Game: Ask the Person Below You

[Clopin]

Haha remember when I asked whether you were more susceptible to snake oil or conspiracy theories in this or that? Well I'm easily swayed by both, but especially snake oil so keep that in mind when you read the following.

1. Skin

My skin is incredibly dry, I have chronic eczema which I treat with corticosteroid cream and living in an incredibly dry region doesn't help much. As a kid a recommended remedy for very bad flare ups was bathing with oatmeal and I make use of these potions to treat dry skin on my face (I don't bother moisturizing my body with any special treatments, it would simply take too long);

1. Olive oil/Yogurt or plain olive oil more often
2. Olive oil/sea salt
3. Cooked oatmeal (moisturizer)
4. Dried oatmeal (exfoliant)

2. Hair

I don't use shampoo or commercial conditioner on my hair, but I do make up and apply the following mask up to three times a week, but usually just once:

Egg/olive oil/lemon/salt

3. Hygiene

I also exclusively take showers with 100% cold water and try to cold water swim as much as possible (I think this helps my chakra, like I said, snake oil).

I think that's it, I bite my fingernails off and shave a couple times a week, my method of removing toenails has grossed out a couple girlfriends but I'm going to keep doing it, it is:

Wait until toenails grow long enough to fold back and forth until they become weakened at a joint and then rip them off, OR, bite off the ones you can reach with your mouth.

I brush and floss once a day.

Do you like ladybugs or dragonflies more?

[Pompey Bum]

Well, biting your toenails is pretty gross, but at least you floss.

Should the lion who killed the idiot who rolled her window down at that drive through park in South Africa be "destroyed"?

[Clopin]

No, but it probably will be. That said, I think people make too big a deal about animals, especially bears; animals just aren't as important as people and sometimes they do need to be... "destroyed" (I've also always found that word usage really weird).

If you were a journalist would you volunteer to cover a war zone?

[Pompey Bum]

Absolutely, if I were young, and fit, and serious about my career.

Should "Lyin' Brian" Williams, the NBC anchor who forgot that he hadn't actually been shot down over Iraq, get his position back?

[Clopin]

No.

Should it be a criminal offense for a news organization to knowingly and purposefully falsify information?

[Pompey Bum]

Good for you, Clopin. Lykren said he "refused to care."

Civil charges, if there were damages.

If you were guilty of a felony, would you rather be tried in the US, Canada, or France?

[Clopin]

I'll take my chances in Canada.

Assuming you are twenty years old would you rather go to jail for ten years or lose ten years of your life entirely.

Oh and Lykren doesn't care about anything other than the glorification of his own massive ego! You hear me Lykren? Please come back to wasting time on here if you do.

[Pompey Bum]

You mean get out of prison at 30 or die ten years before I would otherwise have died? Dying early. I don't want to spend my 20s in prison.

And stay where you are, Lykren, and study hard. Come back in the fall and call us names we don't understand in Japanese.

Would you rather lose all memory before today (but be able to make new memories now-- you don't have dementia) or lose both legs at the knees?

[Clopin]

I'll take the loss of legs, my memories are my personality and everything I know about myself.

How do videos like these make you feel, and do you think this type of thing is actually representative of a majority of voters or just heavily cherry picked?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uf7MR0f4XDI

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw8WIia47WE

[Pompey Bum]

The first one repeats the same point over and over and over, which I found kind of insulting to my intelligence (even though I agree with the point). Some of the kids interviewed seemed legit but others seemed like (bad) actors. Also where are the grown ups? As a "campus report" it was, to a degree, inherently cherry picked.

The second one kept showing me its commercial, then throwing me out; but "Hillary has no accomplishments" has been a cpac talking point for some time now, so I assume it's election propaganda, too.

If you hit and killed dog in traffic, would you stop to see if you could find out who the owners were, and then let them know?

[Clopin]

I guess I would have to.

I've noticed that a pretty strong majority of active posters here are religious, do you think there is a connection between people who are interested in literary fiction and people who are religious, if you do then why do you think that is? It only strikes me as noteworthy because off of litnet I don't think I know a single person of any religious orientation.

If that question makes you uncomfortable then how would you feel and what would you do if you had a son, daughter, nephew or some other younger relative who became a total shut in/hikkikimori?

[Pompey Bum]

I've noticed that a pretty strong majority of active posters here are religious, do you think there is a connection between people who are interested in literary fiction and people who are religious, if you do then why do you think thst is? It only strikes me as noteworthy because off of litnet I don't think I know a single person of any religious orientation.

It doesn't make me uncomfortable. I imagine that people who love literature don't have much problem with finding truths to live by in stories with varying degrees of historicity, and that most wouldn't be inclined toward silly (and in my opinion ignorant) "all or nothing" thinking toward the various faiths. LitNet also has little tolerance for bullies, and my experience is that many (though not all) cyber-atheists are little better than that. Probably there are just as many people of faith on other sites, but they are hiding.

If that question makes you uncomfortable then how would you feel and what would you do if you had a son, daughter, nephew or some other younger relative who became a total shut in/hikkikimori

I would tell him or her about LitNet so we could stay on touch.

Have you ever wanted to be a hermit?

[Clopin]

Yes, the general Atheist notion is that religion is eminently silly and ridiculous and that as soon as you're educated enough you will stop believing in it entirely, and I've found that to be very much untrue.

Yes, I have, I get along pretty well alone and I think I could hack it, I wouldn't want to begin to be a hermit for another thirty years at least, however.

To what extent do you think great literature is diluted through translation? I notice that Russian literature is very much esteemed here (and elsewhere) by people who can not read Russian, and I myself love the Russian novels. If the books are made so much worse through translation how do you explain the massive appeal they have for non Russian readers (often much more appeal than novels by English authors like Dickens, George Elliot and Jane Austen)?

[Pompey Bum]

Well, I've said this before, but I made it up, so it's no truism or cliche: reading a translation is like listening to a ballgame on the radio. You can get a really accurate and vivid feel for what's going on, depending on the broadcaster's skill. But to read in the original language is to be at the game. Personally I avoided Russian lit for years because I didn't think it could possibly come up to Dickens or Shakespeare or even Arthur Conan Doyle in English. But in fact--or at least in my opinion--Dostoyevsky surpasses Dickens (and of course Conan Doyle) by far. So does Tolstoy. I have no way of knowing the answer to your question about translations, but it's certainly impossible that the ideas and the underlying humanity of these men does not have quite a lot to do with the way they can touch all readers.

Meet the right girl, Clopin, and you won't want to be a hermit anymore.

If you had a child, would you advise him or her to study science or the humanities (one or the other)?

[Clopin]

A hermit can be married!

I plan on making homeschooling my children the top priority in my life so by the time they're old enough to go to university a humanities education would be totally unnecessary as they will have read about two thousand books by then (this isn't that incredible either, if you spent the six hours a day you're actually inside the classroom from preschool to graduation and spent it reading instead you could easily get through several thousand books). I'm convinced kids can pretty much learn anything through being taught at a young age, John Stuart Mill was taught Greek/Latin and the classics when he was eight or so and Laszlo Polgar trained his three daughters into world class chess players. I would advise science I suppose, though I'm not cut out for it and I wouldn't advise my children to do something which was against their natural inclination.

Should porn stars or former porn stars experience stigma or negative repercussions in their lives or in pursuit of other employment options? Should a pornstar be able to transition into an elementary school teacher, for example?