Which age is this? I hear people complaining about their bodies going when they hit 30.
And weren't there stories about romantic love back in ancient Greece?
My body has been perfectly preserved through the magic of nitrite-laden pork and smoke.
Also, you have a gratuitous s in the post, Ogged.
"On the Historical Juxtaposition of Romantic Love and Scientific Advance," submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Ph.D. by Humbert Humbert.
Nonsense. Lower life expectancies didn't mean that people didn't get old, they meant that more people died young. There have been old ugly people since there have been people. And modern 'romantic love' dates back to the Middle Ages, a time with about as low a life expectancy as anyone is going to find.
And good heavens, that woman can jump. She looks like she's just hovering there.
It's going to be hard to find a discrete time period for your romantic love, since it's going to matter for whom romantic love is possible/discussable. (For example, Andrea Capellanus's 1170s Art of Courtly Love gives a tutorial on how to woo noblewomen vs. how to [rape] serving women.) Most scholars end up talking more about inheritance law than about sagging, as far as I know. But don't let all that get in the way of a good flaming...
via me, in the days before the concept of romantic love was invented the average person didn't live to grow pubic hair.
I like the second comment on the linked post -- spam with a cock joke!
jinx personal jinx no touchbacks. LizardBreath LizardBreath LizardBreath.
Erm, I haven't been following the jinx conversation closely. If I've got it right, #8 both jinxed me and then immediately lifted the jinx by saying my name three times?
via me, in the days before the concept of romantic love was invented the average person didn't live to grow pubic hair.
You didn't grow pubic hair till your mid-twenties? Bummer.
6: Capellanus also has a lovely section on raping nuns, and how you can tell that they're lustful because they don't resist with sufficient fervor.
The concept of romantic love between a man and a woman was "invented" at the same time as, and in response to, advances in hygiene and medicine that allowed the average person to knock up someone they actually liked.
9: correct.
10: "average" here really means "median." The reason life expectancy was in the twenties back in the day was because most people were dying before they were ten. So the typical human died young, and the typical adult lived to be saggy and wrinkly.
Cripes. Ogged gives us a perfectly serviceable flame-post about love as a cover or substitute for physical attraction, and y'all turn it into a discussion of historical fact. Depressing.
the typical adult lived to be saggy and wrinkly
Is this true? Do we actually know the life expectancy of someone who lived past, say, twenty, in the year 1300?
12: Plausible, but false for any value of 'romantic love that I'm familiar with. Childbirth didn't get significantly safer until mid 20th-C -- are you defining 'romantic love' as something less than a century old?
16: They still didn't live, on average, as long as we do -- more illnesses, more fatal injuries -- but living past 40 or so, which is plenty of time to get saggy or wrinkly, was perfectly common. The examples I can come up with of are going to be in the upper classes, but think about royal successions, for example. Any monarch who came to the throne as a adult, did so because his or her father was still alive past somewhere around 40.
17 - Nah, just throwing ideas against the wall to see what sticks.
16, 18: More to the point, given hygenie practice, the state of dental work, and agrarian work, who says that they were attractive at 18?
We always useta use an earthier idiom
who says that they were attractive at 18?
That's a good question. Maybe it's not the sag, but other things that love compensates for.
19 - Saggy, wrinkly things stick better.
24: But, Father, I don't like her...
Re-enacting Monty Python bits is right out.
More to the point, given hygenie practice, the state of dental work, and agrarian work, who says that they were attractive at 18?
They would likely not have been very attractive to modern eyes, but given that they did not have Victoria's Secret catalogs back then to use as a benchmark, people in the prime of their attractiveness would have looked mighty hott to each other.
And really - how many teeth would an 18 year old have lost, and how esthetically displeasing is a little dirt once you're used to it? In contemporary art, they look fine.
how many teeth would an 18 year old have lost
Lost is not the issue; splayed is. Think British.
My understanding is that the British do successfully have sex; even with Americans on occasion.
It might have been a dream, but I swear this blog used to be funny.
That's what you get for having sex, ogged.
Moment of whining: it's really galling to read student evaluations that say "there should have been more discussion" but show no signs of "this is at least partly our fault."
...
It might have been a dream, but I swear this blog used to be funny.
AFA the "I shot the sherrif" guy -- did he not know there are verses to the song? Or was he just paralyzed with stage fright and unable to remember anything besides the refrain? Perhaps he learned it off a record where it is an instrumental, with somebody singing only on the refrain, and thought there were no other words. I am confident (in the absense of evidence to the contrary) that such a record exists.
I didn't say it wasn't my fault, Joe. Of course, I didn't say it, because it's not true: it's mostly your fault, with an assist from Lizardbreath.
It isn't the way people *looked* that would have been the problem. It's the way they *smelled*.
Though I guess if that were the case, he ought to have done some "deedle deedle deedl DUM, dum dum" kind of vocal scat.
Hey, you write a blog with the commenters you have, not the ones you want. And the ones you have are pedantically over-literal.
Many nuns were forced into the convent by their fathers in order to avoid giving them inheritances, so this so-called "rape" was a powerful blow against patriarchy.
But in those pre-Sinead days the nuns' bald heads were an enormous turnoff.
he ought to have done some "deedle deedle deedl DUM, dum dum" kind of vocal scat
All day long I'd biddy biddy bum,
If I shot the wealthy sherriff...
Actually, you could be forced into the convent post-rape or even post-marriage. Think Abelard and Eloise, for example. Which, come to think of it, is good fodder for Ogged's dissertation.
Hm, 42's not doing much to refute 37.
Romantic love was invented as a response to the widespread castration of male philosophers?
Joe Drymala -- your 42 is not work-safe because it makes the reader collapse in a fit of helpless giggles.
I swear this blog used to be funny.
It's all been downhill since you banned abc123, you vanilla-sniffer.
One thread over, Idol people.
Oops, sorry -- I got confused for a minute there.
Rachel Wacholder's world doesn't need love? What about this whole thread?
I guess that makes Weiner the second-to-last guy to realize I was kidding in that post.
So the typical human died young, and the typical adult lived to be saggy and wrinkly.
Is this true? Do we actually know the life expectancy of someone who lived past, say, twenty, in the year 1300?
We can estimate some things from church records. Average age of marriage has floated closer to thirty than is popularly believed, so it's not unlikely. (It floats in relation to economics; good economy, peasants marry young. No money -- marriage can wait a few years.) If you look at modern American mortality tables, one of the biggest factors affecting average male life expectancy is whether we're going off to a major war. (Lots of 18 year olds dead skews the data).
The data's not as good as it is now, but even a look at stories from the time period can show that it wasn't unheard of for people to live into old age. (It wasn't a Logan's Run kind of world, certainly.)
If you'd made it past early childhood, you were pretty hardy material. Second point: most of the world doesn't have 'modern' medicine, and there seem to be old people in those communities. Perhaps not 90 years old, but 70 isn't unheard of. Three score and ten's Biblical.
Plus, asses and things start to sag and droop at about age 23 according to this frathouse.
asses and things start to sag and droop at about age 23 according to this frathouse
I said it could be delayed until one's early thirties.
according to this frathouse
Derbyshire is not a member of this frathaus.
Also, Dr. B assures us that her almost 40-year-old titties are just. Fine.
I said it could be delayed until one's early thirties.
But pre-modern communities do not have gyms.
But only w-lfs-n (who we don't trust), can confirm or refute that assertion.
Wacholder has thick, unfeminine legs, though. What you guys are looking for is a hatt, willowy volleyball player from one of the less-competitive Division III schools.
said it could be delayed until one's early thirties.
25 for normal people, 30 for athletes.
How active we talking here? Ogged-swimming active or Ian Thorpe-swimming active?
I'm not sure how much exercise helps anyway; there's some active, strong 35 year olds that just look old, and some people, like my mom, who looked about 20 until she was 35, and then looked thirty until, oh, last year. She's 50 now.
Ian Thorpe is taking time off from swimming, Cala.
Women's volleyball players are scary.
This based on research at CalaUndergrad U locker rooms. Scary, scary tall chicks.
Plow-calloused
I think you mean plow-callused.
68: Whatever. It was either that or figure skating.
Yeah looks like I'm wrong. You win this time, Joe! But watch your back!
apo, mostly just that they were all about a foot taller than me, loud, and thick. JE's right; they're not usually willowy supermodels. The good ones have some seriously built muscles.
Those girls look willowy, but I assure you, they could crush you. Even the small willowy ones only look small because everyone else is thick.
Why do the female beach volleyball players consent to wearing those ridiculously skimpy underthings? Surely little hotshorts would be more comfortable, and it's not as though the women would be any less oglable, really. They're athletes, not bikini models! [Grumble, grumble.]
'Cause if they were always doing that in the locker room, I can see how it might be unsettling.
Oh Jackmormon, not that, please not that.
Short answer: they had to make rules so that the Brazilians wouldn't wear suits that were even more skimpy.*
*Might not be complete answer.
#57: I did not say "titties."
#59: I find your refusal to take my word for it terribly sexist.
Jackmormon,
What they must wear is specified in their employment contract. Why do coal miners consent to working in dangerous mines?
On the attractive thing, one of the universal standards of female attractiveness is 'health,' and specifically clear skin as a visible sign of good health. So I imagine with today's acne medication many modern teens are much more attractive then their midieval counterparts.
82: I did not choose the word by accident.
Jackmormon, my guess would be that they want to sell the sport and earn millions of dollars, and the way you do that as a female athlete is to be sexy.
bphd,
Or leprosy. Point taken.
Like all the rather sensible and understandable preferences society can distort and bend them to extremes. Today's fashion models and nazi-death-camp actresses are one such extreme. Not my cup of tea by any means.
I think Jackmormon's "why" is meant to interrogate the connection between women's sports and sexiness.
Beach volleyball was discussed here and here. Off to the pool, though I'll note that I think that's the second time b has used "interrogate" without irony in the past couple of weeks. Thin ice, b, thin ice.
Hey, she could be using "radical" as an intensifier.
82: Extrapolating from her clothed figure in profile, I'm willing to go on record to say that I think B's claim extremely likely to be true. She's welcome to confirm my reasoning at any time.
Ugh. Just found the 2004 Olympics regulations for beach volleyball. "The briefs should be in compliance with the enclosed diagram, be a close fit, and be cut on an upwards angle towards the top of the leg. The side width must be a maximim 7 cm."
No minimum width is mentioned. I'm not going to raise a giant stink about this (although, with this and my anti-squirrel comments, I seem to be on a bit of a tear and will now take a long soothing pause), but it does seem too bad that these athletes are basically forced to spend half their matches plucking their underthings out of their asses.
Why the connection? Because either they're trying to draw in male viewership (beach volleyball, tennis) or little girl viewership + ad base after the Olympic medal (figure skating, gymnastics), and you get that with sparkles, flair, and skimpiness. Even NASCAR has Danica Patrick; she doesn't dress skimpily in her ads, but she has the long flowing hair thing going.
Women's sports isn't taken as seriously as sports by men, perceived to be the largest sports-consuming audience, so sexiness is the default fallback.
Bphd,
Ah. Well I'm willing to admit that for sports to be commercially viable they must be entertaining to men. I could be more PC about it but I'm not really in the mood today.
#89: Watch out, I'll start using "problematic" next.
#91: I'm going to tattle on you to my burly boyfriend.
Now let's discuss whether this qualifies as 'exploitation.'
Then I can fully relive the 70's one more time. We've already got the gas prices and the criminal president.
b,
do your interrogations include water boarding and naked man pyramids? cause if so...
#96: What? I'm simply offering my services as a disinterested party.
And your burly boyfriend doesn't know where I live.
We're attempting to problematize the dominant paradigm of the nexus between women's sports and the objectification of women's bodies, no?
I know from personal experience that 45 year old breasts can look very fine even after breastfeeding numerous babies. I also know that some types of skin get wrinkly faster than others. Thin redheads seem most prone to the wrinkles.
No, they involve badgering men. Or was it berating? You know, refusing to let go of an argument. Luckily both Tripp and I are too tired today to get into a rumble over women's volleyball bikinis.
First, let's arrive at a game plan and assign some action items. I'm hoping to drive to a win-win based on realizing some synergies when we look at our medium-term future state.
Women's sports isn't taken as seriously as sports by men
Sometimes with good reason. Though I don't know anyone who watches volleyball willingly, so I couldn't comment on the male/female issue here.
perceived to be the largest sports-consuming audience
Again, sometimes with good reason. I really have no idea why women don't go to games, or follow leagues. But I have several good female friends who are spectacular atheletes and show no interest in professional sports. And the couple who do (they like basketball) prefer the men's game.
#99: My burly boyfriend actually doesn't care.
#101: See? Confirmed by a man. Without the need for a tit shot.
105: You were the one who threatented to sic him on me.
And 101 is hardly confirmation.
There aren't a lot of professional outlets for women's sports, at least not with the sort of monetary reward of men's sports. A female soccer player? Really, you have tennis, golf, figure skating, and... hmm. There's the WNBA. And some of the Olympic sports, though that's amateur and you can't capitalize on it monetarily if you don't get gold, in most cases.
It's not the sort of thing that gets little girls dreaming from age six about when they make the UNC soccer squad and go on to millions of dollars.
It confirms the broader principle.
And you've *met* my boyfriend. Does he seem the type that's amenable to being sicced?
Weiner, you must undertake a reassessment of your value-added capacities so you can proactively leverage your assets synergistically in order to create your client's future.
(I worked in consulting. I fled back to the academy because no one in consulting made any fucking sense when they spoke. Philosophy makes more sense.)
Bphd,
For the record I took your word for it. For one thing the term is subjective and for another why would you lie?
My advice to guys is that if you really really care about breasts and how they look you are probably better off picking someone who is less-endowed. In the long run smaller breasts will probably experience less change.
No, I was just following your lead. Or was the dance not "Chopper should waggishly pretend fear while simultaneously offering flatterment to B?"
Cala, jinx personal jinx no takebacks.
Breasts have a low rate of return on investment.... but smaller ones are more stable and less likely to fluctuate with the market.....
[Catches bird. Eats it. Looks around for muffins and collards.]
#111: I was just trying to bait Ogged.
#112: *You* were leading. The dance was "Chopper flatters BPhD who makes a joke out of it." Same steps, different order. No wonder we ended up confused.
Cala, Cala, Cala. Chopper, try to keep up. You gotta say, "jinx personal jinx 1-2-3 no 'backs." They have however long it takes you to say the 1-2-3 count to perform the counterjinx.
She has however long, I meant to say.
I'm three percent above prime, baby, but you know I'll be there for you when you retire.
118 -- They have however long it takes you to say the 1-2-3 count -- it strikes me that this rule is problematic in the venue where we are interacting.
Breasts have a low rate of return on investment.... but smaller ones are more stable and less likely to fluctuate with the market.....
I think the point is more that with breasts, one faces the familiar trade-off between high current dividends and long-term appreciation in value.
No, it's "How much investment do put back into a declining cash cow?"
As with all collectibles you should first select something you actually like. Past performance is no guarantee of future results so while it is possible for things to improve indefinitely there is also the likeliehood of a future plateau or even a downward trend.
Tripp and I are too tired today to get into a rumble over women's volleyball bikinis
I believe I speak for the group when I state that we would rather see you and Tripp rumble in women's volleyball bikinis.
I'm game. Book my ticket to a warm beachy venue.
Erosion over time will lead to sagging share prices in large caps, while small cap will remain stable against any downward trends in the overall market.
Bphd,
I'm game too, but I must warn everyone that when my teen kids spotted an old photo of me in a Speedo I think it scarred them for life. Once they stopped laughing.
Kids can be so cruel.
NB: 100 was not actually the kind of philosophy I do (and I think has one or two too many buzzwords to make sense on my own terms). If I was saying it in propria persona, it would go something like: The claim is that, for a given pair of breasts B, the question of whether B is just fine supervenes on B's intrinsic properties and does not depend on B's past history or temporal properties (we are, of course, bracketing any question of whether there can be objective standards for just-fineness, as well as the question of whether B can be said to be a temporal object rather than a perduring set of temporal breast-slices).
Actually I'm not sure I used "perdure" correctly.
Determining whether 'B is future-saggable' counts as supertrue, however, is beyond the scope of this paper.
temporal breast-slices
I had these on Thanksgiving.
I type with two left hands.
Posted by: Chopper
Does no one else find this disturbing?
More disturbing than "temporal breast-slices?"
Actual sentence from the paper I'm working on:
To discover the medium for a faculty F, then, we need to find propositions q such that, if S obtains prototypical F justification that p via some F-experience E:(1) E, the experience that justifies p, also justifies q;
(2) S could not be justified in believing p without being in a position to be justified in believing q;
(3) (1) and (2) obtain because p was justified through F and would not obtain if p had been justified for some other faculty.
Actual sentence from the article I'd like to write:
135 -- you mean like in a "whose is the other one" sense?
Matt,
Hey, 'perdure' is a good word. I'm going to try to remember that one.
Thanks!
#131: Excellent. Apostropher, you can book the tickets. My fighting strategy shall be to unman Tripp by laughing.
There will be no breast-slicing, temporal or otherwise.
Cala, yeah, I am not in the slightest bit happy with my prose in this paper, but I do think that what I'm trying to get at is worth getting at, and I can't find a less convoluted way to get at it.
Basically, what I'm trying to say is, except in freak cases you won't get perceptual justification for something without being in a position to get justification that it's in your environment; you won't get memorial justification for something without being in a position to get justification that it happened to you; and you won't get testimonial justification for something without getting justification that the person who told you about it was freely choosing to tell you.
Is that less painful?
Much less painful. (I'm allergic to jargon. I'm a metaphysician wannabe. I'm screwed.)
What's the upshot? Minimal standards for evidence? Context-sensitive standards for evidence? Or just the various dependencies of evidence?
So why didn't I write it that way the first time? I don't know.
The upshot is supposed to be "Any epistemology of testimony has to take the teller's agency seriously." (That, I swear is not jargon.) Or, more specifically, "Any epistemology of testimony has to take agency seriously, in this particular way (given these facts about the medium)." Which I guess is what you meant by various dependencies of evidence.
There's also hopefully a punchline, which is that certain kinds of contextualism won't work; the kind (as in Lewis's "Elusive Knowledge") on which knowing that p means ruling out any alternatives to p (psst! except the ones that we're properly ignoring). I'm arguing that getting justification from testimony requires almost consciously thinking about the teller's agency. If that's true, you can't properly ignore the possibility that the teller is lying -- if he chose to tell the truth, he could've chosen to lie. So this version of contextualism means you can't get testimonial knowledge that p unless you can rule out that the teller is lying, which you usually can't.
And now I think I owe you an acknowledgment....
...which, I hope, you'll take as read, because I'm not sure I can say "Cala at Unfogged" in a scholarly paper yet.
Talking about dissertation topics:
Why do sperm-depleted parasitoid males continue to mate?
Is that really such a mystery?
So the standard story says something like (I'm not THAT allergic to jargon):
Suppose Cala were to rely on Matt's testimony about some subject S. If it is correct to say that Cala knows about S based on Matt's testimony, then on the Lewis-contextualist story, Matt's testimony is going to have to rule out alternatives to S. That will be dependent on the context à la DeRose's bank cases. Usually, we ignore the worry that Matt is lying to Cala; either the stakes aren't high enough, or she has no other reason to suspect his lying, etc.
Now your story says:
Okay, but this is testimony. That really has to take agency seriously, because that's how we decide what those standards should be. Think of a court case. Whether or not the person is lying is important. Think of how late the library is open. Doesn't matter so much if the person is lying.
Okay. Why can't the Lewis-type say that what is driving our concern about the teller's agency is concern independent of his lying; it's something about how important the result is to me, or something like that. So when I rule out not-p, his lying to me is irrelevant, even if I have to think about it, because what's allowing me to rule it out is how much I care about the results if the teller is wrong.
I don't have to worry about whether he's lying, deluded, or otherwise; what sets the standards and whether I can rule them out is the probable results of being lied to, deluded, etc, not the lying itself.
(Erm. Go post this on your blog. Unfogged is for cock jokes and talking about bikinis.)
It's also entirely possible I'm misunderstanding Lewis and 'ruling out not-p' has more going on here; my limited epistemology training is more of the DeRose vs. Stanley variety.
#144
Most most excellent! Apo, please book me as well. My strategy is to unbitch Bphd by making her laugh, at which time we, the unmanned and unbitched, will collapse together for a moment of comraderie before plotting our scheme to rule the world.
All your base are belong to us.
Too busy now but I'll try to post something on my blog, or here. I'm kind of thinking of a different anti-contextualist argument, but I have to run now....
Lest anyone doubt my power to bring about laughter think white - Minnesota winter neon white, in a Speedo. Then add . . . black socks!
Weiner, cool.
Tripp -- nausea, laughter, same thing, eh?
"It's not the sort of thing that gets little girls dreaming from age six about when they make the UNC soccer squad and go on to millions of dollars."
Their parents dream of free tuition, though, and the girls dream of being on TV.
Based on my sisters' experiences compared to the next two generations, the great thing about women's sports is just that it's active and competitive and combines autonomous action and teamwork. In the old days women were systematically on the sidelines. Sports also encourages a higher degree of aggression and competitiveness, which is helpful in fighting for leadership positions in other areas.
Sorry for the momentary earnestness at the end of my comment. Women's sports, especially gymnastics, allows men to fantasize, which is OK for college gymnastics but not for Olympic gymnastics because all female Olympic gymnasts are underage.
Weiner, cool.
I'll bet you say that to all the boys.
Tripp -- nausea, laughter, same thing, eh?
oooh, that hit a nerve.
Zzzzzing
Also, Dr. B assures us that her almost 40-year-old titties are just. Fine.
But only w-lfs-n (who we don't trust), can confirm or refute that assertion.
82: Extrapolating from her clothed figure in profile, I'm willing to go on record to say that I think B's claim extremely likely to be true. She's welcome to confirm my reasoning at any time.
Come on, Ogged. It's already settled that B is the apotheosis of teh hott.
But only w-lfs-n (who we don't trust), can confirm or refute that assertion.
"whom".
"whom".
You put the quotation mark before the period. What are you, a Brit?
Let's say, Frederick, that I wanted to correct ogged's punctuation and his diction in one go. Then, by your (false) logic, I should have written something like this:
"whom;."
We can both see that this is ridiculous, no? Let's say I had fully fleshed out my thought:
Ogged, the word you want is "whom".
Notice how I have ended my sentence with a period, without implying that ogged's own punctuation was incorrect? However, in this:
Ogged, the word you want is "whom."
My sentence has never ended! I have merely quoted the final word of a sentence. But in fact, the "whom" in original context did not end a sentence!
Thus, I say, typographical conventions be damned, and may a new order of logical quotational and punctuational practice be ushered in—the sooner the better!
"whom".
You know what, young Ben? I originally had "whom," in virtue of its correctness, but changed it to "who," because sometimes just being correct is enough to be little-bitchy.
It is true that this can sometimes cause silly-seeming ramifications. For instance, I earlier wrote "Ogged, the word you want is 'whom'.". We retain the inner period because (we postulate in this case, it might actually be true in a real case) that I ended my sentence there is relevant; we need the outer period to make it plain that my sentence has ended.
but changed it to "who," because sometimes just being correct is enough to be little-bitchy.
You were concerned not to be correct in one way, ogged, and only wound up being correct in another.
wound up being correct in another
Correct, in the right way.
Second-order correctness is the hallmark of the little bitch.
You know, we really haven't had enough of this sort of talk lately. All is not lost!
I know you meant ~(all x. lost(x)), but it reads to me like (all x. ~lost(x)), which is plainly false.
I'm really in no position to complain about that.
Let's get entitative!
¬(∀x)(lost x)
(∀x)(¬lost x)