This must have been what it was like when the settlers were trying to communicate with native Americans at first
The settlers were greeted by English speaking native Americans who had been working the shipping trade.
Readit Newslotsofcows commented on Is my toddler a stochastic parrot? newyorker.com/humor/sketc... · Posted by u/zwieback
lotsofcows commented on Leo Tolstoy on why people drink (2014) themarginalian.org/2014/1... · Posted by u/rzk
Let's consider this quote
"All human life, we may say, consists solely of these two activities: (1) bringing one’s activities into harmony with conscience, or (2) hiding from oneself the indications of conscience in order to be able to continue to live as before."
Note that he has defined all of life as two points about "one" and "oneself". This is why I and I assume many others roll their eyes.
Because Tolstoy, and most essays about alcohol, don't even mention what I think is the point of alcohol. It's a drug that makes it easier to socialize, and socializing is very, very good for people. So good that I will risk it, even though alcohol is bad in many ways: bad for physical and mental health, risky for abuse, etc.
If you are anti alcohol, that is reasonable, but it seems no one will ever admit what it's really for.
This is important, because alcohol is unhealthy and if you want to discourage it, give people other low effort ways to connect.
"makes it easier to socialize ... even though alcohol is bad in many ways"
Isn't this justification you bring your activities into harmony with conscience?
lotsofcows commented on Ask HN: How to navigate the world as a brain-damaged 17 year old? · Posted by u/AdviceAlt
Don't give up on the GCHQ idea. As a large public (in the business sense) organisation they will be hot on "reasonable adjustment" and possibly interested in the diversity of thought/opinions resulting from your horrible attack.
lotsofcows commented on The Overlords Finally Showed Up danielbmarkham.com/the-ov... · Posted by u/DanielBMarkham
> The Dark Ages were a time where humanity forgot how to read and write, where one person, a priest, was the sole person in your social life that could tell you truth from fiction. The Enlightenment changed all of that by re-teaching literacy.
And the article retcons literacy onto the past.
> I think the worst part of this is how completely insane I probably sound to folks.
No. It's worse for the reader. I stopped there.
Love the western bias here.
The Dark Ages was a time when the christian west consciously stopped learning. Fortunately the muslim world carried the banner for intellect for a century or two.
Will the new dark age posited be western only? Or wealthy middle-class only? And will some other group develop as we stagnate on a feed of AI generated listicles?
Which countries? It has zero use in the UK (apart from for stuff like parcel deliveries and 2FA). We're 100% WhatsApp.
2FA, NHS, gov.uk reminders, a large %age of my social group...
WhatsApp is a closed protocol owned by Facebook. It has its uses but relying on it is a mistake.
lotsofcows commented on I'm a fucking webmaster (2016) justinjackson.ca/webmaste... · Posted by u/memorable
Yes, JavaScript is a joke for having such a barren standard library that the community has to do it for them.
Gosh, never look at C. You'd break ribs.
lotsofcows commented on Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021? · Posted by u/AccountAccount1
The Dispossessed was not enjoyable to read, so I stopped after about 30 pages.
...then you didn't read it. Try again, it's a brilliant reflection of human nature and really digs into the dystopia / utopia thing.
My kingdom for a fast, one-page, multiplatform notes app that could accomplish this
An app? You just need DropBox and a text editor. Both are pretty ubiquitous.
I used to find myself moving between random terminals so used curl webdav instead of DropBox.
lotsofcows commented on Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater cbc.ca/news/business/lumb... · Posted by u/awnird
I feel bad for the people renting in London. Most people I know there simply can't afford buying as it is prohibitively expensive (>300k pounds I think?)
That's for England. London is more like >GBP500k.
https://lginform.local.gov.uk/reports/lgastandard?mod-metric...
This is just yet another push by financial companies to impose on your freedom of speech. Why on earth do people keep pushing for private companies to become political activists?
They have already come for individual bank accounts, in the UK for example an activist named 'Tommy Robinson' [1] is not allowed to open a bank account due to his politics [*].
"What business of mine is it
So long they don’t take the yam
From my savouring mouth?"
Then they came for Trump, the former president of the United States [3]. Irrespective of your politics, do you believe that he should not be allowed to have money or do business?
"What business of mine is it
So long they don’t take the yam
From my savouring mouth?"
Now they come after sex workers on websites like OnlyFans [4], threatening the livelihoods of people doing perfectly legal business. Sure, OnlyFans did need to clean up their act - but we're talking here about the fringe, not the majority. I really also suspect PornHub were also targetted by payment processors not so long ago, but they kept more quiet about it.
"What business of mine is it
So long they don’t take the yam
From my savouring mouth?"
"And then one evening
As I sat down to eat my yam
A knock on the door froze my hungry hand.
The jeep was waiting on my bewildered lawn
Waiting, waiting in its usual silence."
- (Interlaced poem by Niyi Osundare [5])
[*] I would suggest to hear his speech at the Oxford Union address [2], rather than a heavily biased Wikipedia entry. The first two references in the Wikipedia article are simply links to news articles calling him far-right - not evidence in the slightest of him having far-right opinions. If you even have the slightest doubt in the news media, please watch the video before casting judgement.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Robinson_%28activist%29
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YQ94jFg_4A
[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-12/more-of-t...
[4] https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/21/tech/onlyfans-creators-re...
"Tommy Robinson is not allowed to open a bank account"? What? After multiple frauds and also declaring himself bankrupt he might have difficulty finding a bank willing to take him as a customer but I'm unaware of anyway of anyone banning him from opening one.