Corvos
2hr ago
The contention is that:
- being inclined towards hard work
- being able to sustain doing hard work
- being able to get an output from that hard work that justifies it
are not actually factors under your control. In short you cannot "choose to be a person with an internal locus of control who believes in hard work". You are or you aren't, depending on genetics and early life and other stuff that you can't toggle on and off.
Not entirely sure this is true, I've veered both ways.
Makes it less cutting, at least. I know I'm not a Duke, all I have to do is look out of the window at the huge lack-of-tracts-o-land...
it matters if your bottle of wine is below $20 or above $100, but in between it's pretty much the same.
Do you think so? I was always under the impression that it was broadly an inverse-log:
- under 10GBP is going to be awful unless you select very carefully, and even then the result is going to be petrol-ly
- 10-20 is perfectly acceptable
- 40-50 is very nice, actually interesting enough to reward shutting up for a bit and paying attention to the wine. I got 50 GBP Chateauneuf du Pape for the family for Christmas.
- 100 is going to be good and really special and worth paying attention to and remembering
- greater than 100 and you're really wasting the extra money unless you have a very refined and educated palate, and even then I suspect the enjoyment is going to be broadly intellectual
I've been given the super-duper nice wine before and it was indeed lovely, especially when it was set up as part of a proper tasting and you were told what to look for, but I'd never consider it worth the money for my own table unless I was replacing what I took out of the family cellar (alas, this is true money territory) or deliberately showing off for some unfathomable reason.
I'd think the old me was, in an important sense, partly dead. Not fully dead. That option beats true psychosis and definitely beats real death.
FWIW as a former atheist transhumanist and having had it happen to me, that's really not how it feels. I used to believe some stuff, now I'm more doubtful about that stuff and prepared to believe some other stuff. I'm sure you've changed your mind on other things before, it doesn't feel any different from that.
Identifying with a very particular memeset* about the nature of the universe and your place in it so strongly that you cannot conceive of a version of you who believes something different and is still you is a little unhealthy, I think. It can produce a rather clenched-up and self-protecting attitude towards the world (not in a Freudian sense!), and a set attitude of rejection towards trying things that could turn out to be growth or at worst short-lived and mildly-embarrassing fads.
In short there are worse things in the world than letting yourself try a little woo, especially since IMO transhumanism as it actually exists in the world already contains plenty of woo that is made more dangerous by the appearance of being cold and rational.
Disclaimer: none of this is an attempt to convert you to my religion, or any religion. That's not my place, for many reasons. In any case, please forgive me if I have overstepped.
*I refer to transhumanism and more specifically to the very particular pride that comes with thinking, "I am smart enough to see the world like it really is and brave enough to take it head-on without the lies other people tell themselves, and one day we'll fix all the stuff that's rubbish about it."
Glad to meet a like-minded (lesser) gentleman, haha.
FWIW I think 'lesser' is doing a lot of work here, the only people I've come into contact with who seemed to have the 'furniture' attitude in modern times were on the order of a Duke. Most people below that take some interest in the help, although perhaps with varying levels of performativity and enthusiasm.
Corvos
7hr ago
"Are you planning to help me?"
"YES."
"When, exactly?"
"ER. WHEN THE PAIN IS TOO GREAT TO BEAR."
"..."
"I REALISE THIS IS NOT THE ANSWER YOU WERE HOPING FOR."
RIP Terry Pratchett.
Corvos
15hr ago
They gated ‘queue next video’ and ‘play in window’ as premium features too. Netflix gates the latter even if you are a paying customer on the lower tier.
explicitly nice to the help (lesser gentry)
Yeah, that about sums me up… What an awful thought.
Corvos
23hr ago
Yes, I see. Poor man. I thought he just had a sudden eruption of despair, I didn’t realise he’d lost hope to such an extent.
I’m going through the business of getting Confirmed at the moment and indeed the church is startlingly silly on many occasions but that doesn’t mean it’s worthless.
Corvos
23hr ago
What’s up with the sequel? In general terms please, and spoilers so as not to ruin it for FtttG.
Corvos
23hr ago
I don’t know how you describe profound but Yokohama Shopping Trip has beautiful pen and ink. Since it’s essentially about the beauty of the world, it’s important to convey it.
Atelier of Witch Hat follows in that tradition.
Corvos
2d ago
the UK before 2002 (fulfils these four criteria)
I’m sorry, the fuck?
If this is some gag about the Commonwealth, or about not immediately giving every non-citizen a passport and a vote the moment they roll up on the shore but require a process and some show of commitment first, then
a) it is almost certainly wrong b) to the extent it is true it is massively tendentious and you know it b) it does not correspond to the situation between Israel and Gaza, which again you know perfectly well
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. I would like to see some proof, please.
Corvos
2d ago
The Brits leaving Palestine was like the Americans leaving Afghanistan. We’d been through two gruelling wars, we under constant lethal attack from both Jewish (the Stern Gang) and (I think) Arabic terrorists who made it extremely clear they wanted us to get the hell out of there, and we did. The fact that the area is full of bloodthirsty maniacs isn’t our fault - it’s been like that since the Old Testament days and all we’d ever been able to do was keep a lid on it.
Corvos
2d ago
Yeah, reference points are hard. I once lost a general knowledge quiz for my team by getting us to the tiebreak and then being asked, “What is the distance between London and the closest point in Canada?”
I thought for a bit, tried to imagine them on a map relative to a journey in the UK I knew and thought, hmm, easily ten times that.
Said, “1200 miles”.
Teammates not best pleased.
Corvos
3d ago
Sorry, now I see what you mean.
That would make it more complex, certainly, though personally I doubt they did this. It seems a weird way of doing things in general and you’d expect them to demand this proof at buying time to prevent exactly this scenario.
The government is also aware that people don’t read disclaimers, and as a non-lawyer I would say that buying plane and hotel tickets signalled fairly clearly that Bartender expected to be able to get in. So I think even in that scenario he’d still have a decent chance.
Doesn’t matter. If it’s not very clearly flagged in advance, such that he couldn’t have bought it without reasonably expecting this turn of events, then it’s not appropriate under UK law.
In general if a consumer would reasonably expect X, and not-X isn’t both clearly flagged and legally appropriate, and he has accumulated financial damage as a result, then the seller is up shit creek without a paddle. Doesn’t matter what the terms and conditions say. You can’t sign away your rights as a consumer in the UK, especially not three paragraphs into the small text.
@MadMonzer, do you have any thoughts? The above is true as far as I’m aware, and AI agrees.
Corvos
3d ago
Alternatively, or simultaneously, this sounds like something you could (threaten to) take up under the consumer rights act and equivalent protections.
They are incurring real losses for you by effectively changing the standards of the contract post buy. That is a very very shaky place to stand, it doesn’t matter what weasel words they put in the terms and conditions.
Corvos
3d ago
Thank you! Much appreciated.
I think this was the category with different names for weed, different brands of cosmetics, etc. so that’s how I’m preserving my dignity.
Interesting. It's not at all what I heard from my father who is big on the Wine Society but admittedly less pedigreed. His contention was that price still pretty much equals taste since so many people take an interest in these things and the feedback is strong. Personally I can't say either way. My experience has fitted with the scale I gave you but that's maybe just the marketing. I'll try and look into it some more.
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