JubilantJaguar @ JubilantJaguar @lemmy.world

European. Contrarian liberal. Insufferable green. History graduate. **I nev

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2 yr. ago

Interesting anecdotes! There's actually a bit of truth in the last one, I believe. Bodily fat is more evenly distributed in Inuits and even Europeans than it is in, say, west Africans.

Give it a couple of years and a few more heatwaves! This is the insidious problem with heatwaves, as I see it. Tolerance for heat and cold is in large part cultural - go to Portugal in winter to see how tolerant people can be of cold indoor temperatures. But with every new 3-day heatwave, Europeans are going to rush out to buy AC units to escape the immediate misery. Next thing we know the continent will be like the US, where it's just unacceptable for indoor temperature to be outside the 19-23C range. And mass AC is just a climate disaster. That's my worry.

Fair enough. Most of Japan is hotter in summer than northern Europe. Here it has been 35C for much of the last week and domestic AC penetration remains extremely low. There are also quite few fat people, and the two things are probably at least a little bit connected.

Offices in all countries have AC, the question is about homes. I doubt "practically every household" in Hokkaido has AC. Here in northern Europe, very few do.

Lose weight. I'm totally serious. Thin people have much higher natural tolerance for heat.

It's no coincidence that so many developed countries have become addicted to AC. The fact is that most people there are now overweight and in many (USA most obviously) over 40% are literally obese. Conversely, AC is much less common in places like France and Japan, and it's not just because they're too cheap.

If you want to stay cool in a heatwave, it helps not to be wearing a blubber overcoat that you can't remove.

This is why we (still) need a Flattr-like service to somehow gain critical mass.

Midnight Run (1988) but it was a VHS. Possibly the only movie I have watched more than twice, and I have watched a lot of movies. Very random.

I don’t think I could live on a 10" screen anymore, but back in the day it was a dream machine.

Interesting. Years ago I moved from an 18in desktop setup to something like your eeePC. Unexpectedly, I also found it fine. These days I have a 14in and it feels unnecessarily big and heavy.

If you're happy doing things one window at a time (i.e. monocle view, or basically as on mobile OSs), turns out the floor's the limit!

Well, for my troubles I went back thru the thread to try to understand what it is exactly that's bothering you. Seems maybe it's a misunderstanding about my response to remon ("You’re not debating anything by simply repeatedly denying their view and restating" - you). That particular comment was not intended to argue anything, it was my mockery of remon's condescending shtick ("But downvoting doesn’t mean that. At all. Not even sure how you got that idea." etc - perhaps read it aloud to hear the drippingly patronizing tone, as if to a child who couldn't possibly have a different idea of what exactly downvoting means - a question which is, after all, is a bit of a philosophical conundrum). That triggered me into disrespectful sarcasm - which, if you look, you will find I almost never do, I'm generally very civil.

I did get their substantive points (about algorithms, tweakable knobs etc, I know all the arguments by heart) but fundamentally I still believe that a blanket downvote button is analogous to slapping someone down or confiscating their mic - which are things people don't do in person, they're simply too rude (or coarse, as you put it). In person we have manners. I wish we did virtually too.

Yes yes, I take the point about the sorting-algo choices and karma absence and so on. I acknowledged it in another comment.

My fundamental point (which you are ignoring) concerns the motivations and incentives for downvoting. My contention is that downvoting thoughtful and well-expressed opinions is always (always) toxic and unhealthy. Others don't see it that way. So be it.

We both know that this audience is not the same as the one at those places. Still, point taken, my objection here was a bit weak.

I just ran over the last 20 posts. I'd say about 4 or 5 are obviously popular opinions (eg. the one on organ donation), a bunch are blah-neutral (eg. the one on space terminology), and only about 4 or 5 are obviously unpopular (artists and AI etc). Actually, a really unpopular opinion was the one I posted - but I just noticed it broke rule #1! You should have deleted it! I'm completely serious.

You think I'm annoying with my "gatekeeping", I get it. And yeah, you saw me doing it in !Showerthoughts, where the mods are AWOL. Eventually I gave up and left.

The reason I do it is that is that I want Lemmy to succeed. That means quality control, which means gatekeeping. It should really be done by the moderator, but in a bunch of communities the mods are completely out to lunch. You are not - so thank you. I know it's a thankless task, as you just proved by telling me to "knock the fuck off", which definitely breaks rule #2 (but I forgive you).

Another popular "unpopular" opinion!

I'm getting downvotes because people don't like being told they're behaving obnoxiously. That's all. I didn't downvote you or anyone else. I respect all of your opinions.

And I'd say this is your convenient retrofitting of an optimistic rational theory onto what is in fact almost always much simpler and more brutish: "I had a negative response to this because it contradicts my beliefs and gave me cognitive dissonance", regardless of its objective merits. You must know this. Anyway, we'll agree to disagree.

Also, if you don’t want to be part of the discussion, you are free to stay out. other people are participating and enjoying themselves.

In future then I'll try to remember your handy advice and not say anything that might challenge anyone's views or otherwise spoil your enjoyment. Cheers.

This seems to be a reply to another comment.

Yeah. Sometimes I can't resist. Sorry.

Since karma isn’t tracked, I don’t think it’s a real big deal having a negative score comment.

I agree this is an important counter-argument. My other points stand.

That's interesting. But I don't know how you can be sure of that. My own theory (not exactly original) is that text communication - without voices, without faces - encourages people to be worse versions of themselves. When there's ambiguity, the temptation for many is to see bad faith. It takes effort and self-discipline to overcome that, and most (or many) people just don't have that.

But downvoting doesn’t mean that.

It doesn't?

At all.

Really? At all?

Not even sure how you got that idea.

Hmm. You mean you don't have perfect insight into other people's minds? Admittedly that's odd.

So yeah, you’re not making any sense here.

And you're coming across as the kind of sanctimonious interlocutor that I can't be bothered to answer properly.