Laptops with Stickers

But you can also use them as a reminder of how you felt/who you were when you got them.

Even someone who get a very trendy tattoo should keep it: "look how I used to follow every trend and how I evolved because I would never do something like that now".

Biologically and philosophically, tattoos are scars.

Getting scars on purpose is a quite questionable decision.

> Getting scars on purpose is a quite questionable decision.

Interesting. Why?

Isn't it a common and longstanding cultural practice, even among indigenous peoples? Intuitively, I'd say body modification is based on the desire to shape one's own body, something we usually embrace in fitness culture and medicine, for example.

I don't have any tattoos or scars, but I can't think of anything that would make them questionable.

Perhaps some of the objection arises from a confusion between body modification and self-harm?

Just because something has been done for a long time doesn't mean it's good. We also shouldn't confuse self-mutilation with healthy activities like exercising simply because both "shape one's own body".

> Just because something has been done for a long time doesn't mean it's good.

This is true, although it is a good start, right? If a cultural practice has survived for many generations, this alone already indicates that the practice might be compatible with human society, morals, sustainability, etc.

> We also shouldn't confuse self-mutilation with healthy activities like exercising simply because both "shape one's own body".

True! We should indeed not confuse self-mutilation with healthy activities just because they share some similarities.

But would you classify scars or tattoos motivated by aesthetics as self-mutilation? What about piercings, such as holes for earrings or laser hair removal?

I believe that is an interesting and unusual position. Do you have an argument in favor of your (so far implicit) take?

Avoid making memories. Keep your brain pristine.

You're right, you just can't make memories without injecting ink into your skin.

Your brain should be smooth and round like a polished marble

Or you could just keep a journal and not, literally, wear your past on your sleeve.

Why not both?

A journal can be lost and/or destroyed quite easily.

Whereas you skin is always there. And if it's not, then you have much bigger scars.

Wait until you hear about intentional scarification

Tattoos are self-mutilation the same way that taxes are theft. This is the worst argument in the world [1]

-[1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yCWPkLi8wJvewPbEp/the-noncen...