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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 9th, 2023

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  • That’s a self fulfilling cycle. If more institutions and organisation left and made a public statement of not wanting to be associated with fascism, then it would push another bunch to have to defend why they didn’t think nazi salutes were a problem, and they’d leave too.

    Whether it makes enough of a wave to push major groups to leave is a question of public pressure, but that public pressure is expressed through “costly signalling” that show organisations have values and are willing to take a hit to live by them. And non-profits are exactly the groups who can afford to take a symbolic stand, and make things more difficult for those that remain.




  • I think this is a big part of it. Predators are stimulating and demand our attention. For most people spiders and snakes do so in a way that is upsetting, but because mammalian predators are less alien to us (and many resemble the cats and dogs we’ve domesticated) they’re attractive rather than repellent. But while I might find a lion adorable in video, I’m sure if one walked into my garden I’d be extremely fucking attentive.




  • I see where you’re coming from, but you have to consider - THAT is how good it tastes, that people are willing to eat it even though it hurts. Other foods taste good, but I wouldn’t eat them if they hurt me (if my teeth are sensitive, I’m happy to avoid ice cream even though I love it). But if I overdo chilli, my mouth can be on fire and the hardest part to deal with is not the pain, but the tension between waiting a minute for it to calm down or eating more immediately even though it’ll make the pain worse.

    Spicy food is so good people will put themselves through hell to eat it. Repeatedly.


  • Acamon@lemmy.worldtoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.worldWhat is Pinterest for?
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    1 month ago

    I agree with the other commenters, it is mostly awful, screws up image searches, and I’ve had the browser extension that blocks it from searches installed for years.

    But I have also used it, so can partly answer your question. Basically, it lets you build image collections on topics, and has convenient (but also intrusive and data harvesting) extensions / apps that make it easy to add any image you come across online to one of your boards. In the past I’ve used these boards for home renovation, DIY projects, world building, D&D inspiration / mood boards to share with new players, etc. And as well as just gathering together the images you save, it’s pretty good at suggesting similar images.

    If it wasn’t so awful as a site (the out of control SEO, demanding you’re logged in, presumably vast data harvesting) I’d actually use it a lot more. But I generally don’t, and I’m looking for an alternative. There’s something called Hoarder that you can host yourself, which could be useful. But without the network effects of humans effectively tagging and linking millions of images, it’ll sadly never be as good at suggesting relevant new images as Pinterest.




  • Occasionally (when looking at something I’d rather they didn’t know about), the thought that my partner might have installed something that monitors all network traffic and what websites are accessed crosses my mind… But I don’t seriously worry about that, because I trust the people I live with, and they wouldn’t do things like that.

    Maybe your family are less respectful, or think messing with people is funny? But it also might be an expression of social anxiety. It’s a pretty typical symptom of anxiety to worry that other people are thinking about us, talking about us, noticing tiny things (when most of the time people don’t actually care that much). So worrying about spyware could be a modern version of that?

    I wonder if there are some simple tech soloutions you could implement? Even if you simply get a cloud based log of every time your phone is unlocked, you’d be able to spot unauthorised access while you’re sleeping. But the real answer is probably working on your sense of security and trust. Do you really have reasons not to trust these people? And if they did find out what you did on your phone, would it really matter? As some of the other commentators have said, if you’re secure in yourself, then your online activity becoming public shouldn’t worry you.



  • Comfort eating. Before I got adhd meds I had zero impulse control, so I’d eat nothing or eat everything. I would be 75% through a giant bag of snacks, and I’d be actively not enjoying them and wanting to stop, but I just couldn’t. I’d stop and put them away and ten seconds later I’d be back eating, even though I was feeling sick and gross.

    On meds, that’s stopped and I’ve realised that my craving for snacks is all about comfort, stimulus, and self regulation, and nothing to do with hunger. But even knowing that, I struggle to bother with other harder but healthier ways of stimulating and relaxing, when I could just eat crackers with thick slabs of salty butter, or alternate between dark chocolate and salty peanuts. It’s not the worst, but I’m very conscious of that it’s not really about the food and so it feels like a lot of empty calories just to chill me out a little.


  • I’ve had lots of problems in life (late diagnosed neurodiversity), walked out of jobs, changed careers, gone back to uni three times, and had a series of mental breakdowns. But despite all that, because I had a caring family, I knew that the worst that could happen is I’d have to move back in with my parents, which might be. A bit humiliating but would be easy, comfortable and safe.

    This security allowed me to spend two decades fucking up until I got the right diagnosis, medication and a satisfying professional career. I’m extremely conscious that if I’d not had love and support I’d have ended up an unemployed alcoholic, or dead. I have so much respect for people fighting through life on hard mode, but I’m also so glad I happened to get the lucky draw.

    Similarly, being a normal looking white guy is an amazing superpower. Although “invisible disabilities” absolutely have their own challenges, the fact that my problems aren’t easily spotted means that despite being repeatedly terrible at a wide variety of jobs, and a general screw up, I have gotten every job I’ve interviewed for, often massively beyond my actual skills and expertise. And it’s not just the external appearance, the confidence I grew up with from being white, male, straight passing, and middle class, has meant that people just believe stuff when I say it, and take me seriously even if I don’t really know much about whatever we’re discussing.

    Obviously there’s some small amount of individual traits and whole lot of luck (you can still lose a game in easy mode, and sadly I know folks who have) but it so obvious I’m playing with a stacked deck compared with most of the world, that it boggles my mind that people try and deny their ‘privilege’.



  • Aristoles’ Nicomachian Ethics (2300 years ago) basically argues that what makes a person “good” is that they are in the habit of doing the right thing. A villain might do a random act of kindness, and a saint may give in to temptation. If you want to be “good” you need to practice being good all the time so that it becomes second nature, or, one might say, a habit.

    It’s that carefully developed habit of doing the right thing that let’s others know they can trust you to act rightly, and gives you confidence that even in a difficult situation you won’t be a coward or a liar or whatever. Because you’ve built that habit over countless smaller situations, and it’s a reliable part of who you are.


  • I don’t know, I actually like the whole flawed idea of vulcan logic. Throughout the different shows we come to understand that ‘vulcan logic’ isn’t some weird alien “their brains work differently” thing. They used to be violent and emotional, and they came up with a social system that helped solve that, and ushered in an age if peace and progress.

    But “logic” isn’t a meaningful method to live a life, it’s a very specific tool for certain types of problems. Even our primitive earth philopshers have identified many problems with thinking that we could live life purely logically, as Hume puts it "Reason Is and Ought Only to Be the Slave of the Passions”.

    So we’re not seeing a bunch of transcendent android minds, we’re seeing the equivalent of a bunch of recovering alcoholics clinging desperately to a worldview that they cannot question, but that is itself “illogical”. So their disdain for other races is partly a consequence of their general directness and not holding back criticism, but also an anxious defence mechanism of people who know that even their indoctrinating school system and constant peer pressure might not be enough if Vulcans feel like it’s okay to like humans or whomever, because that’s only one step away from “well, if they’re doing okay why can’t I fall in love and cry and laugh!” and that way lies bloody civil war and a return to barbarism.



  • Yeah, the jedi were wrong, but the facts really point to “they were wrong to be so lenient”. Sure, if they’d let him become a master he might have had a bit more loyalty. But anakin was already too enslaved to his emotions, and even if they made him a master and condoned his relationship with padme, something else would be the spark that sideous used to turn him.