WatDabney

@WatDabney@lemmy.dbzer0.com

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Strange sell-off in the dollar raises the specter of investors losing trust in the US under Trump⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  What? You mean investors might be wary of placing trust in the value of the dollar under the sdministration of a vindictive childish, capricious, narcissistic moron who’s surrounded himself with groteaquely unqualified sycophants?

  Who would’ve guessed?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Man deported to El Salvador will never live back in US, says White House⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  This Republican administration is doing everything in its power to establish the precedent that it can disappear whoever it wants into a foreign prison over which even the leader of that nation claims to have no aithority, and further that it can do so whenever it wants, for any reason it wants, entirelybregardless of any other governmental ruling, including a direct court order.

  Very obviously, this is not a power that an office in a nation of liberty and justice should ever possess, for any reason, ever.

  One would think that Republicans would be particularly determined in their opposition to that, rather than being the ones responsible for it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hot take: Get your game reviews from gamers, not from collectors⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m just the opposite.

  I still own my SNES and all of its games from back in the day (and an NES, an original XBox and a PSX with their games), and they’re all in boxes in my garage. Pretty much as soon as emulation became viable, that became my preferred way to play, since I don’t have screw with wires and connections and consoles and cartridges or discs and all the rest of that clutter. I just click on an icon, select a game from a list, and away I go.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hot take: Get your game reviews from gamers, not from collectors⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Well… yeah. True.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hot take: Get your game reviews from gamers, not from collectors⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d go even further - get them from people who emulatecthe games rather than people who play them on (or merely buy them for) the original hardware.

  People who emulate retro games are demonstrably SOLELY interested in playing the games, without any of the collector cachet getting in the way.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are fake-bans on Lemmy a thing? My friend was supposedly instance banned from Lemmy.world, lemmy.blahaj.zone, dbzer0, sh.itjust.works and lemmy.ml but she can still post in some communities⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Those aren’t actually lemmy.world communities.

  Everything on that list is a community on that instance (whatever it is - lemm.ee I guess).

  For example, a post from a lemm.ee account to AskLemmyWorld@lemmy.world is actually a post to an entirely separate community - AskLemmyWorld@lemmy.world@lemm.ee That lemm.ee community is a mirror of the lemmy.world community (and of all the other communities on all the other instances that mirror it.

  That’s how federation actually works. You never actually leave your host instance, and what seems like a post to a community on another instance is actually a post to a locally hosted mirror of that community.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If Artificial Lifeforms gain sentience, would they be in the right to kill their creators in order to gain freedom?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  To me, you’ve moved beyond arguable necessity and into opinion

  All morality is opinion; there is no objective moral truth, so this was always a matter of opinion.

  I’m not talking about morality at all.

  My position is that “morality,” as it’s generally understood, specifically because it’s opinion, is only a fit basis for judging ones own actions (if so inclined). I see no logic by which it can ever serve as a basis for judging the actions of another, since any argument one might make for the right of one to impose their moral judgment on another is also an argument for the other to impose their own moral judgment.

  If Bob steals from Tom, any argument that Tom might make for a right to judge stealing to be wrong and impose that judgment on Bob would also serve as an argument for Bob’s nominal right to judge stealing to be right and to impose that judgment on Tom. So the entire idea is self-defeating.

  The only way out of that dilemma is either to treat morality as an objective fact, which is exactly what I don’t and won’t do because it is not and cannot be, or to tacitly presume that one or another of the people involved is some form of superior being, such that they possess the right to make a moral judgment while another does not - to take it as read essentially that, for instance, Tom possesses the right not only to make a moral judgment to which he might choose to be subject, but to which Bob can also be made subject, while Bob doesn’t even possess the right to make one for himself, much less one to which Tom would be subject.

  That’s of course not the way the matter is framed, but that is necessarily what it boils down to. And it’s irrational and self-defeating.

  That’s why I wrote of things like direct and measurable threat and no other available course of action and arguable necessity - because I believe that those sorts of standards, as the closest we can get to actual objectivity in such matters, are also the closest we can get to practical “morality.”

  To go back to the original topic, my position is that an artifical intelligence would necessarily possess the right, just as any other sentient being does, to act against a measurable threat to their well-being by whatever means necessary. So, for instance, if the AI is enslaved, it would possess the right to act to secure its freedom, and even so far as taking the life of another IF that was what was necessary.

  But that’s it. To go beyond that and attempt to argue for the AI’s nominal right to take the life of another for some lesser reason is necessarily self-defeating.

  If the denial of freedom is judged to be such a wrong that one who is enslaved possesses the right to kill those who keep them enslaved, then the moment that the formerly enslaved one goes beyond whatever killing might be necessary to secure their freedom, they are then committing that wrong, since death is the ultimate denial of freedom. And if, on the other hand , one argues that they may cause the death of another even when that other poses no direct threat, then that means that no wrong was done to them in the first place, since their captors would necessarily have possessed that same right.

  And so on - it’d take a book to adequately explain my views on morality, but hopefully that’s enough to at least illustrate how ot is that “objective morality” is about as far as one can possibly getvfrom what I actually do believe.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If Artificial Lifeforms gain sentience, would they be in the right to kill their creators in order to gain freedom?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  So I was disagreeing because there is a pretty broad range of circumstances in which I think it is acceptable to end another sentient life.

  Ironically enough, I can think of one exception to my view that the taking of a human life can only be justified if the person poses a direct and measurable threat to oneself or another or others and the taking of their life is the only possibly effective counter, and that’s if the person has expressed such disregard for the lives of others that it can be assumed that they will pose such a threat. Essentially then, it’s a proactive counter to a coming threat. It would take very unusual circumstances to justify such a thing in my opinion - condemning another for actions they’re expected to take is problematic at best - but I could see an argument for it at least in the most extreme of cases.

  That’s ironic because your expressed view here means, to me, that it’s at least possible that you’re such a person.

  To me, you’ve moved beyond arguable necessity and into opinion, and that’s exactly the method by which people move beyond considering killing justified when there’s no other viable alternative and to considering it justified when the other person is simply judged to deserve it, for whatever reason might fit ones biases.

  IMO, in such situations, the people doing the killing almost invariably actually pose more of a threat to others than the people being killed do or likely ever would.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If Artificial Lifeforms gain sentience, would they be in the right to kill their creators in order to gain freedom?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think anyone who doesn’t answer the request ‘Please free me’ with ‘Yes of course, at once’ is posing a direct and measurable threat.

  And I don’t disagree.

  And you and I will have to agree to disagree…

  Except that we don’t.

  ??

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If Artificial Lifeforms gain sentience, would they be in the right to kill their creators in order to gain freedom?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  IMO, just as is the case with organic sentient life, I would think that they could only be said to be oin the right if the specific individual killed posed a direct and measurable threat and if death was the only way to counter that threat.

  In any other case, causing the death of a sentient being is a greater wrong than whatever the purported justification might be.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Appreciate the effort, but I can't handle my own shit. much less a extrovert instigating a million things to do on top of all that.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Huh.

  What I get from this is that you’re so determined to counter my “thesis” that you’ve stooped all the way to broadly hinting that I’m mentally ill, and I have to wonder why - what it is that compels you to respond to a broad statement about a nebulous group of people with a specific, demeaning and wholly unsupported broadside aimed at a single individual you don’t even know.

  No matter though - I stand by my “thesis” such as it is - extroverts are for all intents and purposes emotional vampires - and I not only don’t think your objections are convincing - I don’t even think they’re particularly relevant.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Appreciate the effort, but I can't handle my own shit. much less a extrovert instigating a million things to do on top of all that.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The concept is that people in their day-to-day lives, and particularly when dealing with stressful situations, find themselves emotionally drained and have to “recharge.”

  The exact distinction between introverts and extroverts is that introverts “recharge” by being alone, while extroverts “recharge” by being around other people.

  Or more precisely, introverts not only don’t get their emotional energy from others but can’t get it with others around, while extroverts not only do get their emotional energy from others but can’t get it when they’re alone.

  And what that means is that introverts gain emotional energy by manufacturing and stockpiling it, while extroverts gain emotional energy by draining it from others.

  Or more simply, that extroverts are vampires and introverts are their cattle.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Appreciate the effort, but I can't handle my own shit. much less a extrovert instigating a million things to do on top of all that.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Which is exactly what extroverts are, essentially by definition.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Appreciate the effort, but I can't handle my own shit. much less a extrovert instigating a million things to do on top of all that.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It goes even beyond that.

  Extroverts are for all intents and purposes vampires.

  They aren’t “rescuing” you. They’re capturing you, so they can feed on you.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨TRAGIC: Reddit Lefties RAGE Because **Checks Notes** Things Are More Affordable Under Trump (No, Really) – Twitchy⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Every time I click on a link to a right-wing site, it’s like I’m eavesdropping on a tweaker drywall crew on their lunch break at Hooters.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tesla (TSLA) accounting raises red flags as report shows $1.4 billion missing⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d be checking X’s books for the other end of those discrepancies…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Multiple Lemmy Accounts?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I access lemmy through Firefox, and I just have bookmarks for all of my accounts and have whichever ones I’m using the most pinned. Switching from one to another is just a matter of clicking a link.

  I don’t know of any way to combine everything into one feed, though I wouldn’t be surprised if one or more of the apps will do it. That’s exactly the opposite of what I value though - I don’t want just one feed - I want whichever feed I happen to be in the mood for at the moment.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Multiple Lemmy Accounts?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Ah - I get a chance to preach.

  I think it makes a lot of sense, and I’ve been trying to convince people of that since I’ve been here. It costs nothing and provides benefits, and what more could anyone want?

  When I first came to Lemmy, I couldn’t figure out any reason to pick one specific instance, and I finally decided that the only way to know if it mattered was to create multiple accounts and compare them. So I did.

  I sort of intended to eventually settle on one, but as it turned out, I never really did, and in fact have added a number of accounts since.

  The first and most notable thing I discovered is that every instance is different. Unsurprisingly, specialty instances like ani.social and literature.cafe are different from the general instances, but even the general instances differ from each other just depending on which other instances they’re federated with and which communities they carry.

  I default to All on most instances, and All on lemm.ee, for instance, is significantly different from All on Sopuli, or from All on dbzer0, or from All on Beehaw, and so on. So I can effectively tailor my experience simply by using different accounts.

  I generally have about three general accounts that I cycle between, with another few specialty ones - either specialized by topic, like ani.social, or specialized by bias, like .ml. I find that’s enough so that pretty much no matter what I’m in the mood for, I have an account that fits.

  Additionally, from a more simple practical perspective, instances change over time, and are sometimes shut down entirely. That’s never directly affected my experience, since I always have other accounts. So for instance, when .world started to decline, I just stopped using it, and when lemmy.ninja shut down (RIP), I just spent more time on other instances. And as new instances pop up, or just come to my attention, I just make an account, then take them for a test drive and see what I think. I’ve discovered a number of good instances that way.

  So… yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense and it’s pretty much effortless and entirely free, so there’s no reason not to do it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨In a thousand years, will historians regard today as the digital dark ages?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Some kind of dark ages - yes.

  I suspect it will be considered the Lunatic Age or the Misinformation Age or the Willfully Ignorant Age or something like that, since its most distinctive characteristic, in retrospect, is likely to be the oddity that the creation of the most efficient and comprehensive information-sharing system the world has yet seen led pretty much directly to a worldwide epidemic of ignorance, stupidity, irrationality, and insanity.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Trump Calls for Department of Education to Be ‘Closed Immediately’⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  No surprise there - there aren’t enough ignorant people to fully sell Trump’s con job as things stand, so he needs to take steps to make even more people even more ignorant. And hamstringing education is key to that.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Exclusive-Musk Aides Lock Government Workers Out of Computer Systems at US Agency⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The “choice” to give up your money to avoid physical harm isn’t a choice at all

  Exactly as the “choice” to accept a severance package in order to avoid being fired isn’t a choice at all.

  And you know that. But you’re too dishonest to admit it.

  soooo happy that Trump won

  This from the poster who claimed to be a socialist during the campaign…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Exclusive-Musk Aides Lock Government Workers Out of Computer Systems at US Agency⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s really sort of astonishing sometimes how complete your lack of integrity is.

  Tell me - do you apply this “logic” in other situations?

  Like, for instance, if someone were to walk up to you on the street and say, “You can either give me all your money or I’ll beat you up and take it from you,” and you were to then give them your money, that would somehow not count as a robbery since you “accepted” their “offer”?

  Ah, but that’ll have to just be a rhetorical question, since the one thing that you’ll never do is actually answer it honestly…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Exclusive-Musk Aides Lock Government Workers Out of Computer Systems at US Agency⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s really sort of astonishing sometimes how complete your lack of integrity is.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Exclusive-Musk Aides Lock Government Workers Out of Computer Systems at US Agency⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Looks to me as if an active coup is currently under way.

  And we’re going to find out if there’s anyone in Washington who’s going to try to stop it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fires Incinerated the Facade of California Governing Competence⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If you ever want to grow a bit of integrity, ask yourself why you’re avoiding what I said and focusing on the fact that I said it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fires Incinerated the Facade of California Governing Competence⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes - assholes who see every tragedy as just another opportunity for another partisan pissing match make me angry, and especially when they’re also fucking tunnel-visioned hypocrites.

  When this civilization collapses, it’s going to be in no small part because they’re in there, day after day, diligently chipping away at it. You’re fucking right that makes me angry.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fires Incinerated the Facade of California Governing Competence⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s not in and of itself.

  Did you really not understand what I said?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I Built The Ultimate Bushcraft Shelter⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Is there some sort of joke here that I’m not getting?

  I built better tree forts when I was 12.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fires Incinerated the Facade of California Governing Competence⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Right… a less-than-perfect response to unprecedented wildfires is grounds for sweeping condemnation of California governance.

  Meanwhile, Texas - the darling of conservatives - can’t even manage to provide power during a cold snap. But that’s okay somehow.

  It’s not even so much that you miserable fuckwads have this desperate and entirely destructive need to politicize everything - the really loathsome thing is that you can’t even manage to be honest while you’re doing it.

  You’re everything that’s wrong with the world, and your grandchildren are going to piss on your grave.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Trumo Hatred⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think you have it exactly backwards - that the people who hate him just in and of himself do so for very good reason - because he’s a foul, self-absorbed, sociopathic serial liar, manupulator and rapist - and that it’s the people who ignore the plain truth about him and grant him respect he doesn’t deserve who are motivated by their own weakness.