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A Sick Giant

waitbutwhy.com

11–20 of 138 posts

Re: A Sick Giant

#11
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does he? Not sure I agree.

I knew someone would disagree, but it just sounds really antisocial to me. Sure, the woman should have asked him to put his phone in airplane mode instead of going straight to the attendant, but he could have also replied with an "oh, sorry" and put his phone on airplane mode when told off about the rule he was in fact breaking.

And the author in fact says in the article that that is what he should have done.

The whole thing is about how everyone can be anti social from time to time

Re: A Sick Giant

#12
I have enjoyed WaitButWhy articles in the past but with this new series the author seems to have spent a huge amount of time, energy and words coming up with ideas that aren't that new. I keep skimming through them waiting to find the big point.

Re: A Sick Giant

#13
post #8
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally the next paragraph he writes: “But that’s not what happened, because her aggressive tattletale move immediately threw my Primitive Mind into a rage, plummeting me down the Psych Spectrum. This banished my Higher Mind to the closet of my subconscious, allowing my Primitive Mind to come up with a genius-yet-psychotic plan for revenge. Which worked, and made my Primitive Mind feel deeply satisfied in a very no…

I'd like to think most people would act more civilized initially in that situation. In fact the most civilized thing to do would have been to simply follow the rules in the first place, knowing that most passengers will believe they must be important.

For sure, everyone likes to think themselves and most people act decently 100% of the time and never irrationally. But then sometimes, everyone acts irrationally, for one reason or another.

Re: A Sick Giant

#14

I have enjoyed WaitButWhy articles in the past but with this new series the author seems to have spent a huge amount of time, energy and words coming up with ideas that aren't that new. I keep skimming through them waiting to find the big point.

I think to gain anything from long form articles, you need to read and consider what's being written, rather than skimming, looking for the holy grail.

Re: A Sick Giant

#15
The liberal worldview thinks that everything is basically ok and that the problem is that "norms" are being violated and bad information leads to pointless conflict.

Liberals are wrong. There are fundemental structural problems with this country and the current psychosis is the result of neither political party addressing them while going war and profit crazy on the backs of the working people that slave and die without improving their position.

Re: A Sick Giant

#16

I have enjoyed WaitButWhy articles in the past but with this new series the author seems to have spent a huge amount of time, energy and words coming up with ideas that aren't that new. I keep skimming through them waiting to find the big point.

In full agreement. I've never been a huge fan of the site, but the amount of time that went into this compared with the takeaways from reading it seems out of whack.

Many of these concepts are widely accepted, to the point that if you don't agree with them yet you never will.

Re: A Sick Giant

#17

The liberal worldview thinks that everything is basically ok and that the problem is that "norms" are being violated and bad information leads to pointless conflict. Liberals are wrong. There are fundemental structural problems with this country and the current psychosis is the result of neither political party addressing them while going war and profit crazy on the backs of the working people that slave and die with…

I hope you understand the wild hypocrisy of this comment given the article.

Re: A Sick Giant

#18

I have enjoyed WaitButWhy articles in the past but with this new series the author seems to have spent a huge amount of time, energy and words coming up with ideas that aren't that new. I keep skimming through them waiting to find the big point.

It really grinds my gears that your opinion on a thing you didn't completely read is right next to well thought-out responses by people who bothered to read the article.

Re: A Sick Giant

#19

The liberal worldview thinks that everything is basically ok and that the problem is that "norms" are being violated and bad information leads to pointless conflict. Liberals are wrong. There are fundemental structural problems with this country and the current psychosis is the result of neither political party addressing them while going war and profit crazy on the backs of the working people that slave and die with…

The comment is not fitting to the article, but I wanted to respond to it anyways because I found it interesting and it's not something talked about here much, for obvious reasons.

The problem is going to escape many on the left, including most people here as well, as many people here are mostly agnostic/atheistic/anti-faith and believe having faith is somehow anti-intellectual. The reality of the situation is the US was founded, both socially and politically on Judeo-Christian principles of morality, and the nuclear family and it is undeniable the evidence to support this in our laws and constitution.

We have seen more upheaval and social change in the last 10-15 years than the previous 50 all in the name of "progress" (never mind it is those very people who subscribe to that "progress" that are leading the way in unhappiness, depression, low marriage rate, low birth rate, and suicide).

There are positions now being held by major political frontrunners that are simply not compatible with any person of faith, or any sort of compromise with the opposite political party. There is simply no compromise to be had. The biggest elephant in the room is abortion. My two favorite writers on this subject are Caitlin Flanagan for a left-side perspective, and Alexandra Descantis for a right-side perspective. Both write very thoughtfully on this issue: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/how-democrats-purged-... https://www.realclearpolitics.com/2019/11/16/an_honest_abort...

Many people call America a Christian nation. I know this will get downvoted to hell here. I consider myself a well traveled man, and I will quote one famous professor I had the pleasure of listening to a lecture of that rings especially true to me: "The only country in the world that doesn't know America is a Christian nation is America."

Re: A Sick Giant

#20

The liberal worldview thinks that everything is basically ok and that the problem is that "norms" are being violated and bad information leads to pointless conflict. Liberals are wrong. There are fundemental structural problems with this country and the current psychosis is the result of neither political party addressing them while going war and profit crazy on the backs of the working people that slave and die with…

> neither political party addressing them

This bothsaming is a stretch.

The Democratic national platform is all about increased support for the poor and middle class, the more radical wing of the party is pushing for dramatic and fundamental restructuring of much of the national economy and welfare system as part of combating climate change, and their current Presidential slate includes several avowed anti-war anti-corporate-hegemony candidates. Even judging purely by recent history, while Obama was kind of underwhelming in many ways, he still got the ACA pushed through, which has dramatically improved the lives of many people previously left to suffer and die because of 'preexisting conditions'.

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