Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful • Hacker News Board

Re: Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful

#211

Post by quickthrower2 » Thu, Nov 25, 2021, 10:50 PM UTC

cyberpunk wrote: post #163

sombremesa wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alcohol definitely does more good, just consider the uses it has aside from being ingested.

Also, consider how many flights went smoothly because of alcohol.. I mean, outing myself as British here but (every flight) without a stuff gin or three, that woman in-front of me would have had a stern talking to I can tell you! :}

I wonder if British are more reserved because they’ve evolved to have about a unit or two of alcohol in the blood stream at all times at which point it’s the sweet spot. I jest of course. Also I’m a Brit.

Re: Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful

#212

Post by quickthrower2 » Thu, Nov 25, 2021, 10:54 PM UTC

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…

Being grateful is good! But being jealous, angry, bitter etc. are also valid emotions, not sins. (I don’t believe in Dante’s Inferno etc.). Those emotions are signal that something needs fixing. Sometimes it can be fixed in a second if it’s a silly thing. Sometime it can take a lifetime, if it’s grieving for example.

Re: Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful

#213

Post by cyberpunk » Thu, Nov 25, 2021, 11:03 PM UTC

quickthrower2 wrote: post #211

cyberpunk wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, consider how many flights went smoothly because of alcohol.. I mean, outing myself as British here but (every flight) without a stuff gin or three, that woman in-front of me would have had a stern talking to I can tell you! :}

I wonder if British are more reserved because they’ve evolved to have about a unit or two of alcohol in the blood stream at all times at which point it’s the sweet spot. I jest of course. Also I’m a Brit.

Well, we certainly developed an effective preventative against malaria... And that's before we get to the ballmer peak [0], which I think many of us experienced at one point ;)

0: https://xkcd.com/323/

Re: Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful

#214

Post by watwut » Thu, Nov 25, 2021, 11:11 PM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #161

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.

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 other cities and don't keep slaves. Neither of those two are collaboration.

And now you can actually become citizen without being born from citizen father.

Re: Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful

#215

Post by PapaSpaceDelta » Thu, Nov 25, 2021, 11:18 PM UTC

quickthrower2 wrote: post #211

cyberpunk wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, consider how many flights went smoothly because of alcohol.. I mean, outing myself as British here but (every flight) without a stuff gin or three, that woman in-front of me would have had a stern talking to I can tell you! :}

I wonder if British are more reserved because they’ve evolved to have about a unit or two of alcohol in the blood stream at all times at which point it’s the sweet spot. I jest of course. Also I’m a Brit.

I suppose that I have to put this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTSCppeFzX4 here. Many a true word…

Re: Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful

#216

Post by Findecanor » Thu, Nov 25, 2021, 11:27 PM UTC

I'm thankful for living in a time when there is modern medicine, in a country with modern healthcare, without which I would not be alive today.

BTW. If society does not prepare for the next Carrington Event, it will suffer greatly. Technology is great, but it would be stupid to create too hard dependencies on it. Also, there will be a next pandemic - as there always have.

Re: Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful

#217

Post by bobsmooth » Thu, Nov 25, 2021, 11:41 PM UTC

alexanderdmitri wrote: post #167

Thankfulness as an end is not necessarily valuable or positive. I think the associated feeling does little to the make the world a better place, I put it in the same category as remorse. Just as remorse should lead to rectifying action, thankfulness should lead to reciprocal action to provide objective value. What's interesting is the impetus between internal perception and outward action both share is a sense of ind…

>Thankfulness as an end is not necessarily valuable or positive.

I strongly disagree. I moved to a new city and the experience allowed me to truly appropriate all the things I have. My living situation only improved slightly but being thankful has massively improved my mental health.

Re: Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful

#218

Post by bobsmooth » Thu, Nov 25, 2021, 11:43 PM UTC

tejohnso wrote: post #123

arduinomancer wrote: post #106

#5 is actually pretty amazing if you think about it If zero-calorie sweeteners didn't exist I feel like we would view discovering one as a holy grail/miracle drug I bet a ton of obesity has been prevented just due to diet soda Imagine if the same thing existed for carbs

I wonder why #5 singles out aspartame though.

Because its the most famous/infamous and is the most studied.

Re: Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful

#219

Post by bobsmooth » Thu, Nov 25, 2021, 11:47 PM UTC

dheera wrote: post #51

> That the Earth hasn’t recently been hit by a solar flare as powerful as the 1859 Carrington event Is anyone thinking about what to do? It's only a matter of time before we have another flare 2X or 3X the magnitude of the Carrington event.

Hopefully our satellites are there to detect it and hopefully the world reacts quick enough to shut down the power grid. Would still be horrible, but there are mitigations.

Re: Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful

#220

Post by pfdietz » Thu, Nov 25, 2021, 11:52 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #91

butwhywhyoh wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm thankful for oxygen because we can breathe it! And it can be found pretty much everywhere in the atmosphere of planet Earth. And I'm thankful for all the other elements that I'm composed of. They can even be used to do other miraculous things. Wonderful!

Nestle is fighting over control of freshwater sources. I reckon oxygen is next. In the future, be thankful with your wallet.

Nestle uses 0.003% of humanity's fresh water consumption, so I'm sure you're properly allocating your worry budget there.