Anecdotally, I started wearing glasses a couple months ago and have been annoyed at how often I have to adjust my ahead when I would have normally just moved my eyes. My glasses tend to slip down my nose just a tad which cuts off a non-negligible amount of FOV.
Well, I'm sure you would still get different people commenting due to one set being home on a Friday night one month and then a different set the next. I would prefer monthly, personally.
For those that skip straight to comments, this is an article in which I introduce myself and talk a little about my experience of applying and being accepted to a coding bootcamp.
Why shit all over someone else's way of viewing the world if it doesn't affect you?
And none of the nonsense about Christians that don't believe in global warming or abortions or something, because you have no idea of this woman's stance on any of that.
Disclaimer: I'm as agnostic as they come.
EDIT: Let me add that I think it's ridiculous to criticize religious people for being religious. It is regressive and promotes animosity between the religious and the rest of us. A truly religious person will sooner die than give up their religion.
I certainly do not think it's ridiculous to criticize religion. It's 2016, some supernatural beliefs should not get a free pass just because people will feel offended. However, choose your battles. Elderly people saying a very common phrase is hardly something to get worked up about.
You make a bold assumption that "it doesn't affect you" (surely you'd agree this is up for debate no?), then the very next sentence describe political views that can be attributed directly to religious beliefs you're claiming have no affect on anyone.
All ideas should be up for criticism. It is the very nature of religion somehow being off limits for debate that allows bad ideas to go unchallenged and spread.
All ideas should be up for criticism, yes. But not all ideas should be criticized.
The difference being that some criticisms are productive (presumably fresh, creative takes on thinking about something) and some simply serve the purpose of making the critic feel good about himself.
In what way do we benefit to hear a criticism of religion for the umpteen-millionth time and on the internet of all places? No one is refining their thought processes, no one is benefiting.
Looks like many have been refining their thought process. Perhaps it's from all of the criticism on the internet?
Just because all minds won't be swayed doesn't mean some won't be.
I do think criticizing the idea is more valid than criticizing the person who believes in that idea.
It sounds like what you mean to say is not all ideas need to be criticized always and everywhere they are present. Makes sense.
If you mean that religion should not be criticized anymore we've done it enough.... I don't see how this is not that same as saying religion is an idea that should not be up for criticism. Why is it special?
There is a time and place. An article about Dr. Heimlich in which some senior citizen invokes an age old remark isn't it.
Once you can show me the data on the benefit from that single remark, and that it doesn't correlate with the concept of 'diminishing returns' strongly, then I'll concede.
I disagree. I think much of human suffering due to competition stems from lack of security, or the lack of reassurance that basic needs will be met.
Imagine a technological utopia. All of your needs as a human being are met. All of the needs of your friends and family are met. Can you not imagine how much easier it would be to advance toward a "social utopia"?
Before the Renaissance, the cut-throat psychotic human beings tended to do the best in terms of gathering resources, security, etc. Since the Renaissance, this has become less and less true and merit has started to take precedence.
Eventually, once the conditions for a technological utopia are met and for the majority of the population, it will be a like a light has suddenly been turned on. Those that have all of their basic needs met, tend to be nicer to others on the whole.
Besides, even if I'm wrong, it's not hard to imagine some sort of machine or system that short-circuits "our biologically driven urge to dominate the gene pool" for the good of humanity.
> I think much of human suffering due to competition stems from lack of security, or the lack of reassurance that basic needs will be met.
Good comment - there are two places I disagree with you:
1) See the hedonic treadmill theory[0]. You could point to someone, relatively speaking, who is on top of the world. But they are still unhappy. Why is this? It's sometimes theorized that we are at a "set point" in happiness, and while we can run faster on the treadmill, or slow down on the treadmill from time to time, we are stuck at this set level of happiness.
2) Surely the vast majority of the developed western world is not at a lack for "basic needs", but why is there so much anger and despair? Because I believe you might be missing more of the "basic needs" than just Food and Water. See Maslow's hierarchy of needs[1]. While it is also theory which has arguments against it, it utilizes a more comprehensive definition of "needs."
Surely there are many people in the western world who lack psychological stability or lack companionship.
> All of the needs of your friends and family are met.
You will need to define "needs" because IMHO, that is not true. I have relatives who are veterans of war, friends who have had psychotic breaks, friends who have everything they need but something just doesn't "click" with them.
According to this post, the hedonic treadmill theory has been disproven. [0]
"The author is flat out wrong. The Hedonic Treadmill has been disproven. Moreover, the author seems to be conflating the concept of the treadmill, with adaptation. The former denotes the subject returns to the original state. The latter recognizes that while we become accustomed to new things, we still improve in happiness.
The author is also misquoting, or misunderstanding, Kahneman. Kahneman isn't talking at all about the treadmill. He's talking about what he called the "Focusing Illusion"-- a fancy way of saying "the grass is always greener on the other side..."
Relevant links:
"Beyond the Hedonic Treadmill: Revising the Adaptation Theory of Well-Being"
Kahneman tried to explain the hedonic treadmill via with his own aspiration treadmill. He claims that he not only failed, but the data were opposite to his hypothesis.
You're right, I should've defined "needs". I actually had Maslow's Hierarchy in mind when I made my comment. Also, "all of your needs as a human being are met" was meant in the context of a technological utopia, not now.
As for the hedonic treadmill, I'm sure this is something that philosophers have considered for ages, but I can only give my personal thoughts on it which are this:
I believe that "happiness" is attainable. Perhaps not pure bliss like popular culture likes to portray it as, but when I think of "happiness" I usually think of "contentedness." In this frame, I think it becomes more obviously attainable.
And if it is attainable in the far-from-perfect world we live in now, then surely it will be attainable in some-distant-future-full-of-convenience. I also think that this concept of hedonism is self-perpetuating. If you believe in nihilism, it becomes your reality. If you reject nihilism, it doesn't.
I can't speak for everyone, but the primary reason I remain unhappy despite having my basic needs cared for is Marxist alienation [1]. Put simply, as long as I remain a wage-slave for the bourgeoisie, I will not have the capacity for true happiness. But not to worry -- I have plans. Patience is key. Soon enough, I will liberate myself from wage labor. Part of what's so great about being a programmer is that the means of software production are relatively inexpensive, and indeed I already possess them. Wish me luck! :)
> All of your needs as a human being are met. All of the needs of your friends and family are met. Can you not imagine how much easier it would be to advance toward a "social utopia"?
This is the case for basically everyone I know, and I'd imagine this being the case for a lot of the people here. But we're not advancing to a social utopia.
Slightly off topic but I can't help but be reminded of the quote from The Third Man:
"in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
I'm mildly optimistic that we can at least encourage the better bits of society found in the real world today.
>"in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
Surely Italy at the time had a far larger population base than Switzerland.
Also, Switzerland did produce something: a much better society, which served as an example to others. Unfortunately, just as we see today with the difference between developed and undeveloped nations, people are generally too stupid, in groups, to actually learn from others' examples.
Considering a post-scarcity world, it is not difficult to imagine a pseudo-utopia with the way technology is going. Using the example of Manna, imagine the ability to plug into some perfect VR world that looks and feels just like reality. Why would anyone want to "compete" in that scenario?
Already today, human beings would rather stay at home and consume various forms of media (tv, games, etc..) than go out and "compete." Humans typically value security over a marginal gain in luxury. Even the risk-takers among us err closer to the security-side of this spectrum on the whole.
I think those in this thread that worry that humans will always have an innate desire to one-up their brethren are worrying about nothing or some close approximation to nothing.
I'm afraid I am less utopian. To me it seems more likely that we will eventually overreach our productive capacity by wasting time on the "unhelpful" problems I mentioned above, and then enter a period of decline.
The best we could hope for in such a situation is that we realise the immediacy of the "real" problems, and start to focus on those, arresting the decline before it becomes too severe. I have an (unfounded) expectation that the process of switching our (i.e. humanity's) productive capacity to focus on the "real" problems would be characterised by cooperation rather than competition, because the adversity required for progress would already be there, and we wouldn't need competition to create it.
If humanity becomes more fragmented during that process (see the rise of the isolationist right around the world), then we would run the risk of that cooperation being focused on destructive goals - that would seem to me to be along the lines of the worst-case scenario.
It strikes me that a lot of that is my interpretation of some of what is in Joseph A. Tainter's "The Collapse of Complex Societies", which I saw recommended on here, and subsequently read. I heartily re-endorse the recommendation (I did a search to see if I could work out whose recommendation it was that pushed me to read it, but I'm afraid I can't work out which it might be, for which I apologise).
>imagine the ability to plug into some perfect VR world that looks and feels just like reality. Why would anyone want to "compete" in that scenario?
At the moment the most played video game seems to be League of Legends where player compete to accumulate gold through killing other players amongst other things. So the human instincts come out, just in the virtual world.
Maybe the future is humans merrilly killing in VR while peaceful robots look after them in the real world, a bit like a variation on The Matrix.
