1,407 karma · joined July 22, 2012
I have no experience with this - would you kindly explain that value? I am guessing that it has something to do with personal brand (my library is popular => I am good at this, hire me) - am I on the right track? Is there more?
(edited grammar)
1. I think you underestimate how much of that misery comes from the pandemic itself and not from the reaction to the pandemic. I live in a country that went back and forth between relatively strict lockdowns and almost complete opening up. Yet even during the opening up phase people were afraid it would inevitably cause another wave, many would not go to pubs or clubs, businesses were not thriving...
2. I think you might overestimate the misery, which depends on personality, details of the restrictions in a given country etc. I am sure many suffered under the restrictions and I do not want to diminish that. However, I live in a country where I could go out running or cycling and nobody would prohibit me from visiting my family or going for a walk with a friend even during the strictest lockdowns (I am actually surprised by some experiences mentioned here, like not being able to see new babies born in the family - I make a resolution to examine more carefully what people mean when they talk about "lockdowns"). And I could work from home, which greatly improved my quality of life. And I am not alone in this - we are saying with my introverted colleagues that the pandemic would be great if it was not for the illness.
For me, basically all the stress comes from the fear that my parents of my grandmother could catch it or that I will catch it and have the bad luck of some long term problems. Virtually none of the stress comes from the restrictions. Again, I don't doubt that many do suffer, I just wanted to balance your view by a counter-view.
I don't understand this part - what do you mean by that? Why would the world be increasingly zero-sum?
Indignity, that's it! I was never able to explain to myself the visceral hate I feel when I encounter captcha. I knew it could not be explained by the little work it requires, I knew there had to be more, I just couldn't put my finger on it. Indignity, and maybe the feeling of being used.
I have to admit, When I encounter captcha, I leave that page and never come back. I stopped using Pocket where I had hundreds of articles because of that. And when I encounter captcha on an especially bad day, I spend a few minutes clicking on incorrect images in an attempt to mess up their data.
Don't you think they do, though? I mean... not even recognizing the dry humor and hyperbole with which this article was written and taking it literally?
Or maybe it is me having the stroke.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
Does it really? I am from Europe and I have lived and worked in 3 EU countries, many of my friends have experience from other countries and I have never heard anyone mention this is. Obviously, my personal experience is limited. In what country do you live if I might ask?
I think it is still useful to read Freud, assuming you don't take it as gospel and consider when he wrote it and how little was known at the time. In my opinion, Freud was a brilliant man. The fact that some of his ideas are so obviously false today might serve as immunization against hubris, with which some of us do not realize that many of our ideas will seem absurd in a hundred years.
Europe is different than US for many reasons. In some things it might be because we failed to achieve what Americans did. In other things it's just because we prefer it that way.
I worry that our reward systems are being hijacked. We are more and more trained to seek short dopamine bursts.
The problem is that this is short term satisfaction that creates chronic boredom in the long run. Just notice how you feel after two hours of watching "funny" videos or whatever is your poison. Don't you feel like it's not funny anymore but you keep watching anyway just to escape the creeping sense of emptiness?
Lately, I keep thinking about what Erich Fromm said about people becoming robots, although he meant it in a different context: "But given man's nature, robots cannot live and remain sane, they become 'Golems', they will destroy their world and themselves because they cannot stand any longer the boredom of a meaningless life."
And more broadly - how many of them even think about morality of what they are trying to build? How many still believe they are creating better world while intentionally trying to build addictiveness into their products, and how many just rationalize it by something like if I don't do it, someone else will, so I might as well do it (attitude I have noticed here surprisingly often)?
Maybe I was doing it wrong but I do not know how - I started with just showering my legs with lukewarm water and progressed to colder water and longer time gradually, very slowly. However, it never made me feel as good as some people here descibe. Sometimes I felt slightly refreshed during the summer but more often I just felt cold and stiff and I had strong desire to return to bed to warm up but I could not do that and I had to sit in my office cold and miserable for hours.
Maybe cold showers are not for everybody?
Also, when you mentioned Czechoslovak children movies, it reminded me of Karel Zeman. Some of those are poetic but surprisingly dark, like Krabat - The Sorcerer's Apprentice - https://easterneuropeanmovies.com/animation/krabat-the-sorce...
EDIT: After going through many movies, it seems that the majority is not available, at least not to me.