Over the course of the 19-year program, more than 2,300 U.S. Army soldiers, many of whom were trained medics, contributed to the Whitecoat experiments by allowing themselves to be infected with numerous different kinds of bacteria that were considered likely choices for a biological attack. While some volunteered immediately after basic training, for conscientious objectors at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas (before they began their medic training), the near certainty of being assigned as a combat medic in Vietnam helped some medics choose instead to remain in the United States with the Whitecoat program. The goal of the program was to determine dose response for these agents.
"""
I attended an SDA high school and was a member of the church for a couple years in college (I dated an SDA woman). It was interesting that they had a ton of dentists, doctors, etc. and ran well-regarded medical schools, but also espoused young Earth creationism. They also were generally suspicious of government involvement in religion, with many worried about a "national Sunday law" and being disallowed from worshipping on Saturday. Conversely, this generally included a desire for religion not to get too involved in government, which I respected quite a lot.
I never really believed, and left the church after breaking up, but I really miss the sense of community. Every Saturday I'd go to a service with a boring sermon but some _fantastic_ singing (the entire congregation could, and did, sing, and those walls rang with "Down By The River To Pray" in 4 part harmony), then have a vegetarian (albeit cheesy) potluck after, and then just chill at the beach with friends. Society would do well to adopt the sabbath as a cultural practice. The minister where I was seemed pretty chill with marriage equality - I remember he gave a sermon about marriage while people protested California's prop 8 outside and he pointed out how badly LGBT couple wanted marriage at the same time others took it for granted.
> California Adventists have higher life expectancies at the age of 30 years than other white Californians by 7.28 years (95% confidence interval, 6.59-7.97 years) in men and by 4.42 years (95% confidence interval, 3.96-4.88 years) in women, giving them perhaps the highest life expectancy of any formally described population. [0]
SDA live a lot longer.
The SDA vegetarian diet was also the driving force behind the Kellogg's Cereal company [1]
Vegetarian diet, abstinence from alcohol and smoking, and maybe most of all pretty strong (albeit also quite insular) communities. They seemed to be pretty well-off too, for the most part.
What I wasn't taught as a youth, is that 90% of the value of college is in friends and acquaintances you make while there. Guess what really helps with that: drinking, smoking, promiscuity. Conversely, do you know what actively hinders that? Yes - avoiding parties and socializing in general, because you don't want to engage in drinking, smoking and promiscuity.
Looking back, I really wish I wasn't so "conserving" about my "youth energy" back then.
If a person has a problem with your attending a party sober, then they're the one with the problem, my friend, and you're probably not going to be creating a healthy relationship as a result of that interaction, anyway.
The relationships I should have focused on in my college career were my professors, at least a couple of them; I literally had zero understanding of graduate school, even as I was in college. But if I wasn't partying every Fri and Sat night I would have been able to better take advantage of the incredible opportunity I had at the time. Unfortunately, I was ill-prepared to make the most of it, though I was lucky that my passion for programming drove me to become a skilled practitioner. It was crucial that I got a mainframe help desk job where I manned a phone that never rang, and I got to teach myself C and superscalar programming (vector-based on an IBM 3090) and early internet protocols and stuff, using brand-new RS/6000s and Sparcstations and the like. Writing an Asteroids clone for X-Windows (using XLib) and a couple of vi clones was pure fun but foundational in a way.
I say all this without regret, or blame for the people around me. I'm just a product of my society, and I find great wisdom in Tolkien's notion that Hobbits don't come of age until 33. Knowing that the frontal cortex doesn't mature until 25 should have been a guiding force for this 17yo idiot matriculating too early and with no guard rails. Especially with regards to binge drinking, but it is difficult to escape one's culture alone at such a young, inexperienced age. Luckily, I basically stopped drinking only a few years later, and having never drank daily, but I lived the life of a fool, sans mentor, for those college years.
My kids have the benefit of my experience, however, because I am very typically not American in many cultural ways, thank God. Life has been gracious to me to get to experience many different world cultures, not being so enamoured with my own, though I love many of my fellow Americans when they are kind and accepting of others, though they grow more rare by the day.
Peace be with you, friend. Thanks for helping me vent a bit this morning. I am at your service.
My wife's son is a recently-minted top-of-his-class doctor who said that he would not be a patient of 80-90% of his med school graduating class.
I chalk it up to their primary skill is to be a memorizer. As a problem solver, myself, I have more respect for people that can think through a problem, analyze it, and come up with creative solutions. I have never seen that in a doctor, but that's really because they're just a product of the system that produces them, and I've only known a few. My guess is that most of them are pursuing that career because it's lucrative and socially beneficial, not because they can make a difference in people's lives.
> I think doing well in college is probably more about factors like time management skills and social support network than about vices.
I agree, but the vices can certainly interfere with the rest of it, especially for us poors who don't have upper middle class parents to fall back upon, as you suggest. I think a lot of why we're not rich in the first place is that our parents didn't have the mentorship to succeed either.
But I'm not crying about it, not while I have breath and love and fighting spirit.
Yeah, it's difficult to find the middle path between too much and too little. Those little mental gremlins always try to push us too far in the opposite direction. It's the nature of our internal enemy, the enemy of both our inner peace and happiness and our outer peace and happiness with other people.
> It was interesting that they had a ton of dentists, doctors, etc. and ran well-regarded medical schools, but also espoused young Earth creationism.
Creationism is a canned joke ideological point that American Christians of all types seemingly can't get enough of. It's hilariously bad "science" at the very best, and outright farce at the worst. But for some reason simply acknowledging evolution is, seemingly as of the last 20 years or so, utterly untenable, and so they perform.
> They also were generally suspicious of government involvement in religion, with many worried about a "national Sunday law" and being disallowed from worshipping on Saturday.
I mean that just sounds like garden variety Christian persecution complex to me. I don't think a certain segment of the Christian population can properly reckon with reality if they don't feel they are being somehow oppressed despite running... basically everything.
Well, they view Genesis as a literal account. I agree with you, though.
As far as the latter point - it was mostly that, at least where I was, a desire to keep government out of religion paired with a desire for religion not to be too involved in government. Among other things they knew that other denominations were more powerful than them and would have far more influence in government.
I'm not an SDA booster (I'm not a member and haven't attended any church for 20 years, and found the insularity of the community stifling) but I still think it's a really interesting denomination.
> Creationism is a canned joke ideological point that American Christians of all types seemingly can't get enough of.
this is uninformed and prejudiced on its face. In Theology graduate class, the first week of lecture included the division between "literalist" Biblical traditions, and others. It is well known among anyone who has studied comparative religion in any way that Christians are not at all unified in the interpretation of Genesis, despite outward appearances.
I don’t usually expect nuanced theological discussions here. It’s usually the equivalent of bumper sticker comments.
The “appetite” for Young Earth Creationism amongst my Christian group is very low if nonexistent. In fact we often spend more times groaning at the antics this crowd gets into.
What other antics and policies do “we” groan about and then nevertheless elect politicians to govern the rest of us? Policies attacking female reproductive freedom? Attacks on LGBT? Attacks on freedom of religion? Attacks on separation of church and state?
I feel like you are trivializing the dogged, uncompromising, and ceaseless war organized religion wages against intellectualism, progress, and tolerance.
I suppose this will surprise you, but I'm strictly against religion and government mixing. When Jesus said, "My Kingdom is not of this world," I take that very seriously. It's why I've never associated with the Republican party, which has increasingly high-jacked the evangelical vote.
I'm not sure why you're accusing me of trivializing anything. I'm simply commenting on the religious discussions on HN and how I usually find them sorely lacking. But I wouldn't expect any different, considering most "hackers" tend to be secular in my experience, which is fine.
Out of curiosity, would you support things like removing "in God we trust" from currency and abandoning the motto, removing the words "under God" from the pledge of allegiance, banning religious requirements to hold public office, removing tax exemptions for churches, the removal of "blue laws" that ban or restrict certain things (like sales of cars or alcohol) on Sundays, and the banning of the 10 commandments or nativity scenes from public schools, court houses, and other government buildings?
I've known a few Christians to support some of those things, but I haven't met one so far who would have religion removed across the board.
In general, I prefer not to impose my views on people via the government. If the majority of people feel having "in God we trust" on the currency is beneficial, then so be it. If they don't, I won't stand in their way.
The only place I will push back is removing tax exemptions from churches, as this breaks the fundamental separation of church and state the other way. It gives states power over churches via taxation.
Being treated from tax perspective the same way as every other legal entity without extraordinary privilege is “breaking separation of church and state”?
You might be interested in reading Walz vs New York [1] for some background on this subject. As with most things, it's nuanced, but you essentially have two choices here: tax the churches or don't. Most have agreed that the former has a much greater risk of violating separation of church vs state (excessive government entanglement) than the latter. You're free to disagree, of course.
As a Sufi, I agree with the overall truth of your analysis, but it is absolutely not true for we Sufis, who believe in love above all.
I will state it clearly that we believe in always loving our fellow human beings, regardless of their ethnicity, form of religion (including none at all), sexual preference, or gender identity. The only time we have a problem with someone is if they're abusing others, irrespective of reason; in that case, we must love the oppressed differently than we love the oppressors, and prevent the abuse.
I am a lifelong reader and appreciator of science, scientists, and engineers, and have some level of understanding of the evolution's beauty on this Earth over the past 4B years. That's how God manifested this wonderful creation, perhaps two trillion galaxies with maybe hundreds of billions of stars in each, and this lovely oasis, Earth, with so much water and life, over the last ~14Gy since the CMBR's Big Bang origin.
Remember, you can't blame science if a person says they're a scientist then claims that the Earth is flat. Most religious tradition is just as off-base. If it ain't about love, it's not from God, for God only wants us to be happy, no matter what the belligerent hypocrites, liars, and cruel oppressors of this world do in God's name. To love someone means to want them to be happy, on their terms, so long as they're not hurting others in the process (which wouldn't create happiness, only cruel pleasure).
God freely gave us our free will to do with as we please, for good or ill. But It also made this universe such that it keeps a karmic tab on all our actions towards others, and we will reap what we so, each of us, in calculus-like precision in this universe of integrated information systems.
Life is the realest, most deadly-serious game you can ever imagine. And your happiness is at stake, so choose well how you evolve your heart and treat your fellow human beings.
Thank you for thoughtful post. I know near nothing about Sufi religion. Sounds enlightened and good for them/you! My words were very influenced by frustration rooted in my experiences in US, especially as of late.
You can peruse my religious-oriented posts from today to get a pretty complete picture of our Sufi perspective.
To be Sufi is to be the small part of all forms of religion that truly try to manifest compassion, kindness, generosity, and all the virtues, to ALL our fellow human beings, by self-evolving ourselves from vice-ridden to virtue-manifesting. The spiritual process is a purifying of ourselves, not of others. They must do it themself, and only our lovingkindness can help them.
Peace be with you. Thank you for caring about true compassion.
I feel like you are trivializing the dogged, uncompromising and ceaseless war liberals wage against common sense and decency.
I'm sorry but when the other side of the war wants me to pay fines, go to jail or be expelled because I subjectively hurt someones feelings I gotta go with the church whatever their faults
Can you name an example of this actually happening, or is this just yet another echo of the utter nothing-burger that was Peterson's complaints back when he transitioned from being an educator to a professional grievance monger that, and I can't stress this enough, has never, once, ever, one time, produced an actual complaint that has resulted in actual penalties?
I don't need to name examples. There was a proposal for a draconian law, it got brought up to light, it was fought and it didn't pass. All that because of people like Peterson.
This was in 2016. In 2023 I went to a climbing gym in Bucharest, got friendly with a foreign (EU) guy that was visiting, asked him what was he doing in Bucharest. Apparently he was representing a leftist party that sounded very good on the surface policy wise and goal wise but then I asked him..
"What do you think about punishing people through the law for misgendering someone?". He started avoiding answering directly, said we shouldn't be assholes etc but it was clear by simply refusing to give a direct answer what his position was.
If he didn't think it is a good law he would've said so, he avoided answering and the conversation died out after that because it was clear we couldn't move past that.
Purposely misgendering someone is indeed being an asshole but that's not the issue at hand. If someone calls me stupid or swears at me that makes me uncomfortable but I wouldn't expect he be reprimanded by the law by stripping away his freedoms.
> There was a proposal for a draconian law, it got brought up to light, it was fought and it didn't pass.
I'm finding it difficult to take your opinion seriously when you're getting basic facts wrong. Bill C-16 did pass, it's been the law in Canada since 2017. And as I said, it has not once been actually utilized in the way Peterson and I'm guessing, you, were so concerned about.
> "What do you think about punishing people through the law for misgendering someone?"
I think it would depend what you mean by "punishing people through the law." I don't think it should carry a prison sentence, if that's what you mean. However as a legally recognized act of discrimination, I think it's an important data point. For example, if a trans-person was fired from a job for "performance reasons" but was able to demonstrate proof of constant misgendering by their supervisor, I think that can be valuable to that person for a wrongful termination suit. Or, simple inter-workplace bullying. Like that's ultimately what that is, it's just being a bully, and I wouldn't suggest bullies be brought up on charges, but there also should be legally enforceable consequences for ongoing harassment.
And I can't think of why anyone would disagree with a position like that, unless the notion of bullying transpeople is just really important for them to be able to do, in which case I would suggest you find a new hobby?
I just realized "reproductive freedom" sounds like an emotive conjunction. It isn't about the freedom to reproduce, it's literally the freedom to not reproduce.
I have a very reasoned and nuanced view on this topic that I probably will never share online. I don't know why I didn't notice this weird phrasing before.
It struck me as an euphemism as well. But thats the whole abortion debate. After all, pushing the timeline up from conception to a convenient point where abortion "feels" like it isn't murder yet is a pretty deliberate move as well. All in the name of personal freedom. The freedom to not have to care.
> After all, pushing the timeline up from conception to a convenient point where abortion "feels" like it isn't murder yet is a pretty deliberate move as well. All in the name of personal freedom. The freedom to not have to care.
It has nothing to do with whether it "feels like murder." It's about a woman's bodily autonomy.
Even if you ascribe the descriptor of "baby" to a fetus, which is entirely your prerogative to do, that baby is and will remain a parasite upon the mother's body until it is born and can subsist for itself (bodily anyway). And because of how bodily autonomy works (and should work) you are not required to keep other people alive by way of your own body. If you are at a car crash scene, and have caused another person dire harm via that crash, and they can ONLY be saved for some reason by way of a blood transfusion from you: you are not required to give it. There may be other civil or criminal consequences of that, depending how the crash investigation goes, but no reasonable person would say that you are nor should be tried as a murderer simply because you would not give up even something as trivial as blood to save this person.
Ergo, abortion is not murder. Abortion is a medical procedure by which a fetus is severed from the mother that is carrying it, and I must emphasize, the vast, vast, vast majority of the time, the fetus at the time this is done is literally a few million cells. You genuinely kill more living tissue than an abortion when you have a routine surgery. And in those handful of times when it is a nearly-ready fetus, there are almost every time, extenuating circumstances. The fetus is non-viable, for example, or it's outright dead and rotting inside the mother. And while they do exist, the weaponization of these traumatizing events by the pro-life movement is absolutely ethically indefensible.
These are not situations where women get kicks killing babies. These are women who wanted the baby. They're women who did their best for however many months to get them to that point. They may have named it. They've almost certainly got a home full of baby things that are about to become useless. Women come apart from this psychologically. Marriages fall apart. It's horrible, and again, co-opting such events to push a narrative of women who enjoy abortion is just, I cannot stress enough, ethically horrifying.
I mean sure, I wouldn’t disagree. But also a blood transfusion is utterly trivial in terms of effects on your body compared to a pregnancy. I don’t know that I know any women who’ve had kids who don’t have like, parts of their bodies that are just numb 24/7 now, or mystery pains, hormone regulation problems, etc etc. Pregnancy is AWFUL on your body.
That's an interesting point. I haven't interviewed an extensive number of post-abortive mothers, so my view is, of course, not representative of the whole, but in those few cases I have (via my community work), this was universally true. In every case, there were external factors pressuring the mother to abort the baby despite her motherly instincts pushing back on it at every level. Sometimes, it was a controlling boyfriend, parents, or some other peer pressure. In each case, though, the mother was left scarred for life.
However, in that particular case, her freedom trumps the "freedom" of the child, because for some reason, the child isn't allowed to make their own decisions growing up.
The origin the dispute is not so much arguing that Genesis must be literal but that acknowledging evolution diminishes the special uniqueness of the human soul
"""
Over the course of the 19-year program, more than 2,300 U.S. Army soldiers, many of whom were trained medics, contributed to the Whitecoat experiments by allowing themselves to be infected with numerous different kinds of bacteria that were considered likely choices for a biological attack. While some volunteered immediately after basic training, for conscientious objectors at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas (before they began their medic training), the near certainty of being assigned as a combat medic in Vietnam helped some medics choose instead to remain in the United States with the Whitecoat program. The goal of the program was to determine dose response for these agents.
"""
I attended an SDA high school and was a member of the church for a couple years in college (I dated an SDA woman). It was interesting that they had a ton of dentists, doctors, etc. and ran well-regarded medical schools, but also espoused young Earth creationism. They also were generally suspicious of government involvement in religion, with many worried about a "national Sunday law" and being disallowed from worshipping on Saturday. Conversely, this generally included a desire for religion not to get too involved in government, which I respected quite a lot.
I never really believed, and left the church after breaking up, but I really miss the sense of community. Every Saturday I'd go to a service with a boring sermon but some _fantastic_ singing (the entire congregation could, and did, sing, and those walls rang with "Down By The River To Pray" in 4 part harmony), then have a vegetarian (albeit cheesy) potluck after, and then just chill at the beach with friends. Society would do well to adopt the sabbath as a cultural practice. The minister where I was seemed pretty chill with marriage equality - I remember he gave a sermon about marriage while people protested California's prop 8 outside and he pointed out how badly LGBT couple wanted marriage at the same time others took it for granted.
I wonder if it's still like that.