Are you seriously conflating communism with authoritarianism?

It’s like you guys went through the red scare and instead of figuring it was a stupid insane witch hunt without any real foundation, decided that the republican definition of “communism = evil” was actually true, but you wanted in anyway. It’s ridiculous.

I actually don’t think this is true. I used to think it was true, but after seeing more and more people I think it’s simpler than that. It’s a belief in the justness of hierarchy— the “great chain of being” from medieval thought, where people on the top both deserve to be there by right of being there, and it is right to submit to them.

On a certain level, I even see the point. Despite anarchist clams to the contrary, leaders are important, necessary even to accomplish anything greater than a single person can manage. Even kids can see this first hand the first time they get assigned a group project by their teacher, or try to win a game of sports. But it’s too easy to twist “we need a good leader” into the tautology of “the leader is good, right, and justified because he’s the leader”.

If everyone rebelled against leadership all the time, there’d be no leadership, and people do need leaders. But at the same time, leaders can be or become shitstains that need to be rebelled against. It’s difficult, and I don’t think being reductive about the difficulty is right.

Demonstrably true. Try saying anything contrary to a tankie talking point on .ml and see how long before you get banned. May I suggest “Russia was wrong for invading Ukraine” for starters, or “China committed unjustifiable atrocities against peaceful protestors”.

Deep simulations appeal to me, and I haven’t heard of this game before. Is it… is it any good?

What’s wrong with loving putting on snuggly warm clothing in winter? Not to mention that I love both warm inside and cold outside in winter.

When I was a child, I loved snow. The adults told me that when I had to start shoveling the walkway and driveway, my love would fade. It did not.

Then I was told that when I learned to drive, I would hate it. First snowstorm after I got my license, I instantly headed out to an empty parking lot to practice donuts. I’ve been caught in sudden storms and watched other cars slide off the road. I still love snow.

Then I was told that when I got a job and had to support a family that I’d hate snow. Yet this has come to pass, and I still squee like a child when snow starts. I long to take walks in it. I dream of sledding, or building snowmen, or throwing snowballs, even in my middle age, even if I can no longer run as I used to.

No, you will never take my love of winter from me. Summer heat, get thee behind me.

My memory was that the new episode of X-men would run on Saturday, but during the week they’d loop episodes previously run before the school bus arrived.

That when breathing funny is a ptsd trigger, breathing exercises and meditation is a bad idea. Reciting memorized poetry helps more— the Raven did me wonders, Jabberwocky too.

Sorry it isn’t the kind of more generalized advice that applies to more people, but you asked what I discovered about myself, personally. You probably don’t have a ptsd trigger when focusing on your breathing— that probably helps you relax.

Tankies don’t only support modern fascist Russia, they also support Stalin and Mao. In fact, pick a brutal dictator, and they likely have full support. Pick any American sin (and there are many) that they decry and you’ll find them cheering and supporting and rationalizing a non-American committing that sin but worse.

My dad was NSA. Why does that make him any different regarding privacy at home than any other dad? The experience of having an NSA dad is that he doesn’t talk about work, and otherwise is just a dad. Any issues I had with my dad are utterly and completely unrelated to him working for the government. My dad was fine in terms of having privacy.

When Reddit killed Apollo, I no longer had the means to use Reddit— I’d rather not have Reddit than use the Reddit app.

Unlike so many people here, I have nothing against centralized social media, and I actively miss it— I miss having a large user base to talk with, I GREATLY miss all the specialize niche communities I followed. But it’s not good if I can’t access them.

Yes, the centralized nature of Reddit means that one person can fuck up the entire community… but decentralization means I have no one to talk to about the things I want to.

Anyway. I’m here hoping that enough people will eventually join that I can have MY Reddit back. I’m frustrated that the place is so tankie infested though, and fear that’s greatly holding it back.

I was a bit better at it when I was younger, but time has beaten me enough that’s it’s really hard now, even with my wife and kid.

Just googled New Haven pizza… looks like typical mall fare? Thin crust pizza is okay sometimes, I guess, but I’d hardly call it the best pizza around.

TIL a new word! Awesome!

This is actually a more interesting statement than one might think at first.

When we describe the habits of various species of animals, it’s my understanding that once a description is obtained, you can look at more or less any particular member of that species and see pretty much the same behavior. Monogamy trends included.

Not so with humans. You can find an average, describe trends, but pick any specific individual human and they’re almost certainly not going to behave as that description.

Some humans pair bond for life and beyond, never seeking other companionship after one partner dies. Others sleep around constantly with dozens of partners in a lifetime. And everything in between.

This, but also pixel art is an art form in its own right. It started with technical limitations, but exploring the limits of those limitations has created something uniquely and independently appealing for its own sake. Good pixel art just looks better than a lot of 3d stuff. And these days you can chose whether or not to stick to all the original limitations or not, giving more creative freedom and flexibility.

A base-neutral system for naming numbering systems (by jan Miseli) is my favorite solution for this problem.

I keep following it, it keeps looking awesome, it keeps not being done. :(

Funnily enough, Guinness was the first beer I ever liked, and I liked it first try. I greatly dislike most other beers. Which makes sense to me, given that most people who like other beers can’t stand Guinness.

Enshittification does not mean making things suck in general. It specifically means the business model of making a good product for users, then making the product bad for users and good for advertisers or data purchasers or retailers or whatever, and then when you have a captured market, making it worse for everyone to squeeze more money faster.

Microsoft is not doing this. They might be sucking, and making a worse product, but it’s not following the enshittification playbook.

I’m Jewish, but grew up Christian (my mom converted young). I deconverted in university… heh, going to a Christian university at that. So I gave up Christmas at that time. I kinda miss it— that is, I miss the quiet memories of decorations and sitting in the dark by the fireplace watching the blinking lights… but I definitely don’t miss the loud blaring parts. And you can’t avoid the loud blaring parts. They’re freaking everywhere.

So I get to see all the things I never really liked about Christmas all the time. And it turns out that watching the channukah candles burn down with the lights turned down scratch the itch of what I ever liked about Christmas. So what’s left?