ProfessorOwl_PhD [any]

IIRC he’s a Zionist and criticised Sweden for being too socialist, so yeah, a couple.

Yeah, definitely. Their interpretations may not completely match, but they’re both involved in it.

My friend used to have a cat called Chevy, which was originally short for Le Chevalier but changed to be short for Chevy Chase because they were both assholes.

It’s pretty obvious that when a server goes offline the total number of posts will go down, but it’s not a helpful metric. Comparing the posts per day, rather than total number of posts on different days, would give a better idea of the effect.

I want you to take that admission of ignorance and keep going with it. Not to us, just admitting to yourself what you really do and don’t know. Do you know what an Uygher looks like? What their language or culture are like? Where they live, inside and outside of china? What do you know about china more generally? What have you been told about China, and what do you actually know? What have you seen, what have you been told you’ve seen, and what haven’t you seen?

I’m not telling you you have to believe China is a perfect utopia, I’m just telling you not to believe everything you hear or read about it. The West very publicly considers China and enemy, so every claim it makes about China should be met with scepticism. Have you read the sources provided for the claims made about it? Have you looked at the individuals and organisations that created those sources? You have to read the whole corpus of information to build the real picture.

Look I know I was trying to build up to a gotcha but this is all you. Nobody forced you to admit you don’t even know where Uyghers live. You made yourself look stupider than I ever could. I was just going to post a 40 minute travel vlog of the region showing off all its Uygher people and culture, but you proudly announced your complete ignorance.

Why wouldn’t they? Have you seen Xinjiang?

That won’t work, they post that kinda stuff all the time.

The reason stuff gets inflamed and sensitive with soap and water is because it’s healing the damage, rather than just destroying everything in the damaged area and hoping it grows back right. Your body will generally do fine if you’re young and healthy, but as you get older it becomes more of a risk.

It’s not guaranteed to do more harm than good, but because it destroys healthy cells too it creates a risk that just doesn’t need to be taken. It’s not more effective at preventing infection than soap and water, and it’s not as effective as medical super glue for stopping bleeding, so there just isn’t a place for it any more.

New answer for the specific context:

You did your best with the 2 year old. Toddlers are difficult because they just make noises and expect you to work out what’s wrong for them. Small snack and something to drink are always good starting points, followed by a distraction (like the nursery rhymes video) to get their attention off what was upsetting them.

With the 5 year old, you escalated by increasing the punishment to 15 minutes, and now your brother-in-law pushed it back down she knows you can be overruled. Talk to your sister and her husband to make sure you’re both clear on what limits your comfortable with and what specific punishments to give for breaching them, in line with what they’d normally give, so you can both be sure you’re giving out punishments they feel are appropriate, so there’s no room for her to get you overruled - if she goes to her dad you should both be confident he will back you up. She’s of an age where she is going to test what rules and limitations really exist, so you need to make sure she’s not getting mixed messages about it. You’ll have an easier time distracting her with something interesting than telling her not to do stuff.

Make sure to use vocabulary they understand, but don’t be condescending with it. They’d rather you speak to them like they’re older than they are than younger.

Don’t be overly restrictive of their freedom, but be clear about the limits and make sure to enforce them. Explain the reasons for the restrictions rather than just telling them they’re not allowed and they’ll generally listen.

Give them small jobs to make them feel more responsible and patient about other things.

Do your best to answer their questions properly instead of dismissing them, even if the only answer you can give is “I don’t know”. They’ll listen to adults that they feel listen to them.

How many people do you think are working in computer graphics? It’s specialised knowledge, exactly the kind of thing that should be taught at university to the people it’s relevent to.

you can explain the solution in natural language pretty easily

It’s not about how you phrase the solution, it’s about needing the solution at all.

We use plenty of simple geometry everyday, sure, but you don’t need to be able to even understand what OP’s example says to engage with the world. Like you don’t need to provide a mathematical proof to put a shelf up properly.

So Don’t we need more education about the 3D space in highschools really?

How often do you think most people need to know the advanced mathmatical properties of 3d space?

Yeah honestly this is like the Tesla “bomb” - until more information comes out to show otherwise it just did that.

Admittedly the Tesla didn’t just do that, but still…

Absolutely it is, and it even seems to be hard coded in many non communal species, like the wombats that open their burrows to other animals during Australian wildfires, but empathy isn’t powered by the idea of reciprocation. It’s an inherently selfless feeling that doesn’t consider either direct or indirect benefits for the self, and it doesn’t make sense to say that acting on those selfless feelings, against your self interest, is itself selfish.

It deeply upsets and enrages me

But why? It doesn’t affect you. It isn’t in your self interest to be upset by those things, it just makes you feel bad. Wouldn’t it be more reasonable to say that you are simply able to feel and act selflessly rather than invent a form of self interest that involves caring about other people?

and if everyone does the same, some sort of proper balance will be achieved.

What makes you think that logically follows? Why would it not create competing self-interests that can’t coexist?

Even if you broaden it to acting for indirect reciprocal benefit plenty of people act in ways that don’t have a reciprocal benefit. Just look at the Madleen flotilla, everyone there is putting themselves at personal risk for no personal tangible benefit - the position of self interest would be to stay safely away from the war at home. Look at all the local charities that help vulnerable members of their communities for no personal benefit. Look at people acting against their self interest just within their own families, like supporting elderly parents despite the costs and even though their death would speed their inheritance. There is a huge range of actions that fall outside of both direct and indirect self interest that people take every day.

because of everything they did.

DID YOU FIGHT THE TURKS OR NAZIS?

Nothing you’ve listed was accomplished by you, or currently living people generally. You stand amid your ancestors achievements and are proclaiming they make you superior to to someone whose ancestors were criminals. You’re a nazi. Fuck off.

Ok, now relate that to linguistics.

You’re obviously aware that Anglos have real crimes to be criticised for because you reach for all of them immediately when you feel your hatred of them is being attacked, but you’re viewing it through a reactionary lens of chauvinism and nationalism, assigning cultures as inferior and superior, rather than looking at the material conditions that caused them, and taking a vibes based “Anglo bad” stance towards everything rather than doing any examination of their contexts. You say you’re a communist, but the idea that bad acts make an entire culture inferior is just base racism, and that good acts make an entire culture superior chauvinism. The idea that English should be pronounced like Slavic languages despite the material differences in their development is completely incoherent. Your ideological basis for what you’re saying is just fascism.

Look at it this way: did you fight the Turks or Nazis?