Curious Canid

As an American, I would be happy with either Denmark or Canada invading.

Based on your use of the term Left Wing orthodoxy, I infer that you mean the misogynist, racist, homophobic, and transphobic communities. They still exist but have mostly moved to X.

I don’t think this really deserves an answer, but I’m going to give you one anyway. If you were actually paying attention to the current Catholic teachings you would be aware that they are extremely progressive on almost every issue except for abortion. That is appropriate, since that is in line with the actual teachings of Jesus, who was a far more radical progressive than anyone currently in US politics.

So what network are you getting your version of Catholicism from? It certainly isn’t the Pope.

AI is so far from being the main problem with our current US educational system that I’m not sure why we bother to talk about it. Until we can produce students who meet minimum standards for literacy and critical thinking, AI is a sideshow.

That is a good point. I think you’re right that being raised in an entitled environment by a socipathic parent brings out the worst in people. It also selects for the worst child being the one who wins the fight to take over the business.

American Football: Every time a player suffers a traumatic brain injury the owner takes a punch to the head from a professional heavyweight boxer.

The ratio of poor to ultra wealthy is far greater than a million to one. Other than that, the only practical reason they have for not doing it is that they still need human labor for most of what they do. That isn’t going to change anytime soon, despite AI. However, they don’t need their labor force to be free or happy, which is why the US is on the cusp of a fascist takeover.

The rule of law has largely stopped mattering to the ultra wealthy. It may occasionally inconvenience them, but they know it will never affect them in any personal way.

Not all of the ultra wealthy are socipaths. Unfortunately, terminal-stage capitalism does a surprisingly good job of selecting for sociopathy at the very top of the hierarchy. Becoming that rich requires both a strong belief that you deserve it and a disregard for how acquiring it harms others.

This is actually a triumph for Musk. SpaceX has figured out how to blow up their rockets without all the cost and time required to prepare for a launch.

I edited my previous post to replace some links that had become obsolete. PeakMesh has a great set of options, but they update their links to match their inventory and the one I got has cycled in and out a few times.

The fact that you’re asking the question means you’ve made a lot of progress already. Give yourself real credit for wanting to be a better person. A lot of people don’t ever reach that point.

I’m working on the same things myself and I don’t think there are any simple or complete solutions. All you can do is keep in mind where you want to be, look at where you are, and try to get a little closer all the time.

You can’t control how you feel, but you can control what you do about it. Don’t act on your anger. Treat everyone as if they are a decent person, even if you don’t really think they are. You don’t have to enable them or accept the destructive things they do, but show kindness when you can and show sorrow, instead of anger, when you can’t.

Do this for yourself. Even if nothing else changes, it will change you. And over time, it will have a positive effect on other people, even if you often won’t know.

I feel the same way about it. There was a time when reddit, at least large parts of it, was a fairly decent place. That gradually changed, for a lot of different reason, until it became the mess it is now.

Lemmy feels more like the early reddit, before everyone gave up on real interactions and basic civility. We have our own problems, but the decentralized model tends to work in our favor instead of against us. Any given community, or even site, can still go to hell if the participants want it to and the moderators/admins allow it. The difference is that other communities and sites are not automatically dragged down along with it.

I think it also helps that a lot of the folks here have seen things go wrong, on reddit and elsewhere, and want to do better. There is a world of difference between skepticism and cynicism. So far, we seem to be mostly coming down on the right side of that. It’s amazing how much better things are when you treat others as human beings and don’t assume that nothing really matters.

Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Oboe, and Bassoon.

The quasar wouldn’t do anything that the vacuum hadn’t already done…

You win.

Yes. One of my wife’s medications is no longer available through our regular pharmacy. We have been able to find it at others, but not reliably.

I think I have dropped a phone either two or three times in the last fifteen years. But I still use a good case.

Carrying marshmallows at all times becomes commonplace.

One of the many things I like about Subaru is that they seem to move useful features from optional to standard, once they’ve had a chance to prove themselves. I bought an Outback in 2016 and paid extra for the EyeSight safety system. Two years later that car was destroyed in an accident (I was T-boned and rolled over twice, without anyone being hurt). I bought another Outback to replace it, but by that time the EyeSight was a standard feature. Subaru now includes EyeSight on all their cars because it saves lives.

They had done similar things with other safety features. Four-wheel disc brakes, anti-lock braking, and all-wheel drive became standard on Sabarus relatively early.

It is also worth noting that the more intrusive EyeSight features, like lane assist, are easy to turn off. There’s a button on the steering wheel for that one. Even if you turn it off, the car will still warn you if you start to cross lanes without using your turn signals, but it will not adjust for you.

It amazes me how often I see the argument that people react this way to all tech. To some extent that’s true, but it assumes that all tech turns out to be useful. History is littered with technologies that either didn’t work or didn’t turn out to serve any real purpose. This is why we’re all riding around in giant mono-wheel vehicles and Segways.

I’m right-handed and carry my phone in a belt pouch on my left. I take it out and hold it with my left hand while I tap or type with my right. I do all of my typing with a swype-type keyboard, so I just use my right hand for that too.