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Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs

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Re: Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs

#41

Post by frodetb »

> > We humans are, deep down, lazy and gluttonous creatures. If left to our own devices, we will do nothing but eat Pringles and watch Netflix. The only way we can escape our indolent nature is to exert our higher faculties over our base instincts.

> First, humans are not “naturally” lazy, because humans are not “naturally” anything. ... We’re different today not because our genes changed, but because our culture changed.

But those faults are in fact undeniably persistent to us as a species. It is not without reason that many of our religions, since antiquity, have framed this issue, man's struggle against his impulses, against his baser self, as the struggle against evil.

If you're of the opinion that religion is bad for the same reasons that those motivational coaches are bad, then I think you still have to admit that this fight against our selves is far from novel.

Re: Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs

#44

Post by vanderZwan »

istinetz wrote: post #37

I strongly disagree with the author. What brings me pleasure is playing strategic computer games. I was addicted to playing dota. I was playing 12-16 hours a day, which left no place for socializing, career, family, even basic self-maintenance suffered. Anything meaningful, art, self-improvement was cut. It's a disgraceful, shameful life. The meaning of life is not the blind pursuit of pleasure. We are humans precise…

Except that you're talking about a game hyper-optimized to be addictive, and while I can't speak for your specific case, in general having an addiction usually involves said addiction being a coping mechanism to fill some kind of hole in someone's life, or avoiding the pain of some unresolved trauma. Which is not at all the same thing as being proof of humans inherently being lazy and needing self-help gurus to fix that.

Re: Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs

#45

Post by maeln »

yodsanklai wrote: post #28
glandium wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BTW, as a 44 year old French that has never seen frogs on a restaurant menu, and never had any, I wonder how common eating frogs is nowadays. Escargots seem much more common, to cite something else we're known for.

I think it's quite rare. I tried once because a friend was visiting from the US and wanted to try. With a bit of research, I found a restaurant specialised in frog, but yes, they aren't common.

Idk, I went to a lot of restaurant that had frog legs in their menu. On the other hand I had snails only once. But I think "traditional" french restaurant are not that common anymore in anycase. My city is full of restaurant from all over the world or thematic restaurant, only an handful of "classic" french restaurant (and its not a bad thing, I love the variety).

Re: Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs

#46

Post by praptak »

mlok wrote: post #4

As a Frenchman, it took me a while to realize it was supposed to mean "a painful thing to do"

To me "eating the frog" comes from a joke.

Two peasants find a frog and take a bet. One says he can eat the frog raw and the other bets $5 that he cannot. So the first peasant starts to eat the frog; halfway through he starts to feel nauseous. The second one starts to regret the $5 that he's about to lose. So he offers to reverse the bet - $5 back for eating the remaining half of the frog. The first one agrees and the second one eats the remaining half of the frog.

They walk for a bit and one asks the other "Hey, why exactly did we eat that frog?".

Re: Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs

#47

Post by staticassertion »

vanderZwan wrote: post #38

> For legal reasons, I’m not saying the people who write this stuff are literally Lucifer in human skin. It’s just that, if I wanted to maximize human misery, I would 100% try to convince people to spend more time doing things they hate When Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett wrote Good Omens thirty years ago they already hit upon this idea when Crowley, a demon and one of the main characters, tries to explain to his fe…

Reminds me of Supernatural's Crowley optimizing hell to just be one big line where everyone just has to stand and wait. The simpler solution.

Re: Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs

#48

Post by orzig »

jiggywiggy wrote: post #43

I like some points of the article, but stating we are not naturally anything, and then in the next paragraph claiming: '"your base instincts" deserve more credit.', is very illogical.

Exactly. And, while it's true we're in a different environment than we evolved for, our instincts are obviously still relevant. We still get hungry, crave connection, etc. They're just filtered through different specific objects

Re: Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs

#49

Post by vanderZwan »

jiggywiggy wrote: post #43

I like some points of the article, but stating we are not naturally anything, and then in the next paragraph claiming: '"your base instincts" deserve more credit.', is very illogical.

It's not illogical at all, although I suppose the author could have been more clear in separating the two points they're arguing against:

    1) Humans are naturally lazy
    2) Human instinct drives us to do things that are bad for us
While connected by an implicit "being lazy is bad" value judgement, these are not the same things.

Stating we are "naturally something" implies that there is an fixed equilibrium point that our behavior naturally converges to.

The second claim about basic instincts is talking about the dynamic processes going on in your body that you are not consciously aware of. It's not saying anything about how those processes work. They can be perfectly valid, important processes that only act in response to contextual information (that is, it is entirely possible for them to not have a "natural, default" behavior).

Re: Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs

#50

Post by jiggywiggy »

vanderZwan wrote: post #49
jiggywiggy wrote: post #43

I like some points of the article, but stating we are not naturally anything, and then in the next paragraph claiming: '"your base instincts" deserve more credit.', is very illogical.

It's not illogical at all, although I suppose the author could have been more clear in separating the two points they're arguing against: 1) Humans are naturally lazy 2) Human instinct drives us to do things that are bad for us While connected by an implicit "being lazy is bad" value judgement, these are not the same things. Stating we are "naturally something" implies that there is an fixed equilibrium point that ou…

Basic instincts is an other way of saying that we are "naturally" inclined to do certain things in certain situations.

I understand that reading natural as a "fixed equilibrim" might mean that to you, but for me, and also others it doesn't mean that. So would be good to better explain that in the article.

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