291–300 of 349 posts
10 and 13 are somewhat contradictory.
10 posits "the hard problem of consciousness" and "for whatever reason we have phenomenal experiences" while:
13 says "That selfhood is possibly an illusion... and the idea that you are the same person you were yesterday is an illusion your brain-meat gives to you"
I happen to think 13 is closer to the truth. As we learn more about the brain, it will become more clear that "consciousness" is just a movie your brain puts on for you. Bats and dogs and dolphins watch different movies, but we cannot say they are "not conscious."
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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. I wager that poor people are far better at recognizing addiction than non-poor. I hired a stoner once, not recognizing it. He robbed the company blind to pay his dealer. Social workers are always trying to get…
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…
Assume we know the person's addiction and subsequent dysfunction is from said mental illness. The person doesn't want to be treated, as is often the case. Do you
A: let him carry on as is, resulting in both self-harm alongside other externalities
B: Violate his right to self determination and have him committed to a mental institution.
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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.
Socrates was even refusing to write at all. All we know is what Plato wrote for his own reasons.
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.
Oddly, I regularly think about how great plumbing is, and I've been noticing this for the past 5-10 years, I think (I'm in my 40s). I think one day I was probably in the shower and thinking about how awesome it was to have a hot shower. Then I started thinking about how great not having to use a "night soil pot" or an outhouse is, especially in hot or cold weather. I don't think I've spent as much time contemplating…
You haven't spent enough time in hot, humid climates. Go to Houston in the summer and you will not have to contemplate for long.
> 11. That it happens to be a game-theoretic equilibrium to have a near-equal sex ratio, although honestly, I have no idea what things would be like if that wasn’t the case and maybe it would be fine. Well, let's think about if this would be fine. If there were a 10:1 female to male ratio, I think we'd expect that a modern, "civilized" society would be reasonably fine for everyone. There'd probably a lot more polygam…
I like this more unusual list of things to be grateful for, as it complements well what one is usually reminded to be grateful for. I'd like a more fundamental point there, though: Gratefulness seems to be primarily a ternary operator: " is grateful to for ." (like "a ? b : c" in C). That second SOMEONE is the one that the being grateful is directed at, as they are responsible for things being the way they are. (Bein…
> That second SOMEONE is the one that the being grateful is directed at, as they are responsible for things being the way they are. (Being grateful to anyone not causally connected to what one is grateful about seems most weird.) How does one go about (accurately) decomposing causality in a system this complex and poorly understood though?
For example, someone who does not open the canal to water the garden is the reason and cause of the garden drying up and the non-existence of bounties. But the existence of the garden’s bounties is dependent on hundreds of conditions besides the man’s duty and the bounties come into being through dominical will and power, which are the true cause.
Yes, ‘association’ is one thing and the cause is another. You receive a bounty, but the intention of a person to bestow it on you was the ‘associate’ of the bounty, not the cause. The cause was divine mercy. If the man had not intended to give you the bounty, you would not have received it and it would have been the cause of the bounty’s non-existence. But in consequence of the above rule, the desire to bestow cannot be the cause of the bounty; it can only be one out of hundreds of conditions.... from meaning of Quran "
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If you can and aren't already, maybe consider organising with less privileged workers for things like striking in unison. Or getting politically active to grow economy and society so it will be kinder and allow a slip up. One of the many reasons I would never move to the US is that in Europe I don't feel like a minor slip up or bad luck will send me into financial ruin. I'll need surgery on my shoulder soon and hopef…
I moved from europe to the us because I could never become financially independent with the low compensation and high taxes in EU. I would never wish for us to ever be as unambitious and hard to grow as the eu is.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/08/22/upshot/hospit...
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The "Seattle is Dying" video produced by KOMO, the local TV station. "60 Minutes" also ran a segment on the Seattle homeless a couple years ago. They went in looking for people who were down on their luck. They found drug addicts and alcoholics.
Here's a write-up from Seattle's government about the root causes of homelessness in the city: https://www.seattle.gov/homelessness/the-roots-of-the-crisis This is a take on the issue by the Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/why-are-p...
Drug addiction and alcoholism is the proximate cause of a lot of calamities in peoples' lives.