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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

#701

Post by axaxs »

mcbishop wrote: post #616
kebman wrote: post #399

Ah, the simple life... My grandfather would take me along and we'd go to the neighbour to fetch eggs. He had a plastic bucket that he put them in with some old newspapers scraps in the bottom. I heard that before the war they didn't even need money. He'd simply bring a bucket of milk, and he'd get a bucket of eggs in return. But it was of course a lot simpler to bring money. It was far cheaper than in the store too.…

Thanks for sharing. I love a book called 'What the Robin Knows'. It's about the knowledge of birds, and the insight they give other animals.

Thanks for the rec, just ordered it!

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

#702

Post by mensetmanusman »

tomrod wrote: post #570
mensetmanusman wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some assert that life has meaning. So assert that life has no meaning, as alluded to here. These are axiom-like statements that cannot be proven. Everyone has a faith as to which of these assertions is true.

Existentialism to the rescue! Life can have meaning because we choose to give it such.

That relies on a supernatural belief as well (free will).

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

#703

Post by axaxs »

kebman wrote: post #399

Ah, the simple life... My grandfather would take me along and we'd go to the neighbour to fetch eggs. He had a plastic bucket that he put them in with some old newspapers scraps in the bottom. I heard that before the war they didn't even need money. He'd simply bring a bucket of milk, and he'd get a bucket of eggs in return. But it was of course a lot simpler to bring money. It was far cheaper than in the store too.…

Nice story, thanks for sharing. A shame this isn't written down someplace. I'm still learning and trying to teach my daughter, myself.

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

#704

Post by mleonhard »

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #282
aeternum wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> has no basis for comparison I have lived in the same place only once in my life for 7 years and it was an exception because we raised kids, even then we ripped our kids out of school to move them to a different country just for the sake of "experience" and so we wouldn't get bored and comfy (as parents). In my whole life (close to 50 now) my average years in 1 place was 3-5. I could numerate _all_ the countries I l…

My parents moved me between countries throughout my childhood. It resulted in lower quality of life, for my whole life. I'm 40 now. Trading your children's good childhood for your own adventure is a selfish choice. I urge you to move to a good place for your children and stay there until they are ready to live independently.

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

#705

Post by genericone »

covidthrow wrote: post #639
machello13 wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the scorn goes both ways.

Perhaps, but what I've witnessed: (in the broadest strokes of unspecificity) Rural: "I don't like what the city folk are doing. They should change." Urban: "I don't like what the country folks are doing. This is how we should change them."

You're getting a tug-of-war of downvotes/upvotes, let me see if I can expand too:

Rural: "The city-living ways don't work out here so well, but there's too many of you guys for me to even begin to tell you how to act or what to do, so as a compromise just let me be"

City: "Rural folk live really unsustainably/unculturably/deplorably but they don't know any better, its up to us to make them understand. Anyway the urban center provides more value than what the countryside provides, we should be dictating the path of progress in this county/state/country/continent.

The locus of power has always been around cities though, so that is where elites and elitism will always centralize.

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

#706

Post by tailspin2019 »

BearOso wrote: post #683
tailspin2019 wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This highly enjoyable comment reminds me of the pleasure of reading Walden (by Henry David Thoreau)

Except Walden was either satire or hypocrisy. Thoreau was rich through inheritance. Emerson lent him the cabin and land. It was only a 20-minute walk from his mother’s house, where he went for dinner every night.

None of that has any bearing on my enjoyment of the book.

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

#707

Post by thisCtx »

michaelmrose wrote: post #678
thisCtx wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same motive you have when smelling something rotten; embedded biological response.

Why would it have evolved a response to communicate to a predator species that one of the predators living in a dwelling is going to die in a fashion that would expose itself to a large chance of becoming prey. Here is a far simpler explanation. Our brains are evolved to find patterns even when they aren't there. Look how weak the correlation is. His family simply discarded all the times the correlation failed to app…

I think I confused which feature they were talking about.

It’s far fetched maybe but dogs can smell Parkinson’s and cancer before the person develops medically detectable symptoms. So maybe not so far fetched.

Doesn’t have to be a pet. Doesn’t detect when the person will DIE of cancer, yet it shows up later.

Birds have been shown to return to the same locations if they fit their needs. Perhaps it was indicating an illness.

Far fetched but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Statistics are not science. Science requires real world evidence and other animals offer at least some evidence they can detect fatal illness in advance.

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

#708

Post by kebman »

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.

Or could it be that since the farmer was no longer tending to his farm because he was too old, and since there was so little going on there anymore, that the grouse decided to reclaim a great perch with a view?

I once pitched a tent somewhere in the deep forests of Sweden, on a trip with my mother and my sister. I sat the tent up on some natural cushions of dry peat, so the ground was nice and soft to sleep on. As it became darker I suddenly heard a large CRACK about fifty metres away as a big twig was snapped in half. The sound was followed by the deep sniffing of air and loud stomping, so I popped my head out of the tent to take look.

Atop the closest hill was the King of the Forest (that would be a moose), looking like he was pondering some deep mystery while on his evening stroll, his mighty antlers brushing away big branches like they were toothpicks. He wasn't too worried about his surroundings until he noticed my scruffy old head. He stopped dead quiet and opened his eyes wide in surprise. Then he snorted heavily in disappointment, like he was muttering a curse, and then he shuffled his heavy body around and walked the other way.

I got the distinct sense that this proud being had a very sincere distaste for people...

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

#709

Post by kebman »

randompwd wrote: post #624
graderjs wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm so glad you think highly of my English, good Sir. You should hear me speak one day!

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

#710

Post by thisCtx »

rowanG077 wrote: post #693
thisCtx wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up rural. I buy into a lot of the “bird” wisdom. Science is discovering dogs can smell disease. Our modern world isn’t more complex, just more distracting with asinine theory chasing. It’s always been ridiculously complex in ways we can’t imagine, we’ve just started realizing it in detail. Turns out animals with their “lesser” cognitive powers are tuned into the hidden complexity in ways we barely understand.…

You consider an animal having evolved a sense for certain properties of the natural world so they can survive more advanced the humanity? I seriously cannot comprehend how you can view that as more advanced then humanity going to space, manipulating matter on the atomic level and the most important: beating evolution for the most part.

Evolution is a property of reality itself and imbued humans with the abilities you highlight.

We’ve done absolutely nothing to “beat” reality.

Personally I’m leaning into the idea more and more that technology how we think of it, machines, will not be how we survive. I suspect some will be too useful, like nanotechnology and automated manufacturing, but consumer machines will become passé, maybe just too environmentally toxic to build at the scale we do. I doubt humans will make it “off world” for long if at all. There’s a scaling problem to the endeavor I doubt humans will maintain the momentum to overcome.

It took a very specific planet and millions of years of evolution to get here. We cannot possibly do better than reality itself.

Michael Levin’s bioelectrics, manipulation of electric fields to regrow limbs, could be an early peak at crazy future.

Why build VR if we can, for example, mix chemicals, drink it, effectively loading simulated experience like The Matrix, through fine grain manipulation of exotic properties of reality. Earth becomes a lot more sustainable if we’re not eating it up for phones and graphics cards.

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