Whenever I see the campaigns to stop smoking try to guilt a person, portraying smoking as some evil bad guy in a cartoon, or talking about health effects that may not strike for decades, it seems inefficient. Likewise, with junk food, the attempts at "healthier food" in US high schools makes me shake my head....
If the campaigns focused on the idea that smoking is expensive and spending money on junk food is bad for your budget, maybe more people would stop. Signs saying "you can save enough money for a new computer in a year if you stop smoking" could be more efficient and get the intended result.
All true. Trying to convince teenagers that smoking or sugar may have bad side effects a decade or three down the road is hardly going to jolt them into healthier lifestyles. Money is a far more immediate and tangible benefit.
I've always thought that to get people to quit smoking, you should appeal to their vanity. Simply point out that if they smoke, their skin will wrinkle far more rapidly, and they will likely look 45 by the time they're 35. As I've pointed out before, vanity is a stronger motivator for most of us than health.
To get people to cut back on sugar, just feature more before-and-after pictures of people who've gotten fat. Those who disapprove of fat shaming will object, but the fact is, everybody looks better lean and healthy. (The best way to warn against meth would also be with before and after shots.)
An even better way to push men in the right direction would be to point out that smoking and sugar both lower testosterone levels. The average man cares far more about his masculinity then he does about a potential heart attack decades down the road.
It would never fly, but they should have a campaign featuring a beautiful young woman saying, "Twenty-five-year-old men ought to be able to do it more than once a day -- I'm through with smokers!"
Years ago there was a public service message about drugs with a picture of an egg, and the caption, "this is your brain." Right next to it was a picture of a fried egg, with the caption, "This is your brain on drugs."
I can't recall seeing any evidence as to the efficacy of that campaign, but it seemed to have little effect. (As Tolstoy once said, nobody seems to think he has enough money, yet everyone seems to think he has a sufficiency of brains.)
I can't recall seeing any evidence as to the efficacy of that campaign, but it seemed to have little effect. (As Tolstoy once said, nobody seems to think he has enough money, yet everyone seems to think he has a sufficiency of brains.)
Needless to say, the campaign spawned a host of takeoffs. One showed a picture of a small circle right next to a larger circle. The caption, next to the smaller circle, read, "This is your asshole before you go to prison for drugs..."
The thing is, that probably would have been a more effective campaign.
Likewise, appealing to people's vanity (and to men's machismo) would be far more effective than a dry warning from the Surgeon General.
Perhaps they could show a pair of big eggs next to two small ones. The caption could start off, "These are your testicles before you start smoking....."
Perhaps they could show a pair of big eggs next to two small ones. The caption could start off, "These are your testicles before you start smoking....."
Posts
38 comments:
Public service announcements do help. I remember seeing a poster in an ENT's office, showing a young man who'd developed mouth cancer as a result of chewing tobacco. The young man's face was disfigured and I think he died from the cancer. When my younger son started chewing tobacco, I discouraged this habit, telling him what could happen.
- Susan
Susan --
A picture of that cancer victim, while ghoulish, would be an effective deterrent.
I don't know about in America but the cigarette packets in the UK are brutal. They are not allowed any company branding and instead are plain with a really graphic photo of a medical problem caused by smoking. I've even seen one with a picture of a child on a ventilator and a warning that SMOKING HARMS YOUR CHILDREN.
The smoking ban has been effective I think. I haven't looked up the stats but I'd guess smoking has declined quite rapidly in the last 20 years. If I see somebody smoking now, I think they are probably not the brightest.
I'm sure your suggestions would be effective though.
Steven --
Those packets sound effective, but when I was in London for two weeks in the summer of '13, I couldn't go anywhere without having to breathe in cigarette smoke. It was definitely worse than in New York City.
Those packets are here in Asia too, i suspect it's just a compromise, the cigarette companies agree to put these pictures in exchange for not having tax rates raised for tobacco products any further. A packet here costs 6.8 USD going by exchange rate, in the USA it can be up to 12.5 bucks in New York from a google search.
Maybe being incredibly expensive is more effective than a picture, or maybe it's the other way around. I dunno.
-Ga
Another of John's classics. Seriously, you should self publish your words of wisdom, Kindle probably. One title that would be apt is 'The Gospel according to Honest John'. Honest, down to earth, sensible advice anyone would find useful.
P.S: Do leave out the too lengthy pieces on Sociopathy and Aspergers. They do tend to drag.(my opinion, what's the point of flogging dead horses. Life is about sidestepping problems, what better way than having the 21st century Book of Wisdom.)
If you do need suggestions I'd be only too glad to help.
Sherie
Sherie --
Thank you very much.
However, some people like the pieces on sociopathy. And I enjoy writing them. Plus, I try to only write when I have something to say that I haven't heard anyone else say before (which is not to say that it hasn't been said), and a lot of my more original thoughts tend to be about things I've been confronted with, and those include sociopathy and Aspergers (particularly the former). And most people have no idea about the negative impact that sociopaths have on the world. So....sorry, but I'm going to continue to write about those topics.
I have gotten the feedback from others though that I don't put in enough funny posts anymore; I'll try to do more of those. Like the ones on fashion I used to write. But actually, in a weird way, I can't even promise that, since the idea of a blog is, you write about whatever thoughts occur to you, and you really can't control the thoughts that enter your head. (They just have a will of their own.)
The one ironclad promise I can make, however, is that I'll continue to be honest. In fact I think the next post I put up is going to be painfully so.
No offense meant. Honestly all your posts are good and informative. Your patient replies to all your blog commentators is something that I really appreciate and are at times more informative - like your answer to Smallberries --
It's my impression that the primary cause is simply the lack of a strong bond between a baby and a caregiver (usually the mother) in the first year of life. If you don't receive love, you're not going to be able to give love, either.....
But trying to be more of the glass half full kind of personality having been prone to depression, it depresses me to read about one more human aberration which could have been avoided with better parenting.
That said, believe me, your writing could be collated into a nice collection of sensible
living ideas without the heavy burden of morality.
Sherie
Sherie --
No offense taken, you've always been a friendly commenter. And I'm alway open to advice. (That doesn't mean I'm going to take it, though.)
Agreed on sociopathy.
I'm prone to depression too, but ward it off wth exercise. At my age, I can only work out hard every other day, and on the mornings of my workout days (when I haven't worked out since two days before) I can sometimes see the difference in mood. But endorphins are a healthy drug, I recommend them.
Thank you. although that would make me sounds a little sociopathic myself: "Morality-free Living," by John Craig.
Wait till you see my next post, which I'll probably put up this evening.
I experimented with drugs a long time ago, despite all the warnings I'd heard (cannabis can dramatically increase chances of getting schizophrenia, MDMA can be life-threatening, etc). I'm not proud of having taken them, and I wouldn't do drugs now, but at least I'm honest about my past - unlike so many top politicians who lie about their student days. One thing I never tried though was crystal meth, mainly due to the 'Faces of Meth' campaign by police forces in the UK and US. These pictures of meth user Roseanne Holland were enough to put me off: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/3973979.stm
- Gethin
Gethin --
Wow, from human to zombie. Holland looks as if she were a wellborn 29 to start with, but yikes, she really looks like an extra from "The Walking Dead" by age 38.
I agree with Sherie. As an adult, I realized that my siblings and I pretty much raised ourselves. Our parents were not abusive, but failed to effectively guide us in our childhood. When you learn about how good/bad parenting affects one's child development, it's quite eye opening. People who receive good, sound, solid parenting are blessed.
- Susan
We need to understand the many reasons people take up smoking in the first place before we can devise ways to short-circuit those reasons. Since I don't know why people smoke, I shouldn't assume all their reasons are invalid.
It's an established fact that smoking will ruin the health of most people who smoke for many years. But rock climbing, skydiving, eating oysters in July, and extreme skateboarding also carry serious health risks, yet plenty of people enjoy those activities, I suppose because they crave thrills.
The more society harps on the risks of smoking, the more daring and attractive it might seem to a certain risk-taking segment of society. People who like posing as rebels or outcasts might enjoy the stigma now attached to smoking by their social betters. People who identify as low-class, redneck, or trailer-trash will conspicuously display the usual cultural characteristics of their social class, which would include smoking.
Mark --
I've always assumed that most people who smoke originally took it up because they thought it was "cool" -- in various senses of the term, including all the ways you describe -- and then after doing it awhile, get addicted to nicotine.
You're right, there's no question that there's a certain segment of society for whom appearing cool includes being a risk taker, or basically showing that you don't care. It's not all that different in spirit from getting a tattoo on your face.
I guess it didn't help that so many glamorous movie stars were shown smoking in their films, either.
John - As a pack a day smoker that goes to the gym I will say that smoking affects people of colour differently than whites.
It is widely noted among my peers that I look exactly the same as when I was nineteen and that was a long time ago. And as far as dental health is concerned - even my periodontist noted an improvement regardless of my habit. Which creates consternation in the dental community.
Guy Lafleur smoked as did Mike Bossy.
At the end of the day we pick our poisons but the consequences are out of our hands.
I have concluded we become slaves to what we (metaphorically) worship and dance a bit like puppets on strings.
I see the people you talk about, the overweight ones drinking their slurpees on the bus with their litter of children emulating them. It's sad.
However, I am not one to socially engineer other people (for the better) so I just figure we should drop the price of smokes and sugar products and lead the masses eat cake.
Shaun --
There are exceptions, and you sound like one, but smoking generally ages people, especially their skin and their lungs. My grandfather smoked a half a pack a day till he was 83, then cut back to 3 or 4 cigarettes a day for the rest of his life, and died at 103 without a wrinkle on his face. But I wouldn't recommend smoking because of him, he was just an exception that defied the rule. As are you, evidently.
People often argue that smokers create an unnecessary burden on our social welfare system, that they are even "selfish" for doing so. But that line of reasoning has been debunked. In reality, it's a great financial benefit to society for people to die relatively young. Dying at 63 of lung cancer or a heart attack is much less costly to society than caring for a 95-year-old with dementia who has been collecting Social Security payments for 30 years and draining Medicare for almost as long.
Smoking did not decline precipitately until it became socially less acceptable. It has become somewhat of a class marker. Nurses smoke a lot, most doctors do not. If you hang out with well-educated middle class people, it is probable that nobody you know smokes.
At first when the Surgeon General's report came out in the 1960's many people quit, but they were mainly mature people facing middle age. Young people were still taking it up. Health threats seem to have the opposite effect on the young, they feel rebellious, especially since actors and models they admire are veritable chimneys.
The one thing I think helps a lot is that more and more venues do not tolerate smoking, so one would have to go out of one's way to enjoy, say, a cigarette and a drink or a cigarette and a meal. The discomfort of a long haul flight with no smoking must have some effect on the decision to continue smoking.
I was a VERY early tobacco opponent. When I was first out on my own at the age of 18 (1969), my peers were shocked that I did not allow it in my hovel. One thing Mad Men got right was the constant smoking, everywhere and anywhere in the early 1960's. That continued up until the 80's.
Mark --
Ha, the way you paint that picture, it's true, but I suspect with smokers it's just moves up the timetable for the medical care. My son worked at the VA Hospital as a volunteer for a few weeks when he was in high school, back when I was still trying to dissuade him from a military career. It turned out the place wasn't filled with wounded soldiers (they go to places like Walter Reed in DC), but with smokers who had emphysema. At the end of his stint, my son said he still wanted to enlist, but that he would never smoke.
LBD --
Good for you. I've always hated being around smokers too; if I have to inhale second hand smoke, for some reason I tend to get sick (with a cold) immediately after.
I was so relieved when they banned smoking in public places. by that point it was too late for me, I was past the age where I would have wanted to go out to bars to meet women. But even when I was young, I avoided those places just because of the smoke. I suppose in a way, my dislike of smoke saved me from becoming a drinker.
The four times I've gone to Europe in the past 18 years, I've noticed that people over there still smoke a lot, which has always detracted from my vacations there. It's as if they haven't yet discovered that smoking causes cancer.
(Did you get my email?)
I don't think cancer is that big a scare. Most smokers don't get lung cancer, and smokers are nothing if not gamblers. Most diehard smokers say things like, "Everyone dies of something". Lung cancer has historically been a short time from diagnosis to death, and comports with smokers' self image as a rebel.
What they do not enjoy contemplating is emphysema, because with that disease there is no clear cut line, but a gradual loss of function and incrase of pain. You also don't get the choice of accepting or refusing treatment, since the onset is often gradual and you don't really get the opportunity to " pull the plug". It's a disease of dependency, not rebellion. If emphysema were more publicized it might have more persuasive power than the specter of cancer.
LBD --
Smoking in the movies has historically meant one of two things, either Glamorous (think Marlene Dietrich blowing smoke into the air) or Badass (think Marlon Brando or Jean Paul Belmondo with the cigarette drooping out of his mouth). And "everyone dies of something) fits with the badass, fatalistic, tough self-image.
Emphysema sucks. And personally, I wouldn't even want my wind/lung capacity compromised. Plus, isn't it supposed to hurt your sexual capacity? That's an angle that should be pushed harder.
Look at the last line of the comment before yours. Yes, I did get your address, and wrote. It's probably in your spam box or something.
I checked out an article, the amount of cigarettes smoked on your health is not linear.
I've been trying to figure out if smoking more damages you linearly or exponentionally, but I just read now smoking 3-5 cigarettes a day has 70% the same effects of smoking 25 a day. I am skeptical though of these claims, it almost seems like they are saying smoke 20 a day if you will bother doing it. Like a cigarette company funded this research to "discourage" people from smoking lightly, they will just go ahead and smoke 20 since 30% is not a big enough trade off to get them to cut back to a fraction.
I mean, is 4 cigarettes a day really over 2/3rds the damage of 25? I have trouble believing that. Common sense would tell me smoking 6x more does more than 6x the damage since it builds up and overwhelms your body even more, it would be exponential.
-Ga
Ga --
One would think but who knows? Maybe it's a matter of, once some of the alveoli are closed, the others don't suffer as much damage, or once some of the lung surface tissue has tar coated on it, further tar doesn't do that much more damage. I have no idea.
I work for a health insurance company, and we offer various and sundry "wellness" programs to employers who have our insurance.
There are many incentives that employers can offer to get participation in these programs. The ones that work the best are ones where employees can reduce their premiums or get cash for taking part/meeting certain goals such as being tobacco free/signing up for a quit program.
Conversely, the ones that involve prizes, like FitBits or iPads, get the worst participation.
Bryce --
That makes sense. Money is always a great incentive.
Come to think of it, some people will kill for it.
John,
More about China, I know you hate cigarettes,
Well....it's one of the last few places where you can smoke indoors, they have the same smoking permissiveness of the 50s.
I went to China once for 3 weeks (one of which was a summer sister school exchange with 9 other classmates), my host family brought me to a dinner party. They hand out packets, even cartons of absurdly expensive cigarettes, some costing up to 40USD a pack, all weird looking like this:
https://cdni.rt.com/files/oldfiles/news/china-corruption-cigarettes-bribes-345/guanweicomcn-image.jpg
and I was expected to smoke to show my manliness and I did, they also had me drink (okay I was a teen and felt cool I could, but seriously China?).
http://cdn.barstoolsports.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/24/c_gZnmH_dqQyGzQCmRjwPdiPoX77Pdz1pnsbHM1CtKM.jpg
http://cdn.barstoolsports.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/16/980x.jpg
China has a culture of "gift giving", if you think bribes like gold club memberships or steak dinners among senators are bad, imagine giving 1 cartons of cigarettes worth 4,000 USD and bottles of liquor worth 12,000 to a civil servant, not a congressman but a civil servant.
Also the seem to love Pabst Blue Ribbon:
http://images.gawker.com/18k35d2htb09mjpg/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636.jpg
They are very lax with drinking and smoking laws, the sister school I went to had an Irishman who taught English for their honors classes, he also ran a pub and served his students booze and irish food when my classmates and our respective host students went there.
1/3rd of the worlds smokers live in China, the subsidiary companies sponsor schools and more. Foreign brands are limited and almost impossible to get outside big cities, they have a state run holding company that is a monopoly which funds the government directly.
They tax the cigarettes and each pack you buy makes the government money. Why would they do this? Population control?
-Ga
Ga --
I've never been to China, though I grew up partially in Japan. But I can imagine.
I wonder if the Chinese are attracted to Pabst Blue Ribbon because of the name (implying, the very best). The Japanese have traditionally been that way, when they went on their buying spree in the US in the early 1980's they only wanted the most prestigious names: Pebble Beach, Rockefeller Center, etc. I've heard that Chinese tourists who come here are interested in seeing things like Harvard University, and have little interest in seeing natural wonders or historic sites.
The liberals and Europeans snub their noses at the USA, but look at China.
致富光荣
Zifu Gwong Wing
To seek wealth, Glory!
Deng Xiaoping
It's not saying "be a self made man! You can do it!" by wealth he means the appearance.
China is a classical fascist state.
Definition before Nazi Germany/Fascist Italy:
"A single party state with a mixed economy and a goal self sufficiency through combing both national and international foreign policy."
Sounds like 21st century China, doesn't it? I would call them classical/paleo-fascists to distinguish it.
The Chinese have a culture of "Face" to explain the addiction to prestige. It's ingrained. It's outdated and backwards. Prestige is an easy way to increase "face". People tend to forget other countries have different cultures and make mistakes, the Chinese assume the places to go are the other countries big shows of prestige than the real deals.
Everybody in China wants to appear affluent. They don't care about earning it big for accomplishment, they just want to access more luxury goods to flaunt. In Hong Kong, our richest guy Li Ka Shing still wears a high quality but plain watch a decade old and lives in his same large house he had when younger, this would be unheard of in China.
Hell if I were a billionaire, sure I would indulge myself but not with anything frivolous. A 200 dollar steak is different from a 5 dollar steak, but spending 20000 dollars on gold encrusted toilet paper is no different than store brand. The latter is not indulgence, it's futility.
This is what they meant I finally realize by vainglory and "futility". This culture of prestige and face, is not a narcissistic one, not pride, but vainglory and is a sin of "futility" rather than egotisticalism. Pabst Blue Ribbon's name being it is spot on.
Fortunately when I travelled in China our tourguide was a young guy in his mid 20s, chain smoker, cracked jokes and spoke fluent informal english. He knew his shit. He took us to the real places we should see.
-Ga
Ga --
Interesting. I'd never thought of the Chinese in that light before, but I guess it's true. it sort of explains their tastes and art, too, which run to the gaudy, since gaudy = show-offy.
Where would you place China on the political spectrum according to the US one?
Economically they are classically fascist (not Nazi Germany or Mussolini Italy, I mean the system advocated by the anti-marxist Fasces movements post WW1). A mixed economy that is state run, the justification is that Mao made a mistake by skipping "capitalism" before "socialism" and they can recreate a market economy in their own image called "Socialism with Chinese characeristics" or "the primary stage of socialism". They say it may take centuries before they can finally transition to "socialism" then centuries more to "true communism". I think they just want to be powerful...
Socially it's weird.
They seem less Leftist than many leftist Leftist Americans despite having Communism in their party's name. They regard homosexuality as being unnatural and still have centers where they electroshock gays, but for different reasons, not for religious ones. Ironically Communism and Marxism was historically very homophobic, Stalin made it punishable by 5 years in a Gulag. Now the left is all over gay pride parades.
They are sorta non-Lefist leftists? Right wing left wingers? Left wing Right wingers?
Guns are not allowed, but I think it's because they seem indifferent about it, it's just not a thing that they care about, plus most people couldn't even own one if they were sold according to US prices, spending power is much much much lower.
Vegetarianism is confined to Buddhism and festivals, no PETA or anything. In India ironically it's the religious right that are anti-meat.
I am starting to wonder if we can't define western political spectrums since non-western countries have very different left and rights. They politicize things others don't and vice versa.
Where is freaking China though? I think classic non-nazi fascism, is the closest I can think of.
-Ga
Ga --
You seem to have described it quite well. Another way you could describe its system is "crony capitalism." They have a lot of billionaires who seem to have become that way through their connections with (or seats in) the Chinese government.
And you've described their cultural conservatism well too. Another way to describe that would be "Marxism without the cultural Marxism." The Chinese as a whole show great racial solidarity (which is just another term for racism). And the Chinese government is usually pretty confident about being able to get ethnic Chinese to spy on whichever countries they happen to be citizens of. I suspect they also laugh at the West's currently fashionable ideas about racial egalitarianism; they certainly haven't made any move to take in African orMiddleEastern refugees.
The myth of one Chinese race goes back millenia, to the time of the first Emperors. There are dozens of languages, and the cultural and even genetic distance of the "Han" Chinese groups is as much as the Germanic people, British, Germans, Scandinavians, and Dutch.
It's been pulled off quite well. Meanwhile the Czechs and Slovaks are very close to each other yet considered distinct. Ethnicity can be arbitrary and cross racial lines (like Hispanics who can be black, mestizo, or white, or even the Arab ethnicity which was an artificial creation by Islamic conquest).
The Hoklo, Danka, Hakka, Northerners, Toishanese, and more all are distinct. It's easy to tell if a person is from the southern part of China, the middle, far north, the Western edges, or northeast. But they are all "Han Chinese". And they believe it, ethnicity unlike race can be manmade.
The Croats and Serbians speak the same language and have identical culture, but there is evidence the Croatians are not Slavic but Germanics who adopted Slavic culture, they have different physical features. It's so fuzzy when it comes to ethnicity rather than race.
There are about another 50 minorities in China making up 10% of the population. Some of them are Muslims, but China makes sure to keep them in line, sometimes through repressive means like Saddam Hussein did in Iraq by being enough of a bastard (they aren't as brutal as Saddam Hussein, probably since fortunately the "muslims" in China are not middle easterners, some may even eat pork or drink alcohol and not wear hijabs, but there has been conflict and insurgency by the Turkic Uyghers I believe, but not really much from the Hui or East Asian Muslims. I wonder again, is it Islam that is the problem or really Muslims themselves, most Christians and Jews hardly care about what's in the Bible or Torah.
I looked at some pictures of Afghanistan and Iran in the 70s, looked so much nicer, no Hijabs either, Iranian women didn't wear Hijabs despite being muslims for decades before the revolution, what a shame they became the places they are now.
-Ga
Ga --
Here's something which came as a bit of a shock to me when I read it: northeast Asians are supposedly more closely related (less "genetic distance") to Caucasians than they are to Southeast Asians. I have a hard time believing that, as they look more like Southeast Asians. But maybe "southeast Asians" the article was referring to Malays, as opposed to, say, Vietnamese.
Yes, Islam seems to have become more radical in recent decades.
Well the Ainu are a great example of having very Caucasoid features despite not having Caucasian DNA, theirs is proto-mongoloid, closer to before the split between east asians and whites.
Brown and red hair, green or blue eyes were recorded among East Asians millenia ago, and a few minorities still retain them:
https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-924ae14427b56c8378dc2916cafb5877-c
but they were bred out in favor of black hair and brown eyes. I don't know why, maybe sexual selection? The darker skin in some southern Asians was not their original, the Lao have darker skin than other Thais but it was re-evolved from lighter skin.
Makes me wonder if Australians will evolve darker skin after several millenia, who knows?
-Ga
Ga --
I've seen pictures of Siberians with what appear to be pure Asian features, with blue eyes.
One theory about the Ainu is that they are the remnants of the Jomon, who peopled Japan before the present day Japanese arrived. Supposedly there are still traces of the Jomon population among the present day Japanese, you can tell from the fact that they have more of a bridge to their nose. (My mother has this.)
I wondered if Native Americans and Latinos (who are a mix of white/native american) have lower rates of smoking related disease since the plant is native to the Americas, and they cultivated it for millenia.
I checked and their lung cancer rates are lower than whites and blacks, and just a bit higher than Asians (who are just naturally more long lived and resistant to many diseases after all).
Conversely alcohol related health problems are higher in them and some East Asians, both hadn't evolved enzymes to break it down into nourishment. On the other hand I suspect many of them, at least Eskimos can thrive off red meats without heart disease having been hunter gatherers. (Eskimos consumed 90% raw meat and organ diets yet had very low rates of heart problems up until the late 1800s, they only started having heart disease when junk food became available.)
I also suspect why the ones in central America and parts of South America have the largest amount still living is from having lived in densely populated agrarian societies with domesticated animals like Llamas and consumed alcohol, a stable structure. And they don't seem to have alcoholism or similar societal problems for the same reason. They have adjusted and adapted to the arrival Spanish quite well and live inside regular society in Mexico, Peru, and Chile and more, unlike Aborigines in Australia or Natives in the US/Canada who have reservations. But of the natives in the US, the Eskimos and the Navajo seem better off relative to other tribes. I wonder why.
The Navajos still retain the largest population of all native Americans. I don't know how, they had a less organized/advanced society than eastern tribes who had confederations, large settlements, farming, and primitive systems of government like the Iroquois. Their language still is the most widely spoken despite being insanely difficult (every verb is irregular and the grammar and vocabulary is difficult, they have a full system of numerals and a large organized vocabulary, almost western, was their society more advanced in the past?) The Eskimos too, grammar and vocabulary is not so difficult but it's organized like a western language. They have numbers unlike the ones with no words for above 4.
Back to race:
Because of my Asian heritage, I can seem to consume more refined starches like white rice without a nasty carb crash, but I don't do well too much lactose, I can consume as much cheese and yoghurt, straight milk gives me stomach problems past 2-3 cups, so I have a little lactose tolerance.
I am thick boned and have a decent build, caucasoid jaw, my eyes are halfway between asian and white, I seem to pass for hispanic or filipino (after all, both are mongoloid mixed with caucasoid) but have no facial hair, a lot of hispanics have facial hair. Hair is dark brown, not pure black or brunette, but inbetween.
What about you? Being mixed race, what is your biology like?
Also:
By the way, are you familiar with epigenetics?
-Ga
Ga --
Yes, the evidence seems to be pointing towards refined carbs and sugars as being the culprits in bad health, not animal fats and salt as previously thought.
I'm not even sure whether I have lactose intolerance. I always had as much dairy as I wanted until last year, when my cholesterol was measured at 315; I've since cut out all dairy, and it seems to be going down.
As half-breeds, we're supposed to have "hybrid vigor," meaning, we're supposed to be less susceptible to diseases that sometimes plague purebreds. And I thought I was pretty much immortal until 2016, when in January I was diagnosed with prostate cancer and in December I was told about my cholesterol.
You can see my appearance from the picture on the blog. I do have facial hair, though if I grew a beard now it'd be mostly white.
I know what epigenetic is, have never really looked into it.
Post a Comment