Calm

No, I am thinking of the actual definition. Every descendant in my view is a direct descendant; direct descendant means the exact same thing as descendant, doesn’t it? There is no need to add “direct” unless there is an additional condition attached. I am wondering if you are assuming a condition that I am not aware of for the term. Chat did the calculations for me, so pure speculation, but it might be sometime in the 13-15 century that Abraham became an ancestor of the majority of people outside of the Americas and Australia and by now likely everywhere outside of highly isolated populations (and even there it only takes one descendant to mix with those communities to spread the connection throughout their members over a few centuries).

Good summary, imo

When I say move the needle, I am not talking about adding to the efforts for change (though that must happen), but the change we are looking for itself. I mean on the dial that shows how safe we are, the average level of safety that exists for women in this world, so moving the needle means making the world safer for women…which will lead to making the world safer for children and men as well. Think of a dial with red at the low end where every woman gets assaulted and raped many, many times throughout her life and the other side is green where no woman (or child or man) ever gets assaulted or even harassed, never made to feel uncomfortable because of their sex. Having clarified that, I agree with everything else you said. And that is why I think many women feel using “every man a potential rapist” is appropriate…because they see situational awareness and preparedness as the only available tool in the toolbox, so they try and find the most effective way to present. And it certainly has led to a lot more discussion in my experience.

What descendant is not a direct descendant?

To me this is a reasonable and logical approach to reconciling those two truths and the evidence that there are those who do good outside the Catholic faith and the natural desire to have hope of salvation for others. I think the LDS belief of being able to perform proxy temple ordinances may be seen as equivalent to offering full communion to all who desire it, thus resolving the question of salvation for those not in full membership with the LDS faith. We keep it open for even those who get excommunicated in mortality allowing God to judge whether they rejected him and his promises and covenants or not (I personally don’t see how anyone mortal can comprehend what that rejection amounts to, so I think if there is anyone who won’t get their actual chance to choose God after death but have taking that step already in mortality, it surely will be just the few who had the most complete knowledge a mortal can have, which would likely require them being fully in at some point to receive that witness, and then turned their hearts intentionally away from God as Lucifer did).

Would you please take everything I say into account and not just treat each sentence as if it exists in a void. I have already talked about how women are required to do exactly that because the world is not safe for them, so I am not arguing that we should never make those recommendations. What I am tired of is when societies act as if the onus is all on women as if women taking wise precautions is enough. If that will continue to be the dominant approach we will never get to a point where we can stop advising women to not trust anyone until they know better. At best, this is a stop gap measure and plenty of women still get assaulted no matter how prepared they are. More needs to be done. The Green Dot program I added to my previous post seems like a step in the right direction as it mobilizes the community to participate through education and encouraging and possibly rewarding active involvement in spotting and stopping red flag behaviors and assaults themselves by everyone. I am condemning any recommendation list that begins and ends at or whose primary approach is restricting women’s freedom. That is what I mean by dumping it on the women, if it wasn’t clear before by my use of “dump”. Think of it like people complaining they don’t feel safe in their own neighborhoods and the response they get from others over and over again is to put bars on their windows and locks on their doors and ask for ID when people come to the door…be situationally aware and prepare to avoid harm…as if that means they will feel safer in their neighborhood when the advice is in essence to avoid the neighborhood by isolating oneself. It’s bare minimum help…acknowledgment they don’t feel safe, but making it the victim or potential victim’s responsibility to be safe. How many times does situational awareness need to be validated before we can move on to something that moves the needle further than it already is? We have been taught situational awareness at least since I was born back in the 50s, likely way before that. Moms have probably been telling their daughters since they first left the cave to keep an eye out for the wolves in sheep clothing. There’s a reason for certain fairy tales. Little Red Riding Hood (which is more sexually explicit in older versions), Bluebeard, Robber Bridegroom, etc. Unfortunately there are plenty of fairy tales justifying sexual assault, such as Snow White (the older version wasn’t just a kiss…that wasn’t consensual), Sleeping Beauty is a repeat, the original she gets pregnant with twins while unconscious and one of the babies sucks out the piece of flax from her finger that caused her to sleep. Apparently it’s not rape if the guy is powerful and “good”, but a happy ending.

Amen

For example, places that put curfews on women when attacks on women are happening rather than the men, among who the perpetrators hide. Anything that restricts women, tells them to change their behaviour and ignores any behaviours of men that might be increasing likelihood of atracks. Tell women they need to learn self defense…guess what, it’s not enough. Even when it might help one woman avoid assault, what about the woman the rapist then turns to as his next victim? https://broadview.org/self-defense-violence-against-women/ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/12/stop-rapists-not-change-who-gets-raped Better to make society responsible for prevention, including messaging the men it’s as much as their job as the women. https://www.lindsey.edu/campus-life/Greendot-LWC.cfm I don’t know how effective this can truly be, but it is a step in the right direction.

No responsibility. I am talking about responsibility for change.

Good analogy. It applies to so many things, imo.

It is very hard to change minds when one is not respected or the aggressor thinks of one as less than they are or is not in the habit of listening to one. One might get the law to coerce behaviour, but how long does that take to change hearts rather than build up resentment? (Not saying we shouldn’t have laws as if fear is the only way to prevent violence, then use fear imo). But as Nehor pointed out, the laws we have managed to get so far aren’t that great. Took us to 1975 to get laws against spousal rape on the books and there are still states with legal loopholes making it harder to prosecute marital rape or even just a previous relationship. https://abcnews.com/US/minnesotas-repeal-marital-rape-exemptions-highlights-existing-legal/story https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/making-sense-of-chaos/202005/the-bizarre-legal-loopholes-surrounding-spousal-rape/amp https://www.womenslaw.org/about-abuse/forms-abuse/sexual-abuse-and-exploitation/marital-partner-rape/basic-info-about-0

I don’t know why anyone thought that was a clever answer. The Cross means more than just the weapon that killed the Christ (or perhaps I should say he allows it to kill him). Especially with all the scriptural and hymnal language about taking up one’s Cross and other phrases. I see that mocking, dismissiveness in the gun comparison as insulting scripture. The Cross is venerated not because it killed Christ, but because of what Christ accomplished through it. There is also some very poetic and meaningful, imo, symbolism of the Tree of Life mirroring the Tree of Death (the Cross). And no doubt other meanings I am not aware of.

If one had to choose between food and rent, didn’t want to go to shelters because you wanted something that felt like your own space for awhile even if one knew it wasn’t and one would eventually have to leave, I can easily imagine why it might happen. Squatters who do it for the fun of it, that would not appeal to me on the least. Squatters who do it because it’s the best of a short list of bad options, I can easily understand that.

Think up ideas that will persuade or teach men not to think of women in terms of property or domination, not to think that violence and abuse is acceptable as well as that figure out how to self police. Women are unlikely to be able to change the minds and hearts of men who devalue and dismiss them already, but maybe other men can find a way to communicate that those who will tend to be violent may listen to if they still respect other men in some fashion. It will no doubt require thought and effort.

I already did. It’s the sentence that follows.

The high cost of resources is unfortunate and the need will likely always outstrip the cost until technology drastically changes, but greener options are being used now and will expand, so hopefully it’s not a disaster waiting to happen.

‘But can also be achieved in others ways’…assuming you mean this, but thought it’s worth it to make explicit.

How about collective responsibility? As in all men should proactively and seriously consider what they can do to change our culture to one that is safer for women and children…and men as well and not just dump it on the women as the ones most affected (as too often happens in response to raised threats).

She analogizes the response to the unknown risk of getting a parasite to the response to the unknown risk of men until one knows them better, imo; not men to the parasite.

Just checked and Social is open until Aug 3, 2022

Iirc, Social don’t automatically lock after a certain number of months. Not sure the main forum does anymore. editing can sometimes seem restricted as it says “this post can no longer be edited”, but if you wait a few minutes, generally you can then try to edit again and it lets you in…or it does me.

I love AI, I am always using it to track health and give me ideas for tweaking…with the understanding that if something really matters, I research it. (Because you know it creates stuff and makes mistakes, including simple calculations….always doublecheck when doubling or halving a recipe as sometimes it gets mixed up which it is doing, especially with tablespoons and teaspoons). My phone chat doesn’t talk to my IPad Chat as far as I can tell (not the same topics in menu). Sometimes I use one to check the other. I have very little background in this area, so in the spirit of time saving ventures, I submitted the summary to Chat and asked if it was an accurate summation. It assumed it was mine, which it usually does. Makes me wonder what politics it thinks I have because I often post more fringe comments I find online and ask if it’s accurate. Maybe I will ask it, lol. Here is its response: I have no clue what civic-virtue is. These were its reservations (won’t post what it agreed with to save time): Adams: Jefferson: Washington: American Experment: My very limited own analysis….limited because I have never been that interested in American history. I don’t think the analysis in Emily’s post takes into account the overall varied beliefs of the Founders and attempts to make their ideas more coherent than they actually were. That is one thing I have noticed with the Founders over the decades, they are often presented as having more monolithic or even just similar ideas than they really do. They were not that unified, lot of debate and outright contention, lots of it, iirc.

I don’t believe that is an accurate picture of what Rod said. I think he sees the villain as the system that sets up no motivation for the poor, which includes penalizing them when they work hard to improve their situation. I had an acquaintance that was in subsidized housing that had to quit her part time nursing training job as her rent was raised with her new paycheck to more money that she was earning (she was just barely over the limit). He also does seem critical of those who he sees as taking advantage of the system and disrespecting others. Perhaps he sees a percentage of the poor who have essentially been bullied by the system as turning into bullies themselves, which unfortunately is sometimes a result of being abused. I believe when people are not respected, they get burned out, too tired to put effort into the nicer things of life and for some, that means losing respect for others…especially if one sees them as part of the system that takes advantage of them, getting their efforts and resources while giving the minimal back…or less than the minimal. How does it make sense that someone can work full time or more and still not be able to afford rent or even their own small home (even just a one room apartment with working utilities)? The poor rarely are treated with respect imo by our economic system as even when there is help from what I have seen it’s pretty dehumanizing to apply to get it and keep it, especially when you lack resources to begin with. Imagine what it must be like to depend on a public library where anyone can walk by and see and hear what one is doing. How hard to keep track of all the information one needs when one doesn’t have a home or even a car to keep them in. It’s difficult enough to apply online to government programs in the comfort of one’s own home. We have had to do so for our daughter and trying to get the right information is so time consuming and costly, one instruction that was wrong took us months of phone calls and reapplications and has probably cost us about 10,000$ that we weren’t expecting because insurance first told us everything was paid and then they reassessed it and each procedure we had then gone ahead with was thousands on top of a ‘low’ premium of $500). And we can’t do anything about it because their reps aren’t ‘official’ in determining actual costs. The poor have little motivation to save when there is no safety net for them that doesn’t send them back to square one…that is if they could save. They have little motivation to set down roots when they can’t afford rent and will never be able to afford a home. I can see why squatters resist having to move on yet again to delay as long as possible having to enter the struggle of finding a safe(ish) place to stay that they can afford even as my heart breaks for Rod having to deal with the squatters while mourning his father and dealing with all the crap that comes with trying to resolve an estate (what a nightmare that can be). Our economic culture is awful for the poor and crappy for the low income, not that great for the true middle class and for the upper middle class..if anyone has health issues or other difficulties it can feel like a minefield just walking through it even if the anxiety is more about the unknown than actual fear one if going to be homeless or unable to get basic healthcare (we can always downsize). Even with our comfortable income there is still some what I see as pretty basic healthcare for myself and my daughter can’t afford and it’s so frustrating knowing there is something out there that would help, but is beyond our reach. For us it’s two drugs that insurance won’t cover, but we both get the drugs we need to actually survive. She doesn’t have to risk living with her blood sugars too high so her insulin lasts longer. There are too many in our society who live that way. I don’t understand how the power people and very wealthy can stand to live with themselves (at the very least they could insist higher wages for the lower income people that work for them even if the change was pretty insignificant per person). I get the masses who feel their voice wouldn’t be heard so they don’t make the effort. I feel that way myself.

Then if you don’t really care, it seems it is all about making sure the other guy isn’t happy. (I don’t understand your reasoning based on what you said…you are good with using both, but you are critical of others using Mormon…why is it a problem for them if not for you, so I am trying to be very clear on how it comes across, not attack you)

So you knowing their preference is exMormon, are you weaponizing exLDS every time you engage with former LDS? ”Usinglanguage not to communicate, but to score a tactical point.” How are you not doing the same thing? Serious question since you are directly responding to them in what feels like an offensive (as in the opposite of defensive, not insulting) intent. I don’t want to use aggressive as that adds an emotional connotation I don’t think is there. You are being assertive, but more in my view…not just holding your own, but trying to diminish their effect. BTW, the vast majority of former LDS (I am using LDS here to differentiate from other Mormon communities as I don’t have experience with others) do not hang out on sites critical of the Church in my experience. Why do you believe it is important to extrapolate from the minority to the majority?