the_omegist

I've quickly read the blog post. Indeed, every comment here agrees on the recipe : wealthy family, private/personal tutoring and gifted children to begin with.

But it seems, when asking if it can still be reproduced nowadays, no one here mentions the negative factors, the "inhibitors".

I think social medias, tv (less nowadays), an education system less focused on core knowledge and more on "social" trivia, without mentioning a society that just is/seems giving less praise to smart people or intellectual achievements is not a soil from where geniuses can grow.

People love to mention "low hanging fruits" but for music, philosophy or writing, there are no "low hanging fruits", yet I hope no one is gonna question the fact we don't see new Platos, Mozart or Hugos emerging...

> Obesity is a true epidemic and over simplifying the problem is not helping us solve it.

A "Lapalissade". Saying an issue is more complex than its synthesis doesn't make the issue more understandable.

You won't deny we never seen any person in a labor camp or lost on a desert island coming back obese, no matter their genetics.

So yes, everyone is different and for some it is less easy than for others. But obese people should stop trying to make it sound like their body is going against the laws of thermodynamics...

I was doing the same things but, depending on the total views and the type of video, it was too inconsistent...

> A rising tide lifts all boats, as they say.

...to the same height.

Of course it is disadvantageous for some people to just rise with the tide.

By pushing them and expecting them to give their best.

> It was already disgusting message about hiking

Your strong and emotional reaction made me read the article (thanks for that) and it makes your statement even stranger.

What is disgusting in saying that the majority/the average can exercise a moral tyranny on the individual that is above the average by virtue of its sheer number?

The author is right in saying that, by prioritizing the slowest, you penalize the fastest. This is not a moral opinion, just pure logic.

> the moment the author said "you can also apply this to poverty and obesity" he crossed the moral event horizon.

Again, you're getting outraged over what seems, to me, a very practical and healthy reasoning : "If someone is standing on a slope, you don't just offer them your hand and let them hold on indefinitely, wasting both people's energy, because you will soon both fall down. You should instead get them on solid ground instead, and get them to move better on their own. If someone wants sympathy and aid but rejects offers of working on a solution, that means they don't want to expend any effort in solving it themselves."

What did you want him to say? That your duty is to sacrifice yourself for others' well-being even if they don't do most of the work themselves?

Yes, as the author stated, what is considered "average" depends of the group, so I guess he won't be hiking with beginners or overweight people...

Your analogy is off : there is no challenge in cooking faster than others and no adrenaline rush either. What if you are a vegan & asked to cook burgers with a group of hunters? That is what the author tries to say : go hike with people of your hiking level, to avoid frustration on both sides.

> to enforce linear thinking and silence people who react emotionally is why this comes up in the literature you're referring to. You wouldn't tell someone crying at the death of a loved one that crying isn't an objective response to the situation at hand, but this happens in many ways ("why are you so upset about X behavior from a colleague? -> you are behaving irrationally" rather than trying to understand why someone was upset, and knowing everyone reacts to things differently)

This is a topic on science and the example about someone crying over someone's death is a strange example. It's clear that if it wants to be called "science" then it has to have what you call linear (vs circular?) thinking. And yes there is an objective truth as far as what experience can measure.

Saying "everyone reacts to things differently" is a truism. Then what? As everyone reacts differently, the logical result is to IGNORE the emotional/irrational part of people when we deal about science/technology. As simple as that.

I love this style. Is it just me? Dickens, Stevenson, ...

I would rather ask the opposite : why the need to adopt a "modern" style (well except in fantasy books, I guess).

True.

But the fact that the way the story was told (the structure of the story) as well as the characters psychology was very "modern".

For example, I think I can't like japanese literature (for the few I've read) because of their weird way of telling stories [0]. So I would have expected something older and less "cosmopolitan" to be harder to get into... Well perhaps the translator took some "freedom" by modernizing it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kishotenketsu

I love measured headlines that show how professional and serious a news outlet is...

I appreciate the article included different versions of the song.

That serves as a reminder that this song is more or less "reconstructed" from the forever-lost original one and also lets us compare their interpretations. Surprisingly, I love the samuraiguitarist version : there is something unique in the mix of new technology and ancient music but also a melancholy only electric guitar (and violin?) can bring...

On a side note and like another comment mentioned : it's surprising that, like when I've read Gilgamesh (oldest known written story), there is a very modern feel to it. Not much really changed in 3400 years except for technology...

Exactly : troll farms, astroturfing and Sock Puppets are a thing.

Not being skeptic in 2022 of comments or news online is being very naive.

I totally disagree. Slacktivism is a thing. It's easy, especially when you're jobless or still at school or without any social life or hobbies to be an activist online. It's less easy when you have to face the material world.

Moreover "the internet", whatever the meaning, is not a faithful representation of the "real world". Go tell the millions of people without toilets or working the whole day the slacktivists spending their days on twitter represent their struggle...

For me it's more that I think a comment should really "bring something" : a new perspective or a complement of information.

That's why there are places on the internet (like here) where, usually, I don't find the usual online fluff content.

Even less blatantly "illegal" things get censored for "ideological" reasons.

When I know some search might be politicized or out of the "Goodthink", I use bing.

I guess promoting and using kids with psychological problems as icons for the ideology...

Then perhaps you should be a little less materialist? Psychological violence can be more terrible than physical violence.

And ideologies caused more damages and deaths in history than any conventional "war".

Sounds like you're throwing every buzzwords you can think of. All is extreme and too general to make anything of it.

That is not useful as a base for debate. You're just spilling all your negative feelings in this post...

Exactly.

This is not even worthy of being called an "article" : just some self-promotion thrown without any effort.

More genuine and with some positive archetypes of what was considered a "perfect" goal towards which society and the individual should aim for.

I sometimes search for specific keywords in the transcript of the video to directly jump to the point in very long videos. Otherwise i just click at the middle & judge.

And it also sounds more classy than "handicapped" or "deficient"...

Sounds like newspeak to me...

Militia of random crazy people with guns "owning" a large urban zone is "what you hear usually" ?

You just focus on the gun problem here, not on the overall picture...

You don't see the objective benefits of a pecking order? Really ?

Commenting to go against the current replies who seem to deny obvious social and biological facts.

It's interesting that those types of comments usually come from the same people who would call animals "non-human animals" to show that humans are "just" another animal. Yet when you remind them Nature doesn't keep things that haven't found an equilibrium, they freak out...

Yes, any human group will naturally or forcefully get hierarchically ordered. "Anarchy" is just a fancy idea that doesn't pass reality's test. Or that won't be real "anarchy".

As many comments said, not everyone has the same list of "vilified" industries. I wouldn't expect to find a vegan working at KFC or a very religious person in the porn industry. But it's only based on their own moral & principles. Not something intrinsic to these industries.

What I will add and what I find ironic is : the "journalists" at the economist virtue-signaling with such articles from a position of moral superiority when it can be argued that one of the biggest pollution of our time is mental pollution, with the kind of articles their colleague in the publishing/media industry are doing...

This is not appropriate due to the tough situation Lebanese people are currently living, but your quote was in a very funny chinese bank robbery story :

There was this robbery in Guangzhou, the robber shouted to everyone: "All don't move, money belongs to the state, life belongs to you."

Everyone in the bank laid down quietly.

This is called "Mind Changing Concept --> Changing the conventional "way of thinking".

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One lady lay on the table provocatively, the robber shouted at her "Please be civilized! This is a robbery and not a rape!"

This is called "Being Professional --> Focus only on what you are trained to do!"

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When the robbers got back, the younger robber (MBA trained) told the older robber (who is only primary school educated), "Big bro, let's count how much we got", the older robber rebutted and said, "You very stupid, so much money, how to count, tonight TV will tell us how much we robbed from the bank!"

This is called "Experience --> nowadays experience is more important than paper qualifications!"

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After the robbers left, the bank manager told the bank supervisor to call the police quickly. The supervisor says "Wait, wait wait, let's put the 5 million RMB we embezzled into the amount the robbers robbed".

This is called "Swim with the tide --> converting an unfavorable situation to your advantage!"

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The supervisor says "It will be good if there is a robbery every month".

This is called "Killing Boredom --> Happiness is most important."

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The next day, TV news reported that 100 million RMB was taken from the bank. The robbers counted and counted and counted, but they could only count 20 million RMB. The robbers were very angry and complained "We risked our lives and only took 20 million RMB, the bank manager took 80 million RMB with a snap of his fingers. It looks like it is better to be educated to be a thief!"

This is called "Knowledge is worth as much as gold !"

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The bank manager was smiling and happy because his loss in the CINOPEC shares are now covered by this robbery.

This is called "Seizing the opportunity --> daring to take risks!"

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Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank and he can rob the world

Leaving the murder attempt aside (because we all agree, I think, that is was planed by someone "not too bright"), I think it's funny to see the hypocrisy of (most of) the West (let's be generic...) "intellectuals".

What this article fail/avoids to see is that "intellectuals" put the Right-to-Offense-Some-Categories as their new Cult/Religion. When you put an idea so high that you can't see the other's point of view, well it's called fanaticism.

Voltaire was one of them, & many "journalists" too. But of course some categories should not be offended because, well, we can lunch together tomorrow, so they're "with us".

Those who rush to say "we are all Rushdie" like conditioned Pavlov's dogs are simply fanatics of their Religion doing the same things as the hysterical mobs who burn flags at the other side of the world.

Well, it would be ok, at least, if they would accept to die for the Noble Cause that their Religion is. But you see them shocked & scandalized that their actions can have consequences, whatever unjust or barbaric they may be...