That might be true in the short term, but we’ve had books and avid readers for centuries, and during this time we’ve seen positive effects. So if there are any negative effects, they must be so tiny that they’re neither noticeable nor measurable.

Shouldn’t we see negative effects pop up in studies that compare readers to non-readers? Non-readers probably do interact with a bit more text nowadays, but AFAIK reading seems to have mostly positive effects.

Lasst uns einen Spendenmarathon veranstalten, um die Klappstühle zu besorgen!

Sachsen-Anhalt?

Yeah, I have a feeling it won’t take long before it all goes down the drain…

On the other hand, I’m not sure it’s the best idea these days to have this fact known to a government. Unless the current rightward shift reverts very soon, we’ll be properly fucked once climate change really hits - difficult times nudge people towards extremes, and the far right mostly despises autistic people.

Even as someone living in Europe, I’m honestly too scared.

God, the sweat glands one sounds horrible.

“You cook & eat me? Then I’ll cook you!”

Why should a Chinese person reduce their emissions, while each American emits so much more?

And now that I know you can’t read…

Buddy, if you spend a couple seconds thinking about my question, you might notice that “We all do need to cut our emissions” is not an answer. I’ll try to put it in more explicit terms, try not knee-jerk-reacting this time:

Why should a person in China stop increasing their emissions to make profits, while so many people in America make so much profit/save money by emitting so much more on average?

You’re acting like this question obviously has a definitive answer, but it doesn’t!

Look, it’s totally fine to criticize China’s rising emissions on their own. But it’s really, really dumb to contrast their total with total US emissions - especially when you don’t mention anything about how many emissions are caused to supply the west with stuff. It’s great that US emissions are going down, but they’re still way too high because they provide cover for other nations to save money by using fossil fuels just a bit longer. Why are other countries morally wrong in climbing towards the level of America, as long as they stay below?

Wobei die Index selbst ja schon v2 war, mit der HTC Vive als v1.

Plötzlich ergibt Merz’ “Strategie” total Sinn.

I’m arguing against the assertion that “China is doing the most damage to the climate”. It’s obvious that the country with more citizens will cause more emissions, and it’s also completely useless! Or would you suddenly change your mind if China split into 5 countries, all less populous than the US?

Why should a Chinese person reduce their emissions, while each American emits so much more? You insist that arbitrary geographic divisions are somehow relevant, but they aren’t.

And because total emissions matter, we all have a bigger responsibility to reduce our per-capita output if we’re above others. The atmosphere and climate don’t care about countries, so each American still has a much higher responsibility to change their society than each Chinese does.

Hast du noch nicht mitbekommen? Die Tech-Industrie arbeitet darum, Opt-In umzudefinieren. Mittlerweile sieht man immer öfter “Opt-In by Default”, was Opt-Out umschreibt.

Meine Lieblingsvariante ist:

AfD-Wähler würden literweise Hundekot weglöffeln, nur um Grüne mit ihrem Mundgeruch zu vertreiben.

Das ist bei der CDU dasselbe wie bei den Demokraten in den USA: Ihre Geldgeber und Lobbyisten “verbieten” es ihnen, sich wirtschaftlich nach links zu bewegen. Eine Weile hat sich die CDU sozial leicht nach links bewegt, aber im Kulturkampf sind die Faschos ungeschlagen, das wäre also ein Eigentor.

Was bleibt? Nur der Weg nach rechts.

Wobei es IMO Sinn ergibt sicherzustellen, dass es beim ersten Anlauf klappt. Stellt euch mal das Geschrei vor, wenn es da irgendwelche Probleme geben sollte

Nicht instanzübergreifend WIMRE.

It’s not really possible to give a concrete answer without a concrete definition of “understanding”. But unless you assume supernatural explanations, either systems must be able to “understand”, or humans are also incapable of “understanding”, since we ourselves are physical systems too.

For instance I feel that a gravity coin sorter is made with understanding but does not have understanding

I get the example and agree that such a coin sorter does not meaningfully have an understanding of gravity. But IMO it does have a (minimal) understanding of the different coins you’re sorting, since it contains a mechanism for differentiating between their sizes.

Imagine we replaced the gravity mechanism with a bunch of actuators controlled by organic neurons, which are connected to something like an eye. The neurons fire and cause the actuators to sort the coins. Now, if say the neurons just react to brightness levels it’d be hard to argue there’s an understanding. But if the neurons are part of a real human brain, they can definitely understand the coins etc. and sort based on their understanding.

As you take away more parts of said brain, when does it lose the understanding?

For specific individuals who personally alienated us, yeah, sure. But if you generalize and broadly accuse all tech bros, there will be people who think you’re targeting them, even though they’ve never actively alienated us.

Let’s not let ourselves be divided unnecessarily.

No, and if you want to discuss the philosophical idea, please don’t waste my time with dumb questions.