Underrated reasons to be thankful
dynomight.substack.com
dynomight.substack.com
And don't even get me started about refrigerators and air conditioning.
When the first electric lights arrived in towns or villages people would gather after dark just to enjoy the light. We're spoiled, it's hard to find true darkness anymore, but pre-electricity having light after dark meant you were burning something or you were in the dark. Eons of having the night mean you couldn't see anything and now we don't even think about it.
We're just whiny, spoiled kings who live on top of supply chains.
When you're not, other feelings take their place.
> That MSG—a standard amino acid glued to a sodium atom—is naturally present in lots of things like tomatoes, mushrooms, grapes, and parmesan cheese, meaning Italian food is high in MSG, which is good because MSG is harmless and delicious should be enjoyed by everyone including people with psychosomatic issues.
I read a comment by some chef, who, when asked by another chef why she has a giant tub of MSG beneath her sink, said, "Why don't you have a giant tub of MSG beneath your sink?"
MSG is wonderful. It does not give you a headache; that was debunked decades ago. If it had been discovered recently, instead of 1908:
https://foodinsight.org/msg-a-brief-history/
it would be as trendy as kale. I've heard only one compelling argument against it:
If a food has too much umami you can't taste all the other flavors in it.
More relevant to the article, several of these things seem calibrated to cause division and strife at the thanksgiving dinner table. Sometimes being the drama can be fun, and I think the following would Do the trick:
> That electric leaf blowers now exist and perhaps we can develop a new understanding that it’s chill to not spew intermittent pitch-shifting mechanical shrieking sounds at deafening volumes all the time everywhere?
> That ghosts don’t exist, which wasn’t obvious a thousand years ago.
This. A lot of people take for granted how cool it is to have a working pair of eyes. Or being able to hear everything. Or have all four limbs.
We only appreciate health once we lose it.
but I still manage to take it for granted most of the time. I'm usually just annoyed at the other one (causes minor physical discomfort, but my brain has learned to just kind of ignore the off-axis blurry signals from it) but never appreciate the normally working one
Thanks, Right Eye!
And fuck you, Left Eye
Even if one finds the reported evidence unconvincing, it seems difficult to definitively prove that ghosts do not exist.
There are 'ghost hunting' groups that go around trying to identify ghosts by process of elimination. All of them find some other reason for the noises, the tingly feelings, the gusts of air, the creaking floorboards caused by east-west heating gradients.
Turns out a tingly sensation is usually your house trying to burn itself down via an electrical short, so in at least some cases they help people by doing this work.
I'm not a ghost expert, but this seems to be to be a fairly definitive proof of the existence of (some) ghosts.
It's pretty difficult to definitively prove anything doesn't exist.
Big Foot, unicorns, leprechauns, grachflaxaprods. I made the last one up just now, but hard to prove it doesn't exist.
I think that when people say things like you did, like the existence of ghosts or Santa Claus, it is generally presented as binary choice. They exist or they don't. In reality, it is a continuum and looked at as the odds for something like that to exist. So the odds that a different species of lemurs exist and we have not found it might be 80%. But that a god exists, let alone the one that you happen to believe in rather than the other 10,000+ that have existed, is .0000000000000000000...0000000000000000001%.
For example, I'm not saying a god doesn't exist, but I AM saying that the odds are not binary, meaning a 50/50 chance. Agnosticism therefore is an extremely weak position. This is important, because no scientist is going to try to prove leprechauns exist, because the odds are so exceedingly low that it is a bad choice to try to prove it. Sure, one scientist in the world might, but the vast majority don't. It's a poor choice of where to beneficially spend one's time.
And on some things, like a god, the odds are so extremely low that you might as well be like limits in calculus - you just say "close enough" and say it is zero odds of a god existing, so practically speaking, you're an atheist. Which isn't to say that if the evidence changes, as a scientist you would wouldn't change your mind - of course a scientist would...because there is evidence. However, the evidential burden would and should be quite high that this "entity" is indeed a god.
And really, a god's power is really only just atom-moving (or changing quantum field states if you prefer). For example, if we take the story of Jesus turning water into wine, people look at it as "turning water into wine", but it isn't. Not really. It is just moving atoms. "Turning water into wine" is a misnomer. What actually happens is take H2O atoms, grab two Carbon atoms and extra 4 Hydrogens atoms and rearranging them into C2H5OH - Ethanol alcohol. This is the reality. Jesus was just an atom twiddler. Sure, wine might have more actual atoms arranged into additional molecules, but still it is the same thing. So when you think about it, Jesus had to take the Carbon and extra hydrogen from the air or dirt on the ground or rearrange the atoms into a different molecule.
It's the same thing with everything - bringing Lazurus back from the dead? No. Jesus just twiddled some atoms in Lazurus' body.
This is pretty much true for any god.
If I can move individual atoms, like the replicator in Star Trek, am I a god? If I can bring atoms into existance from quantum fields, am I a god?
Ooops, got off track there on the whole god (Jesus) "miracle" thing, sorry.
My dog
Having a job
Parents and relatives who don’t get involved in scams. Except that one aunt.
Living in a first world country and not having to deal with citizenship issues.
No need to add all this additional complexity to something that should be so simple.
There's one in every crowd.
I've recently heard some less-deafening electric leaf blowers which sound more like hair driers and seem to lack the piercing, high-pitched "siren screech/banshee wail" of older electric models. I hope they catch on.
He'd been drawing an elaborate picture on our white board with a permanent marker some idiot transferred from a paper easel. He got nearly the whole thing drawn without any mistakes, and only as he was finishing did he realize he couldn't erase it. Boy was that an emotional roller coaster.
I've watched I don't know how many people cycle through three dead markers on a white board and put them all back. The only way a conference room ends up with 3 dead markers is because it has 3 dead markers and nobody does anything about it. When there are no markers left new ones will show up, one way or another.
Surprised that both the (tree) nut and (dairy) butter lobbies aren't up in arms against (this so-called) peanut butter, demanding that it be called legume spread!
peanut cheese - "it's naturally non-dairy!"
Enough of you I am sure have experienced briefly with COVID what it's like to acutely lose the freedom of an unobstructed breath.
(And I hope those of you with long COVID are seeing eventual remission.)
Of course maybe if they don't actually want to do it and just have to do it for income I shouldn't be so thankful?
I wish someone would tell the people I love about this. Nah, never mind, they don’t need to know.
Oh, BTW, it’s usually when I’m most confident that I’m wrong.
As in, instead of feeling thankful for what you got (easy for the healthy, fat, and rich), start to give a shit about those who are less fortunate than yourself? Even if they are not the least fortunate, and can have the luxury of lightbulbs...
Clean air, four limbs, water, an abundance of food and to live in a peaceful country... if I get really into it I'll pick an object and think of all the things that went into creating and getting it to its location.
There's a lot to be thankful for, especially when you're doing planks.
Otherwise, excellent!
This is indeed something to be thankful for, but it is also something to be very wary of. Over-extrapolating this leads to complacency. Some problems, like climate change, are not just going to go away.
> in principle you could create a “mirror human” with everything flipped, which is good because it’s insane and they would be immune to infectious disease but also to food so to keep them alive you’d need an entire mirror life ecosystem, although where is my mirror life science fiction
I highly recommend Neal Stephenson's _Anathem_.
I'd like to think that some day we can increase the bandwidth of information to our brains without tracing wires through our skulls to get there.
Or if you're lucky, maybe you get to live inside a doll and spend a few decades on a shelf gathering energy until you can move your head a centimeter to the left and scare the crap out of her grandkids. Or you can rattle some shelves and move some silverware.
In any case, it never seems fun. Ghosts of the Civil War still reliving their battles. Ghosts of the drowned in the water. Ghosts of inmates who never leave jail. You never hear about ghost parties or ghost orgies, it's always "the kid who hanged themselves in the 7Os still lives in the bedroom and stares at you while you try to sleep, his head lying limp at a crazy angle where the noose twisted his spine apart like a wishbone. Sometimes he makes wet, gurgling cries in the corner."
Why would it be easier to translate sound waves to text than scents?
Audio, by contrast, has one variable--air pressure--to control with respect to time.
Easily my best purchase of the year. Along with the snowblower.
I can’t believe I didn’t get these sooner. I’m thankful I didn’t stick to gas-only devices.
Hearing (or barely hearing) an electric lawn mower has me planning to soon replace my very noisy lawnmower too.
like, "dont try that at home" ..
for politicians, lawyers and tv evangelists because it gives me something to laugh at.
for the significant other who hogs the covers every night, because he/she is not out with someone else.
for the teenager who is not doing dishes but is watching tv, because that means he/she is at home and not on the streets.
for the taxes that I pay, because it means that I am employed.
for the mess to clean after a party, because it means that I have been surrounded by friends.
for the clothes that fit a little too snug, because it means I have enough to eat.
for my shadow that watches me work, because it means I am out in the sunshine.
for a lawn that needs mowing, windows that need cleaning, and gutters that need fixing, because it means I have a home.
for all the complaining I hear about (legal abortions, the loss of the environment, the inefficient government, greedy corporations, etc.) because it means that we have freedom of speech.
for the parking spot I find at the far end of the parking lot, because it means I am capable of walking and that I have been blessed with transportation.
for my huge heating or cooling bill, because it means I am comfortable.
for the ugly fat lady behind me in church that sings way off key, because it means that I can hear and see.
for the huge pile of dirty laundry, because it means I have clothes to spare.
for weariness and aching muscles at the end of the day, because it means I have been capable of working hard.
for the alarm that goes of in the early morning hours, because it means that I am alive.
and finally.......for too much spam and advertising, because it means I have friends, family and spammers/advertisers who are thinking of me.