"Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water."
Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water, get smallpox, let doctor do bloodletting, watch everyone around you die After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water, get smallpox vaccine, live to play with your kids and watch them grow up...
You're a Slave to Money, Then You Die
211–220 of 243 posts
Re: You're a Slave to Money, Then You Die
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, Feynman was the first person in any discipline to give lectures accessible to a popular audience. Goodness knows why no-one in the whole of the humanities has ever done this. (There is actually a much longer, and arguably more successful, tradition of humanists engaging with popular audiences. We remember the scientists who were good at it because they were so exceptional.) I suspect you haven't read the article…
Feel free to try to un-press your condescension button; it's not helping you present your case at all. You just come across as rude and hostile. Let me try to restate a bit better. Feynmann wasn't the first, even in physics (Faraday may have been). But for Feynmann to do what he did in his lectures, he had to find a simpler way to present it - not because the words were hard, but because the mathematics was. What I w…
Imagine if someone in the humanities expected the sciences to operate under such constraints. Why do you keep using these complicated "equations"? Why is this book about fluid dynamics packed with obscure terminology and strange diagrams? (I guess it must just be padding.)
Re: You're a Slave to Money, Then You Die
#213If you have not read _The hard thing about hard things_, you should. One of my favorites is this exchange when the company hits hard times: Bill Campbell: "It's not about the money." Ben Horowitz: "What's it about, Bill?" Bill: "It's about the FUCKING money.
Lone Starr : Listen! We're not just doing this for money!
Barf : [Barf looks at him, raises his ears]
Lone Starr : We're doing it for a SHIT LOAD of money!
Re: You're a Slave to Money, Then You Die
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
FWIW it’s worth I didn’t downvote you however your assertion of life after death was provided with no evidence but appears that your are asserting your faith as fact. That will rub some people the wrong way, me among them though not the way it would have once, I’ve someone what mellowed with age.
Thanks. I can assert that I have learned some things for myself. Details at my web site (linked from my profile--it is a simple site and I hope very navigable/skimmable...). Edit: I think I have a great deal of compelling evidence that is meaningful to me. Any other person has to decide if it is meaningful to them, but it is extensive (as I have written).
Re: You're a Slave to Money, Then You Die
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
Feel free to try to un-press your condescension button; it's not helping you present your case at all. You just come across as rude and hostile. Let me try to restate a bit better. Feynmann wasn't the first, even in physics (Faraday may have been). But for Feynmann to do what he did in his lectures, he had to find a simpler way to present it - not because the words were hard, but because the mathematics was. What I w…
It's much more condescending to tell everyone in the humanities that (a) they should all follow the example of a physicist who never even wrote a book length work himself, and (b) that they are obliged only ever to work in the service of extremely impatient and poorly-read readers outside the humanities, whose preferences are the only ones that matter. Imagine if someone in the humanities expected the sciences to ope…
You are putting words in my mouth that I did not say, and I deny you the right to do so. Did I say "ever"? No. I said that, when talking to those outside the humanities, they should talk differently. (And what is the humanities if they only ever talk to themselves? Physics makes a difference to the world by what it enables us to do, so if the physicists talk only to themselves and to the engineers, they still can change the world. But if the humanities talk only to themselves, that's... not very helpful to society.)
And, despite me explaining it, you continue to misunderstand what I said about Feynmann. When talking to those who aren't at your level in the discipline, can you still make it understandable to them, without making them first have to get to your level? How far can you go to do so?
The problem that I see is that the humanities no longer seem to know how to talk to the culture at large. That's a real problem, because if the humanities are what they think they are, the larger culture needs them. The humanities need to talk to those outside the humanities, and to do so in a way that those outside can understand.
Re: You're a Slave to Money, Then You Die
#216Having learned for myself that life has a purpose and there is life after death, with a just judge (and merciful, for the merciful), and that all things will be put in good order (my wording, emphasis on good): that all changes everything, for me at least. Today is Easter, when we commemorate the empty tomb....
There is life after death. It's just not going to be you living it. One day, you'll die. After that, it's eternal nothingness. It's not so terrible if you think about it.
Re: You're a Slave to Money, Then You Die
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
If a democracy wants authoritarianism Nationalist Party then there is no magic mechanism to stop this, and it might be presumptive to even assume that democracy is most morally harmonious and effective configuration of society. I believe China is seriously contending this assumption, as it races ahead of its Asian and European neighbors with respect to economic optimism. Also, political parties appear part and parcel…
China is certainly effective. The willingness to simply murder dissidents makes things much simpler. I struggle to see how anyone could consider China "morally harmonious" though. Their effectiveness seems to be directly at the cost of any morality.
Re: You're a Slave to Money, Then You Die
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
That particular priest of the priestly class seeking to justify their predation of their bronze-age neighbors is probably dead. So, unfortunately, we are only left with their hagiographal and/or mythical prose.
You must be fun at parties.
Re: You're a Slave to Money, Then You Die
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
You must be fun at parties.
A blast, yes. Thank you for your personality assessment on a scant sub-tweet sized comment.
That's in the site guidelines too: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Re: You're a Slave to Money, Then You Die
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
You must be fun at parties.
Personal attacks will get you banned here. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.