Down here at the pawn shop

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by glatt

(FYI, OXO makes one of the best kitchen scales. The display is removable on a wire that pulls out, so if you put a big bowl on the scale you can pull the display out to read it. On most other scales, a large bowl will cover the display, blocking your view of it.)

Yes! This is the model we have. I use it everyday, but obviously I'm unusual. It's only accurate in 1 gram increments though; now I feel inadequate compared to the drug dealers.

[footfootfoot]

OXO is completely dead to me.

[Undertoad]

From today's clientele I feel that most north Philly people are Niners fans. We have a lot of males this morning who are downright angry and, as usual, with no justification.

A gentleman insisted that his tiny ring should be pawned for more than $10. He insisted that he bought it here. We give much more pawn value to jewelry bought in the store but we suspected that his jewelry was not.

We told him we would give one-third of his purchase if he could produce a receipt. He went directly home and searched for it, and returned with a receipt from Littman Jewelers. This is a large nationwide chain with 350 stores. It is, however, not us.

Please if you understand anything about what I write... it's that many of these people are just stone-dead stupid. They were raised in shit, went to school in shit if at all, and they continue to live in shit because it's all they know.

Now this guy swore up and down that he paid $135 for this ring and also that someone here said they would pawn it for $30, which is not what we do. Either we pawn for the weight of the gold, or we pawn 1/3rd of the purchase value. Therefore nobody from here ever could have told him that he could get $30.

He insisted on having a long, annoying argument about it. But discussing the issue with these people is useless. He truly believed that his Littman receipt would bear some meaning at the pawn shop. No amount of reason would convince him otherwise.

[footfootfoot]

Who the fuck buys jewelry at a jewelry store anyway? 900% mark up.

[Griff]

Um.. guys that use pawn shops.

[ZenGum]

Who the fuck...

... stone-dead stupid.

Pay attention, Footsie.


Between the belligerence, stupidity, and greed, I really would find that job crushing. Good luck with withstanding it until you can find something better.

[jimhelm]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Please if you understand anything about what I write... it's that many of these people are just stone-dead stupid. They were raised in shit, went to school in shit if at all, and they continue to live in shit because it's all they know.

It's reverse natural selection. Their parents were stupid. and so were their parents. too stupid to work their way out of the ghetto. so they stayed and married .... well... mated with ... other stupids, and made stupid babies....and neglected them into ignorance on top of their stupidity.

That sounds really harsh... but it is probably fairly accurate in many of the Family Trees in any ghetto that's existed for more than 100 years.



So, Tony... I need a powered Subwoofer. My receiver is the Sony 7.1 5 hdmi



you got anything that might suit?

[Undertoad]

No subwoofers. We have some 7.1 receivers, some complete surround systems (Sony, 5.1 speakers and Blu-Ray, $249 amazing deal), but right now there are no individual speakers or subwoofers.

[Undertoad]

reverse natural selection

You cause me to go deep here, I have considered the question very carefully, and I believe that what we are seeing is culture in operation, over many generations.

As in "Trading Places", I now believe that upbringing is 99%, genetics 1% in determining our intelligence.

(It may go further than that: what we believe intelligence is, and what importance we place on it, is mostly cultural.)

What WE are is informed by what our culture taught us. We have no idea how big the impact of our culture is. But consider that all first-world drama is informed by Shakespeare, who worked from late 1500s - early 1600s.

Culture is so critical to who we are. We don't want to believe it. We try to deny it. But if there is a unifying "force" a la Star Wars, it's culture, which goes so far as to inform us what musical scale sounds "right" to our ears.

Culture tells us how often to wash our hands, whether we value hard work, whether we value education, what importance we place on charity, what importance we place on raising children.

All humans are identical, genetically. Race is an expression of as little as 25,000 years spent developing separately. But in the 100,000 years we have been wandering the earth, no group of us spent enough time apart to develop into a different species. We all have roughly the same capacity for intelligence. When an African is raised in western culture s/he seems western, identical to the rest of us, save for the racial characteristics.

What confuses us is that we don't see how valuable our cultural background is. We don't realize that our cultural differences develop in the same way as genetics... slowly, over many generations. What if, instead of Shakespeare, we had three centuries of slavery?

Our cultural differences APPEAR to be genetic, because they happen over so many generations of time that we can't see where the changes happened.

[glatt]

And what do Tiger moms think of us? Are we belly scratching slackers?

[Aliantha]

Well, I have to say that my oldest boy Aden is so much like his father in so many ways. Not just physically. Emotionally, and psychologically as well. I see so many of his fathers traits in his behaviours, and he's barely been influenced by his father. Mav is much more 'Australian' in his behaviours and psychology, so, more like my side of the tree, genetically speaking.

I'd always been a proponent for nurture, but now I'm reconsidering the nature side of things purely because there's really no other explanation for it.

[ZenGum]

There is a concept about of the "third helix", which is culture.
Just because it isn't genetic, or in the DNA, doesn't mean it isn't inherited. Language, religion, general attitude, daily behaviour of role models are all examples.

[Aliantha]

But doesn't that come under nurture? Or am I missing something?

[ZenGum]

Yeah, I was more engaging with UT's post.

I think nature is a bit more than 1% ... it would even vary from individual to individual. As in, one kid has lots of mental flexibility, so nurture = 99%. Some other kid, malformed brain lobe, never develops empathy, ends up sociopathic: nature = 99%.

I could only suggest Aden had more imprinting from his dad (or other sources of that type) than you realise.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

What confuses us is that we don't see how valuable our cultural background is. We don't realize that our cultural differences develop in the same way as genetics... slowly, over many generations. What if, instead of Shakespeare, we had three centuries of slavery?

Our cultural differences APPEAR to be genetic, because they happen over so many generations of time that we can't see where the changes happened.

Beautifully put, UT.