>> there's a massive personal value to having a library used by large numbers of people.
I have no experience with this - would you kindly explain that value? I am guessing that it has something to do with personal brand (my library is popular => I am good at this, hire me) - am I on the right track? Is there more?
I would guess it is because there was no evolutionary pressure to have joints that can sustain 80 years if there are other parts of body that only sustain 18. Maybe I am missing something but I would expect that life expectancy of various parts of body of each specie converge because of that.
>> I'd happily trade a 10x higher death rate (to a high of 0.014%, mostly among people who weren't far off from dying anyways) in exchange for everyone having 2 years of having a non-miserable life.
1. I think you underestimate how much of that misery comes from the pandemic itself and not from the reaction to the pandemic. I live in a country that went back and forth between relatively strict lockdowns and almost complete opening up. Yet even during the opening up phase people were afraid it would inevitably cause another wave, many would not go to pubs or clubs, businesses were not thriving...
2. I think you might overestimate the misery, which depends on personality, details of the restrictions in a given country etc. I am sure many suffered under the restrictions and I do not want to diminish that. However, I live in a country where I could go out running or cycling and nobody would prohibit me from visiting my family or going for a walk with a friend even during the strictest lockdowns (I am actually surprised by some experiences mentioned here, like not being able to see new babies born in the family - I make a resolution to examine more carefully what people mean when they talk about "lockdowns"). And I could work from home, which greatly improved my quality of life. And I am not alone in this - we are saying with my introverted colleagues that the pandemic would be great if it was not for the illness.
For me, basically all the stress comes from the fear that my parents of my grandmother could catch it or that I will catch it and have the bad luck of some long term problems. Virtually none of the stress comes from the restrictions. Again, I don't doubt that many do suffer, I just wanted to balance your view by a counter-view.
I don't think it is contradictory - that is the point of adaptation that you expose yourself to something that is not optimal and your body learns to handle it. Think of it as artificially changing the range of conditions needed for good sleep quality by training.
>> the indignity of being forced to prove I'm human
Indignity, that's it! I was never able to explain to myself the visceral hate I feel when I encounter captcha. I knew it could not be explained by the little work it requires, I knew there had to be more, I just couldn't put my finger on it. Indignity, and maybe the feeling of being used.
I have to admit, When I encounter captcha, I leave that page and never come back. I stopped using Pocket where I had hundreds of articles because of that. And when I encounter captcha on an especially bad day, I spend a few minutes clicking on incorrect images in an attempt to mess up their data.
>> does not necessarily mean that mixedCase has problems with emotional intelligence
Don't you think they do, though? I mean... not even recognizing the dry humor and hyperbole with which this article was written and taking it literally?
I believe that part of the problem might be that people have lost "traffic reflexes" and situational awareness during lockdowns. Anecdotal evidence: as a cyclist I now encounter a lot more people suddenly stepping from the sidewalk right in front of me without looking. It feels like every week has a years worth of hairy situations when compared to pre-covid era.
It seems incorrect to use US homicide rate as an argument when talking about being "as safe as any Western Country". US is an outlier in that regard [0].
One anecdata point: I cannot easily suppress sneezing, at least not always. Delaying it for a second, for example when I am holding a cup of hot coffee and I want to put in on a table quickly before I sneeze, is sometimes possible, but I have to admit that sometimes I cannot even do that.
Does it really? I am from Europe and I have lived and worked in 3 EU countries, many of my friends have experience from other countries and I have never heard anyone mention this is. Obviously, my personal experience is limited. In what country do you live if I might ask?
Could you please explain to someone who is not from the US what is the justification behind this? It seems that it is not uncommon in the US that the employer has some rights to stuff you do in your free time - to me that seems as "reasonable" as "you sold me your house so your car is also mine now". What I do in my free time is none of my employer's business, why would they have any right to any of it?
I think it is still useful to read Freud, assuming you don't take it as gospel and consider when he wrote it and how little was known at the time. In my opinion, Freud was a brilliant man. The fact that some of his ideas are so obviously false today might serve as immunization against hubris, with which some of us do not realize that many of our ideas will seem absurd in a hundred years.
I have not read the book yet - would you please explain what about that priming section you did not like? Is it something specific that Kahneman says or the whole concept of priming? If it is the later, I would like to know what you critique, because I have always considered priming something obvious that I use to explain common life experiences without questioning it.