- helboi4 parentlol I should've noticed that. Thanks for pointing it out.
- No these are not things people told me about. I know that. I mean from 3 onwards there is a steady stream of them that I remember clearly in exactly the same way I remember other things. My memories from 2 are very few and far between but they're still not things anyone told me about. They're not things that are significant enough for people to relay to me. I remember things like, my dad pointing out a crane to me out the car window, being confused about someone's name. Someone telling me the word "plumber" has a b in it, which I just found totally wild. Waiting for the toilet at nursery. One time they brought cardboard boxes to nursery and getting to crawl around in them like a cat but being really pissed off with this girl who was terrorising me. Hiding in the attic conversion with my cousin because I was terrified of the hoover. Some kid bullying me for having a temporary tattoo in nursery. My mum took me to the turn of the millenium celebrations when I was 2 and wants me to remember that. She's tried to remind me a lot, I don't remember shit about it. I don't remember anything notable that people would talk about like my first day at school. I remember my 3rds birthday I guess that counts.
- Yeah I always think being a baby or toddler must be endlessly frustrating. Imagine having absolutely no words to communicate your need and no idea how to do anything. I've said this before to parents of babies when I was a curious teenager and they thought I'm being silly but I'm sure it actually is stressful. At the end of the day we all go through it and nobody remembers it though, so it's not worth worrying about, it's just interesting to think about.
- bro, that's not what I mean. What I mean is this guy really thinks his culture did not effect him. Trust me, if you went to Japan and acted exactly as your American upbringing tells you to, you will fuck up the entire social contract there and people will think you're wierd af. Your culture is not a blank canvas. Your culture is something that affects how you are and this guy seems to think otherwise because he is blind to the strong characteristics of his culture, viewing it as default.
- They're really not. Europe is diverse enough that you need to split it into quadrants to decide what countries are relatively similar. Like is Finland similar to Germany from an outside perspective? Yes. Is Finland similar to southern Italy? Absolutely not, you'd be better off comparing southern Italy and latin America, and Finland with Japan. Like seriously, those will have more in common with each other than Finland and southern Italy. People have told me Naples feels like Brazil... which is nothing like Finland, which has the orderliness and cultural restraint of Japan. North European,East European and South European countries are similar to other countries in those same segments of Europe. They are not similar across segments.
- This is 100% not what psychedelics look like. It's generally just mildly more saturated colours and the feeling that everything is possibly breathing or swaying in a more natural way. I dunno what happens if you take insane amounts tbf. I always thought that psychedelic art was a bit more about the sort of thing that is super appealing to look at while tripping.
- Yeah I mean I wasn't doing things like this. I was constantly frustrated because I didn't have any resources to achieve the things I wanted. Didn't even have a half decent computer. I had some janky celeron thing that barely functioned and I couldn't even buy books about subjects I wanted to learn. To think the things I could have done if I was a well off kid.
- That's why the pouches are good. They reduce your craving, therefore making the act of smoking seem less necessary. Of course, the act itself is still appealing, but then you can work on reducing that habit independently and perhaps saving it for special occasions. I find cigars quite good for this. Too expensive and fancy to smoke every day but you can really treat yourself on your birthday or on holiday with something like a cigar.
- I'm saying this in comparison to other forms of English. In comparison to their British English versions, these phrases make no logical sense. That is just true. There's a direct analogue to compare it to.
Edit: Also, Americans themselves have complained to me that British English is too fancy. And when I look at the sentences they are describing, it's just someone using an unremarkably intelligent and varied vocabulary. Meanwhile, educated American public figures speak like they are talking to children. Im not even talking about someone as verbally challenged as the current president. By their own admission, it seems that American English is a dumbed-down variant.
- Firstly, that is your interpretation of zero. It is also an abscence of all the possible values that it could be, which is a plural concept.
Secondly, yeah American English is moronic and full of barstadised phrases. In the UK, we always say "by accident". We also say "I couldn't care less" not "I could care less", the American version which is illogical. If the meaning is to be "I care the minimum amount possible", then only "I couldn't care less" makes sense. The American version implies that you actually care a significant amount.
- I mean sometimes it's true. Like even in the past. I could very clearly see amongst my generation (older gen z) that there were plenty of people literally at university who were barely willing or able to learn. Comparing that to the generation of my much older half siblings (genx, older millennial), they don't even seem to grasp the concept of not being quite involved in your university degree.
Most people my age will tell you that they stopped reading as a teenager because of the effect of smartphones. I was a veracious reader and only relearnt to read last year after 10 years since I got my first smartphone as an older teenager. These things are impactful and have affected a lot of people's potential. And also made our generation very prone to mental health issues - something that is really incredibly palpable if you are within gen z social circles like I am. It's disastrous and cannot be overstated. I can be very sure I would be smarter and happier if technology had stagnated at the level it was at when I was a younger child/teen. The old internet and personal computers, for example, only helped me explore my curiosity. Social media and smartphones have only destroyed it. There are qualitative differences between some technological advancements.
Not to mention the fact that gen alpha are shown to have terrible computer literacy because of the ease of use, discouragement of customisation and corporate monopoly over smartphones. This bucks the trend that happened from gen x to gen z of generations become more and more computer native. Clearly, upwards trends in learning due to advancements in technology can be reversed. They do not always go up.
If kids do not learn independent reasoning because of reliance on LLMs, yes, that will make people stupider. Not all technology improves things. I watched a really great video recently where someone explained the change in the nature of presidential debates through the ages. In the Victorian times, they consisted of hours-long oratory on each side, with listeners following attentively. In the 20th century the speeches gradually became a little shorter and more questions were added to break things up. In most recent times, every question has started to come with a less than a minute answer, simpler vocabulary, little hard facts or statistics etc. These changes map very well to changes in the depth at which people were able to think due to the primary information source they were using. There is a good reason why reading is still seen as the most effective form of deep learning despite technological advancement. Because it is.
- Everything I do is either a Whatsapp group or a Telegram group these days. Whatsapp is owned by Meta but is at least encrypted, private and free from the bullshit of a real social media. Telegram is a better alternative if you really want to leave Meta behind. People will suggest Signal but in my experience literally nobody uses it except radical organisers. I have only one group on there and its for a protest group. Nobody else ever even messages me on there.