Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

901–910 of 1001 posts

Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?

#901

Post by acjohnson55 »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #381
xyzelement wrote: post #19

I used to assume the religious people were missing something and missing out on the latest and greatest. Now I am seeing that often it's us the non-religious that have lost something of value and are trying to replace it with things that don't work as well.

I really wish I could be religious. I know that the community and meaning it provides would bring me a lot of happiness, I just can't look past it being untrue.

Unitarian Universalism is a church without dogma. Basically, people who generally believe there's a purpose to life, that nobody has any sort of monopoly on the truth, and that there's value to congregating.

Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?

#902

Post by FigurativeVoid »

gardenhedge wrote: post #887
FigurativeVoid wrote: post #531

Not getting my dog professionally trained. I spent the money to send him to a proper board and train, and it was life changing. Our relationship is better. He is happier and less stressed. I was able to take him off sedatives. Plus it's cool to have a dog with perfect recall that I can take anywhere without worrying. If you can afford it, I can't recommend finding a reputable balanced trainer more highly.

My fear for this is that they "train the owner". Is that your experience?

I’m not sure what you mean by “training the owner.”

But if you explain I’d be happy to give my thoughts.

Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?

#903

Post by acjohnson55 »

karaterobot wrote: post #800
xyzelement wrote: post #19

I used to assume the religious people were missing something and missing out on the latest and greatest. Now I am seeing that often it's us the non-religious that have lost something of value and are trying to replace it with things that don't work as well.

Same. I met so many religious people who were smarter, more widely read, and wiser than me that my childhood prejudices about them had to be drastically re-evaluated, even though my fundamental position on the existence of God is unchanged. Faith is now on an entirely separate axis from intelligence or wisdom for me.

That's interesting to me because for me, it's kind of the opposite. I was deeply religious the first half of my life. But eventually, I found it was the non-religious people in my life who challenged me to grow. And I find that many of the most religious people I know are frustratingly limited in the things they're willing to learn and think, to things that don't significantly challenge the particular edifices of their faith. To be clear, this can be true of non-religious people, too.

Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?

#904

Post by balaji1 »

tapanjk wrote: post #512

I always thought I need to exercise [more] to lose weight. Wrong. For all practical purposes, to lose weight you must change what you eat.

Nice one. also if you see extremely fit adults, it is mostly because they were extremely active/fit during their teens. (note: inverse won't be true, active teens might get unfit later). Their current diet or current activity has nothing to do with it.

Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?

#905

Post by Brentward »

015a wrote: post #710
achenatx wrote: post #578

Ive modestly tried to lose weight my whole life. Ive never been fat, but still had to work to keep my calories low. Im 5' 9", and it took 10 years to go from 170 to more like 160. Losing weight made me weaker and caused me to lose muscle. Ive recently started weightlifting for strength (low reps high weights) and the mindset is totally different. With weightlifting to keep your lifts going up you have to eat more. On…

Any advice/links on getting started lifting?

For strength training StrongLifts seems like a good program. It used to be highly recommended on the fitness reddits, but I haven't followed them for a few years. Regardless, I think it's a solid program for starting strength training. I do more of a bodybuilding/bro split, but I've been mixing in a couple of heavy days modeled after the StrongLifts plan. It's certainly simple if nothing else.

https://stronglifts.com/5x5/

Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?

#906

Post by balaji1 »

balaji1 wrote: post #656
mtlynch wrote: post #33

Staying warm. In the winter, I used to stay warm by turning up the thermostat. Then I discovered (via HN) the Low-Tech Magazine article, "Insulation: first the body, then the home." [0] The article argued that it's much more efficient to focus on heating yourself rather than your whole living space. I invested in high-quality wool clothes that I wear in layers and warm slippers. Now, I keep my home about 5 degrees F…

austerity

I realize I was intending to reply to another comment but replied to the OP... I can't find the other comment now. Anyway...

Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?

#907

Post by acjohnson55 »

vlunkr wrote: post #594
xyzelement wrote: post #19

I used to assume the religious people were missing something and missing out on the latest and greatest. Now I am seeing that often it's us the non-religious that have lost something of value and are trying to replace it with things that don't work as well.

As a religious person who has deeply considered leaving it, I've never understood the arrogance of some atheists. For me it was disturbing to try to internalize the ideas that the universe is uncaring, that good and evil are made up, that your consciousness is basically like the contents of a stick of RAM that will vanish when it loses its power source. Even the original "God is dead" quotes from Nietzsche sound mour…

> For me it was disturbing to try to internalize the ideas that the universe is uncaring, that good and evil are made up, that your consciousness is basically like the contents of a stick of RAM that will vanish when it loses its power source.

I find that disturbing, too, even as someone who believes it's likely true.

But when I was deeply Christian, I also found my denomination's view on the afterlife disturbing, too. If you live literally forever, what happens when you've done everything that matters? What even matters anymore in a world without need? How can everyone be happy at the same time if happiness depends on other people whose wants may not align? If existence in the afterlife is fundamentally different from the mortal life, there's still something of familiarity to me that will end forever. Maybe that's equivalent to my current conscious experience blinking out.

I've come to view life as a ride. It's valuable for its own sake, not because of some greater meaning I can't ascertain. It's an absolute miracle that we all exist, in the thousands of years of culture and writing, we're nowhere close to knowing why we're here, so why bother wasting my one life worrying about it when the joys of existing are self-evident.

Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?

#908

Post by drumttocs8 »

lumb63 wrote: post #760
f3b5 wrote: post #725

Not waking up earlier to the fact that the meat section in the supermarket is a product of systemic, gruesome torture of intelligent beings. Like probably many of you who read this, I usually felt a bit guilty when I was confronted with the ugly facts we are all vaguely familiar with. I justified my meat consumption with specieist arguments (humans are so much better than pigs, cows, etc). My wife challenged me to wa…

My stock response to assertions that eating meat is cruel: plants feel too. Many species are self-aware every bit as much as animals are. It’s only because wheat and corn don’t have big googly eyes that we feel no sympathy for them. Implicit in the act of consumption is the notion that our lives are worth more than the lives of whatever we eat.

Plants do exhibit environmental response; plants do not exhibit consciousness.

Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?

#909

Post by drumttocs8 »

015a wrote: post #710
achenatx wrote: post #578

Ive modestly tried to lose weight my whole life. Ive never been fat, but still had to work to keep my calories low. Im 5' 9", and it took 10 years to go from 170 to more like 160. Losing weight made me weaker and caused me to lose muscle. Ive recently started weightlifting for strength (low reps high weights) and the mindset is totally different. With weightlifting to keep your lifts going up you have to eat more. On…

Any advice/links on getting started lifting?

Starting Strength, Mark Rippetoe.

Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?

#910

Post by drumttocs8 »

xyzelement wrote: post #19

I used to assume the religious people were missing something and missing out on the latest and greatest. Now I am seeing that often it's us the non-religious that have lost something of value and are trying to replace it with things that don't work as well.

Absolutely. I wish there was secular community that offered as much.
Post reply on HN