FourPacketsOfPeanuts @ FourPacketsOfPeanuts @lemmy.world

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992

Joined

2 yr. ago

People pay to remove ads from YouTube, Netflix, Amazon etc.

The point wouldn't be to put people off, you can still push the platform to the masses as "free". It's just that once you're there if you find the ads annoying or you don't want your feed algo'd to death, then it has a "remove ads" paid option that currently platforms all lack..

Disable ads for $2 a month?

Just anything this doesn't then try to bleed people in every conceivable way..

All the algo manipulation comes from an over reliance on ad income. If a social network put its costs + a modest profit onto premium users what would that look like?

Surely at some point a network that can honestly say "we aren't reliant on sponsors" is going to be appealing to enough people. (Even if there is then a free ad supported tier for those who don't have an option - it would hardly be worse than what they've currently got)

How hard is it to run a platform charging a couple dollars a month so that you don't need to turn into a ghoulish capitalist nightmare? Like, really. If even one of them went the "no ads, ever, just a tiny monthly fee" wouldn't that be better? Wouldn't everyone flock there? Is everyone so dumb that they think these huge sites will run for free?? No.. wait I think I've answered my own question..

"Our new GestureSupport("Gestapo") means you can now upvote by striking your arm up and to the right..."

Invoking determinism is fine, just be aware it rarely solves the problem you think it does.

Saying 'some bad thing happened - the universe made it happen, it's not my fault' - what are you really wanting to achieve with that? If it was beyond your ability to do otherwise, then you probably want to process this some other way (mindfulness / therapy / talking it out with someone) until your emotions align with the facts. Because you don't have a "responsibility" problem you have a "thinking it was my responsibility when it wasn't" problem. And appealing to determinism isn't going to change your habit of doing that.

On the other hand, if you actually could have made a difference / prevented it but knowingly didn't (or were sufficiently careless that your culpability is real) then appealing to fate might be a short term plaster but it's a bad long term fix.

And this is because rather than dealing with a feeling of guilt or dealing with how you make choices you are masking these things by making yourself out to be a passive object that life happens to. Again, as a short term cope that can be fine, but do you see how making a habit of that just undermines your ability to believe you can grow and be better?

At its extreme appealing to determinism can remove your perception of everyone's responsibility. "Everything's inevitable"... "We're all just biological machines".. "I couldn't help it"... And while, from a certain point of view, physics can lend evidence to determinism. It doesn't actually affect how life works because even if we are all biological machines, we still need to ascribe what we call 'responsibility' to the biological machine through which something undesirable came. People will still want to avoid people who hurt them. The law will still have to segregate the wrongdoer. Even if everything is now "deterministic". (The Amazon warehouse sorting robots will isolate a misbehaving robot even if that robot has not one jot of control over its programming - if you see what I mean).

So all I'm saying is belief in "fate" has an illusory power. Where it makes us feel less bad about something. But taken to its extreme it makes us not feel responsible for anything, while life carries on as normal and inevitably penalises us for that.

So it's better for you to expose yourself to the pain of "yes it was my fault" (if indeed it was). But then in that pain not to give way to hopelessness, but rather realise pain (if based on truth) is a fuel by which to change yourself. Get other's help if necessary. But don't give up the opportunity to grow. The pain is actually a sign you care, don't deaden that. It's the stuff of life.

Thanks

It's worth noting that these raids and arrests are warrantless which is in violation of the Constitution.

As a complete foreigner may I ask a dumb question: are non-citizens protected by the constitution?

Mentally unwell person: acts mentally unwell

Mental Health Team: "weelllll, what can ya do?"

I'd print Wikipedia if I had the resources ;)

Yes, current articles or, say, last 5 years maybe?

It's for a retreat that will have no electrics. Hence paper only. Paperback preferably.

Kimberley M., 1998

I find reflecting on violence done to one's self is more complex, because you have full control over whether the suffering should be your own or an attacker's. And you may start reflecting on 'what's a proportional response?', 'is killing them justified when you don't know if they'd have taken your life or not?', 'might they not be responsible for their actions?', 'it's it better to suffer a little and give people the benefit of the doubt?'. This can get layered with all sorts of guilt and doubt depending what you factor in. 'did I contribute to the economic injustice that has produced this mugger who's attacking me?'

Etc etc. It's a quagmire.

I find things become simpler when I consider an attacker about to assault a weaker person - a child say - in front of me. Should I use violence to stop that attacker?

Given that it now doesn't seem to be my place to reflect on the just suffering of a child, the obligation to stop the attacker with force becomes clearer.

At least it seems morally clear (at least to me) that to claim to be a pacifist when observing a violent assault on a child, one is no better than the attacker.

That breaks the idealistic (and naive) hope that there might be a way to be non-violent and just. After that, one has better tools to re-evaluate assaults upon one's self. If I am a person who through their actions reduces unjust suffering, then allowing myself to come to harm harms others and is unjust. Protecting one's self with violence becomes justified and necessary.

(When I was a student I was an idealist and a pacifist. When I became a father it became quite clear to me that I would break someone else in half if they were hurting my children..)

I went to school with half of them

It didn't matter to me until I had a laptop that booted super fast. And now it matters...

Same as all the muppets in the city dressed up to the nines in their new beemer than you know is on monthly payments.

On the other hand; being debt free, now there's a status symbol..

As with how Nazism worked in Germany, I think a large amount of power and influence is happy to go along with whichever way the winds blowing but are not as committed to certain ideologies as much as the demogogues and fanatics. Hitler hid the final solution from the German populace, even when treating Jewish people like shit was a fairly normalised thing to do. That's because even amongst the population of German 'nazis', many believed in the superiority of WASPs, would turn a blind eye to a Jewish person being beaten and robbed, but would balk at women and children being systematically exterminated on just a human level. Many "nazi" civilians were horrified and ashamed when the extermination camps came to light, even if they accepted concentration (prison) camps via 'out of sight out of mind'.

I think it's far more likely Trump and co will get into a situation where "natural" or mob "justice" does as much as they care to do in that regard. That is, if predominantly black areas of a city have high crime and murders "screw them that's their fault". If that leads to inequality and shorter lives "screw them that's their fault". If illegal migrants get turned back at the border and die in the desert "screw them that's their fault". If trans people suffer trying to fit into society "screw them they're the ones who want to act different". And so on.

I think it'll absolutely result in suffering and death. But run an actual extermination camp in the 21st century? Well a) it wouldn't be a secret at all b) for all its blagging America still very much needs its trading partners in Europe who would be horrified and c) a good chunk of maga would be horrified (some wouldn't but a whole load would). As much as it's fashionable to cast them all as brainrot sycophants, this isn't quite true in reality..

I think Trump fascism is about power and about WASP culture prestige and superiority, but I think money counts for far more than ethnic ideology. By all accounts Maga has never had an issue with the EB-5 visa program (aka "buying a green card"). For about a million dollars anyone in the world can become a US citizen as long as they create 10 or more American jobs with their investment. Most of these visas go to Chinese immigrants, but applications are also accepted from Mexico, Vietnam, India, Nigeria etc. Last time he was in office Trump extended the program.

It's all about power (according to them). If you've got money and you tow the line you're fine irrespective of ethnicity. If you're the "right kind" (white kind) of poor you may get help. Everyone else will find any kind of help very hard to come by even as their neighborhood becomes more lawless and lethal.

I think it's a hair worth splitting because I find it very unlikely that he actually subscribes to the goals that the Germany Nazi party had. And I think he relies on this in order to cultivate the 'owning the libs' narrative he keeps with his supporters and acolytes. He's fascist (and dangerous) and mischaracterising him plays into his hands to be honest..

I don't think they are nazis, I think they are fascists. And I don't think they even think of themselves as fascists, I think they just think power sets the rules and that a lot of people on the left's attempts at 'fairness' are dumb, and (they think) 'well if you want to call that 'fascism' then you're an overreacting bitter delusional leftie'

Or something like that

I suspect he did it to take the piss. And to signal to elements of the right / far right that they should breathe a little more freely

Same way his government department is "doge". Same way he named Tesla's products "S.E.X.Y". Many many things he does are bait.

But do I think musk stands for what the Nazis did? No. And I think he, and his type, enjoy thinking it's "ridiculous" that anyone thinks that. "Obviously" he doesn't want to gas the Jews. "Obviously" he doesn't think all black people should be lynched.

But I do think he thinks it's ok trans people are made to fear. That sub cultures are made to feel unwelcome. That non-'wasp' lives are ruined whenever convenient. That checks and balances in government are as changeable as the furniture.

I think he thinks industry should serve a grand national vision.

I don't think he gives a shit what that vision is as long as it involves him getting even more stupid wealthy

So this pretty much sums up fascism. He's a fascist not a nazi..

Things I've learnt:

• the American continental army tried to take Quebec early in the war but were unsuccessful
• inhabitants of British Canadian territory did not have the same sentiment towards Independence as in the 13 American colonies, it was far more sparsely populated, lived in closer association with indigenous people, and was not economically large enough to consider independence
• after the war, many British loyalists left America and settled in Canada causing the cultures to diverge even more
• Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and other bits all used to be part of British Québec
• America attempted to claim all the above plus canadian Quebec in the Paris peace talks after the war
• in the end the British surrendered only the above territories and kept modern day Québec with the border becoming more or less the modern US-Canadian one

It's afraid