What about masturbation?

 Musings On Present Day  No Responses »
Sep 132012
 

On August 27, 2012, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a revised circumcision policy statement saying:

 Although health benefits are not great enough to recommend routine circumcision for all male newborns, the benefits of circumcision are sufficient to justify access to this procedure for families choosing it … Parents ultimately should decide whether circumcision is in the best interests of their male child.

As summarized at Science Based Medicine, the medical support for circumcision has always been shakey. There appear to be some minor benefits*, and some minor costs and risks, and the two are close enough in the balance scales that pediatric organizations around the world teeter around the “no recommendation” point – some recommending slightly against, some recommending slightly for, many neutral.

Surprisingly (at least to me) it seems that sexual pleasure is not affected one way or another by circumcision. It’s nice to see that’s actually being considered in these studies. But what’s not considered (at least not that I’ve been able to find) is masturbation. It’s easier when you’re uncircumcised. Most circumcised men need to use a lubricant to masturbate, the uncircumcised don’t. Masturbation is great, and simply ignoring this aspect of human life seems to be a major oversight.

Anecdotally, my gf likes that she can grab at me at any time. It’d be a pain in the ass if she always had to get some lube first, and a bit messy. I’d be upset if I ever had to give that up.

 

* to summarize: nearly all the health benefits can be achieved with simple hygiene. And you should be washing your dick anyway if you want other people to play with it. It appears to reduce how frequently you will catch STDs when having unprotected sex, but you’re gonna catch something if you’re having unprotected sex anyway, wtf is wrong with you?

Amateur Boxing

 Musings On Present Day  No Responses »
Sep 062012
 

I come from a family of arguers. We love to sit around and dispute almost any old thing. So Facebook has become my favorite place to hang out, as people are always itchin’ for a fight there. I’ll never reach the level of the late, great Hitchens (who is a hero of mine), but you can still enjoy a pick-up game even if you’re not Michael Jordan.

I don’t get to do it as much as I’d like, because I do my best not to be friends with dickbags. But some of my friends don’t have those same qualms, so I can get into arguments with THEIR friends on THEIR threads. Much fun ensues! Here’s the latest such exchange.

Originating Post:

That we have tasked our government with the responsibility of humane treatment of animals, protecting the purity of our food and water, guaranteeing safe working conditions, protecting the environment, and guaranteeing a safety net for the poor, the sick, and the elderly, is not an infringement on your rights — it is a measure of how compassionate a society we choose to be. If you benefit from living in this country, you should not begrudge the responsibilities that come with it.

Him: Given that over 90% of the taxes are paid by less than 50% of the population, no, all of the above is NOT “a measure of how compassionate a society we choose to be”, it is a measure of willing a majority are to force OTHERS to do the heavy work of their compassion for them. Forcing others to expend their resources on objects of benevolence is *not* compassion, no matter how pretty the words are. 

This is the perfect elaboration of the dictum that Democracy is “two wolves and a lamb, voting on what to have for dinner.”

 

Me: Hi ——. That is a dirty lie, and you should know it. I’m about to gift you the truth, so you have the benefit of the doubt today.That number counts only the Federal Income Tax, which is a minority of the taxes that almost any random taxpayer pays. Unless you are rich, payroll taxes are a greater percentage of your tax burden. From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: ” Tax Policy Center data show that only about 17 percent of households did not pay any federal income tax or payroll tax in 2009, despite the high unemployment and temporary tax cuts that marked that year.[5] In 2007, a more typical year, the figure was 14 percent.”

“Most of the people who pay neither federal income tax nor payroll taxes are low-income people who are elderly, unable to work due to a serious disability, or students, most of whom subsequently become taxpayers.”
“even these figures greatly understate low-income households’ total tax burden because these households also pay substantial state and local taxes. Data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy show that the poorest fifth of households paid a stunning 12.3 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes in 2011″Repeating the 90%/50% figure in the future will mark you a liar, as you now know the facts.You are also slandering the working poor. How much “heavy work” does Mitt Romney or Warren Buffet do? Whereas “61 percent of those that owed no federal income tax in a given year are working households”. Families that often work 2-3 jobs at a time just to pay the bills.Even disregarding this – the Top 1% own 34% of all the nation’s wealth. The bottom 50% own 1.1% of all the nation’s wealth. Given that over 98% of all the wealth is owned by less than 50% of the population, perhaps the taxes they are paying are fairly proportional. And, again, that’s only if you completely ignore the highly regressive payroll taxes, and all state and local taxes.

Him: Eneasz: Screw you. You could provide the correction without the invective. Yes, I was referring to federal taxes, and that is a worthwhile correction.I always, btw, find “payroll taxes” an amusing euphemism, since in other contexts, Lefties like you will hasten to make the point that since people are paying into Social Security what they get out of it, SS is therefore NOT the largest Ponzi scheme in history.

“How much ‘heavy work’ does Mitt Romney or Warren Buffett do?” I honestly have no idea – and neither do you; you simply assume the default class warrior nonsense about the idle rich. The fact is, though, that ROmney earned every penny he has. Again, government largesse is NOT COMPASSION, since it is by and large paid for by other people; you don’t get to feel all compassionate and kind by holding a gun to my head and forcing me to give to the poor; that is far more dshonest than you are accusing ME of being.

Piss off.

Me: Regardless of how the government does its accounting, if you count Social Security as part of what you’re being “forced” to pay for than you have to count how it’s actually paid for. You don’t get to say “look at all these programs we’re being taxed to provide!” and then completely ignore the major mechanism used to fund them.

“you simply assume the default class warrior nonsense about the idle rich” – O’RLY? *I* am the one who introduced the default warrior class narrative? *I* am the one who made claims about the poor who “force OTHERS to do the heavy work […] for them”? Excuse me Mr Kettle, but it seems like you were quite happy to beat up on the defenseless as long as no one was swinging back. As soon as someone points out you’re full of shit it’s all “Oh wah, wah, I can’t take any push-back, you culture warriors are so mean and aggressive!””

The fact is, though, that ROmney earned every penny he has ” – LOL!

“you don’t get to feel all compassionate and kind by holding a gun to my head and forcing me to give to the poor” You have an immensely inflated sense of importance. You can whine about being forced into slavery all day, and people will laugh at you. Or you can put on your big-boy pants and join a conversation about the problems we face as a society, and how to best address those problems with the tools we have. I haven’t complained about people holding a gun to my head and forcing me to kill babies in Iraq since I was in Middle School. You know why? Because I’m not a retard.

Engineering Can Fix Your Problems, But It Isn’t Magic

 Musings On Present Day, Speculations  No Responses »
Aug 142012
 

I stumbled upon an article that described a device you place over your glasses that keeps near objects clear, but blurs your distance vision. Its purpose is to prevent ultra-religious men from seeing a woman and becoming filled with lust.

Lets put aside for a moment the seemingly weird belief that feeling lust is Bad. If one accepts that it is, than this is a clever partial solution that doesn’t intrude on anyone else’s rights. Straight men certainly appreciate the female form, and avoiding it may help with avoiding lust, much like avoiding walking by that delicious-smelling bakery may help with not breaking your diet. Yay Science!

But why did they stop there? Chemical castration has been around for a long while. Like any other tool, it can be used for good or evil. It has been used in the oppression of gays in the past. But I’m glad it is a tool we have available, because sometimes our genes fuck us over. The most horrifying thing I can imagine is being a good person who is stuck with the sexual desires of pedophile. I am grateful I was not dealt that hand, but I thank Man that we’ve created an option for such a person – that if it was me I could have my sex drive removed. Why don’t these men use this tool? If they fear possible permanent damage, couldn’t the ones who’ve fathered all the children they want start a drug regimen? It seems that at least some of them are willing to inconvenience themselves enough to wear blurring glasses – this solution is much more elegant and far less crippling.

An acquaintance who was raised in Orthodox Judaism provided this insight:

they’re supposed to have sex drive…for their wives…when they’re not ‘impure’, that is.

And it dawned on me that I had assumed far too much. They are supposed to be attracted to their wives, but no other women? Do they not realize how humans work?? The characteristics that a man finds attractive in his wife he will  find attractive in other women as well! If he didn’t then he wouldn’t find them attractive in his wife! They don’t even have to be physical characteristics – a man attracted to smart, sarcastic women will find that attractive in any woman.

To remove lust is a problem engineering can help with. But to encourage lust for one person while snuffing it out in all other cases is so far beyond that it’s akin to magic. What kind of deranged memeplex convinces you that you’re a bad person unless you can do magic? No wonder the people harboring them are damaged.

Office Efficiency

 Musings On Present Day  No Responses »
Aug 072012
 

Recently at my work we had an intern. I was tasked with giving her some of my work to keep her busy. In theory, this would reduce my workload as well, since she was doing it. In practice, I had no motivation to make sure she was doing things well. In a month she’ll be gone, and I’ll be doing this myself again, so it doesn’t matter if she does a great job or a crap one, as long as it isn’t too screwed up for me to recover afterward. So I gave her a quick crash course, she spent an hour “being busy”, and afterwards I threw away all her work and redid it the way it should be.

Because it was easier than training her fully, and it doesn’t matter anyway.

I suspect a lot of office work follows this pattern. People do work they don’t need to do simply because it’s easier for a supervisor to let them do it, and it doesn’t matter because there is plenty of surplus labor available at the office. When one of my co-workers moved away a couple months ago she trained me in taking over a few of her duties. After she left the Director above both of us told me to simply not do about 70% of that. It wasn’t used for anything.

This is how we have “jobless recoveries”. When there is a recession and a corporation doesn’t have excess income to pass around they can drop 20% of their work force and not lose any productivity, because 20% of the work was useless anyway. There is no need to rehire those employees after the recovery.

On the one hand, this is pretty horrifying to my capitalistic side. This is NOT how capitalism is supposed to work dammit! It’s supposed to be lean and mean, where waste is rewarded with bankruptcy! On the other hand, it’s kinda comforting for my socialistic side. These corporations are miniature welfare states, helping the public by providing unnecessary jobs for the unemployed out of their excess profits. They only shed these welfare jobs when forced to by a tightening market. Yes – they’re doing so unwittingly, and only because of human laziness. And it is ultimately inefficient and detrimental to economic growth. But it’s still kinda cute.

Celebrating the Tragic

 Musings On Present Day  No Responses »
Jul 312012
 

It sucks being retarded.

That should go without saying, and yet I feel incredibly nervous saying it.

Last week at our book club we read the Hugo-nominated short stories, which included “Movement”. It asks the question – if we can cure a certain type of mental handicap, should we do so?

I feel the answer is very obvious. I’m saddened that many people disagree. In this case, one of the attendees was a teacher of special-needs children, and made an impassioned speech about how great these children are. I have no doubt they are great children. I recognize that sometimes terrible things happen and we, as a society, refuse to be heartless bastards and leave the helpless to die. This is part of what makes us great! We work together and help the vulnerable.

But this is sci-fi, it asks “what if”. And this story asks if (IF!!) we should cure such people, given that a partial cure was available. The character in the story (Hannah) cannot support herself. She lives entirely on the charity of others. If not for them, she would likely soon die of starvation, exposure, or predation. Her desire to continue living this lifestyle cannot be given priority over those of her care-givers. She is incompetent to make such a decision. It is obvious what the best course of action is, and yet the story attempts to portray this in a negative light. To live as an infant is not a beautiful thing – it is a tragic waste of a life.

There is too much exultation of that damaged state. Praise that these are the happiest children, and bring a great deal of joy to their parents. In our book club, the teacher claimed that no parent of any of her kids would want for their child to be cured if such a thing was possible. It is eerily similar to the way most people praise death, and those who embrace it. There seem to be a certain percentage of the population that simply can’t say that some things are unfortunate but must be dealt with while we attempt to solve them, realizing that many lives will be wasted before a solution is found. I think this is part of the reason that anti-aging research gets so little attention. Too much veneration of the unavoidable bad.

No one would intentionally make their child retarded. So why claim that these are such wonderful things? If you wouldn’t intentionally cripple someone to gain these benefits, why would you prevent someone from being cured?

This veneration has practical consequences now, before a cure is even on the horizon. In this otherwise excellent post Melissa states:

when a special needs person becomes an adult in Canada, they are eligible for a personal care assistant covered by the government. We saw far more developmentally or physically disabled persons out and about in Canada, than I ever see here in the USA. They would be getting their groceries at the store, doing their business at the bank, and even working job, all with their personal care assistant alongside them, encouraging them and helping them when they needed it. When my sister came up to visit, she even commented on how visible special needs people were when the lady smiling and waving while clearing tables at the Taco Bell with her caregiver clearly had Downs Syndrome.

This seems to me to be clearly excessive. I haven’t read about this practice, but if this is true, aren’t there more efficient ways to deal with the mentally handicapped than personal assistants? How much is society investing into that Taco Bell job? How many people are being diverted from more productive careers into this care-giving role? Melissa speaks positively about this program, and that it reduces abortion by encouraging mothers with Down’s Syndrome fetuses to carry to term. That is horrible! Stopping that sort of pregnancy is part of why we have prenatal testing in the first place! For it not to be taken advantage of is a travesty!

This celebration of tragedy is pervasive. A coworker once remarked that Schindler’s List reaffirmed his belief in a god. To emphasize: a story about the most publicized and reviled genocide in recent history makes him feel there is a benevolent father watching over us. The worship of a few good points in an unmitigated disaster blows my mind.

Mayors against Bigotry!

 Musings On Present Day  No Responses »
Jul 272012
 

The Mayor of Boston wrote a letter to Chik-Fil-A stating “There’s no place for discrimination on Boston’s Freedom Trail and no place for your company alongside it.” Full Size Image Here.

I thought about this myself a bit. I’m an atheist, and it’s actually still very common for political officials to say things like “we don’t want any stinking atheist businesses in this town” or something similar. It’s been a couple decades now, but I recall when Bush Sr said he didn’t think atheists should be considered American citizens.

I still think mayor Menino did a good thing. For exactly the same reason I think Bush Sr did a bad thing. Bush perpetuated bigotry. Menino is fighting against it. Fighting against bigotry is a GOOD THING. Anyone who does so gets my support. Anyone who attacks someone who is fighting against bigotry gets only my contempt (or, at the least, my disapproval, if that person is a well-meaning but confused friend).

Is the government suddenly not allowed to stop bad things for some reason?

Free speech isn’t being attacked. He isn’t putting anyone in jail, giving any fines, or refusing any permits, no rights have been violated. He’s primarily rallying the power of public opinion. Which is a GOOD use of power in the pursuit of a GOOD goal. Major kudos to him.

 

Apparently at first he did say he’d use his power to stop Chik-Fil-A from receiving permits.  I’m glad he backed away from that route, as that would be abuse and illegal. His public letter is fine, and awesome.

Tosh.0 Rape Jokes

 Musings On Present Day  1 Response »
Jul 152012
 

Presumably you’ve heard all about Daniel Tosh’s recent hilarious take on rape. A woman in the audience yelled out that rape jokes aren’t funny and…

From Cookies For Breakfast:

After I called out to him, Tosh paused for a moment. Then, he says, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…” and I, completely stunned and finding it hard to process what was happening but knowing i needed to get out of there, immediately nudged my friend, who was also completely stunned, and we high-tailed it out of there. It was humiliating, of course, especially as the audience guffawed in response to Tosh, their eyes following us as we made our way out of there. I didn’t hear the rest of what he said about me.

A good comedian can joke about anything. But the thing is,  you have to be an actual good comedian. Comedian is a noble profession. The comedian can/should use his power to challenge the powerful and the oppressor, and/or help the powerless get through another shitty day. The Jester mocks the king. A comedian who abuses his power is like a police officer who abuses his. They’re entrusted with the power to help the powerless, and it’s a gross violation when they turn around and use that power to prey on the weak.

Done right, you have Jeff Foxworthy helping his fellow rednecks laugh at their plight in life and keep on plugging. Done wrong, you’re Michael Richards. Or Tosh.

 

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