Comment by chubot | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chubot | Hacker News Reader

Your personal experiences make up maybe 0.00000001% of what’s happened in the world but maybe 80% of how you think the world works

Love this one ... I wonder what would happen if every Tweet creation screen had this gentle reminder on top

The dead outnumber the living 14 to 1, and we ignore the accumulated experience of such a huge majority of mankind at our peril

I like this framing from Ferguson as well. Ray Dalio's recent book The changing world order talks about recurring patterns in human history, and how we're in the middle of one right now.

The US is not as productive as it used to be; its currency is being devalued; and this leads to intense political conflict.

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As a concrete example, it makes me think we're ignoring the wisdom of societies (and religions) that have disallowed gambling:

A lobbying blitz made sports betting ubiquitous (nytimes.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33684467

If you asked me 10 years ago, I would have beeen closer to the viewpoint that gambling should be legal everywhere.

But my experience watching UFC aligns with other commenters here -- sports betting is rampant, and I'll also add that crypto pumping is rampant.

This pattern has played out many times in history -- gambling is destructive for societies and their currencies, and then it is banned.

If large portions of the population are engaged in negative sum games, then that bill becomes due eventually. This extends to the stock market (which I've benefited from) and crypto, not just sports betting.

It's likely that societies that ban or limit gambling are the ones that survive!

> 0.00000001% of what’s happened in the world but maybe 80% of how you think the world works

I feel like this is silly. The daily events of my life - waking up, using the restroom, driving a car, the work that I do all day, the conversations I have - all have an extremely close resemblance to the same actions almost everyone else does every single day. My exact explicit experiences are a minuscule fraction of all experiences, but they're extremely representative of how life and the world works for a billion other people.

Given differences in traffic management and public transportation, as well as the availability of toilets in the developing world, on top of the fact that the US is only some 350ish million people, I'm pretty sure my US-based experience of those aspects, never mind the rest of daily living, aren't representative for a billion people.

Question one: do you have a uterus?

Around 50% of humans have a uterus, what is your point?

There's this thing that happens to the majority of uterus owners once a month that the other humans don't undergo, so that's an obvious counterpoint to the claim that "all have an extremely close resemblance to the same actions almost everyone else does every single day. "

What percent of a uterus owner's day is spent doing actions related to having a uterus? On a heavy flow day, maybe 10 minutes? Maybe half an hour a month? That's 0.3% of their life, leaving a possible 99.7% overlap in shared similar experiences.

My girlfriend and my sister experience pain that fluctuates from mild to severe, for an entire week. Vomiting is also something that can occur. This of course impacts the actions they can perform during this dreadful week. Although I can try to imagine what the pain feels like, I can obviously never fully understand it, because I lack a uterus.

Yup! Just half an hour a month is all it takes to take care of a uterus. Having one definitely doesn't affect mood or cause cramping or headaches or any other related physiological side-effects on any other days. Nor require an annual specialist doctor visit. Nor will any uteruses have a 9-month period of intense activity which will coerce the owner's day to spend an inordinate amount of time doing actions related to having an in-use uterus. And then after that, the body having used the uterus definitely doesn't undergo any other changes that might cause lactation, which is definitely not a laborious process every day for months on end.

Nor are there any society constructs or expectations that cause people with uteruses to be treated differently from those without, especially those that might challenge gender norms that traditionally go along with those physical attributes.

There are no differences in pay, or career expectations; no laws passed anywhere in the world that might legislate either of groups being treated differently.

We definitely don't still segregate humans into different rooms to urinate or defecate.

You heard it here first! Half an hour a month is all it takes! The rest of the time, everything else is totally the same!

"...ignore the accumulated experience of such a huge majority of mankind at our peril"

Where the source for this? Like, a LOT of our thinking, our stories, our traditions are based off of or directly attributed to people who have come before.

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