AnarchistArtificer @ AnarchistArtificer @slrpnk.net

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1,191

Joined

2 yr. ago

Just adding onto the good answer you already got, but the thing that made this click to me was understanding that if you're not port forwarding, you're limited in the connections you can make to other peers. Specifically, you can only connect to peers who are fully available. Whereas if you're port forwarding, then you can connect both to people who are limited, and to people who are fully available.

I imagine you would get faster download speeds if you were port forwarding, but my impression is that this mainly is a factor for seeding, which matters more if you're on a private tracker that requires a certain download/upload ratio; it's way harder to keep that ratio above 1.0 if you're limited in the peers you can connect to.

There are quite a few misconceptions in this comment. For example, "Well I guess everyone's a little on the spectrum." is a comment that frustrates many autistic people because it misunderstands what the "spectrum" in ASD means, and is usually said in a way that diminishes the lived reality of autistic people. I realise that you weren't making that statement, merely pointing to the existence of people who make this argument. Nonetheless, I want to emphasise that this sentiment is not representative of autism.

I do think that with the increasing awareness of autism in the popular consciousness, there is a risk that our understanding of autism may be hampered by stereotypes. I have seen diagnosed autistic people feeling like their struggles were invalid because they didn't nearly fit into the popular conception of what an autistic person looks like. I believe that autism is probably still a useful category, in terms of helping people find the support they need to live fulfilling lives, but that we need to be mindful of how category labels can cause harm if misunderstood or misapplied.

Unpaywalled link: https://archive.ph/s09Er

This is wisdom that I wish I had had years ago. I learned this the hard way

I really need to get round to setting it up. I know it won't be difficult, I've just been pretty mentally drained and feel like I haven't had the brain space yet

I had a friend who spent a long while out of work in their 20's because they had a mental breakdown and quit a well paying job. They later told me that it was less a choice to quit, and more the knowledge that if they continued there, they'd end up killing themselves. They knew that being unemployed would likely be just as torturous for their mental health, but it would at least be different.

This is all to say that I reckon that for many, choosing to be unemployed is probably an irrational choice, but when you're not doing well mental health wise, you're not necessarily going to be able to make rational choices.

I think you're right that everything being fucked at the moment is probably a key driving force here, and it's why I worry that even throwing a heckton of money at mental health services wouldn't be enough. It's also why Reform are doing so well in the polls — people are desperate for something other than the same old stuff that we have seen from both the Tories and Labour, and Reform are the only ones offering something different. It's a shame that the "something different" that Reform is offering is nothing but a scapegoat painted to look like a real alternative

"think about making some of the standard drugs in this country to improve supply."

A friend was telling me earlier about the various logistical tricks that Lidl and Aldi use to reduce prices. For example, because they primarily stock own-brand products, this reduces the number of different variants/brands per product they have to source, which means they buy larger amounts from fewer suppliers. This means they can negotiate with the supplier to get them to package the product so that packaging has super prominent barcodes for easy scanning, and the boxes can go straight from a pallet onto the shelf, reducing labour. In short, by doing stuff in bulk, they have more negotiating power.

i think your point about stabilising drug supply is an example of the kind of thing the NHS could do to leverage its enormous purchasing power. I know that one of my medications is quite expensive for the NHS, but also quite widely prescribed, for example.

That's probably who I'm remembering; I recently discovered his work.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I'm from the UK, and whilst things are less politically dire here than the US, it's still pretty grim. Both the Conservatives and Labour seem reluctant to actually meaningfully tax the rich, even as the working class (and to a lesser extent, the middle class) are being squeezed by a cost of living crisis and general hopelessness. Parties like Reform are taking the racist "things are bad because we have too many immigrants" and I've recently realised that I need to stop resenting people for being taken in by that rhetoric; people are desperate and there aren't people in the mainstream pushing for alternatives (besides Reform). These people have a lot in common with me, such as recognising that we're being fucked but the system, but we just disagree on the solution. It's hard, but ultimately necessary to be able to be in solidarity with people like Reform' voters

I can't remember the particular phrase that was used, but I heard an argument recently that we need to be more like politicians going on an interview and ensure that we're more on message. For example, it's fairly obvious by now that economically, the problem is wealth inequality, but I see fairly surprisingly few people discussing that.

Not very good, but that's sort of the point for me; my favourite part of any hobby is the learning. I did a woodworking class the other day!

It's taken a lot of work to get to the point where I can be comfortable with being mediocre at something and just doing it for the joy of it. I'm quite an intense person, with perfectionist tendencies, so it's nice to be able to carve out some things that I can be more chill about.

I don't think you're missing anything. I think that your co-workers bragging is one of the toxic effects of how we tend to think about productivity nowadays, especially in America. I think that there's a tendency to glorify suffering (i.e. sacrificing time with your family to do so much work that by the time you get home to your family, you're too exhausted to be fully present with them).

I know fathers who effectively didn't have a choice about spending time with their newborns, because of a mixture of social pressures (especially gendered pressure from extended family) and financial pressure (such as not having access to paternity leave), who then go on to brag about how much they worked and sacrificed, framing it as if it's a choice they're glad they made. I think that for some people, this nonsense rhetoric is what they tell themselves to cope with the fact they were effectively coerced into something they regret.

Long story short, you're not missing anything. You are, in some ways though, going against the grain: even in places that have paid paternity leave, that alone isn't enough to change the tide of social attitudes. That change happens because of people like you who go "fuck this nonsense, I'm not making a martyr of myself to support my family when I can do a much better job supporting them if I'm there with them".

Unfortunately, based on reports from friends who are fathers, this is just scratching the surface of people being weird about men who are enthusiastic and engaged fathers. It sounds like you've got your priorities in order though. Your coworkers are very silly, and even if you don't feel it appropriate or necessary to tell them how absurd they are, you should at least internalise the fact that you are the sensible one here. An analogy that comes to mind is how, if your employer matches your 401k contributions, it's a no-brainer to take advantage of what is basically free money. If someone has "spare" salary and asked for financial advice online, one of the first and most basic suggestions is often that if you're not already taking advantage of any 401k match your employer offers, you definitely should be. It's free money! Similarly, taking advantage of the paid paternity leave is a no-brainer. This isn't a challenge run in a video-game, so there aren't any prizes for making things needlessly harder for oneself.

Edit: Also, I bloody hate it when people say shit like this:

"Most men are hard working and want to support their families so they don't take leave".

The subtext they're saying here is "I don't acknowledge parenting (and other caring labour) as being hard work, and I certainly don't acknowledge how critical essential this labour is for the world to function. I assume that this work is primarily for women, because this allows me to ignore it and the people who do it, which allows me to feel more important. The only way I can maintain my self identity as 'hardworking' is if I implicitly demean others' hard work".

It's bullshit, and your instincts are right to flag this shit as weird. Parenting is bloody difficult, and anyone who makes comments like this are actively reinforcing old systems that led to many fathers not being given the opportunity to be active fathers.

Anyway, rant finished. I'll finish this edit with something I forgot to say in my main comment: congratulations, and good luck in the weeks to come. And well done on taking this paternity leave, because that helps to disrupt the existing, outdated systems of traditional family structure that make everyone miserable. The impact of one person's choice is only small, but if enough people opt for their family over slaving over the altar of capitalism, I hope that we can build a world where a father wanting to actively be a father is treated like the normal thing it is.

I agree, it's one of my favourite internet things.

You may already be aware of this, but on the off chance that you're not, here's a cool thing: https://neal.fun/absurd-trolley-problems/

Ooh, thanks for sharing this. I clicked on it thinking I had already read it before, but this is actually new to me. It looks interesting

Sometimes I find music can be a way to motivate me to get out of the house, in a "silly human needs her silly rituals" kind of way. I wonder whether this may be the case for OP (whether that's the OP of this post, or the original OP of the meme)

Bluey in general is pretty great. I wish that kids TV had been this enjoyable the last time I spent time around a child

Edit: the above is a lie, because whilst it may be for an older age bracket than Bluey, I wouldn't have watched Phineas & Ferb if not for my significantly younger-than-me brother, and that was pretty fun

I actually read some very recently because I heard that the recent PhilosophyTube had a bunch of bad takes. He's actually far more fun to read than I realised

France have made this law, I think. More countries should follow their example

This is well articulated. Like many, I am also frustrated by the "They go low, we go high" strategy in which Democrat politicians hamstring themselves, but on the wider scale, it is useful to bear in mind that we are fighting for a fundamentally different world than what our opponents are (though certainly it would be great if elected officials could be a little less pathetic)

"Discord just last week shut down a server that was my main local friend group, and we had to scramble to reconstitute it."

Damn, that sucks. How big was the server? Do you know why it was shut down?