Why DO teens do THAT? Raging hormones? Prefrontal cortex fully developed? Thrill Seeking? New research from The Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania has released a report explaining Why Teens Take Risks: It's Not a Deficit in Brain Development:
The authors propose an alternative model that emphasizes the role that risk taking and the experience gained by it play in adolescent development. This model explains much of the apparent increase in risk taking by adolescents as "an adaptive need to gain the experience required to assume adult roles and behaviors." That experience eventually changes the way people think about risk, making it more "gist-like" or thematic and making them more risk averse.
"Recent meta-analyses suggest that the way individuals think about risks and rewards changes as they mature, and current accounts of brain development must take these newer ideas into account to explain adolescent risk taking," said co-author Valerie Reyna, Ph.D., director of the Human Neuroscience Institute at Cornell University.
Romer[1] added, "The reason teens are doing all of this exploring and novelty seeking is to build experience so that they can do a better job in making the difficult and risky decisions in later life – decisions like 'Should I take this job?' or 'Should I marry this person?' There's no doubt that this period of development is a challenge for parents, but that's doesn't mean that the adolescent brain is somehow deficient or lacking in control."
[1] Daniel Romer, Ph.D
Daniel Romer, Valerie F. Reyna, Theodore D. Satterthwaite. Beyond stereotypes of adolescent risk taking: Placing the adolescent brain in developmental context. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 2017; 27: 19 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2017.07.007 (Javascript required).
Alternate Link: Science.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by fraxinus-tree on Monday August 28 2017, @01:25PM (7 children)
Please? Pretty please?
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Monday August 28 2017, @01:28PM (1 child)
Your quotes confuse me. Are you opposed to the practice, or the neologism?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @01:41PM
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @01:58PM (1 child)
Why? What's wrong with parenting my helicopter?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday August 28 2017, @02:30PM
Too aggressive to environment - downgrade to a drone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @02:44PM (2 children)
sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter. Ever since I was a boy I dreamed of soaring over the oilfields dropping hot sticky loads on disgusting foreigners. People say to me that a person being a helicopter is Impossible and I’m fucking retarded but I don’t care, I’m beautiful. I’m having a plastic surgeon install rotary blades, 30 mm cannons and AMG-114 Hellfire missiles on my body. From now on I want you guys to call me “Apache” and respect my right to kill from above and kill needlessly. If you can’t accept me you’re a heliphobe and need to check your vehicle privilege. Thank you for being so understanding.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday August 28 2017, @04:06PM (1 child)
but are you cis-helicopter?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @08:50PM
A diesel-sexual.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @01:55PM (28 children)
Millions of years of evolution distilled into:
Ever wondered why humans have such good eye-sight? It's simple really: It's for reading books and driving your car! And those long well articulated fingers? For tablets and keyboards!
Developmental cognitive neuroscience at it's finest.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @02:52PM
Surly thou doth jest, but ye know not how correct thee be. [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday August 28 2017, @03:02PM (7 children)
Humans don't on average have great eyesight. Fish see much better than we do in their environment. What humans have is the ability to invent tools like eyeglasses and cataract knives.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday August 28 2017, @04:33PM (6 children)
Humans don't on average have great eyesight.
Huh? This isn't true at all. Leaving aside people with actual visual problems (who wouldn't be alive in a pre-technological society, and wouldn't breed more people with visual impairments), humans actually have very good vision. Sure, other animals do have better vision by certain metrics, useful for particular tasks or environments, but overall humans do see very well. Cats can see better at night, but they're very near-sighted too. We can see quite well at a distance. Deep-sea creatures like octopi can see much better on the ocean floor because their receptors are pointed forwards instead of backwards, but those creatures can't handle seeing in the full sunlit-brightness of midday on land that we can. Lots of animals are color-blind to some extent; humans have a very full range of color perception.
Like so many things, our vision is a trade-off. Other animals get better night/low-light vision, or better far-sighted vision (like raptors that can spot mice while they're flying), but for the environment we live in, our vision is quite good and we have some advantages other animals don't because they made a different trade-off.
As for impairments, that's mainly a product of our current technological society, and also the way we grow up. There's evidence that kids growing up looking at close-up screens too much and not getting outside enough leaves them near-sighted.
Cataracts aren't unique to humans; lots of animals have similar vision problems as they age. We see it in pets all the time. You don't see it in the wild because wild animals don't live long enough for vision problems to be noticeable; if they do get that old, the vision problem contributes to their demise. Old animals that don't see too well end up being eaten. Lots of other diseases aren't unique to humans, such as cancer. Again, it's not seen much in the wild because those animals don't live long, and become some other animal's dinner.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday August 28 2017, @05:22PM (5 children)
Some of the known limitations of human vision:
- Humans, unlike some other animals, cannot see infrared or ultraviolet. The only reason we're not considered partially color-blind is that we're the ones deciding what constitutes a color we should be able to see.
- Humans have a relatively limited field of vision, unable to see things that are to the side of us or behind us. Other animals such as pigeons can and do notice things behind them.
- As you mention, we have neither the long-range precision of raptors nor the night-vision of cats.
- You also mentioned the people with actual visual problems, and promptly dismiss it as a non-issue. Except it isn't, because it turns out a majority of people in places with fairly easy access to glasses / contacts need them. That's a pretty strong indication that no, human vision is not 20-20 on average.
We're certainly not the worst off when it comes to our ability to perceive EM waves heading towards us, but to claim we're in great shape is also incorrect.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday August 28 2017, @05:46PM (4 children)
Yes, but for every example of an animal that has some super-human vision in some category, I'm sure I can point out how its vision is deficient in some other category.
Humans, unlike some other animals, cannot see infrared or ultraviolet.
Ok, but what animals can see well in those spectra? (I can only think of insects; their eyes have their own disadvantages.) I'm sure they have some deficiency too.
Humans have a relatively limited field of vision, unable to see things that are to the side of us or behind us. Other animals such as pigeons can and do notice things behind them.
Most prey animals have a wider field of view than we do. We're not prey animals, so we focus more on binocular vision. Animals with an extremely wide field of view generally have poor binocular vision, so they'd make terrible predators. Cats have a terrible field of view, probably worse than ours. But they're the pinnacle of land-based predators. There's a trade-off between field-of-view and binocular vision.
As you mention, we have neither the long-range precision of raptors
I'm not an ornithologist, but I imagine raptors would not do very well with looking at stuff close-up. They might not have our color vision abilities either. I'm sure there's some deficiency there.
nor the night-vision of cats.
Cats have terrible long-distance vision: they're myopic. I think they're partly color-blind too. They probably can't handle brightness as well as we can either. But they're great at hunting small animals at relatively near distances at twilight or at night.
but to claim we're in great shape is also incorrect.
I don't think it is. It depends on your metric. For the lives we lead, our vision suits us well, and that's no coincidence. For the lives octopi lead, their vision suits them well too, but their vision would not suit us well at all. I'd rather have stronger binocular vision than a near-360-degree field of view, and I'd rather have the color vision I enjoy now than crappy color vision but with UV ability.
Except it isn't, because it turns out a majority of people in places with fairly easy access to glasses / contacts need them.
Has anyone ever done a study to see if people in primitive pre-contact hunter-gatherer tribes need them? Modern life simply isn't like the lives we led during the vast majority of our evolution, so it's no surprise we're running into issues with our physical bodies. And there really aren't very many people left not living a modern life (and those tiny few that are in the Amazon, we don't talk to them and certainly don't do experiments on them to see if they need glasses).
(Score: 3, Informative) by Immerman on Monday August 28 2017, @06:42PM (3 children)
I believe most birds have at least a fourth set of cone pigments allowing them to see well into the ultraviolet -I've heard pigeons are actually brilliantly colored to other pigeons. Octopi have only one set of broad-spectrum receptors, but appear to use chromatic aberration to achieve color vision by another method (though I'm unclear as to how their total spectral range compares), plus they can see polarization, and their eyes are mobile enough to allow either near-360 or binocular vision. Mantis shrimp have 16 different color receptors, and can actually tune the frequency sensitivity of their long-wavelength vision to better suit the environment.
Cuttlefish have the same basic poorly-understood visual system of octopi, but actually have two fovea, so that they can simultaneously focus behind and in front of themselves (and have binocular vision).
Lots of species can see polarization - a visual ability which we completely lack.
Raptors eyes pretty much blow ours away in both color range and acuity - their only weakness seems to be terrible night vision.
Basically - yes, our eyes are pretty good for what we need them for, but they are far from the best. Not in any specific application, or even in general capacity. They're just what we're accustomed to, and so become the baseline against which we measure others. Basically, our vision hasn't been our species big advantage since long before we became human, and so evolution hasn't really done much to it except keep it from degrading too badly.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday August 28 2017, @07:05PM (2 children)
Basically - yes, our eyes are pretty good for what we need them for, but they are far from the best. Not in any specific application, or even in general capacity.
Again, I completely disagree. You need to point out some animals which have significantly better vision in all ways than ours, and which have *zero* disadvantages. I don't think you'll find a single one.
Raptors eyes pretty much blow ours away in both color range and acuity - their only weakness seems to be terrible night vision.
And here's a good example here. Night vision is pretty important: we're awake for at least 16 hours a day, so we do need at least somewhat-decent night vision. Maybe not as good as cats', but certainly not "terrible".
Every species is the same way: its vision is tuned for the environment it lives in, and the way it lives, and on top of that it has to fit in with the rest of their bodies and work with their brains.
and their eyes are mobile enough to allow either near-360 or binocular vision.
Yeah, and octopi don't have any bones either which makes that possible. How well would we survive without any skull bones? Not very well. And I'd like to see how well octopi can see outside, on land, in the middle of the summer at the brightest point of the daytime. We can handle that just fine, perhaps with a bit of squinting. Sea creatures are not going to have eyes evolved for extreme brightness as found on land.
Basically, our vision hasn't been our species big advantage since long before we became human
I challenge you to find any animals with vision that's better in every single metric.
To use a car analogy, this is like arguing whether sports cars, pickup trucks, or Priuses are better. I'd like to see a Prius or sports car that can pull a boat, and I'd like to see a pickup truck that gets 50mpg or can handle the way a sports car does. There's never any one thing that's clearly better in every single metric.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday August 28 2017, @07:36PM (1 child)
Better in every single metric is ridiculous. I challenge you to find any vision-heavy species whose vision is *worse* than ours in every single metric. That should be easy if ours is truly "the best" in any meaningful form, right?
Better overall/on average is pretty much the only metric that makes any sense when comparing between very different systems. And by that standard ours vision is... okay. Maybe even pretty good.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday August 28 2017, @08:03PM
I challenge you to find any vision-heavy species whose vision is *worse* than ours in every single metric.
I never made any such claim. Lots of species have vision that's better in some metric than ours. I don't think any has vision better in *every* metric. That's the whole nature of a trade-off.
Are you not an engineer?
That should be easy if ours is truly "the best" in any meaningful form, right?
I never said humans have "the best" vision, only that it's the best for our particular niche. Many other animals have "the best" vision for their own niche. Octopi have great vision in many ways. But they don't live on land, and we don't live on the ocean floor, (and we don't have boneless bodies either) so their vision isn't suitable for us, nor vice-versa.
And by that standard ours vision is... okay. Maybe even pretty good.
And which species exactly has superior vision?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday August 28 2017, @04:22PM (17 children)
Millions of years of evolution distilled into:
decisions like 'Should I take this job?' or 'Should I marry this person?'
Interestingly, marriage is a very recent phenomenon anyway; it only came about after the invention of agriculture and land ownership. Hunter-gatherers didn't have any such concept of monogamy, and even as recent as a few hundred years ago, the pre-contact Hawaiians didn't practice it either for the most part.
The answer to "should I marry this person?" is simple: NO. Humans really should just abandon marriage altogether. It was never anything more than a way to guarantee paternity for the sake of inheritance, and a way to subjugate both women and men. It only ever "worked" when people had shorter lifespans, birth control didn't exist, women couldn't earn a living, and divorce wasn't available. Humans are not monogamous by nature, and there's simply no valid reason left to force them into it.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Monday August 28 2017, @05:42PM (16 children)
If we abandon marriage, then probably 90% of the men need to abandon the idea of ever having sex with a woman.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday August 28 2017, @05:49PM
Oh please; casual sex has been a thing for a long time now, and the 10% of most charismatic guys aren't going to waste their time on the not-so-hot women. If we abandon marriage, women will still want sex, just like single women today mostly do. And people will still form various partnerships for domestic living and child-raising, but it'll be out of free choice rather than because it's pushed by the state, and codified to be in a particular format that's extremely hard to undo.
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Monday August 28 2017, @06:01PM (14 children)
That's because 10% of the (stronger) men would get 90% of the woman? Leaving the other 90% of the men without sex? I read somewhere that female monkeys cheat on the alpha male quite often. This way allowing for more gene diversity.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday August 28 2017, @06:50PM
Is it really cheating if there's no expectation of fidelity in the first place?
Along those lines though, among primates testicle size correlates extremely well with female monogamy. By which scale humans fall roughly midway between Gorillas, where the females will only mate with their troop leader, and Chimpanzees, where pretty much anything goes. So we're likely biologically inclined for women to have definite favorites, but be far from exclusive.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday August 28 2017, @07:16PM (12 children)
The 10/90 thing makes no sense at all. It assumes that 1) 90% of women will hold out for the top 10% of men (in whatever metric that women rank men: looks, personality, money, etc.), 2) those 90% of women would be OK with sharing a man with 9 other women, and 2) that these 10% of men have the time to entertain 9 women each, and the inclination to spend their time doing so.
The fundamental reality that contradicts all this, more than anything else, is that time is a limited resource. If I had 9 women wanting to move in with me, there's no way I could keep them all satisfied in bed. No man could. 2 is probably my limit, maybe 3 if they have lower libidos. (And that's just the physical part; trying to have a close emotional relationship with someone is a big time-eater too.) And even if I could have a bunch of women, if I had a couple of really hot ones (who weren't crazy...), why would I want to waste my time with a bunch of others that aren't so hot? I have other things to do with my time than simply sleep with and talk to women you know.
No, in the non-monogamous future, we'll just see more casual sex, more short-term relationships, fewer people staying in relationships that aren't working out or aren't making them happy, but also people not expecting as much from relationships because they can have multiple relationships at once (like 2 or 3... not 9! And it's not just men who would have multiple partners remember, another thing naysayers always seem to assume), so we could very well have fewer "single" people overall, but more people in lower-commitment relationships than what we have now.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday August 28 2017, @07:46PM (10 children)
Another possibility is larger, more flexible family groups. Not completely at odds with lower commitments, etc. But with a half-dozen or dozen people in a polygamous marriage you have a lot more room for a variety of romantic pairings (since we do seem inclined to have at least medium-term favorites) within the larger framework of a family committed to mutual well-being.
Of course there's a lot more complications introduced by polygamy, but it's probably closer to what our "natural" state would be - primate troops tend to be relatively small and close-knit, though individuals and small groups will occasionally depart to try to find a troop they'll be happier in.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday August 28 2017, @08:10PM (9 children)
Another possibility is larger, more flexible family groups.
Absolutely. And that's a key word here: flexible. That's the problem with today's marriage; it's inflexible. When things go south, it's hard to get out without severe repercussions, even today where divorce isn't *that* hard to obtain from the courts.
But with a half-dozen or dozen people in a polygamous marriage
Quibble here: the current term is "polyamorous". "Polygamy" connotes paternalistic groupings with one dude and a bunch of women subservient to him, usually in the Mormon religion. People who promote "a variety of romantic pairings" (which means not only do women frequently have multiple partners, but there might be some homo- or bisexuality in there too) don't want to be at all associated with Mormon-style polygamy or anything sexist like that.
Of course there's a lot more complications introduced by polygamy, but it's probably closer to what our "natural" state would be
The complications can't be worse than the mess we have now with divorces, spousal support, child support, custody arrangements, etc. The lawyers are making a killing on the whole thing.
And honestly, considering how many marriages seem to fall apart because of "cheating", if we remove the entire expectation of monogamy, it seems to me that groupings would be more stable.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday August 28 2017, @08:29PM (8 children)
po·lyg·a·my
noun
1. the practice or custom of having more than one wife or husband at the same time.
I've often heard the term used for both male an female "harem" arrangements, as well as more gender-balanced ones. My understanding is that poly amorous is used to denote a a less committed relationship
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday August 28 2017, @09:26PM (7 children)
No, sorry, your dictionary is wrong on this one. Technically, it's correct from an etymological point-of-view ("polygyny" is one-man-many-women, "polyandry" is one-women-many-men, "polygamy" is gender-neutral), however in actual usage it just doesn't work that way: when almost anyone hears the term "polygamy", what they really think you're talking about is polygyny (and it's kinda hard to hear the difference between "polgyny" and "polygamy" anyway). Moreover, ask 100 people on the street what "polygamy" is, and then ask them what "polygyny" is: they'll say the first is one-man-multiple-women, and for the second they'll say "huh?".
So if you talk to people in the actual polyamory community, who actually practice it, they do not like the polygamy term at all for this reason, and "polyamory" is a large umbrella term that says nothing about the commitment level of the relationship, and just means non-monogamous relationships basically.
Wiktionary defines polyamory as "Any of various practices involving romantic or sexual relationships with multiple partners with the knowledge and consent of all involved."
And it has, for definition #5 under "polygamy", "Commonly used specifically for polygyny, the marriage of a man to more than one wife, or the practice of having several wives, at the same time. "
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday August 29 2017, @12:13AM (6 children)
I'll note that definitions 1 through 4 on Wiktionary make no mention of gender bias, through granted 3 and 4 are scientific rather than social definitions. But considering that Wikipedia mentions that out of 1045 societies noted to practice polygamy in the 1998 Ethnographic Atlas, only 4 practice polyandry, I suppose it is a reasonable assumption.
However, I still say polyamory is *not* a substitute term, as it does not imply the same level of commitment. Perhaps it's currently the best available though.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday August 29 2017, @03:10AM (5 children)
How does it not imply the same level of commitment? Because the term doesn't specify marriage (the "gam" part of polygamy)? How would that help? It's illegal in all places where polyamory is practiced to legally marry more than one person, so the whole thing is moot. It's kinda hard to have a 6-person marriage for example if the state won't recognize it. Go talk to some actual polyamorists and ask them about your assumption of it not having the same level of commitment and I think you'll hear an earful. Try reddit's /r/polyamory for starters.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday August 29 2017, @03:18PM (4 children)
Exactly - because of the -gam. And what the state respects is irrelevant except when dealing with the state - marriage at its core is a pledge of long-term commitment between the people involved, everything else is politics.
That's not to say that polyamorous relationships can't have the same level of commitment, but that commitment isn't implied by the term. There's plenty of people in casual polyamorous relationships as well, and the term applies to them with equal validity.
And while there are plenty of people who might describe themselves as in casual monogamous relationships, they are misusing that term - again because of the -gam.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday August 29 2017, @04:10PM (3 children)
Now you're being pedantic, and quite wrong.
The -gam is only useful for understanding the etymology of that word. But it does not define it. This is English: the definition of a word is defined solely by its popular usage, not its etymology. If everyone in America tomorrow decided that "monogamous" means having multiple casual sex partners, and used the word that way consistently, then that's exactly what it would mean, despite the obvious etymology which indicates exactly the opposite. If everyone in America tomorrow decided that a "square" was a geometric figure with 5 vertices (what we now call a pentagon), then that's what a square would be.
I've noticed that techies seem to have a real problem with this concept. This isn't French, where words are defined by some committee of academic elitists. English doesn't work that way. If people describe themselves as being in casual monogamous relationships, and other people understand the meaning of that and accept that definition, then that's the correct definition.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday August 29 2017, @05:02PM (2 children)
You are not completely incorrect - though the fact of the matter is that you'll never get such a decision overnight and so it's pretty much always a long slow decline while a growing body of people abuse a term to the confusion of all, while others push back in the name of consistency and sanity - especially when a word actually contains its literal definition within its component parts.
Has little to do with my main point in that post though - that polyamorous is categorically *not* a term that implies any level of commitment.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday August 29 2017, @07:41PM (1 child)
though the fact of the matter is that you'll never get such a decision overnight and so it's pretty much always a long slow decline
Well yes, of course. It takes a while for the meaning of a word to shift. But look at the word "gay"; 60+ years ago it just meant "happy", and now it means something totally different.
especially when a word actually contains its literal definition within its component parts.
How about the word "decimate"? The literal meaning of that word is to reduce by 1/10 (to eliminate one-tenth of it). Now it means to totally destroy something, in English. But the word is Latin in origin and had a very specific meaning in Roman times.
that polyamorous is categorically *not* a term that implies any level of commitment.
That I agree with totally. As it is used today, even by (and especially by) people in that lifestyle, it's a big umbrella term that includes all sorts of non-monogamous relations of varying levels of commitment. It's not meant to be specific at all. But my point from before was that the "polygamy" term is really quite shunned by polyamorists, and they'll even be offended if you call them polygamists, because of the religious and patriarchal connotations (from definition 5 discussed before). The word's origin isn't important, it's the word's current popular definition/usage and associations.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday August 30 2017, @03:17AM
Yep, good solid words are lost to new meanings all the time - that's no reason not to fight if the mood takes you ;-)
As for decimate - interestingly it specifically referred to killing 1 in 10 in a group as a punishment to the whole group - a practice which would tend to quickly decimate (modern definition) either the population or their will to continue on their course. Perhaps the definition hasn't actually changed as much as it first appears...
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday August 29 2017, @07:55AM
No, he's assuming that women only have sex with men for material gain. In other words, he's advertising to the world that he's really crap in bed.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @08:39PM
Ever wonder how humans are able to read yet completely miss obvious points? Armchair scientists at their finest!
They aren't saying that the risky behavior is specifically targeting decisions about jobs or marriage. It is simply the brain learning how to weigh risky behavior. The brain is learning how to handle risk/reward scenarios in general, and jobs / marriage are simply used as two examples of potential risk/reward choices people face in their lives.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by nobu_the_bard on Monday August 28 2017, @01:59PM (8 children)
This just in: teens not actually inherently stupid, just inexperienced and prone to making decisions that will gain them experience!
I'm pretty sure the Ancient Greeks and others had already figured this out guys.
This is a statistical term. We're just making up stuff here that fits the numbers, aren't we?
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Monday August 28 2017, @02:29PM (7 children)
Why so negative? We are writing a paper without conducting new research, we just summarize previous papers. Everything publishable will be published (theorem 1 of science), so we plug one of those holes. As we need several papers to summarize, this particular strategy is exponentially decaying thereby adding marginal pollution. Beat that Diesel-gate.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @03:07PM (6 children)
Unless it goes against the Social Justice "Women are not different than men" narrative, then studies of actual experiments will be censored from medical journals. [youtube.com] You see? That which you believed is false.
You believe in a false god. Science is corrupt and dying. The Replication Crisis proves this empirically. [wikipedia.org] Many researchers who find new evidence are kicked out of academia for challenging the established dogma. [youtube.com] Researchers who found soft tissue in Dinosaur bones were fired for decades, and only now is that evidence being seriously considered.
You forget theorem 0 of science: Only that which suits the rulers' politics will be promoted in the their established indoctrination camps.
You scientism true believers make me sick.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @04:28PM
Interesting result, but I'm not considering it "empirically proven" until some independent research group replicates it.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 28 2017, @06:00PM (4 children)
What's your alternative, one of the Abrahamic cannibal death cults?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @11:19AM (3 children)
> one of the Abrahamic cannibal death cults?
funny, I thought cannibal -> Cahna Baal -> priest of baal -> not abraham's god
also
2 tim. 1 "our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death"
calling this a death cult is a bit of a stretch
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 29 2017, @05:08PM (2 children)
"Cannibal" doesn't have that etymology, and shame on you for thinking you can go from a Semitic language to a Germanic one with no steps in between. Read: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=cannibal [etymonline.com]
And no, the entire Christian milieu, all...what was it, 300+ feuding, mutually-damning denominations of you? ALL OF YOU are obsessed with death, bloodshed, suffering, and torture. Especially of people who aren't Christians. And Catholic Christianity is a literal cannibal cult, as they believe as an article of faith, a "mystery," that the wafer and wine literally become Jesus' flesh and blood.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @07:45PM (1 child)
Oh! the good old characterization of Christians, going on since 33 AD.
"They eat flesh!".
No matter the etymology, can we agree that cannibalism is about eating fellow humans? How many humans other than that Jesus guy are the incarnation of God? So, what would eating mere humans achieve for a Christian?
About the "mystery of the faith", it strikes me as odd that the hypothetical god should have trouble incarnating in object X vs object Y.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 29 2017, @09:10PM
Ironically, I don't think the Catholic idea of transubstantiation was part of the Apostolic ekklesia's creed. So the charge of cannibalism was false in the beginning, but made true perhaps sometime around the Council of Nicaea in 325AD? Or were there groups who believed that beforehand? Or was it something introduced to Catholic liturgy later on?
Regardless, you're ignoring every salient point I'm making here, and it's not making you or your religion look good. If I were Yahweh I'd throw you into Hell just for making me look bad.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @02:17PM
Could it be that at a young age you need to engage in risky behavior to gain the status that you need to survive (or you know, you die and so be it), and then later you need to be more risk averse to hold onto your risk gotten gains?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday August 28 2017, @04:10PM (4 children)
It's a high, man!
I never once thought, I'm going to climb this cliff because it will make me a better dad someday.
Not once.
It was for, "Can i do this? Hey i can! Man what a rush!"
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday August 28 2017, @04:43PM (2 children)
I've seen lots of those kids who ignore warnings against the cliff climb, the bike ramp jump, the motor cycle course, and general risk taking in general. They seem to learn such warnings are really just a challenge, and it spurs them on to something dumber and more risky. The Evel Knievel gene in action.
Most go on to careers in extreme sports. or Nascar or high-risk military careers, fire fighters and such. Not so many in business.
Unfortunately a several of them that I personally watched grow up ended up dead of an overdose in some back alley having learned that the warnings about "Killer Weed" were false, so the ones about killer meth or heroin must be false as well.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by crafoo on Monday August 28 2017, @05:05PM (1 child)
I've seen the same thing.
We, as a society, do our young a disservice when we lie to them about risks and consequences. We also vastly underestimate young men and women's abilities and reasoning. They are reasoning and making decisions just fine, usually. They just aren't coming to YOUR conclusions. It's a failure on our part usually, as adults. They are living in a different world. One that you think you understand but you do not. We are looking down a 20+ year tunnel at their world, only seeing small pieces of it before we go back to our daily routine, problems, challenges.
I also see older people get their panties in a bunch when a younger person comes along that just kicks their ass in critical reasoning, skill level, and intelligence. It pisses them off. They claim their experience trumps this younger person's performance and knowledge. Yeah. The experience of doing the same thing for 15 years does automatically entitle the older person a senior position, respect, and deference. So many times I've seen younger people with a better handle of the situation, better decision making skills, and better ideas get constantly shat on by "their elders": arrogant people who got comfortable bossing people around according to their 20 year old ideas and knowledge base.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday August 29 2017, @02:42AM
That's one reason I'm willing to listen: I can usually suss out the best way to do something just by stopping and thinking about it, but will definitely crow about someone coming up with a better way.
Anytime i can have someone point out a better way to do something, I will thank them. Just makes my life easier (and therefore my bosses life easier).
But usually, i am left with people doing things in the most illogical, hardest way to do it. Some people just don't think about what they are doing.
One brief, stupid example: carbon paper; the kind where there are two sheets together, printed together, with the holes along both sides. I can't tell you how many people are surprised when I fold the paper together so the perforated pieces are together and rip the perforations at one time.
So many people rip the perforations one at a time, and have done so for YEARS!
Some people just. don't. think.
They. just. do.
And my wife keeps asking me why I like my computers better than I like people: it's because my computer (or at least my operating system) is logical, whereas people are illogical and 'drama, drama, drama's.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday August 28 2017, @07:11PM
What makes you think your mind has any major impact on why you do things?
You've probably never had sex for the express purpose of procreation - intimacy and sexual pleasure is a high.
You probably rarely eat sugar because you specifically need a rush of quick calories - eating sweet things is a high.
Most human behaviors, like any other animal, aren't based on well-reasoned consideration, but the immediate reward. But those rewards aren't arbitrary, they our the result of species-level biological wisdom encoded by evolution. Cats don't have a sweet-tooth, they mostly can't even really taste sugar, because their digestive systems aren't designed to digest fruit and having a reward system that encourages them to eat inappropriate foods would be counter-productive to their survival.
I find human behavior makes far more sense if you assume the bulk of decision making is done by instinctual drives, with the mind only getting involved later to rationalize things. Age and experience (usually) temper that with the wisdom of what strategies work better to satisfy those drives, but even that is generally more flawed heuristics than it is applied reason.