3002 replies to this topic

[PItiful Boar]

say hello to rwanda, which uses scales authoritarian technique to keep hutu and tutsi tolerant at gunpoint.  in fact, the words 'hutu' and 'tutsi' and censored, on the media, in public documents

incidentally rwanda is also doing well economically, probably using the same authoritarian methods of suppressing labor union rights that singapore and china do

i guess people will trade freedom for bread and order, despite what we are led to believe, thanks to our years of murican education 

and to the question of whether i have nightmares about escaping from a fire, no, but i have known people who have escaped from fires IRL.

i have had nightmares about water though, sharks swimming in large tanks... not sure why tho

have you ever changed the engine oil on your own car 

Edited by Feishy Pit Boar, 13 November 2018 - 06:35 PM.

[pokari]

Well, I am glad that your friends did in fact escape. The news on fire has been rather grim lately, as no doubt you've heard.

I like sharks, I don't know whether I've ever had nightmares about them. Maybe a minor feature of a dream, if ever spilling blood into the ocean.

As for cars—nope. I inserted oil into my motorcycle once, though, do I get partial credit?

And, I mean, dictatorships and the like work fine for as long as they happen to be benevolent or at least semi-benevolent. The problem is that various forces make benevolent dictatorships unlikely over time.

Restrictions on free speech do not automatically make you an authoritarian government, though. Unless Germany is authoritarian now. And Great Britain too, I think. And really at least half the "free world", is my impression.

...Interestingly, Rwanda only has a little more than twice as many people as Singapore. Though, in this case I think being spread out does make a difference.

Have you ever peeled a grape?

[PItiful Boar]

no i have for potatoes not something small like grape. I have one of those hand-cranks where you spike the potato onto it and turn the crank and it will advance the potato against the metal peeler and deskin for you

although, isn't the grape skin the most nutrious part of the fruit? I think it's true for guacamoles and apples so i presume it must be for grape skin as well

 

have you ever eaten a guacamole pit (or tried)? 

[pokari]

A... you mean an avacado pit? No, dear god, those things are huge and not exactly soft... Are they edible? *Research happens* ... apparently they won't kill you, but they do contain small amounts of various poisons, and it's not clear how bad they might be for you in the long term. I'll pass I think?

And I do believe a lot of the nutrition of the grape is in the grape skin, but historically at least they got peeled in some cases (having someone peel grapes for you has somehow survived as a trope of luxury even though it's hard to imagine anyone doing it these days, or something like that...?)

Have you ever wondered whether anything means anything, or indeed whether the very concept of "meaning" is made up and if so, what that means?

Edited by pokari, 17 November 2018 - 06:00 AM.

[penrosecat]

Yep, I have. The word 'meaning' is given itself by itself.

 

Huh, this could be a nice riddle?

 

Have you ever thought that nothing is in fact random, and things only seem random because we can see only our side of the picture, and things in general are pretty likely to happen regardless of what we think?

[pokari]

I swear I typed a longpost answer to this, which must mean my phone ate it :/

If you say "nothing is in fact random" my first thought is to whether the universe is deterministic or not, which is an interesting undecided question in physics and, if certain interpretations of theoretical quantum physics are to be believed, may in fact be unknowable—that at the finest-grained levels we can interact meaningfully with (in theory, not just in practice), stuff in fact happens randomly.

Which doesn't sit well with me for some reason—maybe because everything at the macro scale seems to be more deterministic the more we know about it. On tue other hand, it sits better with me if I assume the world is a computer simulation, and I assume that that's just where the random number generator lies.

But then I read the rest of your sentence and I think about the illusory nature of long odds, wherein millions of things happen around us every day and so of course some really odd coincidences happen around us with remarkable frequency—things for which the exact probability of that thing happening was astronomically low, but that isn't as significant as it seems because no one was expecting that exact thing to happen; and in fact what's odd is not that it happened, but that we felt it had significance, when it didn't.

See also: Anthropic Principle.

Or maybe you were talking about things like how fragile the course of history is or isn't, or whether fate is a thing (maybe not totally 100% out of the question if we're a computer simulation, I might point out, though would have to be very limited in scope to be undetectable; presumably to only pertaining to the largest-scale of outcomes)

Well, regardless of what you meant, I think it's safe to say I've probably thought about it ~w~ I do so love existential questions.

Have you ever found a bit of tumbled glass lost in some gravel that you thought was really quite pretty?

Edited by pokari, 30 December 2018 - 07:03 AM.

[666]

Naw

 

Ever died?

[pokari]

A thousand times and more, my friend. The last time was earlier today, it was quite frustrating; I lost all my cargo to that meany of a space pirate too. D:

Luckily the death penalty is only 5% of ship value, but still.

Ever wondered how horses feel about being ridden?

[PItiful Boar]

well, we have gasoline powered vehicles nowadays so that's not a big deal

 

ever tried to replace your car engine oil

[PItiful Boar]

tried, but the thing won't budge 

 

maybe i'll try again some other time

 

ever tried to finish a doomed project?

[pokari]

Sure, sometimes there's nothing to do but plod onwards. (Be it to salvage what can be salvaged, or, if one is getting paid, to continue to get paid.) Sometimes the impossibility of anything going well is actually sort of liberating in a way.

Have you ever spooked a wild animal at night and felt bad about it?

[penrosecat]

nah 

 

i intimidate in less timid ways

 

have you ever felt like people just complain way too much

[PItiful Boar]

I being one of those people no

Ever tried going the extra mile without rewards

[pokari]

I think if I have, then I wasn't thinking about the rewards (or lack thereof) in the first place and didn't categorize it as such. Self-back-patting for "selfless" acts seems a bit nauseating, I hopefully wouldn't do that to myself.

I am assuming by "without rewards" you not only mean "without tangible rewards," but also mean an act which is undetectable (or sufficiently removed and unattributable) such that there are no social or personal-environment benefits either. I don't know that I've ever done anything major in that regard, most likely nothing beyond small acts of kindness.

Have you ever wanted fur (and/or felt our ancestors were irresponsible for losing it)?

[PItiful Boar]

no why? we came from a small tribe on the african plains, doesn't make sense for us venture out but we did anyway

we must have been nuts tbh 

 

ever wanted to grow your own food

[PItiful Boar]

Peppers ftw
But couldn’t grow more than one though

Ever lost your keys

[pokari]

I lose lots of things. Keys are definitely included. :'D Also my train of thought, my shoes and other articles of clothing, game consoles, my mind, cars (in parking lots), phones, groceries, wallets, my heart, legos, rolls of duct tape, and sleep.

Possibly other things as well.

Have you ever waited for the punch line and just stood there waiting and then realized that there wasn't one, that was it?

[pizhhh]

it's more like they forgot the punchline to the joke they were telling

 

have you ever actually slipped off a banana peel?

[AnimeManga272b]

I don't remember ever stepping into one.

Have you ever played Pokemon Reborn?

[penrosecat]

No I can't handle the franchise

 

Have you ever felt guilty for only talking to your old friends on their birthdays?