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What you can’t imagine clearly, you value less

nautil.us

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Re: What you can’t imagine clearly, you value less

#41

Post by throwaway_51122 »

Trasmatta wrote: post #11

> In fact, having depression is generally much worse than having diabetes As a T1 diabetic, the fun part is that diabetes is highly correlated with depression. So it's very common for depression to follow diabetes. Sucks to have to deal with both. It's a vicious cycle, because depression makes it harder to manage your diabetes, and poorly managed diabetes is correlated with more severe depression symptoms. Not exactl…

As a fellow T1 diabetic, I fully agree. I'd much rather have no diabetes and full-fat depression (assuming both conditions can be properly medicated) than the other way round - and I already have low-fat depression thanks to decades of untreated ADHD. A hypoglycemic "attack" can kill silently in the middle of the night. And trust me, I have way more frequent "suicidal" thoughts than hypos on an average day (quotes because I know I'm not going to follow through). Of course this isn't meant to be a pity party of who has it worse, this is more of a note to the author/readers.

(Fortunately my ADHD diagnosis + medication seems to be helping a good bit.)

Re: What you can’t imagine clearly, you value less

#42

Post by pessimizer »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #38
antiterra wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, I can think my child is abstractly ‘equal’ to another person’s child but also not feel as much ownership for their well being. I think what the commenter is saying is similar to a reductio ad absurdum of what it would be like if every child was of equal direct importance and priority to you. It, however, doesn’t address what would happen if everyone in a community voluntarily had this concern nominally and the…

Putting the OP's comment aside, what is this abstract "equality"? We seem to be quite confident in announcing this proposition and affirming it in the public square, but how many people can actually tell you what this equality concerns? (Mind you, I am NOT claiming there is no sense in which human persons may be said to be equal. I am merely raising the issue that many people don't seem to know despite the confident…

> lots of weird political hay has been made claiming some nebulous kind of "equality" that resists any kind of examination or analysis.

The resistance to analysis is often because they use it polymorphically. It will mean one thing in one sentence, a totally different thing in the next, and this will not be acknowledged in any way.

I'm not an arguer about what words mean, for me it's enough that people tell me what they mean by the word so we can have an effective discussion. But the word has to mean something and its definition cannot change within the same context.

Re: What you can’t imagine clearly, you value less

#43

Post by pessimizer »

User23 wrote: post #27
pessimizer wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I need to hear a restatement of 3) that doesn't rely on the word "equal" or "egalitarian" without defining them in the context of the argument you're making. What does it mean to say that everyone is or isn't "equal?" Are you trying to say that people are distinct (i.e. there is more than one person)? Are you trying to say that people aren't the same height, and there are others insisting that they are? What are you…

Surely you understand exactly what is meant. Why play dumb? For example I’m not equal to Bobby Fischer as a chess player.

I'm not playing dumb. And I'm also surprised that you're so confident that what they meant by equality is "equal skill levels at a particular task." If that's what they meant, there's literally nobody who believes either that everyone is equal at every task, or that everyone is equal at any task. That would be a dumb strawman.

So are you playing dumb, or is that really what you think they meant?

Re: What you can’t imagine clearly, you value less

#45

Post by pixl97 »

User23 wrote: post #32
pixl97 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2b) You drop a bottle on a biking trail. Do you clean it up? I mean, you likely won't get caught or in trouble if you don't, but you're apt to cause other humans harm by increasing the risk they'll get a flat tire. You drop a bottle off the edge of a cliff. Do you clean it up? Most people would not, the time and risk of getting to where the bottle is, is high versus the risk of someone being hurt by it. I believe you…

Why does nearly everyone return shopping carts?

I see you subscribe to 4chan shopping cart theory

____

The shopping cart is the ultimate litmus test for whether a person is capable of self-governing.

To return the shopping cart is an easy, convenient task and one which we all recognize as the correct, appropriate thing to do. To return the shopping cart is objectively right. There are no situations other than dire emergencies in which a person is not able to return their cart. Simultaneously, it is not illegal to abandon your shopping cart. Therefore the shopping cart presents itself as the apex example of whether a person will do what is right without being forced to do it. No one will punish you for not returning the shopping cart, no one will fine you or kill you for not returning the shopping cart, you gain nothing by returning the shopping cart. You must return the shopping cart out of the goodness of your own heart. You must return the shopping cart because it is the right thing to do. Because it is correct.

A person who is unable to do this is no better than an animal, an absolute savage who can only be made to do what is right by threatening them with a law and the force that stands behind it.

The Shopping Cart is what determines whether a person is a good or bad member of society.

Re: What you can’t imagine clearly, you value less

#46

Post by alar44 »

menotyou wrote: post #40

I am an aphant, I can not imagine anything. While I can appreciate to have a good income and always had good paying jobs, I was never really interested in making a career and becoming filthy rich. Possibly because I can not imagine myself in this situation. On the other hand I was always better then others on making long term strategic plans. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia

I'm so sick of hearing this. You can imagine things. That's not even what Aphantasia is.

Re: What you can’t imagine clearly, you value less

#47

Post by phao »

menotyou wrote: post #40

I am an aphant, I can not imagine anything. While I can appreciate to have a good income and always had good paying jobs, I was never really interested in making a career and becoming filthy rich. Possibly because I can not imagine myself in this situation. On the other hand I was always better then others on making long term strategic plans. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia

I've just spent the last 30min-1h looking this up. I think I might have a form of this... Mostly, I can't really picture stuff. I thought that was just everyone.

Gotta find out more about this!

Re: What you can’t imagine clearly, you value less

#48

Post by User23 »

pessimizer wrote: post #43
User23 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely you understand exactly what is meant. Why play dumb? For example I’m not equal to Bobby Fischer as a chess player.

I'm not playing dumb. And I'm also surprised that you're so confident that what they meant by equality is "equal skill levels at a particular task." If that's what they meant, there's literally nobody who believes either that everyone is equal at every task, or that everyone is equal at any task. That would be a dumb strawman. So are you playing dumb, or is that really what you think they meant?

Egalitarianism is such a weak position that there’s no need to strawman it.

And yes literally nobody except children and fools truly believes that people are equal in any material sense. Evidence suggests to me that you are neither a child nor a fool.

Indeed the egalitarian position is so transparently weak that even its erstwhile proponents have abandoned it in favor of “equity,” whatever that means.

Re: What you can’t imagine clearly, you value less

#49

Post by MrPatan »

club_tropical wrote: post #3

Behold, one of the most dangerous and toxic forms of stupid: the LABCOAT-FLASHER. Do not fall for the verbal trickeries and hypotheticals - they are the syntactic sugar masking various POISONS: 1) There is no “you” that is meaningfully apart from “your brain”. This trickery is meant to dissociate you from your body and backdoor sneak-in the labcoat-flasher as a co-conspiritor against yourself. It is every bit as gasl…

A thousand times yes.

Another set of "philosophical muggings" that use the same trick and drive me nuts that people just accept them are trolley problems.

"Why shouldn't the surgeon kill a healthy person to save 5 others with his organs?". Duh, because the surgeon doesn't know what's going to happen and there's a high chance he's going to end up with 6 corpses, plus his own when anybody fins out. "No, you don't understand, it's a Gedankenexperiment, we're assuming it works out". That's the mugging, that's the con, you just gave them clarivoyance and from there you can be sold any bridge of their choice.

Never accept crystal balls. There are no paradoxes, just realities people don't like.

Re: What you can’t imagine clearly, you value less

#50

Post by Trasmatta »

throwaway_51122 wrote: post #41
Trasmatta wrote: post #11

> In fact, having depression is generally much worse than having diabetes As a T1 diabetic, the fun part is that diabetes is highly correlated with depression. So it's very common for depression to follow diabetes. Sucks to have to deal with both. It's a vicious cycle, because depression makes it harder to manage your diabetes, and poorly managed diabetes is correlated with more severe depression symptoms. Not exactl…

As a fellow T1 diabetic, I fully agree. I'd much rather have no diabetes and full-fat depression (assuming both conditions can be properly medicated) than the other way round - and I already have low-fat depression thanks to decades of untreated ADHD. A hypoglycemic "attack" can kill silently in the middle of the night. And trust me, I have way more frequent "suicidal" thoughts than hypos on an average day (quotes be…

Hugs to you. T1 diabetes is so awful and hard. The daily burden is something non diabetics just can never fully understand. It's something that's with you always. We understand the burden of living on the knife's edge of life and death better than almost anyone.
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