Comment by volya on Tsuyoku Naritai! (I Want To Become Stronger) · 2013-10-15T11:28:33.937Z · LW · GW

Chabad has a total (a late one) ban on eating figs http://www.shturem.net/index.php?section=news&id=12572 due to the fact that its fruit is frequented by small worms which can not be distinguished from the fuit internals . The fact became known from biology and agriculture studies.

Comment by volya on Tsuyoku Naritai! (I Want To Become Stronger) · 2013-10-15T08:27:05.636Z · LW · GW

As far as I learned, it is community-wide and not humanity-wide. Judaism is rather a tribal religion in this matter.

Comment by volya on Welcome to Less Wrong! (5th thread, March 2013) · 2013-10-07T13:17:08.142Z · LW · GW

Hi, I am Olga, female, 40, programmer, mother of two. Got here from HPMoR. Can not as yet define myself as a rationalist, but I am working on it. Some rationality questions, used in real life conversations, have helped me to tackle some personal and even family issues. It felt great. In my "grown-up" role I am deeply concerned to bring up my kids with their thoughts process as undamaged as I possibly can and maybe even to balance some system-taught stupidity. I am at the start of my reading list on the matter, including LW sequences.