Beard: Beard (n.) A hairy covering of the lower part of the adult male face that reduces the noise-to-signal ratio of the facial area. The result is to make hairy adult males look more like other hairy adult males.
See baldness for a discussion of the interest in asking "why" when studying the human animal. Like baldness, the male beard does not appear to exist for the benefit of women, who are often ambivalent or even hostile to beards. Women do not grow beards. Thus, beards are related to the male environment. The main effect of a beard is to disguise the face. But a facial disguise that takes time to grow cannot work on people who know us anyhow, thus it is intended for strangers. Ironically, for strangers who cannot recognize us anyhow. What does make sense is that a group of men, all bearded, will in fact look similar. A beard is thus most probably a form of uniform, designed to make a man look like his fellow bearded men. Once more, we ask "why?" and the only answer that emerges is the prevalence of male-on-male violence in human societies, and the genetic imperative to, if one must engage in life-threatening fights, reduce the odds of personal risk by looking as much like one's brothers in arms as possible. The variation in bearding in different human groups may be due to different levels of violence, or more likely, due to founder effects that exaggerate original small differences between individuals. The simplest alternative to beards, used in human groups where bearding is negligible, is "war paint".
A corollary to this thesis is that wearing a beard is a sign, not of a violent temperament, but of a peaceful one. The beard is a statement: "I seek no confrontation". It was the Romans who expressed bare-faced violence, while the barbarians were probably trying to make love, not war.
- Hell: Hell (n.) The first invention of any organized religion, following the basic technique of mass marketing that to sell a product you must first scare customers into wanting it. [marketing power]
- Saints: Gods (n.) Modern thinkers recognize four principal saints: Darwin, saint of the necessary accident; Newton, saint of necessary accidents involving motorbikes and fast cars; Streisand, saint of the freedom of speech, and Sturgeon, saint of life mostly sucking. [religion]
- We: We (n.) Everyone except you. [society you]
- Female Orgasm: Female orgasm (n.) During sexual intercourse, an unfakeable indicator that the male is capable of giving women intense pleasure. []
- Spirituality: Spirituality (n.) A state of mind whereby an individual successfully ignores all inconvenient evidence and facts. In the perfect spiritual state, the real world ceases, temporarily, to exist at all. [confusion]
- Breasts: Breasts (n.) Twin fatty deposits on the chest of the mature human female. The purpose of breasts is to attract males by indicating fertility and availability. [sex]
- Negotiation: Negotiation (n.) The art of saying you don't want it, and even if you did, you aren't the one who decides. [power]
- Diary: Diary (n.) A type of virtual Bitchtorrent peer invented by a frustrated teenage girl. [communications female]
- Woofing: Woofing (n.) The canine command-and-control language that men use to self-organize. As in the common female complaint, "he's Woofing, instead of listening to me". [communications male]
- Bitchtorrent: Bitchtorrent (n.) The peer-to-peer protocol that women use to exchange information, more politely called "bluetoothing". [communications female]
- Bluetoothing: Bluetoothing (v.) The communication pattern by which two, or rarely, three, mature human females will synchronize their mental data sets using wireless acoustic signals to trade units of knowledge and information in a private setting. [communications female]
- Beauty: Beauty (n.). In women, an aspect that makes them socially mobile. In objects, high levels of useful functionality, relative to the observer's needs. [female hair male sex]
- Gangster: Gangster (n.): A rich boyfriend, but a poor husband. [gene male power]
- Girlfriend: Girlfriend (n.): a female companion that young men must acquire by fifteen to avoid strange looks. [gene]
- Boyfriend: Boyfriend (n.): banned, tolerated, accepted, and finally embarrassing. [gene power]
- Parent: Parent (n.): An adult with an offspring, who dedicates an hour or more, every day, to that offspring. [sex]
- Society: Society (n.) Equal parts of beggar, baker, bureaucrat, and bandit. [society]
- Male: Male (adj.) That gender destined to ultimately be replaced by a computer program. [stupidity]
- Promises: Promises (n). "I love you", "Your check is in the post", "I'll call you", and finally "I promise not to sue you". [lies money power]
- Open Source: Open source (n.) A form of software written cheaply by young often unpaid programmers, packaged by large businesses, safely patented for its own defence, and then sold at significant profit to major firms, in the form of "support licenses". [money patents software]
- Death: Death (n.) 1. An irrecoverable crash, resulting in full data loss. 2. The point in which a player is removed from the game. [epicfail]
- Life: Life (n.) A game in which most of the game consists of discovering the rules, and then realizing that everyone loses. [epicfail]
- Democracy: Democracy (n.) An imaginary form of government in which the will of the people is expressed through a series of so-called "elections". [power]
- Beard: Beard (n.) A hairy covering of the lower part of the adult male face that reduces the noise-to-signal ratio of the facial area. The result is to make hairy adult males look more like other hairy adult males. [genes hair male violence]
- State: State (n.) Generally, "the State" refers to a ruling national authority. [violence]
- Bush-whacked: Bush-whacked (adj.) Severely damaged due to malign larceny disguised as incompetence. Also, "Bushed". [epicfail]
- Zebra: Zebra (n.) An African wild horse, especially skilled at hiding, from lions, among other zebras. Edible. [food group]
- Recession: Recession (n.) A shocking, sudden collapse in economic activity after only years of clear warning signs. [epicfail money]
- Business: Business (n.) (1) The art of hating your suppliers, destroying your competitors, and despising your customers in the pursuit of profits. (2) War in suits. [money]
- Darwin: Darwin (n.) One of the two gods of survival along with Newton. [darwin newton]
- Burnout: Burnout (n.) A post-traumatic stress disorder caused by excessive investment in an imbalanced project. [pain]
- Crash: Crash (n.) The sound of a bubble bursting. [epicfail money]
- Housing Market: Housing Market (n.) The only market where governments deliberately create inflation. [economics]
- Mathematician: Mathematician (n.) A kind of programmer who never makes mistakes, so needs no computer. [mind]
- Theory: Theory (n.) An analysis that can never be entirely right, but can be entirely wrong. [stupidity]
- Oil: Oil (n.) The remains of ancient bacteria, conveniently liquefied and converted to pure combustible hydrocarbons. [oil]
- Love: Love (n.) A blinding smugness emanating from one's genes when they think they have found a perfect match. [genes]
- Disease: Disease (n.) The undesirable state of being a microbe's lunch buffet. [darwin disease]
- President: President (n.) Like a king, but without the burden of history. [power]
- Hero: Hero (n.) A powerful man who has successfully hidden all his vices and weaknesses. [people]