wervenyt's recent activity

  1. Comment on Robot that uses AI to pull weeds may reduce poisonous herbicide use by 70% in ~food

  2. Comment on There are no laws against deepfake pornography in the US in ~tech

    wervenyt
    Link Parent
    Yeah, I don't see why the solution to this problem isn't to stop pretending it's a bad thing to have made pornography. It's not a short-term solution, but I don't see how the alternatives actually...

    Yeah, I don't see why the solution to this problem isn't to stop pretending it's a bad thing to have made pornography. It's not a short-term solution, but I don't see how the alternatives actually prevent harm.

    10 votes

  3. Comment on What's your unpopular food opinion or idiosyncrasy? in ~food

    wervenyt
    Link Parent
    Alright man, sorry for fucking up your morning then.

    Alright man, sorry for fucking up your morning then.

  4. Comment on What's your unpopular food opinion or idiosyncrasy? in ~food

    wervenyt
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Oh, that one is wild! Oregano is vastly overused in cheap vegetarian meals, in my experience, and I'd wonder if he'd had similar experiences that was a sort of anchor point he had unconsciously...

    Oh, that one is wild! Oregano is vastly overused in cheap vegetarian meals, in my experience, and I'd wonder if he'd had similar experiences that was a sort of anchor point he had unconsciously developed.

    I have a friend who typifies that sort of limited vocabulary limiting his gustatory curiosity, and so we have an agreement that he'll trust me to gently introduce him to new flavors. As we are fairly young and single, that means a lot of those opportunities come in bottles.

    I proffered him to smell blue curacao, his first reaction was "floor cleaner". I tried to be respectful and stifle a laugh , but the moment I brought the bottle over, that was all I could smell, too. And then I doubled over laughing because of how spot on he was. Before he said that, I'd have thought "orange peel, acetone, lemon zest", all that dumb shit, but he nailed it. I love an untrained palate sometimes.

    3 votes

  5. Comment on What's your unpopular food opinion or idiosyncrasy? in ~food

    wervenyt
    Link Parent
    People insist this about coffee, which I have strong memories of my first experiences with. I was given individual sips as a treat by my family, and I loved it from the first moment. As a result,...

    People insist this about coffee, which I have strong memories of my first experiences with. I was given individual sips as a treat by my family, and I loved it from the first moment. As a result, I find this logic hard to take seriously. Sure, most people might be acclimating themselves slowly with the stick of social judgment and the carrot of a drug. That seems reasonable. But it's for some reason especially tiresome for me to see my kind of experience excluded from reality.

    It comes across as bitter to hear others devising the ways you had to trick yourself into "liking" the things they know better than to waste time on. Dislike beer all you want, but let people like things.

    4 votes

  6. Comment on Taylor Swift does not exist in ~misc

    wervenyt
    Link Parent
    Would you mind expanding? This article doesn't seem linked to white nationalism in a way beyond also being absurd, and it certainly seems to have embraced its satire to my eye.

    Would you mind expanding? This article doesn't seem linked to white nationalism in a way beyond also being absurd, and it certainly seems to have embraced its satire to my eye.

    16 votes

  7. Comment on Taylor Swift does not exist in ~misc

    wervenyt
    Link Parent
    I'm pretty sure that nearly every specific fact the author doesn't take for granted is false in some way. I didn't comb through it, but most of them I checked didn't exist.

    I'm pretty sure that nearly every specific fact the author doesn't take for granted is false in some way. I didn't comb through it, but most of them I checked didn't exist.

    6 votes

  8. Comment on Taylor Swift does not exist in ~misc

    wervenyt
    Link Parent
    Yeah, this is a lot funnier than I expected given some of the other comments. It feels like a solid satire of gossip articles and the current tides of moralist opinion essays. Everyone is always...

    Yeah, this is a lot funnier than I expected given some of the other comments. It feels like a solid satire of gossip articles and the current tides of moralist opinion essays. Everyone is always spinning out their half-baked psychoanalytic reads on the outgroup, providing no proof but vibes and based on nothing but a semester of sociology and two skimmed books. It's nice to see someone turn the "innocent" conspiracism toward an absurd subject.

    23 votes

  9. Comment on Whats a drug that you would never try? in ~talk

    wervenyt
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Yes, but in cases on the borderline of hypothermia, which are the majority when you're bundled up in blankets on the side of the street (since they know better than to try and make it through...

    Yes, but in cases on the borderline of hypothermia, which are the majority when you're bundled up in blankets on the side of the street (since they know better than to try and make it through winter anywhere colder than that), the options are to suffer through it and maybe look for a way out vs be slightly more likely to die and comfortable. It isn't helping them survive physiologically, only psychologically.

    PS: This is despair that is the issue. Despair kills less reliably than what goes on the death certificate, but despair on top of those kinds of hardships all but guarantee their fatality. An opioid can be a momentary respite, and while it's never the best solution, it can help.

    4 votes

  10. Comment on Whats a drug that you would never try? in ~talk

    wervenyt
    Link Parent
    I don't think this goes against anyone, you're just being honest and curious. Sorry if your questions were meant rhetorically. Well, the key is that there are not "more fun" things to do. The only...

    I don't think this goes against anyone, you're just being honest and curious. Sorry if your questions were meant rhetorically.

    Well, the key is that there are not "more fun" things to do. The only things that will feel better than a good acid trip or a dose of heroin before tolerance really sets in are like...your child being born, or getting married. Not to say that the rest of life is worse than drugs. But they are not as fun. They're harder, less reliable, and usually feel just as risky as the drugs. Someone with severe social anxiety/agoraphobia might not go anywhere without constant tension, might not feel like they can face the world without something to block out the pain. Or they might have a completely healthy life, plan on climbing a mountain, but when their partner bails, decide that the risks of soloing make LSD the safer prospect. There are a mix of real and imagined reasons that the danger is overlooked.

    But also, drugs can be a lot less dangerous than you may think. Most people here aren't taking opioids, heavy duty sedatives, and meth. They're talking about cannabis, psychedelics, and alcohol. Cannabis has its risks, but if used responsibly, the direct negative outcomes are pretty much on par with going to a bad party. You might feel uncomfortable, you might even work yourself up to a panic attack, but that's about as bad as it gets. Alcohol deserves a much worse reputation than it has, but it has that one anyway, and ignoring recent research that really condemns even "responsible drinking", it's very socially rewarded, quite fun, and can be tasty. Psychedelics have even fewer risks than cannabis, when you're honest about the statistics. Sure, you might have a psychotic break under the influence, but they tend to be very hard to abuse without being very aware of your own bad choices, remarkably few people who take them develop unhealthy relationships with them (despite stereotypes, most people who trip never talk about it outside their very close friend groups), and effectively cause no damage to the body in and of themselves. The risk is that you might spend 5+ hours in a state of terror, and if you're not being particularly reckless, that isn't a likely outcome.

    Now, in terms of regular use of the more dangerous classes of drugs, or careless abuse of any of them, it does come down to the fact that life sucks for a lot of people. It's hard for me to not see why someone on the streets in the US would happily take the health risks of fentanyl for the ability to get through a winter night. If they've tried their hand at working, ended up destitute, and won't be given a modicum of dignity by any passersby, let alone offered a place to get cleaned up and find a job, what can they achieve that's fun at all without inviting police harassment? They can pretty much either, through sheer willpower, become a wandering sage who has transcended the need for humanity and pleasure, or they can run the risk of some chemical that lets them stop shivering and get a good night's rest for the time being. Most drug users aren't homeless, but most lives aren't so carefree that the diffuse risk of addiction outweighs the relief from a few drinks once you're off work.

    12 votes

  11. Comment on Melissa Barrera dropped from ‘Scream VII’ after social media posts amid Israel-Hamas war in ~movies

    wervenyt
    Link Parent
    So you would rather people just not talk about how these things help make conspiracy theorists more confident? That is an actual effect of this sort of censorship, and mentioning is isn't an...

    So you would rather people just not talk about how these things help make conspiracy theorists more confident? That is an actual effect of this sort of censorship, and mentioning is isn't an indication that the speaker is just couching their own beliefs.

    21 votes

  12. Comment on Whats a drug that you would never try? in ~talk

    wervenyt
    Link Parent
    In pursuit of further understanding in either yourself or others, please feel free to ignore: crucial to proper addiction treatment is the acknowledgement that it is not some broken process in the...

    In pursuit of further understanding in either yourself or others, please feel free to ignore: crucial to proper addiction treatment is the acknowledgement that it is not some broken process in the mind, that addicts aren't born that way in the meaningful sense. Yes, for some people's specific struggles, any or all drugs can be especially soothing. But the mind is simply trying to maintain a sense of balance. Everyone is out of balance at times, and developing addiction is in one sense developing a lack of belief that one can survive without that comfort and sense of balance. Humility is a scary word in our world where it's used as a leash and whip to subdue "uppity" minority groups, but it's seen as a virtue in many traditions for real reasons beyond as a means to power. One of the many hooks of addiction is believing you can figure it out later, or that you know better than everyone else. That's where it's necessary for survival.

    5 votes

  13. Comment on Meet the people working three jobs to afford Erewhon in ~food

    wervenyt
    Link Parent
    And this is exactly the failure of reasoning. You could also eat something good that's significantly cheaper and save the difference. It's not a matter of "save to independence and be miserable or...

    And this is exactly the failure of reasoning. You could also eat something good that's significantly cheaper and save the difference. It's not a matter of "save to independence and be miserable or live paycheck to paycheck for a modicum of joy". Other foods exist, other sources of joy beyond social climbing do too.

    2 votes

  14. Comment on Whats a drug that you would never try? in ~talk

    wervenyt
    Link Parent
    It's more that it's pretty incontrovertible that alcohol can cause all those issues and then some, so it's an inherently inconsistent line to draw.

    It's more that it's pretty incontrovertible that alcohol can cause all those issues and then some, so it's an inherently inconsistent line to draw.

    9 votes

  15. Comment on Whats a drug that you would never try? in ~talk

    wervenyt
    Link Parent
    It's about humility. Understanding that sometimes you're going to feel like shit for no reason you can control, and that sometimes you just have to get through it even though every ounce of your...

    It's about humility. Understanding that sometimes you're going to feel like shit for no reason you can control, and that sometimes you just have to get through it even though every ounce of your being is saying "I know how to fix this". A god is an easy one, but most programs accept "the world around me" as a valid higher power. Insisting that there is nothing in the universe greater than you is kind of fatal to recovery.

    11 votes

  16. Comment on US National Transportation Safety Board calls on automakers to install speed-limiting tech in new vehicles in ~transport

    wervenyt
    Link
    This feels like it may, in hindsight, be an inflection point in the current American "culture wars". For all the reasons people say "car culture" is dangerous, this is going to hit exactly on the...

    This feels like it may, in hindsight, be an inflection point in the current American "culture wars". For all the reasons people say "car culture" is dangerous, this is going to hit exactly on the pain points.

    4 votes

  17. Comment on Melatonin use soars among US children, with unknown risks in ~health

    wervenyt
    Link Parent
    Melatonin is fantastic if you're traveling a lot. Sure, an hour or two of jetlag is annoying, but it'll pass. Eight or more hour time changes are horrendous though, and the best bet without...

    Melatonin is fantastic if you're traveling a lot. Sure, an hour or two of jetlag is annoying, but it'll pass. Eight or more hour time changes are horrendous though, and the best bet without something like melatonin to speed up the transition is to stay up for as close to 24 hours as you can, which can be downright impossible if you have to make it from an "interior" to a major city and then board a transoceanic flight.

    It's not about drowsiness, it's more about that subtle sense of "well, yeah, I've been awake long enough for my taste, might as well turn in".

    6 votes

  18. Comment on Reading advice for new parents? in ~life

    wervenyt
    Link Parent
    From what I can gather, Carnegie knew that his bread was buttered on the side of the corporate world. The title is lightly lampooned throughout the book, and none of the advice is actually...

    From what I can gather, Carnegie knew that his bread was buttered on the side of the corporate world. The title is lightly lampooned throughout the book, and none of the advice is actually self-centered, it's mostly a framing for the sake of truly socially incompetent people so they can connect the benefits of politeness to their own goals.

    3 votes

  19. Comment on Down and to the right: Firefox got faster for real users in 2023 in ~tech

    wervenyt
    Link Parent
    Weeeiird. Well, glad you got it working in the end.

    Weeeiird. Well, glad you got it working in the end.

  20. Comment on Melatonin use soars among US children, with unknown risks in ~health