You raise a good point. The consistency of California's weather reminds me a bit of the movie Groundhog Day. Seasonal changes are so subtle that it is easy to forget that years have gone by...
Thanks, but I guess I just don't understand how this concept - negative rights are things that the state shouldn't take away from you - fits the concept of a "negative" right given here [0]. Following that definition, negative rights require that some actions are not allowed - the government/state (i.e, society?) takes these actions away.
> Many Texans conceptualize government and state uses of force (ie prosecution that can lead to imprisonment) as restrictions on their rights. This "negative rights" conceptualization is pretty common in the US, but especially common in Texas
So, the government/state has guaranteed a negative right to life, i.e. citizens are prohibited from actions that deprive someone's right to life, and in order to enforce this prohibition, citizens are deprived of their right to arbitrarily commit violence to each other, while the government/state has a monopoly.
Where does our right to arbitrarily commit violence come from? Is it just a "natural right"?
I have a similar story; undergrad at a public state school and grad at a private Ivy. My experience at the Ivy was eye-openi. The loudest [1] Ivy undergrads came from private elementary/high schools and had a very dismissive view of the students who matriculated from public elementary/high schools. Academic breaks were used for luxury travel.
[1] "loudest" in the sense that they made sure that other students knew where they came from.
Perhaps people experience cognitive dissonance when reconciling the things that you mentioned with beliefs about reincarnation?
I am relying on a rather common and uninformed understanding of Buddhism here, so I may be way off base.
EDIT:
I had to look it up, but I guess European culture has contained some sort of belief in reincarnation (Plato's Republic, Book X / Myth of Er). I don't suppose this belief has much traction anymore, despite the strong influence of Plato (or Greek philosophy in general) on Christianity.
My experience mirrors what is described in the article, but only with people from Europe. Non-native English speakers from Europe look down on Americans, in a sort of "gate-keeping" manner where Europeans "own" the language. They have a better grasp of the "precise and elaborate formal English" and do not hesitate to correct Americans and tell them they don't understand grammar and are uneducated. (I'm inclined to agree with them.)
My experience speaking with non-native speakers from Asia, India, and Central & South America has been different. Maybe we are more willing to accept that there is a language barrier, but no one "owns" it.
And, like the article says, trying to use a culturally relevant idiom is a futile task.
I can understand the belief that Eastern Orthodoxy is more of a "trunk" than more recent "branches", but what about core ideas that predate Jesus? e.g. the immortality of the soul was reasoned by Plato (Republic, circa 350BC); heaven and hell have been portrayed by Virgil (Aeneid, circa 19BC). Aren't these the "trunk", and the Hebrew Bible and Jesus another branch?
Power plants are also more efficient than cars/lawnmowers/etc. e.g. a combined cycle power plant can be ~64% [1], compared to ~40% for car engines [2].
Did you mean to write the reverse? i.e the ratio of the surface area to volume decreases the larger you make a container.