cutting this because discussions of weight, etc., are so fraught.
The high points of Wrangham’s evidence compare humans to the other chimpanzees:
- shorter gut, and digestive system is a smaller proportion of the body
- smaller teeth and mouth
- much less time chewing food — chimps chew 4 hours a day, humans about one hour or so
- there is very little evidence for any humans, even castaways, surviving for an extended period without cooked food
- there is *no* evidence that children can grow eating only raw food
Wrangham also describes research showing that, for example, cooked eggs are almost twice as digestible as raw eggs — and eggs are one of the most digestible and "natural" of foods. What this means, among other things, is that nutritional tables which assume that, e.g., raw and cooked eggs have the same number of calories and other nutrients, are going to be *wrong*. Because a cooked egg is more digestible, it has effectively more human-available calories than a raw egg.

These eggs are neither raw nor cooked (sorry, Claude), but they are pretty, also seasonal. I’m trying to find the photos I took of our pysanky seder-plate egg, with the image of the burning bush — alas, the mice ate it. Next year, on our seder plate…
So, once our ancestors started cooking food, they could get more calories and nutrition out of a given item. If they started with a chimpanzee-like gut, mouth, and chewing habits, they would have taken in *many* more calories than their bodies were evolved to handle. Cooking is culture, it’s something we learn, so it’s pretty much a given that the change in diet from starting to cook would run much faster than the evolution of a shorter gut, etc.
In other words, we would have become obese — and only gradually, over an evolutionary timespan, did we adapt and become dependent on our new, cooked diet.
I’ve been wondering if the so-called "obesity epidemic" reflects (in part) something similar: if our food has become, in some fundamental but unnoticed way, more digestible. This might be a clue to why increases in BMI and obesity have been going on for a century.
Cooking is culture, it’s something we learn, so it’s pretty much a given that the change in diet from starting to cook would run much faster than the evolution of a shorter gut, etc.
It’s also possible that early humans would’ve been making cultural adaptations to this excess number of calories.
-they could spend less time on food gathering and more on decoration, play, defense, etc, foregoing either resources with lower returns or less ‘tasty’ ones. Or avoid more dangerous food collection activities (eg breaking of a hunt earlier if it seems to be exposing the hunters to high risk)
-they could expand their families more quickly, using the excess food on their children
-that works until they reach the new carrying capacity, at which point they could use up population members on conflict (claiming more territory) or colonization of new territory (perhaps territory made viable by the advent of cooking)
Carleton:
The evidence (from e.g. tooth size) is that cooked food became important in human evolution quite some time ago, probably around Homo erectus.
It’s possible that they would have just spent less time eating, but that would depend on the body’s interpretation of appetite & satiation not need to be re-calibrated for cooked food. I think the evidence from domestic animals is that it *does* need to be re-calibrated. Basically, an organism set up for raw food will tend to over-eat when given cooked food — it may, for instance, eat the same weight of food as before, even though that provides many more calories.
I think the evidence from domestic animals is that it *does* need to be re-calibrated
First- domesticated animals don’t expend much effort to obtain food, so that might confound using this directly. To a wild ‘animal’ such as erectus, they might have responded this way- it depends on how much of the impulse to gather food is based on satiety.
Second- being an omnivore is different than an herbivore (ie most domesticated animals)- omnivores like erectus would’ve had to accommodate great variation in food quality/caloric density. Caloric density can vary spatially, seasonally, or from one site to another (ie different groups from the same genetic population might need behavioral adaptations to handle these optimally). So my guess is that they’d have to have a better judge of food quality than bulk- which might be a great metric for a grass-eating herbivore.
And, some herbivores eat more or less continuously- Id expect that they would gain weight on richer food if that’s the case, since they wouldn’t require any sort of governor of the eating process.
Third- if we hypothesize that cooking is gradually introduced over even just a few generations, and that the increased calories available lead to higher reproductive rates, then we might see most of the benefit going to increasing group size. With larger groups utilizing the higher carrying capacity of the same range the increased benefits of cooking then go to maintain the larger group on more marginal resources.
if our food has become, in some fundamental but unnoticed way, more digestible.
I’ve read that as a theory somewhere else before – that because we’re eating more processed foods we’re able to extract more calories from them, because it’s taking less energy for our bodies to digest them. I can’t find where I actually read that (typical) but I’ll link it again when I do.
they would have taken in *many* more calories than their bodies were evolved to handle…In other words, we would have become obese
I’m not sure this makes sense. Is there strong evidence that demonstrates that people who consume more calories become obese? I believe that Gary Taubes in his book Good Calories, Bad Calories wrote about earlier studies where students spent several months on 6000 calorie/day diets and did not gain significant amounts of weight; they typically gained ~10 pounds and then leveled of. Those results seem incompatible with simple thermodynamic models of caloric consumption where weight gain/loss is precisely equal to calories consumed minus calories expended.
Caloric density can vary spatially, seasonally, or from one site to another
Realized I didnt articulate this very well: In addition to varying seasonally, it can vary within the range of a group, or between the ranges of multiple groups from the same population. A group on the coast eating a lot of protein-rich shellfish may have behavioral adaptations to eating that differ from an inland group subsisting mostly on tubers. A group with seasonally-available meat (the best example I can think of are salmon runs(!), so maybe this isn’t a factor) has to eat in a way that suits the available food- as a generalist omnivore species, erectus should have been physically and behaviorally adapted to meet that broad range of circumstances.
But I don’t know much about the eating habits of erectus. If the diet was relatively consistent within and across groups, that would be an important factor. Im not sure how much we (collectively) know about their diet, but Im sure I dont know very much.
One other point- even if the rest of the theory holds, I have a hard time imaging obese erectus hunter-gatherers. Hunter-gatherers- at least modern ones- usually cover a lot of ground in a day, and that should create a strong negative feedback on weight gain.
Humans are chimpanzees? This just might be my new thing to learn today, but I suspect not. I suspect that this should have read “…other hominids“.
I don’t know that this is either a given, or supported by any evidence. What your commonsense tells you and what actually happened may be two quite different things.
Obesity epidemic… Too much processed foods in our diet. A hundred years ago, there was virtually none. Today, it’s probably ninety-percent of the non-seasoning food stuff available in my local chain grocery store. And that product mix in the store and in the cart has consequences.
An apple has 45 calories. A cup of raw, peeled apple has 65 calories. A cup of raw apples weighs about 110 grams. That’s about 0.6 calories per gram. A TINY handful of snack crackers, like Cheeze Nips, has 150 calories in 30 grams. That is 5 calories per gram. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that Cheese Nips are, gram-per-gram EIGHT TIMES more fattening than raw apples.
So when I check out, I look at what other people buy compared to me… I have tons of fresh fruit and veggies, a small amount of meat, dairy, fruit juice, seasonings, spices and some good bread. I buy one treat, like one of those single-serving ice creams, a week for my daughter.
And the cart in front of me will be full of soda, easy-cook foods, high-fat meats, frozen dinners, chips, snack foods with nary a vegetable or fruit in sight. It’s even gets damn well ironic as many of those ‘snack foods’ are labeled as ‘healthy,’ even though they’re incredibly calorie dense and will make you fat and sick.
One thing that has been conclusively proven is that going from hunting-gathering to farming had a negative health effect. Farmers were less likely to starve but there was significant malnutrition. More calories but of lesser nutritional value. In ‘civilized’ nations this has been only rather recently overcome.
Certain post-civilized societies are hellbound to bring it back though 😉
An apple has 45 calories. A cup of raw, peeled apple has 65 calories. A cup of raw apples weighs about 110 grams. That’s about 0.6 calories per gram. A TINY handful of snack crackers, like Cheeze Nips, has 150 calories in 30 grams. That is 5 calories per gram. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that Cheese Nips are, gram-per-gram EIGHT TIMES more fattening than raw apples.
You skipped a step.
But there is also sugarcane. Bad for your teeth too.
Btw, part of mankind has partially adapted to the higher calorie intake but some groups have not. Some small Pacific island nations have the highest rates of obesity and diabetes in the world since they got introduced to Western style food, esp. fast food. Iirc it has been recently discovered what genetic differences are responsible for this.
A bit closer to home: lactose (in)tolerance is also clearly connected to civilization. Not sure whether the same holds true for alcohol.
You skipped a step.
The one where the bit about “calories” not being an equal measure of anything is explained and you have to take in to account calories v. calories from fat v. protein and fiber content, not to mention the thorny ol’ complex v. simple sugar issue?
In other words, we would have become obese
I think it’s more likely we would have had too many kids.
This was the norm in pre-industrial cultures — good times lead to overpopulation, not to turning those calories into cultural capital (or into fat). Then a die-off begins, and the cycle repeats.
Geds: Bingo.
Slarti:
By talking about “the other chimpanzees” I was (a) using terminology borrowed from Jared Diamond to (b) emphasize how very close the human lineage is to the chimpanzee. Although cooking was invented much, much later than the chimpanzee/human split, we can make a first crack at how Homo‘s digestive system evolved by comparing it to the chimp’s.
Jason:
That’s a very good point. One of the evolutionary consequences of cooking that Wrangham discusses — though not IMHO enough — is that it permits humans to wean our infants much earlier than the other great apes do. Even quite young humans can survive on easily-digestible cooked food, and that makes it possible for humans to have more than one dependent offspring at a time. A human woman can readily have a new baby every 3 years; orangutans take eight years, and probably have the lowest reproductive rate of any organism (a lifetime maximum of 5 per female).
Jason:
But to get back to your point: though in evolutionary time you are completely right, in cultural time — a few generations or less — it would be difficult to speed up reproduction a lot, because for us apes that means having births closer together. Spacing births closer is hard, because so much of it depends on waiting until one child is somewhat grown before you have the next one.
To all those who said, “but why should having more digestible food lead to obesity?”, you’re right, I was gliding over a step.
There are many parts to a mammal’s system for maintaining a steady weight. One of the things that can confuse this system is if food suddenly becomes much more digestible or nutritious, because the time-tested methods for determining when you’ve had enough may get thrown off. If, for instance, the body looks for a feeling of inner fulness to signal “that’s enough”, then very nutritious food may be “enough” but still leave you feeling hungry, so you eat more than you need.
Many theories about the current “obesity epidemic” focus on factors in the modern world that disturb the appetite/satiety balance (I’m in the middle of The End of Overeating by David Kessler, for instance). I’m theorizing that the transition to cooked food would also have disturbed our ancestors’ appetite/satiety balance, leading to something like obesity. Note that one of the evolutionary changes Wrangham thinks was pushed by cooking is a shorter digestive system — and that some current solutions to obesity involve bariatric surgery.
But to get back to your point: though in evolutionary time you are completely right, in cultural time — a few generations or less — it would be difficult to speed up reproduction a lot, because for us apes that means having births closer together.
That doesn’t take into account the likely impact of an increased food supply on infant and child mortality (and also miscarriages or temporary infertility due to malnutrition). For a population at the carrying capacity of the territory (which isn’t static, I know, but just to keep too many things from moving at once) we’d expect a female entering her reproductive years on average to produce 2 offspring that live to adulthood to mate.
Under those circumstances reproductive rate isn’t limited by the reproductive biology of the species, but by the environmental factors. Changing the environmental factors (effectively, by adding calories) can increase population size. I’m not saying that erectus had to evolve in order to grow population faster, Im saying that that ability- to expand population in the face of resource abundance- is already there. In just about all species, really, although some are much better at it than others.
Besides which, adding food to a population with a fluctuating carrying capacity will increase the population another way- by keeping adults from starving during lean times. Which doesn’t change the number of foraging hours per belly the way having more children survive does, but it does mean that the group will be utilizing less optimal food resources than if the tribe’s numbers were thinned- thus leading to a lower average return on foraging investment.
I still think the satiety argument has a ways to go as well- an erectus who ate a meal the night before and is deciding whether to pursue a high-risk, high-reward food gathering strategy or a safer, lower return *might* be thinking of how full they felt the night before (and the night before that etc). Or she might put more weight (heh) on the current state of her body- thus leading her to use the extra calories from cooking to avoid food-gathering risks or to spend time on other activities.
[Even with modern humans, we might overeat if presented with a calorie-dense food, but we don’t decide how much breakfast to order up based on how full we felt the night before- at least, it doesnt seem that way to me, the mind having been known to play tricks. It *feels* like Im assessing my current nutritional state rather than recalling my state the previous night when Im deciding whether to add on the blueberry muffin or not. Definitely does not feel like Im analyzing how full Ive been feeling over the past few weeks after various meals.]
I don’t think you can point to any single thing as the cause. We have processed foods, which are already partially digested or decomposing. We have foods engineered to make us want more. We eat while doing other things, thereby giving our food and our bodies less attention. When we don’t pay attention, we fool the satiety balance. We consume fast foods as opposed to foods we have prepared ourselves.
It is interesting that the techniques that still work involve retraining yourself to recognize when you are full.
The evolutionary angle is kind of interesting, but I think looking at the hard data of past decades has much more explanatory value:
Wikipedia tells us that since 1980 the rate of obesity in the US/UK has doubled / quadrupled since 1980 resulting in around a third / a quarter of the population suffering from it.
I think the reasons for this are quite obvious and due to culture and economics.
In addition to having Slarti’s doubts, I disagree with this statement: “One thing that has been conclusively proven is that going from hunting-gathering to farming had a negative health effect.”
Who made this proof and on what evidence. There are still hunter-gatherers today. Healthier than a rural third worlder who is fed adequately at least twice a day? I doubt it.
Dr. S, do you have a quick reference to when Erectus harnessed fire, how it was started and maintained? My take is that use of fire was intermittent at best at least until Neanderthal became fairly well established.
While cooking food may make it more digestible, and help keep it a bit longer without spoiling (if eating spoiled food was even an issue), what is the precise evidence that the caloric intake for a population that walked from place to place following game, battled the elements and their environment incessantly, and until 40K years ago, basically had a three piece stone tool kit, no throwing weapons other than rocks and was generally in constant motion other than after a big kill would gain weight on a diet of cooked food. And, we are really talking about cooked meat. Berries, edible grasses, tubers, etc. may well and likely were eaten raw by Erectus and possibly by Neanderthal and Sapiens as well, back in the day. Raw veggies are better for us than cooked, by and large.
I think this is a reach. By the time erectus came along, I would suspect the digestive system was closer to modern human than to chimpanzee. IIRC, the break between humans and chimps was 5mm plus years ago and Erectus arrived some 1.5mm years ago. That’s a lot of time, 3.5mm years, after the road forked.
Re-reading, I gather that the notion of an early human obesity “epidemic” occurred as a result of the spread of the practice of cooking food was suggested by Wrangham, and that it was a mistake to attribute that theory to Dr. Science.
I’m wondering, then, what evidence Wrangham amassed that supports this notion of an obesity epidemic? I mean direct evidence, not suppositional.
By the time erectus came along, I would suspect the digestive system was closer to modern human than to chimpanzee.
If the theory is that these particular changes in the digestive system occurred in response to cooking, then that wouldn’t be the case. In any case, if a population of hominids was adapted to eating raw food and started eating cooked food the underlying theory stays the same I think, regardless of when this occurs in the evolutionary timeline.
Now, if someone can show that the changes in the digestive system occurred at a different time than the regular use of fire, that’d be a problem for the theory.
IIRC, the break between humans and chimps was 5mm plus years ago and Erectus arrived some 1.5mm years ago. That’s a lot of time, 3.5mm years, after the road forked.
It’s not a gradual change from one form to another- it’s usually rapid changes, induced by evolutionary pressure. If the diet of erectus is similar to a chimp’s diet, then they may well have remained similar. (Or maybe the gut was modified by some pressure other than cooking, eg maybe their diets were different enough, or erectus was covering more ground and evolutionary opted for a lighter, less-efficient gut).
It’s worth noting that Doc already raised the issue of changes to teeth in an early comment.
Dr. S, do you have a quick reference to when Erectus harnessed fire, how it was started and maintained? My take is that use of fire was intermittent at best at least until Neanderthal became fairly well established.
Well, most primitive forms of fire-making use simple wood tools rather than stone- we’d not expect to find anything from that kit. I believe all we can do so far is find evidence of controlled fire in the correct strata and associated with other finds.
I don’t think we’ve got a good handle on when this happened, either:
from wikipedia.
Texas, here’s a pdf of an essay by Jared Diamond that spells out pretty clearly what a disaster agriculture has been and the reasoning behind the conclusion:
anthropology.lbcc.edu/handoutsdocs/mistake.pdf
Interestingly, the old cultures of the (now) Near/Middle East (Egypt, Mesopotamia, Anatolia and neighbouring territories) used attributes (verbal and material) of hunting and the nomadic lifestyle (herdsmen) for the ruling elite. To a degree the ‘losers’ were associated with the farming lifestyle (in some Sumerian stories a farming connection in one’s name can designate the character to be the one meeting the sticky end even if of high rank).
Agriculture got us beer, and beer may just outweigh the sum of other tragedies that came along with agriculture.
I think Diamond’s point is a decent one, but if you agree with him, are you going to go Bushmen? If not, why not?
Antibiotics are routinely fed to meat animals to make them gain weight faster. They enter humans who eat them just fine. Guess what happens next.
If you really want scary news about food just Search ‘Rumsfeld Monsanto’. As it happens I’ve been mining news from places like Care2 for a while now and finding out things I’m not sure I want to know.
There’s also a ‘Water’ newsgroup under JanforGore at Current TV that branches out into food topics.
Aug 13 2009 I made a couple of collections using material supplied by a raw milk advocate and a retired farmer who decided to blog their concerns and linked to an activist community to share input.
http://opitslinkfest.blogspot.com
I already had plenty wrong with water going through my brain and didn’t need more clusterfuck. Got it anyway.
http://cowbossatwscc.blogspot.com/2009/05/welcome-to-cowbosss-blog.html
http://www.organicfoodee.com/news/2008/12/urbanfarmin/
http://opitslinkfest.blogspot.com/2009/10/health-and-wellness.html
http://opitslinkfest.blogspot.com/2009/07/corporate-farming.html
This is a ridiculous discussion. Cooked food has nothing to do with obesity.
The only reason people are obese is that stick far more calories – cooked or uncooked – in their mouths than they burn and they are too lacking in self discipline and self pride to stop the cycle. I suppose I should add that many people are also too stupid and ignorant to select properly balanced diets.
Exercise vigorously for at least an hour a day, eat right and you will not be overweight; let alone obese. In fact you will be in good shape.
Only Dr Egghead could turn so simple a truth into some kind of pseudo intellectual snipe hunt. I am guessing the angle is that obese people are ‘victims’ of cooked processed foods as opposed to orally fixated lazy slobs. There must always be a victim and an abdication of personal responsibility in the Dr’s ‘science’.
I have deleted the previous comment from “Countme–In” for gross and offensive violations of our standards of discussion. I’m consulting with my fellow wizards re: banning (partial or total, temporary or permanent).
Don’t let this happen to you. Sheesh, people.
avedis:
You’re skirting the standards, yourself. Straighten up, please, and be less gratiutously insulting. Fortunately for you, I consider “Dr. Egghead” a term of praise.
The only reason people are obese is that stick far more calories – cooked or uncooked – in their mouths than they burn and they are too lacking in self discipline and self pride to stop the cycle.
No, scientifically speaking that is not correct. Animals are perfectly capable of maintaining a constant weight even with an unending supply of food, and despite having no self-discipline at all.
There’s plenty of evidence that humans, too, have innate mechanisms for homeostatic weight maintenance. Why and how these mechanisms aren’t working in our current society is a real scientific question, not of my own invention.
Countme-In has been banned. Count, please see the Banning Guidelines for what you should do next. The ban will be lifted sometime after you’ve explained yourself, apologized and we’ve had a chance to talk it over. That last was WAY over the line. You know better.
Please email the kitty if you care to explain yourself; if not, we’ll miss you.
http://www.livescience.com/10277-obesity-rise-animals.html
Perhaps the feral rats in Baltimore are lacking in moral fiber, sneaking into the living room at night to watch cable or playing on the gamebox, instead of exercising by scurrying and scampering like before?
Dr. Science, “No, scientifically speaking that is not correct. Animals are perfectly capable of maintaining a constant weight even with an unending supply of food, and despite having no self-discipline at all.”
Disagree totally. Animals, who, incidentally eat uncooked food, do become over weight; even obese. Domestic dogs have to have their feeding controlled; especially if they are sedentary.
Even nervous race horses will graze themselves into being overweight when they are on lay up from the track. They will eat as much grain as you give them and plump up further.
The key is that most animals exercise as a part of their normal daily life. Thus they burn off the calories they consume.
avedis:
Domestic dogs and cats do not eat uncooked, unprepared food — you can tell by the lack of fur, feathers, and bones in their meals. Domestic horses often have serious food-related problems (e.g. fatal colic), in large part IMHO because they are naturally grazers that are being fed over-concentrated meals of e.g. oats.
The key is that most animals exercise as a part of their normal daily life. Thus they burn off the calories they consume.
That’s how it looks, all right, but such a system (eat to balance exercise – exercise to balance consumption) is nowhere near precise enough to keep a wild animal’s weight as steady as it is observed to be. Animals — and humans — have a system of weight homeostasis:
“Domestic dogs and cats do not eat uncooked, unprepared food…”
You have a point there to some extent. On the other hand, my barn cats do eat, almost exclusively, mice and birds. They maintain very well on this diet. One time we had a mouse infestation (I think they came in some old hay bails). The cats ate so many mice that after a month or so they were waddling around like mini walaruses (walari?). And what of the walarus and the seal? These creatures eat uncooked food and yet they produce body mass indexes that would register obese in humans. They are plenty fat. So, again, this reality would be counter to your cooked food hypothesis.
I do agree that cooked and processed food adds to the human obesity problem, but it is only a contributing factor because the consumer is not working off the calories. No matter what you want to say, the lack of caloric burn is THE reason for obesity. It is impossible to gain weight if you don’t intake more calories than you burn. period. Pure and simple.
As for lack of self discipline component, working in health care insurance industry, I have studied the costs and benefits of the various surgeries (like, in the venacular, ‘stomach stapling’) and we see that often the surgeries fail to produce the desired weight reduction, long term, because people continue to eat obsessively, post surgery, and will actually burst rings and other devices/organs emplaced to prevent over-consumption.
Humans traded an almost equal mass of gut size for brain size.
Humans were likely at the top of the food chain, at least in northern Europe, for thousands of years at a time. When an ice age advanced, large predators froze to death. Even after the ice receded, it might be a long time before enough ice melted in the mountains to the south to allow large predators to move in again.
I eat a largely raw, unprocessed, vegetarian diet. I substitute the use of a two horsepower blender for cooking.
Countme-In has been banned.
Slarti, where can I go to see what my friend said that got him in trouble? I agree Count has a way with words that pushes the envelope; however, I do not recall him ever making a personal attack on a commenter here and, aside from his humor, he treats opposing views with respect. I would like a chance to see what he said and offer a defense. I like the Count a lot.
You can ask Dr. Science to forward it to you, McKTx. I’ve seen it, but I don’t feel comfortable releasing it.
And what of the walarus and the seal? These creatures eat uncooked food and yet they produce body mass indexes that would register obese in humans. They are plenty fat. So, again, this reality would be counter to your cooked food hypothesis.
I don’t really have much of an opinion on the subject of the top post, but this is a very misguided argument. Attempting to assign a human BMI to a walrus or seal is just, well, silly. These animals carry the fat they do for reasons, and not because of an environmental factor making their weight-regulating mechanisms ineffective.
It would be like attributing human giantism to hormonal abnormalities, only to have someone point out that giraffes with normal endocrine systems reach heights that the tallest humans in history have never approached, as though it were a relevant rebuttal.
You can ask Dr. Science to forward it to you, McKTx. I’ve seen it, but I don’t feel comfortable releasing it.
Dr. S, could you forward the subject comment to me at mckinney@mckinneycooper.com? Thanks much.
McTex, for what it is worth, I saw the comment before it was deleted and my first thought was that someone was spoofing Countme–in because it didn’t sound like him at all.
Thanks, Turb. The Count is kind of the exception to the rule in my view. I hope Dr. S can forward.
For what it’s worth, Countme’s deleted comment immediately followed avedis’s snottiness toward Doctor Science (April 22, 11:42 p.m.).
It wasn’t entirely clear whether the Count’s echoing/escalating of the nastiness was aimed at avedis or DS; I assumed the former. That doesn’t change the level of nastiness, but it does change the angle a bit.
I am one of those people (I know this isn’t unanimous) that appreciate the attempt to keep ObWi reasonably civil. That avedis’s comment skirted the edge of the line ObWi’s owners try to draw doesn’t mean that it’s not a waste of pixels and the seconds it takes to scan them.
I would trade any number of avedises for the Count any day.
I would trade any number of avedises for the Count any day.
I appreciate the civility here too. I’ve always found the Count to respect decently presented views he disagrees with. I don’t know what he said to Avedis (yet), but I could see where Avedis’ comments might have provoked a heated reply.
CR PhD–I read the article. Seems like a reach, to say the least. It’s a good thing people back then had a choice, or we would be communicating, if at all, by smoke signals or drums or some such. And we wouldn’t be talking about archeology or anthropology. We’d be talking about flint napping, that new-fangled atlatl thingie and those crazy freaks who think animals ought to be treated as equals to humans and not eaten. Fun times.
with no Count there is no CCDG, I hope his absence is temporary. Doc Sci was not out of line, the comment was my friend Count at his worst, not his best. However, as we should all:
Write the bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble.
– Arabic proverb
I hope this one bad thing gets a day not a permanent ban. Until then Marty returns regretfully, and probably less frequently.
The Count has been here longer than Doctor Science and Avedis combined, though n00bs may not recognize his inimitable style. These frequently-hilarious, almost always sharply on-point gonzo dispatches from the lunatic fringe have of late become more disturbing (IMO, a direct reflection of the mainstreaming of increasingly unhinged discourse on the right).
If he’s been bounced (temporarily? permanently because ObWi has (quietly, behind the scenes) instituted a zero-tolerance policy, rather than because some n00b main-pager is (apparently) ban-happy, well, ok, cool. But, really, it’s total bullsh!t to
1. Disappear the comment and expect the community to simply accept the word of Doc Science/Sand 2. To allow someone like avedis to (apparently) provoke a contentious response via trolling and only dole out a weak-ass slap on the wrist.
I hesitate to comment further on the matter, as I’ve yet to read what the Count wrote. But the manner in which this banning unfolded seems unbelievably arbitrary and poorly handled overall.
Colour this longtime commenter greatly unimpressed.
mattt:
I don’t think that we have any policy of keeping offensive comments posted that violate posting policy. We routinely delete comments that violate the no-profanity policy, for example. I also remove spam as a matter of routine, and occasionally the odd comment here and there that seems designed to Google-bomb someone.
Regarding the banning, there was discussion amongst the blogmasters and -mistresses, and the ban was actually implemented by me. So any attribution of this to some hair-trigger response on the part of Dr. Science is misplaced, I think. She emailed the hivemind, and included a screenshot of the offending comment, and after some back-and-forth I elected to go ban him.
Blame me. It’s what I’m here for.
Anyhoo, we will continue our behind-the-scenes discussion of this issue. I don’t know whether John has written the kitty, or whether any of the kittymind has attempted to contact him. And of course there’s the possibility that John may just throw up his hands in disgust and never come back. I tend not to contact other commenters directly, in an ongoingly futile attempt to keep my mild-mannered reporter identity secret.
I’m not averse to his return, and would welcome the old John Thullen back if he even exists anymore in that form. We’ll have to wait and see what happens.
Sorry I can’t tell you more than that, but there really isn’t much more to tell.
Also: Banning Policy is right up there in the Important Notes (right under the kitty) for everyone to read. I actually went back and read it again before implementing the ban, but if you think I’ve done anything improper (it was after 1am, so there’s a possibility) please by all means give it a read and tell me where you think I’ve screwed up.
Or where you think the policy is flawed. Or unjust. Or…whatever.
Slarti, I think you do an admirable and thankless job as Hall Monitor. The thing is, Count John is an institution at ObWi. He’s the exception that makes/proves the rule. I’d go so far as to say that his particular style is a recognized exception to the Posting Rules, having been given implicit permission to rant in his own unique Gonzo way by the many comments over the years that many have found so entertaining.
And, while the comment that led to this was perhaps technically outside the official Rules, it was provoked by Avedis who gratuitously insulted Dr. S, managing at once to make an otherwise valid observation and then hide it in a low rent personal attack. But I’d have to see what John said to be able to address it coherently.
Maybe ObWi should have a special link to “Examples of Banned Comments”.
Crap. Lost my initial response. Ah well.
Actually, slarti as Gary has pointed out on numerous occasions (as I’m sure you’re all too aware), the banning policy — indeed, the posting rules in general — is a bit of a hodge-podge, inconsistantly and (seemingly) arbitrarily applied (not to mention a relic of a time when ideological ‘balance’ was still an ObWi fetish). As for whether banning was warranted in this instance, I truly can’t say, as the offending comment has been memory-holed. As for the banning policy itself, it focuses solely on process (which, as mentioned, is kinda sorta out of date now), rather than the particulars of what specifically warrants banning.
But yes, if we are talking solely about process, rather than the specifics of the offense in question, it would seem I indeed was hasty in implying that anything untoward had occurred (I assume you still count as ‘the other side’, Slarti). Also, I apologize to Doc Science for both the accusation of unfairness and for the dismissive use of the ‘n00b’ descriptor. Clearly I should have taken a moment to edit my initial comment (as the numerous typos can further attest).
Slarti, as a mere guest at this party I have no standing to object to whatever rules of decorum the hosts care to enforce. All I can say is that if the hosts insist on so much decorum that the party turns into a seminar, or a wake, some of the guests may seek their fun elsewhere.
I did not catch the Count’s indecorous comment. Maybe it would have offended me; maybe not. What I am fairly sure of is that it would not have caused me, in particular, to leave the party. The Count’s absence, on the other hand, will make the party less fun, for me in particular. Maybe for other guests as well.
But it’s your party, or seminar, or whatever. It’s up to you hosts to decide how much fun your guests are allowed to have.
–TP
testing
“testing”
And aren’t you always?
McKinneyTX: Maybe ObWi should have a special link to “Examples of Banned Comments”.
Several examples immediately spring to mind: Josh Trevino (aka Tacitus) got shitcanned after he insulted _edward’s spouse. Another former commenter (I can’t recall their psuedomym — Joe something-or-other) cast aspersions on Andrew’s patriotism, which caused Hil to immediately drop the hammer.
Sebastian banned himself for 24 hrs after calling felixrayman an asshole; felixrayman was subsequently banned for being an asshole (and later came back as a sock-puppet to vandalize several threads with a pretty weaksauce Moby troll). Charlie was banned (by Slarti, IIRC) for, um, being Charlie (ie, an infamous OG VLWC troll), but was reinstated because von thought The Left should simply man up and take Charlie’s attempt to kill the site (or something like that).
IOW, it’s hard to provide any consistent examples of banning because there is no consistency in how banning has been applied.
Well, I’m not sure what’s going on exactly, but I can post.
However, the “Email me” Kitty button doesn’t work on my computer, thus preventing me from apologizing for my behavior through the proper channels, and explaining (I’m an idiot is the short version).
Slart and the other front-pagers were fully justified in banning me.
I’m not going to request unbanning — I need a good, long break.
At any rate, Slart, if you can let me know here how to email the kitty (message comes up that a module will not load), I’ll provide an apology through that channel, unless y’all don’t mind it on this thread.
I’ll check back tonight.
‘_edward’ s/b Edward_.
Mea culpa. I blame the allergy meds.
Countme-in,
Try to make it a good, short break.
There are too many things that need exploring from your end of the universe.
If perhaps not as dramatic as death and life, certainly cold and heat, or passive and active, represent the nature of how our reactions often differ. The fire of life I look forward to each time I open Obwi (muddled sometimes lately with increasing frustration)will be missed.
I certainly won’t know which comments to read first off of the comments list while you take a break.
McK:
I just emailed you.
Proves, in that context, means tests. And I’d agree with that statement.
I can’t remember who “Charlie” was; sorry. If he was banned for some insufficient reason, I’d be glad to review his case.
Yes. Please don’t, until we have worked out this problem. Take that as a friendly request, because that’s what it is.
Apparently your browser doesn’t know what to do with “mailto:”, so…right-click the link, select “Copy Shortcut”, then open up whatever mail application you use and paste it into the to: field.
We actually have a gmail account too, but for some reason I’ve had absolutely no luck changing our official email address to there. And now it’s been long enough since I last tried that I can no longer recall what was up with that.
We don’t want you to go away, John, we want you to hang out with us and converse in a way that works for everyone. And of course we’d love to hear from you, via email, about what’s going on with you. A break sounds like a good idea; disengage, write to us, and we’ll talk. I’m not sure who will handle your correspondence, but we’ll cross that road when we come to it.
Dr. S, thanks. I appreciate it.
What CCDG said.
I appreciate the civility here too. . . . those crazy freaks who think animals ought to be treated as equals to humans and not eaten. Fun times.
Gee, as a vegetarian, I appreciate the civility. (rolls eyes)
A brief note from one of the behind the scenes participants. While this is specifically directed at comments about the procedure (or lack of it) followed in the case of count, it may be a useful reminder to everyone. It was expressed by me, so I don’t know if anyone else agrees with it, but I provide it as a reference.
It is important to be stricter with people who are close to you, which may involve short cuts on the exact procedures. This is because a slavish adherence to the procedure can give the appearance of bending over backwards to avoid punishing. Count is a long time commenter here and I feel much the same fondness that others have stated above. However, because of that fondness, we might be more inclined to be strict, because we know he knows the rules and it is unlikely that if we were overly strict with someone close to us, someone else would demand that steps be skipped for them and we cut to the chase. ‘you punished him without giving a warning, why don’t you do that with me?’ said the newbie is not going to occur much in the corpus.
Another way to look at this is that we give newbies a lot more rope, but as you approach veteran status here, you should consider yourself to be on a shorter leash. Or something like that. This can wreak havoc with consistency, but as a functional approach, it seems to make sense to me.
There is currently mail going back and forth on this, so I only state this for the people who want to argue for count in this matter. As I might tell my daughters (though fortunately have not had the need to), I am being more strict with you because I expect you to hold up the spirit of the law, not just the letter.
This is not to denigrate the desire to defend someone from what seems to be unfair treatment, nor is it to try and shut anyone up on this matter. But I think everyone realizes that rapid decision making is not a feature here, so further attempts to work out the precise parameters of this here based on this as an example, may not be helpful.
Slarti, I once cited Bill Bryson about “proves the rule” in another thread and got rebutted hard with (I think) Cecil’s explanation.
That link opens in this tab even though the explanation page on which I found it says it will open in a new tab. Got to get back to work though, I will learn later!
Julian:
I find the argument that people have been doing it wrong for quite a while, so wrong is really right to be quite unpersuasive. Also: note his last word on exceptions.
But thanks for linking that. I think I’d read that when it last came up, but it’s nice to have a refresher. In any case, I think that the notion that Countme-In should be an exception (and I grant that he is exceptional) is a test for this particular rule. But it’s a test that is not going to change the rule, I maintain.
Since it’s slow here, I’m going to continue the digression on the “exception proving the rule” thing.
I always took it to mean that the exception proves the rule because the exception is noteworthy for failing to conform to the rule, when “the rule” is not meant as an absolute rule as in abstract, formal logic or a rule determining what is and is not allowed. I always took “the rule” to be as intended in the expression “as a rule,” meaning “usually” or “most of the time” or “generally.”
Muggsy Bogues and Spud Webb were far more famous than they otherwise would have been were they each a foot taller, right?
Wow, hsh, does that bring back memories. Which I’ll indulge only because yes, it’s a slow day.
In the early eighties, when Spud Webb was in college, he and I were exactly the same height and weight (about 5′ 7″, about 132 lb.). I played a lot of basketball with friends — had learned in college and loved the game, but wasn’t (amn’t) much of an athlete. But hey, if Spud could dunk, I thought I should be able to improve me jumping ability at least a little bit by focused effort.
I didn’t get far; my knees didn’t like it, and of course I had no trainer. One of my ever so encouraging friends said, “You couldn’t dunk on a 9 foot basket of the fate of the world depended on it.”
All those years I played b-ball, I felt that if I could be granted one wish for my next lifetime, it would be hangtime. 🙂
All: regarding slightly stale news
I apologize to Doctor Science, the other front pagers, and the Obsidian Wings commentariat for my lousy comment and behavior on this thread last week.
I’d like to apologize to Slartibartfast as well for taking up his time with policing me, when I should be doing that myself.
My banning was completely justified.
My comment on this thread was in no way directed at Doctor Science.
By way of extremely weak explanation, but certainly no excuse, avedis’ “Dr. Egghead” comment kind of set me off, but in my stupid rejoinder I was referring to a comment of his some months ago when he kind of cavalierly mentioned that his daughter had joined with a group of other Navy personnel in roughing up a woman suspected of “coming on” to other women in the group showers.
I apologize to avedis for my completely uncalled-for comment.
Thank you to those who extended kind words my way on this thread as well. What do I have to do to insult you people? 😉
I have a problem with bullies (in all walks of life) and the madness to my madness is that I think they should be confronted on their own politically incorrect grounds with their own politically incorrect language and worse, whether spoken or implied, kicked up an uncompromising notch or two.
That uncompromising bullies are now elevated to high elective office (making policy for cripes sakes), the private executive suites, and to pedestals in our ridiculous media, and then celebrated and encouraged without counter does nothing for my mood.
Add in my smart mouth and a quick temper and any number of “preview” and “post” buttons can fail to persuade me to exercise a little self-control.
I used to counter with some humor, but now I find perverse satisfaction in just cannon-balling off the high dive into the deep end of our polluted discourse just to see if the polluters can handle it.
Unfortunately, the good people minding their own business at Obsidian Wings get splashed.
I’m sorry.
I need a break, and despite my apparent unbanning, for which I am grateful, I’m going to take some time off from blogging.
Maybe I’ll lurk, underwater, silently, and come at things from underneath, like Jaws when the diminutive johnt or another Redstate regular shows up to engage in a little bitter taunting.
Good luck, good health and carry on.
Regards, Countme — In
“I apologize to avedis for my completely uncalled-for comment.”
I did not see the comment, but even if I had, It wouldn’t matter. There is no need to apologize to me; though I recognize that doing so must of taken a bit of moral courage and class on your part.
IMO, emotionally laden comments can be as productive as egg headed attempts at overly intelectualized comments provided that the emotion is honest. We are all emotional beings. That is where we live and intellectualism is a mere mask that, when things get real, falls off very quickly.
I will say, though, that I am troubled by your characterization of me – or my daughter for that matter – as a bully, is offensive. I despise bullies myself.
If Dr Science wants to propose a silly reason for why people become obese and then put that out there for public response then the Dr should be prepared to accept all forms of critique; including that which addresses the theory for the BS that it is.
Similarly, if some recruit wants to violate the UCMJ and unspoken rules of unit cohesion as well as just plain common sense then that recruit should be prepared for a response in the form of a lesson that won’t soon be forgotten.
That is different from a bully searching for weaker victims to vent his/her personal issues on.
That is different from a bully searching for weaker victims to vent his/her personal issues on.
May I beat a dead horse?
Lemme try to break it down.
See, avedis, to most people the normal response to an unwanted romantic or sexual advance is “no thanks”. Or maybe even “hell no”.
The beating seems unnecessary. It seems like some serious and total overkill. To me, and unless I seriously misjudge the human race, to most people.
And not for nothing, but would your daughter’s buddies beat the crap out of a guy who made an unwelcome advance to one of their number? If not, why not?
And why the ganging up thing? If your daughter thought a beating was the appropriate and necessary response, why not take care of business by herself, mano a mano? Why the gang vibe?
You see, to the mind and eye of someone not steeped in the mores and quaint cultural byways our wonderful military culture, having a a gang of your buddies beat the crap out of someone who makes an unwanted sexual advance toward you seems quite a bit like bullying. More so because the person getting the beating is gay.
Sorry if that offends you.
Actually, Count, the more I think about, the more I realize that we may be more alike than different re; our comments on this thread.
As I said, I despise bullies as well. This fact is what gives rise to my hostility to Dr Science and people like her.
What does Dr. Science have to do with bullying and the promotion of bullying?; you are no doubt asking.
It’s like this; Dr S promotes a world view in which people are helpless “victims”. People are easily hurt by words, by emotions, by fears, physically by others. Everyone is and continues to be wounded. This kind of thinking is what putrifies the otherwise superior political position of liberals. It is a rot that permeates universities and our K-12 systems.
This soft squishyness is insideously becoming a cultural norm. It makes people weak and fearful and dependent. Where are such neutered people to turn for protection? The government of course. Now we need all sorts of laws and all the accompanying bureaucracy to support oversight and enforcement of the laws. The more people become dependent on the nanny state the more they become weaker and the more the nanny state grows; a vicious cycle.
But who runs the nanny state? Bullies, of course. Bullies cannot resist the opportunity to manipulate a fearful and weak populace. They are right there ripe for the exploitation; begging for it really. Powerless victims will trade anything in exchange for a comfortable, safe, pain free existance. Doubt it? Look at all the paranoid fearful nonsense expressed by the populace after 9/11 and look what resulted; wars, erosion of civil liberties, etc
And what of Dr Science and her ilk? Are they just useful fools? Tools of the bullies? Yes, but there is more to it than that. These high priests and priestesses of cultural correctness, these cognosanti of social norming are, themselves, bullies; albeit of a more sublime form. They seek to quash through all manner of dirty tricks any and all dissenting opinion sources in the universities where they typically hang their hats. Perhaps worse, once they have helped people understand that it is ok to be weak, without personal responsibility for one’s lot in life, to feel guilty about feeling many things that are inate to human nature, but not a part of the enlightened one’s PhD work, they promise to show the right path to appropriate living. Is this not a form of brainwashing? And is not brainwashing and then controlling the worst kind of bullying?
But mostly I resent Dr Science because of her efforts to make people buy into a weak philosophy that drives the need for more government which leads to a triumph of the bullies.
To this end the Dr is at her most insidious when approaching through the smaller subtler things in life; like it is not a person’s fault if he is obese. Rather it is because we cooked food.
“Similarly, if some recruit wants to violate the UCMJ and unspoken rules of unit cohesion as well as just plain common sense then that recruit should be prepared for a response in the form of a lesson that won’t soon be forgotten.”
This is unclear. First of all, what do you mean by “should be prepared for a response in the form of a lesson that won’t soon be forgotten?” My interpretation is that you mean “a beating.” Why not just say that? Is that not what you mean? What do you mean by “should be prepared for?” Do you mean the UCMJ justifies or calls for a beating in retaliation? Or do you mean that it’s simply a reasonable expectation that fellow recruits will beat you for violations of the UCMJ?
Secondly, isn’t beating recruits against the UCMJ? If you say that a nonviolent sexual advance of the UCMJ necessitates a beating, and if beatings are violations of the UCMJ, does a single nonviolent sexual advance cause a cascade of beatings that engulfs the entire armed forces?
Can you go into more detail about why your assertion is common sense? You currently have no evidence to support it. It certainly goes against the letter of the law, insofar as I know of it from the documentary A Few Good Men.
The reason I wonder if you’re trolling here, avedis, is that your language defies precise interpretation and requires an unusual amount of work on my end to clarify it before I can even begin to attempt a rebuttal. This is typical of my experience of trolls. They enjoy manipulating people and forcing them to retread well-settled topics by proposing absurdities and then playing the game of “oh but that’s not quite what I meant, you see.”
I’d like to see some quotes from what Dr. Science wrote, avedis, to support your characterizations. As it stands, I’m baffled.
They enjoy manipulating people and forcing them to retread well-settled topics by proposing absurdities and then playing the game of “oh but that’s not quite what I meant, you see.”
Then again, Julian, it’s pretty slow around here. 😉
uggghhhh, Russell, I don’t beat horses. I prefer to just bury them. But, one more time. The situation was not in normal social life. I am sure my daughter has been ‘hit on’ by gays in that situation and I am sure has only responded with a polite, ‘no thanks’ (for that matter, I suppose it is within the realm of possibilities that she might have responded, “hey, sounds like fun, let’s go for it’). I would be very disappointed if she became violent or even impolite. I didn’t raise her to be a thug.
Tha being said, I agree with the action in the squad bay. It is a totally different set and setting. Why the ‘ganging up’? It is important that the offender understand that the whole unit strongly disapproved of the behavior of a sexual advancement in the shower. Unit cohesion is critical to teaching the proper lesson.
There are no men in female quarters during boot camp so your question as to what would happen if a man made an advance is moot. However, I note the point you are trying to make which is about homophobia. My answer to that is, ‘so what?’ Even if it had to do with homophobia the beating is still appropriate because guess what? Hard as it may be for you to accept, 1. people are homophobic 2. even if not totally homophobic, people can be offended by same sex advances 3. boot camp is not about sexual sensitivity training. It is basic training to be a member of, in this case, th US Navy.
I suspect that if males and females were integrated in the quarters and that a male made an inappropriate advance of that nature, that there would be a beating; perhaps other male personnel would have assisted. It would be better if they did.
And it’s really not about the homo thing. ‘Blanket parties’ etc are a long standing tradition in the military. They are reserved for total F’ups. In this situation not knowing that it is totally wrong to make an advance in the shower marks one as being a total f’up. The message is clear. Get squared away and focus on the mission or get out of the service ASAP. Since you are too stupid to get yourself squared away then we will help motivate you.
I know you want it to be all about poor victimized homos, but it isn’t. It’s about being an f’up that can’t keep it together. If someone doesn’t like this approach, then the military peobably is not the job that person should choose. It is, you know, kind of a serious profession. Instead, go work with Dr S at some liberal university. You can probably have orgies every day with everything that moves (or doesn’t) and make it big with the ‘in’ crowd.
Next, avedis demonstrates how black people are the real racists, amirite?
Why not just say, “I am threatened by people who are smarter than I am” and be done with it? It’s more honest and cuts through an awful lot of BS.
boot camp is not about sexual sensitivity training. It is basic training to be a member of, in this case, th US Navy.
It is also, apparently, about beatings. As we all know, all “serious professions” involve beatings dished out by cowards. It’s all in the natural order of things, you see.
You can probably have orgies every day with everything that moves (or doesn’t) and make it big with the ‘in’ crowd.
For the record, this strikes me as a remarkably inappropriate response. Just saying.
Orgies every day? The ‘in’ crowd? I think you have some weird issues to sort out. Just my opinion. Not my problem in either case.
You think the actions of your daughter and her pals was appropriate.
I think it was not. In fact, I call it bullying.
It that bugs you, or causes you offense, you need to grow a thicker skin.
Thanks.
No, Julian, It is you who are muddying the waters. I am clear.
It’s about unit cohesion. If you file a complaint and use the UCMJ then there is an investigation that may go nowhere. There is paper work, bureuacratic processes, etc and, most importantly, the key point is lost. Your buddies, shipmates in this case, are together on this and you are on the outs. You are disapproved of by the people that count. the people that depend on you every day; perhaps with their lives. perhaps with your own life.
You don’t understand the imprtance of reliance on buddies. if you did, you would also understand that you rely on them to tell you when you have screwed up and to help set you straight.
But your position is what I am talking about. It’s Dr S’s BS just as I described it.
You want to be all sensitive and fair and pain free? work in academia.
“In fact, I call it bullying.”
Russell, you like several others here, have no idea what you are talking about.
I’d like to see some quotes from what Dr. Science wrote, avedis, to support your characterizations.
Also, for the record, I second HSH’s request here. I just re-read Doc Science’s piece and I don’t see anything, whatsoever, in it about victimization, “weak philosophies”, the spread of nanny state-ism, or any of the other stuff you’re going on about in this thread.
I think you’re talking to zombies in your own head.
Russell, you like several others here, have no idea what you are talking about.
Of course not.
Just out of curiousity, who here would define a Drill Instructor as a “bully”? Because, you know, they have lots of ways of inducing physchological and physical pain. Sometimes they even resort to good old fashioned beatings.
Should the miltary do away with DIs and resort to some form of kinder gentler indoctrination and basic training?
Just curious, since bullying seems to be a generic term here for any form of pain regardless – and this is the key point – regardless of the intent for inflicting the pain.
I see bullies as inflicting dominance for their own self agrandizement and for the belittlement of others as opposed to the military form; which is for the improvement of the individual as a Soldier/Sailor/Airman/Marine.
Maybe one of these here people smarter than this jarhead can address this nuance.
Falsely claiming to be a member of the military is potentially a criminal offense these days, avedis. Just FYI.
Is your hypotheses that your daughter’s buddies beat up her squad mate in order to improve her as a sailor?
All I can say about this discussion is WTF?
“I just re-read Doc Science’s piece and I don’t see anything, whatsoever, in it about victimization, “weak philosophies”…”
It’s right there in front of you. Dr S puts forth that people are obese because they eat cooked food. The proposition is fraught with the lazy deflection of victimization thinking.
You know, “I can’t help that I am a big fat sloppy blob. It’s that my ancestors learned to make fire and then they started putting their food in the fire…..oooh booh hoooh”
Whereas the truth of this simple matter is that people are obese because they are glutons; not because they eat cooked food.
Yes, cooked food is more digestible and therefore releases more calories per ounce into the system that the same food uncooked, but, this is a good thing. The cost of cooking is far less than the cost of acquiring more ounces of the same food. The saved resources could be – should be – used for creating some improvements in human (or personal) life. Not for stuffing one’s face excessively and uncontrollably.
Dr S will rarely come out and plainly state what I say are her fundemental philosophies. Rather, they permeate every word she writes. Her orientation is implicit in the way she selects and approaches a topic.
I grew up around lots and lots and lots of U.S. Army DIs in the 70s and 80s, and I can assure everyone here that had they ever “administered a beating” of any kind to a recruit, modern, old-fashioned or other, my father would have had them court-martialed posthaste.
“Is your hypotheses that your daughter’s buddies beat up her squad mate in order to improve her as a sailor?”
Yes! Finally.
[i] see bullies as inflicting dominance for their own self agrandizement [/i]
You mean like telling everyone else in the room that they’re weak and don’t know what they’re talking about? Like that?
Dr S will rarely come out and plainly state what I say are her fundemental philosophies.
A reasonably intelligent human being would, at this point, be working his/her way towards certain conclusions that should be kind of obvious. Let’s see what happens!
Still can’t muster a quote, I see.
Avedis, please read my April 27 03:36 PM comment. I asked you a large number of questions about your April 27 03:25 PM comment. You haven’t answered them. I can’t compel you to, of course, but I won’t take you seriously unless you do answer them or you provide a reason that you don’t want to or can’t be answer them. I’m not surprised that you accused me of “muddying the waters” without showing any examples of me being unclear. I specified a long list of examples of statements you made which were unclear. You have yet to clarify them. So, please answer my questions. Thanks.
He doesn’t have to. He’ll just read her mind, with all the success that that’s lead to in the past.
Seems to me he just wanted to vent about liberals making us all worthless and weak. DROP AND GIVE HIM 20!
The more I think about it, the more this is kind of an intersection of Col. Frank Fitts, 1984, and “we had to destroy the village in order to save it” thing going on.
I will consider assembling a collection of supporting Dr Science quotes when I have a couple hours to kill; which isn’t at this time. Sheesh.
Sheesh? You seemed to have formulated quite a number of opinions and written some fairly long commments. Quotes are easy, especially after you’ve read the material and drawn conclusions. They should be at your fingertips. We’re not talking about Doc Sci’s entire blogging history, just this one post. Where’s the attribution to vicimization? Where’s the advocacy of nannyism? They shouldn’t be hard to find, since you seem to have already found them, avedis.
Or are you simply at a loss to find any basis for what you wrote?
Little bit of this too.
Yes! Finally.
Thanks for this reply avedis.
What I’d like to point out is that a lot of your argument on the “beating” topic is based on the idea that what your daughter’s buddies did was normal and typical in context.
Which I find quite believable.
I recognize that military culture and social norms are not the same as in civilian life, and I also recognize that military culture and social norms *ought not* be the same as in civilian life.
That said, the fact that military culture *is* a certain way at present doesn’t mean that it *must* be or that it *should continue to be* that way.
Regarding Doctor Science’s post, I think if you read it without making assumptions about what she’s saying, you’ll find that it’s a discussion of the possible relationships between how the food we eat is processed – via cooking or otherwise – and how our bodies deal with it, with some particular speculation about the relationship of that to obesity.
Nothing in there about pitying the poor victim.
And given that obesity contributes to enormous public health problems, some of which threaten to bankrupt the nation, and given that how food is grown, processed, distributed, and prepared has changed quite a lot over about the same period as obesity has emerged as a problem, it’s actually an interesting question and a useful one to think about.
It’s true that exercise will help keep your weight down. It’s also true that 2,000 calories a day of steamed broccoli, grilled chicken breast, and fresh salad is not an exact equivalent to 2,000 calories a day of Big Macs, cheesecake, and Jarritos.
At least not in terms of its effect on your waistline.
Russell, it is really the last paragraph of the doc’s post that I find suspect. It seems more obvious to me that a better avenue of theorizing would be that over the last century we have experienced unprecendeted wealth, division of labor and migration to urban environments, all of which permit a class of people to be become overfed and under-exercised.
I cannot, for the life of me, understand how one can work on a connection between cooked food and obesity and avoid the more obvious causes of obesity at both the personal and sociological/economic levels.
Maybe this was just an utterly banal, poorly theorized and poorly written post post.
This may have caused me to read in more than the doc intended.
Then again, the doc has priors (which may or may not be elaborated by my selection of quotes, etc when I have some down time and need to distract myself from reality for a while).
Phil, “I grew up around lots and lots and lots of U.S. Army DIs in the 70s and 80s, and I can assure everyone here that had they ever “administered a beating” of any kind to a recruit, modern, old-fashioned or other, my father would have had them court-martialed posthaste.”
Now who’s reading minds? You don’t really know what good old dad would have done (or did).
ugh, “The more I think about it, the more this is kind of an intersection of Col. Frank Fitts, 1984, and “we had to destroy the village in order to save it” thing going on.”
You have some serious issues dude.
Julian, answered at 4:27
Now who’s reading minds? You don’t really know what good old dad would have done (or did).
I don’t have to, Einstein, since a) I can ask him, and b) I already know what he did in instances in which DIs arguably assaulted recruits.
Nice try, though. A golf clap for you.
“I grew up around lots and lots and lots of U.S. Army DIs in the 70s and 80s, and I can assure everyone here that had they ever “administered a beating” of any kind to a recruit, modern, old-fashioned or other, my father would have had them court-martialed posthaste.”
being stupid I sort of interpreted that to imply that DIs don’t do beatings.
But now youy are admitting that DIs do beat recruits and your old man had to discipline them for it.
Wouldn’t it have been more clear and more honest to originally have said, “yes, avedis, you’rw right, DIs beat recruits, but it’s wrong and my dad used to have them punished for it”?
You know, us stupid phonies who know nothing of military life need that kind of clarity. OK?
But now youy are admitting that DIs do beat recruits
No, I said “arguably assaulted.” Words mean things. Pay attention. Since you know nothing of the context in which these incidents occurred, you’re not in a position to draw conclusions. And prepare to be disappointed, because I’m not about to enlighten you, because you don’t deserve it.
You fail at this gambit every single time. Why do you persist? Do you actually anticipate that you’re going to get better at it?
But you really, really do have some class and education issues to work out, because you are genuinely threatened and defensive regarding degreed professionals. Kinda LOL, but mostly sad.
Phil, I am a degreed professional. Having been through the education, the training and the corporate life – not to mention collaborations with various consultants from acedemia – I have arrived at the conclusion that 95% of these people are mealy mouthed BS artists. The higher up you go, the more phony and disconnected from real life the people are. I am not impressed by degrees or professional status. I know what they really are; all about the money and the status and “I got mine f’ you”.
As far as class goes, I was born with a silver spoon, the privare school education, the junior league and social register, SAR and the whole works. I rejected that life as well for the same reasons. If you are putting your soul and faith in any of that you are truly a lost fool.
I’ll put my pedigree and family crest up against anyone’s here if that’s the kind of idiotic game you want to play.
‘arguably assaulted’ WHAT THE HELL IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN? What? Are we f’ing lawyers with cute little weasel clauses now? There was either an assualt or there wasn’t. Apparently your dad thought there was, but who knows. You said you knew. Now you say you don’t. Can we please speak like men; not lawyers.
Wait a minute, avedis, you said you were in the armed forces as well. While the possibility of being in the armed forces and being in the corporate world is there, I detect l’essence de troll.
Wow, this conversation has become … strange.
In the first place, avedis, the fact that you thought the term “egghead” would be an insult to someone using the name “Doctor Science” shows that while you may have the instincts of a bully, you do not have very good aim.
I have hoped all along that the story about your daughter’s participation in gay-bashing would turn out to be not at all as you’ve described it. I have too much too much experience with young women and, you know, *people*, to assume that she has told you the complete truth and that you have understood it properly.
I’ve hoped this because otherwise a significant portion of the US military is being indoctrinated (since this allegedly happened in Basic I hold the instructors responsible) into a mindset that is dishonorable, cruel, and stupid.
The fact that all the other servicepeople and vets who frequent this blog *didn’t* jump up and dispute your story, alas, suggests to me that my hope is misplaced. The rot is apparently widespread.
lj, my research (using avedis’ login and IP info here) does suggest that he was in the service in the early-to-mid 1980s, and that he is currently working as a professional/manager in the health care/insurance administration field. I diagnose: not troll, or at least not of a simple variety.
I have arrived at the conclusion that 95% of these people are mealy mouthed BS artists. The higher up you go, the more phony and disconnected from real life the people are.
Just to insert another data point, my experience has been that there are wonderful people and total jerks at all ends of the educational, economic, and social spectra.
To be honest avedis, it strikes me that you have some kind of weird bone to pick with Doc Science that has little to do with anything she’s actually said.
Just my impression, FWIW.
avedis:
Dr S puts forth that people are obese because they eat cooked food
Quite the opposite. I’m saying that humans are *adapted* to cooked food, and should be able to maintain a stable, appropriate weight without thinking about it — just as we can normally maintain a stable, appropriate blood pressure without thinking about it.
But, I hypothesize (that’s science-talk for “put together an educated, logical guess”), our ancestors who first started eating cooked food may have become obese, which helped push them to evolve shorter guts, smaller mouths, and other changes to balance the new diet appropriately.
I — and other scientists — wonder if the “obesity epidemic” also involves some change in the quality of our diets, such that our inborn weight-homeostasis systems are being thrown out of whack.
The fact that all the other servicepeople and vets who frequent this blog *didn’t* jump up and dispute your story, alas, suggests to me that my hope is misplaced. The rot is apparently widespread.
Not responding to ridiculous garbage does not constitute agreement.
“Quite the opposite. I’m saying that humans are *adapted* to cooked food, and should be able to maintain a stable, appropriate weight without thinking about it — just as we can normally maintain a stable, appropriate blood pressure without thinking about it.”
Dr. S., Honestly I didn’t catch that in your post. Re-reading it, I still don’t think it is clear, but I can see where you may have intended that meaning and I missed it. Also, I still disagree that there is much to theorize about as to why humans are obese. In our modern society, eating, for many people, is not a function of the autonomic nervous system like blod pressure. Rather, it has become a function of conscious choice.
Look, I apologize for disruptive comments here. I do have a problem with some of your politics (all the radical feminism, radical gay rights and some other facets), Dr S. and this negatively impacts my ability to make reasoned responses to even neutral posts like this one. The problem is mine, not yours.
As much as I agree with you and most others here on most larger issues, like taxation policy, peace versus war, egalitarian distribution of benefits, goods and services and the need for socialized medicine, I cannot accept your stances pertaining to various personal life style topics. In these, I am often worlds apart in perspective. I really don’t care what people do in private or even within like minded social groups. I do have a problem when people obtain positions of status and authoritative influence and inculcate others with the notion that these lifestyles are superior and correct and then demonize those who disagree with them. But that, too, is my problem that should not be taking up bandwidth here and maybe you really aren’t someone who does that. Perhaps I have unfairly characterized. Again, I am sorry.
I apologize to everyone else here as well; except Phil who is as bad (if not worse) as I am but at the other end of the ideological spectrum. Everyone else has been more patient and tolerant than they needed to be.
“I do have a problem when people obtain positions of status and authoritative influence and inculcate others with the notion that these lifestyles are superior and correct and then demonize those who disagree with them.”
You mean that trying to see to it that women and homosexuals have the same rights you do is calling them superior and demonising you?
I’ll say this for avedis: he got the ball rolling again. (But I welcome our new gay and female overlords, of course.)
Yeah hairshirt, watch it, my eye is on you.
A couple of things.
First, as to Count, that was well done. Hope things settle down and that you come back soon.
Second, Not responding to ridiculous garbage does not constitute agreement.
I agree. That said, one of my issues with Avedis is that he sprinkles the occasional counter-intuitive notion in and amongst his diktats that merits a degree of discussion and analysis. Military life (and death) is a world apart from what we know as civilians. My dad was career navy, WWII, old school, etc. For good or for bad, while at sea and preparing for combat, his ship (a destroyer) had a small percentage of sailors who simply did not want to get with the program. Not getting with the program on a small ship during combat operations can have bad consequences. The short form means of dealing with these issues on the high seas was for the miscreant to “fall down” as many times as it took for him to get the message. Call it good or call it bad, it worked. I suspect that when an individual, in the opinion of his/her mates is jeopardizing what Avedis call ‘unit cohesion’, that or a similar kind of self help, no red tape approach is taken informally from time to time. Is it encouraged, promoted, winked at, etc? Probably depends on a host of variables. Is it rampant? Mostly likely not.
What I am quite sure of is that gratuitous, authority-inflicted violence is a crime that is the polar opposite of unit cohesion, good order & discipline, etc. Military training is, by definition, fraught with controlled violence. A senior non-com or officer can’t ‘fire’ a nonconforming service person. There is most likely a gray area between a chargeable offense and acceptable behavior that has its own, informal means of correction.
I feel too inferior and demonized to respond, Janie. (Talk about playing up the victimization angle, right? The irony – it hurts.)
“lj, my research (using avedis’ login and IP info here)…”
Um, does this seem extremely inappropriate to anyone else or am I just naive? Is this common, accepted behavior for frontpagers?
It does not seem “inappropriate” to me that one of the hosts of this here party would check out one of the guests. It might, possibly, maybe, in some case that is not this one, be “inappropriate” for the host to publish personal info about that guest. But that’s not what DocSci did. She essentially said, in very general terms, that “avedis” has probably NOT lied, in his own public comments, about who he is in what we laughingly call real life.
Our hosts are kind enough to not require us guests to publish our personal information, like full legal name or e-mail address or SSN or FICO score. But they are not obligated to give ANYBODY a platform from which to speak totally anonymously.
I have mixed feelings, myself, about commenting as “Tony P.” instead of using my full last name. On the one hand, any opinions I express here are opinions that I hold in real life; why should I be embarrassed to sign them with my real-life name? Maybe a prospective employer would refuse me a job, or a prospective date cancel on me, after googling up my political opinions? If so, my attitude would be: “Well, fnck you, too. Or not, as the case may be.”
On the other hand, we all get enough spam as it is. And I’m told some people earn their living by programming computers to fish e-mail addresses out of web pages and such, in this free-market economy. So hiding behind an initial, or a pseudonym, seems a reasonable half-measure. If somebody has the patience to figure out my real-life identity entirely from what I have had to say about myself in comments here, I would feel more flattered than violated. But I would only feel betrayed by our blog hosts if they published my e-mail address for all the bots to see.
DocSci or any other host basically saying that “Tony P. seems to be in real life what he claims to be in comments” is hardly an invasion of my privacy, or a betrayal of my trust, or anything else you could call “inappropriate”.
–TP
I don’t think what Doc did was inapropriate. I opened the door by commenting personal info and using it to back an argument.
It seems like a normal thing to do, if for nothing more than curiosity. Also, I think the Doc was lending me some support on the one hand. On the other probably trying to make her nefarious point that there really are cretans in the service in need of sensitivity training;-) Which ever, no offense taken on my part.
Well, alright. I know no one is “obligated” to give me a forum to speak anonymously. I just didn’t expect that someone might use the email address I enter into the “will not be displayed” box to google into my life story and confirm something I say. It just feels wrong.
I mean: Dr. Science is nice and I sort of trust her, and you are right she didn’t release anything maliciously, but some other frontpager could in an emotional moment post something personal if they had it at their fingertips.
I thought I was just entering information in a box because of the site design. If I am giving it so that they can verify my statements and then make a judgement call on how much to reveal I feel like that should be more explicit. Maybe everyone knew it but me.
Don’t bother googling me, I am quite boring 😉
… trying to make her nefarious point that there really are cretans in the service in need of sensitivity training;-)
Be careful, avedis: “Cretans” are people from Crete. The word you’re imagining that DocSci has in mind is “cretins”. No biggie, since the US military surely contains some of both.
–TP
Things such as your IP address and your email are visible to anyone who has the privilege to access them. In our case, that’s about a dozen people. It may be that only the post author and people with superuser can access said information; that carves it down to maybe five people.
My take on this, as one of said people, is that all of that information is fair game for us to look at, because it’s our job to police these threads. It’s not permissible for us to release any of said information because we have to be trustworthy. That Dr. Science has looked at the information avedis has left in the posting form and decided that he may very well be someone who has the background he claims to have doesn’t, in my opinion, constitute an invasion of privacy. Nor does it disclose anything about avedis that has not already been disclosed.
That’s my take on things, FWIW. You should assume, always, that your IP address and whatever email information you leave on your posting form will be looked at, at some point, by all of us. I’d like to add that such information should be assumed to be confidential, but you have to decide for yourself, each of you, whether you trust us with that.
That Dr. Science has looked at the information avedis has left in the posting form and decided that he may very well be someone who has the background he claims to have doesn’t, in my opinion, constitute an invasion of privacy. Nor does it disclose anything about avedis that has not already been disclosed.
Dr. S used information freely given to validate Avedis’ self-credentialing. Nothing wrong and a lot right with that.
confused:
I actually cross-checked avedis’ info some time ago, when he first described current gay-bashing in the Navy. AFAIK what he described is a *crime of violence*, and I do not take such things lightly. You don’t get to make up first- or second-person accounts of rape, murder, or violent assault just to make a rhetorical point.
“AFAIK what he described is a *crime of violence*”
Fortunately, your concern doesn’t go to far. Probably not much farther than the small audience of a blog that largely appeals to primarily to a bunch of cyber wimps.
What they don’t teach in the ivory towers is that life is full of pain and war much more so. If you can’t take a little pain you can’t be effective in either when the going gets tough.
That’s ok though. You keep slapping the ‘no war for oil’ bumber stickers on your car and the abusive cretins will keep going out there and killing so you can keep fueling up that car on the cheap. And stay outraged and self righteous. Ok?
Keep promoting the democratic party too. When what we need is a reincarnation of FDR, when that would be in the nation’s and 90% of individual American’s best interest, you keep on keeping the party unappealing to a large chunk of that 90% with your insistence on inclusion of fringe bullshit like gay marriage and service and abortion rights banners and a host of other acedemic special interests that no one else really cares about because, you know, those things are definitely more ideologically critical at the moment than jobs and infrastructure and a cessation of foreign entanglements and healthcare and an economic basis for a future for our children. Hey screw everyone else if they’re not as enlightened as you. right? It’s all or nothing for for your ideals, isn’t? And you are The One, are’t you? You’ve got it all figured out. You are morality personified.
If you made the rules and your wise ‘concern’ permeated every aspect of spciety we’d be in a perpetual utopia wouldn’t we.
Why oh why isn’t it happening then? The poor monk. So lonely with no one to save.
Avedis, you seem to have some major issues.
Be careful, avedis: “Cretans” are people from Crete.
Yes, and as we all know, they are all liars.
Just ask Epimenides.
“Keep promoting the democratic party too. When what we need is a reincarnation of FDR, when that would be in the nation’s and 90% of individual American’s best interest, you keep on keeping the party unappealing to a large chunk of that 90% with your insistence on inclusion of fringe ……”
My only regret is that I didn’t copy the Count’s banned comment so that i could have appropriately paraphrased it here so I could have stayed just inside the banning rules and much less eloquently expressed his sentiment.
or just pasted it in, I’m not sure which i would do at this point.
But this is enough.
“fringe bullshit like gay marriage and service and abortion rights banners and a host of other acedemic special interests that no one else really cares about”
I keep trying to take Avedis seriously but he does make it difficult.
Avedis, you seem to have some major issues.
Avedis also seems to believe there is a reincarnation of FDR out there somewhere, waiting patiently in the wings, held back only by the pointy-headed obsessions of effete liberal academic elites like Doc Science and her ilk.
Damn you, Doc Science, and your defeatocrat weakling pet causes! We’d have a New New Deal in hand if only you’d climb down from your damned ivory tower!!
Here’s my opinion: there is not going to be a new FDR, because people don’t want an FDR. They don’t want somebody who’s going to call for shared national sacrifice, commitment to the weakest and least fortunate among us, and investment in our common future.
People want a reincarnation of Uncle Ronnie, who will smile and tell them everything’s going to be fine because it’s morning in America again.
Seriously, if you could wave a magic wand and raise FDR and Reagan from the dead, and run them both for President, head to head, who do you think would win?
Doc Science is not the problem.
Russell, Yes,obviously, Science, all by herself, is not the problem. However, her type of thinking is represenative of what is The Problem.
Why do you think a great swath of low income people living in underserviced/underdeveloped areas are voting republican very much against their own interests? It is clearly because the Democratic party, with its self destructive policy of ‘inclusion’ turns them off. These people don’t want to vote for a party that panders to squishy fringe notions lke those I mentioned.
IMO an FDR, public works, workers rights would fly and is what the country needs. Such a platform would isolate the republicnas that are the minority – the plutocrats – and bring the rest who vote on ‘morality’ issues over to the Dem.s, where they belong.
Gay marriage, etc doesn’t belong in politics at this time (maybe never). let that kind of issue be determined in the courts if need be. There are more critical topics right now.
Also, I object to doc’s insistance that she nows better how to run a military. She has no clue. But she does enjoy the benefits of having a military like ours whether she wants to admit it or not. We all do.
Also, I object to doc’s insistance that she nows better how to run a military.
I object to people making stuff up.
Avedis, you are claiming that there is a winning coalition of voters that could be put together that would support the following-
A) An end to America’s imperialist wars
B) A strengthening of the social safety net
but only under the condition that
C) We throw the issue of gay rights under the bus.
I doubt it, but it’s an interesting sociological/political thesis that one could discuss. But you usually mix it in with a lot of macho posturing and resentment towards people who don’t like macho posturing. (And that resentment seems connected to position C above.)
By the way, my understanding of FDR is that his coalition was held together in part because of a willingness to throw the issue of black civil rights under the bus. A fair number of white Southerners who supported economic populist policies might have become much less enthusiastic if black civil rights were part of the mix. Avedis thinks we are in the same position today, except with “gays” replacing “blacks”.
I doubt this would work, even if one could choke down the immorality of adopting this position.
Donald, I am not morally or ethically in favor of throwing any minority under the bus. However, as you note in the case of FDR, sacrifices must sometimes be made in the short run in order to build a base for the long term, at which time the sacrifices can be rectified (e.g. see civil rights in the 1960s).
Denying the reality of incremental change is a sign of fanaticism or utopianism; neither of which will work in our political culture.
It is also a sign of an inability to organize priorities.
What good are gay rights if all of us, including the gays, are in debt and unemployed and have bridges crumbling over and under us? What good is gay marriage with full ability to adopt children if there are not viable schools to send those children too?
What good is a fair and equitable society if that society indulges in endless imperialist adventures?
Assertive argument is assertive.
Why do you think a great swath of low income people living in underserviced/underdeveloped areas are voting republican very much against their own interests? It is clearly because the Democratic party, with its self destructive policy of ‘inclusion’ turns them off.
To be honest, my guess is that your sense of how many people give a crap about gays or gay marriage one way or the other is off by an order of magnitude.
Which is a shame on its own merits, but that’s sort of another topic.
IMO the much, much, much larger issue is people’s sense that The Government is going to take their money and give it to “those people over there”. Where “those people” are basically anybody they don’t like.
Could be gays, but gays as a class don’t really get much money from Uncle. Could be blacks, Mexicans, lazy shiftless layabouts of any color, irresponsible slutty single mothers, what have you.
Whoever it is, it’s Somebody Else, and the government is going to take their well-deserved hard-earned dollars and give it away to Those People.
That’s my take. People are selfish.
You would have thought it was the end of the world when Obama suggested increasing the top marginal tax rate on people making over a quarter of a million dollars in earned income per year by less than five percent.
Seriously, it was like we were flirting with some socioeconomic gotterdammerung. Every industrious entrepreneurial person in the nation was going to pack it in and retire to the Caymans, leaving the rest of us to blunder off the cliff like a bunch of blind lemmings.
That had nothing to do with the gays. It was about government taking somebody’s money and giving it to Those People, whatever shape and form Those People take in folks’ private nightmares.
There ain’t gonna be an FDR, because we’re not desperate enough yet to look past our own parochial selfishness.
I’m not even sure an FDR would be a good thing right now, the Presidency is already too dominant. What we need are Congresspeople who aren’t the freaking pocket of their friendly neighborhood billionaire.
There just aren’t that many people out there who vote based on what Teh Gays are doing. For good or ill.
I have a problem with government taking my money even if it were, at some point, going to give it all back to me.
qed
Define “this,” please.
I literally don’t know what “this” refers to. What behavior, specifically?
That can’t be done. Anyone can enter anything into the email address field, so how could it possibly be used to confirm or deny anything? I don’t even understand how you think that would be possible. Magic?
Slart:
Actually, it’s any of millions of possible people who could intercept data packets at any point between one person using the internet and some other node on the internet.
It may be that only the post author and people with superuser can access said information What, here on ObWi? On the internet in general?
Certainly if you click on a web page the referrer logs will tell lots. Plenty. This is not a secret.
It also has absolutely nothing whatever to do with email address fields on blogs.
Unlikely.
Isn’t it interesting how, when you claim that “nobody” cares about gays or women, you turn women and gays into nobodies?
when you claim that “nobody” cares about gays or women, you turn women and gays into nobodies?
If you’re referring to my comment, I’m gonna say no.
I’m making one point and one point only, which is that IMVHO far fewer people vote based on gay rights than avedis seems to think.
There are lots of reasons why traditional American progressive politics gets little traction nowadays. Gay people and women, and whatever puny scrap of advocacy gay people and women get from Democrats, have damned little to do with it.
Define “this,” please.
I literally don’t know what “this” refers to. What behavior, specifically?
I think the creepy in question is looking up a commenter’s email and IP address and using that information to search Google for more data about them when there’s no legitimate reason to do so (i.e., doing so because they’re spamming the site is ok, doing so because of idle curiosity is not). That also struck me as creepy, but not necessarily unethical. I’m pretty sure that at every company I’ve worked at, doing that sort of thing with customer data would be an immediate firing offense.
Obviously, frontpagers can do anything they want with our data. But some uses are less ethical than others.
That can’t be done.
Sure it can. Dr Science just explained, in this very thread, that she did do it. It is quite simple: many people use their real email addresses and many email addresses can lead to personally identifying information on the internet. IP addresses can give location information and often employers as well for people post from work.
Actually, it’s any of millions of possible people who could intercept data packets at any point between one person using the internet and some other node on the internet.
There are few fewer than “millions” of people who have the skills and access needed to do this.
Russell: Just ask Epimenides.
You know, I could kick myself for not having established “Epimenides the Cretan” as my handle way, way, back. Damn.
–EtC
avedis: What good are gay rights if all of us, including the gays, are in debt and unemployed and have bridges crumbling over and under us?
What a bassackward question. Try it this way: what harm would “gay rights” do to debt, unemployment, or bridges?
I mean, seriously: this is as dopey as arguing that it’s bad enough to have only 6oz of beer in a 12oz glass, but does the glass HAVE to be pink?
–TP
I think the creepy in question is looking up a commenter’s email and IP address and using that information to search Google for more data about them when there’s no legitimate reason to do so.
I agree – this is a bridge too far.
Dr. Science said that she did it when avedis posted earlier and related a story presented as support of the notion that the armed forces were unable to integrate gays. If avedis had been someone who was simply making the story up from the whole cloth, the folks running the blog should exercise due diligence and boot that person off. If that’s creepy, don’t complain about how the blog is running off the rails because the owners don’t seem to do anything.
Furthermore, Dr. Science related that information to tell me (and everyone else who may have thought this), that avedis is apparently not fabricating his military experience or his experience in the health care field. I appreciate the information, (though I could have looked up the information myself, being a front pager), and I appreciate that front pagers are keeping track of the conversations in the posts they write and trying to make sure that people are presenting true information. After getting that information previously, and seeing the challenge I made to avedis, that she stepped in to correct me, if you think that is creepy, you are entitled to your opinion, but I prefer her doing that to telling me off list and not letting anyone else know that she had done that.
“Quite the opposite. I’m saying that humans are *adapted* to cooked food, and should be able to maintain a stable, appropriate weight without thinking about it — just as we can normally maintain a stable, appropriate blood pressure without thinking about it.”
We do, generally speaking, even the obese. Take somebody like me, in my early 50’s, about 40 lbs. overweight. I gradually accumulated that weight over the course of perhaps 30 years.
That’s 1.25 lbs a year. That’s 12 freaking excess calories a day, day in, day out. You think I’m capable of consciously balancing my calorie intake and activity level that close? That I gained that weight because of a 0.053% (to pull a number out of nowhere) deficit in self-control?
On two occasions I have sustained large, short term weight gains. The first was during the depression after my divorce, I gained 50 lbs over the course of a year. And lost it again over the course of the next year, after I got over my depression. The second was 35 lbs I gained over the course of 4 months of chemo; A well known effect of Prednisone, and again, I’ve lost it since.
And in both cases, I didn’t return to exactly my previous weight. More like, I returned to an extrapolation of that 30 year long curve.
That’s a very well balanced homeostasis there, the problem is the set-point is too high, and drifting higher over time. And, yes, I can push my weight below that set-point, by sustained exercise of will power. And the moment I stop exerting that control, I pop back up to where I was before. My body has a weight it “wants” to be at, just like it has a blood pressure it “wants” to maintain. I just don’t like what it is.
Now, this is pretty hard to explain in terms of people being lazy, or dietary changes. Even the lab rats on carefully controlled diets are getting fat! What, do they have self control issues?
You know, it might just be a real epidemic, as in an infectious agent.
Brett, nothing you said is a convincing, at least to me, counter to what I have put forth concerning the reason(s) for obesity.
I say that even having noticed personal trends that parellel yours to some extent. I stand about 5’11’. In my 20s I was constantly engaged in PT and boxing training. I weighed in at 180 pounds for pretty much that entire decade. My weight at any given point never deviated from the 180 by more than +/- 5 pounds. I was tested and found to be at 2% body fat (which is very low); meaning that just about all of my weight came from muscle, water and bone.
Then in my 30’s that weight just kind of slipped upwards to 190 to 195. In my early 40s there was another upwards creep to around 200 and now, if I don’t pay attention to diet and exercise, I can very quickly find myself at 205+ with the first signs of “luv handles” appearing at this point. The lean hard wiry muscle of my 20s has been replaced by a bulkier weight lifter looking type of physique.
However, all of this trending is easily explained by the three basic components of weight gain.
1) The weight gain over time is highly correlated with a decrease in physical activity/cal. burn over time. This variable has the highest coefficient value in the multivariant equation.
2) The weight gain is also correlated with dietary habits. Over the years frequency of dining out and consuming high cal. foods has increased and the composition of the callories of that food is more likely to be fat and carb.s than protien.
3) A generally decreased metabolic rate related to aging.
I can’t do too much about #3, but 1 and 2 are certainly within my realm of self control. Especially in light of #3, I make choices every day that impact weight loss/weight gain. After a long hard day at the office (when it’s not horse training season), do I work off stress at the gym? Or do I stop off at my favorite happy hour?
10 years ago, the gym won out over happy hour 95% of the time. Today, the siren call of a refreshing drink and a smiling bar maid wins out over gym maybe 50% of time.
When I am feeling down and out the happy hour has an even higher preference rate.
So, Brett, it sound to me like your experience is similar. Your metabolism has slowed down due to age. Otherwise, you eat more and exercise less. What you eat may be less desirable from a weight gain perspective. When you are depressed you eat even more – probably the so called comfort foods, and further decrease physical activity.
Why are animals living in proximity to humans becoming fat? They eat the junk food we left behind.
Folks there is no mystery here; no need for complex theories.
“What a bassackward question. Try it this way: what harm would “gay rights” do to debt, unemployment, or bridges?”
Tony P., I already explained that. You aren’t going to get all of those good infrastructure things because people aren’t going to vote for a strong democrat if gay issues, etc are prominant campaign platforms. That is the harm.
Russell disagrees that inclusion of those issues is a barrier. That is fine, of course, but I think he is wrong. When I surf around the net’s infinity of political sites/blogs I end up with a strong sense that these things – these life style/morality topics – do matter and are frequently presented as reasons for why NOT to vote Dem.
Russell has a valid point concerning many non-Dem. voters not wanting to pay taxes and that being the deciding factor for voting Rep., but I think he is over emphasizing it.
I don’t believe that.
You’re not going to get 2% body fat without starving yourself nearly, or all the way, to death.
http://www.articledashboard.com/Article/The-body-fat-percentage-range-of-athletes-and-much-more/772613
No, Slart., not true about starving to death.
Who knows, maybe the test was off by a % or two, but definitely in range of olympic athletes. You have to understand, I would do all the regular mil PT and then do extracuricular work outs, every day, for a minimum of three hours a day. And these were of a high intensity nature, like pro boxers do. I was in as good a condition as any athlete on the planet. And I ate mostly high protien foods and drank water instead of sugary sports drinks or sodas.
Just some advice, when it comes to physical training, weight control and all of that, I am an expert, ok. Ditto, small arms (as in weapons; not a pun on the physical traing), equestrian topics, but especially race horse breeding and training. In these things my knowledge is as good as you can find.
I have very well informed perspectives on healthcare delivery, martial arts and some esoteric topics like near death experiences, out of body experiences, mystical meditative practices and such.
Otherwise, I admit to being a blind man – often a concerned one – groping in the dark.
But don’t even try to tell me about what is reasonable in the area of physical training.
I’m assuming that 2% is a typo. From the link you gave
Typical average body fat for athletes male female
Distance runners 5-10% 10-16%
Elite marathon runners 3-5% 9-12%
Sprinters 5-12% 12-18%
Jumpers & hurdlers 6-13% 12-20%
Olympic gymnasts 5-8% 11-14%
Bodybuilders, contest condition 3-5% 8-12%
Bodybuilders, off season 6-12% 13-18%
Soccer players 7-12% 10-18%
Baseball/softball players 10-14% 12-18%
Pro basketball players 7-12% 10-16%
The range is not Olympic athletes, but Olympic gymnasts, who have to have a minimum of body fat in order to perform the routines they do (in fact, I don’t think they have so much stamina, because they have no body fat to draw energy from). Slart would know more about this than me, but ideal body-fat is supposed to be a competitive swimmers body, which is around 12% or 6 times as much as you claim. If you think that 2% body fat is reasonable in the area of physical fitness, you really need to reevaluate your claim to experthood.
LJ beat me to it. Avedis, the link you gave is consistent with Slarti’s link–in his link the lowest measured bodyfat was 3.5 percent (for an elite half-marathon runner, I think) and the link you provide says that elite marathon runners and bodybuilders in contest condition have bodyfat ratios of 3 to 5 percent.
The wikipedia article linked below mentions that the military’s method of measuring bodyfat is thought to be flawed. (Look under the section called height and circumference.) Maybe that’s where you got your figure.
link
” I was in as good a condition as any athlete on the planet.”
This seems doubtful unless you are one in a million. Genes play some role. Plus there’s the possibility that your training methods weren’t the best possible ones–Olympic athletes tend to have coaches who are the best in the world working with people with more raw talent than the average person even if he or she devoted hours per day to training.
I was training for 1-4 hours a day (mostly running) about ten years ago and while I was happy with the results, I was ridiculously far from being of Olympic caliber. I wasn’t even close to being the sort of person who could win local races. (Not that I tried, but I could look online and see the results, and also see what Bob Glover said were typical “local champion” levels in his running book.)
2% was not a typo, LJ, but you should notice that I subsequently allowed for the possibility that the test was off by a % or two.
I was using the term, “Olympic athlete” in a somewhat generic fashion to convey the idea of world class physical fitness achievement. Obviously there are many different types of those athletes, each with unique optimal levels of body fat.
BTW, IMO, at a certain level of training endurance is as much a result of a mental attitude as it is about stored caloric energy reserves.
DJ, yes, of course genetics have a strong role. My father passed on some athlete genes as he was a pro boxer himself and my mother was quite athletic herself; though mostly limited to ballet and modern dance in her expression of these talents.
As far as coaching, my father was my first coach when I was an adolescent and then I had golden gloves coaches in my late teen years. After that, I sought out the best coaches, in terms of experience and successes, I could find wherever I was located. Additionally, I used to read everything on the topic I could get my hands on. later, in my 30s, I, myself, coached and the course of doing so further pursued information as to the latest and best techniques as well developed refinements by observing what worked and what didn’t and under what circumstances.
To your point, I still couldn’t break into the full time pro boxing circuit because my reflexes were just slightly to slow. So genetics trumped my efforts too; though at a different aspect of the training. Interestingly, in an atempt to increase reflex speed, I got involved, under the guidance of a chinese expert, in Taosist meditation techniques; which inturn led to some interesting experiences, which in turn led to a deep interest in mystical experiences – another story for another time – but it wasn’t enough to overcome the genetic limitation in the that regard.
BTW, IMO, at a certain level of training endurance is as much a result of a mental attitude as it is about stored caloric energy reserves.
No, 2% is the lowest point of essential fat, and you need a certain amount of stored fat just to cushion your internal organs. It is conceivable that you had 2%(at the absolute bottom of the amount, and some sources give 3% as the minimum), but given that you apparently did not submit to a hydrostatic test (as I imagine those were rather difficult to obtain back in the day and aren’t that cheap or easy to get now), this is more a myth you have convinced yourself is true. Given that any strenuous activity lasting longer than say 3 or 4 minutes requires that you start burning calories from your adipose tissue, it’s pretty bizarre to hold up the figure of 2% as some holy grail, one you achieved thru an indomitable will, one supposes. Making claims that Olympic athlete is a generic term without actually linking it to actual athletes shows how out to lunch this is.
This sort of puts into focus for me why I think you are full of it, regardless of whether your experiences are real or not. Your belief seems to be that no matter what the challenge may be, ‘mental attitude’ is the key component rather than anything else and this seems to be a component of your thinking be it weight loss, health care, or getting dems elected (though not with allowing gays in the military or being able to develop increased reflex speed, strangely enough).
I’d also suggest that there is a straight line between this kind of thinking and thinking that whatever someone gets in life, it’s what they deserve because ‘they didn’t want it enough’ But I guess only an egghead would see that as a problem.
Wow, LJ, touched a nerve, did I?
“it’s pretty bizarre to hold up the figure of 2% as some holy grail”
When did I do that? I never did. All I was trying to say is that I ate cooked food worked out hard and had a very low body fat ratio. So do most top notch athletes. Interestingly, despite low fat %s these athletes seem to be able to perform strenuous activity for longer than a few minutes. How is that possible given your notion of how it all works?
“Making claims that Olympic athlete is a generic term without actually linking it to actual athletes shows how out to lunch this is.” Huh? I posted a link showing a variety of Olympic athlete types and that they all have low body fat %s. I wager they all eat cooked food.
“Your belief seems to be that no matter what the challenge may be, ‘mental attitude’ is the key component …”
Yep. And there are many trainers/leaders/motivators in many different fields who agree with me. I fail to see what is so wrong with that outlook; unless someone wants to be a ‘victim’ and thus not responsible for whatever has them down, be it weight problems or something else.
People overcome all sorts of adversities and barriers because they adopt a positive mental attitude. Often the disadvantaged succeed over those with apparent natural and material advantages because they have a strong focus and indominable will. One of my heros is Martin Luther King (the rev.). There is a fine example. The same kind of determination often brings victory to underdogs in horse races and boxing and war (e..g. NVA).
Sorry that troubles you.
Tony P., I already explained that. You aren’t going to get all of those good infrastructure things because people aren’t going to vote for a strong democrat if gay issues, etc are prominant campaign platforms. That is the harm.
Are you offering merely strategic advice, avedis? Are you saying you’d like to see “good infrastructure things” AND full civil rights for gay people as goals, but merely worry that it’s not possible to achieve both because too many voters are committed to their anti-gay biases? If that’s what you’re saying — if the only dispute here is over strategy — then your advice is noted.
If, on the other hand, you consider full civil rights for gay people a “harm” per se — something you would oppose EVEN IF the rest of us could figure out a strategy to achieve them along with “good infrastructure things” — then your strategic advice becomes a bit suspect.
–TP
oh…I forgot… around here nothing is true unless there is a link….
http://www.olgygary.com/2010/01/mission-focus-olympic-athletes-and-navy.html
http://www.rossboxing.com/thegym/thegym9.htm
Googling something like mental focus or mental toughness + success yields thousands of articles……but yeah, it’s just a quirky personal myth.
“Are you offering merely strategic advice, avedis? ”
yes
“If, on the other hand, you consider full civil rights for gay people a “harm” per se — something you would oppose…”
No. I think gays should have full civil rights. Period.
Wow, LJ, touched a nerve, did I?
No, not really, just trying to explain why people tend to dismiss your opinions around here. They lack logical coherence.
avedis at 7:47 PM on May 1st says “gays should have full civil rights. Period.”
avedis at 8:10 PM on April 29th spoke of “fringe bullshit like gay marriage and service”.
Are we seeing moral progress here? Or is there some mental universe in which “full civil rights” and “fringe bullshit” amount to the same thing?
–TP
It is conceivable that you had 2%(at the absolute bottom of the amount, and some sources give 3% as the minimum), but given that you apparently did not submit to a hydrostatic test (as I imagine those were rather difficult to obtain back in the day and aren’t that cheap or easy to get now), this is more a myth you have convinced yourself is true.
If the body fat test of which he boasts at all resembled the military body fat tests they administer these days, I feel 100% confident in believing that the test was far less accurate than “[possibly] off by a % or two”.
All of that aside, if avedis was doing at least 3 hours of hard calisthenics and body-weight training a day, he was in fabulous shape. I’d certainly grant that he could do those exercises as well or better than any Olympic athlete, until such time as PT becomes an Olympic sport.
OT, but I’m wondering what if anything avedis is doing these days to keep himself fit. At my age, it takes longer to gain a certain level of fitness, and it seems as if I lose it faster if I take time off. And I can’t lose 5 lbs by skipping lunch anymore.
That was back in the day where there was 6 miles of swimming plus weight training and isokinetics between weigh-in and weigh-out, though. And of course it doesn’t help that I have a job now, and a house to maintain, and just don’t have a schedule that lends itself to multiple hours of training a day.
Plus, now there’s beer.
What you eat matters. I’ve lost 15 pounds in the last 7 weeks by going with a low carb, high protein diet that lets me drink my standard 14-16 ounces of red wine every evening. I’ve not gotten much exercise in(relatively speaking–I walk a lot and play a lot of golf on weekends) and just learned last night that I wasn’t following the regimen as carefully as I should. So, we’ll see what the future holds now that I am doing what the Good Book (The Four Hour Body) says.
FWIW, unlike every other stupid diet I’ve been on, I’m not hungry and one day a week, I can eat/drink anything I want.
I’m leaving Avedis’ comments about gays and other “fringe issues” alone. That DADT was canceled indicates the trend in America. It’s not fringe. It’s the future.
So, what you eat matters. Exercise matters. Processed foods, not cooked foods, add the weight. So does being sedentary
“OT, but I’m wondering what if anything avedis is doing these days to keep himself fit. At my age, it takes longer to gain a certain level of fitness, and it seems as if I lose it faster if I take time off. And I can’t lose 5 lbs by skipping lunch anymore.”
He has slowed a lot; especially in the last five years. Basically, galloping race horses (more of a total body work out than you might think) 3X a week. 45 minutes on the heavy bag, with a one minute breather every five minutes or so 1X a week. A five mile run 1X a week. Push-ups, lots of push-ups, 2X a week (usually on days when horses are galloped), minimum 300 reps; sometimes as many as 500. Squat thrusts and lunges 1X week. Pull-ups and military presses 1X per week.
So basically at least one type of hard exercise a day. But that is the ideal. More often than I’d like, I find myself skipping a day….or two. But then there is always some kind of heavy lifting on the farm. Mucking stalls is a three hour affair. In the winter there are many water buckets to be filled, lugged and poured, etc….it’s endless.
Diet is a small bowl of oat meal in the morning with coffee. A sandwich (like tuna) for lunch with water. More and more I find I enjoy some fries with that. Dinner is variable. Could be a steak and rice, but is often bread and cheese and cold cuts (too worn out to cook). Or pasta. I love me some pasta. Generally a few beers go with that. Sometimes there is wiskey or bourbon. Never deserts. Never snacks. Cigarettes take the place of snacks in my nuerosis.
When things are quiet there is Tai Chi (wu style) and Ba Ghua forms practiced.
That is what I do. It’s not very organized. It’s not the ideal workout regimen I would design for myself or anyone else by any means, but it gets me by and it is fairly consistent in its chaos. After being a fitness freak for thirty years +/- I don’t feel right if I’m not pushing my body to its limit. Now time, age and other interests and responsibilities interfere.
I think if I cut out the beer and booze I’d actually be totally trim and ripped. But that’s not going to happen. Too many aches and pains literal and otherwise.
“At my age, it takes longer to gain a certain level of fitness, and it seems as if I lose it faster”
AGREED. me2.
“…lets me drink my standard 14-16 ounces of red wine every evening.”
Nice. Man knows how to live.
“So, what you eat matters. Exercise matters. Processed foods, not cooked foods, add the weight. So does being sedentary”
Truth. That’s the bottom line.
I’ve been winning a weight loss competition with my office-mate, 18 lbs to 9 in the last three months, but I’m ‘cheating’; I’m still coming off the last of the chemotherapy driven weight gain. Though the time spent on the epicyclic machine contributes.
It does seem that having a 2 year old son at the age of 52 is an effective exercise program, though.
That’s some serious effort, there, especially considering you’re doing it on top of chores. Having owned a place in the country for several years, I’m aware that you can work yourself to near exhaustion just doing the chores.
Awesome. I’d only heard of Pa Kua (as I’d seen it spelled), but just looked it up on Youtube. Interesting. Both arts seem to be more of a melding of thought and combat than your garden-variety karate or taekwondo schools teach.
I work pretty hard at tae kwon do (and other stuff like grappling and free-form sparring), but you make me look like a slacker in comparison.
…with a one minute breather every five minutes or so…
cyber wimp 😉
“I’d only heard of Pa Kua (as I’d seen it spelled), but just looked it up on Youtube. Interesting. Both arts seem to be more of a melding of thought and combat than your garden-variety karate or taekwondo schools teach.”
There are different spellings for different regions and dialects in China. Pa Kua is a common way to translate. Actually, one should add the word “chuan”, which means “fist” (or more loosely, “boxing”). Pa Kua means eight trigrams, which refers to the iChing.
These Chinese styles are often refered to as “soft” styles. The ideas of flowing, flexibility, softness, receptiveness, absorbing and deflecting are related closely to Daoist philosophies that extend to everything; not just fighting. I striking there is an emphasis on balance, speed and penetration over smashing power.
The Karate and Tai Kwon Do type styles are known as “hard” styles. These rely more on muscle and countering force with force. The advantage is they can be learned much faster. The soft styles take years to gain a decent measure of proficiency at employing the concepts, whereas the hard styles teach methods that can be used in a fight effectively in a year or two.
“Having owned a place in the country for several years, I’m aware that you can work yourself to near exhaustion just doing the chores.”
True words. I am about done. This year we have three two year old thoroughbreds to break and get started. After they go to the track we are done. The farm is on the market. I have to admit that I just can’t do it any more; not with the day job on top of it all. I am looking forward to a nice cozy apartment near enough to work that I can walk instead of drive to work.
“…but you make me look like a slacker in comparison.”
It is possible that I am nuts and you have a better balance of priorities.
“I work pretty hard at tae kwon do (and other stuff like grappling and free-form sparring)”
Very cool. Good luck with your studies, Slarti. Do you agree that knowing how to handle yourself in a confrontation brings about a sense of confidence that, among other things, allows you to avoid fights in the first place? Not only do bullies avoid people that have the aura of being able to inflict damage, but there is something else as well. Curious about your thoughts, if any, on that.
“cyber wimp ;)” yeah, yeah, I know.
I have been aware of the difference between “hard” and “soft” styles, but unaware until recently (last decade or so) that Tai Chi was actually useful as a form of self-defense. And I didn’t know that Ba Ghua was a soft style until the last day or so. It’d be interesting to hear your thoughts on Win Chun and how it fits into the soft vs hard categorization. To me, Win Chun is a bit more linear than the overtly soft styles, but there are elements of soft styles in getting that penetration through an opponent’s defense preparatory to unleashing the barrage of linear hand and foot attacks.
I am still an egg in these matters, obviously. My daughter had been begging me for a while to do tae kwon do with her, and we got her in an after-school program with a school near to home. Eventually I had to make good on my promise. I was hesitant to do that because she’s got a disability that I was positive would place limitations on her advancement. So far, they have only slowed her down a bit; her determination and dogged persistence makes whatever complaints I might have about the workload seem lame.
She tests for her first intermediate step between first degree and second degree black belt at the same time daughter #2 and I test for our black belts, one month from today. I used to consider a black belt a mark of expertise, but now I look at it as a mark of basic competence. A place to start from, rather than an objective.
This is something I think about constantly, yes. I’ve always avoided fights because I never wanted to hurt anyone badly enough to fight them, but now I’m more keenly aware of what I’d do, how to defend myself and how to really effectively disable the other guy. And also: how unpredictable combat can be, and what that could mean in terms of my own personal danger level.
So I don’t know that much about what kind of vibes I radiate, and to what extent those tend to repel would-be assailants, but I do know that I have a quite different combination of fear and readiness than before.
I’m not sure if this answers your questions, but it’s really hard for me to know the degree to which I come off as being able to handle myself in the scrum. As far as avoiding fights, though, I don’t normally find myself in situations where that possibility might arise. I work with a bunch of other college-degreed people at a workplace that would probably fire anyone who decided to “take it outside”, I don’t hang out at bars, and I hardly ever go to public sporting events besides the occasional Gator football game. The closest I’ve been to a fight in my post-college life was at an arena football game, and I don’t think I’d want to try and fight someone in the upper bowl seats even now.
but there is something else as well.
The “something else” is basically not being afraid.
Which does help avoid fights in the first place. Especially when bullies are involved.
I’d say just basically not being afraid is a better path toward avoiding fights (and conflict generally) then having the aura of being able to inflict damage, because some folks respond to that aura as a personal challenge.
The soft styles are definitely not about advertising your ability to kick ass.
Also, there’s this: I know that no matter how good I get, there is always someone better. And even if it’s not someone better, I might make a mistake, or underestimate (just another kind of mistake) and I might either be beaten that way, or be put in a position where I have to hurt someone a great deal to get out of trouble.
My instructor, for instance, is scary good, and his abilities go outside the art a fair distance. He’s quite good at grappling and has teaching certification in Muay Thai as well, and he’s unbelievably fast & fluid. When he does breaks in public, it’s really quite startling. Off the mat, or in instructor mode, he moves one way, but when he’s breaking it’s all speed, grace and power. But as good as he is, he occasionally forgets that I have a pretty decent front-leg round kick, and I occasionally get to head-kick him.
Last time we sparred, I pressed him a lot harder than I normally do. And I was doing pretty well until he pegged me in the liver with a ball-of-foot round kick that dropped me to the mat. He could have hit me anywhere, really. He’s got a kind of calm in the fight that lets him plan ahead and strategize even when he’s being hit.
Being good isn’t enough; even being the best isn’t enough. Which is just another reason why you don’t just jump into a fight with someone: fistfights (to me, anyway) have always been a serious commitment; one that I should decline when possible, but take very seriously when it’s not possible to avoid. Basically I look on fights as increased potential for one or more people to wind up in the hospital or even dead, and I don’t wish that on anyone.
But that guy who was slapping around his girlfriend in high school? I probably would have handled that differently, knowing what I know now. Not that it would have changed him, or her mind about him. But I didn’t know about that until later.
I’d amend that to “not letting your fear control you”, for myself. Not being afraid is just not going to happen for me, anytime soon.
Not disagreeing with you, but few of the people I’ve encountered in TKD advertise their ability to kick ass. If you met my instructor and didn’t know that he was a sixth degree black belt, you’d just think he was another guy. But I have encountered people of the kick-ass variety, so I can’t say that the hard styles don’t tend to attract that kind of person.
Not disagreeing with you, but few of the people I’ve encountered in TKD advertise their ability to kick ass.
It wasn’t a comment about TKD, but about this, in the context of a discussion of soft martial arts styles:
people that have the aura of being able to inflict damage
I agree that the responsible practice of martial arts, of any style, is not about projecting the “aura of being able to inflict damage”.
And in terms of avoiding fights in the first place, I disagree with what I take to be avedis’ statement that projecting that aura is helpful toward that end. For lots of aggressive / fight-prone people, encountering someone who telegraphs “badass” is received as an invitation and a personal challenge.
It’s like catnip to them.
Projecting an aura of I’m not afraid of you and I have better things to do than get in fights generally works better. My opinion, obviously.
This:
Basically I look on fights as increased potential for one or more people to wind up in the hospital or even dead, and I don’t wish that on anyone.
and this:
Not being afraid is just not going to happen for me, anytime soon.
simply demonstrate to me that you are quite a rational fellow, Slart. The first is true. The second is an appropriate reaction to that truth. And managing your fear seems the best approach, rather than futilely trying to eliminate or deny it.
Thanks, hsh. I’m just trying to be honest, really.
But I don’t want to dismiss what avedis said out of hand, because there is something to his assertion that it matters how you conduct yourself. You don’t necessarily have to swagger about; you can just act normally, but stay aware of your surroundings. My instructor tells me that one of the worst things you can do is avoid eye contact with people you see acting suspiciously, because they may take you as an easy victim. And there are lots of people out there that are interested in beating, robbing, etc those who they see as easy marks. So if you act prepared for violence when violence seems like it may present itself, that itself might diminish the prospects of a fight.
“Win Chun”
Wing chung or Ving Chun or Wing Tsun (seen it several different ways, is, too me, an intermediate netween the hard Chinise styles, like Hung Gar and the soft styles. I did study Wing Chun (with a very aggressive Navy Seal for whatever that is worth). I got through the three empty handed forms and the wooden dummy, but did not learn the weapons.
The techniques learned in chi sau (sticky hands) are definitely of the soft variety. But the style is generally a little weird. My understanding is that it came into its own and evolved further on narrow boats that went up and down the rivers in China. Thus the style has some stunted (IMO) foot work that is, indeed, very linear and close in striking techniques. The latter are extremely effective in most situations where you might find yourself in a fight; like in a bar, between cars, but not in a ring. I especially like the emphasis on elbow and knee strikes. The linear theory plays out well at close range because the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Still, the foot work is limiting (unless you are on a boat).
Like the soft forms, there is no set of procedures like in Karate; i.e. he does this, I respond with that does not exist in Wing chun. One feels the opponent’s energies, absorbs or deflects and uses the law of physics (equal and opposite reaction) to return the energy to an opponent in the form of a strike. This requires relaxation. But in my experience, there was less emphasis on the melding of mind and body than in the true soft forms. maybe this is because WC seeks to be more practical; dunno.
It is, overall, a very useful system. I still practice the so called “one inch punch” on a rice bag.
“And in terms of avoiding fights in the first place, I disagree with what I take to be avedis’ statement that projecting that aura is helpful toward that end. For lots of aggressive / fight-prone people, encountering someone who telegraphs “badass” is received as an invitation and a personal challenge.”
I would never recommend anyone swagger around trying to project ‘badass’. That is stupid and crude and unpleasant, generally and it often insights a real badass to – who also has something stupid to prove in an overcompensating kind of way – to fight. Come on. Please give me a little more than that.
I was more refering to a quiet calm self confidence. People respect that more if it’s real.
“…managing your fear seems the best approach…”
Yes. Everyone gets afraid when seriously threatened. Fear is more easily managed when you have been tested, survived and proven to yourself that you can keep it together under severe stress. The fear of fear is then eliminated and that is an important aspect of being able to control what is left and function effectively.
An addendum: Slarti, since you are interested in these things, the one difference between between the soft styles and hard styles, is the notion of internal power (a soft style concept) versus external generation of power (hard style). Wing Chun, again, falls somewhere in the middle (in my experience).
Internal generation of power in the soft styles is attributed to ‘chi’. I thoroughly believe in the existance of chi and the ability to cultivate it and use it. That said, I cannot use words to explain it. I could show it to you and a compentent instructor could show you even better, but that is all. Once you begin to feel it, you begin to understand it and there are exercises – including the soft forms properly executed – that would help you feel it. Wing Chun is less, shall we say mystical and elusive, about the developed and deployment of chi at the beginning levels. Yet it is there all the same. More advanced WC training does begin to mention it. Still, chi doesn’t find it fullest expression in WC. Then again, I only had four years of committed study. I have touched base since then with advanced practioners and they never added much to the role of chi, to the extent that there is one, in WC.
Chi enhancement and deployment are goals of the mind/body interface that you mentioned in your first martial art comment on this thread.
I have never met a hard style practioner that understood chi.
That is stupid and crude and unpleasant, generally and it often insights a real badass to – who also has something stupid to prove in an overcompensating kind of way – to fight.
We agree, precisely.
I was more refering to a quiet calm self confidence.
Maybe it’s just me, but I generally don’t think of “quiet calm self confidence” and “aura of being able to inflict damage” as being equivalent.
Very nice discussion of chi and it’s role in the soft styles, BTW.
For the record, my background in all of this is a few years’ on-again off-again study of Yang style Tai Chi. Got as far as push hands, did not get as far as sparring.
I have never met a hard style practioner that understood chi.
I think there are actually a fair number of soft style practicioners who don’t have a firm grasp of chi.
Interesting notion. I hadn’t even considered that openly.
Fear is an emotion that I find deeply unpleasant, and fear of fear more or less describes that panicked, helpless feeling I used to have when physically confronted.
Thanks for your comments regarding Wing Chun. I’d seen it spelled a number of different ways, too. My perception of it is that it’s somewhere in between hard and soft styles. I had a friend (my daughter’s middle school teacher, actually) who was a Wing Chun practitioner; I never really asked him what his level of proficiency was, but we mock-sparred a time or two and I couldn’t do anything effective against him. If we’d agreed to permit grappling I might have been able to make something work, but Wing Chun has got so many things in it that foil the linear TKD style that I couldn’t make kicks or punches work.
I also hadn’t heard “sticky hands”, but that describes it very well. It’s very, very hard to land an effective punch if the other guy can put his hand on your forearm or wrist, or so I found. It’s almost “sticky feet”, too, except for the feet don’t do quite as much. But they do many of the same things as the hands do: stops, deflections, blocks; general impediments to effective foot techniques.
“It’s almost “sticky feet”, too, except for the feet don’t do quite as much. But they do many of the same things as the hands do: stops, deflections, blocks; general impediments to effective foot techniques.”
Your observations are correct. I like the wing chun “gohst kick” too. It’s a knee to stomach level straight kick that comes from the front leg in the stance. Since there is little or no weight on that leg prior to the kick, there is no telling weight shift pre-kick. The opponent rarely is able to react in time to defend.
“Maybe it’s just me, but I generally don’t think of “quiet calm self confidence” and “aura of being able to inflict damage” as being equivalent.”
No. It’s more just me. Most people associate the ability to inflict damage with the swagger. They also associate ‘tough’ with crude and ugly and refinement and beauty with weakness. They also see big talkers with big words as intelligent and quiet people as less intelligent.
People tend to go for the shiny things and fall victim to all sorts of allusions.
The confusion here is with ability versus desire. The swaggerring person has the desire to inflict damage. The person who is calm and truly self confident regardless of the chaos going on around him, has the ability to inflict damage.
This isn’t something you would come to understand unless you had been through some truly ‘chaotic’ situatons and observed not only your own performance, but that of other personality types as well.
Then again, check out people you know/have known and think about the persona they projected prior to some period of time when the pressure became enhanced (could be even just at the office on a resource restrained high profile project) and how they performed under that stress. How well did they live up to the persona? Which personas did the best in terms of accomplishment, team work, etc?
There’s a scene in Ip Man where Donny Yen executes this kick that seems to come from nowhere. The hip flexibility that’s needed to throw something like that the way he did it is still way beyond me. It looks like a straight punch.
I have a lot more appreciation for the ability needed to master (or even gain some minimum level of ability in) multiple styles that is exhibited by eg Donny Yen. There’s a fight scene in the otherwise not-very-interesting Flash Point where he and Colin Chou go at it; the fighting style is completely different.
The way you gain the flexibility for the kick or joint extension involved in the punches, palms or, especially, shooting fingers is through practicing these things exactly right, but in a very relaxed manner, as often as possible (3x per week min) for a few years.
It seems to me that the more styles you learn, the easier/faster it is to learn the next one provided you understand the theory or philosophy of each style. Once you understand the hows and whys and costs and benefits of a couple of styles you understand how yet another style is trying to address the same problems with different options within the finite set.