All Or Nothing Paradoxes.

[OldBroad44]

What I actually said was that I personally have changed the way I interact with people over the years, to try and avoid needlessly offending others. I misunderstood your tone and intent, and was trying to explain why.

I'm trying to be nice. Im sure you're a nice person. I just thought you might want to know if you come across wrong and are misunderstood sometimes. I guess not.

The anonymity integral to a forum like this has the disadvantage that it removes context. I write books and am invited to give speeches on the stuff I was talking about in this thread--organic ag, related biochemistry and nutritional implications, etc. And have a PhD in molecular bio/genetics from Harvard. And have been working in the field of organic agriculture for 25 years. If I come across sounding like I think I'm an expert in that area it's because I do think I'm an expert in that area. And so do the people who buy my books and invite me as speaker to the major relevant conferences. I mentioned in the first paragraph of my participation in this thread that I work in this field. Its unlikely anyone on this forum knows more about this field than I do. When it comes to guns or shooting I'm not an expert at all. I know a fair amount about a handful of revolvers, but even on that there are hundreds here who know more.

There are lots of people with serious expertise on this forum. When I didn't understand how trucking at ports worked and affected the disruption of supply chains, there were guys on this forum who actually worked as truckers who weighed in and explained. They came across sounding like experts, presumably because they were. No one took offense.

As for not knowing how I come across.... I'm 78. The first time I heard a woman scientist give a seminar or teach a college class it was I. I and every other smart educated woman of my era got told repeatedly to pretend to be less intelligent and less knowledgeable than we were so men would like us. Nothing new. I would have been unable to make the contributions to my field I have made had I played that game.

 

[Koda]

Virtual forum social media discussions bring the world together to give everyone a voice and see others opinions. They also are void of expression and context can be difficult to present.

Its like a paradox.

 

[Bacchus]

Just the other day I saw a GMO free label on a salt can.

Probably gluten-free, also!

 

[OldBroad44]

I have a very short ignore list, and it's reserved for jerks and trolls, and you are absolutely neither in any way. I've read a lot of your posts over the years, and you contribute a lot to this place.

We got off on the wrong foot here. I'm on edge and over-the-top stressed for personal reasons right now and misunderstood your tone. I apologized and tried to explain. My explanation was poorly done, so for that I also apologize.

Thanks, @CLT65 . You're actually on my short list of people whose posts I go out of my way to read. And I don't intend to change that. Sorry you are going through some high stress times.

The issue of myself in particular or women or people in general being advised to shut up and pretend to know less than they do to get get accepted isn't one that puts me at my best. Its a sore point. First time for me was right after I learned to read in first grade, had fought my way into the adult section of the local library, and was excitedly telling my mother about stuff in the popular science books I was reading. Oh well. Most memorable was when the undergrad dean at University of Florida put a lock on my registration so I couldn't register without coming to see him. I was a sophomore and had a 4.0 at the time, so it was unexpected. He was technically in the Zoology department and I attended the grad and faculty seminars and participated. Which drew his attention and wrath. He started by saying he had seen me in those seminars and "It's obvious you're brilliant, but nobody is ever going to give you a job in science. Don't you think you should change to a more realistic major?" Then there was a dead silence for about three minutes while he tried to intimidate me into dropping out of bio, the field in which I had set the curve in every course I had taken. Or any other science. When that didn't work he said "I've decided to take a personal interest in your education," and started going through my file. And got very angry because I had skipped all the beginning courses in everything, taken plant physiology without the botany prerec. Physical anthropology without the beginning anthro prerec, etc. (All that reading on my own starting from first grade made the beginning courses unuseful.) Then there was the fact that I had already taken Senior Research in Zoology twice and was just a sophomore. I said my adviser had signed off on all this stuff and I hadn't broken any rules. His response -- "There would have been rules against this stuff if anyone else had ever thought if it!" Then he asked who my advisor was. I could tell he was intending to get all the credits on the courses I had taken without prerequisites cancelled. But my advisor was someone he clearly didn't dare cross. And the Zoo faculty all knew me and would have been outraged if they knew he tried to force me out of zoology.

To get anywhere as a scientist you need to both be expert at something and sound like it. This is especially hard on women because sounding authoritative is considered unfeminine. And plenty of men and women resent women sounding authoritative. However, if you dont sound authoritative nobody hires you or listens to you. And if your writing doesn't sound authoritative publishers won't publish your book and readers won't read it. Basically, you can be less outspoken so you better fit conventions for female behavior or you can succeed as a scientist and make a contribution to your field. But not both.

The thing I could change that would please more people here than anything else is to do shorter posts. However, its the long thorough posts of other people I enjoy the most. I would get no satisfaction writing posts that I myself wouldn't enjoy reading. I figure people can always skip what doesn't interest them. Or just put me on Ignore entirely. But those who might have liked my long thorough posts can't read them if I don't write them .

 

[OldBroad44]

This article from a likely hard-core vegan came up in my Google search feed yesterday. Essentially the author is shaming pescatarians for eating fish and not going all in with vegan or vegetarian diet.

Eat Fish But Not Meat? You're Probably Suffering From The Pescatarian's Paradox

There's some pretty fishy logic going on here.

www.iflscience.com

Anybody here share this strict view on other products that you use or consume?

Examples:

You buy "Made In The USA" only products and will never buy a foreign made product.

Or

You only buy organic labeled foods and will never buy anything that isn't organic labeled.

I'm mostly not an all-or-nothing gal. With respect to food, I have celiac disease, and needing to avoid gluten complicates getting affordable food enough so that I feel no drive to make up arbitrary additional rules that aren't medically necessary for me.

I strongly believe in organic agriculture but buy a good bit of conventionally grown food where organic is priced too high for me or the quality isn't optimal or the best flavor is from a non organic producer.

I buy the occasional Safeway rotisserie chicken even though I disapprove of how commercial chickens are raised . Lazy.

I bias my buying towards buying American. Or North American. I think we need to bring more production home, and especially get out of being dependent for essentials on countries that hate us. However if something from elsewhere looks better than any of the American made options I buy it.

There are things about Amazon that bother me. But I buy huge amounts of stuff from Amazon anyway. It's too convenient for me to avoid.

However, I buy no food from China voluntarily. Bought a 12-pack of canned smoked oysters recently. Amazon listing did not reveal it was from China. Tasted like farmed oysters grown in crap-polluted water and probably was. Undoubtedly full of antibiotics too to keep overly crowded farmed oysters from dying. Threw them away. I don't usually throw food away.

I think some people make a religion out of some of the food stuff. One vegetarian I know said all life was sacred and he advocated chopping the tops off carrots and replanting them so as to not kill even plants. I crudely pointed out that it undoubtedly sets the carrot top back so much that most tops with the root removed probably don't survive the winter. And only some varieties over winter here even when grown optimally for it and not stripped of their roots. And each corn kernel and bean seed contains an entire plant. No way to eat those without killing them.

 

[JRuby]

I'm mostly not an all-or-nothing gal. With respect to food, I have celiac disease, and needing to avoid gluten complicates getting affordable food enough so that I feel no drive to make up arbitrary additional rules that aren't medically necessary for me.

I strongly believe in organic agriculture but buy a good bit of conventionally grown food where organic is priced too high for me or the quality isn't optimal or the best flavor is from a non organic producer.

I buy the occasional Safeway rotisserie chicken even though I disapprove of how commercial chickens are raised . Lazy.

I bias my buying towards buying American. Or North American. I think we need to bring more production home, and especially get out of being dependent for essentials on countries that hate us. However if something from elsewhere looks better than any of the American made options I buy it.

There are things about Amazon that bother me. But I buy huge amounts of stuff from Amazon anyway. It's too convenient for me to avoid.

However, I buy no food from China voluntarily. Bought a 12-pack of canned smoked oysters recently. Amazon listing did not reveal it was from China. Tasted like farmed oysters grown in crap-polluted water and probably was. Undoubtedly full of antibiotics too to keep overly crowded farmed oysters from dying. Threw them away. I don't usually throw food away.

I think some people make a religion out of some of the food stuff. One vegetarian I know said all life was sacred and he advocated chopping the tops off carrots and replanting them so as to not kill even plants. I crudely pointed out that it undoubtedly sets the carrot top back so much that most tops with the root removed probably don't survive the winter. And only some varieties over winter here even when grown optimally for it and not stripped of their roots. And each corn kernel and bean seed contains an entire plant. No way to eat those without killing them.

My wife is a severe celiac. Her even coming into cross contamination is almost worst than conventional food poisoning. It's a life or death situation not a I feel like I want to go glutten free thing
I feel for you and other celiacs.

 

[Provincial]

Virtual forum social media discussions bring the world together to give everyone a voice and see others opinions. They also are void of expression and context can be difficult to present.

Its like a paradox.

Fortunately, not an all or nothing paradox! Civility should not be all or nothing.

 

[Flopsweat]

Fortunately, not an all or nothing paradox! Civility should not be all or nothing.

Usually...

 

[OldBroad44]

My wife is a severe celiac. Her even coming into cross contamination is almost worst than conventional food poisoning. It's a life or death situation not a I feel like I want to go glutten free thing
I feel for you and other celiacs.

Thanks. Yeah. It can be rough at first. Fortunately there are many traditional delicious cuisines from places where something other than wheat was the traditional staple. And these days USA labeling laws require listing the primary allergens on the can or package. That's a big help.

 

[CLT65]

One huge benefit of the gluten-free craze has been more options for those with Celiac. My dad suffered from it for decades, though it wasn't quite as severe for him. My mom got really good at gluten-free cooking.

 

[OldBroad44]

One huge benefit of the gluten-free craze has been more options for those with Celiac. My dad suffered from it for decades, though it wasn't quite as severe for him. My mom got really good at gluten-free cooking.

Right. And the internet helps a lot too. In addition, there are more restaurants that have multiple gluten free options and mark them on the menu so I don't need to play 20 questions before ordering. Used to be, many restaurants would have absolutely nothing I could order because of obviously containing wheat or having sauces whose ingredients they couldn't identify.

 

[OldBroad44]

Fortunately, not an all or nothing paradox! Civility should not be all or nothing.

I try to be civil all the time. Have never in my life even flipped anyone off, for example. However on NWFA sometimes people misunderstand me. And sometimes I misunderstand other people. And people can have a bad day or feel poked on a sore spot. So sometimes the occasional kerfluffle happens. It doesn't cause the heat death of the universe. I'm pretty forgiving. With a little luck the other guy is too. @CLT65 and I seem to be interacting cheerfully again so we both apparently are.

 

[Provincial]

And civility wins again!

 

[CLT65]

Thanks, @CLT65 . You're actually on my short list of people whose posts I go out of my way to read. And I don't intend to change that. Sorry you are going through some high stress times.

The issue of myself in particular or women or people in general being advised to shut up and pretend to know less than they do to get get accepted isn't one that puts me at my best. Its a sore point. First time for me was right after I learned to read in first grade, had fought my way into the adult section of the local library, and was excitedly telling my mother about stuff in the popular science books I was reading. Oh well. Most memorable was when the undergrad dean at University of Florida put a lock on my registration so I couldn't register without coming to see him. I was a sophomore and had a 4.0 at the time, so it was unexpected. He was technically in the Zoology department and I attended the grad and faculty seminars and participated. Which drew his attention and wrath. He started by saying he had seen me in those seminars and "It's obvious you're brilliant, but nobody is ever going to give you a job in science. Don't you think you should change to a more realistic major?" Then there was a dead silence for about three minutes while he tried to intimidate me into dropping out of bio, the field in which I had set the curve in every course I had taken. Or any other science. When that didn't work he said "I've decided to take a personal interest in your education," and started going through my file. And got very upset because I had skipped all the beginning courses in everything, taken plant physiology without the botany prerec. Physical anthropology without the beginning anthro prerec, etc. (All that reading on my own starting from first grade made the beginning courses unuseful.) Then there was the fact that I had already taken Senior Research in Zoology twice and was just a sophomore. I said my adviser had signed off on all this stuff and I hadn't broken any rules. His response -- "There would have been rules against this stuff if anyone else had ever thought if it!" Then he asked who my advisor was. I could tell he was intending to get all the credits on the courses I had taken without prerequisites cancelled. But my advisor was someone he clearly didn't dare cross. And the Zoo faculty all knew me and would have been outraged if they knew he tried to force me out of zoology.

To get anywhere as a scientist you need to both be expert at something and sound like it. This is especially hard on women because sounding authoritative is considered unfeminine. And plenty of men and women resent women sounding authoritative. However, if you dont sound authoritative nobody hires you or listens to you. And if your writing doesn't sound authoritative publishers won't publish your book and readers won't read it. Basically, you can be more outspoken than plenty of people prefer or you can succeed as a scientist and make a contribution to your field. But not both.

The thing I could change that would please more people here than anything else is to do shorter posts. However, its the long thorough posts of other people I enjoy the most. I would get no satisfaction writing posts that I myself wouldn't enjoy reading. I figure people can always skip what doesn't interest them. Or just put me on Ignore entirely. But those who might have liked my long thorough posts can't read them if I don't write them .

I'm beginning to understand. It sounds like you've done a lot in your life and have a lot to genuinely be proud of. I certainly didn't mean to imply that you shouldn't talk about what you know. Sometimes it's hard to tell why someone talks at length about their area of expertise; I've seen people who will show off, use their superior knowledge as a weapon to beat someone else down. I can see clearly now that that is not you in any way at all. I think it's great to see women in science and tech.

I've become a bit of a feminist to some degree as I've gotten older. I have two daughters, and we've told them from the start that they can do anything they set their mind to; never let anyone tell you that you can't. My older daughter was the first female Eagle Scout in our county. She's scary smart. She tried a couple terms at the local community college but lost interest and had some time management trouble. I was concerned because I know she could easily get top grades if she wanted to. She's very independent and just wanted to go her own way, so she got a job as a pharmacy tech, and is working on getting her state certification. She's a walking pharmacy encyclopedia. She's fascinated with all the details and is doing great. She's also found that she likes mechanical work. She helped me work on her car a few months ago and poured herself into learning about that. I came home from work the other day to find her finishing up putting the intake manifold and throttle body back on after replacing the coil and fuel injectors! She makes her father proud!

Her little sister is only eleven, but aspires to be an Eagle Scout like big sister, and works hard at martial arts; she really wants to be a black belt. She's really sharp too, gets good grades. I'm proud of my girls.

 

[pharmseller]

Hmm... I just went to Bi-Mart's online site and found this:

Online Firearm Purchase Requirements

deals.bimart.com

It indicates you must be 18 to purchase long guns and 21 for handguns in Oregon.

Bi Mart changed their rules in 2018.

More gun retailers raising the age of firearm sales to 21 years old

From Fred Meyer to Oregon-based Bi-Mart, the list of firearm retailers raising the minimum age for gun sales to 21 continues to rise.

www.statesmanjournal.com

They got sued and forced to follow the law.

OR court rules it's illegal to deny gun sales to people 18 and 20

The case involves a Florence Bi-Mart refusing to sell an 18-year-old a hunting rifle in 2018.

www.registerguard.com

I tossed my membership card in 2018.




P

 

[Bobbygun]

I tossed my membership card in 2018.

Now THAT is some serious "All or nothing"!

I don't blame you. But if I'm being unforgiving for past sins, I couldn't buy a Smith and Wesson (Hillary hole and bargaining with the Clintons) or Ruger (Old Bill wasn't exactly a 2A proponent). True confession though - my feelings toward Dick's Sporting Goods are similar to yours toward Bi-Mart. I will not set foot in that place. I suppose for me the difference is that I never was a Dick's fan, while Bi-Mart was my "go-to" store for a lot of years. I do remember being unhappy with them at the time they announced the "no sales to 18-year-olds" policy. But time heals (most - not all) wounds.

 

[OldBroad44]

Wow @CLT! Sounds like you're doing a great job raising your daughters.

I wouldn't worry about your oldest daughter not taking to community college. For starters, not everyone takes to the standard academic trip, not even some geniuses. Einstein was working in a patent office because no school or college in Germany would hire him. Second-- the lower the standing of the school the more rigid it tends to be and the more hostile toward students that are unusually bright or high performing or original. Community colleges on average are at the bottom of the heap. 3. My observation is that the faculty in any given department most appreciate students with an IQ about the same as the average of the faculty. They will severely punish or flunk out students very much brighter or less bright than that. Case in point--that undergrad dean who tried to force me to drop out of science for the sin of excelling while female. I applied only to very elite schools for grad schools partly because I thought I would thrive at Harvard or its peers but might actually flunk out if I tried to go to grad school at University of Florida. I survived there as an undergrad only by skipping beginning courses and deliberately seeking out all the most challenging courses. And by getting lab jobs to support mysekf. And because I had some special mentors there who lavished time on me. Had I ever tried community college I might have dropped out too. 4. Community colleges are taught by faculty who are not themselves doing research. So classes tend to be very textbook based. I've never met a science textbook I thought was remotely interesting. And I had voluntarily read thousands of popular science books on my own--all the 500s in six different libraries in six different states before entering college.

Once when I was a grad student at Harvard my major prof came to the group's tea time having just come from a 5-bio-faculty committee meeting to determine the undergrad required courses for the bio major. And they had happened to notice that none of them had taken a single course in the field they now worked in or taught. Why? So R passed along their speculations. I disagreed, and suggested that the reason was the major impact of most courses on nearly all students was to kill all interest in the subject deader than a door nail forever. And nearly all courses use textbooks, which are amazing for being able to make even the most interesting subject boring.

The pharmacy tec job sounds pretty practical. Most 4-year biology degrees don't get you a job. It usually takes an MS or PhD to get a job that's much better than you can get with no degree. In addition, I dont consider it sane to go to college and start your adult life tens of thousands in debt. I could work my way through UF when I went. Almost impossible these days. In addition the Woke mind virus has penetrated bio departments in most universities. Faculty are being hired for DEI reasons instead of excellence, and are being required to proclaim stuff they know is contrary to biological fact. I've lost faith in the universities, including Harvard. We may have to abandon them all and start something else . In many subjects people can learn it via books and internet. In science you can learn the facts from books, journals, and internet. But science is still an apprenticeship system. You learn a lot directly from working scientist mentors.

 

[Kcee]

At my winter place on the Yucatan, I had a friend who was a breatharian. He did a 40 day fast, and didn't drink anything for the first 10 days, although he did swim in the Caribbean everyday, so I'm sure he must have absorbed or swallowed some sea water.

He was very upset that he lost weight, because if breatharianism really worked, he wouldn't have lost any weight.

He believed the reason he lost weight was that nobody else believed in breatharianism. He believed that if everyone believed the same thing, it would come true.

He died a few years later of dehydration.

 

[pharmseller]

He died a few years later of dehydration.

I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you!




P

 

[pharmseller]

Now THAT is some serious "All or nothing"!

I don't blame you. But if I'm being unforgiving for past sins, I couldn't buy a Smith and Wesson (Hillary hole and bargaining with the Clintons) or Ruger (Old Bill wasn't exactly a 2A proponent). True confession though - my feelings toward Dick's Sporting Goods are similar to yours toward Bi-Mart. I will not set foot in that place. I suppose for me the difference is that I never was a Dick's fan, while Bi-Mart was my "go-to" store for a lot of years. I do remember being unhappy with them at the time they announced the "no sales to 18-year-olds" policy. But time heals (most - not all) wounds.

I felt betrayed by Bi Mart. Employee owned, local (Oregon, Washington, Montana), grew up shopping there. They didn't feel like an impersonal multi-national company, more like the corner mom-and-pop store. So when they virtue signaled and compromised 2A rights it felt personal.

So, nope to healing.




P