🎓 Doc Freemo 🇳🇱 @freemo@qoto.org

@chris "How can he and I have such different point of view?" Vastly different media consumption habits.

Guys who are really into decentralization sound like this

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@freemo So far I don't know how to respond to this. I've tried to let this concept sink in, but it's so fundamentally different from what I've been raised with that I still don't know whether I agree or disagree with this. :P

My gut response is kinda 'Well, if you were allowed guns and are in a bad neighbourhood... then those bad hoodlums will have a bigger chance of carrying guns as well, escalating the situation and possibly putting you in a worse position.'

After all, isn't USA having the most gun incidents per amount of people in the world?

That said, I have a Norwegian buddy who owns over 20 rifles/guns, legally.. and Norway isn't really known as a violent country. Okay, except for that one rightwing mad guy almost a decade ago.

USA has a serious mentality issue methinks. :P

@dankmaximus @mur2501

@trinsec

> So far I don’t know how to respond to this. I’ve tried to let this concept sink in, but it’s so fundamentally different from what I’ve been raised with that I still don’t know whether I agree or disagree with this. :P

Well you are nothing if not honest and self reflective. So whether we agree on a topic or not I can at least say I respect you and your thought process, which is rare and important these days. So already your ahead of the game :)

> My gut response is kinda ‘Well, if you were allowed guns and are in a bad neighbourhood… then those bad hoodlums will have a bigger chance of carrying guns as well, escalating the situation and possibly putting you in a worse position.’

Well, yes and no.. criminals would not have legal access to guns. So while some may still get them the criminal element would be at a disadvantage when it comes to their gun supply than a law abiding citizen would. Therefore if a citizen is responsible and expects to be in a dangerous neighborhood they would almost certainly carry a gun with few obstacles. While their aggressor may carry a gun it would be less likely. So the good guy would have the upper hand.

> After all, isn’t USA having the most gun incidents per amount of people in the world?

While strictly speaking this is true it is also a fallacy in statistical logic. Consider the following counter example as to why:

Vaccines, by en large, save **far** more lives than they kill. But a very small fraction of people who take the normal round of vaccines will die from vaccines, but that number is much smaller than the number saved by vaccines, so overall we tend to agree most vaccines are a good thing and we say they save lives...

But guess what if you were to compare a country where vaccines are illegal to a country where vaccines are legal you could make the very real statement: "In countries where vaccines are legal you have the most incidents of vaccine deaths."... its the same statement as with guns, sure its true, but to draw the conclusion from that that it is an argument against guns or vaccines is a fallacy in logic.

> That said, I have a Norwegian buddy who owns over 20 rifles/guns, legally.. and Norway isn’t really known as a violent country. Okay, except for that one rightwing mad guy almost a decade ago.

Yup, plenty of examples of countries, people, or regions where you will find responsible gun ownership.

> USA has a serious mentality issue methinks. :P

This is absolutely true, and wont just result in more gun deaths but more deaths overall. When someone wants to kill someone, and they are mentally unhealthy enough to carry through with it, they will find a way with or without guns. As disturbing it is to say this, killing a person is a pretty easy thing to do, even killing lots of people, and you dont really need a gun to do it.

I often remark that living in the USA is like living in a mental hospital. In my view the overwhelming majority of the population, some 99% all have very serious mental health issues. Simply being around those sort of people tends to cause ones own mental health to be in jeopardy. I myself have a hard time keeping healthy mentally in the USA unless I isolate my interactions to my close circle of friends. But even then I take a chance on new people and new friends and add them to that circle which is always a big risk since more often then not they turn out to be unstable socially and mentally.

@dankmaximus @mur2501

@trinsec

Hahahah, well, to be fair, I can say the same about US politics. We have become so polarized we cant pass most laws and even have government shutdowns fairly regularly now.

Neither system is perfect and honestly a government is only as good as its people. If its people cant find a middle ground with which to agree on, even if it is not the ideal of any one side's view, then we shouldn't expect the government to be able to.

Sadly no one ever wants to own the problem as a problem caused by the people. Everyone wants to blame the government as if the government is some overlord separate from the people. The government is literally the manifestation of the people, and if you dont like what you see when you look at the government its best you realize that you (the population as a whole) are looking into a mirror.

@mur2501 @dankmaximus

@trinsec

Actually on those aspects I agree with you... well partly... Dutch healthcare is just as bad as american just in a different way. Neither system is good. But in terms of the poor having some level of access the dutch are better. The problem is for the middle class who can afford healthcare int he USA, well the USA has the upper edge in that regard (having expiernced both).

But in terms of education I agree the dutch laws are more ideal. I am a big supporter of free education for all.

So yea my original assertion I feel holds true, a combination of both worlds is ideal and each is more free in different ways.

Americans have superior freedoms WRT:

* Guns
* Speech
* middle class and up access to healthcare (pre-obamacare at least)

Dutch have superior freedoms WRT:

* Access to education
* poor's access to healthcare

@dankmaximus @mur2501

@freemo @dankmaximus
Welcome to the United States of Netherlands

The land of the tallest fatheads

wow it's been a while since i've used this platform. let's get back into the swing of things, at least for a little while

@freemo Thanks for your thoughts.

First, the full report is [here](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/345/6192/75.full).

The full text seems a careful craft to me, though I have no formal training in psychology. In the end, this was published in AAAS Science journal, so no surprise there.

There are few notable observations to extract:
1. the main objective was to investigate the following questions: i) _Do people choose to put themselves in default mode by disengaging from the external world?_ and 2) _And when they are in this mode, is it a pleasing experience?_
2. Their main conclusions is this: **_Most people seem to prefer to be doing something rather than nothing, even if that something is negative._**
3. they cite several studies supporting their similar conclusions to theirs
4. there is a series of experiments culminating with the one with electro-shocks. That seems to just a final fancy twist, but their conclusions are supported well by the previous experiments already.

Personally, I can relate well to the main conclusion of the paper. Just recall observing people waiting for something, be it in a hospital or in public transport. Today, listening to music, or mindless clicking into a smartphone (reading news, tweets, toots, whatever) seems to be the major activity of most under 50 years old in such contexts. But even before the age of smartphones, in 90's it was hard to observe people calmly thinking while waiting. Most people would fidget with something, read, kick into a wall, do whatever just to _kill the time_ (up to a threshold where they would feel embarrassed which would push them into some "normal staring into a nearby wall" for a while before restarting the fidgeting, etc.). Indeed, there are folks one can observe who engage in calm observation of the world and thinking (probably), but when I look around, it's a small minority.

And me personally? As I wrote in the parent piece, I tend to find myself running in circles and ruminating (as they also mention in the article). When I have stuff to deeply think about, when left to my own devices I typically end up frustrated when I do not have a piece of paper to jot down my thoughts, because after a short while I feel like I am not making progress (difficult to keep my whole context in my short memory). The only time I find enjoyable "just thinking" is when I go for a walk and let my mind "wander around". But that is not much thinking, right? Perhaps "entertaining some random thoughts" (maybe it's rather a kind of "meditation" than thinking) would better describe what I do at those times.

@AmethystLimestone is that bad? It ain’t voldemort lol