OpenStars @ OpenStars @discuss.online

Posts

50

Comments

3,403

Joined

2 yr. ago

Moderating

---

Lemmy can be a great source of news:-).

Oh wow, it works fine for me on PieFed.

Edit: also it works in Chrome but not Firefox Android, so it seems related to the method of access. Anyway thanks for bringing it to my attention!:-)

There seems to be a lot of unrest going on globally. And these weapons are so extremely capable. I don't even want to walk around with the equivalent of root access in my pocket, and I routinely remove user-write access to my files that I desire to preserve as a backup. So why carry guns somewhere that you know that you plan to get smashed-out drunk at? That just seems highly irresponsible to me.

Though the 3 that I mentioned (or possibly just 2 of them?) seemed more intentional, where someone had to prepare the incendiary explosive devices in advance prior to deployment. And if anything, that just might be worse. But yeah, they are fucked up either way.

I very much enjoyed reading the OLD scifi works, like HG Wells "Time Machine", and anything by Isaac Asimov. These present quite a different world-view - including much more realistic, and dare I say pessimistic outlooks on how the future would look (hint: virtually identical to today, just with a higher level of technical sophistication).

These are more rare to see in movie form, b/c people don't want to pay money to see such - unless that adversity only exists in the start of the movie, but is then overcome through hard work & ingenuity - although a fantastic exeption exists in Wall-E. There, the people basically simply sat down and never bothered to ever stand up again, not seeing any point to need to do so? OF COURSE that is more realistic than e.g. Star Trek where people all work together, following military levels of precision and discipline, for the nebulous goal of "the common good".

I recall the Black Fleet Crisis series of Star Wars books where Luke chases down a non-Jedi order of force users ("White Current") that chooses not to get involved in galactic politics, and therefore managed to avoid the purge that took the Jedi down along with the rest of the Old Republic as it converted into the Empire. Though the vast majority of the Star Wars universe seemed to revolve around the Jedi v. Sith dynamic, with all the mere "plebes" being relatively unimportant - much like today where the "real" people (Bezos, Musk, Trump) fly high above us in their sky castles, untouched by "laws" of society or to a large degree even physics (decay, death, disorder - all are muted at least some amount due to the influx of resources to overcome their effects, e.g. those who have health care are effected less by diseases than those who do not). And the rest of us just suffer from their fights, as shit rolls downhill. THAT may be the biggest distinction between Star Wars vs. Trek then: in the latter, everyone mattered purely based on their ability, usually more so rather than some accident of their birth (Wesley Crusher was a somewhat unusual situation, being on a starship due to his mother's assignment there, but most children did not have access to such opportunities).

Can we as a species not imagine ourselves in a world beyond all these self-destructive forms of oppression?

In a word: "no". Entropy exists, as too does inertia, and we cannot simply turn aside as if it were literally nothing the collective force that propelled us towards this point. If you are at least familiar with the religious language: to dust we came, and to dust we shall return - it is an error in philosophy to think that we can rise above it all without any difficulties as those forces work to claw and cling and force us back down into the us-vs-them, eat-or-be-eaten set of dynamics that govern the basic principles of our world, even below the subatomic level. It was naive of us (imho) to think, not that it could not be done, but that it would be so easy. Like a doctor, if we want to cure a disease, we first have to diagnose it, which means opening our eyes to see clearly the road ahead of us. That is why works such as Rules for Rulers are so upsetting to us: b/c it exposes our own hypocrisy and wishful thinking that the world could magically become like how we wish it, without any investment of effort on our part. So: are you sure that you want to have what you asked for?

Farscape and Firefly are neat shows that are a bit like you asked though:-), and within the realm of scifi. Those type of space operas though get expensive to try to produce on a TV or movie budget, so there aren't that many to begin with - that's why anime is so awesome, allowing a deeper and wider exploration of possibilities (just by virtue of making numerically more of them, the chances of one rising up that will be truly great rise, plus an author can gain experience and thereby create better and better ones over time). Like Sword Art Online: is it "pure fantasy", or is it "scifi", or both, or neither, or... something else altogether? Whatever the case, it's a great one if you haven't consumed it yet:-).

Though as CGI costs continue to lower, I wager that we'll see more of the traditional "space opera" types of ye olden times resume once again. Although... is there a difference then really, b/t "real life" people in costumes (like Worf or Data in ST:TNG), "actual puppets" like Farscape, and "full CGI" like anime? Check out a trailer for "Exception" (https://www.netflix.com/title/81002444), a sci-fi fantasy where people travel to the stars and then 3d print their bodies rather than preserve the originals in cryo-sleep, leading to an issue that forms dramatic tension as they try to resolve it. People are people, regardless of what technology they have access to. That's why I think Star Trek was "wrong" - or not wrong per se but yeah, highly stilted and unrealistic, though useful all the more deeply for serving as an aspirational goal, yet completely neglecting to touch base with the part of about to actually ARRIVE at such a far-different utopian society? I mean, we ALREADY, RIGHT NOW have the ability to feed the entire world - we could do the Star Trek stuff RIGHT NOW, even without "antimatter reactors" or "replicators" or "energy to matter converters". Instead, we choose not to. Hence why we've collectively (societally I mean) lost interest in watching the show: we've already chosen not to walk that path, so we're all just wondering which one we'll end up moving towards instead... Altered Carbon it is then, it would seem:-(.

I edited the OP to acknowledge my poor choice of title.

Ghost in the Shell is another fantastic one! There are different versions of it and I'm sure how readily accessible various parts are vs. are not likely varies between them. But anyway that does sound totally consistent with its premise that everything that we have now we would still have but it would be just a tiny bit better integrated in terms of the mind+body connection.

If I spoiled something for LOTR then I apologize - fwiw I think it might not be a true "spoiler" bc what I mentioned about humans going on to the next world may never have been resolved in the books? I never read them though - what I said came from Wikipedia, and I only read the porlogue to The Silmarillion. And the Elven life cycle is just "details", or at least that's how I feel but if you feel differently and do get to it later then I hope it won't ruin your enjoyment of that portion of the book:-).

Starship Troopers was just a stupid sci-fi movie, but I think you got where I was going more with the reference to Star Wars. As in there's still wars, literal slavery, enormous inequality, bureaucratic wastefulness, and in general the Yin/Yang play between aspects like "good" and "evil" where there is nothing that is wholly one or the other.

Case in point: the Jedi were such massive frauds, claiming to value non-attachment, but then propping up the corrupt establishment that ignored the socially dispossed even on the home planet of Coruscant, leaving orphans to rot in the lower levels of the city-planet while the Jedi live in their fabulous sky palace with all the money they could ever need or want. But rather than get on an elevator and go down to visit those kids that exist 10 minutes travel away, the Jedi instead are sent out to whatever planet has the most valuable commodities and engage in whatever activities work towards increasing the overall wealth of The Republic. The real twist there is: it's not the ignoring of the needs of the poor that makes the Jedi hypocrites, it's the FAILURE to ignore the "needs" of the wealthy.

Or at least that's one way to look at it, but perhaps I'm wrong - in any case that whole universe seems designed to show off those kinds of dynamics, where want and poverty are still very much reality, unlike Star Trek where The Federation at least has moved beyond that.

stories like Altered Carbon and Elysium seem far more plausible in the very near future than any of the other sci fi universes out there

Sigh... yeah:-(. It's like people are giving up on the aspirational stuff that seems too unrealistic to even be of interest, hence e.g. Altered Carbon despite the mind drive actually calls out to us as viewers as being something worth thinking about, bc it's not only likely but inevitable (IF technology could be developed to make that lifestyle a possibility).

Well we know it's not oil or the USA would have explored it already... (\s:-P)

“Primitives” have the same brains we do today and were capable of understanding the same things we are.

Lol that's the problem then - bc even today, what do we really "know"!? It's not about intelligence though it's cultural - what did they care about knowing then? Like what is a "point" and why would it matter if the universe came from one or many of them? And obviously it took a great deal of time - building anytime at all does not happen instantly.

Moreover there's an ancient Semite vs. modern English translation issue with the words - that identical word "day" for instance is translated elsewhere as "season" and a bunch of other stuff, so basically 7 epochs / eras? Like LOTR where we came in on basically the end of the age of the elves, as it transitioned into the age of men.

It's a story, meant to be told to children. The same way that we today preach the miracle of Santa Claus - which supposedly prepares kids for learning that not everything they are taught is strictly speaking "true", and therefore that they need to question everything to sort the truths from the lies. Whether we think it through in those terms or not, that tradition survived somehow?

There are many philosophers, like Daniel Dennett the famous (and now late) atheist counter-apologist, that provide many examples of how religion has been helpful in the past, to get us from purely and literal tribal cultures to great nation-states. It's our history, and it got us here to today, right or wrong.

Anyway you can go to ideological war with the 84% of people world-wide that affiliate with some kind of religion if you want (according to this Pew study, but I'm saying that there are allies within Christianity, within Muslim, within Buddhism, etc. who are capable of rational thought. Even as there are also a handful of atheists who, perhaps having inherited their beliefs, are dumb as fuck. There are fewer, and the system does not encourage that, but it does happen.

I outright enjoy talking with people of any religious background who genuinely believe whatever they believe, so long as they are willing to critically examine the nature of their beliefs. Such people are much more likely to arrive at whatever "truth" is out there to find, than someone sitting still who isn't listening to anyone. Question everything - sound familiar? It's both the atheist creed (or was at some point) as well as literally commanded in the Christian worldview (not that people give a damn about what the Bible says) as well as practically the scientific motto.

Or at least it used to be. People seem to be redefining what "science" means these days, as in science is why planes fly - it's not though, science is the PROCESS that lead to the DISCOVERY of HOW planes fly. So how is it that religious people are doing the questioning process more than some modern atheists, who simply say "this is the way the world works"?

To be clear, I have no idea how the world works. I wasn't there when it started, I only know what I can see now, which is extremely limited. Hence why I prefer my answer as being "I do not know", rather than "I know and let me tell you how it happened..."

What the fuck are you even talking about here?

Our two answers are much more similar than I think you realize. But they do differ somewhat in important ways too, although it sounds like you are triggered so let's end it here: I know exactly what you are saying and if you think about it you'll see what I was trying to convey, but there seems little point to going more rounds just emotionally venting our upset feelings at the fuckers who misuse their authority as "leaders" of their communities to abuse people - including but not limited to children. Maybe authoritarianism thought control to abolish all religion everywhere would do the trick, but so long as wishes were horses then we all would ride, and I think there are better ways - and that's what I was trying to convey. Not that magic exists as a replacement for science (although again, it does exist when viewed from the other side of it - i.e. to those who don't understand the principles yet, how could it be viewed as anything but magic? If we were suddenly picked up by sufficiently advanced aliens, we would react no differently ourselves, bc as you said, we really aren't any different at all from those that came before, only our culture has shifted).

If I were a time traveler, or alien, or something, that's almost how I'd explain how the Earth came about to primitives.

• Day 1: Light (despite no stars yet?! yes literally the entire universe was on fire at one point, just gleaming light but no matter yet)
• Day 2: Atmosphere
• Day 3: Dry ground aka continents & plants (tbf here "plants" is a little incongruous, unless things like photosynthetic bacteria and algae are meant rather than later more complex multicellular forms)
• Day 4: Sun, moon & stars -> the volcanic air clears so you can finally look up and see them, also the O2 paved the way for mitochondrial-containing eukaryotes
• Day 5: Birds & sea creatures (birds is highly incongruous here, unless it just means "flying things" aka insects in which case it matches perfectly)
• Day 6: Land animals & eventually humans
• Day 7: no more "magic", i.e. humans are so recent that nothing else major has happened in the last ~350k years or so.
• Day 8: nothing prevents this from coming - perhaps we'll go to space, perhaps we'll die out, perhaps this simulator will end and our personalities will become used to make us all into sex/worker bots for the "real" people one dimension above us. Wouldn't that suck? 😕 Or be fun I guess, depending on the person. 😳

I cannot say what the nature of reality is bc I have no clue, myself. All I'm saying is that if a preacher says "let me ass-rape your kid", maybe someone should say no, but if they say like "hey, workers deserve their wages so maybe people should not be slaves?" then it's worth paying attention to - not because and rather, I get it, in spite of the fact that it comes from a religious person, but even so it's what is said rather than who says it that seems the most important.

Fuck "religion", but "love one another"? THAT I am down with:-).

As Jesus Himself once said too, then made conditions for women better than they had ever been before.

Anyway "magic" is simply something that has not yet been explained. Fire. Electricity. Herbs. All were magic at one point, to those who did not know how they worked.

Begging your pardon, but the likes of CS Lewis, Francis Collins, and Jesus of Nazareth would like to have a word with you about that... e.g. 1 Thessalonians 5:21, "be skeptical about everything", and John 13:34 "be ye not giant dickeths to one another".

Or there's 1 Timothy 5:18 "the worker deserves their wages", or Deuteronomy 24:15 "pay your workers the very same day" (literally: "before the sun sets, bc they need it"), or James 1:27 "offer healthcare regardless of ability to pay", and so on.

It turns out that religious numbnuts who refuse to read anything at all but keep making up new rules to add to the pile (heaping heavy burdens onto people without bothering to lift a finger to help)... don't really know much of anything? Not about what "freedom" is, or "love", or "religion" either. Go figure!? 🤪 Maybe it would help if instead of listening to child rapists who just want their money (and children) they would instead pick up a book - any book - and read it!?

So yeah, fuck religious hypocrites. Seriously, Jesus in Matthew 23: 1 - 12 says exactly that too:

do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.

and

You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil?

You... on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.

I find that people of any faith whatsoever - Christianity, Muslim, Jewish, atheist, Buddhist, Hindu, etc. - share a lot in common if they are not extremists. And right now there's a lot of value in atheism since nearly everyone is "first generation", but eventually atheism will fall prey to the same fate as well - it's human nature, and no system or belief is perfect. But I do think it helps to accurately diagnose the issue and point the blame more squarely where it belongs, i.e. the tribal "in-group=good but out-group=bad" is something that would be fantastic to get past as quickly as possible.

Bc to me your words seem to line up perfectly with 1 Thessalonians 5:21, hence you even agree with Jesus that most people calling themselves "Christians" (or "patriots" or whatever) are fucking idiots, however strange that sounds.

Oh dear let's see if I get banned for this?

You got THREE WHOLE days off?

Here in the USA the only time off I got was the actual day of Christmas. Also on Christmas Eve I was forced to show up at work... only to be sent home after a couple of hours without pay for the rest of the day - not enough customers, which you would have thought they could have guessed at that in advance but... no, they wanted to have their cake and eat it too (and b/c of the power imbalance, they got it).

And I also worry about my personal job in January, plus there's a nonzero chance that my entire country could literally engage in an actual, not-joking, full-on real & bloody civil war by then. Except that's far more unlikely now b/c we simply & preemptively surrendered to the side that was pushing to do it. So... yay? (now, trans people will still be murdered, but we won't call it that, b/c it'll be "legal" - see the difference? yeah, it's actually far worse in its way)

I'm honestly not trying to engage in a "life sux" competition with you - but rather trying to help show you that some things in your life are good, even as other things are surely bad, and while anyone's feelings must always be treated as valid, I hope that you take into account the good things you have as well as the bad. B/c there ARE good things that you have, even as there are definitely also bad. You can make yourself feel worse by ignoring the former and focus exclusively on the latter, or some people do worse and reverse that, but if you want, you can be happier by aiming somewhere in the middle?

e.g., you don't have to tell us, but if you want, you could try to find one thing that you enjoyed about those three days? Like, just before you lose your job (possibly, which you cannot control), at least you got to rest up a bit, which will help as you scramble to find a new one? Meh, you do you, I genuinely don't want to come across as trying to tell you what you "must" do. But I did want to say that you could do that, if you wanted... and doing so might help you to be happier, which you do seem to want?

That, I feel, is entirely up to you to decide:-).

That's a really good perspective that comments may be inherently more "welcomed" than posts. At least I do feel exposed to less toxic responses whenever I comment as opposed to post.

You can do whatever you want... however, so too can they. I may or may not agree with either side (fwiw Drag is obviously trolling, though that also seems entirely irrelevant?), but I defend blahaj's right to do as they please on their own instance - which they pay for and maintain with little help from others on the Fediverse? - and the post "Neopronouns are not trolling" seems fairly clear to me.

My problem lies rather with how that is not communicated clearly to people. It is not linked in the sidebar, it is not pinned even on lemmy.blahaj.zone, it is in a community that I at first thought was Local-Only b/c it was difficult to find from Lemmy.World (b/c of the different display "Blahaj Lemmy Meta" vs. link-to names !main@lemmy.blahaj.zone) - although it also seems cross-posted to 196 (but why MUST someone be subscribed to that one?) - and especially: when you visit that (cross-)post from some other instance, let's say lemmy.world via this link, the only text you see on the sidebar is for c/196, not the sidebar of lemmy.blahaj.zone, or from this link the text for the Meta community is equally uninformative, plus most apps don't show any sidebar text by default anyway, either burying it behind several button presses or perhaps not making it available at all.

So if you just wandered into a post federated and therefore hosted elsewhere, you may have no clue what is going on there? This is exasperated further by the sidebar text of !196@lemmy.blahaj.zone or !main@lemmy.blahaj.zone stating "other rules" which links to Lemmy.World, even when visited while on lemmy.blahaj.zone!?!? And then that post says nothing whatsoever about neopronouns - the closest mention is "prejudice of any kind" is banned but this is definitely a more contentious issue that those 4 words do not next to nothing to clarify. Also I don't see much of anything in the Lemmy.World ToS that would apply - possibly the text about "misinformation" but again, that seems far from clear, and more for an issue where the admins of Lemmy.World and the admins of lemmy.blahaj.zone would need to come to some kind of mutual agreement or at least understanding.

The tools made available on the Fediverse to help guide people into understanding what the rules are are abysmally inadequate. Ada can run their own instance however they wish, though it sure would be good to find better ways to communicate the expected behaviors rather than "ban people" or "not ban people" after waiting for them to walk into this issue unknowingly. I guess there is also "defederate from lemmy.blahaj.zone" vs. "not defederate from lemmy.blahaj.zone" as well - though it sucks that no other options in-between have yet been presented here. Beehaw at least has its core principles statement, though it too is not linked to from anywhere unless you visit the instance explicitly in order to investigate it (except from PieFed, where a message is presented - that's fucking awesome!:-D).

Things like this are why imho the Fediverse is not at all like merely using emails. There you simply click "Send" and it goes off to wherever it needs to be, but to navigate Lemmy without being banned for some off-hand remark requires quite a bit deeper knowledge than that.

So like, if you had read the aforementioned post about "Neopronouns are not trolling", then YDI (which b/c people won't read the sidebar even in this community, stands for "You Deserved It":-D) for inciting drama? However, if you had not, I definitely see why it at least comes across as a BPR ("Bait-Provoked Reaction"), coming a day or two after that "announcement" had been made (which again, how were people supposed to have known that?). Therefore it is at least possible that you are both correct, and merely talking past one another, each not willing to find common ground with the other.

I REALLY hope that we don't. But... https://theintercept.com/2024/12/18/trump-fisa-surveillance-spying/ does so make me worry.

Then again, perhaps I shouldn't, for the simple reason that e.g. if being woke is a crime then I'd rather face the music than get off scott-free? :-P

You may enjoy this rant on the subject.;-)

If you are burnt out then perhaps don't read this, but for anyone who wants to know... https://theintercept.com/2024/12/18/trump-fisa-surveillance-spying/ - it doesn't seem to say much of anything though still it makes me worry. Clickbait? Obviously. Merely clickbait or not though I don't know.