Brussels is pretty bad indeed. Even in Belgium itself there are nicer towns to visit in my opinion. If you ever find yourself in Brussels as a tourist again, take a short train or car ride to Leuven. Not as crowded, comparable amount of pretty historic things to look at and for me at least it has a much nicer vibe. Sometimes major capitals can be too flooded with tourists and not actually be the nicest places to visit. I am Dutch myself and I can tell you, if your European trip includes a visit to the Netherlands, that for instance Utrecht, Leiden and Delft are all cities with pretty historic canals like Amsterdam, but without being overcrowded with tourists and are hence much nicer places to visit as far as I'm concerned.
Can you elaborate a bit on how culturally there is a bigger difference between your hometown and Salt Lake City than between Brussels and Salt Lake City? I'm quite surprised to hear that.
Although he currently has a lot of mainstream success, I think Bach is a historical example of your favourite composer's favourite composer. While he received a fair bit of recognition in his own time, after his death his works were regarded old fashioned as music went from Baroque to Classicism and then to Romanticism and he was a bit forgotten. In the 19th and 20th century people started getting more interested in historical music and Bach's reputation grew again to the point where he's now regarded as (one of) the greatest composer(s) ever. However among Bach enjoyers in the period where he wasn't very highly regarded, were Mozart and Beethoven. Both of them studied Bach's work, which inspired them to write more complex counterpoint. So in the second half of the 18th century Bach was probably the perfect example of your favourite composer's favourite composer.
shamgar
9mo ago
I have also noticed I enjoy less some of the places for online discussion I used to frequent. I have asked myself whether it was the discussions that have changed or my perception of them. A general trend of declining quality does match my experiences I think, but again I cannot tell whether I might be a bit burned out with online discussions or whether the discussions are burning out.
Your sentiment is certainly relatable. However, I don't have any advice for you which you have not already rejected in your post. It does make me think of this little poem:
“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”
What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.
shamgar
9mo ago
I also think this is rather tricky and don't know how to deal with it. To complicate matters further I also don't want to err to much in the other direction where you completely disregard everything a certain source has to say because it made a dumb mistake once while it might still have plenty of worthwhile things to say.
shamgar
9mo ago
While I can understand why people think red is the obvious choice, but I really struggle to understand why some people seem to have such a hard time imagining non-cognitively impaired people choosing blue.
You presuppositions which together I reckon are sufficient for choosing blue:
- A strong preference for the outcome where no one dies. For instance because you believe human life has an intrinsic value.
- You assume that some people will pick blue. Even if they might think red is the obvious choice when properly considered, maybe they had a brainfart, maybe they misread the poll, maybe their mouse slipped, etc. That's not even considering the fact that for whatever reason people might consciously choose blue.
There's also a weird meta element where I think both of those presuppositions are pretty normal and hence would expect a lot of people to vote blue and if I expect a lot of people to pick blue, that only makes point 2 more salient.
Again I understand why people might not agree with this reasoning, I don't understand why it seems to be so unimaginable that somebody might genuinely hold this position to some Mottizens.
shamgar
9mo ago
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by 'esoteric points of high theology', but personally I really enjoy https://mereorthodoxy.com/.
I don't know what film you're referencing, so I can't attest to that, but personally I had more fun visiting Bruges than visiting Brussels. I think Bruges still has a reputation in Belgium itself of being a bit touristy, but it does have a large beautiful historic centre. I might be a little harsh on Brussels, it does have some nice historic areas, but given that it's the most famous and biggest city in Belgium it just felt a little underwhelming and at least anecdotally when I visited there myself it also felt overcrowded. Bruges also gets plenty of tourists, but it has a large historic city centre and at least when I visited there, the tourist crowds weren't quite as bad as Brussels.
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