• Activity
  • Votes
  • Comments
  • New
  • All activity
  • Showing only topics in ~talk with the tag "ask.discussion". Back to normal view / Search all groups
    1. Thinking about quitting the Internet

      This is an off-the-cuff, stream-of-consciousness post, so IDK how much sense it'll make. This idea of quitting the Internet is not new for me, but it's also never been a serious,...

      This is an off-the-cuff, stream-of-consciousness post, so IDK how much sense it'll make.

      This idea of quitting the Internet is not new for me, but it's also never been a serious, "consider-the-pros-v-cons" plan, either. Just a kind of knee-jerk reaction to seeing things online that remind me (more and more often, these days) that the 'Net is not what I hoped-and-wanted it to be, and it is becoming less like it, daily.

      But in recent months, for me, I find myself thinking about it more, more often, and more seriously.

      For a bit of context, I am a software developer (I guess), 20+ years in the field, more back-end than front-end, but quite a lot of web development, too. And I've been burned out in my field for the last several years, working occasionally, but mostly just living off of savings ... watching them dwindle, while I try to figure out what else to do with my life.

      I also think there is some kind of burgeoning groundswell towards some similar ideas ... many people becoming more and more disgusted with what corporations and governments have done and are doing to it, trying to find some way to walk away from it w/o completely severing themselves from the modern world. The latest generation of AI and the new magic word, "enshittification" are certainly making more people realize that the 'Net is not headed in a good direction.

      I could so easily go into a long-winded rant about "this isn't the Internet we were promised", and yada ... but whatever. It is what it is, and many people are happy with it, and many, many more are just quietly resigned to it being a necessary part of life.

      For many, many years, I have explored online alternatives, the dark web, assorted distributed-network ideals like Hyperborea and IPFS. I keep seeing potentials, but nothing that ever coalesces.

      Again, just stream-of-consciousness here ... anyone else ever find themselves seriously considering this, or something similarly drastic?

      40 votes
    2. "The One Who Is". Who on Tildes recently called God by this name?

      I was recently on a topic and a commenter referred to God this way. I can't seem to find it now. If it was you, or you know anything about this, I'm curious why that phrase? What does it mean? Is...

      I was recently on a topic and a commenter referred to God this way. I can't seem to find it now. If it was you, or you know anything about this, I'm curious why that phrase? What does it mean? Is it associated with a particular tradition?

      Also, is there a way to search for specific text on Tildes?

      22 votes
    3. What learning do you find easy or difficult? And why?

      Recently I have been trying to learn a new language, because I need to more so than I want to, and it's been really tough. While this isn't a shocking revelation, I had a bit of a deep dive to try...

      Recently I have been trying to learn a new language, because I need to more so than I want to, and it's been really tough. While this isn't a shocking revelation, I had a bit of a deep dive to try and think about how and why I don't like learning a language. I do enjoy learning about a great deal of other things in my spare time, why not this?

      So I pose the following questions to you:

      • What kind of thing do you enjoy learning about?
      • Do you find a specific format or type of learning helps you when it's tough?
      • Do you always use the same format of learning?
      • What do you not enjoy learning? Why? Try and explain what it is that makes it difficult compared to above.

      Be interested to hear how different people feel.

      19 votes
    4. On creation for creation's sake

      I want to make a game. ... is what I've been telling myself for the past few weeks. Honestly, I might have subconsciously had this thought for the past few months, if not years. Strange as it...

      I want to make a game.

      ... is what I've been telling myself for the past few weeks. Honestly, I might have subconsciously had this thought for the past few months, if not years.

      Strange as it sounds, I've gone on a weird mental journey in getting to the point where I'm able to acknowledge this desire. I've always had a vague, constant urge to be creative, but for the past few years, this urge has been tied to an outcome: "I want to write a JS library because it'll make for a cool product later"; something like that. Inevitably, having that outcome in mind makes me set a standard of perfection for what the thing is supposed to be, which makes me start planning every piece of the thing, which... tires me out, and then I just don't do it.

      I'd say I've been better about this recently, in that I'll sometimes do one-off things because it seems like fun at the time. Small coding projects that serve no purpose at all. I randomly got into drawing for a week, so the day's drawing for that week. Rediscovering this process has been fun, and it's definitely been fulfilling to just marvel at my work without having to check off boxes for what the thing is supposed to do.

      But now, I've got the idea that I want to make a game. A game isn't a small project, or at least not as small as what I've been working on recently. I'm pretty sure my motivation for wanting to do this is entirely intrinsic: I just want to do it, I don't want to sell it, I don't care if nobody plays it. And yet, I'm still finding it pretty hard to do anything.

      Firstly, I don't have much time during the week to work on this game; I also work full-time. Second, when I do have time, I find it pretty hard to make any progress. A game isn't small, so I feel the need to plan stuff out, even just roughly. Which is what I do at work. So then it just feels like work. I tire of planning pretty quickly, and I think I've come to conflate this tired feeling with burnout at work, so I just stop and scroll on the internet.

      Sometimes I'm able to focus and just write something without planning. It's nice when I'm able to do this, but inevitably I start thinking about the bigger picture... "Okay, the protagonist feels X because the theme I'm going for is Y, which..." and then the planning starts again.

      Anyway, this is all a very long way to say that I struggle with creating for creation's sake, partly because budgeting my time as a full-time laborer is hard, and partly because I have trouble seeing the trees for the forest, so to speak. Have you all ever had to deal with this? I'm curious to know what's helped you, or just your thoughts on the topic/my situation.

      Cheers!

      24 votes
    5. If happy people do nothing?

      "I mean, pain is the ultimate driving force of life itself. Why do we sleep? Because we're tired. Why do we eat? Because we're hungry. Why do we talk to people? Because we fear isolation, etc....

      "I mean, pain is the ultimate driving force of life itself. Why do we sleep? Because we're tired. Why do we eat? Because we're hungry. Why do we talk to people? Because we fear isolation, etc. Just like in the movie Trainspotting (1996), where heroin users drown out the pain of existence with substances. Does that mean if someone becomes overly focused on anything, they feel a stronger dissatisfaction with life? And could this be used against us? Like this quote from the book Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig:

      The world is increasingly designed to depress us. Happiness isn’t very good for the economy. If we were happy with what we had, why would we need more? How do you sell an anti-ageing moisturiser? You make someone worry about ageing. How do you get people to vote for a political party? You make them worry about immigration. How do you get them to buy insurance? By making them worry about everything. How do you get them to have plastic surgery? By highlighting their physical flaws. How do you get them to watch a TV show? By making them worry about missing out. How do you get them to buy a new smartphone? By making them feel like they are being left behind.

      26 votes
    6. CMV: Once civilization is fully developed, life will be unfulfilling and boring. Humanity is also doomed to go extinct. These two reasons make life not worth living.

      Hello everyone, I hope you're well. I've been wrestling with two "philosophical" questions that I find quite unsettling, to the point where I feel like life may not be worth living because of what...

      Hello everyone,

      I hope you're well. I've been wrestling with two "philosophical" questions that
      I find quite unsettling, to the point where I feel like life may not be worth
      living because of what they imply. Hopefully someone here will offer me a new
      perspective on them that will give me a more positive outlook on life.


      (1) Why live this life and do anything at all if humanity is doomed to go extinct?

      I think that, if we do not take religious beliefs into account, humanity is
      doomed to go extinct, and therefore, everything we do is ultimately for nothing,
      as the end result will always be the same: an empty and silent universe devoid of human
      life and consciousness.

      I think that humanity is doomed to go extinct, because it needs a source of
      energy (e.g. the Sun) to survive. However, the Sun will eventually die and life
      on Earth will become impossible. Even if we colonize other habitable planets,
      the stars they are orbiting will eventually die too, so on and so forth until
      every star in the universe has died and every planet has become inhabitable.
      Even if we manage to live on an artificial planet, or in some sort of human-made
      spaceship, we will still need a source of energy to live off of, and one day there
      will be none left.
      Therefore, the end result will always be the same: a universe devoid of human
      life and consciousness with the remnants of human civilization (and Elon Musk's Tesla)
      silently floating in space as a testament to our bygone existence. It then does not
      matter if we develop economically, scientifically, and technologically; if we end
      world hunger and cure cancer; if we bring poverty and human suffering to an end, etc.;
      we might as well put an end to our collective existence today. If we try to live a happy
      life nonetheless, we'll still know deep down that nothing we do really matters.

      Why do anything at all, if all we do is ultimately for nothing?


      (2) Why live this life if the development of civilization will eventually lead
      to a life devoid of fulfilment and happiness?

      I also think that if, in a remote future, humanity has managed to develop
      civilization to its fullest extent, having founded every company imaginable;
      having proved every theorem, run every experiment and conducted every scientific
      study possible; having invented every technology conceivable; having automated
      all meaningful work there is: how then will we manage to find fulfilment in life
      through work?

      At such time, all work, and especially all fulfilling work, will have already
      been done or automated by someone else, so there will be no work left to do.

      If we fall back to leisure, I believe that we will eventually run out of
      leisurely activities to do. We will have read every book, watched every
      movie, played every game, eaten at every restaurant, laid on every beach,
      swum in every sea: we will eventually get bored of every hobby there is and
      of all the fun to be had. (Even if we cannot literally read every book or watch
      every movie there is, we will still eventually find their stories and plots to be
      similar and repetitive.)

      At such time, all leisure will become unappealing and boring.

      Therefore, when we reach that era, we will become unable to find fulfillment and
      happiness in life neither through work nor through leisure. We will then not
      have much to do, but to wait for our death.

      In that case, why live and work to develop civilization and solve all of the
      world's problems if doing so will eventually lead us to a state of unfulfillment,
      boredom and misery? How will we manage to remain happy even then?


      I know that these scenarios are hypothetical and will only be relevant in a
      very far future, but I find them disturbing and they genuinely bother me, in the
      sense that their implications seem to rationally make life not worth living.

      I'd appreciate any thoughts and arguments that could help me put these ideas into
      perspective and put them behind me, especially if they can settle these questions for
      good and definitively prove these reasonings to be flawed or wrong, rather than offer
      coping mechanisms to live happily in spite of them being true.

      Thank you for engaging with these thoughts.


      Edit.

      After having read through about a hundred answers (here and elsewhere), here are some key takeaways:

      Why live this life and do anything at all if humanity is doomed to go extinct?

      • My argument about the extinction of humanity seems logical, but we could very well eventually find out that it is totally wrong. We may not be doomed to go extinct, which means that what we do wouldn't be for nothing, as humanity would keep benefitting from it perpetually.
      • We are at an extremely early stage of the advancement of science, when looking at it on a cosmic timescale. Over such a long time, we may well come to an understanding of the Universe that allows us to see past the limits I've outlined in my original post.
      • (Even if it's all for nothing, if we enjoy ourselves and we do not care that it's pointless, then it will not matter to us that it's all for nothing, as the fun we're having makes life worthwhile in and of itself. Also, if what we do impacts us positively right now, even if it's all for nothing ultimately, it will still matter to us as it won't be for nothing for as long as humanity still benefits from it.)

      Why live this life if the development of civilization will eventually lead to a life devoid of fulfilment and happiness?

      • This is not possible, because we'd either have the meaningful work of improving our situation (making ourselves fulfilled and happy), or we would be fulfilled and happy, even if there was no work left.
      • I have underestimated for how long one can remain fulfilled with hobbies alone, given that one has enough hobbies. One could spend the rest of their lives doing a handful of hobbies (e.g., travelling, painting, reading non-fiction, reading fiction, playing games) and they would not have enough time to exhaust all of these hobbies.
      • We would not get bored of a given food, book, movie, game, etc., because we could cycle through a large number of them, and by the time we reach the end of the cycle (if we ever do), then we will have forgotten the taste of the first foods and the stories of the first books and movies. Even if we didn't forget the taste of the first foods, we would not have eaten them frequently at all, so we would not have gotten bored of them. Also, there can be a lot of variation within a game like Chess or Go. We might get bored of Chess itself, but then we could simply cycle through several games (or more generally hobbies), and come back to the first game with renewed eagerness to play after some time has passed.
      • One day we may have the technology to change our nature and alter our minds to not feel bored, make us forget things on demand, increase our happiness, and remove negative feelings.

      Recommended readings (from the commenters)

      • Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World by Nick Bostrom
      • The Fun Theory Sequence by Eliezer Yudkowski
      • The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch
      • Into the Cool by Eric D. Schneider and Dorion Sagan
      • Permutation City by Greg Egan
      • Diaspora by Greg Egan
      • Accelerando by Charles Stross
      • The Last Question By Isaac Asimov
      • The Culture series by Iain M. Banks
      • Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
      • The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
      • Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
      • This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom by Martin Hägglund
      • Uncaused cause arguments
      • The Meaningness website (recommended starting point) by David Chapman
      • Optimistic Nihilism (video) by Kurzgesagt
      23 votes
    7. “Both-sides” and when is nuance acceptable discourse?

      I feel like some sort of alien asking this question but there is this negative connotation I keep seeing towards acknowledging “both sides” of an argument. Now, I know that things that have...

      I feel like some sort of alien asking this question but there is this negative connotation I keep seeing towards acknowledging “both sides” of an argument. Now, I know that things that have racism, sexism, and violence on one side and do not have such abhorrent views on the other clearly have a “good” side, but I also get the sneaking suspicion that calling something “both-sidesy” in a context where there are not such clear boundaries is a potential manipulation tactic to dismiss nuanced arguments. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Is my dividing line correct or are there other things to consider?

      39 votes
    8. Oh my days! 3.5yr old got his big boy bed.

      My eldest is 17, the other two are 15 & 14. I forgot just how tiring it was doing the switcheroo from cot to bed. Now he can get up. We've had 27 wees, 2 poos and 5 books this evening. We started...

      My eldest is 17, the other two are 15 & 14. I forgot just how tiring it was doing the switcheroo from cot to bed. Now he can get up. We've had 27 wees, 2 poos and 5 books this evening. We started put down at 7:20pm, it's now 9:10pm and I won the war. It took going old school Super Nanny style, waiting for the door to open, scooping up and putting in bed repeatedly whilst staying silent, until he finally burnt out. He did that 19 times.

      It took 3.5hrs 6 days ago, last night he was down in 15 minutes, we thought we had it. Oh, so wrong.

      I'm not after any sleep advice, just ranting. It's a lot harder when you're mid forties doing this than when I was early to mid twenties, that's for sure.

      Feel free to throw me your amusing stories and pains of sleep training a little dude/dudette that's found independence. I could do with a laugh.

      30 votes
    9. How do/did you survive post-war social disarray and unreliable/non-existent supply chains?

      This started as a post on asking about how long you think you could survive a massive supply chain disruption and associated collapse of authorities ability to intervene. But the more I thought...

      This started as a post on asking about how long you think you could survive a massive supply chain disruption and associated collapse of authorities ability to intervene.

      But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to paint a picture of a postwar context. Post-Yugoslavian War, post-Korean War, etc. Also, I don’t know if we’ve had any recent memories of sudden, total plunges into anarchy.

      I wonder if the modern economy has lengthened the farm-to-table too much that no one could reasonably expect to sustain themselves for any longer than they have food in storage.

      What strategies would you use/did you use to survive? Did society break down into roving gangs? If such a thing happened now, do you feel like you could weather the storm?

      You can thank my being snowed in the last few days and watching World War Z, The Last of Us, Book of Elijah, Elysium, the Alone TV series and the Band of Brothers for inspiring this post.

      19 votes
    10. How much does a creator's worldview influence whether you use their tech or consume their media?

      Watching the drama around kagi unfold and it has me wondering how much you take into consideration a creator's view on things like homophobia, sexism, racism, etc. when deciding to use a product....

      Watching the drama around kagi unfold and it has me wondering how much you take into consideration a creator's view on things like homophobia, sexism, racism, etc. when deciding to use a product. I think most of us have a bar somewhere (I would imagine very few on this website would ever consider registering on an altright platform), so where is that bar for you? What about art? Have you boycotted JKR or dropped your opinion about Picasso because they're transphobic and misogynistic respectively? Is it about the general vibe of a product or piece of media, or are you more discerning? What goes into this decision and why?

      48 votes
    11. Why don't we help each other?

      There was a brief mention of the Amish and their self-sufficiency in the Capitalism topic that got me thinking, so I thought that I'd share my thoughts and start another discussion. My...

      There was a brief mention of the Amish and their self-sufficiency in the Capitalism topic that got me thinking, so I thought that I'd share my thoughts and start another discussion.

      My understanding of the Amish way of life - as someone who is probably thousands of miles away from them - is that they are not really self-sufficient insomuch as they are insular. They don't like to rely on the government, but they heavily rely on their community.

      A lot of us here are leftists - some might even go so far as to call themselves socialists or communists. But for the most part we are advocating for government to provide support, and often it's the federal government rather than their local governments. For those of you who do, my question for you is this: why aren't you trying to help out the locals. And I don't just mean your city, I mean your neighborhood or even just your block.

      I'm not talking about things like homeless shelters or nonprofits, I'm talking about mutual aid societies. People are complex; they don't just need things, they need people. They need assurance, motivation, and love. These are things that the government does not provide. The US Surgeon General state we are having a lonliness epidemic right now, and that it's majorly affecting people's health. We've had conversations about the lack of a third place but an even bigger problem is the death of our community hubs. It might be a good thing that people are getting less religious, but losing the church was a much bigger hit than people give credit.

      We've had many comments in the past deriding "slacktivism". When you throw your voice into the void, you have no real power. But if you put your voice into your town hall, you have tremendous power. Giving money to the government is like having one billionth of a difference to a great many people, but helping out a person in your community is a huge impact in their life which might be the one thing they need to stop them from falling off a cliff. I don't think you'll find anything more socially gratifying.

      I titled this "why don't you", but I'm also very much interested in hearing from people who do community work why they do and how they manage to fit it into their lives.

      72 votes
    12. What is there to do anymore?

      I’ve noticed that when I’m not at work, I’m at the house and even when I think of going out, I can’t think of anything to do. I enjoy going to the movies, but that’s pretty much the only getting...

      I’ve noticed that when I’m not at work, I’m at the house and even when I think of going out, I can’t think of anything to do.

      I enjoy going to the movies, but that’s pretty much the only getting out I do. When I hang out with friends, it’s typically to bars, but I’m feeling unfulfilled drinking to drink.

      What is there to do?

      57 votes
    13. On media outlets frequent use of the term "Iranian-backed"

      Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthi rebels in Yemen, and militias in Iraq and Syria. Whenever western media outlets speak of these groups they seem to prefix the term Iranian-Backed. I'm...

      Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthi rebels in Yemen, and militias in Iraq and Syria.

      Whenever western media outlets speak of these groups they seem to prefix the term Iranian-Backed.

      I'm starting to raise my eyebrows a bit at how universally the term is being used. It feels almost mandated. My understanding is these are indeed supported financially and materially by Iran, but they also very much operate independently. So the extent of the relationship is unknown or at least debated.

      Does this strike anyone else as odd or suspicious? Is this use fair and justified?

      My mind can't help but wander to the laying of a propaganda foundation for direct conflict with Iran.

      23 votes
    14. How do you deal with socialization during the Holidays?

      The Holidays by the end of the year are a time for meeting a lot of family members that we may not have seen for a long time. For a lot of people, this a joyful moment of relaxation where they can...

      The Holidays by the end of the year are a time for meeting a lot of family members that we may not have seen for a long time. For a lot of people, this a joyful moment of relaxation where they can enjoy the company of those they love. For others, this can also be a stressful period, when tensions, trauma, and insecurities related to family relationships emerge, often in unexpected ways. Different people experience those events in vastly different ways.

      Are you more of an introvert or an extrovert?

      What does Christmas (as well as other events with a component of "forced" social gathering) mean to you?

      How did you manage it this year?

      Is this usually a happy time for you? Why?

      16 votes
    15. We techies are responsible for "You'll own nothing, and you'll enjoy it."

      This hit me while watching the latest Gamers Nexus video discussion with Wendell, and Steve recited the quote. It's often brought up as the inevitability of modern product ownership as company...

      This hit me while watching the latest Gamers Nexus video discussion with Wendell, and Steve recited the quote.

      It's often brought up as the inevitability of modern product ownership as company executives push profit-first practices like subscriptions, licenses and anti-right-to-repair designs. However this neglects the fact that these systems don't come from nowhere - they have to be built by programmers, engineers and designers.

      I don't know if those same people support right-to-repair and freedom to manipulate what you buy in their private lives (or if they have even thought about it), but it seems like every techie I speak to does support it, yet somehow these things keep getting made.

      I want to try and escape my bubble about this. I don't believe the engineers are powerless against the executives - if the engineering community works together and don't backstab, I think these systems can be prevented at the technical level and never see the light of day.

      What happens at these notorious companies (John Deere, Apple etc.) that I'm missing? Is the lure of money too great? Is the threat of being back stabbed too large?

      41 votes
    16. Thoughts on anti-Zionism?

      I have been pretty consistently pro-Palestine and critical of injustices perpetrated by Israel, but the anti-Zionist stance has always seemed to me to be counterproductive. On the issue of just...

      I have been pretty consistently pro-Palestine and critical of injustices perpetrated by Israel, but the anti-Zionist stance has always seemed to me to be counterproductive.

      On the issue of just the legitimacy of the state of Israel, here's my basic stance: All land controlled by all governments was taken at some point through conquest (this is not a whataboutist stance, it's a tautology), but in the post-colonial era we all decided that might isn't right and that a mixture of international law, norms, and democratic principles should dictate the legitimacy of territorial claims. So, the Ottoman empire fell. The British seized control of the land of Palestine and retained a moderately weak mandate over the land (moderately weak in the sense that they were the essentially undisputed administrators of the land and had a military presence, but the territory would likely try to break away if the British tried to exercise significant control over it). With this moderately weak mandate, they pushed for the creation of the state of Israel that, by extension, I would consider a moderately-weakly legitimate state under the pre-WWII paradigm. Israel fights a defensive war against the Arab states and succeeds, converting the state of Israel as defined by the original 1948 partition plan from a weakly legitimate state into a properly legitimate state. At this point, the post-WWII frameworks kick in, and all the developments in the conflict past this point should be a function of that lens (ie. Palestine wrongfully denied sovereignty, illegality of settlements, etc.).

      Zionism, in the most basic sense, is the belief in the creation of a Jewish state of Israel. There are more extreme and moderate versions of it, but that's all that it is at its core. Anti-Zionism is opposition to the creation of a Jewish state of Israel (I would not consider opposition to settlements or, strictly speaking, even to the accession of new territory into Israel proper past the 1948 borders after the two wars to be anti-Zionist itself). The anti-Zionist stance before the establishment of Israel was reasonable, but past that point is primarily a claim of one nation over the land of another nation. It's perfectly understandable at the end of the day for the Arabs and, particularly the Palestinians, to be upset about the whole situation and even to feel that a great injustice was done unto them. But that should all be relegated to the world of international affairs between established states. Ultimately, in my eyes anti-Zionism is not anti-semitic, but it's definitely anti-peace.

      36 votes
    17. Have mass migrations ever happened for positive reasons instead of because hardship or lack of opportunity in their home countries?

      Just as a preface, I am not making this post because I oppose immigration or want to turn away imigrants, much less those who can't live safely in their home countries, I just notice immigration...

      Just as a preface, I am not making this post because I oppose immigration or want to turn away imigrants, much less those who can't live safely in their home countries, I just notice immigration and misery seem to be intimately related, and it honestly makes me wonder if a world without misery is also a world without immigration, at least in the form of mass migrations of a specific people group or type of person. I also recognize that more immigration and cultural diversity does have a wide variety of benefits, regardless of it's causes or motives, and that leaving your home for some faraway country looking for some high-end job not present where you live is definitely not the fault or problem of the person migrating.

      I've been thinking about immigration recently and it kind of astounds me just how much of immigration happens because of misery, Colonialism or oppression. Here's a pretty broad and varied list of mass immigration phenomena and (as I understand them) their causes:

      • The USA has a southern border crisis (to some extent because Republicans like to exaggerate it to justify their xenophobia and so on) because Mexico and Latin America as a whole are much poorer than the USA (something the USA itself shares a good deal of blame for) and thus want to come to the USA, with illegal immigrants often doing so by any means necessary.

      • Europe (and Turkey kinda) has an Arab migrant crisis because of the (mostly) failed Arab Spring and Syrian Civil War destabilizing the region or plunging it into war, forcing million to flee to Europe, which is in large part responsible for this crisis seing as (West) Europeans colonized the whole region and set much of the stage for conflicts.

      • A large share of white people from a variety of different ethnic groups in the USA were fleeing oppression or misery in Europe (and the ones that were not came here to colonize and oppress the natives):

        • Quakers fleeing to the USA due to British persecution

        • Irish-Americans coming to the USA in largest amounts following the Potato Famine

        • The height of German-American migration to the USA followed the 1848 revolution's failure to make a more liberal and united Germany

        • Meanwhile, Black Americans, after being forcibly migrated out of the African continent to be enslaved, fled the US South in the millions starting around the 1920s as this was the nadir of race relations and the heights of the Jim Crow age. White flight to the suburbs (another large migration) was one of the main northern responses to this influx of black people.

      • In early 20th century Brazil, the government encouraged immigration from European countries and Japan to them in large part due to a need for cheap labor still unmet a few decades after the end of slavery and as a way to make the country more white. Many of the European migrants were poor workers looking to make a better life for themselves.

      • Zionism arguably owes it's existence and success to centuries of anti-Semitism in Europe and it's culmination in the Holocaust, alongside a sympathetic British Empire and UN being able to simply lease most of the Levant that they had colonized to a new Jewish state. This is layered on top of the fact that the reason Jewish people even left the Levant in the first place was oppression by several different foreign empires for centuries since antiquity. The modern state of Israel also owes the largest share of it's Jews from neighboring middle-eastern countries which also expelled them due to their own anti-Semitism.

      • In the middle of the 20th century in Brazil, millions of Brazilian northeasterners migrated to the Southeast in search of economic opportunity they lacked (and to some extent still do) at home, as well as fleeing drought in more rural zones. Notably, in the 2010s we have seen many of these people return to the Northeast following Lula massively helping the Northeast develop over his first presidency in the 2000s. For a personal anecdote, both of my mother's parents did this, and brought my mother to where I live in São Paulo, and then they also went back to the northeast in the mid 2010s.

      • Virtually the entirety of the Global South and also Eastern Europe suffers from Brain Drain, where their most educated people leave in search of better opportunity and higher incomes in developed countries and the multinationals they possess. Much of the USA's legal immigration and economic power in spite of it's numerous flaws is owed to this.

      • Somewhat similarly, most Western European countries have one or more large communities of people who originate from a country they had colonized as an empire. (The USA also owes much of their Filipino American community to owning them despite it not being the same colonialism as practiced by the British on the USA or by Spain.)

      Looking at this fairly long list of examples, I have to wonder if there are mass migrations that happened because of more positive reasons or if any of these already existing mass migrations can be explained by more positive reasons?

      25 votes
    18. Just passed my PhD defense :)

      Yo everyone, I'm fresh from the first good night's sleep I've gotten in awhile. I'm ecstatic to finally be finished (I took a longer road than most) and just felt like chatting with you fine...

      Yo everyone, I'm fresh from the first good night's sleep I've gotten in awhile. I'm ecstatic to finally be finished (I took a longer road than most) and just felt like chatting with you fine folks.

      Getting that dissertation done was a real challenge and while I'm happy I finished before George R. R. Martin finished the next ASOIAF book, I have a lot more sympathy now for him or anyone who has to write something lengthy.

      Anyone else in a graduate program or recently finished? To those who have gone through the process, what'd you do immediately afterwards? I'm in the middle of a job interview process so I can't quite take a vacation, but I am planning to stick at least a full week somewhere where I travel and do nothing.

      Tonight, I'm going to relax and watch The Magic Flute opera with friends which I've not done before.

      142 votes
    19. Brainstorming - Is it a good idea and if yes, when will be a good time, to publicly promote the concept of nonprofit and small scale social media - an what would be good methods/strategies

      Every nonprofit organization I have ever worked with does some form of publicity/public relations to support their mission. Many have speakers bureaus of volunteers who give talks about what the...

      Every nonprofit organization I have ever worked with does some form of publicity/public relations to support their mission. Many have speakers bureaus of volunteers who give talks about what the organization is doing. Many work to get articles written about their mission and efforts.

      I think more could be done to remind people and inform people of a few things about nonprofit and small scale internet sites. For example that the early internet was centered around universities not corporations and marketing, that news organizations such as NPR and the BBC provide a valuable counter perspective to corporate news organizations, that nonprofit sites including Lemmy and Kbin and Mastadon and Tildes exist, to remind people that you can add forum or blog to a search to find small scale content and more. The point would be to make the case publicly that nonprofit and small scale internet sites 1. are still possible and viable, 2. already exist (insert several examples) 3. and and should form part of a strategy to resist corporate monopolies/dominance and create more diverse conversations and communities online.

      What are your thoughts? I'm curious about timing, (will there be a better future time?) about possible methods and strategies and about whether this is something some members here want to think about.

      17 votes
    20. Do you think dreams have meaning?

      Asking because I have been having such vivid dreams lately and sometimes they touch me so much to the point that half a day, sometimes even the entire day, will be negatively affected - although...

      Asking because I have been having such vivid dreams lately and sometimes they touch me so much to the point that half a day, sometimes even the entire day, will be negatively affected - although that might also be my poor mental health (decided against posting this in ~health.mental as I wasn't sure it had that much to do with it).

      I definitely have more bad dreams when I'm in a bad place or going through things, like if I feel lonely I will dream about relationships. If I've been really into something, like a game or watching a lot of the same genre of tv or film, I will dream about things towards that genre. If I'm having interpersonal issues, I will dream about those and even have conflicts and fights in my dreams very much related to that person - I have so many nightmares about my father for example.

      I'm not into astrology, tarot cards, witchy stuff, etc., beyond it being just for fun. And I feel like dreams are more along those lines although I don't know. I just know they can really affect me.

      What's your take?

      24 votes
    21. Do you all ever wonder about this "five star" or "best" mindset?

      (Still trying to figure out what to post on this site; sorry if this is a bit abstract.) I'm not sure what to call this culture, but it's the culture that dictates everything must be 4-5 stars or...

      (Still trying to figure out what to post on this site; sorry if this is a bit abstract.)

      I'm not sure what to call this culture, but it's the culture that dictates everything must be 4-5 stars or its nothing. There is a "best" dropship identical item on Amazon. There is a "best" hole in the wall restaurant. There is a "best" takeout place near you. There is a "best" way to do things.

      It's not about "laying flat." Laying flat, as far as I understand it, is purely about not caring about the "best" professional life. What I think about is about how algorithms of "best" dictate what we watch, do, and consume, yet they are tied to false perceptions of what "best" can bring us and sometimes plainly false reviews. For example, you can have the "best" meal, but your actual best meal is the ramen place you went to when it was raining and the original restaurant you tried to go to was packed. It's completely unplanned and not thoroughly algorithm'd (though not calculation-free); it is the organic best that found us. Something about the sense of discovery can really just blow you away and surprise you.

      I remember reading an article years ago about the joy and randomness of someone curating a collection of CDs, the way you could thumb through and look at the covers, and the whole "discovery" of it.

      45 votes
    22. Is acupuncture, like, legit now?

      I remember a time when acupuncture was universally condemned as bogus pseudoscience, and I was under the impression that that remained true. However, looking for negative takes on acupuncture on...

      I remember a time when acupuncture was universally condemned as bogus pseudoscience, and I was under the impression that that remained true. However, looking for negative takes on acupuncture on YouTube is almost impossible now. Almost everything is overwhelmingly positive, including content produced by medical doctors. I could only find a few negative videos. They were short, not very good, and not very popular.

      This is a sincere question: am I really out of touch, or has everyone gone crazy?

      Anecdotally, I did acupuncture without believing in it, and it didn't do anything for me.

      30 votes
    23. Why are people weird around babies?

      I mean, I love my kid, but why do people have such an explosion of emotion when they look at a baby that is not theirs? As if it was something they desire so deeply that they can barely contain...

      I mean, I love my kid, but why do people have such an explosion of emotion when they look at a baby that is not theirs? As if it was something they desire so deeply that they can barely contain themselves? And why do they must express this emotion using words like "I wanna bite it", "I can't handle the baby smell!", "I just wanna eat it!", or "Yummy!" like they're the Cookie Monster and my kid is a cookie? Every time someone says those things -- usually women -- I imagine a man saying the same things, and it grosses me out. Why is it okay for women to say those things when a man cannot?

      I genuinely feel nothing for babies that are not my own, so it is hard for me to understand.

      Mods: please don't move this to ~life. This is meant as a causal conversation and should remain in ~talk. Thanks.

      35 votes
    24. Switching from short-term/immediate thinking, to long-term thinking

      What I mean by short/immediate thinking vs. long-term.. let's take the experience of learning a new skill (for example, riding a bike). In the beginning, the skill is difficult as you're carving...

      What I mean by short/immediate thinking vs. long-term.. let's take the experience of learning a new skill (for example, riding a bike). In the beginning, the skill is difficult as you're carving out those new neural pathways in your mind. It's grating, unnatural, uncomfortable. It seems that the rational way to think about this experience is "yes, it feels uncomfortable right now, but if I keep attempting this, eventually the discomfort will lessen, and it will get easier. It won't be like this forever." For myself (and I assume some others?), I instead get stuck in a mindset of only seeing the present moment: "this sucks and therefore it will always suck!" Yeah, I can catch myself thinking this way and correct it to consider the long-term, but that's not my default. My default is short term, now, only now.

      You could expand this to so many things: enduring temporary struggles and not letting them get you down (the situation isn't permanent, it will change), not partaking in addictive behaviors (deciding not to do something that might feel good, because you're considering the long term consequences), procrastination... list goes on and on. To me, it always seems rational to consider long term impact of your actions. If you don't, it seems you're blowing off this entire swath of information which could/should inform your decisions in the present moment.

      On the flipside, I'm not saying you should only think of the future and disregard the present... just when making decisions, it seems better to consider both, that's all..

      I have been trying for 10 months to change this about myself, yet I continue to slip back into this pattern of constant "now" thinking. I know it leads to irrational decisions. I'd love to hear others thoughts on this. Have you struggled with this? If so, how did you manage to overcome these thinking patterns? For anyone: are you more naturally a "now" thinker, or are you lucky enough to naturally consider the long-term, or maybe you bounce between both? I have no idea if this is a common experience, or if it means something is inherently irrational about the way I think.

      30 votes
    25. What's your honest opinion about people who are not afraid of asking for what they want?

      Apologies for the wordy title. Generally speaking, I do not hesitate to ask for things - needs, wants, help - especially in a professional context. I realize though that most people are not like...

      Apologies for the wordy title. Generally speaking, I do not hesitate to ask for things - needs, wants, help - especially in a professional context.

      I realize though that most people are not like me, and I think it would come across as a bit narcissistic if I started asking my acquaintances and friends about their perception of me. It's a bit of a self-serving question even here, but oh well.

      In any case, I turn to you: what is your honest opinion about people that ask for what they want? Do you have a positive or negative perception of them? Or maybe you can share some interesting anecdotes.

      27 votes
    26. Do you believe the world is controlled by competing interests, or do you think there is a "power elite" that controls the world from the background?

      There are lots of localized ideas about who runs the world, like oligarchs in Russia or billionaires in America or Rupert Murdoch and his media empire, but if there was anyone coordinating the...

      There are lots of localized ideas about who runs the world, like oligarchs in Russia or billionaires in America or Rupert Murdoch and his media empire, but if there was anyone coordinating the activities of these disparate groups I would think it would be someone doing things without a public presence, so as not to draw a target on their back.

      I've seen this idea alluded to a lot, but never really fleshed out before.

      41 votes
    27. The impact of an accent on charisma/persuasion

      Five years ago, I moved from the southeast US to the northwest. I took my southern accent with me, and, as far as I know, it's been fine. I've been able to get work, make friends, and mostly...

      Five years ago, I moved from the southeast US to the northwest. I took my southern accent with me, and, as far as I know, it's been fine. I've been able to get work, make friends, and mostly function as normal.

      My accent is light. It doesn't sound southern to other southerners, but it does sound southern anywhere else in the US. People who have commented on it say they like it (but what else would you say, I guess 😅).

      But I'm about to take on something that will require me to be persuasive. I'm wondering what Tildes thinks: will my accent diminish my ability to be persuasive? Should I try to train my accent out and develop a more neutral accent?

      I find myself torn. On the one hand, a southern accent could immediately call to mind the stereotypes of the south: stubborn people without much education. Maybe it makes sense to let that go and start on a more level playing field. On the other hand, my time growing up in the south is part of my history. It makes me unique and maybe the upset expectations (if someone hears me and expects me to embody those stereotypes I mentioned before) could make me more memorable.

      I generally don't like the idea of filing the rough edges off things, especially when those things are people, but at the same time, I have goals I want to achieve and I'm willing to do what it takes to reach them. So, what do you think?

      Edit: I appreciate all the comments so far! For a little additional context, I want to be active in local politics. Not trying to run for office or anything. Not sure exactly where I'll be taking that on yet, but it won't be in the south.

      41 votes
    28. Is keeping Donald Trump in the 2024 US election beneficial to Democrats?

      Yes, Trump has a real chance of winning in 2024 and that would be dangerous for the world in many ways. On the other hand Trump seems like the easiest candidate for the presumptive nominee...

      Yes, Trump has a real chance of winning in 2024 and that would be dangerous for the world in many ways.

      On the other hand Trump seems like the easiest candidate for the presumptive nominee President Biden to beat.

      1. A lot of Americans are rightly scared shitless of Trump and will turn out to vote against him.
      2. Trump is likely to try to dodge debates which benefits Biden, who has a stuttering problem and a gaffe problem.
      3. Trump is elderly, like Biden so that somewhat neutralizes the age issue for Biden.

      If Trump was removed from the election DeSantis might become the front runner or nominee

      1. He is young, and the age issue would be on Biden again
      2. He might have the debates Trump would have eschewed and do well in them
      3. DeSantis would likely pick up Trump's base in that situation

      The worst scenario with Trump being removed from the election would if someone other than DeSantis became the nominee

      1. Again, the age issue would be a thing for Biden again
      2. The unknown nominee could be a better debater than Biden
      3. The unknown candidate would have neither Trump's nor DeSantis's baggage, causing more voters to stay home or swing voters picking him/her over Biden

      Edit:

      To clarify, I mean what would happen if Trump was kept entirely out of 2024 - no 3rd party runs, no vote splitting.

      45 votes
    29. Have we become programmed to be "too materialistic"?

      Let me start by boiling this idea down to a couple of phrases that I've heard online. The first is one you've probably seen around here a few times; the idea of "Enshitification"- which i think...

      Let me start by boiling this idea down to a couple of phrases that I've heard online. The first is one you've probably seen around here a few times; the idea of "Enshitification"- which i think basically boils down to "paying more and getting less". I know there's a better definition of it out there, but this is what it means to me: because of inflation and greed in general, things that used to be free or low-cost are not only becoming pricey, but their quality is degrading too.

      Which brings me to the next point: between subscription services that basically say "you don't actually own this; you're just renting it", and otherwise being unable to afford things, in... other places... online, some were saying "Oh, at this rate, the new slogan will be 'You'll own nothing and be happy about it!'"

      Also, I'd better bring in some context for the next part: I was able to leave the US, and am currently living in Asia. Which means I'm coming into more contact with various East Asian philosophies. And as I examine these philosophies, I have to ask "Is owning less ACTUALLY a bad idea?"

      Now, I realize that in many ways this turns into an Eastern vs. Western philosophy argument. For starters, the idea of "individualism" and "you have your own stuff" is very central to Western ideology in the first place- to brush on a tangent with political ideology, I think part of the reason why words like "Communism" and "socialism" cause such a freak-out is because they bring up this idea of "Wait, I have to SHARE something? No, it's MINE!" (plus the extreme example of sharing toothbrushes is always used, and I think everyone can admit that's just gross and disgusting... but I digress). In fact, some of you may remember the phenomenon that came out several years ago with Marie Kondo and minimalism- an idea that in her home country of Japan is very commonplace, but in other places like the US was a totally foreign concept. I expect some very major geographical differences also played a part in why this mindset was received very differently in the two countries. To be more specific: Japan is a small island country (especially when compared to the US), so the Japanese have to be VERY mindful of space; whereas America has TONS of space, so people keep buying crap to fill said space.

      Anyways, this brings me to my next point: there was a survey done within the last year or so about what places were the happiest. I don't remember exactly which country ranked the highest, but I do remember it was a Scandinavian country. But more to the point, the reason why they were so happy basically boiled down to "We don't have a ton of stuff, but we're very happy with what we DO have." When I read that, my immediate reaction was "Well, no wonder places like the US are miserable- we're always being pushed to Buy More Crap, with a good dose of FOMO mixed in."

      Now, let me fully confess something: even though I'm talking about maybe having too many material possessions is what makes us miserable... well, some of my biggest hobbies involve collecting things. For the one most relatable to Tildes, I have TONS of videos games for a variety of systems that are on my "I'm EVENTUALLY going to play and beat that game". Other hobbies of mine involve new things being available to buy, with many people saying "This is a MUST-HAVE!". The good news is that at least recently, I'm not buying some much of this kind of item.

      So... all this idea to say that people are becoming more miserable and depressed. There's no doubt a variety of factors are involved, but it seems to me that if we bought less crap, some things would start changing (and a few things possibly breaking), and maybe we'd be a bit happier. Of course, this completely goes against the Consumerism idea that is heavily pushed in America, but maybe that's a GOOD thing.

      54 votes
    30. Anyone else feel/used to feel that they will be alone both platonically and romantically, forever?

      I have cptsd and comorbid-depression, am gay and trans, and i have bad social skills (i cant even maintain eye contact with someone). I feel completely hopeless for the future and i just wanted to...

      I have cptsd and comorbid-depression, am gay and trans, and i have bad social skills (i cant even maintain eye contact with someone). I feel completely hopeless for the future and i just wanted to know if anyone else here related, or if they've recovered. Thanks
      Edit: Thank you all very much for the great responses. Maybe i'll make it :)

      37 votes
    31. What are your thoughts on the European Union centralizing into something more akin to an early United States

      As a preface, this comes from the perspective of an American looking in on Europe. I'm curious in particular what any Europeans (please include your country of origin/ethnicity if you feel so...

      As a preface, this comes from the perspective of an American looking in on Europe. I'm curious in particular what any Europeans (please include your country of origin/ethnicity if you feel so inclined) feel about this post and the future of the EU.

      Europe is a unique region, to put it lightly. The extremely high level of development relative to the rest of the world over this last millennium as well as so many technological innovations in that period of time led to a Europe ready to exert its influence upon the rest of the world. We can comfortably say that, while examples do still exist, colonialism as an institution has largely faded. Europe is a much more varied continent culturally and ethnically despite a space roughly equal to that of the USA. We've all heard the common sayings about 200 miles is long in Europe where 200 years is long in America and generally speaking that does hold true.
      That said, Europe in the modern era really does feel like many small countries functioning as one big entity with the European Union. The EU has only gained credibility and legitimacy and it is now the institution I expect to hear from on matters within the EU first, even ahead of any individual nation state.
      All of this to say, I think a united Europe is the strongest possible future for Europe. No individual state in Europe is large enough to exert an influence upon the world without the rest of Europe behind them. Globalization, while diminished in recent years, is still happening and I don't see a decentralized Europe as "winning" globalization as dozens of individually tiny states.

      I could continue writing, but I think you understand my position. Now I would like to point to the article I found that really made me think about this, here.

      I would also like to ask, what do you see Europe and the European Union standing for? Should it continue to centralize or is the current level of control enough? Too much? I didn't mention Ukraine or defense in this post but obviously that has a huge impact on all of these questions and I would love to hear if that has impacted your perspective on this admittedly grandiose idea for a united Europe.

      People from all countries welcome to discuss, but please do mention your country if you feel comfortable doing so!

      Edit: More reading for anyone interested.

      53 votes
    32. Is there a name for the "this is not who I am" defense?

      Basically as the title says. I'm a big proponent of "judging people by what they do, not what they say"; it has been one of my most unshakeable life mottos and I can't, for the life of me, grasp...

      Basically as the title says. I'm a big proponent of "judging people by what they do, not what they say"; it has been one of my most unshakeable life mottos and I can't, for the life of me, grasp why or how someone with even a modicum of intellectual honesty can believe otherwise.

      I'm very interested in the nature of the mental gymnastics going on inside the people who defend themselves with such statements.

      Thanks folks !!

      EDIT: rephrased for clarity

      44 votes
    33. Why I cannot take a holiday... Work!

      I have a very senior role inside of a 450 person company, in IT. I'm not going to be too specific but it's in the TV industry. I state this because anyone that works in TV probably knows it's full...

      I have a very senior role inside of a 450 person company, in IT. I'm not going to be too specific but it's in the TV industry. I state this because anyone that works in TV probably knows it's full of hot heads and technically inept people. I have a very small team of two in the UK looking after four sites, a couple of guys in the US too, looking after almost pure remote folks, they're mostly cloud.

      Every time I go on holiday and as the most technical and senior person, some shit happens that ruins my break. I've had everything from ISP issues caused by finance not paying the bill so we had a site cut off, through to a show not being able to be delivered to channel on a deadline of hours which meant I had to step in, no matter where in the world I am and on what vacation.

      I'm away again. Today, 10am, ping after ping about a site outage. Servers unavailable. Telephones not working. IT have failed again. The usual email chains and Teams/Slack chats that start pointing and poking. Absolutely furious and away on a family break I ignored it for the youngsters to solve, it should have been an easy fix. But no, the information given to them was wrong. The diagnosis handed to me incorrect. A cancelled ISP contract kicked in but we have multiple site outbound connections so that should not effect us. The site to site link goes dark for this particular site. I finally get THE CALL. I'm not going to rant too much as it gets technical but there's only so much that can be done from a phone VPN over a poor quality cell connection when you're somewhere between a wooded area a beach, and all you have on you is a 6" android device. I eventually got hold of my US senior tech who spent a four hours trying to direct the UK youngsters on what to touch, where to look. Turns out, some people randomly plugged in a switch, a NAS with DHCP server on and then managed to loopback the network using two ports of a SIP phone over the weekend as they had no clue what they were doing and eventually the network gave out. Spanning tree is not as good as it should be. We're a small team and due to always being overridden in protocol I've never been allowed to MAC address deny by default even though we're often a hacker target. BYOD is rife and it's getting harder to not lose data.

      Anyway. Another day of my vacation ruined, time I should have spent concentrating on my family and having fun, building memories. The seething email I have sent to the board will go down like a lead balloon, I cannot wait to read the responses on Monday! Deny is going to get enabled by default or I'm going to resign.

      So I ask you, how many others like me are there in here that work pushes in to your personal time, every time you try to get away from it?

      48 votes
    34. Do you think news media even exists today as a separate pillar of democracy?

      There used to be a time some decades ago when media was often touted as a separate pillar of democracy, as in it was supposed to keep checks on the govt of the day. Mass Journalism was a...

      There used to be a time some decades ago when media was often touted as a separate pillar of democracy, as in it was supposed to keep checks on the govt of the day. Mass Journalism was a professional branch of study or course in universities (probably still is?) and it used to be highly principled. In fact, being principled was often thought of as a quality of journalism more than anything else!

      But in today's world, I see that changing a lot. Most media houses across the world are state controlled media, you can see it from the kind of stories they come up with, etc. More than that, media has directly become a function of electoral politics, you'll hardly find any content which relates to society or the ordinary working class human, as separate from electoral politics.

      You'll hardly find any media house vehemently or openly criticizing its own country's govt (though funnily, each will be criticizing other countries' govts and/or based on ideology!). Even when the criticism is there, it's in a very controlled and nuanced form. It's not so difficult to make 2+2 equals 4 here?

      This didn't used to happen in earlier decades. When I grew up watching Doordarshan TV, there was hardly any news at all in India - except for that one 9:00 PM news show which came once every day, that was in fact a quiet and peaceful world to live in! This constant bombardment of political news has become a problem. I think, we need news which is people centric and talks about the issues of working class citizens. Do you think such a kind of media will ever evolve?

      17 votes
    35. Does anyone remember the population clock/timer that came on Doordarshan channel in 1990s?

      Disclaimer: This post is written in the context of India but also relevant globally today in many other countries. Millennials who lived in India in the 90s era will recall that growing population...

      Disclaimer: This post is written in the context of India but also relevant globally today in many other countries.

      Millennials who lived in India in the 90s era will recall that growing population used to be a serious problem back then, in fact to such an extent that they used to highlight the number of kids born every second and displayed a population timer every morning.

      Now, don't you feel it's strange that at 90 crore it was such a serious problem but at 140 crore, it's not even discussed today? Each time this topic comes up, it's cleverly deflected by holding some minority responsible for it. But there is a need for a serious debate for this today and to understand the consequences of a society with over burdened population.

      Any serious economist or socio-religious scholar will tell you that growing population is the root of all problems in society, be it illiteracy, crime, corruption, nepotism, religious extremism, etc., these are all resource allocation problems if you think about it. Too many mouths to feed will eventually make people prioritize at all roles and positions and many of those will be left out, this will eventually result in increased polarization between the "haves" and "have nots" in society - which is pretty much a recipe for disaster in longer term.

      However, the above situation is a fertile ground for the political class (rich politicians, industrialists, motivated journalists, etc.) as both dumb vote banks and cheap labor is supplied plentifully with a growing working class. This is the reason you'll never see this topic discussed in popular narrative or on any TV channel. They want us to live compressed lives in small ghettos, that's the environment that creates cynical people filled with ignorance who can then be easily prodded towards a certain agenda with fear mongering. Look at the distrust we have developed towards other people in the last two decades? Today, we would rather trust a govt. issued ID like Aadhar or PAN card than trust a live person. Shows like CID and Crime Patrol which pushed the subtle narrative that the unknown person you're about to meet could be the worst scammer in known history were also responsible for this.

      Narratives like these create the kind of distrust and polarization in society which become fertile ground for politicians to then do their thing. They tend to arm twist our psyche into thinking that the authority is always the "good guy" whereas people are the "bad guys" which isn't a very healthy thing for the society at all. But in order for this to happen, ghettos with over burdened population must be created.

      A lean population will be well-educated, thinking and progressive. It will tend to reject the idea of authoritarianism and start thinking about real change in society like better living standards, technological progress, etc. For this very reason, the problem of overpopulation will never reach mainstream journalism or even youtube journalism. For this very reason, smart cities will ever remain a distant promise, they will never actually materialize. For this very reason, big tech and corporates will ever remain in select ghettos/metros like Delhi/Mumbai/Bengaluru, they will never go to smaller tier-2 cities and build stuff there. The moment they go there, this ghettoization and authoritarianism will stop and that will be a problem.

      But I really hope that at least some people will have the vision to see the larger picture of what's going on and start doing something about it, or at least start acknowledging that over population or ghettoization is a problem.

      4 votes
    36. Do you think life was better in the past?

      I've seen discussions on here about nostalgia or nostalgic moments. It seems not only in this site, but others find themselves reminiscing about a time long passed. I've seen it popping up more...

      I've seen discussions on here about nostalgia or nostalgic moments. It seems not only in this site, but others find themselves reminiscing about a time long passed. I've seen it popping up more and more. Some brush it aside as people being nostalgic about a time when they didn't have to work, but I find myself thinking that the increased rise of people reminiscing about the past is because the quality of life and/or the world itself feels so much worse than it did in the past. I've done this as well, too many times.

      What're your thoughts on this?

      43 votes
    37. What's something you want to understand the appeal of?

      Is there something you just don't get? Something that you have no idea why people like it? Something that baffles you personally, but clearly not everyone shares your neutral-to-negative feelings?...

      Is there something you just don't get? Something that you have no idea why people like it? Something that baffles you personally, but clearly not everyone shares your neutral-to-negative feelings? Now's your chance to ask.

      Here's the way it works:

      1. Someone names something they want to understand the appeal of.
      2. People respond, doing their best to convey why they (or others) like it in a way that's understandable to a skeptical audience.

      This can be anything: musical genres, food combinations, personal habits, life experiences, etc.

      Importantly, this is NOT meant to be a thread about grousing about what other people like. Think of it less as "telling people to get off your lawn" and more "why do those people like to spend time on my lawn in the first place?"

      109 votes
    38. IAMA 3rd year Ph.D. student researching the cell biology of the Rice Blast fungus, Magnaporthe oryzae, and preparing for my candidacy qualifying exam. AMA.

      Hi Tilders! I am new here, but my experience with the community thus far has encouraged me to post an AMA. I've specifically decided to post this AMA in ~talk rather than ~science for more...

      Hi Tilders! I am new here, but my experience with the community thus far has encouraged me to post an AMA. I've specifically decided to post this AMA in ~talk rather than ~science for more exposure, and because I am hoping to field questions ranging from scientifically well-read to less-read, technical to curious, why care to who cares, and everything in between.

      I won't be posting "verifying proof", because like many of you, I love my anonymity here. However, I will include peer-reviewed citations to question answers when I feel it necessary. I will do my best to share free-access articles, but this won't always be possible. If I link an article of interest to you that is paid-access, message me; maybe, I may be able to get a copy to you. Also, please be patient for my replies. Even though it is summer where I am, I am still busy in the lab and thoughtful responses take time.

      Here is a brief background on the Rice Blast fungus to help get the conversation started:

      Rice is an important staple food consumed by nearly half of the global population Khush. 2005. From 10 - 30% of the annual rice harvest is lost to disease caused by Magnaporthe oryzae, which is enough rice to feed greater than 60 million people Skamnioti and Gurr. 2009. To cause infection, a three-celled asexual spore called a conidium attaches to the rice plant's leaves, stems, and even roots. Once attached, a germ tube emerges from one of the three cells and grows along the surface of the plant. Hydrophobic molecules on the plant surface, called hydrophobins, induce a developmental change in the growing germ tube. The growing germ tube tip begins to form a dome-shaped structure called the appressorium. This specialized structure swells and generates up to 80 Mpa of pressure, enough to penetrate kevlar. A penetration peg penetrates the plant cell tissue, and bulbous invasive hyphae colonize the plant cell tissue. The fungus keeps the invaded plant cell alive, while it consumes its nutrients, with the plant cell dying only when the invading growth moves to an adjacent cell Cruz-Mireles et al. 2021. Schematic.

      The Rice Blast research community focuses on all stages of its development. My work is focused on nuclear division during different developmental stages, and I am specifically working on understanding which and how motor proteins are involved in nuclear division in this fungus. Understanding the nuclear dynamics and the involved machinery will hopefully open avenues for controlling the plant infection and reducing the global crop loss.

      I hope you all find Rice Blast interesting, and I hope I will be able to answer many interesting questions!

      40 votes
    39. Can someone please explain like I'm five how or whether the energy needs for technical civilization in the future can possibly be met?

      So from earliest childhood, I have experienced that from time to time the electrical grid becomes unavailable for use and it can take days or even weeks to restore service. I'm having trouble...

      So from earliest childhood, I have experienced that from time to time the electrical grid becomes unavailable for use and it can take days or even weeks to restore service. I'm having trouble comprehending the scope, scale and plausibility of what changes would need to be made to increase the electrification of everything in the way that is being pushed by policy advisors.

      Everyone is pushing electric cars. I think it's a great idea, but I have questions about how the grid can support it.

      People tell me that the next big advancement in the workplace is going to be the incorporation of artificial intelligence. Doesn't AI require servers on a massive scale? How plausible is it for AI to reach all corners of society and economy on our existing grid or reasonable expectations for plausible improvement of the grid?

      The banks seem to be lobbying for the substitution of electronic accounts for cash. Again, electric power is not always available. Also some people who need to use money don't have homes and can't reliably charge electronics. If I remember correctly the payment system went down in Canada a while ago and people without cash were out of luck.

      What insight can you share with me?

      37 votes
    40. What are your experiences with leadership and ego?

      Does leadership imply ego? Does it require ego? What are good characteristics of either? Can leadership be altruistic? Can ego and altruism co-exist? Or do all leaders function from a place of...

      Does leadership imply ego? Does it require ego? What are good characteristics of either? Can leadership be altruistic? Can ego and altruism co-exist? Or do all leaders function from a place of self-interest?

      I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences on this.

      19 votes
    41. How do you cope with situations beyond your control?

      Specifically you and your methods. And that which is beyond your control could either be on the macro scale such as community-wide or worldwide events, or the more personal side of things such as...

      Specifically you and your methods. And that which is beyond your control could either be on the macro scale such as community-wide or worldwide events, or the more personal side of things such as family, friends or complicated relationships.

      I personally am desperate for distraction right now as a result of crisis with my younger brother. It's beyond my control now (though it never really has been) and it's difficult to focus in this period of waiting. For a while, I found some distracting solace in Diablo IV, actually, because the game teeters just enough into mindless action that it keeps me from overthinking. But I need to be working right now and cut through the noise. I am certainly curious about other methods from other folks.

      Edit: Thank you to everyone who took the time to share your stories and advice thus far. It has truly been helpful and, in a way, creating this post and reading these responses felt like a method of coping I didn't expect.

      30 votes
    42. What do Tilderinos theorize regarding the Mandela Effect?

      I came across this phenomenon naturally once again when I saw an article asking why people thought a cornucopia was once a part of the Fruit of the Loom logo, going on to describe the Mandela...

      I came across this phenomenon naturally once again when I saw an article asking why people thought a cornucopia was once a part of the Fruit of the Loom logo, going on to describe the Mandela Effect. I was flabbergasted as my mother frequently bought me this underwear brand throughout the 90s and I distinctly remember the logo being that way. Specifically as rendered in this image. The company says this was never the case and yet thousands remember it to be true and more disturbing still, there are articles going back decades that describe the logo having a cornucopia. (Conspiracy theorists call this 'residue', or the lingering of the 'truth' after some psychic or interdimensional catastrophe)

      Now with other cases of this phenomenon, I'm skeptical. So what if so many kids misremembered how a childhood book series was spelled (Berenstein/Berenstain) or misattributed when a famous person died.

      This Fruit of the Loom one rocked my world. Is this mass hysteria? Government conspiracy? Time traveler interference? Parallel universes colliding?

      I'm not really sold on any of it and normally I'm a skeptic who believes in rationality and generally agrees with Occam's Razor. This underwear logo though...it scared me.

      33 votes
    43. Let's talk nostalgia

      Greeting everyone, first time actually posting on tildes so try and forgive me for any shortcomings as it's hard to tap out paragraphs on a mobile device. So I wanted to ask you all, when you...

      Greeting everyone, first time actually posting on tildes so try and forgive me for any shortcomings as it's hard to tap out paragraphs on a mobile device.

      So I wanted to ask you all, when you think nostalgia what specific idea or memory comes up for you?

      When i give it some thought my specific memories of nostalgia are of the late 90s early 2000s. I picture a freshly constructed suburban neighborhood where there are no fences built yet, no trees planted or grown, and just grass everywhere - giving it a very liminal feeling. I reflect back on the hours spent outside until after dusk where the amber glow of the street lamps brought a feeling of warmth and coziness on a warm spring evening.

      I also think about the technology, or lack thereof, at the time and how we used it. Beige computers transitioning to black ones as the 2000s crept up, using your big toe to turn them on, playing runescape or Sims Deluxe Edition mindlessly for an unhealthy amount of time etc. I think about the connectivity we had to each other, no smart phones, a wild west internet, and in my case a house phone with a kilometer long cord so that grandma can call europe with calling cards for hours on end while she tangles us all up with the cobweb of wires.

      The list of memories can go on forever, but now I turn it over to you guys/gals.

      30 votes
    44. Near-death experiences

      This weekend, my spouse and I were hit by a car that missed a stop sign and crashed into our car head-on. It was the most terrifying moment of my life, and both of us thought it'd be our last. We...

      This weekend, my spouse and I were hit by a car that missed a stop sign and crashed into our car head-on. It was the most terrifying moment of my life, and both of us thought it'd be our last. We ended up ok, but it definitely shook us. I feel immense gratitude to be alive and breathing right now.

      What near death experience have you had, and how has it impacted your life afterwards, if at all?

      29 votes
    45. Free Talk Tuesday

      This is a thread for random topics you’d like to discuss that don’t warrant a whole post. Just had a great meal? Got a wink? Flat tire? Rant about your ex? Shower thought? Go!

      28 votes