He didn't actually take wives - meaning support them. What he did was more effective. He would go to bed with high-status women where-ever he conquered.

the footnote hyperlinks here don't seem to work. It does not take me to the reference.

this seems rather muddled in fact. I do not clearly see a relation between 'doing, being, & knowing' & the definitions of the 3 lights described.

Unfortunately the author assumes that simply stating it is socialized medicine is sufficient evidence of this trend being bad, instead of analyzing the issue in any depth.

A commentary that appears partial & politicised here. It's much more accurate (not only politically correct) to note how lobbyists with little educational research knowledge have pushed for whole-language education despite lack of scientific evidence. However, there are also nuances in this case... The ideology that informs specialized policy is worrying, of course. If this was what was stated in the book, it's revealing either of the author's own position, or a less politically correct inclination in French writing style.

Another example of cultural differences. In English this aside appears both irrelevant & irreverent, whilst in Korean it gives a point of interest to the reader.

note the cultural difference - a phrase that would be mortifying in English is considered approachable & humorous in Korean.

he might be on to something, given how low-functioning autistic savants demonstrate remarkable number abilities (most notably twins reported by Oliver Sacks, who lost this ability after being separated & trained for greater functional independence https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/oliver-sacks-and-the-amazing-twins ), or those who acquire savant abilities through brain injury (called "Island of Genius".

More an interest of philosophers than psychiatrists.

also see Bayne ea's 2020 work Are there Islands of Awareness? https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tins.2019.11.003

This is a roughly worded statement indeed - but I can see it as a way that people may talk. They are expressing concern & care - just not in so many words. It is possible more words were said - but from the angle of most children, often only parts of adult conversation would be taken note of.

also, calling him "old man" was a colloquial way people would call someone's father, they did not literally mean a person is old.

I saw this as the father's maladaptive grieving behavior. It did not reflect on the rest of the community as drunks though! Just this father.

I personally didn't read it as Natasha being seen as a feared voodoo person - rather I did see it as respect. It gave me the impression that Natasha was a forceful, no-nonsense woman who became an unofficial community leader due to the way she interacted with others. & sometimes this means children can indeed say they are a little afraid of someone.

I see this, interestingly, as how the figure of adulthood has become simplified in modern narrative. In Western culture today, an adult in a story who isn't always kind & solicitous would have to be seen as abusive... whereas in many cultures, including Western culture in the past (see for example Tom Sawyer & Anne of Green Gables), adults could be more complicated. Setting limits on others could be a harsh scolding. We all know that a completely rational, loving approach to discipline takes much more time and involvement - which is not a luxury most human societies had in their daily lives when it came to curbing the more destructive tendencies of their fellow community members. Throughout history, communities have had to police themselves in many different ways in order to maintain quality of life, not to mention survive.

In this story it appears to me that Natasha's husband was less perceptive to helping people by setting limits, as he took the children's father out to drink, when he knew that the father had a drinking a problem & was trying to be sober. And you could also see that Natasha was still respectful towards her husband enough that she did not impose her opinion of this on him - & the effect was that 1 person died, & his 2 children very nearly did.

It's a good point here that this writing can be interpreted as people drinking alcohol!

I wasn't thinking about it either way when I first read it, but I can see it interpreted both ways, so it is written a bit ambiguously. I can understand that this was written 'from a child's perspective' & thus would be more of a generalized impression, rather than being accurate or specific. I can definitely get the sense that the child felt as if the adults didn't care so much...

In fact, I got that impression myself as a child attending a grandparents' traditional funeral in rural Taiwan. Now I see it as what happens when traditional rituals are still upheld, but performed by a generation of adults who are a bit removed from the cultural context (having been somewhat "modernized"). So we see towers of fruits & canned foods wrapped in plastic & gaudy plastic ribbons, we see adults who are uncomfortable talking about emotions (though this is probably accurate throughout generations - people in many old cultures were generally more taciturn & pragmatic in their communication than people today) & in a performative setting (a ceremony with a lot of people attending, crowded & busy & full of music & incense & decor...etc) where they are also trying to be comfortable... in a time when funerals happen relatively infrequently as well...

I appreciate the reviewer bringing up the point that drinking alcohol in the community hall was never allowed. This info would be something useful to include in a reading guide for the book.

would this have been the practice back then? or was it a practice among some families?

Because these were people who were living in more settled lives, with western amenities, I saw this as a time period where the culture was changing & a lot of the things that used to be done were not being continued or passed down necessarily. It would be interesting to see if the homemade casket was more universal.

Moreover, a word can be adopted differently by peoples whose native language was not English, & then evolve later on - the difference between a casket & a coffin, for example, is not so clear to me as a non-native English speaker. This would be interesting to see how the English introduced to this region has evolved ... I would imagine generations of children quickly become more literate in English, with greater diversity of vocabulary that matches that of the English speaking areas of the country as more resources become available.

this told me that the father was more sensitive to crowds.

It's not a nice message indeed if it were interpreted that way. But from understanding the diversities of families & individuals I thought it was a valuable example. In this same family in the book, the grandparents were mentioned as very supportive of the children going to school. It's quite useful for children to see how adults can be different & have their individual, sometimes complicated & unoptimized motivations.

I do find this a bit odd.

I felt the same way - I felt mentally sexless. I did feel annoyed in situations where my sex seemed to be a barrier towards forming an intellectual friendship with a guy because it was assumed that it couldn't simply be a friendship given how feminine I appeared. It is still sometimes difficult today to form friendships with interesting men who have a partner - they seem cautious of it posing a risk. I am not sure if I should be glad of the day when I am aged beyond suspicion.

There were no other forces at play for me to be inclined to become a boy, however. Perhaps I simply was very comfortably a girl, biologically & mentally. Perhaps this is why, despite feeling mentally sexless, I was not otherwise discouraged from going on as I was.

Whether the persuasion might be stronger in someone who has much less happiness in life I cannot say. I don't think people enjoy going out of their way to stand out though? I am utterly confused now - is going trans the new 'blending in'? Somehow I doubt it.

the skepticism position can be a gateway to mistrusting many things that are beyond one's comprehension... a default mode to refuse to accept that there are some things one cannot understand, or need a firm conviction upon, can be counter to the sense of wonder & awe... such peaceful acceptance & awe that may enhance our living from the ever-looming terror of death.

Thus far in the article conceiving or finding a sperm donor has not been the main problem - the main problem being financial. So the example given here is sloppy. In fact IVF offers in Denmark are just the cherry on top of a strong social welfare system. So there are more pertinent policy examples from Denmark to point to.

this statement is a bit floating out there - not supported or built up to. Why would working out a partnership be more difficult inside a marriage? Seems more like a personal opinion.

this statement stands alone as thus far argument has not built up to this properly with statistics - expanding the statement to refer mainly to white men is a bit of a jump at this point in the argument. Could have not included the word "white" - there are still many non-white married couples who benefit. Just one word weakened the argument by making assumption of the reader's allegiance to a "common sense".

argument thus far builds up to this statement.

just like scientific research, creating multiple hypotheses allows for more possibility testing & less biased identification with falling in love with your own work - as there are several which to work on.

this is very different from what we generally view as the necessity of comments being constructive - that they propose an alternative. However, the problem with this is that people might have good taste, but not the actual expertise to do things.

Taste is another criteria. Collective wisdom of the crowds is a misconception - there will be many opinions, only some are closer to reality. Most people are not actually aware of their own motivations, nor the weigh of them in the scheme of things... and this biases the validity of their judgement.

collective ownership. No scapegoats & sideliners.

sounds frustrating, unless one realizes that it costs more to invest in a product where reworking may be more expensive, & where failure-possibility is not sufficiently accounted for.

succinctness as a means.

makes it cheaper for us ultimately to not have a wasteful process with a lot of change-orders for developers.

here it may be useful to look towards current research on aging of ASD individuals for compensating development in adulthood.