Ahh, but see you’re been following this over several months/years, or looked up what actually happened. You’re not the target for this dupe.

This tactic works incredibly well as you’ll find you are outside the norm. I still remember people ranting about how Obama was late responding to Hurricane Katrina.

Welcome to Politics 2.0 where the information is freely available but the facts don’t matter.

I see what you’re saying, but it really undermines Signal’s purpose and their integrity.

Take Telegram for example, they used to have a secret chat option, where you could send a message with E2E encryption. Telegram would tout this secure feature, but it was somewhat hidden away and no one used it.

An even better example is Signal removing its ability to handle SMS because they thought it was confusing to people that some messages it sent were secure, and some weren’t. This WhatsApp integration would again muddy the waters and the average person wouldn’t care to look into or understand the difference.

At the end of the day we as people who care about security need to take on the burden of having multiple messengers for different purposes. The ones that want to join us on Signal can, but if we compromise Signal to meet them where they are, we compromise the simplicity of Signal and no one can say it’s secure and private without listing caveats.

I want to state for the record that I was one who boycotted MW2 and stuck to my guns. I have not bought a single CoD game since. I played Warzone (free) with friends when it was new, until it became a bloated mess that highly incentivized buying CoD.

I am not the norm. That boycott was a total failure and in one swoop the publishers knew they could call our bluff. As gaming has branched out and become a household staple there is no such thing as “gamers” anymore as a tech savvy class. We are just regular people. Regular people are dumb and easily manipulated.

I’m just happy to see the rise of indy PC gaming because we now have actual good games to choose from and I never have to support the AAA clowns again.

I’m very similar to you. It’s the principal of the thing. For me you either use Steam as a launcher, because it’s a good experience that actually adds value to my games, or you have no launcher. I do not want launchers within launchers. I do not want a weird online account I will never use to come up every time the launcher I forgot existed times out. I don’t want to take 10 minutes each new game to figure out how to play with a friend. I want to install this smoothly on my Steam Deck. It’s not a good experience and it’s not to my benefit.

There’s just something slimy about corporations trying to suck more out of you with absolutely zero value, in fact negative value in return. That’s advertisments, that’s lainchers, that’s DRM, microtransactions, etc. All exist to the detriment of the customer and they ask you to pay for the privilege. Once you notice that you start to get a little crazy like you mentioned and avoid the insult at all costs.

Because the Republicans tied aid to Ukraine to the Tik Tok ban. Democrats were forced to vote for it to continue to prevent the fall of a country fighting off an invasion.

I feel bad writing such a short reply considering all the work you put into yours, but thank you for your understanding and the conversation. You’re very well spoken :)

Fair. It comes down to which definition of abnormal you jump to. Merriam Webster gives two possible definitons:

1. deviating from the normal or average
2. often : unusual in an unwelcome or problematic way

I always though of it as #1, but this whole thread has taught me that most others see it as #2, so it’s not the best word for me to use in this case.

Thank you for taking the time to write such a well thought out comment. I’ll try to reply to it but honestly the amount of downvotes I’m getting for trying to understand something is a bit discouraging so I don’t think I’ll be keeping the conversation going much longer.

“Deviations from the norm” would imply that there is a specific baseline “norm” to point at, when it’s much more of a vague idea of what is average, which changes over time and with increased understanding/study.

I’m making a pretty general statement so I don’t have numbers to back anything up, but I would be very surprised if we didn’t have basic statistics on how many people identify as gay, or are diagnosed with ADD, etc. So I think we do understand norms, but you’re right this always changes with increased research and study.

Grouping ADD, homosexuality and musical creativity together is also a bit of a stretch IMO.

I did this on purpose. I’m not saying any of these are similar at all, just that they’re attributes that might make us unique and as far as I’m aware (since I’m not religious) these are functions of brain chemestry. Somone who has a very creative mind can be encouraged through their upbringing and surroundings to use it for music, arts, etc but I do think think there is something physical in the brain there. I’m not a neuroscientist so I don’t know how much is attributed to genetics, hormones, etc.

(Illness) It’s commonly used to establish a baseline platform for justifying and normalising bigotry and hatred towards something.

I agree completely, which is why I say it’s not the right word. I am totally against people saying homosexuality is a mental illness because it implies it’s something that needs to be corrected. I do see it as something that deviates from the norm, but in a way as harmless and inconsequential as left-handedness.

The strict definition of the word abnormal isn’t particularly useful here , it’s only when it’s given context that it makes sense.My view is that the word “abnormal” when used in the context of homosexuality has been continually used as a weapon, a way to normalise and justify bigotry.If you establish up front what it is exactly you mean (for me this would need to include what you mean by “normal”), then you might get more positive responses.

This is the conclusion I came to in a seperate comment here. That I am coming at the word abnormal from the statisctical point of view, as in it deviates from a known norm. A lower percentage of it happening compared to other outcomes. Other people are using the word abnormal as a way of shunning “the other”, which is unfortunate.

I thought I had done a good enough job of establishing upfront what I meant when I said that I was pro LGBT and was coming at this from a point of trying to understand, but I the backlash clearly shows that was not enough. I find it frustrating having to tiptoe around topics like this and always try to explain myself because people are so quick to look for the bad, but I suppose that is the current world we live in. It’s a sad fact that there are a lot of people trying to opress anyone who is different, and I can’t exect strangers on the internet to know me or what I believe in.

“but that is the concensus is it not?” As far as i understand it, no, it is not.

I’ve done a lot of explaining myself, but I’m still not conviced my original assumption is incorrect. I still think that homosexuality has a biological/mental aspect because gay people say that they were born that way, it’s not a choice, it’s who they are. I didn’t choose to be straight so that makes perfect sense to me. I also know that the people who feel that way are in a minority, therefore something is happening mentally, biologically, I don’t know, to a small subset of people making them an abnormality.

What I HAVE learned is I need to be more cautious of using the word abnormal which goes full circle to my question on if this is an issue of language. Most people really don’t like words that black and white say they’re different, because while it may be true, it can be used by people who do not feel like deviations from the norm are acceptable, and they will attack them for being the “other”. This is just a very polarizing topic and can cause people who say they’re on the same side to get at each other assuming the worst, which is unfortunate.

Anyway, that’s enough rambling from me. Thanks for the reply.

I think we’re on the same page then, we just have different taste when it comes to using certain words. I can certainly appreciate your slippery slope point where anbnormalities can be twisted by society into being negative. That’s a very real thing and you have some good examples. I suppose I’m just disappointed that we as a society are choosing to step around words and not confront the elephant in the room that abnormal things happen all the time and they aren’t bad.

I wish we lived in a society where people aren’t always looking to paint people in a bad light, where we could speak factually and not take offense to everything. At the end of the day the more I try to explain myself in these comments it appears to be the definition of normal that I’m getting hung up on. When I think “normal” I’m thinking statistically average, this is a fairly probably outcome. Others are thinking of “normal” as in socially accepted, not a big deal.

I think homosexuality in humans is abnormal (statistically) and normal (socially). I’d never heard that most giraffe sex was gay though, so that’s interesting. Time to get lost in Wikipedia.

Yes, this is exactly my point. For example, I have ADHD which has some downsides, but a lot of upsides that make me who I am. I’m also partially red-green colorblind. Both of these are abnormalities, and I don’t take that as a personal affront.

Now, apart from being the butt of a couple jokes, being colorblind has not been a major hardship for me, so from an emotional level it’s not the same as growing up ostracized for being gay. Perhaps that’s why I don’t perceive my abnormality to be something I would take offence to.

That’s really what I’m trying to get down to. Are we trying to say being LGBT is “normal” as in, every child being born has a very high, or just as average a chance of being born LGBT as heterosexual? Because I don’t think any facts support that. Or are we saying an LGBT child would be an abnormality that we as a society simply don’t care about because we don’t attribute large importance to sexual orientation.

This is where I feel that saying homosexuality is a mental abnormality is not actually incorrect, but our connotations of the world abnormal are still such that people attribute negativity towards it.

Right, but those other animals do not exhibit homosexuality in high numbers. It’s still a small subset as far as I know, making it an abnormality that those animals simply don’t care about.

This isn’t about homophobia, I’ve already stated that I’m pro LGBT, it’s about the meaning of words and understanding if a lot of the backlash is due to the perception of the words or the meaning of the words. I also agree that illness is a negative word that implies a correction is needed and I do not support it.

It’s not an argument, I’m asking in good faith if my current viewpoint is correct. I’m reading your reworking of my words and I don’t actually see a problem with it. Abormality just means a difference with a much lower chance than normal. I think this actually proves what I’m trying to say because I don’t think anyone legitimately believes there’s anything wrong with people who have read hair.

Again it seems to be the word that’s chosen that causes a bad reaction. If I say being a redhead is a genetic deficiency then I’m implying it’s a bad or unwanted trait (which it is not) similar to the word “illness”. However if I say it’s a genetic abnormality, I don’t think that has any negative connotations because it is a difference, as you say, but one not seen as often as any other differences.

Again, I can’t prove to you that I’m approaching this in good faith, the downvotes seem to say most people above I’m not, but I am just trying to understand if it’s the words we’re using that people take offense to, or the actual meaning behind them is wrong.

Question, and this may not be the perfect place for this, but is it the phrasing that LGBTQ is a mental “illness” that’s the problem here, or that it’s a mental attribute at all?

I’m an LGBT supporter, so I’m not coming at this from a place of malice, I suppose it’s curiosity and ignorance. Don’t we basically understand that the way we function as humans is all a part of our brain chemistry, and that certain deviations from the norm cause things like ADD, homosexuality, musical creativity, etc etc?

The word illness seems way too strong, as we as a society have decided we don’t have anything against that personal trait/lifestyle/whatever, but as far as natural occurrences goes homosexuality must be considered a mental abnormality, no?

Again I don’t want to get caught up in feelings here, because I think people will hear that and take offence to it since no one wants to be “abnormal” but that is the concensus is it not?

Thank you for the correction. I know the properties of the refrigerant are important, but you’re correct that the other side of the equation is how much it’s compressed. If it’s true that compression plays a larger part than the refrigerant at working in lower temperatures, then that does explain why we wouldnt see them in cars. The rise in cost for both the compressor and higher energy usage could make them less appealing to manufacturers.

There are, but then I think you’d have problems with the effective rang of the AC in the summer. To my knowledge this is all about at what temperature the coolant is a liquid and when it’s a gas (because that’s how you exchange heat).

A traditional AC only needs coolant that does this at summer temperatures. A heat pump tries to use one that will work at colder temperatures as well. A cold weather heat pump goes even further but I think there is a sacrifice in AC efficiency in the summer.

Somone please correct me if I’m wrong. But I’m not sure if a do-it-all extreme cold and extreme hot heat pump exists, and as a car manufacturer you want to put in the one that will fit most cases, as opposed to a house which only needs to operate in the range of the climate it is built in.

I’m posting this simply so it can be higher than Brkdncr’s ignorant comment.

DisplayPort FTW.