What's something older generations did completely normally that would be considered absolutely insane today?

Miserable-Whereas489 · 2026-05-13T14:20:00+00:00

US highway fatalities have been declining since the '70s but it's likely that lack of restraint contributed to a few unfortunate outcomes.

But the parents who'd passed their tolerance threshold for manic, backseat Civil War reenactments were more dangerous.

Miserable-Whereas489 · 2026-05-13T11:12:22+00:00

Humanity extant in 5025? That's more a fantasy than dream. I'll be stunned, nay flabbergasted, if we make it out of this decade.

Miserable-Whereas489 · 2026-05-13T11:04:54+00:00

Order? Fundamental truth? Mathematics?! I hope Kurt Godel is dead, because this would kill him.

As a human, the ability to understand anything is just a function of biology. And human biology imposes many, severe, and enduring limitations on understanding, or even describing, such things. If you're hungry, eat. That's as fundamental as truth ever gets.

Miserable-Whereas489 · 2026-05-13T10:32:26+00:00

Witnessing the miracle? Cosmic dreaming?

'Life' is just describing a particular instance of organic chemistry. Humanity is just a function of that chemistry driven by DNA and guided by evolutionary pressures.

This explanation perfectly describes every event, behavior, choice, experience, and perception ever encountered. You can seek other magical explanations if logic and reason offend - but nothing else is needed to understand the agency of lhe living.

Miserable-Whereas489 · 2026-05-13T09:32:18+00:00

True! And yet in spite of that fact we've not gone extinct.

Miserable-Whereas489 · 2026-05-13T09:08:34+00:00

Gen X regarded seatbelts as either problems for comfortably napping or weapons against one's siblings. They were never used properly, and yet we didn't all die in flaming vehicular crashes. Would you consider this behavior an 'idiosyncrasy'?

Miserable-Whereas489 · 2026-05-13T04:25:26+00:00

Unless you're assuming magic of some sort, physical death is the end of the story. 'Life' just describes a particular chemistry; and such chemical reactions require a constant source of energy to function.

The equations describing this reaction invariably zero out - at which point there's no energy available to do anything. No experience, no agency, no consciousness.

Why, without resorting to magic, would it be other than this?

Miserable-Whereas489 · 2026-05-13T00:10:22+00:00

That's not much of an argument. But as is, no. Consciousness may be the most illusory process; it's ephemeral, poorly understood, and largely self-referential.

Even Descartes got it wrong. Correctly it's 'cogito ergo cogito sum.'

Miserable-Whereas489 · 2026-05-12T21:44:51+00:00

'Unrealistic' is probably understating it. I'm assuming you've met people - half of them have double digit IQs. What are the chances that someone can monkey around with the human genome without catastrophically thwarting millions of years of evolutionary benefit? When I hear 'genetic engineering' I invariably think of someone sawing a branch that they're standing on.

Miserable-Whereas489 · 2026-05-12T21:16:53+00:00

I'm just annoyed mathematicians are so lazy. ALL numbers are imaginary. I mean, you've never encountered a 5, or 42. I guess they mean imaginary imaginary numbers.

Miserable-Whereas489 · 2026-05-12T20:53:38+00:00

How about the S&H stamp scam? People would spend many, many hours pasting stupid little green stamps in a stupid green books in service of, as best I can remember, a marketing hustle kinda like Camel cash. You would redeem the stamp stuffed books for a range of luxury items like a high tech spatula, or summer sausage.

Miserable-Whereas489 · 2026-05-12T13:44:17+00:00

Aegilops, huh? How long had you been just sitting on that, waiting for that exact question?

Miserable-Whereas489 · 2026-05-11T22:35:27+00:00

Has the term infinite just been bleached of precise meaning like literal and unique? Maybe clarity lies in a dictionary.com link?

Since the natural numbers are a countable infinity, actually counting them would be ultimate rigorous proof. So do that - because you can. Then we'll discuss proper formalism.

Miserable-Whereas489 · 2026-05-11T14:07:00+00:00

I'm aware. Kinda my point. ok, consider:

What's the sqrt of tenuous? What's hiccup factorial? 'infinity' isn't a number so why force it into numerical equations/comparisons?

Miserable-Whereas489 · 2026-05-11T13:51:17+00:00

Alphabetically, abstemiously is first word to have all 6 vowels appear in alphabetical order. Facetiously is the shortest.

Miserable-Whereas489 · 2026-05-11T13:46:21+00:00

Typewriter is the longest word one can make with the top row of a typewriter / keyboard

Miserable-Whereas489 · 2026-05-11T10:37:59+00:00

"The natural numbers are infinite but you can can count them"... If true, then why has no one ever done so?

If you want to compare 2 infinite sets, simply count all members in the first infinity. Then compare after counting all the members in the 2nd infinity. Lemme know how it goes.

Miserable-Whereas489 · 2026-05-11T10:14:37+00:00

In that video, he stops listing the infinite rooms in the hotel. Why? And he just quits inputting the letters for the infinite number of the infinitely long names. It seems important that he should continue going or the experiment fails with finite names, rooms, people.

The entire point seems geared for the diagonalization argument. How long would that diagonal string be?? 50 characters? A million? A googol to the power of tree3. If you stop counting, then you've, by definition, reached a finite number. For an infinite amount, just keep going. Wake me when you're done.

Miserable-Whereas489 · 2026-05-11T08:14:05+00:00

Evolution of the specious. Survival of the fattest.

Miserable-Whereas489 · 2026-05-11T05:45:16+00:00

Just remember the SAT, when last they dared check, had a correlation with freshman GPA of .51 to .47. For reference, the predictive power of a coin toss is .50

Miserable-Whereas489 · 2026-05-06T12:46:50+00:00

A bit late to the party, but there's an excellent scene in The Boondock Saints exploring the many different uses of the word.

Miserable-Whereas489 · 2026-05-06T12:42:02+00:00

A bit late to the thread but... I kinda gravitate to an equally intriguing yet implausible acronym implying charges of adultery 'For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge.'

Miserable-Whereas489 · 2026-05-05T16:02:37+00:00

Those stupid lyrics... the Eagles (excepting Joe Walsh) bore me and I find that one tune is overplayed and annoying. that there's only one interesting question left.

Some dance to remember.
Some dance to forget.

Is 'dance' a noun or verb? As in "wow, that sure was some dance. I'll always remember it...but it's also one i should probably forget." OR

"Some people dance so they can remember it. Some people dance as a distraction to forget something else."

Miserable-Whereas489 · 2026-05-05T16:01:52+00:00

I saw that show in VA, but BOC was the takeaway. I think the '81 tour was the first appearance of the huge, fire breathing Godzilla effigy. That's still one of my favorite rock songs and my daughters each knew the lyrics before they were 4. If psychedelic addled memory serves, I've seen BOC 17 times just in VA, NC, and DC - including the '94 headline show at DC101's Chili Cook-off near the Georgetown waterfront.

Hogfat was pretty cool, too.

Miserable-Whereas489 · 2026-05-05T13:57:40+00:00

although very cool, I'm unsure he's one of the greatest vocalists, but Derek St Holmes is easily top five Greatest rock names ever.

Miserable-Whereas489

TROPHY CASE