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jsmonkey commented on Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth (2003)   swans.com/library/art9/mp... · Posted by u/greencore
foldr · 6 years ago
If you weren't aware of one of the basic tenets of Islam, then you might want to consider, say, reading the Wikipedia page on Islam before adding noise to discussions like these.
jsmonkey · 6 years ago
Certainly you have a point, I could be more informed on the theory. But I don't think that's all what matters. What reads in the Quran and how it's interpreted, and put into practice in different societies, countries and sects are two different things. For example, the Gulf-states would easily have the money to build the most well-being and equal welfare states in the world, if they so wished. Yet they haven't done it, which leads me to believe that no religion will overcome natural selfishness of people.

All religions teach their followers to show compassion towards the less fortunate of their society - and societies of all religions regularly fail to do this. Ideologies shouldn't be judged solely based on teachings, but also what actually happens. If there was an exceptionally good religion, it should deliver exceptionally good results. Religion and income inequality seem to have little correlation, which leads to a conclusion that they're all equally useful or useless in this practical aspect, no matter what other differences they may have.

jsmonkey commented on Scientists’ warning on affluence   nature.com/articles/s4146... · Posted by u/colinprince
erpellan · 6 years ago
We already have the technology to build net zero carbon buildings. But the building trade is both notoriously conservative and extremely effective at lobbying to protect their profits (at least in the UK).

Superinsulated, almost airtight houses with ground and air source heat pumps and solar PV should be mandatory, as should banning of all in home boilers in new builds.

That’s all easily achievable even without some of the recent novel inventions such as engineered wood: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25476

We have to stop treating the atmosphere as a free line of credit with no limit that we can just dump all our externalities into, or we’ll find out very soon that there is no such thing as an externality at planetary scale. We’re all in the same hermetically sealed box, breathing each other’s farts.

Sorry for the rant. It’s hard to stop once the despair creeps in.

jsmonkey · 6 years ago
In addition to that, buildings should be made to last. Badly designed or built houses can be just ticking time-bombs for mold and other air-quality issues, and certainly not sustainable.
jsmonkey commented on Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth (2003)   swans.com/library/art9/mp... · Posted by u/greencore
foldr · 6 years ago
>I fail to see this charity and kindness in practice,

What about Zakat? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakat

That is a pretty concrete and practical example of kindness and charity.

jsmonkey · 6 years ago
I wasn't aware of it, seems like a good practice indeed.
jsmonkey commented on Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth (2003)   swans.com/library/art9/mp... · Posted by u/greencore
trasz · 6 years ago
Because the left actually looks at the numbers. Immigrants tend to lose the nasty part of their religions really quickly.
jsmonkey · 6 years ago
Only when they find a job and integrate. At least most European countries haven't been very successful at making this happen with migrants/refugees who have little education and money when they arrive. It appears the US is better at this.
jsmonkey commented on Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth (2003)   swans.com/library/art9/mp... · Posted by u/greencore
p_l · 6 years ago
It's also a country intertwined in ruling level with a sect that is considered the most radically fundamentalist and considered "bad idea" even across many other Islamic factions.
jsmonkey · 6 years ago
True. Unfortunately they have plenty of money, which has allowed the influence of this sect to grow in other parts of the world as well.

Dead Comment

jsmonkey commented on George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter   docs.google.com/spreadshe... · Posted by u/dtagames
spike021 · 6 years ago
>This is Ba Sing Se levels of delusion for some people.

A reference I never expected to see on HN.

It's insane, but then you realize that a significant portion of the US population _still_ only watches television news media and refuses to spend extra time looking at other sources, like Twitter.

jsmonkey · 6 years ago
Twitter is probably the worst medium for developing a balanced, well-educated view of anything. Americans don't need more fast-paced social media, they need quality education and journalism that covers all sides of these issues.

But of course that's not going to happen. For modern people with attention span of a goldfish it's too much of an effort to read long texts - thus they'll just keep watching the news, or reading short, one-sided tweets full of hate.

jsmonkey commented on Iceland radically cut teenage drug use   weforum.org/agenda/2018/1... · Posted by u/known
nabla9 · 6 years ago
Since Nordic countries are very similar in many ways, Finnish social scientists specializing on youth recently visited Iceland in attempt to learn about the system and wrote a report about it (in Finnish) https://www.nuorisotutkimusseura.fi/nakokulma53

Summary:

* They didn't find any clear Icelandic model. Icelandic politicians promoting it. Icelandic researchers don't know if it exists.

* Icelandic experts are not unanimous that there is causal link between the advertised methods and effects. Halldór Hauksson has noted that increasing the age of adulthood with two years might have been the real cause. Many young people having problems stayed within the children programs and could be treated under them and not as adult alcoholics.

* It's very adult oriented model. Teenagers are just subjects.

* There was clear distrust against unsupervised gatherings among teenagers. Adults don't seem to see any value or learning in stuff that young people do among themselves.

* Nobody have studied what teenagers think about the system. Apparently they didn't even think to ask it.

* There are parts of the system that might violate agreements that protect children rights. (Yes, Nordic countries take things like United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child seriously) Some methods violate Finnish constitution of equality and equal rights (when people are subject to government actions they must have an opportunity to voice their opinion) so they can't be directly used.

If you look at other things like alcohol use, things don't look good.

* Teenage suicides have grown off the chart. Boys: 42.5 suicides per 100k. For comparison Finland 12, Sweden 8.5, Norway 6.5, Denmark 5.5

* Psychotropic medication among teenagers if many times what it is in other Nordic countries. UN children rights commission has notified Iceland about child medication.

jsmonkey · 6 years ago
As a Finn I wouldn't take any findings from our social scientists very seriously. By treating teens and children like adults they have already ruined our once great education system.
jsmonkey commented on Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook   calnewport.com/blog/2020/... · Posted by u/elliekelly
mastazi · 6 years ago
For me the greatest improvement came from stopping using Twitter and Reddit rather than Facebook or Instagram (I quit using all four within the last year, Youtube is the only social media service that I'm still regularly consuming, I'd like to quit that too), of course this is based on my personal situation and the way I personally use all of those media. In my specific case I have the impression that Twitter and Reddit are somehow more addictive and they used to have the largest detrimental impact on my mental health. With Facebook, that impact is moderate and with Instagram I would say almost non existent.
jsmonkey · 6 years ago
Same here. At least in Facebook you mostly communicate with people you've chosen to accept as friends, and know who they really are.

Reddit and Twitter on the other hand show all the bad sides of anonymity to the fullest. Way too much blind tribalism and conflict seeking, few adults actually capable of real discussion. So it's not only a waste of time, but one that gives you a bad mood as well.

jsmonkey commented on Amish Hackers (2009)   kk.org/thetechnium/amish-... · Posted by u/newswasboring
ryanmercer · 6 years ago
>I do not read, watch or listen the generic news. Most news is depressing anyways, and you really don't miss out on anything imo.

This. I stopped actively following news around the time the iPhone 3GS came out and within a month or two I was far happier in general.

Around the time iPhone 6 came out I was using flipboard on an iPad nightly for a few weeks, found it pretty miserable and quit again.

Now I will look at my Google news recommendations on my phone once or twice a day for the first few articles, rarely doing more than scanning the headlines. These articles are almost always of interest to me as I will tell it I don't want to see these kinds of articles when it puts garbage in there so it's mostly NASA and SpaceX news which I'll hear about on a few podcasts I listen to anyway. Aside from that my news is limited to a story or two on the Adam Carolla podcast each weekday, whatever I see on HN on weekdays and whatever gets sent to me via SMS.

Right now I'm currently checking /r/China_flu every day because I work in international freight and we're already feeling the virus in our volume due to Chinese freight slowing but once the virus starts to decline I'll stop.

jsmonkey · 6 years ago
Similar experiences here. I was a news addict for most of my youth. The general knowledge I gained that way sure helped me to ace college exams, but that's about it as far as benefits go.

All the negativity in news was definitely bad for my mental health. Constantly checking out news was also a giant waste of time - time that could have been spent on self-development, or something that makes me happy. Now I've blocked all news sites of my country on all my devices, and I definitely feel much better. Checking out bbc.com or whatever once a day is enough.

u/jsmonkey

KarmaCake day31December 28, 2019View Original