Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Salvador Mirzo Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: broken schools Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2025 00:02:45 -0300 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 442 Message-ID: <87r02wickq.fsf@example.com> References: <67b21894$14$17$882e4bbb@reader.netnews.com> <87r03scbr3.fsf@example.com> <875xl03xok.fsf@example.com> <4cc33db7-d48f-98f9-7f36-fe20ee6f73a9@example.net> <87ecznxpcw.fsf_-_@example.com> <87zfiast6y.fsf@example.com> <0fac16c3-0944-07d5-7a30-2e05ae84ce25@example.net> <87tt8hq2wv.fsf@example.com> <0a7a6195-5609-1116-7e55-8dacb0d9d20d@example.net> <87senzfz57.fsf@example.com> <87o6ycfj5z.fsf@example.com> <0c615f3f-d454-fbca-126b-06b270ff9437@example.net> <87wmcz6lli.fsf@example.com> <875xkh3yjn.fsf@example.com> <5cc84f2f-ed16-9695-b6f2-662f713a4c9f@example.net> <87zfhnsl5q.fsf@example.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Injection-Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2025 18:19:56 +0100 (CET) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="c12e3b218f24b2c483e436c9f39cec23"; logging-data="627074"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18O+AtDH6teY2fXnkl+udUbGy/MvxUhtn8=" Cancel-Lock: sha1:M9u+ZPcf4GG0lbRUA5boQ+qAwTw= sha1:9Dmba3mCTZo1qPKcxSZe9YV1Caw= Xref: csiph.com comp.misc:26924 D writes: > On Fri, 14 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote: > >>>> Ketchup effect? Wow. I had never heard of that. I get it. The whole >>>> thing comes down at once. :) >>> >>> Exactly! >> >> I'm gonna smile when I get an opportunity to use that expression. :) > > The latest expression I learned was "keeping up with the Joneses". Why "Joneses"? > You learn a lot of odd stuff of usenet and mailinglists! ;) Indeed. I often recommend it to people who study a foreign language. Writing it each day is a very efficient way to get the language into your memory. With the tools we have now, it's even pure joy. But, you know, so far, I've never seen *anybody* following my advice in this matter. (I've been making this recommendation for some two decades.) >>>> Other things I've noticed. The Americans easily trust what you say. >>>> (Some will be mildly outraged if you don't trust what they're saying.) >>>> The Dutch are so not like that and you can observe that in commerce. >>> >>> They are a cheap and suspicious lot. >> >> All the things I said sort of implies more or less the same thing about >> most countries that fit more or less the reality of Holland. But I once >> heard that the Dutch have a history of commerce---that they were an > > This is the truth! See the east india expansions. Yeah. >> important piece in the distribution of goods to the rest of Europe (from >> overseas) in, say, the 16h, 17th century and perhaps 'til recent times. >> I think commerce is a pretty mistrusting activity and perhaps the Dutch > > Depends. Business builds trust. But it does need a substrate of some > kind of "basic" trust before anything can happen. That is why > dictatorships and authoritarian regimes never do well in > business. They are cut throat, lawless and the rule of the strong > applies there. That is basically the worst possible place to do > business. > > The more trust, the more business and the easier it is. Of course it > takes time to first build some trust, then business is built in that > trust, which builds more trust. Makes perfect sense. >> I honestly don't worry much about these social aspects of feminism, >> although I feel very sorry for women---who are now even wishing to join >> this other world without getting much of any break from the previous >> world. And---the subject is quite complicated---but I have a certain >> argument that puts forth the proposition that feminism is now in vogue >> due to industry interests. (Both parents may be earning a salary now, >> but they still have the same needs as ever---so we can take a part of >> the money given to the man and pass it on to the woman. And ``that's >> wonderful''---says the industry---because now I work force that's almost >> the double as the previous.) > > I heard the other day the theory that the rich created feminism in > order to increase the number of consumers, and the government happily > agreed in order to be able to tax the other half of the population! I wouldn't quite say the rich *created* feminism. But, surely, like every agent would do, when they see something (that they didn't create) can help them in their quest, they use it. Obviously. Rulers often look into philosophy, say, as an accomplice. >>> The argument, based on my own experience and observation goes like >>> this. Modern, european feminism is competitive by nature. It makes men >>> and women competitors and antagonistic. Women start to dress and act >>> as men in order to make an name for themselves in the workplace. >>> >>> Men, like me and many others, find this not very attractive and are >>> turned off >>> those women. The ones who do meet a man, end up being focused on work and not >>> having time for children. >>> >>> Most, I think 90% of my acquaintances in sweden have wives from >>> southern europe, >>> eastern europe or south america or asia, where women are more >>> feminine, behave >>> like women and want to form families. >>> >>> This is why feminism contributes to less children being born. What is your USENET client or text editors? Look above---your client or text editor almost does what's called ``embarrassing line wrap''. It's quite it because it doesn't mess up quote attribution, but it doesn't know how to fill the paragraph properly. Perhaps your client could invoke the GNU EMACS so that you can handle this with the GNU EMACS (or vim). But your client must leave the message alone after you're done. I think you use alpine, right? Can it do a better job? (I often fix your quotes, but I won't fix it this time to let you see it clearly.) >> I hear that. I think this is real, but I think that's a more >> surface-real phenomenon. Deep down, I don't think women or men are too >> much like that. I could /try/ to compare this to the Donald Trump >> phenomenon. It's a bit frowned upon to support Trumpism, say, but in >> the privacy of one's mind, people do support him. It's frowned upon not >> to ``side with women'' (obviously), but in the privacy of their minds, >> it could be that the vast majority of women doesn't quite think that >> things are going pretty well in that regard. > > Could very well be. The problem with the privacy of the mind, type of arguments > is that it is difficult to prove anything. Proving anything is quite useless for regular people. Proving is useful in math, less in science and that's just about it, I think. (By the way, when I see people saying things like ``scientifically proven'', they have no idea what they're talking about.) >>>> There has ``always'' been a war between men and women. It's a pretty >>>> sad one, in fact. It is---to me---much more serious than military wars. >>> >>> I disagree. I know many people who live in loving relationships full >>> of harmony and respect. >> >> Of course you're right. But I also think we've historically a problem >> there, which I'm calling a ``war'' here. And the reason I consider it >> pretty bad it's because it's an inner war. When men and women don't get >> along, that's because they're not getting along with themselves. > > Interesting. Could you give an example? Can we begin with women in some Arab cultures? Some don't even let them drive. Doesn't this suggest a certain battle between the sexes? But let's look at our own culture. Here's a true story. I have a friend who is considered very sweet and polite by everyone who meets him. He tells me about all of his dates and girlfriends and whatever. I never told him because I don't even think he would understand it, but he objectifies women quite clearly (to me). For instance, he was chatting with a girl on an app some time ago and they were talking about meeting up. The girl was a bit unstable with the commitment to meeting in person and he was losing a bit of patience; another girl came up and agreed to meet him. As he was telling me the story, he made remarks such to the effect of---whatever; I get the problem solved. In other words, he is looking for services; if one company doesn't satisfy him; he goes with another and that's it. What looks like someone's impatience with people's complications might actually be hiding a certain outlook on life, which I call materialism. He can't see that he's getting involved with people. His outlook is not that of someone who sees oneself intertwined with everybody else. He seems himself quite separate from everybody else. While people often remark how polite and sweet he is---and I like him too---, I actually say that he has a health problem that makes him quite insensitive. Who is suffering the most? Himself. His insensibility, for example, blinds him even to his own nutrition. He's losing his health slowly year after year. What about women? Same thing. People are very insensitive because their sensors are all turned off or broken. (And the mystery goes away when watch them closely: nearly everyone is drugging themselves daily with coffee, processed foods, medicine and all the rest of it.) And that's the case with the most of the world. Oh, here's an example from today. Today I woke up with my neighbor having a little party in his house early morning---that means it probably started a night out. He lives in his house with his wife. His wife was not in this party. It was actually a two-couple party. Believe it or not, my bedroom faces his pool directly. (Not much privacy for sure.) I got up, saw what was going on and did not even open my window to give him a bit of privacy in his little party. Chatting went on for a while and then suddenly silence. So I looked and then his friend was likely inside the house and he was having sex in the pool. And that's the second time I spot something. The first was months ago in a similar situation. Night out followed by coming home with some new friends. This time the girl was actually cute and perhaps didn't sleep with him, but he seemed to enjoy kissing her. I figure he thinks he's enjoying life, but I actually think he doesn't like his wife at all. So why are they together? There are no paradoxes in this world. There's some business going on; there is a contract there. His wife must be getting something from the deal and he's getting something else. That's not affection. Where does this come from? I don't know the beginning of it all, but surely this goes back to thousands of years. Recently, I learned that archaeologists discovered human civilizations in the tropical forests 150,000 years ago. Was men and women at war back then? I don't know, but I would easily guess so. I think the problem goes way back. The reason men and women live such disputes is that each of us is living this war with oneself. The inner is the outer. What my neighbor does to his wife is the same thing he does to himself: he has no respect for his own sleeping; his drinking is definitely killing him; the food he eats and the eating schedule is all perfectly messed up. How could he care for his wife if he doesn't care at all about him? He cannot care for anything in the outside if he doesn't know what's care from the inside. There are no paradoxes in this world. I don't think his wife cares much more about him either. They often throw parties here. How do I know? She doesn't care much for herself---but I'll spare you the details. Hey, I got to go to bed. >> I don't really separate men and women. I think of them as two sides of >> the same coin. > > I think of them as individuals. I know. But we are not individuals. Even evolutionary biologists are getting there already [1]. > The logical end point of "woke" when they realise that all groups > eventually boil down to unique individuals. Welcome to libertarianism! > =D You lost me there. Today I read for the first time the essay called ``Politics and the English Language''. I thought I was reading a blog post from last year or something. At the end of the essay, I saw the author's name and the date of 1946. I was so amazed! :) I felt so current, so relevant. That author was George Orwell. I always had a certain feeling for the what the essay says. But now I can actually cite the essay instead of trying to verbalize my own account of things, which I never did (in a essay, say). Lola---all of this to say ``let's not use words such as libertarianism''. Even because I have no idea what it means. Even if I had an idea, I would have no idea what *you* mean by it. They end up useless. The same is happening to way too many words. >>>> Of course, it all makes perfect sense. The burden of the proof is >>>> totally mine because I am the one speaking out unreasonable things. But >>>> I'm not trying to prove anything---it's too hard. So stay alert. :) You >>>> don't need time for yourself and your interests. That's actually false. >>> >>> Haha, well, this is about what I subjectively value and enjoy doing >>> in my spare time. So you'll have a tough time trying to "prove" to >>> something else. ;) >> >> It'd be a useless attempt as well. A proof is not a unilateral thing. >> A common system must be set up---language, definitions, a deducting >> apparatus. For instance, one thing I quickly notice is our different >> definitions of words such as ``happiness'', ``enjoy'' and so on. > > True. This is a common culprit. When I say happy, I tend to mean long > term contentment. When most people hear me, they tend to hear > hedonism. When you say that happiness is long term contentment, I wonder what long term contentment is. :) (But surely you don't have to answer that.) >> If were disputing something technical here---like a lawsuit---, a >> statement like ``the reason for ones existence is entirely subjective >> and different from person to person'' seems to easily complicate your >> life. I'm sure Socrates could throw into wild contradictions because of >> this. I'm unable to because I'm just the student, but you should see my > > Complicate? How come? To me it is one of the most liberating realizations of my > life. =) For me it is I guess an honest life, a life where you think through > your values and goals, and then strive to realize them and maximize the amount > of long term happiness you can get. An expert could likely complicate your life by trying to show that it's either false or meaningless. (Don't ask me to do it---I'm just the student.) They could attack ``reason for one's existence'' as meaningless and they could certainly attack ``subjective'' by claiming that the vast majority of the world is quite objective. >> teachers. :) (Life cannot be quite subjective. Of course people can >> have wild interpretations of their own, but even interpretations fall >> into few categories. We could call these categories ``diseases'' and >> then proceed to argue that people tend to have one of these few >> diseases, showing clearly how reality is not subjective at all.) > > Oh, this might get complicated. Lived life, as in my subjective experience, I > would argue, can never become objectively analyzed, since it is impossible for > descriptive science to "get" what it's like to be the subjective me. To your content perhaps, but people can infer what's in you by looking from the outside. The inner /is/ the outer. You're a human being. Everybody else knows what's like to be a human being. You can deny it all 'til the end of times. > Life, descriptive, external, life, as understood by science, can definitely be > categorized and analyzed. In terms of happiness, you can go so far as positive > psychology and statistically analyze "happy" people and draw conclusions about > what life factors tend to contribute to their happiness. Freud observed himself and made conclusions that apply to everyone else. Like everyone else, he perhaps made mistakes in the fine details of things, but he also made huge contributions---from a unitary sample space. >>>> observe in very young kids is that they need no toys. A little ant, >>>> say, is quite a toy. But then they're given a bunch of toys. You know >>>> those those eye-candies that are hung above a craddle? Babies likely >>>> feel enchanted by them, as they move and shine. I claim they need none >>>> of that. In fact, that's too much stimuli. >>> >>> Oh, but we must make a difference between long term happiness, short term >>> destructive happiness, and avoidance of pain. Too many toys can >>> give short term >>> happiness, but long term might not be for the best. I agree with you here! >> >> You don't agree with me. :) Here in my notebook the word ``happiness'' >> could not even be further qualified as you're doing it. It's not your >> fault, of course---I never clarified any of this. > > As you said above... our definitions probably differ, which would lead us to > talking in circles. What are your values and goals in life? Why don't you strive > for happiness? Tell me! =) In my notebook, if you ``strive'', you've already lost a bit of your health---meaning you're not happy. Happiness is what I value the most because health is what I value the most. My happiness has increased considerably because (over the years) I've recovered a lot of health I had been losing year after year. I've spent countless nights awake having ``fun'', for example. In my notebook, I have no values and no goals, which is all very liberating. I've had lots of them. They were no good. What I do each day is the right thing. What's to do the right thing? Impossible to tell because I don't have a method to say what it is. I know only what the right thing is when the moment of doing it arrives and I see only a single possible thing to do---the adequate one. People often ask me---what would you do in that situation? The answer is always---I don't know. I might know *then*, but certainly not now. ``Oh, come on; please answer it.'' I could give you an answer, even a serious one; but the fact is that I really only know what I'm going to really do at the moment I'm doing. (Humorously, if you want to play around with fiction, I can come up with lots of answers for you.) This is also very liberating. I make no choices anymore. I only need to wait, but the wait is not a passive sitting around; the wait is work, but it's a work with no striving; it's a work in attention, which is not concentration. This way I have never been happier. >>>> You don't need your science and your interests. And I also claim that >>>> you would in fact have a lot more with science and your interests if you >>>> stop pursuing them. Do your work. That's healthy. You do need to >>>> study it. But guide yourself only by a very rational thing. If there >>> >>> For me, guiding myself based on what gives me joy is the rational >>> thing to do. >> >> To translate your comment here to fit in my notebook's framework, I'd >> probably need to substitute ``joy'' for ``pleasure''. And it would >> violate one of my theorems---the pursuit of pleasure is not a rational >> thing to do and it's not even quite pleasurable. > > Why not? And what is the rational thing to do according to you? And how did you > reach that conclusion? The destination of every pursuit of pleasure is actually displeasure. For instance, you have a little coffee and tastes wonderful---pleasure. Well, then you have another; then another; soon, even the taste isn't that good anymore---displeasure. The rational thing to do is to listen closely. You might like a little coffee or a little cocaine or whatever; but you also do like to stay healthy and rational, so you need to listen closely to see everything of relevance there is. Drinking coffee may be pleasurable, but so is sleeping. >>>> is no time for your science, then there is no time for it. It's not a >>>> bad life. A bad life is an unnatural life. We've distanced ourselves >>>> quite a bit from nature; it's all very seductive. Now we need to really >>>> walk in a different direction in order to get out of this. >>> >>> I think that natural life is a happy life. I think unhappy lives are >>> unnatural lives. >> >> Now we totally agree. > > Amen! =) But the problem is then to define "natural". ;) Quite right. :) > And why is the natural good? Isn't that a value statement that we > cannot answer by science? Oh, I think that's easy. The natural is good because bad, by definition, is anything that lost equilibrium. Why does sugar taste good? Because it is actually good. You developed your taste through zillions of years: it was made to feel good when the thing is good for you. If you have too much of it, it will feel bad and the bad feeling will push you to come back to equilibrium. Nature is the current stability of things. Interfere with that stability and you're off of the natural course of things. If the interference is small, things naturally come back to their equilibrium (as the system is ``designed'' [if I may] to do that---you can remove the word ``designed'' but it is a fact that the behavior is to come back to the equilibrium); if the interference is big and the equilibrium isn't restored quickly enough, things break. So the smart thing is to look closely and see what is the equilibrium so that you can let it be restored when you lose it. Watch yourself at work: you'll get tired and you're tired you then work a little more---losing the equilibrium. It's a little bit, so it's quite unnoticeable until decades later. (And you do this little bit of this sin against nature precisely because you're already a bit sick. Your sickness makes you more sick. A natural thing is all quite balanced: tired, rest; rested, move.) >>>>> I remember when I was young, >>>> >>>> You're still young. :) >>> >>> Really? ;) >> >> Really. :) That's what I meant with the Linus Torvalds story above. > > Ahh... got it! And you can get younger. Physiological age goes both ways---forward and backward. (*) Footnotes [1] A Radical New Proposal For How Mind Emerges From Matter https://www.noemamag.com/a-radical-new-proposal-for-how-mind-emerges-from-matter/