Almost every hand you’ve shaken has touched a penis.
All posts by Keith
Ten Commandments for Atheists
I came across this the other day. It’s a few years old but still a worthwhile humanist take on the dreary Christian meme.
These are the ten winning beliefs of the Rethink Prize, a crowdsourcing competition to rethink the Ten Commandments. The contest drew more than 2,800 submissions from across the globe with the winners being selected by a panel of judges.
- Be open-minded and be willing to alter your beliefs with new evidence.
- Strive to understand what is most likely to be true, not to believe what you wish to be true.
- The scientific method is the most reliable way of understanding the natural world.
- Every person has the right to control of their body.
- God is not necessary to be a good person or to live a full and meaningful life.
- Be mindful of the consequences of all your actions and recognize that you must take responsibility for them.
- Treat others as you would want them to treat you, and can reasonably expect them to want to be treated. Think about their perspective.
- We have the responsibility to consider others, including future generations.
- There is no one right way to live.
- Leave the world a better place than you found it.
Teenagers and Sex
Three (I think) important articles recently about teenagers and sex. As usual we bring you key quotes, although I would recommend reading the articles themselves (none is long).
The first article reports on Labour MP Jess Phillips’ contention that the discussion of female pleasure is essential to redress the gender power imbalance.
Teach schoolgirls about orgasms (Guardian; 8 November 2018)
Schoolgirls should be taught about orgasms in sex education lesson … girls should be taught about sex from a young age in order to form healthy sexual relationships when they become adults.
[It is] vital to discuss female pleasure in order to “break down the culture of power imbalance between men and women” …
“I’m not suggesting we teach children how to masturbate, I’m suggesting we talk to them about the things they’re doing anyway.”
Women’s expectations “should be greater” and they should “start demanding more” during sex.
“I’ve made a career out of being able to talk about difficult things, and that comes from growing up in an environment where nothing was embarrassing.”
Phillips is campaigning for sex education in [all] secondary schools to be compulsory by 2020 … [E]ducating children about healthy relationships and their anatomy will reduce the risk of violence against women: “To liberate women and end violence is to break down the culture of power imbalance. Let’s stop people feeling ashamed.”
The second article is by Jess Phillips herself.
Yes, yes, yes: why female pleasure must be at the heart of sex education (Guardian; 13 November 2018)
By the time they started talking to us about [sex] at secondary school, I think in the third year (year 9), most of the girls in my class had had their first sexual encounters … The teachers were clearly counting on us not having had intercourse (although some of us had) because our sex education was about Aids … and babies. It was essentially a lesson in contraception.
Sex and relationships were never discussed in our contraceptive education. It was all about the dangers of a man climaxing … We were shown how to handle and dispose of men’s pleasure safely.
[T]he average member of the British public thinks men need sex more than women … This is a cultural norm we have all accepted and it seeps into how we live our lives and teach our children. Men don’t need sex any more than women, they just enjoy it more because it has a guaranteed payoff.
“Just say no” doesn’t work, so perhaps we need to try teaching young people about why they might want to say “yes”. What does good, healthy and happy sex look like, for example?
Girls masturbate, girls know all about what they like and want. They also know what boys like and want. Boys only know the latter. Girls and boys spend at least the first 10 years of their sex lives focusing exclusively on what boys want … Would it hurt to talk to both boys and girls about how sex should be for both parties? Giving girls a bit of hope that shagging won’t just lead to them dripping in breast milk or being a witness in a trial.
I don’t want young girls growing up thinking that sex is just something that happens to us. I want boys and girls to know that it should be about both people not just agreeing, but also enjoying it.
The third article is from a young Nigerian, Jennifer Amadi, who lost a close friend to a DIY abortion because everyone had been too scared to talk to teenagers about sex.
The world must not be too scared to talk about teenagers having sex (Guardian; 9 November 2018)
[T]the world is too scared to talk about teenagers having sex. And young people are losing their lives and livelihoods as a result.
I see these attitudes everywhere, from Nigeria to the UK. Parents who are too uncomfortable to have “the talk” with their kids, nurses who deny young girls contraceptives because they think they’re “too young to have sex”, education ministers who believe the best policy for addressing teenage pregnancies is a sound beating paired with expulsion rather than comprehensive sex education classes.
[P]oliticians … worry that supporting programmes that increase youth access to contraception will cost them their jobs … fearful leaders … earmark foreign aid for politically safe initiatives like abstinence-based sex-ed or programmes that only provide birth control to married women.
There are 1.2 billion people in the world between the ages of 10 to 19 and most live in developing countries …
[W]here the world fails to deliver for its young people … teenagers continue to have unintended pregnancies. Millions of girls experience health issues stemming from pregnancy and childbirth their bodies aren’t ready for, and efforts to improve gender equality are upended as teenage mothers are forced to drop out of school and face lifelong economic insecurity … this has the potential to put the economic and social progress of entire countries at risk, and has lasting implications for global trade, migration and foreign affairs.
[I]nvest in our young people so they can get reliable information about reproductive health and birth control. They decide when to have children and how many to have. They become the biggest generation of educated, empowered, working adults the world has seen. They break the cycle of poverty for their families and shape the future of their countries.
As I keep saying, time to wake up and smell the coffee. With the UK government currently looking at reforming sex education in the classroom this country has the opportunity to lead the world. But it needs imagination and bravery, something for which the UK government has never been noted.
Monthly Quotes
Welcome to our latest monthly series of quotes amusing and thought-provoking.
You don’t have to be positive all the time. It’s perfectly okay to feel sad, angry, annoyed, frustrated, scared or anxious. Having feelings doesn’t make you a negative person, it makes you human.
[Lori Deschene]
Be well advised and assured what matter you put in his head: for you shall never pull it out again.
[Cardinal Wolsey]
It is a great relief to find that we can accept all things for what they are, whether miracles or tragedies.
[Christmas Humphreys]
In autumn there were days of fog that called the truth of everyday experience into question.
[Esther Kinsky, River]
Is there a book you really wish you’d written yourself? A Dance to the Music of Time, by Anthony Powell. That book was a fascinating primer for me in how to write a sequence of books with the same cast of characters, and having the main character age along the way. This notion that life is a dance to the music of time – if you’re writing a series it’s crucial to know how to do it.
[Ian Rankin, Guardian, 3 November 2018]
Having anxiety and depression is like being scared and tired at the same time. It’s the fear of failure, but no urge to be productive. It’s wanting friends, but hating socializing. It’s wanting to be alone, but not wanting to be lonely. It’s caring about everything, then caring about nothing. It’s feeling everything at once, then feeling paralysingly numb.
[unknown]
If a system can be gamed, someone or something will game it.
For example …
Reward a simulated car for continuously going at high speed, and it will learn to rapidly spin in a circle.
Or alternatively …
I hooked a neural network up to my Roomba. I wanted it to learn to navigate without bumping into things, so I set up a reward scheme to encourage speed and discourage hitting the bumper sensors. It learnt to drive backwards, because there are no bumpers on the back.
[Quoted at http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2018/11/self-driving-car-rewarded-for-speed.html]
Trying to make science efficient requires figuring out what “efficient science” would be.
[Sean S, in a comment at http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2018/11/self-driving-car-rewarded-for-speed.html]
Fascists, to begin with, can seem [feckless] at the start, but because they lack any sort of civilized inhibitions, they forge ahead, intent on winning their way at whatever cost to others. Even worse, they believe … in their definition of duty and success without any of the qualms or reservations that trouble finer sensibilities.
[Carl Rollyson, “Anthony Powell and his People” at
https://www.weeklystandard.com/carl-rollyson/anthony-powell-and-his-people]
We all seem to have a good idea of what useful advice is: using our knowledge and experience to tell others how to narrow down their options and zero in on the right move. But new research … shows that there is a better way to approach advice. People seeking advice are generally not interested in being told what to do, but in gathering information so that they will have more alternatives and perspectives to consider. This mismatch causes problems: the advice we give others ends up being less helpful, the recipients don’t follow our recommendations, and we view them negatively as a result.
[Francesca Gino, “How to Give Better Advice” at https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-give-better-advice/]
No notion espoused by an economist of whatever leaning has had any greater predictive power than a chimp trying to choose a winning horse at the Grand National.
[Letter from Sam Edge at https://www.newscientist.com/letter/mg24032032-300-folk-economic-beliefs-are-not-so-stupid-2/]
Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Jacob Rees-Mogg are all, like Donald Trump, reality TV stars … In the media circus, the clowns have the starring roles. And clowns in politics are dangerous.
[George Monbiot at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/03/cult-personality-politics-boris-trump-corbyn-george-monbiot]
Something for the end of this troubled week …
Ten Things
This month’s Ten Things once again has a slightly seasonal feel to it and is more in tune with the lists in The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon.
Ten Things that give a Hot Feeling
- Hot chilli sauce
- Having a good layer of blubber
- Summer sunshine
- A spicy curry
- A new winter coat
- A new lover
- A blazing log fire
- The cat curled up next to you
- A winter duvet
- Good brandy
MeMe More
OK, so here’s another silly meme I picked up the other day on Facebook, for no other reason than I have 5 minutes to waste. No-one gets tagged, just join in if you want to.
? Marriages: 1
? Divorces: 0
?? Children: 0 (from choice)
? Grandchildren: Not possible!
? Pets right now: 3 cats: Tilly (5), Rosie (2), Boy (1)
??⚕️ Surgeries: at least 6
✒ Tattoo: 0
?? Piercings: 1
✋? Quit a job: Yes
? Been to an Island: Yes
? What do You drive: My wife nuts
✈️ Flown on a plane: Yes
? Best Vacation: Harz Mountains
? Favourite Drink: Adnams Ghost Ship or Adnams Dry Hopped Lager
? Rode in ambulance: Yes
? Sang karaoke: Not likely!
❄ Ice skating: No chance!
? Been surfing: Again, not a chance!
? Been on a Cruise: I hate the very idea
? Rode on a motorcycle: Scooter yes, motorbike no
? Own a motorcycle: No
? Rode on a horse? Yes
? Almost died: No, I’m still here to annoy you
? Stayed in a hospital: Yes
? Favourite fruit: Grapefruit
? Favourite day: Possibly Saturday
? Favourite colour: Depends on my mood
? Last phone call: Tom
? Last text: Received: my bank; Sent: John B
? Watched someone die: No
?️ Coffee or Tea: Tea, strong, preferably Earl Grey
? Favourite pie: English pork pie
? Pizza: Yes
? Cats or Dogs: Always cats
? Favourite Season: Spring/early Summer
☘️ Favourite holiday: quiet non-commercialised seaside
Monthly Links
So here’s our monthly selection of links to items you may have missed, but will wish you hadn’t. As usual we’ll start with the science-y stuff and go downhill from there.
Science, Technology & Natural World
Astronomers are still on the hunt for “Planet 9” which they think lies way beyond Pluto. And they’ve found a strange, but small, object – nicknamed “The Goblin” – which may provide more clues on where they should be looking.
At home, researchers are looking at the effects of climate change and rising sea levels, and asking which cities will sink into the sea first. The answer may not be what one would intuitively expect.
Talking of the sea, it’s long been thought that few things predated jellyfish, but this turns out to be wrong.
Meanwhile on land it is being suggested that cats are pretty useless at catching rats and prefer smaller prey. Well they had better not tell our felines that!
However the ability of crows to make tools is giving some insights into how the brain generally works.
I wasn’t sure whether this next item belongs here or under “Environment” but it is sufficiently technical I left it here … It is being suggested that we could store unpredictable energy, like solar and wind, using compressed air. It sounds crazy, but might work.
Health & Medicine
There’s a muscle-weakening disease popping up in America which affects children and looks a lot like polio (but isn’t). And weirdly it seems to have a two-year cycle.
Are you like me and have problems with sleep? If so it may be that you’re over-tired.
Still thinking bout sleep, a researcher seems to have worked out why it is that we take so long to wake up and get going in the mornings. And that caffeine doesn’t actually help.
But then it is being recognised that people sometimes just give up and die.
At the other end of the spectrum, there are women who suffer from tokophobia: an extreme fear of pregnancy and childbirth.
Finally in this section, here’s a piece about the medicinal leech and how to farm it. They’re strange beasties with 10 stomachs, 32 brains and 18 testicles!
Art & Literature
No good adventure story, and many others, would be complete without a good map. Here a few writers tell of their favourite literary maps.
History, Archaeology & Anthropology
There’s a puzzle in ancient historical research: how do we know which historical accounts are true? And as one professional demonstrates it isn’t as simple as all oral history is make-believe.
Opium has been known and used for more than 7,000 years. There’s a new book Milk of Paradise: A History of Opium by Lucy Inglis, reviewed in History Today.
King Henry I is said to have died of a surfeit of lampreys, and now archaeologists in London have found lamprey teeth in a medieval layer near the Mansion House. Although lampreys were a medieval delicacy, their teeth are rare (these are the first found in London, and only the second in the UK) as they are made of keratin (like nails and hooves) rather than dental enamel.
Someone has found an old red velvet bag (right) in a Tudor house once occupied by Walter Raleigh’s son and widow. They think it may have been used to carry around Raleigh’s mummified head. It looks more like a 1970s girl’s gym kit bag to me!
London
Have you ever wondered just how much stuff any city transport system actually owns. Here Diamond Geezer looks at Transport for London’s assets, and the scale is somewhat frightening!
Lifestyle & Personal Development
One scientist is annoyed that the likes of the media won’t recognise that her doctorate confers the title “Dr” – because she’s not medic. I find the medical profession are the worst offenders in this regard.
We all doodle, at least sometimes. It turns out your doodles could be important and meaningful.
The ability to do simple, “order of magnitude”, calculations on the back of an envelope is important for learning, verifying your answers and demystifying things like geological time. It is something I was taught, at school as a teenager, to check if answers to science/maths exam questions were likely to be right – and it has turned out to be an invaluable skill.
And finally this month … A Buddhist look at trigger warnings and fixing the world. TL;DR: don’t.
Quote: Smile
Keep smiling, it makes people wonder what you’re up to.
Quotes
Our monthly round up of quotes interesting and amusing.
What Dungeness has [is] the sense that it has remained so relatively unchanged, escaping the prissy tedium of the rest of south east England … the convention by which all of the south east must become one giant, government-approved suburb. Here, it feels as if planning laws have never existed. There are no polite and bricky executive cul-de-sacs, no banal shopping malls, no air-conditioned, fluorescent-lit office blocks, no golf courses, neat kerbstones, yellow lines, speed bumps, no traffic wardens or CCTY cameras, no bored and boring yoof lurking under medieval hoods on street corners. Physically, socially and emotionally, Dungeness is a very long way from Middle England.
[Jonathan Glancy in Nigel Green, Dungeness (Photoworks, 2003)]
The reality of our century is technology – the invention, construction and maintenance of the machine. To be a user of machines is to be of the spirit of the century. It has replaced the transcendental spiritualism of past eras.
[Moholy Nagy, 1922]
The concept of connectedness is, of course, the basis of all kinship systems … Getting married, in this case, is not just pairing off, it is, in a way, sharing each other.
[Stephen Muecke quoted in the Guardian]
Intolerance for the indefensible becomes intolerance for anything that is different. The aspiration for the universal becomes a crude insistence on the uniform. Sensitivity is lost to the very different needs of different cultures at different times and places.
[From the Guardian]
There is a contradiction in saying there are no universal truths, since that is itself a universal claim about the nature of truth.
[From the Guardian]
I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any. I refuse to live in other people’s houses as an interloper, a beggar or a slave.
[Gandhi, quoted in the Guardian]
A bottle of good claret after dinner does a digger in the red coals no harm, otherwise than as it has a tendency to throw him out of work.
[Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities]
Sometimes it’s better to take life as it comes, set your sails according to the winds that blow, go with the tide, follow your instinct, choose the grassier, less trodden road for its own sake and not in the hope it might lead anywhere very special.
[Christopher Robin Milne]
We can’t know anything outside our mind. Everything we see is contained within our mind. Thus, I am not in the world. The world is in me.
[Haemin Sunim]
Honesty is the glue that holds together a society of laws. Lies are the solvent that dissolves those bonds.
[From the Washington Post]
You will continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that is said to you. True power is sitting back and observing things with logic. True power is restraint. If words control you that means everyone else can control you. Breathe and allow things to pass.
[Warren Buffett]
Just a reminder: the system in what is currently known as the US isn’t “broken”. It was designed by male white supremacist slave owners on stolen indigenous land to protect their interests. It’s working as it was designed.
[Dr Adrienne Keene on Facebook]
In our quest for happiness and the avoidance of suffering, we are all fundamentally the same, and therefore equal. Despite the characteristics that differentiate us – race, language, religion, gender, wealth and many others – we are all equal in terms of our basic humanity.
[Dalai Lama]
Only having “compassion” for those who are in your in-group, and vilifying or even becoming violent toward those who you perceive as the out-group, is not only antithetical to world peace more broadly, but is also counter-productive to political progress that advances the greater good of all humans on this planet.
[Scott Barry Kaufman, Scientific American, 8 October 2018]
And finally …
If you ever think your job is pointless, just remember there is a bloke in Germany who puts indicators on BMW cars.