Thanks for the puzzles. Have a bump!
Too tired to ponder those philosophical questions right now.
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What do you think about the US now opening a mental health crisis hotline (988)? The whole world should take more care of the mental health crisis
What is life's greatest achievement? And what makes it such?
Having children. It's the future
How would humanity be different if we were all able to fully control our emotions?
Star Trek's Vulcan
Thanks for the giveaways. I am going to start now with the puzzles. The jigidis also have a sgtools?
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I know a lot of people who would argue that the world should let them die, as we have plenty of people in this world already, and taking care of "the weak" (including the chronically ill) is just introducing an unnecessarily societal challenge. What is your opinion on such a statement?
There's definitely not a lot of future without children, but birth rates have severely gone down in 1st worlds recently due to the mentality of "setting children out into a dying world is cruel". Do you think this may be a reasonable conclusion?
Do you think it would be a good or bad thing for us to be like that race? (I have not watched Star Trek) Or is there perhaps certain things we could benefit from learning from this race?
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Not eligible for gibs, but thanks :)
What is life's greatest achievement? And what makes it such?
Being happy. For one it might be having children, for one it might be being the CEO of a company. One enjoys having a solitude of being single in the cabin in the woods, for someone having many friends and acquaintances fills them up. The moment you reach bliss and happiness with what you have and what you aim for and feel happiness is the truest achievement of them all. All other stuff is measurable and incomparable. It's relative to each other, but it is the truest achievement one could strive for and one which would not diminish what has been achieved by others.
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That is a very good answer! Happiness is indeed subjective, and we should all strive to be happy with ourselves, before it's too late. However, since it is subjective, there are people who will find happiness/joy in actions on the expense of others. Is there a degree where this is acceptable? If not, how do you teach someone to be happy in a different way? For example paedophiles?
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How horrible it actually is - I idealized it without taking into account the nature of human beings. And once you factor in humans as you did, the concept becomes twisted and sad.
But to answer your question - I think you could draw parallels with the concept of rights - a citizen's rights end where another citizen's begin. You can be happy about something until the moment it infringes on someone else happiness. I suppose there would be grey areas still, but if we at least look at people who enjoy the suffering of others (killing, torturing, molesting etc) it takes away happiness of the victims and not only in the eyes of law but also in our concept becomes outlier of the norm.
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Rights are a good solution, indeed! So in other words, we cannot truly be happy without a system (of rights) where we are protected from those who have such predatory sources of joy? Because I imagine it's quite difficult to prevent these predators from existing in the first place? And then again, what prevents the system from becoming corrupt by said predators? I mean, there are societies where your sadness is invalidated because you're "not supposed to be sad" from certain things. "Man up" is the western expression for this, I believe.
To some degree, this is already what most countries have of laws, with varying degrees of what is acceptable behavior or not? For example, like Afghani culture, where getting physical is not necessarily a bad thing. Or North Korea, where they seemingly straight up dictate "what you are supposed to be happy from".
Humanity sure is something..! :-)
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I'm late to the conversation but I don't really think people who prey on others are doing it because it makes them "happy". They are doing it for various reasons but they don't find their bliss doing it. Quite the opposite. They are often playing out fantasies that stem from their inability to deal with their feelings so I don't think it would be an impediment to happiness being life's greatest achievement.
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You're always welcome to the conversation! :-)
I think that humans are quite easily (in ignorance) blinded by personal goals. Essentially the Seven Deadly Sins. All the sins have the same goal, which is personal satisfaction. Which of these grant you the most satisfaction depend on which action you have "trained yourself" to release the most endorphins (see Reward System, especially regarding extrinsic rewards). Throughout the life of most creatures, they are seeking personal satisfaction, and will do what they know in order to get it, while avoiding personal suffering. I believe an upbringing with no clear Operant Conditioning will create unpredictable learned associations of this.
In terms of a paedophile, whether they are born with this feeling or not, it's desirable to touch children, and they will do so as long as they (in their eyes) believe the good feelings are worth the potential punishment. However, just like any addiction, they may be blind to the negative consequences, only thinking short-term, and only aim for the good feelings, "no matter the cost".
(I may be thinking a bit too logically about this, considering mental/psychological illnesses are still not very well understood in many cases.)
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I see what you mean. I still think the reward system is something apart from happiness though. You're talking about pleasure here, not happiness.
Pleasure and happiness affect different parts of the brain, if you want to go into specifics.
One is a temporary state, that can be brought on by external stimuli, many of which bring guilt or negative feelings as well.
The other is a long lasting state of mind which comes from inside.
Pleasure can bring misery as it is dependent on external factors, is short lived and it can lead to addiction or pain when external factors are removed. Think of a gambler for example.
And while it can be shared with others, it's mostly a selfish state and can indeed be dependent on the suffering of others
Happiness is a self-sustaining state. An inner peace. And it can also be shared with others, or even come, in part, from others, like Chris said, if you have children, or friends, that help you on your way to happiness. But I don't believe it can be gained at the cost of the suffering of others.
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The state of happiness is a subjective general contentment of your life situation. What creates that life situation can be many things, but mostly a sense of "all my emotions have an overall net positive". And what is considered a net positive largely depends on associations. And associations can be trained, through the reward system for example. Pleasure is a way to the state of happiness. I'd also argue that in ignorance, pleasure can be perfectly without guilt/negative feelings ("ignorance is bliss"). So that begs the question: Is a paedophile who is never caught/punished, and who thinks the kids like it, truly happy? Additionally, if they think that society is wrong for punishing them, they will not agree with the sentiment that their actions are wrong/malicious? (Sorry if these questions are NSFW; we could take the discussion elsewhere if we touch more on taboo matters like this.)
Happiness being an inner peace I agree with. "Sharing happiness" I feel like is more a sense of acknowledgement/recognition you get from people whose opinions matter to you (e.g. friends & family)? But we humans also reflect a lot of emotions, true.
So if you and those around you are at peace with the suffering of others (picture the mentality of "there will always be suffering in the world; the strong preying on the weak is the way of nature"), you are happy, right...? 🤔
What I'm trying to get at (I think?), is that happiness is something you create for yourself, just like the meaning of life. You can only be happy if you decide that you have valid reasons to feel good about your life situation. And what perspective you have on this is largely determined during childhood, I think: Core morals that you have a desire to live by, as well as those you want others to live by. I feel like a deficient upbringing can make these morals a wildcard.
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(Sorry if these questions are NSFW; we could take the discussion elsewhere if we touch more on taboo matters like this.)
Well, we are not arguing for pedophilia so I think we're fine.
And yes pleasure can be without guilt or negative feelings but it's still a temporary thing. When you have to get your kicks secretly from the dark web while looking over your shoulder, even if you personally think 99% of the world is wrong in condemning you, I don't really think you can get to what is the definition of happiness. You can get stolen moments of pleasure, but a general state of inner peace and happiness?
If you get pleasure from cocaine... even if it was legal and you could do it in public, by nature the highs stop so you can't be happy from it.
So if you and those around you are at peace with the suffering of others (picture the mentality of "there will always be suffering in the world; the strong preying on the weak is the way of nature"), you are happy, right...? 🤔
I think in this case it's more a delusion of happiness. If you are the all-powerful leader of a totalitarian regime and you live in your ivory tower with your entourage who get their kicks out of your power and money, you can get all the blow you want and all the women you want and your mom is proud of you, I mean... sure you can tell yourself you're happy but are you really?
You can't really trust anyone around you because you know they're only there for you until they can't use you anymore. You are paranoid about those damn opponents who want you dead. You can't even invade any country you want because other countries put sanctions on your ass and block your assets... I mean... feels like pretty shitty to me.
What I'm trying to get at (I think?), is that happiness is something you create for yourself, just like the meaning of life
Whether it's real or an illusion, yes I agree. Morals play an essential part in it.
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Well, we are not arguing for pedophilia so I think we're fine.
I'm always a bit worried that people may perceive my words wrong, and think I'm arguing for why things like paedophilia is okay, or validate the feelings of such individuals. Pure text communication is easy to misinterpret, after all :-)
Regarding the pleasure being temporary, you could go as far as saying everything in life is temporary. You will never be constantly happy, as you cannot be completely without displeasing events, whether it's the subsiding of a high, getting caught on the dark web, or your partner telling you you did something considerably stupid the other day. What really matters is your perspective on these events, and how much you let them affect your built-up happiness, i.e. how much you're willing to look past the negativity. In this regard, "true happiness" doesn't exist unless you're completely ignorant to negative events/emotions.
You can get stolen moments of pleasure, but a general state of inner peace and happiness?
If you're ignorant enough, any prolonged state of mind is possible, I'd say. For good and bad.
We can try to look at healthy individuals too: Why should you feel happy when there's so much misery in the world (wars even), and you have so much capability of doing something about it? If everyone were to think this, no one would ever be happy, I believe. But we're able took look past it (to some degree), and smile despite it all.
I think in this case it's more a delusion of happiness.
I might be getting a bit too existential right now, but what are the states of our mind/emotions if not delusions? You believe you have a good reason to feel what you feel, validating your emotions based on your logic and the information you have. But we humans are unable to have the entire bigger picture in mind at all times, nor have the same a universal infallible logic applicable to every scenario. So what are we, if not a product of our subjectively perceived environments? 🤔 And who's to say a predator can't consider itself happy, based on this?
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m always a bit worried that people may perceive my words wrong, and think I'm arguing for why things like paedophilia is okay, or validate the feelings of such individuals. Pure text communication is easy to misinterpret, after all :-)
Well, you can always get an issue with people who don't read all the words or who just jump the gun but you don't have to worry with me.
Regarding the pleasure being temporary, you could go as far as saying everything in life is temporary.
That's a key principle of buddhism. And so is the "positive nihilism" I was trying to explain. I didn't know that before.
And who's to say a predator can't consider itself happy, based on this?
Just about any psychological study ever made on those predators. Actually most psychological assessments of pedophiles, serial killers and other "compulsory predator" seem to point out to a group of motivation that you would characterize as "unhappiness". Whether fear of rejection, abandonment issues or feelings of inadequacy, or other similar motivations, they act not out of the impulse for happy thoughts, but out of the need to keep those unhappy thoughts at bay. Some of them also have been abused, which leads to a pattern of normalization that hides deeper trauma, again, not happiness.
And the compulsory and often escalating nature of their predatory crimes, just like a gambling addict chasing a high they can never reach, means that they do not get any happiness from it.
A few examples of these psychological papers
Understanding What Drives Serial Killers
https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/psychopathology-and-personality-traits-pedophiles
On top it, a lot of pedophiles, like a lot of other predators, shows an "inhibited traits" that speaks against your theory about controlling feelings leading to a better life. The fact they are not feeling their emotions leads them to commit predatory acts.
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What do you think about the US now opening a mental health crisis hotline (988)?What is life's greatest achievement? And what makes it such?How would humanity be different if we were all able to fully control our emotions?Comment has been collapsed.
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Long overdue but sadly I think it only addresses the symptoms, not the root causes of the crisis: Social isolation & an overworked, stressed out, spiritually confused society.
Very true. It feels like they're trying to put a bandaid on a missing limb in a way.
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Thx for sharing!
I enjoyed one of the jigi's, but would have been nice to know some of the requirements..
Minimum ratio using number of gifts Sent/Won on Steamgifts: 1
Minimum ratio using Real Value of gifts Sent/Won on Steamgifts: 1
Your account must have activated all the won gifts
Your account is not allowed to have won the same game multiple times.
Your account must never been VAC banned.
Custom rule: (num_won < 20) && (num_owned_games < 1000)
Not everyone has over a thousand games, but anyone who's used Steam regularly for the past decade probably does.
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Cool custom rule I suppose. Bump for those who qualify.
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Having a mental health crisis hotline can be good aslong they have good people working there .
Lifes greatest achievement would be giving birth/having kids ,because the goal of life is reproduction.
If we could all controll our emotions,Crime rate would probably dropp ,while suicide rate ,would probably rise .
the num won and owned games would kick me out anyway ,but i think if you wanna give to some unfortunate souls you should probably lower the ratio to like 0,5 ,except that i wish you good luck getting 5+entries on all those giveaways.
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Thanks! It will be interesting to see how many entries there will be, indeed..! So far the numbers are not high, I'll admit. But after more than two weeks I'm sure there will be more! ;-)
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Yeah ,in germany we have i think multiple hotlines to call ,while i never did ,but they indeed helped if i remember correct its mostly boys in the 25-44 age range that are in need of help with nobody to talk with .
Its not really a lack of recources thats the problem in the world ,its the greed,Alot of inventions are denied/delayed by the goverment ,because easy accesible recources would make the price drop .On top of that nature is unpredictable and could destroy most of humanity at any time .
While controlling emotions would be nice and dendy ,but would we be really you and me?will everybody be the same?If not there gotta be only a hand full of bad kittens that will destroy that Utopia .
If you would controll your emotions ,you would probably show less Empathie towards others too ,like a robot doing your job .
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Interesting, I'm very happy to hear that it helped! :-)
Greed indeed... Increasing our population probably won't change this (if anything, maybe make it worse?), but I think the best way to make sure life after us thrives, is to help the young to get a healthy mentality and perspective on work, money, and societal collaboration.
Hmm, I don't think having full control of our emotions would equal to not having emotions at all? You still feel emotions, and you take them into consideration when acting. But you don't act with complete disregard to risks or consequences just because you're furious with someone. Like being blinded by hatred/love, basically.
When it comes to personality, how you act based on how you feel is definitely a part of you, and you would be a different person if you could control all your emotions. But would you be a better person? Effectively being able to act logically despite not feeling good about it? Like sacrificing a criminal in order to save an honest worker, despite the criminal being your brother?
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Just wanted to update you with the stats:
Out of 14 giveaways, 3 of them had less than 5 entries, and 3 with no entries (all three were part of the mini-train, so I think that was a bit too difficult for most?). So if I didn't make the puzzles, it would probably reach 5 entries with no problem. But even with only a single individual, I'm happily giving the game :-)
The amount of URLs given by SGTools ranged from 10 to 20 on the rest of the GAs here, so there's definitely not a lot of people that this reached. Will be a bit more lenient next time :-)
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I don't speak machine so I guess the investigation was cut short.
What do you think about the US now opening a mental health crisis hotline (988)?
I would say better late than never but as someone who worked for one of those, I think very little can be done if people don't also have access to basic mental health care. A country should take care of its own, especially of the people who are less likely to take care of themselves because of shame, stigma, depression, and aggravating mental issues.
What is life's greatest achievement? And what makes it such?
42.
Hm seriously, I have no idea. Maybe it's just accepting the fact that we don't amount to much in the vastness of the universe.
I know it sounds like it would be a depressing idea but actually when you think about it, if I am just a tiny amount of carbon and oxygen on a speck of dust traveling through space, maybe what keeps me up at night is not all that important and I can breathe again.
And if I'm just a very small part of the universe, maybe others are not so different from me and maybe our differences don't matter much.
How would humanity be different if we were all able to fully control our emotions?
There would be no humanity without emotion. I think though that humanity would be much better off if we were fully able to cope with our emotions. So much of what is wrong with the world comes not from emotion but from the repression of emotions, whether it's pain, sadness, despair, grief or even love.
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Interesting... Do you have something specific in mind when saying basic mental health care? Like the right to have a psychiatrist?
Access to treatment is an essential part of it, yes. Starting with proper diagnosis, medical assessment and yes therapy or medication.
In the US I feel like the mentality is reflected by the prison system, which is rather barbaric; it solely focuses on punishing people, not rehabilitate them into functioning citizens.
... if not even solely in providing unpaid labor to a bunch of unscrupulous companies in the guise of "paying for" the costs of incarceration, yes. Mental illness plays a huge part in crime and incarceration, as drugs do. But who cares when you can fill your jails with unpaid workers while looking "tough on crime" when you run for whatever office you have next in your sight.
I think that is a depressively calm thought :-) We do what we want to while we live and then we die ¯_(ツ)_/¯
That's not how I see it though. Maybe I just explained it wrong. As individuals we are small and insignificant because we are part of something bigger. I guess it goes back to morals like we were discussing. It's more a form of positive nihilism. Nihilism in itself is neither good nor bad, it's the way you choose to interpret it. If you think "well then I'll do whatever I want and screw it", then sure ok, anarchy in the UK and all that. But if you think about it like you are small and insignificant so you are not more important than anyone else, you start caring less about yourself and more about the whole you're a part of?
By "fully control", I don't mean being emotionless, but indeed being able to interpret emotions and act accordingly in a logical manner (many say emotion and logic are opposites, but I say nay).
That's a disaster waiting to happen. I don't think there is enough logic in humanity to rule our emotions. The only way forward is to recognize them and learn how to live with them instead of taking them out on others because we don't know how to deal with them.
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im too stupid for this quiz (https://www.sgtools.info/giveaways/parseInt%28MWVjMQ==%29f53b-0632-11ed-a730-fa163e0a8583) is there any clue or hint?
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UPDATE: SOLUTIONS ADDED
Good day!
I decided to get some giveaways out of the way again, and wanted to do various things. All of the GAs are level 1, and have simple checks through SGTools.
Here are some giveaways right off the bat:
Jigidi:
Some investigation required for a mini-train:
https://www.sgtools.info/giveaways/parseInt(MWVjMQ==)f53b-0632-11ed-a730-fa163e0a8583A simple statement:
System audit policy was changed.
https://www.sgtools.info/giveaways/eb????a5-0636-11ed-a730-fa163e0a8583
And here are some questions:
Ninja edit:
Here, take this (Split the W)
-- Edit 2 --
Sorry, I should have specified the requirements for the GAs. It's the same for all mentioned here, except the ninja edit.
SGTools requirements for all the GAs:
UPDATE:
All giveaways ended on the 2nd of August, at midnight UTC.
SOLUTIONS:
For the mini-train:
parseIntis a Java/JavaScript function that tries to convert the given value into an integer value. But first you'd have to convert the value given into something that can be calculated into a number.MWVjMQ==This string ending with two = characters is a common giveaway for a Base encoded string. The most commonly used (and in this scenario) is Base64. Converting it from Base64 into plaintext yields1ec1, This can be parsed into an integer, as this is a valid hexadecimal. This yields7873.All this can be done in cryptii.com.
The simple statement:
You just have to google the statement mentioned, and it will give you the code connected with it, which is 4719.
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