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Cake day: June 30th, 2023

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  • I am 6’ 6" and most of my life I’ve been between 145 to 165. So incredibly skinny, always under weight. I never struggled with women as an adult, but I also didn’t chase too many shallow women. When I was young i certainly got told by a few that they weren’t into skinny guys, but it was almost always by people that were incredibly socially controlled people, the type to “keep up with the Joneses” so to speak. Once I stopped chasing after people for the wrong reasons things improved dramatically.

    Do you have close friends that are women? I wonder if there is a communication aspect to this if not. Do you date outside your culture? I grew up around mostly white rural Christians and they were more judgy about being skinny than other cultural groups, in my experience. Maybe something about rural people doing a lot more hard labor and it being culturally homogeneous.





  • None of the things by themselves fully justify “belief” in a religion yet many people claim they are without a true belief in the entire system. It’s the problem with such a vague question. By a narrower definition very few people attending a place of worship are true believers. Someone can believe in god, but not really believe in the rules, and still say they are “religious”. Someone can believe in the rules, but not god, and say the same. I think if you are practicing the religion to some extent then you have a right to call yourself religious if that’s how you view yourself regardless of your true beliefs on god, rules, etc. Cultural impact matters more than we give it credit for.


  • Another big reason is reason number 4

    1. Gives a sense of community and cultural connection that other things don’t quite provide.

    I’ve met a not so inconsequential amount of people in my life that when pressed admitted, they don’t believe in god, don’t believe in the moral teachings, but attend a place of worship because they think there is no replacement for the interwoven community and cultural connection their place of worship provides. Many people simply like the community connection of their root culture. This is especially true in minority groups (black church, synagogue).




  • I don’t doubt anything you are saying, but it’s worth mentioning that (iirc) 80%+ of severe injury and death on a bicycle is caused by motor vehicles, or complications of motor vehicle involvement. People very rarely have severe injury or death on dedicated bike infrastructure. The primary risk on bicycles is motor vehicles. If you remove motor vehicles, there is still risks, but someone might decide that risk is low enough to forgo a helmet. I don’t feel those people should be called stupid for their choice.

    There is considerable evidence that everyone wearing a helmet in a car would save vastly more lives and prevent severe head injury, and yet pretty much no one even considers that as a normal thing to do. The bike helmet thing is therefore just as much a cultural attitude, as it is about safety.

    I still use a helmet, and more importantly, visibility gear, on my bicycle in 100% of my rides. I’ve never worn a bike helmet walking or driving in a car, even though my cousin died from a head injury getting hit by a car while walking and my grandma-in-law died of a head injury in a car…


  • MonkRome@lemmy.worldtoNo Stupid Questions@lemmy.worldPros / cons of riding a bike?
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    3 months ago

    A helmet is only needed if you intend to spend significant time in traffic. Most of the world doesn’t use one.

    The math behind using one is a lot more on the margins than people realize. In order for it to save you, it first has to prevent a head injury, and then prevent one that is in the range of severity that makes it useful. The vast majority of bike injuries won’t fall in that range, they’ll either be related to another part of the body, or in the case of high speed crashes from a car, too severe for a helmet to matter. But helmets do give people a false sense of security. Statistically people ride faster and take more risks with a helmet on. Lastly, again statistically, the visibility gear you put on yourself while riding does more to keep you safe in traffic than a helmet. Lights, reflectors, reflective vest, etc.

    All this to say, the religiosity with which people proselytize helmets is misplaced. I still wear one, but I don’t judge people who choose not to.






  • Seriously, that was my only comment and now I’m also a rapist according to you. This is something else, I can’t say I’ve ever encountered someone this toxic on Lemmy since I’ve been here. You extrapolated all sorts of things I never said from 2 sentences.

    Not that you are remotely deserving of a respectful response at this point, but I’ll still give you my thoughts:

    I’ve been sexually assaulted and have had people close to me be sexually assaulted and raped. The insinuation that I am a rapist would be personally harmful to me and retraumatizing if I wasn’t aware that you are doing this because you are unable to articulate your opinions on the matter effectively, so you resort to insults. I totally understand the visceral need and desire for vengeance and justice when you or someone close to you is the victim of vile acts. There is someone I grew up acquainted with that if I saw them again in person I would have an intense desire to cause physical pain because of what they did to people close to me. I totally understand the desire for vengeance, and I suspect everyone else on this thread does too.

    With that said, when societies make rules you have to decide what the goal is. Is the goal vengeance and punishment, is the goal a better future for society in general, or is it a little of both. We have the sum total of human experience to look back on, we can see what societies systems of punishment result in better outcomes for society at large. We know what systems of punishment result in recidivism more often, what systems result in rehabilitation more often, and we know what systems perpetuate a cycle of violence that never ends. We don’t rehabilitate criminals and sex offenders for their sake, we rehabilitate them for societies sake. Because we can conclusively show that if systems of punishment make it their goal to rehabilitate instead of get vengeance, it usually breaks the cycle of violence whether it be physical or sexual. You’re basically saying you would prefer vengeance, even if it is at the expense of sexual and physical violence being perpetuated through society generation after generation.

    I strongly suggest you read this article: https://www.firststepalliance.org/post/norway-prison-system-lessons#:~:text=Prisoners in Norway lose their,crime rates in the world.

    Norway has the lowest recidivism rate in the world exactly because the treat their criminals like human beings. Guess who wins, all of the non-criminals that enjoy one of the lowest crime rates in the world.



  • Let’s say an extremist faction of Mexico, that had power and was integrated into the government came north and captured 240 people and killed another 1200. How do you think the US would respond? Would many in this country or other countries call our inevitable outsized retaliation genocide? If you don’t say no you’re a liar. One has to recognize the geopolitical lense people view Israel from and the desperate need for some to propagandize Israel as genocidal. That doesn’t make it true, and neither does desperately repeating it as often as possible. If anything it weakens your argument because it makes you seem like a clown to any serious person.

    The Likud in Israel needs Hamas as much as Hamas needs the Likud. They both derive all of their power from a protracted conflict. There is no incentive to culturally and ethnically destroy the Palestinian people, because the day that happens is the day the Likud cease to exist. Netanyahu has shown over his political career that opportunism and power are his only driving forces, not cultural homogeneity and genocide. If you’re going to make an argument that it’s genocide you need to back it with coherent thought beyond, “but innocent people are dying”. If that’s your metric then all wars are genocide and the word looses all meaning.

    What Israel is doing is awful, but it’s not genocide.


  • The problem is that it’s easy for the interested parties to equate it to antisemitism when intermixed with legitimate protest of Israel’s horrendous actions are actual antisemites coopting the conversation for their own purposes. Antisemitism is at it’s highest point in my entire lifetime. Things to note: Muslim Israelis (about 20% of their population) support Israel’s wartime actions at about the same rate as Jewish Israelis. Also, the language used in opposition to, or in support of, Israel in this conflict is different than in comparable one sided wars.

    To be clear I want to reiterate that i think what Israel is doing is undeniably awful, but I think antisemitism, and anti Muslim sentiments, color how people interpret and talk about what is happening irrespective of government officials agendas. It’s absolutely part of the conversation whether we like it or not, and we have to navigate that as part of the larger conversation. This isn’t to say I don’t agree with you, it is bullshit to just paint everything as antisemitism.