I was recently on a topic and a commenter referred to God this way. I can't seem to find it now. If it was you, or you know anything about this, I'm curious why that phrase? What does it mean? Is it associated with a particular tradition?

Also, is there a way to search for specific text on Tildes?

My contribution:

It's 2:17am on a school night, you're a teenager, and you're googling "most disturbing movie ever made" - because you can. Among mentions of films like A Serbian Film and Audition, you also notice that a film with two names is commonly mentioned: Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom. Huh, even the name sounds creepy. After looking behind you to make sure no one's watching, a brief glance at a summary of the movie explains enough to make you want to forget about the whole thing forever. Regardless, you fall further down the Wikipedia hole... (or in my case, you really do forget about it for 10 years, only to unfortunately stumble across it again yesterday.)

Salò was made in 1975 and is based on a novel written by Marquis de Sade in 1785. It is known as one of the most disturbing films ever made, but as I learned recently, the film and novel somewhat pale in comparison to the real life of the author. Sade was a French guy who committed all manners of wild, outrageous, and terrible behavior throughout his life, and his Wikipedia page is a crazy ride. You know the word "sadism?" This man is literally the etymological origin of sadism. (Also, practically his whole existence requires a content warning. In this case, it seems that the art has never been separate from the artist.)

In 1763, Sade was charged with "outrage to public morals, blasphemy and profanation of the image of Christ," which at first makes him seem pretty cool. Alas, it all goes downhill from here, as he was known as a nuisance and danger to every community he lived in.

Later, when Napoleon Bonaparte issued a warrant for his arrest after being offended by his novels, Sade was imprisoned, then had to transfer prisons because he was being such a disgusting sex pest to other prisoners at the first one. His family had him declared insane and moved to an insane asylum. While in the asylum, he was permitted to direct and perform his plays, using the other patients as actors. Somehow, even when living amongst the most underprivileged members of society in prisons or insane asylums, it seems that Sade was never fully prevented from promoting his ideas and art to the world, even though the subjects he explored were universally horrifying to society - then, as well as now. I found this fascinating.

Sade wrote The 120 Days of Sodom on scraps of paper while in an insane asylum in 1785, and lost it in the Storming of Bastille during the French Revolution. It was somehow rescued (eternally unbeknownst to him,) and was finally published in 1904, to eventually be adapted into the film that sent me down this whole rabbit hole.

While reading about Sade's life, I was surprised not only by the major events in history he was present for, but the lasting impact he had on philosophy, art, and culture. As mentioned above, the word "sadism" has its roots in his name. The Surrealists adopted him as an inspiration in the 1920s, dubbing him the "Divine Marquis" and praising his ideas about "sexual freedom." (Side note: I love surrealism, but I swear, I never stop discovering new, unsettling facts about Dali and his ilk.) Along with Surrealism, he is said to have had great influence over Modernist art. Some consider his work to be a precursor of nihilism. Sade also influenced Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche, and at least one serial killer.

Discussion

Learning about this guy left me astounded, and I just needed to share with someone. Could I have just posted the Wikipedia article? Yes, but that's not as fun as writing down this crazy story and some of my feelings about it. (Note: I did not link sources excessively in this post, as it generally follows the structure of the Wikipedia article and sources can be found there.)

I couldn't believe I didn't already know about Marquis de Sade before today (maybe because I've never taken a philosophy class?) It also got me thinking that I'd like to hear about any other outrageous, controversial, or just plain strange characters in history that you might know of. Even the other historical figures mentioned above have pretty wild lives themselves. (And on the other hand, I suppose there's so much here to chew on that we may just discuss Sade in general. If so, have at it. I'm particularly fascinated by how such a sick individual has heavily influenced significant parts of our culture, and how to feel about that.)

Fun facts are welcome, considering I certainly didn't bring any.

Hi logophiles! I am a total word nerd. Over the last six years--mostly accidently--I ended up creating a bunch of vocabulary learning materials and spent way too much time thinking deeply about how we learn new vocab and how to teach it. My story: basically, via word of mouth, people with kids taking the SSAT and the SAT kept asking me for my materials which I continually iterated on as I got feedback. It wasn't my day job, lol, it wasn't even a side hustle.... just an obsession :) As I shared my "system", I kept dreaming of even better ways to make vocab learning effective, easy, and fun.

Some interesting things about learning vocab. The "keyword method" is extremely effective. (The keyword method is associating a target word with a similar-sounding word (the "keyword") and then creating a vivid mental image connecting the keyword with the target word.) [Ávila & Sadoski, 1996; Shapiro & Waters, 2005]. Further, connecting the new word and its meaning to your own personal experience is much effective than rote memorization. ("...engaging in deeper semantic processing and relating information to personal experiences can activate distinct neural circuits compared to those involved in rote memorization." [Andreasen, O'Leary, Cizadlo, Arndt, Rezai, Watkins, Ponto, & Hichwa, 1995]).

There are a lot of other cool things I discovered on my (research-obsessive) path to make learning vocab radically easier. A core driver for me has always been thinking about the epistemology of word-learning. What does it mean to "know" a word? "Knowing" a definition is different from truly knowing a word, where you can deploy it effortlessly when the context is right. That led to endless rabbit holes of learning about polysemy, colocations, and a whole lot more.

The first day I saw Dalle my jaw dropped. This was it! This was the missing piece for learning vocab 2x, 3x, 4x(?) more efficiently than has ever been possible. The image generation AI tools can make a custom image that packs in your own favorite keyword mnemonic and your own personal story into a cool image. Whoa! Because what has been my total obsession could finally be created in the real world, I teamed up with two good friends with the technical chops to build what had been percolating in my brain for six years. We've built a beta version over the last four months and it is ready to test!

I love Tildes, and I don't want to self-promote, so I am not going to drop the app name / website, but I am here with an ask. We want feedback! We want to make this the dream app for anyone who is serious about growing their (English) vocab. We want you in our beta test group.

The commitment I'm asking of our beta testers is a bit onerous. I want to hop on a zoom call with you while you use the app for an hour or so and have you tell me what you love and hate. I want to ask you a bunch of questions about what you want to see in your dream learning app. Then I want to give you the app for a month a two; hopefully you'll use it and learn a bunch of words; then I want to hop on a 20 minute call with you and get your hot take on the whole thing.

It is such an intense passion project for me; I want to make the app just rock-your-world-awesome. That's why I want to do live user interviews. (Which is a little out of the ordinary for sure.) And I can't do that without talking to real people who care about growing their vocab who are willing to hang out with me for an hour or two. :)

As a thanks for your help, when we go to the paid version, you'll get three months free, and a massive lifetime "friends and family" discount. But more than that, you'll really impact what we build next, and how we can make it better. While it's maybe a little idealistic, or might even sound silly to some, I feel like better vocab = better communication = better relationships. So I am all-in, fervently devoted, and hopeful that you'll come along for the ride and help me make it epic.

Who is it for? Studying for standardized tests? Oh yeah. This will help a lot. Want to raise the ceiling on what you can read. Let's go! Want to improve your English skills? This is for you. Love words. Yep! I'd love to meet you! Basically, if you love words, and/or have something coming up that requires that you know more words, I really hope you'll be part of our test!

More interesting stuff about vocabulary:
--Average high school graduate has a vocab size of 16,000 words
--Average college grad, 20,000 words
--Average PhD. 28,000 words

Tildes is a very smart and well read group, so I' bet the average vocab size around here is 25,000 to 35,000. Want to know your (approximate) vocab size. One of the best (easy and fast) tests is here:
https://preply.com/en/learn/english/test-your-vocab
(I have nothing to do with that site or company, and do not endorse them. It's just that their vocab size estimator is really well done.)

Want to be a beta tester, or just talk more about vocab, shoot me a message!
pandacat@onmail.com

Let's hear about religious and spiritual (maybe philosophical?) beliefs not considered "mainstream" in the modern West.

The percentage of people who identify as "spiritual", "other", or "none" is rising at the expense of larger "organized" religions.

Disclaimer: it's hard if not impossible to draw hard lines around what is considered a "religion" verses a philosophy, culture, or mere ritual or traditional practice. If you aren't sure if what you believe fits the prompt, err on the side of sharing.

Things that probably fit the prompt:

• Minority religions
• Native beliefs/cultures
• Highly syncretic beliefs
• Non-western religions or beliefs
• "Pagan" beliefs
• Esoteric or occult beliefs or practices

Things that might not fit the prompt

• Mainstream Christian beliefs or traditions
• Naturalism or a lack of belief in any particular religious or spiritual tradition

I don't exclude these two categories because they aren't important, but because they are incredibly important, and most of what we think about religious or spiritual beliefs exist in frameworks created by the above two groups. I want to use this opportunity to learn about others, and I feel that I already know a good bit more about atheism and mainstream Christian theism than most other perspectives.

This is a sensitive subject that is tied deeply to people's sense of meaning; please treat your fellow commentor's beliefs, cultures, and values with respect. Thank you in advance for your input and perspective.

Hello! My wife's grandfather would say the phrase "ʃɛkrɛplj jɛɽɛ" from what I can decode from the phonetic alphabet on Wikipedia, or my best English estimation "shikrepple yere" with a flipped r if that makes no sense. He would say this when he lost a hand in poker, when she repeated it as a kid got chewed out and told not to say it, and he died without having ever said what it meant. He was stationed in Germany during the Korean War, so our best guess is something Polish..? But we can't find much that matches.

Tilderinos, can you translate what horrible phrase my wife has been casually repeating to people trying to figure it out and what language it's even in? Apologies if this is a slur or something... And thanks!

So I recently got back from a very comforting trip to my motherland in Taiwan. I always joke that when I get back from Asia my Chinese gets better by a lot.

One thing I kinda wish I was better at was reading Traditional Chinese, since it's one of the barriers I have for fully communicating with my family and dimishes my confidence when navigating Taiwan.

Don't get me wrong, I'm fluent in speaking, I've had full on conversations with native Taiwanese and they're always surprised that I'm from America.

At the same time I feel like I should be keeping up with the news and general day to day life in Taiwan, since I plan on visiting more often because my grandparents are getting older and I really miss the country a lot.

I know we have a couple of people who are in East Asian countries/Taiwanese/Taiwanese-adjacent, I was wondering if y'all had any suggestions on things like news channels on YouTube or day in the life content that I can follow along with and match characters to practice my reading a bit. I can read at maybe a kindergarten level if that helps LOL.

(That title is kind of awkward, feel free to suggest a better one.)

I came across aini's channel on Youtube a while back. She does videos on different topics focused on East Asia. Her most recent video being "Why Chinese People Will Choose $5 Over $10".

I'm especially interested in native creators; those who can present a personal view from the inside. Even more so for countries that are not as well-covered for whatever reason—like places with less technological access or government limitation.

My own preference is for a more analytical presentation. I.e. looking through an academic lens incorporating sociology, psychology, etc, rather than "footage of daily life". That style is still welcome, of course!

I'm looking for a French grammar checker. I think I'm in that intermediate-level plateau where I just need to keep talking / chatting in French but I want to eventually get to a point where I have correct grammar, maybe even some suggestions for idioms.

Some info for my use-case:

• I don't expect to go past 100 "consultations" a month.
• Would be nice if there was an extension that helps for email / Messenger / Telegram / WhatsApp.
• Would be nice if it did help with idioms.

I did my homework and found out that:

• Grammarly does offer this but only in English.
• Language Tool exists but it's 20 euros monthly or 60 euros per year, which are both steep prices for just trying it out.
• Asking ChatGPT works most of the time, but it's a bit annoying to load up that website every time and ask. I'm open to coding something based on the API if that would be the most cost-effective option.

Thanks in advance for all your suggestions!

My dad (a veterinarian by trade) is really into medical history, so I was wondering if folks had any recommendations or favorites. I know he's done a lot of reading about the history of vaccines and the Spanish flu epidemic, but it's really not my area of interest, so I'm somewhat at a loss for how to find him something. Ideally it would be something available on audiobook because that's mostly how he consumes books these days.

Edit: Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I am not sure he has the wherewithal to do podcasts, but the book recommendations are great. I'm going with The Emperor of All Maladies and The Ghost Map, assuming he doesn't have them already.

I am planning a move to Basel and have no background in either German or Swiss German. My work language is English, in which I am already fluent enough, so I am exploring which language would be more advantageous for social integration and daily life in Basel. I am interested in understanding the benefits of each language in the context of non-professional interactions and community engagement. Additionally, I am looking for recommendations on effective learning resources for either language. Any shared experiences, advice, or information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Does anyone have any short-to-medium length content that clearly introduces the ideas of Jung?

I don't mind it being dense philosophically, but there's sort of this deliberate obfuscation of ideas that Jungian content creators utilize towards some end.

In philosophy, specific terms and jargon is necessary to ensure philosophical precision of the idea being presented. If one looks up said jargon, they can gain context about what's being communicated.

As far as Jung content online goes, there's a lot of jargon being used, but I'd wager about 50% of it is made up on the fly. When looked up, the term often either doesn't exist, is an adhoc portmanteau of two random terms, or simply doesn't make sense within the context it's used. Why? It seems like they deliberately are obfuscating their ideas for seemingly no reason. Perhaps there's a perceived invulnerability to criticism if your position on basic ideas can't be nailed down?

It seems that Jordan Peterson is the most prominent idea-obfuscator in this tradition, but I understand why he does it; some of his audience likely wouldn't care for the fact that he's likely what they'd describe as an atheist if you were able to pin down the ideas he conveys (e.g., Christ is but one of many manifestations of a Jungian archetype.)

Kinds of content I'm looking for:

• Newb friendly
• Clearly communicates ideas
• Philosophically precise
• Critical, but not polemic (i.e., no "debunking" videos)
• Video/audio/books preferred

Thank you in advance (:

I would love to know of your experiences. I do speak multiple languages, but was lucky to learn them through immersion as a child.

I would be super interested to know how people learn languages (with a goal to speak them fluently) as an adult. What techniques worked? What techniques didn't? Do you have any funny stories (perhaps miscommunication anecdotes)? Was it worth it? Or your things generally in relation to language-learning!

A lot of people argue that we should try to protect "minority languages" and support "linguistic diversity", but I struggle to understand why having more languages is actually a good thing.

I would be very interested to hear about concrete benefits in the present to linguistic diversity.

Lots of random musings I had on this

A lot of people say things like "it helps you to think differently" which I have not really understood at all (I speak multiple languages, for context, some quite different), but my sample size is really just me in saying that. They also say things like "protect minority culture" which I think is quite harmful. For example my great-grandmother immigrated to an English-speaking country in the west from Africa (she was Indian-African), and she could not speak a word of English which put her at a massive disadvantage, but also gave other family members a lot more power in their relationship because they could all speak English. [Edit: I think there's a gender aspect where women are expected to maintain the traditional language and the burden is not put on men in the same way]. I get the whole assimilation versus integration, but I think there's a very strong case for trying to assimilate (into the dominant group).

I have yet to see a case arguing why it is better to have more languages (and thus necessarily less mutual comprehension and a more segregated world) rather than a single one (e.g. if everyone spoke English). My issue is not really with high-level philosophy about what would be better in an ideal world, but multilingualism as a practical concern. For example, Tildes does not really seem to 'believe' in multilingualism because it only allows English (which personally I think is better than if we had people arguing backwards and forwards in many different languages, but I am also a native English speaker so that might prejudice my perspective).

Most of the arguments about this that I see are from (usually) French speakers bemoaning the decline of their language (and it's kind of ironic to see France becoming a flag-bearer for linguistic diversity given that they exterminated a lot of languages to force French upon the world).

I grew up semi-bilingual (English as my native language, Spanish spoken at least once a day at home), and went on to study Spanish as my language of choice in middle and high school. Despite this, I would still like to further my Spanish language skills/knowledge with some self-paced coursework, as the Spanish I grew up hearing in the house was much more colloquial and then the Spanish I studied in school was the "from Spain" Spanish, rather than the Central American Spanish my family spoke. I grew up being better able to understand more than what I could speak or write myself.

When I moved onto to college, I wanted to try studying a different language, so I chose French (bad idea; I could never really get the hang of it between the spelling challenges and the pronunciation being so different from the written word). I took one semester and passed just enough to get credit for the class but moved onto to German -- which was a little bit easier than French but more difficult than Spanish. Beginner classes in it were easy for me to learn, but I started to struggle when I got to upper-intermediate. Plus, I'm not always great at spelling in English, and French and German are not "speller-friendly" languages haha.

Now as I approach my midlife, I am thoroughly enjoying my ASL for Beginners course through my local community college. I find it incredibly intuitive whenever I learn new signs ("oh, that makes sense, cool" when I see a new sign). My mother-in-law has known and taught ASL (as well as SEE) for over 20 years so she is very helpful with me practicing and being able to correct any small mistakes I make. I don't know anyone who is Deaf, but have had a few friends growing up who used hearing aids (I don't think they knew ASL).

So what about you? Are you currently learning a new language? If so, what is it, how do you like it so far, and what led you to want to learn it? If not, are there any languages on your wishlist that you'd like to learn someday?

For me, I wanted to learn ASL as a way to connect more deeply with my MIL in our relationship, as well as have some level of ability to sign with those who are Deaf/deaf. I also wanted to learn it because I wanted an alternative way to communicate with my spouse if we are at a noisy event/party/etc. without having to shout to be heard.

The New Yorker has a provocative article asking the question "Can We Talk To Whales?" It boils down to utilizing language learning models to process a dataset of sperm whale clicks, their codas, and crossing one's fingers to see if "ClickGPT" can produce actual sperm whale language.

Which makes me wonder if a language learning model been given a library of Chinese sounds and ideograms, without context, then communicated in workable Chinese?

Using a language learning model to learn to speak to whales is an interesting idea, but I'm thinking any LLM assigned the task will wind up chunking out a word salad or something akin to Prisencolinensinainciusol. I'd like to learn more.

I've been diving into Derek Parfit's thought-provoking "Why Anything? Why This?" and exploring Weber's fascinating "Sociology of Religion." It's ignited my curiosity about which research papers or articles have really resonated with you? I'm excited to broaden my reading horizons and discover some impactful reads!

Edit: I'm just gonna list the recommendations I found interesting for my future reference

Proudhon - One of the first anarchists. Wrote a lot about mutualism and tried to come up with mechanisms to share resources based on usufruct

The Dispossessed -Describes an alternate society. Supposedly written more like an anthropological study than a narrative

No God's, No Masters - Written by David Graber, who also wrote the 3 Problems with the Revolution

The Dawn of Everything - Talks about the organization structures of early societies

Participatory Economics - Talks about economic organization without compulsion

Walkaway - Recommended when I mentioned stealth anarchism

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I'm gonna be honest, I'm pretty sick of all the existing forms of politics. Conservatives, liberals, progressives, libertarians, I dont feel like I jive with any of them.

The closest thing I've found to a philosophy I can get behind is anarchism, but I'm not really a fan of revolutionary anarchism either. I'm interested in just discussion of the constructive aspects of it. Like how the alternative vision of the world they advocate for works in practice, and what different options there are for implementation.

I find it hard to really get into, because whenever I try to read up on any kind of political philosophy I run into the people who are trying to evangelize and it just really turns me off to the whole thing.

Does anyone have some good reading recommendations that skip past trying to recruit people, and just is a good discussion?

Hello everyone :)

I write as a hobby and have had an article in my drafts for a long, long time. In essence, I'd like to discuss the "repetitive nature of human tribulations/suffering/life", that is, the fact that regardless of superficial characteristics we all are confronted with extremely similar circumstances throughout our lives.

Whether it's 10 years into our lives or 40, there's joy, heartbreak, loss, a need to belong, some desire for freedom, a need for a purpose, lack of direction, obsession with a newly found direction, etc.

I'd love to come across poets, philosophers, psychologists, etc who have touched upon this subject: we are not defined by our circumstances, as they are, in very broad strokes, largely the same, but by how we are able to adapt and reinvent ourselves amidst those same circumstances.

Looking forward for your answers :)

Thanks!

Before all else, I want to point out that this is a sensible topic and it is easy to go off the well-meaning path — my motives are strictly curiosity and I believe this site can actually have a fruitful discussion around it. I would also like to mention that I have a quite limited, and very Europe/West-centric history knowledge, so please acknowledge my bias/ignorance. I don’t even know enough about the Western part, let alone enough to compare it with other cultures’ respective systems at the time.

I have talked about this topic numerous times with friends and while we had some theories why it might have started there, none of them were particularly convincing. Nonetheless, here are a few reasons we could come up with (of course it is multi-faceted), please expand/argue about them if you feel, or write new ones as well (I try to be brief here, partially due to hitting the edges of my knowledge in many cases, but also to not bias people to any particular topic):

Religion, Philosophy

Christianity is/was the predominant religion of the region. Plenty of important discoveries/inventions came from monks “learning about God through the natural world”, and many branches of Christianity believed in sharing not only their religion, but knowledge as well - Jesuits being particularly famous for teaching, and collecting vast amounts of knowledge. (Obviously, the Catholic Church had plenty of wrongdoings as well, and was not opposed to keeping people in the dark)

Another notable religion which deserves a mention in this topic is Jewish. I am unfortunately even less knowledgeable about it, but the number of Jewish scientists and discoveries is staggeringly high. From what I gathered, they have a strong culture of arguments/discussions regarding the Torah, and blind acceptance is not the way (as opposed to the Bible), which might have some relevance.

The Arab world had an important relationship with Europe, but from this perspective it may not be as important.

With that said, I really can’t argue whether these are significantly different than, say, Eastern religions. Maybe the Abrahamic three are a bit more individualistic, which might have a bigger relevance here in the direction Western philosophy has gone.

Economic system

I know even less about this topic. One important point I do know a bit about is the question of loans, which were forbidden by the Christian Church (for a while) and Islam, but not for Jews (so loans could be obtained in Europe). Not sure if there is a difference between different parts of the world here that is of relevance.

Capitalism itself is also a result of these philosophical ideas, so there might be more to this financial aspect.

Society, societal norms

A prominent theory might be the existence of universities. While different kinds of school systems have existed earlier - to my ignorant knowledge - Europe was ahead in terms of education. This is quite self-explanatory, accumulating smart people and ideas together greatly improves their “productivity”.

Colonialism

Self-explanatory, but if this is the answer, I would also like to extend the question to why the Western world was the first at that at such an extent? That also required technological innovation and a motivation for it. Though it itself has plenty possible explanations like good geographic location.

Climate, geography

Europe has a generally mild climate, well-fit for efficient agriculture and animal husbandry. It also has numerous rivers. It is not the Biblical garden where you have fruits all year long, so you do have to rely on your own work to survive winters, but it is definitely not the desert neither. But that is not a convincing answer either, because plenty of regions are similar, and early scientific advancements come from the more desert-y Arab word, with perhaps harsher conditions.
Europe is also well-connected to other regions.

War, Politics

I quite liked this answer one of my friends came up with (within our circles that is) — due to many, small political entities being so close to each other, there were lots of conflicts, many of which resulted in wars — which are significant drivers of “innovation” even today. Pardon my ignorance, but other regions were mostly ruled by huge empires, that later fall apart and were conquered again, or small settlements with little outside contact. This necessitated less novelty in those conquests.

But even non-war conflicts themselves could have had positive effects, the aristocracy of Europe had strong connections with shared events - besides the more “romantic”/formal aspects, it was also a hub for many intellectuals from different countries to engage in deep discussions. Add to it that most research/discovery/philosophy came initially from people of aristocratic backgrounds.

I could write many more, but I am afraid that would have even less substance. I would be very interested in your input on this, what unique context allowed this intellectual growth that resulted in many aspects of our modern lives we take for granted?

Hello! Привіт! Pryvit!

I started learning Ukrainian on Duolingo in February 2022 following Russia's attacks. It was my first time attempting to learn a language for 10+ years and it just clicked. I grew to love the language, became entranced with the culture, and had desires to keep learning. Prior to Duolingo's redesign, I had a year+ streak and made it fairly far in the course.

The redesign has absolutely killed that passion. Maybe it's just the Ukrainian course, but it felt like I was going in circles and not really progressing as I once had. I've shelved my learning for a few months, but I really desire an alternative to Duolingo. Unfortunately, there's not many options that offer Ukrainian and I want to ensure I am learning the language as intended. I've read into how Russian influences have attempted to modify the language and I desire to learn the form that Ukrainian's would use.

I'm not quite at a level to learn from books or more static resources, and would prefer the interactivity of an app to help get me to that comfort level again. I've tried Pimsleur and wasn't as much of a fan of their format that reminded me of language tapes. One of the things I enjoyed with Duolingo was the verbal parts of it that helped with my pronunciation, and Pimsleur didn't appear to offer that.

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated! I have seen old posts referring to a SubStack and other resources, but at this time I need a refresher before I feel comfortable diving into those. I would love to incorporate learning a little bit of Ukrainian everyday again! Слава Україні!

First I thought to myself, "I seem to use too many commas." Now I'm no writer, but I've noticed that professional writers (and editors) clearly use less commas than I do.

For example, here's a sentence in a book that I'm reading: “As the victim was usually unconscious it was obvious they were totally reliant upon third parties and whatever action they took would determine their fate.”

I thought it was interesting, because I would've put a comma after "unconscious" and a comma before "and."

So, I found this helpful resource on grammar rules: https://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/commas.asp. 4a and 5b in particular were situations where I learned I could get rid of commas.

Still however, in the example sentence above, you'd think to put a comma before the "and" to separate the two clauses. I haven't found an explanation for omitting it, other than some writers are grammatically correct in a stricter sense, and others use commas more stylistically.

Is the use of commas more of an art, if you will, than I thought? How do you use commas personally?

Interested to read others' opinions!

So,this has been on my mind for a long time and i have tried some available/widely known methods to learn japanese language.So far iam not satisfied with my results.Can someone suggest me some ways that worked for them preferably for free/cheap.The main problem is the letters or characters.i can comprehend and manage to speak a very basic levels of the language mainly from consuming media from japan,some duolingo and such.....
any and all advice is appreciated
Help me out guys

An interesting, although quite academic, read I was recently suggested was Moral Uncertainty by Krister Bykvist, Toby Ord, and William MacAskill. Does anyone here have any suggestions on (modern) philosophy that you have currently been reading or are interesting in reading?

Share your favorite argument for the existence of God below.

Background: I'm an atheist (and have been for a decade) who's been interested in Christian Apologetics since I was a young Christian. As I entered adulthood, I found myself losing my faith, largely because I grew up in a fundamentalist, Young Earth Creationist household which taught that evolution and God are incompatible. While I no longer believe in this lack of compatibility, my belief in God never came back. I've tried to give it an honest effort, and there are many compelling reasons why I want Christianity to be true:

• Reunification with loved ones who've passed
• Absolute moral justice exists
• A plan for my life, and meaning in my suffering
• Access to unconditional love; to have a personal relationship with my creator
• Surviving my own death

For a variety of reasons seemingly outside my direct control, I still don't believe. It doesn't help that I've been introduced to strong arguments against the existence of God (e.g. the problem of evil and its subsets) which have rebuttals of varying quality from Christian philosophers. I don't think this lack of belief is my fault, or for lack of trying; I can't make myself believe anything. I try to be open to arguments, and this has led to an obsession with revisiting apologetics.

Now I think of apologetics as at least a fun mental exercise; combing through the arguments, atheist rebuttals, and responses to those rebuttals. That's probably strange, but it tickles the right parts of the brain to keep me engaged.

I committed an embarrassing gaffe today. I had ordered a keyboard online from a store from the Tyneside of north-eastern England: an area with a regional accent and dialect often referred to as ‘Geordie’. I habitually speak in a ‘home counties’ accent, which is sometimes regarded as a contemporary variety of received pronunciation (RP), though it sounds quite different to historical and conservative varieties of that accent. A salesman called me earlier to inform me that the keyboard I wanted was out of stock, but that they would be happy to refund me if I didn’t want to wait for new inventory. Seemingly between the accent difference and the poor audio quality inherent to phone calls I misinterpreted ‘keyboard’ as ‘cable’, insisting with increasing urgency that I have USB-C cables in plenty and that they needn’t worry about supplying one with the order. We both went about in circles for a few minutes until it dawned on me what I was doing, at which point intense embarrassment flushed over me. Oops!

Accent diversity in Britain is rich and regional. It's not hard to place where someone grew up based on their accent. Would you consider your country to be diverse in accents? Even so, are there instances of accent discrimination?

The internet is a very diverse place but sometimes with the "default" north american skew, it may not seem like it.

If your culture or people or faith group or spiritual practice is celebrating something today or soon, would you care to share?

Many of us used to have smaller groups on another site to celebrate things together or hold rememberances, and perhaps tildes being a together kind of community can celebrate and learn together instead of segregating into silos.

Some suggestions:

• today's date please
• what cultures and groups celebrate or commemorate this day or period?
• what is the celebration's origins and purpose?
• how does one celebrate?
• how has it changed over the years or stayed the same?
• is it reoccurring and on what calendar system?

Looking forward to learning more from other traditions and groups!

In lieu of a ~spirituality group I figured a dedicated thread could be nice. Posting in this group was suggested by a fellow tildo.

So friends, what does your spirituality mean to you? How would you define yourself? What impact has it had on your life?

For me, I'm a Christopagan and my faith means a lot to me. The Christian Trinity, Santa Muerte, and Krishna are my rock. The Buddha is a good source of inspiration too, but I don't particularly follow him. I also find a lot of meaning in the Tao de Ching, but I wouldn't necessarily consider myself a Taoist, although I agree with a lot of what it says .

I was inspired by this comment by @rogue_cricket in another discussion on spirituality. I was going to simply reply, but I think it could be a fun, new topic for recommendations and it didn't seem to fit the overall conversation over there. Since I'm brand new, let me know if I'm doing this wrong and if I should just reply instead.

So what are everyone's symbols or rituals? Whether you are Christian, Buddhist, Athiest, Agnostic, Muslim, etc., what are some things that make you feel more connected?

Here's my contribution:

A little context: I call myself agnostic. I believe there might be something bigger out there, but that it doesn't make much sense to put a face to it or try to figure out what it wants from us. Since I don't prescribe to any particular religion, I have come up with my own ways to feel the serenity of connecting with whatever it is (The Universe, God, Nature, etc.):

Tibetan Singing Bowls:

My friend bought a big, expensive, crystal bowl that I used several times while meditating. The vibrations are supposed to resonate with and activate the chakras in your body. I found a smaller, more affordable set on Amazon. While they don't have the same gut-vibrating power as the large, crystal bowl, they still help my meditation sessions immensely by giving me something to focus on.

Character Asset Stones:

As a member of a 12-Step program, we are supposed to constantly work on weakening our character defects by strengthening our character assets, but I always seem to have trouble remembering them in the moment. My sponsor suggested painting words such as "kindness," "generosity," "honesty," and "forgiveness" on small river stones. I will randomly pick one out of a fish bowl before I leave the house every day, and carry it in my pocket, reminding me all day to work on that one particular character asset. I feel that little spark of connection and a sense of satisfaction every time I get to practice my asset for the day.

Sitting Quiety and Observing:

This one is very hard for me, as my brain always defaults to wanting to scroll something or do something. I've found that it works best if I have something interesting to focus on. I'm fortunate enough to live near the beach, so sometimes I will just go watch the waves for a while. Sometimes I people watch on the patio of Starbucks. It's important for me to leave my phone elsewhere, or I'll want to pull it out and check texts-emails-reddit-grindr-blah-blah-blah. But sitting quietly and just being for a little while, enjoying the sights and sounds, "stopping to smell the roses," makes me feel connected to the Universe.

I'm looking forward to some more ideas...

I love languages, and one of the great things about learning other languages - or even just learning about them - is how it expands your mental horizons. One of the first things you notice is that many words don't correspond 1:1 with each other in distinct languages. Sometimes, what you think of as one concept gets partitioned out into one, two, three, four distinct word forms in another language. Other times it's the opposite, and distinctions are lost. What are some interesting vocabulary/lexicon differences between English and another language you're familiar with? I'll give some examples:

• Russian motion verbs are a lot more complex than English ones. There are two distinct words for "to walk", idti and xodit'. The former is used for walking in one direction, the latter for walking in multiple or unspecified directions. The former is also used for single actions while the latter is for habitual action. Russian makes this distinction in every common verb for motion. It also makes a distinction between going by foot and going by a means of transportation, like a car, a bicycle, or a train. In English, you could say "I walked to the store" to specify you went by foot, but you could also say "I went to the store" and the mode of transportation is unspecified. In Russian, there is no single verb "go" that doesn't imply either by foot or not by foot. You have to use either idti/xodit' "go by foot" or exat'/ezdit' "go by some means of transportation". (As I understand it, I'm not a native speaker of Russian, just studied it a bit.)
• Terms of kinship are a big topic. Wikipedia lists six distinct basic forms of kinship terminology, and that's just scratching the surface. Some languages distinguish between the maternal and paternal side of the family, others do not. Some do not distinguish cousins and siblings. Some make distinctions between elder and younger family members with distinct words. Unfortunately, I don't speak any languages that are markedly different from English. But even in my native Norwegian, which is closely related to English, there are some differences, such as:
  • First cousin is a distinct stem (søskenbarn, lit. sibling-child, i.e. the child of your parent's sibling) from second cousins (tremenning). There are also distinct words for cousin (no gender specified) and female (kusine) and male (fetter) cousins.
  • Maternal and paternal grandparents are distinguished.
  • I struggled to understand what the hell a "cousin once removed" was until I realized it's a kind of family relation that has no name in Norwegian.
• Or it could just be a single word. For instance, English has one word, "suspicious", meaning both an attitude towards another person's behavior (suspicious of) and that behavior itself (behaving in a suspicious manner). In Norwegian, those are two distinct words: mistenksom (suspicious of) and mistenkelig (behaving suspiciously).

I've only studied a couple of languages seriously. But I also have an interested in constructed languages as a hobby, so I've dabbled in a lot of languages, looking to pilfer ideas for my own projects. I really think it's expanded my view of the world, by showing that categories that seem obvious, really aren't. That's a lesson I've tried to transfer to other areas of life.

I also think it leads into philosophy, because it's really a question of how to divide up semantic space. If we imagine the theoretical space of all things that could ever be spoken about, how do we divide up that space into distinct words? Which categories do we choose to represent as meaningful, and which ones are relegated to being a sub-aspect of another category, only distinguishable by context? I imagine that in a culture with large family units, it makes more sense not to distinguish "brother" from "male cousin", than a culture in which nuclear families are the norm, for instance.

Do you have any cool examples of how vocabulary works differently in other languages, whether it be a single word or a large class of words? Or examples of times when encountering a different way of describing the world by learning another language led to insights in other areas of life?

As discussed and suggested here.

What are you learning? How is it going? Share your progress, tips and tricks. Ask other learners questions.

Writing in non-English languages is welcome in this thread if you want to practice, but please at least include a Google Translate or Deepl translation in a foldable paragraph, using <details>[your translation]</details>

In a previous topic, people discussed their pet peeves, but that's not what this post is about. The idea is not to list (or rant about...) the ways in which others use language incorrectly or annoyingly, but rather to talk about our own habits and preferences both in writing and in speech.

Things like:

• How do you like to talk (complex, simple, formal, informal, brief, lengthy...), and what do you like or dislike listening to?
• Do you have certain words or phrasing patterns that you either love or avoid at all costs?
• Do you have a tendency to be overly formal? Conversely, are you often too informal, or use too much slang?
• Do you have an inner dialogue?
  • If so, how does it sound?
• Do you think exclusively in your mother tongue? If not, which situations bring up specific languages in your head?
• How do you adapt your patterns to different contexts (formal, informal, social, professional, etc)?
  • Does that come easy for you?
• Do you prefer to be addressed by specific pronouns which people often get wrong?
• Do you clearly differentiate between serious and jokeful registers?
  • Do you use phrasing and tone of voice to differentiate between the two? Does it work?
• Do you sometimes talk too much or too little?
• Do you make a lot of faux pas?

So, what are your linguistic idiosyncrasies? In what ways is your use of language particular, odd, or peculiar? Let's begin!

Reclaiming a word means stripping it of it's negative baggage and giving it either a neutral or positive meaning. The most common example is the word Queer going from a slur to a descriptive term for non cis-het people.

My personal pick would be returning the term "incel" to it's original meaning of "involuntary/involuntarily celibate" or someone who wants a relationship but doesn't have one, because the word is currently associated with the few tens of thousands of extremists who occasionally commit terrorist attacks, consider the redistribution of women reasonable and created the black-pill, but the amount of men (and realistically also women) who would consider themselves as wanting a relationship but not having one is much higher than a hundred thousand violent extremists, and if they could all describe themselves as incels, I think that would help steer the conversation about wanting a partner and not having one away from the extremists and to the much more numerous pool of mostly young people, seemingly mostly men who just want a partner and can't have one and usually mostly just feel bad about it to varying intensities. It wouldn't completely detach the term from cringe online right tropes as a lot of the dudes who can be described as incels often tend to fuel the kind of "women aren't real"/"Girls don't exist on the internet" culture that makes complaining about dating so 'lame'. (As in, the default reply is "just do basic self-improvement it'll put you ahead of most people lol".)

Another term I would reclaim if I could is the Red-pill/Blue-pill dichotomy with becoming red-pilled either being a joke about some vaguely red pill used to transition or as a shorthand for adopting leftist beliefs, mainly because the creators of The Matrix were Trans women who intended the movie to have a strong Trans subtext, and red is usually a leftist color instead of a conservative one, so becoming red-pilled meaning becoming a leftist is more intuitive in most places.

#couple
Defined as:

noun:
couple; plural noun: couples

1.
two individuals of the same sort considered together.
"a couple of girls were playing marbles"

a pair of partners in a dance or game.

MECHANICS

a pair of equal and parallel forces acting in opposite directions, and tending to cause rotation about an axis perpendicular to the plane containing them.

2.
two people who are married, engaged, or otherwise closely associated romantically or sexually.
"in three weeks the couple fell in love and became engaged"

3. INFORMAL

an indefinite small number.
"he hoped she'd be better in a couple of days"

verb: couple;

3rd person present: couples

past tense: coupled

past participle: coupled

gerund or present participle: coupling

1.
combine.

"a sense of hope is coupled with a palpable sense of loss"

join to form a pair.
"the beetles may couple up to form a pair"

2.
mate or have sexual intercourse.
"as middle-class youth grew more tolerant of sex, they started to couple more often"

#Discourse of the use of the word/phrase in this particular case

You

"how many would you like?"

Them

"just a couple."

When someone requests 'a couple of...' I respond with something similar to: 'How many do you want specifically?', which leads to the discourse of, 'A couple is two, a few is >2, several is <x' and so on.

I agree with the first two clearly stated definitions of 'couple', but in the informal use of a couple (eg. a depiction of a quantity) is not specifically two...nor is 'a few' three. How many specifically is several..?

I understand the semantics within the conversation. But, the expectation of understanding that two, and only two, is implied in the use of the phrase 'a couple' in a request; is ambiguously stating what one party desires. I'm the asshole now, just tell me how many you want.

And now...your thoughts, please.

The English word 'crane' means a large bird or a giant lever-thing for moving heavy stuff. The Hungarian word 'daru' means both of the same things.

English and Hungarian are about as unrelated as languages get ... and yet, I keep bumping into parallels like that.

Thoughts, anyone?

Has the sentence "the masked men entered the store" changed meaning post the pandemic. I think it feels less ominous than perhaps it used to. Now the words could imply "responsible men that wear masks in accordance with guidelines entered a store" where it would previously almost certainly imply "robbers entered the store". Since I'm not a native speaker I'm curious if this is just in my head or a more general thing? Are there other similar statements that has change?

I wouldn't say Tildes is wholly uninterested in philosophy, that is certainly not the case. You're a smart bunch full of intellectual curiosity!

I have been making an effort to share more philosophy articles on ~humanities for some time now. They always get a few votes, but discussion is not as common. This is in no way a complaint about our users, philosophy is often highly specific and long-form, and it is hard to predict if a long article will eventually pay off for you.

Generally, philosophy posts that are related to technology, computer science, consciousness/AI, and, to a lesser degree, social change, attract more attention. But there are not as many of those (and I'm personally interested in other stuff too...).

As I said, the purpose of this post is not to complain. I believe the lack of participation in certain topics reflects the size of our community, our most common interests, and our repertoire.

With that in my mind, I would like to know how could I better engage our community in discussions about philosophy. Apart from the themes I mentioned, what are you interested in or curious about?

I could make an effort to include a short introduction or conversation starter on every post, but I'm not sure what is the sentiment regarding that (would that be considered/labeled as noise?). Besides, I'm not a philosopher or anything of the sort, just a layman with a lot of philosophy websites on my feed. So my guess is as good as everyone else's.

It would be awesome if we had a ~humanities.philosophy someday, but I wonder if that is realistic at all...

Intermittently, for the past 15 years or so, logic has been an interest of mine. Back then I had trouble understanding exactly why certain things people said sounded so right/wrong, and how could I come up with proper responses.

Among others, in this time I've read one great book on informal logic (which I lost, unfortunately), quite a few articles, and studied the first chapters of the stupendous Gary Hardegree's symbolic logic.

Even though I love the subject, it is hard to sustain motivation alone. I wish to acquire a firmer grasp of logic and its applications to philosophy. Hence the suggestion of forming a study group.

It is my understanding that most Tilderinos are in STEM, especially areas surrounding computer science. So I anticipate that many users have an understanding of logic that greatly surpasses my own. Because of that, for some, a philosophical logic study group may seem too elementary to be of any value. Others may find it interesting to approach logic from a philosophical point of view.

In any case, the idea is to start from scratch. Besides the ability to read and write in the English language, no previous knowledge is required. No mathematics either.

I have two initial proposals.

1. An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments

This one is ideal for a light, relaxed approach.

This awesome book describes 19 common logical fallacies using accessible language, with clear examples and suggestive illustrations. Not very technical, and a lot of it is well-known territory if you have an interest in logic. One chapter for each fallacy, each chapter is one page long. A great conversation starter.

2. Symbolic Logic: A First Course, by Gary Hardegree

I would choose this one myself. Hardegree is a wonderful teacher.

This book is one of the best teaching materials I have ever known, and surprisingly superior even to paid alternatives. A more proper introduction to logic. Hardegree is an excellent teacher, introducing concepts with precision in accessible language. The progression is smooth, you never feel that the exercises are either too easy or too hard. And there are plenty of exercises (with answers!) which are great for self-study.

We could start with either one of these books and follow from there. Just meeting once a week (or maybe biweekly) to discuss the chapter or chapter section we studied in that period.

I understand a lot of people like to do that kind of stuff on Discord, so that's a possibility.

When learning something new, often available resources are lacking in some departments - whether they're missing information, poorly written, or tedious and dry. But occasionally, some content just stands out as above and beyond the rest, serving to not only make the learning process enjoyable but also to kindle interest in further exploration. What is that for you?

This could encompass everything from computer programming to literary criticism, and could be in the form of a website, book, video tutorial, or the like.

I've been thinking a good bit about gender-neutral language lately, and I've been making an effort to eliminate unnecessarily gendered language from my day-to-day speech. However, there are a few sticking points for me that I am having a hard time with finding my way around. One of the most difficult for me, having been brought up in the deep south and still living there, are honorifics like "sir" and "ma'am". I use these when addressing pretty much anyone, and it's a habit I'm having a hard time breaking. It's got me thinking about whether there are any good alternatives that would feel respectful of the person I'm addressing while not sticking out too much. If that's not an option (and I suspect it would be asking too much) then what are your ideal alternatives, either neologisms, borrowed from other languages, or just repurposed words that are in current use?

Examples of usage that I would love to replace:
"Yes, sir/No, ma'am"
"Excuse me, sir/ma'am"
"Mr./Mrs./Ms." (I use this less often but still catch myself at times. I also think this one has the best alternative currently in use, with Mx. catching on in some places)

Also, if this question is missing the mark or disrespectful in any way, please let me know. I'm still learning!

Judith Butler has some influential pieces that talk about performative or performativity.

I see online lots of people seem to think there's no difference between "performance" and "performative".

So, in philosophy, what do theyean when they say performative?

Whenever i talk about my views in politics people say i'm a lefty.

I want to understand what is this boogeyman called communism that will "take over the world". I live in Brazil and, for the average american, our free health care system is communism. Even some brazilians think it's bad, which baffles me because it helps a lot of people, myself included. Everyone who needs cancer treatment go through it, it's one of the best in the world (for this particular disease at least) and affordable private health care plans won't cover expensive cancer treatment here.

People here often talk about communism being bad, but what really is communism?

I grabbed the Communist Manifesto and Why Marx Was Right to read, but did not start yet since i have to finish the book i'm currently reading.

I never tried to understand these things because they are all over the place and it's a little boring to me, so i'll ask some basic questions here before i go further in this endeavour.

Please, try to answer without anger and pointing fingers. Because every time i read about these topic online, there is fight and everyone says different things and accusations runs rampant.

1. What exactly is communism in layman terms? Because for me it's all over the place. Everything that seems to care about people is put into the communist basket, but a lot of people call it a dictatorship. ELI5.

2. Why almost every average citizen (americans and brazilians at least) says it's bad?

3. My best friend is a school teacher and is a marxist. He says Joe Biden is still a terrible choice, but the only alternative to Trump and he is not a communist at all, but i keep hearing people call him a commie. WTF is he? If possible, ELI5 what he is and what he stands for.

4. Why there is right x left and no place for something in between? Is there a need to everything be one side or another to work? There is no middle ground in politics? Grabbing aspects from the left and from the right and co-existing in the same government is a problem?

5. A lot of people really think letting companies run wild and free is good. That the market will regulate itself. I think this is naive, because even now they do some really shady stuff. Just look at Nestle.
   Why people say that and is there some truth to this that i can't see? Is regulating companies a communist thing?

6. People say that communism didn't work when implemented and the other side says that it was not really communism. What is the truth here? It didn't work? if not, why it didn't? If it was not true communism, what it was and why it was not true communism?

7. Is there a country that is communist today?

8. What books about the left and the right i should read? Nothing too dense.

It's something I've struggled for a long time to do in text conversations. People will often think I'm mad when talking in a way that I think is perfectly normal or that I'm a brick wall while discussing disagreements and well, that can't be fun. I often have to reassure certain people that it's not the case.

Sometimes I try to show how I'm feeling through emotions or more "fluffy" language but I feel like that's too excessive and feels kinda fake to me?

It's also something I've more recently struggled with because I'm trying to write personally on my blog and I'm not exactly sure how to convey my feelings other than stating it like a robot like "This makes me mad" or "That's depressing" or "It makes me feel great".

It feels off to me and maybe it's just a me problem but I think that's also because I write the same way I speak and so, it just sounds strange.

I don't know, this post is rambly and I've been wanting to write something like this in the last few days but I just have to push enter at some point.

I'm a sucker for languages and lately I've been wanting to learn a sign language (not specificallly ASL as I put in the title, I'm open to learning any local flavour).

And well, with COVID and everything, I figure this may be a good opportunity to do this with someone else and have someone to talk to. So, is there anyone on Tildes who would be willing to have regular informal video chats, where we talk and you try to teach me as we go? (And of course I can accommodate by text if needed)

No hard commitment, this can just be something we try once and if it's boring for either of us we don't have to continue :) But I'm hoping it'll be fun enough to be a regular thing!

PS. I can teach you French in return if you are interested!

A friend of mine asked me for good videos on anthropology. I'm at a complete loss. I have several good youtube channels for history, but finding anthropology-related content is surprisingly difficult.

Any recommendations?