December 2019 – Page 4 – Quora Archive

Do you wear your socks to sleep in?

Answered Jul 7, 2019

Yes, definitely a sock-sleeper.

Two reasons.

Warmth. It is sometimes rather cold at night where I live. And don’t like (or can’t afford) to run electric heating.
Insects. I am a bug-magnet. They head straight for me, and joyfully bite any exposed skin. There is a legitimate theory that, some people’s microbial skin flora are attractive to mosquitoes, etc. Even worse for me, I also have bad reactions to bites, including serious swelling. If they get me on the ankle, it can swell up to impairing my ability to even walk.

If mankind hit a maximum population limit, will we resort to “population control”? Or will we have enough time to expand to other worlds before it gets to that point?

Answered Jul 5, 2019

First, you can forget about the “expand to other worlds” idea.

Space travel is hugely expensive, in money, technology, and time. It is a major set of problems just to get a car-sized machine to the Moon or to Mars.

For humans, space travel is also dangerous, from launching a rocket, to landing, to the reliance on life-support systems, to the long-term effects of low-gravity, radiation, and living inside vehicles, stations, etc.

If you go to the Moon or Mars, you need to bring all of your resources with you, to last your entire stay. Hugely expensive to get it all there, even for just a few days visit. Uncrewed resupply craft are expensive, take a long time to reach Mars, and might crash or otherwise be lost.

Changing the atmosphere on the Moon or Mars (so you could go outdoors without a spacesuit) would take enormous physical resources, and centuries of time, and may be physically impossible. Temperatures and radiation may also be insurmountable issues. Living permanently inside protective structures would be extremely expensive.

As I understand it, chemical analysis of Martian soil suggests that it might be impossible to ever grow plants or fungi in it.

There are fantasies of geological mining of the Moon and Mars. Which would require hugely expensive machinery and other resources, which make Earthly colonisation and resource-extraction (e.g. centuries-past North America and Africa) look cheap and easy by comparison.

Forget about the other planets and their moons. Heat, radiation, pressures, toxic gasses, planets made entirely of gasses, or solid but really cold planets and moons.

Forget about ever visiting any planet outside our solar system. The distances are too great, the expenses too high, and the timeframe too long.

So, back to the real world…

Maximum population is contextual, in place, time, and technology.

This was described back in 1798, by Thomas Malthus. The idea is that, population control is a natural, universal mechanism, affecting all life-forms.

Malthus observed that, population numbers increase based on food supply. This can be plants with plentiful space/water/nutrients, herbivores with plentiful plants available, or carnivores with plentiful prey available. It can also be humans with increasing agricultural efficiency and technology.

While microbiology wasn’t understood in Malthus’s time, the principle includes single-celled organisms, which have a common growth curve of increasing exponentially, and then leveling off.

The population will increase to the contextual maximum, where everyone is just barely obtaining/producing enough to survive.

Then, there are two suppressing scenarios:

Something reduces the food supply at some level of the food chain or food web. It could be an especially harsh winter, or an extended drought, or a disease of plants or animals. Starvation ensues.
The food supply remains stable, but the population compulsively keeps reproducing/expanding, and overshoots the supply. Starvation ensues.

This may be cyclic. Food-suppressing events like weather and diseases will occur either yearly, or repeatedly over a longer timeframe. Humans improve technologically, overshoot the population, and suffer until the next big improvement.

There may be hard, regional or global upper limits on food production, fresh waters, etc. Where humans will never be able to improve efficiency past the Earth’s “carrying capacity”.

Another suppressor is communicable diseases.

Increased population leads to increased crowding, leads to increased disease transmission. Anything from the medieval plagues to the 1918 influenza could replay. Global warming may increase the geographic range of malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

High-intensity farming (to feed the current overpopulation) may increase the risk of microbial diseases of plant crops and animal livestock, leading to famine, and starvation of humans.

Another pressure is interspecies and intraspecies competition. A slightly more efficient (for the particular environment) species may out-compete other species, who may then starve. Animals – either individuals or groups – may compete with others of their same species.

The highest level of this is human warfare, which is always (either overtly or thinly disguised) economically motivated. Humans fight over farmland, water, or natural resources (oil, mining, forestry, fishing) which can be used or sold. Which ultimately leads to food and other means to support the population numbers of a particular country or tribe.

Even losing sides can do great damage. This includes ancient retreating armies pouring NaCl salt onto the ground, to impair future farming use, up to modern retreating armies setting oil wells on fire.

Conflicts which are ostensibly about religion or ethnicity are really just using those characteristics to organise and motivate groups for economic competition over natural resources.

In warfare, both sides will have many people killed, or die from degraded conditions, including starvation, diseases, etc. The losers may be completely genocided.

Warfare can be a means of increasing one’s own tribal population. However, it can also result in mass burning-off of surplus impoverished young males (i.e. “cannon fodder”).

Another aggressive angle is China’s “one-child policy”. It seems abusive and micromanaging, but the alternative is, ultimately, mass starvation. China has a mismatch of a high percentage of the world’s people, and relatively low percentage of the world’s farmland.

A gentler angle is advancements in contraception technology and distribution of it. Personally, I strongly support government efforts for free, easy contraception to anyone and everyone who will accept it. Anything from handing out condoms to offering cash payments for welfare recipients to get long-term implants or permanent sterilisation.

All of this sounds somewhat unpleasant to some people. But those people cannot imagine how unpleasant things would be with 20 billion humans on the only planet we will ever have.

And, lest anyone think to accuse me of any kind of hypocrisy or snobbery… I am childfree, never wanted any sprogs, and going to stay that way. At an age and condition where I actually do know what I am talking about on that.

Can emetophobes work in healthcare?

Answered Jun 28, 2019

“Healthcare” is a wide field of job descriptions.

However, if you mean direct care of patients who are either hospitalised or in long-term-care facilities, then you will need to deal with the full range of bodily fluids.

That includes their vomit. Including you having to clean it up. Including them suddenly spraying at or on you.

It also includes suppressing your own urge to vomit. Such as during frequent close encounters with their vomit, their faeces, and their various other fluids, smells, and sights. And yes, some of it will eventually end up on your clothing, and on your bare skin.

Preferably, it also includes being kind, compassionate, and reassuring to them, in those moments when they may feel so humiliated and embarrassed.

Regardless of one’s aspirations, the hard reality is that, if you aren’t prepared to deal with disgusting bodily fluids, then you aren’t prepared to physically care for sick people.

Why do people have more children when a big family is financially not viable?

Answered Jun 28, 2018

Originally Answered: Why do poor people have many children even though they cannot afford to raise them well? ·

A few reasons, which relate to each other.

There is a pervasive assumption that, everyone has children. That it is just an automatic part of a standard, universal life-trajectory. This assumption is present all across the economic spectrum. I have met adult women who acted confused upon encountering a middle-aged person who simply didn’t have any kids. Lack of desire to have them, lack of a spouse/partner, lack of support systems, and lack of money just weren’t seen as meaningful factors.
Having children at an early age (e.g under 25) is highly conducive to being and remaining poor. The existing child impairs the parent’s (usually the mother’s) ability to work in paid employment, or to pursue higher education.
Peer pressure from other young people making bad reproductive choices.
Lack of positive role-models, such as women who were able to better their lives by not having any children early (or at all).
Poor people may have received low-quality education in high school, including basic sex education.
There may be some correlation between poverty and religion. Which may degrade sex education.
Assumptions of being able to rely on extended family for money, housing, food, free childcare and other resources. A related point is some cultures (e.g. pacific islanders) have a combination of high poverty rates, high reproductive rates, and willingness to cram excessive numbers of people (including multiple related families) into crowded, unhealthy housing.
Assumptions of being able to rely on the baby-daddy for child support payments.
Poverty is correlated with having unstable relationships, which may include the aforementioned baby-daddy (or multiple baby-daddies) failing to contribute financially. Thereby perpetuating the poverty for the single mother and children.
The unstable relationships may lead to the idea of bonding with the current partner by having a child together, despite having children from previous relationships.
Lack of planning and self-control is conducive to being and remaining poor. And is also conducive to having unplanned children.
Poverty recycles, with numerous mechanisms. Including the intelligence impact of poor nutrition, maternal smoking/drinking, etc. This may lead the poor child to grow into an adolescent or young adult with poor planning and self-control, leading to another generation of poor children.
Some of the answers here mention that, contraception is too expensive for poor people. However, if you cannot afford contraception, then you certainly cannot afford multiple children. It comes down to self-control.
Plenty of children are conceived after the parents-to-be have had a little too much alcohol, and aren’t thinking very clearly. This applies across the economic spectrum, although problematic alcohol consumption may somewhat correlate with poverty.
Magical thinking, and black-and-white thinking, regarding actions→consequences. The person has unprotected sex repeatedly, without any resulting pregnancy. They then conclude that the two things aren’t really connected. Or may assume themselves to be infertile.
Lack of anticipation of how severely a child will restrict their lives.
Lack of anticipation of how much a child costs to support.
Availability of welfare benefits. Including multi-generational welfare dependence, and social environments where such dependence is normalised.
Pervasive social attitudes that it is somehow oppressive (or at least politically incorrect) to openly state that people shouldn’t be having children they cannot afford.
The first unplanned child is generally the one with the largest life-derailing effect (e.g. inability to work or pursue education). After that line is crossed, having an additional child isn’t seen as having as much incremental effect. So there may be less motivation to avoid having additional children.

What are some things that wealthy/privileged people believe about the working-class/poor that are untrue?

Updated Jun 29, 2019

Many misconceptions don’t just come from wealthy people, but also from those with middle class backgrounds. It can also come from individuals who are themselves doing low-wage jobs, or even who are unemployed, but who have middle-class parents.

Everybody can afford to live in a decent/nice house or apartment, in a decent/nice neighbourhood. So, people living in low-rent/high-crime neighbourhoods are choosing to be there because they are scumbags who enjoy the atmosphere.
Everybody can call The Bank Of Mommy And Daddy to make a withdrawal, any time they are short on cash.
Everybody can move back in with Mommy and Daddy, who live in a nice house, in a nice neighbourhood.
Women with breadwinning husbands may assume that everybody has one.
All geographic areas have the same level of economic opportunity. This relates to the attitude that, everyone should live in one town for their entire life, and that, there couldn’t possibly be any legitimate reason to move. I have been chronically treated like I did something stupid and morally wrong because I moved to a large city as a young adult, and refused to stay stuck in the impoverished, backwards rural town where my mother chose to live.
Everybody has the same educational opportunities. Including being supported by parents, to enable university, rather than having to work full-time.
Some people get negative attitudes towards a poor person who pursues higher education as a “mature” student. As if she were obligated to just accept a low-education/low-income life. The people showing this attitude run the whole economic spectrum.
Severe ignorance about the difficulties of a university student with a low income and zero family support system. This can include affluent students generally screwing around (talking loudly in class, etc), and failing to respect that a poor student is sacrificing and taking education seriously (e.g. she is personally paying for it, and also that it’s her path out of poverty).
Everybody can demand that an employer must assign them to a job in a nice, polite, clean, air-conditioned office, sitting down all day.
Everybody can demand that an employer pay them enough to live comfortably.
Everybody can limit themselves to working 8 hours per day, 5 days per week, with a fixed 9–5 schedule and fixed hourly wage. Severe ignorance of issues like commission/piecework, unstable (including casual) shift rostering, early/late/night shifts, working overtime, etc. I have even encountered open hostility over this. In my experience, that is a specifically female reaction.
Intelligence and economic class are automatically correlated. Severe cognitive dissonance at encountering someone who is intelligent, articulate, well-read, etc, and who is employed at a low-paying/low-skill/low-status job.
Severe ignorance of the issues that poor people may have in taking care of their health. Including such things as telling someone that they are stupid if they don’t have medical insurance.
Severe ignorance of daily issues like using public transportation, which can take large amounts of time and hassle.
Severe ignorance of the levels of violence, drugs, and other crime encountered by poor people in the environments where they live and work.
Severe ignorance about why a working-poor person seems to stressed-out all the time. Stemming from severe ignorance of how that person may be “hanging by a thread” financially, with a real possibility of becoming homeless.
Severe ignorance of the general social dysfunction among poor people. Including the types of people surrounding you when you are poor. This includes severe ignorance of the way that, an employed working poor person will be targeted by parasitic/exploitative non-working poor people.
Speaking of exploitation, I once knew an alleged adult with coddling upper-middle-class parents who thought she was entitled to go around leeching off of working poor people. With the delusion that, anyone with any job has large quantities of money to fork over. Her father even expected me to let his out-of-control abusive brat live in my home, rent-free.
Severe lack of comprehension that, a working poor person may be justified in having a very cynical view of humanity in general.

Why do some intelligent people fail to achieve their potential?

Updated Jul 20, 2019

In no particular order…

Some intelligence is simply ability to memorise. As measured by regurgitating facts on exams. And exams don’t necessarily translate into the “real world”.

Some intelligence is very focused. Such as a person who can write very fluently, but struggles with mathematics that are related to the topic.

Some intelligence is technical, while lacking interpersonal skills/aptitude.

Feeling intimidation and Impostor Syndrome. That can escalate to be deadly (and I mean that literally, and have witnessed it).

Bullying from other people (e.g. employer or supervisor or colleague who sabotages you).

Bullying includes pervasive “tall-poppy-syndrome”, which may come from everyone around the intelligent person.

Money. University funding is fairly generous where I live. But it is still limited. Funding for postgrad study, or scholarships are limited.

Low supply of highly intelligent people, but even lower demand. There are people with PhDs doing the lowest jobs (literally burger-flipping and such) to put food on the table.

Poverty. Some kid from an impoverished background may be a genius, but will be sabotaged by that. Even if they go to university, I have been acquainted with two postgrad students who separately resorted to being homeless (as in illegally camping) while studying. And there are plenty more, in many places.

Drugs (including alcohol). High intelligence may incline people to seek out “evolutionarily-novel” stimulus. I’ve witnessed this one up close and personal.

Intelligence involves questioning. Which involves embracing ambiguity and doubt. Science is all about seeking through questioning. That can lead to a paralysing doubt of one’s self.

Raising the bar. More intimidation and Impostor Syndrome.

And last but not least…

A world full of stupid people. Who feel entitled to all of the things produced/done by intelligent people. While acting with mind-boggling contempt and open hostility.