Octopodial Chrome

Discover magazine has a cool article on bacteria in man. An interesting datum is that for every one of our own cells we have ten bacteria inside ourselves. Assuming that the bacteria weigh the same as other cells (a poor assumption, I know), that means that there’re only about 16 pounds of me that are me—and 164 that are bacteria!

Fascinating to read how some of the bacteria are essential, and others are harmful, and how the whole thing is rather a delicate balance, as killing off the mildly harmful stuff can open the door to the even worse.

Leonard Sax asks what’s happening to boys: more and more are demotivated, staying in their parents’ homes far too late and not achieving much. My thought is that it’s due to the fact that society is increasingly feminine: girls are coddled and supported in their idiosyncrasies, while boys are looked down upon, considered behavioural problems and generally not given a chance to contribute their unique skills. Ours is a post-masculine society—this is not good, but it is. How we resolve this problem is a very great mystery.

All I know is that when the great masculine role models are a bunch of grown men wearing spandex and touching one another’s behinds, we men are in a great deal of trouble…

Jonathan Rauch writes very interestingly on the hazards of polygamy. In short, every man with two wives (and polygyny far outstrips polyandry) is taking a potential wife from some other man, and the societal effects can be quite violent indeed.

It’s an interesting problem: from a sheer rights perspective, surely citizens have the right to contract their private affairs as they like! I think that—as ever—the solution is to eliminate marriage as a legal grant of rights: rather, allow free citizens to contract (or covenant, if that’s your preferred terminology) as they like, and allow anyone to recognise those contracts as he likes—but don’t mandate recognition of any of them.