I enjoyed seeing Sydney Lallier’s performance that won La Voix Junior, the Quebec version of The Voice Kids. She rapped a song that has verses in French and choruses in English with lyrics that seem timely in 2017.
The song she rapped is called La Force de Comprendre, which means The Strength To Understand.
http://www.journaldemontreal.com/2017/11/19/le-grand-gagnant-de-la-voix-junior-couronne
If you can physically get to a university library, then going to the section about the topic and looking at each book from the shelf until you find something that is comprehensible or otherwise meets your criteria, could be a good strategy.
I’ve found some good books that way.
It might help to cultivate your curiousity. Who are these people? What are they doing in the moment? What are they good at that you could learn from? Why are they in the same place as you? What are they up to when they are not at the same place as you? What are they enthusiastic about?
Sometimes when I talk to people I don’t know well and I’m not thinking up many comments or questions based on our shared circumstances or environment, I’ll ask some questions like “Have you read any good books lately?” or “What have you been thinking about?” or ask their advice about something.
I think from your question you want to be able to do this even when you’re tired, but part of the solution might be to limit the times when you have to do this when you are tired by scheduling things differently, or making sure you have rested and eaten before you have to be in a social situation, or changing how you select which social events to participate in.
Do you mean where she hacked herself to become polyamorous? If so, you may be looking for this post http://lesswrong.com/lw/79x/polyhacking/
I like some poetry. Often in the form of song lyrics, or Shakespeare’s plays.
One thing that I find helps with getting clear goals in my mind is to think of it in chunks of time, and revisit it every now and then, for example every 4 months. I think of them more as priorities than goals. For the next 4 months, my priorities are 1) X 2) Y 3) Z 4) A. Or I think of things in smaller chunks of time, such as 2 weeks, especially when there is more uncertainty in my life.
I think sometimes people get hung up a bit of thinking of goals as being eternal never-changing things. And there might be some like that, though I categorize those as aspirations.
I don’t live in the Bay Area, nor do I wish to move there, but I have some thoughts.
It may be that the way to accomplish this is to start a housing co-operative, or a non-profit organization.
The Rochdale principles, which many co-operatives adopt are: Open, voluntary membership. Democratic governance. Limited return on equity. Surplus belongs to members. Education of members and public in cooperative principles. Cooperation between cooperatives.
If that seems like something you can live with, then you might want to go the co-op route. If you want to have more control over who joins, and the “open voluntary membership” is a sticking point, then a non-profit might serve your needs better.
In Canada, where I live, becoming a registered charity is much more difficult than becoming a non-profit. In the United States, it is easier to get charity status. My friendly neighbourhood local makerspace, founded by a bunch of my friends, decided to be a non-profit rather than a registered charity or a co-op.
You might find resources related to housing co-operatives or non-profit governance that could help. They have some experience with being able to resolve disputes and keep community standards. I know of some where I live, but I’m not familiar with what’s available in the Bay Area. Resources about intentional communites might help too. This is anecdata, but I’ve heard mostly horror stories about intentional communites, and mostly good things about co-ops, and co-ops near where I live in Ontario are sought-after places with long waiting lists even when they don’t include government-funded subsidized housing, so if I was going to set this up I’d lean more toward the co-op side of things.
You say “intellectual masturbation” like it’s a bad thing. :)
I think the impression you have of the people may have been influenced by seeing them primarily through social media. Have you talked to them in person? It might be different. The format of social media makes having nuanced discussions difficult, and emphasizes the more tribal posts.
Another thing to consider is that their priorities may have changed more than their approach to life. They may be applying empiricism to how to advance in a career, or how to be a good parent. There is a limited amount of time in a day, and they may have enough time to do only a few things well. Also, sleep deprivation, common among new parents, can make thinking clearly more difficult. Once children get older, parents get a bit of their balance back.
I once went to a workshop on Sumi-e painting at the local Japanese cultural centre, and it changed how I look at paintings. So I’d recommend taking a Sumi-e class, or these days, I suppose watching Sumi-e tutorials on Youtube might do.
In general, getting an idea of how different cultures look at visual arts can be eye-opening. In addition to learning by doing, going to different museums and galleries can be a way to learn about art from many different time periods and cultures in different mediums.
Another thing that changed my perspective is a book called An Eye For Fractals by Michael McGuire. It taught me to break down things into different types of shapes when looking at them, and to appreciate a different kind of beauty than is usually taught to children. It is an exploration of Benoit Mandelbrot’s famous quote
“Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line.”—Benoit Mandelbrot, The Fractal Geometry of Nature, 1983.
Alan Macdonald has autopsied brains of people who had dementia and Alzheimers, and has pictures of the cystic form of Borrelia bacteria in those brains.
And The Weak Suffer What They Must by Yanis Varoufakis https://yanisvaroufakis.eu/books/and-the-weak-suffer-what-they-must/nation-books-us-edition/
This is the book that Yanis Varoufakis wrote after resigning from being Greece’s finance minister in 2015. It gives his perspective on the events he was part of, attempting to negotiate with the European Union and other creditors on behalf of Greec, and also on the history of the failed policies leading up to those events.
Women Who Love Psychopaths by Sandra L. Brown, Liane J. Leedom is a book that I wish I’d had years ago. It might have saved some of my friends from learning about what it’s like to date a sociopath the hard way. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3234469-women-who-love-psychopaths
The dynamic described in the book also seems sadly relevant to what’s going on in the political realm these days.
The Marcus 2012 paper references a 1999 Human Rights Watch report that has a few more details:
“The propagandist proposes two techniques that were to become often used in Rwanda. The first is to “create” events to lend credence to propaganda. He remarks that this tactic is not honest, but that it works well, provided the deception is not discovered. The “attack” on Kigali on October 4-5, 1990 was such a “created” event, as were others – the reported discovery of hidden arms, the passage of a stranger with a mysterious bag, the discovery of radio communications equipment – that were exploited later, especially during the genocide.
The propagandist calls his second proposal “Accusation in a mirror,” meaning his colleagues should impute to enemies exactly what they and their own party are planning to do. He explains, “In this way, the party which is using terror will accuse the enemy of using terror.” With such a tactic, propagandists can persuade listeners and “honest people” that they are being attacked and are justified in taking whatever measures are necessary “for legitimate [self-] defense.” This tactic worked extremely well, both in specific cases such as the Bugesera massacre of March 1992 described below and in the broader campaign to convince Hutu that Tutsi planned to exterminate them. There is no proof that officials and propagandists who “created” events and made “accusations in a mirror” were familiar with this particular document, but they regularly used the techniques that it described.
From: Human Rights Watch, Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda, 1 March 1999, 1711, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/45d425512.html
This paper by Kenneth Marcus describes a rhetorical technique called Accusation In A Mirror, which was used in Rwanda in the events leading up to genocide. Here’s a quote which summarizes the technique.
“The basic idea of AiM is deceptively simple: propagandists must “impute to enemies exactly what they and their own party are planning to do.” In other words, AiM is a rhetorical practice in which one falsely accuses one’s enemies of conducting, plotting, or desiring to commit precisely the same transgressions that one plans to commit against them. For example, if one plans to kill one’s adversaries by drowning them in a particular river, then one should accuse one’s adversaries of plotting precisely the same crime. As a result, one will accuse one’s enemies of doing the same thing despite their plans. It is similar to a false anticipatory tu quoque: before one’s enemies accuse one truthfully, one accuses them falsely of the same misdeed.
“This may seem an unlikely means of inciting mass-murder, since it would intuitively seem likely not only to fail but also to backfire by publicly telegraphing its speakers’ malicious intentions at times when the speakers may lack the wherewithal to carry out their schemes. The counter-intuitiveness of this method is best appreciated when one grasps that its injunctions are to be taken literally.”
From: Marcus, Kenneth L., Accusation in a Mirror (2012). Loyola University Chicago Law Journal, Vol. 43, No. 2, pp. 357 − 393, 2012. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2020327
It’s a good article. Schneier makes good points.
I like Cory Doctorow’s perspective on the Internet of Things, including the EFF’s Apollo 1201 plan to get rid of DRM within 10 years. Here’s one place where he talks about it. http://craphound.com/news/2016/08/25/talking-about-the-pro-security-anti-drm-business-model-on-the-oreilly-radar-podcast/
I also read the Internet of Shit twitter feed to keep up with the latest security flaw-ridden monstrosities. :) https://twitter.com/internetofshit
I think you are going to have to find the relevant information yourself by looking through scientific papers. I don’t think that asking your doctor will be sufficient. It is rare to find a doctor who keeps up with reading all of the newest scientific journal articles.
Where your doctor might help is in explaining the mechanism by which the infertility may happen, to help you get more keywords with which to look stuff up.
It may be that quantitative answers for your questions are not available at all. From the link you mentioned, it says that as of 2009 there have been no studies of fertility after prolonged use of estrogen. For people unfamiliar with the state of medical science, it can be disorienting to learn that a lot of things simply haven’t been studied. There is so much that we as a civilization and society do not know.
From: https://srconstantin.wordpress.com/2016/10/06/cross-sex-hormone-therapy-female-hormones/
Risks of Hormone Therapy: Infertility
Estrogen therapy usually eliminates the production of sperm. In 7 out of 10 trans women on estrogen, there was no >spermatogenesis.[53] A single male given estrogen had a pronounced drop in sperm motility and density by 4 weeks of >estrogen treatment, though it did recover after discontinuation of treatment.[54] As of 2009, there have been no studies >of restoration of spermatogenesis after prolonged treatment with estrogen. [52]
And those references are:
[52]Hembree, Wylie C., et al. “Endocrine treatment of transsexual persons: an Endocrine Society clinical practice >guideline.” The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism 94.9 (2009): 3132-3154.
[53]Thiagaraj, D., et al. “Histopathology of the testes from male transsexuals on oestrogen therapy.” Annals of the >Academy of Medicine, Singapore 16.2 (1987): 347-348.
[54]Lübbert, Horst, Inka Leo-Roßberg, and Jürgen Hammerstein. “Effects of ethinyl estradiol on semen quality and >various hormonal parameters in a eugonadal male.” Fertility and sterility 58.3 (1992): 603-608.
If I was going to attempt to answer this question, I would start by reading those papers, to orient myself. I would also put as many keywords as I could think of into Google Scholar to see if I could find more papers on similar topics. https://scholar.google.com
A quick search for “Hormone Replacement Therapy fertility cross-sex” and “male fertility estrogen hrt” found some papers on diabetes risks, cardiovascular risks, but not much about fertility. The search that mentioned estrogen seemed to find more specific articles and included studies of environmental exposures such as:
Effect of Occupational Exposures on Male Fertility: Literature Review Sheiner et al, Industrial Health, Vol. 41 (2003) No. 2 P 55-62 http://doi.org/10.2486/indhealth.41.55
Wouldn’t it be nice if there actually was good quantitative data available? I’m getting an impression from a quick search on the topic that it may not be. I think my next step, after reading a bunch of papers to get a better understanding of the topic, would be to contact some of the researchers I respected after reading their work, to ask them if they are aware of any studies. If the individual researchers doing work in the field aren’t aware of any, then they probably don’t exist.
It varies a lot from culture to culture. That’s part of what a culture is, what is thought of as default or background knowledge, or something people will know. So...who is your audience? What cultures or sub-cultures are they from? It’s not going to be the same from country to country, or different regions within a country, or rural vs. urban, or age group or educational background.
When authors write books about a culture they are unfamiliar with, sometimes they hire someone from that culture to read over the book, and give feedback about what they could do better. For example Mary Robinette Kowal did this for her novel Of Noble Family. http://maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/im-spending-today-swapping-dialect-novel/
I don’t think there is a one-size-fits-all answer for a “general audience” that would apply to all people around the world. It might be helpful to be more specific about what you think a general audience means. People of a certain educational background within a particular region of a particular country who speak a specific language? There are few events aimed at a world audience—the Olympics, some United Nations events, so you could study some of those and see what they assume of people.
For specific words, a rough approach might be to google that word and look at the number of results, and see the relative popularity of them. For example “onion” has 148 million results, “carrot” has 90 million results, “artichoke” has 20 million results, so that might be an indication of how popular those vegetables are, relative to each other.
Farming is a completely different type of job than software development or designing integrated circuits.
When you program a computer, it does what you tell it to. You can diagnose what’s wrong and fix it. Whether you can fix things is based a lot on your own skill and knowledge.
If you become a farmer, you can do everything skillfully and still have a crop fail. You are at the mercy of the weather.
Have you even grown a small vegetable garden? That might be a first step to get some idea what you are facing if you go into farming.
Don’t assume farming will be easy. It can be one of the toughest jobs. Spend some time out on a farm helping out with whatever needs to be done to research this option. If you enjoy being outdoors, and are ok with the uncertainty of farming, then maybe it is for you. If you love the land, then farming may be for you.
Since your wife wants to move to another country, I think it is worth going through the immigration processes for various countries. Immigration processes can take years, and still have an uncertain result, so you might as well get started. If you can afford to visit some countries, that may make things clearer too. There are more changes to moving to another country than just money. Climate and culture can have a big effect on a person’s life.
Where I live in Canada, a starting salary for a software developer can be about CAD $40 000. So the $100 000 figure other people are talking about isn’t applicable everywhere.
Regarding freelance work, do you have enough time in the day that you could start doing freelance work while still working at the job you have? If you take on some side projects, you could see how that goes without quitting your job.
I think part of what this decision comes down to is what your goals are, and what the goals of your family are. What are your priorities? What is most important to you?
I think it could help to take the first steps on all three options at once, to get a taste of what each of them is like. Things might become clearer as you get more information. Right now I don’t think you know enough about each option to make a good decision. Research is what is required.
Also, I read a book recently about making good decisions. It is called “Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work” by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. There are some techniques in there, like asking yourself, “Imagine a year from now the project I was attempting to do has failed. What are the reasons?” that have helped me figure some things out in my own life.
Advice regarding the health issues of new mothers is even more lacking. Whoa Baby by Kelly Rowland and Tristan Bickman is a book I liked on the topic.
Another book for new parents, about relationships, that I liked: And Baby Makes Three by John Gottman and Julie Schwartz Gottman.