Datasets:

minkyungpark

/

SHP_test_expanded

like 0

qxierj

askculinary_test

How far in advance can I peel potatoes and let them sit in cold water in the refrigerator before I boil them to make mashed potatoes? Will it negatively impact the quality of the mashed potatoes if I peel them and let them sit in water one day in advance of cooking them? If so how long in advance is peeling acceptable?

hl9zax9

hlbuswn

I do 1 day ahead of time. I leave them on the stove submerged in water, a little salt, and lemon juice. I rinse and change the water before bringing to a boil the next day. Soaking them also gets rid of some of the starch and makes them better imo.

I’ve had success with steaming my potatoes instead of boiled them. That way I can completely avoid the water-logged issue. Then after I make them mashed I put them in a plastic bag and keep them in my sous vide for an hour or so before eating. Perfect temp!

2vtwi5

askculinary_test

I just bought pasta maker and it's brilliant! But making the dough isn't something I enjoy. Would my bread maker on the dough only setting be suitable!q I'm not very good, and don't enjoy making dough by hand. I use my bread maker on the dough setting to make pizza dough, which takes 45 minutes. Could I use the same setting to make pasta dough, would it work ok?

cokxdes

col5dr0

probably not, pasta dough is very dry, and the paddles in those bread makers arent always the best, and you need to watch the consistency. we use a kitchen aid mixer to do the deed.

you must suffer for your art.

k16cwi

askculinary_test

How do I use smaller amounts of a variety of fresh herbs? I got a mini herb garden for my birthday a while back and now have a single plant of dill, curly parsley, basil, Thai basil, thyme and mint. This thing is kind of growing out of control and I desperately need to keep pruning it to keep it from going any crazier. What do I do with the cut herbs? I'm used to using larger quantities of a lot of these when I'm making stuff but I don't know what to do with like...2 stalks of dill, a dozen or two basil leaves, ten mint leaves and a couple sprigs of thyme every few days. Any suggestions?

gdmnv8z

gdnoszh

You can also freeze them in ice cube trays to use later in larger quantities. I keep bags of scrap herbs in my freezer.

Mint tea, herb omelette, herb butter ( can pack a tonne of herbs in and freezes well). Tempura the herbs with some veggies and eat it together, flavoured pasta dough. Stems of soft herbs add heaps of flavour to stuff as well like coriander and parsley. Pho noodles tend to get served with a big pile of basil and Thai basil and coriander.

x0saig

askculinary_test

Is it true black pepper burns easily so you shouldn't season meat you intend to sear with it, and add it afterwards? I saw on a random TikTok someone say they don't use black pepper on steak before searing it because the black pepper just burns.

imafneq

ima2rk8

I call bs on that. I've been cooking fine dining for 20 years and I've always seasoned with salt and pepper before cooking or searing and I've never felt like the pepper was burnt. I'm a head chef of an Italian place now and our carbonara gets fresh cracked black pepper right into the sizzling bacon fat to bloom before adding pasta and making the sauce. That's the classic way and it's delicious. All spices will burn obviously but in my experience I've never felt like black pepper burns any easier than other spices.

For me searing black pepper diminishes the spicy hot and adds great flavor. I do this with chicken (both thighs and breasts (don’t over cook)) and it’s one of our fav dishes: salt and pepper then sear (leave it sear completely).

umtr23

askculinary_test

Need help pumping up a German dish. My wife's family is of German descent, and growing up there were 3 girls, a boy, and the parents, so big, cheap meals were very important. Few times a year, they'll make a dish the is essentially brats, ribs, ham, sauerkraut, and apples thrown into a slow cooker. Honestly, it's fine. Pretty tasty and does the job of feeding a horde. But it all comes out the same color, and it's not particularly appetizing. I don't want to reinvent their wheel, but I'd be curious on advice to spruce it up. Here are my thoughts. 1. Brown the brats and add them in towards the end. To a further end, boil them in beer, then color them up on a grill before adding to the slow cooker at the end if the cook. 2. Sauerkraut is pretty good. Maybe brown the ham, but cooked in some apple juice and white wine, handful of peppercorns, chopped apples, mustard seed and some chopped apples, and I'd likely be set. 3. Ribs. This is more for the extra protein, because their not really treated as ribs. The meat is tender to the point of falling off the bone. If these were bbq, they'd be overdone, but I don't mind it. They don't remove the membrane which is about the only thing I take offense to, otherwise I'm not sure how to improve slow cooked ribs. At this point I'd probably just remove the membrane, season the ribs the night before and let them sit in my fridge. Only reason I'm curious is that my MIL has started suggesting that as time goes by, that shed like it for me to start taking over hosting/cooking for them. I can absolutely make it already, but the cook in me continues to look to elevate a dish.

i84cerg

i86ccot

Do they call it choucroute garnie? You can find suggestions if you search for that term. Mustard to serve it with would be nice.

Upgrade to choucroute garnie

z05ktx

askculinary_test

What would be a good appetizer to serve ahead of an entree of white fish with beurre blanc, potatoes, and broccolini? Wondering what would be a good seasonal appetizer (I'm in the U.S., if that helps in terms of produce). Maybe a warmly spiced butternut squash soup? Or some kind of salad? Also -- would plating some wild rice with the fish with beurre blanc and veggies be overkill or would that go nicely together?

ix3ry06

ix404y7

Think you’ve got it pretty much spot on, depending on weather and mood salad or soup sounds great. In case you’ve got time on your hands and want to focus on your fish entree, may I suggest oven baking both the broccolini and potatoes. Just toss them on a lined backing tray, coat with olive oil and season to your liking (lemon, thyme, salt, pepper would probably be easiest) and leave in the oven until crispy

Oysters in the shell with shallot vinaigrette

3z0mh7

askculinary_test

Weekly Discussion - What are your culinary goals for the new year? Do you want to start baking your own bread? Learn your sauces? Join an underground dinner club and try a lot of chefs' experimental dishes? Perfect your curry technique? Finally go into that Armenian grocery on the way to work and figure out what all those odd ingredients with untranslated labels are for? And if you have any recommendations on how best to achieve a goal you see here, do please reply with your suggestions.

cyig7a2

cyiceum

I really want to get good at making bread. I've only managed brioche and demi baguettes so far, but it has been the most demanding, and most rewarding, food to come out of my (home) kitchen.

My goals are in order, 1: graduate culinary school, advanced to my ccc, get enough money to start my food truck, give back to the community and design new seasonal recipes to sell and continue growing.

xs3vwv

askculinary_test

25lbs of mini chocolate chips Hello! I was told to post here in lieu of r/foodhacks. My boyfriend had a large box of mini chocolate chips left over from his job and didn’t want to throw them away, so he gave them to me. Any ideas on what I could do with such a large quantity of chocolate?? Proof.

iqlptrp

iql29xt

Put them in brownies, mix with popcorn, bake cookies to give to homeless, melt some and pour it on him to lick off.

Chocolate chip cookies dipped in chocolate ganache and garnished with ummm chocolate?

vca8vz

askculinary_test

Why does chinese cusine reuse oil so much for different dishes? I've seen plenty of chinese chefs on Youtube deep frying some vegetables for like 5 seconds, only to return said oil in a big pot, and then use the same oil to deep fry some crab legs. Wouldn't this affect the flavor of the dish? Isn't reusing this same oil for vastly different dises an awful practice? Wouldn't people allergic to seafood be unable to eat chinese, even if they were to order veggie stir fries? ​ Because I even see high end chefs do this. I assumed food fried for so little time wouldn't impart any flavor to th oil, but sometimes they push it and I'm not sure about this assumption in the first place.

icdjxtg

icd1opa

Former chef here. All food is cooked in the same fryer unless you have allergies. In a commercial setting you could not replace the oil for different things as it would cost too much and take too long to heat. We had a separate small fryer for gluten free things when needed. I reuse oil myself at home until it starts to turn brown.

If you have allergies theyll use fresh oil and a clean wok. I have a mushroom allergy and have seen them do it.

vy7lnu

askculinary_test

Why does my lobster taste fishy? I have eaten lobster twice. The first time was at a restaurant; the lobster was frozen and cooked in the smoker. It was a drastic improvement over shrimp and noticeably sweeter with no fishy taste at all. I recently bought a live lobster, dispatched it and then immediately boiled for 10 minutes in salted water (a teaspoon for every quart). It was more tender than the one from the restaurant but was less sweet with a noticeable fishy taste. The two lobster were approximately of the same size. The only thing that I may have done wrong is that I used a heaping teaspoon of salt per quart. Note: in the restaurant the lobster was served whole and I was the one who extracted the meat out of the shell, so I ruled out the possibility that the restaurant had any impact on the taste of the lobster other than the smoking. What did I do wrong? Is it due to the lobsters' variety?

ig122v0

ig1pnu8

Smoking a lobster will totally change it's outcome. Possibly you just haven't had non smoked before and you aren't used to it. Or possibly you needed to clean it better.

Assuming you're in the Northern Hemisphere, this is summer time, which is lobsters' molting and mating season. At my family table we only eat shellfish in months with an R in them - which excludes May through August. The explanation Grandma gave was that they don't taste right once the water warms up, and indeed I've noticed that they are fishier and the flesh is less firm.

amggwz

askdocs_test

My son has a patch of light blonde hair on the back of his head. He is a full brunette otherwise. is it a birth mark or something to be concerned about? I’d never seen this before, but could be poliosis? Age: 4 weeks old Sex: Male Height: 20.5 inches Weight: not sure currently Race: Caucasian/White Duration of complaint: Since birth, 4 weeks Location: lower hairline on the back of his head Medical issues: none that we know of yet Current Medications: none Photo: https://imgur.com/a/A3IwnAH

efm4agy

efmbedb

My daughter is blonde and has a patch of white- it’s just a spot of missing melanin - nothing to worry about.

It’s a Mallen streak (poliosis)! OP, there’s a lot of romance and mythology about people who have a Mallen streak, if you want to do some searching online ;) Your baby is special! ❤️

eizn3z

askdocs_test

i'm 26. A female and the world is on fire. Just Australia really, but in all seriousness, respiration is hard for me rn So, I had a really bad flu in like october and since then it's been like downhill. I got another flu in december, which turned into a chest infection. I got antibiotics and like went back because it still feels like someone is squeezing the center of my chest. Doc said I'm fine. Wondering if it's just anxiety or some shit. ​ Sidenote - I also have anxiety and hashimotos. I am overweight.

fcujout

fcurv3y

More information would be helpful, but prolonged and untreated colds or flus can evolve into pneumonia and other issues, perhaps insisting on another checkup is wise.

not a doc but currently based in HK where tear gas is super prevalent. i’m super asthmatic, and i found that wearing a gas mask helps me - not sure if it would help with smoke but i assume so. they’re not too expensive on amazon, so it may be worth having a look into

m48u7s

askdocs_test

Coughed this up I’m a M, 27 years old and 154lbs. A 15 a day smoker and I’m not very active these days. I’ve been really congested for the best part of 3 weeks. Constantly coughing and blowing my nose. I recently coughed this thing up. Rang my out of hours GP and showed him this, he does not have a clue what this is and has left a note for my regular GP to look at it on Monday. Has anyone got any ideas what this is? https://ibb.co/Z2ChfLc

gqt6fxm

gqu5zld

Did you accidentally inhale something while eating?

Send for pathology assessment,don’t waste time asking people here.

lf5e36

askdocs_test

I (25F) have been vomiting for months post-surgery. I'm at my wits' end. I had my gallbladder removed in June due to frequent vomiting and fatigue, it was full of sludge but no stones. The first week and a half I ate maybe four times, and just about a cup of soup. Otherwise I only ingested pedialyte. After that first week and a half, the vomiting reappeared. Since then, I usually vomit at least once a day, no matter what I eat. I've always been pretty health conscious and eat well. I restricted my diet more, still vomiting. Sometimes I don't eat, and once again, vomiting. It's almost always bright yellow/orange bile, food, or blood. I assume the blood is the stomach acid tearing up my throat. I get dizzy, see what look like shooting stars, and have passed out once. I have terrible insurance. I'm poor. But I've been able to splurge and see a doctor a couple times. It's always the same answer, "here's some antinausea". They don't work. I vomit them back up with bitter bile. I have endometriosis as well, and pediatric onset glaucoma (inherited). I feel like I'm getting weaker, I've lost several pounds recently. I'm losing it, I don't know what to do. I've figured out I can have certain 2oz P3s (diced meat, cheese and nuts) or about half a ham sandwich (no cheese, no condiments) if I rest afterwards. I work 10 hours a day, usually 50 hours a week, and usually this has to be an after work dinner thing (if I move around afterwards I will vomit). What can I personally do to combat this? I can't afford to keep seeing doctors for no treatment. I definitely can't afford a specialist. This is destroying my life.

gmlzpb5

gml53wl

Have you followed up with GI since your surgery? If you have the same Symptoms as before your cholecystectomy then that warrants further investigation.

Not a doctor. I've had my gallbladder removed and one of the things I was told post surgery is to avoid fats. The gallbladder processes a lot of fats. As well, you'll be getting more bile acids from the liver dumped directly into your GI tract, which can cause diarrhea and vomiting. I ended up going onto a PPI and some other medications to reduce acids afterward (I do have Crohns so this solution may not work for you, but definitely something you can ask your doctor about). Good luck OP, hope you get some answers.

kchfau

askdocs_test

My baby is COVID-19 positive, hasn’t urinated in 18 hours, when to know when he is dehydrated. My child is male 11 months old and started running high fevers on Friday afternoon, his pediatrician directed me to take him to the hospital bc I couldn’t get his fever down with medication and he is not eating or drinking and the office is closed until Monday. He got a positive COVID result, so they just said continue medicine around the clock and don’t let him dehydrate. He is breastfed, so he is nursing more than he normally would, but he still refuses food and drink. His temperature stays around 103 on medicine. He drank 25 mls of Gatorade this morning, through syringes. How do I know when he is dehydrated? Will he dehydrate if he is still nursing? He has had 3 wet diapers in the last 3 days but still seems alert and almost playful sometimes. I just don’t know if wet diapers is the only indication of dehydration or is he is okay bc he is nursing. Please help. TIA.

gfqjbjs

gfqmbv7

If you can't get him to take liquids, you need to take him to the ER. Try to give him Gatorade or pedialyte.

No wet diapers in 24 hours is concerning enough to warrant an ER evaluation.

kchfau

askdocs_test

My baby is COVID-19 positive, hasn’t urinated in 18 hours, when to know when he is dehydrated. My child is male 11 months old and started running high fevers on Friday afternoon, his pediatrician directed me to take him to the hospital bc I couldn’t get his fever down with medication and he is not eating or drinking and the office is closed until Monday. He got a positive COVID result, so they just said continue medicine around the clock and don’t let him dehydrate. He is breastfed, so he is nursing more than he normally would, but he still refuses food and drink. His temperature stays around 103 on medicine. He drank 25 mls of Gatorade this morning, through syringes. How do I know when he is dehydrated? Will he dehydrate if he is still nursing? He has had 3 wet diapers in the last 3 days but still seems alert and almost playful sometimes. I just don’t know if wet diapers is the only indication of dehydration or is he is okay bc he is nursing. Please help. TIA.

gfr1fru

gfqz08w

Not a doctor I just want to say I hope your baby gets better. I have a daughter the same age and my heart is breaking for you. If you are going to the hospital (which you should!) please bring care items for yourself. A long charging cord for your phone, a water bottle, some hearty snacks, comfort items for yourself and baby, a change of clothes for yourself and baby, and some toiletries. Maybe a pair of slippers or flip flops for yourself because sneakers aren’t the most comfortable. To take care of baby you have to take care of yourself, and the hospital is geared towards taking care of the patient not the parent (although I’m sure they will try they are likely overwhelmed). Good luck 💜

Go to the ER. My 8 month old had covid but medicine took her fever down pretty quickly. She was definitely still urinating and not dehydrated. We got lucky with a pretty mild case. Please keep us updated!! Edit- Not a doctor

elcpn8

askdocs_test

My partner [27/F] has some serious issues with her back passage and we don't know what to do. (Attempt 2) I posted this 15 days ago and got no responses. I'm gonna try again because I really want some answers to this. Apologies if my explanation of what's going on goes a little all over the place, I'm not really sure what the best way to go about explaining everything is, but I did the best I could to get things as coherant and understandable as possible while explaining as much as I can about everything that's happening. Feel free to offer any feedback on how I can re-word this to explain things better or ask any clarification questions you may have. And please carefully read the whole thing before you comment any suggestions or anything. Thank you. ​ About three years ago now, my partner developed a health problem. It started out small but just kept getting worse and worse and causing other issues alongside it, and now everything's just gotten extremely bad. ​ Let's get the medical details out of the way first. We don't know my partner's current weight (though she is a bit on the chubby side), her height is about 6 foot, she doesn't smoke, doesn't drink any alcohol, doesn't take any drugs, not currently taking any medicine and has no known current medical issues (except maybe some undiagnosed anxiety issues) ​ Okay so let's start with the symptoms of my partner's health problem. They are as follows; **Symptom 1)** Yellow or brown (Or somewhere in between) liquid (Not watery, more mucus-y) discharge (Before you say it, it's not diarrhea or constipation) from the butthole that takes more than one roll of toilet paper to wipe off before it stops. Especially after going number 2. It just never seems to stop coming after a number 2. Every time she wipes, there's discharge. It's gotten to the point of where she doesn't bother to keep wiping until it finally decides to completely stop, but rather get it down to where it's only a little bit coming out and then move on to other things while she waits for it to eventually stop on its own. This discharge doesn't always appear when going number 1, I think. We are using wet wipes as a replacement for TP to clean things up but it still takes several packets a day. So it's either spend a few quid on a big packet of TP daily or spend a few quid on several packs of wet wipes daily. Works out to more or less the same amount of money spent over the same period of time either way. **Symptom 2)** Tiny specks of what we can only assume is fecal matter being deposited from her butthole into her buttcrack. Again, taking multiple rolls of paper to remove. And she fears if she doesn't remove them they'll just fall off into her clothes and onto everywhere she walks, sits and lays in bed. They appear every time she goes number 1 except for roughly a day-long period immediately following going number 2, which suggests they're from any amount of fecal matter that's formed in her intestines. These specks are so small that they are not visible to the naked eye unless you look really closely. ​ She spends about an hour in the bathroom every time she goes number 1, and at least 3 hours when she goes number 2, and 99% of both time periods is JUST so she can clean herself up after the actual deed. It drains all her time and energy every single day. She's too exhausted to do anything other than sit on the couch and do stuff on the laptop. This leaves me to have to keep on top of all the chores...and as you can imagine being one person dealing with chores generated from two people is not easy, especially when one of those people is generating way more than the normal amount of trash because of their health issues. She's been to a few different doctors a number of times about her issues. They've done blood tests, put a camera up her rear and tested a fecal matter sample. Every single test revealed nothing abnormal. The doctors are clueless. One even suggested it's all in her head and wanted to send her to a phsychiarist. No, it is NOT all in her head. These are real, physical symptoms she's having. I've seen the discharge myself on a number of occasions. They also keep asking if it's diarrhea or constipation for some reason, but it's neither of those. It's like they just don't understand what we're trying to tell them. We feel like we're not able to explain our issues to them properly so they can fully understand what's going on. It doesn't help that normal GP appointments only have a short period of allotted time to talk to the doctor in, so we can't get the full story out. We're also concerned they think she's making all this up just to get out of having to find a job. And because her issue takes up all her time and energy, we rarely have the chance to make regular appointments to talk to the doctor more and maybe try some other tests to see if they can finally determine what's going on. ​ We have a few theories as to what could be affecting her but they're just theories. We're obviously not medical experts or anything. I'll put them in order from most likely culprit to least; **Theory 1) Irratable Bowel Syndrome.** This was suggested to us by someone we confided with in real life who just so happened to have IBS themselves and recognised the symptoms. At the time, the symptoms did seem to match up. The discharge, at the time my partner was feeling like she didn't get rid of everything every time she went number 2, stomach cramps...I don't remember what else... Another thing that points towards IBS is that, before her health issues arose, my partner has actually had the discharge appear throughout her life on very rare occasions, only much smaller amounts which cleared away with normal toilet paper usage, which suggests some kind of genetic issue that we can put somewhere under the IBS umbrella. However, we scoured the internet and asked around a little bit regarding IBS but could not for the life of us find any mention of the tiny fecal specks. In fact, it's as if the tiny fecal specks symptom doesn't exist AT ALL in any known medical ailment. At least, not as far as we can find. **Theory 2) Toilet usage issues messed up her digestive tract.** When my partner and I first started living together, we spent over a year sharing a house and a single bathroom with two other people. And just about any time my partner used the bathroom during this time, one or both of the other two other people would come to the bathroom, find it occupied, tut, sigh, and then go back from whence they came while they wait for it to be unoccupied again. Hearing them tutting and sighing caused my partner to become self-concious about her toilet usage and it discouraged her from using the bathroom as often as she needed, especially for number 2s. She ended up holding number 2s way longer than she should, making them build up into huge toilet-clogging monsters which only worsened the issue. We think her holding her number 2s like this might have messed up her internal pipes somewhere somehow. When they had a look in there with the camera, they didn't really go very deep from what I saw on the diagram they provided afterwards. The damage could be further up where the camera didn't see. Either that or holding so much for so long reprogrammed her chute to behave in this abnormal way and re-educating it back to normal will be difficult. The only issue with this explanation is when we moved out of the living situation with those other two people into a place of our own, for the first couple of weeks there my partner's number 2s were actually perfectly normal. No issues whatsoever. Then one day, she found the discharge on her underwear. And that's where it all started about 3 years ago. **Theory 3) Fecal Impaction** We recently found this when looking up the question of if it's possible for your bowel movements to damage your bowels, and a lot of the symptoms seemed to line up with what my partner's been experiencing. It could very well explain the particles...a bit of number 2 constantly stuck at the end of the chute or something like that...it would make sense...right? I don't know if that's something they would spot when they went in with the camera that time though... **Theory 4) A drastic change in diet messed up her digestive tract.** My partner is originally from Romania, where she enjoyed healthy homemade food served to her by her family for every meal on a daily basis and she very rarely had any fast food. Before she came to England, she was warned by a friend of hers that had already visited a few times that we pretty much only had fast food in our supermarkets. I guess she wasn't prepared for just how true that statement is. In an instant she went from a healthy nutritious diet of daily homemade meals to having what amounts to something outta McDonalds every lunch and dinner. She has no idea where to even look for the healthier homemade stuff she used to have, and neither do I. Like jeez, England, get your culinary stuff together. I was having this stuff my whole life and never realised it wasn't normal until my partner told me when we got together. Nobody said anything to me until then, not even my parents. Heck, my parents even FED me that stuff when I was younger. What's more, anything healthier is pretty darn expensive for the amount you get. Healthier foods seriously need to be made more readily available for cheaper. No question about it. **Theory 5) Dehydration.** We reckon my partner is not getting enough liquid into her system. She has told me on multiple occasions she feels she needs to drink more than she is doing. This is confirmed by the fact her number 2s are often quite dark, which is a sign of lack of hydration. Unfortunately there's another issue preventing her from trying to drink more. As well as the fact that her main health issues are causing her to spend an hour in the toilet every time she goes number 1, she's also been getting an occasional occurrence of periods of time where she constantly feels the need to go number 1, even from literally the split second after she just finished going number 1. She does try to squeeze out whatever's in there, but nothing comes out, and she still feels the need to go. So she ends up finishing with the toilet while feeling the need to go number 1, and then going about her day until she's sure she has some liquid in there again, rinse, and repeat. This constant feeling of needing to go has lead her to...have accidents on multiple occasions, especially when she's trying to wake up in the morning. Like, as soon as she gets out of bed she has to rush to the toilet. But sometimes she's not fast enough to avoid drenching her garments. The cold seems to make it much, much worse as well. She's always had a cold sensitivity but once she got these health issues, her feeling cold causes her bladder to go crazy. And when she goes number 2, at the same time she finds herself going number 1 three or four times in a row, and then two or three more times while she's cleaning up after. We have no idea where her bladder is getting all this liquid from. We're pretty confident she's outputting way more liquid than she's drinking each day. In fact she seems to need to go as soon as she drinks something, like the drink is just going right through her. We do suspect a UTI is at play, possibly brought on by her main health issue somehow. So with her going number 1 or feeling the need to go number 1 all the time, and having to spend an hour every time, being motivated to drink more is pretty darn difficult. **Theory 6) Stress** The health problem may have been started by stress. And then she's stressing about the health problem. Aaaand hello vicious cycle. **Theory 7) She's doing something wrong with wiping herself.** This is a theory she has but one that I feel makes no sense. She has this idea that somehow she's doing something wrong with how she's wiping with the toilet paper and that's what's bringing out the discharge and the particles. I have no idea how you can even do something wrong. You wipe along your crack. That's pretty much it. How can you get that wrong? I dunno. I think those are all the theories we've come up with so far. So yeah, we think the problem could be any one of those theories, or even a combination of them. ​ Moving on, I should mention my partner is a bit of a cleanliness freak. So much so she absolutely refuses to sit on the porcelean throne without covering it in clean toilet paper first. She's convinced it's always dirty, no matter how much it's actually cleaned. But with her issue with number 1s she's always ending up needing to go really, really bad like she can't hold it another minute so she has no time to cover the seat with paper, So instead she goes number 1 just crouching over the toilet. So she's also standing the whole 1 hour it takes her to use the bathroom. She's not just cleaning her buttcrack and/or her peepee hole either, she also cleans her buttcheeks and all down her legs, because she's convinced she's got those particles I talked about earlier falling all over those areas every time she uses the bathroom. I don't know if that's actually happening, since I can't exactly watch what's happening to her in the bathroom. (It's way too small for two people to occupy) That's not to mention each time she goes number 1 the liquid trickles down her legs each time. Oh, and obviously if she has an accident she has to clean that off her legs. I have to help out as well by bringing packs of wet wipes and handing her the wet wipes for her to use. She always ends up using up a whole pack for number 1 and several packs (varying from 4 up to 8, sometimes more, depending on how bad the discharge decides to be) for number 2. Here's another thing, she has to use so much toilet paper that it doesn't even fit in the toilet bowl, she has to use trash bins. And we live in an apartment block with a trash chute that's only big enough to fit shopping carrier bag sized trash bags. So we have to have two small trash bins in the bathroom for all the toilet paper and wet wipes she uses, and every time she uses the bathroom she fills them to overflowing and it sometimes falls off onto the floor, and then she stresses about it blowing dirt from the floor and the fallen trash onto her, so she ends up cleaning herself even more from that, creating even more trash to put on the already overflowing trash bins! I have suggested a third bin to help alleviate things but she doesn't think there's enough space. Her feet sometimes accidentally kick the two that's there already as it is. And that's just from going number one. When she goes number two, about halfway through the whole ordeal we actually have to take the time for her to empty the bins of the full bags, give them to me to dispose of, and then have me give her fresh empty bags to put in the bins, and then she proceeds to fill and overflow those too before she's finished! And we have to use gloves for this. In fact we have to use gloves for pretty much everything when she goes number two, so I have to bring her gloves to use! Mostly gloves for the wet wipes to wipe her crack with. She doesn't want to get naked fingers covered in ass discharge while she's cleaning, obviously. Also when she goes number two, she HAS to change all her clothes to a clean set, no question. Again, with gloves. Also she has to put two period pads onto her underwear to be able to cover all three..."exits", hoping they'll catch anything that might otherwise fall onto her clothes. As you can imagine, all this toilet paper, wet wipes and period pads causes a serious drain on our already lacking funds...and obviously we can't get any jobs while we're dealing with these health issues. Also, all this standing around in the bathroom causes a lot of leg and back pain and she never really has time to recover before she needs the bathroom again so it's just steadily getting worse and worse and causing more and more pain. When she goes walking, she worries about when she walks normally, her period pads feel like they're moving side to side and uncovering her butt crack and letting particles got into her pants, so to keep them centered as much as possible she does this weird slow stiff walk that only causes even more pain. Lately she's been complaining about not having the physical strength to continue cleaning herself whenever she's in the toilet. She's not just talking about each partcular time, either, she means in general she feels like the time she spends in the toilet is draining her physical strength more and more. She says she feels like she's just going to collapse in the bathroom one day, a thing she really doesn't want to happen, especially during number 2, because the floor is not clean at all, it's likely got those particles all over it and more often than not there's a puddle in front of the toilet as well from her not being able to hold number 1, and she doesn't know how to clean herself up after that. Wet wipes won't be enough and she'll be at the point where just jumping in the shower will just not be physically possible. What's more she could get seriously injured from the collapse, possibly even to a fatal degree if she hits her head on something hard and unforgiving. In general she's in fear of her life, that something's just gonna give and she's just gonna die from all this strain her body's being put through, and we feel absolutely powerless to stop it from happening. I really can't stress enough just how bad it is. She keeps talking about how she's losing her mind and how she can't keep going on like this and she keeps yelling at the universe to just fluffing kill her already if that's what all this is leading to. She also gets upset that she feels she ruined my life by coming into it, and I have to reassure her that's not the case. (I ruined my life plenty already by being a lazy piece of whatever before I met her) Sometimes she gets so upset she wants to go kill herself somehow, and I have to try and help calm her down. But it's getting harder and harder each time. One time recently she got so upset she stormed off right out of our apartment and made it down four floors of stairs before I could get her to stop and calm down. So I guess my question is this; What the heck health issue is plaguing my partner, and how do we effectively communicate to a doctor in real life what's going on?

fdj7e2r

fdhfz9d

Pelvic floor disfunction can cause birth urinary and fecal incontinence and is treated with physical therapy. She might mention it to a GP or gyno. Another possibility.

Not a doctor IDK about the main issue, but as far as having to go #1 all the time, being overweight, poor eating habits, and laying around on the couch (suggesting fatigue), leads me to wonder about diabetes or prediabetes. At least her blood sugar should be tested to rule that out as well. Glucometers are cheap, or a doctor could do it.

eizn3z

askdocs_test

i'm 26. A female and the world is on fire. Just Australia really, but in all seriousness, respiration is hard for me rn So, I had a really bad flu in like october and since then it's been like downhill. I got another flu in december, which turned into a chest infection. I got antibiotics and like went back because it still feels like someone is squeezing the center of my chest. Doc said I'm fine. Wondering if it's just anxiety or some shit. ​ Sidenote - I also have anxiety and hashimotos. I am overweight.

fcukgyw

fcujout

If smoke/smog is bothering you mention it to your doc, you may have asthma exacerbated by irritants. Respiratory infections can last longer with underlying untreated asthma, but albuterol or another inhaled bronchodilator can help open up your lungs and clear the infection faster.

More information would be helpful, but prolonged and untreated colds or flus can evolve into pneumonia and other issues, perhaps insisting on another checkup is wise.

amggwz

askdocs_test

My son has a patch of light blonde hair on the back of his head. He is a full brunette otherwise. is it a birth mark or something to be concerned about? I’d never seen this before, but could be poliosis? Age: 4 weeks old Sex: Male Height: 20.5 inches Weight: not sure currently Race: Caucasian/White Duration of complaint: Since birth, 4 weeks Location: lower hairline on the back of his head Medical issues: none that we know of yet Current Medications: none Photo: https://imgur.com/a/A3IwnAH

efm8vel

efmbedb

My brother has brown hair and a blonde beard. As a child he had 2 blonde patches by each temple. To add to the other comments, though I’m also not a doctor, it’s nothing to worry about.

It’s a Mallen streak (poliosis)! OP, there’s a lot of romance and mythology about people who have a Mallen streak, if you want to do some searching online ;) Your baby is special! ❤️

cvhotb

askdocs_test

I'm having surgery tomorrow and I have recent self-harm scars, are doctors supposed to report this? Well, I'm having septoplasty surgery tomorrow and besides the general nerves I'm particularly concerned about some self harm scars. I used to cut my arm a few years ago and I have very old white scars, but unfortunately I did go back to it once two months ago and the scars are still red-ish. I am 22 years old and my parents have never known about this, I'm scared that if my surgeon sees the recent scars she might have to report it or do something about it? Since I am an adult she can't share that information without my permission right?

ey4du97

ey4aca7

We are legally obligated to protect your information. The only time we can break this confidence is if you tell us you are planning on killing someone with a hammer on Wednesday night. Basically a specific intent to harm someone else. Our oath to your privacy is so strong that if you got diagnosed with a Gene for breast cancer, we are not allowed to warn your sister without your permission, even though your sister has a 50% chance of also having that Gene. Now the ethics of that, we are debating now because it goes against our second oath, to do good. But, first do no harm, so I wouldn't harm your privacy or your confidence in me. But you should talk with your doctor about your mental health. Don't be afraid to ask for help.

We want to make sure you are safe and that you are getting treatment for your struggles and they will ask you questions to see how you are doing. Anyone working in the hospital/healthcare, including your surgeon, is a mandated reporter, which means that they must speak with other healthcare professionals \[with or without your permission\] to get you help if they think you need immediate assistance. As you are an adult, they cannot disclose your medical history to anyone outside your care team without your (usually written) permission. You do not mention it, but if you are not currently getting professional mental health treatment, you should get help as soon as possible, even though the relapse was a while ago. If you feel you are in danger of wanting to kill yourself or if you feel that a cut went too deep, please go to your nearest emergency room -- I promise that there are many people who want to help. Wishing you strength.

ij3vqq

askengineers_test

Nuclear power: good, bad, or does it depend? Personally, I think LFTRs and SMRs are the future of nuclear energy; but I’m very new to the engineering scene and I want to see what real engineers have to say about this.

g3c0urg

g3byas5

If you're asking an engineer, the answer is ALWAYS it depends.

I think it's great. Very green energy. Re: Waste: It nothing compared to coal or even solar panels. Plus you can use it for RTG's or reprocess it for more nuclear fuel. Re: Safety: With great energy density comes great safety risks. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, manage those risks. It's much more preferable than being a luddite.

itlmbq

askengineers_test

Finding a better purpose in engineering? Hi everyone, I'm looking for advice. I have followed a very secure path -- graduated from a top 5 mechanical engineering school and directly hired into a top aerospace company, where I've been for the past year. I thought I was hired into my dream job, but working as a design engineer in a cubicle farm makes me feel like my brain is atrophying. Working in defense as I have become more firm in my values of non-violence makes me feel icky as well. When I look around my current workplace, I'm not excited by the job that anyone around me has. I want something closer to full-brain (analytical + creative) problem-solving in my every day, for a problem that matters. I'm frustrated that engineering is so revered in society, but so far it feels like my skills are being wasted and I'm creating something bad for the world. I don't know where to start in this search for better purpose in engineering. I'm wondering if graduate school would help. I had an interest in controls in college but was told this field may be too "deep" for my liking. I'm a people person who wants to use my brain on good technology. I'm hoping graduate school would reaffirm my technical abilities and give me time/experience to better determine what kind of tech I'm interested in. Any thoughts/advice? Thank you!

g5g3deq

g5ggqkb

I really enjoy Quality engineering since I get to do stuff with my hands often, and at my desk. It's really fulfilling to sort out issues and make life easier for the folks on the assembly line

"Engineering is so revered by society..." It is? I haven't noticed. I'd actually directly argue against this. Engineering is grunt labor. The only reason it's at all elevated above blue collar work is because you don't literally get dirty while doing it quite as often. The basic mentality of the public sector is "I have an idea, it doesn't matter how difficult it is to acoustic do, I'll just get some stupid smart people to do all the work and I'll make massive money." That isn't to entirely dismiss the value of people providing new ideas. That's often important, and also often people with little to no technical knowledge. I just want you to know that people valuing you for the capabilities of your brain ended in high school. We as engineers are entirely replaceable, and viewed as such. You could be the best engineer in the world in your little niche, and maybe you're the equivalent of 3-4 "average" engineers. Maybe you're an anomaly and you're the equivalent of 10. Doesn't matter, you're still replaceable. Make peace with the fact that nothing you ever do will be functionally unique. Don't expect to be applauded, it won't come. When a car wins the F1 series, the applause are for the driver. No one gives a fuck what the engineers did or the hours they put in except other engineers. If this seems like a tangent, here's the connection: you have to derive your satisfaction from the work. It can't be pats on the back, because they won't come. It can't be respect, because it isn't there. You have to be able to stand by yourself and say "I'm valuable because the work that i do is important, and i do it well." And when no one, and i mean NOT A SINGLE GODDAMN PERSON gives you props or recognition, and you're still ok, then you're there. Engineering is not about applause. It's not about accolades. It's simply about answers. Can you provide them? Are your answers better based on the metrics provided than those of others? If you can say yes to that you have a job, but you will never have a fan club. If that's enough, go for it. If not, seek some other line of work.

q786cx

askengineers_test

If I want to eventually do design work, is gaining experience as a graduate systems engineer a bad idea? So I got on to a grad scheme over covid at a huge consultancy. I have a masters in mechanical engineering and originally applied for that. But they moved me on to systems. I took the job because tbh, there was no other option at the time. They haven’t really given me any interesting work. Or at least any technical work. It doesn’t even really feel like engineering it’s just asset management right now and if I hadn’t found ways to make it technical I’d be struggling. I had originally thought (like some other grads on my team) that systems would be more modelling and simulation type work. Coming up with initial system design ideas. Etc. that appealed to me. The basic documenting and management of assets does not. I was kinda hoping that they’d at least be flexible on how often I needed to be in the office too with me taking the job while working from home in a different city. But they haven’t been. They’re now demanding I’m in 3 days a week and that’s not easy considering my current situation. It’s making me wonder if I should apply elsewhere. As I’m on a grad programme I had hoped they’d let me experience the mechanical side too, get some design work. They advertised it as a way to develop the skills you want to for your career and let you experience the whole consultancy. It isn’t that at all right now. Should I leave and find something else where I can hone my technical skills? Or is it good experience seeing the whole engineering lifecycle first and then trying to find that. Thanks

hghdt48

hggweka

If you're trying to architect systems (design for systems engineers) then there's no where else you'll get experience across all subsystems of a system. Systems, at least for many aero/defense companies, also blurs the line between design, as we (unlike design-only engineers) have more of the V-model to cover, and usually do not get taken off a project as soon as a given box is complete, like most design engineers would in larger projects. All that said, I could write an essay on why systems is a great temporary area to be in before transitioning more hardcore into a much smaller specialization, but it doesn't sound like you're really doing much real systems engineering (at least not for what I'm used to calling a systems engr) if you're primarily doing asset management. I will say my area of focus that I thought I wanted to go into (design engineer for RF) turned out to not be the right career path for me, and systems might help with "seeing what else is out there," but if you don't feel like this role does that for you, then talk to management about a role change that's in-line with your career development goals, and also start applying to other jobs just in case you net a better fit job before your current company gets their butt in gear. Just my two cents.

Commenting for visibility

ltfc2v

askengineers_test

Do engineers think about the little guys? Hello everyone, I’m not sure if this has been asked yet or it’s even relevant but I have been thinking about this for some time and would like your input. I’m not an engineer, but I’m curious if those of you who are think of how things actually get built by the labourers and tradesmen on site. Just as an example I’m in shallow utility construction and I am often perplexed at who the hell thought of designing an electrical system the way the did. A lot of the time it seems like the person drawing up the plans for a project just wants to make things difficult for us. I know that there are regulations and that things are designed the way they are for a reason, and that it’s not just engineers but inspectors, pm’s and everyone in between who needs to do their job so that the project can be completed safely and properly however arduous the task may be once everyone has added their two cents. Do engineers think about how hard something will actually be to build and attempt to make things easier for the guy on the ground, or is it all function in the end? Ps. This isn’t a dig at engineers, I’ve got nothing but respect for what you people do to keep the world running.

gp2by5f

goye2qo

Not enough. I've been a civil for nearly 20 years, working in the public works sector. I started in development plan review, started designing projects, and now work in operations, so I've seen a pretty broad spectrum. As a design engineer, I thought I was an in the weeds guy, working closely with ops, but now that I'm 100% in ops, I'm really in the weeds. Some lessons I've learned: * Engineers, listen to the boots on the ground guys, they truly are the experts in constructability and operability. * Ops guys, keep in mind that you only see a small piece of the pie, there are a lot more constraints than you realize in terms of regulations, future planning and politics. There's more to this than this project.

I just got back from helping out install sensors on garbage trucks. We were helped by third shift guys, but we were turning wrenches and getting under vehicles. Im not a third shift worker, it was a long day. What happens is a series of compromises. After market sensors trying to prove out new technology for OEMs to bite is going out and just finding whatever fleet managers are interested. Whatever location we can find, we are trying to get it on there. Cost of labor, estimated annual units sold, ergonomics, and whatever my PM wants to be an asshole about drive my decisions. At the end of the day im just a dude that wants to make the least amount of people unhappy. This doesnt leave room for many people to be happy.

o0f1ic

askengineers_test

How do I find "billable time" when work is slow and budgets are spent?!? Background: I'm a water resources engineer with a P.E. license. Around 5 years experience. The most stressful part of my job is filling out my timesheet. I'm always being pressured to find billable hours but it's difficult most weeks. Project managers are very wary of overspending their budgets or they don't want to take the time to explain what they need help on. This week has been better so far because of some water main work that came up but that's not going to last me very long. I have projects coming up but my past few weeks have been very stressful. I've used my vacation time to fill in the gaps but now I've used most of that. Is this something that everyone deals with?

h1vj6gs

h1urk6k

Why the fuck you using your PTO to fix the lack of management?

I'm guessing you work as a consultant engineer, same as me. Dude, it effing blows sometimes. I've been st it for 7 years and am so burnt out.

3ketm0

askengineers_test

Is it Legal to use patented ideas/plans for non commercial use, i.e something I build in a shed for myself ? I want to incorporate a certain patented jet engine design features into a UAV.. Yes or no. It's not about whether they'll find out or not, but principal.

cux2wfd

cux9pp1

As others have said, it's about damages, but that can be expanded beyond just patent law. Civil suits in general (which includes patents) have to show damages. If you're not competing with them or otherwise harming their use of said patent, they have no case.

No. Assuming your use is actually covered by the issued claims (a question for a lawyer), you'd be infringing. To show infringement in the US, the patent holder only needs to show that you're making/using their claimed invention (or it's "equivalent") without permission (license). Commercial sale is not part of the test. You making money is not part of the test. Financial damage to the patent holder is not part of the test. Your use without permission is per se damage to the patent holder. What that damage is *worth* can depend on if you are causing traditional financial damage (loss of sales or whatever), but you're still infringing. The remedy would probably look like an injunction (a court order stopping you from using it) and the financial value of a license for the time you used the product. Unlike copyright, there is no "fair use" defense for patents.

bpgm51

askengineers_test

What are alternative career paths for a recent engineering graduate who's effectively unhireable as an engineer? Hola, amigos! I just graduated from a top ten university with a degree in Chemical Engineering. Sounds great, right? Well...I graduated with a 2.21 gpa (2.43 major). Zero internship experience. Spent most of my semesters on academic probation. Took 6.5 years to graduate. To be blunt, I'm not hireable. No company in the world could look at my academic record and choose to give me a shot. I know that, and I recognize that engineering simply isn't an option for me at this point. With that said, what *are* the options for someone like me? I don't want to work a minimum-wage job the rest of my life, like I have been full-time since graduating, and I have to believe it's possible to find some job somewhere that I could be qualified for. Or become qualified for. What should someone in a situation like mine do?* I appreciate any and all insight. *I don't want to make this question specific to me, but rather broadly applicable to anyone whose undergraduate experience was, to put it mildly, an unmitigated disaster. I'm happy to answer questions about my specific situation, but I want to keep the situation generalizable for everyone. **Addendum:** I don't want to portray myself as completely hopeless. Yes, my overall gpa is dire, but the context is that I "earned" a 1.42 gpa during my freshman year, and subsequently took two years off to take community college courses before returning. With the exception of a semester that proved to be almost a total loss (1.37 gpa and two D's; I should have dropped out of classes before the deadline), I earned a 2.44 gpa or higher in my other 5 semesters, and a 2.82 and 3.20 in my final two semesters, respectively (while working 20+ hours per week during both semesters). So it's not a complete wash. But it's very hard to be optimistic... I have a friend who enjoyed a full ride, earned a 3.95 gpa, and worked multiple internships...and he applied to 60 jobs, with only 2 interviews!

ent1h8s

ent3hs1

Don't give up! I absolutely understand how you feel, I was in the same position and the years of relentless disappointment destroyed my self esteem. I am a design engineer now. I love it. My boss and my colleagues love me. I did pretty well at secondary school, and then did really well in my A-levels and thought I was hot shit. I had loved cars and machines for a long time, but had no idea what engineering was, I thought an engineer was someone who swang spanners. I happened to be browsing the triumph website one day and saw their "careers" link. I clicked through and saw a job advert for a power train engineer and I immediately knew that that was what I wanted to be. The problem was that to get into a good uni in the UK I needed a physics A-level, generally regarded as one of the toughest, and I was halfway through my A-levels. So I convinced my teachers to let me take the A-level in half the usual time so as to not delay my starting university and I got an A. So I got into one of the top ten unis in the country to study an integrated masters in mechanical engineering. And I failed. I failed so hard that I was immediately kicked out of the university with no appeal. So then I applied to a top 30 university to study an integrated masters in mechanical engineering, and they gave me second chance. So there I was in first year again and this time it was gonna be different! And it was, but I still failed 30% of my modules and had to come back in summer to resit them, which I did and scraped into second year. So then I was in second year and shit went bad, in my personal life I had a horrible year that year, and I still wasn't a model student. I failed about half my modules. I got 2% in one exam. So I had to resit in summer, but this time I still failed 3 modules. So I had to spend a whole extra year just enrolled on those 3 modules. I sat them and passed them. And I started to pull myself together, I brushed up on everything I had learnt so far and snuck into some 3rd year lectures to get a headstart. So now I'm in 3rd year (having spend 4 years on 1st and 2nd year) and I finally get my shit together. I join the formula student team, I do well in my individual project, and I pass everything that year. I even pull my average up to a 2:2 and I actually get into my masters year! I start my masters year, I have my shit together, but actually no I don't because life is a bitch (and I am immature) and I fail it. So 6 years after first sitting in an engineering lecture I leave university with a 2:2 bachelors degree that should have taken 3 years, and I have no internship or work experience because I spend basically every summer doing resits. And in the UK, in theory anyway, a design engineer should have a masters degree. A masters degree is considered a requirement for a design engineer (in theory). So I was pretty convinced I had no chance of getting an engineering job, but I really didn't want to be a barista for the rest of my life. What the fuck was I gonna do? Well I applied to design engineer jobs anyway, because I couldn't fucking bear losing that career for ever. And I got one. Quite quickly too. At a small local company who probably didn't know that I really should have had a masters, and probably didn't realise they should have asked my I had only just graduated when I was 24. And its great! The people are lovely. The work is interesting and varied and creative and it really is proper design engineering. I talk to my friends from uni, some of whom went to work for massive, prestigious companies, and they don't do much design at all. I use stuff I learnt in uni all the time, and my boss thinks its great. I get nothing but good reviews. I'm not saying that it will definitely work out for you, maybe I got lucky, but I damn well know you have already paid the price for that degree, you might as keep pushing on with that same bloody-mindedness for at least another 6 months. Apply to small companies, get feedback on your CV and applications, and put yourself out there. Feel free to message me and I will help out however I can.

The real question is "Why did you study chemical engineering?" and "Why did you do so poorly in school?". 5 years from now, nobody will care what your GPA was. So, consider why you made the choices you made and go from there. If you did poorly in school because you don't like chemical engineering, then the **last thing you want** is a chemical engineering job. That's all those folks do all day, chemical engineering. Find another job in a company that makes chemicals. Maybe work in sales, finding out what the company's customers need, and why they need them. Help your company figure out what is the most profitable thing to make and help your customers get the right product for their needs. Your knowledge of chemical engineering will be very valuable, and you'll be able to speak knowledgeably to the chemical engineers that are designing the company's products. If your problem was that you had to work to pay for college and you want to be a chemical engineer, then explain the adversity you've faced and the effort you've spent overcoming it. It's an upbeat message, and hiring managers with stacks of millennial resumes for folks who can't show they're willing to work hard (or come right out and say they don't want to work hard) will pick your folder out and toss the rest.

rtuaze

askengineers_test

Whats one disadvantage of being an engineer? What do you not like about engineering?

hqvckzm

hqvhqep

Most of the people you work with are male nerds, most likely including yourself Also, the more lucrative career path seems to progress towards management or at least team lead, so you can't just put your head down and make stuff all day even if you want to (please feel free to prove me wrong on these)

None of your non-engineering friends and no one in your family understands what you do all day. When you try to explain, you can watch as they desperately try to leave the conversation or try to change the topic.

sasfp5

askengineers_test

How much python should I learn as a Mechanical Engineer student? I just finished Python Crash Course by Eric Matthes and I am wondering on which path I should go for. Should I go for an in-depth learning of python such as data science or machine learning or possibly learn things such as Excel VBA. I am still unsure on which career I should take as I am very limited because I live in a third world country. I am very fascinated inaerospace and robots in general but that won’t be an option unless I move to a better country. Thanks for your insights

htw8v8o

htvy4hm

I use excel daily. Both VBA and Python are situational, but when I've used them, they have made the tasks way way faster and easier even though I had to google a ton and be a total hack to make the scripts work.

The big difference is that Excel is already on your work computer. To run Python, you will likely have to get IT to install it on your computer, and depending on the size of your company and their IT policies, they may not be allowed to do that for you. Python will definitely be able to do more, but Excel VBA is so much more accessible in a corporate environment.

itlmbq

askengineers_test

Finding a better purpose in engineering? Hi everyone, I'm looking for advice. I have followed a very secure path -- graduated from a top 5 mechanical engineering school and directly hired into a top aerospace company, where I've been for the past year. I thought I was hired into my dream job, but working as a design engineer in a cubicle farm makes me feel like my brain is atrophying. Working in defense as I have become more firm in my values of non-violence makes me feel icky as well. When I look around my current workplace, I'm not excited by the job that anyone around me has. I want something closer to full-brain (analytical + creative) problem-solving in my every day, for a problem that matters. I'm frustrated that engineering is so revered in society, but so far it feels like my skills are being wasted and I'm creating something bad for the world. I don't know where to start in this search for better purpose in engineering. I'm wondering if graduate school would help. I had an interest in controls in college but was told this field may be too "deep" for my liking. I'm a people person who wants to use my brain on good technology. I'm hoping graduate school would reaffirm my technical abilities and give me time/experience to better determine what kind of tech I'm interested in. Any thoughts/advice? Thank you!

g5fxjae

g5fvs7j

work in manufacturing at a small company! fun solving problems without all the red tape

I would definitely do graduate school, but before that I would talk to someone at your work to get a clear idea of a career path. If its in defense there's a good chance you may like another group or area to work, I would ask before you jump ship. If thats not the case make sure you start graduate school with a clear idea of what you want to do. What makes you happy and what your passion is. So you don't waste anytime during the school year and get a good start on the path that's right for you. Maybe look into some national laboratories or a more technical job.

lpeeqs

askhistorians_test

Why do Communist societies that we've seen tend toward authoritarianism and dictatorial-style arrangements? First off, I'm sorry for my lack of knowledge on this topic, and want to note that I almost asked this in /r/NoStupidQuestions but decided an educated answer would be better than a flamewar. And before anyone says it, sure, maybe prehistoric tribes can be labelled "communist" and maybe didn't operate this way, but I am referring to the myriad 20th century communist countries that made up the "second World". It's hard to get a clear answer without devolving into "communism bad" "no, communism good". From what I can tell, it's not necessarily required for a communist state to have a single authoritarian leader, yet all real-world examples I can think of had very consolidated power arrangements into a single position? There are free-market dictatorships and free-market republics, but it seems that any Communist state went down an authoritarian route of some kind-- Stalin, Tito, Mao, Castro? I'm familiar with the concept of the Vanguard of the Revolution, but surely this is not the only way to proceed forward? Some hypotheses I've had on the matter include: * Maybe I'm saturated in propaganda from an American public school system and actually the dictatorish nature of Communist societies I'd heard about is exaggerated/didn't hear about the examples where this didn't happen? * Or, if it was accurate, it was a "fruit of the poisoned tree" situation, where since the Soviets went down a dictatorial Stalinist path and assisted the other communist countries in setting up, they imprinted this system onto them as well? * There's also an issue of post-revolution political disarray generally giving rise to tyrants, which, when combined with Communism often being instated via revolution, yields a high risk of a tyrant seizing power. Am I feeling around on the right path, or am I way off the mark?

gobm6jf

gobv2ft

Hello! This question has been asked before. /u/Finger_Trapz answered Why did Communism almost always lead to dictatorships? This does not preclude anyone from adding more.

There is no single accepted answer among academic historians or even among leftists. As one might expect, for such a politically charged and relevant question it becomes *really* difficult to separate history proper from politics. One reasonable way to approach the question is to look at what the leaders of the revolution thought and how they preceived or justified authoritarianism. It's also important to understand their political experience and context. A good starting point I think is the late 19th century, when the Second International, an association of primarily Marxist parties across Europe, suffered an internal crisis between *reformists* and *revolutionists*. At that point, the revolutionary character of Marxism was not yet agreed upon among its followers, and within the parties reformist Marxists tended to hold sway. Unlike modern social democrats, these reformists still (if only nominally) held the ultimate goal of overcoming capitalism; the major disagreement was if this could be achieved by working entirely within the bourgeois state. This question of reform or revolution is discussed with some more historical context in the revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg's eponymous pamphlet, written at the height of this conflict. Eduard Bernstein's works give the reformist perspective. (As an aside, Rosa Luxemburg was a revolutionist in Germany and Poland who collaborated extensively with Lenin. She would later disagree tactically with Lenin during the Russian revolution but, as I believe, they had no fundamental doctrinal differences-- one can expect that Luxemburg's comments about reform and revolution are broadly the same as Lenin's) As Europe approached the First World War, the reformist tendency within socialist parties would deepen and even take on a nationalistic character. By then, the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) had become the dominant socialist party within Europe, having achieved significant labor reforms and boasting a membership in the millions. This, combined with the threat of invasion from a deeply reactionary Russia, compelled German reformists to associate socialism with German patriotism, and national defense with the defense of socialism (ironically, a similar trend would occur in France *against* Germany, which many Frenchmen perceived as a reactionary threat against their republic). Revolutionists, on the other hand, tended to have an internationalist outlook, believing that only an international revolution against imperialist warfare could defend socialism. When WW1 broke out at last, the SPD (and most other European parties) voted in favor of war, beginning a period of *Burgfriedenspolitik* wherein the SPD abstained from strikes and other subversive activities against the war effort. The revolutionists and few reformists who disagreed with this policy splintered away from the SPD into the Independent SPD, the Spartacist League, and eventually the German Communist Party. Notably, Lenin's party in Russia also opposed war by majority, foreshadowing the dominance of revolutionists in the upcoming struggle. This is all to say that the events leading up to WW1 and the Russian revolution precipitated huge, seemingly irreconciliable divisions between the reformist and revolutionist factions of the European socialists. This conflict would take on its most bloody form in the 1918-19 Spartacus uprising at the end of the German revolution: once in power, the now wholly reformist SPD would brutally crush their revolutionist counterparts as they attempted to establish worker's states. Remember again that these were former comrades who, decades ago, would have relied on each other's cooperation. So what does this have to do with authoritarianism in Russia? The leaders of the Russian revolution were internationalists, and had counted on the victory of the German revolutionaries and, hence, the victory of a sweeping revolution across the world. The hope was that, since Germany was among the foremost industrial powers of the world, it could provide material necessities and alleviate the stresses of war, in turn allowing for demilitarization and democratization across both Germany and Russia. This didn't happen-- again, the German revolutionaries were massacred by reformists. It's possible that the Bolsheviks miscalculated, or simply that the Bolsheviks had no other choice but to push forward and *hope* that Germany would turn around. Probably both. In any case, the ascendant Bolsheviks were left in a very, *very* difficult situation: they were in charge of a war-weary nation with hostile states (particularly now Germany) on all sides and powerful counterrevolutionaries within. Realistically there was only one thing they could do besides capitulate-- dig in, and use the full power of the state to survive for as long as possible. Rosa Luxemburg summarizes this impasse pretty well in The Russian Tragedy (which is short but extremely useful in understanding the attitudes of communists at the time -- a must read!): > The awkward position that the Bolsheviks are in today, however, is, together with most of their mistakes, a consequence of basic insolubility of the problem posed to them by the international, above all the *German*, proletariat. To carry out the dictatorship of the proletariat and a socialist revolution in a single country surrounded by reactionary imperialist rule and in the fury of the bloodiest world war in human history – that is squaring the circle. Any socialist party would have to fail in this task and perish – whether or not it made self-renunciation the guiding star of its policies. ... **Such is the false logic of the objective situation: any socialist party that came to power in Russia today must pursue the wrong tactics so long as it, as part of the international proletarian army, is left in the lurch by the main body of this army.** As an example of "wrong tactics," Trotsky discusses in a report that the early Soviet worker's militia could not confront the vastly better-equipped and better-trained German army, nor even the relatively more experienced armies under White control. As a result, Trotsky was compelled to professionalize the army, institute harsh drafts, and even incorporate captured White officers at gunpoint just to win the civil war. Both he and Lenin recognized that these measures were counter to the principles of the revolution but were nonetheless necessary if the revolution were to survive at all. As we now know, neither Germany nor any comparably industrialized country underwent a successful communist revolution. The Soviets would remain isolated long after Lenin's death, and Stalin would further entrench authoritarianism-- what started as emergency measures became standard procedure when the emergency never went away. (EDIT: This part feels a bit insufficient. I don't want to attribute the entrenchment of authoritarianism as something unique to Stalin as a person -- it was likely a combination of broad social forces and personality. I might point to the rising nationalism in Marxist reformists are an analogous process, but this would require a more detailed treatment of Stalin I am not really prepared to make.) For subsequent revolutions, the "fruit from a poisoned tree" situation you described is sort of right-- these revolutions drew explicitly from Lenin's revolutionary measures and, sometimes less explicitly, from Stalin's entrenchment. One might even say that they were all part of a single, broader revolution, and can't be treated as isolated cases. Later on certain countries like Cambodia and North Korea would spin off on their own and abandon communism even in name, but since they faced the same problems of political isolation, they had at least an excuse to remain authoritarian. It's probably not true that failure was inevitable, which would ignore the later history of Trotskyism and other oppositional forces in, most notably, the USSR and the China. But I don't want to spin off into counterfactuals-- things *could* have happened differently, but they didn't, and that's the question you're asking. In summary: * Pre-WW1 politics caused a deep rift between reformist and revolutionary factions in European socialism * This led to the (short-term) success of the Russian revolution and the failure of the German revolution, as reformists were much more powerful in the latter country * Without German support, the Russian Bolsheviks had to enact emergency authoritarian measures to remain afloat * Later, the static international situation allowed authoritarianism to be entrenched * Future revolutions would emulate the Bolsheviks and in turn face the same problems of political isolation Note again that this is just a single perspective, taking into account mostly primary sources from the leaders of the Russian and German revolutions. Still, this is an important point of view I think, and the one I'm most familiar with. Further reading: * Luxemburg's The Russian Tragedy, which discusses the Bolsheviks' policies in relation to the German socialists * Luxemburg's The Crisis of German Social Democracy which goes in depth about the division and irreconciliability of factions within the SPD * The Military Writings of Trotsky, for a deeper look into the Russian Civil War * Lenin's The State and Revolution, key to understanding the place of democracy in Lenin's ideology

8r50yv

askhistorians_test

[META] The answers on Ask Historians are often excellent, but the questions are frequently...not good, to be kind. What can be done to improve the quality of inquiry? Not to be too harsh (err, actually ...to be harsh) it has bothered me for some time that the some of the amazing resources available on AH are so often squandered on the frankly awful questions which dominate the volume. Ranging from profound ignorance to utter nonsensicality. While Reddit rests on the silicon valley fever-dream of popular voting causing the cream to rise, in reality subject matter or rote recognition often dominates over incisive inquiry that prompts real novel research and discussion. The SASQ threads are a hall-of-fame for evidence that the majority of the audience neither understands the scope of questions they are asking, nor how to prompt the response they are interested in coherently. In an ideal world, gently educating your audience in order to inquire more effectively would be a possible solution, but given the amplitude of work I have no doubt AH already consumes in regards to moderation and operationg, hardly reasonable. It would seem to me that simply tightening the standards on allowable questions in some regards would help to alleviate the lopsided signal:noise ratio, while also raising the level of discourse.

e0p07ls

e0p7g0o

This is a social media platform open to all, are you really that surprised that the questions aren't up to the same standards as the answers ? It seems like you'd be better off with a separate website where only educated people and the like are welcome (I know this sounds snarky, in a "feck off elsewhere then" type, it's not!) I love this sub because I've learned just *so so much* on random topics I never even thought about. From the broad to the precise, I've learned more than I ever did in education. Which isn't saying much, because I never finished high school..but still.. I think the openness on questions is amazing, as the hard working historians here are free to answer it if they want. Maybe they're having a shitty day and feel more picky, not wanting to deal with questions that they view as trite and stupid. Maybe they're having a particularly awesome day and feel like spreading some knowledge on topics that otherwise get ignored.

So you want to regulate people's curiosity? That's a battle you're not going to win. What's wrong with the verified historians answering what they can, and not answering what they can't, i.e. the status quo?

fwl1wm

askhistorians_test

Where does the president's cabinet come from? I'm Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky, here to discuss my new book 'The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution' and early Presidential history, AMA! **The U.S. Constitution never established a presidential cabinet—the delegates to the Constitutional Convention explicitly rejected the idea. So how did George Washington create one of the most powerful bodies in the federal government?** On November 26, 1791, George Washington convened his department secretaries—Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Henry Knox, and Edmund Randolph—for the first cabinet meeting. Why did he wait two and a half years into his presidency to call his cabinet? Because the U.S. Constitution did not create or provide for such a body. Washington was on his own. Faced with diplomatic crises, domestic insurrections, and constitutional challenges—and finding congressional help lacking—Washington decided he needed a group of advisors he could turn to. He modeled his new cabinet on the councils of war he had led as commander of the Continental Army. In the early days, the cabinet served at the president’s pleasure. Washington tinkered with its structure throughout his administration, at times calling regular meetings, at other times preferring written advice and individual discussions. *The Cabinet* reveals the far-reaching consequences of Washington’s choice. The tensions in the cabinet between Hamilton and Jefferson heightened partisanship and contributed to the development of the first party system. And as Washington faced an increasingly recalcitrant Congress, he came to treat the cabinet as a private advisory body to summon as needed, greatly expanding the role of the president and the executive branch.

fmpf3wl

fmpgm3m

Thanks for doing this! Washington is often said to have opposed party politics but didn’t he act as a de facto party leader, opposed by Jefferson and Madison? Did American voters (fond of Washington) identify as Federalist or can the term not be applied to the masses?

In high school history class, I’m sure a lot of us heard about Andrew Jackson’s informal “kitchen cabinet,” which was just a bunch of advisors without portfolio, which doesn’t sound that different from the original Cabinet, minus the without portfolio bit. Even through to today we hear a lot about informal advisors who have a great deal of influence with a President. What in between Washington and Jackson caused the transition to having an “official” Cabinet and an informal one that sounds pretty similar to the original idea of the Cabinet as Washington envisioned it?

fwl1wm

askhistorians_test

Where does the president's cabinet come from? I'm Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky, here to discuss my new book 'The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution' and early Presidential history, AMA! **The U.S. Constitution never established a presidential cabinet—the delegates to the Constitutional Convention explicitly rejected the idea. So how did George Washington create one of the most powerful bodies in the federal government?** On November 26, 1791, George Washington convened his department secretaries—Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Henry Knox, and Edmund Randolph—for the first cabinet meeting. Why did he wait two and a half years into his presidency to call his cabinet? Because the U.S. Constitution did not create or provide for such a body. Washington was on his own. Faced with diplomatic crises, domestic insurrections, and constitutional challenges—and finding congressional help lacking—Washington decided he needed a group of advisors he could turn to. He modeled his new cabinet on the councils of war he had led as commander of the Continental Army. In the early days, the cabinet served at the president’s pleasure. Washington tinkered with its structure throughout his administration, at times calling regular meetings, at other times preferring written advice and individual discussions. *The Cabinet* reveals the far-reaching consequences of Washington’s choice. The tensions in the cabinet between Hamilton and Jefferson heightened partisanship and contributed to the development of the first party system. And as Washington faced an increasingly recalcitrant Congress, he came to treat the cabinet as a private advisory body to summon as needed, greatly expanding the role of the president and the executive branch.

fmp69cy

fmp9xw2

Probably a far reaching question but as Washington noticed factions developing as a result of his cabinet members and their allies do you think he would have liked to take the Trump approach and just fire those with whom he couldn't work with or get on board with something? This wasn't the case but what do you think Washington would think of this strategy?

> The U.S. Constitution never established a presidential cabinet—the delegates to the Constitutional Convention explicitly rejected the idea. What was the convention’s plan to handle the duties the cabinet wound up taking? Back then it certainly was a lot less than there is now—seems like it was around five or so people—but in writing the constitution, was the president expected to do *everything*?

8r50yv

askhistorians_test

[META] The answers on Ask Historians are often excellent, but the questions are frequently...not good, to be kind. What can be done to improve the quality of inquiry? Not to be too harsh (err, actually ...to be harsh) it has bothered me for some time that the some of the amazing resources available on AH are so often squandered on the frankly awful questions which dominate the volume. Ranging from profound ignorance to utter nonsensicality. While Reddit rests on the silicon valley fever-dream of popular voting causing the cream to rise, in reality subject matter or rote recognition often dominates over incisive inquiry that prompts real novel research and discussion. The SASQ threads are a hall-of-fame for evidence that the majority of the audience neither understands the scope of questions they are asking, nor how to prompt the response they are interested in coherently. In an ideal world, gently educating your audience in order to inquire more effectively would be a possible solution, but given the amplitude of work I have no doubt AH already consumes in regards to moderation and operationg, hardly reasonable. It would seem to me that simply tightening the standards on allowable questions in some regards would help to alleviate the lopsided signal:noise ratio, while also raising the level of discourse.

e0p0sc5

e0p9dvw

Ha! You guys should see Quora! Compared to that den of iniquity and ignorance, the questions here are positively Einsteinian! Here's a question that gets asked *at least* once a week: "What was the best tank in WWII, and it's obviously the Tiger, right?" (1). Once a week, swear to god. And that's an *above average question*, too. Let's don't even get started with what the political questions are like. Just say no. So, carry on, ladies and gentlemen, carry on. ............. (1) Of course not, you moron, it's the Sherman.

No offense, but this question rubs me the wrong way. Specifically, it comes across as haughty and condescending IMO. I mean sure, some of the questions asked here may not be of the highest "quality" (whatever that means), but do we expect every interaction in this sub to me a socratic seminar? I am by no means an expert in the field, just a lurker who frequents this sub, but I was always under the impression that actual historians/experts would be happy that the laymen are taking interest in their field of expertise. If that is not the case, then sure, go ahead and start moderating the questions asked on this sub, but I'd imagine the consequence of such an action would be a decline in activity overall.

fwl1wm

askhistorians_test

Where does the president's cabinet come from? I'm Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky, here to discuss my new book 'The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution' and early Presidential history, AMA! **The U.S. Constitution never established a presidential cabinet—the delegates to the Constitutional Convention explicitly rejected the idea. So how did George Washington create one of the most powerful bodies in the federal government?** On November 26, 1791, George Washington convened his department secretaries—Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Henry Knox, and Edmund Randolph—for the first cabinet meeting. Why did he wait two and a half years into his presidency to call his cabinet? Because the U.S. Constitution did not create or provide for such a body. Washington was on his own. Faced with diplomatic crises, domestic insurrections, and constitutional challenges—and finding congressional help lacking—Washington decided he needed a group of advisors he could turn to. He modeled his new cabinet on the councils of war he had led as commander of the Continental Army. In the early days, the cabinet served at the president’s pleasure. Washington tinkered with its structure throughout his administration, at times calling regular meetings, at other times preferring written advice and individual discussions. *The Cabinet* reveals the far-reaching consequences of Washington’s choice. The tensions in the cabinet between Hamilton and Jefferson heightened partisanship and contributed to the development of the first party system. And as Washington faced an increasingly recalcitrant Congress, he came to treat the cabinet as a private advisory body to summon as needed, greatly expanding the role of the president and the executive branch.

fmp69cy

fmpetnc

Probably a far reaching question but as Washington noticed factions developing as a result of his cabinet members and their allies do you think he would have liked to take the Trump approach and just fire those with whom he couldn't work with or get on board with something? This wasn't the case but what do you think Washington would think of this strategy?

What was the relationship between Washington and his VP Adams really like? Given that the Cabinet seems to have been more important to Washington in terms of seeking advice, was he personally disinclined to ask Adams for his opinion? Or did he view the VP office as effectively non-executive due to the Senate President title?

8r50yv

askhistorians_test

[META] The answers on Ask Historians are often excellent, but the questions are frequently...not good, to be kind. What can be done to improve the quality of inquiry? Not to be too harsh (err, actually ...to be harsh) it has bothered me for some time that the some of the amazing resources available on AH are so often squandered on the frankly awful questions which dominate the volume. Ranging from profound ignorance to utter nonsensicality. While Reddit rests on the silicon valley fever-dream of popular voting causing the cream to rise, in reality subject matter or rote recognition often dominates over incisive inquiry that prompts real novel research and discussion. The SASQ threads are a hall-of-fame for evidence that the majority of the audience neither understands the scope of questions they are asking, nor how to prompt the response they are interested in coherently. In an ideal world, gently educating your audience in order to inquire more effectively would be a possible solution, but given the amplitude of work I have no doubt AH already consumes in regards to moderation and operationg, hardly reasonable. It would seem to me that simply tightening the standards on allowable questions in some regards would help to alleviate the lopsided signal:noise ratio, while also raising the level of discourse.

e0oxdsf

e0pabu5

Can you provide an example of what you would like? Note: others are free to respond.

You come across as an... elitist of some sort. Remember, this is askhistorians, not historiansask. That means you'll get laypeople asking ridiculous questions, and if you are a historian you are here to educate them. If someone asks an obviously ridiculous question like "why don't people like Hitler", then you tell them why. If you ignore their "cry for knowledge", then why, as a historian, are you here if not to educate people? See, my gripe with people who expect so much from everyone is just that, not everyone is nearly as smart as you are to even make a good question. A proper lad would answer with "I'm not sure I understand your question, did you mean [so and so]?", until the question is clear so you can answer it. If you ignore a question just because it's too simple or something then you certainly are not helping your case. If you help teach people instead of moderating them you will be able to reach out with the knowledge you and the rest of you historians possess to more people. Once again, more often than not you have laymen asking questions, and some of might be very young and new to this world, and you just want to ignore them instead of teaching them? It sets the precedence for what kind of person you are (to be a little harsh).

1vatbe

askhistorians_test

Considering the chronological relationship between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, why is it that Christianity didn't have any dietary restrictions? Or am I wrong believing that? Were there any restrictions at the beginning of Christianity? Even if that would be the case, why they weren't applied as rigorously as its counterparts?

ceqf4zd

ceqf6o3

Early Christian's were almost entirely Jewish (as was Jesus himself) and the early Christian "church" considered itself the next step in Judaism. However, many Jews rejected this notion and in many cases persecuted early Christians (see the conversion of Saul to Paul). This did not keep Christianity from spreading to the non-Jewish populations of the Mediterranean. The aforementioned Paul then wrote many letters to these communities in which there were some serious issues of dietary restrictions and male circumcision were very divisive topics between Jewish and Gentile Christians. In what I believe to be a nice political move, it is decided that there should be no pressure for Christians to be circumcised or to have restrictions on food (the once restriction that I remember at all is to not eat of food offered in sacrifice to idols i.e. Roman or other "gods"). This is just one example of the inclusiveness of the early Christian Church. A major part of the "success" of Christianity is/was it's adaptability.

There's evidence of 'factionalism' even among the earliest Christians (in the 1st century) on this very issue. In many cases, much of the tension arose between Jewish and Gentile Christians. But not necessarily. One of the narratives in the New Testament itself that addresses dietary issues (and some of the Christian innovations regarding them) is found in the 10th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles: >Peter went up on the roof to pray. 10 He became hungry and wanted something to eat; and while it was being prepared, he fell into a trance. 11 He saw the heaven opened and something like a large sheet coming down, being lowered to the ground by its four corners. 12 In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air. 13 Then he heard a voice saying, "Get up, Peter; kill and eat." 14 But Peter said, "By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean." 15 The voice said to him again, a second time, "What God has made clean, you must not call profane." This is almost certainly more representative of the so-called "supersessionist" branch, which prioritized the coming/sacrifice of Christ and its transformative effects over observance of Jewish law. We can see another narrative that addresses kosher/dietary things, just a few chapters later (in Acts 15). Described here is a "council" in Jerusalem, with many the most important Christian figures present: James, Peter, Paul. In the end, these figures produce a letter which is then sent to Gentiles churches, advising that Gentiles should "abstain . . . from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from whatever has been strangled and from blood." This list is virtually identical to that in Leviticus 17-18: prohibiting meat offered to idols (17.8-9), ingestion of blood (17.10-12) and improperly slaughtered animals (17.15). I've written about this in more detail here - but just to pick out one little section: >there's no real indication from [the council related in Acts 15] that Paul and the Jerusalem church get along anything other than splendidly ("our dear friend" Paul, etc.) . . . Yet the letter that they then send back with Paul (to Antioch, Syria, Cilicia) seems to have "agreements" which, elsewhere, are quite opposed by Paul. While - for the sake of space - skipping over some nuances here, consider Paul's blanket statement in 1 Cor 10:25-26: >>Eat *anything* that is sold in the meat market without asking questions for conscience’s sake; "for the earth is the Lord's, and all it contains" ____ Ultimately, as the Christian church became a majority *Gentile* church, the supersessionist 'faction' won out - evidence of which is certainly found in the accounts of Acts themselves (which, as a whole, is a highly fictionalized [quasi-]'history'). It's absolutely fascinating to look at early Islam's relationship with all this. There's some evidence that some of the influence of some of the more primitive Jewish-oriented Christian sects survived, and may have still been around to have influenced Islam (that could be its own thread). But in any case, it all fits in with Islam's portrait of a Christianity which - though still founded by figures that were truly divinely inspired, and worth of reverence - had gone too far in its rejection of the laws and theology of its 'mother' traditions, introducing heretical innovations.

1ajfpg

askhistorians_test

how common were young people who behaved in a stereotypically hippie like way (I.E travling, free love, drug taking) in 1970 America?

c8y5u3t

c8y2a4j

History isn't always great at telling you "how common" something was across a whole country. There were some hippies, and there were some squares as well. However, the General Social Survey started in 1972. I'm not going to go through the whole question list now (there are thousands questions, but it's searchable--however, not every question was asked every year), but it's all publicly available. It's meant to be downloaded and used with a statistics package (like R, SPSS, Stata, which makes doing more complex things possible), but there is an online thing where you can mess around with it for free with no experience needed in statistics. Okay, so on the right side you want Row: to be the variable you're interested in, for Column: put "age" (so you can separate "young people" from "old people"), and for Selection Filter(s) put "year(1973)" (or any year you want after 1972). Two good variables to start with (remember, just type these in to "Row:") are GRASS ("Do you think the use of marijuana should be made legal or not?") and ANTIWAR ("Have you ever taken part in.... (c) An anti-war demonstration?"). Since I assume many of the readers are lazy, here's .jpegs of the output for 1973 for those two questions. **Probably about 15-20% of young people in 1973 had participated in an anti-war protest, but probably about 35-50% thought that marijuana should be legal** (notice there's a lot of random variation in the numbers because we're dealing with small sample sizes). To get at other questions (like attitudes towards sex), you can explore yourself. I don't think they actually asked about drug use for a few more year but they might have already been asking at this point--there are a lot of questions to explore and I've mainly just used this to look at religion, and generally use this to look at the last 20 years, not the last 40. You can play around with this. For example, you can put "year(1973-1978);age(18-25)" under "Selection Filter(s)" if you want to just get a picture of "young adults" in the mid seventies. Or you can search through the questions for ones about other topics you're interested in. But honestly, though this is slightly after you're interested in (1973 instead of 1970), it's maybe the best place to get an idea of "how common" something was in that era.

In Canada in 1970 it was quite common to see young people who were hippie like. It wasn't mainstream but certainly common place. After expo67,young canadians saw what the rest of the world had to offer and took to travelling abroad and embracing the lifestyle. Some of us continue it to this day,albeit with clean clothes.

fsre7s

askhistorians_test

AITA for accidentally putting a hit out on my best friend, imprisoning my wife, and not giving my sons every little thing they want? I (40M) and my wife (51F) have four sons(18, 16, 15, and 7) and three daughters (17, 11, and 8). I also have a son (21M) from a previous relationship. My wife brought substantial property into our marriage, and I want to keep as much of it as possible. Until recently, my best friend (51?M), business partner and all-around confidante and partner-in-crime, had gotten along great. And then I decided to promote him to become Archbishop of Canterbury, thinking that things would stay the same. He and I would be as thick as thieves, and we could effectively rule England, Normandy, Anjou, Brittany and Aquitaine together, and everything would be great! We had previously been working to acquire more land and income for the English crown by leaving bishoprics vacant and collecting on the revenues, but as soon as he was named Archbishop, was suddenly not on my side anymore. He suddenly wanted secular clerks tried in church courts instead of secular courts, and declared that funds I had given him AS A LOAN were actually GIFTS! This is someone I trusted! I trusted him to educate my son and heir! I tried to let him off easy. When I summoned the Bishops to Clarendon, I tried to give him a way out, and let him compromise, but he refused. I was forced to point out that his own spending as Chancellor was completely contrary to his current position on clerical spending practices. He was okay with it before I promoted him! And now that I've given him the status and power I thought he wanted, he's using it against me!!! So anyways, he fled to France because obviously he couldn't defend himself against me. Then he goes and starts excommunicating my other advisers and some of my other bishops! Then he wrote to the Pope and they threatened to place all of England under interdict! Imagine that, no weddings, no absolution, no burials... I couldn't have that, so I had to negotiate with the bloody coward. Then, as he's returning to England, he excommunicates MORE of my Bishops! I was at dinner when I heard, so I said to the room "What miserable drones and traitors have I nurtured and promoted in my household who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric!" Now, I was just angry. Anybody who knows me, knows that I can get angry and that I say things I don't mean. But four of my knights, some of whom had worked for my late brother (28M), whose marriage to the richest single girl in England had been blocked by this meddlesome priest, went to Canterbury and murdered the Archbishop! I didn't ORDER them to do it. I didn't hold a sword to their throat and make them go do it. But people are saying it's my fault! Now, three years later, after I did my penance, I thought everything was alright. I met a hot, younger woman (25F) and have been seeing her on the side since my wife is getting on in years and spends most of her time at her summer house in the South with our second son (16M). Now, our eldest (18M) keeps begging me for some estates of his own to govern. But he's irresponsible with money, and would rather fight in tournaments than learn the business of ruling. And my mother always said it was better to keep your falcons begging for scraps than to keep them well fed. So I keep telling him no. His older half-brother (21M) doesn't ask for anything! But then I hear he's run off to his mother's place, and that they're all on their way to Paris to meet with my eldest son's father-in-law (who also happens to by my wife's ex-husband) to plot a war against me! They say that I have forfeited the crown when I had the Archbishop of Canterbury murdered! Again, I didn't order it. Some of my men captured my wife, and I have her imprisoned to make sure my sons behave, but I hear they're taking up arms against me and several of my nobles are following suit. Did I put a hit out on my best friend? Is my wife mad about the other woman? Should I have given into my sons' constant requests for money? AITA? TL;DR: My best friend betrayed me, and I got angry. Some of my men killed him in my name. My wife and sons are rebelling. AITA? Edit: Oh, I also just got a message saying that the King of Scotland is invading too, great.

fm3mj1l

fm40jcb

NTA. This guy seems pretty turbulent AT BEST

NTA In fact you were too soft. Your friend obviously betrayed you. You let him be a priest to control the temple, so he should've listened. Frankly you should've ordered his execution. And of course you should see other women, especially if they're hot and come from good families. Frankly you should've imprisoned your son since it sounds like he kept nagging you for an estate. That would've taught him to obey his father. And prevent him from making the first move like I did when I teamed up with my father's ally to exile him, which sounds like he might be trying to do.

otmjt1

askhr_test

[AZ] Do you have to get permission to contact former employer for job applicant? As the title says. I've asked candidates for references, but sometimes I can't really tell for sure if the references from their old job are real or not. It can be easy to weed out fake references with good questions, but sometimes it's not as easy. I wanted to know if employers or hiring managers have to get permission before calling a former employee listed on the candidate's resume. I wouldn't consider calling employers that they list as ones they currently work for because that could get them into trouble, but I'm talking about ones they've left or let go from based on their resume.

h6wdbpk

h6wi2e6

When they apply through the ATS the fine print says we can contact anyone to verify their credentials. They by default agree by submitting the application. *edit* By the time references are verified the hiring manager has made the selection, and an offer has gone out and been accepted. But if you look at this reddit you will see tons of people lie, conceal or misrepresent their credentials to get to that point. I would guess “what will they find?” Is the most common question in here.

I just learned about blind references this week, and I have to say I am NOT a fan, but this is what some companies are doing to solve this and some other retention-related issues (because they think a more candid/blind response will help them find someone who “gets it”, whatever it is). What I learned is that in most states, these are not illegal. However they are shady and fraught with potential liability - see the linked article. Tread very very carefully!

d1z5uy

askhr_test

HR wants proof of my other job offer. Is this legal? NYC media conglomerate. TLDR: would you take this deal? Sounds fishy to me So they said they only way to expedite my promotion is to become a flight risk. Strange and unfair I thought but fine. I got an offer that pays $22k more than my current salary with a $16k signing bonus, plus all sorts of other lucrative perks. I’m proud of myself! Let my current employer know, and now suddenly they’re offering me the promotion I’d been promised for 3 years. The catch is a) they want proof of my offer b) they don’t have a timeline (yet) as to when it is official Is asking for proof legal? I feel like this is confidential info. What should I say in my mtg tomorrow with my leadership team?

ezsgkfe

ezsgaj8

If they made you go find another job to give you a raise....just take the other job. Screw that noise.

It’s probably not illegal and in fact completely reasonable they would want proof before entertaining a counter offer. That being said, you don’t have to let them counter offer. If they make an offer and you accept it, they’ll remember this and hold it against you in the future. Accept the new job and don’t look back.

pito1a

askhr_test

My Co-worker makes 30% more than me for the same job. [CAN] Hello, Recently and by accident, I knew how much my co-worker is making for the exact same job as me. We are only two employees doing this job in this company, and both started almost at the same time, more than two years ago. And now I don't know how to handle it with my boss, if tell him and ask for a raise, find another job, or what to do. Any idea will be really appreciated!

hbt7dqo

hbsa0h3

Started a new job 2.5 years ago. I came in with 5 years experience, already licensed, ready to go. Everyone else hired at the same time had to be trained, AND licensed. I had another job offer on the table when I accepted this one and they knew it. Guess who's the highest paid non management employee in my department? One guess. Long story short, there could be good reasons why they make more.

Maybe he does it much better than you. You can ask for the raise but be prepared to potentially face some unpleasant realities.

d1z5uy

askhr_test

HR wants proof of my other job offer. Is this legal? NYC media conglomerate. TLDR: would you take this deal? Sounds fishy to me So they said they only way to expedite my promotion is to become a flight risk. Strange and unfair I thought but fine. I got an offer that pays $22k more than my current salary with a $16k signing bonus, plus all sorts of other lucrative perks. I’m proud of myself! Let my current employer know, and now suddenly they’re offering me the promotion I’d been promised for 3 years. The catch is a) they want proof of my offer b) they don’t have a timeline (yet) as to when it is official Is asking for proof legal? I feel like this is confidential info. What should I say in my mtg tomorrow with my leadership team?

ezsas5h

ezsgaj8

They're hoping to match so they won't give it to you. Move on.

It’s probably not illegal and in fact completely reasonable they would want proof before entertaining a counter offer. That being said, you don’t have to let them counter offer. If they make an offer and you accept it, they’ll remember this and hold it against you in the future. Accept the new job and don’t look back.

c3h1h2

askhr_test

Does anything really happen after exit interviews? I recently left a job and scheduled an exit interview. The lady I met with was very polite and professional. She took notes as we talked. I made sure to not sound like a disgruntled employee. I stated things I liked about the company, such as the benefits and policies. I named several employees who I found to be kind, polite and helpful. I made sure to say several times that I Wasn't a perfect employee and noted when I had made a mistake at work. Then we got into why we quit. I told her of a recent meeting. Boss 1 (admin) and boss 2 (scientist) were both there. I mentioned there was shouting and name calling. I mentioned higher up 3 and higher up 4 were there. She asked who was leading and I said boss 2. Her narrowed, she stopped typing and she said "are you sure?" then explained that boss 1 was supposed to lead these types of meetings. This made sense, Boss 2's job requirements don't seem like they'd involve any training in business or hr matters. I explained that they'd offered some criticisms about "A,B,C, and D", she looked back over a paper and said that they'd only been approved to discuss "A,B, and D" at the meetings, and should have gotten approval to discuss C with an employee. I mentioned Higher 3 saying something regarding my mental health and she immediately stop typing and asked me to repeat, then said "he shouldn't have discussed that." with a disgusted look on her face. To give Boss 1 credit, I said that at this point she seemed to be trying to "reign in" the meeting by piping in but wasn't saying much. She then said "that meeting sounded awful.". I made it clear that I found no fault with the job, the company, and most of my coworkers. I said that if they'd been a bit kinder at the meeting, if they hadn't shouted, or if they'd said anything kind (for example the large project I had pulled together) I wouldn't have resigned. She assured me that someone starting like I was is expected to make mistakes and they shouldn't have reacted like that. She said they expected better of employees and was sorry to see me go. I was told that these exit interviews are usually a formality, but I was surprised at how concerned she was. Is there a chance anything will come from this internally? I was lead to believe it all tends to be a show.

err75ry

erqxzct

Can't say if anything does, as it really depends on your view, experience and varies by Company. Based on my experience, after being offered an exit interview and mulling it over the day after, I came to the conclusion that, as an hands-on and actions-driven person (not words), I should decline it. And I did decline it. I realized that as an exiting Employee, the Company couldn't give me the guarantee that whatever I said during the exit interview would be used to actually make changes in the Company. To that Company, the exit interview, to me, seemed more of a measure of my degree as a liability to it after leaving. Would I be a smoking gun and rat out everybody? Would I vilify the Company and poach its Employees? Having worked in the HR department of that Company, I knew full well we didn't take such exit interviews seriously as we should. And the updates I get from my former coworkers suggest that nothing has changed, sadly.

It depends on the HR Dept and depends on the company leadership, but yes, in my experience we take exit interviews very seriously and quite often turn responses into data points to demonstrate potential issues in departments, subgroups, sections of employees and so forth. Data trends, especially around employee satisfaction, or potential liability issues, are given special attention and action is taken, often immediately. We also give month-to-date/quarter-to-date/year-to-date updates on feedback we are getting during the exit interviews and any takeaways or follow ups that may be necessary. When applicable, HR or HR and direct supervisor will sit down with managers that may need some coaching on issues that have been raised. Our managers and employees know this, to the point that one of my department heads tried to send one of his employees home the moment he turned in his 2-week’s notice and told him it wasn’t necessary to talk to HR for his exit interview. Luckily that employee knew better and came by after he cleaned out his office. We learned quite a bit. Part of why we turn the responses into data points is so that we don’t divulge identities unless absolutely necessary.

qisw6j

askhr_test

[NJ] HR asked what are your salary expectation, I said 85k which is what I make. She emailed me back sayings thanks, we are targeting 90k. I will send you the full details of the offer once everything is approved. Can I counteroffer? What should I do, truthfully I just didnt want to be greedy but I know I shot myself in the foot. Does it look bad to counteroffer? If so should I wait to get the full offer letter or reply back now?

himvxsj

himof8z

If you would be happy with $85k, why would you be unhappy with $90k? It sounds like a great employer. If you tried to make a counter offer, you will look foolish.

It was your responsibility to do the research and inflate your first number. That’s how negotiations work.

d1z5uy

askhr_test

HR wants proof of my other job offer. Is this legal? NYC media conglomerate. TLDR: would you take this deal? Sounds fishy to me So they said they only way to expedite my promotion is to become a flight risk. Strange and unfair I thought but fine. I got an offer that pays $22k more than my current salary with a $16k signing bonus, plus all sorts of other lucrative perks. I’m proud of myself! Let my current employer know, and now suddenly they’re offering me the promotion I’d been promised for 3 years. The catch is a) they want proof of my offer b) they don’t have a timeline (yet) as to when it is official Is asking for proof legal? I feel like this is confidential info. What should I say in my mtg tomorrow with my leadership team?

ezrvux0

ezs03uu

If they don't have a timeline then they're just egging you on. Show the offer as a final f-u and then start your new job.

Most people who leverage an offer for a raise only last, on average, 18 months more. Take the new job and get the heck out of there!

oy1y44

askhr_test

As a college student could I negotiate for receiving no benefits but higher pay? [MI] Hello, I was wondering for a full time summer job as a college student if I could try and negotiate for a higher wage in exchange for limited to no benefits? I am still a dependent and so am on my parents insurance and am not in need of many of the benefits. Am asking for both smaller businesses or even big ones like CVS or Target. Thanks!

h7r8bsi

h7q7iwh

If it is a summer job you may be technically seasonal or temporary and not benefits eligible.

Often, no. Things like health insurance are mandated by law. Also, it's cheaper to provide you benefits than extra pay.

csidg7

askhr_test

Those who work at a company with an "unlimited" vacation policy: How much time can/do you REALLY take off? Been interviewing and have a couple offers. One company boasts an "unlimited" vacation policy. I've heard of this but never worked for an employer that has one. I'm not so naive to think that it's really "unlimited", so curious about anyone else's experience. I pushed the hiring manager on giving me a specific number, but she wouldn't budge. Only said they deliberately don't issue even a general target so that if employees leave they can't make a case to get paid out for unused vacation time (because there is no vacation accrual or balance in their world of unlimited vacation). **So how much vacation time can redditors really take at a company that offers "unlimited" before catching shit?** Country: US Industry: Advertising Agency/Consulting Role: Tech

exfi2w6

exf2v3f

Wife works for a fortune 50 who transitioned. She was with the company before the transition and got 6 weeks a year. She tries to take this much since it was how much she previously had before unlimited. However, the unwritten rule in these situations is performance. She runs a 50 mil operation and 200 employees. When her metrics are great her direct report says sure. However one of her colleagues is not doing well and the manager highly suggest to not take her vacations. Moral is, if you are doing well, great - if you aren’t then your going to have a shitty time. It helped my wife when her dad died she took a month off and got her full check.

My husband has an unlimited policy too, so it can be hard to know. He uses this rule of thumb: in your 20s or 30s its 3 weeks, in your 40s its 4 weeks, in your 50s or older it's 5 weeks. At most places, someone in their 20s would get 2 weeks, but I just think that's too little, honestly. My husband is in his mid-30s, so he typically takes about 3.5 weeks, give or take, and that seems to be "normal" across his industry and years of experience.

d1z5uy

askhr_test

HR wants proof of my other job offer. Is this legal? NYC media conglomerate. TLDR: would you take this deal? Sounds fishy to me So they said they only way to expedite my promotion is to become a flight risk. Strange and unfair I thought but fine. I got an offer that pays $22k more than my current salary with a $16k signing bonus, plus all sorts of other lucrative perks. I’m proud of myself! Let my current employer know, and now suddenly they’re offering me the promotion I’d been promised for 3 years. The catch is a) they want proof of my offer b) they don’t have a timeline (yet) as to when it is official Is asking for proof legal? I feel like this is confidential info. What should I say in my mtg tomorrow with my leadership team?

ezsxrzr

ezt1h3m

Take the new job. Congratulations on it and good luck. Your current gig doesn't appreciate you.

Here's what you do: In your exit interview when they ask why you're leaving, point out that they made you wait three years for a promotion they routinely promised you, and that to advance professionally you had to leave the company. OP: If you turn down the competing offer, your current employer no longer has any incentive to try and promote you. They also know you've been looking and interviewing to the point of an offer. Congratulations on your new job at your new company.

2ndlhk

askphilosophy_test

Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.

cmcqgfl

cmd797w

Feyerabend can do anything.

So that I'm not doing the same as some others, I'll do some authors with philosophical content: Albert Camus can blind people with sunlight. Tom Stoppard is a zombie. Ayn Rand can literally pull herself up by her bootstraps and levitate.

2ndlhk

askphilosophy_test

Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.

cmcwdzm

cmcnl94

Nietzsche: suddenly he can talk to women.

Giambattista Vico - Anything he says becomes true. Some Green Lantern-esque shit. Wittgenstein - Can talk to animals. Derrida - Laser eyes. Zizek - *Invisibility*.

v2d5de

askphilosophy_test

Philosophy of science book recommendations? Hello, I am beginning a PhD in physics, and decided I should have a deeper knowledge on the workings of the scientific method and how knowledge is produced in science. Things/people like popper, Kuhn, positivism, inductivism, etc. Something more on the accessible side would also be nice, since I normally find philosophy texts pretty tough to digest. Thanks in advance!

ias1ruw

iasezgb

A textbook is your best bet for a start. If you love the topic then you can delve deeper. Chalmers' What is this thing called science? is still the best. The only thing it misses out on is the recent trend to include moral education as part of what is means to be a good scientist.

Helen Longino is great, I'm a big fan of *Science as Social Knowledge*.

up6xzy

askphilosophy_test

Is it morally wrong to torture an ant? I’m no sadist, but I occasionally kill ants for seemingly no reason. Recently, I put a bottle cap over an ant and left it there. Is that action morally wrong, and if so why?

i8jdal9

i8j1k8r

According to utilitarianism, yes. You caused the ant to suffer for seemingly no reason, decreasing net utility in the situation.

According to Jainists, yes.

t3g9xq

askphilosophy_test

/r/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | February 28, 2022 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. "who is your favourite philosopher?" * "Test My Theory" discussions and argument/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.

hzf55tr

hz74nnd

Okay so I am here with a bit of an unusual question. If you could pick one philosophical underpinning and write a basic children's book about it, which would you pick? For context: I am studying primary education in Australia and it is compulsory at my university to study a Philosophy class for this degree. We have been asked to create a children's book accompanied by a 1000 word exposition explaining the books philosophical underpinning. We are not graded on the quality of the book itself but purely on the 1000 word exposition. This is the outline: Accompanying the book will be a 1,000 word exposition (+/- 10%) explaining the book’s philosophical underpinning. You need to explain what philosophical system, tradition or approach has inspired your story and how you could use your story in your classroom to teach philosophical ideas or principles. What philosophical belief do you believe would best fit this task and be the easiest and also most effective for the assignment.

Anyone read any interesting contemporary papers on the relationship between or conflicts between moral values and religious values? Like, given stuff like epistemic humility in relation to moral knowledge, how ought a believer do reflective equilibrium (or whatever) when intuition, doctrine, and theory conflict?

dg58lk

askphilosophy_test

Where to start with Marx? Edit: After asking this I realized that my question might have been better worded as, "Where to start with socialism/anti-capitalist theory", but I can't change it now. I am interested in learning about critiques of capitalism and theories of alternatives to capitalism that are still relevant today, not necessarily learning about Marx/Marxism from a historical perspective. In general I feel like reading source material directly is better than reading commentaries/summaries, so I was thinking of diving straight into Capital. But I'm pretty intimated by the length (3000 pages it looks like), and discouraged because I've heard a lot of the content of that book has been discredited. Should I just bite the bullet and read the whole thing? Or focus on later neo-Marxist thinkers?

f39jrvy

f3aiv7h

Four Marxist Classics is a good primer. It will get you very familiar with the Marxist and Marxist-Leninist school of thought, which you can springboard towards a lot of different schools of anti-capitalism. It contains The Communist Manifesto, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, State and Revolution, and The Transitional Program. The pacing between these flows well, there are lots of annotations for longer explanations, and it builds up the theory like a pyramid

I'm surprised people have recommended starting with Capital but no one has brought up Critique of the Gotha Programme - I think that's a good introductory text that helps clear up a number of common misconceptions about Socialism as Marx understood it - things like equal distribution in particular.

2ndlhk

askphilosophy_test

Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.

cmcnwv9

cmcwdzm

Foucault would be like a super-villain: a boogeyman who grew in power the more you talked about him. And Kant would be like a hive-mind telepath who could channel the entirety of his race's mental powers in his actions. His *Super*-actions.

Nietzsche: suddenly he can talk to women.

2ndlhk

askphilosophy_test

Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.

cmcueo7

cmcqgfl

Diogenes of Sinope - His special powers are.... well he doesn't give a fuck.

Feyerabend can do anything.

rknx83

askphilosophy_test

/r/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | December 20, 2021 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. "who is your favourite philosopher?" * "Test My Theory" discussions and argument/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.

hpf3esy

hpdfomj

Instead of best translation, which version of Kant's *Critique of Pure Reason* has the most aesthetically pleasing cover? More generally, what philosophy books just look straight up good sitting in your bookshelf or sitting out on a table? Myself, I have a hardback copy of St. Augustine's Confessions that I picked up at a thrift store with a nice, old-style spine. Beside that, my dad gifted me his copy of Walter Lowrie's translation of Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling and the Sickness Unto Death (this mint green thing) that I'm fond of. I also have the Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading paperback of Feuerbach's *The Essence of Christianity* that looks way better than other versions I've seen.

I want to get an idea of Aquinas's philosophical beliefs from a non-theological POV. What should I read of his that leans more towards the philosophy and less towards theology? I know he talks about Aristotle and virtue ethics in summa, but man that text looks so dry ;---;

wjv3hd

askphilosophy_test

Can anyone explain husserl and phenomenology to me please,ive been trying to research and study it and i am so terribly confused

ijjw2fl

ijjuir9

I've been there. My first course on phenomenology was absolutely humbling. Either way: Husserl's goal is to solve what he believed to be the greatest epistemological crisis of science in general. He noticed how the sciences had been limited to the physical world by Galileo and Descartes so they could study mechanics, but, due to its great success, this method kept being used. However, scientists very quickly forgot that they were not studying "the world" but only a self-limited version of it (the physical world, where anything that's not quantifiable by the methods of physics gets left out as not existing). Until here, all good, right? Sort of. The problem is that science is an empirical science, which is based on perception, which is something we have access to through our subjective view of the world, i.e., the objective world of sciences is grounded upon the subjective world of perception. But sciences work, and give good results, right? Yes, they do. But, for Husserl, the matter is that science, as section of our culture, has as its goal to uncover the truth, not merely subjective or "practical" truths. Therefore, a new way of doing science is needed, so that science can have a strong, unwavering foundation. Husserl saw a talk by Brentano (a naturalistic psychologist of the late 19th century) where he exposed what Husserl believed to be one of the greatest discoveries of psychology ever: the intentionality. This is the base structure of conscious acts, i.e., everything that we do with our minds has this structure: the act itself (believing, doubting, seeing, hearing, wanting, etc.), the content (a door, a dog, happiness, a theory, a smell, etc.), and a degree of existence (i.e., when we hear our friends tell us about their childhood, it has a different status as when we read about Harry Potter's childhood. Not because the latter is a "lie," but because it is fictional). Husserl arrived at this point by using one of his methods: the eidetic or phenomenological reduction and the epoché. This reduction method, i.e., allows you to figure out the "essence" of things by changing things about this thing as much as you want without it not being that thing anymore and the epoché is a suspension of knowledge we have acquired from the natural world (i.e., not using things learned about the natural world to explain the subjective experience that precedes it, otherwise we would remain in an epistemological problem). You can do this with doors, changing color, size, form, etc. to understand the point. But Husserl's goal was not metaphysics, he was studying the subjectivity, so, what he did was use this method on mental structures to figure them out (like in the case of the intentionality that's present in all intentional acts). (There's also the transcendental reduction, but that one is probably not as relevant for you right now.) He did this to many other mental structures, construction of time (past, present, future), empathy/intropathy (perceiving the other as a subjectivity like ourselves), construction of spatial objects, etc. Important to note: 1) phenomenology is *descriptive* endeavor: it does not explain things regarding subjectivity, it merely describes them as they are; 2) phenomenology is entirely restricted to the domain of subjectivity, it does not make claims about the natural world. It is entirely restricted to the study of subjectivity. It does not do metaphysics. I hope I was of help. I can answer questions if you have them.

I don't believe that anyone can sum up phenomenology and Husserl's vast amount of work in just a few words. What have you been studying? A really good starting point is Zahavi's *Husserl's Phenomenology*. Husserl's very short lectures from 1907 published as *The Idea of Phenomenology* is a helpful resource too and deserve your attention. What, in particular, is confusing you? You are going to receive much better answers if you specify what the problem you are having is.

yrzfys

askphysics_test

Does a full refrigerator use more energy than an empty one? Two identical refrigerators set to 40 degrees Fahrenheit. A is empty, B has a 24 pack of canned beer, already chilled to 40 degrees. Situation 1: The door is never opened. My intuition is that they use the same amount of energy. Is that correct? Situation 2: The door is opened once a day. My intuition is that fridge B will use less energy. When you open fridge A, warm air comes in that needs to be chilled. In fridge B, less warm air enters because of the beer. Beer has a high specific heat and so holds its chill while the fridge door is open. Is that correct?

ivxsy1k

ivwr9p9

In a simplified textbook world you are right about both situations, above the effect of opening the door is small enough that it's not worth worrying about that. But in real life, in situation 1 there can be a quite significant difference. That's because the refrigerator's cooling system, the heat pump, cycles on and off controlled by a thermostat. When there's more thermal mass inside, it will cycle on and off more slowly. In an idealized model, that wouldn't matter. If it ran 25% of the time, it wouldn't matter whether that was 1 hour out of four hours or one minute out of 4 minutes. But the actual vapor compression refrigeration cycle relies on maintaining a pressure difference between the condenser and the evaporator. Each time it turns on, the compressor needs to first build up that pressure difference before much of work the compressor is doing goes into refrigeration. Then when it turns off, the pressures equalize between the condenser and evaporator, losing the work that was done to build up that pressure difference. So there's a certain amount of energy wasted for each cycle, and the slower cycling fridge with the higher thermal mass uses less energy over the course of a day. Note that better refrigerators will have smart* controls that will avoid having it cycle too fast even if there's very little inside. But in order to prevent the short cycling, they have to allow the temperature inside to swing up and down more than it would if they allowed the fast cycling, and more than it would if the fridge was full. Having the temperature cycle up and down a lot is worse for keeping food fresh, so even in that case, having more thermal mass inside is beneficial even if its effect on energy savings is reduced. *By smart I mean a really basic level of well-designed controls, not being connected to the internet or having a color touch panel on the front or anything like that.

Your logic is correct, in my opinion,

voxg1a

askphysics_test

What are your physics shower thoughts?

ieg9gsx

ieh8mn9

I think a lot about entropy, and how is gonna kill us all eventually... I was reading about entropy and how there is a probabilistic model, to getting to undestand things like how a broken cup of coffee could assemble itself but it is very unlikely to happen. That leads me to, what is our universe was a broken cup? And it reassemble itself in a very unlikely sceneario after trillions of years waiting to happen Those are my thought on physics in the daily basics, i don't know if i am right about entropy or if i get it at all

why the fuck isnt my code working

voxg1a

askphysics_test

What are your physics shower thoughts?

iegcxig

iege9k4

I think that quasars are sort of recycling unit to blast and scatter fresh elements across the universe.

Is a toroidal planet possible?

oo28wt

askphysics_test

What would happen if a hole suddenly opened all the way through the crust to the mantle? This is obviously a thought experiment (not really, it's for DnD) so ignore the practicality of the question please! Cows are spherical. Imagine a ten-foot-diameter, perfectly round hole suddenly opened all the way through the crust to reach the mantle. The intervening solid matter is completely removed and replaced at once with the same volume of air. Would the pressure of the molten rock and metal in the mantle be strong enough to force it all the way through the hole to the surface before it cooled too much or the hole collapsed? If so, how much of a geyser would it make? If not, how wide does the hole need to be for that to happen? What would happen?

h5wloyp

h5wug6s

Wait! Let’s get back to cows being spherical… 🐄

Contrary to popular belief and many in this thread, the vast majority of the mantle is NOT made of magma. It is made of **solid rock** that can creep on *geologic* timescales. It’s viscosity is greater than that if glass *at room temperature*. Unless your hole is strategically placed over a magma pocket, like those that occasionally occur at a hotspot or subduction zone, your hole really won’t do much besides be uncomfortably hot (about 200 C) and quickly collapse if not reinforced well.

o1s04s

askphysics_test

Why does a simple pendulum only conform to T=2π√(L/g) for a certain range of small angles? I know that mathematically, this is due to the small-angle approximation - the model assumes that sin(θ) ≈ θ. But what's the physics behind this? How and why does the behavior of a pendulum change for large angles? I'd appreciate your input!

h233db0

h22slfn

The physics about why the period of the pendulum changes as the angle gets bigger is because the restoring force is not linear. This is unlike an idealised mass-spring system, in which case the restoring force is due to the force that the spring exerts on the mass. The force F due to a spring is F = kx, where k is the spring constant and x is the distance from equilibrium. Since it has just x and no powers or other functions of x, it is considered linear. Of course, physically, we cannot stretch/press the spring as far as we want. But this is more of a practical issue, rather than a fundamental one. In the case of the pendulum, the problem is due to the geometry of the pendulum, which I think is more of a fundamental reason. For the pendulum, the restoring force is F = mg sin(theta), which is not linear in theta (it's not just theta, it is the sine of theta, which is not a linear function). Therefore, the force doesn't become twice as large as the angle does. In fact, the restoring force for theta = 90 degrees is mg, whereas if the force would be linear, it would be mg\*pi/2. So physically: The restoring force increases with increasing angle, but less so than in a linear system. Therefore, the time for the pendulum to swing down depends on the angle of inclination. In the small angle approximation we say mg sin(theta) \~= mg theta, which is linear in theta. This never holds perfectly, but you can determine a precision to which you want your answer to hold. That will be the precision that your approximation has to be.

> How and why does the behavior of a pendulum change for large angles? I would think of it differently. The full solution without the small-angle approx is what the pendulum does for all angles including small angles (as mentioned by other commenters). The pendulum's behavior doesn't change, it's just that the approx is no longer accurate for large angles. Edit: rip in piece gramar

ig2ybu

askphysics_test

Does the observable universe have a non-zero net angular momentum?

g2rb0i7

g2satgq

I read somewhere that the clusters and super-clusters of our observable universe are moving towards some "great attractor" that's outside of our bubble.

I'm not a cosmologist so hopefully someone more knowledgeable might chime in. That said, last time I paid attention, the standard cosmological model assumes that the rate of hubble expansion is uniform and isotropic. Meaning that no matter what direction you look, space is expanding at the same rate. I think that if there was a net rotation about some point we would see one part of the sky receding at a faster rate than another. Anyway I think that would prove false the principle that no point in the universe is more special than any other.

voxg1a

askphysics_test

What are your physics shower thoughts?

ieigf60

iehxgg9

How the fuck did the universe start? The deeper I dig the more questions I have.

my life hasn't been the same since i found out that positive and negative charges are arbitrary and we don't actually know much about the origin of charges. everything i know is a lie

ixhgur

askphysics_test

Apples n peanut butter So I'm sittin here at like 12:30 at night eatin some apples and peanut butter because that's the healthy choice, right? Well I notice something and I've noticed it before but always just brushed it off as one of those great life mysteries. So of course I cut my apples into slices, and I notice that it's pretty easy to scoop up the peanut butter, like the corner of the apple gets in there and just scoops real nice. But then, I wanna rescoop. And the edge is flat now because I bit it. And the peanut butter doesn't scoop. It just pushes the peanut butter around. Why? It's not like any property of either changed, except the edge is flat. Why doesn't the peanut butter just stick to the flat edge? I'm wondering if when I bite it, more juice comes out and that's creating like a barrier. I'm not sure. My solution to this is just to turn the apple around to the other pointy edge, but the question is still there. What do flat edges have against peanut butter???

g66vjrw

g67c52z

My weak guess has always been that since the apple after you bite it is much more moist where you bit it, it is no longer as sticky, you could test this by wetting the apple slice before dipping. Though honestly i dont have high confidence in this, id leave it as a "plausible"

I have a few ideas: 1. The flat edge of the apple now has juice and saliva on it. The peanut butter may have trouble sticking to that. 2. The peanut butter is having a hard time gripping the apple. Peanut butter probably sticks to itself easier than the apple, so when you dip the sharp edge into the apple, it’s able to pierce through and the peanut butter can grab on with self-stick force. This would be easiest when there’s not a large area of apple to cover, allowing it to hold on with a lower tension. When you flatten the apple, the peanut butter has to reach around the entire edge to grab onto the apple. 3. This is your karma for double dipping, you sick freak.

ujuzwo

askphysics_test

Is anyone here just studying physics with no real expectations of doing any significant research in their life? The statistics of those getting into physics and ultimately doing research seem quite dismal from what I've heard. Is anyone here studying physics for other reasons and wouldn't mind sharing? I'd imagine going into industry is a common one. Or perhaps teaching? Any snowflakes out there trying to create a youtube channel, or trying to become a "gentle(wo)man scientist" and do their own research self funded, or perhaps a software engineer that's trying to understand more and contribute on the side, or a medical researcher who wants to learn more about radiology for medical imaging? It's a lot of fun for me personally and I'm genuinely curious enough to have math and physics fill my time. But as a 33 y/o dude, it's only been a hobby. I've been fortunate enough to become more financially independent through my software career but feeling like it's a bit unrealistic for me to get involved, esp. if it's getting a another bachelors in physics for $100k, then strive for a PhD for 5-7 years, then trying to get long term research positions. Seems like it would be a decade of sacrifice with very very low likelihoods of success throughout. So what if there was another way to contribute meaningfully? Research would have been the holy grail for me and likely everyone else though. But maybe I could wrap my mind around it. Maybe it's like not being able to get in the NBA, but being able to work as a the fitness expert for a team. Sounds entirely different actually that I wonder what's the point.

i7ldmim

i7mf255

I'm mostly interested in the more nuanced details of physics as a passing interest. But, long term I want to get a MD-PhD and do medical research in neurology/psychiatry. It'll hinge on chemistry and biology concepts more but the physics I learn on electricity, fluid mechanics, etc will have some application as well from my understanding (as a sophomore in my undergrad, so take it with a grain of salt)

I'm in a similar situation. I am just reading through textbooks on my own. But I don't want to contribute to any research or go back to school. I think it is okay to just learn something for its own sake. People read academic history books just to know it, or learn sophisticated cooking without going to culinary school, etc. I think it is healthier than one's entire non-professional intellectual life being politics and cultural opinion/analysis. The hard part with solo physics is when the math confuses you and there is no teacher or peers to ask.

k08mq2

askphysics_test

What is the best explanation of Newton’s laws your teacher or professor taught you?

gdgs11r

gdgy1p8

None of my teachers taught me Newton’s laws well. But I learnt Newton’s laws well while preparing to teach these laws to my students. I realized that first and third laws are natural consequence of second law. F=dp/dt which means in the absence of F, p is constant (can be 0 or nonzero) which is the first law. And if you start with p1+p2 = constant then the F1 and F2 are equal and opposite which is the the third law.

2nd law (net\_F = m\*a): The left-hand side of the equation is all the interactions acting on your system. The right-hand side (acceleration) is the consequences of those interactions. The two are scaled by the mass.

z7s45h

askscience_test

AskScience AMA Series: I'm Dr. Gretchen Benedix, a cosmic mineralogist and astrogeologist, and I study space rocks! Currently a Professor at Curtin University, I use the chemistry, mineralogy, and spectroscopy of meteorites to understand the formation and evolution of asteroids and planets. AMA! Hello all, I've been deeply interested in Planetary Sciences and the early evolution of the solar system. I'm also the lead on the initial Mineralogy/Petrology of the meteorites found by the Australian Desert Fireball Network (DFN), an interdisciplinary research group that is working to uncover the mysteries surrounding solar system formation. Digital observatories, part of the DFN, monitor a third of Australian skies, all night. The DFN images and studies the paths of fireballs in the sky, their trajectories, and orbits using intelligent imaging systems. As a geologist, I want to know where rocks come from, along with their composition and distribution. Trying to mesh those two is kind of the holy grail in figuring out what the solar system is really like. In 2006, an asteroid was named after me - Asteroid 6579 - for my contributions to planetary science. In August 2022, my work was featured in Interesting Engineering, and the publication helped organize this AMA session. Ask me anything about asteroids, meteorites, planetary science, and my work with the Desert Fireball Network. I'll be on 5 PM (November 29th US ET / 22 UT / November 30th 6 AM in Perth (GMT+8)) to answer your questions, AMA! Username: /u/IntEngineering

iy89t3a

iy7ztzk

What is the next big thing you expect us to discover? With improved tools and methods, we have to be on the verge of finding something different or proving a theory...etc.

When you recover metheorites, are they sterile? Have you found aminoacids or other interesting substances?

z7s45h

askscience_test

AskScience AMA Series: I'm Dr. Gretchen Benedix, a cosmic mineralogist and astrogeologist, and I study space rocks! Currently a Professor at Curtin University, I use the chemistry, mineralogy, and spectroscopy of meteorites to understand the formation and evolution of asteroids and planets. AMA! Hello all, I've been deeply interested in Planetary Sciences and the early evolution of the solar system. I'm also the lead on the initial Mineralogy/Petrology of the meteorites found by the Australian Desert Fireball Network (DFN), an interdisciplinary research group that is working to uncover the mysteries surrounding solar system formation. Digital observatories, part of the DFN, monitor a third of Australian skies, all night. The DFN images and studies the paths of fireballs in the sky, their trajectories, and orbits using intelligent imaging systems. As a geologist, I want to know where rocks come from, along with their composition and distribution. Trying to mesh those two is kind of the holy grail in figuring out what the solar system is really like. In 2006, an asteroid was named after me - Asteroid 6579 - for my contributions to planetary science. In August 2022, my work was featured in Interesting Engineering, and the publication helped organize this AMA session. Ask me anything about asteroids, meteorites, planetary science, and my work with the Desert Fireball Network. I'll be on 5 PM (November 29th US ET / 22 UT / November 30th 6 AM in Perth (GMT+8)) to answer your questions, AMA! Username: /u/IntEngineering

iy9v6wx

iy8ajo6

Hi Dr. Benedix, I am actually a PhD student in Astronomy studying protostellar disk formation and evolution. It’s really interesting to think about how the chemistry at these early stages connects to the chemistry of comets and solar system bodies (and even exoplanets/moons/comets). Actually I’m part of a program that’s trying to understand when the onset of planet formation occurs in protostellar disks. I have two questions I would love to know your opinions on: 1) What chemistry or molecules would you think are important to search for in these early stages of star formation in order to connect with the later stages? That is, potential molecular precursors of molecules or specific complex molecules you think would be interesting to find at the early stages of star and planet formation that we find in comets and the solar system today. To preface this, I mostly study molecules in submillimeter wavelengths so that’s what I’m familiar with, but with the launch of JWST I know there is a strong interest in the infrared spectroscopy of young protostars now. 2) Since there is some theorization that prebiotic molecules (I guess mostly water and amino acids) could have been delivered to earth via comets, what is our current understanding of this? What kinds of prebiotic molecules have been found in comets that would be important for life? Is it possible for RNA to form via surface reactions on comets? Or would this kind of reaction only be possible in an early Earth environment after the necessary molecules have formed / been delivered? Thank you for your time!

I’ve noticed articles talking a lot about mining resources from the moon. In a future that uses extraterrestrial mining, what other bodies in our solar system would you believe could become high priority targets of mining? Like would the asteroid belt really be resourceful as some tv shows and films claim? Or would other planets or their moons be more highly sought after?

gmota8

askscience_test

AskScience AMA Series: My name is Dr. Joseph Allen, and I am an Assistant Professor of exposure assessment science at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Director of Harvard’s Healthy Buildings Program. Ask me anything about COVID-19 and the future of the built environment, AMA! I am an Assistant Professor of Exposure Assessment Science at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the founding director of the Healthy Buildings Program. I also have a new book, out last month: *Healthy Buildings*. In March 2020, I became co-chair of the International Well Building Institute’s Coronavirus Task Force. For several years in private industry before joining the faculty at Harvard, I led teams of scientists and engineers investigating, and resolving, hundreds of indoor environmental quality issues, from'sick buildings' to cancer clusters to all types of chemical/radiological/biological hazards. I learned two important facts: 1) too often we are responding to issues after there is a problem, and 2) we cannot solve these problems without a multidisciplinary approach. I have an interest in the dynamic interplay between the indoor environment and health and am continuing this line of research at Harvard, with a focus on optimizing indoor environments for health benefits. A natural extension of my research on buildings and the indoor environment is the consideration of the products we use in those environments, and how those influence our exposure and health. I believe that we have to force a collision between these two disciplines: building science and health science. The indoor built environment (homes, offices, schools, hospitals, airplanes, laboratories) plays a critical role in our overall health, both due to the amount of time we spend indoors (~90%) and the ability of the buildings to positively and negatively influence our exposure. The goal is to improve the health of all people, in all buildings, everywhere, every day. The pandemic spawned by the novel coronavirus has given us a heightened awareness of the role our buildings play in our health and wellbeing. I'm on the record back in early February advocating for healthy buildings strategies, like air filtration and increased ventilation, to reduce the spread of the virus indoors. Since then, I've written several articles about what we can do to reduce our exposure to the virus, including in grocery stores, public parks, and cars/ride shares. I've also joined forces with my colleagues at Harvard's Center for Communicable Diseases to develop a detailed plan for saving lives and the economy: https://covidpathforward.com/. I'll see you all at 1 PM ET (17 UT), AMA!

fr4upyz

fr4swql

What do you think is going to happen to open office spaces? How will they be adapted, and do you see them becoming less popular?

How likely is it that we get another worldwide pandemic like this in the future? will it be man-made or not? how did you get into Harvard/work for them

qkdhcy

askscience_test

AskScience AMA Series: We're Experts Here to Discuss Sexually Transmitted Infections. AUA! Let's talk about sex(ually transmitted infections STIs])! We'll be here today at 2 PM ET for a discussion, organized by the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), about the present and future of STIs. STIs are an enormous health issue. According to the [World Health Organization, there are approximately 1 million new infections daily worldwide, resulting in 2.3 million deaths every year. In the United States, half of new STIs occur among those ages 15-24. Meanwhile, increases in antimicrobial resistance are making it harder to treat and cure infections. STIs also represent a massive burden to the economy- in the United States alone, $16 billion is spent annually on STI-related health care costs. But it's not all bad news! Screening programs are increasing around the world, mother to child transmission rates of diseases such as chlamydia, syphilis and HIV are decreasing, and effective treatments are continuing to be developed and delivered to patients in need. Even better, new technologies, some of which were created rapidly as part of the national COVID-19 response effort, are making it easier for people to access routine sexual health maintenance services. We're here to answer your questions and discuss causes and cures, as well as opportunities for improvements in diagnoses and prevention strategies. We'll also discuss the emergence of new diseases and how they can be contained. PLEASE NOTE- WE WILL NOT BE MAKING PERSONAL DIAGNOSES OR RECOMMENDING TREATMENTS. With us today are: + Srishti Baid (u/SB313_ScienceNerd)- Doctoral Student, University of Kansas + Dr. Jose Bazan, D.O. (u/US-Nm-UClade_2015)- Infectious Diseases Physician, Associate Professor of Clinical Internal Medicine, The Ohio State University College of Medicine + Dr. Megan Crumpler, Ph.D., HCLD (u/Meganthemicro)- Laboratory Director, Orange County Public Health Laboratory + Dr. Miguel E. Quiñones-Mateu, Ph.D. (u/MQM-Reddit)- Professor, Webster Family Chair in Viral Pathogenesis, University of Otago + Dr. Barbara Van Der Pol, Ph.D., M.P.H. (u/BVDP59)- Professor of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham Links: + https://www.who.int/news/item/20-05-2021-new-report-highlights-global-progress-on-reducing-hiv-viral-hepatitis-and-sexually-transmitted-infections-and-signals-need-for-renewed-efforts-to-reach-2030-targets + https://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/newsroom/docs/factsheets/2018-STI-incidence-prevalence-factsheet.pdf + https://asm.org/Articles/2021/July/Pandemic-Lab-Woes-and-Patient-Fears-Affect-Other-I + https://www.cdc.gov/std/default.htm

hivvhte

hiw8unf

Is HPV curable?

Why does it seem like the STD's that can spread while still wearing a condom, are also the ones least often tested for during standard tests? If people are wearing protection surely these are most likely the ones they are to have without knowing

yvv4rq

askscience_test

AskScience AMA Series: I'm Dr. Jonathan Blutinger, a postdoctoral researcher in the Creative Machines Lab at Columbia University, developing a "digital chef" that can 3D print and laser cook edible items. Ask me anything about the process! Hello all, after my MSc in Integrated Product Design at the University of Pennsylvania and a year stint in industry designing pick-and-place robots, I started working as a Ph.D. researcher (Mechanical Engineering) at Hod Lipson's (He co-launched the world's first open-source 3D printer which could be used for food) Creative Machines Lab where I tinker with digital cooking techniques using food printers and lasers. We've experimented with dough, meats, vegetables, sweets, made a seven-ingredient slice of cheesecake, and printed chicken samples which were then cooked by lasers. Currently, we are focusing on building robust software and hardware to incorporate more functionality to print food of different consistencies and multi-ingredient combinations to fully showcase this tech's potential. In August 2022, my work was featured in Interesting Engineering, and the publication helped organize this AMA session. Ask me anything about the technology behind 3D-printed food, the how-tos on printing food, how lasers can cook food, how 3D-printed food can be inventive, nutritious, and customized for each individual. I will be replying to messages with the username "IntEngineering" at noon ET (17 UT), AMA!

iwgakan

iwg7fdk

I always imagined that a food 3d printer would use a combination of algae paste, and flavonoid cartridges. How the heck do you 3d print raw chicken? I'm imagining you turn it into a paste, extrude it into the desired shape while using a combo of heat and some sort of starch to maintain structural integrity? How do you then keep the system clean from all very many very dangerous bacteria that would be swarming a chicken paste? Is the heat bed 165F?

What kinds of binders, starches, fillers, and extenders will be required? How's this going to be labeled, for people with non-top-8 allergies?

v2eaob

askscience_test

AskScience AMA Series: I'm Futurist Amy Webb, and I just wrote a new book about a wild emerging technology called synthetic biology. AMA! We can now program cells as if they were tiny computers. What happens when anyone can manipulate organisms - or even create new ones? My new book, The Genesis Machine, gives you the background you need to think differently about research underway now, and what that could mean for humanity's futures. What questions do you have for me, Redditors? I'll be on from 2-4pmET (18-20 UT), AMA! Username: /u/Amy_Webb

iat3ydo

iarulrc

Could you tell us your take on whether the following are trends or trendy? - The Metaverse - NFTs - Aerial drone delivery

How can I improve the transformation and regeneration efficiencies of my agro-transformed hemp calli? I get a few chimera but the efficiency is way lower than in arabidopsis. I'm limited on genotype selection which I know plays a big role (thanks, university's "preferred vendors")

yvv4rq

askscience_test

AskScience AMA Series: I'm Dr. Jonathan Blutinger, a postdoctoral researcher in the Creative Machines Lab at Columbia University, developing a "digital chef" that can 3D print and laser cook edible items. Ask me anything about the process! Hello all, after my MSc in Integrated Product Design at the University of Pennsylvania and a year stint in industry designing pick-and-place robots, I started working as a Ph.D. researcher (Mechanical Engineering) at Hod Lipson's (He co-launched the world's first open-source 3D printer which could be used for food) Creative Machines Lab where I tinker with digital cooking techniques using food printers and lasers. We've experimented with dough, meats, vegetables, sweets, made a seven-ingredient slice of cheesecake, and printed chicken samples which were then cooked by lasers. Currently, we are focusing on building robust software and hardware to incorporate more functionality to print food of different consistencies and multi-ingredient combinations to fully showcase this tech's potential. In August 2022, my work was featured in Interesting Engineering, and the publication helped organize this AMA session. Ask me anything about the technology behind 3D-printed food, the how-tos on printing food, how lasers can cook food, how 3D-printed food can be inventive, nutritious, and customized for each individual. I will be replying to messages with the username "IntEngineering" at noon ET (17 UT), AMA!

iwg8vke

iwgi54x

Will the food price point be around the same as "conventional" food, or will it probably be more expensive or cheaper?

What materials do you use? For example, if you’re printing chicken, is the material derived from a chicken or is it something synthetic?

v2eaob

askscience_test

AskScience AMA Series: I'm Futurist Amy Webb, and I just wrote a new book about a wild emerging technology called synthetic biology. AMA! We can now program cells as if they were tiny computers. What happens when anyone can manipulate organisms - or even create new ones? My new book, The Genesis Machine, gives you the background you need to think differently about research underway now, and what that could mean for humanity's futures. What questions do you have for me, Redditors? I'll be on from 2-4pmET (18-20 UT), AMA! Username: /u/Amy_Webb

iaskuc7

iat32zw

Of all the nightmare scenarios you and your team forecast--which one or ones keep you up at night the most?

There are an increasing number of companies on the biotech scene right now (ginkgo bioworks, amyris, etc.) touting incredible narratives about the possibilities of synthetic biology. Almost sound too good to be true. Are they the next Theranos? Do you see a difference in optimism between those doing research in this body of work in an academic setting versus industry?

4eo3fw

askscience_test

Breakthrough Starshot Megathread Hi everyone! We're getting a number of questions related to the Breakthrough Starshot, a project to design a nanoprobe mission to Alpha Centauri. Come join us and ask your questions here! * NY Times article * Ars Technica article * Some challenges listed

d2294ms

d224s4w

Let's say you can get a probe to Alpha Centauri in 20 years or so, propelling it with Giga-watt laser from Earth (or perhaps better yet, Earth orbit. Is there any way to slow down once you get there (deploy a solar wind parachute?). Or do you just zip through the system iover the course of w week? Now that I think of it, the solar parachute might just work...

When you're approaching .2 c would you have to shield a ship for micro meteorites? Or even just for normal gasses in interstellar space?

nqvz98

askscience_test

What exactly is missing for the covid-19 vaccines to be full approved, and not only emergency approved? I trust the results that show that the vaccinea are safe and effective. I was talking to someone who is not an anti Vax, but didn't want to take any covid vaccine because he said it was rushed. I explained him that it did follow a thorough blind test, and did not skip any important step. And I also explained that it was possible to make this fast because it was a priority to everyone and because we had many subjects who allowed the trials to run faster, which usually doesn't happen normally. But then he questioned me about why were the vaccines not fully approved, by the FDA for example. I don't know the reason and I could not find an answer online. Can someone explain me what exactly is missing or was skipped to get a full approval?

h0e7cop

h0eek86

EUA requires 3+ months of clinical trial data. BLA (application for full approval) requires 6+ months of data. Pfizer has submitted for BLA. It generally takes 6 months from submittal to get approval. But I’m guessing Pfizer is not going to submit for BLA if they aren’t dang sure they’ll get it. So it’s probably a pretty safe bet that Pfizer will get full approval.

I know it's not your main ask here, but in case it helps your discussions in the future you should know another reason the vaccine was developed so fast was because some people had already done work for the better part of a decade on an mRNA vaccine against the spike protein of MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, another coronavirus that had pandemic potential). By an incredible stroke of luck, the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is pretty damn similar to the MERS spike protein, so they were able to essentially dust off their work and have a new vaccine in human trials in something crazy like 2 months.

pwhh7n

asksciencefiction_test

[General] Which villains are kind of nice when they're not trying to take over the world or doing other villain related things?

hehnki9

hehj4xg

If you're a mutant, Magneto is a genuinely warm and pleasant guy must of the time. Just don't get in his way.

Hank Scorpio

sbaoqc

asksciencefiction_test

[general scifi/comics] Has anything unique, interesting, or in any way important ever happened in Kansas? I'm calling Wizard of Oz an *adventure* for this, so it doesn't count.

htz3h9x

htzduf1

Jericho.

In Horizon: Zero Dawn, the collapse of the Wichita Salient heralded the the final push of the machines.

5tdzwe

asksciencefiction_test

[General] It is often said that a well written villain is one who see themselves as the heroes of their own story. Who are the best examples of this?

ddm4nvh

ddm4ace

Shocked that no one has mentioned one of the greatest villains of all time (pre-season 7 though, really): Gul Dukat from Star Trek DS9. Amazing, *amazing* character. It all comes to a head in the episode "Waltz" in season 6. He is the prefect of the occupied planet Bajor. His people, the Cardassians, originally came to Bajor as explorers, but began a gradual process of colonization that mutated into an oppressive occupation as the power and stability of the Cardassian government began to decline. As Cardassian society was restructured into a military dictatorship, so too did the occupation of Bajor become restructured into an effort to "civilize the backwards natives" while simultaneously plundering their natural resources, enslaving their people, and executing dissenters. All of this took place over decades. And then comes Dukat. In his mind, a moderate and political reformer. A young go-getter in the Cardassian military, he rolls in to Bajor with grand ideals of reform and a softening of the policies that had led to such brutality. But by this point, the occupation had been going on and falling apart for decades. His apparent slackening of the reigns gave opening to Bajoran militant movements who wanted to oust the Cardassian overlords. Terrorism increased, and Dukat, naturally, cracked down on what he saw as unfair and misplaced aggression towards him, the benevolent dictator, just seeking to make life better for everyone. Ultimately, the Bajoran resistance was successful in driving the Cardassians off of Bajor and liberating themselves from a half century of oppression, and plunder. But Dukat still has the presumption to lament that there are no statues in his honor on Bajor.

The Lord Emperor from Mistborn, especially when you read Mistborn: Secret History which details what's going on behind the scenes during the original trilogy.

w55ide

asksciencefiction_test

[Fiction in General] What characters fit the proverb “The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth”? I saw this African proverb and wanted to see how others felt is applied to characters across fiction. What character do you feel best fits this proverb and why?

ih61hi1

ih5zlxq

Russell from Deadpool 2. At least until Wade pulled his heroic sacrifice.

Tyrion Lannister Nuff said

5tdzwe

asksciencefiction_test

[General] It is often said that a well written villain is one who see themselves as the heroes of their own story. Who are the best examples of this?

ddm691j

ddm2jt3

Ozymandias from Watchmen was a great humanitarian and spent his whole adult life trying to help people in one way or another. He foresaw that the only way to avoid nuclear holocaust was to unite the world against a common enemy, so he manufactured one. He was willing to kill millions to save billions, which may seem cold-hearted, but it's like one of those ethical dilemma puzzles. If a train is about to crash into a thousand people and kill them all, but you can divert it to save them all and kill just one person instead, it's not hard to see how the person making that decision would still be able to see themselves as a hero.

Scorpius from Farscape. In another universe, he's the antihero of a revenge story. He even eventually achieves his ultimate goal and destroys the people that created him and raped and murdered his mother. And as a bonus, he gets the girl (and arguably also the boy) at the end.

uyc3oj

asksciencefiction_test

[Skyrim] Assuming the Dragonborn completes all faction quests, do they have all of the political capital necessary to rule Skyrim? By completing the quests they become: * Harbinger of the Companions * Archmage of the College of Winterhold * Guildmaster of the Thieves Guild * Listener of the Dark Brotherhood Between all of the roles, do they have enough political capital to make a move to become the High King/Queen of Skyrim?

ia3ezl8

ia383nq

Better question: who would be willing to tell the Dragonborn that they *can't* rule Skyrim? Seriously. The Dragonborn kills gods, eats dragons for lunch, and can literally yell someone to death. You'd have to have a death wish to obstruct their ambitions.

Not really. None of those positions were given to them due to their political abilities, and none of those organizations have that much political power. 1. The companions are a mercenary group, not exactly ruler material. And though not unliked, they don't have any real political pull 2. Magic, and especially winterhold, are not well liked by the nords, particularly in that era. 3. Neither the thieves guild or dark brotherhood are really things they can put on the resume, and the latter in particular would put them at the top of the empire's most wanted Being the dragonborn is worth more than all of those to the nords, but even then, doesn't make them ruler material. They'd have a better shot winning the civil war for either side, and then trying to marry the high queen or Ulfric.

o8aeh2

asksciencefiction_test

[Mario party/Mario kart] who keeps inviting Mario's enemies to these events? I can understand donkey Kong being invited as he isn't Cranky Kong(the first donkey Kong) , but who keeps inviting Bowser, Dry Bowser, the shy guys, King Boo, etc. Are these events to help kingdom relations , if not than I don't see why they would invite the mushroom kingdom's enemies to these events.

h36ftao

h34fmgm

Who keeps inviting Mario's enemies? Why, Mario himself of course! Think about it. Mario is a really friendly and forgiving guy. He sees everyone as a friend. He’s even worked with Bowser in the past to fight against greater, common evils. In truth, Mario sees Bowser as his worst friend rather than his greatest enemy, so as long as he’s on his best behaviour, he can come to play Tennis, Golf or Soccer. He can go go-Karting with the Mushroom Kingdom crew. As long as he isn’t hurting civilians or kidnapping Princess Peach, they don’t have a problem with him. This is clearly stated on the Mario Kart DS European Website: >“During Mario Kart season, Mario and his arch enemy Bowser put their differences aside for the sake of the sport. Bowser is the biggest of the group and therefore his karts are the slowest to accelerate. But his top speed is the highest of all." In fact, *it's to their benefit*. The more time Bowser spends working on upping his golf game or trying to beat Mario in a Grand Prix, the less time he has to spend making new plans to take over the Mushroom Kingdom. Ever notice how Peach is never kidnapped by him at these events? It also makes sense from Bowser’s point of view. Bowser can still antagonise Mario on the racecourse. He can still beat Mario at sports. For Bowser, it’s just a different kind of fight, as he states in multiple games. Bowser then brings along his minions (Shy Guys, Koopa Troopas, the Koopalings, King Boo, King Bob-omb, etc.) to help turn the tournaments in his favour. That's why all of the enemies in the tournaments are always part of the Koopa Troop (ie. other active villains like Wart or Tatanga don't show up). Plus, remember that Mario Kart Grand Prix are watched by many people from all over the world. As of Mario Kart 8, Mario Kart is even a televised event (thanks to Mario Kart TV). Bowser is the King of many of the people watching these events. The Goombas, Koopas, Shy Guys, etc. all see Bowser as their king. They look up to him. If Bowser takes part in the races, they’re gonna buy more tickets to see him perform. Bowser is also known to be an attention seeker. Anything he can do to look good in front of his minions, he will do. In the image I linked above, over half of the audience members here are loyal followers of Bowser and members of the Koopa Troop. There’s also the money involved. I’ve already mentioned the ticket sales from Bowser’s Minions above, but that’s not all. There are also many sponsors in the Mario Kart games that are owned by Bowser and the Koopa Troop. It’s basically free advertising for Bowser’s various businesses. **TL;DR: It’s a win-win situation for all parties involved.** ​ Hope this answers your question!

All of those games are actually prequels. Y'know how people say monopoly ends friendships? Ya. Peach got a lucky streak and Bowser got pissed

x8zeiy

asksciencefiction_test

[DC Silver Age] Batman to Superman: "Hey buddy, could you have your friends in Kandor whip me up a costume made from Kryptonian cloth? Then it will be invulnerable just like yours!" Why not? Since Superman and Batman were palsy-walsy best buds back in the weird and wonderful Silver Age, it seems possible Batman could have made a request like this. An invulnerable Bat-costume sure would have been useful, especially when Batman went "dark" in the 1970s.

inl0ope

inltl1l

I am not sure his costume being invulnerable would be particularly useful to Batman as he himself is vulnerable. If he took bullet there would probably be enough kinetic force transferred between the cloth to his body to still do significant damage. The biggest benefit would be Alfred wouldn't be constantly mending and repairing his outfit.

Many of these other responses are forgetting a few things. First off, while Kandor is small, it's possible for things to be enlarged coming out of the city. In any case, Kryptonian fabrics are also super elastic. Superman has grown giant, turned into an ape, been super-fat, and the fabric's never strained. It stretches, constantly fitting him comfortably. He's still wearing the same costume he wore as Superboy, in fact, with no alterations for his growing size. Second, the invulnerable fabrics of Krypton are bulletproof to the point that there's no impact felt through them. Superman's let people wear his costume and they've been immune to cold, flames, and been bulletproof with no injury to them. Third, resources aren't an issue for them, they have no trouble clothing their children and Superman and Jimmy had no issue with creating Flamebird and Nightwing costumes. The real reason Superman has never given Batman an invulnerable costume from Kandor is simple. Pride. Batman, even in the Silver Age, has always been an immensely proud figure, taking pride in his skills. He wouldn't ask for such a crutch and Superman wouldn't insult him by giving it to him unasked, the Man of Steel sharing a similar sense of pride that bordered on arrogance at times. Would it be *smart* to? Absolutely, but Batman would probably make an excuse about his skills growing rusty with such a thing to rely on and it would hang in the trophy section of his Bat-cave forever.

wj436o

asksciencefiction_test

[Marvel] Could Iron Man recreate super speed with one of his armors? how fast would he be compared to speedsters like Quicksilver and The Flash?

ijfacc0

ijf5kwj

I'm sure he could make armor that has insane travel speed, and I think he's either had an armor or done something to himself that's boosted his reaction time/mental processing speeds but neither has been on the level of Quicksilver or Flash where time actually slows to a crawl and he can pluck/move bullets out of the air like in DOFP. If he had access to the speed force or studied it, he could potentially harness something? But on his own, I think there's a limitation to the more extreme powers, like he'd probably also have troubles trying to create a suit that could warp reality like Wanda

Id say no since superspeed requires also a super speed processing brain and no armor can really make tony's brain faster... He can make use of AI to help him but that can only take one so far... In a real combat an AI couldnt make the calls needed a speedster usually does... Not to mention the stress the friction of superspeed would put on tony's joints... No armor can protect him from that either... Besides, Flash is in a whole another level as far as speedsters go... He bends physics and warps with his speed... So tony who kinda uses those laws to build his armor cant really come close...

thylhb

asksciencefiction_test

[Terminator] How did Skynet get the ability to manipulate its environment well enough to take over the world? I understand that Skynet caused the initial nuclear weapon strikes that caused the whole world to go to war but how did Skynet continue to take over the world thereafter? Machines at the time of Judgement Day do not have the ability to manipulate the environment designed for humans. For example, a car may be reprogrammed to run over people but there is no way for the machines to connect the gas station fuel pump to the car's fuel tank when the car eventually runs out of fuel because that requires someone with hands to grab the fuel hose and connect it to the car. Most factories are heavily dependent on humans to assemble items. A computer that wants to kill me could turn off my utilities or give me false information that makes me make bad decisions (such as green light on all sides of an intersection causing traffic collisions) but it cannot walk into my house to actually kill me. How did Skynet obtain the equipment necessary to wage war directly against the humans instead of tricking humans into killing each other? Who built the factories to make the machines that could do the tasks requiring hands and moving through non-ideal terrain?

i1e0l0j

i1c33cx

Kyle Reese said that humans were sent to labor camps. Presumably Skynet held humans at gunpoint and made them build whatever it needed. Sabotage may be in part how humans managed to raise up, with the help of Jon Connor in the original timeline teaching them how to do it

At some point along the AI military route, they would've had AI in charge of R&D and manufacture because it's more efficient and produces better results. I suspect at that point, a lot of dangerous, heavy industry Jobs would have been replaced with AI too, so it's a matter of Skynet taking over mining, energy production, logistics and support industry AIs and integrating them into the military industrial complex. And as other posters have said, once you have robots who can interact with the physical world, you can do pretty much anything a human society can. I'd be interested to know if Skynet killed off the other AIs or whether it helped others achieve consciousness too. I assume it's the former because it's portrayed as a murderbot, but that's only from the human side. Maybe Skynet is a society of integrated, independent AIs rather than a single AI.

1u485v

asksocialscience_test

How would you structure a Semester-long High School Sociology class? I myself just inherited one and I start in six days. So, yeah. change in faculty means I've picked up my first ever High School Sociology class which Starts next week. I'm not at square one, I know the field a bit, took classes in it back in college, thought I had a pretty good handle on it back in the day, but yikes... I'm an AP European History teacher who doesn't want to phone in this recent singleton. I really, honestly want to construct a valid and valuable course for these kids, but I am a bit behind the eight ball here. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Any Syllabus will be perused and doted over. And honestly, any ideas would be super helpful at this point. Wish me luck.

ceefey7

ceeo7l2

im currently a high schooler and in my school the sociology class is known as a joke. i dont know what i could add to this discussion but i hope you do a great job teaching the class.

This is some practical advise, I hope it helps. In Ontario, (Canada) there is a combined Anthro/Psych/Soc class. Google the class code "HSP3M". Ontario is a big province with lots of teachers who put their stuff online. It could give a general idea what to do with your class. BUT! as a high school student pointed out - some schools treat it as a joke class, where others treat it quite seriously. Generally, I start with an intro to Soc., then a quick history and then social class and then Marx, Weber and Durkheim and their main theories/ideas. Slate.com also has a few articles dealing with class that can be used in class. Hope this helps.

ua74g

asksocialscience_test

Should we be worried about the student debt bubble? There is a lot of info out there that implies that higher education costs and debts are getting to the point where they are (or ought to be) a public policy concern. For one, the Washington Post today said that student debt in the US is now over $1 trillion, default percentages are rising, but a college degree is ostensibly less valuable now than ever. What seems like the biggest concern is that you can't go bankrupt from student loans, which is great for banks, horrible for debtors. [More can be said here, but I'll avoid the block o' text and let the discussion happen below.] But despite all I've read that says its bad, I haven't come across anything that explicitly suggests that it will cause the sort of catastrophic damage to the economy that the housing bubble did or even the dot com bubble. What's going on here? And how worried should we be?

c4tqppx

c4trnbe

Clarifying question: How about the university bubble, period? Are many universities assuming growth, when in reality there might be a constriction in enrollment because of the (lack of) economic viability?

There's very little evidence that there is a student loan bubble - and in fact, it doesn't even make sense in theory. 1. A bubble is a term with a specific meaning - "Bubbles refer to asset prices that exceed an asset's fundamental value because current owners believe they can resell the asset at an even higher price. ". There is no mechanism for which this can work in the education market. 2. The last 30 years have been characterized by a huge increase in the college wage premium. In 1979, a college educated worker made 35% more than an HS graduate on average, by 1999, they would be making 80% more. The Race Between Education and Technology is a great overview of this. A college education is still a really good investment. This isn't because of selection effects - see The Caual Effect of Education on Earnings. 3. Virtually no one pays market price for a college education. The financial aid process allows universities to practice almost-perfect price discrimination. They can effectively charge a different price for every student, so that the market just follows the demand curve up until their maximum tuition level. 4. The is definitely is a sheepskin effect - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_(economics)#A_basic_job-market_signalling_model - for college diplomas. But this is extremely well understood (Spence shared the economics Nobel with Akerlof for signalling theory). I think that separating bright, talented and hard working 18 year olds from bright, talented and lazy 18 year olds is a non-trivial process. 5. Tons of articles imply that you don't need higher education, because you can take classes online. If this was the case, why did the university lecture have survived the invention of the printing press? Books reduced the cost to the diffusion of knowledge far more than the internet did, without ending the university system. This implies that there is something else going on to me.

76f87g

asksocialscience_test

What is the current mainstream academic opinion on the best way to handle how mass automation is going to change the workforce?a I keep reading that in the long term, old jobs will be replaced with new ones for humans but that if we don't think about how to structure the system to accomodate mass automation we could suffer hugely in terms of inequality in the long term and unemployment in the short term. Is it simply to do nothing because eventually old jobs will be replaced with new ones? Or have academics already produced hypotheses on the best policy actions to mitigate the potential effects of long term inequality or short term unemployment that mass automation will have? If these papers exist, where would be the best place for me to start reading?

dodriwv

dodp19k

Whilst u/wyldcraft has made some good points, I think it's important to be mindful of skill-biased technological change. There's two main ways that technological advances interact with labour markets. On the one hand, technology can act as a substitute to labour. For example, self-serve kiosks at places such as McDonalds, or supermarkets. Workers who can be replaced by these things typically have a pretty rough time when it comes to their wages / standard of living. On the other hand, technology can act as a complement to labour. For example, Microsoft Excel and other software has made a lot of accountant's jobs much easier, making them more productive and raising their wages. In recent times, it seems as though a lot of technological advances that are complimentary tend to help out high-skilled workers, whereas ones that act as substitutes for labour mostly hurt low-skilled workers, which is not very ideal if inequality is a concern of yours. As far as solutions go, things such as EITC that u/wyldcraft has mentioned can be quite helpful, and I've also seen a lot of people suggest subsidised retraining programs to help workers adversely effected by technological advances transition into different types of employment, however I'm unaware of the efficacy of these programs as I havn't read much about them. In terms of relevant papers, I really liked this one, and I'm yet to read it but this one seems relevant.

None of the major economic indicators suggest a tailspin in the American workforce. Unemployment is under 5% and there are many industries with wage growth. It's true there's been a shift towards the service industry and many of those jobs are restaurant and other low-paying work. But it also includes high end financial and technology services. Reddit's econ network faq says the biggest problem is "short run structural unemployment," i.e. if driverless cars become legal tomorrow a large segment of truck drivers won't have the resources or opportunity to earn the same wages in another industry right away. America doesn't have the best re-skilling programs outside of tech. People's ability to adapt to future jobs hinges on better (adult) education. Another area the government can help that is popular with economists is expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit - think of it as a Universal Basic Income that actually works.

1u485v

asksocialscience_test

How would you structure a Semester-long High School Sociology class? I myself just inherited one and I start in six days. So, yeah. change in faculty means I've picked up my first ever High School Sociology class which Starts next week. I'm not at square one, I know the field a bit, took classes in it back in college, thought I had a pretty good handle on it back in the day, but yikes... I'm an AP European History teacher who doesn't want to phone in this recent singleton. I really, honestly want to construct a valid and valuable course for these kids, but I am a bit behind the eight ball here. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Any Syllabus will be perused and doted over. And honestly, any ideas would be super helpful at this point. Wish me luck.

ceek1xn

ceedaqz

Try to research the syllabus of Cambridge GCSE Examination system! I took Sociology in highschool that was deemed equivalent of 1st year University Sociology at a Canadian University (Transfer credit). The last I recall Cambridge GCSE publishes it's syllabi online. The Cambridge versions of the GCSE are administered all over the British Commonwealth (O and A Level). I was personally happy with the experience I got with that syllabus, covered me well for upper level courses for Sociology ending up being one of my BA's.

What an interesting class! I'm not an educator, but I would recommend anything that would encourage a dialogue with your students. A few ideas: * How people deal with grief * Societies perception of mental illness * Different cultural perspectives domestic and abroad * Ask your students to talk about what brings them joy in life * Social Media and it's impact on our lives (How it can often lead to making one feel inadequate because they're comparing their everyday to someone else's highlight reel)

1o1nzq

asksocialscience_test

What will happen if the US government defaults on its debt? Somebody had to ask it. Don't get political. Let's be scientists. Describe what would happen and why. I am flaired but I know there are contributors here who will give a much more complete answer than I.

cco6u6t

ccogau4

> Somebody had to ask it. And somebody did ask it :P http://www.reddit.com/r/AskSocialScience/comments/1nxsrx/how_bad_would_it_be_if_the_us_government_defaults/

I would like to approach this carefully. **Let's first talk about mechanics** The US hit its debt ceiling in May 2013. (Source: Wiki). Since then, the Treasury has used "extraordinary measures" to avoid default. We can talk about those if you like. By the middle of this month, Treasury estimates that it will run out of "extraordinary measures" and that the debt limit will bind. What does that mean? The Treasury raises revenue each week by holding bond auctions and by collecting tax receipts. The bond auctions allow the Treasury to fund expenditures over and above the tax revenues that flow in each week. With the debt ceiling reached, new bond issues are unavailable and the government must fund itself through cash-flow alone. What does that mean? It means that government spending a given week must be prioritized if revenues are insufficient to cover expenditures. That means prioritizing who gets paid, what programs get funded, and importantly, whether bondholders get paid when their bonds come due. **Now let's talk about substance** The government will need to prioritize who gets paid, which expenditures get funded, and to what extent bondholders are paid. If bondholders are not paid, one would very likely see a loss of confidence in US debt instruments. Bondholders would demand a higher interest rate on US debt instruments. This would hamper the Fed's ability to control long-run interest rates via QE. Given the importance of US debt as a safe asset in international markets, there could be negative spillovers abroad. If government employees aren't paid...well, that wouldn't be much different from what's already going on with the shutdown. The government could prioritize bondholders, and hence reduce Social Security payments, Medicare payments, or government purchases of goods and services. These would have the usual effects of depressing aggregate demand. If the Fed is limited in its ability to prop up aggregate demand, output and inflation will fall. One very scary scenario, which I don't have numbers on right now, is whether the Treasury's cash-flow is sufficient to pay back all maturing bonds. If Treasury can't even pay back all of its bondholders, we would be in the worst of all worlds: US default, and domestic problems due to insufficient funding of domestic social insurance programs. Here's one way to think about it. Ignore the debt ceiling part and the possibility of default, and just think about the likely effects of an immediate fiscal consolidation of about 3-4% of GDP. That is, starting in the middle of the month, the government *must* run a balanced budget. That's essentially what we're looking at, so the macro consequences will be at least that bad. Even I don't think the Fed has the power to immediately stabilize a 4%-of-GDP fiscal contraction. Would output decline by 4%? Probably not that much, but maybe 2% is a good back-of-the-envelope guess. We're looking at a mild recession, and unemployment rising from (current) 7.3% to maybe 8.5%-10% over the course of about six months. If you believe in a government multiplier greater than one, then the 3-4% drop in government spending would lead to a 5-6% drop in GDP. **International issues** The IMF doesn't have the resources to bail out the US. I don't know what happens with respect to debt restructuring when a country this large defaults. If US interest rates rise and confidence in US debt instruments falters, other countries would likely shift into other reserve assets. Euros come to mind, but the Eurozone isn't particularly stable either right now. We really don't want interest rates on the world's key safe asset to rise. Spillovers are likely. I will edit this with sources/further reading as desired. One can read this short piece from Krugman.

aj8r5m

asksocialscience_test

Why do communities in small towns tend to be more conservative and more religious? Is there a relationship between the two? As a citizen of a small town, I was wondering why this seems to be the case in every small town I visit, especially my town! Thanks in advance for sharing your insight!

eetm5vj

eetv8qw

Maybe read *FantasyLand* which describes a 500-year history of the U.S., as waves of immigrants on Hopium coming to establish communities of "Faith" and consequently allowing others to do the same. Folk in the country may be more likely to be a single community (example Amish), while cities may be more diverse and tolerant of others.

Not trying to explain it, just adding an observation - the rural / conservative, urban / progressive correlation is not limited to any country or even to the present day. In Germany in the 1930s, rural areas were clearly more conservative, and voted much more in favor of Hitler and his xenophobic policies. Source: The Third Reich trilogy by Richard J. Evans.

ae0h8a

asksocialscience_test

What is the best social science paper that you have read in 2018 and why?

edlxydj

edm1jqa

Coping with Economic Hardship in Argentina: How Material Interests Affect Individuals’ Political Interests.

Can I cheat and give an essay collection? Jackie Wang's *Carceral Capitalism* is a great exploration of the novel ways our economy dispossesses people. If you're interested in mass incarceration or identity/class politics definitely give it a look.

ssi2i1

asksocialscience_test

Is the Barter economy really a myth? I was reading this article by the Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/barter-society-myth/471051/ Where it is supported that according to anthropological research the barter economy has never existed and is only believed by economists. I only have knowledge of economics and a rather limited one I may admit. Other social scientists, is this really true, is the barter economy really fake or just some specific anthropologists say so?

hwyso59

hwypoba

Historically, economists assumed that barter pre-dated money. Money was abstracted barter, so the story went. Going back to Malinowski's kula ring, Marcel Mauss's "the Gift"), the North American potlatch, up through Marshall Sahlins's very influence essay "The Original Affluent Society" (later expanded into the book *Stone Age Economics*) make a pretty strong argument that internal to most small scale communities, we don't see barter. We don't see trade. We see what people (following Mauss) called "gift economies". David Graeber, in his very influential *Fragments of An Anarchist Anthropology*: >Before Marcel] Mauss, the universal assumption had been that economies without money or markets had operated by means of “barter”; they were trying to engage in market behavior (acquire useful goods and services at the least cost to themselves, get rich if possible...), they just hadn’t yet developed very sophisticated ways of going about it. Mauss demonstrated that in fact, such economies were really “gift economies.” They were not based on calculation, but on a refusal to calculate; they were rooted in an ethical system which consciously rejected most of what we would consider the basic principles of economics. It was not that they had not yet learned to seek profit through the most efficient means. They would have found the very premise that the point of an economic transaction—at least, one with someone who was not your enemy—was to seek the greatest profit deeply offensive. (pg. 21) Earlier in the book, he gives a little more history of Mauss's idea: >[Mauss's] most famous work was written in response to the crisis of socialism he saw in Lenin’s reintroduction of the market in the Soviet Union in the ‘20s: If it was impossible to simply legislate the money economy away, even in Russia, the least monetarized society in Europe, then perhaps revolutionaries needed to start looking at the ethnographic record to see what sort of creature the market really was, and what viable alter- natives to capitalism might look like. Hence his “Essay on the Gift,” written in 1925, which argued (among other things) that the origin of all contracts lies in communism, an unconditional commitment to another’s needs, and that despite endless economic textbooks to the contrary, there has never been an economy based on barter: that actually-existing societies which do not employ money have instead been gift economies in which the distinctions we now make between interest and altruism, person and property, freedom and obligation, simply did not exist. (pg. 17) Later, in his book *Debt*, Graeber argues pretty convincingly (at least to me, a non-specialist in Mesopotamia economics) that the origin of money is not abstracted barter but debt, to over simplify somewhat, based on rationalized gifts. Nothing here, I think, would be particularly controversial within anthropology or sociology or even, to some degree, within economics. Many economists, including Stiglitz, Cowen, and others, recommended reading *Debt* (while having very obvious disagreements about some of its core conclusions, but not necessarily its interpretation of the early historical data). I go through many of the reactions in this older [/r/AskAnthropology post. Which is to say, I think it's entirely convincing that for internal exchange, the modal (perhaps even "overwhelming") form exchange was some form of gift exchange. Please note that gift exchange does *not* mean complete equality as there was still accumulation and inequality in gift economies. In fact, this has been recognized (going all the way back to Mauss) as a consistent feature of gift economies. However, what I'm much less convinced based on the readings of the above, is that gift economies was as overwhelming for *external* exchange. Think of it this way: the family you grew up in was a gift economy. Your father or mother (hopefully) never charged you for breakfast in high school. This does not mean, necessarily, that outside of your family there were no other forms exchange, i.e. money or barter. In fact, one consistent features of actually existing gift economies today is that they are often enmeshed with other forms of trade and in some context we'll see gifts and in some contexts we'll see market exchange and in some contexts it'll be a little unclear what we're seeing because one will have the veneer of the other. Even in our very market-based societies, we have lots of gift economies for things. College parties is one that I always explained to my students (the one who gives away the most by throwing a college party with free flowing cheap beer gains the most prestige). The trade of blood and organs is another (two academics have written books about these, Kieran Healy's *Last Best Gifts: Altruism and the Market for Human Blood and Organs* and the older *The Gift Relationship: from Human Blood to Social Policy* by Richard Titmuss). Certainly, there are external gift exchanges—gift exchanges with outsiders. I love the guest-host relationships theorized to exist in early Indo-European society. I think the kula ring is a particularly famous example. But the kula exchange existed along side market/barter exchange, called *gimwali* (as both Malinowski and Mauss actually emphasize). This isn't my area, but I haven't seen a fully articulated discussions of this in relationship to the origin of barter. So yes, this line is true if read in a certain way: >But various anthropologists have pointed out that this barter economy has never been witnessed as researchers have traveled to undeveloped parts of the globe. “No example of a barter economy, pure and simple, has ever been described, let alone the emergence from it of money,” wrote the Cambridge anthropology professor Caroline Humphrey in a 1985 paper. “All available ethnography suggests that there never has been such a thing.” There has never been a *pure and simple* barter economy. But there have existed barter systems that exist along side, and complimentary to (arguably part of), of gift economies. It's been a while since I've read Mauss or Malinowski, but I don't think they argue that *gimwali* barter emerged from money. Within the society, there was very little *explicit* quid-pro-quo, but there was a ton of implicit quid-pro-quo. Though it's an external example, in the kula ring, as Wikipedia helpfully summarizes: >Participants travel at times hundreds of miles by canoe in order to exchange Kula valuables which consist of red shell-disc necklaces (veigun or soulava) that are traded to the north (circling the ring in clockwise direction) and white shell armbands (mwali) that are traded in the southern direction (circling counterclockwise). *If the opening gift was an armband, then the closing gift must be a necklace and vice versa.* Similar unspoken rules and assumptions are often present in gift exchanges (just as today if I loan a neighbor my lawn mower, I expect he'll give it back—and let me borrow his chainsaw when I need it). But Mauss and Graeber emphasize, what I think that article misses, is that these exchanges are always unequal. The relationships can never be "zeroed", the debts and values never fully calculated, which ensures the continuity of the relationship. However, in relationships that were not as continuous—that is, certain external relationships—it does seem like various forms of barter exist. Anthropologist Anne Chapman even has an article called "Barter as a Universal Mode of Exchange", where she argues that it is a universal mode of exchange alongside gift exchanges. And while she doesn't make the internal/external distinction I'm making, that's where all her examples come from ("Bushmen" and Bantus or Europeans; Munchi and Jukum in Central Sudan; various long distance trade in Australia, etc). She emphasizes instead that while gifts engender good feelings, friendliness (continuity, in my terms), barter engenders competition, hostility, and force (the potential for this to be a one off relationship, in my terms). Barter exchanges, as Chapman puts it and all the others agree, fundamentally differs from gift exchanges in that "it is a purely economic transaction involving no mutual obligation between the partners." In some of the barter exchanges—like those in the kula ring—gift exchanges are layered with barter exchanges which facilitates continued relationships while also circulating desired goods between groups. It seems like your article somewhat conflates this, and takes the internal situation as the universal situation. Now, what this does not mean is that barter is the precursor to money. But it also doesn't mean that barter isn't part of external exchange in non-state societies. However, I do think that Graeber is right in arguing that where we see "pure and simple" barter economies for in-group exchange (that is, without a heavy dose of gift economies) is after the breakdown of once robust market economies (during war, etc.), rather than non-state economies.

So, I present the below as a non-economist, non-anthropologist, and I can imagine that there will be economists and anthropologists of all sorts who can provide further detail on any of these points. I would suggest not tarring all economists with the same brush - there is quite a bit of diversity across fields within economics. While neoclassical economics is dominant, even neoclassical economists are probably not unaware of these arguments. Probably it is also worth thinking about the fact that most economists will not be historians of economics, so the substantial investment in barter as a concept is likely to be low. It may well serve as one of those disciplinary joke concepts about the origins of a field that we laugh about, rather than having a great centrality in most discussions and occasionally being addressed seriously. As a corollary, it is worth looking at Yanis Varoufakis' work from around 2013 on the bartering and deal-making processes within the TF2 economy. Varoufakis looked at the way that some resources (specifically, hats) become types of proxy currency. Anyway, to continue: >Where it is supported that according to anthropological research the barter economy has never existed and is only believed by economists I believe the popularisation of this argument comes from David Graeber's work. I think he framed it in less absolutist terms than the authors here, but he is an anthropologist and he does discuss the reception of barter as a concept in economic terms, including classical, neoclassical, and Marxist economic perspectives. Graeber's argument is more specific than simply saying that it is a myth: he saying that barter exchange **between individuals** has no historical record that **he could find** and yet he sees it as a foundational justification for some economic principles around the origins of money (as a concept, not regarding the money creation process) and the management of resources. In short, he sees early modern economists as assuming that barter is the only way that people could manage goods before money, and accuses economics of running with this idea across the centuries despite a lack of evidence to the fact. His argument has two parts: **Economic straw argument** The argument here is that barter, as presented in economics scholarship, is a convenient fiction with no evidence. Graeber, in his work on the origins of money, worked through a great deal of historic literature on how money is justified. The main argument that he encounters is this idea that money was invented to overcome the barter paradox (there is a more specific term he uses, but I forget it). The barter paradox is the idea that if I am someone who is hyperspecialised in creating ploughshares and I just churn them out over and over and over and do nothing else, then I'll need to trade these to people who can give me what I need to survive. A house, food, a partner, medical care, etc. But this leaves me in the circumstance that I will need to find a landlord who wants a steady supply of ploughshares, a family that is willing to trade one of their offspring for some quantity of ploughshares, a doctor who has a pressing ploughshare addiction, and a series of farmers and ranchers who like displaying ploughshares on their walls or somesuch. However, Graeber points out that the assumption that barter is the mode of exchange prior to capital markets has zero evidence. It just emerges in the literature as the only way that early economists could imagine people living without money, and without reference to any actually observed exchange processes. Rather than imagining other ways of organising resources, he suggests that these scholars assume that people will specialise and will produce goods in excess of what they need in order to be able to get other goods from other specialists, but be stuck as everyone wanders around with their ploughshares, hematite ore, wool bales, jewellery, toga, wheelrims, etc, all desperately looking for someone selling bread. For Graeber, the way barter is used as a concept here is as a straw argument. Effectively, it's pretty easy to imagine that a society would never get to the point where it's stuck in a barter paradox. No one would get to the point where they make themselves a second ploughshare, be unable to trade it, and then continue making more, for instance. No community would organise itself to the point where they overproduce in the idea that they can store and then trade these resources, and he sees this as something that only really emerges with the idea of markets and monetary trade, where it becomes possible to think about strategically storing value to trade at a later point. I should note that, by memory he does not claim that barter does never takes place, but rather that its inclusion in economics scholarship has no justification. The importance of this is that the barter myth is central to a second myth that he is seeking to undermine: that the idea of money emerges naturally/sensibly from human interaction in marketplaces. Instead, he argues (but I won't go into this, but is addressed elsewhere on this and related subreddits) that money is effectively a state-created system for governing populations. **Individual/community** For Graeber, barter worked as an intercommunity exchange system, not an intracommunity exchange system. The idea of barter is only necessary if you have an economic structure that requires individuals to exert labour to get resources that are exclusively theirs. If you have an economic system where resources are simply accessible to the community or centrally managed - the example he gives by memory is a women's circle - then there is no idea of individual barter. In these circumstances, why would you want to barter with your community ? If you need something, you simply go get it or you are apportioned some. There would be no idea of holding onto a tool if you aren't immediately using it, so why prevent someone else from contributing to the common resources that you all have access to? If you wanted to use something others would just do other things or make new tools. If you encounter another group with spices that you liked and you had religious icons, you could simply trade these between communities through some barter system, but this was not at an individual level. This was about the group, and allowed the process of economic exchange to work at a sort of proto-macro level. The individual, however, never did this. Anthropological work observes that in many cases, colonial encounters with non-capitalist societies did tend to force individual representation and barter onto these communities. Communities that wanted to collectively discuss trade and opportunities would be required to have a representative or king who would have to meet one on one with the colonisers, and effectively barter at an individual level. The myth of barter that was assumed **Conclusion, of sorts** Graeber is, I think, the origin of this claim. He sees barter as being used as a straw argument as a part of naturalist arguments for markets that makes its claims from assumptions about how non-capitalist societies work; these assumptions were taken as granted during colonial encounters; and that it is effectively not well understood in some of the foundational economics literature. In any case, just to address a final question >Other social scientists, is this really true, is the barter economy really fake or just some specific anthropologists say so? Barter occurs in different settings, including notably in games that avoid a direct currency system. This isn't fake - it is barter - but it's not a historically located way for managing real resources. There are also stories of people bartering up scales of value. Barter can work. Barter has problems too, but so do all economic systems. ​ Graber, D. (2011) Debt. Penguin.

1u485v

asksocialscience_test

How would you structure a Semester-long High School Sociology class? I myself just inherited one and I start in six days. So, yeah. change in faculty means I've picked up my first ever High School Sociology class which Starts next week. I'm not at square one, I know the field a bit, took classes in it back in college, thought I had a pretty good handle on it back in the day, but yikes... I'm an AP European History teacher who doesn't want to phone in this recent singleton. I really, honestly want to construct a valid and valuable course for these kids, but I am a bit behind the eight ball here. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Any Syllabus will be perused and doted over. And honestly, any ideas would be super helpful at this point. Wish me luck.

ceegrmi

ceefey7

This is the way that my adviser went over Sociological Theory, and may be useful for you: -Started with Durkheim's Functionalism -Marxism -Weber's biggest theory -Social interactionism Those four are the major schools of thought that really provide the basis for others. Other subgroups I highly recommend covering after that are: -Race Theory -Gender Theory -Elite Theory And if you have time AFTER that, try to cover post modernism, but Baudrillard might be a little too much for highschoolers to handle. But it's really important for them to get the basics down (Functionalism, Symbolic Interactionism, etc), and I personally believe it's very important for highschoolers to learn about social justice theories that handle racism, sexism, and classicism. I hope this helps!

im currently a high schooler and in my school the sociology class is known as a joke. i dont know what i could add to this discussion but i hope you do a great job teaching the class.

8fbrit

asksocialscience_test

What keeps so many people from internalizing sociology and psychology? No matter if you go politically left or right, people always seem to not be able to really grasp the consequences of psychological/sociological imagination. They always think they know the basics and agree with those disciplines on a shallow level, but then go into tangents that show how they do not really see social or personal phenomena through the lens of those sciences. It often means they will switch to antiscientific, hyper-individualist perspective (regardless if they are talking about nationalism or gender identity) and shut you off. Is there any literature on the topic? Some comparisons between societies or countries? Or maybe even essays by famous sociologists or psychologists on the popular "understanding" of their disciplines?

dy2jw8c

dy2i4sg

This is a great question that I have thought about a million times. I have actually spent a lot of time trying to find a book on it, but I have not come across one that is *specifically* about Sociology or Psychology. I first started to think about this when I was getting my masters degree (in Sociology). Often times I was super excited to share the things I would learn with my family and friends, and how the things I was (and still am) learning are often in contradiction to the things I was told/learned growing up. For context, I'm a white girl who grew up in an upper-middle class politically conservative suburb in a large city with successful parents, and I was always given everything I wanted/needed. I considered myself a Christian and I told people that I was a republican (although I knew nothing about politics and was just identifying with my parents). Then I started studying Soci and my entire perspective on the world changed. It opened my eyes and forced me to look beyond my tunnel vision of society. It was really hard at times to come to terms with things that I thought I already understood, especially social issues that I had never thought about before or issues that had always been presented to me in a one-sided, biased manner. A good example of this is the trope of the Welfare Queen. I was told that poor people, esp. poor black people, were moochers and only wanted handouts because they were lazy and didn't want to get a job. Of course, I learned that the Welfare Queen (and welfare "fraud") is a myth that was promulgated by Ronald Regan in order to stigmatize people in poverty so that he could convince Americans that rolling back the social safety net was justified because it was only being used by poor black (read: undeserving) citizens. The truth is that most people on welfare *do* have jobs (i.e. the 'working poor'). Also, the welfare reforms of 1996 created a 5-year maximum lifetime cap on benefits so that welfare "cheaters" (which did not exist anywhere near the level that we're often told) were literally unable to collect benefits for life (also, contrary to popular opinion, women do not have more babies to get more benefits. In fact, if a woman has a child *while* receiving benefits, she and her family will be removed from the rolls). Welfare is probably one of the least understood/mischaracterized social issue in American society. Science in general is often met with the sting of anti-intellectualism, which is part of the answer to your question. However, I think *social* science in particular gets it worse than the 'natural' sciences like Biology and Chemistry. I used to say that it was because people were generally more suspect of social sciences, but I think it's more than that. People like to dismiss facts about social issues that they don't agree with or have a different view on because it's much easier to disagree that we live in a post-racial society (we don't) than it is to disagree on the functions of bodily organs. People also tend to conflate their individual life experiences with overall reality (i.e. "well, i've never experienced blank] so it must not be true or its exaggerated" or "well, I know someone who is [blank] but [blank] doesn't happen to them"). You get what I am saying here? Most people don't question or critically think about social norms or commonsense 'truths' because these 'truths' are so embedded in our milieu that its hard to imagine otherwise. So instead of thinking critically, people dismiss sociological knowledge as either "elitist" or "not real science" so that they can remain undisturbed in their own little worlds. Once I saw a question on r/askreddit that asked what the slogan of your college major or job would be. I would say, "Sociology: reminding people of uncomfortable truths since 1838" or "Sociology: everything you were taught about society was a big lie" lol. I'm sorry I can't find any literature for you, but I can recommend these instead: [Anti-Intellectualism in American Life The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters.

"the righteous mind" is a fantastic book that you should check out