erin

@erin@piefed.blahaj.zone

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Unified Theory of American Reality⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  If that seems good to you, please stay out of education. Also, I’m not your friend, please don’t call me that. It’s patronizing. I brought it up because it was relevant to my greater point and was an amusing anecdote about the wrong way to teach dated literature, not because I’m still stuck on a minor event a decade ago. I’ve had far worse experiences with teachers that actually were formative, in the sense that they were traumatic. Traumatizing kids isn’t “pushing them,” it’s just hurting them in their formative years. That teacher didn’t traumatize me, but for someone less confident socially or in their opinions, it easily could have been. Imagine forcing a shy, neurodivergent kid to argue against 20+ other people for 45 minutes about something as divisive as human nature and morality, while simultaneously shutting down any discussion of the author’s racism, which is very relevant to that discussion. That teacher didn’t know me at all. That could’ve been me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Unified Theory of American Reality⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Well, I’m glad you have a such a broad picture of my psychology from a one off Internet comment about an even that I hadn’t thought about in years. It didn’t make me who I am, the people I chose to spend time with and the excellent teachers that taught me did. Encouraging a lopsided debate about a topic where even discussing the racist bias isn’t allowed is not something that teacher did to help teach or form me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I'm looking for a particular community in Lemmy. It's kind of like ask Lemmy, But with really bad responses. It's more of a joke community. I've seen it in the past but can't find it⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  No amount of substantiation can justify bigoted worldviews. There is no amount of research that makes standing against equal rights more justified, it’s the opposite. How could you truly understand any opposing worldview if you still remain in opposition to the basic human rights of others? That person is either dumb, misinformed, or malicious.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Unified Theory of American Reality⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  When Piggy drops racial slurs in reference to the barbaric behavior of the other boys. Essentially, “We’re white! We’re better than this. Stop acting like [slur].”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Unified Theory of American Reality⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  My problem is not with reading something I disagree with, it’s how it is taught. It was not taught in a way to demonstrate bias, and the author’s views were never even discussed. There was nearly no critical discussion about the validity of the book’s message, it was taken at face value. That’s not teaching.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Unified Theory of American Reality⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  The majority certainly doesn’t choose the active misery of others, and on the scale of the Lord of the Flies setting, humans have consistently shown collaboration and mutual aid. We’ve documented many instances of stranded groups, and even some people that volunteered to be stuck on a raft together for months, and they always choose to work together, despite their differences. Capitalism, fascism, and radical individualism/nationalism are the root of the societal scale evils, because they’re ideologies that propagate in the hands of the few that are willing to benefit at the cost of the many. Humans have not always lived under capitalism.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Unified Theory of American Reality⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Intelligent, compassionate, and a vessel for the author’s racist worldview.

  Don’t mind me. I hate that book, and I hate that it’s taught in every school as if it has anything important to say. We’ve run the Lord of the Flies experiment, both accidentally and very intentionally. Every time, we’ve demonstrated that humans are better than that, and the author’s beliefs about human nature were both very incorrect and very racist.

  I still resent being forced to debate my classmates about whether human nature was intrinsically “good” or “evil,” directly after reading that book, even though it was 25 years ago. I was the lone voice on the side of “good,” for lack of a “good and evil are subjective terms, but nonetheless humans are empathetic and this book is horseshit” team. I got dogpiled by 20 some other students for about 45 minutes. Fuck you Ms. Brown, and fuck you William Golding. That book has nothing important to say other than exposing its author’s racist insecurities.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Should Neutron Stars be Added to the Periodic Table?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Thanks for the clarification! That all makes sense to me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Should Neutron Stars be Added to the Periodic Table?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not exactly well-read on particle physics, but to my understanding neutrons and neutrinos are neutrally charged and electrons are negatively charged. Why does a proton break down into net-negatively charged particles? I assume some weird quark shenanigans.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hands-On: Borderlands 4 wants you to forget Borderlands 3 ever happened⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  At least for me, the idea that a game might someday be unplayable for me doesn't stop me from wanting to enjoy it. I like multiplayer games, and I have neither the means nor interest to host my own servers for them. I've gotten far more than $40 worth of entertainment from Helldivers 2. I think games should stay accessible and not be killed when servers stop hosting, and be available to play offline. However, the lack of those things won't stop me from enjoying something now. I don't consider that money lost, it's spent, as long as I got an equivalent value of entertainment. I didn't set my money on fire, I've gotten hundreds of hours of fun, far more than $40 could buy me elsewhere. I expect to continue enjoying helldivers for years.

  You're absolutely right, that games shouldn't be killed when they're no longer supported, and that they should be playable offline and LAN. As things stand though, it's the same as spending money on an amusement park, or movie, or any other form of entertainment. If you're not going to be able to enjoy it without those things, that's your prerogative, but I think you could easily get your money's worth, especially compared to overpriced AAA competitors.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Have you encountered this?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Don't use tipped services if you're not going to tip. There are alternatives. You're offloading your "political action" at the expense of the worker, while the owners won't care. Support legislative change, don't use your politics as an excuse to harm the workers of a service you chose to use.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If you went to an island, and formed a new country and forcibly inject everyone there with a drug that makes them happy, you new country could surpass Finland as the "Happiest country in the world"⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Please, do not repeat this, because it's terrible advice that causes people that otherwise could benefit greatly from antidepressants to avoid them completely. Don't spread misinformation.

  It's true that antidepressants don't make you happy, but they don't categorically make you feel nothing. Every person works differently, and a drug that for some regulates emotion and prevents stress in others suppresses emotional extremes completely. For me, Lexapro made me feel nothing. For my mother, it made her feel normal again. I have a combination of drugs that make me feel normal, but for my wife, might make her feel awful. Antidepressants don't "make you feel nothing." Some might have that effect, but it's the job of a psychiatrist to find the right blend for each person. It took a few tries to find mine. If your antidepressants make you feel nothing, you need different antidepressants.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘If I switch it off, my girlfriend might think I’m cheating’: inside the rise of couples location sharing⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It's simply unrealistic and excessive to expect people to stop using one of the most accessible services that comes built in to most phones, and has features that cannot easily be replaced. All my privacy and data options are restricted in maps, but I'm sure they still collect some data. I have no intent though to stop using a service that is incredibly important to organizing and planning my life (traffic, community driven reports of detours, construction, cops, etc, weather specific reroutes, fuel efficiency route selection) because someone online has absolutely unrealistic expectations of others' data privacy. Navigating to someone in maps is not the same as uploading a picture of them. Google sees my location and my destinations already. All that changes when I turn on my location tracking is that so does my wife. Your argument doesn't make sense and is unreasonable.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘If I switch it off, my girlfriend might think I’m cheating’: inside the rise of couples location sharing⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Are you seriously arguing that navigating to someone's house with Google maps is violating their privacy? When I do share my location, I'm sharing through Google maps, directly to my wife's Google account. Google can already see my location for maps purposes. They have obtained no new information. If you are in fact arguing that using Google maps violates the privacy of anyone you navigate to, then I just don't agree and can't take you seriously. If you're arguing that somehow sharing my location to my wife's account in Google maps is somehow fundamentally different for privacy than using Google maps is already, then I just don't understand you. You're okay with people using maps but not sharing their location within those maps apps, that's a very confusing moral stance.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘If I switch it off, my girlfriend might think I’m cheating’: inside the rise of couples location sharing⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This has nothing to do with the tracking. You should have the same problem with anyone that has location turned on in their phone. Turning on GPS tracking for me and my wife has not given Google new data on our locations, as we use Google maps to navigate as is. I reject the premise that I'm violating someone else's privacy by doing so. I've also opted out of any app using my location without my express permission. You certainly wouldn't have the right to ask someone to turn something like that off simply because you don't trust the corporations on the other end, because you have no idea what service, what precautions they've taken, and if they're actively sharing. If you were going to do so, then you should also inspect people's phones for having location turned on, and check all their apps permissions for location.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘If I switch it off, my girlfriend might think I’m cheating’: inside the rise of couples location sharing⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Consensually choosing to share my location with my wife is not the same as not caring about my data being collected or sold. I don't have any intention to break her trust, but that has nothing to do with why we share location. It's all about safety and convenience. I know when she's working late. She knows when I made it back to my car safely after a night out. I know when she's on her way home, even when she forgets to text me, so I can start cooking. As two gay women in a conservative area, it just made sense.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘If I switch it off, my girlfriend might think I’m cheating’: inside the rise of couples location sharing⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  My wife and I share our location. We both trust each other implicitly and neither of us consider it a breach of privacy, but rather a willing sharing of information. I think if this is demanded of someone unilaterally, it would be both a breach of privacy and trust, but it's just so damn convenient for our lives and makes us both feel safer. If I'm out late in the city to see a friend, my wife can easily see that I'm safe making it to my car and driving home. If my wife is working late and forgets to text, I can easily check and know she's still in the building. As two gay women, it was a no-brainer for us. I would never demand that of someone. It seems like a lot of people in the comments see sharing location as an intrinsically harmful or negative action, whereas it's far more context and consent dependent for me. Hell, I even share my location with a friend for a few hours if I'm doing something sketchy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨😭😭😭😭😭⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Are you mad at fictional characters for their hypothetical hypocrisy lmao

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Star Wars is an ode to the stupidest use of battle lasers⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Andor was awesome. Considering that the fighters in Star Wars do aerodynamic flight and sound is not just added for effect but audible in universe, I've always subscribed to the head canon that in the Star Wars universe, space is a gas of some sort. We also see people in space that die of suffocation, not pressure shock. The name S-foils also implies a similar purpose to airfoils, but the canon isn't even consistent on that. Some TIE models explicitly use their S-foils aerodynamically in atmosphere, but other ships are ambiguous.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Since we're doing magic eyes now...⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That wouldn't be crossing. Crossing is when you focus your eyes in front of the image. Wall-eyed is where you unfocus your eyes behind the image. Trying to look at your nose is crossing. The way you look at most magic eye images is wall-eyed.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Since we're doing magic eyes now...⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I don't think so. When I cross my eyes, it looks correct. Wall-eyed viewing makes it look like a hole. Crossing your eyes makes them go inward. Wall-eyed makes them go parallel. They're created specifically for crossing eyes.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Star Wars is an ode to the stupidest use of battle lasers⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh, I wasn't complaining about any of those things. I think they're awesome. X-Wings and TIE fighters are definitely not using their S-foils for reentry gliding though. I'm a huge Star Wars fan. I think it requires a level of suspension of belief to engage in the storytelling, because it's not supposed to be at all realistic. There is also plenty of Star Wars media that is definitely not for kids or fits closer into sci-fi, but even Andor, the most sci-fi of the Star Wars media I've watched, was definitely still leaning on its fantasy roots.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Star Wars is an ode to the stupidest use of battle lasers⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I don't think a defense of the most-hated parts of the prequels is a great argument. This comes across as George Lucas misreading his audience and trying to defend a product that missed the mark for most of his serious fans.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Star Wars is an ode to the stupidest use of battle lasers⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  SW is for children is not a great take. It's just not sci-fi, and shouldn't be judged as such. It's a space fantasy, and it leans into the camp and the suspension of disbelief. They use wings and aerodynamics in space. Destroyed ships "sink." The good guys never get hit and the bad guys die in one shot. Now, the new movies were absolutely disappointing, but Star Wars was never sci-fi, at least not in the ways this discussion is defining the genre.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sable is free on Epic until tomorrow⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It's my wife's favorite game. If you do play it, after leaving the starting area, enjoy the song. Don't beeline to the oak tree camp thing, it'll cut the music off unceremoniously.