For sunk cost, I think the post could have illustrated this one more accurately as “You were raised a boy,” which I think encapsulates the parental investment that makes it a sunk cost. That’s how I had initially read it, at least.

I think the false dichotomy angle could also be expanded by factoring in intersex people who are similarly forced into AMAB/AFAB boxes despite biologically not fitting neatly into those categories, basically that the labels male and female themselves are a false dichotomy. Sorta blurs into the next point re: chromosomes, but I think it still captures two different ideas (Biologically male and biologically female are not accurate categories, and chromosomes are not indicative of gender identity).

And I think even the ad hominem aspect could be blurred a little bit to still make sense, if read in the sense of, like, “You’re a man, you can’t understand what it means to be a woman, therefore you’re not allowed to call yourself one.”

It’s a timeless classic for sure.

I looked it up, it does look like a line from the original PS1 script. Cid says this line, in the context of Cloud being potentially short-sighted by letting people finish their personal business before entering the Northern Crater.

Cloud: No! What I meant was… What are we all fighting for? I want us all to understand that. Save the planet… for the future of the planet… Sure, that’s all fine. But really, is that really how it is? For me, this is a personal feud. I want to beat Sephiroth. And settle my past. Saving the planet just happens to be part of that. I’ve been thinking. I think we all are fighting for ourselves. For ourselves… and that someone… something… whatever it is, that’s important to us. That’s what we’re fighting for. That’s why we keep up this battle for the planet.

Barret: You’re right… It sounds cool sayin’ it’s to save the planet. But I was the one who blew up that Mako Reactor… Lookin’ back on it now, I can see that wasn’t the right way to do things. I made a lot of friends and innocent bystanders suffer… …At first, it was revenge against Shinra. For attackin’ my town. But now… Yeah. I’m fightin’ for Marlene. For Marlene… For Marlene’s future… Yeah… I guess I want to save the planet for Marlene’s sake…

Cloud: Go and see her. Make sure you’re right, and come back. All of you. Get off the ship and find out your reasons for yourselves. I want you to make sure. Then I want you to come back.

Cid: Maybe ain’t none of us’ll come back. Meteor’s gonna kill us anyway. Let’s just forget any useless struggling!

Cloud: I know why I’m fighting. I’m fighting to save the planet, and that’s that. But besides that, There’s something personal too… A very personal memory that I have. What about you all? I want all of you to find that something within yourselves. If you don’t find it, then that’s okay too. You can’t fight without a reason, right? So, I won’t hold it against you if you don’t come back.

Similar problem, but we could also start using Shavian

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shavian_alphabet

It’s not perfect, but the basic idea is that assuming malice as default in every scenario will cause one to spiral into paranoia.

It’s not saying “people are never malicious and always just stupid” but just asking someone to take a step back from the situation and ask which is likelier in context.

Hanlon’s Razor is an old adage that boils down to: when you think someone is intentionally trying to be evil and ruin something, take a step back and ask whether it’s likelier they’re trying to be intentionally malicious, or if they’re just stupid/incompetent.

For example, you go to a restaurant and tell the waiter that you can’t have dairy, so you order a pasta dish without cheese. They bring it out to you, but look, there’s cheese. You can assume either that the waiter or the staff in the kitchen absolutely hate you and intentionally gave you cheese just to spite you…or that they just screwed up and forgot. The latter is probably likelier.

I was half-joking about potentially updating this idea to include an additional stipulation about AI bots online, which are good at looking like stupid people but actually are often malicious. Bots are used to sway political opinions. You have cases where they are trying to pass themselves off as real people to drown out legitimate discourse with a simulation of it, and cases like Musk’s Grok AI where it’s programmed to ignore truth and instead answer questions in ways that further his agenda or inflate his ego.

So sometimes when you see political posts that just defy all logic, or are ignoring a hard truth that is staring them in the face, you’re inclined to ask “How can this person sincerely believe what they’re saying right now?” And often the answer will be that they don’t, because they’re not a person, they’re a bot just regurgitating propagandic talking points.

But a good day to have eyestalks I guess!

Preferably fried and with a side of honey mustard.

The post is also from 2022, and the tech has changed a bit since then.

Might be the conspiratorial part of my brain coming through, but I’m half convinced it’s not just a stupid person, but an AI that completely missed the point.

I almost wonder if there shouldn’t be an extension or corollary of Hanlon’s Razor somewhere to account for AI.

“Never attribute to malice that which can be better explained by stupidity, but never attribute to stupidity that which can be better explained by malicious chatbots.”

I think you could, but there’s a good chance that it would emerge as a separate religion out of Christianity instead of changing the identity of Christianity. Another user said it well already, that Mormonism and Islam are basically already this.

The new scripture develops upon the ideas of the existing religion, but when a large group rejects the additions, a schism occurs, causing the existing religion to stay mostly the same while the new religion goes off and does its own thing. Hence why Judaism did not stop being a thing when Christianity emerged; enough people rejected the legitimacy of the additions and just continued on as they were.

So theoretically I’d say the answer is yes, but it’d need to be compelling enough to convince the vast majority of Christians to get behind it, otherwise it just becomes its own thing.

Cooking gets rid of a lot of the acidity, so could be that in addition to texture.

This is my story except with cheese.

Why did I have to start enjoying the taste of cheese?

The concept of purple is older than English, though. I guess when English chose to adopt it is the main question, but should be clarified that the term where “purple” derives from goes back to the ancient Romans, who recognized it as a distinct color used for royalty given the difficulty in obtaining it.

It does have me wondering exactly when red onions first arrived in the UK, or what the Romans may have called it (potentially before those dirty Britons got their hands on it).

I also know that, when boiled, they yield a very rich, red color. Could maybe be named “red” due to that? Some Orthodox Christians/eastern Europeans traditionally use red onions to dye eggs for Easter.

I think that same statistic applies to drinking water. So I guess the question is, are people more likely to breathe air or drink water? I’m betting on air, but I don’t know if dying in utero still counts as having imbibed water.

But then who cranes the bigger crane?

Well, maybe if you’re white.

Otherwise it’s indicative of inherent criminal tendency and they decide to make an example.

Ah yes, the crane crane

And where do you see yourself in 10 years?