
The most relaxing vacation you can take is going nowhere - prostoalex
https://quartzy.qz.com/1342058/the-most-relaxing-vacation-you-can-take-is-going-nowhere-at-all/
======
EtherealEntity
No, just no. I'm going to stay at home, think about the projects I need to do
around the house and how much my spare activities are going to cost. The best
vacation is an all-inclusive resort. I budget for the booking/flight. I get to
see a new place in the world and once I'm there I basically eat/drink/sleep
whenever I want to, it's the best.

~~~
guidoism
I’ve been thinking about what it is about vacations that’s so relaxing since
it’s clearly not the lack of work. I quit my job a year ago but my day is
still full of stuff to do. What’s nice about a vacation is the lack of
physical possessions. You live without a crap load of clothes that need to be
washed. You have maids to clean your room. The kitchen staff washes the
dishes. You don’t read you email and worry about having to reply to people.
You ignore bills and the leaky faucet and the million other things you need to
do.

It made me think that maybe my life is just full of too many complications.

~~~
solipsism
_I’ve been thinking about what it is about vacations that’s so relaxing since
it’s clearly not the lack of work._

 _You live without a crap load of clothes that need to be washed. You have
maids to clean your room. The kitchen staff washes the dishes_

Huh? I think you're confused here. Washing clothes, cleaning your room,
washing the dishes, and fixing leaks is work. Vacation is exactly having less
work.

~~~
dozzie
Vacation is not about having less work. Vacation is about doing something
different than you do usually, on a different schedule and probably with no
big expectations to meet. Helping one's uncle to build a shed can be vacation
to some people. Writing a program one wanted to write for a long time can be
vacation, too. Spending three weeks in one's shop on woodworking can be a
fulfilling vacation as well. So can be going on an international tour or doing
nothing but reading seven different novels one after another.

~~~
copperx
Getting out of the daily routine, by either laying next to the pool in an all-
inclusive hotel or being busy all day building something in the sun, changes
your perspective and increases your stress resilience in my experience.
Burnout is often the result of one's inability to put tasks aside for a few
days.

------
Fricken
When I travel I'm not doing it to relax, but to go on an adventure, to
experience other worlds, push myself, and get outside my comfort zone.
Otherwise, I totally agree. All the people who go on cruises or Mexican resort
vacations so they can lay around and be pandered to, that never made any sense
to me. I do that at home just fine, for a fraction of the cost and with none
of the hassle.

~~~
jimmy1
People who can "vacation at home" either:

a. don't have kids

b. don't have relatives and friends nearby

c. don't upkeep their own house or living quarters (has a
maid/servent/relative living with them that does everything)

The thought of staying home for my vacation, at least for me, is met with
feelings of intense drudgery. There is nothing relaxing to me about the
suburban/urban rat race I live in.

A couple of years ago, I took a flight to Jamaica and stayed at a Butler
Resort. I literally sat on turquoise water, white sand beaches all day and had
rum drinks brought to me on a silver platter. It was all inclusive, including
the spa. If it doesn't make sense to you, you aren't going to the right
places. If cost is an issue, I wouldn't have been planning a trip to begin
with.

~~~
namuol
I'm not a parent, but if there's one thing I've for-sure learned about
parenthood, it's that it gives you license to passive-aggressively dismiss the
perspective of any and all non-parents.

~~~
vecinu
On top of that, I too have noticed that parents often talk down to people that
haven't experienced parenthood.

Almost as if becoming a parent is very difficult and gives you enlightenment
that can be found in no other way.

~~~
w0m
Honestly in this case; it's somewhat true. Picture a world where you have ~no
control of your daily life. You wake up when you hear the screaming in the
monitor. You completely structure every non-work hour around 3 hour blocks of
potted plants eat/sleep/shit/nap cycles with periods of incredible stress (and
uh.. joy) sprinkled liberally through (Holy crap, was that red in the horrible
poop running down my leg? Oh we gave him radish, whew.)

I'm being a little facetious here, but i'm just saying that everyones life
situation is different. As a relatively new parent, In that situation, I can
see it being incredibly hard to simply 'relax' at home. More than anything
you'll finally have time to notice the liquified pees that has hardened on the
ceiling than actually relax. When i was in my 20s every vacation was 2 weeks
of Hostels and hikes, but we are all in different life situations and that
doens't make one persons opinion of a 'vacation' more correct than anothers.

~~~
projektir
PTSD, depression, poverty, lousy roomates, crappy job, etc., all can generate
experiences that are not so dissimilar to what you describe. Including, some
of these conditions can cause suicide, which might imply they're much worse
than parenting, which, ultimately, is perceived as a positive.

Why is parenting, something that gets lots of external support and
understanding, the special one here, and not any of these other things?
Depressed people don't get a "my life is so hard" horse to sit on continually,
often quite the opposite, they have to work hard to hide it.

There's no evidence that parents are special people, none whatsoever, they are
best described as people in a tough situation, but there are quite a few
different ways to be in a tough situation, and tough situations do not always
make people better.

~~~
koonsolo
> PTSD, depression, poverty, lousy roomates, crappy job, etc., all can
> generate experiences that are not so dissimilar to what you describe.

Imagine this, and on the top of it being a parent of 3 young children. Unless
parents are immune to these conditions.

~~~
projektir
Any of these problems can be permuted.

But only one of these problems (parenthood) has a special social status.

------
Roritharr
My son is nearly two years old now, two months before he was born we had a 7
day vacation in a silent cabin in Norway. Since then nothing I've done with
our family would fulfill my understanding of the term "relaxing". I really
wonder how other parents do it.

We've just been to the beach for a few days. I love spending time with my son
& wife, but I really don't get "relaxed" by this, rather a feeling of
fulfillment and contentness. It's no "charging my batteries" type of vacation
that I've enjoyed before becoming a parent. What am I doing wrong?

~~~
djsjdjd
My wife had the idea to go for a week in S. France and leave our three old
with grandparents in Canada.

Worst descision ever. By day two we were miserable thinking about our little
one, and every toddler we saw made us cringe.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Eh, I think it’s healthy for both parents and children to spend some time
apart. I have loads of friends who have kids ages 3-5 who have never spent a
night away from them. And not because they don’t have the option.

My wife and I both travel regularly for work and fun, sometimes with our
daughter, sometimes just the two of us, sometimes on our own. Anything longer
than a few days does result in us missing her, but really, it’s fine and
probably healthy.

------
lettergram
I think everyone vacations for a different reason. For instance, I'm leaving
on a two week vacation around Ireland Monday. Sure staying at home would have
been "less stressful" \- in the sense I have less to worry about, but I'm not
taking a vacation to reduce risk.

I think life is about experiences. I've worked in different roles, lived in
different places, traveled around, because that's what I enjoy. By moving
around and seeing different walks of life, you learn to empathize and
understand others. You come back to work with a different perspective.

In fact, I view stress itself as a perspective problem. I will be more relaxed
on my vacation (even though I'm traveling with my 6 month old son) because I
simply won't worry about the mundane. It's going to be good food, company, and
sights. I see no reason it would be less stressful at home.

Now, I have also taken "staycations" \- and I love them as well, often I get
stuff done around the house, or just chill on my bed all day. It's a different
flavor, but I don't find it any less stressful or more enjoyable. I think, in
part, it's what ever you (and those around you) view as relaxing and
vacations.

~~~
kaycebasques
> I think life is about experiences.

I'm going to hijack this quote to discuss an incredibly unpopular idea (among
my generation, at least) that I've been kicking around lately. I encountered
the exact idea in a book recently, so I'll just let the book explain it:

> Romanticism tells us that in order to make the most of our human potential
> we must have as many different experiences as we can. We must open ourselves
> to a wide spectrum of emotions; we must sample various kinds of
> relationships; we must try different cuisines; we must learn to appreciate
> different styles of music. One of the best ways to do all that is to break
> free from our daily routine, leave behind our familiar setting, and go
> travelling in distant lands, where we can 'experience' the culture, the
> smells, the tastes and the norms of other people. We hear again and again
> the romantic myths about 'how a new experience opened my eyes and changed my
> life'.

> Consumerism tells us that in order to be happy we must consume as many
> products and services as possible. If we feel that something is missing or
> not quite right, then we probably need to buy a product (a car, new clothes,
> organic food) or a service (housekeeping, relationship therapy, yoga
> classes). Every television commercial is another little legend about how
> consuming some product or service will make life better.

> Romanticism, which encourages variety, meshes perfectly with consumerism.
> Their marriage has given birth to the infinite 'market of experiences', on
> which the modern tourism industry is founded. The tourism industry does not
> sell flight tickets and hotel bedrooms. It sells experiences. Paris is not a
> city, nor India a country --- they are both experiences, the consumption of
> which is supposed to widen our horizons, fulfill our human potential, and
> make us happier...

\--- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, p. 115-6

I looked at my Mom's generation and was majorly put off by their general
obsession with material possessions. Fight Club profoundly moved me when I
first saw it, partly for this reason. So I told myself that I'd spend my money
on experiences. Only recently, after having the good fortune to be able to
travel around the world a bit, have I come to the different opinion that it's
still consumerism. Instagram culture made this very clear. Even my love of
reading is a form of consumerism.

It was a bit of a shock to see that passage in Sapiens, because for all of my
supposed individualism, I realized that this is probably a widespread trend
among my generation (I was born late 80s) and that I wasn't as unique,
contrarian, and individualistic as I had imagined myself to be.

I'm still a rebel without a cause, so now I'm focusing my efforts on creating.
Painting. Writing. Starting a business. Programming stuff, with the sole
purpose of fun and expression. Creating feels like more of a qualitative shift
away from consumerism. Don't really have a name for it, though. Creatorism?
Creationism...? ;) But who knows, 5 years from now maybe I'll realize that my
creationist phase was as much of a herd mindset as my romantic consumerist
phase.

~~~
paulcole
> Fight Club profoundly moved me when I first saw it, partly for this reason.

This is a serious misreading of the message of Fight Club. The point isn’t
that an interest in possessions is bad– it’s that extremist views are bad. The
idea is that living in a hovel with a lunatic terrorist should (hopefully) be
more abhorrent than flipping through the ikea catalog in a condo.

~~~
kaycebasques
> "serious misreading"

This is profoundly disrespectful to me. Please do not speak to me as though
you're the keeper of The One Correct Interpretation of Fight Club. It's absurd
to me that you'd try to speak authoritatively on something as subjective as
how I interpreted a story. Your interpretation to me, likewise, seems far away
from (what I think are) the main themes of the story, but I'd never label your
view as a "misreading."

It's not like I'm coming out of left-field with my interpretation, either. The
main character says "the things you own end up owning you." A good chunk of
the movie depicts a man who seems to be genuinely happier, freer, and more
alive because of his radical rejection of material possessions. E.g. not
caring about his condo enables him to stop working a job he hates, and so on.
Yes, he ends up being an ethically-ambiguous extremist, but to me that doesn't
invalidate the freedom and happiness that he seemed to achieve along the way
by renouncing material possessions. Renouncing material possessions does not
inevitably lead to becoming a terrorist, either. There's a lot of precedent in
Buddhist thought [1] that material possessions keep a person suffering in this
world, and only through freeing oneself from attachment to material
possessions can that person achieve enlightenment.

P.S. I'm talking about the movie, not the book. I've read the book, but this
is one of the rare instances in my opinion where the movie was better than the
book.

[1]:
[https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...](https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1578&context=jrf)

~~~
paulcole
> A man who seems to be genuinely happier, freer, and more alive because of
> his radical rejection of material possessions.

This man is a terrorist and is responsible for the death of Robert Paulson,
and (possibly) many other people in the explosions at the end.

Most Buddhists AFAIK do not supplement their Buddhism with terrorism.

~~~
stevesimmons
> Most Buddhists AFAIK do not supplement their Buddhism with terrorism.

FYI, Buddhism is associated with significant political and ethnic violence in
Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, etc.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_violence#Region...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_violence#Regional_examples)

~~~
paulcole
If I say,

> Most Christians AFAIK do not supplement their Christianity with terrorism.

Will you link me to the wikipedia on the KKK? There's a difference between
some and most.

------
mmsimanga
If you originally come from a small town and you lucky enough to have
relatives still alive in your hometown then going back is also relaxing. Works
for me. Reminds me that sometimes there just is no need to rush like we do in
bigger cities.

------
e40
And it makes sense. It's hard to relax when you are exhausted from traveling.
The best you can do is exhaust yourself getting to/from your destination, then
relax while you are there.

Any vacation with constant switching of locations is not about relaxing. It's
about something else, and that might be what you want.

~~~
kurthr
The counter example of this is that habits are hard to break when you stay in
the same environment. If your habits are what prevent you from relaxing (dog
forbid you work from home), then going somewhere else may be just what you
need. A change of environment is just a way to escape yourself.

Industrial scale resorts do strike me as a bit bizarre, but they are an
industry fed by marketing and advertising. As you say, there are also the
"bucket list" things people would like to see/do that end up as vacations,
because that's the only time you could do them.

These adventures may also help you relax when you return, because you have
memories and stories to tell (or pictures to brag?)... because if you remember
the perspective of your vacation, you may be able to relax a bit even when
you're back working.

~~~
ams6110
Yes the most relaxing vacations I take are when I get away from my house and
local environment, but do virtually nothing at my vacation destination. By
nothing I mean just live in the local environment. Don't try to see all the
things, or make a lot of plans in advance.

~~~
empath75
Yep. My favorite vacations were just staying in a guest house in a residential
neighborhood in Kyoto or an Airbnb above a bakery in Paris and not really
doing much but living life.

------
innomatics
I would staycation a lot more but bringing up a number of children, who
fortunately have daily lives that closely resemble the description of
activities in the article, generally requires some adventure to relieve them
from the mundaneness of hanging at home or around the hood.

Going somewhere serene and quiet, and staying put there is my first choice.
But finding and getting to and from these places, especially during school
holidays, takes some effort and planning. Last summer we drove for 8 hours to
a camp spot (not unusual for families to do here in Australia).

------
bariswheel
Unless you want to get away from your regular routine, this is partially true.
Have tried both. Though it need to be said, staycations are underrated,
especially in destination states like California.

~~~
ovao
It’s relatively easy to split the difference in California as well. I live in
L.A. and have done short weekend+ vacations to San Diego, Palm Springs and
Malibu.

Book a hotel room, drive 60-90 minutes and you’re winding up, essentially, in
fairly different worlds, with just as much or nearly as much to explore. It’s
a great way to have the ‘destination’ component of a vacation without all the
logistics and headaches involved in vacation travel.

~~~
mrhappyunhappy
There’s also Vegas nearby if you want a totally different scene. My wife and I
would go to Vegas quite often before our child and had a wonderful time -
almost rejuvenating to our relationship. Now that I think about it, feels odd
to say you had a great time in Vegas with your wife haha.

------
uiri
I think the article makes it clear that the author does not like to travel too
far from home. They don't like dealing with foreign languages nor foreign
cultures. They want to be near friends and family (people they know). Beyond
the apparent dislike for travel, the article reflects a view that vacationing
in another country is an exercise in crossing items of a list or showing off
on social media. That misses the mark by quite a bit.

The point of visiting a foreign place is not to escape your home and yourself,
but to learn more about yourself, the world and your place in it. There are
ways to decry escapism without suggesting people close themselves off to new
places and new experiences.

------
paublyrne
I'm doing just this, this very week, a week during which by coincidence the
European heatwave is peaking. I've lounged, read, strolled, and napped, and
managed to get myself into a state of relaxation I haven't experienced in
years...

~~~
johnchristopher
I am working in the european tourism industry. I don't think I'll ever go on
holidays again.

Right now they are all gung-ho on `experiences` (hello Airbnb influence) and
`transformation` tourism spiced up with personal development lingo.

My colleagues label me the oddball when I tell them I'd rather spend my free
time around my house and interacting with the community I live in rather than
spend money on some trips and hotel rooms across Europe.

~~~
davnicwil
I've seen these experience things pushed hard by airbnb (in Europe) lately and
I don't know what to think of them. Perhaps you could shed some light, being
in the industry?

Cynical part of me says that most would be empty tourist trap type things. The
concept of paying for a completely set up, planned, 'experience' seems to sort
of cancel out what an experience is and what is special and enjoyable about
it.

On the other hand, tours have existed forever, unique place-specific
activities have existed forever, and I enjoy those when I do them. These
things might be no different except done by 'regular people' instead of
companies, and maybe a bit more diverse and creative, which in a way might
actually really be more genuine and enjoyable.

~~~
toasterlovin
I think “experiences” are basically tours repackaged for a generation that has
become used to extremely high levels of production value in all the forms of
entertainment which they consume.

------
tlrobinson
This is true if:

1\. Your normal style of travel is to see and do everything, and not stay in
one place longer than a few days, versus parking yourself at a
beach/campsite/resort/etc and reading books for week.

2\. You live somewhere relaxing, not a big noisy bustling city (or perhaps if
you are particularly mindful). Even then, sometimes it's nice to get away from
your usual scenery.

When you've got 2 weeks of vacation a year it's easy to feel obligated to see
all the things. If you have the opportunity to do some long term traveling I
highly recommend it. It's a very different experience to absorb culture by
osmosis vs force-feeding it to yourself.

------
Theodores
In the UK the idea of a paid holiday is a new idea, up until 1938 working men
had no entitlement to such a thing. The trade unions were responsible for
getting the change although initially the entitlement was for just one week of
paid holiday. Eventually two weeks became the norm and then the E.U. laws
harmonised the rules to whatever we have today.

There was a need then for taking people's money off them to take them
somewhere for this mandatory holiday fun. This provided quite a bonus to the
railways and associated industries. Seaside towns in the UK are still littered
with the leftover hotels and amusements that got borne into being before the
airplane came along. Planes took the holidaymakers away to cheaper parts of
the world where the strong pound meant that Spanish and Greek folk could wait
on average Brits, accepting wages that nobody would work for in the UK. A lot
of such tourism was living for cheap and having other people do the chores for
you, not exactly the pinnacle of adventure.

So ingrained is the notion of holiday that it really is mandatory. To stay at
home and enjoy the home you have been working fifty weeks of the year to
secure is anathema, total crazy talk that would mark you out as eccentric.
Just because some trade union people fought for the right for paid holidays in
eighty years ago is forgotten and not known by the working man, yet just
because of this legislation the act of going on holiday is deemed mandatory.
It is a win for capitalism and it means nobody is truly getting off the
hamster wheel and enjoying the art of doing nothing. Even in this article -
albeit American - there is still a lot of emphasis on doing inane stuff,
loitering around local shops, putting effort into doing holiday things but in
your back yard. We still seem afraid of an open ended commitment to
unstructured self development, taking time out to do nothing. Times of
nothingness are great for original thinking, creativity and learning, maybe
some people just can't do it.

~~~
notahacker
Pedantic point, but the _un_ paid holiday was around a lot longer in the UK.
The mill towns all celebrated "wakes weeks", holiday periods ostensibly linked
to religion but also undoubtedly a chance for mill owners to implement the
sort of changes which could only be implemented when the machines weren't
running. The seaside resorts (particularly the less upmarket and more northern
ones) grew up in the nineteenth century to cater for that, particularly since
different towns took their holidays in different weeks between June and
September. Not least because the people that scrimped and saved to be able to
afford rail fares, amusements and sticks of rock didn't have a great deal to
enjoy back at home

------
matiasfernandez
Correction: The most relaxing vacation you can take is telling everyone you're
heading to Mexico and then going nowhere.

------
sakopov
I quit my job, sold all my shit and thru hiked El Camino de Santiago 5 years
ago. After about a week I had no idea what day of the week I was on. It was a
glorious and totally boundary-breaking experience. I have never been so at
peace with myself. And I've never looked at life the same way. My vacations
have largely consisted of getting lost in the wilderness (I live in Colorado)
or another country/culture ever since. It's like a detox for my mind. I don't
think I could ever enjoy a staycation.

------
everdev
Jobs that afford expendable income to be able to travel are rarely physically
exhausting. Most vacations are mental "breaks" from work.

We don't need to be still to relax. Just like exercising the right amount can
actually boost your energy, simulating your brain in the right amount can help
provide a break from your work.

For most people, exiting a new place on a leisurely schedule can be just the
right amount of simulation to feel relaxing.

------
elchief
I quit my job knowing a better one was coming down the pipe soon. Had 10 weeks
off. I did nothing except sleep, read, exercise. It was glorious

------
blubb-fish
I can travel in my mind by reading and meditating.

Actual traveling is mostly just an excuse to distract oneself from exploring
one's own inner unknown territory.

I never gained anything by visiting a new place b/c at the end of the day
everything is pretty much the same. Of course it is exciting and I also
totally enjoy it - but real growth is not dependent on that at all.

------
KozmoNau7
My best vacations have been planned in only the loosest sense, ie. choose a
hotel or BnB, book the flight, maybe rent a car at the airport if necessary,
done. Then explore whatever feels interesting, eat good food, soak up the
experience.

I've done the Scottish Highlands, Malaga and southern Germany (3 times) like
this, and it's been amazing every time.

------
scarface74
My wife and I take at least one staycation a year just for a change of
scenery. We will take an Uber to another part of our metro area, stay at a
hotel for two or three days and we won't do anything spectacular. Go out to
eat and drink, maybe go to a show or just do nothing.

We don't have a bucket list, no pressure to "do" anything, etc.

~~~
fermienrico
I never understood the concept of staying in a hotel in the same town. I
travel a lot on business and to me, Hotels are not relaxing as much as my own
house.

Relaxing vacation for me is to go to a remote place away from your own town,
get a cabin and totally unwind. I never understood staycations especially
hotel-staycations.

~~~
scarface74
It depends on your idea of "your town". My family lives, works, and plays in
the 'burbs. We never have any reason to go in town. Staying in town is a
change of scenery. We don't have to drive (take Uber) and we don't have to go
through the expense and hassle of an airport.

------
User23
Whether this is true depends entirely on where you live and what your living
circumstances are.

------
irrational
The most relaxing vacation I have ever been on is a cruise. At least the days
when we were not in port. When you are at sea and literally cannot go anywhere
because you are on a boat there was no expectation or feeling of needing to be
"doing something". You could just wander around, take a nap, stare out at the
water, eat, read a book, play a game, etc. So incredibly relaxing. I'd love to
go on a cruise that just went from point A to point B without going into port
anywhere until it was time to exit the boat. That would be incredibly relaxing
I imagine.

------
tluyben2
I did staycations for 10 years and now I am doing 10 years of going as far as
I can; I vastly prefer the latter. At home we inevitably end up doing things
that do not, for my definition anyway, belong in a vacation. And the stress
thing of vacation goes away if you just do not plan anything upfront besides
getting the tickets. We sometimes end up just walking through nature or city
instead visiting 100 places hurriedly with some guide. And that is fine; for
me vacation means that I do what I like; I do not need to see anything for
that sometimes.

------
bitL
I don't know... I traveled around the world for >1.5 year, staying at one
country/city for a ~month, and it was the most relaxing time of my life. And I
worked full-time, happily remotely, on stuff that was bleeding edge with
proper deliveries. It's amazing to work hard on something, then walk out to a
completely different culture and plug in part of the brain that is not used at
work. That also led to many unexpected creative collaborations as well as
starting a company with a person I met at the opposite end of the world.

------
FrozenVoid
I agree with the premise(vacation is stressful and expensive), but staying at
home doesn't provide the sense of isolation/independence from outside world
that tourists seek. There are ways to do this at home though.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolation_tank](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolation_tank)
Vacations just replace stress X with stress Y.

------
Fire-Dragon-DoL
I agree, best holidays is a bunch of days at home without doing anything
related to work. If you want to push this further you can order food every
dinner. But really, nothing restores me more than 3 days home with my wife
playing a bunch of videogames/boardgames and going out for dinner

------
denz_L
Also it reduces your carbon footprint. Our ancestors didn't need to go on
vacation on the other side of the globe. It should stay à luxury.

~~~
everdev
There were many famous explorers and worldly leaders/intellectuals throughout
history.

As others have said, if you want to relax, it makes sense to start close to
home. If you want to scratch that ancestral itch to explore then go travel.

~~~
toasterlovin
If you take a statistical approach to describing phenomena, then the parent’s
point stands, despite the outliers you mention.

~~~
cncrnd
That's a hell of a way to say it wasn't as common back then.

~~~
toasterlovin
Thanks!

I think distinguishing between statistical and absolute statements is
important. It’s common for people to point to exceptions or outliers as a
demonstration that a given statement is false, when the statement in question
is statistical in nature, rather than an absolute.

It often leads to misrepresentation and people talking past each other. For
instance, it plays a pretty strong role in ongoing disagreements about gender
roles, gender identity, etc.

~~~
skinnymuch
Hah. So many arguments or debates have broken down to nonsense because of the
pedantic tendency to call out someone’s statement that obviously wasn’t meant
as an absolute but didn’t specifically say statistically likely or unlikely.

------
ronilan
True.

But the most interesting one is not.

