"Involuntarily Childless" is a term I'd apply to people who can't have children for medical reasons and not people who arranged their lives such that they were unlikely to have children.
Readit Newsgozur88 commented on 'The desire to have a child never goes away': The Involuntarily Childless theguardian.com/lifeandst... · Posted by u/simonsarris
How does this ideological drive improve your welfare or happiness?
Is that ideological or biological?
gozur88 commented on Inmates can no longer receive book donations. They have to buy them wnyc.org/story/ny-inmates... · Posted by u/wowsig
Is that because its not as bad as its made out to be?
I think it's because they know what to expect, so there's less fear of the unknown. They already know what to look out for, and they already know people inside.
Plus, life for an ex-con is pretty hard on the outside.
gozur88 commented on Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank lowtechmagazine.com/2010/... · Posted by u/aphextron
Nice thing about wood power is that as long as you have a sustainable source of wood, you're 100% solar-powered and carbon neutral. That is to say, it's a source of energy that is (can be) non-fossil, nor derived from any fossil sources, and which recycles it's own CO2 emissions.
There are very few other alternatives that can claim the same. Perhaps Hydro? Solar panels don't offset their construction CO2 costs, and in fact almost can't even pay back their own construction energy costs if you factor in batteries plus materials, mining, and shipping.
>Nice thing about wood power is that as long as you have a sustainable source of wood, you're 100% solar-powered and carbon neutral. That is to say, it's a source of energy that is (can be) non-fossil, nor derived from any fossil sources, and which recycles it's own CO2 emissions.
As long as you're happy pouring carcinogens into the air, sure. Also, compared to oil or coal there's not much energy in wood, so it doesn't scale very well.
> How long do you get to keep your job in academia if you point out the primary drivers of black misery in the US (out of wedlock births, drugs, and violence) are self inflicted?
It's almost as if the sins of the past affects the lives of people in the present somehow.
It's almost as if people like to use the sins of others long dead to excuse their own shortcomings.
In any event, if free will isn't a thing, there's no point in trying to make the world a better place, right, so we should just leave things as they are?
gozur88 commented on Poverty, segregation persist in U.S. schools, report says pbs.org/newshour/educatio... · Posted by u/mtberatwork
Your conclusion isn't supported by your own data.
The "flip" doesn't occur around 1980, it occurs in the 1970's (feel free to download the excel sheet and examine it yourself, as I did) and it's a trend that follows ALL races, yet the crack era was largely an African-American epidemic.
There was, however, a major social movement in the 60's that encouraged free love, sexual liberation, women's rights, and an explosion of contraceptives. I think this is a stronger explanatory argument, one also made by the Brookings Institution:
https://www.brookings.edu/research/an-analysis-of-out-of-wed...
AFDC and other Great Society programs are better candidates for a culprit if you're looking for a reason for increased out-of-wedlock births based on the timing.
When you set up incentives such that a woman loses money by marrying a guy with a small or nonexistent income, you're going to see fewer marriages in the lowest income bracket. It's rational in the short term, but the long term effects are corrosive.
gozur88 commented on Inmates can no longer receive book donations. They have to buy them wnyc.org/story/ny-inmates... · Posted by u/wowsig
What is the purpose of prisons?
If it is penitence and rehabilitation, this makes no sense.
If it simply to incarcerate people for a while to make their lives difficult and make them not want to reoffend, this makes the wardens’ and guards’ life more difficult.
I suppose if the objective is to demonstrate righteous wrath and judgement then this is a good idea. However such demonstration is not likely to make society safer.
>If it simply to incarcerate people for a while to make their lives difficult and make them not want to reoffend...
One thing I've noticed about ex-cons I've actually come in contact with is the people who are least afraid of going to prison are the people who've been there.
gozur88 commented on Inmates can no longer receive book donations. They have to buy them wnyc.org/story/ny-inmates... · Posted by u/wowsig
I thought the same until I saw that this is being done by the state. Perhaps it is simply laziness. It's far easier to have a whitelist than a blacklist.
Laziness and CYA. Nobody wants to be the guy who didn't realize there was a useful section for making weapons, poisons, weakening bars, etc in a book he green-lighted.
> a politically convenient assumption
The centuries-long existence of slavery, segregation (which was brutal oppression, including lynching), and racism isn't an "assumption", but indisputable fact. Occam's Razor is not a real arbiter of truth, but in this case it cuts the other way: Racism is the simpler and blazingly obvious explanation, backed by endless reearch and even the most casual observation. You really have to work to contrive explanations that don't include systemic and structural racism.
> poverty
Another outcome of those centuries.
>Racism is the simpler and blazingly obvious explanation, backed by endless reearch and even the most casual observation.
Things that are wrong can be obvious to individuals and groups of people. It's certainly not obvious to half the country, and that "endless research" is tainted. How long do you get to keep your job in academia if you point out the primary drivers of black misery in the US (out of wedlock births, drugs, and violence) are self inflicted?
Your assumption seemed to be that genetics didn't tie to ethnicity, which it is hence I restated it.
I don't know why you would have thought that. Is it not obvious the physical aspects of what we call "race" are a collection of genetic expressions?
When you say "your assumption seemed to be" aren't you really talking about your own assumptions about what I'm thinking (but didn't write)?