agent_flounder @ agent_flounder @lemmy.one

Posts

0

Comments

749

Joined

2 yr. ago

Well it is an anecdote. Can't draw any real conclusions there. Too many variables. How old were the kids when adopted? Were they abused or neglected or adopted right at birth? How well did the parents treat the adopted vs non-adopted kids? Were the adopted kids healthy at birth or could fetal alcohol syndrome have played a factor? Were there issues with discrimination based on race? And myriad other questions...

Ergo, less time to contemplate your last moments. I like it.

Yikes.

For a while I hated flying. Freaked me out even though I knew statistically it is a safe form of travel. Then I watched a bunch of Air Disasters shows and realized how many fixes they have put in place and I felt a lot better about flying.

Then I subbed to /r/AviationMaintenance. I really don't want to fly anymore.

What's star track?

It is going to be difficult to troubleshoot without understanding what is lacking in sound quality between Linux and Windows.

What songs are you comparing with? Use the same set of songs on Windows and Linux.

I can probably look this up if nobody knows but what kind of sound chip is on the ASRock b450m? (Just in case there are some features the Linux driver isn't making use of for who knows what reason).

Yeah fins not so much...

My only experience in the last decade is Mint and lately Nobara (Fedora 37 plus tweaks for gaming). Mint was pretty rock solid. I rarely rebooted except for updates. Occasionally Cinnamon would lock up... because reasons? It was too rare to worry about. The only complaint was that the packages I used were pretty out of date. I switched only because the 5.15 kernel didn't support my AMD RX6600 (or I should say there was an issue with power save where the display wouldn't show back up even after reboot).

As long as it doesn't cause massive instability I would probably prefer a rolling update. Upgrading Mint every few years was a bit intrusive.

Gartner Hype Cycle. I think we are getting close to the "peak of inflated expectations" on generative AI for sure. I feel like ML has kind of been around for ages now but maybe companies are just treating everything as an AI/ML nail now. Idk.

At least you have paws.

Damn you need to wake up. You're lemmying in your sleep now.

My cat says not to worry-- it's normal.

I think some of us are traumatized by Reddit and Trump. Because for every person offering legit, good faith, well thought out criticism of Biden or the Democratic party (and there are plenty of things to criticize), I could show you about 1000 shills, bots, The Donald magats, and so on, following the alt right playbook like a fucking bible.

You call 'em what you will. Call me one if it feels right. But I don't see viable options in the short term at this dark point in the nation's history.

I think long term it is going to have to be a bottom up involvement in politics to maybe try to put the corporate bootlickers in the Democratic party. It's going to have to be a long fight to fix the judiciary, undo citizens united, fix the corrupt, partisan SCOTUS, reform campaign finance, implement something other than first past the post voting, fix gerrymandering, break up oligopolies, and a million other things. I'm too tired to list it all.

Of course one could argue that centrists aren't the right folks to fight fascism. And might enable it. Anyway...

I guess the long lasting cultural effects of antiquated abrahamic religion is the cause. But horrific violence? Meh no prob. Make war not love, I guess.

Possibly. Or maybe you're more aware of it now.

Nor is Fox news.

Maybe if these fascist ball sacks were always met with a volley of rotten vegetables every time they showed their disgusting faces they'd crawl back to the sewers where they belong.

Money, kompromat, a model for their vision of fascism, who can say ...

That's one way to get ahead...

Russian military abuses its soldiers pretty horribly even in peace time. Some fucked up people there I'm guessing. Not an excuse but context.

One reference (among others): https://www.hrw.org/report/2004/10/19/wrongs-passage/inhuman-and-degrading-treatment-new-recruits-russian-armed-forces

Quote ---8<---

Throughout the first year of their military service, hundreds of thousands of new recruits in the Russian armed forces face grossly abusive treatment at the hands of more senior conscripts. Under a system called dedovshchina, or "rule of the grandfathers," second-year conscripts force new recruits to live in a year-long state of pointless servitude, punish them violently for any infractions of official or informal rules, and abuse them gratuitously. Dozens of conscripts are killed every year as a result of these abuses, and thousands sustain serious-and often permanent-damage to their physical and mental health. Hundreds commit or attempt suicide and thousands run away from their units. This abuse takes place in a broader context of denial of conscripts' rights to adequate food and access to medical care, which causes many to go hungry or develop serious health problems, and abusive treatment by officers.

This report, which documents these abuses, is based on three years of research that have allowed Human Rights Watch to analyze the dedovshchina system, its consequences for the physical and mental well-being of conscripts, and the extent to which treatment under dedovshchina is inconsistent with Russian and international human rights standards. During 2002 and 2003, we conducted research in seven regions across Russia, including Cheliabinsk, Moscow, Novokuznetsk, Novosibirsk, St. Petersburg, Vladivostok, and Volgograd. We interviewed more than one hundred conscripts, their parents, officials, lawyers, NGO experts, and former military servicemen. The conscripts served on more than fifty bases in more than twenty-five of Russia's eighty-nine provinces. We also extensively studied the archive files of several soldiers' rights groups. In February 2004, we had a meeting to discuss our findings with officials of the Ministry of Defense in Moscow.

Dedovshchina exists in military units throughout the Russian Federation. It establishes an informal hierarchy of conscripts, based on the length of their service, and a corresponding set of rights and duties for each group of the hierarchy. As in militaries around the world, newcomers have essentially no rights under the system-they must earn them over time. At the beginning of their service, conscripts are "not eligible" to eat, wash, relax, sleep, be sick, or even keep track of time. Thus, any restrictions placed on these functions are considered permissible. The life of a new recruit consists of countless obligations to do the bidding of those conscripts who have served long enough-a year or more-to have earned rights in the informal hierarchy. Second-year conscripts, called the dedy[1],have practically unlimited power with respect to their junior colleagues. They can order them to do whatever they like, no matter how demeaning or absurd the task, while remaining beyond the strictures of the Military Code of Conduct or any other set of formal rules. If a first-year conscript refuses to oblige or fails in the assigned task, the senior conscript is free to administer whatever punishment he deems appropriate, no matter how violent.

Dedovshchina is distinguished by predation, violence, and impunity. During their first year of service, conscripts live under the constant threat of violence for failing to comply with limitless orders and demands of dedy. Many conscripts spent entire days fulfilling these orders, which range from the trivial, like shining the seniors' boots or making their beds, to the predatory, such as handing over food items to them at meal time, or procuring (legally or illegally) money, alcohol or cigarettes for them. First-year conscripts face violent punishment for any failure-and frequently not only for their own individual failure, as punishment is often collective-to conform to the expectations of dedy. As a rule, punishment happens at night after officers have gone home. Dedy wake the first-year conscripts up in the middle of the night and make them perform push-ups or knee bends, often accompanied by beatings, until they drop. First-year conscripts also routinely face gratuitous abuse, often involving severe beatings or sexual abuse, from drunken dedy at night. Dedy sometimes beat new recruits with stools or iron rods.

Dedovshchina has all the trappings of a classic initiation system; indeed, it likely emerged as one several decades ago. Such systems, which exist in many social institutions around the world, including schools, athletic clubs, and especially the armed forces of many countries, can play a legitimate role in military structures by enhancinggroup cohesion and esprit de corps. Initiation systems license the group to erase a certain degree of individuality in its members, and the possibility of abuse is inherent in that license.

While dedovshchina may once have served the purpose of initiation, it has in the past twenty years degenerated into a system in which second-year conscripts, once victims of abuse and deprivation themselves, enjoy untrammeled power to abuse their juniors without rule, restriction, or fear of punishment.The result is not enhanced esprit de corps but lawlessness and gross abuse of human rights.The collapse of dedovshchina as an initiation system has occurred at both the command level and at the conscript level.