notatrumper's comments

How does skill help you get connected to the internet, if nobody is willing to connect you?

I suppose I could rationalize my continued use of Apple products and even stock ownership with the TOS argument: people voluntarily decide to use Apple products and accept their ToS, and henceforth they are not living in "free speech land", but in "Apple ToS land".

So it's just Apple kicking an app for violating the ToS. Nothing to see here.

Only the timing seemed rather odd.

And of course if I want to use that rationalization, I also have to accept that I live in "Apple ToS land", which I actually do.

Edit: I wonder if apps will start to have vendor specific moderation. Instead of deleting messages, they could just be flagged with "deleted on iOS" or "deleted in China"? I suppose with the China example, they already do that? Certainly news sites already do that, I get "this content is not available in the EU" a lot.

Yes, things have changed, unfortunately.

Pretty sure that every good writer can make it, though. Perhaps the mediocre writers have an advantage if they have relations. No doubt a lot of awfully bad books are being published every year, and some even are successful.

I used to think about this, "only people with relations can make it". When I got older I realized that if you care about some subject, you will probably end up making relevant connections on the way.

And I also think this way of thinking about privilege is self-defeating. If you don't have "privilege X", find another way.

Some writers now got rich without ever having an agent, self-publishing.

I'm sure people will find some other alleged privilege they had, which allowed them to do that. That's not the point.

If you are dead poor and have no connections whatsoever, you have the "privilege" to write authentically about being poor.

You don't want anything from me, yet you accuse me of not being emphatic. Or you just want to help me to communicate better, but then, how about reading other people's comments without prejudice?

The correct way to show empathy to you seems to be to show pity or say "oh my god it is so bad, I could never understand it, because I have it undeservedly so much better than you", or something along those lines?

"You constantly ask "What is the point?" Why do you think the woman wrote about her spoon theory? What is her point? Do you really think padolsey wrote the comment on relativistic thinking to play thought police?"

Indeed, I asked myself the question, I think it is a valid one. I thought her description was interesting and I therefore upvoted it. But I also resented her for the "you are all so clueless and could never understand how hard it is for me" vibes. To be honest, I get some "identity politics" vibes from that, it reminds me of the "white people can never know how bad it is for black people" or "men can never know how bad it is for women" nonsense, boiling down to "I'm so special". I don't like it also because it is so self-defeating. The spoon woman seems to think everybody else has unlimited spoons, which is of course not true.

And the relativistic thinking comment - I don't know? Maybe he wants us to be aware at all times, and make everything we have our privileged access to, also accessible to people with severe illnesses? Why did he make the comment?

That's again the classic power games bullshit. "You could never understand me", "It's impossible for me to understand you" and so on. That's overly dramatic and self-aggrandizing. And in the case of the person who is sick, also inducing unnecessary loneliness.

Why would it be a big emotional sacrifice to marry into money? Especially if (as some studies suggest) money is a big part of what makes men attractive, odds should be high for actual love being involved in the decision.

It's a well known data point. In general, women don't like to marry down, and men have less of an issue marrying down. Think of the classic "doctor marries nurse".

If you Google, you should find a lot of articles about it, as it is an important sociological issue. Now that more women are having a career, in fact, more women than men are having an academic career, it is becoming difficult for women to find adequate men.

Also women marrying up was historically the MOST important mechanism of social mobility (people moving up in status/wealth). Too bad that feminism does not allow it anymore, as any man who marries a less wealthy women is considered to be "abusing his power".

The other claim, women being attracted to men with more money, I am less sure about. I am sure you can find studies analyzing data from dating platforms yielding that result, but I don't know how well they generalize to dating in general.

Edit: perhaps a starting point, but in general, Google should be able to help https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergamy

Unless they bought Bitcoin for 1$ in 2009.

Another tried and proven way is to marry somebody who is rich. Mostly just an option for women, though.

My impression is that "privilege" has by now taken on that meaning of "unfairness". It seems to be the most common modern use ("check your privilege" and so on). It sounds as if those people don't deserve it.

It's a shame, because I think it used to mean exactly the opposite, having a privilege was an honor. Is the phrase "it was a privilege to have known you" still being used?

"lording" was a bit strong, I just couldn't think of better words to describe it.

You clearly seem to want me to do or feel "something". In the other thread you talk about things like "the decent thing to do", "showing empathy", and so on.

My question was, why. What's it to you. As I said, I don't know the woman with the spoons, and I also don't play down her predicament.

So why do you want me to behave in a certain way? That's "lording", for lack of a better word. You want to determine how other people have to behave.

"Those are probably not the people who compare themselves with Sophie Scholl on protests or something like that. They know the difference."

Are there many of those? Here in Germany we had one case I am aware of, and while I didn't follow it closely, it seems very likely that she has some kind of mental health issue.

"Really? I think this only makes sense when you have a rosy idea about how totalitarianism looks like."

Nobody claims what we are experiencing right now feels the same as life under fascism. Just that it feels like the prelude to it.

I don't think it is far fetched at all. We've seen major changes of our way of life and people's attitude over a short amount of time, and major divide in society, driven by fear.

The hate is real - people fear for their lives and the lives of their parents, and they are ready to blame whoever comes in handy. And the hate is murderous, especially because people fear about their own lives.

I think if you enter a shop without a mask, you can well except violence from some people.

And it can get worse if people refuse to get vaccinated. Already businesses promise not to do businesses with such people anymore. How can you NOT see analogies? You could say not getting vaccinated is voluntary, being Jewish is not. Nevertheless, there are parallels. Nobody claims the exact same thing is happening.

It seems likely to me that fear for their lives was also what drove people to adopt fascism. The rosy view is to look back and think it was just stupidity or "evilness". I think people also feared for their lives. Here in Germany they had just witnessed an extremely murderous war (at a scale we can not imagine anymore), murderous insurrections, stuff like that.

Yes, having money is good. That's why many people strive to have money.

I personally also don't think it is unfair if kids of rich parents inherit their money (or their support). After all, being able to take care of one's children is a major motivation of many people for trying to make money.

It's also well known that money is an important factor in mate choice for women.

Even without money, biology would be at work and people would be striving to find attractive mates to conceive "fit" children.

You could then also say those "fit" children are "privileged" compared to "less fit" children.

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Anyway, as your own anecdotes highlight, if you are not rich, find another way, for example a rich person who gives you money.

First of all, different people have different dreams about Bitcoin. There is not the "one" dream.

Secondly, this sound like the standard argument against deflation, why would people ever spend their money? Why indeed? Why should people be MADE to spend their money?

The reality is that eventually they spend it because they need things, for example food to eat. Even in deflationary economies, people still need to eat.

I'm sure if I would tell you about the death of my dog in this thread, you would complain that I bring it up in the context of somebody with a horrible chronic disease.

I just want to understand your motivation, and the motivation of the OP. I guess I have a feeling you like to lord it over other people with the help of victims of diseases. (Similar things tend to happen when somebody dies - there are always people who then order other people around on the basis of "the deceased would want us to do x").

I never once said that the spoon women doesn't have it hard, btw. That is your interpretation. I want to know why it annoys you if people are not sufficiently sad about it. I probably live at the other end of the world, so I just wonder why it is so important to you.

Btw there is also a story about Buddha who told one of his suffering disciples to find somebody who doesn't have a hard fate, and they were unable to find somebody. I guess Buddha was a real asshole, according to you (he did exactly the thing you claim is a big no no).

It's OK to worry about totalitarian control, as there are always groups and politicians working towards that goal. It's actually one of the lessons one should draw from remembering dark times.

Some people may worry more than others. I have read reports from therapists that they have clients from former communist countries who struggle with the lockdowns, because it reminds them or horrific things they experienced.

There are also a lot of people who have built up enourmous hatred and murderous thoughts because of Corona. Where I live, there are writings on the wall that "Covidiots should be burned" and stuff like that. It's not that far fetched to think about totalitarian regimes murdering people in that context.

What makes you assume I learned something I didn't already know? As I said, I know there are people who have it worse than me.

And as I also said, and you confirmed, it makes sense if you have somebody in your circles who has such a condition.

Apart from that - my question was, why do you complain, or get annoyed?

Maybe for some people the consequences of lockdowns are more severe than for you. Aren't you all about feeling with people's predicaments?

Also I don't agree with the (common) argument that nobody should be allowed to complain about anything, because there is always somebody who has it worse, somewhere in the world.

Like with solving "first world problems" - yes, it seems frivolous to worry about getting an even better iPhone, while people are starving somewhere else. On the other hand, those people, if they can solve their immediate problems, would perhaps also enjoy having nice iPhones. So it is not inherently bad to worry about the existence of nice iPhones.

Or put differently, it can not be the only purpose of life to help people who have it worse. I mean somebody could adopt that as their philosophy, sure. But it requires people who need help, therefore it can not be a universal philosophy. If suddenly you run out of people who need help, you have lost your purpose in life again.

It doesn't have calendar or mail at the moment. Note taking is probably very simple. I am not sure if it lets you take notes per web site, or just in general.

I'm not fully sold on "doesn't belong in browser" - arguably, it the browser is almost like an OS, it is not far fetched to ask for such features. I guess that is also what ChromeOS does.

Some people have it even worse - they die.

So again, what is the point? I acknowledge that some (many) people have it worse than myself. Now what?

It is also a common recommendation to meditate on ones inevitable death daily. Maybe thinking about the fate of sick people could have a similar effect.

And of course one can wonder how to improve things for sick people. But that's only useful to some extent. I think it makes mostly sense for people in the social circle of the sick person.

I don't think there is much I can do for the spoon woman, safe for donating some money to Lupus research. And I also can not spend all my waking hours donating to various health research organisations (only so many spoons to go around). So maybe I donate some money to Lupus research, but beyond that, there would not be much benefit to me thinking much more about it.