Thursday, August 16, 2012

AHS12 and the Search for the Lost Demographic

Just as I predicted earlier this year, the ancestral health community is still embedded in the throes of discovery and re-discovery!!!

This just in:  The Paleo's are uncivilized.  They don't like fat old ladies.  Oh Wait!  This is a repeat post, isn't it?

I just have to share my experience of AHS11.  I was a fly-on-the-wall.  I met or saw EVERYONE.  I found all the speakers cordial and friendly, even folks who are absolutely not that way on their blogs and websites.  I was actually surprised that some of the participants even acted human, except of course, right before their talks, when they were deep in thought and pacing around.  I tried to not confuse concentration and intensity with unfriendliness.

It was a slightly different story with the participants.  Many were friendly, chatty and nice (and grateful for the fresh veggies I brought).  Others were not friendly.  Young men obvious with their Robb mancrushes encircled him the whole time like burly bodyguards in some conflicted country and wouldn't let anyone else in.  The folks on paleohacks who said they were so eager to meet everyone were nowhere to be found.  I met a doctor who was quite rude and condescending

Oh, I know, if you are thinking that was Jack Kruse, you are wrong.  He was friendly and talkative.  He didn't seem to have a problem chatting it up with the little people, either during someone else's presentation or on a grassy knoll in some quadrangle.

What I don't get about this volunteer's post is that she and her angry friends feel left out of the overall paleo community, but they also try to kick out the low carb people and others they feel don't meet the requirements.  I know in my case, I have had lots of difficulty with several of those "whiners" attacking me because I follow Jack Kruse's recommendations.

Call me silly, but I think if you are a neglected demographic looking for a lost demographic, oh yes, that group you just voted off the island, you aren't going to find very many buddies.  Simply, it is more likely that the lost demographic is on a more low-carb version of paleo, and also entertaining Kruse's and others' cutting-edge ideas that the self-appointed paleo hall-monitors reject.  I read the exchanges of this bloggers "feminist" friends, many paleo luminaries and the paleohacks participants, and then said to myself, "Nope, I am done with this," and then went on over to the low carb community, where they are more friendly to my demographic.

Seriously, it is just like what they say in kindergarten.  If you want friends you have to be a friend.  The uncivilized paleo community will never get anywhere if they keep excluding people.

Note:  Since I first posted this, the person who complained about AHS12 has deleted her blog.  I am so sorry I did not get to read all of her posts before she took the whole thing down.  I think she had some really valid points to make about the paleo community, even though my experience hasn't been totally the same.  The responses to her post were an eye-opener, hopefully, for some people who say that they value the direction that the paleo community has taken.  Hey paleo community, if you really want to include the fat old ladies in your tribe, it is probably better to not call them ugly, undesirable cunts.  It is also not OK to attempt to take an entire community hostage to certain infantile demands, no matter what side they are on.  Just sayin'.



11 comments:

  1. :-) i generally assume that the young just don't know how much they don't know.... then i get a chuckle from thinking what a rude awakening they're going to get when middle-age slows THEM down! the young always think "it can't happen to them" ... until it does.

    you're so right about having/being friends!

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  2. I usually assume that, too, but then some of the people have been just plain mean. Melissa and Beth, Carbsane, and even Emily, even though in general they all have some interesting things to say in the past. So, it has not just been the men dumping on the women as some of them want you to believe. Free-the-wellwhatever can be entertaining, too. I started getting lots of traffic from his blog and went over to take a look. Someone had actually recommended me for a guest post. Right, when pigs fly?

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  3. I think Brash may have been a social psychologist in a previous life.

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  4. the internet certainly does seem to give people the freedom to show how nasty they can be! believing in karma saves my sanity. ;-)

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  5. Very good post Brash. I felt free to go through a lot of them today and had a few "laugh out loud" moments. You are definitely a prolific writer. Keep it up.

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  6. Sid, is that a compliment???? I was a corporate OD consultant, does that count?

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  7. Hey Kat, thanks for your comment. I try to keep things funny.

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  8. Brash, yes! Your blog is a masterpiece of social commentary.

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  9. So this is what I have been missing... I agree "a masterpiece of social commentary". Wish you could have wrote freely like this else where.

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  10. Great ideas are like palm trees really. You can hack away at one, and the shoots just come right back up on the other side of the fence ;-)

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