Recent submissions

Comment · 4 years ago
His entire speech to Laertes was clear and actionable advice. And his advice to Ophelia was likely necessary for the time. Had no clue people thought him a fool until today.
Comment · 4 years ago
Absolutely, as someone that got 10+ hours of sleep year round for multiple years in high school (early bedtime, early waking), the dread of having to sit in a class and learn horrendous nonsense was more of a motivation to sleep in then actual physical necessity. I suspect it's the case for many adolescents who see little value in secondary courses.
Comment · 4 years ago
I can agree with this line of thought, however, I feel obliged to warn you where this supposed reality can lead and I want you to consider if this violates any other beliefs you may hold. Another poster mentioned that the English have a rather strong dislike of prescriptivism, I think this is true, although I only have anecdotal evidence for this. Following this I find that the English and there derivatives in America also have a strong belief in multiculturalism, or the idea that varying cultures/perspectives strengthens a group. I would say that in certain intervals these two cannot coexist. Taking the example of french Canadians, they are considered to be relatively intolerant compared to the rest of Canada when it comes to religion, culture, language, immigration, and other facets of multiculturalism in an attempt to protect themselves. Yet it was that same multiculturalist mindset that saved them when the English let off and accepted them into Canadian goverment, giving them many rights even above the rest of Canada. So you can see that the lack of defence against cultural change inevitably results in another culture with a more defensive nature taking ground... But if you attempt to fight back it wouldn't be multicultural of you... So you can see that these two beliefs conflict at certain extremes. Karl Popper would have considered this to be an example of the paradox of tolerance (And I would add intolerance, as too much language purity gets you into a situation where your parisian institute bans the word poggers).

With this in mind I find your purely relativistic idea that all languages are equal, or more importantly that we should treat them as all equal, as somewhat misguided, and in many ways supremacist (it is easy for the culturally dominant, in this case the english, to wave hands and act like everyone else is irrational for trying to protect their culture, when it is implicitly understood if they don't then English will swallow it whole).

Comment · 4 years ago
The quality of spoken English goes down over time as well, and as far as I know the English language has no institute or governing body which attempts to regulate it. It seems to me that the languages erode regardless of the rules in place to become more convenient for people. It is a shame culturally but at the same time it is difficult to blame people for speaking conveniently. It will be interesting to see where this takes both languages in 50 to 100 years.
Comment · 4 years ago
>Continuing with a warning: it was found that approximately 60% of people have previously broken off a relationship due to a kiss, possibly due to genetic incompatibility.

Source? Need to know just in case.

Comment · 4 years ago
Comment · 4 years ago
I suppose the problem is that in the abortion debate the pro life side believes the unborn fetus is being forced to live (or rather not live) according to another belief system. It's a matter of perspective I guess.
Comment · 4 years ago
>They didn't do much colonization because they were too busy fighting wars with each other

No, nearly every one of the countries I listed had simply no intention or means to colonize effectively at a profit, has nothing to do with preoccupation with continental wars.

> Also something that should not be easily forgotten or ever forgiven is the missionary work by religious groups

Again, all of the countries I mentioned had very little if not null participation in this, and yet to varying degrees they are being punished for it...

Comment · 4 years ago
(Relatively) Low rates of foreign immigration despite ageing population, strong central goverment with the intention of weakening external and internal influences (See Uyghurs / western chinese territories for an example of internal influences, for external influences the great firewall is an obvious one, but there are many others), and third a general ethno-nationalist mentality from many, but not all Han chinese, encouraged by the central state and the general culture.
Comment · 4 years ago
Many did, but many did not, entirety of eastern europe (minus Russia), germany, nordics, balkans, and central european states had no history of colonization or very little, and even then it was not in the regions most associated with migration to europe. Only things besides colonization that come to mind are wars in the middle east, and every country I listed besides germany is too small to matter in that.
Comment · 4 years ago
>You cannot influence without being influenced.

Why not? China has massive influence in many countries, and they seem to retain a lot of their culture while suppressing any internal change/dissent. It would seem to me that many European countries have simply decided they would like to be influenced for whatever reason, not that they are compelled to by some universal rule.

Comment · 4 years ago
It started out as a pc gaming type thing, so yeah, most of it is men, but the choice of server matters and they have expanded and rebranded a lot. If you are going on political servers it's already not worth it and you missed the point with discord, stick to small servers made by friends, people to play games with, or communities dedicated around 1 thing like open source projects or some specific media, etc. Once servers become too general or inclusive the system breaks, but even then on large servers (political or not), 4chan is not tame in comparison.
Comment · 4 years ago
Once you give your data away no regulation can keep it safe, it is already compromised the second it is given.
Comment · 4 years ago
Source on this? I heard they banned microbeads in toothpaste, does this remove all plastics or is there more?

Live from the official Hacker News API

A modern reader for Hacker News · SvelteKit + Skeleton