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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 3rd, 2023

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  • I don’t think I’ve ever desired to have speech as an interface for a device.

    Yeah, I could yell at it “Open the browser and go to uhh the order of the stick comic index page” and maybe it would get it right. Or I could just… click on the browser, type oot and pick it from the drop down. Faster, no error, no expensive processing.

    I don’t drive (cars are a bad form of transit and I’m lucky enough to not need one) and I’m not hands-full in the kitchen often.


  • I think sometimes people just throw out the accusation of “echo chamber” because their ideas are bad and the community rejects them.

    Someone will be like “I don’t think we should have child labor laws but the eChO cHaMbER won’t even consider it”

    Sometimes this gets said even when the alleged echo chamber responds with facts and history about why their take is a bad one.

    Ultimately, here and in like all other human endeavors, emotions are primary. People feel a thing, and then reach for words to justify it.

    Someone’s ideas being rejected by the group? Feels bad. Is it me? Am I wrong? No, that feels worse and the ego won’t accept this. It must be them. But why? Must be an echo chamber. Cool. Now I don’t have to feel bad about myself. I don’t have to change my beliefs. I can just blame them and move on.

    So someone saying it’s an echo chamber has only very tenuous relationship to reality.

    To your actual point, there’s also the “jaq’ing off” and “for me it’s Tuesday” problems of community management and health. The first being someone asking questions in bad faith. The latter is similar - someone in good faith is asking really basic questions that the community has seen a thousand times before, and people respond with exasperation. From the new person’s perspective the community is unwelcoming. From the community’s view, this is the third guy today that’s stumbled upon the idea that “maybe capitalism is bad” and walking them through that journey is tiresome.

    Community is hard.













  • I don’t think there are good arguments for eating meat, and I think people get mad at vegans because of the cognitive dissonance. “If eating meat is bad, and I eat meat, then I’m bad. But I’m not bad! They must be bad! They suck!”

    Sometimes you see this with other things. Like if someone walks or takes a bike instead of driving for the environment. “If driving is bad for the environment, and I do a lot of driving, I’m doing bad. But I’m a good person! Fuck them for making me feel bad!”

    Most people are just large children.

    Sometimes people try to justify eating meat. Some reasons are more defensible than others. Someone with severe allergies might have trouble getting nutrition from vegan options. Someone saying “but I enjoy it” is acting like a child.

    In short, most people are operating mostly on emotional levels. Facts don’t really matter. Feelings drive them. I think this is the root of most of our problems, honestly, that people can’t put aside their emotions.

    Personally, I try to minimize how much meat I eat, but I’m okay with accepting sometimes I do bad things.






  • Your position is about a thousand times better than the denial-ism of most meat-eaters. “Eating meat is morally dubious, but I am making this bad trade off” is better than the usual “Shut up meat is tasty and like they don’t feel pain and if they did it’s only for a moment and it’s longer they deserve it for being lower on the food chain. And the environmental impacts are just made up but even if they were real they’re not a big deal, and if they were then it’s not like it’ll affect me, and if it did well fuck you.”

    That is, some people who eat meat refuse to acknowledge that there’s any drawbacks or moral pitfalls. I guess that’s too hard on the self image. Cowards, really.

    I try to minimize how much meat I eat. It’s a baby step. It’s hard when like work does an outing and there’s no vegetarian options. I don’t want to make a big stink about it every time. But I’m not going to pretend that eating meat is morally the high ground or good for the environment.

    Sometimes people are like “Well I just enjoy a hamburger” as if that’s any sort of justification. Maybe I just enjoy punching cowards in the throat, but we can’t always do what we want, now can we.