No we were discussing the specific argument about science removing sensawundah. Instead you're talking about it reducing meaningfulness in human life, which is a much bigger concept and generally rooted more in the nature of "good" than daily experience of awe.

Oh I love it when college kids try to tell me how business works. Even more hilarious when said students decide that they've come up with some easy plan to do what hundred million dollar industries of very bright people were just too darn stupid to figure out on their own.

You're just saying that people who don't like to think don't like to think.

True. I remember there was one psych study done on people who were handicapped or maimed in accidents. They found that long term tendencies towards optimism, happiness, or depression didn't really change by their circumstances. People who were naturally happy before they ended up in a wheelchair were pretty happy and…

They day doesn't get any more or less beautiful as a result of how it was made. So no, you're still not making the same point.

"Religious folk often complain that science has taken all the awe and wonder out of the human experience."

Most people work behind a desk. What kind of sweating is an executive assistant going to do at work?

Only because Western Europeans insist it should be so. Every other culture has beautiful, comfortable, and colorful attire with a variety of cuts and ornamentation. Even Europe used to. And then we decided all jackets should be shades of black/brown/gray and everything has to look just so.

I imagine lots of women would love to be able to wear tasteful business attire to the office on Friday morning and then morph the outfit into a cocktail dress to go to happy-hour.

I'm sure you'll have a great time hiring top-level talent by giving them the promise of living in Idaho.

Bullshit. The only times there is outcry is when it's written in a tone-deaf way by an oblivious author. There are plenty of flawed minority characters on TV. Harold and Kumar were fucking potheads. Hillary Banks was vain. Carlton was a dweeb. Samuel L. Jackson is the stereotype of an Angry Black Man.

"I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of what women sociologists do gets side-lined as "Women's Studies" instead of sociology, just because the contents are about women."

"it's the nature of competition."

When you put WHO in all caps my first reaction was "Huh? Why is the World Health Organization facebook stalking people?"

I might have misstated. I meant that we had a lot of servants' kids around because my mother got bored and decided to tutor them all. But they're mostly live-in servants who do household chores. Your typical middle class family will have, at minimum, a maid. They'll probably also have an errand boy and a driver.…

Hired help is fairly common. My mom used to take their kids (and the children from the neighbors') and try to teach them how to read and basic math and such since their parents couldn't send them to school.

All this time I thought I had gone through high school as a virgin. Turns out I was a wanton man-whore all along!

That's also possible. We did end up living in one of those big exurbs where you need a car to get anywhere and you're at least an acre away from your nearest neighbor. It pretty much kills any sense of community you might have.

Interesting. Do you think that type of upbringing drove the anxiety or was it the abrupt transition from one to the other?

Having grown up in India until I was 6 I think it's interesting how different dynamics are between children here.