Yeah I truly hope petitions work but everything I’ve ever signed hasn’t done shit. I think petitions are just a way of letting us think we have a voice.

Well, in essence, propaganda is advertising. And advertising leans on satisfying perceived need.

So if I’m selling you shoes it’s to satisfy your physiological, social, or self-fulfilment order need. Shoes are functional, make you cool, or make a statement.

Propaganda is fulfilling some need to be effective - probably fear based in the social, safety, or belongingness orders, and carried via viral channels like word of mouth or social (viral).

I haven’t really thought about it too much but it’s just a communication or a reinforced message; it’s just advertising. Think about it that way.

And with regard to Russia, they are all ‘fear the West’ and ‘national pride’ driven, compounded over 3-4 generations. It would be such an easy spin.

Shit, my guy or gal.

That’s put my mind massively at ease. Thank you for putting the time in.

And yes, behavioural/clinical is exactly the path I’d go down.

I’m not. I’m aware of how selfish it is but something in my system of belief that I have (undefined? spiritual? no idea?) says that when I’m dead, I should be ALL dead.

Like, if there’s any kind of afterlife, will leaving a functioning part me behind hold up the transition? This even sounds fucked up to me because I’m 100% not religious at all.

I would just prefer all of me to be dead or all of me to be alive. Not fractions of both at the same time.

Personally, I think every woman should go to jail for keeping her eggs in her ovaries. That’s child imprisonment.

How dare they.

“Look how generous and righteous I am”

Also Drake. Also Shaq.

Both give away heaps of money… but only in front of heaps of planned cameras rolling.

That’s not charity. That’s using the poor for PR and clicks for profit, no different from Bum Fights.

Change my mind.

What echo chamber?

Test it yourself. Try saying anything positive about him. Say he has nice eyes, I don’t care, and watch the downvotes flow.

As a matter of fact don’t even be positive, be neutral. Say something like, “I haven’t formed an opinion on this yet” and watch what happens.

I dunno, man. Sometimes I’m really concerned with the echo chamber here. If you look at Lemmy and Reddit, it’s nothing but an Elon-hating amphitheatre, yet objectively, the guy still seems to be soaring up all the lists that matter.

So, something isn’t right. The guy is obviously popular in places that matter, and it’s worrying that places like this never, ever, ever show it.

I’d like to think Lemmy isn’t one-sided and biased but it clearly is.

And for the record, I’m not pro or anti-Elon. I’m not plugged in (or care) enough to know shit about the guy. But what I’m not going to do is Boomer-lean into one source and parrot the sentiment. Isn’t that what us Gen-Ys and Gen-Zs are supposed to despise, and be too internet savvy to fall for, or are we following our parents into ignorance?

Stupid question: what the shit do you do with your 15 years of communication history if your email provider falls off a cliff?

He’s still worth $200B.

Spending $44B? $88B? $100B. Doesn’t matter. The dude never, ever has to think about money again. If he lives to 85 and doesn’t earn another cent between now and then, he can splash 6 billion dollars a year every year until he dies.

To give you some understanding of that kind of money, he could roughly buy two Lamborghini Diablos every single day for the rest of his life.

So, Harry is next in line, right?

/s

I’m just fucking.

I pacifically told you!!!

Kids are about the only thing Italians can beat in a fight.

Amirite?

a) discussions aren’t a crime.

b) what are studios going to do to the hundreds of millions of daily pirates? Write stern letters?

c) they tried identifying us and sending us stern letters in 2001 and we all laughed, then kept pirating anyway.

Yup. About 7 years ago I used to darkweb pretty hard in the drug scene (I haven’t in years so have at it, Mr. FBI).

Anyway I used Reddit subs a lot for info on new markets and onions, reliable sellers, and news on exit scams etc, but I only lurked - never commented. Anyone with a brain in their head knew they were honeypots.

Let’s just call this what it is, and what it will always be until the end of time. Two religions forced to live in a shoebox together.

Religion is to blame, both sides having their fairytale that is incompatible with the other side’s fairytale.

I’m done arguing, fighting, defending or taking sides in any of it. Every ten years we rinse and repeat this bullshit and it’s over nothing more than the fictional stories of two man made books.

And have no illusions, NO MATTER THE OUTCOME here we will be arguing about this same shit again in ten more years.

New research is suggesting caffeine’s stimulant effects are caused by the placebo effect anyway. The idea of decaf is kind of void if true.

I’ve been saying this for years. The internet was better when you had to be a little bit more intelligent than the average person to access it.

Back when you needed knowledge of computers and software, modems, anti-virus, hardware etc, it kind of meant you needed a brain in your head to gain access. I’m not saying that made the internet an overtly-intelligent space, but it was more intelligent and measured than it is today.

As soon a smart phones and data plans entered the game, you could be as dumb as a second coat of paint and gain access with a single button. That opened the flood gates for the stupid. Now the stupid are here en mass and internet is just a dumpster fire full of retards.

I can offer you a very small example of a difference in thinking that I experience.

I’m a grown ass man and I can’t easily tell my left from right. The best example of this is when I’m gaming and the tutorial tells me to press ‘left thumb stick’, I usually fuck it up. It took me a long time and a lot of thinking on it to realise what was going on. For me, left and right is not instinctive like up or down, but rather, it’s either a feeling, or not a feeling.

The reason for this is because when I was 5 I nearly lost my left index finger in an accident. It was reattached, but during the healing process I was constantly told my left finger was the one I hurt, so I literally learnt left from right as ‘injury’ or ‘no injury’, which I then attributed to as ‘hurt’ or ‘not hurt’.

So now, when I have to choose left or right, my brain has to remember an injury and where it was, then kind of feel that injury and tell myself that yes, I feel it so that’s left, or no, I feel nothing so that’s right. These steps take more time than a normal person’s automatic reaction to left or right direction.

Imagine someone touching you and saying, “does this hurt”. It takes time to figure out if it hurts or not and then reply. Thats what I’m doing every time I need to identify left or right, and if there’s no time for that, like “quick, make a right turn here”, I’m forced to guess.

And there is no way for me to unlearn this.

I said I’d leave Reddit on July 12 and July 12 is when I left. Sure, I miss it, but it was an unhealthy, 4 hour per day/8 year addiction that’s been broken.

Now I scroll Lemmy for maybe 30 mins a day.