Gaywallet's recent activity

  2. Comment on Denmark wants to test whether weight-loss drugs can help get more people into work, adding a new economic dimension to the debate over obesity treatments in ~health

    Gaywallet
    Link Parent
    In a world with unlimited resources and everyone agreeing, this make sense. Unfortunately, we don't live in that world. Drugs aren't free. When you run a healthcare system for an entire country,...

    Valuating healthcare shouldn't happen on a spreadsheet.

    In a world with unlimited resources and everyone agreeing, this make sense. Unfortunately, we don't live in that world. Drugs aren't free. When you run a healthcare system for an entire country, you need to decide what you can do with a limited set of resources. This means that you need to decide what drugs are worth the cost - and sometimes that means taking a look at the various ways in which it benefits the health of these individuals. If you bring in more money, that's more you can tax, which means that's more drugs you can afford.

    10 votes

  3. Comment on What change would make you quit Tildes? in ~tildes

    Gaywallet
    Link Parent
    This is such a touching compliment, thank you 🥰💜

    the internet equivalent of an old wizard coming out from the tower to speak to the commonfolk. Sort of a Gandalf the Gay, if you will.

    This is such a touching compliment, thank you 🥰💜

    4 votes

  4. Comment on What change would make you quit Tildes? in ~tildes

    Gaywallet
    Link Parent
    There's a lot of DMing behind the scenes by the minority groups (supportive, venting, etc.) because this has been a persistent problem since pretty much the inception of this place. Unfortunately...

    There's a lot of DMing behind the scenes by the minority groups (supportive, venting, etc.) because this has been a persistent problem since pretty much the inception of this place. Unfortunately it's not going to change, and I was told that these discussions were getting too heated and were basically not welcome on this website. This combined with a year long temporary ban (the longest in Tildes history, I believe) caused me to step back from this site significantly. For your own mental health (and anyone else who sees themselves represented in this comment chain in any capacity) I would suggest not being too engaged with this website and tactically avoiding certain conversations which seem to get overrun with rationalists, people who are just asking questions, and fragile individuals (see the writings of Robin Diangelo).

    7 votes

  5. Comment on The US Supreme Court's Republican appointees end civil rights redistricting protections in ~society

    Gaywallet
    Link Parent
    As much as I agree that she could have, and should have resigned earlier, I don't think it's fair to put literally any blame on her when there are hundreds of individuals who actively contributed...

    RBG was a big part of the court's decline; she could have resigned under a Dem and been replaced by someone reasonable

    As much as I agree that she could have, and should have resigned earlier, I don't think it's fair to put literally any blame on her when there are hundreds of individuals who actively contributed to create the system that exists today. Aside from Trump and everyone under him , every single member of congress who actively blocked supreme court nominations during this term and every single member of congress who approved every single supreme court nomination since are the ones who deserve the spotlight and the blame. The erosion of civil rights involved large parties of collaborators and every single one of them needs to be held accountable for their actions.

    12 votes

  7. Comment on Do we want to stop all crime? in ~society

    Gaywallet
    Link Parent
    This idea is deeply reinforced by existing legal systems. One could write a law which is written in a way by which breaking into property is allowed under certain circumstances. In fact, one could...

    is breaking into a burning building to save a kitten a crime, because you’re breaking into someone else else’s property?

    This idea is deeply reinforced by existing legal systems. One could write a law which is written in a way by which breaking into property is allowed under certain circumstances. In fact, one could also argue that system already exists as we allow certain individuals to do this (namely those who are tasked with enforcing law and participating in rescue) even though it's not carved out in legislation but instead through case precedence.

    4 votes

  8. Comment on Do we want to stop all crime? in ~society

    Gaywallet
    Link Parent
    Right which is part of what I was getting at with my comment... how can we even truly imagine a perfectly just system necessary for us to unpack passing judgement on whether crimes should be...

    Right which is part of what I was getting at with my comment... how can we even truly imagine a perfectly just system necessary for us to unpack passing judgement on whether crimes should be allowed to be committed? I can't imagine a world that isn't suffering from the consequences of others, which would be necessary in the first place to have laws which are, by themselves perfectly just without spending endless time carving out caveats like this. Nobody should murder, but I'm not going to be upset when a severe criminal is murdered as an outcome/reaction to their grave crimes.

    4 votes

  9. Comment on Clanker: A word for the machine in ~tech

    Gaywallet
    Link Parent
    There's actually a strong psychological argument that we derive value out of how we interact with the world. You know, the whole, look yourself in the mirror and say daily affirmations in order to...

    I can also be nice for the sake of being nice, and I don't stand to lose anything.

    There's actually a strong psychological argument that we derive value out of how we interact with the world. You know, the whole, look yourself in the mirror and say daily affirmations in order to ultimately believe them - that's based on real science. By approaching others with kindness and care, we see that reflected in our own personality, our own values, our internalizations, and ultimately all of this reinforces how we approach others in the future.

    26 votes

  10. Comment on Do we want to stop all crime? in ~society

    Gaywallet
    Link Parent
    Crimes contingent on the outcome of another crime certainly make this hypothetical even more messy.

    Crimes contingent on the outcome of another crime certainly make this hypothetical even more messy.

    4 votes

  11. Comment on Do we want to stop all crime? in ~society

    Gaywallet
    Link Parent
    I think you need to specify what kind of things. Do you want some small amount of people to get away with murder? With rape? With defrauding millions of people with a pyramid scheme? With...

    I would want some small amount of people to be able to get away with things.

    I think you need to specify what kind of things. Do you want some small amount of people to get away with murder? With rape? With defrauding millions of people with a pyramid scheme? With illegally collecting information on nearly every person on the planet?

    All of these are examples of crimes which happen with some regularity and they all have very different real world consequences both in magnitude and scope.

    This hypothetical is full of so many caveats and holes I'm not sure how to even begin to address it. It might as well be impossible to imagine a world where there is no crime. Any such world I can imagine wouldn't have crime in the first place, because how do you get severe wealth inequality if no one steals and values such a thing? I can't imagine wealth equality on a scale so wide that no one would need to shoplift to survive, for example, and thus it's really hard to talk about a minor crime like that. As OP pointed out as well, there's so many frivolous laws it's hard to imagine many folks who would make the firm stance that no one should commit crime ever, because with enough time and effort I doubt there's anyone out there who wouldn't find at least one crime they were okay with people committing. Surely so if we think about all the things that have ever been criminalized in any society that has been present on the earth, as at least one of those laws would enslave the person in question to some monarchical figure.

    3 votes

  12. Comment on If you let AI do your writing, I will come to your house and kill you in ~tech

    Gaywallet
    Link Parent
    But so much of the online comment space is people being unabashedly rude. Just enter the comment section on any video posted on any major video posting platform like youtube, tiktok, or instagram...

    I wonder if it would be better to just switch my writing to direct and brash to the point of borderline rudeness. At least you'll know I'm not a robot and won't cut me open with a knife looking for the machinery.

    But so much of the online comment space is people being unabashedly rude. Just enter the comment section on any video posted on any major video posting platform like youtube, tiktok, or instagram that was posted by any minority - black, woman, trans, etc. and you'll find assholes doing exactly that. If you think these models haven't been trained on this data as well, you're deeply mistaken. They've just been sanitized... or well, I should say the biggest commercial models have been. If you want a rude response, just go to Grok or any of the other right-wing models. Being rude isn't going to prove you're human either, unfortunately.

    3 votes

  13. Comment on The Enhanced Games are Sunday. Here's what to know about the controversial event. in ~sports

    Gaywallet
    Link Parent
    That is a fair point. We don't allow folks to do things like using stimulants for extra energy during an event and that's probably not something we should budge at all on for strong safety reasons.

    if there's a decent chance of the athlete just dropping dead in the middle of an event because of the PED

    That is a fair point. We don't allow folks to do things like using stimulants for extra energy during an event and that's probably not something we should budge at all on for strong safety reasons.

  14. Comment on The Enhanced Games are Sunday. Here's what to know about the controversial event. in ~sports

    Gaywallet
    Link Parent
    I'm not sure that it meaningfully does - these drugs were already being taken, and the stage isn't any brighter or more appealing than the current Olympics. It really just provides and off-ramp...

    I'd say that these drug games take us farther from it.

    I'm not sure that it meaningfully does - these drugs were already being taken, and the stage isn't any brighter or more appealing than the current Olympics. It really just provides and off-ramp for those unlucky enough to get caught. That might change with time, but I think much like making drugs taboo, making PEDs taboo also makes it somewhat more difficult for folks to make smart decisions through a harm reduction lens. It being just a part of sports allows us to have more nuanced discussions and to devote better research to understanding just what they do to the body and how to best counteract the negative effects. There are serious secondary effects as well - the proliferation of steroids has caused some serious damage to men with regards to body image issues and a lot of it is because how little the average person even realizes that just how much steroid use is out there.

    2 votes

  15. Comment on The Enhanced Games are Sunday. Here's what to know about the controversial event. in ~sports

    Gaywallet
    Link Parent
    I mean, I would make the argument that none of the substances are "known to be dangerous" - it's a combination of factors (pre-cycle, substance, dose, route, frequency, post-cycle) that make a PED...

    it would be possible to ban substances that are known to be dangerous and that can be reliably tested for.

    I mean, I would make the argument that none of the substances are "known to be dangerous" - it's a combination of factors (pre-cycle, substance, dose, route, frequency, post-cycle) that make a PED dangerous. Then of course there's the question of just what "dangerous" means to any one person and what an acceptable trade-off is. Even discounting PED use, we let athletes and even certain kinds of manual labor workers do real damage to their bodies yet don't call it "dangerous" or downplay the danger in some fashion. If doing 'too many' PEDs in a period of time would say, take 10 years off one's life expectancy, is that any more dangerous or worse than manual labor which does the same? or participating in a sport which has the same effect? What if someone is born with a genetic difference which confers to them an advantage such as an exceptionally large heart, but that's also associated with a lower life expectancy? Where do we draw the lines and why is a really difficult question to truly examine.

    4 votes

  16. Comment on The Enhanced Games are Sunday. Here's what to know about the controversial event. in ~sports

    Gaywallet
    Link
    I feel like folks here have little idea how safe modern steroids and PEDs (performance enhancing drugs) are and how far the science has come. For those who are upset on behalf of the health of the...

    I feel like folks here have little idea how safe modern steroids and PEDs (performance enhancing drugs) are and how far the science has come.

    For those who are upset on behalf of the health of the athletes, wait until the enhanced games are over and note how many Olympic records they break. I bet it’ll be close to, if not zero. Almost everyone at the Olympic level is already using PEDs, it’s just a game of who gets caught.

    There's certainly an argument to be made about the 'caliber' of athletes here, but if you take a close look you'll already see people who were on the Olympic stage who had a PED related disqualification or stopped competing in the Olympics for whatever reason.

    I'd highly recommend looking into the stories of folks who have been disqualified from the Olympics or other national stages on behalf of PED use (also the memoirs and writings of the retired sports doctors). It's hard to find a story where they don't talk about rampant use of various PEDs. Which specific PED, how it's used, and how they cover their tracks varies over time, but the reality is that on the world-stage there's a constant PED race.

    3 votes

  17. Comment on What has changed as you've gotten older? in ~talk

    Gaywallet
    Link
    I care a lot less about convincing people who are wrong why they are wrong, or even modifying their behavior in any way. I will judge them if they bring hate or violence to the world, but for the...
    • I care a lot less about convincing people who are wrong why they are wrong, or even modifying their behavior in any way. I will judge them if they bring hate or violence to the world, but for the most part I've given up trying to modify their behavior.
    • I disengage and prioritize my own mental health a lot more. The little things add up stress in ways that aren't as noticeable when you're younger but become more prescient with experience.
    • I care even less about work than I did when I was younger, which might get me in trouble eventually. Luckily I'm very efficient, have institutional knowledge, and a sharp mind... but I am very jaded on how much energy and effort I want to put in, and also find myself struggling to find that energy and effort the longer I go on and the more I see companies continue to prioritize short term gains over long-term investments.
    • I have more finances now, which is nice. I still struggle with penny pinching at times, but regularly spending money on things I like and not agonizing over the details has helped my mental health a lot (less accrued stress over things not worth the stress) and has helped me become more generous with what I share/give to others.
    • There's a lot of things I recognize I could do, that I just don't want to bother trying to do anymore. When I was younger I would just self-educate or pursue the thing. For example, I'm a DJ because I was curious what they were doing behind the decks. I recognize that I could put in the time and effort to become a producer, but I also recognize that the result just won't be worth that time and effort when I'm considering everything else I want to continue to grow in my life. If I weren't working anymore, I think that would change, but balancing my time is a much more involved process now.
    • I spend a lot less time around cisgender straight individuals with low emotional intelligence.
    • While I am more optimistic in general, my cynicism about humanity's general outlook has increased. I recognized at a very young age I would never want to bring another life into this world, and that opinion has only gotten stronger. I also thought society wouldn't improve on the important issues and well... the last decade has really proven that right, sadly.
    7 votes

  18. Comment on Vaping DMT in ~talk

    Gaywallet
    Link Parent
    You shouldn't really be putting any drugs on a pedestal like that, but no DMT doesn't cause significant oxidative stress and it doesn't hit serotonin anywhere near as hard as MDMA does.

    You shouldn't really be putting any drugs on a pedestal like that, but no DMT doesn't cause significant oxidative stress and it doesn't hit serotonin anywhere near as hard as MDMA does.

    8 votes

  19. Comment on Vaping DMT in ~talk

    Gaywallet
    Link
    You have to chain hit the vapes to get anywhere near a breakthrough. Pipe is better for that. But if you're looking for a lighter psychedelic experience that's accessible at your fingertips and...

    You have to chain hit the vapes to get anywhere near a breakthrough. Pipe is better for that. But if you're looking for a lighter psychedelic experience that's accessible at your fingertips and much shorter than 4+ hours, it's got what you're looking for. The nausea can be quite strong, and it has a rather unique taste and smell, but depending on your experience you might grow fond of it overtime.

    6 votes

  20. Comment on Did wokeness leave us worse off? (gifted link) in ~society

    Gaywallet
    Link Parent
    This is so incredibly passive aggressive and reminiscent of twitter subtweeting that it makes it practically impossible to engage with the rest of your post I get that you're frustrated with the...

    It's a reactionary piece that doesn't manage to first understand what the speakers are saying before responding.

    It's playing to the audience here at Tildes who like to imagine they're so educated but simultaneously intentionally choosing to not read.

    This is so incredibly passive aggressive and reminiscent of twitter subtweeting that it makes it practically impossible to engage with the rest of your post

    I get that you're frustrated with the way conversation has happened but if you're going to accuse others of not leaving their emotions at the door the least you can do is lay out the behavior you wish to see

    Anyhow to address what you did bring up in this reply

    Some of the actions taken in the last decade were performative, not effective at bringing about progressive change, and became mainstream which drove a counter-culture. None of that should be controversial

    It seems to me that what you're missing is that basically no one is arguing against this? We're talking about something that is broadly categorized as 'politics'. Politics is like 90% performance. Pretty much everyone who came in here who took issue with the very premise were explicitly pointing out that this very article is performance and choosing to engage with it is yet another act of performance.

    You can't simultaneously act like there's a serious issue to discuss here while also engaging with an act of performance - those two are at odds with each other.

    7 votes