mozz

I know another planet that we should be worrying about terraforming through technology solutions first, though

100% serious

Every single American who isn’t living in a yurt is carrying or wearing or interacting with made-in-China merch, most of the time as they go about their day.

It says that they couldn't process the entire concept of blue, because they didn't have a name for it. Actually it goes further than that:

Extending his research, he discovered that references to the color blue were absent from all Greek literature. German Jewish philosopher Lazarus Geiger followed Gladstone's lead, analyzing ancient Icelandic sagas, the Koran, Hindu, Chinese folklore, Arabic, and an ancient Hebrew version of the Bible. Geiger found that blue was missing in these texts too. His findings underscored a widespread absence of blue in ancient writings, reshaping our understanding of historical color perception.

In the absence of specific terminology to describe the color blue, scholars were compelled to entertain the possibility that ancient societies didn't perceive this hue, leading to its omission from their lexicon. Were the visual faculties of ancient peoples markedly distinct from our own? What accounts for the apparent oversight of blue in their observations?

I mean she's sort of doing the Tucker Carlson thing here; she doesn't exactly come out and say that all of those cultures didn't have blue because they didn't have the word blue. But she does say in the headline that they couldn't see blue.

I did one DDG search for "word for blue in ancient hebrew," and found this. If what she was saying was what you were saying, I would think it made quite a bit of sense, but as it is I stand by my assessment.

Like reading the wikipedia article about how did this myth develop and what is the actual linguistic shift that was what was going on and some other examples, that was cool to me. And also I learned something from it. I'm not trying to be super critical of this person just writing an article but it just seems like way too much of it is just wrong, but then phrased in this "wouldn't it be cool if" type of way that shields it from being a problem that it's wrong.

Maybe you are gone already so won't see this.

But I actually agree with your central point that the politics and tech communities on Lemmy are full of strife and hostility that doesn't need to be there. Actually most of the rest of it seems fine, but if you care about politics or tech, the quantity of dickheads get hard to ignore.

My strategy has been to pretty aggressively cull some communities out of my subscriptions, and then make a little hobby out of attempting to disagree with some of the dickheads good naturedly in places I still subscribe to. Be the change you want to see in the world and etc. I don't always succeed.

I have to say, skimming over your user, that it looks to me like most of the time when you get downvotes, it's not because of anything opinion based, but because you're being hostile and dismissive of the other person's point of view -- sometimes like instantly right out of the gate, like "oh great I'm sure this thread is going to be FULL of people saying wrong opinion X which is obviously wrong"... which is exactly what you're saying you're sick of. IDK, man, you could be right or wrong. But being hostile about it and actively trying to pick fights with the other viewpoint even before anyone has shown up to express it seems like it's not exactly gonna draw people gathering around you throwing roses and warmly embracing you if that's what you're looking for. If you're looking for lots of fighting then sure but it sounds like that is not what you are after.

Like I say I gave up on certain communities because of what you're saying. I won't say at all that your assessment is wrong. But also I do think there's a certain degree to which (again just saying what I've seen looking back a little) you've created exactly the strife as well on your side.

They missed by far the most important one:

I just wanted to confirm from our meeting just now, did you want me to (some crazy shit that could cause problems)?

(and DO NOT do any of the crazy shit until you have the email confirming it)

So I started skimming the article and:

Gladstone noticed Homer described the sea color as “wine-dark,”

I KNEW IT

It's the fuckin Greek thing again.

Listen, I'll tell a story in three parts.

1. People started saying a few years ago that ancient Greeks didn't make a distinction between blue and red, because look at what Homer said, and the sea is obviously not wine colored. Or maybe they had blue wine? But anyway we think they thought they were the same color.
2. I always thought it was a bunch of shit. Blue and red are different. They're so clearly different that some people morphed the whole thing into a lack of distinction between blue and green, since that makes quite a bit more sense sense and there definitely are cultures that don't have different names for similar colors like blue and green that English has different words for. But anyway, the issue here was blue and red, and to me, I was always convinced that it was a bunch of shit.
3. And look - I WAS RIGHT. I was all ready to write up #1 and #2 in answer to your question and agreeing with you, but without the punchline, but just now I looked it up to be able to bitch about it a little more effectively, and learned that smart people have in the meantime figured out that the whole "wine dark sea" thing was talking about the sea being dark in brightness, like wine is dark, i.e. not light and clear and happy like the Mediterranean often is. But still colored blue presumably. So, not a bunch of surprising and confusing stuff about "blue=red" that sounds suspiciously like nonsense, but something that's perfectly sensible.

TL;DR you are correct. Blue is blue and always was. The people who are telling you blue and red used to be the same are probably just confused, and if Homer comes into the equation then that's a telltale sign that they are absolutely confused and you don't have to listen to them.

Acting aggresively, but in a carefully crafted way to avoid an escalated response. The message sent internally that the other side restrains themselaee not out of reason, but fear.

That actually might be it. We can't look to people in our own government / own country like we're anything other than the boss and everyone knows it, but also, we definitely don't want to pick a massive fight with another nuclear armed power and our biggest trading partner for literally no reason at all. And so, let's play this stupid fighter-plane-chicken game with them and spin it at home like we're out there telling them what's what.

IDK if I buy it. It sorta makes sense.

It's hard to square that, though, with actually fucking up the sailors on Filipino ships in a way that seems like it should demand some kind of response. Maybe the orders were to just be pushy in a non-escalational way and things got out of hand on the ground in a way that for-real wasn't intended?

That "China/Taiwan" is just kinda thrown in there without even an asterisk or anything

(Actually I guess leaving Taiwan out of the legend entirely would have looked like an accident or something, and having a separate color for it would have been a huge deal and they'd have started to get phone calls, and so they just shrugged and put that down and said you know what it's not a perfect world let's move on)

But they do this shit with the US too. Their fighter planes play the "I'm not touching you I'm not touching you" game with US aircraft right up until the point it turns into the "oh no I did touch you and now I'm dead and my airplane is falling apart in fiery chunks and your airplane is crippled what an exercise in futility that whole thing was" game.

Like I say, I won't even say that that didn't impact US policy in some way similar to what they wanted. I don't know that it did but I don't know that it didn't. Overall my main reaction is just wtf are you guys doing why is your strategy like this.

(I do of course suspect that they will not try to play the firehoses and spear wielding game with the US Navy. Just some similar version of the same type of tactics.)

The Chinese are pursuing a very weird passive aggressive strategy here that I do not at all understand.

"Surely if we spray water at the other boats and run our boats into them and jump on board the opposing ships with poking weapons like some kind of Maori tribesmen the rest of the world will get sick of it and go away and give us what we want i.e. full control of the South China Sea, without us having to actually start a war about it"

I really don't understand. I can't even say for sure it is a bad idea, because like I say I just don't understand, but it seems unlikely that it's going to produce the impact that they seem like they want it to produce.

Yeah. Not everything has to be a movie. If you want the little dudes to do exactly what you had laid out for them, get some action figures man. If you want your players to play on the playground just give them some toys, a rough objective, and let 'em run around.

If you want your players to interact with something, make it either related to something they already care about and actively want to achieve, or else thrust them into the middle of it without any choice about it. If instead of that you turn them loose in the dungeon and they just run around having fun killing monsters and having hijinx then there is nothing in the world wrong with that and it is the expected result

Hey guys I'm starting to think this guy Trump isn't even all that good at running the money side of the operations