How would you change the world? (no politics)

[OldMadBrit]

I have an audiobook that is about Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and Mohammed. It's a series of lectures. At the very end it was pointed out that they shared many similarities.....

Its been seriously argued that all of the monotheistic religions share common roots. There is pretty much a shared timeline between Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Its pretty cool that we can even say that without being burnt at the stake for heresy.

 

[TylerW]

That's what ISIS and Al Qaeda want, for sure. And I know Ed Gein wanted to improve the world, as did Charles Whitman.

There is genuine evil in the world. but it is far more rarified than most people are comfortable admitting.

It is so much easier to explain away another's actions as malicious than it is to try and understand their behavior.

 

[DataDan]

OTOH, people generally have 10 fingers and 10 toes - hence the decimal system. Also, the metric system - as originally designed - is based on the size of planet Earth.

One meter was originally defined as one ten-millionth of the distance from the Equator to the North Pole. A centimeter is 1/100 of a meter. A cube 10 cm on each side is a liter, and a liter of water weighs a kilo.

I learned metric first, and to this day the Imperial system confuses the hell out of me. Like, why are there fluid ounces and volume ounces? How many ounces in a gallon? Who the fuck decided that there should be 5280 feet in a mile? Etc.

Imperial units have useful factoring properties. A yard can be divided into 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 12, 18, or 36 equal parts measured in integer inches. Try that with a meter. A gallon is 128 or 2^7 fluid ounces--4 quarts or 8 pints. A pound is 2^4 ounces. Four ounces is a Quarter-Pounder (except in France where it's a "Royale with Cheese"). One fluid ounce of water weighs one ounce (called an avoirdupois ounce).

English coinage had similar properties before they went decimal. Twelve pence to a shilling, 20 shillings to a pound. So a shilling could be split 2, 3, 4, 6, or 12 ways. Unfortunately, harder to accommodate when writing code.

 

[afm199]

Feedback loops, lots of feedback loops:
People who build or operate facilities should be required live next door and to breath and drink the output
Whoever invented those incredibly annoying reversing beepers should be required to listen to it 24/7
No leader can start a war without their kids being in the first wave (and you cant become a leader until you have successfully raise at least one child to adulthood
School administrators may only eat school food
Developers may not use any part of a city street to stage their building equipment of supplies
Cause an accident in rush hour traffic, get charged for all of the lost time for everybody's delay
If you need to drive your kid to school, drive the school bus
For every new law added, one old law must be rescinded
Every dwelling should have a large plaque outside documenting how the owner made the money to purchase it

arty I feel a sudden fondness for you.

 

[afm199]

There is genuine evil in the world. but it is far more rarified than most people are comfortable admitting.

It is so much easier to explain away another's actions as malicious than it is to try and understand their behavior.

I agree with the second statement, not the first.

Every human has genuine evil within. Heritage, education, power, and circumstance determine how that comes out.

 

[byke]

All derivatives of fear tho.

 

[Kurosaki]

Make mayonaise illegal.

:laughing

 

[wazzuFreddo]

Make mayonaise illegal.



:laughing

Can I still use Miracle Whip?

 

[Kurosaki]

Can I still use Miracle Whip?

 

[wazzuFreddo]

Damn

 

[W800]

That's what ISIS and Al Qaeda want, for sure. And I know Ed Gein wanted to improve the world, as did Charles Whitman.

Agreed. That's why I don't think one can change the world by trying to change the world. We can only change the world by changing ourselves.

Also, it's entirely asymmetrical. There is not a way to oppose this kind of change.

 

[mikev]

(loosely simplified: what promotes an environment where everyone can do their best).

like I said.

boobies.

 

[Eldritch]

What individual actions do you think people could take to make the world better? This is about what people can do individually, not government. So no politics please.

My top 3 are:

1) be grateful

2) treat all people with kindness and respect

3) volunteer for something, or help others

Stop allowing emotions to influence decision making. Let that be all 3.

 

[littlebeast]

like I said.

boobies.

as someone in perpetual search of the perfect bra, i’d say ‘hold that thought’. :laughing

 

[TylerW]

Stop allowing emotions to influence decision making. Let that be all 3.

So if your child was diagnosed with a terminal cancer, you wouldn't invest any resources into prolonging their life? You'd just have the doctor euthanize them immediately, because anything else would be a drain on the family's finances?

I often believe that the folks who align with this kind of thinking haven't ever had to make difficult decisions but I don't believe that's the case with you. I'd be interested in hearing more about this perspective.

 

[kevin 714]

Stop allowing emotions to influence decision making. Let that be all 3.

youre smart enough to know all decisions involve an emotional component and its impossible to separate emotion and rationality in the human mind, their connection is structural

 

[TylerW]

3 Make something of value. There's too much crap, services, and other programs that provide no tangible value to society. Some of it exists just to mitigate the issues caused by the products of not meeting the first two items.

Impossible to measure. The concept of value is tremendously subjective.

 

[HappyHighwayman]

Humanity is doomed

 

[stangmx13]

This thread is already showing the difficulty of "improving" the world. Say the US did switch to metric. A lot of people will be pissed. But we need to be compassionate and respect their experience. But we are using metric now, so too bad. But imperial has some benefits that are actually based on facts. Again, too bad. But switching will be fucking expensive cuz thats a lot of labels and signs to replace, which will be worse for poor people. Too bad, metric is better. Can you say clusterf*.

That being said, heres my list:
1. Learn how to be wrong
2. Learn from your mistakes.
3. Learn that you won't always get your way and thats ok.

 

[TylerW]

I use both imperial and metric measurements in my design work. Sometimes one is just more elegant than another. Generally speaking if it's smaller than 8" and demands more than .125" of precision, I'm thinking in millimeters. Otherwise it's inches.

It sounds silly to say that my desk is 740mm tall, but 29" works nicely.

11mm makes more sense than .4325", and fractions are stupid.