TokyoCalling

joined 1 year ago
[–] TokyoCalling 9 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Beliefs are, essentially, opinions that people hold to very tightly without any evidence to support them.

Folks believe in gods, aliens, ghosts, trickle-down economics, eugenics, and all sorts of interesting things. They believe that crime rates are rising in exactly the same way.

While it is possible for someone to have a change in their beliefs, that change does not come easy. Certainly it does not come by presenting them with data that contradicts. Our best chance to change mistaken beliefs is in a dramatic and shocking event. The nature of a suitably dramatic and shocking event to shift a belief in the rise of crime eludes me completely.

Which gives us only plan B in two parts:

  1. present younger folks with the actual information and help them avoid falling into the collective delusion
  2. wait for older folks to die.

It occurs to me that we could speed this up by killing all the older folks, but that would obviously have an impact on crime statistics.

[–] TokyoCalling 11 points 8 months ago

My father was once driving with a friend when his friend, Dave, said, "Hey, look at that black Datsun."

My father immediately - and for no particular reason - lied, "All Datsuns are black. That's how they save money."

Years later, Dave wrote him a postcard with one sentence: I saw a red Datsun!

(yes, I'm aware of the Ford quote)

[–] TokyoCalling 39 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Keep in mind that Asimov wrote books clearly spelling out how the three laws were insufficient and robots could still be used to kill humans under the laws.

To be fair, this was tricky and not a killbot hellscape.

[–] TokyoCalling 8 points 8 months ago

Not OP, but I think I could answer.

Traditionally, mail is uncountable. One can count letters and packages, but not mail. Thus "I received three mails" is currently grammatically incorrect, while "I received three pieces of mail" or "I received three letters" or "I received three packages" would all currently be grammatically correct.

It seems logical that email should follow the same rules of grammar. Thus "I received three emails" should be incorrect, while "I received three pieces of email" or "I received three messages" would all be grammatically correct.

But English grammar is not consistent. Email is a new word and the folks that use it have decided that it is countable.

I don't mind this, but it seems OP does.

[–] TokyoCalling 5 points 8 months ago

I've been reading it. The folks here are most definitely in the minority.

And that's fine. I don't know why it would bother anybody.

[–] TokyoCalling 20 points 8 months ago (7 children)

You are strange for not loving the film. It is generally loved so, yeah, not loving it makes you strange.

There's nothing wrong with that. Some folks don't love chocolate. Or puppies. Or sunsets. Or whatever seems to be loved by most folks.

[–] TokyoCalling 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Not everything is a sequel, reboot or remake.

Every week, original films are released. Most lack money for advertising and are commercial failures. If we wish to see more films like them made, we need to see them - preferably with people who wouldn't otherwise have, and spread the news about them in person or Lemmy or whatever you wish.

Or you could just wait. The movie industry has gone through this many times.

[–] TokyoCalling 5 points 9 months ago

I walk a lot. Head down to the river and whistle for the crows that know me to come down so I can give them some peanuts. Talk with friends and family.

To be fair, though, I do pretty much the same thing when I don't need to cope.

[–] TokyoCalling 8 points 9 months ago

I'll cheat the question a bit.

I'd like all critics to have standards and to hew to them. I don't mind if each critic operates by different standards, so long as all critics can articulate their standards and are consistent in their application.

Most movie critics, for example, are offering their reactions to movies. They may review a movie. But nearly all of them are utterly inconsistent (hypocritical?) in their work. They explain their bad review of a film because of X and then praise another film despite it being just as much X as the film they loathed. If they address this conflict at all, it is with a great deal of handwavium - "This film makes it work."

If critics had standards, it would be possible to really compare the things they critique. Without those standards, each thing gets its own bespoke write up. Very entertaining, but useless when we want to know which is better or worse.

[–] TokyoCalling 1 points 9 months ago

You conceive of time in an interesting way. Certainly not the way I do.

[–] TokyoCalling 1 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Self service shopping has been around in the US since 1916, so I imagine you must be pretty old. Glad to know I've got you on my side!

[–] TokyoCalling 1 points 9 months ago

I'd really prefer the taxation method, but I don't think that's likely in most countries at the moment. Perhaps at a city level..?

While it certainly is possible that prices are lower than they would have been, I am skeptical. I know some business owners and have not heard this from them. I'd love some solid evidence to point to.

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