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Underrated reasons to be thankful V

Underrated reasons to be thankful V

16 comments

·November 27, 2025

dalanmiller

Many days I worry that HN has lost its humanity and then something with a bit of levity and weird shows up and I am relieved.

gnulinux

I experience a similar sensation. I even feel it for my own self. Sometimes I go weeks, months just thinking about AI, productivity, hustling, taxes etc and then suddenly something with a bit of humanity and weird shows up and I am relieved. It's not completely lost (for now).

smj-edison

I know absurdist humor isn't for everyone, but man it cracks me up. So bravo to the strange and the weird, and that it holds this crazy place together!

jstanley

This one in particular stood out:

> we also have lots of crazier tricks we could pull out like panopticon viral screening or toilet monitors or daily individualized saliva sampling or engineered microbe-resistant surfaces or even dividing society into cells with rotating interlocks or having people walk around in little personal spacesuits, and while admittedly most of this doesn’t sound awesome, I see no reason this shouldn’t be a battle that we would win.

Are you sure that the potential for society to start enforcing these things upon us is a reason to be thankful?

kragen

Sounds better than human extinction from bioweapons.

paganel

A hopefully tongue-in-cheek entry, or I certainly hope so. Or the guy (or lady) who wrote this is an arrrr ZeroCovidCommunity regular on reddit.

vr46

"Cheddar cheese and pickle. A Vincent Motor-sickle. Slap Bang Tickle"

- Ian Dury, Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 1

GPerson

I found this to be a disturbing read. Do not recommend.

facialwipe

This whole thing reads strange. I’m not thankful for any of the presented reasons to be thankful.

ketanmaheshwari

Eating cardamom as I read this. My go to spice to keep mouth busy and flavorful and stay away from junk food.

kragen

Yeah! Screw you, cobalt-60! And I'm sure glad I'm not two-dimensional, but maybe I could poop through my mouth like a sea anemone.

jstanley

People say that 2-dimensional life is impossible because it's impossible to make a 2-dimensional digestive system.

But you just need to make it work like a zip. The two halves of the body have interlocking hooks, and they move out of the way to let food pass through, and then reconnect.

s1mplicissimus

I think 2-dimensional life is impossible because physical things exist in all dimensions. As spacetime is already 4 dimensions, no physical thing at all exists in 2 dimensions, thus no life either

kragen

Oh, that's just trivia about the contingent universe. You wouldn't say it was impossible for Carthage to have conquered Rome, would you?

kragen

Yeah, Dynomight suggested that in the article.

jstanley

Oops, I missed that!