I wouldn’t expect nuanced takes on typography from HN. As a long time user the comments are entirely expected - and actually skew more positive than I would have guessed. Respectfully.
"Harder [for the organization in question] to solve" is definitely right
Not really an excuse though, since a product company's mandate is to create a product that doesn't leave its customers baffled about apparently missing functionality.
“Ian pointed out that whereas our culture openly invites us to be aware of birds and historic churches, it places no comparable emphasis on pylons, despite the fact that that they often rival, for ingenuity and beauty, many of the more established objects of our curiosity. He cited as an example Loch Awe in Scotland, a famously picturesque and romantic tourist destination dominated by the ruins of the fourteenth-century Kilchurn Castle, whose grounds are nevertheless crossed by a run of 400-kilowatt pylons linking the hydroelectric power station at Ben Cruachan with the Glasgow suburbs. On postcards of the loch and its castle, however, the electricity lines are almost invariably airbrushed out, so that the scenery pretends to a fictitious innocence, the bare hills and unsullied lake being symptomatic of what Ian (having grown increasingly garrulous under the influence of brandy) condemned as the garden-gnome mentality of sentimental Luddites.”
— The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work: t/c (Vintage International) by Alain De Botton
https://a.co/1CjMq1u
This is an unrelated tangent, but I'd like to point out the conventional and inaccurate use of Luddite to mean "generically against any kind of technology or 'progress'".
The Luddites were not anti-technology; they were labour activists. They smashed machines because it was their leverage over the owning class.
there is a theory along these lines. something like: the defense against the unconscious is so strong in autism that the person becomes rigid and shut off. the defense against the unconscious is so weak in schizophrenia that the person is overwhelmed with phenomena. but both have something to do with intense unconscious objects.
I found this (relatively) recently published article reviewing Bleuler's Dementia Praecox or the Group of Schizophrenias which is the book where he first publishes the terms "Schizophrenia" and "Autism." Though Bleuler was using the words with his colleagues starting a few years earlier. (Cf. Freud-Jung Correspondences, May 1907[0], you can ctrl-f "autism,""schizophrenia," etc.)
Whenever you’re called on to make up your mind,
and you’re hampered by not having any,
best way to solve the dilemma, you’ll find,
is simply by spinning a penny.
No—not so that chance shall decide the affair
while you’re passively standing there moping;
but the moment the penny is up in the air,
you suddenly know what you’re hoping.
That's for motion sickness. It doesn't remove the animations but just turns them into fades rather than slides, and they still waste the same amount of time.
Just my interpretation (of the Pascal quote), beginning with the full quote.
> When I have occasionally set myself to consider the different distractions of men, the pains and perils to which they expose themselves at court or in war, whence arise so many quarrels, passions, bold and often bad ventures, etc., I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber. A man who has enough to live on, if he knew how to stay with pleasure at home, would not leave it to go to sea or to besiege a town. A commission in the army would not be bought so dearly, but that it is found insufferable not to budge from the town; and men only seek conversation and entering games, because they cannot remain with pleasure at home.[139][#201908302349]
This quote is often summarized roughly as: "all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." (i.e. the title of this post). Taken out of context, this would seem to suggest (to me) a belief that if we could simply meditate and avoid external distractions (a commission in the army, conversation, games, Pascal suggests), we might find happiness.
However, a reading of the full passage reveals that "on further consideration" he thinks the reason for this is that if we were to sit with our thoughts, the "natural poverty of our feeble and mortal condition" would drive us to despair.
He thinks that someone who truly understands the human condition would do everything they could to avoid sitting alone with their thoughts ("there is nothing they leave undone in seeking turmoil") . We seek diversion because if we didn't have any distraction, we would end up dwelling on the miserable human condition (selfish, pre-occupied with self-gratification, sensitive to the opinion of others, judgmental, etc. - basically, 'sinful').
In the end, he suggests that we should look for happiness externally, in God, which he then talks about a lot.
[#201908302349]: Blaise Pascal (1958): _Pascal's Pensées_, New York: E.P. Dutton.
Thanks. I was reading this thread thinking that sitting alone with your thoughts does not necessarily bring you peace. It can often do the opposite.
I take time and pray to God each morning. I find that this gives me peace. I feel better prepared to deal with the day when I pray.
My routine is focused around praying the Lord's Prayer, as in the prayer Jesus taught. Praying this prayer over years has enabled some truths to sink in. For example, the first part of the prayer is not about us, it is about God. I think it is good to start the day with the understanding we are not the centre of the universe. Secondly, I have been struck by how the Lord's prayer does not start at the place of forgiveness. Whether that be seeking forgiveness or asking for forgiveness. This gives me peace in the knowledge I don't need to have it all together before I engage with God in prayer.
A buddhist, occultist, or existentialist might suggest Pascal just didn't explore this space far enough. Those with the courage to question even the existence of God and meaning might find more rewarding insights or experiences.
With all the sociological data we have now, it’s almost certain that Pascal’s wager has never been more true for those looking to lead a meaningful life.
That doesn't have much to do with the wager itself as it is concerned with a potentially infinitely negative or positive outcome seen through the lens of belief in an afterlife of some sort.
If we are merely concerned with life in itself, then religious belief is redundant: you can indeed strip its useful aspects through careful study but leave the actual belief aside
I think you will find most theological traditions aka religions have a lot of common ground. So much so that you can actually abstract out lot of the ancient wisdom from the religion itself.
The book "Happiness Hypothesis" by Johnathon Haidt examines this in detail if you wish to purse it further.
My understanding was that Pascal's wager implies the prospect of eternal damnation or some infinitely negative consequence. Therefore the choice of religion is probably of great import if we enter the logic of the wager.
