So what I want to know is whether or not this is that unusual for someone in real estate.

The discussion on r/politics is myopic and the discussion on /r/tax lacks detail.

From the NYT article:

The numbers show that in 1985, Mr. Trump reported losses of $46.1 million from his core businesses — largely casinos, hotels and retail space in apartment buildings. They continued to lose money every year, totaling $1.17 billion in losses for the decade.

Trump's statement/tweet:

“You always wanted to show losses for tax purposes....almost all real estate developers did – and often re-negotiate with banks, it was sport,

Now my very limited understanding of real estate and taxes is this:

• You can depreciate the building but not the land
• Depreciation can be carried over multiple years
• When you sell property you can roll those proceeds into the purchase of another property, thus delaying income tax

Are those accurate? If so, do they explain Trump's taxes?

I'm thinking not (I suspect Russian money laundering is the real source of income). However, I have yet to read a good discussion of the specifics. Has anyone read such a discussion or have insight to add?

Main story from NYT:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/05/07/us/politics/donald-trump-taxes.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

CNBC's article about Trump's response:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/08/trump-defends-tax-tactics-after-nyt-story-says-he-racked-up-more-than-1-billion-in-losses-it-was-sport.html

EDIT: As an aside, I got into a wee bit of trouble because my wife's (very) small business lost money three years running. The accountant that I worked with informed me that if a business losses $ three years in a row, the IRS considers it a "hobby" and you can't subtract those losses from your personal taxes. Is that in play with Trump at all? If not, why not?

EDIT2: I'm going to answer my own question I think. I heard a good segment on NPR yesterday that addressed my question. You can read the transcript here: https://www.npr.org/2019/05/08/721552462/president-trump-defends-himself-against-report-he-did-not-pay-taxes-for-8-years

The bottom line is it's not so unusual but it doesn't exclude the possibility of him running his businesses poorly either. So I think it's not really what the headlines have made it out to be.

Whether it's for for school, work, or a hobby, share a project or goal that you are working on and how it's going. If you're trying to accomplish it, it fits here. Writing a book, making a program, perfecting a recipe, beating a challenge in a video game, fitness PRs, etc. - all is welcome.

EDIT: I just realized there's a monthly thread similar to this in ~creative, so I probably won't post like this again. But feel free to keep sharing here! This one I suppose is a bit more open ended.

Need to vent, brag or just talk about your day? Thought this would be a nice space for this.....

I'm having a bit of a reckoning where I'm working a call center job, and when I like it, it's okay, and when I don't, it's a drag, but just recently my wrists have started to seriously act up and impact my work and life some, and my work insurance won't cover treatment. On a related note, Mom is willing to love and support bribe me back into going to school since I can go back on her insurance as long as I'm taking classes full time. Normally, I would respectfully decline because I'm prideful and petty, left school on academic probation 4 years ago after blowing off classes and am still nursing an underlying fear of failure and psychological hang-ups due to previous academic overextension. But I do have savings to fall back on, I am at a point where I can reasonably pivot, Mom will likely never let this one die, and my job causes me pain. So, what do?

Heya, fellow Tildees!
Given how my city (Celle in northern-ish Germany) just did the monthly test of them, I wonder how widespread they are in the rest of the world and what they're used for. Here the system's used for alerting firefighters, though they all have pagers or similar by now.
Also I'd assume there are more modern solutions to quickly warn the population. Tell us all about it!

Someone pings you in slack or github (or discord or on a forum post or wherever) asking for something. Perhaps some advice or a code review. After you help them out, they say "Thanks!". In normal conversation, I would respond with a "You're welcome" or "no problem" or something.

The problem I have is that while I want to be polite and acknowledge their thank you message, I don't want to generate notifications or otherwise distract people. Responding with a github comment will notify and probably email any involved persons. Slack and discord it depends on the channel, but many channels have low enough traffic that I will check every time theres a new message in that channel (and I'm sure I'm not the only one monitoring those channels).

Its not really a big deal and no one is going to get angry about it - but it can distract people or ruin their flow while working and I want to avoid that. In my mind, a reaction emoji is perfect for this. It acknowledges the comment or message if someone looks, but doesn't send notifications or light up the channel name.

...but which reaction should I use? I've never seen a "you're welcome" emoji. I've been typically using a thumbs up (:+1:), but that can look as if someone is seconding the thanks rather than me trying to acknowledge it.

Is there a better way to say "you're welcome" or "no problem" in this situation? Is there a better reaction emoji on github/slack/discord/your communication platform of choice? Should I stop worrying about possibly savings other people an email or small distraction and just say "np" or something?

Do you ever feel as though you want to learn everything?

I enjoy learning. I wouldn't say I crave it but I love finding out about new things or learning how to do something I don't know how to do. Almost anytime I see somebody talking about or doing something that interests me I think, "I could learn to do that" or "I should read up about that." This ranges from anything to my own personal pursuits (of which I have too many due to this feeling and thus never sink enough time into any... different topic) to my friend's career paths or interests, to all of you on Tildes, you cool bastards. My partner is studying medicine. Shit, I haven't learned anything bio/health-science related since college Freshman year Chemistry class but I was just googling "free [biology|physics|intro to medicine] textbooks online" because what she's learning sounds awesome and like some really beneficial stuff to know about. Every time I read the "What are you doing this weekend" or similar threads on here I just think... damn, I'd love to contribute to open source maps (shoutout u/hungariantoast) or play that game or learn to fix up my car or ... you get the idea.

Does anyone else feel this way? How do you cope? Want to vent and relate? I know of priority lists, I have made plenty and they have both helped and not helped me solve this. I guess I'm just destined to try learning everything forever.

Hey Tildians,

This is going to be a really long post that is an ongoing search and conversation I am having with myself. Its going to be about religion and culture. Sorry for the shitty title, I am really bad at coming up with titles, I tend to ramble a lot.

I'm currently going through a crisis both of faith and cultural identity. Not because I am questioning either, but because I have never had either. I'm a white man from america. Growing up as a kid, my parents gave me the option to look at religions and choose one if any that spoke to me. None did, so I didn't go for a long time. In high school I attended Methodist Church every weekend because I felt pressured by my Boy Scout troop to be Christian, the Methodist Church let us use their church for our meetings despite none of the troop being members of the church, and the priest there at the time was a really great guy that I liked a lot. I spent a lot of time talking about faith with him and eventually, he said to me "let's face it, you don't believe the things I am preaching. That is completely fine. You're welcome in the church, it'll always be home, I'm always here to talk about faith or life or anything, but you don't believe in Christianity and you owe it to yourself to try and find something you do believe." And he was right, I didn't. So I studied a few things here and there and none ever stuck. So I've just been agnostic. But I desperately want to believe in a religion and have a sense of community and just, something to tie my individual beliefs to the world and know other people feel the same way I do.

Similarly, I grew up pretty much "American". I know my heritage is from Ireland, Poland, UK, Croatia, Germany because I did reports on ancestry in school, but they've never been a part of my identity. We never talk about being from Poland other than explaining to people why my last name is spelled the way it is (WHICH IS STUPID BECAUSE IT'S NOT A WEIRD SPELLING OR PRONOUNCED DIFFERENT THAN IT LOOKS). It just isn't a thing. I've always envied my friends whose families are very proud and invested in their heritage. And that's not for a lack of trying, I've tried to get invested in them, but there aren't really communities around me for it, my family doesn't give a shit, and even if I did, I'm like 15% everything so it doesn't feel like I'm REALLY from that culture. I guess that's why some people are so extreme about being American. They're such a mix of so many different European countries that if a parent isn't invested in a specific culture, it's hard to identify with any single one, so they rally behind America. It is all they have.

I don't know. It's very weird crisis that came out of nowhere in the stupidest ways (rewatching avatar and then having a crisis of faith looking at a chacra candle in a used book store). I've realized that I am paralyzed by the lack of a foundation of my identity. Personality traits and political views and hobbies are all malleable and change over time and so what I define myself as now could be completely gone and irrelevant in 2 years time and something about that terrifies me. It makes me wish there was something I could tie myself to that doesn't change, like what country my family is from. And if not that, an felling like I undestand the world around me would be great, and something religion provides. Also, the community wouldn't be something I'd hate to have.

Tangentially to this, I'm having a weird relationship with faith in another way. I keep finding myself gravitating towards budhism. I don't know why, but it just is what I keep ending up looking at. I have 6 different bibles, a torrah, and a quran that I've read. None feel quite right. I keep ending up reading more about budism. But I feel SO WEIRD about it. It feels like I'm that white dude everyone hates that wont stop talking about budism. I don’t know. I know I shouldn’t let the outside world’s perceptions affect my religious views. But that doesn’t mean it is easy not to.

Guess to make this more of a convo I’ll ask some questions to generate discussion:

Religious folks: How has growing up with a religion effected your life? Do you think you’d be a drastically different person without it?

Atheists: How weird does this sound to you? Did you go through a similar crisis before landing on atheism

People who grew up with a strong cultural identity: How has that effected your life? Are you generally happy that you have that identity and community? Were there ever times you wished you weren’t a part of it?

It’s a thought I’ve had mulling around for a while now. I’m wondering will a point ever come when we return to completely accurate local time; each village, town and city operating on a local time synced with the sunrise/sunset—noon truly means the solar noon—with technology as the interface.

Is it possible? would we even want it, would it matter? Do we have to wait for brain chips to make a time conversion seamless?

What did you like about school?
What did you dislike about it?
What were the most important things that you learned?
What would you change about education if you had the power?
If you could go back and re-do things knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?

I'm not necessarily looking for individual answers to each question, I'm just putting those out there to frame the kind of thoughts I'm looking for. I'm really just interested in hearing other people's stories! I'm a teacher and frequently do a lot of talking about education from my own perspective, but I don't feel like I do enough listening to others' views.

Also, to avoid gumming up the questions with multiple tenses, I wrote everything in past tense. That doesn't mean I'm only interested in the responses of people who are done with their formal education though. I'd love to hear from people who are still in school as well!

It's been asked a couple of times before, but not particularly recently (last was in August I think!). So who or what do you support on Patreon, and why?

I currently pay for two podcasts: Let's Know Things, and The Film Reroll.
Let's Know Things is a podcast made by Colin Wright, who if you've seen the Minimalists documentary on Netflix you may be familiar with. It's a great weekly podcast that picks apart a recent article, adds a load of context to the subject, and extrapolates from it somewhat. It's always insightful, and I've learned a load that I never thought I would from it.
The Film Reroll is probably my favourite podcast right now. The basic premise is that a group of people take the plot of a movie, and turn it into an RPG (using GURPS). So instead of normal improv where they can just do something, they have to roll dice to see if they actually succeed at doing it. It invariably ends up going completely off the rails, and is always hilarious. Highlights include the Speed episode where they catch the mastermind before he has a chance to plant the bomb on the bus, and Jumanji, where the dice rolls for the board game go so well that they beat it before things have a chance to go dreadfully wrong.

It's not through Patreon, but I also make a monthly contribution towards this website called wikipedia. It's pretty wild: an online encyclopaedia where anyone can view, submit, or edit the information, for free. It's got a page on just about anything you can think of, and whilst it's not perfect, it can be a fantastic jumping off point for learning about a subject, and going deeper via the sources. I believe it to be one of the pinnacles of online achievements, and I use it easily twice a week directly (and more indirectly, every time I get instant answers from Google).

So what do you support via Patreon (or other means)?

EDIT: A followup question. Does the amount that a creator on Patreon is already receiving have any bearing on your decision to contribute?

After all this time watching cryptocurrency from a distance, I have finally seen a real world use case.

Marijuana is legal in this US state, however national banks are not allowed to service the marijuana industry due to federal law. Therefore all card processing is not available to the retail outlets. It’s only cash transactions at the retail level.

Until today. Today I was asked if I wanted to pay with a debit card. When I asked how, he said they used litecoin. So I imagine that the card is being run by a company which then converts it to litecoin to pay the merchant. Anyone have any clue on what that might cost the merchant as far as percentage?

I thought I would share this because after hearing all hype rollercoaster regarding cryptocurrency, I have finally seen a somewhat legitimate use of it in the real world.

Do you see any other use cases of crypto out in the wild these days?

it's apparently been awhile since we had a proper one of these on tildes (we've had a few mental health related topics but nothing direct like this), and seeing as the site has grown a bit (to say the least) since the last one there's probably some utility in a new one of these. share your experiences/whatever you've found helps/etc. i think this is pretty straightforward.

I’m in the process of moving house. We’ve been visiting the new house over the weekend, but we haven’t moved any furniture in yet.

During our errands, my housemate said “let’s go home”, and it took me a moment to realise that he was referring to the new house. He was being slightly facetious, but it made me think. That new house obviously isn’t “home” yet, but when will it be “home”?

I realised there are two answers for me: a functional one and a psychological one.

The functional answer for me is “home is where the bed is”. The day after I’ve moved my bed into the new house and have slept there overnight is the day I’ll refer to it as my home (as in “let’s go home”).

The psychological answer is that it will feel like my home when I’m comfortable walking through the house in the middle of the night in bare feet – when I know the place well enough to walk around in the dark without anything to protect me from danger. I have to have lived in a place for a while for it to feel like home.

So… what makes a place “home” for you? When you move into a new house or apartment or condo or tent or treehouse, what makes it feel like “home”? What’s that moment when you know that this house is now a home?

Another person said that s(he) can't form an opinion because s(he) eats meat, and it is almost the same thing. She feels it's wrong, but at the same time thinks it's prejudice against some religions if we are worried about a couple of animals and continue to kill millions just to eat.

I can agree and disagree with this point, but one thing being wrong doesn't give a pass to other things.

But if we agree that it's constitutional to sacrifice animals, then what certain religions do to women (or any person) should be at the same level.

That's why i disagree at the end. It shouldn't be allowed, period.

The animal being sacrificed didn't chose to be there, nor the human being mistreated.

What are your opinions? Can someone point what i'm thinking wrong here?

PS: Sorry for my poor wording because english is not my first language. I wanted to know the opinion here about morals or what is right or wrong, not the law itself. Of course that any discussion on that is welcome too.

I'm not a dream person. I haven't seen one, nor do I care when someone tells me their nonsensical dreams. But I was always open to the prospect of experiencing one myself.

(And yeah, IknowIactuallyseethem andIjustcantremember and blah blah blah. Shut up already! I don't know why so many people feel entitled to tell you that, but it happens every time I mention I don't see dreams. I don't care: don't remember — didn't happen.)

The closest things to dreams I experienced are a couple of times as a kid. They seem like dreams, and I remember them vividly, but I don't trust my memories from so long ago. Plus, kids are stupid, I may've just been imagining things in bed or something.

I also have dream-like experiences sometimes. If I wake up from my alarm but don't get up and sleep again, then I may feel like I had a dream after I wake up. I'm pretty sure those aren't actual dreams because 1. I have a habit of fantasizing about being a hero in a fantasy world, or having a perfect job, or having a GF, while lying in bed. I don't feel like it was a dream when I wake up normally; but I figure when I sleep again for another hour, my mind still thinks up fantasies, which are amplified by drowsiness. So I remember them more strongly, especially since it's only an hour or so. And as far as I know, dreams only happen in REM sleep, which takes a couple of hours to get to. 2. I had similar experiences while driving in the back and on boring lectures. Except these times I was concious for the entire duration, so I knew I was just fantasizing, but it still felt more real because I was sleepy and bored, and it was very similar to what I remeber after that bad sleep habit.

So I'm pretty sure I don't have dreams, but I'm excited to see one, and I'm happy to talk about them. In general, of course. Nobody gives a damn what you saw in your dream, but I'm interested to know how you saw it, what helped you see it, what you felt.

Of course I'd like to hear about lucid dreaming, it's something I wanged to experience for a long time. But also about more general dreams, or if you also don't have any, or especially if you started to see them later in life.

So, what are your dreams like?

I like to think I have broad interests. Part of what I like about Tildes at this stage in its growth is that I'll probably encounter folks who are highly knowledgeable about areas I'm totally ignorant in, simply because the userbase isn't too fragmented into niche groups quite yet, but the convo won't necessarily be too esoteric for me to follow. I like encountering tangential references that lead me into entirely unfamiliar topics, especially when I can learn from the people who are particularly interested in it. I tend not to post very often myself though (primarily because I'm a painfully slow and/or bad writer)... but I wondered how many other tilderinos are like me.

So, in an effort to contribute to the site, what topic or field could you talk about for hours at Tildes level of discussion, whether by education or interest? Mine would undoubtedly be soccer. I've played and followed it for 30+ years, and could easily bore you with all sorts of minutiae of the on-field side of things, but it's the world's game, so there are all sorts of tie-ins to culture, language, politics, etc. that help inform my non-sport conversations as well.

Personally, free speech to me means that while platforms like Facebook and YouTube are not required to host it, if they so choose to host it they should be able to do so. Speech should not be restricted because it is offensive or because it is viewed as immoral. This applies doubly so to political speech, which terrorism is the most extreme form.

copyright terms in general are quite variable, but unless you live in the marshall islands, somalia, or a few scattered places where things usually aren't the best, chances are your copyright term is at least author's life + 50 years, and most likely author's life +70 years. my question, tildes, is: are terms like that too long? just right? too short? should there perhaps be something with copyright that isn't the case currently, like a difference in term between copyrights owned by individuals and copyrights owned by corporations? what would your optimal term of copyright be, tildes?

i was reading careem's privacy policy (yeah using the app from yeah & didn't read privacy policy yet) & i found they collect almost everything & sharing it with 3rd parties & while dragging down i saw "access your info" section i found they want from you money to send you a copy of your data (WTF ARE YOU KIDDING ME, YOU STEALING MY DATA & WANT MONEY TO REQUEST MY DATA) so its so mean from careem to get money to give you right its already free & its collect your data so its very bad move so i decided to use Uber within browser (in new profile in firefox) to stop uber from stealing my data in phone & to be more safe what guys you think ? browser in more safer right ?

EN version(of pic that says careem need money to send you your data): https://i.ibb.co/LYfqFbn/Screenshot-2019-03-30-20-06-52.png

AR version(of pic that says careem need money to send you your data): https://i.ibb.co/rsnRNzm/Screenshot-2019-03-30-20-11-03.png

Careem's Privacy policy (in case you not trust me xD): https://www.careem.com/en-ae/privacy/ & Ar version: https://www.careem.com/ar-ae/privacy/

Do you believe that some cultures/societies are more 'civilized' than others? What is your definition of 'civilized' / what does it mean to be 'civilized'?
~
If you've studied history and/or anthropology then surely you've heard many uses of the term "savages" to describe groups of people that were considered to be less 'civilized' than whomever was writing that piece.
I was also just reading a book that described in detail some of the really horrible war crimes committed by both sides in the Sri Lankan civil war including but not limited to: raging mobs burning people alive, murder and rape of civilians, use of child soldiers, suicide bombers, etc. Please note that in no way am I considering the people of Sri Lanka as 'uncivilized', just using an example of what seems to be 'uncivilized' behavior.

An initial thought that I had was "huh, I'm glad I don't currently live somewhere where I could be burned alive based on my ethnicity/religion/beliefs by a rage fueled mob of people", but then the history of the western world came to mind - some of those exact same thing happened less than 100 years ago to many non-white groups of people in America, including some things even worse (read: human slavery). From here came a flood of other thoughts poking holes in whatever my initial definition of 'civilized' was. Plenty of things in present-day United States could be considered uncivilized. Yet one could make an argument that a more 'civilized' civilization might be one that allows many personal freedoms.

So, I want to ask all of you what you think of the concept of being 'civilized'. Is it a colonialistic-type term used to promote a higher sense of placement in the world that should be abolished. Does it have any merit in its use? If so, what do you think makes a civilized group of people and does one exist?

I see a lot of posts referencing NY Times articles.

NY Times is behind a paywall.

Are there a large number of folks paying to subscribe to NY Times? Are there other more nefarious methods for reading the occasional article?

In 2016, I was an ardent supporter of Bernie. But come the general, I voted 3rd party, because I was "Bernie or Bust." Many people accuse me of indirectly voting for Trump, allowing "the worst thing ever" to happen (esp since I'm in a swing state that went Trump). But here's the truth as I see it: Voting Democrat regardless of candidate, with their only qualification being "Not Trump," will only increase the USA's slide (deeper) into fascism.

The reality I see is that even if Trump had never entered the 2016 race, 90%+ of the policy, judicial appointments, and everything else that he has done since being elected would be identical no matter which "R" candidate won the race, because all of these things are exactly what the GOP has been doing for decades. In that regard, I consider Trump more favorable than any other R candidate, because he is at least failing to do his "real" job: Hiding fascist, imperialist policy behind a charismatic smile and some clever words.

Ultimately, this is the reason why I don't generally support Democrats either. Hillary's policy wouldn't have been as immediately destructive as the GOP agenda, but it also would not have stopped the march towards fascism. I voted my conscious in 2016, and will do so again in 2020. I just hope there are more people willing to do the same this time around.

I like to picture that the government of the USA is digging a hole. With every shovelful, we're sliding ever closer to a fully authoritarian fascist regime, and the destruction of our planet. While Trump (and the GOP as a whole) has been calling in for backhoes and drills to speed the process....as far as I can tell, only two candidates in the 2020 primary are calling to stop the digging: Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. At best, the other candidates are conveying messages akin to: "We need to compromise with the GOP and maybe slow down the rate at which we allow new backhoes to be brought to the pit."

In my mind then, it makes more sense for 4 more years of Trump, than to allow another center-right candidate for his opposition. Because at least Trump isn't able to pull off the charismatic smile and/or intelligent language that the Regan's, Bush's, Clinton's, and Obama's of the world have that allow terrible things to continue behind a cloak of "incremental change." It wakes up those who would otherwise tolerate these horrendous acts, and perhaps inspires them to become more active. By allowing for the political discourse to end with "Anything is better than Trump", it just permits the overall platform to gradually, but continually shift to the right.

And in my mind, it is the total death of real, dissenting voices in public discourse that is far, far worse than Trump winning another term could ever be.

I would love to hear if anybody else in this community has had feelings akin to what I've described here, as I've only been described as "insane" by most of the people I've discussed this with in person.

I was just thinking about this. It has no basis in evidence or anything, it just popped into my head. Could using terms like POC that are catch-alls for all non-white races cause a rift between white people and POC? I feel like it has the potential to create a kind of "us VS. them" mentality if it hasn't already. Because it's saying you have all the races in the world, and then you have white people. I don't really have an alternative or a solution. It was just an observation I made. Of course, me being white myself, maybe there's just something I'm not understanding. I think it could spark an interesting discussion because people are bound to have many different opinions on this subject.

There is something about new ideas which can potentially change how we live that I love. They do not necessarily have to be good ideas. Take for example Google Stadia, it itself might completely fall apart in 3 years, but competition will start to build and Microsoft might have an amazing service instead. On the other hand, the creation of social media, communication around the world is easier than ever, I don't need to spend absurd amounts of money on international calls. Another example is new jobs, Youtuber is a legit job. Being an Instagram Model is a legit way of earning money because people are looking at the clothes you wear. Of course this has resulted in new problems that we need to tackle, but that is ok too, we have to take it one step at a time. A few examples, are arguably because of social media, fake news is spreading, outrage culture is building, people are doing stupid shit to become viral, and this disconnect with the people around us.

I am not saying disruptive ideas are clearly good or bad, I just find them fascinating.

Hi all! Would you like to share your Mastodon IDs with other ~ so that we can follow each other over there and maybe also help users who, like me, want to get into this new social network but don't know any users yet?

Businesses, especially in tech industry, sometimes have some okay support for clients, but in general the crucial things are walled off.

A simple example: someone in a company decides to place an ad and does that, people see that ad on YouTube, find it obnoxious, but cannot confront the original decision maker directly - they are unknown, unreachable.

Another example: many people used Google Inbox app and then Google discontinued it. Users are unsatisfied. Someone in Google, a person, made the decision. But they are unknown. A user cannot come up and ask them, "Hey you, why did you do that?" and at least get a clear honest answer. There are sugary press releases and damage control in such cases.

I understand that if many of us started a business we would want to wall our decisions off the external environment (users) too. It's a dilemma. But still, what do you think about that? How would you deal with this problem in a different way?

I've been thinking a lot recently about space exploration and colonization, and the big question that's been running through my head has been this: would I be willing to leave everything on Earth behind and go to Mars, even if there was a strong possibility that I would never return home?

Wondering what everyone here on Tildes thinks about that question.

Someone posted an article on a subreddit I frequent. It was an extremely long and rambling hit piece against antifacism, littered with long academic words, written for a completely fake Sociology college in London. While checking the source's reputability, I found out that it's part of what is known as the Neoreactionary movement.

Here's an article about it: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/behind-the-internets-dark-anti-democracy-movement/516243/

Here's a more "fun" write-up from RationalWiki: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Neoreactionary_movement

It's the most bizarre thing. They are basically a pseudointellectual alt-right who quite literally advocate for a monarchy. They are very secretive of their identities and write contrived "theses" under pen names (which, strangely enough, seem to be stolen from actual published academics both living and dead). They think they are a secret society attempting to overthrow existing governments, but in reality they are little more than a collection of fanfic authors.

Has anyone else come into contact with any of them? I am particularly interested if any of our Reddit moderators have anything to say.

I see this a lot on the internet these days. The phrase "just because [some agreed-upon statement], it doesn't mean that [contested statement]."

That's fine when used correctly, but I've seen a lot of cases where it's used in a questionable way and people just jump on board with the phrase anyway.

I saw it again today in a conversation about video games, and one game in particular that everybody loves to hate. Someone said "I enjoy this game though," and someone else said "Just because you enjoy a game doesn't mean it's good."

Now, the impulse is to agree with the second statement because agreeing that there might be hidden subtlety in a matter is almost always safe, and nearly everyone involved in the conversation upvoted/reacted positively to that statement.

But the statement was really used to say "your opinion is wrong because there might be hidden subtleties that make me right," which seems like a fallacious position to me, or at least a pretty meaningless one. And when you stop to think about what was said, you realize that in fact, enjoying a video game might indeed be the most important, if not the only, metric in assessing its quality.

But the inclination to agree with anyone using the "just because, doesn't mean" format is definitely there I think. I'm not sure if that falls under the category of some other identifiable fallacy or not, but I thought I'd see what others thought.

Accelerationism: most of us have heard of it, few of us have read into it, and a fair amount of us have shared memes around it (gotta go fast), but have any of us formed substantial opinions on it yet?

With a variety of authors of various views each weighing in on it, like Mark Fisher and the notorious Nick Land (alongside his genderswapped, trans, slightly less-racist partner-in-crime, Nyx Land); it really does seem to be (slowly but surely) gaining considerable mindspace. Have any of you ever read any works in the genre you adored? If so, feel free to share!

Sleep Paralysis might be one of the most horrifying experiences one could go through.

Personally i had it only once, now about a year ago i think; i really don't know what it was caused by, but i sure as hell am glad it has never occurred since. During my specific episode i was just unable to move - no hallucinations ensued - but it was still one of the worst things i've had the displeasure of feeling.

Now you might be wondering 'if this has happened to you long ago and never had it since, what prompted you to ask about it?'

Well, yesterday i ended up watching this video; now i'm morbidly fascinated by this horrifying yet somewhat captivating condition.

I think we need to be more open in changing our opinions now a days more then ever, or at the very least, open to listen to others. so what was a strong opinion you once had, but has changed since by listening to others?

I have stood on both sides of the abortion debate. I was raised conservative. Most of my family is conservative. But I became more liberal as an adult. In listening to both conservatives and liberals argue their side of the debate they have something fundamental in common: both are motivated by a desire to care and protect. Liberals want to protect the rights, autonomy and health of women. Conservatives want to protect the life of the unborn.

Both sides see the other as monsters out to attack. They think that because the other side works to thwart their efforts to protect, that the other side intends harm. But that's not true. Neither side wants to inflict harm. They may be willing to inflict harm to protect another, but that is not the same as wanting to inflict harm. Those who are pro-choice don't want to kill babies; they want to protect women and sometimes killing the unborn is the unfortunate cost. Similarly those who are pro-life aren't necessarily motivated by a desire to control women*; they want to protect the unborn and limiting some rights of women is the cost.

* This of course comes with some sticky caveats. There is plenty of sexism among many who are pro-life, and plenty of hardliners who think women should be subservient. And those people's sexism does color there views of women's reproductive autonomy. But there are also moderate pro-lifers who otherwise value the rights of women. You don't have to be sexist to be pro-life. Anecdotally the pro-lifers I know personally are in the latter group.

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I have business degree and planning to get masters in political science or sociology. I only had electives related to these fields and I enjoyed it greatly. I know people don't like these programs because of low employment opportunities. So is it good idea to purse them despite low prospects of employment? I know enjoy learning about these subjects a lot. What was your experience like? How are your employment situation? What was your favorite part?

The one thing people didn't learn regarding Trump and is repeating itself with AOC.

When you consider a politician stupid, it actually empowers them to be crafty. I think Trump would love for you to think he is stupid.

When you constantly attack a politician, you actually give them more followers. It's strange, but the Streisand Effect is real, especially in this Internet era.

The biggest weapon in someone's arsenal is to actually just talk about what they are for. Not attack their opponent and give them press. The rules have changed.

As per title. Furthermore: how do you feel about that?

I just realised I haven't told my father I've moved to another city 500 miles away, and in fact, haven't spoken with him for a few months now. This is the case for me because I never really respected him for various life choices he made, as well as being a Jehovah's Witness (he isn't an exclusionary man however, and sometimes I feel like he uses religion as a way to escape how miserable his life otherwise is). My mother, who I love very much, thankfully divorced him 15 years ago.

On the whole, I know my father loves me, but yet I don't feel the reverse. This at times, like now, fills me with guilt because—despite having perfectly valid reasons to not be close to him—fundamentally he is my biological parent and there is always going to be that connection. I don't know how to handle that, even though I'm now nearly 24.

Often at times, like now, it makes me feel kind of sad. And it's often compounded by other various bits of life that make me feel down too.

Does anyone else have similar experiences? How do you deal/have you dealt with this?

Occasionally when I'm getting really into some music or watching videos from my favorite content creators, I'll be stricken with what I can only describe as a flash of inspiration, where I'll really want to do something, but I don't have any of the skills to produce anything, so I'm just left inspired but aimless. Does anyone else get this as well? If so, have you done anything more to channel that?

I have felt lost recently, I have lost my purpose. If anyone feels the same, what do you do about it? Is there really anything to do about it other than forgetting the dread? I don't like being this pessimistic, but I don't really see a way out of it.