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?

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 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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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?

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!

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 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.

soundtrack for this post

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.

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?

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?

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.

What’s up tildorans, This is more of a thought experiment then anything else, is the impact of consuming calories more or less impactful then producing the electricity needed to power the bike? And I also understand this is extremely affected by circumstance. Let’s say you eat beef 3 times a day and live in a part of the world where power is mostly generated via nuclear or hydroelectric. At that point, would the impact via electricity be less then the one via calories? What if you flip the spectrum and you’re a vegan living somewhere that produces all its energy via coal and oil, how does that affect the equation? Thanks

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.

I'm trying to get onto the podcast bandwagon, and so wondered if anyone can recommend any?

Tech podcasts are certainly interesting to me but anything geeky (tech, gadgets, science etc. as opposed to cartoons, comics, pop-culture - have no interest in any of those topics) would be ace.

Thanks!

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?

I recently uncovered a seeming inconsistency in my thinking, and I thought I’d air it here for people to discuss.

I support secessionists. If the Catalans want to secede from Spain and form an independent country, good for them. If the New Caledonians want to secede from France and form an independent country, good for them. If the people in Western Australia want to secede from Australia and form an independent country, good for them. I don’t believe anyone should be forced to be governed by a government not of their choosing.

Meanwhile, I don’t support individuals seceding from a country and becoming sovereign citizens (or freemen on the land, as they’re also known). In my mind, this is effectively anarchy: if everyone secedes, then there’s no government and it’s everyone for themselves. I don’t support this at all. I’m definitely pro-government.

However, both these movements share something at their cores:

• Secessionists are people who refuse to be governed by a government they didn’t choose and don’t want.

• Sovereign citizens are people who refuse to be governed by a government they didn’t choose and don’t want.

During a conversation today, I realised the inconsistency in my supporting one form of separatism but not the other. I’m okay with a million people seceding from a country, but not a single person seceding. And I can’t find the dividing line, or the principle, which underlies this inconsistency. I know that I believe in government, so a secessionist group must be just that: a group. However, while a group of two million seceding is reasonable, a group of two seceding is just ridiculous.

What are your thoughts? Are secessionists and sovereign citizens effectively the same at the core (or not)? Do you support either or both of these movements? Why or why not?

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.

Hi I am 23 year old and I want leave my country. I hold work visa for Canada. I am convinced that I should leave my country due to political changes happening in my country. What was it like for you? And especially how was it like when you emigrated to a country when you was adult?

I had this idea for a phone that would be a feature phone, but with a Google or an Alexa powered assistant so it could have most of the functionality of an newer phone, but not as many avenues to become lost within it. Probably wouldn't be that big of a market for it, but going off of that idea, what sort of changes would you like in phones to promote less mindless engagement sessions and allow users to better manage their own time. Is this more the responsibility of the end user to manage their own time, or can more be done at an OEM, GUI, or otherwise have these functionalities baked into the phone?

First, I apologize if this is inappropriate.

I wouldn't be surprised if some folks here saw my mention of the "Momo Challenge" and roll their eyes, but after my brother asked me about it, I looked it up last night, and found some interesting stuff happening around it. I guess it's going through a second iteration right now, with supposed images of "Momo," a sculpture of a Japanese witch, and a voice saying to do really graphic stuff. The previous iteration was supposedly messaging a number via WhatsApp, and getting challenges, and threats that if you tell your parents (it's supposedly targeting kids), Momo will get you. The Guardian has a nice write up about the current issue with a picture, you have been warned if you scare easily. Now, she'll tell you to do stuff in a manipulated video. There's even themomochallenge.tk (also spooky if you're sensitive to uncanny sort of stuff like I am), which seems to exist as a way to fluff the story, and asks for what I assume is a requested cryptocurrency transaction (how a kid is going to get crypto to send, I don't know). I may seem like I'm writing something absurd, but this is not in ~creative on purpose, and I feel the propagation of this sort of thing speaks to several problems that may or may not be solvable.

My fascination is with the spread of the idea, and its possible effects. As somebody who occasionally reads the SCP Wiki (not to do with Secure Copy Protocol), I noticed something interesting in the rapid spread of this meme, and am sure sociologists would describe it differently. It behaves (insofar as a meme is an entity with a life or intelligence) in a way SCP would describe as "infohazardous" or "cognitohazardous." They don't mean the same thing: The information is a hazard (infohazard) because you know have this bomb sitting in your lap. You can warn people, but they may go out, see the supposed deaths, and believe it, or you can get a chain of people warning others. In either case, you pass the ball. The meme grows.

It is cognitohazardous for the reason that this hoax, by design, preys on fear. Just typing this, the face is burned into my vision (again, I'm sensitive), I'm home alone, and becoming rather shaky as I jump to look behind me at random noises. The chosen image of the sculpture was selected for this reason, it is deeply unsettling, shakes your rational mind, and you're potentially induced into believing it. I have, in a way, fallen victim to this.

The question comes, going back to my SCP reference: How can this be contained? I'm not looking to start a task force, or enlist people's help, but this is obviously not the first time this has happened with things from Satanic rituals and 2016(?)'s Blue Whale. My mom got swept up by the Satanic thing in the 90s, I watched a video about satanic sacrifices before Halloween 1997, I think, that she got from her church, so I have some experience from the other side. My primary concern is not that children are being compelled to kill themselves, but that the ensuing panic moral panic alone can cause psychological trauma and rampant misinformation. Is it possible to convince believers that something like this isn't real before copycat stuff comes out?

Could be a game, book, movie, song, etc that is generally considered subpar. Personally, I quite like a lot of Eminem's new music, although I know it's an unpopular opinion. It certainly doesn't hit the same highs and there are a lot of stinkers but I still think some of it is quite good and worth a listen despite the circlejerk. I've also been playing Just Cause 4 lately, and although it certainly isn't a masterpiece and I will say the story is below the others, to me Just Cause was never about the story. It's about getting in there and just having fun causing chaos and generally messing around.

In the US the tax rate on the bottom 78% of earners taxes was less than 7%

England has a tax rate for the same income of 11.5%

The top 6% (Avg Adjusted Gross income 514,000) paid $840 Billion of the income taxes

The Bottom 49.1% (Earning less than 45k AGI) paid $97 Billion of taxes, but 27.4 Million Households filled for $66.7 Billion in EIC tax credits

If the taxes on the bottom 78 percent were increased 6% to a level similar to England the USA could have universal health care

The US Spends 3.4 Trillion on Healthcare.

Just 5% of Americans Account for 50% of U.S. Health Care Spending. So taking away the top 5% means the US spends about 5,500 per person. More than UK, but with a long term approach we can tackle that.

1. Saying no to covering all issues. See above. Total cost down to 1.8T

2. Accepting a tax increase

• Doubling the Medicare withholding will provide 500B
• Down to 1.3T

1. Reallocate state spending In 2015, state governments across the country spent a combined $605 billion on health care

• Down to 700 Billion

1. Increase taxes 6% across the board, like those of countries that provide healthcare. 600B in Funding

• Down to 100 Billion

1. 1/3 of expenses in 2017 was payable for hospital room rentals and 21% was to doctor's office billable hours

• Increase utilization to make hospitals & Doctors more efficient so cost can be cut
• 1% reduction in billable hours and room rates Down 100B
• Adjust pricing based on cost savings
• Repeat

If the US had higher taxes for gas we could have a better Infastructure. Using rough math we in 2017 underfunded the highway dept about $21.5 billion

• 40 Cents per Gallon vs 18.4 cents currently
• 33 Cents vs 17.5 cents for Highway maintenance at fully funded for at least the next 5 years
  * 1 Cent vs 0.9 cents Gas Safety and storage. Round it up to a full penny better saftey funds for better clean up
  * 4 cents a new Green energy tax for Green projects
• 2 Cent New Metro Projects tax

$5.5 Billion annual funding for projects, plus using funding not going to covering the underfunded highway dept means who doesn't want to announce a 10 year $250 Billion Green Deal Project. Get States to match it 40/60 and its a $600 Billion Project

$96 a person more and With this Major Cities can tackle major projects and Rural cities can apply for the Metro Funding. $1.5 Billion each state gets on average can be applied however but that's encouraging moving to a Green plan.

The U.S. combined gas tax rate (State + Federal) is According to data from the OECD, is the second lowest (Mexico is the only country without a gas tax).

The average gas tax rate among the 34 advanced economies is $2.62 per gallon. In fact, the U.S.’s gas tax a rate less than half of that of the next highest country, Canada, which has a rate of $1.25 per gallon.

We want to have the European advanced economy of our peers but we arent wanting to pay for it

Inspired by this very fun twitter thread and the very fun metafilter comment thread that came from it, I want to hear people's responses here as well:

What is your weirdest eating/drinking habit you had as a kid?

I'll start: I liked to fix myself a bowl of unsweetened whipped cream with a ridiculous amount of nutmeg sprinkled on top, or a bowl of plain yogurt with broken open pills of acidophilus or other probiotic powder scattered over the top of it. This is a texture I still enjoy, a soft cream covered in a dry, unsweetened powder.

Firstly, I'd like to dismiss any claims of pandering or fishing here. I need to say this and I need to write it out.

I was a reddit user for 8 years. I thought it was 5 but another commenter reminded me what it was. It put me into a bit of a reflective mood. I thought about some of the more meaningful insightful interactions I've had, and some of the more bitterly memorable ones where I was at best annoyed but more recently feeling attacked, shot down, rudely treated. It was profound as a sensitive human being to receive these things, to be made to feel through text, written for you by someone else. These weren't friends, people you held at arms length as you got to know them, they were complete strangers. And these people could be brutal. Make you feel so small. And yet I am a grown man, this environment I spent easily 30% of my waking time on for the best part of a decade was interacting with people and how much I enjoyed it. It was more than a website it was a place that I called home during bouts of depression, social drought and personal hardships. I found myself seeking help and for the most part finding it.

I have learned something valuable that I want to share here and I had to learn it the hard way, through hypocrisy, through mistakes, through mis-spoken words and harsh tongue thrashings both ways. I have realised for the first time that the people reading these things, the people writing them, the sentiments involved and the content/context is important. They are real, they are human, they feel, they are like me.

We are seeking some assembly, some community, some lectern from which to state our case. My whole life I looked for togetherness online and thought I found it in the early days of reddit. That is gone now. Even intelligent well thought out research style posts cannot culminate properly, they do not ascend, the public discourse is dead. I see now first hand the destruction of community the facebook exec spoke about. Our actual confident, open, readily invited opinionated perspectives are being replaced by circle jerks and shallow agree/disagree type statements. Upvotes have become likes. Now I see how it is broken.

Someone saw me having a meltdown and invited me here. I was told it was invite only, and that it was made by someone who had the same feelings as me. I don't want to be surrounded by likeminded people, thats not what I joined reddit for. I joined because open and honest perspectives based on experience were readily available; academics, workers, parents, billionaires, could just shoot-the-shit they didn't need to cite sources or write something popular. But upvotes were reserved for contributors, not jesters or people ridiculing/attacking/berating others. The reddit bandwagon has become savagely toxic in many respects. It is (sorry was) frustrating.

So here I am. Fresh off the boats as a reddit refugee. I hope than I can find my place here and contribute to the discussions, help build the site, build something that hopefully cannot be corrupted by growth, investors and advertisers.

We discussed in the hundred or comments attached to my meltdown that the lowering average age of the site population and possible the general dumbing down of internet users happening the past 10 years was largely responsible. I can imagine previously mentioned factors also drove it over the cliff. What is the current hope for Tildes future? I read the announcement post and it mentioned that a baseline level of activity will ensure that topics cycle regularly and user engagement is high enough to stimulate people coming back. Or that is at least what I think the baseline is for.

I hope this topic starts a discussion and doesn't get moderated away. But the lack of real debate, insight, coupled with a responsive and welcoming attitude is something the whole internet is missing right now, this is where we could make a positive change to the current online environment.

A common topic I've seen so far on Tildes is what exactly differentiates it from other online communities. This doesn't just encompass vision and meta-rules, but also the current state of the forum, and it's userbase. I wanted to propose a possible metric for gauging the quality of a forum, and would love to hear feedback on it. The metric is as follows: when all the content on the platform is no longer realistically consumable by any given member of the community.

I feel like Tildes is still currently at this state, but is somewhat quickly getting to the point where it's unrealistic for any one user to absorb all the content on the site. Once this tipping point arrives, the community has to change. The choice will be between whether one should start consuming all the content on specific sub-forums, like ~talk or ~comp, and ignoring the discussions and other subforums one cares less about, or accept that one will only ever see what is popular overall within the site.

I feel like this falls into 3 main categories: Community, growth, and that "magic" feeling of nascent internet communities.

I think it's important to define what I mean by "information" or "content". Information is meant in the more information theoretic context - it's a more abstract representation of content. It's context specific information that can be manifested as an image, a post, a comment, or even a set of rules. Information is, broadly, what makes up the discussion. If anyone has read Information: A history, a theory, a flood, I mean information in the same way it is defined and used in that book.

1. Community:

When every user is able to see what every other use posts, everyone involved has a singular point of view into the content of that community. It's never sharded or split - the information is distributed evenly, and everyone has close to 100% of it. Everyone might not agree or interpret content in the same way, but the very fact that everyone is seeing the same content, and the information is presented identically, makes it so that there is a very dense set of common ground. It's nearly impossible to "miss" big events - these being singular, really well written comment chains, unique posts, or thought provoking ideas. The sense of community is there because no one is excluded due to sheer amount of information - if someone puts in the effort to see everything, and it's still possible to see everything, they're almost automatically a part of that community.

Once a forum becomes so large that any one person can no longer realistically consume all the content it starts straying towards the lowest common denominator. These are posts that share common ground with everyone, which unfortunately means that you lose that unique community. Most people one site will no longer have seen every single post. You no longer run into posts or comments that are as thought provoking, simply because there is so much content only that which appeals to everyone will make it to the top.

2. Growth:

This ties in closely with what I mentioned above - the growth is what spurs those changes. Once you no longer have that feeling of community, you interact with it differently. You no longer can rely on the same people seeing your content, and the content itself starts decreasing in quality. This isn't due to "dumb" people joining - it's due to the sheer amount of "Information" being generated. The idea of Eternal September is tangential to this - you're not just losing out on community due to a lot of new users, it's also a loss of community due to sheer amount of information.

3. Magic internet moments:

I don't have a good definition of this but I think most people will know what I mean. Every popular online community has these moments - they're the random acts of pizza, randomly encountering someone else from the same site in real life, crazy coincidences, etc. These are often what kick start the crazy growth in the previous post - they're just really cool events that happen because of the internet, and specifically happen on that site. The new reddit book We are the nerds goes over a ton of these in the early days of reddit, and how they propelled it to what it is today.

I wanted to ask the current Tildes community what they thought about this, whether they had any major disagreements, and if anything can be done to remedy this./

This is something I've been grappling with for a while. For context I'm a long time mod on reddit, primarily of r/IAmA, r/damnthatsinteresting, and r/churning. I've helped grow and curate these communities over time, and each is drastically different. The most relevant here is probably r/churning, though.

It used to be that there was a core set of users that contributed all the content. They were known by name, everyone that visited knew who they were, and they built up the hobby to what it is today. All the things that I mentioned above started happening there - the content started skewing towards the trivial questions, new members weren't properly acclimated, and the sheer amount of information caused the mods at the time to implement fairly drastic rules to combat these issues. Once you could no longer realistically consume all the content the community aspect sort of fell apart, and it became more akin to a Q&A subreddit, with new users asking the same questions.

Do you believe there is something unique/special about those "early" users, and what changes have you noticed historically once that "content" tipping point arrives?

Just got curious as to how other people ended up here. Personally, I came across Tildes through random searching on the internet (ADHD) and then learned more about it through Reddit. That said, as a follow up question - What site or platform do you use the most?

Haven't been here long, but I can already tell that there's a great community here and it's a site I will frequent the most. Plus I like the simplicity/layout and the intentions of the developers.

Oof Grandma... Get your head out of your ass woman.(This is in Jest, Grandma knows and thought it was funny. ya'll chill)* Where are you getting your news lately because I just sent you an article from our national news organization and you just told me you can't believe it... Why?

We live and love in the beautiful free country of Canada and despite any individual political leader, we can find comfort in the fact that we have many elected officials that listen to their constituents and ultimately intend to better the lives for our nation. Canada is a mighty developed country and she has designated important bodies to help protect us from the wolves that prey on the weak. We have the CBC a nationally funded non profit organization that has authorship and integrity to the journalists they hire and a long history of helping the truth and redacting and outright dismissing disinformation (now more commonly called fake news). In this article I've sent you, it has sources directly involved in the measles outbreak, including doctors who are licensed through a board that verifies their integrity and ethics and authority in medicine. Also sourced is the CDC; another body that was appointed by Canada herself to keep her citizens healthy and safe, these are not groups of scientists with a vested interest to lie to anyone as that would jeopardize the safety to our entire nature... Yet these highly educated and well funded scientists are refuting your hypothesis grandma.

I think in order to understand what is happening here we need to both step back and ground ourselves in a neutral territory towards a scholarly pursuit and work towards the advancement of our society. To do this we need to frame our perspective to that of a scholar to which I think you and I both agree we are proud to call ourselves anyway. Me, a university student and you an independent researcher: truth be told, as a student of an organization like Ryerson, I have access to a wider breadth of knowledge in our online resources and databases of peer reviewed articles that I can search through with ease, but our goal will be the same and can be achieved only if you think critically with everything you read - you seem well versed in this regard so kudos let's proceed.

As a critical thinker and scholar we are nothing without our authority which is provided through our knowledge-base in factual information. I don't need to be an expert in biology, medicine, or even journalism to be able to have confidence in reading the news article I sent you; but as a scholar I have the ability to verify the authority to the people making the claims in the article. Every person involved in a professionally investigated article are sourced and cited and provide proof to their authority. It's why the CBC discloses their journalists and is also why they'll happily fire them if they fuck up - their integrity is on the line - same with every scientist working for the CDC. Canada does not have a vested interest in the perpetuation of fake news and disinformation, this isn't fucking Russia! (or the U.S. for that matter - Fox news is GOP run television FYI).

This is critical thinking and needs to be understood before you assume authority to the Facebook posts you read. Think of the platform you are getting your news from - Facebook: an American company with a vested interest in advertising to its users. They are NOT a news agency and have zero regulation in verifying the authority of authorship. Anyone can write any shit they like, and the more clicks they get, the more money Facebook makes. In-fact they will happily sell any message you like so long as you're willing to pay for it. I can post just about anything under the guise of "free speech" so long as it does not contain "hate speech" (technically a crime in Canada) and then pay Facebook a couple hundreds of dollars to get that post higher up on my friend's walls. It's how their platform works and regardless of whether a post has been promoted by Facebook themselves or not they are in the business of clicks. In this age of terrorism and fear mongering, the posts, articles, links, and videos that induce the most controversy and fear will gain the most clicks - this is human nature! Facebook doesn't care, they got their money as they are now one of the largest messaging services in the world, second only to WeChat which is a government controlled chinese messaging app linked to their social credit system meant to repress their citizens... hmm...

As Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan famously said in his thesis Understanding Media, “For any medium has the power of imposing its own assumption on the unwary… But the greatest aid to this end is simply in knowing that the spell can occur immediately upon contact, as in the first bars of a melody.” unfortunately the advent of social media has only perpetuated the scaling of the media, the importance of the messages, and the shallow knowledge-base of its users to apply the unwary en masse.

To quote a larger bit of McLuhan to drive this point home:

“The American stake in literacy as a technology or uniformity applied to every level of education, government, industry, and social life is totally threatened by the electric technology. The threat of Stalin or Hitler was external. The electric technology is within the gates, and we are numb, deaf, blind, and mute about its encounter with the Gutenberg technology, on and through which the American way of life was formed. It is, however, no time to suggest strategies when the threat has not even been acknowledged to exist. I am in the position of Louis Pasteur telling doctors that their greatest enemy was quite invisible, and quite unrecognized by them.” (McLuhan was a man before his time., this was written in 1954) “For the “content” of a medium is like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind. The effect of the medium is made strong and intense just because it is given another medium as “content.” The content of a movie is a novel or a play or an opera.
The effect of the movie form is not related to its program content. The “content” of writing or print is speech, but the reader is almost entirely unaware either of print or of speech.”

Do not kid yourself, social media is no different than any other media. The content of the message is NOT the message. Who is posting the dribble and fake news and WHY? understand the author and their authority and you will begin to think critically again. You wouldn't pick up a history book without knowing who authored it would you? Facts are facts, and fake-news is disinformation by another name.

Now to return to our CBC article about measles and your claim that there is a connection to the MMR vaccine which has the potential to cause autism (despite how fucking stupid this shit is, I'll entertain your hypothesis for a moment).

1. Where are your critical sources and statistics to prove any semblance to propose such an outlandish hypothesis? Because I can't seem to find any real ones in my databases here and every time I've asked you for your proof you've failed to provide any.

2. If the vaccine were to cause autism you accept that there is a chance this vaccine may put a child at harms risk. The reality is you are saying you'd rather risk your child potentially getting a deadly disease and potentially becoming maimed and permanently injured through contact with the disease and worse contaminating others and spreading the harmful pathogens to others just out of fear of potentially could get autism... again, supported without any fact or evidence? Janet's post from Antivax-moms facebook group is non an authority of fact and no medical body has rightfully confirmed a case of autism to the MMR vaccine... so where is our proof again? Big-vaccine is out to give autism to our children?

3. By not immunizing your children you are immorally upholding your child's life over that of your nations and against those you interact with on a day to day basis. You are no longer in a small town - we are a massive country with very loose borders so we can invite friends and family to visit. But when we don't protect our basecamp, the wolves will get in. That goes for fake news just as much as it goes for measles. We already have guards on duty to protect our children, our sick, our immune deficient elders and infants from harmful diseases. These treatments work and you and I are the proof in the pudding. Where is this form of tribalism coming from where you would rather "protect" from autism but not measles, mumps, and rubella? These are the wolves we must fight, and we can't let our guard down just because a post of Facebook has a few thousand clicks.

We are in the age of disinformation and globalization, whether we like it or not there are a select few who are controlling the messages we perpetuate online. Unfortunately it's the confusion and lack of authority to the messages that has guided us towards a harmful future that is now killing children all over the world.
https://medium.com/the-method/anti-vaccination-is-killing-children-in-europe-658415c54a04

stop spreading misinformation and think critically. You are better than that... you are a scholar!

I love you, and I hope you take this to heart.

EDIT*
Seeing that the post was more appropriately moved to ~talk I'm hoping I can start a bit more of a dialogue that has unraveled from talking with the rest of my family. I told my internal family about my conversation with Grandma which we've all had by now, we bring fact, she still isn't sure there isn't a bigger picture that she isn't seeing. She's been fed too many stories to really believe the true ones. How are we meant to respond to this? My dad kinda pissed me off, he said it's like pushing on rope and said it wasn't even worth the effort - especially since someone like my Grandmother doesn't intend to have anymore children and all her family members are well ingrained in the Ontario health system... despite his position, we get issues where families are believing information and causing significant harm to our society... what do?

My bad argument style aside, has anyone else felt like they've been pushing on rope lately?

I am a constant lurker in the Apple subreddit but I always wondered if people defend the company so much because they really are rabid fans or are they shills?

Don't get me wrong, I know that some people there can be really critical of Apple but it is still surprising to me the attitude of some of its users.

In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people of low ability have illusory superiority and mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is. The cognitive bias of illusory superiority comes from the inability of low-ability people to recognize their lack of ability. Without the self-awareness of metacognition, low-ability people cannot objectively evaluate their competence or incompetence. (Wikipedia)

Some of my fellow programmers seem to think the world turns around their knowledge as if there was no valid reasoning whatsoever beyond math and computer science. They seem to think logic (a tool with multiple uses which exists since at least 380 BC) is merely an attribute of computer science. It's not uncommon for them to think they can understand the intricacies of every phenomenon under the sun.

I have to control myself to avoid countering each of their flawed arguments. To my own detriment, I'm not always able to do so. I feel surrounded by arrogance and cognitive bias, and have to silence my better judgment in order to avoid constant conflict.

To be clear, I'm not looking for advice, as I already know the "solution", which is no solution. You can't use reason to fight something that is not motivated by reason. I'm posting to know your stories and maybe find some solace in the knowledge that I'm not alone.

Have you ever had to deal directly with people who grossly inflate their own competence, possibly stretching it to an unrelated field? if so, what's your story?

This will probably be controversial, but I disagree with the current password policy. Checking against a list of known broken passwords sounds like a good idea, but that list is only ever going to get bigger. The human factor has to be taken into account. People are going to reuse passwords. So whenever their reused password gets hacked from a less secure site, it's going to add to that list.

Ideally, a password would be unique. Ideally, users should maybe ever use a password manager that generates garbage as a password that no one could hack. An ideal world is different from reality. Specific requirements are going to lead to people needing to write things down. In the past, that was on paper, like Wargames. Now, it's going to lead to people pasting their username and login into text documents for easy reference. That's probably what i'm going to have to do. Was my previous method of reusing passwords safe? No. Will my new method of remembering passwords be safe? Probably not either.

I'm not entirely sure what all the account security is about, either. For my bank, sure, a complex password. I have a lot to lose there. For an account on a glorified message board? There's better ways to establish legitimacy. 4chan, of all places, dealt with this (nod to 2chan), by having users enter a password after their username that got encoded and displayed as part of their username to verify that they were, in fact, the same user.

So the topic for discussion would be, what's the endgame here? Where is the line drawn between usability and security? I may well be on the wrong side of this, but I think it's worth discussing.

Edit: I think there may be some good reasons, evidenced in this reply. I think it was a good discussion none the less, since it wasn't obvious to me and perhaps not to other people.

Edit 2: I'm going to hop off, but I think there's been some good discussion about the matter. As I said in the original post "I may well be on the wrong side of this". I may well be, but I hope I have addressed people well in the comments. Some of my comments may be "worst case" or "devil's advocate" though. I understand the reason for security, as evidenced above, but i'm unsure about the means.

Basically, I'm struggling to arrive to a conclusion on this matter on my own. And in these situations I like discussing the topic with other people so I can see other sides that I have not considered and can submit my arguments for review and see if my logic follows or is faulty.

I apologize in advance for the disorganized ramble format, it's just a very messy subject for me. I guess I could tidy it up better and present it like a mini essay, but it would be somewhat dishonest or misleading to pretend that I have a hold of this horse when I absolutely don't. So, I think the stream of consciousness is a more honest and appropriate –even if messy– approach.

With that said, here it goes:

The way I understand it, the main reason for supporting antinatalism is that there's always pain in life.

There are varying amounts of it, of course, but you have no way of knowing what kind of pain your child will be exposed to. Thus, you're sort of taking a gamble with someone's life. And that, antinatalists say, is immoral.

I used to deeply agree with that sentiment. Now I don't agree with it so much, but I still cannot debunk it. I feel emotionally and irrationally, that it isn't quite right. But, I cannot defend these feelings rationally.

I think, if you're serious about antinatalism, that you are against creating life. Since life always comes with the possibility of pain. And, you cannot just end all the life forms that can feel pain and call it a day; on the contrary: you'd also have to end all the forms of life that cannot feel pain too, since, even though they cannot feel pain, they can create other life forms that can feel pain.

I guess a point could be made to only apply the antinatalist values to humans. Since only we have concepts of morally right and wrong, and animals don't know what they're donig. But we do know what they're doing, and why would you try to prevent other humans from creating life that can suffer but leave other animals able to do it? It's all suffering for innocent creatures, is it not?

I guess we could also imagine a form of life without pain. For example, a future with very advanced technology and medicine, artificial meat, etc. But getting there would mean subjecting a lot of people to a lot of pain. And even in that future, the possibility of pain is still there, which is what makes creating life immoral. It's not just the certainty of pain, but also the possibility of it alone.

So, in the end, the way I see it, being antinatalist means being anti-life. Sure, you can just be an antinatalist to yourself and not impose your values on other people. But if you're consistent with the antinatalist argument, then if it's wrong for you to have kids because they can suffer, it's also wrong for other people and even for animals.

And this doesn't seem right to me. Because, I mean, it's life. And I think ridding the world of life woud be a very sad thing, would it not?

But, again, this is just feelings. If I think about it rationally, the world and the universe are completely indifferent to the existence of life. A world without life, what does it matter? Specially if there's no one there to see it. Nothing makes life inherently better than no life. Since ethics doesn't really exist in the physical world.

It's neither right nor wrong for life to exist. But bringing life into a world of pain does certainly feel wrong from a morality standpoint.

But why is it wrong? We didn't create life. We didn't create pain. The injustice of it all exists not because of us.

But, we do have the power to end that suffering. And if we have the power to end suffering, shouldn't we end suffering? Isn't that what the moral values taught to us say (except for religious communities, I guess)?

You could always say, “well, it's not my fault that life is unfair, and it's not my responsibility to tackle that issue” or “the joy compensates for the pain”. Which might be valid points, but they don't take away the selfishness of having kids, do they? You're just ignoring the issue.

On the other hand, however, there are a lot of people who were born (which is an unfair act), but they aren't mad about it, they don't resent their parents, and they're happy and they wouldn't choose not to have been born. But does this make it okay? I think that it makes it not so bad, but at the end of the day it's still wrong, just “forgivable wrong” if that's even a thing.

Also, isn't it going too far? Applying morality to something so primitive, so abstract, so before morality, something that isn't even human?

But we also say murder, torture and rape are wrong, yet murder, torture and rape have been happening forever since they were first possible, for far longer than we humans have existed. So, how are they any different? If they can be wrong, so can life.

Furthermore, don't we have a right to follow our primitive instincts and reproduce? Allowing someone to “bring a life into a world of pain” is wrong, but so is taking away their right to fulfill their “naturally unjust” life.

I guess, if I was forced to give a conclusion, it would be something along the lines of: Creating life is wrong and selfish, yes. But it's okay because most people don't mind it and it's not really our fault that it exists nor our responsibility to end it. So, tough luck and YOLO?

I'm not too happy about that conclusion but it's the best I can come up with.

And as a corollary: to diminish the unfairness of birth, we should facilitate euthanasia and accept self-check-outs as a fair decision.

So, what do you think?

Is antinatalism right? Is my antinatalism right? Is it wrong? Is mine wrong? Why?

Is creating life fair? Is it not? Is it not but still okay? Why?

In today’s age, we have a wealth of knowledge available on the fly, and a wealth of misinformation too. Every day I see someone on the internet either mis-informed or ill-informed, even with google and research at their fingertips. What is something you wish the general public would actually take the time to learn about beyond a very surface level interpretation?
Many issues can’t be solved based on just surface level knowlege.

My biggest answer is politics in general, because it controls our world yet it feels like 70%+ of people don’t know what they are talking about beyond layman knowlege, and we’ve seen what happens when tons of people set themselves on a belief and even argue for it when they don’t know what they don’t know.

I don’t know anything about politics but even I can see that people are talking out of straight emotion most of the time.

So, i ask you nice tildes’ers Tilderds Tilderotatoes, what’s something you wish to inform us about that most people don’t read into very much? Can be political or otherwise.

It’s a broad question I know, but that leaves room for a lot of discussion.
Thanks for reading

As the title says! I recently got a fretless bass and it's super hard to intonate correctly since I'm used to the frets doing it for me. It's such a weird sound but it isn't bad. I'm learning a few songs on it already and it's funny to me that even if I switch to my fretted bass, that I still try to maintain proper intonation

I came across a site about Chinese tech and video gaming and found it very Buzzfeed-y with its headlines and writing. It made me wonder what are the websites that curate a standard of thoughtful articles, essays, discussion, etc. and aren't part of the American internet scene.

I don't care what language it's in, what it's about, what country specifically it's centered on, if it's community-centric or not. If you have a suggestion, let's hear it.

Edit: An example I have is The Blizzard. It's really a subscription-model digital magazine (about soccer) but you can read various articles online.