LengAwaits
@LengAwaits@lemmy.world
- Comment on Mother 2 days ago:
That is very frustrating, to be sure.
However, the ways we’ve begun to think about sapience is so intriguing, as well. We’re beginning to move away from the anthropocentric view that humans are the only sapient creatures. Corvids, elephants, and dolphins probably already make the cut according to the current definition of sapience.
Ants, too, which makes me wonder about the potential for deepening our understand of group/swarm sapience, as well. True “hive minds”, etc. Fascinating stuff!
So much of our understanding of the natural world comes from comparing creatures to ourselves through surface level observation. The more we can relate to an organism, as we perceive it, the more likely we are to elevate its status or “worthiness”, it seems. Now, in the presence of modern technology, we’re discovering how little we actually knew about how the world around us works.
This all ties strongly into historic religious world-views, and equation of humans to god-like (or god’s chosen) status. So much to unpack!
- Comment on Mother 2 days ago:
Haven’t we moved into the belief that all organisms are sentient?
Sentience is the ability to experience feelings and sensations. It may not necessarily imply higher cognitive functions such as awareness, reasoning, or complex thought processes. ^en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience^
The studies on plant ‘cognition’ and their ‘nervous system’ are not for naught. They have produced doubt. Some researchers are suddenly unsure about the status of plants and this doubt is necessary to get researchers engaged in and to acquire funding for research into plant sentience. The question of plant sentience is one of those fascinating question where, whichever answer is true we will all be in awe. If plants are sentient, then we need to rethink much of our current understanding in neuroscience. How could such a vascular system, different in so many ways from our own nervous system, give rise to consciousness? If plants are not sentient, then we are witness to a self-maintaining entity capable of complex cognitive behaviour without the presence of consciousness. ^link.springer.com/article/…/s10539-024-09953-1^
This topic fascinates me. I’m not trying to be confrontational or argumentative, sorry if it comes off that way.
- Comment on The consequences (of my actions) have been extreme 3 days ago:
That’s totally fair, and I agree with you. I probably shouldn’t have used the phrase “high form of humor”. I more meant “worthwhile form of humor”.
I’m not the comedy police or anything, I just don’t want to end up here:
- Comment on The consequences (of my actions) have been extreme 3 days ago:
That’s me! Cringe and proud.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 days ago:
You’re not being a jerk, you’re being pedantic.
Ignorant is absolutely the better word, and I should have used it.
I think, however, that people are far more capable of gaining intelligence than we give them credit for. I don’t believe that IQ is assigned at birth, and it’s been shown that the entire idea of IQ testing is extremely flawed.
There are people born with learning disabilities, of course, but that’s a whole other conversation.
- Comment on The consequences (of my actions) have been extreme 3 days ago:
Shitposting is just pretending to be stupid/racist/shitty for laughs/attention, right? Pretty low form of humor, if you ask me (no one did), but I’m also guessing a lot of shitposters aren’t just pretending.
I like a laugh as much as the next person, but we can’t sit around going “Why are people in this country so fucking stupid/racist/shitty?” while simultaneously elevating “acting” stupid to some high form of humor. You see how that’s counterproductive, right?
“Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe. It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.” - Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
*“Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they’re in good company.” - Jason Garrett-Glaser*
- Comment on [deleted] 3 days ago:
As much as I love these quotes, I think it’s important to qualify them:
Everyone is born stupid, but people can be educated. If we want an educated populace, we must put in the work to create functional systems of education, and celebrate intelligence as a society. It’ll be hard work, and there are plenty of people out there who would prefer to see the masses remain stupid.
“The way Americans regard sports heroes versus intellectuals speaks volumes” An article by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” ― Isaac Asimov
- Comment on Enshittification 3 days ago:
I don’t entirely disagree with you, here. My concern is that, when engaging with the world in a nuanced (non-dualistic) way, there is rarely a solidly defined “yes or no”, “good or bad” answer.
Evidence can point to positive and negative points of nearly any given thing. Agreeing on the weight of each point is going to dramatically color a given person’s idea of whether something is a net positive or a net negative. This is why I asked you, earlier, about what sort of evidence you’d need to see to sway your opinion.}
Boiling it all down to rational or irrational is a fool’s errand in the absence of objective truth.
- Comment on Enshittification 3 days ago:
I’m not going to waste my time on this unless you can answer my very direct question, above.
I’ve been convinced through a great deal of reading over the course of many years. For me to compile it all for someone who by all indications is not receptive to having their opinion changed would be a fool’s errand.
- Comment on Enshittification 3 days ago:
Where did I claim that DEI is rational?
- Comment on Enshittification 4 days ago:
Never assume rationality in an irrational world. We don’t live in econ 101 class where the assumption of rational actors is used to simplify equations for freshmen.
Putting Rational Actors in Their Place: Economics and Phenomenology
- Comment on Enshittification 4 days ago:
What sort of evidence would it take to convince you that DEI programs have been a net positive for US businesses?
- Comment on Choose to live in reality 3 weeks ago:
Objective truth, eh? Tell me more!
- Comment on I liked Star Trek before it got woke. /s 1 month ago:
So let me follow your logic, then.
I’m saying I’m dumb just to “sound like an intellectual”. But saying I’m dumb actually doesn’t make me sound like an intellectual, like you think I think. I just am dumb, like I’ve been saying all this time, genuinely, with no audience other than you on a dead thread.
Whew. That’s a pretzel if I ever saw one.
Have you ever considered that there might be people out there who don’t think they’re as smart as you seem believe that you are?
I’m not an intellectual. I’m a 40-something man who has seen some shit and learned a lot, but never had the luxury of a college education. Of course I’d like to improve myself, who wouldn’t? For me that means acknowledging that I’m not as smart as I wish I were.
That said, if you wanna exchange addresses we could be real life pen-pals. I’m enjoying talking with you. You’re not as dumb as you think I am.
- Comment on I liked Star Trek before it got woke. /s 1 month ago:
I’m glad we agree.
- Comment on I liked Star Trek before it got woke. /s 1 month ago:
So you’re a mind-reader and smarter than me?
I’m not in the habit of saying things I don’t mean. How does self-deprecation make one sound like an intellectual, exactly?
I am not a smart man. I do my best to get smarter every day, but I’m not inherently intelligent.
- Comment on I liked Star Trek before it got woke. /s 1 month ago:
You don’t do your due diligence on your conversational partners? Ones you waste this much time on?
Clearly you are smarter than me! But then, I already told you that I’m a moron.
- Comment on Is anyone planning on doing anything about trump creating a concentration camp at guantanamo bay? 1 month ago:
It becomes wrong immediately, but wrong is not a binary state.
- Comment on Is anyone planning on doing anything about trump creating a concentration camp at guantanamo bay? 1 month ago:
“One a cop is responsible for 1 murder he may as well continue to kill because 1 murder is the same as 30,000 murders.”
- Comment on I liked Star Trek before it got woke. /s 1 month ago:
Are you telling me that you honestly believe that you’re intelligent? With a comment history like that!?
- Comment on I liked Star Trek before it got woke. /s 1 month ago:
When did I ever say that I thought I wasn’t a moron? I’m at least smart enough to know that I don’t know much.
- Comment on I liked Star Trek before it got woke. /s 1 month ago:
- Comment on I liked Star Trek before it got woke. /s 1 month ago:
People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
- Comment on I liked Star Trek before it got woke. /s 1 month ago:
My mother is dead.
- Comment on I liked Star Trek before it got woke. /s 1 month ago:
You win!!! Congratulations!!! You’re a big boy with big opinions that are right!
For what it’s worth, I hadn’t said anything in this thread so far, so I’m not sure what you mean with your last sentence. Just pasted a link that I thought was interesting, related to the topic at hand. Then you got standoffish about it.
You keep looking for things to be mad about, though. Someday everyone will recognize you as the most smartestest and correctestest boy on earth.
- Comment on Is anyone planning on doing anything about trump creating a concentration camp at guantanamo bay? 1 month ago:
Why?
- Comment on I liked Star Trek before it got woke. /s 1 month ago:
- Comment on Is anyone planning on doing anything about trump creating a concentration camp at guantanamo bay? 1 month ago:
1 person being held with no due process is as bad as 30000.
Please explain this one to me, because I’m not understanding your math.
- Comment on Is anyone planning on doing anything about trump creating a concentration camp at guantanamo bay? 1 month ago:
"To understand revolutionary suicide it is first necessary to have an idea of reactionary suicide, for the two are very different. Reactionary suicide: the reaction of a man who takes his own life in response to social conditions that overwhelm him and condemn him to helplessness.”
“I do not think that life will change for the better without an assault on the Establishment, which goes on exploiting the wretched of the earth. This belief lies at the heart of the concept of revolutionary suicide. Thus it is better to oppose the forces that would drive me to self-murder than to endure them. Although I risk the likelihood of death, there is at least the possibility, if not the probability, of changing intolerable conditions.”
“But before we die, how shall we live? I say with hope and dignity; and if premature death is the result, that death has a meaning reactionary suicide can never have. It is the price of self-respect.”
– Dr. Huey P. Newton
- Comment on It really is like this 1 month ago:
I hope that in publicly questioning the narratives I’ve been fed all my life I am not assumed to be advocating for China.
I just like to try to think critically, compare disparate sources, and not pretend that I’m somehow immune to propaganda.
It seems like people are quick to try to label me a tankie these days for engaging with the world in that way, but I don’t consider myself a tankie. It feels like a thought-terminating cliche.
