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There's just something unsustainable about an environment that demands constant atonement but actively disdains the very idea of forgiveness.

Elisabeth Bruenig

Hier auf dem Münsterplatz erlaubt sich der Wind so lustige Witze, daß man dumm wäre, wenn man nicht lachen würde. Und wenn ich hinausgehe, dann macht er mir meine ganze Frisur (an der ja ohnehin nicht viel ist) zuschanden. Da bekommst Du richtig Lust zum Springen und Mittun. Schade, daß ich die Zeit nicht habe.

Hoffentlich kommt er auch zu Dir, der Wind, und holt Dich ein bißchen hinaus, daß Du gar nicht mehr anders kannst als Dich freuen, am Wind und an Dir, weil Du es bist, an dem der Wind so herrliche Gefühle auslöst. Das kriegt er bestimmt fertig, paß einmal auf.

[..]

Wenn du eine Wut auf mich hast, dann hab sie ruhig, aber schrei sie dem Wind oder auch mir zu, und drück sie nicht so in Dich hinein.

Sophie Scholl

Brief an Fritz Hartnagel, 12.11.1940

Generally, identifying as <political label> usually involves ignoring the parts of reality that go against the narrative. Each group has a story, which is a simplification of a selection of real life, optimized to be viral (otherwise they would never have become a large group).

If you realize this:

- first, your former allies will denouce you as a traitor;

- then your former enemies will offer you membership, because it seems to them like you want to switch sides;

- you refuse, now both your former allies and your former enemies are angry at you;

- you spend some time alone;

- then you find people who are not playing the game, and they become your new friends;

- finally you realize that people not playing the game are actually a majority of the population.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24315885

Discussion of Apple topics here on HN almost always gets reduced to the argument that Apple is not a monopoly, so what they are doing is OK. I want to present an alternative viewpoint. It's not a monopoly issue, it is an anti-competitive issue.

In Canada, we have three major cell carriers. None of them has a monopoly, or anything close to it. None of them has even 50% market share.

You can have a 10 GB smartphone plan with Rogers for $75. If you don't like that, you can switch to Bell's 10 GB plan for $75. If you don't like Bell, of course you can switch to Telus's 10 GB plan for, wait for it, $75.

The Big 3 operate smaller brands with fewer bells and whistles and lower costs. You can get a 4 GB cell plan from Koodo (Telus subsidiary) for $50, or from Fido (Rogers subsidiary) for $50, or from Virgin Mobile (Bell subsidiary) for $50.

Sometimes one of them has promotional pricing, like $45 instead of $50 for 4GB. The other two offer the same pricing for the same duration. Sometimes one of them increases their prices by $5 a month citing reasons such as infrastructure investments, lower Canadian dollar value, or inflation. The other two increase their prices by the same amount a couple of days later.

And none of this is collusion in the legal sense. They don't gather in smoke-filled rooms and decide how to screw over their customers. There is not back-channel communication whatsoever. And it is not because the competition is so perfect the prices have been commoditized. In fact, Canada has some of the highest cell plan prices in the world, even adjusting for factors such as population density and GDP.

It's just that the big companies have decided to stop competing. If you live in, say Alberta or Ontario or BC, you have three options and they are all the same overpriced crap. Cell carriers in Canada are not a monopoly, but you don't have to be a monopoly to harm customers with anti-competitive behaviour. Apple and Google, Android and iOS do not have a monopoly or a collusion agreement. But they are harming the customers all the same.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24147475

The difference between a theory, a conspiracy theory and the truth are best described by varying levels of evidence. A theory is not currently accepted as the truth, but it might be the truth. A conspiracy theory is something that has been proven to be untrue, but people still believe it and pass it on. The truth is the internally consistent and fact supported state of the world as it was and as it is.

There were many people who were going out on a limb with the assertion that the NSA was probably vacuuming it all up, they had means, motive and opportunity handed to them on a golden platter, on top of that it corresponded with what we would expect to do ourselves when in that position (not that there was any such temptation). The hacker community was well capable of seeing this as a theory, rather than as a conspiracy [theory] simply for absence of proof. That didn't stop others from labeling the hacker community as a bunch of conspiracy theorists simply because they could not imagine it to be the truth [..]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24142710

It's surprising to me how people consistently try to discourage traits in children which they at the same time glorify in adults.

I suppose considering how much effort society puts into raising meager people, it's only right we glorify those who manage to manage to grow as a person regardless.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24143514

Der Grundsatz des »geringeren Übels« ist der Grundsatz der Verzweiflung. Meist zieht es die Sache nur solange hinaus, bis das größere Übel den Sieg davonträgt. Wenn man das zu tun wagt, was recht und menschlich ist, und wenn man an die Macht der Stimme der Humanität und Wahrheit glaubt, dann geht man ein geringeres Risiko ein, als wenn man sich auf den sogenannten Realismus des Opportunismus verläßt.

[..]

Ich glaube, daß es für uns heute nur eine entscheidende Frage gibt: die nach Krieg oder Frieden. Der Mensch kann leicht alles Leben auf unserer Erde vernichten oder alle Zivilisation und alle Werte bei den Übriggebliebenen zerstören und eine barbarische, totalitäre Organisation aufbauen, die den Rest der Menschheit beherrscht. Sich dieser Gefahr bewußt zu werden und die Doppelzüngigkeit zu durchschauen, deren man sich überall bedient, um zu verhindern, daß die Menschen den Abgrund sehen, auf den sie sich zubewegen, ist unsere einzige Verpflichtung, das einzige moralische und intellektuelle Gebot, das wir heute zu respektieren haben. Tun wir es nicht, so sind wir alle zum Untergang verurteilt. Sollten wir alle bei einer atomaren Massenvernichtung umkommen, so wird das nicht daran liegen, daß der Mensch nicht fähig war, menschlich zu werden, oder daß er von Natur aus böse ist; es wird daran liegen, daß der Konsens der Dummheit ihn daran hinderte, die Wirklichkeit zu sehen und sich dementsprechend zu verhalten.

Erich Fromm

Free speech and anti-corporate attitudes are traditionally liberal values. Nowadays, you see arguments from bigots that oppose corporate power over free speech. We shouldn't be forced to withdraw our positions on free speech or corporate power just because they're associated with bigotry now.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24127342

Given the track record of institutional science and the ever-growing list of regulatory failures, moral failures and outright abuses pushed in the guise of scientific expertise, why do so many people seem to think that simply doubling down and bullying the general population into compliance with expert consensus will ever work? What if institutional science in the US has a legitimacy crisis because it has failed to police its own corruption and failed to address its own limitations and vulnerabilities? What if everyday people can see this more clearly than those striving on the margins of these institutions?

Personally, as a scientist, I am comforted that there are enough others out there who doubt the entire notion of a scientific establishment that the population should "trust" to make decisions without oversight. Our numbers are growing, and I know many people who fight every day to ensure we will never be ruled by unquestionable expert consensus. Anyone who has been inside these institutions knows exactly how petty and arbitrary the hierarchical structures can be. I'd rather be ruled over by elite families than squabbling, territorial, overconfident scientists who can be bought off for nothing and blackmailed easily.

I think the constant stream of these articles just illustrates the massive social blind spot that comes from training STEM professionals solely for careers rather than for citizenship, communication and community membership. STEM training itself has sadly become a hierarchical, cult-like, anti-intellectual system that deprives students of critical thinking skills.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24063302

I cannot see any implementation of UBI working any better than things now unless the predatory nature of those in power is put in check.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23996105

I'm sick of reading internet arguments about polymorphism and browser monoculture and borrow checking and static linking. Someone please tell me where I can go on the internet to read biologists arguing about their favorite animals.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23883563

Many students, especially those who are poor, intuitively know what the schools do for them. They school them to confuse process and substance. Once these become blurred, a new logic is assumed: the more treatment there is, the better are the results; or, escalation leads to success. The pupil is thereby "schooled" to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new. His imagination is "schooled" to accept service in place of value. Medical treatment is mistaken for health care, social work for the improvement of community life, police protection for safety, military poise for national security, the rat race for productive work. Health, learning, dignity, independence, and creative endeavor are defined as little more than the performance of the institutions which claim to serve these ends, and their improvement is made to depend on allocating more resources to the management of hospitals, schools, and other agencies in question.

Ivan Illich

"Deschooling Society"

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.’ We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we subconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Marianne Williamson

"A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles"

Polizeigewalt betrifft alle. Auch wenn es Minoritäten zuerst trifft.

https://old.reddit.com/r/ ... in_hamburg_jetzt/fw9gigw/