tripu @tripu@social.cleverlibre.org

Fun fact: 38% of #parenting is about using one's imagination to shield #children from the nuisances of every day life, to lift their morale — aka “the _la vita è bella_ procedure”.

It's dark and damp, it's raining, there's a strong wind and you are walking the #kids to school. A gush of wind breaks your umbrella. The kids complain of the cold. One of them trips and falls. The other says his minuscule rucksack is bothering him. You are in a bit of a hurry. Still, you manage to sound cheerful and happy above the gale, and to fake surprise and point in delight at random things across the street (a green bus, someone carrying a striped umbrella). You keep them distracted and keep on encouraging them. Instead of cursing, you know.

That kind of thing.

> _“People cannot understand the complex problems of our time if they are not able to read complex #books about them. […] With the development of different media such as radio, television and digital media, books are no longer just for entertainment, they offer a different cognitive experience.”_

https://www.gov.si/en/news/2023-10-12-ljubljana-manifesto-on-reading-launched/

https://samkriss.substack.com/p/all-the-nerds-are-dead

I don't hate #ElonMusk. I have very mixed feelings about what he has done in the world, and what his goals are.

But if he has attacked #Wikipedia in any way, that's too much even for me.

…billions of sentient beings, _human and non-human_.

…for a spoiled caniche to eat a cute cupcake _in five seconds, deriving no special pleasure from it (it's a treat **for its owner**), and being effectively worse nourished compared to unremarkable inexpensive regular feed for mascots_.

A #dog #bakery in #Madrid today.

I have said with pride that I can't be offended, that I'm immune to that.

I'm still not offended by the existence of “dog bakeries” — but it gets close to that.

I don't blame specifically the shop owners (who detected a market need) or the clients (who are vulnerable to whims, curiosity and overindulgence, like anyone who cares for another creature). I blame us all, collectively, for creating a society and a moral code that enables this and doesn't give a second thought to the logic (or lack thereof) behind this.

Our priorities are so skewed. Our allocation of resources, empathy and attention is zero-sum. We neglect unthinkable quantities of suffering afflicting billions of sentient beings every day but pay for a spoiled caniche to eat a cute cupcake.

#EffectiveAltruism

I stumbled upon this #book for small #children at the local #library, and I think it's very inappropriate and misleading.

> _“Man, woman… everyone what they want”_

> _“What if it is neither one thing nor the other?”_

etc

#gender #sex

https://joanaestrela.com/menino-menina/

@ImperfectIdea @fidel @gasull

#YouTube detecting #adBlockers might even be _illegal_ in some jurisdictions:

https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/26/privacy_advocate_challenges_youtube/

/cc @LouisIngenthron

#Book shortlist at the local #library today:

T. S. Elliot's [_The Waste Land_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Waste_Land)

Albert Camus' [_The Plague_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plague_(novel))

Warren Ellis' [_Transmetropolitan_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmetropolitan)

I ended up borrowing the last one.

#JordanPeterson (and so many others): if this materialistic reality is all there is, how can you build #morality?

Let's assume there's an afterlife. You build morality down here to grant a good outcome after we're dead, right?

Yes.

What is a “good outcome” beyond the material world?

Well, there is salvation or condemnation, bliss or torture — heaven or hell, if you will. You surely prefer we all go to heaven, don't you?

Sure. Can we summarise that prospect as “suffering vs bliss”?

OK, you could put it that way.

And we want to avoid hell because… suffering is bad, right? Is #suffering bad?

Sure it is. That's self-evident.

Alright, we agree. Then, why can't we make _the avoidance of suffering_ (or the pursuit of bliss, or a combination of those two), the cornerstone of #ethics _in this life, right now_? Can't you see there's enough of a foundation to distinguish between “good” and “evil” in this plane of existence already, without the need to project consequences into a hypothetical non-materialistic reality? I'm not asking you to dispense with your supernatural world, I'm just saying you can't claim any more that it's impossible to have ethics without a “superior being” or an afterlife, because at the root, you are guided by the same principle as us, the same axiom (“suffering = bad”).