Wolf

@Wolf@lemmy.today

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨RFK Jr. Blames violent video games for Mass Shootings.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  You mean the same dumbass that blames an ingredient that hasn’t been in vaccines in over 20 years for Autism, an ingredient that has never been shown to cause autism in the first place? Does anyone actually take this jackass seriously?

  Bobby Kennedy must be rolling over in his grave.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Time to bash Americans again⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Beating up the bully requires one to be capable of such when the bully may be larger and physically imposing and part of a group then not getting treated as the guilty party afterward

  I was small for my age up until 10th grade. Bullies would look at how small I was and decide I was an easy target, so they would start in on me. One thing you have to realize is that bullies aren’t bullies because they are tough and good at fighting, they pick on the smallest, ‘weakest’ kids they can find- so being a great fighter isn’t nearly as important as being willing to fight back in the first place. The point isn’t to beat them up, it’s to make them think twice about picking on you. If there is a chance they will get hurt, even if they end up winning the fight, they will always just move on to the next victim who wont fight back.

  Between 5th grade and 10th grade I got into 1 fight every year. A kid who didn’t know me would try to bully me, and I would defend myself. I never lost a fight, not because I was a badass or anything, but the teachers would break up the fights before it progressed too far. I would always get in trouble with the school, but never with my parents who taught me it was ok to defend myself (but not start fights). When word got around that about the fight, I wouldn’t get picked on the rest of the school year. When the next year rolled around it was either a new student, or I was the new student. Someone who didn’t know me basically who would try to bully me.

  You just have to ask yourself- would you rather accept the bullying and allow it to continue, or risk getting beat up by fighting back and getting in trouble- but putting a stop to it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Time to bash Americans again⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  an option that a lot of immigrants don’t have.

  Especially when a lot of the same type of people will throw a fit if an ‘immigrant’ doesn’t do everything they can to assimilate.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Big Surprise—Nobody Wants 8K TVs⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I would love to have an 8K TV or monitor if I had an internet connection up to the task and enough content in 8K to make it worth it, or If I had a PC powerful enough to run games smoothly in that resolution.

  I think it’s silly to say ‘nobody wants this’ when the infrastructure for it isn’t even close to adequate.

  I will admit that there is diminishing returns now, going from 4K to 8K was less impressive than FHD to 4K and I imagine that 8K will probably be where it stops, at least for anything that can reasonably fit in a house.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Checkmate theists⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  My god ran to the store for some pineapple to put on this bad boy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Little Pea Shooters⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Whatever speed an objet may gain while entering orbit should be lost when exiting it, right ?

  That is true from the frame of reference of the planet. From the frame of a 3rd distant object that you want to accelerate towards, it appears you have gained momentum.

  So I guess it’s the cinetic energy of the planet that is actually fuelling the spacecraft, isn’t it ?

  Yes, but the mechanism for ‘extracting’ the kinetic energy from the planet is by using ‘gravity’, hence the name, “Gravitational Slingshot”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Little Pea Shooters⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  While it’s true that your spacecraft would have to ‘counter that gravity’ to escape, that’s from the frame of reference of the planet. From the frame of reference of whatever distant object you want your craft to ‘accelerate’ towards, your craft will appear to have gained momentum. If it were a zero sum game- there would be no “gravitational slingshot” effect (aka gravity assist maneuver).

  The way your spacecraft ‘steals’ kinetic energy from the planet it orbits is by using the “gravity” of the planet. The two objects never come into physical contact with one another, the mass of the ship and the mass of the planet effect each others path through space-time- although very slightly. That is to say they seem to ‘pull’ on each other- what we call gravity.

  The Earth and the Moon likewise ‘steal’ energy from each other through ‘tidal’ interactions. This causes the Earth to rotate more slowly and the moon to recede from our planet- this is all due to ‘gravity’.

  Black holes also have kinetic energy that you can ‘steal’, to boost yourself toward a third celestial body just like planets do.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Little Pea Shooters⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Why wouldn’t it? A gravity well is a gravity well. As long as you remain outside the event horizon it should work in the same way.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Little Pea Shooters⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  ITT, a bunch of people who simultaneously admit that they don’t really know for sure arguing with the people explaining it to them.

  It’s ok to not know things. It’s okay to be confused. It’s much better to ask for clarification or do your own research than to tell people who do know that they are wrong.

  Why are we like this?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨You are stardust.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I was going to say I am column A and B, but I don’t cry about it.

  We ARE miracles, we ARE “The Universe experiencing itself” and we are insignificant on the cosmic scale. Those things aren’t mutually exclusive.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mastodon says it doesn't 'have the means' to comply with age verification laws⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The biggest issue is that so many people see it just as you do, left vs right, instead of liberty vs authoritarianism.

  For the most part the divide between “Left” and “Right” politically speaking IS the divide between Liberty and Authoritarianism. If you look up the History of the terms its easy to see this. Those terms originated during pre-revolutionary war France. The “Left” supported freedom from Tyranny. The “Right” supported the Monarchy. This has remained largely true ever since then.

  Where the waters get muddy is so called ‘Authoritarian Communism’. When Communism was first being discussed it, along with Anarchism in general, were correctly labeled as ‘Leftist’ ideologies. Under both the ‘State’ is abolished completely. You can literally go no further left than voluntary association and abolishment of the state. As far back as Karl Marx, elements of ‘Authoritarianism’ began creeping into ‘Communist’ thought. While Marx was a relatively enlightened thinker- neither he nor Engels were the originators of Communism- despite having written “The Manifesto”. They were the originators of Marxism- an important distinction.

  The goal- indeed one of the very definitions of ‘Communism’, even under Marxism is “a classless, stateless, society.” As such Communism is a form of Anarchism. Anarchy technically only requires the abolishment state, but the vast majority of Anarchists also believe in “Mutual Aid”, and ‘private property’ is a nonsense concept in the absence of a state- which is why so many Anarchists identify as ‘Anarcho-Communists’.

  Now clearly (in my mind at least), removing one of the fundamental ideas of communism- which is that ‘The State’ (and especially a ‘strong/authoritarian’ state) inherently upholds and enforces the class system in society and is a bad thing which needs to be abolished and you replace that with it’s complete opposite- a ‘Strong’ State upholds and enforces ‘classlessness’ in society and is a good thing which should be supported, moves that type of “Communism/Socialism” from being a leftist ideology all the way over to being a far right ideology, as per the original and most commonly used metrics for determining if a position is “Left” or “Right”.

  The problem with ‘reclassifying’ ‘Authoritarian Communism’ to it’s correct spot is that A) the ruling class (Capitalists) who are firmly right-wing do not want to be associated with it as it removes power from them and places it solely in the hands of the state. Likewise ‘Authoritarian Communists’ do not want to be associated with Capitalists either for similar reasons. Leaving the only people who care about the correct placement of these ideologies as the actual Anarchists and Communists- which are considered ‘fringe’, ‘extremist’, and ‘radicals’ by society as a whole and no one really cares about our opinions.

  A ‘True/Accurate’ Left Right Spectrum would look something like…

  Anarchism> Communism> Democracy> Social Democracy> Neoliberalism/ “Libertarianism(U.S. definition)” > Conservatism> ‘Far Right’> “Authoritarian Socialism”> Fascism

  Putting them in that order reflects the ‘Liberty-Authoritarian’ spectrum that is the “Left-Right” spectrum. You could of course argue placement and some of them could be rearranged depending on circumstances. For example I put ‘Social Democracy’ as further right than Democracy because ‘Social Democracy’ is still by and large a Capitalist system, yet if the majority of people in a Democracy were right wingers- then the order would flip, however this is largely right imho.

  For decades, the libertarian movement, as seen by the left, has been largely associated with the right, simply because of their professed support of the free market, and dislike of gun control…

  You are confusing ‘The Left’ with “Liberals”. This is an extremely common and understandable mistake to make in the U.S. as there is a lot of intentional confusion. The ‘Democratic Party’, in particular since the ‘Regan Era’ is largely comprised of Neoliberals- a capitalist ideology. Capitalism relies on, and cannot exist without the exploitation of workers. As such you simply CANNOT separate ‘Social’ policies and ‘economic’ policies. Exploitation of workers IS a social issue- one of the most important ones- so if you support ‘Capitalism’ you are ‘right wing’ socially, even if you hold relatively enlightened positions in other areas.

  Also “Gun Control” isn’t a clear ‘left/right’ divide either. Many leftists share the view of some right wingers that having access to firearms is an important strategy to resist tyranny. If anything access to guns is a Left wing position that was adopted by some on the right, as crazy as that may sound to modern American ears.

  “Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary”

  ― Karl Marx

  One of the key ways that “Libertarians” try to muddy the waters of what is a considered Leftwing or Rightwing stance is the mantra of ‘Free Markets’. But what is really meant is ‘Unrestricted Capitalism’. If there was ever a “Libertarian” who believed in “Free Markets” in the absence of ‘The State’ and ‘Private Property’- well they would likely correctly categorize themselves as a Leftist and not “Libertarian” (Please note the distinction between Private Property and Personal Property, and in particular how it relates to the ownership of the means of production.) Also to note: That definition of “Personal Property” is written from the POV of people born, raised, and indoctrinated by a Capitalist system and is not exactly how leftists would define it. “Personal Property” doesn’t have to be ‘movable’ per se- ones residence or even a village collectively could be considered ‘Personal Property’ by Leftists. What really matters is that it’s property that you can personally make use of. If you build yourself a small house for you and your family- that is personal property. If you lay claim to vast amounts of land that you couldn’t possibly work by yourself- that would be “Private Property” - which would require some form of ‘State’ to enforce.

  Now some so-called “Libertarians” will try to argue for something called ‘Anarcho-Capitalism’. This is a mythical state of existence where there is no State, yet the people respect ‘Private Property’ rights. Ask most ‘Anarcho-Capitalists’ how they would propose to enforce private property in the absence of a state and they will tell you that they would hire Mercenaries/ “Private Police”/ a Small “private army”- Well at that point you are a Warlord. Which is the precursor to and one step removed from Feudalism. In other words by becoming a Warlord you have recreated ‘The State’, which is incompatible with Anarchism.

  But that same movement has been seen by the right as largely associated with the left, because of their views on things like the drug war, enforced morality, and anti-corporatism.

  It’s unironically great that you support those things- but even ‘anti-corporate’ Capitalists are still capitalists- and still right wing- despite being more enlightened in other areas. You are basically no different than a neolib, but with worse takes on the economy. Neolibs are right wingers themselves. We basically don’t have a “Left” in the U.S. The DNC is only “Left” of the GOP by relative positioning. The actual Left is growing day by day- thanks in part to the fascist takeover of the U.S., but we are still the minority for now.

  But there are still quite a lot of us truly anti-authoritarian libertarians out there who despise both left, and right leaning authoritarianism.

  But when I bring up issues of authoritarianism, I get “BoTh SiDeS?!” bullshit responses. Because YES, as we can see, BOTH SIDES do their own fair share of this authoritarian bullshit.

  To reiterate my point, authoritarians can only ever be ‘Left Wing’ in name only. Calling it any other way makes no sense. It’s like saying a poor wealthy person or a sick healthy person- the two concepts are complete incompatible with each other.

  Plus, property rights are just a logical extension of personal privacy rights.

  PERSONAL property, not PRIVATE property.

  Now I haven’t even gone into why the ‘authoritarian’ shift in “Communist” thought happened- and that is a whole other discussion. This rant was largely semantic but I feel it’s important to make the distinction.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Who is the enemy?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Do funeral homes in Canada charge grieving families 15-20k to bury their loved ones?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨MAGA Puts Wikipedia in Its Crosshairs⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  They are already happy. The point of all this is to keep people ignorant and the working class divided- and they are getting straight A’s in that department.

  If you mean the people who blindly go along with whatever ‘conservative’ politicians tell them then never, because of the previous point. There will always be a scapegoat to blame, to keep them mad, to distract from the Billionaires draining their pockets and eroding their rights. Immigrants, leftists, women, minorities, lgbt people… anyone who is different so they can play on these peoples xenophobia.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft Word documents will be saved to the cloud automatically on Windows going forward⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d rather chisel text onto stone tablets than that bs.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨💀 💀 💀⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  When I was filling out paperwork for my last job, it had a space for ‘Country’, which I thought was odd, but I put in USA anyway. The manager who took it said to me “You were supposed to put what County you live in here.” I said “Read it again”

  Apparently they had been using the same form for years and no one noticed it said ‘Country’.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imagine being a billionaire, running one the most powerful, corporations in the United States, and prostrating yourself to Donald Trump in this very public and embarrassing way.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  My only Apple computer was a G3 Powermac, which I got used from the resale store at the University I used to work at, which means I got it real cheap.

  Image

  Compared to the boring and clunky Windows XP machine I had, I loved the design of the hardware and the software. I loved that to access the mobo to upgrade the RAM I just had to lift up a latch on the side of the case (my Modern case isn’t even as easy as that to get into). I liked the colors and the ‘handles’ that made moving the tower around easy if you needed to. I had a very tacky aesthetic back in the day where if something was made of clear blue plastic I would buy it, so that Mac fit right in with my ‘decor’ lol

  Compared to XP the UI was a lot more sleek and modern imo, the dock was a game changer because I rarely used more than a handful of programs so having them always available was cool. Plus my simple minded ass was impressed by the animations. The “hot corners” were super useful. as was resizing the windows by dragging them to the edges of the screen. The overall look was just much more nice to look at. I think it was 10.3 Panther if I recall correctly.

  At the time I was just starting to learn about Free and Open Source software, so I thought the fact that they based OS X on BSD was pretty cool. The first DE in ever installed was on that Mac (LXDE?) and the first FOSS programs I installed was on there, VLC and The GIMP I believe. I also loved how easy it was to install programs. You would just download the file and drag it into a folder called ‘Apps’, and to uninstall you just deleted or moved the file out of there. Compared to the ‘install wizards’ and the ‘add/remove’ control panel on Windows, it felt like actual wizardry.

  I think more than anything the geek in me just liked learning a new set of skills and a different way of doing things, but overall I loved the experience. When they announced the iPhone I was excited. I was actually one of those people who carried around a mobile phone, MP3 player and Digital Camera at the same time. So the thought of just having to carry around 1 device to do all those things was like a dream come true. Then I heard about the price and was less excited (it was almost $1000 in today’s money adjusted for inflation). I was a working class stiff after all. Then I found out about the lack of apps and thought that was weird. But still I was pretty much on board.

  I got a iPod Touch to replace my Nano and kept my flip phone. That’s when I realized that I had to jailbreak it to fully unlock the functionality. That’s where they lost me. I had been planning on buying another Mac but I figured if they were willing to lock down their phones like that- it was only a matter of time before they did the same thing with their computers.

  It ended up being a good decision because on my next (Windows Vista) PC I learned to install Linux and I could do some really tacky things with the UI then! lol. Compiz anyone :D

  All this to say I think Apple was actually in fairly decent (if still too expensive) place prior to the iPhone, but their whole ‘walled garden’ approach to computing just wasn’t my bag at all.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imagine being a billionaire, running one the most powerful, corporations in the United States, and prostrating yourself to Donald Trump in this very public and embarrassing way.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This almost makes me wish I still used Apple products so that I could boycott them.

  Ive been Apple free for 20 years though.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Black Holes⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve heard that ‘our reality is made of math’ before. Does this mean that we do in fact living in a simulation, even if that simulation wasn’t necessarily programmed by ‘higher dimensional’ beings?

  If that is the case, could we conceivably ‘hack’ the universal code and unlock cheat mode?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Black Holes⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  And an infinitely dense point in spacetime doesn’t necessarily exist: it’s just what general relativity predicts is at the center of a black hole.

  If the singularity at the center of a black hole didn’t exist, and was just extremely dense instead, would all of the other properties that we know is true about black holes be able to exist? For example we know that Sag A* and that one other black hole we ‘imaged’ give off no light, would that still be possible without a singularity?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨One Angry Man⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Annyong

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Funny ⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  One day I was headed to my car to go somewhere. A zealot intercepted me and wanted to proselytize to me. I told him thank you but no thank you. He was all like “But have you heard about Jesus Christ?” I said that I was raised a Christian and knew all about it, but I reject it. He still was trying to argue with me so I finally just said “Have a nice day” and walked away as he was still trying to reconvert me. Some of them simply can’t believe you know what they are about but don’t buy into it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Funny ⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I Will Be Eaten First!

  Image

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨So glad I suck dick⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  What if you are referring specifically to a female canine or Meredith Brooks?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨One Angry Man⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The Sound of a Note

  Star War

  The Silence of a Lamb

  A Song in the Rain

  I like it Hot

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Apart, low in cholesterine⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  A living creature shouldn’t be turned in a commercial product for multiple reasons.

  In theory, I disagree with this. Meat and other products made from animals such as leather and the trading of such products has been a big part of human culture and lifestyle since long before recorded history. There is some evidence that energy dense meat is at least party responsible for our evolution into what we are today. Leather and wool are amazing materials with properties that it’s still very difficult and expensive to replicate if its possible at all. Done humanely, it not only benefits humans but he animals in question themselves- as we are actively invested in their survival and well being. If and when we can make synthetic meat, leather, and wool, or alternatives with all the same properties and benefits as the ‘real’ thing, then I could be persuaded that is better.

  In practice it becomes a big problem when we add Capitalism into the mix. Capitalism is exploitative by nature, and if it exploits human beings of course it’s going to do the same for animals. Ethics and morality are given the backseat to greed and profit. The most exploited workers can often not afford ethical alternatives when those options do exist.

  I’m not saying we shouldn’t still strive to reduce meat consumption and improve conditions for livestock, but we should also recognize that capitalism is a huge part of the problem and always will be. If we want to improve the lives of humans and animals, we need to do away with it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨GOG’s Freedom To Buy Campaign Gives Away Controversial Games For Free To Protest Censorship⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Heroic Games Launcher ftw!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨heaven⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Tats of Piggies getting shitfaced.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨heaven⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  The AI will truly have to be able to think for themselves first. Whoever has written their parameters has done an impressive job of adding apologia into the algorithms about any religious topic.

  Me: Does the bible say X?

  AI: Yes

  Me: Does the bible also say Y? (the literal opposite of X)

  AI: Yes

  Me: Doesn’t that mean the bible is inconsistent in this regard?

  AI: Well you have to understand the cultural context of the time and be sure to approach such topics with sensitivity and blah…blah…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It's all connected⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s weird, I don’t remember Barbara being that short. 🤔

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Peter Thiel’s bestie going mask off⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I thought the movie was ok, but it triggering right wing nutjobs is hilarious.