otp @ otp @sh.itjust.works

Posts

7

Comments

3,353

Joined

2 yr. ago

I always forget what makes it the safest mode of travel.

If it's the safest per KM, then it doesn't matter when it's the only way to travel.

If it's the safest per trip, again, there often isn't an alternative.

Is it still the safest mode of travel per time spent travelling? Because I'd imagine trains generally surpass that. And hopefully walking too in most places...

The second amendment was supposed to be about the citizens protecting themselves against a fascist government, right? (Though I don't think the term existed back then)

Here's the fascist government, Americans. What are you actually using your second amendment for?

Having read the article, that doesn't seem to be the case. The undertones of the writing seem to be "There have been some attempts to deny that these are Nazi salutes (and not from the people making the gestures), but plausible deniability is rapidly running out and it definitely looks exactly like a Nazi salute".

Oxford's top definition for Apparent is "clearly visible or understood; obvious"

Impeachment in the US seems to be meaningless too, though

Some people say Pokemon Go is already P2W. But as long as Community Days/shinies are still as available as they are with F2P, then I'll stick around and even give them some of my Google Play money, lol

You might've missed the word "not" in my previous comment, lol

EDIT: My apologies if I misread your intention -- I'd entertained the idea that someone would try to goad me into an argument on the same topic, so I didn't get invested in thinking too much about your comment.

Another commenter clued me in as to what you were probably getting at, and I think we're in agreement, lol

Sometimes that's just the up/downvote train. Sometimes people will just see the first couple of comments in an argument and just downvote/upvote alternatingly. Despite the idea that the votes are usually for what contributes to discussion, and not agree/disagree votes...

I'm just going to assume you're not a racist looking for an excuse to downplay racism

That'd be a crappy downgrade. The US needs to get someone a bit less dementia-riddled in charge

I had a multi-week long argument with someone on Reddit who was convinced that racism is irrelevant and/or doesn't exist because it's a distraction from class warfare or something.

I argued that yes, the rich are screwing us over, but racism still exists and is bad and you shouldn't be racist.

They made responses that were at least 3x as long as mine. They didn't really ever say anything new, except to say that my points were wrong because class warfare. After they went on a rant in response to my comment to the effect of "it's still not nice to pretend racism doesn't exist", I lost hope with this person.

I started replying to them by mentioning something they said, then followed it up by copy-pasting some of my previous comments to them. I didn't even read their essays. I started pawning off my replies to ChatGPT, and they'd reply every time. Unless they were also using an LLM and telling it to include typos and stuff, it looked like they were still vehemently arguing with me/ChatGPT.

After a few weeks of almost daily replies, I gave a two-sentence reply where I admitted that I wasn't even reading their replies because I thought their opinion was nonsense and the "conversation" had been going nowhere.

I didn't get a reply to that comment.

We also have the ability these days to back up a lot of our physical media. It wasn't so easy back when those things were new.

Right?? The NES is so well-understood that producing cartridges inexpensively that are still well-designed should be easy!

Yeah, and as someone who is actively trying to vote for improvement, I'm disappointed time and time again at people who think we should be comparing ourselves to the US's metrics and not the rest of the developed world. We could be doing so much better.

Canada. Could be a lot better, but I'm happy that we're not currently doing as badly as they are south of the border.

I've been working relatively high-paying precarious positions, but my circumstances have allowed me to build myself a safety net. So even if the government can't support me should something go wrong, I can support myself, at least for a time.

I currently have enough money to engage in hobbies and socialize. What I'm currently wishing for is more time.

I haven't had a paid sick day in my life, though I have had a couple "We can't give you a paid sick day, but we can pay you to do light work from home" in the last couple of years. The last time I had a paid vacation day and a job still lined up was in 2020. Though I do get statutory holidays, so it's not terrible.

First world problems. Overall, I'm happy with my life. This year, I'm looking to turn my precarious positions into a full-time gig. If that doesn't work out, I'll try to turn my side-gig into a full-time thing (and take the pay cut in exchange for life satisfaction). And if neither of those works out, I have my safety net which should be able to carry me through until I can get more contracts. And my partner may be looking at income increases next year, which should make everything easier.

Things haven't always been this good for me, but I'm happy with where they are and where they're going.

For the majority of the last century, life has been pretty great for Americans, essentially putting them on top of the world. Generations have seen nothing but life improving for their children and grandchildren, with no indication of it slowing down. For most of this time, many people haven't even needed to really sacrifice much for it the way that previous generations have.

This is finally starting to change.

Decades ago, we were told we'd finally have to start sacrificing to make a better life for our children. That didn't sit well with some people.

Millions of people are coming to the West (not just the US) for a better life, and have been for generations. While we're getting more tax dollars, resources are being spread more thin.

As well, it's been harder for people to earn a living. Before some time in the 1970s, company earnings were tightly coupled with employee earnings. Since then, company productivity and earnings have skyrocketed, while inflation-adjusted employee earnings have stagnated. Of course, employee productivity continues to skyrocket with advances in technology.

Nowadays, the "current" generation is feeling the pain.

Before, a person could graduate high school and find a good job to be able to afford a house, a car, and a family. Sometimes their spouse needed to work, too.

Nowadays, two people working in a household often can't afford to own a home. Yet the companies they're working for are making more money than ever.

Long story short, the US has been on top of the world for decades, and for the last half a century, they've been funneling their wealth upwards while taking away from the working class. There was so much money to go around that it wasn't enough to notice for generations. But now, people aren't just noticing -- they're feeling it.

And there doesn't seem to be any agreement on what needs to be done to make it better. (Partially because it's cheaper to fund media-based distractions than to fund social programs that would help people, or to tax corporations and the rich!)

That sounds bad. I like Pokemon Go. What kind of ruining are we talking about?

As unpopular as this may be, LLMs (aka. "AI" like ChatGPT).

I don't think we've seen something that'll change the world as much as I think it will since the Internet was introduced. It will change the way we interact with computers. For a lot of people, it already has.

IIRC, it did change at some point around when the Switch came out. I seem to recall gold points being available from physical games forever, and not expiring. But maybe that was in the DS days...

Link is dead?