Is there an example in sharing a comedy(amusing, causing laughter) NOT at the consequence of something else's tragedy(distress, suffering, downfall)...?

Is there a funny story that doesn't diminish an other?

As I mentioned in the screenless day thread

I was at Cloud Mountain in the woods between Seattle and Portland. This was my 3rd retreat there, and the longest that I've sat - the previous two that I attended were 2 days and 5 days respectively.

There were two teachers on the retreat, fully ordained Buddhist nuns in the Thai Forest tradition of Theravada Buddhism. Ayya Santacitta and Ayya Santussika were both wonderful.

I spent 8-10 hours a day meditating, split between sitting and walking meditation. Other than that, I ate 2 or 3 really tasty vegetarian meals a day, skipping dinner on the last few days (Buddhist monastics were doing intermittent fasting way before it was cool - only eating between sunrise and mid-day). Dinner is always served, soup and bread, but the monks don't eat, and some retreatants skip it as well. And...not much else. Eat, meditate, sleep, repeat.

It was very well done with respect to covid safety - we all wore masks and social distanced. Everyone on the retreat was vaccinated (and this retreat center is making it a requirement starting in September). They took a vote at the beginning that gave us the option of removing our masks since everyone was vaccinated, but the vote to take them off had to be unanimous and it wasn't, so we all continued to wear them while indoors.

ping: @kfwyre and @cfabbro

There are very serious articles about young adolescents being radicalized into fascist movements and personal testimonials of such in YouTube, along with many videos, most commonly by leftists about how this works and very rarely a guess at what to do about it.

There are also often memes about young people entering politics, like this video or this video assuming that and then satirizing how young, presumably privileged people when it comes to social matters (because otherwise bad personal experiences will inform your beliefs and this will be more than a poorly done intellectual exercise to you) flip flop between every political belief like it's nothing, alongside memes satirizing how young conservatives are introduced to their politics by edited clips of what are supposedly SJWs out of context and how farcically (distressingly) ridiculous it is to be introduced to your beliefs by these videos, especially when these sometimes real but extreme regardless examples of the left's presumed irrationality are much less harmful than the conservative extremes.

A lot of this talk and memes concerns or satirizes radicalization of people after they've been politicized and occasionally in the case of the serious articles, what to do with it. But I feel this focuses more on the consequences, which is fine, but not everything worth looking at.

So back to the title question, how do you think someone/people should be politicized?

I think we are all looking to 2021 as a bright spot after the last year has disrupted normal life for basically everyone. Is there anything you learned, or discovered about yourself, or found in the your lockdown routine that you wish to carry forward? Perhaps something that you intend to leave in the "old" way of the world? I'll share my reflections below.

This year has given me ample opportunity to reflect on the things that are valuable to me, particularly because of how much time I spent doing nothing. That isn't to say I wasted my time --- I moved to a across the US, started a new job working full time, spent 10 months of the year researching and writing my Master's thesis and subsequently defending, and started planning a wedding. It was a hectic year, and the downtime was critical.

All of this culminates to the last few weeks, where I have gained tremendous clarity in two places. One, I was gifted this modern and straightforward Bible and another book about craftsmanship. I have found myself reading little sections of both each day. This is a practice I aim to continue through the New Year:

• Reading something in a book, no matter how much or how little, and reflecting on it.

The second item of clarity is that I really miss playing music. So,

• I have decided to learn the piano.

I was deeply steeped in concert music during high school, where my school's band played in national showcases and competitions. I practiced on average around 4-6 hours each day. I let that practice go in college, and am now keen to rekindle it. It helps that during the holiday season I am with my parents, who have an upright piano (that no one ever plays), so I can practice a bit before buying a keyboard of my own.

So, with these intentions, I am not seeking to make radical changes in my life, but rather to spend 30-60 minutes on something that is deeply meaningful to me.

I read the Wikipedia article about "gaslighting" and know it comes from a 1944 film of the same name in which an abusive husband gradually dims the gaslights at home – while denying doing so – to drive his wife mad.

Yet whenever I see the term used (which happens a lot, lately) I can't make the connection. It seems people use it for the simple act of lying or denying something, which to me is mostly just... lying, not "gaslighting". Any kind of stupid, misguided act is getting the sinister "gaslighting" stamp as if it some 5d chess move when it simply looks like incompetence. The core principle of it seems to revolve around having a plan to psychologically manipulate someone but I mostly don't see the plan nor the actual goal. If anything untruthful you say about an important topic is "gaslighting", then the term doesn't seem to have a lot of value on its own. Wikipedia actually mentions "unconscious" gaslighting which seems to contradict its purpose of actually wanting to manipulate someone.

So, given its popularity, I'm curious if there might be a (succinct) definition of the term that helps me understand it properly? Do you think it's just a trendy term to throw at politicians doing shit you don't like? Am I missing an important detail?

This question is inspired by the university of Michigan's grad student union's announcement that it will strike this week. As noted in the university's response Michigan state law prohibits state employees from striking and GEO's contract with UofM (signed in April) has a clause that prohibits work stoppages.

Are strikes performed in violation of the law (state or otherwise) or a contract justified? Why or why not?

One of the favorite subjects of horror sci-fi — right up there with aliens, deadly asteroids and the machines taking over — has always been the deadly pandemic.

One of the things I'm surprised at, is how close so many of those old sci-fi books and movies were. No, there are no zombies (...yet), no enraged psycho-killer chimps ... but on so many of the basics — how it spreads, the incredibly widespread piles of misinformation, all the ancillary political BS, right along with the courageous healthcare workers and medical researchers out there on the front lines, battling for a cure before it's too late ...

and etc.

How about a discussion thread to compare and contrast what the sci-fi got right, and wrong?

ETA: Alternatively, if we've already had this conversation and I just missed it, somebody please point me in the right direction, and then never mind about this thread?

Hey gang!

So it has been a minute! I alluded to my plan to venture off into the woods in prior posts but didn't go into too much detail. Any who, I'm back but not on my own accord.

The reason I ask this question is because it just happened to me. I've struggled with depression and anxiety for going on 15 years, I've talked to a lot of people about it, gotten help, and received a lot of support over the years. I have never had it blow back in my face like it just did. Super long story kind of short:

• I want to offer some context here, that not more than a week prior, my organization had a "getting vulnerable" meeting whereby we were asked (but not required) to share some information about ourselves with our crews. Crews worked and lived together in remote back country settings for months at a time, to be honest it went pretty well. I did not open up too much at the time as I had just met everybody, but eventually I got more comfortable.
• I told the wrong person at my work, my direct supervisor (I was in no danger at any point during my employment, this information was given in a contextual fashion. Because we work so closely together for weeks at a time and also live together, these types of things tend to come out.)
• They told the wrong people (management).
• I was talked to for 5 hours in a closed door meeting with the top brass of the organization (read: interrogated and asked to give a comprehensive psychological background, even though I had already given them a topical briefing during the hiring process.)
• I was pulled out of the field for liability reasons (I openly objected to this, saying that said field was best for my mental health.)
• I was placed on an "in-town" crew that I did not want to join (I openly objected to this as well.)
• I tried to exist on the new crew, but found it immediately and chronically untenable. My new coworkers were OK people, but the stark contrast in personalities between my old and new crew was jarring. Given our line and nature of work, this is super important and there's no way top brass didn't know about this. I voiced this and once again requested to be placed back in the back country at a base camp, I was ignored.
• My mental health began to catch up to me. I did not like my position in life or at work, having to live in the city which is something I came out here to entirely avoid was crushing any and all morale I tried to work up.
• The writing was on the wall. I didn't like it there anymore, and my employer didn't seem to care (despite their claims) about where I was within the organization.
• I voluntarily resigned due to mental health reasons rather than just walk out. The urge to entirely burn this bridge and emphatically explain to them why what they did was so improper was incredibly strong, but I decided not to. This organization is a big name in our field and the field isn't all that big, they stated that I'd be welcome back, I'd sooner clean a peanut butter covered shag carpet with my tongue.

The general mood and sentiment during all of my conversations with staff members could be described as tense. The way in which I was treated during all of those meetings was as though I was a conglomeration of suicidal, homicidal and a direct threat to anybody near me. I could literally see their brains doing very careful dance numbers as they walked over what they thought were eggshells, when at no point was that the case in my view. Their actions, disguised as being motivated by empathy, came straight out of the Harvard Business School of Cover Your Ass. At one point they mentioned they had a psychologist on retainer that they were consulting. I have seen so many damn therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, shrinks and every other name in the book over 15 years. I have never met one that would ever make any absolute statements or suggest any concrete actions before even meeting a patient. Their inability to even empathize with what I had been going through was apparent. At no point did they seem to consider the human in the room, it was always "we appreciate what you bring", "you are a good resource to have", and the worst of all "we hear you, but..." Holy fuck the lingering but was bad. "I'm not racist, but...", dude sit the fuck down.

So that happened within a week or so. There's quite a few more details but I don't want to make the entire point of this post to rant (even though that's what it has turned into.) I am now jobless, homeless as housing was through my work, in an entirely new city to me and floating on savings. It's not too bad to be honest. This is not my first homeless (hobo, vagabond, rubber tramp) experience/adventure, I'm not financially comfortable (I'm on borrowed time) but I'm not broke and honestly I'm in a good place mentally. I've been camping in the woods and I've got everything I need to survive. I'm even super involved in a local activist group, if that's any testament to how comfortable I've become in my current position.

So, does this sound familiar to anybody here? Have you been discriminated against in this fashion? How'd you react? Cope? Where did you go from there? I'd like to hear from others to simply know I'm not alone in this bullshit. I've been in support groups for mental health, and other reasons, but I've never realized the need for this subset of people to seek support. It's been 10 days now and I'm honestly still in shock.

Feel free to get as vulnerable as you want, I won't tell your fucking inept boss.

Tildes has had a couple of threads about podcast recommendations in the past, but most of them are over 18 months old now, and podcasts are always evolving, and we have new members who may not have participated in those threads before—I certainly only picked up podcasts in the last few months.

So. Three questions!

• What podcasts are you listening to?
• What podcasts have you dropped, or picked up, in that time?
• If you had to recommend a couple of podcasts to others, which shows would you pick? Why do you recommend them? Got a favourite episode?

My brother and I have been going at it on if a YouTube channel puts out a video, based around a conversation with either a static image or a simple eye catch behind it, can it be considered a podcast? I'm of the opinion that a podcast is a podcast because it's an audio file, in an aggregator, that can be downloaded to a portable device with minimal fuss. He's of the opinion that the content makes a podcast, and if all podcast aggregators suddenly go under, any audio files with album art uploaded to YouTube would be considered indistinguishable from podcasts, so podcasts can live exclusively in the YouTube space and still be considered a podcast.

Does anyone else have a take on this? Can I use Tildes to definitively prove my brother wrong?

Disclaimer I was going to post this on ~tildes but thought we could have a more casual conversation about it here.

So how can tildes stop corruption from happening on its platform, it’s no secret that other similar websites have become corrupted the best example of this is Reddit they do what advertisers want them to do or who ever is giving them money, only a couple of days ago I saw this video about a guy who was running a cult on there recruiting vulnerable people and they did nothing because he was buying thousands of awards a day.

Tildes doesn’t have advertising and is a non profit with no investors so those are 2 big places it can’t get corrupted from. One place I could see problems is donations I would be interested in if all donations are Anonymous I should probably have looked into them before writing this but maybe someone else knows the answer, if they aren’t what is stopping big donators getting special treatment?

My main reason for this topic is the video mentioned above but I also thought it would make an interesting discussion on here.

I really want to talk about the SCP Foundation with other people, so let's get a thread going!

For those of you who don't know, The SCP Foundation is an online creative writing project where people write fake files and stories about The Foundation, a secret organization committed to containing various anomalous creatures. It's a really cool website, one that I recommend to anyone who likes thrillers, horror, sci-fi, or are just looking for something interesting.

Be warned though, there are over 4,000 entries on the wiki (they just had a 5,000th entry writing contest), so if you are feeling overwhelmed by the number of articles, feel free to start out with SCP-2030, one of my personal favorites. And if you're someone who prefers audiobooks to regular reading, a YouTuber going by the name Brendaniel has a great video narrating SCP-2030.

I've recently been trying to confront the fact that a lot of the things I want to do online work best if they've got some connection to my real life identity (or will eventually, almost by necessity, become connected). Things like working on open source software, writing, etc. almost always seem to lead back to other people knowing at the very least your real name and probably your email address.

I know that my threat model for people going after my identity is a lot different from someone with nation-state level adversaries like Ed Snowden or various activists, but I still find it hard to decide what gets to be connected to what. Do I put my real name on my GitHub account? Do I post things on my GitHub blog to here? Should I have my real name on my Twitter account? What about the fact that some of my usernames resemble each other?

I'm not necessarily looking for advice about my particular situation, but I would really like to hear how other people have dealt with such situations and what you generally think about things like identity compartmentalization.

I'm writing this in an attempt to explain more clearly some ideas about the dangers of having an oligopoly in control of the Web, and the current difficulties of discussing that without being taken as some kind of "free speech absolutist". It's an analogy and, as in any analogy, it's only valid to a certain extent. The important thing is for it to be valid enough to explain a point.

There was a city in which four companies had ended up owning every bar, except for a handful of them in the outskirts. Upon one moment, they started to regulate which kind of conversations could be held in their bars and which couldn't, something they had a legal right to do and felt was their responsibility. So they prohibited any racist, homophobic or sexually explicit conversation, as well as conversations which they thought could carry any risk for society as a whole. Almost no one could really object to that, after all who would defend that kind of behavior? Some far right gangs said it was against their right to free speech, but they were correctly answered that they didn't have any right to determine the conversation policy of bars that weren't theirs.

Others tried to point that, while that policy wasn't inherently wrong and those companies were in their right to implement it, in the past this was dealt with on a bar-per-bar basis, and although the immense majority of bars didn't allow that kind of behaviors, they had different degrees of flexibility about different topics so bars were more varied and diverse, and you were free to choose a bar which conformed to your interests.

But they were quickly accused of defending some supposed right of that people to be given a place to discuss and organize, and sometimes even accused of defending those ideas. "If you don't like how the Four Companies manage their bars, go elsewhere".

The problem is that the far right gangs and other kind of undesirable people, when forced to leave the Four Companies' bars, went straight to the bars in the outskirts, overflowing them. Some of those bars were already owned by far right people, others though the answer to the Four Companies was to keep a more tolerant policy, and were overtook by neo-nazis. The few independent bars that didn't accept to become far right havens were forced to implement policies not that far from those of the Four Companies, or else face a far right invasion. Their clients spent a lot of time discussing wether something was off-limits or not instead of just enjoying a good time like they did before, and those bars were also very small and far away. They were interesting places, to be sure, but they were cut apart from most of the night life of the city, which took place on the hundreds of Four Companies' bars.

But now, there was a growing problem. The Four Companies had started to prohibit other subjects, for several reasons that aren't really important. Some were distasteful subjects, other were against their political interests or the city council's. But, as the far right gangs kept stabbing people and trying to reclaim their "right" to be accepted into the Four Companies' bars, most people thought that the risk they posed weighed more than anything else.

But they were missing the point. In another nearby city, there were never a handful of companies owning most bars. Still most bars didn't allow far right gangs, and discussion was diverse and fun, and sometimes helpful to combat the excesses of the city council and local police. Still, there were some neo-nazi bars, and most bars had one or two unlikable people. Neo-nazi bars sometimes caused trouble and had to be closed by the police, most were not only under police surveillance but under the neighbors' surveillance too. And, as neo-nazis were a very small minority, if you didn't support the same team as the owner of your closest bar, you could go to another bar which supported your team without it being forcefully full of neo-nazis or otherwise disgusting people.

Both cities had neo-nazis and sometimes problems in their bars, although Four Companies' bars were quite more peaceful on average, as they were heavily policed in a uniform and homogeneous way. But they were lifeless too, and lots of interesting discussions and possibilities of neighbors facing local injustice together were lost forever. Everyone ended up thinking the same, watching the same, liking the same sports and supporting the same teams. Bars weren't a fun and exciting place anymore.

This is just an analogy, so it's limited. But I think it explains well my general view and worries on the subject, which have nothing to do with leaving free way to racists and neo-nazis. It has to do with putting an end to the oligopoly before it's too late.

I'll get the discussion started -- I'm somewhat into contemporary art, recently Can't Help Myself by Sun Yuan and Peng Yu.

Mark Rothko is another favorite of mine, hopefully some day I can make it down to the Rothko Chapel.

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

I 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.

I assume most of the people that post in Tildes came from Reddit (or they used Reddit primarily). Does anyone else primarily post on something other than Reddit? As an example, I primarily post on Something Awful. I think what attracted me to Tildes is what initially repulsed me from Reddit. I absolutely hate the idea of my opinion being drowned out simply because it was downvoted. Tildes has a bit in common with Something Awful in that sense. Something Awful is a more 'traditional' format. Each post follows the other and there isn't any mechanic for a community to hide or collapse a post.

Additionally, it seems like the few punishments that occur here are a bit more open and transparent than Reddit. That is similar to SA, where they have something called a 'Lepers Colony' to see punishment reasons. Tildes appeals to me because even though it has a hint of Reddit, the discussions are a bit more focused just like SA.

If you do post on older message board, which ones do you post on, and why do you like it?

Like I mentioned I primarily post on Something Awful (Games and C-Spam subforums). I also used to post on GameFAQs and the resulting spinoff called LUElinks. I enjoyed each of these because they were a little bit more rough than other message boards, but they weren't a wild west like some of the anonymous options that existed.

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

The concept sounds a bit lazy or unintelligent, but for me personally, I struggle with so much anxiety and other mental health problems that I have to filter out political posts, on here, reddit, and elsewhere, or else the weight affects me so badly that I'm put in a bad mood/mindset very easily. If anyone else feels the same way, I ask you this: Does anyone else feel similarly, and if so, how do you defend against the tidal wave of awful things happening seemingly daily?

I was thinking about the intersection of internet privacy and politics. You could even say I was having a bit of a mini-crisis. I like to think of myself as being pretty liberal, but I wondering how that fits into privacy. I was a little upset when I learned that Obama called Edward Snowden unpatriotic. I was kind of thinking that what he did was patriotic. Wasn't the NSA monitoring US citizens without warrants. That's morally wrong right? I think I would be pretty fine with the government monitoring someone if they had a warrant given to them by a non-secret court. I'm wondering if anyone here can give me some insight on this or if anyone else feels/has felt this way.

Hey. I just listened to the Stuff You Should Know podcast about the Winchester mystery mansion and I kind of just wanted to talk about it. Anyone been there? Have any cool facts? Things like that. I just think it's a really cool and interesting place.

Ever since I've heard about how Google tracks you and steals your data and all that, I've been gradually been moving away from their products. With the ones I could live without, like Google search, maps, Chrome, etc. the switch wasn't too bad. But with the ones like Google photos, drive, home, I actually really like these products and I'm not really sure I want to switch away from them. I have so much stuff in my Google drive that I've amassed over the years. It's very easy to use and a lot of my friends/family/teachers use it. I just really like Google drive. Same with Photos. The irony in all this (I'm probably using irony wrong), is that I don't feel good using them because of all the privacy concerns and the like. I'm not really sure what I'm seeking to get out of this. Just kind of wanted to start a conversation. Do any of you have similar feelings about Google products?

DISCLAIMER: The reason I’m writing it is that there are some things I’m afraid to ask IRL to not be labeled as “not woke enough” but I honestly want to learn the whys and hows of some things. Incidentally that’s something I think could be improved in “leftist” circles, because if people feel they can’t say things but don’t get chances to actually change their minds it’s just a bandage and not a solution IMHO (plus this whole idea that people have to be perfect and not make a single mistake is really counterproductive I think). On the other hand, I understand it’s not the job of a minority/oppressed population to educate the “other”, but at this point, my questions are mainly in the edges and all the info I see online is actually not consistent. Hopefully, I won’t say anything horribly wrong lol.

1. My first “friction” is with the whole concept of cultural appropriation. I don't know if you've read the Cosmopolitan article on "don't dress your kid as Moana this Halloween". But that article pointed to another article by a Fiji woman that said it's OK to dress as Moana as long as you don't try to copy traditional garbs, etc.. I usually understand the points of view but in this case (as well as in the recent case of the qipao) it seems that even the affected people don't agree on the gravity of the thing. I've also seen discussions on whether it's appropriate for a white kid to dress up as The Black Panther (obv no blackface) and I've seen more white people saying it's "cultural appropriation" than black people saying that. There are some blatant cases like blackface, or wearing religious/spiritual stuff to a party, or using the “n” word, and it's obvious to me why shouldn’t they be done, but other cases seem to be more about “well if you’re doing this and you’re only doing because it’s cool then it’s bad”. Which I can relate to but yeah, it doesn’t feel very productive.

My usual approach with cultural appropriation and correct behavior is “I’ll do it if I think it’s not offensive and if someone complains or tells me it is offensive I’ll learn and not do it again or ask for permission” (for example I give dap to some black friends who initiated it, but I won’t give dap to a random person I just met). How do you navigate this? How do you navigate the pieces of your identity that you feel are misrepresented (and sometimes ridiculed) and how do you navigate your interpretations of other identities? Since I’m asking controversial stuff, could someone explain to me why drag isn’t offensive? Isn’t it men dressing up as women and taking feminine stereotypes to the extreme? Like, I enjoy RuPaul but I’m always wondering why people find it cool.

2. Speaking of identity, what forms an identity? I mean, if I start going deep then I am the only person with my identity, and I have problems and people hurt me and I hurt people, but we usually get around it by talking, empathizing, and not assuming the worst of each other all the time. But if I look at certain pieces of my identity: I’m poor, I grew up in a violent city, I had to be ultramasculine to survive, I am a woman, I am not white, I have a disability, I have BPD, I know how to code… In each of these facets I have reasons to feel “oppressed” or “guilty”, to feel like I’m a “victim” or to feel like I’m an “oppressor”. But none of these thoughts really give me much to do about it other than masturbating to my self-pity or self-righteousness. Furthermore, whatever all the things I am I’m also a member of a society that I think has the potential to get better if we all row together. So how do we combine the fact that we are all individuals but at the same time we have all these identities that make us feel angry/sad/guilty and at the same time we’re all in the same boat? How do you deal with this?

OK I have many more questions but maybe this is enough for now… Again, I appreciate your understanding and your help!

~talk seems to fit this criteria, but as I browse Tildes to my dismay the majority of content is re-posts of links from external sources. Obviously, there are also quite a few posts which are more than simply URL pastes, and even in the comments of a URL post, there can be healthy discourse happening.

But I am interested to discover whether anyone here knows of any other platforms that are entirely dedicated to written discussion and communication, where external links do not play a big part in that ecosystem of discourse.

Maybe I'm just not very well versed in this sort of thing but I couldn't find anything online. I've always been sort of paranoid that a company might not be truthful in their privacy policy. Is there any sort of law to keep them honest or do we just have to take their word on it?

I saw an AskReddit thread on this recently and I thought us Tilders (is that what we're calling ourselves?) could do our own. The spooky season is approaching and I thought this might be something fun to do.

Since the moderator community here is quite large, I figure we would have quite alot of interesting perspectives over here in Tildes. Feel free to chip in even if you're not a moderator, or god forbid, moderate such subs as T_D. Having a range of perspectives is, as always, the most valuable aspect of any discussion.

Here are some baseline questions to get you started:-

• Did your subreddit take strict measures to maintain quality ala r/AskHistorians, or was it a karmic free-for-all like r/aww?

• Do you think the model was an appropriate fit for your sub? Was it successful?

• What were the challenges faced in trying to maintain a certain quality standard (or not maintaining one at all)?

• Will any of the lessons learnt on Reddit be applicable here in Tildes?