I mean the reason you have to ask is kind of… why

We’re in mostly a capitalistic world. Capitalism makes utilitarianism seem easy since it becomes easy to assign a “value” to everything. That kind of thinking quickly gets you to naive cynicism. We’re conditioned to think certain things are more valuable than others - mental wellbeing and community have been steadily devalued.

There’s a saying “behind every cynic there’s a disappointed idealist”. We’re in a world where a lot of people grew up in a time of amazing technological advancement, but have been bitterly disappointed by how the world is today. These people are now getting to that age where they may have been working the same job for a while (if they got lucky with job security) and they just want to get the job done and not exert any more effort than necessary (since by their experience, it doesn’t “pay off”).

Let them be them, you do your thing. They don’t owe you any kind of behavior really, though it would be expected and polite of them to keep things at professional level of course. You don’t owe them either so you don’t have to let them bring you down. Don’t take it personally though because it really, really isn’t.

Obvs just my view. If you really want to know, you can try to just ask what they value and if you can work in a way that aligns with that while not disregarding your own values.

Ideally, ham, cheese (gouda), egg, slices of pickles, pickled red onion, a bit of mayo. On a rye bread.

I often drop one ingredient or another though cheese is pretty universal.

Based on 3rd hand accounts, he’s been steadily losing weight for years and while it was hard to find recent photos at a cursory glance, there are a few where he is noticably skinnier (also the article does mention he looks fitter in a conference call)

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They can go to the cops. I get this may not seem ideal to them if they are in fact doing something illegal. And again: giving money to beggars encourages begging -> more human trafficking. It’s a very, very direct causation. I rather not get into that.

Just had a chat with a gamer friend who was ditching Windows for good and switching to https://bazzite.gg/. I’ll probably do so as well. Apparently I’ve been needlessly scared of Linux and I had missed that SteamDeck encourages devs to make games work for Linux.

Vehemently against it. Far too easy to abuse - there’s been criminal gangs that force people to beg. I’ve even heard of criminal gangs crippling people they traffic to give them visible disabilities to make the begging more effective. Giving money to beggars - even if they’re not being trafficked - still makes begging worthwhile and increases the likelihood it will be made into a gang activity. We need government programs that handle it, or give your money to a charity instead, which makes sure the money goes to effective programs that help people in real need.

(Not who you were responding to but…)

EVERYONE else’s idea of what your life should be is the standard, and if you deviate more than the standard deviation you will suffer the consequence of eeking out existence with very few choices.

While this is true, it’s not an argument against doing exactly what you want provided that people understand that everyone else has the exact same liberty. We collectively tend towards certain values and people who deviate from those values too much eventually get sorted out one way or another. As one value most people tend towards heavily is safety, it’s in everyone’s best interest to find common ground with others for everyone to have safety. But it is necessarily a process with errors and learning - on everyone’s side; which begets more errors and learning. Thus we will never have a perfect solution. Of course, you “conforming” to majority is also you doing exactly what you want, ultimately. Because you value your safety.

Question the presupposed truth behind every statement.

Pretty much, unironically. Meaning is also a false hope you put into the future. But you’re better off paying attention to what’s happening now, within your sense-field. Is there something in there that you genuinely want to take care of there? There’s all the “meaning” people need. But the why-motor is really, really good at convincing you to chase after exponentially increasing complexity. And most people need to do it until they die, some need to despair at it so they get disillusioned with the mind (and the lucky ones find sensible wisdom traditions to get them to navigate that space without causing harm, like Zen Buddhism).

Sidebar: And as most people have their why-motor running until the end, we of course live in cultures that are built around catching the tail of stillness, giving you so many different avenues to explore. You can have fun while doing it but you’ll stop one way or another eventually.

I really recommend you check out Waking Up App . Ignore Harris if needed, it has tons of other respectable teachers of meditation and philosophy with interesting conversations.

Edit: Reading the thread I feel like many people here are at the “despair” but fall to nihilism. Which seems to be the natural result of intelligence meeting lack of wisdom. Abrahamic religions really dropped the ball on that one.

It doesn’t have a meaning. “Meaning” is just a concept we made up to forever have something to chase after. You can endlessly ask “why” so it’s like chasing one’s own tail. It’s the motor of the mind, fueled by the desire to finally be still.

It’s both. And I say this as a consumer of easy entertainment (within limits, because I know the effects). We really struggle with tolerating boredom these days and that’s not good for the brain. We’re extremely overstimulated and exhausted but we crave constant stimulation anyway to ward off the “down” moments, the boring moments.

I don’t generally like it but this one was kinda good. Good flipped logic.

The only hell you might get from pirating and other “easy sources of excess pleasure” is the hedonic treadmill. I’d say Steam sales are more likely to cause this at this point but we’re definitely seeing the effects of easy entertainment on the general population. Brainrot and all that. It’s not fire and brimstone but the world ain’t looking great. But personally I’d take notes from Buddhism rather than Christianity as the latter is way more preoccupied with what happens after this life (the religion of kicking the can down the road).

Disclaimer: I’m not an expert.

Pothos is usually fairly hardy. It’s probably acclimating to it’s new environment. Be very careful of over watering. Stick your finger deep into the soil and don’t water if it’s clearly moist. If it’s totally dry, take it to the shower, get it totally wet but let all the excess water drain. If you haven’t repotted it in two years, you may want to do that and check for root rot while you’re at it.

Not sure what you mean by incorrect as it’s not defining peeling potatoes as the goal of Zen Buddhism.

I’ve practiced it and taken part in their retreats. The instruction for cleaning and cooking service was very much to just focus on what you’re doing - like just peel the potatoes. Not thinking about peeling them. Not looking for a deeper meaning in it. Not narrating a humble-brag story about yourself piously peeling them. This quote is accurate but doesn’t make for an exciting overview of Zen philosophy or practice.

Fun fact: The “my body is a temple” line does originate from a spiritual tradition that did NOT forbid wine (Nondual Tantrik Shaivism) - though it did encourage moderation in all. And you’d be expected to drink the wine as you would be offering it in a temple.

Get Waking Up app, do the practices and listen to the talks.

Congrats, you’ve touched reality, from the haze of the rat race and the world designed to keep you distracted from the big scary pointlessness of it all. Yes, everything and everyone will die and then something else comes along and eventually dies and so on. Most people don’t want to realize this and rather numb themselves out, and encourage others to do the same as a shared delusion is easier to keep up. But the fleeting pointlessness is very beautiful if you let it be, scary if you resist it - makes no difference to the end result though, the truth is nice like that.

lol @ gale, very on point

Yuval Noah Harari’s Nexus gets into this as well. It’s a really powerful tool that we are very, very ill equipped to use responsibly.

Haven’t looked at anything Detective Conan for a while. It’s cool to see the old style in modern animation.