Difference between revisions of "Talk:2536: Wirecutter"

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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(reviews of less than full lifecycle still possible/useful. e.g. compare on intercession)
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The major problem with trying multiple religions is that to fully test a religion you need to die - and most people only die once, with the ability to die multiple times being exclusive feature of small number of religions. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 04:49, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
 
The major problem with trying multiple religions is that to fully test a religion you need to die - and most people only die once, with the ability to die multiple times being exclusive feature of small number of religions. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 04:49, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
 
:I ain't mad Hkmaly, but the idea that a religion's primary purpose is to promote a vision of the afterlife is alien to a lot of religions (including my own flavor of Judaism), whose policy on the hereafter is "afterlife, shmafterlife, pass the bagels." Hence also my edits toning down the "religions are about provable belief claims" rhetoric (eyeroll).  ----Ben
 
:I ain't mad Hkmaly, but the idea that a religion's primary purpose is to promote a vision of the afterlife is alien to a lot of religions (including my own flavor of Judaism), whose policy on the hereafter is "afterlife, shmafterlife, pass the bagels." Hence also my edits toning down the "religions are about provable belief claims" rhetoric (eyeroll).  ----Ben
 +
::Reviewers rarely fully test tech items.  (e.g. they often don't cover complete lifecycle costs - what happens to the device after it dies, how easy is it to move on to a new one, etc.)  Don't have to test everything to have a meaningful review.
 +
::Many religions make claims about impacts in this life.  (e.g., intercessory prayer)  Such claims are eminently testable.  A comparative review would be interesting.  I am only aware of a few such tests, mostly comparing a single product to general average or to no intervention {{w|Efficacy of prayer}}. 
  
 
It doesn't look like the search bar text says "search," but I can't make out what it actually says.--[[User:KrazyKat|KrazyKat]] ([[User talk:KrazyKat|talk]]) 06:33, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
 
It doesn't look like the search bar text says "search," but I can't make out what it actually says.--[[User:KrazyKat|KrazyKat]] ([[User talk:KrazyKat|talk]]) 06:33, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Revision as of 18:49, 3 November 2021

Note: they don't say they tried out a large number of religions but a large number of belief systems. This could include things like "Libertarianism" or "Monarchists". (By CWALLENPOOLE, but not signed in.)

But the picture of the article title says “The Best Religion” 108.162.216.233 20:31, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

The phrase "highly controversial" should not be used in the explanation. For the record, I am opposed to the things listed in that sentence and my objection is not based in a desire to defend them. Religion itself might be said to be "highly controversial" so the use in the last sentence is both superfluous and biased. 172.70.82.53 00:34, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

I really want this article to be real. ----Dave

Me too. I did something similar in my early 20s, and feel such an article honestly done would be a great help to many. In fact, the current description is slightly inaccurate- in that even lifelong practitioners, do usually have a wandering time in early adulthood if not given direction. Such an article would give some direction.Seebert (talk) 15:03, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

The major problem with trying multiple religions is that to fully test a religion you need to die - and most people only die once, with the ability to die multiple times being exclusive feature of small number of religions. -- Hkmaly (talk) 04:49, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

I ain't mad Hkmaly, but the idea that a religion's primary purpose is to promote a vision of the afterlife is alien to a lot of religions (including my own flavor of Judaism), whose policy on the hereafter is "afterlife, shmafterlife, pass the bagels." Hence also my edits toning down the "religions are about provable belief claims" rhetoric (eyeroll). ----Ben
Reviewers rarely fully test tech items. (e.g. they often don't cover complete lifecycle costs - what happens to the device after it dies, how easy is it to move on to a new one, etc.) Don't have to test everything to have a meaningful review.
Many religions make claims about impacts in this life. (e.g., intercessory prayer) Such claims are eminently testable. A comparative review would be interesting. I am only aware of a few such tests, mostly comparing a single product to general average or to no intervention Efficacy of prayer.

It doesn't look like the search bar text says "search," but I can't make out what it actually says.--KrazyKat (talk) 06:33, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Maybe it says Seance, since for "seach" the high stoke from the H is missing. -- 162.158.203.10 07:33, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
or Sermon maybe, that would fit the theme
Could be Search with large S and smaller caps for the rest? Anyone subscribe to the NYT and care to visit the actual WireCutter site to see the formatting? 172.70.147.195 12:40, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
Don't need to be a subscriber to see the site. It says "Show me the best..." Paddles (talk) 13:26, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

I don't want to sound controversial but tithing would be a refreshing change comparing to current tax systems Tkopec (talk) 10:31, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Agreed- 10% is much less than the near 50% I'm paying when I figure it all in.Seebert (talk) 15:03, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
You really want to pay tithes AND taxes? 108.162.249.63 18:54, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Last night I was writing a huge thing about religions' almost universal reluctance to be 'tried out' (lestways allowing easy unsubscription at the end) but on reflection, after a night's sleep, I'm wondering if they just had 70+ 'mystery shoppers' tasked to report back on one assigned 'product' each, their reports aggregated so this didn't matter too much (to the overall report-writers, at least). 172.70.85.175 14:31, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Also, the 'religious' wars metaphor extends quite easily to different platforms, yet (say) laptop reviews might compare a set of Windows vs a Mac or two (vs Chromebook, and maybe others) as options. And when it comes to keyboards, the QWERTY-Othodoxy and the Dvorak-Reformists both have bad (and untrue) things to say about each other, when 'enough time' with any given layout should be good enough to prosper in that. (That said, I had a programmable calculator from the '80s until it gave up the ghost some time post-Millenium, and I really did not get on with its alphabetical-order keyboard all that time, perhaps because I was QWERTYing almost everywhere else.) 172.70.85.175 14:31, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

In the case of religions though, the wars are not allegorical, they are literal. Nothing else in human experience really compares to the effects of a religious war (except maybe our wars to support a certain socioeconomic idealogy). The impact of format wars don't even come close; even if you count Uranium VS Thorium. This comic doesn't really draw a comparison between reviewing religions & reviewing products; so much as it contrasts the enormous differences in how we approach the two subjects...
ProphetZarquon (talk) 17:41, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

(Also also: QWERTY with UK-layout is my own personal sub-sect, with occasional need to adapt to US-layout (physically printed keycaps and/or what the computer thought was plugged in) with " and # and ~ characters amongst the main jumbled up ones, and no easy £ access. Which wasn't actually as unnerving as being in the 'wrong' bit of Belfast, but had the same subtle note of discordant undertone to it until I shifted my mental gears or ideally corrected the situation satisfactorarily by configuration.) 172.70.85.175 14:31, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

There's a book by John S. Dunne, The Way of All the Earth, that advocates essentially trying out religions while keeping one foot in one's own (Dunne describes it as "crossing the abyss and crossing back"). 162.158.74.158 17:17, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Surprised no-one has yet mentioned this joke was done in almost exactly the same way on the UK satirical TV show TW3 in 1963 by David Frost (of later Frost/Nixon fame). --- jg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRZWyfERiCc

I was just looking for psychological/psychiatrical papers that say something about the frequency of mental illnesses by religion. Maaaaaaaaaayyybeeeeeeeeee there is a religion that is clearly superior to other religions in that regard, and so government health officials could make a recommendation to change to a specific religion. :-P --162.158.88.57 10:58, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

But then, illnesses (as well as the symptoms of the same illness) depend on the culture, so my sardonic idea was probably left unresearched...--162.158.91.106 12:23, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Feels like there should be a line in there about how religion is itself often "that which determines what is valued" and therefore very hard to treat objectively. So, for example, if your religion taught that discipline was inherently good, you would think less of another religion that specifically warned against the dangers of excessive discipline. Meanwhile, a member of that religion might think YOUR religion was worse, because - according to the tenets of THEIR religion - you put TOO MUCH emphasis on discipline, while you think your emphasis is correct and THEY are wrong for not having it. Now, granted, people might want different things from their technology - one person might want user-friendliness, another might value greater customizability - but religion is different in that it, in itself, informs our understandings of "what is valuable". It would be like if Apple users actively began extolling the benefits of user-friendliness BECAUSE they are Apple users and Apple itself is what taught them to value user-friendliness, while Linux users were originally indifferent but BECAME fans of customizability BECAUSE they used Linux. (And yes, there can be cult-like elements of both fandoms, but hopefully the distinction I'm drawing here is reasonably clear: religion tells you what is valuable, technology does not.)

(Also, why all the Judaism-specific stuff now?) --mezimm 172.69.68.106 16:42, 3 November 2021 (UTC)