I hear and share your skepticism, but I'm also skeptical of pushbacks to the ever-growing research and literature on the uniqueness and, well, "personhood" of animals.
The more we learn about animals (see the article on HN ~2 days ago that bees engage in play) the more it seems like they're a lot more like us than we'd like to think. We're smart, and we can try to explain every thing away (like you do in your comment), but there's a pattern that's emerging. It's an uncomfortable pattern and I get why we try to convince ourselves that animals are fundamentally different than we are, but I'm more and more believing that we're all actually a lot more similar than we'd like to think.
A lot of my current thinking is from the book How to be Animal by Melanie Challenger. I recommend it!
I don't judge scientific letter literature with empathy. I can definitely empathize with animals, and I would even say my own cat has shown some behaviors as a kitten that stayed later on (like being easily scared).
Netflix's cat movie that was extremely narrativistic and meant for cat loving audience had more sound basis and plausible methodology to study actual behavior. (Like attachment tests).
This is simply not it. I don't care if it supports my preconceptions - I try to judge objectively. As should more people. This isn't "pushback against personhood of animals". This is pushback against an increasingly narrativistic science, and the inability of so many people to recognize it.
I think I intuitively agree with you, but I don't think it's as simple as "just do X and don't do Y".
It's akin to saying "Just choose to read a book. Drop heroin".
We'd like to think we have such control, but the fact is that these things are addictive and one can't simply "just stop" without a process and a culture that promotes these processes.
willpowering is a bad way to change any behavior. It's more or less a setup for failure.
There are definitely ways to prepare and change a behavior with intention
- limit time per day. if you find yourself going over,
thats ok, note it, and put the phone down.
- try uninstalling the app entirely -- make it harder for yourself to get the fix
- schedule other activities that require you to be in the moment
- give yourself positive reinforcement when you succeed. don't beat yourself up if you don't.
- set very small goals, when you meet them, set some more very small goals
> It's akin to saying "Just choose to read a book. Drop heroin".
Sans the physical addition of heroin. You wont die from not getting to tweet at other twits. You wont die from binging after trying to stop tweeting, either.
While repeated often, Atomic Habits is a really great book I can wholeheartedly recommend. People really are habitual creatures. Willpower is very fickle, yet you likely don’t have to find any motivation to brush your teeth before bed, it just comes automatically.
I know you wrote you prefer physical books to digital devices but....I recently got a Kobo ([Libra 2](https://us.kobobooks.com/products/kobo-libra-2)) and just by virtue of creating the habit of always having it on my person, I've been reading a ton more.
Phone, wallet, keys, Kobo. That habit was a much easier lift than the guilt-inducing "must read X pages/hours per Y" demands on myself, and it led to more reading.
Same. I have a Kindle Basic (great for reading, bad for pretty much everything else). It can fit my back pocket, so I put it there whenever I go out. Every waiting moment is an occasion to read a few pages of my current book. I've also disable cellular internet on my phone, so it's always the best distraction instead of going to Twitter or Whatsapp status.
Cool! How does it handle סופית letters like ך /ח? Like totally separate letters?
For the non-Hebrew speakers, Hebrew has some letters that change form when placed at the end of the word. The Hebrew keyboard has these forms in their own key, but colloquially they're the same letter.
And it does seem to treat them like totally different letters. They are the same though I'm not sure what will be more fun to play. Note that Hebrew has fewer letters to begin with (22 not counting those).
OP here. We actually count them as the same letter for “yellow” boxes, only the keyboard separates them into different keys (this is explained in the help screen).
