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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 15th, 2023

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  • my experience is such that people don’t get these sweeping bans for having opinions. They get them for acting like sociopathic aggressive individuals.

    And based on what I’m seeing when I check folks’ profiles reiterating the same story… Yep it checks out more often than not. There’s no discourse on the internet when it consists of calling people slurs in a weird barrage of insults. Those are the people who get banned here or there.


  • How do you mean “the other side?” EFF has a high factuality/credibility but is marked as left of center in bias.

    EFF, like ACLU, are mostly orgs that stick to their expertise. Look at entities rated as “Very High.” The climate science orgs don’t and shouldn’t give time entertaining the deranged conspiracy theories of science deniers, nor should EFF focus on advancing rhe worldviews of entities looking to limit speech on the internet. It would be like demanding AA set aside time at meetings to discuss the merits of getting black out drunk once in a while.

    Sure, many sides exist. But mere existence doesn’t make them equal.


  • I have family that are similar. I wouldn’t classify them as racist, but they straddle that line with opinions. I’ve never seen or heard them classify an entire group of people or act discriminatory in person. It is more along the lines of “everyone is equal and nobody should get special treatment” regarding things like affirmative action or the more extreme DEI practices of some companies.

    My experience is such that these people can be reached if we keep the lines of communication open rather than do the easy thing of cutting them off. I’ve been able to use their own logic and verbiage (especially verbiage) against them but one can’t go in guns blazing. To change minds, it must feel like their idea. Turn the heat up slowly and introduce doubt and ideas.

    My big take away, with people like I described above, is that they are reacting to the more extreme people who would feel right at home in the racist far right if things were just a tad different. Cultural warriors and grievance politics leaders are cancerous regardless of which side of the spectrum they occupy because their goal remains the same: divide the normal people and turn us against each other.

    And judging by what happens in my extended family and how it is breaking down on political lines… it is sadly working.




  • It’s easy for people to cherrypick with groups.

    There are tons of antisemitic leftists. I’ve had to heavily curate my social media because of them, and I’m lucky because that’s all I’ve had to do (eg, I’m not being chased across college campuses or doxxed for belonging to a synagogue or have people waiting outside of my door to hound me immediately).

    But there are tons of leftists who aren’t as well.

    Leftism has become co-opted as way for people to virtue signal and rationalize things they want to believe. The right is definitely seizing on this strife. But historically, there’s nobody the left likes to fight more than other leftists.

    And the meme at the top about immigrants… that isn’t new. The USSR was famous for establishing ethnostates and it carries over to modern day. Sure, you could immigrate. But it isn’t like workers held hands and ignored the differences. The pressure was there, but perhaps not the wage pressure. Out groups were still blamed for things like shortages and service degradation, just like today. Nor a defense of anti immigration, but people seem to think the problem exists in uneducated or unenlightened people close to be leftwing. Nope, it’s our cohort. We are watching it in real time right now.



  • Go onto TikTok or Reddit (verboten, I know). Gen Z is currently going wild on how cooked and ruined Alpha already are.

    They also have very strong opinions on what good child rearing looks like despite making up a huge portion of the child free ideology.

    I generally dislike broad generational… uh generalizations. However, trends are undeniable. And as Z ages they appear to be going through Boomerification. I think that’s why so many public freakouts on service workers happen with them. Millennials have the opposite reputation, of bending over backwards to be overly polite.

    Edit: to say that I’ve never seen a generation publicly express nostalgia as hard and young as Z. My older Alpha kids are sort of up there with their friends, too, but Gen Z just seems like they are retreating into a false past which never really existed as they remember it because the world is so shit.


  • Probably depends on your subs. Most of mine have went far, far left and have become a tiresome dog pile of virtue signaling from behind keyboards and screens.

    And I’m a leftist. There seems to be a huge difference these days in being a leftist and being a “this is now my only personality trait” leftist through which all views must be fundamentally filtered. Even non-political/non-social. It has made some subs unreadable for me, specifically my state and city subs.

    Edit: I guess where I am going with it is that the extremes are becoming more extreme and seeking out new frontiers now that moderation is light.



  • It never will be. Thats the problem with the system: it inherently results in two poles.

    We’d have real meaningful change if all the holier than thou third party voters would become hyper engaged within the party nearest to their alignment. Take it over. Got a taste of it with some progressives but most of them turned out to be performance artists all the same.


  • Has to be Krampus, and Anna and the Apocalypse.

    Krampus really scratches that nostalgic itch every year and I don’t know why. The broken family dynamics, the environment, the sound and set designs are amazing. And it has a lesson like every good Christmas movie should.

    And Anna and the Apocalypse is similar. It is funny, musical, and ultimately an allegory about growing up and leaving everyone behind to forge your own path. A good reminder that you never know when it will be your last Christmas with someone. Or maybe I’m looking into it too much and I just like zombie musicals.


  • Yes generally, but it can be very cheap. Some places sell block accounts which let you pay a one time fee for a set amount of data. Black Friday deals are coming up, and you an usually get amazing deals (1TB for under $5, able to be purchased multiple times, or subscriptions which work out to a couple dollars/euros a month).

    The other thing you’d need is an indexer. Some are free, but for the best experience you’d want to pay for acess to a private indexer. Usually a few bucks as well, almost all of the big ones run sales this time of the year.

    For subtitles: there are several solutions. Jellyfin (and Plex) support finding subtitles that you either download with a tool like Bazarr, or via Jellyfin/Plex’s own interface. Bazarr auto downloads them based on your parameters you give it though.


  • For me, it is the mindless reptition or task accomplishment. Showers work well because I don’t have to think about what I’m doing, which frees my mind up for something else. There’s no rush, there’s plenty of soothing ambiance, and it just works. I find doing chores around the house can trigger the same type of state. Putting dishes away lets my mind wander and problem solve. So does putting away laundry, dusting, sweeping, stuff like that. I usually need to wear earbuds and play an ambient noise to help me along.

    But showers are still the best. You hit the nail on the head in your description about why it works. I think the key is anything relaxing, but not too relaxing such that you get drowsy.