Could you use a long rifle as a stick for a protest sign?

As a counter example, I remember listening to a radio interview with a woman who accidentally joined a boxing gym, and decided to roll with it. Even after 3 years training, it apparently took new men about 6 weeks to blast past her in strength.

And jumping back to my earlier comment. Societies tend to amplify differences. Men are stronger, so are expected to do jobs requiring strength. This, in turn leads to stronger men, reinforcing the stereotype.

In short, there’s not much baseline difference between men and women. There are however differences. Societies and cultures often amplify them, particularly when it improves division of labour. In an agrarian society they might not be able to afford the split, so the situation you read about plays out. Men can’t afford to powerhouse, while women need to pick up significant physical labour.

It’s also an unfortunate fact that testosterone makes it a LOT easier to put on muscle mass. A good chunk of men don’t take advantage of it, but the biology still holds. It’s also worth noting that men are on average taller than women. Our volume of muscle is often bigger to start with.

My wife does quite a bit more strength based exercise than I do. The force multiplier on my exercise however means I can easily out power her, when it comes to brute strength.

It’s worth noting however that a lot of the initial strength gain of exercise isn’t muscle increase, but better control. Both men and women can increase this, fairly evenly. The difference tells most once that caps out.

The 2 often feed off each other too. E.g. men are slightly stronger than women, on average. Men are then expected to take on the strong protector role, while women are expected to act weak and subservient. This amplifies the original slight difference massively, reinforcing the social stereotype.

Women seem to have a preference for cooperation, with their ranking within the group mattering most. Men seem to err towards intergroup competition, where your teams ranking matters most. These necessitate different types of social skills, which feeds the stereotype, which feeds the original difference.

The risk is it going “spicy pillow” rapidly.

I recently had a lipo go nuclear on me (full spontaneous fireball), so I’m currently a bit risk adverse on rechargable lithium batteries right now.

It was more subtle and interesting than just a fad. It accidentally hijacked a number of our social instincts. In this case, it was disruptive and obvious. It’s likely the effect is happening to everyone, just more subtly.

It becomes the mechanism through which a very old human phenomenon — the tendency of a stressed group to adopt a shared physical response to that stress

Basically, our stress responses are subconscious, but learnt. Think swearing when you hurt yourself. It’s common, but it’s not universal.

In this case, the girls, due to existing stress formed a pseudo social group. The group “leader” had an unusual ‘stress’ venting method (due to tourettes). The other girls synced to this without conscious involvement. It’s the same mechanism that makes us pick up a local accent, or adopt local habits, when we move somewhere new.

In short, fads include this mechanism, but generally have a far more conscious aspect. This was an interesting short circuit, exposing some of the underlying mechanics of the human mind.

I think it’s more acceptable to talk about it, particularly for men. I suspect the actual number has gone down, due to awareness, but can’t back that up with research.

My brain is slightly broken, likely linked to autism and ADHD. I can recognise faces fine. What I can’t do is remember them properly. The brain has an area dedicated to remembering faces. In me , it just doesn’t work well. I get a blank “null” in memories where the face (and even body/outfit) should be. If I want to remember a face I need to manually break it up and store the aspects in explicit memory. It’s very annoying.

One minor plus side, it’s not completely broken. If I’m exposed to the same face enough, I can (eventually) pattern match it fine. I now take a photo of people when I add them to my phone. It helps a lot getting the required exposure.

I hate to be “that guy” but be very careful throwing sticks for dogs. I know several vets and throat damage from sticks is a depressingly common injury for dogs.

The dog races after the stick, and it bounces weirdly. Rather than grabbing it in the middle, the tip goes into their mouth. Their own momentum then impales them on it. It’s a major surgery to remove it and repair the damage (assuming the dog survives).

Balls are a lot safer, and go a LOT further, particularly with a ball thrower.

Treat yourself like you would that Labrador puppy. Set guardrails and habit patterns in place. Use positive feedback to turn them into good habits and behaviour loops.

And just like training said Labrador, it’s a LOT fucking easier to say than to actually do!

Parenthood. You reach the point of pure exhaustion somewhere around 6 months. Depending on your child, it can last for years.

Given there are people suffering from exactly that. It’s also unfortunately common in Alzheimer’s patients. The classic example is piano playing.

Muscle memory is a short hand for changes to the low level reactions. It’s a mix of brain spine and muscle nerves. E.g. I can still do martial arts moves fine from reflex, even though I no longer have explicit memories of learning them. A large chunk of our personality is built up of implicit memory. They act in the same way, just internally. E.g. your maths skills are based on implicit memories. The memories that created the skills are long gone, but the skills remain.

You would lose your self identity. Identity as a whole is more than just self identity. It’s an amalgam of self, social, familial, governmental identities. This matters even more with things. A car has no sense of self. However, if someone lovingly repaired and replaced the parts, it would maintain its continuity of identity through the changes.

Similarly memory is more complex than one term. I could lose my explicit memory (remembering my past) but keep my implicit memory (skills and muscle type memories). In that case, am I still me? What about the reverse?

At that point it is no longer a yes no question, but a lot of grey creeps in.

Continuity of material, you mean? The paradox disappears when you understand there are multiple types of continuity.

Identity is as much a social structure as a personal one. E.g. in star trek, when Will riker is duplicated. Both have continuity of memory, but Thomas has his continuity of identity broken. Though he doesn’t realise this until he meets his eigen twin, who’s been continuing on. Even though both are nominally identical at the moment of creation, Will’s continuation of his career maintained continuity of identity. Thomas Riker had his broken by being stranded. Hence why Thomas changed his name, while Will continued using Will.

I’ve not played that one, so no idea.

Look up shed 17, the real story of Thomas the tank engine.

https://youtu.be/462KBuAhncU

The full copy, “cloning” adult body and up to date brain. Think “The 6th Day” film.

Hence why I put “mind” in brackets. I was more referring to Hollywood style “cloning” variants.

It depends if the swapped mind considered themselves me or not (clone’s brain?). If not then perceived identity would follow the mind, even if the legal identity didn’t.

If it were a clone’s mind, we would have to come to some sort of understanding on the subject.

It can quickly get convoluted. E.g. if I became a digital identity, would I be willing to split off versions of myself for particular tasks, only to absorb them later. Conversely, could I function as such an entity? How long would I need to diverge before I became a truly separate entity in my own mind?

The book “Accelerando”, by Charles Stross plays with this. He refers to them as eigen-minds. A collection of minds overlapping within a single identity. How liable is a diverged eigen-mind from its alternates, when it comes to contracts and debts?