Dark_Arc

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

I did not want that image in my mind… Thanks…

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

If it ever comes out that plants are sentient and feel pain my moral compass is going to have a bad day.

I’m not even a vegetarian … but I have tried to eat less meat in recent years, in part because of the cruelty.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

I do like fruit…

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

No idea; though I think a consciousness could be independent of whether or not something feels pain. For instance, there are people that don’t feel pain but they’re very much conscious and killing them wouldn’t be any more just simply because they don’t feel pain.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

I think a world without money is a fantasy.

Money is just a means of trading time, time that I put in, for time that you put in.

Some things like being a doctor are harder than being a fast food worker, it takes years of training, and hard work. It makes sense that their time is worth more.

There is a ceiling though where you’re not actively contributing “time” you’ve previously committed time that’s just appreciating because it’s “invested” in paying people for their time. That’s where the problems come in because you have effectively a years work of thousands of people in your pocket, which is a concentration of unchecked power.

Taxing billionaires out of existence ensures that money is invested (in a democracy) by the voters (through their representatives) and keeps the concentration of power from distorting the politics.

This issue isn’t billionaires, it isn’t capitalism, it’s and always has been throughout history, concentration of power. It’s past time we fixed this unforeseen loophole created by the modern world where a handful of individuals become as powerful as a country.

When you have bosses that aren’t “gods among men”, that can’t just buy up their competition to squash it, it’s much easier to negotiate with them to pay you a fair salary. You’re not just a number. Similarly, you can get more done in politics because nobody’s got so much money that they can significantly grease palms/run a campaign by themselves/etc.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

The definition of capitalism:

an economic system based on private ownership of capital

I think where I disagree is that capitalism is an untamable beast or that private ownership is bad. Private ownership at the small scale breeds competition and interoperability. At the large scale it becomes a monoculture just like a truly socialist government would be (in both cases the average person’s individual buying power and individual vote aren’t going to move the needle much).

Putting limits on capitalism so that small and medium businesses dominate and the middle class has enough money to reasonably take chances on creating new businesses without gambling their life savings is what I want to see.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago)

There is nobody that’s worth a billion dollars, that’s wealth hoarding. There is no reason our government should endorse that level of wealth hoarding. It hurts infrastructure, it hurts innovation, it hurts national security, it hurts the press, and it hurts our democracies.

It’s the same rational for why we shouldn’t have monopolies and why we have laws against them. Concentration of wealth/power is a very bad thing.

I genuinely do not believe you can be a good person and make a billion dollars. You have either scammed your customers, scammed your employees, or both. There should be a limit on individual wealth.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

I don’t know, I had gator a couple of times … I wouldn’t say it’s better than chicken.

Who are these people and what reptiles are they eating?

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

Apple will be having none of this “side loading” business 🎩🧐

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

Jailbreaking is pretty much by definition not endorsed by Apple.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

Yeah, a 500 or 600 mile range would be about where I’d bite; or just a better charging network.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

Yup and when I drive it’s either nowhere or nearly 120 miles each way with next to no charging infrastructure in-between both points or at either end.

I could of course install a charger at my own house, but that only solves 1 end. 500 would be a comfortable buffer as the batteries inevitably degrade and for below freezing weather conditions.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

What does this one have to do with China?

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

I always feel like the odd one out because I genuinely want to know these things and people just tend to brush it off …

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

People that follow EV closely know there are better options, but they’re a minority.

I don’t think they’re a minority of people that have considered buying an EV and don’t impulse spend tens of thousands of dollars on a vehicle though.

It doesn’t matter to them if the person who wasn’t going to buy an EV doesn’t buy a Tesla. It matters if the person who was going to buy an EV doesn’t buy a Tesla.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

I’ve talked to plenty of normies about this, from what I’ve seen whatever advantage Tesla had is pretty much gone between the stories of EVs burning down buildings, EV range anxiety, etc.

The “normies” just want a good car that’s going to get them from point A to B … and most “normies” shop around a bit before dropping 30, 40, or 50k on a car.

If they’re buying Tesla it’s because a friend they trust bought one and likes it. Most normies have way too many doubts about EVs and Tesla to really have brand loyalty.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

My normie friends haven’t bought any EV cars because they don’t think they’re ready and I’m inclined to agree really.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago)

Let me try restarting this conversation because IMO it’s off the rails of my point and has nothing to do with what “my friends” think.

Most people do not buy a new car without looking at options. When people do care, they’ll ask Google what the best EVs are of XYZ year and go try some cars out. They’re not going to “just go buy a Tesla because that’s the name they’ve associated with EVs.”

Most people are also not buying EVs at this point.

When this average people do care and they start seriously looking at buying an EV, “Tesla” having the brand Tesla is not going to help them very much, if at all.

Put differently, any advantage Tesla has exists with the average Joe because the average Joe don’t have skin in the game. “Tesla” may have word association with “EV”, but word association alone isn’t enough to justify a 30, 40, 50, etc thousand dollar purchase.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

I grew up with stranger danger … and honestly fuck that philosophy. I do not support normalizing invasive surveillance and restricting the Internet in the name of “safety.”

Yes, there are bad people in the world but there are also a lot of good people. It’s better to teach people what to look out for and to keep an open line of communication and trust vs “this is the great firewall of our house” and scaring them away from any and all strangers.

The people I grew up with that have the most issues as adults have come from the most authoritarian, paranoid, (and typically religious) households by far.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago)

I wish I would’ve had something like that as a kid honestly. Keeping in touch with my friends and classmates over the summer … being able to share my imaginary world I built in my brother / our dams, bridges, etc would’ve been really cool. It also would’ve made rural Ohio summers far less socially isolating.

I see some comments about social media; I don’t think most social media is healthy for anyone to spend an extended time on, but being able to message, call, and video chat friends … to look up some information or get ideas for how to improve my projects… to play a game with friends over the Internet… All of that could’ve been super nice.

Similarly with the “bad people”, the risk of a completely open to the Internet smart phone is … so small. An elementary school student isn’t going to have the tech literacy to really get themselves into trouble. I mean think about your day to day usage of the Internet, how much unsavory content do you come across without explicitly seeking it out? For me, it’s basically 0. If you remove social media from the equation, it almost definitely is 0. If you go searching for something bad… You’ll find it, but kids aren’t going to go searching for that stuff unprompted…

The one generational “oh crap” question I can think of is “how are babies made?” but I mean literally just searched that to check, you find explanation videos using anatomical drawings (like you’d find in a textbook) that might have a kid going “oh my god, what??” In the US, I could definitely see some parents freaking out about that… But really, it’s just harmless information about how life works that we adults tend to get all uncomfortable about (arguably because religious texts/organizations speak of sex in this taboo tone).

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

This is such a strange thread… It’s not like you even said anything all that controversial… You just stated an (unfortunate) fact. And your account is months old with hundreds of comments…

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

I feel like maybe Paradox expanded too much too fast.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

I’ve seen plenty of ads for nord, this is the first I’m hearing of turbo

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

Whereas the Federal Government and State governments share power in countless ways, a local government must be granted power by the State.

www.whitehouse.gov/…/state-local-government/

So… Yeah it would seem this is a bit of a dubious law

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

IIRC in the US this depends on the state, in some states you can go straight past the stop line if you don’t see any pedestrians on approach.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

Can you link to a satellite view or diagram of what you’re talking about? The description sounds strange.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

For those not in the know: Donald Trump did this by trying to extort Ukraine to “find shit on Biden” in exchange for weapons, which is why he was impeached the first time.

He also just general signaled to Putin he really doesn’t care about honoring US alliances with his demands and general disregard for the importance of NATO.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

NATO isn’t just the US, but it would be a significant blow to NATO’s strength if the US military stood down.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

Also also, what greater threat to european peace and stability is there than a bunch of former allies, who are battle-hardened, traumatized, right next to EU borders and are feeling betrayed by their ‘western partners’?

Assuming you’re talking about the Ukrainian people in some kind of Guerilla warfare, I think they’d be more likely to focus their efforts on Russia (the ones that actually did the attacking, raping, and bombing) vs the west that just “didn’t do enough”

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

I think part of the problem is text book authors make up problems that they haven’t taught you how to solve but they’ve taught you some pieces that maybe you could use to solve the problem, and then they expect you to figure the rest out… Which is just silly and IMO a major reason why kids that don’t have educated attentive parents struggle so much more.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

Don’t give up yet! There should be an additional ballot measure that removes the politicians entirely from the map drawing process this fall!

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

I haven’t really seen that … maybe I’m just in a way “biased” because I do have some comments that meet the “your opinion is clearly highly controversial in this room” threshold but I generally keep my composure.

There are definitely a few times where the other person has made it personal and it’s been difficult to not retaliate in kind.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago)

/r/askwomen was heavily heavily moderated and didn’t allow diverging views.

Oh my god yeah, that one was a bit ridiculous. I have a vague recollection of trying to help someone in a thread with like a domestic abuse situation or something and the mods quashed my comments because my comments had an opinion and I’m not a woman (mind you nothing I said was remotely sexist and it was a comment thread on an existing comment).

/r/signal was also a bit ridiculous. Rather than having a discussion on the merits of Telegram’s design vs Signal’s design for the average person, I got temp banned for “intentionally trying to compromise people’s security” or something like that.

Reddit seemed like twitter’s second coming - with communities

I will say Reddit never topped some Twitter Trumpies calling me a caribou diaper baby … that was particularly deranged and such a strange insult lol

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

No idea, I think they were just that strange… Their entire reply was majorly conspiratorial to the point of complete derangement then it went into this deranged ad hominem “caribou diaper baby” and I think some more stuff I don’t remember.

I think they were probably a Twitter troll … honestly I left that conversation a few IQ points lower, I try not to think about it 😂

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

I keep post scores hidden so getting downvoted isn’t much of an issue for me because I won’t know unless I go out of my way to check.

On some conversations you might be better off seeing the score. Some people will agree in terms of a vote but aren’t going to back you up in the comments. I’ve had a few conversations where the comments are demoralizing and the score shows me I’m reaching at least some people (or vise versa).

Also, something I learned from Twitter and Reddit after engaging with people too much … sometimes the right answer is just to use the block button liberally and call it a day. Some people are not interested in discussion or good faith debate they just want to yell at people on the Internet and feel smart.

I had a person I bumped into saying (all of this paraphrasing) “the press has gone to shit” because of a headline and I was like “can we not be so dramatic this is a small website, surely a bad headline from a small operation is not a new thing” then they responded with “how many headlines do you see with X Y or Z even in those mainstream outlets? It’s all gone to shit.” I ran a few searches and found a rate of about 1 article per paper per year that met their alleged example… And then they said that was malicious compliance, I’d ignored their argument, and I wasn’t acting in good faith… Like mate, I just literally took 15 minutes to check your claim out and came back to tell you; how much more good faith do you want? That was a block, that person is clearly a total waste of time, and I don’t want to interact with their “doomerism.”

In a sense it’s a blessing lemmy is kind of small because blocking one loud person that has a lot of opinions that irritate you can go a long way.

The main issue for me is that I can reliably guess what kind of replies certain topics get and what is popular and what is unpopular. It’s kind of like having a friend who never says or does anything that surprises you. Why even bother asking for their opinion when you already know what they’re going to say.

I was definitely feeling this way a couple weeks ago … ironically the worst was the weekend my birthday fell on. It just felt like everything I came across was a hot take lacking nuance.

It comes and goes… Some weeks people can/will surprise you. Some topics… I think it’s better to just leave the mob alone and let them have their echo chamber.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

Relatable

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago)

Oh life will survive on this planet no matter what we do until the sun runs out of fuel. It’s just us and a lot of stuff that might go with us that science gets concerned about.

It’s basically impossible to wipe the earth of every last living species even if we nuke the surface of the earth and cause a nuclear winter some species would survive.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

He still represents the continuation of neoliberal policies that keep us from addressing the climate crisis

Joe has done a TON for climate change. He wanted to do more (earlier versions of the infrastructure bill basically called for moving the entire grid to renewables), but he didn’t have the majorities. If we can deliver a majority in the house and Senate that doesn’t rely on Manchin and Sinema, you’ll see big climate change legislation with teeth, I can almost guarantee it.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

I don’t buy the self destructive theory of “the Dems just pull some people out of a hat to block legislation and only act like they want to solve the problem.”

That argument is basically built on a history of failure caused by razor thin margins. Margins that rely on Democrats in conservative areas that just barely won or have some fringe beliefs/interests.

Sinema was brand new and basically untested, Manchin has an interest in coal. It’s not exactly a mystery or a conspiracy why both of them stonewalled.

So i do agree that for climate action we need the house to turn blue

It’s more than that, we need a blue house and blue senate with a margin for some people to defect. We have a blue senate but we don’t have that margin.

I never agreed with folks that wanted to get rid of Manchin, I grew up next to West Virginia, we were lucky to have him for the votes he helped us on instead of another Ted Cruz. We would be far better off if we had even more “Sherrod Browns” (a “corporate dem” like Biden that’s willing to piss rich people off and demonstrated the “traditional democratic party” is not a bunch of sellouts). Flipping red seats is far more important than making the blue seats bluer.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

The reason i buy into the “theory” in question is bc corporate democrats are notorious for playing the political game by ear and ammending their values to 1. Keep their voters backing, 2. Keep their owners happy.

I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, in fact I think it might be a necessary thing for any long serving politician. A politician should be there to represent the people that elected them more than themselves. The people in any given area change over time, as do their concerns and priorities.

If you go back and look at e.g. Bernie’s vs Biden’s record … it’s true Bernie has been a rock but it’s also true that Biden got a lot more legislation through. Biden (as with many other long time Democrats) is willing to compromise on some things if folks end up better than where they started. Bernie does this to some extent as well but not as much.

It’s a fine line to balance before you end up like many of those that Republicans have elected which just refuse to compromise on anything. It’s their way or the highway even when dealing with others in their party.

I guess what I’m saying is, I think you need to be able to sway a bit with the wind in politics to be able to keep the thing moving. Things are so messed up right now in part because congress is increasingly composed of hard liners that “have their views” and they won’t settle.

Thru continuous conversation, even those buzzwords start to be less scary when the policies u preach are being espoused by someone they see as one of their own.

I think that the United States isn’t as divided as it seems. I’ve similarly noticed in my various conversations people often say the same thing with a slightly different tilt that’s a long shot from the major divergence we see in elected officials.

I’m not sure how to undo that while Russia and China target the country with a continuous psyhop.

I don’t think progressive candidates are the only ones that can really break through to these folks. In some ways I think traditional Democrats have a better chance of breaking through because they’re not the ones that have been painted as the demons … they’re only demon adjacent.

A young Obama or Biden I think could reach a lot of people in my home state of Ohio. A young AOC … I think she would struggle in the same way that Clinton struggled, the propaganda and hate hose has been on for so long … I think it’s really hard for folks to bridge that gap.

Basically it’s just sad, lots of people are voting against their own interest because they’ve been convinced voting in their own interest is voting for some radical agenda.

You have to remember the new guard coming into voting power prefers progressives.

This is true and I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing. I would encourage those progressives to remain somewhat flexible though. We almost didn’t get the infrastructure bill and the inflation reduction act which are some of the best bills to come out under the Biden Administration because of progressive stonewalling in the opposite direction that Manchin was stonewalling.

I don’t want in fighting to make the Democratic party ineffective at governance similarly to how MAGA made the Republican party ineffective at governance.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

That’s kind of interesting, but I’m always wary of correlations

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

PopSci in general has seen better days. I tried subscribing again to their physical magazines and it’s just a mess… There were more full page cigarette ads than interesting articles.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

It was not, they were all shot out of the sky.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

Programming is mostly copy&paste

I don’t know what y’all are working on but these comments always scare me …

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

Be careful with that one. I’m not sure about your experience level, but a mistake newer (and some more experienced) programmers often make is taking DRY too far.

It’s easy to “dry” something up to the point where it’s spaghetti that’s overly clever about how it reduces lines of code resulting in some crazy inheritance hierarchy even you (the author) are afraid to change a few years down the road.

There are of course other times when someone just copy and pasted e.g. sort logic all over the code base … but that sort of thing is relatively rare

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

I work on compilers (we can’t/don’t even have access to the C++ standard library in my case)… Most of the time, Google can’t help me ⚰️😅

It was definitely a bit more copy and paste when I was working on web applications… But even then, most of the code I was writing was fairly novel / more application and database architecture problems than trying tying libraries together.

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

That’s fair

Dark_Arc , 4 months ago

You raise a lot of questions, but a bombardment of questions doesn’t mean there aren’t good answers to those questions.

You cite the Nazis, but you might be surprised to learn post-war Germany to this day has harsh laws in this area pbs.org/…/germanys-laws-antisemitic-hate-speech-n…

There’s something to be said for protecting people that need protecting, but there’s also something to be said for holding propaganda spewing nut jobs accountable and limiting their reach.

Never underestimate the need for privacy in this world.

Also please do not confuse privacy with anonymity. It stops being about your privacy the second you start speaking publicly. Maybe you need privacy to maintain anonymity while doing so, but attacking unfettered anonymity is not an inherent attack on privacy.

Then, a single government verifiable Identity system. Great! So WHICH government is going todo this? The US government? For all citizens world wide? How would that work, exactly?

One idea that’s rather simple would be to allow users to show a verified status that’s backed by their own government but doesn’t actually expose their identity (just that yes, this is a person from e.g. the United States and this is their government linked account). Users could then choose to filter out folks that aren’t verified or aren’t part of their own country.

For a federated system you could federate a token around that can be checked against government services either client side or server side, periodically.

Since it’s your name, you go to jail now, somehow?

Someone stealing someone else’s identity is already a serious crime. In the US at least, you’re guaranteed a trial and even then this would surely be exceptionally fringe. You could also further protect against this by requiring post to be cryptographically signed, but this is getting to an extreme level of conspiracy.

The fact of the matter is, right now a single person from a foreign country can represent an unlimited number of accounts that are indistinguishable from the account of a person across town. You have no way of knowing whether you’re even talking to someone that has residency let alone the right to vote in your country.

That is not healthy political discourse.