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I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

theguardian.com

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Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#621

Post by mrphoebs »

SamPatt wrote: post #581
mrphoebs wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not dwindling others experiences against the vastness of the universe. I'm merely pointing out the absurdity of the parent comment that somehow elevates the meaningfulness of having kids over building a stone wall. My position is neither is any less or more meaningful beyond individual experience.

The vast overwhelming majority of matter in the universe is inert. The fact that we've hit upon a certain arrangement of matter which yields consciousness and the ability to manipulate the matter around us is something which seems worth preservation. I contain the information for how to give life to inert matter. I've done it three times now, and I think it's worthwhile.

You thinking it is worthwhile is all that should matter, just as a farmer thinking it's worthwhile to build a wall that lasts. Both instances are us giving meaning to self actualisation of individual drives be it preservation or propagation of genetic information or building something that will outlast you.

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#622

Post by batch12 »

sidlls wrote: post #595
TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A successful businessman on vacation was at the pier of a small coastal village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The businessman complimented the fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The fisherman proudly replied, “Every morning, I go out in my boat for 30 minutes to fish. I’m the best fisherman in the…

That's a cute story. However there are vast differences in reality. The fisherman is likely an uncultured bigot and xenophobe with life experiences that reinforce this condition, and who will suffer terribly from the ailments of aging that the businessman's wealth can afford respite from. For example.

While we are making things up, I submit that the fisherman is an extraterrestrial who keeps his space faring ship in the sea. Every day he paddles out to check on his alien family before returning to his social studies back on shore.

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#623

Post by renewiltord »

celticninja wrote: post #412
renewiltord wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These threads are always so entertaining. Someone will make up this pastoral romance while implying that the city life is somehow lacking. Then someone will do the opposite and the wars will begin. Very entertaining. For my part, I enjoy modal editors so I think vim is better than emacs and I like the GPL over BSD.

I think you misunderstood the issue people have here. It is not the pastoral Vs city life that is the issue. It is the OP assertion that this guy has been lobotomized because he is content with his life.

Haha no, that's par for the course. Each one of these people will always make some remark like this. "You leave no impact on the Earth. 40 yrs in your apartment and then burnt in a crematorium. Who knows you existed? Villageboi leaves legacy. Cityboi never existed. No trace."

"Yeah, but villageboi is a lobotomized mole. I am sophisticate. You have no frontal lobe"

The peak of discourse. Hahaha. And then depending on which lifestyle you have chosen, people will pick some arbitrary thing to argue about.

"You said villageboi. Actually, I am village girl. And it's not village. It's farm"

"You said lobotomy. Actually, it's a corpus callosotomy"

That's what makes it so entertaining. The idea that people think they're being all this sharp when really they're just offended that their preferences were made fun of.

But you're clearly an Emacs user. See you on your way back from the RSI doctor, nerd!

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#624

Post by randompwd »

graderjs wrote: post #466
kebman wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it matter? This is an old belief told from one generation to another. And in the instance of my family, it certainly turned out to be true. Later that summer, during an especially hot and bright night (it's midnight sun where I come from because it's above the Arctic Circle) I saw that grouse on the tractor road further down the fields of the farm. It silhouetted in the midnight sun. It surprised me to see it st…

No need to surrender your beliefs to some egghead who's not imaginative enough to see the world with wonder. Who cares about someone else's logic that is too narrow to contain the wonder of the universe. No need to pander to their inability to believe. They sit on their high horse telling other people they are crazy, then the grouse sits above them and they drop dead. Good story. The end.

This isn't an English creative writing class hangout space. It's a space dedicated to intellectual curiosity.

Quite ironic you hoisted yourself on a high horse to write that comment.

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#625

Post by lotsofpulp »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #551
dkersten wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans are also great at seeing patterns in noise and we like to attribute various things to things we see. So its also likely that you remember these coincidences because of your loved ones deaths and don't remember the many other times these animals were around because nothing happened to make them memorable. Also, "later that year" is a very long period of time for something to happen.

I love how people will do anything to deny the lizard brain. We have a “spidey” sense just like all the other animals and for good reason. Ignore it at your peril should you ever have a brush with the side of nature that cares not for your “lack of studies”.

The existence of cognitive biases may help in some instances, and may harm in others. But they are not a substitute for data and proper experimentation or mechanism of actions.

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#626

Post by generalizations »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #583
zadler wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, it’s hard to justify a grouse signaling a coming death by sitting on top of a house. That is magic to us at this point and such a tale would usually be met with skepticism. The things about the weather I don’t have much of a problem with.

Seems perfectly possible to me a bird could sense the difference between a vibrant, active person and a person close to death.

I agree it seems possible, but the motivation for acting that way seems missing.

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#627

Post by elgfare »

aeternum wrote: post #227
dinamic wrote: post #183

My great-grandfather was traveling to USA for work back in 1912. He came back after 6 years and settled in his village becoming its head. Almost everybody in my family knows this story and it's indeed fascinating, because at that time people rarely moved anywhere. And now we are fascinated by a man living in the same place all his life. It's funny how the concept of norm changes in 100 years.

A man living in the same place all his life has no basis for comparison. I would be more convinced that your great-grandfather's village is something special since he experienced elsewhere yet still returned.

There is no need for comparison when there is no need for improvement. He is content, he doesn't need anything else. I wish I was that content.

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#628

Post by mrphoebs »

867-5309 wrote: post #495
mrphoebs wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what specifically you are referring to but, the sun is going to be a red giant in 4.5 billion years, earth cannot sustain life. Deep into the future, all the stars will eventually burn out and there will be no more new ones born. The night sky will be dark. The only radiation emitted will be black holes slowly evaporating on a time scale so huge we can't even meaningfully comprehend it. There is no energ…

we will have left earth (and inevitably our sun) long before 4 billion years away, most probably as a hybrid species by then on the theorised heat death timescale humans have only been around for less than infinitesimal fractions of quadrillionths of a percent of their potential. what's to say we don't in that time escape it by transiting to a new, younger universe?

Or, you know an asteroid hits us causing the 6th Extinction Level Event killing humanity. As long as we are doing wild speculative Sci-Fi the Great filter in our future is a real possibility to consider.

For now, we are an incredibly young species who has time and again demonstrated our penchant for chasing after short term incentives at the cost of longterm harm. We are making the earth unliveable faster than we are progressing towards being a multi-planetary species (which seems like an insurmountable leap given the candidates and the cost structure we have to work with). But humans are inventive and resourceful so here's hoping we grow beyond living on earth.

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#629

Post by astura »

kebman wrote: post #404
usgroup wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the romance, but those of us who have children leave behind much more than stone walls we built in our 20s. He’s a 72 year old Batchelor who’s once stepped foot outside a Welsh valley. If happiness is a lobotomy then credit to us who don’t choose it.

That man has set the ideal conditions for raising a lot of children. While most city dwellers scramble from 9 to 5 to own but a cramped apartment—which also leads most of them to forgo having children in the first place—this farmer has plenty of time, and plenty of space. And he grows his own food! It's the ideal condition to raise children. And it's far safer too. I would know, because I grew up on one. But today bo…

>today both women and men are of course taught that a career is much better, toiling for the dreams of another man.

What kind of awful garbage take is this? It's objectively false, people who willingly don't have children are saw as society as second class citizens who are thought of as pathological. The VAST majority of humans have children at some point in their lives. It's true that there's a larger amount of people who willingly forgo having children than in the past, but it's still an incredibly fringe way of life.

>I would know, because I grew up on one.

Not saying that nobody should ever raise children in a rural area but the majority of people I know who grew up in rural areas got heavily involved in drugs and/or alcohol during their youth out of boredom. So there's downsides as well.

The world doesn't have an infinite amount of farmland, you can't raise "a lot of children" on a farm and have their children raise "a lot of children" on a farm indefinitely without running out of farmland. That, by definition, makes it not "ideal."

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#630

Post by barfingclouds »

sidlls wrote: post #595
TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A successful businessman on vacation was at the pier of a small coastal village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The businessman complimented the fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The fisherman proudly replied, “Every morning, I go out in my boat for 30 minutes to fish. I’m the best fisherman in the…

That's a cute story. However there are vast differences in reality. The fisherman is likely an uncultured bigot and xenophobe with life experiences that reinforce this condition, and who will suffer terribly from the ailments of aging that the businessman's wealth can afford respite from. For example.

Your comment says way more about you than it does about some hypothetical small town fisherman
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