scarabic @ scarabic @lemmy.world

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2,767

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2 yr. ago

You disparaged the entire category. Which is a fairly common take. I’m saying that the moment we frame that category as sugar substitutes, in a highly sugar-driven world, the category is bound to compare poorly. It’s more than just subjective, it’s very slanted in one direction - for all of us.

But there are other frames of reference we could consider. Such as a world that isn’t saturated with sugar. Or even a personal diet that removes sugar as the frame of reference. “The examined life” that’s supposedly so worth living consists of trying not to just automatically react to the context we are in, but also consider alternatives, right?

You’re more than entitled to your opinion, and most share it. I’m just pointing out built-in biases that we all have on this question. If it was hard to figure out how my reply followed from your comment, it might be because I was trying to offer it without invalidating your opinion in any way.

I’m saying it’s even more than just subjective from one person to the next. I described how I changed my environment and context and how that had an effect. Your opinion can change.

I think you’re upsetting yourself trying to figure out if I’m agreeing or disagreeing with you but It’s a discussion. People chip in different bits.

And I think we have enough information to say definitively that not everyone experiences every taste exactly the same way.

I think we have to allow that when you’re raised on sugar like we all were, substitutes are never going to live up.

However lots of people throughout history didn’t have refined sugar. The ancient Egyptians for example. What would they have thought of stevia?

I once went on a strict no-carb diet for a few months and a stevia tea at the end of the day was a very enjoyable treat that I looked forward to. Now, having gone back to a normal diet, it doesn’t taste as good.

So I think habituation is a big part of it.

More info here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_refinery

Can you differentiate synthesis and refinement for me?

Eh, fair enough. It is retrospective so we’ll never know how much of that he was thinking about at the time. But he explains it convincingly enough. It’s still a mistake to have such a complicated notion of what goes into hyperspace travel and then not provide enough basis in that for the dialogue to make sense. That might be a worse error than just the simple mistake of using the wrong unit.

is there any way to stop this

There’s pretty much every way. Work, eat, shower, sleep is such a minimal place to start that if emptiness is your issue, I feel like you could go in any direction you want and do better.

Maybe no one ever told you this so I’ll try. There is no objective meaning to life or purpose for it. The meaning is up to you to make. I don’t think any path whatsoever (therapy, volunteering, art, hobbies, dating, travel, whatever) will work unless you take responsibility for the problem. If you are hoping for others to provide the genius answer, or looking for some global perfect answer or “meaning of life” then you aren’t taking on the responsibility yourself.

You have to do that or nothing else can work. This thread might be a start. You did ask. Now you need to put the time into the many fine suggestions here.

Don’t take them in turns and try them “to see if they work.” That’s still the main problem of assuming the answer is outside of you somewhere. Instead, take them in turns and put everything you’ve got into them. If you can do this, any of them will work.

One of the better ones I’ve seen said right at the start “we will meet three times only,” and had a tactical plan in place for what would get done in those 3 sessions.

Contrast this with another where I talked, unidirectional, for about 20 sessions and had to ask “when will I be getting something back here?” She picked up her pencil and made a note, commenting “how interesting… do you approach all your relationships and ask ‘what’s in it for me?’”

I agree. If human connection “doesn’t work” then something is really wrong. It’s fine to want more than just the human connections you’ve got, but to categorically rule it out is a red flag and I think the other responses here are just providing blind alleys to someone who is unwell.

Well going into it with defeatist attitude will almost certainly cause it to fail, and that goes for most things in life.

I’d love to see a primary source on what he said. I’m sure if he said it after years of people lampooning the line, his take was probably defensive and revisionist.

Yeah and even more people have killed themselves over the dysphoria and the world not listening to them or validating their right to make a choice.

Yes there is a complex mass of issues that can be difficult to separate out. But I ultimately think 2 things:

1. a trans person’s certainty about their body is more important than my doubts about their mental state
2. the complex mass of issues is partly created by a world that doesn’t validate their choices and condition. You can give them as much information as possible but then you have to back off and let them choose. It’s ultimately their body, their risk, their choice. There are examples where it doesn't work out. Okay, fine, but don’t make everything about those. Most health care interventions carry some risk.

Yep I read the Han Solo trilogy where this is detailed. He cut the corners tighter and made a shortcut or two through this mazey route.

It’s a great attempt at covering a mistake in the movie. They are clearly discussing the ship’s speed in that scene, not its durability:

"Fast ship? You’ve never heard of the Millennium Falcon? It’s the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs. I’ve outrun Imperial starships. Not the local bulk cruisers mind you, I’m talking about the big Corellian ships now. She’s fast enough for you old man."

The line starts with “fast” and ends with “fast.” It’s about speed, which is distance over time. The smaller the numerator gets there, the lower the speed. And Han is clearly proud that it made the Kessel run in “less than” 12 parsecs. The only way this indicates speed is if parsec is the denominator, or unit of time.

It bugged me to see the author bending over backwards to come up with an explanation retroactively. In the same novels we also learn that the stripe down Han’s pants is not just a wardrobe flair but it has a meaning like a family tartan in Scotland (or some shit).

Reading these books helped me realize how 50% of the whole Star Wars franchise is books and comics milking the movies, inventing whole stories to account for some throwaway line of dialogue or some creature that was on the screen for two seconds. The Rise and Fall of Sy Snootles and the Spiders from Mars. Shit like that. Dumb.

It’s a start. He’s still thinking that the dysphoria can be addressed on the mental side, not the body side.

Ask him how he would feel if he woke up with big sagging breasts tomorrow. He’d be afraid to go outside. He’d wear bulky clothes if he had to. He’d look in the mirror and not recognize himself. He would start calling his doctor to see what could be done. Get him to visualize this and then tell him That’s EXACTLY what it’s like. Ask him if he woke up with big sagging breasts, if instead of calling his doctor, he might consider going to therapy to make sure he isn’t just experiencing some other mental issues that are preventing him from being happy with his knee-knockers.

don't think they're mature. I think they're just monopolized to the point where they don't need to innovate at all.

That’s exactly what I meant by “network effects and lock in.” You don’t achieve this without your business maturing, though I am not sure what you think of when you hear that word.

any company that gets this big now has the purchasing power to eliminate competition further cornering the talent pool and the tech market

This is what’s been going on for years already. Google used to hire people they didn’t even know what to do with simply because they could and would hinder comoetition. It’s hell trying to hire as a tier 2 company or small startup only to see everyone get offers for 3x from Google or Meta.

Their clear anti-staff sentiments now signal that this mad rush to acquire talent probably won’t continue as it’s been.

If demand from huge companies like Google and Meta slackens, that could lead to smaller companies offering less, but there’s a huge gap between the two right now. We’re taking about Meta outbidding by 2x going forward instead of 3x.

Not sure how to see this as anything but negative.

I’m getting that. And most people on here just think everything around tech is negative, negative, negative. Most who think this are on the outside looking in. I’ve been on the inside for 20 years, competing for hires with the likes of Meta and Google, and I think there might be at least one bright spot in their insane hiring slackening a bit.

People only revolt when they can no longer do those things. Literal starvation is often the cause of revolution in history. Let’s face it America is not there. Yes life is becoming a crushing grind. Yes we have statistics from policy institutes about food insecurity blah blah. But America is not fucking starving. If a few are, they do not have the strength to overpower the many others who still have something left to lose.

As someone who has been paying attention and organizing for much longer than that, I will say that a lack of leadership is a legitimate part of the problem. This is just as much a case of the Left selling out to neoliberalism as it is the Right gaining strength. Without unifying leadership, minor groups run the risk of working against each other or more likely wasting their strength pulling in different directions.

Lets not forget that America’s founding was a rich man’s revolution. It was the wealthy here who banded together to expunge their parent corporation and go independent. There is no tradition of popular revolt in this country, unless you want to count the civil war, wherein the wealthy (again) weaponized the racism of the lower class to protect their business interests. That part sound familiar?

Dear Goober-Veep,

The threat from within is the Nazis, not the people who refuse to listen to the Nazis. They’ve been handling Nazis longer than you’ve been alive. Shut your fucking pizza pie hole.