OpenStars @ OpenStars @startrek.website

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2 yr. ago

Trump is dirty, maybe this guy is dirty too - like, has some power (blackmail?) over the board members?

True. But the time before that they lost. And on and on the cycle goes! :-P

Sigh... now watch as the DNC manages to fumble this. Truly we live in the worst timeline - elections should not be equivalent to playing Russian Roulette:-(.

(doesn't exactly fit, but still funny enough to share, I hope!:-P)

I don't use Arch, but I still think that Windows is, if not the absolute worst for your machine, then it at least ranks highly in that category:-).

Picard:

Dukat:

Eventually it will wrap back around to being edgy and cool in an ironic manner:-).

THREE STARS!

Welcome to the Fediverse!

Indeed, people are quite a bit more welcoming here than Reddit - ofc not everywhere, but more so, on average. If it helps, you can block not only individual users communities, but even whole entire instances - the latter by going into your profile, scrolling way down, and adding the instance name to that list. Do what you want, but for me, when TENS of people continue to spam-reply me WEEKS after I STOP responding, that's the signal that they are refusing to control themselves, so I take matters into my own hands and block them. For that reason I blocked hexbear and lemmygradml, and some people block lemmyml too but I do enjoy their memes and such and just stay out of their politics community so I have not gone that far for that one. If this describes you, note that this can improve your experience in the Fediverse by perhaps 90% so may be WORTH IT. People from those instances can still reply to your posts and comments, but you will not receive notifications anymore, nor see them while you are logged in:-).

One thing more I wanted to make sure that you and your friends know: DMs are not private. I don't know of any actual tools that makes reading someone's DMs possible, but the signals are out there and not only admins but anyone could, in theory. Probably that won't matter 99% of the time but e.g. sending physical addresses or phone numbers would be easy to scan for across the Fediverse by malicious actors.

Anyway, I hope you feel welcomed! (fwiw, I am not a woman, I just wanted to share these thoughts in case they would be helpful:-)

Let's go Brandon! (have we reclaimed that yet? surely we plan to, I would think? well anyway it works in this highly specific case:-D)

There is no higher irony that I can think of than a pilgrim man-splaining feminism to an actual witch.

Internet level: peaked, it's all downhill from here! :-P

Not always.

Sometimes it will say "and my bow". :-P

Replaces the older .com format, also compatible with the .bat and .lnk wrappers too.

That depends: are we in a country that lacks any kind of decent access to medical care, so that by not jumping we are causing a worse death than by jumping?

There is this one episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where a bunch of kids want to become vampires, so they invite a vampire to "turn" them. Ofc the vampire has no intention of actually doing that, but they were all too happy to have the free meals. So as it starts feasting on the people, Buffy was trying to get the others to flee, but they were so ensconced in their belief structure that they would not leave. She had to tell them how "you" can never become a vampire: all you can do is die, and leave your body for someone "else" to take it up - some other entity, a non-human "person" if you will, who may if we are being truthful look a lot like the one that they replaced, but it's all an act.

There is one exemption in that world-universe, where Angel is a human-turned-vampire-turned-human-possessing-the-vampire-body, but the point there is that such a thing is by all accounts the exception, not the rule, and more generally: that vampires and humans are two literal species of beings, so that a human can never "become" a vampire, in the strictest sense, and certainly that is not what happens during the regular "turning" process.

Which I find fascinating b/c in other genres, like Blade and that Netflix Castlevania anime and Underworld, vampirism is more like something "genetic", and you can even get mutations where like Blade himself is half-human, half-vampire, and there is a mostly-physical explanation for that relating to genes that offer some traits and other genes that offer other ones. Underworld even takes it up a notch and introduces like half-vampire, half-werewolf:-). And those "mostly-physical" explanations stand in high stark contrast to the John Carpenter movies, and the older Dracula ones, and the show Being Human, etc. where the explanation is "mostly spiritual/occult" where like vampires (those of high-enough status anyway) can literally fly, and there's telepathy and all sorts of extra stuff. But anyway, whether physical or occult, these all share in common that a human being actually can become a vampire, unlike in the Buffy-verse.

And then that opens up a whole new plethora of options: like what if you felt like you had a cold so you went to bed early one night, died, then woke up having just eaten your most-loved family members? In the Buffy-verse, the vampire soul now possessing "your" body (while the actual "you" has already moved on to wherever souls go - the afterlife) just laughs, but in these others, it is you that just did that thing! Thus there is guilt involved, and you have to start wondering if you are now a higher/superior species so it's okay to eat humans, or else a lower/inferior one that is cursed to need kill humans (as you say, possibly not "need" but you feel such an overwhelmingly overpowering desire that it is basically the same thing), but either way you become separated from them, forever, as you transition into your vampire existence.

And yes, there are multiple paths within vampirism too: those who perhaps don't get blood so cannot maintain their sentience and devolve into animalistic creatures, and even those who don't even need to rip out the throats of their victims but instead drink blood in little tinctures and vials and glasses like high aristocracy, who irl may likewise eat a "pork sandwich" and have no idea whether pork even means cow, pig, or chicken. The latter then may maintain the most "normal-looking" existence, where a high-royalty vampire may literally have never bared their fangs to anything, b/c they have never needed to do such?

Thus, definitely between the universes, but also still very much within each one, there is a whole range of how much human-ness a being still possess, after becoming a vampire. If IQ = Intelligence Quotient and EQ = Emotional Intelligence (Quotient), then we can envision an HQ and/or a VQ as well, or likely they would be the same scale just at opposite ends like the political Left-Right spectrum. But if so, if may actually be more like a triangle or a 2D spectrum, with AQ (Animalistic Quotient) thrown into the mix somewhere too, where e.g. a highly humane human has a high HQ and a highly vampiric vampire has a high VQ, but an animalistic, high-AQ cannot really be much of anything b/c it just flat is too lowly and dumb. Anyway, on that spectrum, perhaps those who choose to be more like humans could decide to breathe, perhaps, while those who aim more towards the opposite side could make it a point of pride to specifically not breathe? In this formulation then, high-AQs may not breathe, and low-HQ, high-VQs may not breathe (while high-HQs do breathe), but for totally different reasons! (b/c when you start to lose your "human-ness", you can do so either by falling towards the AQ side, or the VQ side, either of which takes you away from HQ but by different processes)

I have more thoughts on this: do you want to hear how I think this is a metaphor for life in a Western nation?

Okay so you need to keep in mind that Buffy was from the 90s, and even then it was ironic - I believe the phrase is "high camp", as in it pokes fun at the things that it emulates, though those things are now decades past so it definitely would not "hit" the same as today. That said, it is emo, it is fascinating, it is one of the darkest shows ever allowed to be on television (again, at the time), and it evolves over time to incorporate a whole world of magic and mysticism - and that part you seem like you would definitely enjoy, though it may take a few seasons to get there. I would say check it out - like watch an episode and see how you like it, but even there keep in mind that early on it was still proving itself to an American audience, so it didn't start to get TRULY dark until later. Thus, early on it is more "American teen gurl does not fit in at school angst" than "the fate of the entire world is at stake, and with a demon masquerading as the ghost of his dead friend whispering into his ear, this warlock just betrayed his best friend by stabbing him in the gut and used his blood to open up a mystic portal to unleash hell-beasts who will cause the literal and actual apocalypse". So I am saying, as with all TV from that era, it is hit-or-miss, and so ymmv:-). But it is a cult classic favorite, and for that reason it is good to know about, so do pick at least one episode to see it for yourself, whereupon you can decide whether to watch the whole thing.

So yeah, I recommend checking it out, with those caveats in mind:-). I've mentioned the others sprinkled in above... and you know what? Buffy & Angel somewhat rise to the top as my favorites, I think. It is not like I would want to re-watch them endlessly - things like Underworld hits better for like production values - but it is just one of those that sticks with you, having made an impression on your mind, you know? There's a lot of fluff, but it being a long-form TV show allowed it to really EXPLORE things. Like one guy got possessed by a demonic jackal-demon spirit and ate (I mean in the full literal sense) his school principal, but he was a coward so pretended that he did not recall any of it, so as to avoid talking about it. In the show there is also a particular vampire who falls in love with a human (well, the boys are lining up for that gurl actually) and decides to stop killing, or like, at least tries - but he can't, b/c it's just too much fun. There are so many little STORIES like that, which are super hard to explore in the context of a singular or even a series of movies, but which this long-running TV series was able to work in. It is even somewhat close to reading a more imaginative book, but portrayed as a moving picture video with sound aka a different venue for delivery of that artistic expression of thought. Though again, not every episode is going to be that way for you, and some are downright boring, but even those may stick with you later on, thus are worthwhile in that different, other sense.

Thank you for at least attempting to be polite. The other responses make me realize that Trump is going to win, when even this bastion of liberalism on Lemmy remains mired at the level of discourse that seems to me to be about kindergarten level.

First, this article is EXTREMELY thin - it says nothing that I have not heard for literal decades - e.g. I liked this one (explaining, among other things, that e.g. a "2-party system" is nothing new in world history), and more recently this series, or for a more mathematical bent watch this one (but ngl, this related one may really fuck you up... seriously, you were warned).

Second, the attitude of the Greek stoics is that we cannot control what lies outside our purview, but we MUST control what lies within that (if we claim to be responsible... and yet not a hypocrite). I did not think that I was making 10-D chess moves here to say that we might want to try acting like grown-ups. Like for one thing, there are ~80% of Americans that lie somewhere between the two extremes of far-left and far-right, but even if only 2% could be swayed to vote to R v. D, that actually might be enough to turn the rudder of this entire whole ship, b/c that's just how plurality rules voting works (within the constraints of the electoral college).

I guess democrats calling them a basket of deplorables and then calling them dumb racist white supremacists for two years straight was not really an insult.

My absolute hero, Jon Stewart, once said: "liberal media aims to be correct, but conservative media aims to be effective". I suppose it is too much to ask that we hold ourselves to a higher standard, in at least an attempt to be both?

Or, you know, we could stick our fingers in our ears and cry "nah nah I can't hear you", attempting to gain solace in being "correct", while downvoting and criticizing people (in this case, MataVatnik@lemmy.world) who even so much as dares to voice an opinion that the flavor of the month crowd decides is "bad"? Again: this is why Trump will win. B/c while conservatives may argue amongst themselves, at the end of the day they pull together and vote as a block, while liberals instead eat our own. Which convinces me that whatever may come from the next election, we fucking brought it upon ourselves, by refusing to live in reality, e.g. if we cannot even talk politely amongst ourselves here, then what hope is there for the wider election audience?:-(

I don't actually think that there is a solution possible. I think that either we will come to, if not an actual Civil War, then at least a constitutional crisis of some kind. Or at least one side will just sort of give up on the other entirely and move on. Case in point: the USA used to have the nationwide Roe v. Wade, whereas now it is left up to each state to decide. Liberal states might want to lock in protection for abortion now while they can, although even that much may not prevent encroachment if Trump wins the next election, picks another Supreme Court Justice, and shifts the entry country even further Rightward.

Never forget - and this is something that I think that conservatives actually do better than liberals: there is no "should" in politics, there is only what you can make happen. As my actual hero Jon Stewart once said: "liberal media aims to be correct, while conservative media aims to be effective". As you pointed out, how do you even begin to fight against that, especially if we choose to remain ineffective - e.g. how many liberals have already stated that they will under no circumstances vote for Biden in the next election, b/c of Gaza. Okay sure, there's time, so I am supposed to just "trust the system"? Just like we did in 2015?

To be clear, I was not saying that liberals should just let conservatives have their way. But any problem begins with a diagnosis - and realizing that the "other side" is sticking their fingers in their ears and screaming "naw naw I can't hear you" at the top of their lungs means that merely talking is not likely to do much. e.g. we could point out Trump's literal and actual dictatorial verbage... which somehow many conservatives still claim to have never heard? (or perhaps do not believe... or something, I dunno) Anyway, I am saying that liberals would benefit from acceptance of the situation as it is, rather than as someone perhaps wishes that it might be.

Also if you knew anything about their personalities... well let's just say that I can understand why she might have even chosen to be bitchy around them:-P. I am saying: they were massive douches:-P.