Miriam Toews' Women Talking is a heartbreaking (and also extremely funny) novel about this, though set among Mennonites rather than the Amish.
It seems like this sort of abuse is endemic to every fundamentalist community. Everything from ultra-orthodox jews* to fundamentalist mormons. You create a closed society where "outsiders" and anything resembling a well-rounded education is the enemy, and it becomes almost inevitable that abuse will happen.
*including this because...hey, MY relatives should not be excluded from this bullshit.
You can make the rule more general. I think our intuitions way underestimate the scale of child abuse among humans.
3: Given how insular many human communities have been, how likely is it in the past that even if someone recognized what was happening to them was wrong, and not just what happens to all girls/boys, they'd be able to get out or get help?
cf. http://www.unfogged.com/archives/comments_16498.html#2005102
Read about what happened in an Old Order Mennonite colony in Paraguay (Google yourself, I'm at work).
As someone whose grandparents rejected these Amish/Old Order communities, it's impossible to exaggerate how repressive they are. If you cause a fuss, you're not just causing a fuss in your group of friends, you're causing a fuss in a place where your family has lived for generations, and which you can't replace with another group of people.
I feel like you all are answering my last question in the depressing way.
I think it's worth noting that this is almost always something that men and boys in these communities do to girls, women and boys. (To me the creepiest part of this is the amount of abuse by boys.) It's not just the product of an isolated community; it's the product of an isolated patriarchal community, one unequal specifically on gender lines.
I'm curious how much incest can be shown by large-scale genetic studies.
When I was about 14 one of our teachers disappeared for a couple of weeks to do jury service. When he got back we asked him what it had been like. He said, "I sat on eight cases and five of them were incest." That shut us up.
This was in the mid-60s, when covering things like that up was even more of a thing than it is today.
9. On a large enough study how would you distinguish genetically between incest and cousin marriage, which also tends to be common in closed groups? Genuine question.
9 seems like a category error. Large-scale genetic studies can and do show evidence of "population bottlenecks" with reduced genetic diversity, but I don't think there's a way to tell if that corresponds to incest as a social phenomenon defined in culturally specific ways.
6: I found an article about Bolivia. The only links I found about Paraguay Mennonites referred to their environmental record.
12: Do I look like a biologist?
13: I'm just talking about my own arbitrary Anglo definitions.
I suspect we're talking past each other. I'm not thinking of studies on historical behavior revealed in descendant genes, I'm thinking of contemporary behavior, under contemporary law. The question was prompted specifically by the information in 5: if you swabbed and sequenced everyone in Nicaragua (which AIUI is or soon will be feasible) how many recent (presumably illegal-at-the-time) incestuous relations would you turn up.
Or, much more feasibly, everyone in rural PA or Utah.
Oh, I see what you mean. I hadn't thought of that kind of universal genetic database-building but of course that's the dystopian world we're in now.
I'm pretty sure we've discussed the Amish sex-abuse issue here before, but a site search for "Amish" didn't find it. It does seem like we've discussed the Amish in various contexts a lot more than I had realized, though.
15.1: That's the danger. You can't tell one by looking.
I'm not so sure that DNA testing rural Pennsylvania would show it as a problem limited to the Amish.
20: Exactly. It's a dystopian world, but it has upsides depending how the panopticon is used.
Not trying specifically to open up a new area to depress Heebie, but I figure you guys probably are familiar with the Genghis Y chromosome and its implications? I wasn't around here when that study broke but it seems unlikely to have slipped by y'all. And I learned today Ghenghis Khan was not the only one. https://www.nature.com/news/genghis-khan-s-genetic-legacy-has-competition-1.16767
I think it's worth noting that this is almost always something that men and boys in these communities do to girls, women and boys. (To me the creepiest part of this is the amount of abuse by boys.) It's not just the product of an isolated community; it's the product of an isolated patriarchal community, one unequal specifically on gender lines.
Are there any isolated communities that aren't isolated patriarchal communities?
25 is horrible, of course, but this is almost-amusing in the potential for double-entendre:
The government's commissioner for children, Katherine Zappone, said Friday's findings were "sad and disturbing." She pledged that the children's descendants would be consulted on providing proper burials and other memorials.
where all the dead children were under 3 years old. I promise to notify all their offspring immediately and officially.
22: the otherwise awfully written (like truly badly written, with occasional sexist and racist asides; maybe ten pages of ideas stretched out to two hundred) Saxons, Vikings, and Celts, written by geneticist Bryan Sykes, made the point that basically everyone's Y-chromosomal ancestry is highly bottlenecked by warlords, not all in the historic era.
And of course consider the literally insular Pitcairn case.
It's really heartbreaking. Cities in strong states might be the institutions, across all human existence, that most reduce rape. (As I write this, I'm not sure I believe it. Maybe something like: cities in cultures that make sure to check up on the neighbors. And without hopelessly patriarchal norms.)
There's a Sherlock Holmes quote that seem relevant.
It was easy to find.
"It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside."
28: I'm equivocally in favor of mass swabbing because if really pursued it might damage the myth of the wholesome countryside like nothing else ever.
I think DNA testing is producing some kind of slow scale but massive change in society. People really did shift around inconvenient babies in a way that nobody who grew up watching Maury would ever consider regardless of their views on the rights of women and children.
So, I just had a thought that is partially on topic. People who want to ban abortion are both getting closer to success and given to proposing adoption as an alternative. Which is similar to the situation before Roe except that now it will be very easy to figure out who the father is and in certain circumstances (e.g. very young mother) difficult to justify not trying to figure it out.
In the rare cases that the kyriarchy isn't willing to claim that she seduced him, it will claim that we can't investigate the rape because it will further traumatize the victim.
On city-states the best preventers of rape: IIRC _The Prospect Before Her_ claims that we know from... birth records? that the bourgeois in Europe, in the 19th c., was unusually good at preventing premarital sex. I'm going to have to look up how they think they know that.
34: yeah, not quite sure what evidence they could adduce for that. Low birth rates to unmarried mothers or mothers married for less than 9 months simply implies that they were good at preventing premarital conception. They could have been at it like bunnies. Plus not sure how one could jump from that to an assumption about prevention of rape.
Relevant: The birth rate in 19th century France was abnormally low compared to other similar countries; the reasons why are still under debate, but could include faster uptake of contraceptive methods. Also the point that French peasants who wanted to emigrate didn't go to the New World, where birth rate norms were high, but instead migrated internally to the cities, where birth rate norms were low - and passed those norms back to their home villages. Also things like partible inheritance (dictated by the Code Napoleon) meaning a strong incentive to have fewer children.
Also, as an aside, I think the argument isn't about city-states preventing rape, but urbanised states - i.e. women are safer in cities, so if you have a very urbanised population then you'll have lower rape rates.
Women being safer in cities makes intuitive sense. Which do you feel safer walking down, late at night: a busy street, or an empty one?
It's not just the product of an isolated community; it's the product of an isolated patriarchal community, one unequal specifically on gender lines.
No, this is completely wrong. It's about unchecked power, pure and simple. Most unchecked power is held by the rulers of patriarchal communities because most communities are patriarchal communities. But, as 25 makes very clear, if you give someone unchecked power, they are very likely to abuse it by harming those weaker than themselves, whatever gonads they may have. A real-life Themiscyra, like a real-life Wakanda, would look like North Korea.
I am given to understand that Wakanda looks much more sharply dressed than North Korea.
It's really a skintight jumpsuits vs big hats tradeoff, and I think one may disagree on matters of taste such as this.
Aesthetics aside, if I were in North Korea right now I'd want to be in a big hat, but if I were in central Africa right now I wouldn't want to be in a skintight jumpsuit.
Maybe if you tried paleo and CrossFit you could pull it off?
Surely it would be easier just to design the jumpsuits with zippers. Any clothing item that takes a special exercise program to remove isn't going to be popular.
I have a question on a very tenuously related topic-- are there any good books about the Jackson 5? Along with reading accounts of what Joe Jackson was actually like, I'd be interested to know how often and where they performed, who they played music with outside the family. Failing that, has anyone seen the Bashir/Jackson interview film from 2003?
Atlanta S2E6 is quite good IMO.
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and therefore never send to know for whom the siren wails; it wails for thee
So I guess I'm making this the bummer thread: Found out today that my little sister back east has been admitted to the big regional hospital with severe liver and kidney problems. Our other sister says the doctors are offering cautious optimism, but she didn't sound particularly convinced.
I purely don't know what I'll do if this is the end. My niece is only 7 ferchrissakes, and my sister is a single mom. I can't not be the first one to go.
So, trying to think positive thoughts. If there still be any Christians (or religious people of any sort) among you, she probably would appreciate prayers, what with being a minister herself.
Well, now I'm just making myself sadder. Signing out to self-medicate a little.
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45. That's just so sad. I hope she recovers.
Ok, i have had some catharsis and am now going to be very positive, for what ever morphic field effects that might produce.
Oh no, how scary, Natty. Please keep us posted.
Natty, I'll put on my christian face and light a candle for her in the cathedral.
NP, I hope she recovers fully. Thinking of her and you (and niece).
Thanks everyone, this is going to be a long day. No more news yet since last night, so hopefully things are going better.
All good wishes to you and your family, especially little sister.
Some reassurance: "cautious optimism" sounds about as good as one can hope for, in the case of someone who's only just gone into hospital with a pretty serious and complicated problem. No doctor in that situation is ever going to say "I am absolutely confident she's going to be fine" - they're going to be, well, cautious.
So sorry, Natilo. Positive vibes from us hippies in the Bay.
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What is the code-based format that some people use here for "replace X with Y" that uses slashes? It's hard to search for. I remember it as something like "/X//Y/"?
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"/X//Y/" s/b "s/b"
I didn't come up with it, but I think it's short for should/be.
And best wishes for Sister Paennim.
My grandparents grew up Amish and when I've gone with them to visit family, everyone seemed quite open and nonjudgmental. Not that that says anything about the abuse issue, but "highly oppressive" doesn't seem to really describe the culture I have seen. Conservative, traditionalist, simple. And patriarchal. Definitely some over lap with backto-the-earth hippy culture: lots of woo medical 'herbal' things, the anti tech, etc. And a strong egalitarian vibe too. I think the big difference is impersonal beuracracy makes it easier to impose consequences. I'd never want to be a part of Amish, but my first hand impressions were more positive than I think I'd arrive at from a distance.
Morphic resonance is a terrible thing. I was looking up how sed works myself only the other day, in a fever of procrastination brought on by a very long transcription job.
Congrats on linking to stackexchange on the Amish thread.
I know 62. I was looking for 65. Thanks!
There are a bunch of regex interpreters-- java's interpreter isn't the shell's, which isn't python's, which isn't...
Basically trying to do anything substantial with a regex is risky, I find ones I wrote pretty recently hard to understand if I revisit them later without comments.
I've been interested in learning more about logistics of regexp with Chinese, this looks useful
https://github.com/fxsjy/jieba
One always has to be careful translating regexes from one context to another. But the error is in assuming all regex syntaxen are the same, when you wouldn't assume you could take C code and copy/paste it into Java. (You can sometimes, but you wouldn't do so without thinking about it.)
As for India, ajay is clearly right, and stated the case well.
|| The response to this whole Pompeo-being-an-ass-with-a-blank-map thing makes me suspect I'm the only person who routinely uses Google Maps with the labels off. |>
I've been writing code professionally for two decades, and I've still not been able to wrap my brain around regex.
71: That's ok, it's usually the wrong approach anyway.
As in, never/can't use them, or just find them uncomfortable to use? There are a lot of issues with the usability of their interface (and, in many modern regex engines, non-regular features that might make their runtime less predictable), but I find them very useful. There's nothing that they can do that you can't do with plain ol' code, though.
The secret it to put your text into SAS string variables and use the character functions of SAS.
If I sit down for a while with some examples I can figure out some simple things that will generally get my Apache config files to do what I need them to. But I never remember the syntax and I have to go back and look everything up again the next time I have to use it.
At some point--I dunno, maybe a PL class?--I dealt with them formally, so when in doubt I can reduce them to the minimal set of operations (concatenation, alternation, Kleene star) and that helps me remember most of the more useful syntax, since it's all just shortcuts on top of that (well, plus the non-regular features, and grouping and a few other things that are functions of context). But yeah, it's still pretty hard to remember and I end up looking stuff up a lot. Is \w whitespace or \s? Or does it stand for "word" characters? Dunno.
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My F-I-L died on Sunday night about a month after being diagnosed with cancer. The big cancer hospital never did get us the bio marker report from the lymph node biopsy which had revealed that it was lung cancer. They promised 7-10 days and it sounds like they may have lost the sample. His heart gave out; they had put a pacemaker in on Friday since rhythm issues can be a downstream symptom of lung cancer. We were there the week before.
The funeral is next week but we rushed up to spend the week with Tim's mother. Tim's brother had left on the bus from Ottawa since he had been planning a trip.
We thought that the S-I-L was going to be in Ottawa with the kids, but she left them with her mother after finding that she could not concentrate at work. I was expecting to see her at the funeral which is next Saturday but not before.
There is a lot of bad blood between us. And last Christmas was particularly awful. My godmother died last year in a freak accident and S-I-L expressed concerns about my being around her kids at Christmas if I was really sad. She also loudly said that my behavior was inconsiderate and turned her back on me while holding her 2 year old son.
I had been told that later she felt terrible about last Christmas, but this year She did not say hello when I arrived or speak to me once - during the two days that we were there. I was really on edge the entire time, so I probably did not behave my best. I mostly went to great lengths to avoid being in the same room with her.
This was incredibly uncomfortable for me, but more importantly, I think it had to have been awful for my mother-in-law.
We will be staying in the same house for 2-3 nights next weekend and I would like to try to make it a less terrible experience for all. I hesitate to address this with her directly but wonder if it's possible for it t get any worse than it is now. Thoughts?
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BG, what a horrible situation. I have no advice, just sympathy for every part of that, and bad feelings for your SIL, which doesn't help, I'm sure. I hope you (and Tim - how does he react to all this?) can navigate the time together. Condolences all around.
78: We are still here after SIL and then Tim's brother left, and it is much calmer. I sort of feel that I should not have come and only come to the funeral, but that's not fair to Tim either.
I have in the past year or so tried to stay away from family gatherings because of her. This is painful for Tim and he wants me to "be the bigger person." I sort of feel that allowing myself to be treated that way is not great and attempts in the past to negotiate
Have always been met with narcissistic indifference.
But I also think that I am so on edge around her that I have a hard time thinking clearly.
Last year Tim's Dad was especially nice and considerate of my feelings. I know he thought that acting as though the world revolved completely around you was not ok and that having children did not absolve you of thinking about other people's schedules. This makes me miss him even more.
That sounds bad, but I'm not big on open confrontation. Have you considered giving her address and phone number of a select group of particularly aggressive fundraising organizations?
62, etc.: On regex, I like jwz's position: You have a problem. You decide you can solve it by using regexes. Now you have two problems.
76. There are websites that let you write and debug your regex against any text you want to copy-paste into it. I've used "regex101.com" a fair amount (it even lets you select which implementation of regex to test against) but there are several others.
79. Perhaps Tim should be the "bigger person"?
79: What he means by that is, "Not stoop to her level." I think that is what he is trying to do.
Sympathies BG. That sounds awful all around.
That's a lousy situation for sure, I wish I could think of a clever solution, but I'm the guy who still hasn't spoken to one of my coworkers (of about 3 years standing) because he has a pennant for a nearby college that still has a culturally appropriative "Native" mascot up at his desk. (And I noticed some comments he had made at the other place which, while not in themselves super offensive, yet and still indicated that he and I have pretty incompatible politics.)
Anyhow, the update on my sister is that she does seem to be improving -- she's been up walking a bit and has eaten a little and is mostly lucid. Still no real diagnosis or ongoing treatment plan, but no doubt this is one of those cases where they run every possible test. The whole transplant question is hovering around too, but the Drs. haven't really said how they feel about that. It is annoying to have to get all this stuff 3rd hand. Anyway, crossing our fingers that she is out of immediate danger. Big relief even though we are not out of the woods yet. Thanks again for the good wishes, I worked really hard on being positive yesterday when I had no information (and my cellphone was refusing to charge) and they were helpful.
Glad to hear she's improving. Hope it continues.
Narcissists gonna narcissist. I don't know any way around that. Building up armor against their crazy arrows is the only solution I know, and maybe easier said than done, but "not being in the same room with her" sounds like a good strategy.
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Sister is continuing to improve, and there's even some reason to believe that a transplant may not be necessary. It has to be said, she's pretty tough -- this isn't her first big health crisis, although it's been a while since the last one. So, lots of reason for hope now which is good.
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Sister is continuing to improve, and there's even some reason to believe that a transplant may not be necessary.
FFS, NOW you tell us?
(tips bathful of ice out of window, discards lipstick)
92 made me chuckle. I'm glad it's maybe not as dire as it first appeared.
Why can't you just melt the ice down the drain my running the hot water?
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he was so stricken by rage while negotiating with Japan that he lost sleep. "I woke up and felt grit in my mouth. I was clenching my teeth so hard while asleep in anger and part of my molar fell off,"|>
94. We don't waste hot water, because climate change.