LastThursday

@Shermaningeorgia are you a professional troll, or do you do it for free?

I was kind of raised in two cultures, Spanish and English, because I had a Spanish mother and English father. I lived in Spain when I was young and England for the rest of my time. I would speak both Spanish and English at home, eat both Spanish and English food etc. I'm curious to know if you're in a similar situation what your experiences have been - positive or negative? Or even if you've just moved around different countries and had to take on different cultures. Has it made you different from others, has it affected your politics? How do you treat and interact with members of your family from different cultures? I think the biggest effect it's had on me is to make me feel detached from British culture to a degree, but also to be tolerant of other cultures, so I'm quite liberal minded in that respect.

I speak English fairly well, and my first language was Spanish. I would say I'm nowhere near fluent in Spanish any more, but my comprehension is much higher, say 85%. I think if I were to live in a Spanish speaking country for six months or so, I'd be fluent. Because of my Spanish I find French quite comprehensible especially written down, and to a degree Italian for the same reason. Catalan and more so Portugese are less comprehensible to my ear, but Brazilian Portugese is a lot easier. A while ago I thought I'd delve into a non-romance language, so Swedish was my gateway to the nordics. I enjoyed that, mostly did Duo Lingo and a lot of Scandi TV Noir. I eventually got an ear for it, and could get phrases here and there. I find German a lot harder to grok despite the similarities to Swedish and English. I'd love to learn something completely whacky like Basque or Navajo or Welsh, but source material is scant. I don't have a favourite I think all languages are equally interesting in their own right. But, English is kick ass because of it's giant lexicon. My advice for you? Learn Japanese, something completely different for your brain to master.

@ZenAlex I feel you. I've never quite recovered from a protracted depressive episode more than a decade ago. While, likewise, I've done a lot of work on myself I don't think it's possible to get back to where I was before the depression (I could be wrong). I'm not depressed now. I do think fulfilment is more important than excitement and emotion generally - I've given that one a lot of thought over time. What's fulfilling though? Mostly, being with people (even for introverts), working towards goals especially collectively, immersing yourself in your interests and things you're good at, helping others in any capacity. I'm sure I could list a hundred other things. In short look for fulfilment, build it up in your life.

Identity is the whole package I would say, both what you feel yourself to be, and what you do. The canonical example of being asked "tell me about yourself" and then answering "I'm a car mechanic", where the answer is a super-compressed version of their identity and largely something they do (behaviour). I'm curious why you think it's an issue of mental health though? That's a very good point, that the identity you have for yourself doesn't always match the identity others assign to you.

It's great to have something tangible to remember someone by. Ridiculously (or not), I've kept a repurposed spice bottle that my mum wrote on, you know one of those glass containers from the supermarket, I should throw it away, but it takes up little room in my spice cupboard, and reminds me of her every time I look in there. That's some dedication, but it does have some family history, so there's no price on that. Dude or not, it's still cool. Lockpicking is also cool, recently I saw on some thriller drama someone using an electric toothbrush (the blade without the head on) to frig a lock, nice. Are you a spy?

What gadgets, devices, things do you love that you own? I'm thinking usefulness, beauty, or sentimental attachment, and why? Here's my list: Sony eReader PRS-505 - old and was gathering dust in a drawer until I ressurected recently. But I always liked the look and physical weight and feel of the thing, it's such a good design. The software is dated and slow, but the fact I can store bookcases full of books still blows my mind. Modern readers' design are not a patch on it. Dell XPS15 laptop - seems corny because everyone has a laptop nowadays. Unfortunately the execution was dreadful, I've replaced its charging port, battery twice, and recently keyboard and the nice "soft touch" covering has disintegrated, and it's got Windows 10. And yet, despite all that it's so incredibly useful, carbon fibre, light, and got a powerful graphics card and processor. Everything is snappy and the aesthetic design is nice with it's aluminium casing. I love it and hate it. Galaxy mobile phone - what can I say? Just for Google maps alone it's proved its worth, I will never be lost again. It is a double-edged sword, because I can be contacted at all times (I remember a time before mobile phones). But the idea that a futuristic looking slab of glass and plastic in my pocket can bring up anything I like, contact anyone I like and, take me wherever I like, will never get old. Gold pocket watch - when I was a kid my dad had a simple pocket watch and I was always fascinated by it. I finally got my own one for my birthday from a now ex girlfriend a good 15 years ago or more. It's a thing of beauty with a gold cover with a small round window in it to see the time at a glance, and two clicks of the button first opens the front cover and then the back cover, like a butterfly, with the back side of the watch being completely see through, the cogs and wheels ticking and churning away. It's so incredibly anachronistic and I don't want to ever damage it, that I've had no excuse to ever wear it. If I ever do Victorian fancy dress, then I'll jump at the chance!

Pick up is not so different from advertising. In pick up you're advertising yourself in bite-sized chunks to whoever is willing to listen to your spiel. Most advertising is unsolicited, because it has to be, even if it's targeted. Is this conscious? Yes and no. No, because it's indiscriminate, maybe even harrassment at some level. Yes, because there are some who want your product. Because of that ambiguity most advertising has strict standards on what is acceptable. Who sets the standards for pick up? You do. But in essence you want to say "hi this is what you're getting, do you like it?", and you have to be attuned enough to understand what "no" means and walk away if not.

@Loveeee I don't believe you have a mind. Then again I'm just seeking attention, from a zombie.

So what are the words "hate", "hot" and "ladies" referring to then?

That's a start. We will beat the mysogyny out of you (metaphorically, mods don't give me warning points). Women don't "choose" to be hot as much as they don't "choose" to be ugly, or anything in between, all those judgements are in the eye of the beholder.

I feel strange mansplaining the following: Men and women are socially agreed constructs, if not consciously created. Biologically and in nearly all cases, there is a sharp enough distinction between men and women, that it's simple enough to apply the categories - because biological differences are one of the ways we define the ideas of "man" and "woman". But biology is not the only factor, there is also gender. Gender involves identity, expression, cultural norms, presentation, self-understanding. There are a very small minority of people who wish to take on different gender tropes than their biology suggests. (good we need diversity) It should be noted that "man" and "woman" are constructs and not god-given, and as such have to be socially agreed upon. I am a man not because of my biology, but because the label "man" is applied to my biological characteristics as well as my (learned) gender characteristics - after the fact. (I realise this is exactly what @Lila9 said, but I felt the need to mansplain myself)

It's unknowable until it happens. What's an almost certainty is that "you" are a hallucination, and the hallucination will dissolve, probably at physical death. It's an almost certainty you will have a physical death.

A few more good episodes

This is good series explaining how evolution is able to create complexity without a designer. The series is not complete yet. This is the original video that triggered the series above, interesting in its own right.

Seemingly, based on my intepretation of your post, you don't tolerate others' differences.

I have many thoughts while reading this and I don't know what is true. I quite like the idea of seeing things as the mind/body system, one affecting the other reciprocally. Thoughts (mind) trigger sensations in my body (lethargy), but my body also triggers thoughts in my mind (I'm depressed). States such as depression are then maintained by the system continually cycling between mind and body triggers. Therapy then involves interrupting the patterns of either one: do intense exercise, or talk about happy things. On the other hand mind is such a nebulous thing to grab on to. At least the sensations in and behaviour of the body are more overt. It could even be that mind is just an epiphenomenon of the body, and itself has no influence over anything; it's just a "projection" of the body's inner workings. In this case rumination about lack of control would just be embodied first and then projected into mind as a way to bring this to awareness (i.e. the body talks to itself). The first paragraph explains what therapy aims to do: break ingrained patterns in the system as a whole. The second explains why "just talking and thinking" can be largely ineffectual for many problems: because the problem is in the body, not the mind.

More accurately it should be truths not Truth. It's not like Truth is some fundamental substance filling the universe. It's about seeing the world as much as possible for what it actually is, with clarity. There are truths to be understood and accepted, and not obscured by beliefs, stories and ideas about how things should be. Some truths are in plain sight, but are hard to see - work needs to be done to uncover the truths.

don't they say ignorance is bliss? being smart breaks the magic of life by being shown the trick of how things actually work. being smart also means being aware of the bigger picture and how you lack choice and control in a lot things. that feeling of loss of control can give you depression. but being even smarter allows you to counteract being emotionally triggered by thoughts and circumstances and take back some control over your state.

My shortlist: VirtualBox - computer in a computer VirtualDub - quick and simple video editing, conversion and effects FontForge - design new or manipulate existing fonts Upscayl - AI image enhancement ChatGPT/Deepseek - (free version obviously) mostly for coding or philosphising Google Maps on mobile - probably the most mindblowing

I don't know what you mean 😉

Correlation is not causation as they say. Never trust anything on video in any case. The wizard with his cutlery is most likely using induction heating to melt the metal. Notice how its the thinnest parts that melt first.

@Oppositionless I reckon he's got some gizmo up his sleeve.

Rationality is done by minds. It's coherence, cause and effect, B because of A, explanation, narrative, science. Rationality is a subset of reality though, everything else is irrational until proven otherwise. Existence itself is irrational, qualia are irrational, consciousness is irrational, whether others are conscious or not is irrational, electrons are irrational.

Why is it always metal cutlery? It's almost certainly a trick. I want to see pencils snapping, biros bent into pretzels, paperclips straightened out, matches catching alight, something with more imagination! And, I want to see all that without the thing being touched. I want the guy to wear a T-shirt, none of your wizardy long sleeves.