The first woman to finish the Boston Marathon in 1967 has run it again at age 70
washingtonpost.com
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What things today are we going to be deeply embarrassed about 50 years from now? I have a few guesses:
- Our abysmal stewardship of the environment
- Mass incarceration
- The death penalty
- Domestic surveillance
- Police militarization and lack of accountability
- The drug war
- Transgender oppression (e.g. NC bathroom bill)
- The travel ban
- That we elected a president who bragged about grabbing unknown women by their genitals
If we can get lab-grown meat below the cost and/or of improved taste to dead animal meat, it's likely to do very well and open people up more to the moral argument which will cement it. Right now it fails miserably on both fronts.
And I'm sure there will be pushback from the "organic"/"all natural" what-have-you crowd which exists now about how lab grown meat has evil chemicals or some equally silly thing.
Not trying to criticize, it's how humans have existed for thousands of years — I'm just genuinely curious what a realistic "oh wait, I'm going to not do this" point is for people who eat meat.
Just to be clear in my case as I originally responded: There is a distinction between killing animals to feed oneself and outsourcing the killing to a farm which causes those animals to spend their entire life suffering (e.g., chickens confined to a small cage). That is not how humans existed for thousands of years.
If you're not willing to look the animal in the eyes and kill it, you shouldn't be eating it. I'll go one further and say if you haven't actually butchered a cow or chicken, you shouldn't be eating that meat. (I'll say the same about pork, bison, ostrich, snake, rabbit, sheep, etc... too but those are less common)
I grew up on a farm/ranch, I've looked cows in the eyes that I fed daily to fatten them up just for this purpose. I genuinely don't care about it, its a part of life. So for myself that point probably doesn't exist.
You can look at it in two ways philosophically, one, which seems predominant on this forum is that any human inflicted "suffering" is wrong and should be avoided.
One other view, which I think most cattle producers would think philosophically, is that you brought into the world more animals than if you didn't exist. Note, I'm just ignoring feed lots here as that isn't what I grew up around, nor does anyone I know support them.
Presupposing however that only the former viewpoint regarding suffering is correct is a bit of criticism however. Additionally, if you've ever watched how most predators take down prey, humans are vastly more humane about it.
I'd rather we separate out the feedlot question from the actual killing question. The former is an economic issue, the latter I think of in many ways as the Lakota did.
Oh come on. Many jobs are miserable and dangerous. I've been 20 feet away from a pig as the guts were removed, and that was more than enough odor. (the pig was full of shit)
I don't have a problem with the "look the animal in the eyes" thing though. Animals are just food. I butchered a duck. That didn't smell much, but I was a bit worried about being bitten by external parasites. A cow though... if that thing falls off the crane/hoist/lift thing it'll squish you to death. This isn't some wimpy emotion thing. Squish! Oh, and probably lots of ticks, and prior to death it may kick you or gore you. Cattle are not to be messed with unless you have special training and equipment.
The reason for actually having done it is to understand the reality of where food comes from, not to try to instill a view that everyone must do everything themselves to be able to use anything in the world.
That works just as well for restaurants.
But I can imagine life in coastal areas where fish is the only option.
For those who kill the animals they eat, do you ever feel attached to it? I can't imagine killing my dog for food. It's like cannibalizing my child.
Industrial farming is about as humane as any other method for killing I've seen/practiced.
People argue that hunting keeps one more connected with the concept of meat as quarry, but the end result is the same. I shot a scimitar oryx through the heart a few years ago (before the ban) and it still ran 100 yards before it dropped. I'm pretty sure stun guns and captive bolt pistols remove the concept of pain faster.
Your oryx was able to run.
These moral/ethical lines are completely arbitrary.
Just because it is difficult and subjective to know what suffers doesn't mean we shouldn't think about it.
Edit: downvote welcome. I have lots of fake internet points to spare. I'm not going to dignify a subjective, semantic argument with anything more. Fuck, "meh" is more than 99% of HN comments deserve.
Moar Edit: Heil Trump!
Most of our metabolism is tailored towards fruit. That doesn't mean it has issues with meat: it'll deal quite well.
But anatomic capability and morality are totally unrelated. My body is well-designed to rape women, but I won't use that as an argument to do so either.
In the future what we will find horrifying is that we waited for this excuse, as if without a meat replacement the preceding abuse was justified.
I have several direct and extended family members that still think Jane Fonda should be publicly executed for treason, think the civil rights act and equal rights amendments were communist plots, and that Richard Nixon was the victim of an impeccably well executed Democratic Party plot to frame him. Amazingly, despite not being alive for any of it and despite the absurdity of the claims, some of their children have the same views. It took several centuries for western nations to realize slavery was bad, but an additional century after that to realize that institutionalized racism was bad enough to publicly address with laws, and we still aren't out of doing it in more nefarious underhanded ways. Running in a marathon was low hanging fruit and got lucky with timing. The rest of your list is going to take a few hundred years before we really feel that way as a unified society.
This woman set out to prove she could run marathons. Her ability to finish was visceral proof that at least some women can run marathons. The guy that tried to push here provided additional fodder to make it look idiotic to refuse them to try to run.
In comparison, many of the others things are not something you can see is wrong with your own two eyes, and can see repeated anytime you care.
It's harder to see for yourself that one race isn't better than another, especially not when you're looking at things with a biased starting point. Even when you meet nice/smart/law-abiding people of another race, you can write it off as "but not you - you're different" and hold on to the stereotypes. It takes many more examples to overcome for someone who has first gotten convinced by the stereotypes.
A woman running a marathon on the other hand, is such a simple thing to show, and it takes very few repetitions, that can be delivered in a very short amount of time, to prove that it's not a fluke or a single abnormal person. You might write it off as fake if you read about it, but not if you see a marathon go by or hear about female friends running one. And once it's happened a few times it sounds remarkable unremarkable.
But unfortunately that means a whole lot of issues are likely going to take a very long time to resolve because they are not nearly as easy to demonstrate.
Right now our only tool is a hammer...
* listening to animal rights advocates
* not incarcerating more
* not using the death penalty even for minor violations
* not forcing everybody to have a cam in their bedroom (of course, strictly for access by security forces)
etc...
The only thing standing between your and my vision of the future is how we act - not our wishful thinking how things should turn out.
The world will be inherited by the people who show up - Amish, evangelicals, conservative Muslims, orthodox Jews, etc.
So you may be right about the 50 year time-span, but looking onto the 100+ year span, your list of issues should likely look more like:
-Public blasphemy
-Public acceptance of homosexuality
-Lack of God in government
-Allowance of abortion
etc.
Just because things have gone one way for a while doesn't mean they'll keep going that way. For better or for worse.
This isn't supported by basically any demographic trend.
If being overwhelmed by demographics with higher birth rates was something that could actually happen, it already would have happened, and low-birthrate populations never would have occurred in the first place.
Any time PC culture and white privilege and social justice warriors I can't help but feel sad that we almost seem to be moving backwards while many groups are still fighting for equality as if at some point (unbeknownst to any minority) we achieved total equality and now its the majority that is being discriminated against.
But what says they have to continue just because they've been going on for centuries? What if this is the peak?
How often do you look back in shame at people who did not use a cell phone in the 1960s? The answer is you don't. You understand that cell phones didn't exist back then and are glad technology has improved.
(and I say this as someone who eats meat, and doesn't have any particular ethical problem with doing so.)
This is an extremely simplistic view that ignores millennia of men being injured or killed for the sake of women. How many lifeboats have been recovered packed with women and children and not a single grown man? Was all that done out of hatred? If we really want to be simplistic, let's look at history and sum it up that women are indifferent toward the safety of men. That's about equally accurate.
I think that could swing two ways. I can envision (but don't look forward to) a world where people wonder how we ever allowed thiefs to have a long career or murderers to kill a second time. If you RFID tag every expensive object and every human at birth (multiple times, if needed), add plenty of cameras that use face recognition to verify that tags don't move around, and implant a couple of remotely read sensors for bodily functions, it would become a lot easier to solve crimes (yes, people still could game the system, for example by committing suicide while in the company of someone they hate, but that would be rare)
- Meat eating
These two for sure.
I think, or at least hope, the usage of the death penalty will increase. Some people definitely can't be rehabilitated, and life imprisonment is an inhumane and cruel punishment.
Of a few of those, I dare say the majority is embarrassed about. Especially from outside the US.
Technically Switzer was not the first woman to run the marathon, Bobbi Gibb finished the year before but wasn't an official participant because they had denied her application for a bib.
He had been in the long-time habit of physically attacking those he perceived to be "non serious" runners competing in the race, whether officially entered or running the course unofficially. In a 1968 interview with Sports Illustrated, he called them "These screwballs! These weirdies! These MIT boys! These Tufts characters! These Harvard guys!" According to fellow race official Will Cloney: "He hurls not only his body at them, but also a rather choice array of epithets... Jock's method of attack is apt to vary." In 1957, Semple had narrowly escaped arrest for assault after attempting to tackle a runner in swim fins and a snorkeling mask
But seems to have come around eventually:
Later in life, Semple reversed his position on women competing in the marathon. According to Marja Bakker (a later organizer of the race), "Once the rule was adjusted and women were allowed in the race, Jock was one of their staunchest supporters. He was very progressive."[7] Semple later publicly reconciled with Switzer
At least, that's the explanation I heard from Bobbi Gibb on Sunday.
All I can think of is 1. Verified distance
Runner No. 261 had violated the sacred code of the institution that was his baby. She deserved to be punished – and if Cloney couldn’t do the job, then Jock Semple would. “This wasn’t just about me being a girl,” Switzer said. “Jock probably would have left me alone if I was just running along like Bobbi. It was the number that got him. I had made him look like a fool.”
These days U.S. road races are run under the rules of U.S.A Track and Field (USATF) which is an affiliate of the IAAF. The rules only really matter though if the course is to be record eligible. Many of your local 5K/10K charity runs may not be certified.
Regarding Boston, to run it one first has to complete a marathon in a qualifying time on a course that is certified by the USATF/IAAF. This basically means the course is correclty measured for distance, has a certification number, and follows the USATF/IAAF rules. Here's the certification procedure:
http://www.usatf.org/Products-/-Services/Course-Certificatio...
Interstingly, the Boston Marathon is not eligible for setting world records since its net downhill is greater than the allowable amount.
In my opinion the more interesting picture(s) are of the 70yo K.S. herself.
We live in an extremely sedentary culture where obesity has become normalized and it is jarring to see what people of (relatively) advanced age actually look like.
What are we doing so the next generation can say the same?
If we aim for total indiscrimination, shouldn't we just have a single category, let anyone run as long as they don't have any unfair external advantage and just give prizes and recognition to the first places?
EDIT: I find it funny that some people got worked out for me writing it "out loud" the truth that positive gender discrimination in favour of one gender is also actually gender discrimination against other gender.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultramarathon#IAU_World_Best_P...
Also; sports are constructed by individuals, not society. Society has no agency and no cognition. It is a leaky abstraction mainly used by poor thinkers to make incorrect rhetorical points. It doesn't actually "do" anything absent individual human action.
No reasonable person is claiming that men and women have the same athletic abilities. That doesn't mean women shouldn't be allowed to run.
Events have different age groups as we recognize children, teens, adults, and mature adults have different physical capabilities. Should we get rid of age groups?
Many sports have weight classes as we recognize that a 150LB fighter is most likely at a disadvantage compared to a 260LB fighter. Should we get rid of weight classes?
There are plenty more examples available and are no different than having different events for men vs women.
In fact, I don't think there is a single professional sport where women would even finish in the top 10 when competing against male opponents.
In the same vein, most sports have recreational, amateur, professional, and masters (older people) competitions, because there are undeniable physical differences between the old and the young. It doesn't have anything to do with ageism or discrimination. I mean, I can off-the-couch trounce any octogenarian in (probably?) any sport - pitting the two of us against one another is not really a competition, or fun, for either one of us.
Let me explain: If I divide a competition between 100 men and 100 women instead of the 200 best humans and then give prizes to the 3 best men and 3 best women instead of the 6 best humans, I'm actually denying place to 100 men and denying 3 men a prize just because of their gender (assuming as true your predicate that men timings are clearly superior to woman).
Isn't it funny how this is not gender based discrimination?
From watching the race along the road yesterday, there were no elite men who caught the main pack of women (though a few straggling women did fall back into the elite male pack). Following that, while it was mostly a male non-elite pack at the beginning, there were a few women scattered throughout, and then it was fairly blended about 15 minutes later.
So while they stagger men and women to prevent interference in the race at the very highest levels (and a woman crosses the finish line first), women below that tier have a ton of opportunity to push themselves against men.
Edit: Also, they do track overall finishers, time-wise, regardless of gender. So a woman might see that she was the 4th finisher in her division (young women), and 16th overall.
The analogy I make is this. It's like getting to play on the field after the Super Bowl or World Series or World Cup just after the pros leave the field with a bunch of other amateurs while the crowd is still there cheering for you.
I can't think of another sport where you get to participate on the same field of play right after the pros and the fans are still there for you.
In Boston especially the entire city treats the runners like royalty the whole weekend and Marathon Monday. Everyone asks how you did. It's truly amazing and I'm honored and thankful I can participate.
I've run other big city marathons including New York and Chicago and while they are great races too, there's really nothing like Boston.
So again, thank you. And if you're a runner of any sort and the marathon is at all appealing to you, do the work you have to do to get to Boston. Making that left turn on Boylston and running to that finish ... I just have no words to describe the thrill.
I agree that if you're at all interested in marathons, the effort to qualify for and run in Boston is well worth it. I've done it a few times and the experience is never short of magical.
Random side note: Interestingly, the shortest and longest races (at least out of Olympic events) are where men and women are most competitive [0]. And, when Paula Radcliffe ran 2:15 in 2003, the marathon world records for men and women were only separated by ~8%.
Compared to weightlifting, where male and female world records are separated by >25%, running is pretty close. Swimming, too. Perhaps that's intuitive.
[0] https://zigapskraba.com/2016/09/15/womens-world-records-comp...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10_meter_air_rifle#Post_1_Janu...
Again: I'm all for opening doors for everyone that "doesn't have any unfair external advantage" (i.e. doping) to compete. What I'm questioning is barring the fastest runners from competition and from the prizes just because of their gender.
In no way I was asking for barring anyone from anything, so stop mixing everything up just to suit your narrative.
I would have some sympathy for your argument if you argue against womens only races or men only races, but most sports do not arbitrarily deny access to a given group, but split people into groups and try to counter effects beyond competitors control, such as gender, age, so that training plays a bigger role in the results distribution.
The point is that we are seeking to give prices to those who have gotten closest to their maximum potential, not for their genetic starting point or circumstances. Yes, we can not counter everything without splitting things up too much, but we can aim to equalise the playing field somewhat.
This is not discrimination. This is seeking to reduce "unfair external advantage". It's the opposite of discrimination.
E.g. the rollback of domestic abuse laws in Russia.
For example, in general more secular countries (regardless of religion) have "better" women's rights. However does this mean that religion causes mistreatment of women? Or is it that more developed countries are generally both more secular and have more women's rights?
Predominantly Christian western countries have dominated the 21st century as much through historical accident as through merit. Had the Renaissance began in Constantinople instead of Florence we may be living in a very different world today and questioning why all these Christian countries have such a poor track record on women's rights.