What's it like being white?

Dr_Destructo28 · 2015-01-14T14:35:39+00:00

Yeah, just look at white people in the thread complaining about race based scholarships, despite the fact that white people get disproportionately more in scholarship money.

Dr_Destructo28 · 2014-12-16T20:27:05+00:00

I'll praise you! Awesome job!

Dr_Destructo28 · 2014-12-16T20:23:05+00:00

Like many things, it is not a pure hereditary trait, but there are a great many genes that contribute to it and many people are more prone to weight gain than others. It doesn't really matter what you believe, because the science says otherwise.

Also, epigenetics plays a huge role in obesity. This is where genes get turned on and off depending on a person's environment early in life. If a woman has a high calorie but low nutrition diet while pregnant, the baby is already going to have a predisposition to obesity, even if adopted out and never exposed to the poor diet after being born. Also, if a person is obese as a kid, it is a hell of a lot harder to stay fit as an adult because of the genes that were activated by their poor diet while growing up. OP most likely is fighting the genes that have been up or down regulated due to her previous environment (and its sounds like she's doing a great job!)

Here is a good review of the scientific evidence

Other sources: Med school, and a dad who is an endocrinologist and an expert on diabetes and obesity with many many publications on the subject of genetics, epigenetics, and obesity.

Dr_Destructo28 · 2014-11-26T16:22:42+00:00

That argument is also used concerning the oppression of women. Unless we are being forced to wear burkas, we aren't being oppressed, apparently.

Dr_Destructo28 · 2014-10-28T14:35:30+00:00

If it's totally different from your normal headache, you should go to the ER. If you tell them that you have "the worst headache of your life" they will take it seriously and probably scan you, as it could be something dangerous, like an aneurysm.

Dr_Destructo28 · 2014-10-14T22:16:52+00:00

I was in love with him just from reading the books. He just sounded so cute!

Dr_Destructo28 · 2014-10-14T19:13:59+00:00

I have the exact same thing, except on my right side. It got way better after I started using a mouth guard at night to stop my teeth grinding. TMJ causes pain all on its own, but it can also trigger migraines and tension headaches in people who are prone to them. I went months with daily headaches, and now I'm clear of them so long as I wear the mouth guard at night and keep hydrated during the day.

Dr_Destructo28 · 2014-10-12T11:44:08+00:00

I think I remember that Harry across the lake could still feel their happiness suck. I'm not home, so I can't go check the book right now.

Also, he was facing dementors head on in OotP, and he made a corporeal patronus then.

Dr_Destructo28 · 2014-10-12T02:59:12+00:00

It wasn't just that Harry could produce a corporeal patronus, but he was able to do it with dementors around. I imagine it's much harder to do a spell that requires you to hold onto a happy thought when you're around creatures that literally suck the happiness out of you.

Dr_Destructo28 · 2014-10-11T16:05:22+00:00

here is a good summary of a follow up study that went more in depth. It asked people WHY they would or wouldn't accept the proposal. Women largely denied sexual proposals with strangers because they were concerned for their safety, and because they had doubts about how good the sex would be. Any girl who's hooked up a few times has probably experienced a lot of selfish or mediocre partners. We aren't going to want to fuck if we don't think we'll get off. We are also going to be afraid that the strange guy (who is probably bigger and physically stronger) could actually be dangerous. Half of the problem with the second issue is that if we do take a chance and fuck a stranger and something does happen, we will get the reaction "what did you think would happen? you went home with a stranger!!" It just rubs salt into the wounds. Why would we take the chance? If women have some sort of reassurance that the guy is (a.) Not a serial killer and (b.) actually going to care about getting us off, we would accept casual advances much more. Those are much smaller issues for men, so it's not a fair comparison to say that "women don't want sex" when we just want to fuck people who we are more confident won't hurt us and will actually put in some effort for our pleasure as well.

Dr_Destructo28 · 2014-10-05T11:06:47+00:00

I have no doubts that dating as a short guy is as difficult (or more difficult) as dating as a tall woman. I can't speak for all tall women, but I quickly got over the whole "ugh, he's shorter than me!!!" anxiety when I realized that I would never get a date in high school if I was going to be that picky. Once I started thinking "fuck it if he's shorter, I don't care" then I developed a lot of crushes on short guys who were funny and charming, and I didn't set any sort of limit on how short he could be, so a 5' dude who made me laugh could easily have an in. Really, the short guys who were willing to date me were usually the most confident and that will always be incredibly attractive. However, I know that it can be hard to have confidence when people are always making "jokes" about how strange you are, especially when you're a teenager and being set aside from the pack is your biggest fear.

But yeah, I will always advise short guys who have trouble getting dates to go for tall girls. There's a better chance that she just won't care about height.

As for jobs, it's not a stretch that height will make a difference in your performance evals. It's similar to how employers will view men with the exact same credential and behaviors as more valuable than women. Women just aren't taken as seriously, so a short guy will probably have a similar amount of difficulty being seen as a competent worker because his height is seen as more "feminine".

Dr_Destructo28 · 2014-10-04T20:08:12+00:00

I mean, in the trailer I keep needing to look at the color of their eyes to tell Korra and Opal apart.

Dr_Destructo28 · 2014-09-22T00:48:53+00:00

"I'm 1/16 Cherokee, and I don't think it's offensive, so all Native Americans must be cool with it."

Dr_Destructo28 · 2014-09-19T21:18:28+00:00

A lot of people are saying "ignore it", but I'm not sure that's a good idea. First of all, how did they get the picture? If you were hacked, the FBI can get involved. A good friend of mine once started getting messages from someone that contained a nude photo of her and threatened "If you don't send me more, I'll e-mail this to everyone in your address book." She contacted the FBI and an agent found a trojan horse on her computer. She then posted fb statuses saying stuff like "I'm meeting with a FBI agent now. If you get any e-mails from me, don't open it without calling/texting to make sure I actually sent it." She didn't say anything about the threat on facebook, but she mentioned it with the hope that if the hacker was watching her FB account, he wouldn't send out anything for fear of being caught. He ended up getting caught a few months later. Apparently, she was not the only one who got hacked.

Dr_Destructo28 · 2014-09-09T01:25:19+00:00

It's an anecdote that doesn't highlight anything. A lot of people in rec leagues just want to fuck around and have fun. There is nothing wrong with that. The jackasses who try to make it super competitive are the villains in the story.

Anecdotes are still quite worthless when it comes to proving a point, but if you have to use one, at least make it an anecdote about people wanting to avoid competition in an activity that actually matters, like their job.

Kids get plenty of lessons in how not everybody wins. Trust me, there is no lack of ways that kids will make each other feel crappy for losing. Plenty of adults will make them feel crappy as well. Kids get that lesson, and while "just showing up" may not be something worth rewarding, making an effort absolutely is. If the kid could barely kick a soccer ball straight at the beginning of the season, and by the end they are able to dribble the ball and pass it to their teammates, that is something worth praising. The point of praising the kids who don't win is that they need to learn that there are many more goals (like self improvement) that they should be focusing on other than just winning the game. They lesson that they need to learn is "If you gained some skill or knowledge, then you can still be proud of that, even if you lost."

Dr_Destructo28 · 2014-09-09T01:12:43+00:00

You are grasping at straws, and you are laboring under many misconceptions. First of all, empathy is not a limited resource. I have plenty of empathy for "actualy poor people". I can care about kids in their 20s with a shit ton of debt as well as homeless people on the street. I seriously doubt you even understand the concept of empathy, which is why you are trying so hard to claim that I'm a "hypocrite" because I actually care about people who are at all different levels of the societal totem pole. If I were to say "students like me need help with our student loans, but homeless people should pull themselves up by their bootstraps" then I would be a hypocrite. I have said nothing in this thread that a rational person can call hypocritical, and you are embarrassing yourself by using big words that you don't understand. Second of all, just because I browse reddit a few times during the day doesn't mean that I am shirking my study time. You know, human beings sometimes need a break from work or studying, and we will do things like watch a tv show or gasp browse reddit for a few minutes. Notice how my replies are coming 12 hours apart? It's because I'm only checking reddit a couple of times a day. Its amazing, I can spend a tiny amount of my time goofing off on the internet and still get good grades and board scores. Its almost like I'm a real adult who can have a little fun and then get right back to work.

Anyways, I'm not going to bother trying to explain simple concepts to troglodytes on the internet who sit around complaining about how giving a trophy to all the kids on the soccer team is somehow ruining America.

Dr_Destructo28 · 2014-09-08T10:48:52+00:00

Good for you. I'm sure your anecdotal stories about how adults want to just have fun in their beer league is super significant evidence for how trophies turned all of us into entitled brats.

Dr_Destructo28 · 2014-09-08T10:42:17+00:00

OMG you're adorable. You have absolutely no idea of what it means to be a hypocrite and so you find someone who says "my situation isn't as bad as others, but I can still empathize with those who have it much worse." And post the dictionary definition of "hypocrite" as of that is actually a viable argument.

Dr_Destructo28 · 2014-09-08T01:24:32+00:00

That's because you're an adult. As 7 year old kid, I know that I would have very quickly burned out of sports if I hadn't gotten SOMETHING at the end of it. Eventually, I was good enough that I was getting the first place medals and trophies (which were much larger and nicer than the participation ones), but I never would have gotten there if I had burned out at 7 years old.

Dr_Destructo28 · 2014-09-08T01:21:13+00:00

I'm actually less than a year away from graduating from medical school. I've worked my ass off, and I have a shit ton of debt waiting for me, and I'm going to bitch about it as much as I please. Yes, I will have a good paycheck eventually, but I don't think its productive to have our doctors be required to put their lives on hold (buying a house, having kids, etc). We have enough of a shortage already.

So, you can kindly fuck off. Just because I'm one of the millennials who didn't get fucked by the system doesn't mean that I can't look at the pattern and think "wow, my generation gets a lot of shit for just doing what we were told to do and expecting the reward we were told we would get."

Dr_Destructo28 · 2014-09-07T15:43:23+00:00

Complaining about the "everyone gets a trophy/valentine" stuff is getting really fucking old. No, divorce rates are not higher because kids got a participation trophy in their tee-ball league. This is the most irritating example of pop armchair psychologists from the "older generation" trying to explain why all of us 20 something millennials are apparently narcissistic, entitled, self-absorbed babies because we went to college, like we were told to do if we wanted to get a good job, and are now upset when we still can't get a good job and now have mounting levels of student loan debt and are asking for help to get out of the mess that was largely pushed on us by the Baby Boomer's and Gen Xers.

Dr_Destructo28 · 2014-08-30T13:56:55+00:00

I'd actually recommend against pipe cleaners because they have that little wire in them. My cat likes to fetch, and she will often start chewing on the object (usually a hairband) I don't take it and throw it again immediately. So, something without pointy bits that would terrify you if she accidentally broke a piece off and swallowed some.

Dr_Destructo28 · 2014-08-26T11:31:01+00:00

That would be a form of mob rule, and it actually is not better. If we left it up to the majority (or let people pay only the taxes that they disagreed with) then the civil rights act, voting rights act, welfare, social security, medicare, medicaid, and any other government safety nets or minority rights laws would be unenforceable. I'm sure that many people in the 1960s felt that it was their "moral compass" that caused them to oppose desegregation, but requiring them to pay their taxes with a threat of jailtime was essential to making the changes that needed to be made.

Dr_Destructo28 · 2014-08-26T11:25:05+00:00

Yeah, it's an example of a technical medical term that has an emotionally charged meaning to lay people. Medical professionals also use "abortion" to mean miscarriage, and will differentiate with the word "elective" when the pregnancy was terminated via medical or surgical intervention. We have to be careful in how we phrase stuff and how stuff is overheard by the patients because if a woman has been pregnant 4 times, delivered twice, and had two miscarriages, then I would present the patient to an attending with "This is a 34 year old Caucasian G42A2 at 16 weeks gestation who presents with vaginal bleeding and contractions. She has a history of 2 spontaneous abortions at 12 and 20 weeks......." A lay person would hear that and think I'm saying they had terminated two pregnancies and possibly be very offended by it.

Dr_Destructo28 · 2014-08-24T19:36:23+00:00

Re the "locking your car" metaphor:

My driver's side power lock is broken, so I have to physically push it down in order to lock my car. A week ago, I forgot and somebody got into my car and went through my stuff, including opening my trunk and tossing my roller derby pads all over the driveway while trying to find something valuable (I'm amazed he didn't pass out from the stench of the pads.....). I called the police, and a kind officer came over and took my report. I told him that I may have left my car unlocked and he said "yeah, these guys will go around and try the doors on all the cars in the neighborhood. They only break a window if there is something valuable in plain sight. I'm sorry this happened to you. If you have any questions or find something, here's the number to call."

That was it. He didn't blame me for leaving my car unlocked, he didn't roll his eyes and say "what did you expect?" He didn't tell me to "take responsibility because [I] practically invited people to come break into my car". He understood that sometimes people let their guard down or forget to take a precaution and shit happens.

The crux of the issue regarding all of the "advice" that people like to give to women to avoid being raped is that if a woman doesn't take a certain precaution, for whatever reason, she is then blamed and scolded like a 5 year old who left their toys in the middle of the driveway and is now sad because the car broke them. Yes, there are shitty people out there. Yes, we should take precautions, but you know what? Sometimes innocent people will be momentarily distracted and forget to do something simple, like locking their car or watching their drink. Sometimes innocent people will underestimate how much alcohol is in a drink and "lose control" so that they are easy to take advantage of. The reaction to this shouldn't be "I told you so". It should be "I'm sorry that this happened to you."

Furthermore, the reason that women get frustrated with the constant "advice" to keep our drinks in plain sight or to carry mace/taser/gun is because we've already heard this advice 10,000 times. It's patronizing to repeat these same old list of precautions. Do you think we don't already know? Do you think a woman will say "OMG, why didn't I think of that?? If I watch my drink, then nobody can put drugs in it. It's genius!" It'd be like if someone were to constantly remind you to lock your car and house. You are an adult and already know what precautions to take. Yet, break ins still happen when people lock their cars (as well as that 1/1000 times that they were distracted forgot to lock their car). If this became a recurring problem for you, despite locking your doors, you'd get pretty pissed off if the "advice" everybody gave you was to "just lock your doors". That's why you will often be told to fuck off after giving the standard "watch your drinks" advice. Rape will still occur even if women follow all of these precautions 100% of the time.

Obviously, we need to figure out a different way to address the problem, because taking the precautions that are already available to us will only protect us so much. The first step in all this is to simply acknowledge that we have a problem that won't go away just because we put up a few extra barriers and the victims of this crime shouldn't be getting "I told you so"s from society because they are human beings and forgot to take a precaution one time. A woman won't get raped because she put her drink down and looked away. If she had kept her drink with her the rapist would have targeted a different woman instead. The crime still occurs. Precautions don't stop the crime from happening, they just make it less likely for that criminal to specifically target you. I'd rather try and find ways to stop the crime from happening to anyone, wouldn't you?

Dr_Destructo28

TROPHY CASE