indi
1yr ago
For every troll there's also someone who would do the same thing but be completely genuine. I don't think it's obvious that this is a troll, in fact I'd lean hevily towards it not being at the moment.
indi
1yr ago
I have never read a book in my life.
A book is not the only form of reading. I could assume that your question pertains to reading books specifically and not the act of reading in general. But even that is grey line. What about short stories? Does the 50k novella The Great Gatsby count as reading a book? If I watch a foreign language film with subtitles on is that reading? If Scott write a 50k word blog post is that reading? Is Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality: fan fiction, a long blog post, or a philosophical work? Does reading fan fiction count? Is reading a trashy romance with lots of sex scenes still reading? Comics have words, so reading? News articles? How about the instruction manual for my new phone? What are you defining as reading?
Everyone frequents some variant of flimsy entertainment - cable news, cartoons, social media - so why bother trying to read anything worthwhile anyways if nobody else is? Does reading actually make you more curious, more intelligent, more human?
No media is flimsy on it's own. Even the worst work can be great and insightful in the right context. A particular media only becomes seen as flimsy when it becomes predictable and repetitive or is not considered. A great wine drunk without thought is no longer a great wine. A shitty wine drunk with care, attention, and enthusiasm becomes a great wine, no longer flimsy but fabulous.
I've been watching the Monster High movies lately and by regular standards they are terrible movies made to sell merchandise. But they're not all bad and the bits that stick out as well done I take note of and I think about why they work and how do I replicate the same effects in my storytelling. Likewise I see the terrible bits and I learn what not to do. I spend time thinking about how it could have been done better. I watch and read other things too, some much more respected, but I find value in all of it.
Curiosity correlates with intelligence and both of those things do perhaps form a component of what defines being human. Those who are more curious will consume a larger variety of things in general. If Intelligent people read more I think it is partly because they do more things in general. But also I think varity feeds the mind. Knowing other languages changes the way we see the world.
Doing new things promotes new growth, not necessarily always for the better, but always growth. We can direct the growth, so if most people want to be better, whatever that means to them, then exposing themselves to variety will make them so. That includes what others see as flimsy entertainment up until the point that it becomes too well known to ourselves. Of course give it long enough and things can be forgotten or the context changes making the familiar unfamiliar and interesting again.
indi
1yr ago
If we're picking optimal holidays I would prefer a generic exploration based holiday over a holiday dedicated to any specific group or person. A celebration of a trait or idea in my mind is better than a celebration of an individual or an event.
In general though i think anyone who gets upset at what holidays another person celebrates is quite mean and all people should be allowed to celebrate what they want as long as they are participating in activities that actively harm someone.
Edit: I say this as a non American who has never celebrated Colombus day but now really wants an explorer themed holiday.
indi
1yr ago
and cannot be reasonably characterized as genocide, or even "land theft" in most cases, unless you believe the natives had some sort of spirtual claim to hegemony over the Appalachias because they happened to be there circa 1600
This is one of the main things that always felt a bit hypocritical to me when people talk about land rights historically. The idea that someone's descendants get to morally own an entire continent forever just because they were there first seems ludicrous to me. If someone today landed on Mars and then claimed to now own all of Mars because they were there first, people would be rightly outraged. And if some one else then forcefully took Mars i don't think the first guy has any grounds to complain while still remaining morally consistent.
I can understand (but not prefer) an argument in favor of physical possession if a person values a survival of the fittest type world, but in that scenario taking land by force is equally as moral as first grab.
Obviously land ownership today can not be separated from history and who should own what is horribly complicated. But it bothers me that claiming land by being there first is somehow seen as good when in reality any first grab claim is still taking land away from all other current and future people on the planet.
indi
1yr ago
I think any type of diet like this ends up being effective just like any other diet - calorie restriction.
This is my main issue when people start talking about healthy diets. I've never had a problem with eating the correct amount of calories, so my main interest in comparing the health of diets is wrt increasing longevity through non-weight related factors. Obviously weight has a huge impact on health but if that's not something one struggles with then a lot of talk about what diets are healthy becomes useless because often the main thing people use to compare the health of a diet is wrt how effective it is at helping people lose weight. So some diets termed unhealthy may become healthy when removing the weight factor, and vice versa. I'm not sure how often this happens or what other factors i should be looking at in order to evaluate what is the healthiest diet with weight factor removed though. Probably at the minimum diets with less burnt stuff and maybe less glycemic spikes? I don't know. Are processed foods statistically unhealthy because of calories or other reasons? How big of a difference do non weight related factors even make? Is worrying about them worth the cost of worrying about them or is it pretty resonable to eat what you want so long as weight is managed?
I think as long as a person is not going out of their way to be mean to others then it's immoral to judge someone's preferences in a way that is being mean to them. Judging internally is fine but no mocking or being unkind. I.e you can think what you want of someone but can't call them out on it and they are free to do what they wish. The one exception i make is if the preference causes an infringement of negative human rights, i.e direct and active... loss of life, physical harm, loss of property, or loss of liberty.
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