imperialismus's recent activity

  1. Comment on Special tag: "Active" in ~tildes

    imperialismus
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    I understand the purpose of tags, but if the moderation is so heavy handed that it feels like an impossible standard to reach, it's just gonna make people give up trying. That's just basic human...

    I understand the purpose of tags, but if the moderation is so heavy handed that it feels like an impossible standard to reach, it's just gonna make people give up trying. That's just basic human psychology.

    3 votes
  2. Comment on Special tag: "Active" in ~tildes

    imperialismus
    Link Parent
    I don't frequently post links, but I've noticed that whenever I do, nearly all of my tags get modified, deleted, or supplemented by ten other different tags that I never even considered relevant....

    I don't frequently post links, but I've noticed that whenever I do, nearly all of my tags get modified, deleted, or supplemented by ten other different tags that I never even considered relevant. This kind of moderating, while I have no doubt its intentions are good, doesn't really encourage people to contribute. It's that age-old thing of "if you don't like the way I do things and want to change everything, why don't you do it yourself?"

    3 votes
  3. Comment on Neuro-biology of trans-sexuality : Prof. Robert Sapolsky in ~lgbt

    imperialismus
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    In theory, being a determinist shouldn't impact the nature/nurture debate. On determinism, an individual's future is uniquely and necessarily determined by all of the causal factors in that...

    In theory, being a determinist shouldn't impact the nature/nurture debate. On determinism, an individual's future is uniquely and necessarily determined by all of the causal factors in that individual's past. All of them. That includes environmental factors, because nobody is a bag of biology devoid of context. It's like the statement "that die roll was always going to come up six" could be because you rigged the die and table with magnets or it could be because the ten trillion different things leading up to that moment caused you to throw the die at such an angle that it would land on a six. Both would be a kind of determinism, but only one of them simplifies the entire phenomenon under study into a singular, mechanistic explanation.

    4 votes
  4. Comment on European Super League cannot register its name as a trademark in the European Union because Denmark's top flight already holds the trademark rights in ~sports.football

    imperialismus
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    There's something humurous about an organization trying to use commercial interests to crush the little guy being screwed over by a little guy using laws designed to protect commercial interests.

    There's something humurous about an organization trying to use commercial interests to crush the little guy being screwed over by a little guy using laws designed to protect commercial interests.

    8 votes
  5. Comment on Oregon decriminalized drugs. Voters now regret it. in ~life

    imperialismus
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    In that whole paragraph I'm talking about fentanyl. I'm saying that the antidote to overdose is the same for fentanyl as it is for other opioid drugs, such as heroin, morphine, oxycodone, etc.,...

    In that whole paragraph I'm talking about fentanyl. I'm saying that the antidote to overdose is the same for fentanyl as it is for other opioid drugs, such as heroin, morphine, oxycodone, etc., namely naloxone.

    5 votes
  6. Comment on Northern Sámi, a language spoken in the Arctic, has more than 300 words for snow and a special word for "frightened reindeer" – can it survive in a warmer world? in ~humanities.languages

    imperialismus
    Link Parent
    I skimmed through the paper linked below (actually a PhD thesis), and it seems like an important nuance was lost. This was a study of the specialist terminology used by reindeer herders. It does...
    • Exemplary

    I skimmed through the paper linked below (actually a PhD thesis), and it seems like an important nuance was lost. This was a study of the specialist terminology used by reindeer herders. It does appear that North Sámi has a larger amount of distinct snow-related root words than are commonly used in English. But at the same time, many of the terms are related to the interplay between snow and reindeer herding, and are terms which may not be familiar to speakers who aren't reindeer herders (which at present is the majority of speakers).

    For instance, the thesis goes into some detail about the concept of guohtun, which is a generic concept defined as "People usually use the concept guohtun to estimate how easily the reindeer is able to
    dig through the snow to the ground below where the food is to be found." There are then numerous specific variants of gouhtun, from simple adjective combinations like good or bad gouhtun to more colorful examples like "nose" gouhtun (the reindeer easily digs through the snow to access vegetation with only their nose), or gouhtun where the reindeer is only able to dig through the snow in select patches on the ground.

    There's a tendency to exoticize indigenous cultures. We can marvel at their highly sophisticated understanding of the interplay between their livelihood and their environment without making them seem almost alien, which is dehumanizing. In this case, there's an impressive variety and specificity of language, much of which is specific to a certain profession. It seems like you could make a similar statement like "computer scientists have over 300 concepts related to computer memory". That's the kind of thing we're dealing with: highly specialized language used by experts in a particular profession. Although it does seem that the everyday vocabulary is also at least somewhat richer than that of English.

    But what of English speakers in, say, rural Alaska? I'm not sure there's been any comparable studies done on the snow vocabulary and jargon of non-native cultures. I did find an informally compiled list of some 400 Norwegian words related to snow and ice. Granted, many of them are compounds with "snø", the generic word for snow, and many others are ones I, as a native speaker, have never heard, presumably dialectal or archaic words. But they still display an impressive amount of nuance and care in describing weather conditions that are relevant to the region.

    14 votes
  7. Comment on Oregon decriminalized drugs. Voters now regret it. in ~life

    imperialismus
    Link Parent
    I would partially disagree. Fentanyl in particular is very well understood. It’s been approved for medical use for a long time. There’s a well known antidote to overdose, naloxone, which is the...

    These (…) are drugs we don't really understand super well so preventing overdoses and damages to the body are lagging due to the slow nature of research.

    I would partially disagree. Fentanyl in particular is very well understood. It’s been approved for medical use for a long time. There’s a well known antidote to overdose, naloxone, which is the same as other opioid drugs. It acts the same way as other drugs of its class, with the exception being its extreme potency, especially when you consider there are also analogs that are even more potent out there.

    The problem with fentanyl isn’t really that we don’t understand it. It’s that we suck at treating opioid dependence in general, and all the usual issues with addiction and overdose get worse when the drug gets more potent.

    21 votes
  8. Comment on Why is the discourse on Tildes so much nicer than most places on the internet? in ~tildes

    imperialismus
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    I think it's a combination of strict moderating and demographics. I think the tildes userbase is fairly liberal, lgbt friendly, etc., and people who hold differing opinions are discouraged from...
    • Exemplary

    I think it's a combination of strict moderating and demographics. I think the tildes userbase is fairly liberal, lgbt friendly, etc., and people who hold differing opinions are discouraged from joining or staying active, and if they do, they quickly learn that they have to use a different sort of rhetoric than they use on sites that are more sympathetic to their views. I do think it could potentially be a problem that tildes is a bit too politically and demographically uniform, which risks echo chamber effects, but at the same time, the sort of rhetoric that is strongly discouraged or outright banned is often the sort that outright denies the humanity and right to exist of interlocutors.

    I will say that as a North European person, I often feel like I'm always the odd one out in a lot of discussions, and the demographic of North American liberals can feel a bit limiting, even if I largely agree with their opinions (it's not that I disagree so much as you are only talking about a particular socio/cultural/political context which I don't share). I think if you found a very intolerant online community, who hates gays, liberals, "commies", trans people etc, but where almost everyone agrees with these opinions, you might find a similar degree of politeness. Simply because nobody has strong objections to the prevailing sentiment. However, I do think hateful ideologies are more likely to generate animosity than more tolerant ones, even with relatively high degrees of social cohesion and demographic similarity.

    40 votes
  9. Comment on Single dose of clinical-grade LSD provides immediate and lasting relief from anxiety, wins approval for phase III trials in ~science

    imperialismus
    Link Parent
    That’s marketing speech. The psychedelic experience is inherently overwhelming and highly dependent on the individual, their mental state and the setting. Even the listed adverse effects in the...

    That’s marketing speech. The psychedelic experience is inherently overwhelming and highly dependent on the individual, their mental state and the setting. Even the listed adverse effects in the study include illusions, hallucinations and abnormal thinking. Which to be fair is kind of par for the course with LSD, but it’s terribly naive to posit that an experience which regularly produces such symptoms could not be perceived as intimidating or negative by susceptible individuals simply because the product is chemically pure.

    The potential for a bad trip is built into the psychedelic experience. It appears to work at least in part by temporarily deregulating parts of the brain that control information flow, letting parts of the brain that usually don’t talk to each other directly do so. That’s extremely powerful and can lead people to make psychological breakthroughs - but it can also lead to the wrong wires connecting and giving a bad experience.

    I’m very positive to psychedelic therapy and I’ve tried lsd multiple times. But I’m skeptical of anyone who tries to present it as essentially risk free - even if a bad trip isn’t necessarily going to do any long term harm, it’s definitely very unpleasant in the moment and patients should not be misled to think it’s not a possibility with this treatment. They should be able to make informed decisions.

    There’s a reason having a sober person present is considered a good practice. They can recognize the signs of a negative turn to the experience taking hold and often halt it in its tracks. While I’m all for more research, I’m very skeptical that administering it with only machines and books for company is the right way to go about it. And if you are going to do that, you should educate patients on all possible outcomes of the experience.

    6 votes
  10. Comment on A man who crashed a snowmobile into a parked Black Hawk helicopter is suing the government for $9.5M in ~transport

    imperialismus
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    If all the defendants allege is true, I’m not very sympathetic to this guy. Not to say I’m happy he got life threatening injuries or anything sadistic like that. But it seems to me he was driving...

    If all the defendants allege is true, I’m not very sympathetic to this guy. Not to say I’m happy he got life threatening injuries or anything sadistic like that. But it seems to me he was driving very recklessly and could easily have injured someone else if he had met someone on the trail.

    Going above 100km/h on a snowmobile is already very, very fast. It’s not safe to do in broad daylight unless you’re a professional. Where I live there is a 70km/h speed limit on trails. It’s not like driving a car: even a prepared track is bumpier than a typical road and it’s a lot easier to lose control over the vehicle. Now, combining that with not being fully sober? Ugh. Like I said I’m not happy the guy is living through a bad recovery, but imagine if he did that to someone else? And I think that was a very real possibility here.

    They don’t specify which prescription drugs he allegedly took, but some meds can make 2 beers feel like 10. He might have been almost sober or practically wasted, for all we know. But I was brought up with the idea that you do not operate motor vehicles until you’re sure any intoxicants have completely left the system, which I think is a good rule to live by.

    All of this is assuming what the federal lawyers allege is true of course. I have no way of knowing. It just pisses me off when people act in a way that endangers others, even if I take no joy in their pain. I understand that from a legal perspective any small admission of guilt would be a bad strategy. But I hope that guy knows deep down that regardless of any negligence on the army’s part, he fucked up.

    Aside from that moral rant, it also sounds incredibly stupid to park a stealth vehicle on an active snowmobile trail at night. I’m no lawyer so I have no particular opinion on who is legally at fault here.

    19 votes
  11. Comment on European crash tester says carmakers must bring back physical controls. In 2026, Euro NCAP points will be deducted if some controls aren't physical. in ~transport

    imperialismus
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    This is what I tell myself to cope with the fact that I have an 18 year old car: at least it has zero touchscreens and no software updates.

    This is what I tell myself to cope with the fact that I have an 18 year old car: at least it has zero touchscreens and no software updates.

    13 votes
  12. Comment on Book recommendations, specifically in ~books

    imperialismus
    Link Parent
    The Raven’s Mark series by Ed McDonald. The Misery is a messed up zone left behind by a magical nuke, basically. Things get really weird and really dangerous there.

    The Raven’s Mark series by Ed McDonald. The Misery is a messed up zone left behind by a magical nuke, basically. Things get really weird and really dangerous there.

    1 vote
  13. Comment on F1nn5ter: Coming out in ~lgbt

    imperialismus
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    Really interesting to hear from someone who’s experienced all regions of the spectrum so to speak. Thanks for sharing!

    Really interesting to hear from someone who’s experienced all regions of the spectrum so to speak. Thanks for sharing!

    3 votes
  14. Comment on F1nn5ter: Coming out in ~lgbt

    imperialismus
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    I'm not really part of the lgbt+ community myself, but I figured this might be worth sharing. I've been occasionally checking in on F1nn5ter, a youtuber/twitch content creator who first became...

    I'm not really part of the lgbt+ community myself, but I figured this might be worth sharing. I've been occasionally checking in on F1nn5ter, a youtuber/twitch content creator who first became known for minecraft content, but for the past few years has made a living as a crossdresser on twitch. All this time, he has insisted on being a male who crossdresses, but recently he announced that he started HRT, although he still prefers male pronouns and now identifies as genderfluid.

    This is a person who has built up a lot of trans/nonbinary/genderfluid viewership, and a lot of people have been speculating that he's secretly trans or on HRT long before it was actually the case. Now he's said "ok I actually did it, but I still don't fully identify as trans."

    F1nn also shared how going on HRT reduced his aggression and improved his mental health. As a topic of discussion, I guess I'll ask, for those of you on HRT, how did it affect your mental health?

    (I'm personally a cis man who according to bloodwork has slightly below the medically established "healthy range" of testosterone for a cis male adult, and I've wondered if I would feel better with a different balance of hormones, although I've never identified as anything other than male.)

    23 votes
  15. Comment on ‘Dune: Part Two’: How sci-fi space worm epic reared head to $81.5m opening after strike release delay in ~movies

    imperialismus
    Link Parent
    I haven't read Dune, but I have read LoTR and the Silmarillion and a bunch of more obscure Tolkien lore stuff. And I honestly can't say I can imagine a substantially better adaptation. Yeah, sure,...

    I think Dune and LOTR are "good films that are adaptations", as opposed to "good adaptations".

    I haven't read Dune, but I have read LoTR and the Silmarillion and a bunch of more obscure Tolkien lore stuff. And I honestly can't say I can imagine a substantially better adaptation. Yeah, sure, there are some things you might want to change, but they would all come with tradeoffs. LoTR the movies are about as faithful to the books as you can imagine any big-budget movies to ever be. You might have issues with the Hobbit movies or the Amazon tv show, but as far as the original movies go, I don't think it can get much better.

    We have to accept, at the outset, that any adaptation will change things. There is no such thing as a perfect adaptation to a different medium. Different media have different strengths and weaknesses. They will emphasize different things.

    12 votes
  16. Comment on Norway gives Arctic foxes a helping hand as climate change and habitat loss disrupt food chains and lead to starvation in ~enviro

    imperialismus
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    Funny that Al-Jazeera is covering this. I briefly worked at a media firm that were hired to promote this project. They made several stop-motion animated short films covering the subject. To be...

    Funny that Al-Jazeera is covering this. I briefly worked at a media firm that were hired to promote this project. They made several stop-motion animated short films covering the subject. To be clear, I didn't work directly on this project - my job was basically to make the media firm look good by writing ad copy about their works, including this promotional campaign - but it's still cool to that something I was (in a very minor way) involved in has shown up on Tildes, covered by an Arabic news channel of all things.

    This:

    (...) others have questioned whether it makes sense to support animals in landscapes that can no longer sustain them.

    Seems not to have been a concern at all. From all the information I was given to work with, nobody voiced any concern that keeping these populations "artificially alive" was in any way negative. To be clear, this project has increased the population tenfold, from around 50 to 550 individuals. If nobody had done this, the arctic fox would almost certainly be locally extinct. I guess it's an open question whether a species that would have gone extinct except for human feeding stations is worth preserving in this way.

    2 votes
  17. Comment on What are your favorite series that are not from the US or UK and also not popular anime? in ~tv

    imperialismus
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    I don't know which streaming platform(s) it's available on, but I recommend the French show Les Revenants, or The Returned in English. It's about a small French town where people who died years...

    I don't know which streaming platform(s) it's available on, but I recommend the French show Les Revenants, or The Returned in English. It's about a small French town where people who died years ago suddenly return, apparently now alive and well, and unaware of what has passed since they died. If you like mystery shows, this one is great.

    1 vote
  18. Comment on What is the "bible" of your hobby or activity? in ~hobbies

    imperialismus
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    One of my hobbies is conlanging, or inventing languages. There have been a few books written specifically about the topic, but as far as as "bible" goes, at least a few years ago, the "bible" was...

    One of my hobbies is conlanging, or inventing languages. There have been a few books written specifically about the topic, but as far as as "bible" goes, at least a few years ago, the "bible" was not a book about conlanging. It's a book called Describing Morphosyntax: A Guide for Field Linguists by Thomas Payne, and like it says on the tin, it's actually written for linguists documenting un- or underdocumented real languages. But it's really a whirlwind tour of the incredible variety and complexity of real languages, and a primer on how to describe them in technical language. If you have any academic interest in languages at all, I highly recommend it.

    Languages are a viewing platform onto the worldview of different cultures. It's controversial to what extent language influences thought, but I don't think it's controversial at all that language reflects culture. It's also a marvelous antidote to racist ideas about some cultures being inherently primitive, and so may be of interest to anthropologists and culture scholars. Some languages associated with peoples who have very quote-unquote "primitive" material culture have features like evidentiality, or the mandatory verbal marking of the source of information (did you observe this directly, is it hearsay, did you infer it logically, is it considered common knowledge?). These kinds of things could do wonders for challenging the idea that people who live in straw huts and don't use 21st century technology (or whatever) are inherently less intelligent or incapable of logical reasoning.

    2 votes