As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
After many years I recently started reading comics again, both Marvel and DC. I don’t have a tablet and reading on my iPhone 5 would be cumbersome. Besides, print is durable, looks really good—in my view better than any screen. I’m also fighting against a screen addiction by engaging in more non-digital activities.
There’s a newsstand close to where iI live that still sells comics, but they do not carry many titles.
Today I went to the doctor that is close to a large mall. After I went (against better judgement, I know...) straight to one of the few remaining large bookstores in the town only to find out that the entire magazines section was wiped out. They now only sell a few overpriced hardcover comic books.
I was giving up hope when I found a little kiosk with all sorts of cool stuff, inclusive a generous assortment of all kinds of comics. I bought a volume with stories of the Hulk, Dr. Strange, and Namor. It’s supposed to be fun. I already bought some stuff online, but I made a decision to support that mall kiosk as much as I can.
Now tell me about you! Do you buy comics at all? How?
Preceded by this post for all countries, this post for poor countries and this post for (overtly) authoritarian countries.
I'm Brazilian so I get to correct pretty silly stuff:
Brazil is a big place and the climate isn't homogeneous.
People like soccer here and many love it (some are reactionary and fight over games, as always) but it's not as all consuming as some people seem to think.
No, we aren't all extroverts, party animals, social butterflies, whatever, although I do feel the "Overton window" here on social things is more extraverted than in the US/West (and Japan and South Korea) in general.
We don't all listen to samba. While people here most often listen to pagode, sertanejo and Funk (moderately controversial music genre, though not really for substantive reasons) which are generally (keyword, obviously many songs in these genres are serious) lighthearted/for entertainment, we listen to serious or relaxed music too, mainly in rap, because we are normal.
I honestly can't really think of any misconceptions that aren't half-beaten to death about here.
If my title was a bit confusing, here's some examples of such trips:
I hope you get the idea. It doesn't have to be a complete end to end trip, so even one which covers a large part of the country's area should be fine. Please describe your experiences if you have experienced one :)
I apologise if this does not meet the quality mark for the website, this is my first try at posting here ;-;
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their weekend. Did you make any plans? Take a trip? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
Tl;dr typical news sources tend to prioritize political and governmental events and the things that surround them, like economics and social issues, even if they cover everything, and by covering everything they probably stretch themselves thinly among what they don't prioritize. (At least that's how it feels.)
A few examples of what I'm thinking of are:
Foreign Affairs, who focus specifically on geopolitics
The Scientific American, which focuses specifically on... science.
Aeon, which seems to focus on "the humanities". (vaaague.)
So... what are your examples of news sources/publications like this that you follow?
So a few weeks back someone posted an article here about Super Recognizers. These are people that can instantly remember 80% of a persons face and can identify that face easily later on. It talked about how these people are getting hired by police departments across the world.
It caught my attention because my wife has always been freakishly good at facial recognition and recall. Well, she took the test, which led to another test, and today she received her official invitation to join Super Recognizers International!
This is a big deal because her company is about to go under and she has been considering leaving lately. This will open up doors for her to find work she can do from home on a flexible schedule. Thanks @skybrain for posting that article and thank you to the Tildes community for being here!
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their weekend. Did you make any plans? Take a trip? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
Anything goes for this one: they can be general or specific, regional or global, IRL or digital, big or small, significant or insignificant. Pretty much any shared norm anywhere is fair game.
State what the current social norm is (and if it's specific to certain regions, cultures, or environments), why you want it to be different, and how you would improve it if you had the power to do so.
I'm interested in hearing your stories.
And of course, feel free to share anything else not asked in these questions.
If you personally have not had it but someone close to you has, feel free to share your experiences with that as well.
META: If this topic is better served in ~health.coronavirus feel free to move it!
Whether it's thinking about a videogame, fantasizing your future, a new workout, pondering existence, etc. What do you spend your free time thinking about?
I like to spend a lot of my free time defining what a human is and what it means to be one, and I always enjoy watching as my ideas progress over time. So what is something you muse about in your free time? What do you like to sporadically think about and what questions do you often return to?
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their weekend. Did you make any plans? Take a trip? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
A lot of things we live with have significant technical debt because they were designed and implemented without modern knowledge and understanding.
Knowing what we know now, in the present moment, what would you be interested in fundamentally redesigning if you could?
This does NOT have to be technology related, by the way, though it certainly can (anyone want to talk about redesigning usernames and passwords -- please?). It can pretty much be anything: NASCAR races, art criticism, specific social norms, sunglasses, etc.
In your explanation, don't just share what you're interested in tearing down, but how you would rebuild it for the better. What improvements would your methods bring to the table?
I really don’t have much to say, that’s 100% an honest question about something I truly fail to understand. I’m not opposed to having children if it seems right for some reason, but this is not a dream or project of mine. When I ask people about it, I get vague answers or stuff I cannot relate to at all. And some people seem to want to get married and have children just because they think they’re supposed to.
I’m really not in a position to judge, but I will probably politely ask further questions for my own education.
If that’s a sensitive topic for you and you don’t wish to indulge my curiosity, maybe this post is not for you! Everything surrounding parenthood tends to generate gratuitous animosity, so please be patient with my earnest ignorance.
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Is there any psychological thing behind it. if you are a changer why do you change your picture so often ? and what do you think about people who don't change it at all ?, and if you are constant why ? and what do you think about people who change it ?
it's not that important I know, but it has been in my head for long time not. why people change their prof pic, computer/phone background so often than others ?
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Collect and code, until it is done.
And now it is.
Ladies (the few that we have, I mean holy FUCK ), gents and everyone inbetween, welcome to the results of the 2020 Tildes census, which is only 34% less horrifying than 2020 itself. And you better believe I'm going to keep this up for the whole post, because fuck the responses this year, while greater in numbers, were occasionally still [REDACTED].thanks, thought police
In the year of the lord, 2020CAN YOU PLEASE END ALREADY, we got 350 responses in, which is a whopping 100 more than last year. I don't know how many accounts we have in total, no one does, and I'm too lazy to calculate the percentages right now because I'm calculating as we go so from the point of me writing this to clicking Post Topic an hour or two will probably pass.Update: I went to bed, so like 10 hours passed Absolute numbers is all you're going to get here, so fuck me, fuck you and fuck off.I need some alcohol
Anyway, let's go through the census. I let JotForms compile this nice graphical report that is pretty much useless because it completely breaks once either sexuality, gender or the myriad of various operating systems the people on here have get involved. But it's still funny seeing it struggle. Have a link to the PDF. So back to good Excel, my old nemesis.
Thankfully, this time around you'll have access to generate all this shit yourself, HERE YOU GO. The thing is in JSON, so easily deserializable, etc etc. I'm sure you people are skilled enough at typing the words into the IDEs to magic the data into your memory.
Important info: Empty answers are usually marked NO ANSWER, in case of numerical values it's usually -1 for age, -2 for the Kinsey scale (-1 is taken) and -69 for the 3 political values from the Sapply test, as these range from -10 to 10. Yes I made the default value -69. It's everyone's favourite number after all. Also, for some absolute FUCKED reason one of the values has 3 more entries than the other ones, I'm sure it has a totally VALID reason that has nothing to do with people entering bullshit. NOTHING.FuckingKILLME
Also I can't be bothered to edit the "wrong" data out, i.e. typos in languages etc, so those are all in, maybe someone with more compassion than me can do that.
First of all, I'm going to less graphs this year because it's fucking hard to aggregate things like ethnicity when you get responses ranging from black to a literal link of someone's You23AndMe results. Yes. I mean props to you for that but like, uh, FUCK, what am I going to do now? YOU ARE ALL MAKING THIS WAY TO FUCKING HARD. ლ(ಠ_ಠ ლ)
This propagates to basically all responses and next year I'm probably going to captain a way straighter course with less options, because I can't fucking MAKE FANCY GRAPHS WHEN YOU GIVE ME TOO MANY INDIVIDUAL RESPONSESFUCKINGKILLME
Not much has changed, the US still dominates, Canada second, though the British are catching up. I'm sure you'll have your tea party eventually. Though with good ol' Boris in charge I don't know if annexing the yanks is such a good idea. Also, as there are no invidual option here for everyone to FUCK IT UP it's the most sane graph of them all. No fucked colours this year, I promise, it's all scale.
Fancy Graph #2: Age by decile For those wanting to repeat this, watch out, as the age by decile and specific age questions were exclusionary. You'll have to combine the results to get the same numbers. I hope. Unless I fucked up. Equal possibility.
Also whoever entered 28.9, because of you I had to make the age field in my code a double instead of an integer. Fuck you.
I honestly thought this was going to be the wildest answer, but y'all are such a minority that it's fairly sane. The real clusterfuck starts after this question. Also whoever wrote prefer not to say, DID YOU NOT READ THE PART ABOUT THE OPTIONAL ANSWERS, [REDACTED] PLEASE [REDACTED] AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-
Anyway as I said, fairly standard results.
Trans? Value
NO ANSWER 13
no 312
yes 23
Yeah I'm not gonna make a graph for a yes/no question, if that's bigoted you may scream at me in the comments.
I MADE THE SCREENSHOT BUT I FORGOT TO ADD IT FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK
Also forgot about you. Average is 1,37, idk what else to do.
This was a mistake. 124 wrote white. 23 wrote caucasian. One person wrote causcasion. One person wrote that it's illegal to ask this question in their country. Someone wrote I bleed red white and blue.
THIS WAS A MISTAKE.
Kill me. Safe to say, that Tildes is, as someone put it perfectly: white af. Yes this was also a reply. KILL ME.
Fancy Graph #3,5: LanguageThis was added later, and I'm really not updating the others.
I'm just gonna let the graph speak for itself, I don't have it in me to keep the anger up.
This is where the fun begins. No, honestly not really.
If I average out our Sapply values, we get this compass result. Yeah we're all communists. So whoever said in their dislike the alt right people on this platform, I really don't know what you mean. If anything we need more to achieve PEAK CENTRISM. In all honesty, the people saying that this sub is a leftist echo chamber (there were a few), you may have a point.
When we get to the magical field of how everyone identifies themselves politically, well, let's just sayah, there's the rage again I'M NOT GONNA REPEAT THIS NEXT YEAR, GREAT FUCKING IDEA. Whoever entered confused, I FUCKING AGREE. SINCE WHEN IS PINK A FUCKING POLITICAL AFFLIATION? We do have a pirate though.Nice
You may wade through the rest OF [REDACTED] YOURSELF in the published data.
Tildes is an educated lot, contrary to popular my belief after making this census. A good chunk of people have a Bachelors, Masters, PhD. Still only one MD though, so if you have a medical emergency take it up with... checks notes Ah fuck I can't reveal anything. ...Take up with them. JK please call your local emergency line when you need help
Actually fairly sensible results, except a few, like that one person that entered not STEM, thanks for not giving me any useful information. You have the ability TO NOT ENTER SOMETHING. THIS GOES FOR THE PERSON WHO ENTERED meh AS FUCKING WELL, [REDACTED].
Fancy Graph #7: Computer Operating Systems
Fancy Graph #8: Mobile Operating Systems
Basically just like religions. You all have to many options, since we're all communists now according to average, and options are bad, you MAY ONLY USE WINDOWS VISTA FROM THIS POINT ON, OR THE GESTAPO WILL PAY YOU A VISIT fuck, wrong mass murderers
Have Acc? Value
NO ANSWER 7
yes 312
no 29
For consistency, and it didn't fit into the picture in a nice way.
Fancy Graph #9: Various Tildes Statistics
Most people migrated off reddit, followed by Hackernews. The rest is various random shit, include like 5 different ways of "I don't know", but the one person replying Gab surprised me. Didn't think people would hop on Tildes off Gab, since Gab is basically extreme rightwing Twitter and Tildes is like, the antithesis to that. Leftist userbase, longform discussion.
Once again, can't graph the shit outta this, so here's the collection of them. One reply per line. Had to format some replies to fit this format, I know someone did bullet points, apologies.
What do you like about Tildes?
What do you dislike about Tildes?
What would you change about Tildes?
To keep my sanity in check, although when I read this post, that probably didn't work out too well, I kept some notes.
Someone suggested to ban all Europeans off the platform. You now have the stats, so I'm going to let you guess from where they are. Fucking hilarious.
Someone very cordial managed to write an entire blog post into one of the final freeform boxes. I appreciate the feedback and I'm sure Deimos does as well, but why did you have to make so many empty lines? TBH it's more on Jotform for not removing linebreaks when giving you the CSV, it breaks the entire format.
We should have a prize for that person who fit a textbook into the box for ethnicity, also amazing, you mad fucking lad (or lass, but statistics are on my side, lol)
In closing, most answers were good and interesting, except for the part where I let you run wild with the politics question, holy fuck, but that's on me. To the people that reduced my IQ by a few points, well I took the piss outta you already, so I hope you have a great day. Everyone else, I hope you [REDACTED] on a few [REDACTED]. Wait, I think I mixed something up here.As you may have guessed, don't take this too seriously
As always, see you all next year, same time?Unless I get banned, which seems like a good possibility when I proofread all this, so much angerI need to get laid, or drunkActually how high does this go?
Cheers, I'm gonna go C͉̠̰͚͚͓ͪ̿̋̏̚O͓̯͕̙͕͎͈̫̦͐̊́Ṅ͕̮̣̺̖̣̖̈ͥͦ͊̽͒͠S̶̵̹̜͔͖͗͂̋̔̈̒͊̚Ú̷͔͍͇̪̥͍ͭͭ̔ͨ̄̇̅̕M̵͈̮͉̹͈͕̻̎̓E̛̯̝̭͉̼̍̎̐̋̑̎ ̷̵̮͔̬̙̠̣̬͉ͭ͒S̨͙̼̟̻̜̈̄͋̄̇ͨ͛́͟͞Ò̡̧͙̩̓̄͂̓͗́M̹̰̲̆̌E̴̡̲̟ͯ ̹͇̲̩͍ͨͨ͒̑͊̌͒͆̕͡F̵͊̊̾ͭ҉̘̲̝͎̥͔̠̺̙O̧̡̱̠̙ͤ͒ͪO̬̯̪͉͙̩̅͂̀̏ͫ̄̓͂D͎͓͍͔͙̰͕̒̒͒̓̃̍͂ͭ̀͢
Grzmot
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
I read the Wikipedia article about "gaslighting" and know it comes from a 1944 film of the same name in which an abusive husband gradually dims the gaslights at home – while denying doing so – to drive his wife mad.
Yet whenever I see the term used (which happens a lot, lately) I can't make the connection. It seems people use it for the simple act of lying or denying something, which to me is mostly just... lying, not "gaslighting". Any kind of stupid, misguided act is getting the sinister "gaslighting" stamp as if it some 5d chess move when it simply looks like incompetence. The core principle of it seems to revolve around having a plan to psychologically manipulate someone but I mostly don't see the plan nor the actual goal. If anything untruthful you say about an important topic is "gaslighting", then the term doesn't seem to have a lot of value on its own. Wikipedia actually mentions "unconscious" gaslighting which seems to contradict its purpose of actually wanting to manipulate someone.
So, given its popularity, I'm curious if there might be a (succinct) definition of the term that helps me understand it properly? Do you think it's just a trendy term to throw at politicians doing shit you don't like? Am I missing an important detail?
About 15 years ago, I was impressed by a TV commercial. In a Bank of America ad about their investments in crappy neighborhoods (they didn’t phrase it that way), the spokesperson said the bank knew they’d succeeded, “when the flowerboxes begin showing up on front porches.”
Teams have the same sort of indirect indications, too, for good or ill. I’m writing an article about such non-obvious metrics that managers can use to judge whether a team is healthy.
One example is self-organizing get-togethers. It’s one thing for a manager to create team-building exercises. But when the team members arrange for such gatherings themselves — and it includes the whole team, not merely a clique — you know you have an actual team, not a bunch of employees working on the same tasks. (A negative “flower box indicator” of a project cancellation is when the company no longer refills the snack bar; but in this article I want to keep things positive.)
For managers and other leaders: What have you recognized as “flowerbox indicator”? I want to give examples that managers can use to recognize and celebrate success.
(We can have a great conversation here, but I do need to quote people by name, company, title if I use the input in the article.)
Admittedly this would be better under the panel setting of Kfwyre here but alas, I'm asking this question because I don't know about what happens to people under racism and organizing a discussion for people grouped by a plight you don't know about and have never experienced is probably a bad idea. Also IIRC "race" isn't really scientific. And please, correct me if needed. I know nothing about this.
Either way, this is a pretty open-ended thread, the only 2 requirements I can imagine are the one in the title and that you state what 'race'/ethnicity you are and where you are (i.e black, US or Black, South Africa or Roma, most European countries and especially Balkan ones).
I read through the 'what do you dislike about tildes?' responses and attempted to classify them. A link to the excel document containing one row for each comment, a classification, and totals is provided. I figured a deep dive into this question (I am considering doing a deep dive on the other end of the spectrum - what do you like about tildes) may provide some insight on how we, as a community, can strive to be better.
Here's what I found:
Total number of free-text comments: 181
No comment, N/A, "nothing", etc.: 14
| Category | Count |
|---|---|
| Too small | 74 |
| Diversity | 39 |
| Intolerance | 14 |
| Tech-centric | 14 |
| Website Functionality | 14 |
| Elitism | 12 |
| Federation | 2 |
| Too serious | Not serious enough |
|---|---|
| 12 | 1 |
| Politics - too left | Politics - too right |
|---|---|
| 4 | 2 |
44% of the user-base indicated that they felt that Tildes was currently too small. There's really not a lot to be said here, other than a large number of those who filled out the survey wanted to express that they felt Tildes should still continue to grow.
I think a major point of discussion here should be around how best to grow. What do you like about tildes is not covered in this post, but some common themes are around enjoying the discussion and the community. Many individuals also seem to like the small community, showing an interesting division between a like and dislike of the size. From my own perspective, I enjoy how I recognize and see many of the same users on this website, but I also don't enjoy how the size leads to a lack of diversity and content.
Both of these topics are hitting on the same fundamental problem, which could be seen as an extension of the size of Tildes, but really refers more to who is using Tildes, rather than how many users. There is a lot of overlap between these two classifications, but sometimes people mention the tech centrism as a problem of content (too many tech/computing discussions) and not a problem of culture. In these cases there's not complete overlap.
Many individuals commented both on the size of the community and the diversity. Overall, roughly 23% of individuals who responded commented in some fashion on the lack of diversity on the website. The general sentiment from people who commented on the need for diversity was that Tildes was white, male, and working in tech. Given that the survey found 86% of us are male, the majority work in STEM and are primarily based in the US, this is not a very surprising finding.
An important point of reflection comes out in some of the longer form comments here and I think is also captured in many people who felt that tildes was "too serious" - discourse is firmly rooted in STEM interests. Several comments discussed a desire to see more artistic/creative discussions. There was also a strong sentiment for more non-US centric discussion. Interestingly (and perhaps described by our rather large LGBTQ+ contingent), diversity mostly focused on the dominance of male opinions (sometimes I wonder how people know what gender is behind a username unless they specifically state so) and the only comment on LGBTQ+ diversity was that there was a "lack of posts about anything other than tech or lgbt+ politics".
Intolerance is the unwillingness to accept views, beliefs, or behavior that differs from one's own. Many comments talked about users 'talking past' each other, getting into long bickering arguments that went nowhere, or targeted harassment of some sort. Several people mentioned specific users or powerusers not operating under good faith, and users which annoy or are hostile towards them.
If a user is being hostile to you, please report their comments.
While only 8.4% of us reported intolerance as being something they actively disliked, it is troublesome to see. I don't have a good frame of reference of what an 'acceptable' level is, because you're bound to have some people who are more emotionally sensitive than others and confrontations that don't always end the way you want them to. I hope we can discuss this in a broader context, however, because I have personally seen what I believe is an increasing number of intolerant posts often masquerading as 'honest discourse'. Whether this is me jumping to conclusions about potential alt-right trolls (which I do not discount) or an actual increase in not-so-good-faith arguments, I don't know, and would like to hear how you all feel.
As an aside, I wonder if I'm included in any of these lists of annoying powerusers, or if I was the one who 'picked a fight' with someone and got their 'comments deleted and that REALLY annoyed me'. If I am, please send me a message. I greatly enjoy most of you but I also know that I'm human and make mistakes and whether I agree with you or not, it's not cool to forget the human on the other side of the computer.
Generally speaking any comments around power-users or some users believing their opinion, culture, or viewpoint is more important or more correct landed the comment in the category of elitism. Certain users being 'combative', 'bickering', and 'pedantic' came up several times. With regards to powerusers, they were generally mentioned alongside some form of narcissism or a 'holier-than-thou' attitude. Reddit hivemind or a lack of diversity was also sometimes cited alongside complaints of elitism.
I used to be much worse when it comes to this, and the constant back and forth with people who will not have their viewpoint changed. I believe I've learned to tailor this and cut off conversations sooner, but I know that some individuals can at times get under my skin, particularly when they are being actively harmful to minorities or other groups with limited power, speech, or representation. With that being said, I wonder how best we can provide a culture to teach others to limit their responses when they go nowhere. There was at least one mention of how limiting the response rate between individuals had cut off two users who were always bickering over politics, so perhaps a more aggressive form of this?
But I also wonder what we can't do as a community together to actively recognize and point out when two people are not able to reach an agreement and to jump in and mediate or otherwise help them to stop a pointless argument.
Several people commented on a lack of a mobile app, a want for embedded images and videos, and the voting system. Other suggestions - comment threading, user blocking, differentiation between reasons why a post was bumped in the activity feed (?), mobile design (easier to click links), a desire for a more robust topic log, and that the website is too minimalist/sterile.
Only a single person complained that tildes was not serious enough (or perhaps not, you decide... they said, "increasing creep of low effort posts"). The majority of posts complaining about tildes being too serious were often also complaints about people bickering. When it wasn't about how users interacted, it was about the form of dicussion available - people often brought up the "meaningful conversation" portion of the tildes documentation and culture, but often had a desire to have memes, shitposts, humor, or some outlet for conversation that isn't as effort based. Perhaps they like the culture and just want to do more with the people here? Perhaps they simply want to get to know their fellow users in a way they can't currently.
From my own perspective, I'd love to see more memes and humor. I tend to shitpost a lot on the unofficial discord. I've seen quite a few of you all on there as well, and would highly recommend it to anyone who feels like they want to get to know other users better.
More people complained about Tildes being too left than too right, which makes sense given the aggregated political compass from the survey. I think more people complained about there being too much politics than commented on politics whatsoever. I'm leaving this section relatively small because I'm not sure this is something that needs significant discussion at this point. But if you feel strongly, please help to direct a discussion in this thread.
I hope you all found this analysis useful and a good starting point for discussions. I really do love this platform and have found it to be quite literally life changing. If you found it useful and want to return the favor, check out my soundcloud
In this thread, @viridian said this:
Twitter, in my limited usage, has a completely different problem. It actively encourages you, by rule of the 280 character limit, to strip away all nuance and conversational tone. You can avoid this of course, but the UI ensures that you then suffer the consequences of having to
split up your posts into multiple tweets, which is bad by design in every single way for the user. Replies become distributed to different tweets, and thus inaccessible without a series of 2*(# of tweets) clicks. Everything about the design is just begging you to
box in the entirety of your thoughts to 280 character blocks, which I think is the single largest issue the platform has when it comes to encouraging thoughtful engagement. Twitter actives fights nuance and explanation, and so the platforms users follow the bad behavior
patterns Twitter encourages.
Completely agree, it is a bit of a feedback loop. You do have to say though that even the fact it's no longer at the original 140 characters is a concession to the fact that the kind of discourse that now happens on there rather than what it was intended for. I imagine designing something to handle both types of usage well while maintaining the platform's identity can't be easy.
(Okay, this one was said by @culturedleftfoot.)
It's certainly not an easy problem to solve, it may even be impossible. That said though, maybe a 280 character mass social media platform is just destined to be a net negative for society.
And it reminded me of this comment I wrote a while ago:
To be fair it the term 'social media' is pretty useless when it comes to describing a site's purpose. In twitter, for example, you have celebrities rambling about random aspects of their lives, politicians delivering serious to obviously canned responses to serious or made-up problems, anime artists sharing their work, YouTubers sharing sneak peeks for future videos or shilling out, all in the same platform, which is disponible in 33 languages across every continent except Sub-Saharan Africa. (which was started specifically as a SMS & microblogging site, hence the word limit). Not many 'social media platforms' actually have their intended purpose be their sole purpose, which can backfire intensely. Social media platforms might have decided to recommend people with similar opinions to you as an unintended consequence in order to find people with similar hobbies to you, rather than to create an echo chamber of radicals and stifle communication between different political beliefs.
(Not that the fact that's a real possibility excuses them from not doing anything to combat it once they realized that was one of the side effects of their decision for most or all of my lifetime.)
One of the IMO most underrated problems with the state of social media today is that social media platforms are used in far too many ways for any one site to be designed around.
YouTube for example is used as a meme-consumption feed, source of education, video-game feed, ASMR feed, news feed, music feed, child cartoon feed and more.
And since YouTube was designed mostly for video sharing, things like the comment section were of secondary importance and areas like educational or political content are greatly harmed by that since the YouTube comment section is basically impervious to serious discussion. The algorithm also appears to be basically universal for all these vastly different types of content. This also hurts educational and political channels (unless they somehow accommodate to that, usually by lying ala PragerU) but also animation channels.
Another example would be Facebook which originally (supposedly?) started off as a platform for connecting with people, apparently limited to universities initially. Now it's used for sharing memes, news, personal life updates and more, things which are fundamentally quite different from one another and probably shouldn't be under the same site, since the things important when it comes to spreading a news article are wildly different from those when spreading a meme (format?). (Or management, obviously.)
IMO, decentralizing social media along these lines into say news sharing platforms, meme-sharing platforms, image-sharing platforms, educational platforms, social platforms (where you go to make friends, which is what social media billed itself as early on IIRC) is IMO one of the more interesting but underlooked options and in some senses is looked on into with places like Instagram and pinterest (although obviously if these sites aren't regulated to provide privacy it's all smoke and mirrors and given this requires government action I don't blame people for ignoring this all that much).
So does anyone else have any more thoughts?
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their weekend. Did you make any plans? Take a trip? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
With age, I found that many things that seemed boring and pointless became interesting and purposeful. Did that happen with you? What is something you used to hate, but now enjoy as an adult?
I listen to quite a few, from ones related to my industry to ones related to my hobbies, to some just related to history or storytelling. Most of my choices have been at the recommendation of others, so I'm looking to add some to this week's lineup.
If you don't know of a good recommendation, what podcasts do you have queued up for this week?
I’m pretty sure every dog owner thinks their dog is the best most unique dog in the world, and the same is true about cat owners, snake owners, etc!
So make your best case: why is your animal companion the coolest in the whole world?
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
I've been thinking about note-taking a lot recently. I'm not a particularly great note-taker myself, though I do use a calendar and a to-do list. My SO is a habitual digital note-taker, but also a hand-written journaller too. I do neither of these things (and don't feel the worse for the lack), but I am curious about how my fellow tilderen feel towards notes in general, and journalling to a lesser extent.
Are you a note-taker? If not, why not? If so, how does it add value to your life? Do you prefer a digital or a pen-and-paper notebook, or even a hybrid approach? And do you have a system?
I don't mean an issue where you're maybe ambivalent or undecided beforehand, or if you've willingly made an /r/changemyview type of post. I mean an instance where you already have your own stance and come face-to-face with an opposite, more convincing and/or more factual viewpoint that compels you to change your perspective.
I'd like to think I'm more open-minded than the norm, and I can't recall it ever happening to me... which is not to say it's definitely never happened, but you'd think it'd have made an impact worth remembering. And frankly, if it actually has never happened, well, what's the freaking point of discussing anything?
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their weekend. Did you make any plans? Take a trip? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
With the ever-growing stream of acquisitions and mergers, it got me thinking: Why do we permit companies to do this?
What would the harm be in banning this practice? If a company is becomes insolvent, release all of it's IP to the public domain, dissolve all patents/trademarks, and sell off physical assets to pay debtors (first of which should be former employees IMO, but that's a separate discussion).
Edit: I think my original intention of the post to kick off some interesting discussion has worked. Thank you to all current and future posters!
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
Here is a place to post about extreme weather events or just what it’s like where you are.
I don’t even know where to start. I realize it’s not meant to be a coherent piece of text, but rather a (fortunately short) stream of related thoughts.
I could talk about when an ambulance took me to the hospital because I was so drunk I couldn’t even move.
I could talk about how with other friends I bullied people for no justifiable reason.
I could talk about how I can’t stop watching porn, and consequently how my sexual tastes diverged from the normal, making me guilty of engaging in and craving illegal content.
I could talk about how I wasted literally years trying to finish a bachelor degree, to the point where I am now lying to my family and friends about exams.
I could talk about the many other stupid things I did, some of which while being recorded by people who aren’t even friends any more and who could easily ruin my life by sending them out (not that they have a reason to do so, but nothing can change the fact that I am powerless).
I could talk about how I wish suicide was an option, but since it’s not, the best alternative is sleeping while enjoying dreams. Too bad you can’t sleep forever.
The list could probably go on.
I can’t seem to spend a day without dwelling on at least one of these (and other) burdens; be it a memory, a negative feeling, an evil thought, an action, or a combination thereof.
When I think about the past, I feel overwhelmed by nothing but regret. When I think about the present, I’m filled with guilt. When I think about the future, I feel fear (of life, of ageing, of death).
No one can object to the intrinsic meaninglessness of life, unless you take into account religion (which I do not) or subjective purpose (which I could consider, but it’s impossible to consistently focus on that when you are reminded everyday of the underlying nonsense of life while fantasizing about suicide).
I often ask myself If I’m being truly honest with myself or if I’m semi-unconsciously sabotaging my existence just because playing the role of the victim is admittedly easier than fighting for your life.
I am ultimately confused by the reason why I am the way I am: is it because of my past (wrongdoing)? Is it because I suffer from a mental disease? Is it because I suffer from a physical disease? Is it because that’s simply how (evil) I am? I have so many questions and so little answers.
If I see myself in someone's child here then I'm deleting this thread, no questions asked /s
You should probably say/indicate your and your children's age and sex (can be plural, obviously.)
You can follow the Q&A format below but you don't have to.
A few questions that come to (my very uninitiated) mind are:
(i.e you're @aphoenix not hetero and a parent didn't want to go through fkin birthing people an adoptive parent, for example)
Do you follow what they're doing on the Internet or how much they use it? How much?
Do you encourage them to have a good diet? How much?
Do you encourage them to do more chores? How much?
When you do this, how cooperative are they? If they aren't, what do you do to convince them?
More personal questions below. (You can avoid these, I probably would too tbh)
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their weekend. Did you make any plans? Take a trip? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
I'm having a hard time with this.
I stopped listening to some bands because of what they did, do or not do.
The guy from Inquisition turned out a pedophile.
Mgla, while not a nazi band per se, are at least nazi sympathizers. So i stopped listening.
Vektor: the guy is a wife beater, but there are is some controversy.
And i absolutely loved these bands. While i can find similar bands, it's not the same.
But what i am doing not listening to it? I'm the one not listening to it and that's it. I will never give them money (i threw my Mgla shirt away) because i obtain the music by another means.
I am not helping with their popularity because i'm the only one in my circle that listens to these subgenres of metal and i mostly do it alone.
So... what's the point of depriving myself of music that i like? They are the ones who suck, not me! But at the same time i feel bad listening.
What are your thoughts on this?
I'm in line at a free covid testing site. It is a CVS minuteclinic. I have to use the normal drivethrough, and self administer the nasal swab.
What the hell is that bullshit? My wife went to a 'real' test site where a professional swabbed and she described it as a pap smear on the back of her eye.
So I'm going to a CVS so they can print a barcode, give me, an unqualified layperson a long qtip and a test tube to do my own test and drop in a collection box. Which they will likely ship to an actual lab.
And for all of this 'work', they get to bill my insurance for hundreds or more, which will likely mean rate hikes later.
Our healthcare system is a sham, and this is just further proof. Given I have to do it myself anyway, the government should just mail me a kit which I then drop off.
It would not shock me in the slightest if they actually just drop the tests in a dumpster and just send a 'negative' a few days later.
Edit: 40 min later, through line and swabbed. Yes, they just have Quest diagnostics empty the dropbox. 0 reason CVS should be involved.
Hey everyone, I hope your life is good, and if isn't, it'll get better, so don't you surrender. :)
The census this year had a much improved response! As of writing this I've had 302 handed in forms! I'd also like to thank everyone who graciously donated to offset the cost for JotForms premium. I've almost broken even (Like 2€ off so it's not a big deal really). This post just serves as a simple update and a gentle reminder if you haven't filled out the survey but want to, or haven't gotten around to it or simply forgot. If you don't want to participate that's fine too.
https://form.jotform.com/202281385322348
As responses are still dwindling in, I'll probably keep the thing open for another week or so. Have a fun weekend!
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their weekend. Did you make any plans? Take a trip? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
Note: I didn't want to clutter up the title, but "parents" in the title and below applies to anyone who raised you, whatever their role or relation.
As we grow up, our view of those who raised us changes. Some of their "unfair" rules might make more sense in hindsight, for example. I'm curious for answers to the following questions:
This is something that they legitimately missed the mark on, for any reason. You might have realized it at the time, or have come to realize it in hindsight. Either way, you can definitively say it was the wrong call now.
There's probably a lot they did right, but in particular I'm interested in stuff that either seemed wrong to you as a child but you've now come to realize was the right call, or right stuff that you now realize is far more important than you did at the time.
Also, with any discussion of parenting it's important to remember that everyone's experiences are difficult and that some responses might open up about some difficult things. Please remember to be kind and empathetic in your responses!
Sometimes it's not what we look like, or where we are from. It's a label.
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their weekend. Did you make any plans? Take a trip? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
In my country (Brazil), it's probably the "Centrão". It's basically like, a dozen or so centrist/center-right/random parties who vote together as if they were a bloc for reasons which can only be explained with corruption, which seems to be the case. (The Wikipedia article (PT-BR) straight up says that it's a group that tries to approach the executive for political favors so yeah.)
I'm not sure how we deal with the US, given how much the US has to cite as strange, but a lot of the stuff on this site is already dedicated to the US.
