Recent content by Mookowicz

Many men are predisposed to like the sound of women, the sight of women and the smell of women. Our behaviour changes if we know that there's a woman in the room. But on an intellectual basis, women think differently and the differences can be challenging, stimulating and refreshing. My gay...

I thought it worthwhile to offer some context. The medical term for a miscarriage after 6 weeks is clinical spontaneous abortion, though the popular term "miscarriage" makes it sound like the mother was somehow at fault for "failing to carry" the pregnancy. The rate for spontaneous abortions...

She's not talking to you because she thinks you're worthless. Perhaps you were an ass, but now she is. Move on. We can tick people off for decades before we learn that our favourite strengths are also our worst weaknesses. (E.g. Why do you need to listen to other folks' woes? Are you good at...

Shared houses work by compromise. There are a few compromises you might agree on: 1) You have the right to offer hospitality to your friends, just as I have the right to enjoy my place of residence without being offended by them. Therefore... 2) Please don't invite her over unless I'm out; 3)...

I understand that to be a "nice guy" is to be agreeable, which is to do and say things that another person wants. That's an "ingratiate myself and don't offend" tactic, and I'll come back to that later. The bit I don't get is "finish last". It seems to assume that there's a race to a fixed...

Yes, perhaps hence 'soothsayer' as I first mentioned (before the 14th century, a soothsayer was just 'one who tells the truth'). But by around 890CE, the word had already taken on the 'sorceress' meaning. The Laws of Aelfred [http://www.dr-fnlee.org/docs6/alfred/alfred.pdf] (Alfred the Great) of...

"Witch" comes from the Old English word wicce "female magician, sorceress", the feminine of wicca, "sorcerer, magician", and derived from wiccian meaning "to practice magic", but there's linguistic evidence that this general word may have meant specific skills earlier, possibly including...

I don't believe we can answer this question with a mere 'yes' or 'no', because it asks about both metaphysics and self-hood. We have to think about whether the physical world itself is preprogrammed (and how would we know?) Then we have to decide what 'self' is, if it's not just a system within...

The Star Wars and ME franchises are both space opera: larger than life characters having adventures in space. The narrative problem (if you want to call it a problem) is really that space opera tends to deliver adventure, not drama. That's a genre artefact and not a problem of execution --...

Many heads of state don't have to do very much to hold their largely ceremonial positions, but Elizabeth Windsor is a remarkable example. Born into the Great Depression, thrown into the spotlight of WWII in her teens when her radio messages did much to bolster the morale of a Britain facing...

Thank you for your kind words and I know you got my gist, but with your indulgence I'd like to rephrase your paraphrase below... Killing may be okay, but I think we don't inherit the moral authority to do it just because of who we are or what has happened to us. When someone asks "Why did...

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That wasn't quite what I meant. Conceptions may be planned, but lives largely aren't. Especially, we don't get to plan many of the circumstances that substantially influence our later behaviours -- our genetics, temperaments, social circumstances, milieu, education, family and childhood...

Our births are random, the right to life is not earned, so "You deserve to die" is meaningless. A death may be convenient, expedient, practical, satisfactory or exemplary, but that doesn't mean it's deserved. Why do we say it then? Often, "You deserve to die" is a dispassionate code for...

8,000+ years of social development since the agricultural revolution, on top of 200,000 years of species evolution. It's a feat unique in the history of the earth. Humanity doesn't exist to please the ideals of individuals, but it's done a damn fine job of developing itself. If you don't have...