Things I Want to Communicate to the Human Species Before I Die

https://www.raptitude.com/2023/05/10-things-i-want-to-communicate-to-the-human-species-before-i-die/

by zdw • 3 years ago

33 37 3 years ago

smeej2• 3 years ago

So this is the unknown person I'm muttering at under my breath who was inconsiderate enough to leave their cart somewhere that's in my way, for their own convenience?

Stay with your cart. That's the only way you'll be available to notice it (and you) are in someone else's way.

Also, the "lived" in "short-lived" absolutely does not rhyme with "dived." The word you're talking about would just be "short-lifed." That's why 100% of native English speakers would raise an eyebrow at you if you pronounced it the way you've written out in the article. The noun "life" does not ever become "lived" when joined to an adjective.

bombcar• 3 years ago

I’m trying to imagine a store that has aisles without other aisles you’d block if you abandon your cart to go down the aisle. Or shopping aisles that aren’t wide enough to support cart action.

A more reasonable realization is if you live near a grocery store you can buy your OWN shopping cart and never have to bother bagging.

donatj• 3 years ago

Hear me out. There's no harm in moving someone else's cart. When an aisle is busy I happily leave my cart at the end, pop in to grab the one or two items I need, and come back weaving my way around the mindless drones pushing their cart single file as slow as possible.

anonymouskimmer3• 3 years ago

Once I accidentally took someone else's cart, and another time someone accidentally took mine. The first incidence led to the shoppers filling extra bags of bulk food items until I returned the cart to them. The second incidence resulted in me loudly asking who took my cart and describing the contents (including my reusable bags) for a bit until the person found me and then muttered to themself that they'd now have to try to find where they left their cart.

anonymouskimmer3• 3 years ago

I was kind of convinced by the article's short-lived argument. I think it would really depend on whether the noun that the "short-lived" is modifying is a subject or object. A human would be long I, while a particle would be short I. But then I have a lot of pronunciation quirks.

Edit to add: The verb forms of "knife" and "wife" both use the same I pronunciation (compared to live and life), so I don't think the comparisons are that convincing after all.

ThrowawayTestr2• 3 years ago

Leave your cart by the end caps if the isle is full.

smeej2• 3 years ago

The end caps of our aisles are just an aisle unto themselves. There's no such thing as "somewhere that isn't blocking something."

tonymillion2• 3 years ago

Yeah I’m not sure about the “live dived” thing…

“He lived as he died, short and ugly. Until he died he was alive”

[Edit managed to cut off “Liv”]: Influenced by the modern Scandinavian word "liv" meaning "life."

Guthur• 3 years ago

White text on grey background, really?

Kye3• 3 years ago

I see dark grayish text on a light yellowish background.

ggm• 3 years ago

Short lived piece.

andrewmcwatters• 3 years ago

Totally random, but I once had a guy try to take my grocery cart... and it was filled with groceries already. Like dude, what?

So now that I know I can be cart jacked!, nah, I'm good.

ThrowawayTestr2• 3 years ago

Seems like a reasonable list. I'm sure everyone will hate it.

another_story• 3 years ago

Can concur, I hate it. Well, most of it. Exercise yes, but the rest seems lazy or overly nit picky.

readthenotes1• 3 years ago

I think you've expressed a short knived opinion

anonymouskimmer3• 3 years ago

You can weaken the grip of the ruminative mind by frequently taking a few seconds to be quiet and listen to your surroundings.

This is useful advice.

BMc2020• 3 years ago

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97 Wear sunscreen

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it A long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists Whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable Than my own meandering experience, I will dispense this advice now

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth, oh, never mind You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth Until they've faded, but trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back At photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now How much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked

You are not as fat as you imagine

Don't worry about the future Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing Bubble gum The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind The kind that blindsides you at 4 p.m. On some idle Tuesday

Do one thing every day that scares you

Saying, don't be reckless with other people's hearts

Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours

Floss

Don't waste your time on jealousy

Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind The race is long and in the end, it's only with yourself Remember compliments you receive, forget the insults, if you succeed in doing this, tell me how Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements

Stretch

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't

Get plenty of calcium Be kind to your knees You'll miss them when they're gone

and so on

atleastoptimal2• 3 years ago

You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth

Some people are legitimately ugly and their youth offers no benefits in this sense

27fingies2• 3 years ago

https://youtu.be/sTJ7AzBIJoI

silisili• 3 years ago

Yes and some people are born without legs so don't have to worry about their knees going, and so on.

It's general advice for the average cases, not the exceptions.

tonymillion2• 3 years ago

The fact you read that literally tells me you’ve wasted both the power and the beauty of your youth…

jemmyw• 3 years ago

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iEUsXDZ4lNI the sunscreen marketing board

xwdv• 3 years ago

The part about exercise I feel is the most important. If you could only have one universal piece of advice to give someone for living a better life, it’s simply: Exercise.

From there, everything else follows.

27fingies2• 3 years ago

The two ideologies, liberals and conservatives.

Kye3• 3 years ago

1: I've had enough people take my cart, probably by accident, to where I'd rather not leave it unwatched. I always move if I notice someone eyeing something I'm blocking.

2: I believe this is possible in the US where I am. I've seen conservatives argue for queer rights, all across the alphabet, from conservative first principles. Even the bible-thumpy religious ones. The hard part is finding enough people who aren't completely brain poisoned by red vs blue thinking to form an effective party in a system that seems to only be able to support two parties who communicate with attack ads and lies.

This system portrayed moderate liberal Bernie Sanders as a seething, foaming at the mouth Marxist, maybe even the dreaded tankie. It was like this long before I was old enough to vote, and it's only gotten worse. I don't know what to do about it.

3: Exercise doesn't give me the good feels its loudest advocates insist it does. It just makes me tired. It most certainly doesn't help with mood or sleep. There are things that do, and I do those things.

4: This is the mantra of people who want me to ignore the person standing on my neck. Especially when it's them, or someone they derive benefit from. Bad actors can exploit the tendency to refuse to (accept) blame and address harms as easily as they exploit the tendency to blame.

7: There it is. A dull, typical misrepresentation. Your failure to listen fairly and with an open mind does not mean activists are misguided. You just aren't listening.

rrgok• 3 years ago

Can you kindly tell me more about number 3? What are the things that helps you? Exercise is not a sure predictor for my good mood or sleep too, in fact it sometimes works and sometime it doesn't. I still don't know why sometime it works. I can understand you.

Kye3• 3 years ago

Poor mood and sleep seem to come whenever I spend the day not getting anything done because I messed around on the internet instead. Even doing a little bit helps, like drafting a song for an album I'm working on. I think it ultimately comes down to: it's a chemical thing, like all brain things, but the parts of the mix can come from different sources.

One person might be depressed. Another needs to exercise. And another just needs to spend less time in front of the computer. And so on. It took trial and error to land on my sources.

apple4ever• 3 years ago

Wow you couldn't be more wrong about 7. Sounds like the writer is listening fairly and with and open mind, and you are showing how you are misguided. Free speech protects all. The activists are tyrants handing power to oppress people. It's as easy as pie to see.

strken• 3 years ago

In the spirit of advice-giving, following advice doesn't have to suck.

Plain vegetables taste nice once your palate adjusts. You're allowed to stop running and walk for a little while, and you don't have to run so hard you get a stitch. If you're on a diet then it's going to work better if you find foods that make dieting easy rather than eating microscopic portions of your usual meals.

"No pain no gain" is often completely wrong; you can usually do something easy and painless rather than push yourself hard, and still get 80% of the gain (plus be more likely to form a habit and stick to it).

FrontierPsych2• 3 years ago

Being an atheist, I vehemently disagree with his assertion and give reasons for why I disagree:

Religion is not “ancient superstition.” The great religions caught on because they successfully communicated something vital about the human condition to a large number of people. Their founders are probably some of the wisest and most insightful people our species ever generated.

So the only wise people that ever existed lived 1400 or 2000 years before today? There has been nobody wiser since? That nobody has communicated something vital since, that speaks to the modern world?

Or is it that there is a thing called inertia? That once started, it is almost impossible to bring something as large as the biggest religion to an end. Parents teach their children from birth about religion, and if you don't follow it correctly, you will burn in hell in the worst torment that you can't even imagine.

It hasn't "stood the test of time." It is inertia. Another example: we still use the 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour since 3500 years ago. We still basically use the Julian calendar from 2000 years ago, with the upgrade in 1582 with the Gregorian fix. I could name all kinds of things like that.

So, no, This is just some kind of mysterioso "the ancients" non-argument that people use all the time.

Hardline atheists and hardline fundamentalists make the same mistake when they regard religious texts as collections of factual claims, rather than instructive works of literature.

Does this dude even know anything about atheism? No. Atheists don't make that mistake. He is the one who mistakes atheists for making mistakes.

Atheists are some of the best educated in the USA when it comes to religion. This is because most started as religious, but logic'ed there was something wrong, so the former religious study their religion in great detail to understand and try to avoid becoming atheists, until they just can't support the illogic of religion anymore and must therefore be atheitic.

Atheists know full well that religious texts can be read as metaphors and analogies and allegories. The issue is that we use it as literal in order to mock the religious. And it is hilarious because the religious will quote the bible as literal if it serves their ends, but say it is a story if that fits their goal.

I personally could interpret Matthew 14:13-21 many different ways. Dozens of ways. But most christians DO take it literally. And the biggie, most Christians think that Jesus literally died and rose from the dead, which is ridiculous.

How is thinking Jesus being a necromancer - bringing the daughter of Jairus (Mark 5:21-42), the young man from Nain (Luke 7:11-17), Lazarus (John 11:1-44), and self-necromancy of bringing himself back to life - any different than a talking snake in Genesis?

Finally, almost every single person is an atheist, no lie. Christians are atheists of Vishnu, Kali, Brahma, Ishtar, Zeus, etc. Almost everyone is an atheist when it comes to L Ron Hubbard. I'm exactly like the religious who are atheist about other gods, except I just am atheist about one more god.

Some will smugly say that they are are different versions of the same thing, all of them are manifestations of the same god, but almost all don't, except when it is convenient to say it.

Here is a muslim that seems urbane - but he says literally that Mohammed split the moon in half and went to heaven on a winged horse. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQ-Y5NWV9kc&t=870s

Religious code switch back and forth between religion being literal and it being a story, as it suits them at the time.

And I don't mean all religious, there might be one or two out of the billion christians in the world who don't.

mharig2• 3 years ago

That makes me stay apotheist.

fuzzfactor2• 3 years ago

None of this is supposed to be more important than the way you handle your shopping cart.

Unless maybe you're not getting any kind of exercise at all or something like that.

FrontierPsych2• 3 years ago

I would be, except for the fact that a religion like islam will cut off your head if you decide you don't believe in a god anymore. And christianity was like that as well, until the Western World secularized. With the ugly head of evangelicalism raising it's head, don't think that the USA couldn't backslide into a religious regression and start executing gay people or putting their own children to death if they disobey their parents, as the bible outlines that parents can do.

So yeah, I get your sentiment, but there are a whole lot of people out there who want the USA to go back to fundamentalism and have the church run the government, just like in Iran, except we will have a bunch of loathful evangelicals the power behind the presidency.

So personally, I think I have to fight religion at every point that I am able to fight. It's a war of ideas and ideas matter. Because ideas lead to actions.

Just sayin'.

Things I Want to Communicate to the Human Species Before I Die

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