That probably costs more than I ever spent on all writing utensils I've ever owned.
What makes this cost that much (other than they are owned by uniball)? The material certainly isn't worth that much? And the function would be replicated in the market for less? So, what makes it not some luxury bullshit?
I think the budget play is to get a cheap refillable fountain pen and some cheap fountain pen ink (I bought some Diamine bottled ink about 10 years ago and I've still got plenty left).
More expensive fountain pens are indeed luxury products - replicas are often available on places like aliexpress.
I think it probably feels like bullshit if you don't think you'll gain any satisfaction or derive any pleasure from the act of writing or the aesthetics of your writing instrument.
Depends how critical computers are to one's life, I think. I wouldn't call myself a cook, but I need to eat, so I can make a mean bowl of pasta when it comes down to it. Given another five-ten years of development, I expect tooling to develop that lets everyone automate computers to a degree previously reserved for professional programmers, akin to what the microwave oven did for cooking. The ability to microwave a hot pocket doesn't remotely make me a cook, but I won't starve, either.
Reading that I thought everyone could be a series of APIs. We are all experts at something. Something like: when was building X at the end of Y street demolished?
Are you serious? Building a good excavator is almost certainly more than just having the material. Similarly, knowing how to deal with the earth will have more than a few curves based on the composition.
> A puritian dream. Pay, sinner, pay for your hedonistic pleasures!
I am not aware of such uses for alcohol, but for hallocinogenic drugs, there exist people who don't use them for hedonistic pleasures, but for getting creative, scientific or spiritual inspirations.
I know the names of some famous writers who drank too much, but I am very much willing to admit that people who are using alcohol for creativity are far outside the bubble of people who I am surrounded with, so I can legitimately claim that from my personal life I am not aware of any single example of this phenomenon.
Where truth is treated with scorn, scientists and other geeky professions have to scurry into the shadowy corners; where the wealthy rule over the rest due to the confusion of wealth with virtue and truth; where the best instincts of humanity, for curiosity, exploration, compassion, and rationality are mocked and cruelty, disdain for intelligence, disdain really for anyone not like the cookie cutter mainstream really, are lifted up at the cost of all groups that can't or won't fit in.
Very dramatic, but funding scientific studies is no antidote to groupthink, authoritarianism, and cruelty towards the non-conforming, in case you missed the last 5 years.
There's a pretty clear causal chain between the abuse of public trust and social influence from educational and scientific institutions in the last decade or so and the anti-intellectualism we're witnessing today, abuse which was and is driven by the same hubris you demonstrate by conflating intellectualism with All That Is Good. And needless to say since I am posting on HN, but I say that as an intellectualist.
You are blaming the cruelty of the homophobes and racists on the hubris of the smart people? Not blaming the victims exactly, but certainly not holding citizens responsible for their civic contributions.
The destination is Putin's Russia where truth does not matter, oligarchs loot the country, opposition is only a token and the most of the country is poor and stagnating.
What makes this cost that much (other than they are owned by uniball)? The material certainly isn't worth that much? And the function would be replicated in the market for less? So, what makes it not some luxury bullshit?
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