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1,191
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2 yr. ago

  • I think that's okay, because that just means your answer is something like "take some time to breathe and introspect about what I care about when I am given the space to care about stuff", or "try out a bunch of stuff I didn't have time or money for before, to see what seizes my passions".

    I mean, it's not okay — it's a fucking injustice that so many of us are deprived of the opportunity to explore what we would do if we were free to live as we chose, but it's okay in the sense that it's not your fault, in case that's what you were feeling

  • Whilst automated tools can help on this, there is a heckton of human labour to be done in training those tools, or in reviewing moderation decisions that require a human's eye. I think that in a world where we can't eradicate that need, the least we can do is ensure that people are paid well, in non-exploitative conditions, with additional support to cope.

    Actually securing these things in a way that's more than just lipservice is part of that battle— I remember a harrowing article a while back about content moderators in Kenya, working for Sama, which was contracted to work for Facebook. There were so many layers of exploitation in that situation that it made me sick. If the "mental health support" you have access to is an on-site therapist who guilt trips you into going back to work asap, and you're so hurried and stressed that you don't have time to even take a breather after seeing something rough — conditions like that are going to cause a disproportionate amount of preventable human harm.

    Even if we can't solve this problem entirely, there's so much needless harm being done, and that's part of what this fight is about now.

  • They're a minority, to be sure, but you're right that there are Israelis who were fighting apartheid and continue to fight against the ongoing genocide. We just don't hear about the good people who are resisting evil from within Israel, because that's counter to Zionist rhetoric.

    Edit: made it clearer that I'm agreeing with you

  • I heard that there were some communities where voting closed super early. Under circumstances like that, I can sympathise with people who feel that there's no point in voting; there were people who went out to vote but weren't able to, and that must be so demoralising

  • https://www.codingfont.com/ is a fun, tournament style quiz that compares different monospace fonts. It's far from comprehensive, but I found it useful to gauge what font features I find stylish and readable

    (For the record, my go-to font is Jetbrains Mono)

  • I have a good friend who is Czech and I spent a couple weeks there with her family. One of my takeaways from this trip was that Czechs like mushroom picking, and are proud of how many castles there are (Czechia doesn't have the absolute highest number of castles, but apparently it does have the highest castle density)

  • I love Avantasia's "Lay All Your Love on Me" (Originally by ABBA). Metal covers can sometimes feel lazy, but this is an excellent rendition. It feels like the perfect coming together of two distinct parts of me: the me that daubs myself in rainbows to dance to ABBA at the gay club; and the metal/punk energy of the majority of my style and music taste. It always goes down well at parties.

    Edit: I am having more songs coming to mind, but a weird one I can't help mentioning is Edmund Welles cover of "Hallowed Be Thy Name".. It's a clarinet quartet (+vocals) cover that I didn't know I needed until I heard it. So delightfully weird, and it has no right to go as hard as it does

  • Echoing Jubilant Jaguar's sentiment about defaults mattering, I think that sometimes an excess amount of choice can be overwhelming such that a user is less empowered to make choices about things they do care about (Leading to a less steep learning curve). Sensible defaults need not remove anyone's choice

  • Damn, I hadn't heard about her husband being abusive. It's striking to me that Giuffre was 41 when she died, and had been married to her husband for 22 years, meaning she was around 19 when they married. That's very young, and so soon after being sex trafficked by Maxwell and Epstein.

    It's unclear how far back the abuse by her husband stretched back, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was present to some degree for their entire relationship. And surviving abuse at the hands of Epstein and co may well have made her more vulnerable. Fucking hell.

  • I agree, but "slight" is the operative word here. I'm autistic and there are some cutlery that feel so unpleasant in my hand that I can barely force myself to use them. In the past, it has even resulted in me hardly eating (when the lack of good cutlery was due to the nice ones being missing rather than just dirty). I felt very silly that I was letting myself go hungry over an irrational preference, but I find that some battles aren't worth fighting.

    I have also found that other neurodivergent people often have strong opinions on cutlery, which has been a wee source of solidarity. I think that, in addition to the concrete reality of people's preferences, there's a reinforcing cycle where once a cultural thing becomes associated with a particular group, there will be in-group jokes made about that association, which reinforces the link. That is to say that the relevance of this meme somewhat transcends the reality of the relative frequency of neurodivergent people having strong opinions on cutlery

  • I like to think that data doesn't hate theory, it just has highly particular tastes. Like this lil octopus guy in a plastic cup, who spends a while rejecting shells before finding one it's happy to abandon its cup for. https://youtu.be/DTJbdy097m0

    Imagining the data as a cute octopus helps with the rage when nothing goes right 🙃

  • I personally struggle to see the difference between regular social interaction and manipulation. Do you have a sense on where that lies for you?

    For example, due to being autistic, I struggle with making eye contact, but I recognise that most neurotypical people find that important for feeling connected to their conversation partner, so I often try to make eye contact during conversation. If I see someone has styled their hair in a way that shows they've put a lot of effort into it, I will often compliment them, even if I only feel neutral about it. I baked a cake for a friend when she finished her exams, because I know that physical gestures like this mean a lot to her (especially if it's a surprise); I wanted to make her happy, but it wasn't purely altruistic — ultimately, making the cake was an indirect way of making myself happier.

    Another example is how, when speaking to someone struggling with something, my instinct is to go into problem solving mode and try to help. However, I've learned that some people much prefer space to be sad, and so saying things like "that sounds so frustrating" or "I can see why you're so angry, it's an unfair situation" lands better. It always feels weird and manipulative to do this, because the things I say feel so trite and meaningless. But it seems to really help, and I've had to just embrace the fact that people use different things to cope than I do. It does feel weird though, and if these aren't examples of bad manipulation, then I don't know where that line would be