Bet's recent activity
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Comment on Your partner asks for your phone, you refuse over privacy, they tell you they don't trust you. How do you respond? in ~talk
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Comment on I now think a heretical form of Christianity might be true in ~humanities
Bet Link… Such an oddly uplifting article. Lots of food for thought.My intellectual hero William James argued that, in situations of uncertainty, when the truth is of monumental importance, it can be rational to choose to believe. He gives the analogy of being stuck in the mountains with the only way of escaping being to leap across an enormous chasm between two precipices. Intellectually speaking, it is uncertain whether or not you can make it. But if you choose to believe you will make it, you raise the chances that you will succeed.
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Faith is not about certainty. It is fundamentally a decision to trust your spiritual experiences, and to trust a certain framework for interpreting and acting upon those experiences.
Such an oddly uplifting article. Lots of food for thought.
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Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of November 18 in ~society
Bet Link ParentEmphasis mine. And no further comment, lol. Moving on: Our new leaders are quite the skilled contortionists, it would seem.DOGE will work with legal experts embedded in government agencies, aided by advanced technology, to apply these rulings to federal regulations enacted by such agencies. DOGE will present this list of regulations to President Trump, who can, by executive action, immediately pause the enforcement of those regulations and initiate the process for review and rescission. This would liberate individuals and businesses from illicit regulations never passed by Congress and stimulate the U.S. economy.
Emphasis mine. And no further comment, lol. Moving on:
When the president nullifies thousands of such regulations, critics will allege executive overreach. In fact, it will be correcting the executive overreach of thousands of regulations promulgated by administrative fiat that were never authorized by Congress. The president owes lawmaking deference to Congress, not to bureaucrats deep within federal agencies. The use of executive orders to substitute for lawmaking by adding burdensome new rules is a constitutional affront, but the use of executive orders to roll back regulations that wrongly bypassed Congress is legitimate and necessary to comply with the Supreme Court’s recent mandates.
Our new leaders are quite the skilled contortionists, it would seem.
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Comment on The resistance is not coming to save you. It’s tuning out. in ~society
Bet LinkWe’re not coming to save us. We’re tuning out. Because we’ve done such a stellar job of saving ourselves so far. Clearly, there needs to be a bit of self-assessment on the left, and now is as good...We’re not coming to save us. We’re tuning out.
Because we’ve done such a stellar job of saving ourselves so far. Clearly, there needs to be a bit of self-assessment on the left, and now is as good a time for it as any. And taking a breather after getting the knees kicked out from under oneself seems like a sensible idea to me.
Trump made himself available as a vehicle of revenge, and it wasn’t just one side which found that destructive power useful and took him up on the offer. So why are we actively working towards such bad outcomes for ourselves and each other? Where is this animosity growing from? What is feeding it?
And what exactly is this so-called resistance supposed to be resisting this time around, anyway?
I’d much prefer anyone who opposes the direction in which this administration seems to be heading to take a moment to get their thoughts in order before they start firing off with a bunch of overly reactionary tweets and op-eds. And if the drop off of viewers, subscribers, and followers of left-wing media is anything to go by, then perhaps this is a more common opinion than not.
Also, the left is a fractured, squabbling mess at the best of times, so this little lull in in-fighting is probably not such a terrible thing.
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Comment on A new rallying cry for the irony-poisoned right. It took less than twenty-four hours after Trump’s re-election for young men to take up a slogan that could define the coming era of gendered regression in ~society
Bet LinkThis excerpt struck me as worth singling out, but I want to focus on the bolded words, emphasis mine: “Your body, my choice” — “Say it again and I’ll slap you”. How apt. And yet, somehow, no one...Part of what feels so dismal to me about the popularization of this slogan among young people is that the ones who have adopted it—both men and women—have frankly not had enough sex to understand what they’re talking about. Among young conservatives, there is a narrative that “hot girls voted Trump” and that the woke left can’t handle masculine men, or something. There’s the suggestion here that what’s triggering about “Your body, my choice” is the mind-blowing idea that it’s hot, for both men and women, when women submit their bodies to men. In fact, this is one of the most run-of-the-mill sexual proclivities in existence. And now the eager, libidinous spirit of dominance and deference in the bedroom is the tail wagging the dog of forced sex, forced pregnancy, forced motherhood, forced marriage.
But the inexperience of the people repeating “Your body, my choice” also means that many of them, especially the very young ones, have not yet hardened into this ideology. I talked to an educator who teaches sexual education in New York City. A couple of days after the election, the educator, who is nonbinary, was teaching a class of sixth graders, aged eleven and twelve, about consent. One kid offered the slogan—“Your body, my choice”—and, before the teacher could react, another kid stood up and said, “Say it again and I’ll slap you.” The whole class started to cheer. The teacher de-escalated, they told me. They asked the first kid if he knew what “Your body, my choice” meant, and he said no; they told the kid that it meant that a boy can decide when he wants to hurt a girl, that raping another person is O.K. “After that, the kid had tears in his eyes,” they said. “Even if he might not have been entirely honest when he said he didn’t know, he was confused.” The kid had told them that the person he had heard saying “Your body, my choice” seemed very confident, and cool.
This excerpt struck me as worth singling out, but I want to focus on the bolded words, emphasis mine: “Your body, my choice” — “Say it again and I’ll slap you”.
How apt. And yet, somehow, no one likes quid pro quo when it’s violent sentiment.
Oh, and about those women on tiktok who are, apparently, making crying videos in response to this message, I’ll just say — I’ve never seen a video of anyone filming themselves crying that I did not find either just plain stupid or weirdly emotionally manipulative. That said, I don’t go out of my way to make fun of them, I simply steer clear.
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Comment on Is empathizing by sharing experience not normal? in ~health.mental
Bet LinkNoise, but I have a question: Who falls under the neurodivergent umbrella? Is it simply an alternative way to describe autistic people and/or people with ADHD specifically? Or does this include...Noise, but I have a question: Who falls under the neurodivergent umbrella?
Is it simply an alternative way to describe autistic people and/or people with ADHD specifically? Or does this include others, as well?
I’m asking because, frequently, when this term comes up online, it seems not to match the definition as I have understood it, so far, offline, at all.
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Comment on How do people get over enshittification? in ~life
Bet LinkCoincidentally, I happened to watch a video on this subject not too long ago, so it’s been on my mind lately, as well.Coincidentally, I happened to watch a video on this subject not too long ago, so it’s been on my mind lately, as well.
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Comment on Thoughts on Donald Trump, America and what this all means in ~society
Bet Link ParentYea, it’s in the US in what is still considered a more Christian-inclined area. I think it’s just more evidence to how alienating ‘pulpit politics’ have become.Yea, it’s in the US in what is still considered a more Christian-inclined area. I think it’s just more evidence to how alienating ‘pulpit politics’ have become.
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Comment on Thoughts on Donald Trump, America and what this all means in ~society
Bet Link ParentInterestingly enough, in the area where I live, which is in the middle of absolutely nowhere, there are plenty of churches, and the youth are becoming more religious — however, they are...Interestingly enough, in the area where I live, which is in the middle of absolutely nowhere, there are plenty of churches, and the youth are becoming more religious — however, they are definitively not turning towards Christianity, but rather converting to Islam. This has only recently started, though, so we’ll see how long it lasts.
But, in a way, if you look at social media and some of our more prevailing political alignments, this makes sense.
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Comment on 2024 United States election megathread in ~society
Bet LinkI know so many Democrats who did not vote, claiming to care too much about Palestine, both sides are the same, etc etc etc. Well, looks like they’re getting their wish — someone who isn’t a...I know so many Democrats who did not vote, claiming to care too much about Palestine, both sides are the same, etc etc etc.
Well, looks like they’re getting their wish — someone who isn’t a Democrat winning the presidency, in a two-party system. How easily foreseen.
At least they followed their hearts, lol.
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Comment on ‘Fandom has toxified the world’: Watchmen author Alan Moore on superheroes, Comicsgate and Donald Trump in ~society
Bet LinkHonestly, there seems to be a real lack of the joy of creation in fandom nowadays — it’s all been eaten up by greed. Literally, just a bottomless pit of acquisition. And people also appear to have...Honestly, there seems to be a real lack of the joy of creation in fandom nowadays — it’s all been eaten up by greed. Literally, just a bottomless pit of acquisition. And people also appear to have forgotten how to interact with ‘myth’.
Adults frozen in adolescence? I suppose so. But this is about — as Erich Fromm would say — having versus being. An orientation of self, and how one perceives the world, and fandom’s changes are really only a reflection of a much larger issue.
Also, we don’t really value ephemera for its ephemerality, for its own sake as an experience that we can’t tote around and show off, as we once did; social media has had quite the hand in this. If there is no picture, no memorabilia, no way to prove to other people that something was there to begin with, then it might as well not have been. And this need to materialize everything — to grasp and contain it, to own it; to let the act of having be what is integrated into the self — has consequences, one of which is this pervasive inability to access story, because story is not an object.
Which really leads into how so many people bought into the obviously faulty concept of NFTs.
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Comment on Is there a way to hide or otherwise opt out of always seeing votes? in ~tildes
Bet Link ParentI’ll have to check that out, then. Much appreciated. :)I’ll have to check that out, then. Much appreciated. :)
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Is there a way to hide or otherwise opt out of always seeing votes?
To hide votes on one’s own posts and comments from oneself, that is. I’d prefer the ability to choose whether or not to view the vote count on my own interactions, though I do enjoy having the...
To hide votes on one’s own posts and comments from oneself, that is. I’d prefer the ability to choose whether or not to view the vote count on my own interactions, though I do enjoy having the option of upvoting other people.
This isn’t a tildes specific preference, btw, just an aspect of social media I find trying overall.
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Comment on Anthony Fantano discusses how social media disincentivises well thought out discussion in ~music
Bet LinkPertinent to this topic, Ethel Cain expanding on her initial, evidently viral, post.Pertinent to this topic, Ethel Cain expanding on her initial, evidently viral, post.
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Comment on Character.AI faces US lawsuit after teen's suicide in ~tech
Bet (edited )LinkThere is something darkly humorous about the inclusion of this information in the midst of this particular subject matter. Emphasis mine. ETA: Oh, and this: Those last few lines there are very...On Character.AI, users can create their own chatbots and give them directions about how they should act. They can also select from a vast array of user-created chatbots that mimic celebrities like Elon Musk, historical figures like William Shakespeare or unlicensed versions of fictional characters. (Character.AI told me that the “Daenerys Targareyn” bot Sewell used was created by a user, without permission from HBO or other rights holders, and that it removes bots that violate copyright laws when they’re reported.)
There is something darkly humorous about the inclusion of this information in the midst of this particular subject matter. Emphasis mine.
ETA: Oh, and this:
Like many A.I. researchers these days, Mr. Shazeer says his ultimate vision is to build artificial general intelligence — a computer program capable of doing anything the human brain can — and he said in the conference interview that he viewed lifelike A.I. companions as “a cool first use case for A.G.I.”
Moving quickly was important, he added, because “there are billions of lonely people out there” who could be helped by having an A.I. companion.
“I want to push this technology ahead fast because it’s ready for an explosion right now, not in five years, when we solve all the problems,” he said.
Those last few lines there are very interesting.
Whenever I see questions like this, I like to switch them around and ask myself if I would ever find it acceptable to behave towards my partner in such a way, and — as far as this scenario is concerned — the answer is definitely no. And if I can’t see myself treating a partner that way, then I certainly wouldn’t accept that sort of treatment from someone with whom I was in a relationship.
Simply put, I don’t do passive-aggressive, nor do I perform arbitrary tests on people, and I expect the same in return. This whole scenario, for me, would only be proof of a very deep-seated incompatibility.