Today I Learned #2: Gone for a Wiki Walk

[Kyriakos]

I need to be near my horse, to practice my german :/

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Working sucks. If you can get some disability benefit, that is far better.

Yes, if you wish to be consigned to poverty and constantly scrutinized and dehumanized by a government that sees you as nothing more than a burden.

 

[Hrothbern]

Hey, I am just lazy
I did say "most types of work". I can imagine some work which would be very beneficial. Arguably my own is more beneficial (though to a very small group of people) than (eg) if I was carrying crates at the dock. But still not that interesting to me that I do it for more than the money.

And no, Calvinism is no "philosophy"

We have as typical old-Dutch saying: ledigheid is des duivels oorkussen (idleness is the devil's pillow).
However:
Long before Calvin there was the book of Ecclesiasticus, considered apocryphal by the Protestants, but in the canon of the Catholic Church and considered as "The All-Virtuous Wisdom" by the Greek Church Fathers.
Here some statements on a servant:
25 Make him work by chastisement, and he will seek rest; let his hands be empty, and he will seek liberty.
26 The yoke and rope bow to the neck of an ox, but the rack and torment are for an evil servant.
27 Push him to work, lest he go idle, for idleness teaches much evil.
http://www.intratext.com/IXT/DUT0033/_PX.HTM

The Book of Sirach, also called the Wisdom of Sirach or simply Sirach (/ˈsaɪræk/), and also known as the Book of Ecclesiasticus (/ɪˌkliːziˈæstɪkəs/; abbreviated Ecclus.)[1] or Ben Sira,[2] is a Jewish work originally in Hebrew of ethical teachings, from approximately 200 to 175 BCE, written by the Jewish scribe Ben Sira of Jerusalem, on the inspiration of his father Joshua son of Sirach, sometimes called Jesus son of Sirach or Yeshua ben Eliezer ben Sira.
The Greek Church Fathers also called it the "All-Virtuous Wisdom", while the Latin Church Fathers, beginning with Cyprian,[27] termed it Ecclesiasticus because it was frequently read in churches, leading the early Latin Fathers to call it liber ecclesiasticus (Latin and Latinised Greek for "church book"). Similarly, the Nova Vulgata and many modern English translations of the Apocrypha use the title Ecclesiasticus, literally "of the Church" because of its frequent use in Christian teaching and worship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirach

 

[Takhisis]

It's an overflow bug:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_formatting_and_storage_bugs#Year_2108

Suuure, let's go with that.

And no, Calvinism is no "philosophy"

Ooooh, you've never played Calvinball.

Working sucks. If you can get some disability benefit, that is far better.

Yes, if you wish to be consigned to poverty and constantly scrutinized and dehumanized by a government that sees you as nothing more than a burden.

All hail the dole.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

I doubt this is so I have to guess you have a rather intricate organization of how you view your friends' views, going by how you have presented those here over the years.
I am not an oracle, but I'd suspect that you categorize such things, while most people (including the normie contingent here ^_^ ) are more random.

It's more like the opposite. Everyone keeps pointing out things that to them are clearly obvious and logical, yet I'm too stupid to properly understand.

Working sucks. If you can get some disability benefit, that is far better. Only positive with (most types of) work is that you get the sense people identify what you do as useful in some way. But that sense wears out pretty soon & after that it's just the money which keeps one working.

I'm on disability benefits.

You're an exception to the rule.
Most people like being useful and having a reason and/or a desire to get up in the morning.
Not having a purpose/work is described in some philosophies (would need to look that up again) as being equivalent to hell.

I'm completely useless at everything.

Working for someone else's profit sucks. However, disability benefit in the UK is about at or below the poverty line, so definitely not something to be recommended.

I've had my benefits decreased. It started out at £150 every two weeks, now it's £100. At one time, it was £150 every six weeks.

Yes, if you wish to be consigned to poverty and constantly scrutinized and dehumanized by a government that sees you as nothing more than a burden.

Either a burden or a thief. I've had it told to me that anyone on benefits is stealing from taxpayers.

 

[Kyriakos]

It's more like the opposite. Everyone keeps pointing out things that to them are clearly obvious and logical, yet I'm too stupid to properly understand.

It's the opposite: stupid people tend to think they are logical - but if one is really logical they see glaring faults in what is presented by such others as logic & is self-aware about the very high number of factors which can be occasionally and consciously overlooked if one is to present stuff in an informal setting.
Most people aren't that organized mentally, and even among those who are it is rare to find a great degree of ability to note differences and inconsistency masked as solid ground for thinking.
Afaik (not being autistic myself, though highly introverted), autistic people are not good at picking up the vast differences in relaxed use of logic in an informal setting. Maybe (this is just my own guess, a positive one; I assume there are negative readings too) because an autistic person would ideally want to have a specific view about the other thinker. But one has to see that (past some generalization) it is impossible to actually be aware of the internal process of thinking in the other person.

 

[The_J]

I've had it told to me that anyone on benefits is stealing from taxpayers.

That's an overly harsh interpretation.
It's a solidarity system. The only people stealing are the ones who take it while they shouldn't.

It's more like the opposite. Everyone keeps pointing out things that to them are clearly obvious and logical, yet I'm too stupid to properly understand.

Man, that happens to everyone.
I consider myself pretty smart, and even I sometimes miss things which are really obvious, and which should be obvious to me.

Stupid example: the song Candy Shop, from 50Cent, you've heard that one, seen the video? Until like 2 years ago or so, it didn't occur to me that it was about sex. And normally I put innuendo into everything where it doesn't belong into. I totally should have seen that. It's damn obvious. I didn't lol.

I'm completely useless at everything.

Just means you haven't figured out what you're good at .
You've sometimes posted interesting things here, so you actually can't be.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Everyone keeps pointing out things that to them are clearly obvious and logical, yet I'm too stupid to properly understand.

Nah. It just means you don't know enough about the subject. If I go to a forum for a game I've never played before and open a random thread, I'm likely to come away thinking "huh? Me no understand???"

 

[r16]

last week or so there was a Civ lll thread , explaining some game mechanic . A new post after a gap of maybe 5 years . ı noticed ı hasd understood nothing years ago . As much as ı still understand nothing .

 

[The_J]

Global human-made mass exceeds all living biomass

Here we quantify the human-made mass, referred to as ‘anthropogenic mass’, and compare it to the overall living biomass on Earth, which currently equals approximately 1.1 teratonnes. We find that Earth is exactly at the crossover point; in the year 2020 (± 6), the anthropogenic mass, which has recently doubled roughly every 20 years, will surpass all global living biomass. On average, for each person on the globe, anthropogenic mass equal to more than his or her bodyweight is produced every week.​

Nature Paper

I don't think that includes microbial biomass, but I'll read the article tomorrow.

They say:

A recent survey of Earth’s remaining living biomass [11] has found that, on a mass basis, plants constitute the vast majority (about 90%) [16], followed by bacteria, fungi, archaea, protists, and animals.​

I wonder how they estimate phytoplankton and soil and rock bacteria, but it is too late tonight for me to figure it out.

Yo civilization's so fat, it outweighs an entire planet.

(not really, but still wanted to make a joke along that line)

I read the paper, and there's a metric copulation-ton of estimates involved.
I've also read the reference #11 (from the quote), and there they give some levels of uncertainty, so that bacterial biomass could outweigh plant biomass, depending on that uncertainty. Not that this anyways will be very precise.
I somewhat wonder how this got into Nature. Not necessarily due to the quality, but rather because I'd deem it unfeasible to review something like this.

 

[r16]

the actual results of the lsraeli raid on Osirak . Not the end of an lraqi development of a nuclear weapon , not a delay and 400 scientist dudes and 400 million dollars of budget went up to 7000 and 10 billions .Tsk , tsk .

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Today I learned that there are candles with ISBNs. This means that they end up on Goodreads and Open Library.

Why a candle has an International Standard Book Number, I don't understand.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

You're an exception to the rule.
Most people like being useful and having a reason and/or a desire to get up in the morning.
Not having a purpose/work is described in some philosophies (would need to look that up again) as being equivalent to hell.

Thanks for the opinion that people on disability benefits are useless and have no reason/desire to get up in the morning.

That's something every disabled person should be told every single day, so we don't start thinking we're at least as valid as other members of the human species.

Yes, if you wish to be consigned to poverty and constantly scrutinized and dehumanized by a government that sees you as nothing more than a burden.

Given how everyone is expected to have internet access now, I'm actually surprised that my review last year didn't include a demand for my FB and Twitter passwords (I'd say no to the first, citing FB's own rules against sharing passwords, and I nuked my own Twitter account years ago after it got hacked).

 

[Synobun]

I am objectively useless in a contributory sense.

 

[Zkribbler]

I am objectively useless in a contributory sense.

I completely disagree

 

[The_J]

Thanks for the opinion that people on disability benefits are useless and have no reason/desire to get up in the morning.

I didn't intent to say that work is the only way to feel useful or a reason to get up, but for many people it is *one way. Many other people have other reasons, for sure.

 

[Kyriakos]

I didn't intent to say that work is the only way to feel useful or a reason to get up, but for many people it is. Many other people have other reasons, for sure.

One could say that if the only reason to get up is for work, that itself is pretty problematic ^_^

I think that having had some work and acceptance through it can well be necessary, but after that you don't really need to work more as if more acceptance is required. I'd personally not work anymore if I had enough money to do so, and would focus on personal/creative projects.

 

[The_J]

*one way
Did some correction above.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I didn't intent to say that work is the only way to feel useful or a reason to get up, but for many people it is. Many other people have other reasons, for sure.

My point is to be careful about how you phrase things like this. Prejudice isn't only about race and sex. There are people here who have experienced discrimination just for being disabled, like it's something we chose.

 

[Kyriakos]

*one way
Did some correction above.

Sorry, too late