Gut, besser, Gosser was one of the catch phrases of a TV commercial I was seeing in my early college years. I don't quite agree with the affirmation, considering that, while Gosser isn't bad, there are other finer beers. Everyone seems to understand though and nobody (so far at least) said to me something like: "You don't like that beer? What the hell is wrong with you? Are you mentally disabled? People like you should just be lynched in the street as a lesson to all the freaks!". But food and drinks are something people are more tolerant of. Religion must be the one thing at the very opposite end of toleration. Everything else lies somewhere in-between.
Some really smart guy is credited to have said that "Everything is relative". I don't know if he said it or not... but that's besides the point. The point being that, it is a simple truth, and acknowledging it means to acknowledge that you shouldn't make any assumptions about other people based simply on your likes and dislikes. Be tolerant. I know, it's hard, specially in this day and age, where the apparent anonymity given by the internet allows anyone to let out their inner child. And children, contrary to popular belief are not innocent angels. Quite the opposite: most often children are noisy, egocentric, impulse driven little creatures, who have yet to realize that they are an insignificant entity on an ever more crowded planet.
So what I'm asking of you is: don't be a kid. Be aware that right now there are about 7 billion people on this planet. The odds tat you know what people you are talking with on the internet have as their wants and needs are dim. The odds that there is something you know best are basically zer0. The odds for you to know better than the one you are arguing with are about 50-50. This doesn't mean that there are no stupid people. Hell, no... there are plenty of us! Have you ever seen people admitting on the internet that they were arguing with someone, and then the other person came with some very good and reasonable arguments and they managed to see the fallacy of their previous concepts. If you did... how often was that? Once? I bet most often things looked like this, via zoso.
Let's explore the concept a bit more...
So what do I mean by better being something relative?
Is a $10.000 Fiat better than a $1.700.000 Veyron? For me, yes. Just like real women are better than photoshopped women, or special effects in movies are better than special effects in a cartoon: because they are (or feel) real! I can't afford a Veyron, but I can afford a Fiat. And that matters to me.
Is a red Ferrari better than a white one? Not for me (I don't care about color, I'm not a racist) :-), but yes for many others.
Is a Trabant better than a ... I don't know... a car? It is to some. Because what it lacks in functions it makes up for in sentimental value. Some don't remember the communist life it represented. Some just remembered one thing: they were young when they got it.
Why is though a Veyron a better car for most people? It's because we are simple creatures in a very complex world, which we could not possibly comprehend in its full form, so we simplify, we abstract, we generalize to cope with existence. Life changes faster than we can adapt to it. A Veyron is a better car for most people simply because it encompasses many things which they consider of quality: shiny exterior, fancy interior, a monster engine and a status that goes with the car. A status that says "I'm so rich, that when buying a car, I just picked one at random from a top 10 of the most expensive". It doesn't mean that if someone would win $1.5 million overnight it will blow it all on the Veyron. But if someone wins $10.000 overnight, he/she may blow it all on a Fiat. Because it wouldn't be such a big thing.
(will be continued)
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