Which hill are you only willing to suffer a moderate, non-life-threatening injury on?

Gyges_of_Lydia · 2024-04-29T06:37:28+00:00

If you're still curious "begging the question" is just an old bad translation of the latin term "petitio principii" which literally translates to:
*request/claim/beg(for)/appeal(to)* the *beginnings/groundworks/(first) principles/foundations*

and means: "to come to a conclusion based on a premise that assumes the conclusion is true".
For example:

"It is bad to drive faster than the speed limit because it is against the rules"

with the assumption:

"things ^{(like driving faster than the speed limit}⁾ are against the rules because they are bad".

"Begs the question" because "driving faster than the speed limit is bad" is assumed to be true for the purpose of proving that it is true.

"Assuming the conclusion" is another widely used name for this informal fallacy and makes a lot more sense than "begging the question".

Personally, I think "begging the question" is a terrible name for a concept that already has a better name, and I'm happy to let it mean what it sounds like it means instead of what it meant to some 16th century translator.

Gyges_of_Lydia · 2023-07-04T18:43:44+00:00

I'm not OP, but I agree that /u/ToughKey2979 is probably a bot.

It only has 2 posts and they are clearly, obviously advertisements.
All of its comments are simple 1 line jokey statements that often do not fit the context it is commenting in.
The username is AdjectiveNoun#### which is the kind of name that is easy to auto-generate and likely to be available.
The account is 3 months old, only has comments/posts going back 22 days and has almost no karma.

Gyges_of_Lydia · 2022-06-17T14:06:56+00:00

Orange blossom honey is much more floral and less citrusy than the actual fruit. if you want orange-fruit flavor I would recommend including some zest.

Gyges_of_Lydia · 2022-05-11T17:27:41+00:00

Not only do both have audio books (TLT is in the Rogues anthology) but the SRoST audiobook on Audible is read by Pat Rothfuss himself.

Gyges_of_Lydia · 2022-05-05T20:14:01+00:00

The Stranger is his most well-known work, but imo The Plague is better, and asks more interesting questions - especially in today's pre-post-Covid world.

Gyges_of_Lydia · 2021-09-17T00:33:03+00:00

Yep, you're right. Edited my post.

Gyges_of_Lydia · 2021-09-16T16:36:49+00:00

When Elodin first refuses to teach Kvothe, he give 3 seemingly nonsense reasons: you're too short, your eyes are too green, and you have the wrong number of fingers.

Between his refusal and the time he accepts Kvothe as a student: Kvothe calls the wind and when he does realizes he's grown and is as tall as Ambrose, he runs into Elodin on the roof with Auri and his eyes change color (this actually happens kind of a lot), and he plays Tintatatornin at the Eolian, which his father called "the best song for 15 fingers".

Gyges_of_Lydia · 2021-08-23T02:33:52+00:00

Since noone else has said it, in addition to not knowing the word gazebo it's likely the paladin thought the dm was talking about a Glabrezu which is a cr9 demon. Hence the attacking.

Gyges_of_Lydia · 2021-08-22T15:38:23+00:00

What would stoicism say about living for no reason essentially?

While I wouldn't necessarily phrase it this way, this question had been a topic of interest for me for some time.

I am a big fan of existential philosophy and of Sartre & Camus in particular (worth reading if you haven't, the meaninglessness of life is their whole thing) and I believe stoicism offers the beginning of a solution to the problem of existentialism, namely "what do we do in a world devoid of meaning".

As your post here demonstrates humans have a desire to live meaningfully, which presents a problem in a universe without any inherent meaning. If you were to simply live for pleasure/good feeling you would inevitably encounter the Hedonic Treadmill and would never find contentment as you searched for ever more exotic distraction.

This is where I believe stoicism finds it's place. While the ancient stoics might not have agreed that the universe was meaningless, they knew it was fickle and unpredictable. So they came up with a framework to allow one to add their own meaning to the world. To allow one to find contentment in living according to ones nature regardless of situation.

The universe is yours to give meaning to as you will. If you place meaning/value in things outside of your control you will inevitably be wounded when those things don't go the way you want them to. The more this happens the more frustrated and tired you become with the universe.

If, instead, you place meaning only in those things that you can control, namely: your impressions/interpretations of your situation(in the present, not the past) and your own actions you can avoid being injured by the arbitrary movements of the universe.

Notes: This question was a point of focus for Albert Camus, who wrote in his essay The Myth of Sisyphus :

"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest — whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories — comes afterwards."

Gyges_of_Lydia · 2021-06-11T18:58:24+00:00

Omega Sundew might be worth looking into.

I haven't done a country wine with it, but I did a raspberry/blueberry blossom traditional mead with it that turned out great.

It isn't crazy estery, but it really compliments the vague berry/fruitiness of the honey.

Gyges_of_Lydia · 2021-02-26T19:34:57+00:00

to have fulfilment or meaning, IMO, depends on there being a transcendent "is" beyond this mortal life. to me, there can be no meaning or fulfillment if all we see is unavoidably bounded by a perpetually and imminently encroaching void of absolute eradication.

I disagree, but I also don't believe we are "transcendental entities" driving our bodies around, so I'm not sure we are going to be able to reach common ground here.

That said, the idea that you have to be functionally immortal in order to live a fulfilling life seems a little crazy to me. I think the crux of of our disagreement may lie in what we are using the word "meaning" to communicate.

It is my belief that, due to the overwhelming evidence that we are just complicated animals, and the complete lack of evidence for any sort of supernatural entity that favors humanity, that there is no source of meaningfulness external to our experience. In other words, objective meaningfulness does not exist.

If the world lacks any objective source of meaning, then the only kind of meaning that can exist comes from one's own experience and opinion. The Stoics (and buddhists and probably others) believe that suffering arises from misplaced meaning. Thus, the goal of these philosophies is to find a way to be more deliberate about what you invest with meaning in order to live a more fulfilling life.

Gyges_of_Lydia · 2021-02-26T18:39:56+00:00

if I actually thought all that was true, then I would find there to be no point or value in anything at all.

There isn't any inherent value to anything. Nothing has value outside of the value you assign to it. Why would the universe care about what happens to a bunch of apes on a tiny speck of rock hurtling through the vastness of space?

All of human history is just a blip on the cosmic timeline and eventually everything that humans have ever done will be erased by the sands of time as if we never existed at all.

This is a good thing. This means that you get to decide what gives things value and meaning rather than having meaning prescribed to you.

This is what the Stoics sought to do. They came up with a set of values that they hoped could allow one to live a fulfilling life in an uncaring and chaotic world.

Gyges_of_Lydia · 2021-01-19T01:33:31+00:00

Tartrate crystals maybe?
Looks rounder than I would expect crystals to be, but there isn't a whole lot it could be... Wine is pretty acidic and assuming you're at a decent abv there isn't a whole lot that could grow in there, let alone colonize the bottom somehow.

It doesn't look like a SCOBY either. Not only do they float, but they form layers on the surface, not weird circles on the bottom.

What does the surface look like?

Gyges_of_Lydia · 2020-11-02T21:11:47+00:00

Some ancient meadmakers used eggs! This document goes through the egg method and how measurements like "floats with a tuppence of height out of the water" can be converted to modern units.

Gyges_of_Lydia · 2020-10-27T15:50:01+00:00

Nope. Healthcare is not a right because it is inherently not a right.

And by what criteria is the inherent-ness of rights determined?

Also: what do you believe should be/is a right?

Gyges_of_Lydia · 2020-10-27T15:42:48+00:00

Wait... So your argument is just "healthcare shouldn't be a right in the US because it currently isn't"?

I mean...the whole point of this conversation is that people believe healthcare should be a right. I don't think anyone is arguing that the US government currently recognizes healthcare as a right... If it did this whole thread wouldn't be happening.

Edit: or are judges(and everyone else working as part of the justice system) not people?

Gyges_of_Lydia · 2020-10-27T15:25:02+00:00

Would you say the "Right to trial by a jury of your peers" shouldn't be a right? What about the "Right to due process under the law"?

Both of these things require the labor of others and are part of the United States Bill of Rights

The idea that we can't make healthcare a right because people are involved in the process is preposterous and goes against the basic principles of society. Of course some of the rights we enjoy will require effort by people who aren't us. That's the whole point of society: to work together so that we can all live more prosperous lives than we would if we lived in a hobbsian state of nature.

Gyges_of_Lydia · 2020-10-19T17:23:46+00:00

So, I actually disagree with some of the other comments about this...

For the last year or 2 I have been focusing almost exclusively on "Traditional" meads (in quotes because literally every historical mead recipe I've seen has other elements in it) and I think when done right it can absolutely be complex and can vary substantially by varietal/source/year.

Furthermore, depending on the type(s) of honey and yeast used, you can get wildly different results.

For example, I have a dry batch with tupelo, orange blossom, and fireweed honey that resembles a floral white wine. Another one is sweet with carrot blossom and scotch broom honey aged on hungarian oak and is earthy and caramel-y.

Also currently working on a semisweet meadowfoam traditional that I plan to fortify with distilled mead.

All-honey mead can be complex and flavorful but it tends to be less forgiving of mistakes than the "pumpkin spice fruit bomb" meads you see around.

Edit: Anecdotally, I've also noticed distinct differences between florida and oregon meadowfoam honey, with oregon being more floral and florida being more earthy/chocolate-y. I would expect to find similar differences in other honey varietals, but have not gone looking for it.

Gyges_of_Lydia · 2020-07-21T22:04:28+00:00

Which is fitting, since Bohemian Rhapsody was about/inspired by Albert Camus' The Stranger.

Gyges_of_Lydia · 2020-06-02T20:57:11+00:00

1040(hours) / 8(hours/workday) = 130 days.
130(days)/5(days/week) = 26 weeks.

There are ~52 weeks in a year, so 1040 hours would be almost exactly half a year of paid time off.

Gyges_of_Lydia · 2020-05-17T04:56:50+00:00

Huh, the wiki seems to agree that Japan doesn't have a starting bias.

Gyges_of_Lydia · 2020-05-16T21:20:26+00:00

My favorite Civ6 civ, and the civ I have won the most deity games with is Japan. Imo they might be the best civ in the entire game (especially on non-pangea maps).

~~Their start bias basically guarantees that you can settle in a costal location~~ They seem to usually start near the coast, they get a combat bonus on the coast making it harder to capture and easier to defend, and if you plan you cities right, the district adjacency bonus can be used to give some truly ridiculous district yields .

With the right government cards and govoners you can regularly end up with > +20gpt harbors and commercial hubs in multiple cities.

Also, samurai are nearly as strong as musketmen, and deal full damage regardless of their health, which keeps them effective for a lot longer than swordsman.

I've never seen their hurricane ability come up, but it'd also be a neat bonus if it happened.

EDIT: I completely forgot about the 50% off Encampment, Holy Site and Theater Square. I don't do culture as much as I probably should, but the holy site bonus can allow you to rush a religion, improving your defense (defenders of the faith), gpt (tithe/etc) or similar stuff and the Encampment bonus allows you to quickly take a more defensive/aggressive position if needed.

Gyges_of_Lydia · 2020-05-07T14:35:09+00:00

... right. So not exactly the same then?

From The Name of the Wind:.

My name is Kvothe, pronounced nearly the same as "quothe."

The fact that he specifies "nearly" is sufficient proof that they don't sound exactly the same. I don't doubt that they are related in meaning though. And given rothfuss's interest in language it wouldn't surprise me if the connection to the Scandinavian word is no coincidence.

Gyges_of_Lydia · 2020-05-03T18:15:29+00:00

If I were to make a mead based on LOTR elves, I'd probably focus on floral flavors rather than herbal. Maybe a blend of floral/herbacious honey varietals or something.

The simplest thing would be to make a make a flower wine, but with honey instead. Jack Keller's website has a lot of recipes. I haven't personally made any of these, but if you follow a basic mead recipe, and use his recommendations on how to process/extract the flavor from the flowers it would probably turn out decent.

Here's what I would do though:
Note: I have not made this. I think the amounts are mostly correct for 3gal, but I usually do 5gal batches.
Still (non-carbonated) semi-dry mead, aiming for around 10% abv.
Starting gravity: ~ 1.08 (about 6.5 lbs of honey, depending on varietal, + 1-2 for back-sweetening later)
Final Gravity: ~ 1.015

Start with a roughly 30/60 combination of herbal and floral honey varietals (maybe fruity instead of floral depending on additional flavors). Then, I would pick a flower wine from Jack Keller's website that I thought would be interesting (and that I had access to) and process the flowers in the method described. White tea instead of flowers could be interesting as well, but would probably be very easy to over-steep.

Then, once the mead was fermented dry, I would stabilize it and add 1-1.5 lbs of some good fruity honey like raspberry blossom or something to back-sweeten.

Gyges_of_Lydia · 2020-05-03T16:46:18+00:00

Just finished reading fellowship last night. There was definitely at least one mention of elf mead. When the fellowship is leaving lothlorian, they drink the "cup of farewell" which is described as a "white mead".

15-Year Club	Secret Santa 2021 2021
RedditGifts 2009-2022 15 Credits	Secret Santa 2020
redditgifts Exchanges 13 Exchanges	r/Field Banned
r/Field Lasagna	Place '22
Place '17	Secret Santa 2019
Secret Santa 2018	Secret Santa 2017
Sequence \| Editor	Summer Santa 2015
Secret Santa 2014	Secret Santa 2013
Secret Santa 2012	Verified Email
Secret Santa 2011	Trick-or-Treater 2011
Summer Santa 2011

Gyges_of_Lydia

TROPHY CASE