ameancow @ ameancow @lemmy.world

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1 yr. ago

You are absolutely right, just look at the popular investment subreddits, they don't talk about long-term goals and successful investment strategies for retirement, etc. They talk about what the latest fast-buck is going to be, what the newest short or pump-and-dump is doing, they report on when a rug gets pulled or a bubble bursts so that their buddies can stop working in inflating it.

It's an entire industry of scams and cons, from crypto to the stock-market broadly, it's all about short-term rewards at any cost.

It's not about bathrooms, it's certainly not about "protecting" anyone. They do not give two shits about actual assaults against women and children.

It's about sending a political message, a threat against a marginalized group that can be demonized for not fitting social norms, but is also not strong enough or connected enough to push back and rile up public support. Something like saying "You're not allowed to use the bathroom" is a deeply personal and sensitive topic that will absolutely crush someone of any group and it's prone to not getting the public attention that it needs. I mean, who wants to talk about how they need to shit?

It's been wildly successful too, because the people who actually care spend all their time in social-media echo-chambers, even like this one, instead of doing community organization and activism. Even suggesting it will probably draw in opposition here from people who feel helpless. And yeah, they'll be right, it's much, much harder now because we didn't do this shit back when the playing field was more level and this was just 4-chan trolls and reddit communities and there wasn't billions of dollars invested in the success of the of the distraction-campaign.

We can still turn this around but we can't do it the same way. We have to fight far, far dirtier, we have to make bot-armies, troll accounts, we have to put ourselves at risk, we have to directly target efforts towards libs and neo-libs who maybe, sorta, kinda care about issues that impact other citizens, but need a swift kick in the ass to realize they're on the wrong side of history. We have to project the image of mass-support at any opportunity. When you are talking or arguing about these issues, you have to do the same thing they did, which is play up that your movement is gaining support and momentum broadly, not withering under blistering hate and capitalist efforts. We have to be less afraid of wild rhetoric and playing uncivil. Be less afraid of negative attention. We have to call people bad words and be less afraid of offending our own side, because there are a lot of people on our side who aren't really.

We have to actually argue with our shitty uncle and not "let it go." We have to make friends in real-space and we have to hang out in public and be seen and stand united against hateful monsters.

We have to be that group of San Diego citizens who SHAMED a bunch of modern klansmen (ICE agents) into retreating from their neighborhood.

All the hard shit. You have to do that. You have to get real social real fast. Yeah, it does suck.

My one regret is that I will never be able to find all the really stubborn, dimwitted assholes on reddit who were screaming bloody death-threats at me for warning people that NFT's were a scam, and be able to just verbally ream them out, fucking rub their faces in their own shit.

I bet some of them are out there, reading this maybe, maybe they even recognize me.

If so... hi. How you doin? 😊

can you hold the tiger’s tail just long enough

The answer to this is also usually "no" because the people who set up the scamcoin usually don't like to leave things to chance and have a plan for when to time their rug-pull.

Trying to get in on these grifts is like spotting a bank-robbery in-progress and trying to join the crew and get paid. Sure it can happen, but you're not exactly playing with the best odds of success.

Uh oh, you've offended the people who are prone to falling for scams and grifts. Across multiple generations.

Can you imagine how much better our world would be if people who formed radical opinions about things actually investigated the things they're terrified of? I'm reminded of a recent story about a community forming a reading group to actually read the books that local conservative community leaders were trying to bad from the schools, and something like 99% of the books were reinstated because the citizens group found nothing offensive about them.

But a lot of our "internet culture" has formed this "double down forever" mentality in people where we've adapted and socialized ourselves to not even READ the things that run against our current stances and opinions, to not even address arguments, to not listen to the person debating us, and so on. These kinds of stories are just going to get more and more rare, particularly as we all start growing up with AI that kisses our asses and praises our every fart.

People in cars do sometimes shout nonsense as they pass pedestrians, but that's just noise. Never respond to it, never think about it, never let it bother you. It's the same as leaf-litter. You walk through it, you don't let it even impact your stride. Purge from your memory as it happens like so much ballast.

Now for police, that can vary a LOT depending on where you live and what your skin color is, but there aren't many places where people just can't walk around for fear of police intervention, because at least in America, despite all the media horror and fear, there are millions and millions of people walking their dogs, walking to the store, picking up their kids at the bus stop, carrying groceries, exercising, and so on. The chances of having a serious encounter with law-enforcement isn't zero, but it's probably significantly lower than the chances of developing type-2 diabetes from not going out and exercising.

I've never heard of this as an arbitrary thing that just "happens." Yes there are neighborhoods that are overly policed and have racial tensions, but if you're in that kind of environment, you go out and stay with groups, you work within the system the best you can, you make planned events working with community organizers. It takes more planning and care, but even in those hostile urban environments, people go out and do things all the time. There is almost no place where you can't just go out and walk somewhere, unless it's such a dangerous area that a curfew is in effect. And really, if you live somewhere like that, you got bigger concerns.

There is a LOT of overhyped media about American neighborhoods, they hype it in both directions. Depending on what side of the political spectrum you connect with best, the algorithm will attempt to make you afraid of going out because you should be scared of police, or scared of the citizens.

In the vast majority of suburban neighborhoods and urban higher-density areas, there are always people walking around, walking their dogs, going to the convenience store, etc. The only time I've EVER been hassled by police was one time many years ago I was taking trash out in my own yard, but I was carrying a big black flashlight, carrying a trash bag and had a dark hoodie, and from a distance I looked just like a potential burglar. The cops asked me what I was up to, I said taking out the trash and they were kinda assholes but then left.

I really am glad to know that I'm coming off as a dick on this, that is my every intention, we need more people willing to break social convention and say "Hey this thing that makes you comfortable? It's fucking your life up. Stop it."

That's what I'm doing, thank you for the feedback, if it's not impacting you the way you want, I don't really care because I do get enough positive feedback in other environments that I don't feel I'm actually harming anyone by saying "thing you don't like."

We need to read more things we don't like. We need to be challenged. We need to know we can change, we can hold others to this same standard too.

If we don't, we're going to lose thousands of years of progress as our species degrades further and further into isolated headspaces.

How many piece???

I like my bugs fried in coconut batter.

Really, I see a lot of people act absolutely revolted at the idea of eating cricket cakes and the like, but will absolutely destroy fried krill patties and similar dishes.

the "bug hate" meme is entirely a product of meat industries worried about people actually embracing alternatives.

I can describe cow and chicken meat with equally disgusting terminology, eating living things in any capacity is objectively weird and gross, we're just more used to eating some living things over others.

Sooner or later we're all going to be eating things like cultured meats and processed insects, it's just a matter of how many people are going to resist and struggle against changes to the way we stay alive.

Even in the deepest suburbs it's not that hard to form community and connection with your neighbors. Hold a few yard sales, make small talk, greet people walking their dogs, get to know who lives where. That's literally all it takes, that and actually going out.

We complain endlessly, particularly on sites like Lemmy, about the US's lack of "walkable cities" and other systemic obstacles to having better sense of community and social contact, but we hardly ever see people doing something about it.

I get that it's less "fun" to go out and make friends if you don't got a riverwalk and cafes, but the most important ingredient is still there, which is other people you just need to step up and make things happen.

I asked the pizza place to divide the pizza into 0 equal slices and about 20 minutes later there was a loud explosion from downtown. Never did get that pizza.

The idea isn't literal, it's to show that our language is entirely just noises that we've made into increasingly complicated levels of agreed-upon abstraction. We don't mine words out of the Earth, we develop them to create clear explanations that we can all agree on, and yes, the more you peel away or dig in, the more challenging it can be to create words that encompass all variations of an idea.

my suggestion is that if you're lacking in social contact, or even if you just want to open up more opportunities in either social life or professional, don't "suck it up" and pretend, but learn to understand and appreciate how socializing works by engaging in it like a game, learning what's actually happening in "small talk" and how to make people feel comfortable with you and gain emotional intelligence and empathy; qualities that most people look for in friends and romantic partners.

This is a severely neglected field of understanding for a lot of younger men right now and I don't think we should be making whole communities that provide validation for people avoiding the discomfort and instead we should treat it like exercise and diet. We don't exercise and diet because it feels good, we do it because the results are worthwhile. We tell people struggling with it "Just stick with it, it gets easier" and we treat that like good advice.

And again, it wouldn't be such an issue if there wasn't such a massive problem right now with social isolation. It's a message of public health, not social conformity. If you're happy as things are, nobody is forcing you to do anything, but if you battle depressive episodes or are lacking in relationships, if you don't feel like you have people to talk to, if you've never had someone give you comfort and support and you would like that, well the good news is you can have that. You can have people in your actual, real life who care about you, which can then open up more opportunities. But it takes exercise.

You're married to a droid??

Back when I was doing art for money (not adult or furry stuff, sorry) I had years of racing to the computer or in some cases, the ATM, to transfer new payments out of Paypal.

Because they make decisions on behalf of linked providers, like ebay. If you have ebay fees due, you don't get flexibility when you can pay it, Paypal just grabs it the next time it sees money come in. They do this with all kinds of fees and payments, if you have a delicate life like say... being a struggling artist, you are gonna get reamed by paypal and associated predatory companies. Not that there's a lot of choice.

I really think that a huge issue we've been having since the dawn of the internet is the perplexing effect that seems to impact a large portion of the population, where when they see someone suggest something, they take it as "being forced" and I cannot understand it. I can only assume that we grew up in very different environments and a lot of people aren't really aware of their own agency.

Human pattern recognition and repetition is the cornerstone of how our brains work.

Once you get it, like really get it, you see the world in a whole new way.

Everything is meme.