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Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful

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Re: Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful

#271

Post by lovecg »

k8sToGo wrote: post #99
wintermutestwin wrote: post #94

I'll take this space to mention two simple life changing gratitude practices that I have habitualized: 1. Every morning, before I allow myself to look at email/news/etc, I think of three things that I am grateful for. 2. Every night at bedtime, my partner and I tell each other three things we are grateful for about each other and one thing that we are grateful for about ourselves. I find that bookending my days with…

To me this sounds too much like the daily scrum meetings or stand ups where you have to come up with something just so you can say something and, in this case, go to bed. But I only mean this as a joke. I think it is great to have "rituals" that help us look and appreciate more stuff what we have already or where we are and where we came from.

There’s some research behind this though. It’s the act of thinking of something to be grateful for that’s useful - it strengthens your “gratitude muscles”. It was surprisingly hard for me to come up with three new things day after day initially. Try it for a week - you have nothing to lose and the potential upside is huge!

Re: Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful

#272

Post by ineptech »

WalterBright wrote: post #251
kiba wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that some people are predisposed to addiction. It's harder for them, sure, but becoming an addict is still a choice for them. I know some who chose to get and stay clean, too, despite being predisposed. A fairly useless way to think about when it comes to solving problems in our society. At the end of the days, people's choices are determined by large number of factors, most of which we are unaware of or curre…

A seizure is not the same thing at all. Nobody can choose to have a seizure, or choose not to have one.

Seizures were once thought to be caused by sinfulness. We used to think problem gambling was a decision, until we discovered a drug that can cause it. I don't think we know why addicts become addicts just yet, so it might be a little early to orate upon it.

Re: Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful

#273

Post by mistermann »

notahacker wrote: post #203
watwut wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about saying that such conditions exists right now in contemporary world. We have great amount of thinkers and scientists and technologists and populists and cult leaders. All of them producing and moving world forward. It is crowded competition, actually.

Yep, the cynic in me thinks that actually creating the conditions where a dozen people's speculation on stuff dominates discourse for a couple of millenia like the Greek philosophers is less about the quality of speculation, and more about ensuring that not much else of note is written down...

Lots of stuff gets written down nowadays, but so much of it is crap, and most of everything kind of vanishes into the ether of old forum posts as time marches on.

Re: Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful

#274

Post by lovecg »

lisper wrote: post #104

I've done a lot of traveling in less developed countries. That has taught me to be thankful for the fact that I live in a house with heat and air conditioning, and hot and cold running water that I can drink without getting sick. Many people in developed countries (especially the U.S.) take these things for granted, but in many parts of the world these are things people only dream of.

Modern plumbing and sanitation is one of those things that’s nearly invisible and taken for granted, but is almost miraculous how well it works most of the time. If I had to choose, I’d rather have a weeklong electric outage than a weeklong water supply disruption, it’s not even close.

Re: Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful

#275

Post by mistermann »

watwut wrote: post #214
mistermann wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if it would be possible for these people and others to produce in a more collaborative manner, perhaps with a shared roadmap, strategy, etc. To me, it seems at least plausible, what's your take?

Socrates was not particularly collaborative. Lived through dictatorship+revolution led by his students and got killed after. The resentments were real. Quite a few people were tortured and killed in that story of betrayal, revolution, contrarevolution, amnesty and broken amnesty. Like seriously, it was way more violent and bloody then your average western society now. And we don't even go to regular wars against othe…

This difference would be advantageous to us though wouldn't it?

Re: Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful

#276

Post by esyir »

kortilla wrote: post #269
axiolite wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Im thankful to have a job I think you've got that backwards. Everyone is thankful for money and possessions. A job is just how you happen to get them. Would you be unhappy to be very wealthy, without a job? > seeing the homelessness crisis in full swing is an ever present reminder of what this economy and this society can do to you if you slip up for even a second and / or have even a minor run of bad luck. I've kn…

> Would you be unhappy to be very wealthy, without a job? Absolutely. Working on stuff for my job that I’m passionate about gives me great fulfillment. Being paid for my skills is recognition from society as to the value I provide.

Eh, between the two, I'd reckon it'd be foolish not to go with the wealth. I can always get a job, or use the breathing room provided by wealth to gain skills for a job. The inverse is not nearly as reliable.

Re: Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful

#277

Post by lovecg »

323 wrote: post #158
ravi-delia wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still true that if we had cones outside our current color range we'd have new qualia, even if animals don't.

In 100 years it will probably be possible to genetically engineer humans with more or extended range pigments, which are sensitive to IR / UV. Or maybe we'll just have bionic hyper-spectral eyes which plug directly into the optical nerve.

…and sadly those humans still won’t be able to describe their experiences in any way we would understand. “It’s just its own color that’s separate from all the others. You know, the color the black lights are”.

Re: Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful

#278

Post by erect_hacker4 »

WalterBright wrote: post #229
pkdpic wrote: post #176

Im thankful to have a job and a roof over my head and a little bit of savings. Not having to really worry about money still blows my mind now and then. Looking across the street every day in California and seeing the homelessness crisis in full swing is an ever present reminder of what this economy and this society can do to you if you slip up for even a second and / or have even a minor run of bad luck. Working in s…

In Seattle anyway, 90% of the homeless are either drug addicts or alcoholics. Becoming one is a choice under your control, not god smiting you. > Working in software is a heluva lot better than stoop labor, what people have done for millennia. Every time I work on the yard I'm reminded again at how hard stoop labor is, and how I'm glad to work sitting in a comfy chair in a warm house with the stereo playing in the ba…

Addiction is a choice. Classic HN.

Re: Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful

#279

Post by maneesh »

krosaen wrote: post #266

> That the FDA, Health Canada, and the European Food Safety Authority all agree that at the doses humans consume, aspartame is perfectly safe—not genotoxic, not carcinogenic, does not cause an insulin spike—or at least has small, unknown harms, meaning that people with a sweet tooth can avoid the large, known harms of sugar with minimal exertion of willpower, and this is still true even though people for some reason…

Sucralose isn't aspartame...

Re: Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful

#280

Post by pkdpic »

thowaway959125 wrote: post #232
pkdpic wrote: post #176

Im thankful to have a job and a roof over my head and a little bit of savings. Not having to really worry about money still blows my mind now and then. Looking across the street every day in California and seeing the homelessness crisis in full swing is an ever present reminder of what this economy and this society can do to you if you slip up for even a second and / or have even a minor run of bad luck. Working in s…

> Looking across the street every day in California and seeing the homelessness crisis in full swing is an ever present reminder of what this economy and this society can do to you if you slip up for even a second and / or have even a minor run of bad luck. Working in software isn't always easy or fun or fulfilling but its still an incredible privilege to be working in this industry. I'm a senior software engineer wi…

Thank you so much for sharing this, its deeply inspiring and feels like really important context / wisdom for someone still at the beginning of their dev career. This is exactly why HN can be such an amazing community (imho). Im more and more thankful for that as well.
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