h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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Being fat doesn't mean that you're weak-willed or self-indulgent, although some overweight people are. Some have eating disorders linked with not getting enough dopamine, some have metabolic disorders. I was overweight for much of my life (mostly because I liked to eat!), and I've experienced the prejudice that large people get. Now that I'm thinner, I still feel unattractive and heavy, even though I'm now at a healthy weight.

I think the basic misperception that we're dealing with here is:
Americans + lazy = fat. The equation is actually: Americans + industrialized society = fat. If you think about it, the only American tourists that Europeans see are the ones with enough money to go to Europe. These guys have lucrative desk jobs and no kids, and a large percentage of them are overweight. There aren't a lot of overweight and wealthy construction workers, gardeners, or farmers.

Having said all that, I am not going to treat an overweight person like they're just anybody. Not for the behavior traits which I assume them to have, but because they're LARGE. This is a fact of life. Chairs will creak under an extremely heavy person. One seat in an airplane will not be enough (heck, one seat isn't really enough for a normally sized person!) Walking long distances is difficult. Extreme heat is a problem. And I'm still angry over a large couple (friends of ours) who managed to break our wooden lounge chairs over a three-day camping trip. (Not only did they not bring their own chairs, they broke ours!)

Well, and that's a good question to pose to the group. If you're noticing that your chair is cracking under another person's weight, what do you do? Politely ignore the fact that they're damaging your chair? I chose to be polite, but I wish now that I had spoken up.

Anyway... (sorry, don't mean to rant) No, we don't need to be prejudiced - against anybody. The only people I'm prejudiced against are prejudiced people... hmmm, where does that leave me?

Lentilla, if it makes you feel better, furniture-friendly thin people, especially men, also have to put up with sizism. Many woman, alas, for the wrong reasons, desire my body (with added bumps).

And think of the prejudice - from women - young guys who go prematurally bald have to endure.

I suggest it is easier to modify a lifestyle that results in obesity than it is to adapt your lifestyle so that your hair grows back.

Now back to the couch

Women want added bumps on your body?

My hubby is prematurely bald - has been since he was sixteen. I've never thought anything of it, but it does bother him. I find him extremely sexy, and this attitude would not change one whit whether he had hair on the top of his head or not. Other guys tend to treat (what he regards as) his affliction with a remarkable lack of sensitivity - kissing the top of his head for luck, etc.

(Going back to the original topic) So I suppose the real root of the question 'Why do we hate foreigners' has more to do with rooted prejudices than any rational reasoning.

Let's make a list of assumptions that we make about people from different nations. These are NOT true - these are prejudices that color our perceptions of people.
(I'm American, so I'll put that down

Americans: loud and arrogant. Classic overindulgers. Believe that any problem can be fixed with enough money.

Any anti-American prejudices I may have are directed at the country and its institutions, not the citizens.

A few examples.

4% of the world's population creating 25% of the world's pollution.

A second-rate judicial system that is geared towards convicting (and often killing) it's poorer citizens.

Spending an obscene amount of money on big-boys toys (the military)while most of its citizens can not obtain decent medical care.

Usurping the United Nations job by appointing itself as the world's policeman. (And being tardy in paying overdue membership fees to the UN).

Promoting itself as a the chief defender of democracy while running a third world electoral system.

Blindly pushing ahead with an outdated missile shield defence system so forcing other nations to waste more money on their own defences.

Promoting globilisation in all sections of trade except agriculture because subsidised American farmers vote.

Pretending to be a democracy while in fact, at the national level, being totalitarian. (Money equals influence)

Restricting immigration from South America while scouring the world for bright people from other countries.

Spying on friendly nations and allies.

Speaking as a bald American who's been follicly-challenged since college, I haven't noticed a lot of prejudice. It may be easier to lose weight than gain hair... but who *needs* hair anyway.

All nations have laws and customs which seem strange to other nations, and all nations work toward their own interests in the end. The USA's simply gotten farther than most.

(signed) Administrator-General 42, who doesn't think this trend will last much longer.

I guess the trend will continue until the countries whose resources America is exploiting run out of oil.

Many people I know compare modern-day America's dependence on oil with ancient Rome's love affair with debauchery.

And we all know what happened to Rome

The great American energy catastrophe is a few years away yet. Most of us still have to sit back and watch the next great war. America v Russia. It will be fought on the pretext that it is anti-American for Russia to refuse to liberate its own massive oil reserves so the American dream can continue polluting the world.

God save Alaska.

America is almost certainly exploiting these countries for their oil, but the countries in question are not giving the oil away. Nations that fifty years ago didn't even have running water now have public schools for their children. Now we're facing oil shortages and rising gas and plastic prices; I'm thinking these prices have been artificially raised so that we'll start thinking about alternatives.

In my opinion, I don't think America will go picking on Russia. Traditionally, Uncle Sam has held back until there's a sure chance of winning, the economy needs boosting, and the opponent in question has a viable economy to destroy. Russia has always been easy to defend - those awful winters! and their economy is sagging like a hammock under a fat man in July. The US's economy could use some boosting, but gearing up for war will use up more petroleum than staying peaceful.

We need to begin producing alcohol burning vehicles. Alcohol won't release carbon into the atmosphere. (they've actually proven that the earth is warming up at a rate that can only be explained by all the extra carbon in the air.) If we shifted our focus away from massive beef production, all the corn that goes to feed cows could be going toward making alcohol instead. And all these farmers that are receiving subsidies could begin growing corn instead. Then we need to start making hemp paper and plastics... but that's another rant!

I saw a report recently that scientists are finding out that the amount of global warming caused by unnatural causes (e.g. combustion engines and our extravagant use of fossil fuels) is chicken feed compared to natural causes and the earth would have heated up eventually anyway. However, I am not saying this is an excuse to carry on raping the planet.

California suffered its second consecutive day of statewide blackouts as consumers ignored pleas for conservation.

You have to smile

I was *wondering* when someone would mention alcohol fuel. There's a popular misconception that alcohol-fueled vehicles are low performance... you know, like those pokey old Formula 1 racers. And the way I understand it, most alcohol fuel today comes not from corn, but *corn cobs*.

I suspect that before the USA invades Russia for its Siberian oil supplies, it'll finally come up with alcohol cars for public use.

Forget alcohol fuel, the next generation of vehicles (electric) will be powered by fuel-cell batteries.

A lot of American-funded research is being carried out by brilliant scientists whose parents weren't born in America.

To pick up on something TC mentioned earlier

"...compared to natural causes and the earth would have heated up eventually anyway"

Could easily read

"...compared to natural causes such as a series of eruptions from so-called dormant volcanoes and the earth will cool down eventually anyway"

It's happened before in the natural world. Trendy grant-seeking clowns scaremongering about global-warming and its effect on melting the polar icecaps so leading to rising ocean levels are a blot on the world of real science.

Trust me, I live near a beach.

There are lots of brilliant minds working on the fuel-cell electric cars, and yes, many of them came to America twenty years ago rather than two hundred - does it matter? Everybody in America came from somewhere else - except for the native Americans, and those guys migrated over on the land bridge who knows how long ago.

I have to wonder about the global warming thing. For a few years, I was of the opinion that this was a natural warming of the earth - after all, we are coming out of an ice age. But I saw a Nova episode recently; through the use of ice cores from Antarctica, they've managed to create a more reliable global record of temperature. Evidently average temperatures in the last hundred years are rising alarmingly - more than would be caused by the exit from an ice age. Also, the amount of carbons in the ice are unnaturally high - due to our burning of petroleum products.

But all the 'trendy grant-seeking clowns' are doing everybody else a disservice. According to global record, we are going to have rising ocean levels as the earth warms up from the last ice age - at least until Texas and Oklahoma are under water. Then the earth will cool down, the water will recede, etc. und so weiter. So we're scaring people unnecessarily; it's mostly the media's fault. They need more stuff to talk about.

So watch out, Loony - you may have the ocean lapping at your front door in the next three thousand years or so. You still have plenty of time to enjoy the view, I think.

What I'm wondering is if anybody's considered alcohol-burning generators to power electric cars... Seems like the next logical step to me.

hi, AG! Yeah, as I understand it, alcohol is actually a much higher octane than gasoline. The problem that car engineers are having is that a metal engine block won't stand up to the heat and speed that an alcohol engine will run at. I think they need to be looking at ferro-ceramics, but what do I know!

And yes, for some reason, the US is working on fuel-cell automobiles. I think we'd be much better with a... what do you call it... reorganization or retooling of our farm and machine industries. Give all those farmers something to do besides grow weeds. Right now, the most recent innovation is a car with a gasoline generator that powers a fuel cell. I presume it's more efficient than burning the gas to run the engine.

One thing I don't understand about electric vehicles is: how are they going to save any energy? Electricity is not a fuel *source*, it's a fuel *pipeline*. All the electicity to power our cars will still have to come from *somewhere*.

All those American scientists whose parents weren't born in America... are still American. So are their parents, as far as I'm concerned.

By chasing the "riches" to be found in polluted America the parents raised the IQ level in both the country they left and the one they moved to.

Yeah, I'm sure Germany was really glad to be rid of Einstein - phew, who needs the theory of relativity anyway?

Einstein's father, Hermann Einstein, never moved to America