I told myself the same lie, week after week, until some day I realised it wasn't a lie anymore.
We probably won't solve climate change. We might be able to make huge air conditioned complexes with just a single basic bed for everybody with insect farms underground for us to eat?
There are some ideas to terraform the Earth to keep it habitable. It's just very expensive and challenging and if we screw it up, we'll be worse off than when we started. We likely won't get a 2nd chance and as a species we don't typically nail it on the 1st try.
No one knows what happens in the future. We can make assumptions and calculation based on statistics and probability. But ultimately we don't know.
βYou can buy a house with your own moneyβ someone told me when I was a kid.
Last week I calculated that if I save every penny and dont spend a thing for the next 47 years I might have just enough to get myself a small house (hoping of course that inflation doesnβt happen otherwise it would be a shame to save +500.000 euro π)
They didn't say where though. I bet in some country you can buy a house for less than 10k
Yeah, I recently bought my own house. I had to move to a rural area 2000 miles away from all my family and friends. But I did it.
Well, I borrowed from the bank. But I think just about everyone does that. Other than that, no money borrowed. My parents paid for my college 100%, which gave me a huge headstart in life, as I didn't need to pay off any student loans. After college I got a job at a startup, which gave me a bunch of stock, and then we sold the company, which gave me a really nice payday. My down payment and moving costs were entirely funded by that.
So it was a mix of luck between having parents that could pay for my college, luck getting a job at a company that sold, and then moving to a less expensive area. Of course, I don't want to downplay how hard I worked in college and at the startup to put myself in a situation where I could get lucky.
Well, not that I believe in it. Representative democracy. It's like, we have the right to elect representatives, who seem to more often than not represent corporate/money interests, not really the interest of the majority.
It's just like every other political or economic system that we tried so far. Sounds great in theory, in practice not so much.
You know of a good read on the Swiss? They have elements of direct democracies. I wonder how that does.
If COVID has learned me one thing is that there is still hope! We really have a make it a large enough problem before the powers are willing to change.
Covid has show me the exact opposite. Governments saying this is fine, keep going out less than a week before ordering a full lock down. Karens and Karims (is that the male for Karen?) going crazy about something as easy as stay home and less than a year latter, people openly couching in public without even a mask
I hope things happen in your life that make you able to believe, that, what you said was a lie isn't one.
I can't stop picturing myself as a demolished beggar quite soon. Or a pile of mashed meat near a 10-story building.
That leadership (politicians and ceos) is competent, and have our best interest in mind and we shouldnt revolt agains them.
"Flushable wipes"
I'm at an age where moist arse wipes are a godsend, and I stubbornly cling to the lie that they're flushable and fine.
Every house I've lived on had a bidet and they all had a basic faucet. You clean yourself with a soapy sponge or hand and then spend several minutes splashing water on your ass and junk with your hand to remove all off the soap because there is no way the water stream can reach you. Then you have to dry yourself with a towel while water is dripping down your leg and even after drying properly the area still feels wet. At that point you realize it was more convenient simply climbing into the shower to do the same quicker and easier by washing yourself from the waist down.
Wet wipes: you wipe yourself with them and dry with some toilet paper. Done.
I will never give up the commodity of legally flushable wet wipes.
That anyone should be allowed to vote.
I mean, obviously I believe in democracy, don't get me wrong... My idea is that you should have a chance to be allowed to vote. Like you have to at least pass a reading & comprehension test before you get like a voting license or something.
You don't get to drive if you're incapable to see the road, you don't get to vote if you're incapable to understand what a politician is saying to you.
I'm sorry
Edit: I'm not from the USA, so I didn't know that there was already something similar back then.
Still, I believe that basic comprehension is foundamental in the voting process and there should be a way to check it. Otherwise there is no failsafe to populism taking over
at least pass a reading and comprehension test
That's banned in the US under the Civil Rights Act of 1965 because it was used to cut racial minorities out of the voting process. I can also think of a bunch of other ways this could be abused.
You're probably already aware that there have been literacy requirements to vote in the past in some places in the US, but those were actually an excuse to disenfranchise black people. https://history.iowa.gov/history/education/educator-resources/primary-source-sets/right-to-vote-suffrage-women-african/voter-registration-literacy
Literacy tests were banned by the Voting Rights Act in 1965. There have been recent attacks on that law including the 2013 Supreme Court case Shelby County v Holder which overturned election oversight in jurisdictions with a history of racist disenfranchisement; and Allen v Milligan from a couple months ago was an attempt to overturn gerrymandering restrictions, but thankfully it failed. Combine that with continuing voter disenfranchisement (for example far too few polling places in Atlanta leading to black voters waiting in line many hours to vote), and there is no doubt in my mind that if literacy tests were legal again they would be used the same way they were in the 60's.
Personally I think history has shown that we get better leaders when more votes are counted.
The hard part about this is who gets to decide what the criteria is needed to be allowed to vote? It can easily be taken advantage.
Itβs less important because votes are averaged.
Itβs well established that smarter people are just as likely to get caught up in bullshit. Maybe reading is a handicap to voting.
If you have a low IQ you're not legally allowed to serve in the military, but you damn sure can vote for the president π
Things are going to get easier
Treat others as you want gem to treat you
You can always trust your friends
You have to finish School else you won't get a good paying job
Drugs are bad. M'kay?
Christmas is the holiday of love
The first few (all but the last 2, which I discuss below) are certainly lies, no doubt. Totally agree. Except that the "treat others as you wish to be treated" does not mean that they will treat you back the same way. Maybe they don't follow these principles, or they do, but they're a masochist or enjoy degradation, and as such will treat you in a degrading way, because that's how they want to be treated.
Who the hell told you the last one? Christmas has always been about family get togethers. That doesn't mean there will be love. Parts of my extended family hate each other. So definitely not about love.
On the "Drugs are bad" one. I've met multiple people that have used them. I've met some men that have smoked weed together. It did not affect them or their life, for better or worse. I've met a young woman, who has taken various drugs and did not get addicted, and was also still a mentally stable, normal person. Her life was not affected, for better or worse. There are 2 young men I knew have smoked weed. One of them is now quite successful, not affected by drugs neither positively or negatively, but the other one was affected and from what I hear, is now a failure. There is also another man. He got into gangs, was doing drugs. His life was seriously affected by narcotics. But he got out. He now has a family and is doing quite well, he recently got a college education and is going to university in September. He has a wife and a lot of kids. Why does he have a pretty successful life now? Because he got out, and is now catching up on the many years he lost. He lost over 10 years of his life, or so I hear. I haven't asked him about it, but there is no question: he's a great person now. I didn't want to tell you stories of people that failed, but people that were and were not affected. For all but one of these people, I'm confident they either are or will become successful. The one that is still there, I don't know if he will be able to get out, but I certainly hope so. Overall, I have had the luck of meeting only people that overcame the possibility of addiction and are clean. However, there are far too many people I have not met, who are simply still addicted and might never be able to improve their lives. I will not risk becoming one of them, another statistic. Why would you? Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
Despite all logic pointing to the falsity of it, I cannot stop seeing the past and future as places that exist.
In a certain way of thinking the past still exists as light waves traveling away from earth. You just need an impossibly large telescope to see anything of detail.
Why do you say they donβt exist? A specific past clearly exists, and if you believe in determinism, a specific future exists as well.