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Day: November 21, 2016
What would you want people to say at your funeral?
This has been in my inbox for a while, and I didn’t know how to tackle it. I want my brain acknowledged. For sure. I want my publications strewn around me, the children I got to have. But they too will be dust eventually. My plan to have them laminated and sent to Svalbard looks […]
What will happen if every dog on the planet were turned into a raptor overnight?
Accelerated selection of the fittest. Where being loyal, cuddly, and Neotenous is no longer what makes you the fittest raptor dog. Bye bye labradors. Dog leash manufacturers go out of business. The civil aviation authorities might need to work out a deal with city councils, in better tagging raptor dogs. Significant changes in dogfood manufacture. […]
What were you spanked with growing up?
This guy: And not the fly-swatting end of it either. My sister, my mother would have to chase around the house. I just dutifully held out my hand for it to be over and done with. That may explain some things. I dunno. Answered 2016-11-21 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/What-were-you-spanked-with-growing-up/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]
What was the original language of the Jahwist?
The Jahwist, as in the hypothesised earliest source document of the Torah? I’m dismayed to find from Wikipedia that the documentary hypothesis is now falling apart, and increasingly scholars think there was no one unitary Jahwist document. Doesn’t matter to me if the Jahwist was a bunch of bits; that bunch of bits is still […]
Was it appropriate for the cast of Hamilton to read a statement to Vice President-elect Pence from the stage on November 18th?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/19/us/mike-pence-hamilton.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=b-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news Originally buried in a comment at https://www.quora.com/Was-it-app… In response to: Well, if you believe what the cast of Hamilton did was appropriate, then you’d be okay that if henceforth every theatrical performance would include the cast’s comments on the political scene. … When Aristophanes invented comedy? That’s exactly what he did. Using the chorus […]
Nick Nicholas, why are you so fascinated with Nixon?
https://www.quora.com/profile/Nick-Nicholas-5 I am profoundly grateful to La Gigi, for asking this question, which has brought together three of the most fascinating personalities in living memory: I am also profoundly grateful to those who have already speculated about why on earth I would be so relentlessly fascinated by Nixon, because if they are, then they’re still […]
Can we speak about religion the same way we speak about politics?
Ah, Mlle Demoritto, this question causes me amusement, because it betrays your lack of Anglo-Saxon repression. The Anglo-Saxon proverbial expression is, there are three topics that one should never bring up for social discussion: Sex, Politics, and Religion. All three are regarded as too hot. This is obviously a culture-specific judgement, and different cultures and […]