theneverfox
@theneverfox@pawb.social
- Comment on You probably don't remember these but I have a question 2 days ago:
An iPod nano can’t play over USB, you need to use the aux port
- Comment on Is their any evolutionary benefit to the sneezing reflex when looking at a bright light source, or is it just an evolutionary glitch with no purpose? 4 days ago:
Yeah, it’s definitely a real thing, it’s fairly common even
But if you don’t have it, you don’t have it, so looking at bright lights isn’t going to help you sneeze
- Comment on Inflation 1 week ago:
It’s been made obsolete by flying guns
- Comment on What are the ethics behind purchasing a book from an author you don't agree with? 1 week ago:
You can do that…I mean consuming less is great
But only one of these things meaningfully helps fix systematic problems, but they both make you feel like you’re doing something meaningful
- Comment on What are the ethics behind purchasing a book from an author you don't agree with? 1 week ago:
That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying live your life and save your energy for where it would actually make a difference
Collective action works, voting with your wallet is a way to make people think they don’t need to organize
- Comment on What are the ethics behind purchasing a book from an author you don't agree with? 1 week ago:
Cool? That sounded like it was meant as a rebuttal, but that’s my whole argument.
You can’t live a truly moral life under capitalism, but you can fight to change the system while living in the system. There’s no hypocracy in that, suggesting otherwise is just a mid-wit talking point
Now, if we got together and organized a boycott against Amazon and you broke it, that would be a different story
- Comment on What are the ethics behind purchasing a book from an author you don't agree with? 1 week ago:
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Just live your life
Anyone with enough money to influence society already has enough money to influence society. Given them another $3 doesn’t make you complicit
If they have problematic views but aren’t pushing them on society… Well, no one is perfect.
Ultimately, voting with your wallet is a lie. Best sellers aren’t the best books, they’re the ones boosted by publishers and public figures. Just like the record industry - there’s people who are literally choosing the winners and losers
What’s the ultimate ethical implication of using ketchup at McDonald’s vs buying a dipping sauce? There certainly is one, tiny as it might be. Use that energy to do good things, you’ll make a far greater difference calling a senator than buying a lifetime of books
Or just sidestep it all and pirate it or check it out at a library
- Comment on $80 for Borderlands 4 too costly? Randy Pitchford says, "If you're a real fan, you'll find a way to make it happen" 1 week ago:
I do find it interesting…I don’t think it addresses the problem, but it sounds like a great idea
Realistically, how much are companies going to pay out in royalties? As little as they can get away with
Let’s say it’s 2% of a game that made $100M - you’re looking at tens of thousands each when it’s all split up. Which is great, maybe even life changing for some of them, but it’s not financial security kind of money
And then let’s say the game flops or gets cancelled… Well that’s not going to help much, so you can’t really rely on it
So I think the idea is great, but it’s still just fiddling with the knobs of capitalism
- Comment on $80 for Borderlands 4 too costly? Randy Pitchford says, "If you're a real fan, you'll find a way to make it happen" 2 weeks ago:
You say what project they’ll be transitioning to as less and less bug fixes are necessary. Could even be dlc
- Comment on What does it mean to ‘accept’ or ‘reject’ all cookies, and which should I choose? 2 weeks ago:
Yeah, it takes longer
- Comment on What can US citizens do to fight/prevent their country enabling genocide? 2 weeks ago:
No, you can’t. You can reduce your consumption, and that’s great
But you have to eat. You have to wear clothes. You likely have to drive and to pay rent or buy appliances. You have to buy entertainment, because honestly most everything is monitised to crazy levels.
You can’t opt out. You can be a different kind of shopper. You can be an anomolus data point. But even if you live in a self built lean to and live as a freegan vegan, you’ve changed nothing if you’ve done it alone
- Comment on What could go wrong? 2 weeks ago:
I agree, it’s certainly not going to help people losing touch. But that’s not what worries me - that’s a small slice of the population, and models are beginning to get better at rejection/assertion
What I’m more worried about is the people who are using it almost codependently to make decisions. It’s always there, it’ll always give you advice. Usually it’s somewhat decent advice, even. And it’s a normal thing to talk through decisions with anyone
The problem is people are offloading their thinking to AI. It’s always there, it’s always patient with you… You can literally have it make every life decision for you.
It’s not emotional connection or malicious AI I worry about… You can now walk around with a magic eight ball that can guide you through life reasonably well, and people are starting to trust it above their own judgement
- Comment on What can US citizens do to fight/prevent their country enabling genocide? 2 weeks ago:
It’s not a false equivalence, it’s the same exact thing
Its a lie. The lie is “you can do collective action individually”. You can’t… That’s not how any of this works
Boycotts are real. Voting with your wallet is just shopping.
There’s no message to it, no power - just a slice of consumers to market to differently or a need to pivot
- Comment on What can US citizens do to fight/prevent their country enabling genocide? 2 weeks ago:
No, that’s backwards. You don’t reduce plastic by recycling, you don’t change corporate behavior by not buying their stuff
If a company loses a customer, that’s nothing. If a company has less sales, that’s a marketing problem. They aren’t going to operate more morally now, because it’s a business problem and a PR problem
Boycotts are very different. You get a block of people together, you tell them “we’re all boycotting you because X”, and then they see it in their numbers. You do it loudly. The investors get nervous, you’ve very publicly connected the cause and effect, other businesses might join in to take advantage, etc
You have to organize first, it’s great to shop ethically if you can, but you’re just acting as the market as a whole… Are they going to start farming more sustainably, or are they going to try to convince consumers they are? One of these things is much easier and cheaper
If you’re organized, you can come back with “hey everyone, they’re bullshitting us, keep up the boycott”
The dangerous part of this is that without organization, people feel like they’re fixing the problem when they’re not. It gives an illusion of control that isn’t there
- Comment on What could go wrong? 2 weeks ago:
This isn’t a new thing, people have gone off alone into this kind of nonsensical journey for a while now
The time cube guy comes to mind
There’s also temple OS written in holy C, he was close to some of the stuff in the article
And these are just two people functional and loud enough to be heard. This is a thing that happens, maybe LLMs exacerbate a pre existing condition, but people have been going off the deep end like this long before LLMs came into the picture
- Comment on What can US citizens do to fight/prevent their country enabling genocide? 2 weeks ago:
The Canadian boycotts are not “voting with your wallet”, they’re collective action.
Canadians, together, decided to boycott American goods. Their leaders cancelled deals. Their local stores and suppliers decided they’d rather source from anywhere else. The Canadian government started working on trade deals with everyone else
The nation of Canada as a whole is boycotting American goods. They’re not doing this individually, they have an organized response
- Comment on What can US citizens do to fight/prevent their country enabling genocide? 3 weeks ago:
Voting with your wallet is a lie, like recycling plastic
You can’t do collective action individually. You can make the house hurt a little bit, but you’ll never force them to change through what you buy. The house always wins, unless you get together to change the rules
- Comment on Former Uruguay President Jose Mujica dies aged 89 3 weeks ago:
What’s Uruguay’s immigration policy like?
- Comment on Kids nowadays don't have many (if any) videogame heroes... 3 weeks ago:
No, it’s because consulting companies like McKinsey tell Microsoft, ea, and Ubisoft that micro transactions will make stock go up, then they go to investment groups and say micro transactions are the sign of a gaming company about to make money
They have all the metrics, they aren’t doing what makes them the most sales or revenue. They’re doing what makes the stock price dance
- Comment on 🐌 Slow Software for a Burning World 🔥 3 weeks ago:
I read it and I still have no idea what this is
- Comment on The new AMERICAN pope doesn't even speak AMERICAN 3 weeks ago:
My understanding is he told them to work through the local authorities
Which…I mean… Do you want the Catholic Church doing the investigation?
- Comment on I knew one day I’d have to watch powerful men burn the world down. I just didn’t expect them to be such losers 4 weeks ago:
Propoganda fucking works, simple as that
Billionaires just buy good press and publicists to manage their image, it’s so effective they believe it themselves
- Comment on Microsoft says new accounts will be passwordless by default 4 weeks ago:
Easier passwords are often better, since people are less likely to try to get around them
Pins are basically simple passwords that fingerprint your device to decide when it needs another auth method
It’s not a bad idea, in theory at least
- Comment on The Machine Fired - No human could do a thing about it! 5 weeks ago:
Civilized countries don’t let people die because they can’t afford to live
There’s not many of those, are there?
We’re all living in a distopia, no one is safe from the sickness… It spreads across borders
- Comment on Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders 5 weeks ago:
Rules don’t matter at all compared what they aim to achieve
If you’re driving with a significant speed difference from the cars around you, you are making yourself and all other cars in the area less safe. You’re also creating traffic behind you
- Comment on Venezuelan president slams US over little girl's 'abduction' 5 weeks ago:
Well, I didn’t see that coming
- Comment on is walking away the best way to deal with a work clique? 5 weeks ago:
I don’t know what you mean exactly, but walking away at the right moment, while projecting the right feeling, is the best way to win most unwinnable arguments
- Comment on How to get a package to the right owner? 5 weeks ago:
Well, theoretically they’re just paying Amazon’s cut and taxes… Which isn’t nothing, but if their markup is high enough it could still math out
- Comment on Philosophy moment 5 weeks ago:
It’s illegal to jam cell signal… Blocking it would be a violation of building code at worst
- Comment on Tesla's "Predictive" Odometers Had 9+ Drivers Complaining of Inaccuracy Before Lawsuit. We Even Found Video! 1 month ago:
It predicts that Tesla could save money by padding the numbers, and does a little fraud automagically