testfactor @ testfactor @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

You say it's "your reality" and "what you have seen," but what do you mean by that? Are they just platitudes?

You've never seen anyone change? You've never seen anyone work hard at something and improve?

You say, "if I had been born somewhere else," but do you think there's a single place on earth that doesn't have someone who feels the exact same way you do? I promise you that from the richest suburb in America to the poorest straw hut in Africa, there are people who think that the reason they don't have love is because of their circumstances and that the whole world is against them.

So what makes you different from them? Why would you succeed if you'd grown up in those places instead of where you are, even when others don't? Why haven't you succeeded growing up where you are, even if others have?

Once again, I promise I'm not trying to be a dick. I just want to understand you.

It seems that you're operating under the belief that being a good person means you deserve a romantic relationship, or that being a bad person should disqualify someone from having a relationship, but that's flawed logic.

That belief is as well founded as believing that, because you are a good person, you should be good at the guitar, and that bad people shouldn't be able to be good at the guitar.

The only real factor that determines guitar skill is the amount of work you put in to it, and the same holds true for relationships. If you don't put the work in, you won't have a relationship. And anyone who tells you relationships aren't hard work is lying to you.

On a separate note, you frame self improvement as "becoming someone else," but understand that it's not like you're a different person. Habits aren't who you are. Beliefs aren't who you are. Hobbies and proclivities aren't who you are. You are who you are. And that's true if you're the person who chooses to self improve, or the one who doesn't. You're you either way, for better or for worse.

You've implied elsewhere that you don't believe that you can change. That the way you are is the deterministic result of your life up til this point. Is that an accurate representation of your position?

If so, other than because you feel like it's true, what evidence do you have? Have you tried making an active effort to change? Do you even want to?

I'm genuinely not trying to be a dick. I just wonder if the reality is that you want to change, but that that's terrifying, and it's more "comfortable" to tell yourself that it's impossible, so it wouldn't matter if you tried anyway.

And look, I'm sympathetic to the feeling that it's "safer" and "easier" to be miserable where you are than it is to try and do something else. The "potential unknown misery" is always scarier than the misery that you're living with now, and especially when you're battling depression, it's easy to just cave and fall back into the same rut that you keep walking.

I'm just asking that you really consider the idea that you can't change, and examine why you believe that. I imagine that, under scrutiny, you'll find it based in fear, not facts.

I agree with you, but this is an "anti work" community, and there's a substantial part of the movement that is techno-utopian and is actively arguing for the dissolution of work in general.

Sure, of course it's better with people who have a phenylalanine allergy, lol. That's like saying peanut free candy is better for people with a peanut allergy.

The kidney thing, I'll note that your source says it "may be" better, but it's also worth noting that aspartame has had 50yrs of studies against it, and in huge volumes (largely driven by the sugar lobby in the 80s and 90s). It's the most studied food additive in the history of the FDA and has never been meaningfully linked to any sort of major negative health issues.

The acceptable level of intake for aspartame is 50mg/kg vs 5mg/kg for sucralose, and the list of potential side effects is shorter, with sucralose including "diarrhea" and "muscle aches" in the list.

Healthier how? Every independent study comparing sugar substitutes I've ever read puts aspartame as the healthiest/safest.

I don't agree, but I've also literally never seen a sex toy for sale in Walmart. Like, is that a thing?

Tbf, the bill targets "retail stores," not specifically Walmart.

Sure, but he'll be replaced by another boss. Then another. How many should be assassinated?

I have. I've worked on a campaign for my local congressperson (at the time) whos platform I believed in. I met them through the campaign and got to know them personally. They won and are still serving in Congress today, and have done a good job over the years in my opinion (though I've since moved states and lost contact).

It was shockingly easy to get involved. Literally just approached them when they were starting up their campaign and asked to help. I knocked on doors and helped at campaign events, and I like to think that my contributions (and those of people like me) helped to get them elected.

And, as I say, they were someone that I had the personal cell number of and could contact when I had concerns.

First, I think you're completely underplaying all the huge gains people have made over the years by doing exactly what I'm talking about. Especially at the state and local level.

But yeah, if you think I'm defending the system as perfect and unflawed, of course not. Of course most people don't want to have to dedicate their life to fixing the system. Of course they have other priorities. Kids, illness, etc.

And of course killing a man in cold blood is easier than spending years or decades fighting for the change you want to see.

But I've seen change accomplished by people who believe in the law and civic order. I've seen people make the system work. It is possible.

It's not easy. It requires someone to basically make it their life, and that's certainly not for everybody. But it can be done. And if you're at the point where you're throwing your life away by shooting a man in the middle of a NYC street, there are better ways to use your life than that.

The issue is you're telling people not to complain in response to someone saying "randomly murdering United Healthcare workers is ineffective and evil." It's an implicit approval of the murder, even while acknowledging that it won't change anything. It's a pretty rough look, even if that's not what you intended.

But, for suggestions that might work, get involved. Campaign for stricter regulations on the insurance industry. Call your congressional representatives. Run for office and work your way up the system, or become friends with someone who is and help them on their campaign. There's any number of ways to make a difference that are better than shooting a man in the middle of the street.

Have I missed something? I feel like the NYPD is investigating this the same way they do every murder.

Sure, the media is covering it like crazy, but I haven't seen anything to indicate that the NYPD is doing anything different than their norm. And the NYPD can't exactly control what the news covers.

At worst they've been told, "hey, there's a lot of scrutiny on this one, so give it a little extra attention," but that's not "millions of dollars" they they otherwise wouldn't have spent.

If I don't have a solution, I have to agree with murdering people?

That's like if, in order to drive down the price of diapers I just started killing babies, then when you said that was evil and ineffective I just responded with, "oh yeah, well do you have a better idea, or are you just here to crap all over mine?"

All that said, yes, I do have plenty of common sense suggestions for reforms to the healthcare system that don't involve me murdering someone in cold blood, as it turns out.

I mean, I guess it depends on what you mean by coexist?

Unless this is intended as a call to murder all unpleasant people I guess.

The real infuriating thing in this picture is the order of the books.

Putting them out 1, 2, 5, 4, 3 should be an actual crime. Like, straight to jail.

He still had more of the popular vote than Harris, it was just they were both less than 50% due to 3rd party votes. So neither had a "majority" of the vote.

So he still would have won, even under a purely popular vote based system.

To be clear, because the headline I think is a bit misrepresentative. Trump still has over a million more votes than Harris. He just no longer has over 50% of the votes cast.

It's like 49% Trump, 48% Harris, 3% Other. So Trump still won the popular vote.

This isn't a "the Electoral College screwed us" situation. He still "won" the popular vote. He just didn't win a "majority" of the votes cast.

In 1962 Phillip K Dick put out a book called "Man in the High Castle." In it there was a scene that stuck out to me, and seems more and more relevant as this AI wave continues.

In it a man has two identical lighters. Each made in the same year by the same manufacturer. But one was priceless and one was worthless.

The priceless one was owned by Abraham Lincoln and was in his pocket on the night he was assassinated. He had a letter of certification as such, and could trace the ownership all the way back to that night.

And he takes them both and mixes them up and asks which is the one with value. If you can no longer discern the one with "historicity," then where is it's value?

And every time I see an article like this I can't help but think about that. If I tell you about the life and hardship of an artist, and then present you two poems, one that he wrote and one that was spit out by an LLM, and you cannot determine which has the true hardship and emotion tied to it, then which has value? What if I killed the artist before he could reveal which one was the "true" poem? How do you know which is a powerful expression of the artist's oppression, and which is worthless, randomly generated swill?

I loved FFSend. When it died, I ended up standing up a GOKAPI server, as it was the closest alternative I could find at the time: https://github.com/Forceu/Gokapi

Definitely not as nice as FFSend though. I may have to give that fork a try instead.

It doesn't have to not hit pedestrians. It just has to hit less pedestrians than the average human driver.