Mind-Expanding (non-science) things
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Yeah, a tablet should be fine for this kind of thing.
This is going to happen a lot; it’s probably not too far off that you need a device for official bureaucratic stuff, too.
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Like I said, I think neural implants during our lifetimes are about as likely as a working colony on Mars, i.e. both are just Elon Musk’s pipe dreams.
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I may have overdone it with that hate thing. Looks embarrassing, sorry about that. (I do think people should accept the hate for their abusers, but I also admit hate can “boil over” and start causing other problems). Still I think anger serves a purpose and can be used in therapy to get people to a point where they are better equiped to deal with their problems. Anger can give energy which can help to solve a situation and reach a new equilibrium or acceptance.
I’ve had a few different therapists, and it’s wild how different they work. The best help I had was with one who worked at the GP office, who helped me take practical steps to improve certain things in my life.
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In this case, being well-adjusted is recognising that things which aren’t happening aren’t happening.
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Still with the gaslighting…
It’s not gaslighting if the things aren’t happening. Even at the height of the lockdowns you were allowed out. This is a fact. Nobody is going to make you eat bugs. This is a fact.
You are literally denying reality and attempting to deflect away by using the language to describe abusers. And it won’t work because the facts, as they say don’t care about your feelings.
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“Mental illness” can actually be a physical illness, as the brain literally changes and the depression, anxiety, etc. are more symptoms of a biological impairment. It’s why diet and exercise are critical components in treatment plans as they can help “change the brain”.
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Still with the gaslighting…
It’s not gaslighting if the things aren’t happening. Even at the height of the lockdowns you were allowed out. This is a fact. Nobody is going to make you eat bugs. This is a fact.
You are literally denying reality and attempting to deflect away by using the language to describe abusers. And it won’t work because the facts, as they say don’t care about your feelings.
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I am not arguing with Lorcan
Because you have no counter-arguments
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I am not arguing with Lorcan
Because you have no counter-arguments
No, it’s because you’re a pretty good gaslighter. People who argue with you have to watch their mental health, since it can be very damaging. So that’s why I generally try to ignore you, I have to protect myself, after all you know I have a mental illness history (which I think you exploit). So in arguments with you I’ll just stick to this, saying you gaslight, and that’s it.
You think I gaslight because you prefer the narrative in which you feel comfortable to reality, and you don’t like people pointing out how full of shit you are.
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Arjan, I think it’s important to recognise one thing here: The democratic governments in the European countries hated doing all that. Not because they are such awesomely upstanding people, but because people hated it, and that means losing votes. They did it anyway, either because a) they saw it as the right thing to do based on the best advice they could get at the time or b) because killing everybody’s grandmas will lose you even more votes. You can pick the option you like better, but this is the bottom line: covid was terrible for the economy and for approval ratings, and democratic governments depend on both. The idea that these governments revelled in the ability to oppress people is mostly nonsense (apart from a few autocratic personalities who may actually have enjoyed this).
And this is also important:
About the bug eating, I can’t prove that, but the way they’re pushing it in the media while also demonizing meat let’s say I have my suspicions. This article literally says “You will eat the bugs and like it”.
If your basis for thinking this is that you found one article with an attention-grabbing title, you have to understand that it’s you doing this thing. Also: Nobody is “pushing” this in the media. Apart from your memes, I have seen pretty much nothing at all about this whole thing. It pretty much doesn’t exist in the traditional media if you aren’t explcitly looking for it. The only reason why you keep seeing it is that your algorithms are looking out for certain conspiracy-related stuff to push into your field of vision. That is also something you need to be aware of.
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There’s a greater than zero chance they chose that title for the article BECAUSE of the conspiracy theory.
And do we need to point out that the root of the “you’ll eat bugs” conspiracy is anti-semitism? Or can we just take it as given because all these conspiracies end up there?
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The only reason why you keep seeing it is that your algorithms are looking out for certain conspiracy-related stuff to push into your field of vision.
Exactly. It’s a feature, not a bug.
Er… except in this case it’s also a bug, obviously.
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Arjan, we go through this same argument every few months.
No one liked what was done during the pandemic. )Yes, China took it to extreme lengths but then it’s China, no surprises there.) BUT THOSE MEASURES SAVED TENS OF MILLIONS OF LIVES.
The question that is always asked of you but you NEVER answer:
In your opinion, what should have governments done that would have saved the same amount of lives, or more? Keep in mind, this solution has to factor in the leaders who were in place in early 2020. Remember, Trump was POTUS then and he didn’t follow the protocols that were in place.
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I am not arguing with Lorcan
Because you have no counter-arguments
No, it’s because you’re a pretty good gaslighter. People who argue with you have to watch their mental health, since it can be very damaging. So that’s why I generally try to ignore you, I have to protect myself, after all you know I have a mental illness history (which I think you exploit). So in arguments with you I’ll just stick to this, saying you gaslight, and that’s it.
You think I gaslight because you prefer the narrative in which you feel comfortable to reality, and you don’t like people pointing out how full of shit you are.
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Anyway before this tangent began I was arguing that depression rather than just being caused by interior, mental factors, is for a large part a social phenomenon. It is caused by the society and culture we live in. So that culture should be very hesitant to use euthanasia as an acceptable solution (although again, in extreme circumstances I think it can be acceptable.) since it is possible to make other changes to help people.
For every individual certain needs must be met, like food, housing, etc but for many there are additional needs which are often forgotten, things like love, beauty, recreation, nature, challenges and achievement. Those are vital too for a sane individual, but it can differ from person to person which is important. In helping people with depression I think there must be a synergy where therapist and patient work together in finding these vital areas.
(I think getting challenged and finding achievement are very important. We need something that stimulates us and challenges, some worthy goal, rather than just dull work and entertainment.)
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Put differently, a lot of the contributing factors of depression are established in childhood and changing your mind once you’re an adult is a very hard thing to do.
Yeah I agree with that. Trauma can change how the brain works. (I’m not claiming there is no role for anti-depressant medication either, I assume they can be helpful for some people)
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In the end, I don’t think it’s an either/or thing, but two sides of a coin. If things go well, you can maintain your own mental health even in a society in which this is challenging. But our societies could make it quite a lot easier for us.
Let me just also say that obviously, capitalism is the biggest problem here. Right? Right.
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Let me just also say that obviously, capitalism is the biggest problem here. Right? Right.
I don’t think that is true, but that’s something we could argue about until the end of the world. I think ultimately the biggest problem is dukkha, as Buddhism calls it, the unsatisfactory nature of existence. (I’m not a Buddhist, but I think that is one thing Buddhism got right)
And that’s something you’re never going to solve unless you believe you can reach nirvana or something like that. I think people have to learn to deal with existence being sucky in certain respects. And I think for some people the way to deal with that is suicide.
(Capitalism is a part of that I agree, but it is bigger than just capitalism or politics. It’s also certain things we can’t admit to ourselves, lack of love, lack of truthfulness, entropy, our bodies falling apart. For instance, it’s hard to be happy when you’re so fat every move you make hurts you, and you eat so much because you were sexually abused as a child. Many lives are just broken in this way, it’s shit life symdrome. And I think many socieities that are not capitalist, like North Korea share all these problems)
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Yeah I agree, it is a struggle everybody goes through to some extent. More in certain places and in certain times than in others perhaps, but it is a human trait.
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So, there was this guy called Bill Hicks…
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Let’s take a look at the process:
First, the caterpillar digests itself, releasing enzymes to dissolve all of its tissues. If you were to cut open a cocoon or chrysalis at just the right time, caterpillar soup would ooze out. But the contents of the pupa are not entirely an amorphous mess. Certain highly organized groups of cells known as imaginal discs survive the digestive process. Before hatching, when a caterpillar is still developing inside its egg, it grows an imaginal disc for each of the adult body parts it will need as a mature butterfly or moth—discs for its eyes, for its wings, its legs and so on. In some species, these imaginal discs remain dormant throughout the caterpillar’s life; in other species, the discs begin to take the shape of adult body parts even before the caterpillar forms a chrysalis or cocoon. Some caterpillars walk around with tiny rudimentary wings tucked inside their bodies, though you would never know it by looking at them.
Once a caterpillar has disintegrated all of its tissues except for the imaginal discs, those discs use the protein-rich soup all around them to fuel the rapid cell division required to form the wings, antennae, legs, eyes, genitals and all the other features of an adult butterfly or moth. The imaginal disc for a fruit fly’s wing, for example, might begin with only 50 cells and increase to more than 50,000 cells by the end of metamorphosis. Depending on the species, certain caterpillar muscles and sections of the nervous system are largely preserved in the adult butterfly. One study even suggests that moths remember what they learned in later stages of their lives as caterpillars.Given the self-digestion, you would think not. But… study. Only one though at this point.
(Not exactly a philosophical answer, but I found this very interesting.)1 user thanked author for this post.
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Sometimes reality is deeply offensive.
Reality is what is. It is your personal perspective and sensibilities that color how you view.
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I wonder if there is a connection between alcoholism (and also other drugs) and Calvinism. Northern Europe is more prone to alcoholism than the South. Or maybe there is a connection with the climate.
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I wonder if there is a connection between alcoholism (and also other drugs) and Calvinism. Northern Europe is more prone to alcoholism than the South. Or maybe there is a connection with the climate.
However, now that I think about it, Poland and Lithuania are Catholic and they also have high rates of alcoholism. Oh and Ireland too. And the Netherlands and Germany are about half Catholic.
Maybe climate is more of a factor. The long winter nights. I really do believe there’s a possibility the “Mediterranean climate” influences mental wellbeing.
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What is the main point, the animating drive of the countries we live in? When you think abut liberal states, their main thing seems to be the right to make a lot of money, and the guarantee of certain personal freedoms, and democracy. Soc-dem is a variety of the liberal state, where there is an extra emphasis on social welfare (although ideally that should be the case, in practice most parties that say they’re soc-dems are indistinguishable from liberal parties)
It’s the “unalienable rights” from the Declaration of Independence, Life, LIberty and the pursuit of Happiness. So people should be “free”, and find their happiness, in other words. Of course the motto of the French Revolution was Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, but then you immediately bump into the dilemma that freedom is in contradiction with equality. If you don’t have the freedom to be inequal, or different, you have no freedom at all. (Of course there are negative freedoms and positive freedoms. Negative freedom is the absence of outside coercion whereas positive freedoms are freedoms to be able to do certain things, to have the means to do something. For instance, the freedom to acquire halthcare might require financial aid.)
edit: Damn, I forgot equality was in the Declaration of Independence as well.
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If you don’t have the freedom to be inequal, or different, you have no freedom at all.
Equality in reference to the Declaration of Independence and the French motto does not mean everyone has equal personalities, equal ambitions, equal sexual orientations, equal salaries, etc. It means that everyone is entitled to equal rights in the eyes of the law and of society, regardless of how different you are. Equality is supposed to make it easier for people to be different without fear of punishment.
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Equality is supposed to make it easier for people to be different without fear of punishment.
Fair enough, that is beautifully stated.
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I also always liked the idea of equlity of opportunity. Everbody should have the same chances to build their lives and find happiness, ideally. We are pretty far from that these days, because that’s a thing where you would need to limit a few people’s freedom in order to provide it to many others (I’m talking about redistribution of wealth here, because capital tends to accumulate and left to its own devices, capitalism tends to produce more and more inequality).
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I just read up on it on their homepage, and it seems that they actually do ask people how happy they are?
Life evaluations from the Gallup World Poll provide the basis for the annual happiness rankings. They are based on answers to the main life evaluation question. The Cantril Ladder asks respondents to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a 10 and the worst possible life being a 0. They are then asked to rate their own current lives on that 0 to 10 scale. The rankings are from nationally representative samples over three years.
And further explanation from Gallup:
The Cantril Scale, which has been used by a wide variety of researchers since its initial development by Hadley Cantril, is an example of one type of well-being assessment. At the same time, scholarly research has revealed that measurement of well-being is multifaceted, including a continuum from judgments of life (life evaluation) to feelings (daily affect). Different measures of well-being provide different perspectives on the process by which respondents reflect on or experience their lives. The Cantril Scale measures well-being closer to the end of the continuum representing judgments of life or life evaluation (Diener, Kahneman, Tov, & Arora, 2009). Research conducted across countries around the world (Deaton, 2008) indicates substantial correlations between the Cantril Scale and income. This contrasts with measures of feelings or affect which appear to be more closely correlated with variables such as social time (Harter & Arora, 2008).
And of course, there’s research that is critical of the Cantril Scale as a measure:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-52939-y
The Cantril Ladder is among the most widely administered subjective well-being measures; every year, it is collected in 140+ countries in the Gallup World Poll and reported in the World Happiness Report. The measure asks respondents to evaluate their lives on a ladder from worst (bottom) to best (top). Prior work found Cantril Ladder scores sensitive to social comparison and to reflect one’s relative position in the income distribution. To understand this, we explored how respondents interpret the Cantril Ladder. We analyzed word responses from 1581 UK adults and tested the impact of the (a) ladder imagery, (b) scale anchors of worst to best possible life, and c) bottom to top. Using three language analysis techniques (dictionary, topic, and word embeddings), we found that the Cantril Ladder framing emphasizes power and wealth over broader well-being and relationship concepts in comparison to the other study conditions. Further, altering the framings increased preferred scale levels from 8.4 to 8.9 (Cohen’s d = 0.36). Introducing harmony as an anchor yielded the strongest divergence from the Cantril Ladder, reducing mentions of power and wealth topics the most (Cohen’s d = −0.76). Our findings refine the understanding of historical Cantril Ladder data and may help guide the future evolution of well-being metrics and guidelines.
Huh. Interesting.
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I for one welcome our new mushroom overlords.
It’s probably worth quoting the title of the article:
Mushroom learns to crawl after being given robot body
Jesus.
“By growing mycelium into the electronics of a robot, we were able to allow the biohybrid machine to sense and respond to the environment,” said Rob Shepherd, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Cornell.
“The potential for future robots could be to sense soil chemistry in row crops and decide when to add more fertiliser, for example, perhaps mitigating downstream effects of agriculture like harmful algal blooms.”
Okay, that sounds more prosaic. Still, this can obviously only lead to a mixture of The Last of Us and Terminator.
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This is pretty funny, this mn debunked the “blue zones”, those places where people are said to live to a very high age:
I always thought there was something iffy. I knew Okinawans eat a lot of pork, they don’t have that “plant based diet” thse people said they have. They also drink more alcohol than other Japanese.
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Thanks Todd, I’ll take a look
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I don’t think many people would claim that liberal attitudes are “natural”. Currently, it has become very clear that they may actually not even be as mainstream as we used to think they were, with large parts of the population – and not the ones your comment was aimed at – rejecting them and trying to push for a more reactionary model of society.
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I think an important part of the modern liberal mindset is that all people who come to your country will eventually absorb the current beliefs, or that at least enough can be convinced to follow them to keep society as a whole cohesive. Basically, secular, pro-science, pro-democracy, pro-LGBT. The belief is that this is really the natural state, it is just “normal”.
Actually, that has always been the conservative mindset. They have the expectation and belief that immigrants assimilate as quickly as possible, even though that’s completely unreasonable.
While assimilation is inevitable, liberals tend want them to hold onto native traditions and beliefs. They appreciate the diversity other cultures bring to their new home.
The thing is, usually by the third generation the family has pretty much assimilated to the new country.
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While assimilation is inevitable, liberals tend want them to hold onto native traditions and beliefs. They appreciate the diversity other cultures bring to their new home.
I think you’re wrong there…
No, I’m right. You need to read the story:
This week many of those same residents watched in dismay as a now fully Muslim and socially conservative city council passed legislation banning Pride flags from being flown on city property that had – like many others being flown around the country – been intended to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.
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Guess which one of these statements is closer to the truth:
’m really skeptical on the climate change thing. It has gotten quite a bit warmer already, and the effects aren’t catastrophic. Maybe a few more natural disasters, but nothing we can’t handle. And if things get worse, we can always move to colder areas.
Meanwhile humans are growing stupider
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I’m really skeptical on the climate change thing. It has gotten quite a bit warmer already, and the effects aren’t catastrophic. Maybe a few more natural disasters, but nothing we can’t handle. And if things get worse, we can always move to colder areas. Paul Ehrlich etc have an almost perfect record of being wrong all the time.
What absolute fucking garbage.
Climate change is real. Thousands of scientists have confirmed it. Thousands.
The disasters are getting worse. Things are getting catastrophic. Droughts, hurricanes, floods, and wildfires are far more deadly and devastating. Human capitalistic greed is fucking this planet over.
And move to colder areas? Are you joking? That is ludicrous on so many levels.
Arjan, you are absolutely wrong on this.
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Yeah, I live in British Columbia where it would be colder up north and still maintain a vast amount of fresh water.
Just that we would have had to start a massive amount of housing and infrastructure building multiple decades ago.
Never happened, and we’re already too late for our own population growth, much less encouraging everyone to move up there.Like Todd says, greed has fucked us over, and Billionaires are currently moving themselves into positions of more power.
Just hard to think we’re going to solve this anytime soon (as the next 4 years with Trump are sure to get worse).2 users thanked author for this post.
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It has gotten quite a bit warmer already, and the effects aren’t catastrophic. Maybe a few more natural disasters, but nothing we can’t handle. And if things get worse, we can always move to colder areas. Paul Ehrlich etc have an almost perfect record of being wrong all the time.
Jesus, Arjan, I don’t want to pile on here, but there is so much wrong with those statements that I don’t even know where to begin. I don’t really want to, either, the facts are out there after all and me explaining them again probably won’t help. I just hope that you’re in the kind of mood that makes you say nonsensical things and that this isn’t really what you believe deep down.
If it is, well, it’s pretty much a perfect example why humanity probably isn’t equipped to survive.
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Human capitalistic greed is fucking this planet over.
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I mean there are extremes in temperature, but those scientists like Paul Ehrlich said billions would be starving, coastal cities would be wiped off the map etc.
The point in raising the alarm now is for us to act before the worst happens.
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I mean there are extremes in temperature, but those scientists like Paul Ehrlich said billions would be starving, coastal cities would be wiped off the map etc.
The point in raising the alarm now is for us to act before the worst happens.
Yes, but what if we put in all this work to make the world a better place and it turned out it wasn’t an existential crisis?
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Still I am not that pessimistic. The world has gotten about 1.5 degree warmer, and it’s pretty much business as usual. I mean there are extremes in temperature, but those scientists like Paul Ehrlich said billions would be starving, coastal cities would be wiped off the map etc. We should probably trry to keep temperatures in check somewhat, I especially think we should use a lot more nuclear energy to stop nonsense like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkelflaute, but I don’t see our current course as an end-of-the-world scenario.
Problem is, you’re talking as if this was a linear process. Which it isn’t. The rising temperatures cause things to happen that in turn increase the speed of rising temperatures. Just read a bit about tipping points if you haven’t yet. The next few years really are our last shot at this, in all probability.
Oh, and quoting Paul Ehrlich isn’t very helpful in this context, as he isn’t a climate scientist. The change in global temperature has actually happened faster than most predictions expected.
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Apparently, the boost that will come about when AI systems will be able to re-write and improve their own code will be a big thing.
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Don’t worry, all that AI stuff is bullshit, the tech executives are lying through their teeth about the potential
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Don’t worry, all that AI stuff is bullshit, the tech executives are lying through their teeth about the potential
It’s bubble that may burst sooner rather than later.
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