Things to argue about over the holidays instead of politics
dynomight.netIt says a lot about how confused political discourse gets that the author considers these things "not politics". Politics is all about value judgements and arguing about where we are going.
If things like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... don't immediately become intensely political then somebody is being very ineffective at politics. There seems to be a weird assumption here that politics is fundamentally in bad faith and people aren't acting from value judgements and reason.
> It says a lot about how confused political discourse gets that the author considers these things "not politics".
"Politics", used in this context is used to mean: the set of topics that professional politicians and certain media figures are arguing about, that are liable to cause big arguments that leave everyone involved feeling bitter and not change anyone's mind.
Interpreting the term in a literal manner is not useful.
> that are liable to cause big arguments that leave everyone involved feeling bitter and not change anyone's mind.
Then go with a really fun topic. Why are the professional politicians consistently talking about things that cause big arguments that leave everyone feeling bitter and stubborn? Are they actually leading people to discuss the important political issues, or are they trying to stir up division and a fanatic voter base? Is the nature political discourse going to lead to a good outcome for either side of the argument? How should fair compromises be achieved?
If the call here is for interesting discourse then sure, all for it. Good list. But the title shows a confusion. Arguing politics isn't going down a list of talking points. Anyone doing that with their own family just isn't acting like a smart cookie and needs to understand that they are really bad at politics to the point where they might be damaging their own community.
A lot of people have family that can't handle discussions adjacent to politics without moving into politics.
The point of the list is not to generate interesting discussion. It is to generate interesting enough discussion while minimizing the chance of the discussion blowing up at a family gathering.
Any disagreement, if you pursue it long enough, reveals one of two things. :
If participants are skilled communicators and can stay calm and listen to each other, what gets revealed is a different set of lives experiences. This is rare and exremwlr valuable.
If participants are not skilled and do not stay calm (as is most often the case when talking about things we care deeply about, cannot experience directly, and cannot control, ie most of the world), what gets revealed is a bunch of anger and hurt feelings.
That’s the issue, what’s important to some people aren’t important to others.
I could care less about what consenting adults do that don’t affect others. But some people have a really deep seated religious beliefs that I can’t for the life of me emotionally understand.
I don’t care about illegal immigration because it doesn’t affect me. They aren’t competing for my job or the job of anyone in my social circle.
I haven’t spoken to him in awhile because…life. But there is someone I consider a friend who is the polar opposite of me. I’m a Black guy working remotely in BigTech, came from an upper middle class family, and if I were 20 years younger, I would be considered your typical “tech bro”. He is your stereo typical “MAGA” (no insult intended) - white, army veteran, anti illegal immigration, gun enthusiasts, grew up in rural America and had to take care of himself since he was 17.
What he is not is racist. He is the only White guy at a predominantly Black church. He’s married to a Vietnamese lady who he loves dearly and is all for supporting anyone who goes through the immigration process legally.
We don’t agree on some things. But I can understand where he is coming from.
> I don’t care about illegal immigration because it doesn’t affect me. They aren’t competing for my job or the job of anyone in my social circle.
This seems like kind of a naive take. Illegal immigration affects your country>state>community>social circle>family>personal well being in that order. You might be several orders of magnitude removed from its effects on a personal level but that doesn’t mean it isn’t affecting you. E.g. simply the fact that illegal immigration is happening in your country means it IS influencing nationwide politics which in effect influences voters and your local politics. Your anecdote about your friend is testament to this.
Your opinion on illegal immigration matters, man, whether it affects you directly or not!
How is that argument any different than arguing that the country supporting gay marriage will lead to the “eternal damnation of this great country?”. Of course I don’t believe that. But for conservative Christians the order is
<h1>YOUR IMMORTAL SOUL</h1> > country>state>community>social circle>family>personal.
They have a deep emotional belief that supersedes everything else.
They think that anything that doesn’t put “God first” is “naive”
Yes I know HN doesn’t support HTML markup.
I’m not following…
What i am saying is that regardless of whether or not you take a stance on illegal immigration, the fact that the issue is ingrained in our political system means that it does in fact affect you albeit indirectly. It follows that you should probably have an opinion on the matter and be open to discussing that opinion even if you are not directly affected by it.
It never really effected american jobs, we have had migrant farm workers for such a long time but only recently has one side of the political spectrum decided to make a big deal about it. It's fear mongering nonsense
I feel like I’m being misunderstood and talking in circles here, and maybe that’s my fault. it’s tough to keep track of this conversation on mobile in between holiday activities.
I’m going to chalk this one up as an L and move on.
>What he is not is racist. He is the only White guy at a predominantly Black church. He’s married to a Vietnamese lady who he loves dearly and is all for supporting anyone who goes through the immigration process legally.
I think there's a real problem right now that these people are often represented as strictly being racists / their beliefs being strictly the result of racism. It is often true, but, as in your case, it is often not true. But that heuristic has become pretty absolute among anyone who believes themselves to be "on the right side of history".
I'm glad you don't have that knee-jerk reaction.
I wish I could say that I was always so open minded. But he really opened my eyes about my own “isms”. I never had any reason to interact with that demographic. I grew up middle class and knew poorer Black people. Spent half my time going to a predominantly White private school - by definition with people that were at least middle income families - and when I graduated from college I worked in tech. When would I ever interact with anyone from “rural White America” on a day to day basis.
Ironically, until last month, I lived in not only one of the least diverse counties in GA, it was a famous “sundown town” until the mid 80s. It would be really easy to make assumptions here - none of which are generally accurate from my experience.
How do you determine what does and doesn’t affect other people?
At some level, everything anyone does affects everyone they interact with. You and I are affecting each other right now, in some small way.
It seems like what lots of people do is say, “some of these causal effects are unimportant to me, and so I can approximate them as being zero.”
It’s also very interesting how everyone apparently agrees one side is perfectly correct and never wrong and the other side is always wrong and abject evil.
Perhaps politics changes us more than we want to admit?
That side believes the other side is mostly made up of people like this:
And frankly, that's a pretty big problem for a side to have. I think a good question that isn't being asked in earnest is "why would those people, who seem to have a stable income and lifestyle, subscribe to such a radical view of reality?"
There are legitimate views from the side viewed as 'evil', but most of those people seem to have gone silent since no one is listening.
When the Q adjacent views and white supremacy ideas are gaining popularity and nobody on the same side of the aisle with the Q people and white supremacists are saying "hey that stuff isn't right, we don't agree or believe that" I think it's safe to assume that they're saying "hey we are actually okay with Q believers and white supremacists"
If you still believe that either political party in America has any real differences (besides caring slightly more or less what people do with their private parts) I'm kinda surprised you bother to browse this particular forum, there's a lot of better places where people read simpler books you should probably be hanging out digitally
>Politics is all about value judgements and arguing about where we are going.
In my opinion, politics is about deciding where society should go. It's inherently about directing shared resources and convincing/forcing others to do things. All politics is based on value judgements, but not all value judgements are political.
E.g., for prompt #4, I can say my child's school focuses too little on "the classics." I might not want to change the curriculum, just teach him the classics myself at night. That's not really a political discussion, because I'm not involving or intentionally affecting people outside my family.
But honestly, if any term reaches the point where "Everything is X," then X is a useless term.
> But honestly, if any term reaches the point where "Everything is X," then X is a useless term.
#2 goes directly to economics. #3 goes directly to the One Child Policy in China (one of the worlds most intense political policies!) and the intellectual underpinnings of eugenics.
#4 is a firestorm topic in the US that links directly to a current culture war, #5 goes to a major issue in the medical system which is how people die. If I bought up #7 in my family the conversation would veer into veganism as a political statement and probably get ugly because we have a practising vegan at the table.
#1, the Guinness World Records might be safe. Might. Maybe. #6 isn't directly political but I can guarantee that the term "human progress" is a risk of bringing up some very stiff argumentation if people are in a mood to quarrel. What we call "progress" is hardly at a consensus.
For someone who argues from principles, this list is extremely politically charged and is going to obliquely hit a bunch of hot-button topics. It goes to principles that are perennial features of politics at all levels of society.
If the goal is to avoid a big argument that'll need to be negotiated directly. If someone is going to argue, these topics are likely hit-and-miss for being likely to quiet people down. I would not bring up a lot of them when talking to my family, that is for sure.
> For someone who argues from principles
I think this is actually what makes the last seen non-political to some people.
In lots of cases, I think people don’t have abstract principles that guide their thinking. Their political ideals are a collection of specific beliefs without a unifying set of abstractions that links the beliefs together into a coherent thesis about what is good.
> It says a lot about how confused political discourse gets that the author considers these things "not politics".
Another pro tip for argues over the holidays: don't be that nit-picky... even if you are right on some level, I'm not sure who would call such topics current political discourse topics (:
Best tip though: keep the discussions away, delve in the happy shared past, dream about a better future, or just enjoy the moment! Merry christmas!
> I'm not sure who would call such topics current political discourse topics (:
me, them, a lot of ppl here... they are intensely political topics, it's your conception of politics to be very narrow: electoral politics news.
I don’t think it’s being nit-picky at all. The first thing that struck me reading the list was how intensely political it was.
It’s not really politics per se that are no go zones, but the insipid and asinine partisan stuff.
The easiest thing to do is to check out the NY Post, and don’t talk about anything they are upset about. Of course, if Uncle MAGA is looking for a fight, the only way to win is not to play.
In a democracy or republic (any form of representative government) inherently every discussion is political.
As each person decides who will represent them, or in a direct democracy where everyone votes on laws, discussing ethics, logic, news, is paramount.
> politics - The art or science of government or governing, especially the governing of a political entity, such as a nation, and the administration and control of its internal and external affairs.
Every one of these questions touch on administration of societal affairs. There’s a fun nativity calling these questions non-political. The questions themselves already assume certain positions as well.
I personally think politics is important to discuss. But if you REALLY want to avoid real discussion - sports, weather, food, gardening, or play games is the best bet.
What would you consider to be an example of a non-political question that would result in a meaningful and lively discussion that is not specific to a certain subject (for instance: not sports, academia, media)?
You can't discuss anything important and uncertain without running in to politics. Politics is the society-level discourse on "what is important? what are we certain about?".
People get stuck thinking that politics mean Republicans v. Democrats. The Republicans don't represent the interesting parts of right wing thought (they can't even put in a serious attempt to balance the budget!). Ditto Democrats and the left (insert favourite example from the long list). Most of what they argue about is distracting trivia or flat-out intellectually dishonest lies. Avoiding that at Christmas is a good idea, but ideally avoid that in all in-person discussions of politics.
>You can't discuss anything important and uncertain without running in to politics.
I do understand your exact point. This wide umbrella of "everything is politics" is akin to "all roads lead to philosophy" : https://www.xefer.com/2011/05/wikipedia
That said, I can also what understand what people mean when a dinner host says, "let's not discuss politics". (Previous comment about that interpretation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14473441)
Even though I perfectly understand what roenxi means by "You can't discuss anything important and uncertain without running in to politics.", I'm still able to grasp what the dinner host means by "no politics".
Likewise, the HN moderator dang tried the experiment of "no politics for a week". However, people didn't want to use the "dinner host" meaning and would rather litigate on the "but all roads lead to politics" meaning to make dang look naive in his social civility experiment.
As you might have detected; I enjoy arguing. People aren't going to escape arguing with me by trying to be clever picking topics - I'm great at connecting things together. As early as number 2 we've launched into the whole capitalism v. socialism debate which is a firestorm in the making. A fun one, in fact.
If a family has anyone intelligent and disagreeable, this list won't help. And as strategies go, trying to control what topics come up is a great way to generate some bad feeling. Believing there are important topics that people refuse to discuss is a really good way to drive a wedge into a situation and split people apart. Indeed, it'll also hurt the person bringing the topics up if they believe they have to start squelching or moderating their beliefs to make life easy for someone with ideas they don't respect.
There is an implicit call here for some sort of family agenda where the time is spent uncovering shared values and goals. Which is a great idea, and which this list does try to go to. But everyone will get better results if they go in saying "this is time to identify commonalities" rather than trying to change the topic or pretending that the root problem is politics. It isn't politics, it is either an impossible situation or bad strategy at the personal level. Trying to change the topic is a good tactic for about 3-5 minutes, but it doesn't deal with the root causes that make arguments bubble up.
What would be a good term that defines 'politics as discussion topic' as you clarified above, but excludes 'poltics as partisan bickering' as apparantly the author of the article defines it? Wouldn't it be useful to have a word we can use for this?
That'd be great, then I could claim all my partisan talking points where this new word and denigrate all my opposing partisans as undermining the foundational principles of the new word.
The article is a call to polite and interesting political debate. It is a good idea. But it is, nonetheless, politics around the dinner table. Can't escape it, learn to enjoy it. Practice some tolerance, learn some respect and be polite. Learn that you don't have to have the last word, I more or less everyone on HN knows that trick.
The options are politics or unimportant trivia. Can't talk about something important without running in to people's principles and risking a heartfelt argument.
I think you may have missed the point of my question. Is there a way to define the type of conversation you are talking about butmake it clear that it doesn't 8nclude topics for which viewpoints are bound to be relatively fixed. I think you might agree that a conversation about the existence of God with mixed company or about civil rights with your racist Uncle is going to be unproductive and lead to shouting matches. Let's define this type of discourse and make it distinct from 'poltics'.
It is impossible. It cannot be done. The incentives around politics are too clear - there privileging things some group of people think is acceptable discourse would bringing down the entire edifice of liberal political tradition.
An argument about an old book, like LOTR, maybe.
Though this only works because the politics of Tolkien's time have been mostly forgotten. LOTR is intensely influenced by politics, some extremely hamfisted (eg, how the Shire is ruined by all the industrialization), but in many cases one side decisively lost the argument to the point that few remember there was even anything to argue about.
That's still not a guarantee though. Those topics didn't magically disappear, and you can still run into the odd person who'd care to argue for the side that lost.
Trolley Problem? It certainly leads on to politics however.
What the author is trying to avoid is conversations like
"well YOU blah blah blah vaccines blah blah blah Tucker Carlson blah blah blah Twitter blah blah blah misinformation blah blah blah insurrection!!!"
"well YOU blah blah blah woke racism blah blah blah Hunter Biden blah blah blah Twitter blah blah blah groomers blah blah blah drag queen story hour!!!"
This is political philosophy and morals.
For most people politics is about current laws, policies, and politicians.
Anybody that turns everything into something "intensely political" is a toxic person, and should be avoided. Spending quality time with friends and family is more valuable than trying to force them to think like you.
Indeed - agreeing to disagree is not something one does intensely.
Politics today means things like Hunter Biden’s laptop.
"How many holes exist in a straw?"
Any time I asked this question it produces some joyful brainstorming. It doesn't matter if it is a room full of highly technical people(engineers, mathematicians) or a family dinner.
I've already heard most of the arguments from the topological definition of a hole to difference between a hole, a cavity and a hallow but it is still very fun for me to watch people getting excited over such a boring looking question. (:
You might enjoy https://andrewmbailey.com/dkl/Holes.pdfb on some related issues concerning holes, though IIRC it doesn't discuss anything equivalent to your question, which I think is as much mathematics as philosophy.
(I think I count holes, when in a rigorous sort of mood, by counting independent homotopy/homology classes of 1-dimensional loops in the complement of the object, so a straw has one hole, the surface of a ring doughnut has two, and e.g. a sock in good condition has none if you ignore the structure of the fabric it's made from. But meaning is contextual and I'm happy to talk about a "hole in the ground" which typically isn't a hole at all in this sense, and if someone said "did you know there's a big hole inside Mars", presumably meaning a cavity, I wouldn't object but would then be thinking of a different sort of topological hole.)
Thanks! But the url returns 404.
Also, probably I'm too engineer to understand the phrase "independent homotopy/homology classes of 1-dimensional loops in the complement of the object" so I don't know how this definition covers the case but an interesting extension to question is adding "holes" to the straw sideways. (exactly face to face or randomly located?, different sized if face to face?)
If you put a single extra perforation in, from the "outside" of the straw to the "inside", you add one hole according to my definition. If you drill all the way through from "outside" to "opposite outside", you add two holes.
Brief explanation of the mathspeak:
You could run a thread from the top of the straw, down its inside along its length, and back up, and join it up to form a loop. This loop is, so to speak, genuinely tangled up with the straw: without breaking either it or the straw, you can't separate it from the straw and scrunch it up to a single point.
If you have a loop like that, any continuous deformation you can do to it is called a "homotopy". (The word comes from Greek roots and means something like "same place".) The loops before and after deformation are said to be "homotopic" or "homotopy-equivalent". Anything homotopy-equivalent to (i.e., deformable into) a "trivial" loop of size zero is called "null-homotopic". The loop we constructed in the previous paragraph is not null-homotopic.
There are other genuinely different loops we can make. For instance, we can go down through the straw, up again on the outside, down again on the inside, up again on the outside. This is genuinely different from the previous one, but not very interestingly different: it's just two copies of the previous one, "one after the other".
It turns out that every loop you can make, in a universe containing just this straw floating in space, is homotopy-equivalent to some number of traversals of the loop we constructed earlier. (The number might be negative, if we're traversing it in the other direction. It might be zero, for a "trivial" loop.) So in this world, there's only one "independent" kind of nontrivial loop, and I accordingly say that the straw has one hole.
If we put one more perforation in the straw, some other kinds of loop appear, but it turns out that if we call our original loop "A" and (let's say) one that runs from the top down the middle of the straw as far as the new perforation, out through that, and back up the outside "B", then every possible loop is (homotopic to) some combination of As and Bs. (And backward-As and backward-Bs.) So there are only two independent kinds of nontrivial loop here, and the straw-with-perforation has two holes.
If we consider all the possible loops "up to homotopy", we get something with the grand-sounding name of "the fundamental group", which tells us about what sorts of paths there are within the space we're looking at (which in this case is ordinary three-dimensional space minus the straw). If you take (say) a sheet of paper and put n holes in it, the fundamental group of (space minus that sheet of paper) is what's called the "free group on n generators", which basically means you can take a loop L1 that goes through just the first hole in the "obvious" way, and a loop L2 through the second hole, and ..., and a loop Ln through the nth hole, and then all the possible loops are (again, "up to homotopy") just the things you can get by doing some sequence of Ls and backward-Ls, and the only cases in which two of them are equivalent are the ones where you can see the equivalence just from looking at the sequence of Ls and backward-Ls.
The notion of "independence" I'm appealing to there is a little bit subtle, which is why I also mentioned "homology" which gives you another (closely related) way of "counting the dimension" of the set of all possible loops, but in this case what you get is that the possible loops now correspond to sequences of n numbers -- think of the k'th number as saying how many times you go through hole k -- which is an n-dimensional thing in a simpler sense.
If I haven't already bored you to tears and you want to know more about this, the magic words are "algebraic topology", but be warned that formal presentations of the topic are going to be full of formality and abstraction and may be painful to read if your background is more engineering than mathematics.
Definitely, I will take a look to sources you share. Just want to thank you for your effort and time to write down this response. This answer alone is an evidence to my initial take on the christmas topic, this question never disappoints no mather where you ask it (:
Not GP. But that link had a typo with a “b” after the pdf filename. The working link is https://andrewmbailey.com/dkl/Holes.pdf
There’s a typo in the link you shared (an extra “b” at the end) that leads to a page not found. The working link is https://andrewmbailey.com/dkl/Holes.pdf
As a couple of people have pointed out, I somehow fat-fingered an extra character into that URL -- the "b" on the end should not be there. Too late to edit the comment now. Sorry about that!
What's a hallow (as full a definition as you can provide without recourse to external references, please)? And, where are you from; what's your native tongue?
Thanks.
Honestly, I cannot give you a satisfying answer because I have no idea. I don't even know if there is a difference thinking in English.
I've transleted it from Turkish which is my native language. If the purpose of the question is to get some insight, I can give my intuition about it but that will be the opposite of "a full definition" (: When I see the word hallow ("oyuk" in Turkish) I think there is a opening in the structure otherwise has a solid body.
For example, a tree can have a hallow(hollow?)like this: https://www.elitetreecare.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/tre...
But it seems there is no strict boundary between the words, so if you say it is a hole I won't oppose that.
I don't know how to spell tushekyeredarim, but thanks!
I only recently came across the word "hallow" and assumed it was a misspelling or US-Americanism for "hollow". Thanks for a full answer.
This is awesome! Does anyone have a collection of similar kinds of fun questions?
Getting confused over holes has been a fun past time in academic philosophy for the past few decades, so trawling through the SEP for interesting topics can't hurt.
Thanks! Referring to "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy" I suppose? (:
> Why do most people seem to hold poetry and poets in high esteem yet have approximately zero interest in reading any poetry ever?
I've wondered this for years.
Like seriously, is there anyone who seriously reads poetry for fun nowadays?
I understand if it's the 1800s and there's literally nothing else to do.
> is there anyone who seriously reads poetry for fun nowadays?
1. IMO, there is some really great poetry out there. But the ratio is terrible. It's honestly worse than Youtube comments.
2. Poetry 1.0 mostly died for... reasons. But it's replacement - Poetry 2.0 - people absolutely love. You'd know it better by its common name "rap".
If you want some encouragement to wade through sewage to discover gems, here's one that really speaks to me:
Among other things, it really captures some of the melancholy of being a parent who isn't particularly wealthy.Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven ------------------------------------ W. B. Yeats Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
(if any of these snippets struck your fancy, look up that Fortress dude; there's much more)Back into my TECO going, with my pounding heart now slowing, Soon again I heard a feeping, somewhat louder than before. "Surely," said I, "surely this is some strange bug of RMS's Which an interrupt professes, though I have no other job; Let me then ask DDT if it thinks there's another job -- 'Tis a bug, and nothing more!" Reclaimer, spare that tree! Take not a single bit! It used to point to me, Now I'm protecting it. It was the reader's CONS That made it, paired by dot; Now, GC, for the nonce, Thou shalt reclaim it not. Quaxity quuxity, Backus's BNF Drives a preprocessor, Generates code. Parsing is specified Metasyntactically; Writing it's easy, but reading, I'm snowed.Lots of people listen to hip hop and, while the quality varies a lot, it is remarkable that a very popular musical genre is poetry.
There was a time when lots of people read and wrote poetry that was meant to be enjoyed. With modernism this on ramp of poetry that was accessible disappeared, leaving only poetry enjoyable by wannabe poets. Poets, like literary novelists, write for their own pleasure or that of those who can offer them jobs (teaching MFAs, writers in residence, spiritually similar things). There’s no source of genuinely popular contemporary poetry in English and no reason to believe that there ever will be again.
> no source of genuinely popular contemporary poetry in English
Def Jam, Young Money, and Roc-A-Fella might be laughing all the way to the bank.
Poetry is not accompanied by music. Rap and hip hop are vital, popular art forms but they’re not poetry.
Are we sure that αὐλητής etc. didn't accompany poetic recitals at symposia?
My classics teachers mentioned the possibility of musical accompaniment, and length instead of stress oriented metres would also point in that direction?
[Edit: cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dithyramb ]
(ancients also wrote poetry so the text of the words formed an image, which the Victorians considered Not Real Poetry. compare http://99-bottles-of-beer.net/language-javascript-1948.html )
> Poetry is not accompanied by music.
I could just as easily say: all this modern stuff isn't poetry either. Poetry always rhymes.
Oh wait - some people get to break the rules and others don't?
To hit the final quadrant, here's a sampled portion of a JFK speech, non-rhyming, but set to music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwPnJXXX5Ic
British poet John Cooper Clarke [1] is still actively reading poetry aloud for fun and profit these days.
There are tons of people who read poetry for fun -- they leave their physical homes (!) and travel to this café down the street from me, where, on the night of the Tuesday, they do indeed bring their works and with one another "slam".
There is also hip hop, of course -- which saved my life, probably others as well -- halfway between music and verse
In English, poetry is underwhelming. But there are languages where poetry sounds like music and is very pleasing to hear.
I read it and recite it. Not modern poetry, but ancient, in the language the poems were crafted in. I think reading modern poetry is a great way to learn to dislike it in general. If I had to guess, you've never been exposed to classical poetry. I used to be dismissive of it, until I encountered the good old stuff.
It's oft surprising how much olde becomes new again.
Prithee, consider thou yon past future tense "a man of whom Chaucer will write", in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx-x_1lIXh4
Classical, like Μα Τον Δια? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5fA6dTnyrE
The German poet Jan Wagner earns money in writing poems.
Poems are good if you are in public transport. They are shortly to any story and they give you to think.
There are currently at least two (or maybe the same with separate accounts) very popular poets on Reddit who make poetic comments to posts.
https://www.reddit.com/user/Poem_for_your_sprog/
This is the one I'm familiar with, for anyone with a penchant for exploration.
And the other is https://www.reddit.com/user/SchnoodleDoodleDo/
Haikus are fun though
Sometimes it's best to go with the classics: big-endian versus little-endian.
supposedly overheard: two IBM mainframe weenies at lunch, discussing their recent support for Unix guests. "I don't know which editor I should try first: ehm-ucks or six"
Alas, when introduced by Swift in Gulliver’s Travels this was itself a metaphor for arguments about religion being a front for politics.
ASCII or EBCDIC?
The important part is that it is silently converted at various boundaries so you can never know for sure.
They're the same, just turn the circuit over.
VHS or Betamax ?
Funny I have the complete opposite viewpoint. Because we have trained people to not discuss politics when the discussions inevitably arise they are much more contentious and less civil.
100%. One of my relatives was on some wild shit last night, I had to struggle to give a shit though.
It’s a life skill to not get pressed over conversations even if the subject matter is important. The funny thing is we all learn it for our professional lives but tend to turn around and forget it when for different topics.
That's a great and constructive topic. "How to discuss things civilly" "why are certain topics contentious"
Make the discussion meta is a good way to get perspective
The most obvious christmas related topic is of course "Is Die Hard a Christmas Movie?"
A better question would be:
If you're going to watch exactly five Die Hard movies, would the fifth be Die Hard 5, "A Good Day To Die Hard", or the Die Hard battery commercial[1]?
But since the answer is an unequivocal “yes” that topic gets exhausted pretty quickly.
I'd go for the less obvious question "Is Brazil the best Christmas film?".
What is the best local jewish restaurant [for christmas dinner]?
If you're in Cambridge Mass or Boston, get take-out from Mary Chung's, because they're closing on December 31! ;(
Is "Eyes Wide Shut" a Christmas movie?
It's not a Christmas movie, it's the best Christmas movie!
The reason politics is so easy to argue about is because most people have strong feelings about which “side” is better, with the media feeding us all talking points to back up each person’s perspective, with very little critical thinking.
Questions like…
> Do we focus too much on classic books/music/movies/plays/art/ideas, or too little?
require critical thinking, in the moment, to form an opinion (as do most other examples on the list).
More “suitable” topics to argue about would be ones that don’t require very much critical thinking (sadly), and topics where everyone is likely to already know what “side” they’re on.
So, instead let’s argue about what to argue about before we start arguing.
>Questions like…
>> Do we focus too much on classic books/music/movies/plays/art/ideas, or too little? >require critical thinking, in the moment, to form an opinion (as do most other examples on the list).
Do they? Maybe it's my superpower but I can form opinions on these things without any thought at all. Whether the opinion is defensible is a different question.
I get as far as the second word and get stuck: who the hell is "we"? The people in the room? My family? My social circle? My current and former colleagues? The people in my neighborhood or my kid's school district? The members of my economic class? People who speak the same language(s) as me? People who have the same citizenship(s) as me? People whose views get portrayed in this country's mainstream media? And for whichever definition of "we", how well - or at all! - do I know what they focus on? And how can I judge what for those people would be too much or too little?
It's a question to which one cannot even begin to formulate an answer without quite a bit of thinking.
You've just described the base class of all opinions. Fickle and uninformed.
Is it possible to discuss self-reference without mentioning either Ἐπιμενίδης or Gödel? What about Quine?
Another question I think should be added to the list:
Why did spicy foods become so popular when the first sensation they cause is pain?
I believe spicy foods kill certain types of gut parasites.
So at some point in our evolutionary history some weirdo who liked a bit of spice was born, burned the parasites out of their gut, and then with their increased health and no calories being stolen natural selection did the rest.
Us humans are just a pawn in the chili plants' game of spreading all over the world.
Initially, capsaicin was produced to prevent mammals from eating the fruit (peppers) and instead encourage birds to spread seeds over a wider area (which is why they are brightly coloured to attract birds). Now that humans can travel greater distances than birds, the plants have switched strategies (or at least we've deliberately grown flavourful varieties everywhere we can).
> Several alternative hypotheses were considered-that spices provide macronutrients, disguise the taste and smell of spoiled foods, or increase perspiration and thus evaporative cooling; it also is conceivable that spice use provides no benefits. However, none of these four alternatives was well supported by our data. The proximate reason spices are used obviously is to enhance food palatability.
> But the ultimate reason is most likely that spices help cleanse foods of pathogens and thereby contribute to the health, longevity and reproductive success of people who find their flavors enjoyable.
From: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/420058
This reminds me of the kind of things one could find on /r/showerthoughts
Same vein: why do we do towel laundry since we're using them after the shower once we're clean.
You are conflating 'clean' with 'sanitary'. You may have washed the dirt and oils off of your skin and hair but your body itself contains, produces, and provides habitats for all manner of organisms, cells, and biological and chemical substances that slough off onto anything around it. Take sterile cotton swab and rub it on your 'clean' post-shower butthole and grow a culture from it and tell me how 'clean' it really is.
> Take sterile cotton swab and rub it on your 'clean' post-shower butthole and grow a culture from it and tell me how 'clean' it really is.
Great idea for the weekend, thanks!
The bathroom is a place filled with moisture. If you’re taking two showers a day the towel may spend most of the day wet. It’s a good environmental for mold.
But I also think these rituals are about being pure. Washing off the struggles of the day.
Why did they become popular recently? Pain causes the release of endorphins, overall making you feel good. A similar concept as a runners high, except achievable watching TV on the couch.
Their original spread was likely for the same reason as most other spices, it could be used as a preservative by masking the taste of semi-rotten food.
Yes, my question was written to bypass that answer. A very small amount of spice to a beginner is going to be painful and not release many endorphins.
My parents hate spicy food. They have never mentioned endorphins or feeling good.
Small amounts can cause a good amount of pain for those who aren't used to it. I remember putting crushed red pepper on a piece of pizza as a child and finding it unbearably hot.
> Why did spicy foods become so popular when the first sensation they cause is pain?
Could be related to why BDSM is popular.
You could say the same about cactuses.
Maybe lot of people have dull taste buds and, with pain, they can actually feel something.
I suspect asking if it's fair that Jesus was a nepo baby who only got to where he is because he has a famous dad is the kind of question that could only be cooled down by changing the subject to post Nixon POTUS tax returns.
That would be a great topic to argue over. I would say Jesus only really became/realized he was/decided he was/whatever the son of God about the time he met John. Before that he was a man from a relatively poor upbringing mostly picking himself up by the bootstraps. Though I suppose we don't know much about his earlier life. Unless you believe the "Jesus as a kid" stories, but they definitely feel sketchy compared to the main gospels.
> I would say Jesus only really became/realized he was/decided he was/whatever the son of God about the time he met John.
I think the part in the book of Luke at chapter 2, where Jesus, as a child, stay in the temple after Passover to discuss with the priests and how he answers his parents: "is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" (Chap 2, verse 49 of the KJV) seems to indicate that he was already aware of that, even if he then waited his 30s and meeting with John to start his work.
Aside: I wonder why you use the KJV when it's a) known to have translation errors, and b) harder to understand for those who know modern English.
KJV use always seems quite pharasaical to me. So, why? Thanks.
Because I didn't had a Bible on hand and had difficulty finding one online, as I don't often need to quote it. And other than KJV, I couldn't remember the name of any other translation.
Last Temptation is a whole movie pretty close to this topic.
Does meeting John occur before or after he rides the donkey into Jerusalem?
(I used to think riding a donkey was a sign of humility, but I've recently learned that in biblical times, on state occasions, —kind of like how commoners drive Bugattis but the King rides in a carriage— commoners and lesser lords rode horses but kings rode donkeys, that having been a more archaic mode of transport. cf Absalom)
The John the Baptist story was an attempt to get the remnants of John's followers to follow The Way (early Christianity). John's followers today, the Mandaeans, consider Jesus to be a false Messiah or a prophet of lies.
The funniest angle would be on Jesus´ actual sex.
He was made as the image of God. God is mentionned as ´him´ and ´Father´ in English and popular representation, but it´s supposed to be an asexual figure. What about Jesus then ?
Convincing Jesus was a woman is full points, convincing of having both sex gives double the points.
I thought God was female[0], the son was male, and the holy ghost was nonbinary?
[0] A TV preacher, visibly shaken, comes on stage and proclaims "I have good news and bad news. I just met God ... and She's Black."
The cool thing about nonbinary is a nonbinary person can also be other genders. Gods and demigods are often genderfluid. Just look at Loki.
Surely it's satan that's typically depicted as being both male and female? Lucifer (the angel), on the other hand appears to have identified as male.
There's a lot of male specific words in the bible referring to Jesus and there's the rumours about him having a relationship with Mary Magdalene, so I'd conclude that he identified as male. Similarly, the Christian god is often referred to as male, and the Garden of Eden story suggests that Adam was made in God's image (i.e. male) and then Eve was conjured out of a rib, so presumably that's when females were invented.
A thread from people more versed than me on the subject: https://twitter.com/jayhulmepoet/status/1597887323966169089?...
My personal take is that our society wants god to be a father figure and Jesus a man, so what was said in ancient scriptures or whatever got lost in translation is probably irrelevant at this point. Culturally I expect to see people distancing from religion will happen faster than seriously debating what sex Jesus was.
From a logical perspective, having a unique god gendered and him sending his son on earth feels so clunky. Even angels are asexual, why would god be more limited. Lucifer having a defined sex probably comes from —-fanfics—-popular litterature ?. On the Adam/Eve split, Adam could become what we know as man _after_ Eve is created from him, it wouldn’t make sense to have a sexed individual with no opposite sex at first.
Interesting twitter thread - I'll see if I can read through all of it at some point.
As an atheist, I'd propose that the bible/scriptures aren't self consistent and I'd describe a lot of stuff as being clunky or not logical within them (though a generous interpretation would be that details have been lost in translation/transcription).
Historically, it seems to me that eunuchs were often considered as the typical asexual gender, and they were made by removing parts from a male, so it could be argued that Abrahamic god was male and the angels were created as less-than-male eunuchs. Of course that doesn't explain angels with breasts.
Edit: read through the thread, it wasn't as long as I first thought. Some fun ideas there, but the side wound being a vagina doesn't sound convincing to me (but then I'm no theologian).
Not sure "Jesus is the son of God" is the own you think it is.
Might be my favorite HN comment of 2022
> How addictive would a game have to be that we’d throw people in jail for making it?
Oof, that is a really good one.
Isn't this a good question to move people to the logical conclusion that you should not put someone in jail because they made something others became addicted to?
Some people are addicted to reading (or HN even).
For those who are alone: Try posting each question from the list to ChatGPT.
For those who are meeting family: Use ChatGPT to prepare for your arguments.
> Try posting each question from the list to ChatGPT.
I tried it with the poetry question. I had to change the prompt a bit otherwise ChatGPT just gives a typical midwit answer.
Q: Why do most people seem to hold poetry and poets in high esteem yet have approximately zero interest in reading any poetry ever? Give me a humorous response
ChatGPT Response: Well, perhaps it's because people just love the idea of poetry more than the actual act of reading it. You know, it's kind of like how people love the idea of exercising and eating healthy, but actually doing it is another matter entirely. Or maybe it's because people just love the way that poets look in their berets and turtleneck sweaters, all brooding and deep in thought. Or maybe it's because people just love the way that poetry sounds when it's being read aloud by someone with a really pretentious accent. Who knows? The mysteries of human behavior can be strange and elusive at times.
That's a really great idea to make it fun. I will try that. I tried to ask for simplified answers but there were only slight differences!
Is that midwit, it seems relatively insightful to make that analogy.
No, that's the response after I added the "Be humorous" thing.
Prior to that, it was giving me midwit responses (I didn't post those in the comment.)
How long until I can use ChatGPT to replace myself in social gatherings? It's probably a better conversationalist too.
Anyone with a GoogleGlass willing to tell us?
Politics sounds to me less fraught to argue about than any of these.
It's not reasonable to call org-mode "newfangled"; it's existed since 2003.
Zettelkästen certainly aren't new, as the technique was popularized in the 1950s and had been around for much longer.
My emacs "life notes" diaries have existed since 1994... org-mode is newfangled.
That jumped out at me too, but I decided to let it go :)
Vi or Emacs
Yellow or Blue dress
Windows or Linux
Perl or Python
Fotball is played with hands or feet
Vörtbröd with or without raisins
> Vörtbröd with or without raisins
Oh, what a horrid thing to do to Vört! Leave that poor bread out of your raisin-infested schemes.
According to many, many sources, Christ always had raisins in his vörtbröd. Heathen!
Hmm.. all these things will end up with politics. The politics is about values and beliefs: not something independent of life. The easiest way to prevent “politics fight” is to try to understand and know others person background.
If you want avoid big arguments then just talk about weather (and even that can get crazy). Maybe sports?
I these holidays will be the most chill in maybe a decade.
That 1.7 trillion USD omnibus package was passed. Mitch McConnell seemed pretty happy, along with the Democrat caucus. Things are starting to look normal again.
Georgia voted for Brian Kemp and Warnock in the same election. Another data point pointing towards the newfound chillness.
Another thing to add to the long list of debates ChatGPT will ruin. It even had an opinion on the tortilla matrix.
How can it ruin debates when I don't give a toss about what ChatGPT has to say?
US politics is a good example of why you need more than two parties... Avoids the childish red vs blue mentality
It also depends on what kind of political system you have. Here in the UK, the first past the post system makes it difficult to vote for other parties than the big two (Labour and Conservatives) as it'll likely be a wasted vote or split the vote for your political leaning. e.g. If you desperately want the Tories out of power, but do not like the increasingly rightwards stance of Labour, then most places you'll still have to vote for Labour or risk letting a Tory win again.
I don't think my family needs outside help to think up of things to row about x)
I prefer not arguing about anything over the holidays but maybe that's just me.
> Do we focus too much on classic books/music/movies/plays/art/ideas, or too little?
Alright so maybe we’re going to draw straws to see who has to defend the affirmative, and they can open presents first or whatever
> Say that if everyone voluntarily waited a bit longer to reproduce then after a hundred generations human life expectancy would increase by 25 years. Would we be morally obligated to do that?
I don't get this. Why is it true?
I think the general idea is people carrying genes that would kill them early on in their life wouldn't get a chance to pass those genes, effectively eradicating them. So it follows that the average lifespan would increase.
Richard Dawkins talks briefly about this in his Selfish Gene book
It likely isn't true, but it's a thought experiment.
Oh right, the hypothetical aspect went over my head.
Number 19 is a good one. Perfect business, own something that's in everything that's too small be thought of as a monopoly, but is actually just that.
14 evokes a couple of great Greg Egan short stories: "Reasons to Be Cheerful" and "Unstable Orbits in the Space of Lies".
Most of those will make the conversation slide into politics. Just because dividing and making people fight has become a big business.
Good list. I'm aching to argue about most of the points here, but that would quickly trigger the HN flamewar algorithm.
What's a Torta and why is it so much better than a Tortilla?
That’s not a discussion, it’s just about definitions, as despite the similar name they are completely different things and even so depending on who you ask (Spain vs Hispanic America ).
It’s also the kind of discussion that gets completely neutered by someone whipping out their phone and just looking up the definitions.
The way to avoid harsh political discussions is to talk about systems. it will be easier to have a nuanced, still political, discussion.
When someone engage the discussion on Twitter, and that start in a 'this group is X, this group is Y', start talking about what is Twitter, what it should be, how it would work, advertising, multinational reach and soft power implications.
Do the same thing for Biden, Trump or the election. Talk generic instead of specifics, systems rather than persons. Power structure rather than personal power.
So here's the thing.
- Politics are really important actually
- Those disagreements will still be there
Your racist uncle (or, ok fine, your grating progressive auntie) will still hold those views tomorrow.
OTOH fighting will probably only make things worse.
Suggest instead meaningful, loving, gentle conversations that are permitted to range across many subjects, including politics.
This is the time of year when life presents you with opportunities to practice. They are precious :D
26 is going to cause fistfights
> Hey ChatGPT, what is the difference between pie and cake, and why is it worth fighting over?
< Pie and cake are two different types of baked desserts that are made with different ingredients and have different textures and flavors.
Pie is a baked dish that is typically made with a pastry crust and filled with a variety of sweet or savory ingredients. The crust can be made with a variety of different flours and may be either shortcrust, puff, or flaky, depending on the recipe. Pies are often filled with fruit, such as apples, berries, or peaches, or with savory fillings, such as chicken, beef, or vegetables.
Cake, on the other hand, is a sweet, baked dessert that is usually made with flour, sugar, eggs, and butter or oil. Cakes are often frosted or decorated with icing, and can be made in a variety of flavors, such as chocolate, vanilla, or lemon.
It is not necessarily worth fighting over the difference between pie and cake, as both desserts can be enjoyable in their own right. The choice between pie and cake may simply come down to personal preference, and it is generally more important to focus on enjoying whichever dessert one prefers.
Do "pie" and "cake" mean something different in the US? Because both are great, I wouldn't say there's even a comparison.
This is funny to me, since my language has just one word for both cake and pie, and over the years I was unable to really find out the difference, so this is very good example of making up divisive differences.
"Why is pie so much better than cake and given that it is why do people continue to eat cake?"
Is bathtub sink water rotates in certain direction in each hemisphere?
I don’t generally like talking about “politics” even with people who agree with my positions. I love talking about “political science” in the vein of “Five Thirty Eight”.
I did something that would usually be taboo recently. I talked about “politics” in a business setting with a customer at dinner. Neither one of us talked about our personal belief system. We talked about the politicians we admired as far as their ability to get things done and navigate the system.
We talked about our admiration for politicians on every part of the spectrum from the disciplined campaign that Republican Brian Kemp ran while being constantly attacked by Trump, how Pelosi was better able to keep her side disciplined when in power, etc.
I think the article implicitly assumes an American context. Political arguments in other countries are not as contentious.
American politics, as seen by someone who's never visited America but is hooked to the spectacle is fundamentally a difference in opinion about the reality we inhabit.
In other countries, political arguments are not as contentious because we can broadly agree on the state of reality. I might think my local MP is corrupt and is better replaced by another while my uncle who lives nearby might think he might be a bit corrupt but more "effective" at "getting things done" than the other guy. Therefore, political arguments of this sort might render the dinner table conversation lively but never descend into acrimony.
It's an entirely different thing if the starting point is that one of us thinks that the party the other one supports is filled with satanic vampires that murder children and drink their blood.
To an outsider American politics is like a slow moving train wreck. It's horrifying but you just can't look away.
Every year some old colleagues and I have an informal competition to see which one of us can be last to inadvertently learn who won the Super Bowl. For a few years, just after I emigrated to europe, I had an unfair advantage, but no longer, because of pervasive internet.
Trying to look away from American politics suffers a similar problem.
(I once asked a farmer in a remote mountain village what her goats were named; the answer was: Hilary, George, and Barack)
Wow, I've lived in the U.S. my entire life and I couldn't tell you who won any superbowl if my life depended on it.
I have seen several of the infamous "superbowl ads" though, those seem truly inescapable.
Outside fringe elements, Americans don’t disagree about reality so much as they have extreme differences in values that cause them to see facts very differently. Follow Breitbart or Mother Jones for a while. A news report might be about someone released without bail and murdering someone, or someone dying because they couldn’t get insulin medication. Both things actually happened: the article contains a police report, or photos, or whatever. Some people are going to get outraged by one or the other thing, but for the other thing will be like “well let’s put that in context, how often does that happen?”
American style polarization is common in most countries, from Latin America to Asia. As a Bangladeshi, where a country that’s 95% ethnically, linguistically, and religiously homogenous but still manages to have violent disagreements about politics, American polarization seems tame to me by comparison.
The "members of the other party are literally evil and uniformly commit (non-political) crimes against humanity" thing is somewhat overstated. There are a disturbing number of people who think that, but it's far enough from the norm that it's not hard to find a family gathering with nobody who thinks that.
Not that our politics aren't super weird and unusually contentious. They are, often even relative to the same people twenty years ago. It's just that the particular archetype you're citing here is still pretty unusual in the scheme of things.
Anecdata, everyone I've spoken to who is loyal to The Party, believes at least one mistruth. Ranging anywhere from "the gays are coming for you" to "the Jews control the media" the fact that there are a selection of personal boogeymen instead of a single centralized one is almost irrelevant to the overall point.
> Some 23% of Republicans, and 15% of all Americans, say they agree with the baseless QAnon allegation that “the government, media and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex-trafficking operation.”
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2021/05/27/nearly-30-...
Jeffrey Epstein didn’t kill himself.
Yeah, maybe the Satan worshipping thing is off the rocker. But a known pedophile ran a pedophole tape party island that lots of wealthy powerful men were at, somehow none of them got charged and the guy died in jail with video cameras blanked out.
Are they really ~crazy~ for thinking that maybe something is up there? Or are they just going overboard when diagnosing a real problem, like the half of democrats who supported COVID internment camps?
Source: https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/par...
This is a very recent phenomenon in the US as well and I'm hopeful the fever is beginning to break.
10: Placeholder for the word "Label"?
Spaces or Tabs?
Doesn't sound like a safe topic to discuss:
Spaces autoconverting to tabs is a combination of both worlds.
Indeed at our family gatherings we do not speak of politics which to me is all trash and nothing to place anyone I care (family or friend) about over.
Pie is not better than cake
I FUCKING LOVE THIS AUTHOR
1) Should Europe really be considered a continent, as it's just part of Eurasia?
2) Should (English-speaking) residents of England be considered the only native English speakers?
3) Before compulsory education, was the general population really stupid?
4) Has compulsory education made the world a better place?
It would be great if schools were built deep underground - because deep down people are not stupid :)
5) Should EU countries use the Éire green-white-orange flag as an icon for "english" language selection? (eg in websites, ATMs, gas pumps)
English isn't the indigenous language of Ireland so, probably, not a good idea.
What we call English was imported piecemeal into England, so it sounds like it's not the indigenous language of anywhere by your measure? It's native to Ireland, surely; in which case it seems fine.
I'm not sure Ireland would want to directly associate themselves with English (=England | UK) in that way. Clearly this is a very political question and so we can discard it from Christmas discussion :)
>> It's native to Ireland, surely; in which case it seems fine.
English is also "native" to many people in all countries around the world. In Ireland, many families speak Irish at home, not English.
Outside of school, there's very little usage. A few percent at most.
You're right, about politics. There are good historical reasons to hate what [English] nobility did in the past, but it's a mistake to dispense with using a common tongue because of that. My nan was shot at by "the English".
Common Latin use across Europe seems to have had a positive effect on the development of science for 1800 years or so?
OK, good luck with the implementation. Aside from offending some people you're also going to confuse many others.
not sure if the first two have been 'shopped, but the last looks legit:
https://preview.redd.it/rrd2hci4j5f41.jpg?width=960&crop=sma...
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EQFdckqW4AAwQ6A?format=png&name=...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e5/Tr...
> 4) Has compulsory education made the world a better place?
Not sure what is there to debate on that one? Compulsory education has been a vehicle for giving children time away from child labour and abusive parenting.
For that reason alone it is a net positive specially in developing economies where child labour is accepted.
Ok, the other side of the debate is: education is provided by governments who want to protect people in power and their own interests, so pushes an education system that protects those in power (not saying I agree with this side of the debate)
> If you accept that agriculture made life worse but hunter-gatherers had to adopt it or be vanquished, then are we going through any similar changes now?
Capitalism? Fossil fuels?
Tabs vs Spaces Emacs vs Vim
;)
I'll add one to the list just because it's been on my mind the last few weeks.
There's a correlation between IQ and general health, and most of your "processing" is subconscious.
Could this correlation be due to high IQ brains being better at strategizing and organizing the autonomic systems in the body?
So many competing things, could also be related to stress levels.
Stress has a profound impact on the growing body.
Also: IQ as a measure of cognitive development only makes sense in children.
> So many competing things
certainly, I just wonder about IQ. Of course IQ is itself an inexact proxy for things such as processing speed but the correlation does exist so something is going on there. Whether it's causation or not, who can tell.
I just think the idea is interesting. People often think of the body's ability to maintain itself as sort of set in stone based upon DNA, and of course there's truth to that. But we also know the body can learn, that's literally what vaccines do. So the question becomes, if the unconscious mind can strategize it implies better or worse outcomes based upon "decisions" and learning. Peanut Allergies are less likely to exist in populations that are around peanuts than those without. We know this, but I'm not sure I've seen anyone explain the mechanism that causes this to be true.
I'm also not a biologist so it's probably completely ignorant, but that doesn't stop it from being fun to think about.
31. Why are C programmers far superior to Rust programmers? And why are Rust programmers slightly better than C++ programmers?
32. Have you stopped beating your wife?