searabbit

Hamshahri newspaper said they were hit by an “Israeli drone strike”.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told the BBC they were unable to verify this unless provided with the co-ordinates of the alleged strike.

Journalist: They say you killed a child, is that true?

IDF: Do you have the slightest idea how little that narrows it down?

that’s how life was in those cultures

What are “those cultures”? Because the person you replied to only mentioned GoT and that’s not a real culture.

I think we agree for the most part. I also didn’t mean to imply reading literature = intelligent because I also don’t believe that. The people I described are people in my life who I believe are incredibly intelligent, just not academic.

On my last point, it’s my realist take. I have EDS (excessive daytime sleepiness), so even if I really really believe I will enjoy a tougher read, sometimes I can’t stay awake long enough to get through a page. During those periods, I’ll take the easier self help or scifi book to keep me going. But yeah, challenging ourselves is part of the joy. When I was a struggling college student, I became very depressed for a while, and I distinctly remember picking up a philosophy book at the city library and reading an excerpt about hedonism and eudaimonism which changed my outlook for the better. The idea that we need both short term pleasures and long-term purpose to feel happy/fulfilled helped me work through the challenges, making sure I still went out and had fun in between, which now I look back on with some sense of fondness and pride. I see reading a tough book that interests me in the same way.

for his essays, there is an excellent anthology available from Penguin, ‘The World-Ending Fire’.

Awesome! I’ll add that to my reading list :)

I love this comment and I’ll look into Wendell Berry since I haven’t heard of him before.

To add on, I’ve met a lot of otherwise smart people (smart as in curious and skeptical to not accept things at face value) who frustratingly have no interest in literature to flesh out their own philosophies about the world.

They’ll go on a rant about this or that and I’ll chime in to say, for example, “oh are you talking about prisoners dilemma?” or “you’re basically describing nihilism” or “well, that person likely disagreed with you because you are using different definitions of the same word/concept” and they’ll look at me with an expression of ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about and I don’t care.’ I’d be so happy to explain things or recommend what to research to engage with topics they’re clearly passionate about, but it’s sad to see the curiosity end so soon when so many people have collectively devoted lifetimes on expanding the ideas they think they just invented.

So I won’t comment on what makes someone intelligent (because you’ll never find me calling the people I described unintelligent), but if you want to improve your own, I emphatically agree on reading literature, even fantasy like Tolkien, whatever you enjoy.

Banksy’s lawyer, Mark Stephens, pushed back on the report and said the artist did not accept many parts of the investigation as accurate.

Stephens argued that revealing the artist’s identity would compromise his safety, intrude on his private life, and undermine his ability to work freely.

Reuters said it decided to publish because of what it described as strong public interest in a figure who has had a significant and lasting impact on culture, the art world, and public discourse.

This is why we can’t have superheros nice things smh

Lol it was cocaine and he got a visit from the fbi from what I heard but not much more than that. Rich kid of course.

I knew a kid in college who got drugs delivered straight to the dorm mailroom, so people can really be surprisingly brazen…

I’ve never met someone who decided to write a history book as a hobby. Just wanted to say that’s awesome, hopefully you can make it accessible online to other history buffs who may enjoy it!

“Just try to advocate for yourself,” she said. “Stand up for yourself the best that you can … I guess it didn’t go great for me, so — have better luck.”

That made me chuckle. Yeah pretty much. I’ve seen a lot of doctors for chronic issues over the years and it’s just really hard to know when to be pushy and when to shut up and trust them or give up and just get a second opinion. Although this was pretty blatant negligence. The guy didn’t even look at her head ffs.